Jaen

by Betty Burton

  'How can you abear letting her go, Jaen?' Vinnie asked.

  'It a be good for her, and Mother; and Ju's just like a second mother herself.'

  Annie said little about the sudden decision that the child be taken to Cantle. She did not like to admit it, even to herself, but she had the feeling that neither Dan nor Jaen had ever really taken to Hanna, and was not surprised when the weeks and months went by with ever more reasons for extending the child's stay with the grandmother.

  'She's going to stop a bit longer over at Cantle,' Dan told Nance after the Easter visit.

  'That don't surprise me one jot or tittle!' was Nance's response. 'Bella Nugent likely thinks the child wouldn't be brought up fancy enough here. She's a queer one and no mistake.'

  She wagged her head at queerness of things generally at Croud Cantle. 'If you was going to get yourself mixed up with somebody, why didn't you find somebody with muck on their boots?'

  Dan let her trundle on, not listening, and when she had run down, he said, 'It's because Jaen's expecting again.'

  'Lor, summit must a got in the water, that makes three on 'm. When's she due?'

  'November time.'

  'Ah well, one month after harvest. Martha's October and Vinnie's about Christmas time . . . that's if'n she an't getting worked up over nothing like she do.'

  Baxter, who, because his lungs were giving him trouble, tended not to cut into talk so much of late, said, 'Let's hope one on you manages to make a young cock this time, this place is like a hen-coop. What's a matter with you all? An't none of you got the strength to give your women sons?' then lapsed into wheezy preoccupation.

  But Vinnie wasn't getting worked up over nothing, she was soon growing fat and prominent. This time though, she and Jaen exchanged none of the girlish confidences in the dairy. They both still did most of the butter — and cheese-making but it was in a very work-like way as they each had other responsibilities.

  Jaen's garden plot was expanding and flourishing under her knowledge and hard work. She had a good flock of geese and a large, healthy hog foraging about on Cuckoo Bushes.

  Peter had put his foot down and said that it was about time they had a place of their own. Baxter made no objection, for he found Vinnie's exuberance too much when he wanted to listen to his own wheezing and subside into self-concern. There were no cottages available close to Up Teg and no land that could be spared to build upon, so it was decided that they should add on to Keeper's Cottage and make a pair of it, France and Peter sharing a wall but each having his own separate door, path and fence.

  The Boys all acted as rough labour for the skilled builders and carpenters, so that by the summer Vinnie and Peter were installed — Vinnie named the extension Coppice Cottage.

  She was in her element there, and had the makings of a good farm wife; she could turn her hand to anything. She was a bit slap-dash, not caring too much whether breeches were scrubbed often, reasoning, 'Well, they only gets all dunged up again,' and hens were welcome to go into her kitchen and clean her floor of bits of dropped food.

  Peter had long ago realized that he had made a good bargain when he married her. Baxter still had not come round to considering Jim to be master of his own Norris Land — it was farmed as part of Up Teg. He expected that with Vinnie so pleased with herself and the cottage, Jim might feel obliged to let things bide, for he seemed happy enough in his quiet way. To Nance, Vinnie was the pick of the bunch.

  'Looks an't nothing, Vin. You got a good pair of arms on you, and you an't got an ounce of scrawn left.'

  The three new swelling bellies made Annie and France more distant and difficult with one another. Not that they spoke of it between them, but each for some unexplained reason was drawn to Jaen's company — particularly France.

  With the settlement of Vinnie, the Up Teg women were now ranged on either side of the main farm. To the west, Elizabeth and Martha and easterly Jaen, Vinnie and Annie. Recently Up Teg had starting going in for sheep in a much larger way than hitherto, and were now running a fair-sized flock on the slopes of Keeper's and Brack. France, being the one most interested in shepherding, and with the greatest knowledge of lambing ewes, looked after them.

  It would have made more sense for Annie to have worked with France, but she couldn't abide being with sheep.

  'Sly and awkward creatures. They knows all right what they'm doing when they starts running off, looking at you out a the corners of their eyes, gives you the creeps.'

  She preferred to work with calves and cows, spending many of her working hours, eyes half-closed with one cheek pressed against the side of the animal as she milked it efficiently. She could turn a breech calf and calm down a frightened, calving heifer. All the meads and cow-sheds were at the main farm, which meant that she worked a fair distance from France on the downs which lay behind their own cottage and Jaen's.

  When France was out tending the animals he usually went by Ham Cottage where he would stop for a few minutes, or on his way back bring in one of the rabbits he had knocked off with a sling. If he had nothing, then he would call in to say that he was empty-handed. If Jaen was alone, he always said, 'Tell Dan I stopped by,' which usually she did not, because it never occurred to her to do so.

  Ever since the day when Hanna was born and he had cared for her, Jane had taken to France, felt easy talking to him.

  One day in the spring after Hanna had gone to Cantle, he stopped and commented on how well her early potatoes were coming on and said, apropos of nothing, as though he had been carrying on an imaginary conversation and then had spoken out loud:

  'I don't reckon us humans is a great deal different to other creatures.'

  Jaen did not reply but smiled, and waited to find out what he meant.

  'There's some ewes that don't take to their lambs, same with some sows — an't nothing, far as I can see, you can do about it.'

  He bent down to his working-dog and ruffled its coat. There was a moment of hesitant silence. Suddenly, it came to Jaen that he was trying to tell her that she was not to blame for rejecting the child. She flushed because she did not know how to reply, so she filled the silence by telling Gyp what a good dog he was.

  'It have done me a deal of good since I been shepherding. Gid me a chance to think about things.' He smiled up at her. 'It an't no good shepherding if you don't like being on your own.'

  'You'm different from the rest of The Boys, an't you, France?'

  He did not appear to have heard her but continued, 'Being up there,' he flicked a hand in the direction of Brack, 'and looking down on this here, it . . . like puts everything in its place.' He paused. 'All this time, we been thinking it must be Annie. But perhaps it an't, how can you tell? It came to me the end of last summer when I was raddling the rams, it came to me . . .' He left the sentence unfinished, obviously finding it impossible to put words to his fears. 'I shouldn't ought to be talking like this to you.'

  'I don't see no harm, France, we all needs to get things off our chests sometimes. There an't no harm talking things over. After all, we'm the same as brother and sister.'

  He looked directly at her. She returned his look and her cheeks reddened. But it was France who lowered his eyes first. Then, briskly, he slapped his thigh at the dog and began walking away.

  'France?'

  He turned in her direction, but did not look fully at her.

  'Do you reckon a lamb is sometimes better off with another ewe?'

  'Ah. If you can get the ewe to take it. Usually they won't. Nature's a queer thing.'

  He waved at her.

  'Tell Dan I stopped by.'

  Now she realized why he always said that — to be open and natural about his frequent visits, so that Dan would not hear of them second-hand.

  24

  Twins ran in the Hazelhurst family, and Martha suspected that she had been honoured with that blessing weeks before she gave birth.

  Deborah and Alice.

  Even though the babies were strong and healthy, neither Luke nor
Baxter was much impressed.

  Baxter spat his annoyance at the fire, where it hissed.

  'Guard in Heaven! If there wasn't enough 'oomen start to nunny-convent already, without having another brace.'

  When Nance picked up the new Alice, her eyes moistened, and thereafter she always made much of the child, petting it and chucking it under its chin. Martha assumed that Luke's mother was getting soft and sentimental in her old age, but was glad to have Nance always willing to take at least one of them off her hands sometimes.

  Now, the small squat West Cottage housed Luke, Martha, Betrisse, Catherine, Rachael and the twin babies. Another room with a chamber above was to be added and during its building, Annie and France had Betrisse to live with them.

  As all children were, Betrisse was put to work as soon as she was capable of contributing any labour however puny. Now, in her ninth year, she could comb and card wool for spinning, sew well enough to make simple garments, go wooding, fetch water from the stream, stone rooks and crows, glean, hoe, lead horses and fetch and carry, and when she went to live at Keeper's, Annie began teaching her the skills of milking and handling cows.

  In November, when Jaen went into labour, Betrisse helped with the chores of keeping the fire going and and seeing that there were penty of wrapped warm stones for Jaen's feet whilst Annie and Nance helped with the delivery.

  As with Hanna's birth, Jaen let the baby escape easily into the world. Although it was November and late in the afternoon, the air in the upper room was warm because the great chimney comprised part of one wall, and Annie's face was flushed in the light from several candles, from bending over the bed, and from conflicting emotions as she held the large, healthy baby for Jaen to see.

  'You got a son.'

  Nance smiled and nodded with satisfaction.

  'Well then, Gel, you done it this time all right. An't nothing wrong with this one. He's a Hazelhurst all over, Dan's father a be pleased.'

  They named him Daniel, and he was as different in stature and colour from his sister at Croud Cantle, as it was possible to be.

  About a month later Vinnie, although not pleasing Baxter by adding another hen rather than a cock to the coop, pleased herself and Peter.

  They named her Clarice.

  Nance said, 'That's a fancy blimmen name.'

  And from that time, although Clarice was entered in the family Bible and the parish records, the tough, healthy twig of the Hazelhurst family tree became 'Fancy'.

  The following spring, although it was the time when they were most busy with sowing barley, getting ewes and lambs on to the lush first shoot in the water meadows, and when every breast-plough and harrow was in daily use, Baxter gave a supper.

  In the forenoon, Alice, Deborah, Clarice and Daniel were taken to St John's to be christened, and in the evening a supper was put up to celebrate.

  Although it was not such a lavish affair as a harvest supper, being restricted mainly to the Up Teg family, close neighbours and one or two skilled monthly-men finishing off the cottage renovations, there was a sense of occasion in the large farm kitchen, which smelled of spicy foods, meats, cider, cheeses and ale.

  'Quiet!'

  Baxter, at the main table, cut through the fog of talk, belch, laughter, clang and clatter. Nance could judge almost to the mouthful at what point he would get up on such occasions; having fed his belly he came to the course where he fed his vanity.

  Although breathlessness from the farmer's lung caused him to have caved in a bit at the chest, he was still a large and imposing man as he stood looking down the makeshift tables. His awareness of his own effect and his sense of timing and drama would have stood him in good stead on the hustings, the stage or in the pulpit.

  The room was quiet. He spread his arms wide.

  'Go forth and multiply! That's what it says in the Bible. And what that means is, if you belongs to a tribe, it's your duty to make sure that your tribe goes on for ever.'

  Nance, still at the stage when her party-bibbing caused her to be a mere four or five seconds behind in registering what was being said, suddenly realized that he was saying something new. She turned her head slowly up to look fully at him. He placed a hand upon her head as though about to bless her.

  'Your mother here, and me, have had six of you, Hazelhursts to a man.' The tone of sentiment in his voice developed, bordered on the maudlin. 'Our sons.' He paused. 'Luke and France, come as a pair more 'n thirty year ago.' He spread his palm at Dick. 'Richard, come the following year.' He continued moving his hand, indicating each one of The Boys as though no one in the room knew who they were. 'Next one — Daniel, then Peter and Edwin. Six fine sons.'

  There was a bit of shuffling. Eyes glanced a bit sideways. Shiftily. Trying to see how others were reacting, but not wanting to catch anyone's eye. Everyone knew how The Master of Up Teg always liked to make a show at weddings and harvest suppers and the like, but he usually did it with trials of strength, extravagance and the telling of loud stories and jokes. Perhaps this was the first sign that he was becoming an old man, meandering and pathetic.

  'Six fine sons . . . and now a fine, fine grandson.'

  He pushed back his chair and went to where Jaen was sitting with the baby Daniel.

  It was a good scene; every eye was upon Baxter, wondering what was coming next.

  He lifted the baby from its mother, and laid a blessing hand upon Jaen's head.

  'This here gel come quiet enough into our fambly and she have give us the next generation.' He fingered a lock of Jaen's red-gold hair that showed at the front of her cap. 'You'd a thought that anything as showy as this . . . and so inbred too when you thinks of Mistress Nugent and her other daughter with their redness . . . anybody'd think as it'd show up somewhere in any of her little 'ns. Yet Young Dan'l is pure-bred Hazelhurst and no mistake about it. The first of the next line of this fambly of ourn, this here tribe I been on about.'

  At various places about the table, Martha, Elizabeth and Vinnie looked inwardly and felt resentment cause their breath to go shallow. In her place, Jaen too, felt resentment.

  Martha and Elizabeth were left for ever thereafter with crow to pluck. Laurie and Nicholas had not come up to scratch. Fever and thin blood — their sons had not proved to be pure-bred Hazelhursts.

  Vinnie's resentment centred on the way it seemed that what Master Bax was saying might set the women against one another, and it wasn't fair because, if they said anything, it would look as though they was jealous of a little baby. She knew that the Norris blood was as good as the next, and if the Hazelhursts was as good as they reckoned, then it was the hand of God that had made Norry the way he was and nobody else.

  The passive set to Jaen's features gave no indication of the embarrassment she felt at being so unjustly singled out as an example of acceptable Hazelhurst motherhood, nor of the indignation she felt on behalf of Vinnie and the others. Vinnie caught her eye and, with little movements of her shoulders and brow, indicated, 'I don't know what he's on about . . . don't feel bad about it . . . it an't your fault.'

  Still holding Young Dan'l, Baxter reached into his weskit pocket with two fingers and took out the coin that had been handed down together with watch and chain from his great-grandfather. He held the coin up like a talisman.

  'Summit tells me that this here little shaver is going to carry on the line, so I decided to let him take the Up Teg seal right at the beginning of his life. It a be like a charm so that he will grow up manly and strong. You might say it's my way of handing things on to him.'

  Now it was the turn of The Boys to look puzzled.

  'When we was younger, me and France used to talk about if you might split the seal in two and gid us half each,' said Luke, trying to appear not very concerned, 'but we never thought not to have it at all.'

  'The seal don't signify,' said France.

  'I never said it did signify,' Luke said sharply. 'All I said was I always thought it'd be handed on down through the line — it a been talked about often e
nough — how your father handed it over with his dying hands, that all I meant — not that it signified anything.'

  'Signify is all it do do,' said Peter. 'It don't matter who got it. It an't as though it's a paper nor nothing. It an't nothing but an old coin, and Great-grandfather started the handing down to eldest sons.'

  'Old and gold and rare,' said Dick in a chant that suggested that it had been said before. 'We heard that time and often enough.'

  'It still don't signify nothing to do with this family. I don't know what you'm getting all hot for,' said Peter.

  'Nobody's getting hot,' said Luke.

  'You'm getting hot,' said Dick. 'You'm half afraid you'm being done out of son-and-heir rights.'

  'It got nothing to do with eldest son rights,' said Dan, not liking an argument going on unless he was in it. 'It's . . . like Father says — 'tis a charm, and it is his own, and if he wants to gid it to the baby, 'tis his to give.'

  'Nobody's denying that,' said Luke, 'and I don't want it particular. It's just breaking a tradition that was started a hundred year ago.'

  There was a moment's lull, when Annie spoke up, sitting erect as always, appearing to look down her nose disdainfully.

  'I don't know why you'm all making so much of a bit of metal. It's like if you puts a crown on a king's head, it an't the crown makes him king — it's everybody agreeing that he's king that makes the crown signify. Same with that,' she nodded to the seal; 'it don't matter who gets it — it's who's agreed to be head of the family that counts.'

  Annie had often made them feel like silly bickering children, so as usual when she effectively put a stop to their wrangle, they totally ignored her.

  All the while they wrangled, Baxter still nursed the baby in one arm and held the coin up in the other hand, almost as though he was playing see who can jump the highest, as he used to do when they were young boys and he held up a prize high over his head.

  Edwin and Jim Norris and the hired labour, aware that this had nothing to do with them, continued quietly helping themselves to large slices of meat and enjoying the interesting turn of events.