‘Oh, Ralph!’
And like him, I was laughing.
No Awaking
We landed at Porlock unseen and unchallenged. Daniel Hopton pushed off, leaving us together on the shingle amid a powerful smell of seaweed. The moon by now was low in the west but there was just enough light to see the rounded stones under our feet. Ralph took my hand to guide me.
It was a long, long walk, most of it uphill, and I remember little about it except that tiredness kept overwhelming me, so that all I could do was keep putting one foot before the other. Without Ralph, I couldn’t have done it, because I didn’t know this area well, even by daylight. He, though, seemed able to see his way and to be familiar with it.
Until at last, Ralph said: ‘Dawn’s near. I don’t want this to cause trouble for you at home. Peggy …’
‘Yes?’
‘Thank you for saving me – and all the rest of us – tonight. But we mustn’t meet again. You know why.’
‘Yes, of course. There’s James and our children; there’s Harriet and yours. It’s all right.’
I stumbled, and he held me up. ‘You’re so weary and no wonder. Let’s talk as we go – it’ll help to keep you awake.’
‘I don’t know what to talk about. I don’t think I want to talk about that cliff path!’
‘I can believe it. Wild weather and the way the sea gnaws the cliffs – this coastline’s always changing. There are traces of drowned forests here and there, and all that flat meadow and marsh between Dunster Castle and the sea – all that used to be seabed. The castle was on a promontory when the Normans built it, and Dunster was a port instead of being nearly two miles inland.’
‘Tell me more.’
He kept on talking, and was as interesting as ever, only my feet were dragging and as we entered the eaves of Culbone Woods, I stumbled again. ‘Careful!’ said Ralph.
‘Sorry. I think I must rest for a moment,’ I said.
‘Over here,’ he said. ‘There’s a sort of bank.’
We sat down. Once more, the cold was finding its way through my clothing. I started to shiver. Ralph still had an arm round me. It tightened, a band of warmth and security, drawing me into his shoulder, so that I turned my head and pressed my face into his coat.
I do not know how to explain or describe what happened next. I know I was pressing against him for warmth. I sensed the strength of his hard body; I inhaled the scent of him: salt, leather, something that I can only call maleness. Then he turned to me and kissed me and the kiss went on and on and he held me close with one arm while with the other he fumbled at his clothing. I began to loosen mine. Something, which felt like a power from outside us, had seized hold of us and would not be denied. It had been there, calling to us, shouting to us, ever since the day we first saw each other in the parlour on the day of my father’s funeral.
The moon had set and there was no sign yet of daybreak. What was between us flowered and triumphed in the secrecy of a forest darkness. We knew each other in more than the biblical sense, for this was a knowing of contour and texture, an awareness of scent and taste as well as the simple act of penetration. Afterwards, we lay for a while still clasped together, unwilling to abandon this, the union for which we had ravened for so long. Indeed, I fell asleep in Ralph’s arms, until he roused me, gently, whispering: ‘Peggy, you must get home. You must!’
By the time we pulled ourselves to our feet and were going on in search of Brownie, the day was fully broken.
We found Brownie placidly grazing, though she seemed pleased to see us and had probably felt lonely, left tethered all alone in a strange place for so long. I fetched her saddlery from its hiding place.
‘Will you have to walk all the way home?’ I asked, thankful that I wouldn’t. He laughed.
‘No, I need only get back to Porlock. I have friends there. I can take a few hours’ rest with one of them. Is that Brownie’s tack? I’ll saddle her for you.’
When he had done so, he helped me to mount and then I leant down to him and he kissed me goodbye. Neither of us said: this is our last goodbye, but we knew that it was, and what our tongues did not say, our eyes and lips said for us.
And then I went home. I remember nothing of the ride because I was so tired and so preoccupied with my own thoughts and feelings. I knew I should be ashamed, horrified at myself, at what I had done to James. I had betrayed him, unforgivably, once by creeping out of the house to break the law by carrying a warning to smugglers (though how it could be a crime to tell someone not to commit one still eluded me), and then again and more dreadfully by taking one of the smugglers as my lover. But all the time I was glowing with the joy of having known Ralph, exulting in it like a cat stretching in a patch of sunlight, and I could not be sorry.
But, wondering what would greet me at Foxwell, I was afraid.
I left Brownie in the paddock and walked quietly towards the house, carrying her saddle and bridle. I expected to find people about in the farmyard but there was no one, although smoke was rising from the chimney in the usual way. I put the tack away and made for the kitchen. It was, as ever, warm and welcoming, the fire lit, used breakfast dishes on the table. At first I thought that no one was there. Then, from his basket chair by the hearth, startling me, James suddenly arose.
‘So,’ he said. ‘You fell into the trap.’
I was too taken aback to answer. He was staring at me, with that blue-marble look in his eyes again. ‘I thought you might,’ he said.
I found my tongue. ‘What trap? What do you mean?’
‘Don’t try lying. I went to Exford right enough but I didn’t stay there. Goldfinch hadn’t cast a shoe, my dear. That were my little pretence. When I were talking with Hartley, I got an idea. I told you what Hartley had said to me, on purpose, maid. I wanted to see what you’d do. Now I know. I’ve allus wanted to know what you’d do if Ralph had any need of you. Will she stand by me, I used to ask myself, or go whoring after him? I was home again just after midnight, Peggy my love, and where were ’ee?’
It seemed impossible to answer.
‘Out on the cliffs, looking for Ralph Duggan,’ said James. ‘Gone to warn him, if you could find him. That’s if you needed to search. How often have you and he met, with me not knowing? I’ve been wondering that all night. Did you manage to warn him?’
Attacked, I decided to fight back. I thrust the memory of that strange, ecstatic, union under the trees of Culbone and retorted: ‘Yes! Why shouldn’t I? I nearly married him. Why shouldn’t I want to save him from being arrested and transported? And why shouldn’t I worry about Harriet? You can’t want to see her husband taken from her!’
‘Harriet b’ain’t the point. She’ll be right enough. You left your home to warn a smuggler. Did ’ee manage it? Did it take all night? What else did ’ee get up to?’
‘You don’t think that! You can’t!’ I hoped my voice didn’t waver as I told the lie.
‘I think you did. I can almost smell him on ’ee. There’s a different look to ’ee, a queer sort of shine. You gave yourself to ’un, I know it, you that’s had so little to give me, this long time past, and when ’ee does oblige, I have to cut things short in case there’s another babby. Did Ralph Duggan take care the way I do?’
‘James! How dare you?’
The words rang hollow and he knew it. His eyes were almost bulging from their sockets.
‘I dare!’ It was a shout. ‘It’s allus been the same; he’s allus been there, in between us, all through the years. I’ve tried and tried but ’ee’ve never been properly mine. Stood at my side in church, didn’t ’ee, and made promises? But all the time wishin’ you were makin’ them to him, and he’s never been out of your heart.’
‘No! Not true!’
Yes, it is true but I couldn’t help it. I tried, I have tried. I’ve tried as hard as I can but there’s a cold, hard place in you and it held me away from you … in God’s name, I tried.
‘I’m tired of it all,’ said James. ‘Tired of you. Ti
red of him. Too weary of the whole thing even to clout ’ee, though most men would and they’d be right. Don’t want to swing for ’ee, either. Or for him. Neither of you are worth it.’
‘James!’
‘You’ll have to go. Now. Out of Foxwell. Go away and leave me be. Turn round and go out of that there door, and don’t come back, ever.’
‘But …’
‘Do it!’
‘James, we’ve been married for fourteen years! We’ve loved each other. I still love you.’ That was true too, in a way. It wasn’t the instantaneous oneness that held me and Ralph together, but it was still a kind of love, woven from working together, having children together, sharing, from time to time, some perfectly happy moments. ‘I don’t believe you’ve stopped loving me. And we have children, James! What about them? William, Rose, John … John’s only just turned seven …!’
‘I don’t know what love means any more. I’ve loved ’ee, yes, but he’s allus been in the way. You’d not do what you’ve done for someone you didn’t care for more than you care for me or the children! What if the Revenue men had caught you? You went to Ralph Duggan tonight and stayed with ’un till dawn and I can guess what the two of you were about so don’t pretend. You’ll go! I can’t bear to have ’ee near me, not any more. William can stop here with me; he’s big enough. Rose and John – the Websters’ll take care of ’un, with Annie to help. But you … !’
The door to the kitchen burst open and William rushed in, red-faced and furious. ‘I was listening! I heard it all, I did! That’s Mother there and you’re trying to send her away and you can’t, you can’t! We want her. Mother, don’t go, stop here!’
‘I told you and all the rest to get out of this kitchen and stay out till I said otherwise!’ James shouted. ‘When I saw her comin’ from the paddock with a saddle over her arm, I told ’ee, and your brother and sister and the maids, to go upstairs and mind your own business! What do you mean, you were listening? Had an ear to the door, did ’ee?’
‘Yes, I did, and you’re not sending Mother away, no, you’re not …!’
‘Oh yes, I am!’ James had rounded on him. I cried out: ‘No! James!’ because two or three times over the years James had beaten our son, and although William was shooting up and strong for his age but still no match for a man like James, heavily muscled, his strength honed by years of physical toil. One swipe of James’ powerful right hand, and William was on the floor. He started to get up but James knocked him down again. Once more, though there were tears in his eyes and I knew his head must be ringing, William started to struggle to his feet, and this time I seized a chair and leapt to his defence, fending James off with it, jabbing its legs at him.
We stood there, glaring at each other, momentarily frozen into a tableau of rage. Then James heaved the chair aside, wrenching it out of my hands and reached for my throat. I screamed and kicked out at him and caught his left shin. William, staggering up, sobbing but valiant and charged his father, head down, butting like a young bull.
And then the room was suddenly full of people, for the uproar had brought Annie and John and Rose, who came rushing in, followed by the two other maids we had lately acquired, Lucy and Phoebe. The latter two shrank into a corner, their eyes wide with horror and their hands over their mouths, but Annie bravely rushed at James, shrieking: ‘Stop it! Stop it!’ John, small as he was, actually snatched up a frying pan and banged it down on James’ head.
Then he and Rose backed together into the corner with the maids and started to howl in unison. Phoebe and Lucy tried to comfort them. John had not been strong enough to do much harm with the frying pan and now James swung round and grabbed it from him. And then stood still. We all stood still, gasping. William was wiping his eyes furiously, his face crimsoned where James had twice struck it. I knew that tears were streaming down my face. Annie was pop-eyed with fury and horror.
‘James!’ I said. He glared at me. He was still clutching the frying pan, which added a touch of the ridiculous to the scene. ‘I’ll go,’ I said. ‘For now. I’ll go to Fred and Mattie. I have indeed been out all night. I need breakfast and a sleep …’
‘You’ll leave Foxwell now! Fred and Mattie won’t want ’ee, any more than I do, and least of all today, with Mattie lyin’ in! Had a son, she did, last night; sent one of her brood to tell us this mornin’. They won’t want to shelter the likes of you just now. You get right out of Foxwell! Go out on to the moor and die, or jump off one o’ they cliffs where ’ee’ve spent the night with thy lover …!’
‘Don’t talk to Mother like that!’ shouted William.
‘If Fred and Mattie, or any other that works for me, even Searle, that thinks himself a prince just because his forebears have herded sheep here since the Fall, if any of them lifts a finger to help ’ee, they’ll be out of work and off my land before they can recite their own names! I mean it! You go! Now!’
William, fists clenched, burst out in a new protest. ‘Mother can’t go! We need her. I know she’s done nothing wrong!’
‘Nothing worse than be unfaithful, and take a warning to a gang of smugglers!’ said James.
‘My grandfather used to buy his drink and tobacco from them. Half the county does,’ said William. ‘Half the county would say it was right to warn them. And my mother has not been unfaithful. I know!’
‘I don’t! How do I even know you’re my son?’
‘Try looking at William and then look in the mirror!’ I shouted. ‘William’s not to be hurt any more! Don’t you dare raise your hand to him again! And how you can threaten to harm the Websters, to turn them out when Mattie’s just given birth … well you’d miss them soon enough but you’re too eaten up with rage even to have any sense, let alone humanity! You disgust me, James! No wonder I couldn’t love you properly, you with your cold, hard heart! Just let me leave in good order, that’s all I ask. Annie, can I have some eggs and bacon? I really do need something.’
‘No! Get out!’ James screamed.
‘All right.’ There was nothing else to do. William tried to burst out again but I shook my head at him, vigorously enough to hush him. ‘Very well,’ I said. ‘You will let me collect my clothes, I trust. I’ll put them in a hamper and I would also like to take a pony, to get me and the hamper to Exford …’
‘Travellin’ like a lady, after what ’ee’ve done? You’ll walk to Exford, you whore, and don’t worry about any hamper; you don’t set a foot further into the house than you already have. I’ll not give ’ee thy clothes, nor any money! Ha! Where’ll ’ee be, with not a penny piece to thy name? Go out and earn your bread doin’ what ’ee did last night!’
‘James, be reasonable!’
‘Reasonable!’
‘You can’t throw me out without food or a rest or a change of clothes! Let me have those and then I’ll pack and William can drive me into Exford and leave me there. I … I’ll decide later where to go.’ Was all this really happening? I was sick and trembling, my whole world dissolving about me. ‘Let us,’ I pleaded, ‘try to behave like decent folk …’
‘You’m not decent folk! Now will ’ee go afore I lose my senses and kill ’ee here and now, yes, in front of thy children. Maybe I’m sure of William but I hope the rest be mine!’
‘James!’ But there was murder in his face.
‘I’ll go,’ I said.
I did. I turned my back on James, on our children, on Foxwell. I walked out of the kitchen and away round the corner of the barn.
Not a penny piece, James had said. Well, he was wrong about that.
Out of sight of the house, I leant against the barn wall and waited. No one came after me. Over the years I had from time to time checked that the loose stone was still loose enough to be pulled out quickly. Indeed, I had occasionally added a coin or two to the store inside. Now, in haste, I pulled the stone out again, and seized my secret hoard, and Ralph’s engagement ring. It would all be heavy to carry but I must manage. I had replaced the original drawstring bag with a new one, and it
was in good order. I could carry it on my arm, during the long walk that I must take to Exford.
I spared a moment to kneel and then, low-voiced but aloud, I thanked God for my father’s forethought and his connivance with that wicked, good-hearted, free trader Josiah Duggan, for the secret gift of money, which now would keep me from facing the world as a pauper.
Then, shaking off my exhaustion as best I might, I started on the trudge to Exford, marvelling a little as I went because everything looked so completely normal, so ordinary; surely if I turned round and walked back home I would find everything as it used to be and the morning’s drama just a dream.
Only, I knew that it was not, and as I plodded along, I wept.
Once in Exford, I went to the White Horse. They knew me there, and though they showed surprise because I was alone, they let me have a room. I went to it and lay down on the bed, too tired to think, too tired to be frightened. There were muddled thoughts in my head, which for the moment I couldn’t set in order. But when I woke, I found that in the night they had clarified. What it amounted to was that I must be careful.
I had money. A good deal of it, in fact. But I also had a completely uncertain future. Trying to see ahead was like trying to see through a dense moorland mist. The time might come when I could need resources even more than I needed them now. Also, when it came to using the money, I must be cautious for another reason.
I must go away but I didn’t want to go too far. I didn’t want to leave my own home county of Somerset. I didn’t want to find myself making a new start in some other part of the country, where people wouldn’t speak with the local accent I was used to, where there was no one even vaguely connected with anyone I had ever known. Had I ever wildly believed I wanted to voyage to Antigua? I couldn’t now imagine even thinking of such a thing. Besides, to go far away would separate me too completely from my children. Perhaps I might regain contact with them one day, and if at any time they had need of me and tried to find me, I wanted that to be possible. I must leave my immediate surroundings but I must not go too far – and that could mean that James might from time to time get news of me. He might wonder how I was supporting myself.
Late Harvest Page 17
