McCann, Maria - As Meat Loves Salt

by Balefanio

  'My hands are too big. I will never be able to do it right,' I told her.

  "There speaks sloth. Anyone can do it in time.' She drew up her mouth. 'I made that sampler behind you when I was nine years old.'

  I nearly said, ‘And a very great loss of time it was,'but stopped my­self. There was no need to examine the sampler, for there was so little ornament in the room that I had often looked it over and knew it off by heart: a row of bandy gentlemen, all sons of the one rickety father, advanced upon a line of ladies with waists long and thin as bedposts, perhaps to ask the ladies to dance, perhaps to snap them in half. In the centre of this masterpiece were the alphabet and numbers up to ten, the words 'SARAH TUKE HER WORK' and the date - the only thing I could not call to mind without looking — above the words, A Virtuous Woman Is A Crown Unto Her Husband stitched in faded green.

  'A splendid piece,' I offered. 'How many years had you been learn­ing?'

  'I can't remember when the needle was not put in my hand directly after breakfast.'

  'Admirable.' I wondered at the resilience of girl-children; perhaps such labour was to their taste.

  Aunt took up my cloth and unpicked the seam I had just made. I cried out in protest.

  She laughed. 'Did you think I should frame it? Now, do it again, and less bloody this time.'

  I sat in the window, taking care that the stuff was invisible from the street. A door slammed downstairs: perhaps Ferris was come back. I bent my head industriously to the task.

  'Mister Beste,' announced Becs. Her voice trailed off to see my occupation; I know not who was more surprised, herself or me. I had thought never to see Harry again. He was through the door before I had time to lay aside the work.

  'Mistress Snapman, good day.'They bobbed at one another. ‘And Jacob, well met!'

  It was a fair enough greeting. He took my hands between his and I saw no ill feeling in him.

  'I shall leave you gentlemen to conduct your business,' said Aunt. She hurried downstairs to stir Becs up to hospitality.

  'Pray be seated,' I said nervously. 'Ferris will be out most of the day.'

  Harry settled back in his chair. 'I am glad to catch you alone,' he began. 'I have apologies to make.'

  'I should rather give you thanks. My good fortune was you stopped me before I killed him,' I answered.

  'I would be sorry to see you hang for such a braggart fool.'

  I smiled, knowing he had floored me for Elizabeth. 'Your wife is well?'

  Aye. It was she bade me come. We are willing to start again - par­don my blunt words — on the express understanding that you govern your wrath. Without that condition,' he shook his head, 'I fear nothing can be done.'

  'I school myself in patience,' I said, my cheeks and ears hot. 'Do you see my task?'

  Harry took up the white cloth, amused. 'What, are you doing pen­ance?'

  'I suffer enough for it. He has me stitching tents.'

  'And how do you like the work, Mistress?'

  'Worse than the army.'We laughed together and I began to feel at ease. 'He thinks of setting up soon,' I went on. 'We are to look over some land tomorrow, Page Common.'

  'Of course, you must plough.' Frowning, he pulled up a chair to join me at the fire. 'Elizabeth and I will give it thought.'

  'He will be overjoyed to see you again. After you left he was so grieved he said he could beat me himself

  Harry grinned. 'Shall we come with you tomorrow? I can shut up shop.'

  'I'll ask him — no, come with us. If we were to meet here at nine? I don't know if he means to hire a coach or walk.'

  'Nine, then. Her sister will take the children.'

  Becs pushed open the door with a tray. On it, a flask of wine, cups and a large venison pasty cut in two pieces. She laid them on the table without looking at me and went straight out.

  'Cream gone sour there.' Harry stared after her. 'She looked at you in another style altogether when last I visited. Have we tasted the goods, Jacob?'

  'Something like that.' He would not have talked so before Ferris; I prayed Becs was not listening behind the door. The wine she had brought us was the cheapest, not normally served to guests, but Harry drank it down with seeming pleasure. The pasty was good, crisp and hot.

  When he had eaten we shook hands and he left. I was in a rare excitement and could scarce wait to tell Ferris. Even when Aunt set me to slave at my third seam I lost no time in sulks, but instead turned out a pretty straight line and only two bloodspots. My reward was paltry, for she announced that I should next go on to backstitch, but I was given leave to take a walk, and availed myself of it: up and down Cheapside to take the air. I heard a young lass tell her friend that I was a proper-looking man and came back to the house with my head

  swelled, taking Vanity's pains to walk straight and tall, and very glad my admirer did not know of my course of study.

  Backstitch was even more of a torment than tacking. My needle bred herringbones where I wanted straight lines. At last I was freed by the failing light. Aunt lit the candles and said we should stop.

  'Christopher is late,' she complained.

  At once I saw him with Zeb, his gentleness spitted on a knife blade. I suspected that, despite his savage talk, my brother had no special hatred for Ferris; yet the vision frighted me. Zeb is more like me than I knew, I thought to myself.

  But Ferris came in unscathed. Though tired, he had evidently car­ried his joy with him all day and brought it safe home again.

  'What have you bought?' I asked, for I could see nothing but pa­pers.

  'I have put in orders for drainage spades, to collect next week. And a yoke for the ploughing. And ..' here he listed a great many things. I waited in patience till I could get his attention.

  When I told him of Harry's return he clapped his hands together and crowed.

  'Excellent good fortune! Let's drink to it!' He seized on the wine left by Harry and myself. I thought the taste might give him pause, but not a bit. Aunt, however, was not pleased when she took a mouth­ful of what Becs had seen fit to serve with her good venison pasty and she went downstairs to tell her so. Ferris hugged me and the vinegary wine spilled over my linen and its backstitch. He snatched up the work and pored over it, laughing.

  'I will get better,' I protested.

  We talked of the journey to Page Common, my aim being to se­cure some companion who, like me, had knowledge born of experience and not pamphlets, for I knew that nothing I said would be listened to. Ferris was pleased to see me take an interest, and by consent I sent next door's boy with a note to Jeremiah Andrews, the gardener, requesting the pleasure of his company on our great expedition. Aunt had brought up a better wine and it went round pretty freely, so that by the time the rest of the venison appeared in a hotpot we were all three foolish and cheerful. We dined well, played cards for love and retired early.

  Without the friendly warmth of the drink I might have turned melancholy, for to me the drainage spades were almost as ominous as the spiteful whisperings which had begun, once again, to infect my sleep. Afraid of the nightmare, I crept into Ferris's room and folded my arms about him. He sighed happily and pressed against me, and I kept him as close as an amulet. Clasping him thus, I felt myself safe; my dreams were innocent, and upon my asking him in the morning had I spoken or struggled, he said no, I had been still and quiet all the night.

  We set off for the common in time, and Jeremiah came in answer to my invitation. He seemed modestly pleased to see us, a little stiff with me at first but that wore off and he was soon lamenting the dearth of corn and other things, caused by so many crops being tram­pled down and the fields rained into mud. I had suggested to Ferris that we hire a coach, for it was a weary long way and Harry's youngest child being still at the breast had to be carried with us. When the Bestes arrived, however, Harry was driving an ox-cart. Ferris's eyes shone at such an addition to the common storehouse, until the smith told him that the cart had been borrowed.

  Jolted along greasy a
lleys, I craned at parts of the city I had never seen before and would never know now. I watched Ferris's face grow eager as we neared the place, and by the time we got down at the inn he was breathing as fast as a fever patient. Looking about me, I saw a soft, wet, rolling country with marsh grass and buttercups on the downward slopes and in the bottoms. Less than two miles off the ground rose and the grass and bushes darkened into trees. Towards these we walked, strolling along with no great idea how to proceed.

  As always, I was between amusement and despair at my friend's lack of knowledge. Harry and Elizabeth were nearly as bad, and send­ing for Jeremiah was perhaps the wisest thing I ever did, for Ferris's ignorance was only outgone by his stubbornness. Having been told by me that a green plant found everywhere among the grass was a kind of buttercup, and would show bright yellow come May, he was much taken with the idea. He remembered to have seen buttercups, and thought their brightness must show a good fertile place.

  'They mean the soil is wet,' Jeremiah and I answered together. Harry nodded, as if to say he had known this all along.

  'Here is too lush, it will turn rank,' Jeremiah went on. 'The clay may be under water in the winter. We could put a cow on it, but—' he shook his head.

  My shoe leather was sodden. We trudged on to a place where the land was stonier and more uneven. There was space for several strips before it dipped down again to the treacherous buttercups.

  'Better, apart from the stone,’ pronounced the gardener.

  'Stone has its uses,' said Ferris. 'We can put it in the ditches and soughs.'

  Jeremiah said, 'You have been reading, I perceive.'

  Ferris looked up quickly but it was not Jeremiah's intention to make a mock of him.

  'Don't you think it a good plan, Jeremiah?’ I asked.

  'It's well enough.'

  'When we drained a piece of land at Beaurepair,' I recalled, 'we stuffed the ditches with hedge trimmings.'

  'That's good too.'

  'What is a sough?' asked Elizabeth, who unlike Harry had no fear of revealing her ignorance.

  Ferris glanced over at Jeremiah. 'You will correct me if I go astray? A sough is a hole dug under the ground, Elizabeth. You first dig a pit for a man to stand in, and then he goes round and round with his spade and digs out all the earth underneath. And so you get a hole like a narrow-necked vessel, broad at the base but with a small opening at the top, and the turf mostly left in place.'

  'But the turf would fall in, surely,’ said she. 'Suppose a man walked on it? Like the crust over a bag.’ The child choosing this moment to plunge in her arms, she caught it and held it fast.

  'You pack the hole with hedging,' answered Ferris.

  Elizabeth still looked puzzled, and Jeremiah took over: 'Then the water can drain out of the soil and into your sough. It flows round the twigs, or stones, or whatever, and stays there. And so you get a drier field.'

  At Beaurepair the land went down by a foot in the end,' I recalled. And from being spongy, it got so that you could drive a coach across it.'

  'Surely your Master cared nothing for land drainage,' said Ferris.

  'He did, when I was a child,’ I answered. 'I guess the drink grew on him later.'

  Strange, the memory of Sir John sober and purposeful. And God­frey - I saw him younger, full of authority, ordering the digging. He it was who had some snap brought out to the workers, bread and cold beef and cider. Pain stirred in me as I recalled that in those days I looked up to him, loved him even. He was childless and craved a son, which made him kind to all of us Cullens. Me he called a fine lad; he let me beg food in the kitchen, made much of me. Some fif­teen years ago. When did I first look on him with the young man's scorn for the greybeard? Of the three of us, only Izzy honoured him in later life.

  'All decays.' I jumped, unsure whether I had spoken aloud. But none answered me, and I thought Ferris, walking in front, had prob­ably not heard.

  The ground rose and then flattened again as we approached the trees. Here, the grass had a different feel.

  "This is your place of choice for corn,' said Jeremiah. 'It needs a drier earth. Put beasts to graze away the weeds from the top here, then plough, and keep the stock where the grass is lushest.'

  Ferris said, 'I thought to sow dredge.'

  "That might be well elsewhere, but your new-turned clay is no good for barley. I'd put down rye the first year—'

  'Peas and vetch also?' Ferris asked. 'And what think you of beans?'

  Jeremiah nodded a guarded approval; evidently he thought Ferris, inflamed with study, in need of calming rather than encouragement.

  Ferris began, 'When I have dug the sough—'

  'We must dig latrines as well as soughs,' I cut in. 'Nay, before soughs.’ The thought oppressed me at the heart's root, not for the labour, but for the return to army days, the filthy crouching and the stink. Ferris and Jeremiah turned to me in surprise.

  'Latrines! That's well thought on,' said Harry. 'Where should they be placed?'

  'I am for having none,' said Ferris at once. 'It were a waste not to dung the fields.'

  Elizabeth looked grim, and for myself I could have wept. Shitting in a furrow, in rain and snow, that was the very thing to appeal to him; and I wondered, as I often did, why one decently and pleasantly raised must needs set comfort at nought.

  'We will talk of it another time,' I said, resolved to dig a place whether he would or no.

  We explored the woods, slipping on roots and fallen branches, ser­enaded at every step by the snapping of twigs. Evidently few or none gathered the timber. When we found a spring with a deep natural basin beneath, there was a general cry of delight at our good fortune, especially when all had tasted the water and judged it good. Ferris clapped Harry and me on the shoulders. I knew then that the spring had sealed our fate.

  Walking back, I was saddened by thoughts of Godfrey. But as Ferris had said, what was past repair was past despair, so I addressed myself to Jeremiah, asking him if he thought this spot a wise choice.

  'As good as most,' he answered, disappointing my secret hopes. 'You'll get something out of it. How many are you?'

  'Five. Men, that is.'

  Jeremiah frowned. 'Have you cattle?’ The women he evidently con­sidered as not worth asking after.

  'We are promised a milch-cow by some women that would join us. Ferris is to buy us oxen and he has bespoke an ox-cart for carrying tools and suchlike.'

  'He pours out gold.'

  'He's one that can't go by halves.' Sensing some caution in Jer­emiah, I said slowly, "The last time we were in company together, I disraced myself, for which I beg pardon.'

  He bent his head in acknowledgement.

  I went on, 'I have sworn to Ferris he shall never witness such a scene again; or at least, I shall not be the actor.'

  "That were well,' he said shortly.

  'So,' I went on, 'what think you - would you consider joining with us again? Now you see the land?'

  He paused, tongue pressed to his top teeth.

  'If the enterprise will fail, 'twere best to say so,' I pleaded.

  'No reason it should fail,' he replied, surprised. 'Many live off worse ground. ’Twill be what you make it, but methinks you need more colo­nists.'

  'More men?'

  'Skilled men.'

  'And if we find them, will you join us?'

  'I will consider it.'

  That was as much as I could get from him. Should I press further, he would shun me as being still too masterful, so there was no more to be done.

  We climbed back onto the cart. Elizabeth drew her cloak about her and put the babe to her breast. I wondered would she be honoured by the fruits of her body in old age. No child would ever honour me. Or blame me, neither; but I was like to go hungry in my dotage. I im­agined myself weak, patiently swallowing insults for lack of a defence. Harry, meanwhile, talked of ploughs, their wooden and iron parts. After a while I became aware of Ferris watching me, and understood that his mournful face mirrored
my own. I forced myself to smile.

  At the end of Cheapside, Ferris, Jeremiah and I descended from the cart together. Each colonist had sobered on the journey back, now that the New Jerusalem had ceased shining with amethyst and pearl and had shown itself of the earth, earthy: a place of soughs, stones and dung. Harry and Elizabeth went off briskly, wishing us a good night. Jeremiah came some of the way home with Ferris and me, talking of the pamphlet on setting which Ferris had found and had bidden me study. The gardener thought this new way might shield the seeds from birds.

  'Bird-starving is a kind of work to drive you mad,' he commented. 'What you need is a boy to do it and do nowt else until the grain has had a chance to get going.'

  'But if we set, there'll be less grain lost?' asked Ferris.

  A man would think so. I use a dibble in the garden and I find it answers.'

  A stick for poking holes in the earth,' I put in before Ferris could ask.

  Jeremiah halted. 'This is my turning. God be with you, gentle­men.'

  'And with you,' I replied. Ferris smiled and nodded; we all bowed. I watched Jeremiah go, his even, springy steps giving him the gait of one much younger.

  'A valuable fellow,' said Ferris. 'Would he would come back to us.'

  'I have asked him to consider.'

  'Well done.' He linked my arm as we made our way along the road. It was dark, and the cold meant there were few folk about. I thought lovingly of the fire at home.

  'This weather doesn't help us,' Ferris lamented.

  'It doesn't help the weeds, neither.'

  'Right you are, Colin Clout.'

  'Who's he?'

  A name for a shepherd. Countryman.'

  'Ferris, don't take offence if I ask something.'

  'There's a warning! I don't promise. Ask.'

  'When I was in the army, I heard that some of the London men, first time out of town, ran in crowds to see the cows. Was that you?'

  'I'm not ashamed of it,'he answered, laughing.