by Rona Randall
Other faces followed. First a plump, motherly face belonging to someone who mercifully tended her body and eased the dragging weight of pain, and lulled the surging, shrieking spasms that wracked her, and wiped her brow with a cloth wrung in vinegar and water, and moistened her parched mouth, and murmured in kindly tones, “There, there, luv…you poor young luv…all’s going to be well, all’s over now…” And later there was Simon’s face, torn with anxiety but alight with a love she had never expected to see. Then came long and merciful sleep from which she roused occasionally to see the same maternal face and feel the same soothing hands, and her weary mind would force weary eyes to seek Simon again, and sometimes he was there and sometimes not.
At another moment there had been an elderly man who spoke in a low voice, and though she had been unable to catch the words she had somehow known that they were reassuring and addressed to her husband, and she had murmured Simon’s name and he had come to her again, but this time she saw a great sadness in his eyes, so she shut her own to blot it out. It was not grief she wanted to see there, but the love she had imagined earlier.
Gradually, as horror receded and recovery slowly grew in the merciful healing of sleep she remembered what had happened.
She was alone when the moment of lucidity returned, reviving the memory of Acland’s voice spinning her round in shock, the crash of the ladder, the wrenching pain. Then guilt such as she had never known took hold of her. She had killed her child.
She had also trapped Simon into a marriage which he need never have contracted, and from which she must set him free.
She saw nothing unjustified in either thought. Guilt etched them starkly in her mind and physical weakness made her incapable of summoning logic to oppose them. Thereafter, when Simon came to her, she could not meet his eyes. She retreated into silence, knowing the day must come when she must face up to life again and right the wrong she had done him, but as yet she was incapable of taking the initial step. Her worn body therefore took control, dragging her into inertia.
She was fraught with a confusion of thoughts, all of which she was incapable of sorting out, but dominant amongst them was the idea that she must make amends to the man who had married her solely to help her out of a predicament. He had made a needless gesture after all, and the only way to atone was to yield to Acland when he returned, thus setting Simon free.
Equally dominant was the recollection of a dream she had had early in her recovery. She was convinced it was a dream because not again had she seen that particular quality of love in Simon’s eyes. Concern, kindness, a mute desire to help her, but not again the unconcealed light of love which she must surely have imagined.
All this made her self-conscious in his presence and increased her withdrawal. And once up and about, she made no allowances for her physical weakness. She forced herself to pick up the routine threads of living, fulfilling domestic demands and refusing to heed any advice to rest. She existed in a state of uncertainty, through which only one thread was stable enough to cling to — the knowledge that the moment of decision was coming nearer by the day.
Meg Gibson trudged the six miles from Burslem, bearing a bunch of flowers from her cottage garden.
“I heard about the baby,” she said, standing self consciously on the doorstep, “and I thought — well, I just thought I’d like to give you these, Mistress Kendall. To comfort you, like. Though I sees you have some rare plants here.”
She glanced over her shoulder at the neatly tended area which
Simon had cared for these last days for Jessica’s sake. It was one of the things he had been anxious to do for her, and which touched her heart.
She appreciated Meg’s gesture also. Holding the door wide for her to enter, she accepted the now wilting bunch of flowers as if they were the finest bouquet in the world.
“Marigolds! I love them. I love their bright colour and the way they continue to bloom long after other flowers have wilted and died. And these are finer and bigger than ours. Indeed, we have scarce any marigolds left, only the sad flowers of late autumn.”
She placed them carefully in water, taking pains to display them well and to set them in a place of honour. Then she picked up the heavy iron kettle from the hob to fill at the kitchen pump, but Meg swiftly relieved her of it.
“You mustn’t go lifting things like that, ma’am. Not yet awhiles.”
“Dear Meg, I am fit and well, and you and I are going to enjoy a dish of tea while you tell me your news.”
“Oh, ma’am — I didn’t come expecting that. I came to see if there’s aught I can do for you. Master Martin told me the news only yesterday and very shocked I were, as were everybody at Drayton’s. Sad we all be, too, but many a woman’s lost an infant, then had more without mishap.”
She shifted awkwardly in her desire to comfort, a movement Jessica found surprising in one who was normally graceful and at ease, or alive with bravado. She put out a hand and touched the girl’s shoulder, saying as she did so, “I do believe this fine St Martin’s summer is never going to end, so let us take refreshment outdoors. I want to hear how your mother fares and how life treats you in your new home.”
“T’would be right splendid, ma’am, but for Ma’s suffering, which be greater than afore with no med’cines to bring peace.”
“No medicines! But surely Doctor Wotherspoon can help?”
“His bills be too high, ma’am. Nor will he treat folks who can’t pay.”
“But you have a neighbour, skilled in herbal cures — ”
“Nothing can cure my mother’s affliction,” Meg answered in a tone of finality.
But pain could be deadened, Jessica reflected, and many brews from nature could help in such a way; brews for dulling the senses, brews for aiding sleep, brews for merciful comfort when illness craved relief. Why was Meg reluctant to seek Martha Tinsley’s help when she so plainly loved her mother? The girl’s aversion to the woman had been evident the day the small removal cortege had travelled down Larch Lane. She remembered how Meg’s averted face had scorned Tinsley, watching from her window, and she felt now, as she had felt then, that Meg not only hated her, but feared her.
Meg insisted on brewing the tea. She carried it outdoors in silence. Mistress Kendall was asking how things were at Drayton’s, and Meg’s characteristically wicked grin peeped out.
“Nicer than when the Master Potter be around, though I sez it as shouldn’t, ma’am, he being your own brother — but how else would I be here mid-afternoon? I’d be fair copped if found out, but there’s not a soul at the pot bank would tell on me — ’cept one — nor on Master Martin, wherever it be that he goes off to every now’n then.” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “There I go, blabbing too much. Please, Mistress, forget that. I wouldn’t want Master Martin to get into trouble because of me.”
Jessica smiled. It was the most spontaneous smile she had produced for more than two weeks.
“Have no fear, Meg. And I will show you where my young brother goes when he plays truant. Come.”
In Martin’s workshop Meg gazed around, first with surprise, then with awe, then with delight.
“All this be his?” she asked and, when Jessica nodded, she added fervently, “Mother o’ God, but he deserves it! Master Martin’s a fine craftsman, too good for — ”
“For Drayton’s? As Drayton’s is today, I agree. That is why we set this place up. And you can see for yourself that orders are coming along.”
“That’s just the sort’ve thing the likes o’ you an’ Master Kendall would do, like when you moved us from that dump down by the marlpit. We’ve never stopped blessing you for that, ma’am, nor ever will. As for Drayton’s, we’d all be getting along fine with the Master away, but for High’n-Mighty-Maxwell. Begging your pardon, ma’am — I should’ve called him Master Freeman, though’tis hard to bend the knee to his kind.”
Jessica was startled. She had heard from Martin that Phoebe’s husband was now part of the Drayton organisation. “Joseph
seems to think his social connections will be useful,” Martin had said, which puzzled Jessica even more since Joseph had always opposed the production of anything but homely salt glaze ware, much in demand by the masses. Drayton’s would have to produce more elegant goods to appeal to society folk, and there wasn’t a designer in the place with either an eye for it or the flair to create it — except an apprentice working in snatched moments at a cottage in Cooperfield, giving full rein to his imagination while gathering the right experience and knowledge through a process of trial and error.
So, all things considered, Jessica had dismissed Maxwell Freeman as any possible asset to the firm, and certainly as no threat to Martin’s future there. But now Meg’s remark jerked her to attention.
“Why should you bend the knee to Mr Freeman?” she asked. “And what difference can he make in the Master Potter’s absence?”
“All the difference in the world, ma’am. He be spying on us.”
“Spying!”
“He’s been set to watch what goes on while the Master Potter’s away, and he don’t miss a thing, even half oiled — ’cept when he be sleeping it off.”
“You mean he drinks while at work!”
“That he does, Mistress Kendall.”
“And the Master Potter is unaware of it?”
“Don’t see how he can be, ma’am. By afternoon Master Freeman’s oft fuddled. I can’t see what use he be about the place, that I can’t, and no more can any other body. But he’s been set to keep an eye on us all while the Master’s away, and I dessay there’ll be many a tale he tells when the Master comes back, even if it ain’t true. Walks through the sheds all high’n-mighty-like any time as takes his fancy, then stops and stares to see what we be doing — ”specially if a woman don’t bob a curtsey or a man tug his forelock. And he does more than that to a woman, given the chance, and there’s many a one who’s too afraid of losing her job not to give him the chance. He’ll ’ve noticed I’m not at my bench this very hour, and give me a fair ranting for it — or try to. But he don’t get far with me. I can give fair tit-for-tat, and well he knows it.”
“And my younger brother — what of him?” Remembering the increasing number of times Martin had ridden over to Cooperfield recently, Jessica was anxious.
“He’ll tell on him, for sure, ma’am, but why should Master Martin worry? Not with his skill.” Meg gave a comprehensive nod of the head. “All this says he could fare mighty well on his own.”
She moved about the shed, examining fired and unfired ware, and finally pausing beside a set of bowls beneath damp covers, waiting to be turned. Removing the cloths, she tested the clay expertly. Soon it would be rather more than leather hard — not completely unfit for turning, but not so malleable as in its present state. Creating a foot when the clay was drier and harder would be a longer and more difficult task, so she searched around for a thin strip of metal, bent it into a loop with her strong fingers, and set to work. The kick wheel that Simon and Martin had built throbbed rhythmically beneath her swinging foot, and Jessica watched as clay curled in strips from the base of the bowl, forming a neat foot.
From one article to another, Meg worked like lightning, and when all the bowls were done she set them aside for drying. Then she said, “Tell Master Martin I’ll come whenever I’m needed, Mistress Kendall. It’ll be Sundays, o’course, though with the Master Potter now wed, mebbe there’ll be more times to take him abroad with his lady wife and more times I’ll go truant.” A conspiratorial smile flashed out. “Wicked, ain’t I, ma’am? But mum’s the word, for Master Martin’s sake. One day he’ll be the best potter in the whole of Staffordshire, and you and I knows it, don’t we just?”
Jessica smiled. “We do, indeed. And there’s nothing wicked about you, Meg. There’s not a scrap of wickedness in the whole of you.” “Burslem folk thinks otherwise.”
“Then they don’t know you as I do.”
*
During the long trudge home, carefully carrying a trug containing a bowl of curds and whey, and calfsfoot jelly from Mistress Kendall’s larder, plus other delicacies which she insisted on sending to her mother, and a special herbal tisane to be heated to aid her rest, Meg had plenty of time for thought. Walking miles at a stretch was an effortless accomplishment for someone born and bred in the country, where folk either drove in carriages, rode on horseback or, possessing neither, used Shanks’ pony. In rough countryside and backwood villages like Burslem, sedan chairs were unknown.
All her life Meg had been accustomed to walking, so the six miles to and from Burslem were nothing to her. On the return journey her thoughts roamed from Mistress Kendall, who had gone so thin it was a shock to see her, to the exciting discovery of Master Martin’s secret workshop and the fineness of his ware. Particularly his modelling. Languid cats and leaping dogs; birds on the wing and birds preening; wild life of every description in which authenticity and beauty were wonderfully combined. Nothing to compare with them had ever been seen at Drayton’s, nor ever would be so long as that bastard was head of the roost.
And that sent Meg’s thoughts flying to Joseph Drayton, recalling the sight of him emerging from the church with his bride — and a bride who looked better than she’d ever looked in her life, wonder of wonders. The whole village had turned out to see what monstrous creation she would wear, and had the surprise of their lives. Everyone had been gawping at her, so no one but Meg noticed the way in which the bridegroom’s glance had settled elsewhere. Sitting atop the churchyard wall, Meg had read that glance all too well, for it came direct to her. It contained desire, and a determination to have her again.
The message had come in one flashing second — and she had laughed at him. She had doffed one of the rummers supplied by the Red Lion for the village orgy, and she had doffed it in mockery but also in challenge, knowing full well that he was unaware of what lay beneath the genial gesture. Little had he suspected that she had not been toasting him, but his downfall.
One day it would come — how and when, she little cared, but so long as she was there to witness it, she could wait.
But it would be better still to bring it about, playing him like a fish on a hook.
Thus lost in thought she reached Larch Lane and quickened her footsteps for home. After so long a walk, the trug with its precious load had become heavy, but the thought of placing some of its delicacies before her mother lightened every step. She was fleet-footed on the rough earth, but as she approached Martha Tinsley’s cottage her footsteps automatically quickened. It was her habit to hurry by, refusing to glance at the woman’s windows in case her gloating face was there. Meg was convinced that the old witch relished her triumph and her power, transmitting thoughts to remind Meg that she would never relent until the two gold pieces were handed over. “The gold pieces you stole, m’lass…”
Meanwhile, a suffering woman’s strength dwindled, waiting only for the end.
I hate you, Martha Tinsley, that I do. I hate you for your cruelty to someone who's never so much as hurt you…
The thought snapped off as a figure blocked her path. Meg pulled up sharply. The figure had emerged from Tinsley’s gate and stepped right up to her, but the sickening fear that it was the woman herself vanished as she saw a man totally unknown to her.
He towered above her, young, tow-headed, thickset. Never had she seen a man of his age so big and tanned, nor one so evidently of another world. Even his clothes were different. He wore a thick woollen cap unlike any worn in these parts, and a heavy coat, short to the knees, with a huge collar that stood up behind his burly neck, and knee-high rubber boots the like of which she had never seen, and over his shoulder was slung a bulky bag made of canvas and drawn up with string.
Meg side-stepped quickly. Whoever he was and whatever he was doing here, he’d better know at once that she wasn’t available for his purpose. She had other things on her mind. More important things. In the cottage beyond the bend, her mother was waiting.
“Hey you, missy —
all I want is a word — ”
She marched ahead, ignoring him. A man who visited Martha Tinsley’s cottage was a man she didn’t want to know.
In three great strides he caught up with her. Again she swung by. This time his voice followed, aggrieved.
“I only wanted to ask if that-there’s Martha Tinsley’s place.”
His dialect was unfamiliar. He was undoubtedly a stranger in these parts. Well, he’d best get back to where he came from, or stop pestering her.
She flung over her shoulder, “Best knock on door and find out.”
“I bin doing that for nigh an hour.” He reached her side again, slowing his stride to match hers. “Leastways, it seems nigh an hour. They told me in village she lived down Larch Lane. First cottage left, they said…”
“Then get back back there and start knocking again, or wait till she comes. Or try the Red Lion down by Cobblers Green. Good-day to you.”
She brushed past him, hurrying to the bend ahead. This time he made no attempt to follow.
Half an hour later a knock sounded on the Gibsons’ door. Meg hesitated, knowing instinctively that it was the unknown man. Then her mother’s frail voice said, “There’s someone on doorstep, love. Better see who’tis…”
