McCann, Maria - As Meat Loves Salt

by Balefanio

  By far the better course, however, were to quit now; that is the best advice that can be got from one who, though he dare not sign this, yet considers himself

  Your Friend

  Post scriptum: there is a taking up of mail from the inn, and paper and quills to be had there.

  The rest of the community were now crowding round us. Ferris and I stared at one another.

  'This was quick in arriving,' he said suspiciously. 'Who brought it?' 'Here,' said Hepsibah. She held up the hand of a little boy whom

  I had not previously remarked, and who might be eight years old. 'He lives at the inn.'

  "The innkeeper has heard them talking,' said Ferris.

  'No.' I said. 'It's one of the servants that were here. See, "he of the sallow complexion", that's me. One of them was looking very kindly at me: that's our unknown friend.'

  'It could be a trick,' mused Jeremiah.

  'Tell us again who gave you the note, sweetheart,' crooned Hepsibah.

  'A gentleman,’ said the child. 'There was five come in for some sack and he said he had some business to write to his brother that was in London, and could he have a quill, and then he give it my Dad and said it was to go on the coach. And he give him a groat and winked, and wrote something else down on it. And when they was all gone my Dad says, Walter, go over the common.'

  I turned over the letter. On the verso, we found the words By hand to the diggers at Page Common, I pray you fail me not.

  'That's it then,' said Susannah.

  'But this puts a different complexion on it,' Catherine cried excit­edly. 'We must write to this Sir Timothy.'

  'We must,' Hathersage echoed her. 'Who shall be the one to write?'

  I looked at Ferris. His face was grey. He walked slowly into the hayfield, took up a sickle and began to cut.

  'Let us all consider, and decide what's to be done later,' I said. I wandered back into the wood and went round the snares by myself. In one of them I found a rabbit, and in another a rook. The rabbit, caught by the hindleg, plunged in terror seeing its deathsman approach. It began to scream as I came within a yard of it and only ceased when I twisted its head nearly off the neck. The rook, luckier, was already dead and maggoty. I threw it into a bush.

  When I went back, rabbit over my shoulder, I found the rest gath­ered round a dish of pottage, all except Ferris, whose back was still bent over the sheaves of grass.

  'He doesn't wish for company,' said Hepsibah in reply to my look. 'Leave him, Jacob, and eat.' She lifted the rabbit and dropped

  it onto Harry's makeshift table, then ladled some of the hot mess of lentils into a bowl for me. I hesitated, but in the end seated my­self on the grass next to Jeremiah. Catherine, who was sitting op­posite, seemed disappointed that I was not to bring Ferris back to the fireside.

  'What have you been talking of?' I asked, wanting to know what kept my friend in the hayfield while others took food and rest.

  'We think of staying here at least two weeks,' said Hathersage. 'If we get through that, well, something may happen in our favour.'

  'Such as?' I cooled the pottage by blowing on it.

  'Sir Timothy. We want Brother Christopher to write.'

  'Does he want to?'

  'Surely he will,' said Catherine. 'He brought us all together, he'll not abandon us now, will he?'

  'He may not wish to endanger you, Catherine,' said Hepsibah.

  I added, 'He wanted peace in this place. He's no swordsman.'

  'He was in the army,' the young woman insisted.

  'He hated it.' I was not come so far with Ferris only to see him heroically spitted. A coldness against Catherine was spreading within me, and I turned to Hepsibah. 'You think we were best depart?'

  'I am unsure, Jonathan likewise. The letter does count for some­thing, but—' she frowned.

  'Harry?'

  He did not hear me, for he was looking over at the figure crouched in the field, but Elizabeth pleadingly answered, 'The children, Jacob.'

  'You do right,' Susannah soothed her.

  Jonathan and Jeremiah examined their bowls and spoons.

  'If we were right once, we are right now,' exclaimed Hathersage. 'God rewards the faithful servant. Our part is to labour in the vine­yard, leaving the pay to Him. This I told Brother Christopher.'

  'He needs no telling,’ I heard myself say.

  Hathersage ignored me. 'A glorious future awaits! He must not be suffered to fall back from the heat of the combat.'

  'Do you mean a glorious martyrdom?' I asked. 'Seek it yourself if you please, I see no reason why he should drain the cup with you.'

  The others were gone very quiet. Catherine regarded Hathersage

  with ardent eyes; he caught the look and took a deep breath to go on. My poor Ferris, I thought, now you pay for charming these two.

  'My conscience demands I speak to him,' added Hathersage. He laid aside the bowl of pottage as if about to rise. 'Speak, and wrestle for his soul.'

  'I hope you're a good wrestler,' I said. 'Because if you go near him now, much less preach, I'll break your arm.'

  'Jacob!' cried Catherine. I looked about me and saw shock on the women's faces, all except Susannah, who was silently shaking her head at me.

  'Not another Botts,' warned Jonathan.

  'If you value this enthusiast, persuade him to sit in peace,’ I hissed. To Hathersage I spoke no more, but fixed on him as a cat watches a mousehole.

  'Why may Wisdom not speak with him or with any, the same as yourself?' pouted Catherine.

  I felt myself on dangerous ground. 'Brother Christopher,' I hesi­tated at the feel of the name in my mouth, 'is in travail; he knows only too well all that you would say. Pray do not torment him.'

  'But Wisdom wishes only—'

  'Catherine, not a word,' rapped out Susannah.

  Hathersage again made to rise and I sprang to my feet. He faltered and sank down.

  'What!' I taunted. 'Is the heat of combat all for him?'

  Hathersage burnt scarlet.

  'Jacob,' said Jeremiah.

  'Aye?' I screwed my eyes into Hathersage's.

  'Suppose Brother Christopher chooses to stay.'

  "Then he chooses.'

  'He is coming,' said Harry. Ferris was crossing the field, slowly, shaking out his slender arms and rubbing his elbows. He squatted in­nocently next to Hathersage, who passed him some lentils. After one mouthful Ferris laid down the spoon.

  'I have been thinking, friends,' he announced, in so humble a voice it made me want to weep. 'Whoever wishes to go must go. I shall write to my aunt to give you a consideration when you get back to London.'

  'We shall not be wanting that,' said Harry promptly.

  'And for those who want to stay, I shall write to Sir Timothy,' he went on. He did not look at me. 'But we may wait at least a month for his help.'

  'Or lack of it,' I muttered. I held out my bowl for more pottage and ate it too hot, burning all the way down.

  That afternoon, Harry and Elizabeth packed up their gear and left; they purchased a mule in the village, at great cost, and took with them the anvil and other gear on a cart.

  'We'll not come to want, for he's excellent at his trade,' said Eliza­beth, standing with her infant clutched to her neck and the eldest, suddenly tearful, by her side. 'It is you we think of, friends. I would you were all safe.' She kissed each of us on the cheek.

  Her husband, the little girl on his back, bowed to us all; the child crowed at the sudden motion. He placed his hands on Ferris's shoul­ders and held his gaze. 'Be not braver than the times require.'

  Elizabeth's eyes were wet. Her husband laid a hand on her arm as she said, 'Let us make an end. Take care of my sisters, you men. Broth­ers and husbands are meant for our protectors.'

  I thought she looked at me, perhaps because, Harry gone, I was the only man of any strength. We stood and watched them depart just as Ferris's neighbours had watched us. Before disappearing behind a hedge at the end of the field they bo
th turned and waved their arms as if to send us good fortune. I saw they had some trouble with the mule, and then the cart was round the hedge and they were gone.

  The rest of us went silently to the field to tend the hay. I would say each felt himself diminished, for the Bestes had been loved. I owed Harry much, and in the days that followed I found, to my surprise, that I missed the prattle of their children.

  That same afternoon, about an hour after their departure, Ferris leapt up from the field and went to the tent, not reappearing until the evening meal was served. After it, he drew me aside and showed me his work. He had scrubbed his hands, found some paper and com­posed two letters: one to his aunt, telling her nothing of his danger but only that she must reimburse, for their pains, any of our company

  who came to her; the other, not unlike one of his pamphlets in happier times, to Sir Timothy Heys. This letter to Sir Timothy he showed also to the other colonists, then sealed it up and joined in the haymaking.

  We laboured on in the clear bright evening as the moon rose pur­plish-red. I watched it take the colour of an apricot, then turn to pur­est snow, cooling both sky and earth.

  Ferris was up by moonlight to put his letters in the mail bag in person. Lying sleepless, I heard him stumbling around in the next hut, then his footsteps thudding over the grass. I opened my door and a low white mist came pouring in like the sea, a sea which parted in swirls as Ferris moved through it, a solitary wader in the darkness.

  I rose shortly after sunrise and began feeding the embers for the new day's fire. The mist had lifted; a sharp wind fanned the flames into the pine cones and wood shavings I had laid as kindling. It looked to be a clear, dry morning. I fetched some beer and cold cooked beans from the tent; beans, beans, beans, like the army. Soon I had a good-sized blaze in the firepit; I swung the cauldron over it for an early start.

  Susannah came out from the hut she shared with her sister-in-law. I thought how the colony had made a difference between the two of them, for while Catherine was grown more bouncing, Susannah had aged. Her eyes were rheumy and puffy, her skin daubed with yellowish splotches. She sat beside me with no more salutation than a nod, and I was grateful for the quiet. I passed over my dish of beans and we shared it, taking mouthfuls by turns.

  'Where is he?' she asked, licking the spoon.

  'Gone to post his letters.’ I saw no reason to tell her he had set out in the dark.

  'Can't you make him go home, Jacob?'

  That was the first time I ever really saw her. I had examined Cath­erine Domremy many a time, taking stock of her beauty and how it

  might move Ferris, but in looking at Susannah I had remarked noth­ing save the injuries Page Common had done her complexion.

  She went on, 'Catherine adores her hero. Wisdom is- unwise.' Her look was level. 'But the rest will hear reason.'

  'I can make him do nothing.'

  Her mouth sagged in disappointment.

  I added,’ I never wished to come here.'

  'You can be made to do things, Jacob?' She smiled wryly. 'You are too fond of your fists, my friend. Break Wisdom's arm, forsooth!'

  'He merits it. Thanks to Hathersage and— and others, Ferris feels himself bound to stay.'

  Susannah let out a long sigh. 'There I can do little. But tell me, is he not afraid?'

  'Mortally.'

  I put fresh branches on the fire. Susannah covered her eyes with her hands, yawning noisily through the soft O of her lips, before going back to the beans. I watched her smooth the hair back from her brow, and felt that this woman might be capable of good counsel.

  'You were married, were you not?' I asked her.

  'You know it.'

  'I have heard that women can accomplish things by wiles.'

  'Is this a man's wile? If so, it is threadbare. Out with it, what is it you want?'

  'Susannah. How would you get him home?'

  'Did I not ask you that?'

  We finished up our breakfast in silence, then took our forks and rakes into the field, to turn the hay. About an hour later, Ferris came back to us, with a face so cold and pale he seemed still to be walking in the night mist. Susannah prevailed on him to rest a little before he took up work. The rest of the colonists hastened to turn as much as we might before the sun grew too hot.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Things Called By Their Right Names

  IT was as well, in the end, that we had the hay to deal with, for in raking, cocking, throwing together and the rest, we brazened out some part of our fortnight. I gave myself up to the work, and when I laid down my head to sleep the haycocks at once arose behind my eyelids.

  But our labours could not blot out Sir George: the women wept for the slightest thing, and there were bickerings each day. Then, at the end of the two weeks, nothing having happened, a surge of joy burst out in our society. Hathersage praised the Lord at length. Our secret friend was evidently well informed, and I hoped he might find some way to warn us when the attack came - for that it would come, I never doubted.

  The crop dried sweet and wholesome in the sun.

  'God smiles on us,' sang out Hathersage. I checked that Ferris was out of earshot before asking him had he ever heard how the Devil sets snares for men, baiting them with good fortune. The light died in his face. He had not dared speak to Ferris about staying on, yet my heart had ever since been violently hardened against him, and we scarce exchanged a civil word. But I encountered with him in dreams. One night I lay between Hathersage and Catherine, and covered them both; they were my prisoners of war, and I was rough with them, as conquerors are. Waking, I was apprehensive lest I should have called out and been heard.

  The next day I considered this dream, knowing full well what had brought it on. Ferris would not go to the wood with me, so that I was starved for him. Though I pleaded and even threatened, still he kept off. Once or twice I woke to hear him groaning in a nightmare, but could give no comfort. I knew that I would find the door of his hut closed against me, and I stayed where I was.

  'I sleep ill since the horsemen came,' was all the explanation I could win from him. But after a week or so, I heard no more cries at night, his eyes were no longer haggard and he seemed more sanguine, even hopeful of a letter from Sir Timothy. Still he denied me. Daily one of our number walked to the inn in search of the letter; daily I besieged my lover, and was repulsed. But I could be cunning. The day after my dream, I lay in wait for Ferris and entered his hut just as Jonathan was coming out, closing the door behind me.

  He raised his eyebrows as if to say, This trick will not serve.

  'What ails you?' said I. 'Why do you treat me—'

  'Nothing, nothing. I am worried.'

  'It is ten days,' I pleaded in a whisper.

  He regarded the floor, evidently ill at ease.

  'Have you something wrong — there?' I went on. 'Some malady—'

  'No, there I'm well enough.'

  I put my arms round him and crushed him into me. 'Kiss me.'

  He turned his head away. I cupped his face in my hands and put my mouth to his, feeling him passive, obedient, as if getting it over with. It was what I had done to Becs, and now I tasted the full bitter­ness of it.

  I tugged on his hair, and none too gently. 'Beware, lest I bite.'

  He made no answer. I paused, humiliated, then realised he was tensed, holding his body off from mine. Seeing my face Ferris imme­diately made to pull away, but I grasped him by the hips and held him tightly to me. It was as I thought: his blood was up. I wriggled against him.

  'Jacob, don’t!’ he hissed into my neck.

  Burning, I let him go. 'All right, into the wood.'

  'No.'

  'You want me.'

  He was silent. I thought, this is not a thing to resolve by talk, or not this kind of talk. I kissed him again, gently prising open his lips to lick within, my hands stroking him under his shirt, keeping him close and not able to escape the taste or feel of me, until at last I felt myself kissed in earnest. When
I pulled away from him he strained after my mouth. I tongued his ear, bit it, whispered into it a lover's name I only used when riding him and so far gone that my flesh was fused into his. He pressed tightly into the hand that I slid down his breeches; I could feel his ribs rise and fall.

  'Shall it be here or in the wood?' I whispered.

  He moaned, 'The wood.'

  But it was too late for the wood. His surrender was complete.

  After that he did not try to keep me off any more. His brief chas­tity remained a puzzle, one he would not speak of, but having con­quered I was content. However, I made it my special study to please him, to make him feel in every bone the impossibility of doing with­out me. My cunning was rewarded: Ferris grew more amorous, and I felt myself safe. In the first heat of our reunion we worked side by side, so bound up in one another that every look between us was a prom­ise. God knows what the rest saw or did not see. We ourselves were blinded to what was going on before our eyes, and it was with a shock that I glanced up one afternoon from the furrow and saw, at the end of the field, Hathersage and Catherine, locked in an embrace.

  'How will they do?' Ferris's question was whispered, his smile lit by amusement; sitting by the fire after the evening meal, we watched the new lovers play with one another's fingers. 'Not in the wood, surely.' He stared at them, fascinated. 'What say you? A betrothal?'

  'You're jealous,' I said, feeling myself heart-happy and for once proof against all jealousy, for we planned a walk in the fields that night.

  'I'm not the one who dreamt of lying between them,' Ferris re­plied.

  'I should never have told you. Now you'll be teasing—'

  'Shush, here's news.'

  Susannah was approaching. She sat down beside me, her face per­plexed.

  'Is there to be a betrothal, then?' I asked, tipping my head in the direction of the turtle-doves.

  'Who knows?' She pulled up bits of dead grass between finger and thumb. 'If'twere hanging on my say-so, there'd be none.'

  Ferris stretched out, handsome in the firelight. Since he was come back to me, he had eaten more, slept better, and it showed. 'I thought you liked him, Sister?'

  'Setting aside the man, this isn't the time for betrothals, what with the trouble coming to us. And then to make young bones ...! Eliza­beth Beste took her babes off to safety. She'd a sight more sense than poor Catherine.'