However, no more than a few days later, when they were sitting together in the garden after supper, George spotted his chance to raise the matter. It was a flawless summer’s evening and all around them dusk was blurring the landscape to soft shades of indigo, purple and navy. From the eaves of the woodshed, pipistrelle bats were starting their nightly foray for food; in the henhouse, a gentle clucking signalled that the chickens were settling down to roost and from further down in the meadow came the lullaby of the cattle lowing; the only other punctuation to the velvety stillness being the occasional fluty call of a cuckoo.
‘Hear that?’ Mary remarked, as she sat propped against the trunk of the apple tree.
‘What’s that?’
‘The cuckoo; sounds like he’ll be gone soon:
The cuckoo comes in April
Sings his song in May
Changes his tune in the month of June
And then he flies away.’
Still searching his thoughts for a way to broach the matter on his mind he smiled and shot her a sideways glance.
‘Aye, soon, no doubt.’ Perhaps now would be a good moment; she did at least look calm. ‘Mary, I been thinking…’
When she turned to face him, he found himself looking directly into her eyes.
‘Aye? About cuckoos?’ Pulling idly at some stems of hawksbeard she gave a laugh that struck him as girlish and carefree.
‘No, not about cuckoos.’ He smiled. She was quite pretty when she laughed like that. ‘No, I been thinking that you ain’t going to be able to stay here much longer.’
‘Here where?’
‘Here at the cottage,’ he said, sitting upright beside her. ‘You’re not far off your time now and I do fret, especially about you going up an’ down that ladder on your own.’ For a moment he paused and then reached for her hand. ‘So I been thinking…’
‘So you just said.’
Clearly, she had already worked out what he was about to suggest, although he couldn’t decide whether that in itself was going to make his task easier or more difficult.
‘Ma thinks that you should go and stay there. They’ve got Granmer’s old room downstairs with the bed in it and there will be people around in case anything happens when I’m not about.’ Letting go of her hand, he picked at the side of his thumbnail. She was certainly being slow to react.
‘But I get along just fine and it’s not even like you go off to your meetings of an evening quite as often as you did through the wintertime… and when I can’t climb the ladder no more, well, we can put a pallet bed downstairs.’
‘I know but you’d still be alone all day. And it plays on my mind that this place is too far away for anyone to hear if you were to call out for help.’
‘But if I was at the farm, who would look after this place? And the vegetables? And who would look after you?’
‘Well, Ma’s happy for me to take supper down there with you and the family. And the evenings are light real late now, so for a couple of weeks I can take care of everything here after work.’
‘A couple of weeks?’ He watched as she pulled at a clump of grass to haul herself upright. ‘No, I’m not sure that’s a good idea at all. The garden alone would be hard going after a day’s work.’
‘Honestly, woman, don’t be so stubborn. Forget about the garden a minute and think instead about not having to do any chores. Think for a moment how they’ll spoil you.’
As he traced his finger around on the palm of her hand, it felt as though his words were suspended between them like the rich perfume of the sweetsuckle drifting across from the hedgerow in the warm and sultry darkness.
‘I suppose it might be quite nice,’ she conceded. ‘Although you know how I feel about Tom.’
‘But you’ve not had any bother with him since… since that time before, have you?’
‘No—’
‘No, ’tis like I told you; I took care of it, so there’s no need to werret on his account.’
‘But then there’s Annie…’
For some reason, hearing his wife speak Annie’s name still made him bristle.
‘I thought you said she was friendly to you now?’
‘I think what I said was that she’s more friendly toward me now, by which I meant that she’s stopped being quite so… horrible.’
She was coming around to the idea; he was almost certain of it. And it would be the best thing – the safest thing – for her.
‘Just think how nice it’ll be to spend the day with Ellen. You often remark how you wished you saw more of her.’
‘Hmm. Are you sure you can get by here on your own, though?’
‘Look, if I can’t, I’ll get Robert to help out. He’ll be up here like a shot if I offer him a few coins for his trouble.’
When she reached out for his other hand, he moved to put his arm around her shoulders. Why couldn’t things always feel as calm as they did at that precise moment?
‘I’ll miss you, though.’
‘An’ I’ll miss you too but I’ll see you every day and then when you come home with the babe we’ll be a whole new happy family. Won’t be nobody happier, believe me.’ Kissing the top of her head, he brushed aside her hair to look into her eyes. ‘C’mon then; Ma wouldn’t half kill me if she thought I was letting you sit on this damp grass. Let’s get you indoors for the last time in this state. Well, for a while, anyway.’
‘Hm,’ he heard her say as he pulled her, grunting, to her feet. ‘I think I’d prefer it if you didn’t go thinking beyond the safe arrival of this first one just yet.’
*
‘Well, ’tis a real joy to have you here,’ Ellen said as Mary finished scrubbing carrots in the scullery, ‘but I thought the idea was to get you off your feet?’
‘Don’t see what harm I’m doing helping with the vegetables,’ she replied.
‘Don’t be so stubborn, Mary. George didn’t bring you down here to help; he brought you down here to take it easy.’
‘Well, I’m not one for idling.’ Gathering up the peelings, she carried them across to the pail and dropped them in. ‘And you can sigh all you like, too, Ellen Strong but the simple truth of the matter is that it ain’t in my nature to sit still.’
But later, when the family had filed in for their midday meal and the dishes had been cleared and washed afterwards, she watched with a frown as Ellen dragged a chair out into the middle of the yard and then returning to the kitchen, said, ‘Come with me.’
‘What, out there? You had some sort of blow to the head?’
‘Well you can shake yours at me as much as you like,’ Ellen responded, reaching to catch hold of her arm, ‘but one way or another I’m going to get you to rest up.’
Since Ellen now had hold of her arm, there seemed little point in resisting.
‘You want me to sit here, right in the middle of the yard? Why?’
‘Because it’s a lovely afternoon.’
Making sure that Ellen could see, she shook her head.
‘I won’t argue against it being lovely but I ain’t no good at sitting still. No good at all.’
‘Well just this once, try.’
And so for a while, she did. She sat, casting her eyes about the yard until, unable to bear it a moment longer, she got up and went to stand in the kitchen doorway.
‘Truly, Ellen, I need to be doing summat or I’ll turn mazed in the head.’
‘Well then, that does it,’ and picking up another chair, Ellen carried it out to place alongside the first. ‘I’ll just have to sit with you then.’
With a shrug and then a long sigh, she gave in and sat down again.
‘Are you sure you can spare the time?’ she asked, squinting against the brightness.
‘If it’s what’s needed to get you to take it easy, then I’ll make time.’
‘Oh. Well now I feel guilty twice over!’
‘It mid be that’s not a bad thing. Mary, listen to me, you got to rest up a bit. I don’t mean you got to lay abed all day
but I feel responsible for you and I couldn’t bear if anything was to happen on account of me letting you work all day.’
She shook her head.
‘I ain’t ill. Women just have to get on with it,’ she pointed out.
‘I know – but ever thought that maybe George brought you here so that you don’t have to work all hours; because he wants a wife and a baby at the end of it?’
Goodness. She’d never looked at it like that before. Perhaps George really was anxious; a bit like she was if she stopped to think too much about what lay ahead.
‘All right. I’ll try an’ do a bit less. Promise.’
‘Good. After all, I don’t think it’s too much to ask. Now, I fancy I better go an’ check on those loaves and make a start on supper but you’re to stay here, like it or not.’
‘Oh, all right. But what about them cherries we picked for bottling? What if I was to sit nice and quietly out here in the sunshine and pick them over?’
She liked to see Ellen laugh. It wasn’t something she did very often.
‘I suppose that would be all right,’ she was pleased to hear her concede. ‘But I’ll fetch them for you. You stay there!’
‘Thank you,’ she said, when Ellen reappeared as promised.
‘Yes, well…’
In the clear, afternoon sunshine, the yard was peaceful. A few feet away, a gathering of house sparrows was cheeping insistently, squabbling as they flicked up the dust to bathe, and against their clamouring she closed her eyes and held her face to the warmth. She wasn’t about to admit it out loud, but for the first time in a while she did feel less weary. And another thing that she wasn’t about to admit, either, was that George had been right to suggest she came here; not that either of those realisations made her feel any less of a burden. At least Ellen had agreed to let her do something rather than just sit there like a convalescing invalid.
She turned her attention back to her task. On a stool next to her was a bowl piled high with cherries and at her feet were an empty bucket and a pail of water. One by one, she picked out a fruit, checked it for insects or bruising, removed the stalk and, if it was unspoilt, put it into the water; anything that by her own assessment was in the least damaged or overripe – but still edible – going straight into her mouth. Yes, at least she felt useful.
‘Are you disobeying me?’
At the sound of Tom’s voice echoing from the walls of the dairy behind her, she shot upright on the chair and turned to look over her shoulder.
‘For heaven’s sake, Tom, all I said was, not now.’
Well there was a surprise: Tom and Annie were having an argument. Popping a cherry into her mouth, she listened for a moment and then turned back and spat the stone into the bucket.
‘I said not now, Tom.’
‘And I heard you, plain enough but since you’re my wife it’s not up to you, a fact you’d do well to remember more often.’
Goodness, the man was obnoxious. How on earth did Annie put up with him?
‘Tom, be reasonable for once; surely even you can see how I’m right in the middle of this. I’m all cleaned up ready an’ it needs finishing afore the cows come up. And there’s still so much else to do as well, so leave me alone, I beg you.’
She writhed on her seat; it was wrong to listen to other people’s arguments, accidentally or otherwise, and so to mask their echoing voices she started singing to herself and tried harder to concentrate on sorting the cherries. The exchanges, though, were growing louder and the tone more bad-tempered.
‘You’re always in the middle of summat, Annie Strong. Day after day it’s the same worn-out excuses from you and it’s grieving me no end. So no, I’ve had enough of it and I say now. So get yourself over there like I told you an’ take that sour look from your face while you’re at it.’
‘An’ I say again, not now, Tom. What’s the matter with you? Can’t you leave me alone just once? It’s not like you won’t insist on doing your worst to me later on, anyway.’
In the split second of silence that followed, she sat perfectly still. Among the riches of the spoiled fruit in the pail she could hear the droning of a bluebottle, and without any shade her forearms were beginning to burn in the sun – but she scarcely dared to breathe, let alone move.
‘Have you forgotten what I promised I’d do to you again if you insisted on carrying on like this? Have you? I wouldn’t have thought you’d forget that in a hurry but seems you’re in need of a reminder.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake Tom; I ain’t afraid of your threats no more. You already carried out most of ’em anyway. What do you really think there is left for you to do to me, eh? By now even you must now be running out of ways to humiliate me and frankly, I’m numb to it all anyway. So go on; do the worst thing you can think of: it won’t make no difference.’
She bowed her head. Would it be courting trouble to get up and try to creep back into the kitchen?
‘Get over there, now.’
‘For mercy’s sake, what’s wrong with you, Tom Strong? You ain’t normal. You know that?’
‘Get over there!’
‘You know what? I stopped being afraid of you a long while back. And in any case, there’s plenty of folk about the place to hear me yell. And if you’re fool enough to try anything, then believe me, I will yell so loud…’
She held her breath. Something was happening. Boots were striding across the tiled floor and then Annie was gasping. Something had fallen from the bench – something tinny – and the noise of it was ringing off the bare walls as it rolled away. It sounded as though they were scuffling; Tom was grunting and Annie was making a sound as if her voice was being muffled by something: a hand on her mouth, perhaps? It could be. Instinct was telling her that she should do something; should go to Annie’s aid. But the picture in her mind was of Tom, naked to the waist, glistening with sweat and unwavering in his intent. Oh God, she should go and help. But the truth of the matter was that even if she did manage to coax her legs to work, she couldn’t intervene, anyway. Whatever was going on in there might be making her feel sick to her stomach but it was nothing to do with her: it was between Annie and Tom. It wasn’t even as though the woman deserved her sympathy; not when weighed against the number of occasions on which she had so mercilessly humiliated her. But as she sat there, burning, she couldn’t help but feel sympathy for her. After all, she knew the fear and revulsion that came from being faced with Tom in single-minded pursuit of what he wanted.
‘Little Jack Horner sat in the corner, eating his Christmas pie…’ It was the first song that came to her mind and although blurted out only to drown the disturbance and suffocate the pictures in her mind, the dairy fell silent, and before she could even remember the words to the next line a door slammed behind her and boots were stomping across the cobbles in the direction of the gate. With her heart thudding, she didn’t need to look to know that it was Tom storming out into the lane or to realise that, inside the dairy, Annie was sobbing.
‘You know, I’m minded to put some of the cherries in brandy.’ The normality of Ellen’s voice almost made her leap from the chair. ‘Lord, you all right there?’
She nodded.
‘Fine. Just didn’t hear you coming.’
‘Aye, well maybe don’t eat no more cherries,’ Ellen suggested, looking at the number of stones in the bucket and then glancing to the dairy. ‘And perhaps the sun’s got a bit too warm for you now. Your face is awful red.’
She shook her head.
‘Maybe. I’m finished here, anyway.’
‘All right. Well, I’ve no time to do the plain ones until tomorrow,’ Ellen said, helping her up and then leading her back into the kitchen, ‘but you can do the ones going in the brandy if you want.’
When Ellen pulled a chair from under the table, she sat down and pressed her hands onto her lap to hide the way that they were trembling, the pictures in her mind proving impossible to banish.
‘Yes, all right. If it’ll help.’
<
br /> ‘Then I’ll bring you over what you need.’ While Ellen ferried a succession of jars, she glanced out through the back door but there was no sign of Annie. ‘Now, these May Duke cherries are real sweet so you only wants about one spoon of sugar for every four or five spoons of fruit but sprinkle it in evenly as you go,’ Ellen was saying above her head. ‘Leave a gap at the top of the bottles and then fill them up with this.’ In front of her landed a bottle of brandy, and without taking her eyes from the label she nodded, grateful for the sound of Ellen’s footsteps departing back to the scullery. Lord, how she disliked this place.
*
‘Are you to blame for this?’ Hannah’s voice bellowed from the hallway, breaking into the quiet activity of the kitchen where, later that afternoon, Mary was standing with Ellen, preparing supper. Without stopping what they were doing, they exchanged glances.
‘No I am not,’ they heard Annie answer her. In Mary’s hand, the bread knife hovered above the loaf while next to her Ellen lowered a stack of plates onto the table, neither woman wanting to draw attention to their presence. ‘You know what he’s like; least thing sets him off. He’s bad-tempered on the best of days but I assure you, this wasn’t my doing.’
‘Well I’d better not find out that it was,’ they heard Hannah warn. ‘There’s been scarcely a word of trouble these last few days an’ now we’ve got all this stomping about. I don’t know what’s the matter with the pair of you but you could put a stop to all this quarrelling by just knuckling under and doing as he says, my girl. For heaven’s sake be a bit biddable now and again.’
‘But he—’
‘No buts, missy. Show him some obedience and a bit of respect and much of this trouble will go away.’
‘Oh I hate it when it’s like this,’ Ellen whispered, as they crept into the scullery to avoid having to come face to face with either of the women.
‘What is it that’s happened now?’ she whispered back, thinking that clearly, the quarrel in the dairy hadn’t ended there.
A Country Marriage Page 15
