A Mother's Sacrifice

by Catherine King

  ‘Are you walking out with anyone?’ he asked.

  Surprised, Quinta blinked and didn’t reply straightaway.

  He explained, as though she did not understand: ‘You must have a sweetheart hidden away somewhere.’

  ‘No, I haven’t!’ she replied indignantly. ‘And why must I?’

  ‘You are very pretty.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Hasn’t anyone offered for you yet?’

  ‘As a matter of fact someone has,’ she replied loftily. ‘My mother said no to him.’

  ‘Did she?’ he replied. ‘Have you said no to him as well?’

  ‘I - I . . .’ Quinta realised that she might have implied the opposite to Farmer Bilton when she had fetched milk for Mother. And he continued to ride their boundaries, keeping his eye on them. He must have seen Sergeant Ross and his son by now.

  ‘Did you wish to wed him?’

  ‘I don’t think that is anything to do with you.’

  ‘Indeed it is not. But I should like to know all the same. Here, I’ve made this for you.’ He handed her a wooden dibber, fashioned from a solid piece of wood and perfect for sowing her beans and seed potatoes. It was smooth and comfortable to hold.

  ‘Thank you. This must have taken you a long time to make.’

  ‘I have little else to fill my days. Would your mother care for a wooden bowl to grace her table?’

  ‘I’m sure she would.’

  As she continued her weeding Quinta couldn’t decide whether the sergeant wanted anything in return for his gifts. She wanted to think not but wasn’t sure. By teatime she was thirsty and her mother brought out barley water to drink. The sergeant called loudly for his son to join them and he did, without pulling on his shirt, and his back and chest glistened with the sweat of his labour. He didn’t sit on the grass with the rest of them but scanned the track down the valley as he drank and said, ‘There’s a rider coming up.’

  They had few visitors to Top Field and Quinta stood up beside him to look until the thumping of hooves on sun-baked earth grew closer and she recognised the horse. ‘It’s Farmer Bilton,’ she said.

  ‘Who’s he?’ Mr Ross asked.

  ‘Our landlord.’

  The horse slowed in a cloud of dust, whinnied and snorted as Farmer Bilton pulled on his reins. ‘What’s going on here?’ he demanded.

  Quinta and her mother exchanged glances, but, surprisingly, Mr Ross spoke first. ‘Farming, sir.’

  ‘And who might you be?’

  Quinta thought it was no business of his but she did not want to anger him further. Neither did her mother, who replied, ‘Visitors, sir.’

  ‘More likely poachers, if you ask me.’

  Patrick took a step nearer to the horse. ‘We are not, sir. And we stay by invitation of Mrs Haig.’

  Farmer Bilton ignored him and turned to Laura. ‘Travellers, then, and vagrants, invited on to my land by you, madam. Folk in the village are talking already and when Sir William hears about this he’ll back me to get you out.’

  ‘But we are working the farm!’ Quinta retaliated.

  ‘That remains to be seen. A bit of hedging and ditching won’t make any difference. I made you an offer and I advise you to take it. I want you out of here by quarter day. All of you.’ He tugged at the reins, turned the horse around and dug his spurs into its flanks. The creature, already foaming at the mouth, flared its nostrils and galloped away.

  No one said anything as they watched him leave in a dusty cloud. Quinta glanced at her mother and the sergeant who were both frowning. But it was the look on Mr Ross’s face that startled her. He was furious. His eyes were stormy and his lips set in a contemptuous grimace.

  Quinta, too, was angry at Farmer Bilton’s boorish and bullying behaviour and, after he had disappeared down the track, she said, ‘We’ll get him his rent, Mother, even if I do have to scrub floors at the Hall.’

  ‘It’s not just the money, dear. He’s right. I’ve looked at the agreement and it says I must practise good husbandry, as your father did.’

  ‘You hold the tenancy, Mrs Haig?’ the sergeant queried.

  ‘It was transferred to me when my husband died.’

  ‘Well, the land here is in good heart,’ Mr Ross commented.

  ‘My son knows more about farming than I do,’ the sergeant explained.

  ‘It will take a year or two to bring it back to profit,’ his son added.

  ‘We haven’t got a year or two,’ Quinta responded.

  ‘Then I’d best get on,’ Mr Ross said briskly and set off back to his work.

  Farmer Bilton did not call again to speak to them but Quinta saw him frequently from her garden, riding his black hunter around the edge of their land. She knew he meant what he said about turning them out and he had influential people to support him. But they had a chance for reprieve with Mr Ross’s help and as Midsummer approached she became excited by the prospect of going to town. Her young crops had thrived and she worked from dawn until dusk harvesting and preparing them for market.

  They set off shortly after daybreak. Laura inhaled the morning air and said, ‘Quinta, lock the door for me, dear, and take the key round to the woodshed. Mr Ross is ready to leave.’

  ‘I see he has brushed his jacket and found a clean neckerchief for his throat,’ Quinta observed as she obeyed.

  ‘He’s shaved his beard, too.’ Laura put her head on one side. When Quinta came back she added,‘He has handsome features, don’t you think? The same strong jaw as his father, but his lips are more defined.’

  ‘Lower your voice, Mother. He will hear you.’

  ‘Nonsense, dear, he is already moving away with the cart. His face is less rugged than the sergeant’s and his skin has a finer texture.’

  ‘From his mother, I expect. I wonder who she was.’ Quinta was reminded how little she knew about Mr Ross and his father. ‘Mother, do you think this is wise to leave the sergeant here alone?’

  ‘You have secured the cottage, dear, and he cannot journey with us. What else can we do?’

  Sergeant Ross was able to walk with them as far as the track to Bilton Farm, about halfway down the steep descent to the village. As they set off down the hill Mr Ross had to put all his weight in front of the cart to prevent it rolling away. Laura followed behind with the sergeant.

  As they approached the track for Bilton Farm, Quinta saw a familiar rider approaching. She had been looking forward to a break from her labours in the garden, but now she groaned, ‘Oh no.’

  Farmer Bilton dismounted and walked his black hunter towards them. ‘So, Mrs Haig, you’ve decided to leave after all?’ His eyes strayed towards Quinta.

  She answered, ‘No sir. We are going to market.’

  ‘What’s in the cart?’ he demanded.

  ‘Our garden produce and kindling for market.You will have your rent on our return, sir.’

  ‘We’ll see about that. Bring it to me at the farmhouse.’

  Quinta didn’t want her mother to trudge all that way and intervened, ‘Will you not meet us here? You can see our approach.’

  ‘I said bring it to the house. And I want all of it before nightfall.’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  Farmer Bilton led his horse away.

  ‘He’s a harsh landlord,’ Mr Ross commented. ‘I remember his sort from when I was a boy.’

  Quinta waited for him to say more, but he didn’t, so she simply said, ‘He wants us out.’

  Laura, who had caught up with them, added sourly,‘He wants more than that.’

  They said goodbye to the sergeant and he sat on a dry-stone wall in the rays of a rising sun until they had disappeared from view. As they trudged through Swinborough, they passed a few villagers who were gathering early, waiting for kin to walk to market, or for the morning carrier to take them into town. One or two nodded in their direction and Quinta was aware of whispering as they moved on. It reminded her that Patrick Ross was a stranger and she knew very little about him or his father. As she
walked beside him she experienced, again, a fearfulness that sent a shiver down her back.

  After the village, the road climbed Potters Hill past the Hall. The cart was heavy, filled with baskets and sacks, some hanging over the side, held on with every last rusting nail and piece of twine they could find.

  ‘I’ll help you push, Mr Ross,’ Quinta volunteered.

  ‘There is no need. But if you wish . . .’ He handed one of the shafts to her.

  She bent her back into the task and pushed. ‘It would not be such a burden if you had not chopped so much wood.Who will pay you money for all this?’

  ‘Innkeepers. Housekeepers in merchants’ houses. Towns are full of people who have to eat. How are they to cook their food?’

  ‘They have coal, of course.’

  ‘So they need wood to light it.’

  ‘But surely they can chop kindling for themselves? Even I can manage that!’

  ‘I do not doubt that. Many town folk are not as resourceful as you, Miss Quinta.’

  She was silenced. He had proved her wrong and flattered her at the same time. Her breathing became laboured as they approached the summit.

  ‘I’ll take over now,’ he said. ‘Your mother needs your arm.’

  They stopped for rest at the top. The town sprawled below them: smoking chimneys and furnaces, a glint of water from the navigation and brick terraces of labourers’ cottages snaking through the bustle. Already carriers and merchants were gathering to water their horses at the spring by the crossroads.

  ‘Not far now,’ Quinta observed.

  Mr Ross narrowed his eyes and nodded. He said very little. He didn’t smile much either. She wondered what sort of life he had led up until now and the kind of man he really was. Normally so withdrawn, she noticed that he seemed to cheer as they drew near to town.While Quinta and her mother were displaying their produce in the marketplace he said, ‘I’ll take the cart and make haste to sell the wood. I must visit the Dispensary for my father.’

  ‘My mother has need of a stronger medicine to ease her chest,’ Quinta said. ‘Will you get some for her?’

  ‘Does she not wish to talk to the apothecary herself?’

  ‘She is tired from this walk and will have to rest.You know how her cough sounds.’

  ‘Very well.’ He disappeared with their cart into the market crowds.

  Chapter 6

  ‘There are so many people! Where do they come from?’ Quinta stood at the corner of the market square and gazed in wonder at the throng.

  ‘All the manufactories you can see down by the canal, and from the pit villages round and about. Look at those beasts over there! The butchers’ll be busy tomorrow.’

  ‘Do you think we’ll be able to buy a bit of butcher’s meat tonight, Mother?’

  ‘We’ll see.You hold on tight to the purse for me and watch your back. Midsummer Eve attracts all sorts.’

  They had a pitch by a corner and next to an alley that led away from the square. Quinta and her mother were kept busy all morning selling their produce while Patrick took his kindling wood off in the cart, heading up the hill to where fine houses had been built for the owners of the new manufactories. These newcomers were not gentry, but they had servants and carriages that were paid for by their profits.

  It was a fine day, warm and sunny, and they sold everything before noon. They had enough for the rent and to buy flour. Quinta stowed her takings safely in a drawstring pouch under her skirts, then stacked her baskets and empty sacks by the wall behind them. Laura coughed as she helped and Quinta wondered when Patrick would be back with the medicine.

  ‘You look pale, Mother,’ Quinta said. ‘Rest a while. I’ll fetch dinner from a pie-seller.’

  When she returned with hot meat pies, Laura was asleep on the sacking in front of their baskets and she hadn’t the heart to waken her. She left her pies behind the baskets and joined a crowd to watch a juggler throwing lighted flares in the air. Then she sat on a low stone wall in the shade, near to where her mother was still sleeping, to eat her dinner.

  She had noticed a group of three people arrive in the square and walk backwards and forwards without any obvious interest in buying. The gentleman, who wore a smart coat and a tall hat over very straggly hair, and the younger of the two women eventually departed in the direction of the inn and the older woman picked her way across the market debris to where Quinta was sitting. She was dressed in a very fancy gown embellished with pleats and bows and had on a bonnet trimmed with matching ribbons. Quinta thought she was gentry and stopped chewing as the woman approached her.

  ‘On yer own, are yer?’ She didn’t speak like a lady.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Looking fer work, eh?’

  ‘No.’ Not now, she thought, aware of her full purse safely hidden away.

  ‘I know where a lass like you can earn a sovereign a week. Think of that. A whole sovereign. It’s enough fer yer ter buy a new gown and bonnet whenever yer want.’

  Quinta didn’t believe her, but she wondered what she was talking about. ‘Where’s that then?’ she asked.

  The woman stretched out her hand. ‘Come wi’ me and I’ll show yer.’

  Quinta recoiled, staring at her hand. It was gnarled and knobbly but adorned with several glittery rings.‘No, thank you. Go away,’ she said firmly.

  The woman persisted. ‘Look at all these gent’men around yer. All wi’ money in their pockets.Where do they come from?’

  ‘They live here, don’t they?’

  ‘Aye, lass, they do. They work in the mines and manufactories or fer the railway company. Some are proper gentry, spending their pa’s riches. Plenty ter go round, yer see.’

  Quinta didn’t see and went back to eating her pie.

  The woman looked impatient and then curiously intent. She took a step closer and asked, ‘’Ave you never ’ad a sweetheart?’

  She shook her head as she chewed and remembered the sergeant asking her the same question.

  ‘Never? You still a maid, then?’

  ‘Of course I am!’ Quinta replied indignantly.

  The woman’s bony fingers enclosed her wrist. ‘Come wi’ me, ducks.’

  Quinta tugged at her hand but the woman would not release her. She dropped her pie in the struggle and muttered, ‘Let me go, I don’t like you.’

  And then the woman whistled. She put her finger and thumb between her lips and whistled like a man! Quinta’s eyes widened as the younger woman she had noticed earlier loomed close, apparently from nowhere. She was very pretty and had rouge on her cheeks and lips and - and, oh, Quinta realised she had rouged her bosoms where they thrust out of her gown without any muslin to cover them. She wore coloured feathers in her tangled hair and reminded Quinta of the travelling players that visited from time to time.

  The girl took hold of her other wrist with fingers that felt like iron bands and jerked her forward. Quinta half fell off the wall.

  ‘Leave me alone. I’m not coming with you!’

  ‘Get her down the alley quick,’ the older woman said. Her tone had changed from wheedling to anger and she began to haul Quinta after her.When Quinta resisted, the woman seethed at her companion, ‘Put yer back into it, girl.’

  ‘No!’ Quinta pulled against both of them as they dragged her away. She turned her head and yelled, ‘Mother! Wake up, Mother! Help me!’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Mrs Haig roused from her slumber and rolled to her knees.‘You leave my Quinta alone,’ she called.Then she stood up and raised her voice and, between coughs, wheezed, ‘They’re taking my Quinta. Stop them! Somebody help her!’

  A small crowd gathered to stare and the older woman turned a bright smile on them and said, ‘Don’t listen ter ’er. This girl is my daughter and that drunk over there was trying ter steal ’er from me.’

  ‘That’s not true!’ Quinta protested loudly. ‘She isn’t a drunk, she’s my mother!’

  ‘Yes, I am!’ Laura echoed. ‘I was asleep, that’s all, and this - this madam is
stealing my Quinta.’ By now Mother was on her feet and lunging at the older woman, prising her fingers from Quinta’s wrist. At the same time Quinta kicked at the younger one and bit her arm. The girl yelped and let go. With her free hand, Quinta curled her fingers into a ball and punched at the woman, catching her on the side of her nose.

  The woman gave an anguished cry and put both her hands over her face. ‘You little witch. I’ll ’ave yer fer that! You see if I don’t.’ She turned quickly and disappeared down the alley, closely followed by her rouged companion.

  Quinta turned anxiously to her mother. ‘Mother, are you all right?’

  ‘Are you?’ Mother held on to her tightly and buried her face in her shoulder so her voice was muffled.‘They were going to take you away from me. Oh, Quinta my love, I don’t like being in the town. Let’s go home now.’

  ‘Mr Ross hasn’t come back with our cart yet,’ Quinta protested.

  ‘He’ll catch us up, I’m sure.’

  ‘I’d rather wait. Look, this place is full of butchers, so why don’t I buy some meat trimmings while we wait? We have enough money and it’ll make us a nice pudding tomorrow.’

  ‘We-e-ll, I suppose you could. But be quick, dear, and leave the purse with me, just to be on the safe side. I’ve got a pocket in my drawers.’

  Quinta glanced around before hitching up her skirt to untie the leather thong securing her purse on her underskirt tapes. Then she handed it to her mother who bunched up her own skirts and hid the purse from view.

  ‘I won’t be long.’ Quinta smiled, picking up a basket. She hurried away, lifting the edges of her gown clear of the rotting vegetables and animal droppings that littered the cobbled square. The taverns were already noisy with farmers and traders celebrating their successful trading.