McCann, Maria - As Meat Loves Salt

by Balefanio

  I unfolded the first bale, which like the rest was a coarse linen, marked all over with green and the edges pulled uneven. It was some three yards wide. We looked at it, then at one another, and I opened the book given us by Dan's friend Robert.

  'Where shall I start?'

  'We must measure exactly,' said Ferris. He ran into the house and came out with Aunt's workbox, from which he took a tape and a fine pair of scissors. The book showed various kinds of tents, and we chose the simplest, with sloping sides and no decorations. I wrestled to expel thoughts of Zeb and attend to Ferris's instructions as we folded the stuff between us like maids folding bedsheets, snapping out the edges to straighten puckered threads.

  'Spread it on the flags,’ said Ferris. He picked up a large beetle and placed the creature on the apple tree, out of the way.

  'Now, if the weather holds, we'll get it done before night. Measure six feet, so,' and he stood back to let me get to the linen. 'No, not like that, you must go with the warp.' He showed me how to line up my shapes with the edge of the cloth.

  Am I doing this, or are you?' I asked as he snatched the scissors from my hand.

  'Don't be crabby. I've worked with the stuff, you haven't. Look, this is how you do it.'

  I watched as he cut the first few threads and then ripped the open blades through the material as if impaling someone on a sword. 'You'll soon have the feel of it. Always cut straight.'

  I marked and cut the next piece while he watched.

  'Is that right?' I challenged, knowing it was.

  'Like your other handiworks, Jacob: perfection. No, truly, very good,’ for I had caught hold of him and was dragging him towards the pump. We tussled, and I got the water flowing, but let him go without putting him under. After this foolery I felt happier. Panting, we came back and folded up the pieces completed so far; Ferris marked them with a pencil. The ground was uneven, so that we would have been better at a big table. However, we began to get on, and apart from the crouching, which made me feel my stiff calves, I enjoyed it. He showed me how to lay out two or more pieces at a time, and how to mark them showing the name of the part, which was the outside and which way was up.

  'Can you make clothes?' I asked him.

  'I never have. But I used to watch the maid do it when I was a child, and she marked her pattern pieces thus.'

  'You could stand in for Roger Rowly, methinks.'

  'Nay. You'll soon know as much as I do.'

  The stuff was not broad enough to cut out all the pattern com­plete, and some parts had to be pieced. I watched fascinated as he took needle and thread and stitched them together.

  'It is not very beautiful,' he said frowning. 'I wish we could have got Becs to help you.'

  'She will never help me more,' said I. He hissed suddenly and I saw red from his hand stain the linen.

  'Here.' I put the wounded finger in my mouth. He tasted of my tooth-drawing.

  'If we start, it is better than nothing,' he said. 'We can tack it to­gether for someone to finish off.'

  'What's tack?'

  'Put it together loosely, to see how it fits. Then you stitch it down good and tight.'

  I watched, thinking that I had seen Caro and Patience work thus, but had never known what it was called.

  'Get hold.' Ferris put the needle in my hand. 'In and up like this, and don't let the tail of thread get tangled. In and up. No, in and up.' I was clumsy and the linen was soon spotted with my blood as well as his.

  'Ah.' He examined the bloodspots. 'Perhaps you should go back to cutting, and I'll join.'

  We worked on peaceably. If this were the way of the colony, I thought, it would not be too bad, and I would never again meet Zeb. If only I were able to get to Ferris when I wanted. I reflected that work was no problem to me, for I had been raised to toil alongside others, from beating the hangings — but here I baulked at some ob­scure pain in the recollection, and fixed my mind instead on type­setting. I was quick to learn, had ample health and strength for la­bour, but I could not bear to work alongside him all day and lie apart at night.

  'That's it,' said Ferris. His voice lilted with pleasure. 'The last one!' He held it up like a trophy before folding it on top of the rest. I saw he had made a neat workman-like pile of the linen pieces.

  'Just in time,' I said, glancing up at the darkening sky. A drop fell on my forehead.

  'The cloth!' Ferris wailed. We gathered all up in a frenzy and had barely got in our harvest when the rain fell straight down like a cur­tain. Ferris ran out in it to get the book and other things while I carried the unused material back to the loft. When I came down he had lit a lamp in the printroom and was laying the pattern pieces where he dried his prints. Yellow light swam over him and the cloth; drops ran off the ends of his hair. At my coming in he smiled up at me and his skin sparkled with the wet. Just then he was more beauti­ful than Zeb, and after I never lost that picture from my mind. It was burnt in for good, like his thin profile forming out of the darkness as he brought me back to life on the road, his return to me warm and living, though with a slashed cheek, at Winchester, and the sobbing sound he made as I took hold of him that first night, the night I found his letter.

  We ate with Aunt that evening and there were no references to secret acts. Becs served us as quickly as possible — she never lingered these days — and I chewed silently on my salt pork and beans.

  The other two talked of news. The last month had been one to excite, especially if a man were ignorant of the suffering that is war.

  Chester had fallen some weeks back, having been reduced to a state of near famine, so that the citizens trailed at the heels of Lord By­ron, begging him in tears to come to terms with Parliament before they were all starved to death. Even so, the city had endured until the third of February. With the Parliamentary troops safely installed, it became known that the King had raised three thousand Irish soldiers and would have landed them at Chester had Byron held out a week longer.

  "The hand of God plain as anything,' said Aunt.

  'Say rather the King's stupidity,' said Ferris.

  She tutted. 'And Torrington? Was that the King's doing too?'

  'No, Hopton's,' Ferris teased her. 'He was the one fired the church.'

  'God works through men, Christopher,' she reproached him. 'To ignore His help is to provoke His anger.'

  'Very true,' Ferris answered. He filled his mouth with pork, as one who is done talking.

  I knew about Torrington. Fairfax had fought his way into the town a fortnight earlier, and as the Parliamentary troops advanced towards the church the sacred edifice had 'gone up like a powder keg', which indeed it was: nearly two hundred barrels of Cavalier gunpow­der stored in God's house, which their commander, Hopton, did not scruple to demolish. Fairfax himself escaped injury from the stone, lead and burning timber that rained down upon the earth like World's End. Hugh Peter, likewise, lived to preach amid the rubble in the mar­ketplace the following day. Aunt was delighted by the extreme good fortune of these two godly men. I tried not to think about what must have happened to those around them.

  Instead I worried over the words Zeb had flung at me earlier. Feel­ing sick, I continued to chew on the tough cut of pork as I rehearsed my memory, over and over. It was now clear to me that I had taken Zeb into the orchard (his shirt on? off?) and there beaten him over the back and shoulders. Then - a blank. Further than that I could not get, I could remember nothing of what followed. Surely I would, if- if—

  It was all nonsense, an accusation born of spite. A man could not

  do such a thing and forget it. Suddenly, a dry voice I had heard before whispered, Why did you take him into the orchard?

  'Jacob?'

  I started guiltily. Ferris was leaning towards me.

  'We are talking of you and the tents; I told Aunt how well you get on with the cutting.'

  I forced a modest smile. 'Less well with the stitching.'

  "There we come to it! Aunt, will you be so kind as to show
him?'

  I thought he was rather too quick. She looked unwilling, and even setting aside the awkwardness between us, I had scarce the air of a likely pupil.

  'Plain sewing?' she enquired. 'Cannot Becs do that?'

  'She has not sufficient leisure. Besides, Jacob must learn for him­self, and you are the better teacher.’ Ferris made a pleading face.

  She pursed her lips, considering. I wondered what she saw when­ever she looked at me.

  'He needs to learn tacking and how to make seams and turn over edges,’ urged her nephew.

  'If you know what's to be done as well as that, can't you teach him?' she shot back.

  'Knowing and doing are different things. He needs someone practised.' Ferris sat like a schoolboy begging a half-holiday, until she laughed at his earnest countenance.

  'Tomorrow,' she agreed at last.

  'Praise her, for her price is beyond rubies,' said Ferris. He took and kissed her hand.

  'I thank you most sincerely,’ I said, dismayed at the course of study my lover had prescribed. It came to me that Ferris had hit upon a means of occupying my time while he busied himself with preparation for his dear colony.

  The three of us were easier together than we had been for some days. I decided that if Aunt had guessed at us, which was by no means certain, she found it simplest to turn a blind eye. She played at chess with Ferris, while I looked over the more complicated kinds of tents by the light of a single candle. My head began to ache, so I left it off; but as soon as I shut up the book I felt Zeb's black

  gaze boring into me, so I watched their game instead. Aunt won, and was exultant. They set up again so that her nephew could get his revenge.

  The hangings were encrusted and Godfrey said I might use only a stick to cleanse them. I did well enough with the first and second pieces, slashing away until sweat polished my skin and the devices showed clear: the Lady and Unicorn, a Garden of Delight. One that stood by, watching, said I was a fine workman. When I laid into the third and last, the stick thudded dull against something sewn up in it, like a moth sealed in a leaf. I unfolded the tapestry to find Caro and Zeb looking up at me. They were lying packed about with a greyish dust, which dust flecked the air and stuck to my sweat. It settled on the hangings I had just cleaned, and when I turned to flog it away they laughed, so I raised my stick over them to teach them cleanliness. Caro shielded her face and turned her body away from me, into the folds of stuff. I brought the rod down on her back; she rolled deeper into the cloth and was gone. Searching for her I found stains and smears across the design and these came, I saw, from something stink­ing, which I was afraid to look at, on the ground nearby. At once I was in the orchard and come to beat Zeb. I turned and found him running at me with a scythe—

  I leapt out of sleep with a cry.

  Ferris was shaking me. 'Jacob! You're here, it's all right.'

  I looked round wildly. Zeb was gone.

  'What were you dreaming? You were throwing yourself about.'

  A fight.’ The comforting solidity of the chair, the grip of his hands on my shoulders brought me back to myself; I put my arms and legs around him and pulled him close in to me. Laying my head on his breast, I heard the heart beating clear and calm.

  'What time is it?' I muttered into the warmth of his shirt.

  'Eleven. Aunt's long gone to bed. Here, let me go,' and he fetched me some cordial from the sideboard. 'I thought you would have a fit.'

  I tasted the stuff with the tip of my tongue and found it pleasant enough. The misery of Zebedee settled back on my soul.

  'Do you think, Ferris, that people know what we do? Do we betray ourselves?'

  'No,' he answered at once. 'Tom and his friends don't know. Nor Dan.'

  'Zeb saw it in you when you talked to him.'

  'Indeed?' he asked with quick interest.

  'He said you admired him.'

  Ferris laughed. 'Your brother is used to admiration and is grown to expect it. He fancies himself a lady-killer, that I could tell on first meeting.'

  'He has cause.’ My jealousy was a little soothed, but not my fear of discovery. 'Zeb knew about me, too,' I added.

  'He's known you for years, who better?'

  Following Zeb's accusations about beating, this was as comforting to me as a peach full of needles.

  'Try not to think on him,’ urged Ferris. 'What do they say? What's past repair is past despair.'

  'He could have us burnt.'

  'Is that what's giving you nightmares?' He came over and took my hand. 'It needs evidence. He wouldn't get any, Becs loves my aunt too well.'

  I was silent.

  'I forgot to tell you,' he said coaxingly, 'but I had a visitor while you were out.'

  'Ah.'

  'Won't you guess who?'

  'Keats?'

  'Botts. You know, we may have to take him.'

  I groaned. 'In God's name, what for? All he offers is physick. I'd sooner fee a doctor in the ordinary way.'

  'That's where you're wrong,' Ferris answered. 'What we need most is hands. Forget professions. We need people to dig, and strong ones -the women will help, but we need men.'

  I grudgingly admitted to myself the sense of this. 'Who have we got? You, me—?'

  'Botts, Hathersage, Tunstall. Five in all. Then the women: Cather­ine, Susannah, Hepsibah. I can't see anyone else coming in.'

  'Jack and Dorothy?'

  He shook his head.

  I was wide awake now. 'Ferris, why would a man like Botts, a sur­geon, want to join us? There must be something amiss.'

  'He's friendless,' said Ferris. 'By the look of him, I'd say his only friend is drink.'

  'And you still think we should take him?'

  'He'll find it hard to carouse where we're going, and if he does -well, an end to his time with us.'

  'I suppose you'll ask me to throw him out.'

  'Jacob, Man of Peace,' he pronounced in a ringing pulpit voice. 'But consider, it could turn the fellow round. That's a noble thing.'

  'I see it is decided,' I said, remarking the familiar far-off shine in his eyes. 'But he'd best dig like a slave for I'll none of his medicine. If I find himself a leech on my side, I'll burn him off.'

  'Give the man a chance,' said Ferris.

  'He's a toad, an offence to the eyes.'

  'Not a Christian objection. Come,’ he asked slyly,’ would you rather he were a golden lad?'

  There was no disputing that point and I saw it was simplest to give way, since Ferris would surely tire of him in due course. We talked a while longer before bed. Ferris wished to go to Page Common the next day and look about for a good place, while I stayed in Cheapside 'learning to make my sampler' as he put it. While I was willing to stitch like a little maid if need be, I thought him unfitted to choose land by himself. We agreed he should go about business in the city and we would go to the common the day after that. Though the print-room was near piled to the beams with stores, there was still plenty to attend to. Harmonious, we went quietly upstairs.

  I woke in an agony of fear, clammy, my eyes stinging, cheeks awash with tears. In my terror I had pushed the sheets away, and the air was cold on my damp flesh. I reached out to touch Ferris. He was gone, and I remembered he was returned to his own couch.

  I rose and felt the wet hair stick on my forehead as I dragged the covers up from the boards, wrapping myself tight. They, at least,

  were dry: they warmed my chill, slippery skin with the dumb comfort of familiar things. I lay motionless in my dark burrow, breathing his smell. I would have given much to have him hold me and talk to me then, but a grown man is not driven to another's bed by a nightmare. Besides, Ferris did not believe in the Devil.

  Morning came, and was sunny. I was up betimes, more cheerful for the light at the window, and raised the latch of his door. Ferris had drawn back the bed curtains and was lying awake, hands behind his head. He threw me a look of innocent contentment. I saw directly that he was already full of the day's business, and would
come home with more seed samples, diagrams and schemes for planting. Never such an industrious man, if his heart were only in the work. And kind, for he wished to recall Botts from the vice of drink. He is as good as Izzy, I insisted silently to the Voice, which had whispered in my ears all night, promising I should watch him burn.

  'Are you well, Jacob?'

  'Just bad dreams.'

  'That won't do at all. We need you strong for the needlework.' He looked at me with amusement. 'Who was that Greekish hero, another big fellow, had to sew like a woman?'

  'More of that,'I threatened, 'and I lay down my needle.'

  'I'll get cords for the tent today,' he said. ‘’Twill be a fine thing to see it go up.'

  I would have liked to stay and watch him dress, but knew it was best not to, so closed the door and descended the stairs.

  Aunt sat at the table, evidently just served; she nodded to me, her mouth full of bread. In front of her, some of the very best manchet. After saying Grace, I took a large piece for myself.

  'Shall we start this morning?' she asked, pleasantly enough. I said I was ready and at her command. Ferris joined us before I had finished the first bit of bread, and had the aspect of an angel - not an angel of vengeance like Zeb, but a warm one, still dreamy from his bed. His evident happiness tugged at me and I could see Aunt was drawn likewise. Impossible to look coldly on one who breathes joy. My life on

  it, he is not damned, I thought. I watched him eat the bread; he had an excellent appetite.

  'I shall be out all day,' he said on getting up from the table, 'un­less I get too tired or have too much to carry. But tonight, you'll see marvels!'

  'Not the first man to promise marvels,' said Aunt.

  'And I shall find Jacob fit to clothe the Pope of Rome.'

  'If he wears tents,'I said.

  Ferris kissed his aunt and made eyes at me from behind her chair. I could not help but laugh as I wished him a good day. He rammed his hat on askew and was gone.

  At ten - that is, after an Eternity - I was permitted to take some salep, provided I brought my stitching with me. The pieces Aunt had set me to join were now bloody as a soldier's bandage, but none could say they were not fairly tacked together. As for me, I felt ready to run or fight, do anything but sit down and bend my strength to such fiddly work. It was far worse than cutting out. What patience Ferris must have, to have learnt to sew.