A Mother's Sacrifice

by Catherine King

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘By the time he joined Mother, all the eligible gentlemen had gone. I hoped when I came to live with my brother, I should find someone.’

  ‘Oh, but you are a great help to Mr Wilkins in his ministry. A woman makes such a difference to a home, don’t you think? I am sure you will be pleasantly surprised when you see Mr Bilton’s farmhouse.’

  The trap made slow progress up Bilton Hill. Others from the village caught up and overtook them and Laura recognised the farrier and taverner from the village and the gamekeeper from Swinborough Hall making their way with their families to continue the celebrations of her daughter’s marriage. They had prepared cold meats, pies and cake with sherry wine and a barrel of ale had been set up in one of the front drawing rooms. In the weeks leading up to her wedding day, Quinta had worked unbelievably hard to clean up the farmhouse. Laura had helped with polishing silver, sewing and mending. The upholstered furniture was shabby but tables, chairs and cabinets polished up beautifully. Seth had helped to wax floorboards, window shutters and wall panelling. It was a gracious house that had been too long neglected.

  Seth was waiting on the traps and leading the horses away. He helped the ladies down and they walked across stone flags to the front door. Laura watched Miss Wilkins’ surprised expression as they entered the hallway and followed a hubbub of voices to the drawing room.The vicarage was a pleasant enough house but Bilton farmhouse was built on a grander scale. As Laura circulated among the guests she could hear that the main topic of conversation was the improvement in the appearance of the farmhouse. It was generally agreed that, in spite of the differences in their ages, Mr Bilton and Miss Haig had made wise choices in each other.

  ‘You’re tired, Mother.’

  ‘Yes, dear.’

  ‘I’ll take you upstairs to rest.’

  ‘You must stay with your guests.’

  Quinta surveyed the drawing room. ‘Noah is managing quite well without me. He has never been so popular with the local people. Look at him, he can’t believe it.’

  ‘Do not be too hard on him, dear.’

  ‘Why not? You forget he was set to turn us out of our home.’

  ‘We are well and truly out of there now.’

  ‘The masons will be in by the spring. Seth is to farm the land for Noah until a new tenant is found.’ They climbed the wide wooden staircase to Laura’s chamber overlooking the rear farmyard. ‘Will you be comfortable in here, Mother?’

  ‘I shall. It’s very cosy and, being over the kitchen, it will be warm in winter.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. I’ve put a warming pan in the bed for you and your medicine is on the table. Shall I help you with your gown?’

  When Laura was settled, propped up by snowy pillows, she asked, ‘Are you happy, my dear?’

  Quinta placed both hands on her stomach and thought of Patrick with a shrinking heart. She did not regret their night together but, without him by her side, she was not happy. She replied, ‘I am as content as I can be in the circumstances. It is enough.’

  ‘You have not lain with your husband yet, have you?’

  ‘Noah has surprised me. He has avoided being alone with me and is quite rigid in his ways. He dislikes anything that might be described as - forgive me, Mother - as fornication.’

  ‘Even within wedlock?’

  ‘For the purposes of procreation only,’ Quinta replied drily.

  Laura managed a gentle laugh. ‘Well, that’s what you want, isn’t it?’

  Quinta returned her smile. ‘Life will not be so arduous here, after all.’

  Noah stood at his wide front door while the last of his guests left. Then he walked over to the pigsties with Seth, leaving Quinta to go inside and clear the debris. She had persuaded one of the village girls to help in the scullery in exchange for a pair of dainty boots she had found during her cleaning. The girl slipped quietly out of the back door as Noah returned to his kitchen and stood with his back to the fire. Quinta sat at the table buffing silver and thought about the amount of work to be done in blackleading the range behind him.

  ‘Nights are drawing in already,’ he commented. ‘We’ll be abed afore nine so as not to waste the lamp oil. Has Mother retired?’

  ‘Yes, Noah.’ She had noticed that he had referred to Laura as ‘Mother’ and not as ‘Ma’ or even ‘your mother’ all day. Propriety in all things, she reflected. It had crossed her mind that he might bring his coarse farmyard ways into the bedchamber, but the more she learned about him, the less she worried about that.

  ‘We’ll go and do our duty, then.’

  ‘Noah?’

  He lifted a finger and pointed at the ceiling. ‘Duty, Madam. I’ve told you I have no time to waste. ’Tis Saturday and you will make a start tonight on being my wife.’

  She took off her buffing glove and tidied the tray of cutlery. ‘I’ll just lock this in the pantry. Shall I come to your chamber?’

  ‘Where else would you be? A wife’s place is in her husband’s bed.’

  ‘You have not allowed me in there to clean as I have in the other chambers.’

  ‘’Tis clean enough for me.’

  ‘My box is in the adjacent bedchamber.’

  ‘Go and prepare yourself while I secure the front door.’

  Obediently, she stood up, bowed her head and went upstairs. Although all the chambers had locks Noah left the keys in them and she had taken a peek at his chamber. Perhaps when he became more used to a cleaner, brighter house he would allow her to touch his things.

  The landing was dark and she hurriedly retrieved her nightgown and cap from her box and went next door. His chamber was large, dominated by an ornate half-tester bed with thread-bare hangings. The air was stuffy and smelled of the chamber pot and old shoes. The shutters were half open and there was no other furniture save a chair and wooden ottoman box with the lid hanging off revealing a jumble of clothes inside. The mattress ticking was grey and grubby and without linen, as was the bolster pillow. How did this man sleep in such squalor? A dirty blanket had fallen on the bare floorboards. She turned and went downstairs for sheeting.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘For clean bedding.’

  He scratched the side of his head. ‘Go on then. But hurry.’

  She dropped the linen on to the bed and began to unfold a sheet. He stood in the middle of the chamber watching her. She could hear him breathing in a rasping, laboured manner. She glanced behind her. His hands were by his sides and she noticed his fingers twitching slightly. Oh Lord, this was really going to happen and she dreaded it. She prayed it would be over quickly and on past experience of his behaviour she guessed it would. She began to feel nauseous. How was she going to do this without showing how much he really repulsed her?

  ‘That’ll do.’

  ‘But I haven’t done the pillows.’

  He took hold of her small hand in his grubby clammy palm and pulled her round to face him. Then he pushed her towards the bed and grunted something she did not quite hear.

  This was a mistake! How could she have even considered tainting her body and her growing child with anything to do this with awful man, let alone allowing him to invade her so? She feared that she would not be able to do it and he would become angry with her. She had seen evidence of his anger and he was a big, strong man. His farmhands did not disobey him and she would be no exception. But it was too late to change her mind now. She must endure this. It was the price she had to pay. Deception was a sin and it was her penance for deceiving him in this most cruel way.

  Yet still she convinced herself that he deserved it, and it was the only thing that kept her sane. He had lied to the court and by doing so had taken away her only chance of happiness.Well, he had shown he had this weakness for her and she had to exploit it now.

  ‘Get yourself on the bed, I said.’ His breeches flap was down and he was holding himself with one hand as he advanced towards her. ‘Can you hurry up, lass? Have you got any drawers
on?’

  He bent to pull up the edge of her skirt with his free hand and push her back on to to the mattress. The smell of the chamber pot came strongly through the sheet, but her nose and face were quickly smothered by his waistcoat as he fell on top of her. He was panting with anxiety and sweating so profusely that it dripped from his face on to hers.

  His work-roughened hand felt for the opening in her drawers and pushed aside the fabric. ‘Hurry up, hurry up,’ he repeated. ‘Get your legs open.’

  She felt like screaming and almost did so as he shifted about on top of her and tried to guide himself into her. Her fists clenched into balls as she tensed and prepared for him to enter her, regretting every aspect of this unholy decision.

  ‘Aaaaaargh,’ he groaned. ‘Aaaaaargh.’ He flopped over her, his rasping wet face against her and his stale sweat and foul breath assaulting her nostrils. His groaning went on and he stopped fumbling around the opening in her drawers between her legs.

  He had not entered her. He had barely touched her and he had finished. She lay there wide-eyed as his heavy weight pressed into her. But there was no hardness about him. She could not feel his desire for her, only a sticky dampness on the leg of her drawers.

  It was over. She wanted to scream out in rage at him and suppressed a nervous shiver that rattled her insides. She did not know whether to laugh or cry, only that she felt dirty and degraded and she had not achieved a thing! She would have to go through all this again when he was more - more what? Rested? Sober? She had been led to believe that too much drink could dull a man’s desire. But Noah’s desire was - was - it seemed to her to be quite out of control. She almost believed it was justice for her deception.

  He breathed deeply and his stilled frame squashed her into the smelly bed. She tried to wriggle away from him but he was too heavy and he must have fallen asleep, for a few minutes later he suddenly gave a snort and woke up. He had dribbled wetly on her gown. Lord help her! How was she to endure this?

  ‘Shall we undress, Noah?’ she ventured.

  He picked up the blanket from the floor and threw it on the bed. ‘I’ll go out while you do. You bewitch me with your body, Mrs Bilton. Make sure you cover yourself well.’

  ‘But, Noah, I am your wife now. You may take me at your pleasure.’

  ‘You will not speak like a harlot in my house! Would you drain my energy through fornication?’

  ‘No, sir.’ She got up, finished making the bed, wrapped herself in her nightgown and cap and crawled between the sheets. She would need more than lavender for this chamber. And more than a strong resolve with Noah. She supposed there’d be another chance tomorrow night when, perhaps, he might not be so anxious.

  The following morning he rose early without disturbing her and she was wakened only by the sound of him sluicing his face and neck at the washstand and drawing on his clothes. She feigned sleep until he had gone out to his cows, and then rose to dress and light the kitchen range for hot water and breakfast. It was Sunday and she was cheered by the prospect of church. Noah took Quinta and her mother to the village in his trap and she reflected that this had once been one of her dreams. It had been a childish notion, she realised, and now she was ashamed if it. Nonetheless, she and Laura enjoyed their outing and the conversations afterwards in the churchyard.

  ‘Miss Wilkins, how well you look this morning.’

  ‘Oh, do you think so, Mrs Bilton? My brother made me change my bonnet for this plain old thing.’

  ‘Mr Wilkins gave a fine sermon today.’

  ‘Well, I wish he would not keep preaching about the virtue of marriage. It irritates me so.’

  Quinta avoided answering this and smiled. ‘Miss Wilkins, would you do me the honour of calling to take tea with us one afternoon? We should so much appreciate your company.’

  Beatrice raised her eyebrows. ‘Me? Take tea at Bilton Farm?’ ‘Mother and I have further plans for improvement and we should welcome your advice.’ Quinta kept smiling while Miss Wilkins considered this.

  ‘Very well,’ she said at last. ‘I’ll come on Wednesday.’

  ‘We shall look forward to it.’

  Noah called her to the trap and she said goodbye.

  Quinta had hoped that her second night with Noah would result in a successful union, but he did not retire until long after she was asleep, and this set the pattern for their week. His working day was long, broken only by meals that she prepared and he ate silently. After tea he returned to his fields and his stock until nightfall and came to their chamber exhausted. Fearful that any approaches she might make in the bedchamber would anger him, if she wasn’t asleep, she pretended to be.

  He did not wake her and the realisation dawned that procreation activity for Noah was the preserve of Saturday night when there was less work the following day. He regarded further indulgence as weakening and sinful in the eyes of the Lord.

  The following Saturday, after tea, she brought down her mother’s meal tray and sat at the kitchen table patiently. Noah reclined in his moth-eaten chair and nursed a tankard of ale.

  ‘Shall I read the Bible to you?’ she suggested.

  ‘Tomorrow is the day for that.’

  ‘Perhaps a walk? It is a fine evening with a hunter’s moon.’

  ‘I have been out there all day.’

  ‘I’ll get my sewing, then.’

  ‘’Tis Saturday. You will do your duty.’

  ‘Very well.’ She stood up to go to their chamber.

  ‘Sit down. I shall go first and prepare myself for bed. You will come when I call you.’ He picked up the lamp and left her in the fading light.

  She obeyed him, reasoning that he wanted it in this way as there would be less haste, less fumbling if he was in his nightgown already. However, if anything, their encounter was worse, even though their chamber was cleaner and smelled sweeter after a week of her attentions. She had asked Seth to move in a wardrobe cupboard from a disused dressing room so that they could hang up their clothes. She had found a dressing screen too, but had not had time to clean it yet and she was obliged to take off her gown in front of him as he reclined against the pillows.

  ‘Make haste, woman,’ he grumbled. ‘Leave your gown on the chair.’

  She pulled on her nightgown as quickly as she could, but from the sounds he was making in his throat she knew she was too late. It was all over for Noah before she slid into bed. Quinta was in despair. Was it always to be like this? He had no control over his husbandly desires and was spent before he could achieve a union with her.

  ‘You are a witch, Mrs Bilton,’ he growled, ‘working your evil magic here. You have cast a spell on me and I waste my seed.’

  She did not know what to say or do. She had searched everywhere for a solution. She had discovered some old and moulding books in the farmhouse that offered remedies for every ailment, including potions for gentlemen to aid the act of procreation, but nothing for Noah’s affliction or even a mention of it.

  She might have asked the village midwife but dared not go to her yet. She had been a wife for only a week and the woman might recognise the signs of being with child as her mother had. She gazed at her reflection in the window glass and wondered how they could tell.

  ‘I am not evil, Noah. You are too anxious—’

  ‘I have told you before that you will not argue with me. I shall not have a shrew for my wife.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I only mean to help.’

  ‘You will help by behaving with modesty at all times and not flaunting yourself before me in this manner!’

  ‘But I was—’ She stopped. She must not make him angry with her. She thought perhaps it was because he was an old bachelor who had never had an experience with a lady before. The excitement was too much for him. She smoothed his brow with her hand and said, ‘My sweet, it is early and we have the whole night. Will you rest awhile and try again?’

  ‘Again? You would wear me down so that I cannot do my work?’

  ‘Of course not. But we are husb
and and wife. We may enjoy each other, may we not?’

  ‘Do not talk like a whore! You are already behaving as one! Fornication saps a man’s strength. Would you have me expire from exhaustion?’

  ‘No, sir, of course not. But is it not my wifely duty to give you pleasure?’

  ‘The words of a Jezebel!’ he snapped. ‘You wish to make me a slave to your body; to weaken my will and remove my reason! You will not do this to me. You will mend your ways.’

  Quinta was shocked into silence. Noah had many traditional ideas about life and clearly anything that even hinted at fornication was an abomination to him. She reflected on the irony of her situation. Were she not so anxious to deceive him she would be whooping for joy that he could not fulfil his husbandly duties with her. But the weeks were passing and their vows were still not sealed in the marriage bed. She passed her hand over her small belly. There was still time.

  ‘Noah, dearest husband, how are we to have the children you desire?’ she asked quietly. ‘Perhaps you will consult with the apothecary in town?’

  ‘And have him know my wife will not be a wife to me? You would insult me so!’

  ‘He will advise you, dearest. The Dispensary has mixtures for all ailments.’

  This made his anger worse. ‘This is no ailment of mine! This is your doing and you will see that it does not happen again.’

  ‘But - but it is not me!’ She snapped her mouth closed. She realised that Noah was angry with her because he could not accept his own failing. She added, ‘But how, dearest?’

  ‘Remove your curse on me! Burn those books with their wicked potions! Book reading is not for womenfolk. It turns them into witches and whores and I will not have it in my house.’

  Her despair deepened yet she could not talk to her mother about this. To ease her mind she had told Laura that all was well with Noah, that she had no cause to worry as his demands were not excessive. The latter, she reflected with a heavy heart, was true for he always fell asleep quickly at night, rising at dawn to help Seth with the milking.