A Country Marriage

by Sandra Jane Goddard

  ‘Aye. Right. Well. It was the first hurdle overcome,’ he concurred, and wrestled back his concentration, turning his eyes away from her and addressing them instead to the orangey flames in the grate. Skipping parts of the tale he considered to be of less interest to her, he moved on. ‘So then they started out for a place called Moat Hall; by all accounts the biggest of the Ashbridge farms. And by now, supposedly their number was three hundred.’

  ‘A fair old mob.’

  ‘Aye, indeed. But the farmer said that it wasn’t down to him to agree a matter such as wages and that they should take it up with the squire’s man. But by now their blood was up and they weren’t going home with anything less than higher wages.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘Well, as I heard it, part of the mob broke away from the so-called negotiations with the farmer and went off to dismantle his threshing machine.’

  ‘And did that get them what they wanted?’

  ‘No, no it didn’t. He said he wouldn’t be threatened. So they told him they’d be back the next day to see if he’d changed his mind.’

  ‘Good for them. And did they go back?’

  Unable to help himself, he smiled and leant forward in his chair, heartened by the way she was following this; by the way she genuinely seemed to understand.

  ‘They did, well, some of them at least; those without work to go to or those that didn’t much mind losing it, I suppose. But overnight, the estate had sent a messenger to Winchester and, next day, a group of constables, by common reckoning especially sworn for the purpose, were waiting there for them.’

  ‘So they were all arrested.’

  ‘Well, by all accounts, most of them were able to get away and lay low but a good many others, mainly those at the front, the leaders, were set upon and aye, they were arrested.’

  ‘And it don’t take much to know where they ended up.’

  ‘No. They’re in the Bridewell, waiting to be tried.’

  ‘And most likely they’ve got families as well,’ he heard her say with a sigh.

  ‘Most likely, since otherwise they wouldn’t feel the need for such desperate actions.’

  Moving to sit more upright, she reached to pull the pins from her hair and he watched as it tumbled to her shoulders.

  ‘Well it sounds like madness to me.’

  No, oh no: what he didn’t want now was to lose her sympathy. At this moment, more than anything, he wanted her to see; to understand the point of it all. He wanted her to be supportive of their aims and revere him for his part in it – and then, suddenly recalling the words the Captain had used to persuade the hesitant among them, he said, ‘Some might see it as madness, aye but fact is, Annie, for there to be change, real change I mean, someone has to suffer.’ In the firelight, he could see her studying him and for a moment he was uncertain what to read from her expression, suddenly willing her not to laugh or make light of it.

  ‘Well, since you’re better placed and better informed than me to know whether or not that’s true, I’ll bow to your wisdom.’

  With a surge of warmth for her, he stood up and went across to where she was sitting, crouching in front of her like an eager lad.

  ‘So you understand then; you understand what it is we’re trying to achieve?’

  The wait for her answer felt like an eternity.

  ‘The way you tell it to me, aye.’ Unaware until then that he had been holding his breath, he exhaled. ‘I see plain enough what it is you’re about. But I want you to give me your word, George, that it if there is any suffering to be done, then it won’t be you doing of it because if that came about and it was you in the Bridewell, then I shouldn’t ever be able to forgive you.’

  ‘I give you my word.’

  ‘Then it seems we understand each other’s concerns.’

  Taking hold of her hands, he squeezed them tightly.

  ‘Good. But now you ought go up and get some rest,’ he said and getting to his feet, bent to kiss the top of her hair, the smell of it like balm to his crumpled mind.

  *

  To begin with, Mary thought nothing of the fact that George was spending fewer and fewer evenings at home, especially since whereas once he had routinely headed to The Stag, he now seemed to go to the farmhouse. Having for some time found the atmosphere there depressing – and still inwardly concerned at the chance of bumping into Francis – it was somewhere she kept away from as much as possible, sometimes only going once a week, for their Sunday meal. But gradually she came to notice that his visits were becoming even more frequent, and that in fact were assuming something of a routine.

  ‘Shall I come with you?’ she asked on a couple of occasions. But by way of response, he seemed able to pluck any of a number of vague reasons for leaving her behind.

  ‘Looks like you got a lot on your hands,’ he’d say with a wave at whatever she was doing. ‘No need for you to come out and get cold,’ was another but the most usual seemed to be, ‘No, no need for you to come, not tonight.’

  And when he returned, often as much as a couple of hours later, it was hard, if not impossible, to find out what he’d been doing, her polite enquiries about the well-being of the various family members meeting with only the barest of responses. Ordinarily, she would have paid little further heed but at the same time, another curious pattern to his behaviour also began to emerge; something that she noticed quite by accident. For most of the week, his desire for her – if desire had ever been the right word – seemed to be non-existent. But on the nights when he had been to the farmhouse, he appeared to return with a particular appetite for physical relief.

  ‘Go up and get undressed,’ he came in to say one night on finding her still sitting downstairs. By most reckoning it was early yet and she looked at him with a puzzled expression on her face.

  ‘What, right now? Only I’m—’

  ‘Yes, Mary. Right now. And try to look a bit less put out about it, for goodness sake. It’s not like I make many demands on you.’

  ‘No. Course. Forgive me,’ she said, blushing, and quickly did as he requested, hearing what sounded like a sigh of exasperation behind her as she climbed the ladder.

  As she stood undressing, she briefly wondered whether perhaps he had finally developed a desire for her, but the ensuing experience – as cold and remote as ever – told her otherwise; the impression she was left with being that he was simply trying to relieve some sort of frustration. Lying with her head turned to the side, flattened uncomfortably beneath his weight and, with one of his knees piercing the flesh of her leg, she thought back to the moment when he had first come through the door. She couldn’t recall anything particularly unusual about his demeanour; it was more that he hadn’t said a single word by way of greeting, merely instructing her to go upstairs. And her response, which had so annoyed him, had been solely through surprise.

  She stared across at a cobweb spun between the shadowy roof timbers and watched it moving in time with his efforts, backwards and forwards against the uneven tiles behind. For some reason satisfaction wasn’t coming easily to him tonight, something that only served to heighten her resentment. She had no idea what it was that had roused him in the first place, only that she didn’t seem sufficient to satisfy him and so, with her teeth gritted, she lay still, her body crying out for a different kind of touch. ‘Touch me, touch me like this,’ she wanted to scream at him, knowing full well though that even the mere act of asking him to do so would be to open herself up to a state of intimacy with him that she didn’t really want any more anyway. And so she simply pressed her lips more firmly together, closed her eyes and determined to hold back her tears, distracting herself instead with the notion that tonight the patient spider in the silvery web looked to be going without supper.

  *

  ‘You going to market this morning?’ George asked Mary as he reached to the hook on the back of the door for his jacket.

  ‘Well, the eggs don’t walk there and sell themselves, come Thursdays,’ she r
eplied, aware that what she had intended as a light-hearted comment, in truth sounded rather brusque.

  ‘Only I’ve put some coins on the mantel for you,’ she heard him add, apparently oblivious to her tone.

  ‘No need. I shan’t be buying much,’ she told him with a shrug. ‘The money from Dunne’s ought to be sufficient.’

  ‘It ain’t for provisions,’ he said, opening the door to leave. ‘It’s for you.’ Assuming that she had misheard, she looked up sharply from the bread crusts she was mashing into warm milk. ‘It won’t go far, I know that but buy yourself summat. I ain’t the least idea what, nor do I particular mind, but make sure ʼtis summat for you. Think on it as a gift for Christmas,’ he added, and without further explanation, went through the door and closed it behind him.

  As the clomp of his boots receded towards the lane, she hastened to the fireplace. But sure enough, there, lying alongside the candlestick, were some coins. A gift for Christmas? But why? One by one, she picked up the coins and placed them flat on the palm of her hand. Then, one at a time, she turned each of them over. What on earth could have prompted such a gesture? It was by no means a paltry sum but the by-the-by manner in which he had given it somehow detracted from the joy of receiving it. She stared across to the door and frowned. Ah well, it was as she always told herself; he was a kind enough man. It was just a grave pity that he was also a rather distant one.

  *

  After church on Christmas morning, Mary took her time to dress. Without a moment’s hesitation, she had decided to spend George’s coins on a skirt-piece of fabric from the mercer’s in Wembridge. Sheeny emerald with a fine, black line, she had fallen in love with it immediately and asked her mother to make it up for her. Fastening it now at the waist, she savoured the way the cloth felt so rich and heavy. Then she pulled on her new blouse – a gift her mother had fashioned from one of her own – and smoothed it over her chemise. The neckline had a waterfall ruffle to which her mother had sewn a trim of the material from the skirt. And, unused to having anything so pretty to wear, she adored it. She fingered now the deliciously crisp, white cotton, savouring the way that it made her feel grown up and ladylike, the effect being to make her want to hold her head high and walk in a dainty manner. Yes; in a moment or two, she would do her best to make a favourable impression on George and later, all being well, on Annie Strong, too.

  Her mother had also stitched a ribbon and shown her how to tie it high up on the back of her head and then twist the ends of her hair to pin underneath. For several days, she had been practising, secretly, in the hope of achieving the desired result but now, as she pushed the last of her pins into place, all she could do was hope that it looked all right.

  Taking care to avoid snagging her skirt on the ladder, she made her way carefully down from the loft, noticing as she neared the bottom that George was leaping up from his chair to help her. Once safely on the floor, she turned around and aware that her smile was a shy one, was reminded of how it had felt when they had been courting and she had been anxious for him to like her. This time, though, she needn’t have worried; the sight of his face alone, worth the effort. Her plan had worked.

  ‘Who is this woman?’ he asked, keeping hold of her hand. There was something about his look that she hadn’t seen before – wonder? Delight? Desire?

  ‘Do you like it, then?’

  ‘Like it?’ he asked, the sight of his expression enough to make her giggle. ‘I’m lost for the words for it, Mary. I never seen you look more… lovely…’

  ‘Pity about me old boots,’ she said, lifting the hemline of her skirt and twirling in a circle, ‘but at least no one will see ʼem.’

  But when she looked back at him, he still seemed to be struggling for something to say.

  ‘I don’t know what it is… maybe your hair like that, but you look older – or maybe it’s the colour of the cloth that makes your eyes look all sparkly and well, that blouse is very comely, too…’

  ‘So I look fair, then, all said and done,’ she ventured to suggest.

  ‘Fair? You look astonishing,’ he said and then, appearing somewhat confused, offered her his arm to escort her out.

  Earlier that morning, dawn had broken to reveal fingers of ice on the inside of the windows, and a sharp frost encrusting the fields; and now, as they arrived at the farmhouse, with the low sunlight filtering through the branches of the oak at the gate to cast long shadows across the yard, she shivered, and as George came around to help her down from the cart, she suddenly wondered whether perhaps she was overdressed; something that hadn’t occurred to her until now. The last thing she wanted to be considered was showy, but with George holding Jacob and with no time to dwell on the thought, she found herself being led across to the kitchen and straight into the path of Hannah emerging from the scullery.

  ‘Oh my! Look at you two!’ she exclaimed but Mary’s eyes had already been caught by Annie standing across the room, her face changing from a wide-eyed look of disbelief into a brief and rather insincere smile. ‘Lovely, my dear, most lovely,’ Hannah said, kissing her warmly and adding in an aside to George that was far too loud to ever have been intended as a whisper, ‘the perfect family, son, eh?’

  But while she was still frowning Ellen had come to run her hand over her skirt and sigh.

  ‘Oh how I wish I could wear such a strong colour,’ she was saying, ‘it suits you just perfect and—’

  Her elegant compliment was cut short, though, by her father-in-law arriving to offer his rather more robust verdict: ‘Well you’re a rousing sight, young lady and not a word of a lie!’

  Although the kitchen filled with laughter, she was close enough to the doorway to unexpectedly catch a voice behind her, lowered to a whisper and apparently reinforcing her father-in-law’s view.

  ‘A rousin’ sight indeed.’ With a frown, she turned abruptly about, entirely unprepared to find herself eye to eye with Francis Troke. And in the split of a second that followed, she glimpsed his lips curling with delight, noticed his brows arching mischievously above appreciative eyes and was shocked by his nerve as, in blatant disregard for their circumstances, right there on the edge of the family gathering, he winked at her. Biting her lip to contain a gasp, she looked hastily down, certain that her eyes would betray the shameful feeling the intimacy of his gesture had triggered. ‘Well, I’m done with the cows, Mas’ Strong, so I’ll be off home now then,’ he called above Mary’s head, and although by the time George had turned around, Francis’ face was the picture of innocence, she felt uncomfortably flushed and entirely unable to banish the thought of what had just passed between them.

  *

  ‘Lord, ’tis always the same after such a meal,’ Hannah opined, wielding a long knife to scrape the debris from a serving dish into the slops pail.

  ‘The clearing up?’ Ellen asked from her position at the sink, where she was up to her elbows in steaming water.

  ‘Aye and there seems to be more of it with each and every year,’ her mother-in-law replied with a laugh. ‘Tell you what, Mary love, since we’re all gettin’ in each other’s way here, how about you pop along and fetch me the tablecloths? They’ll be straight in the wash tub tomorrow morning so don’t werret yourself about creasing them.’

  Nodding her understanding, she went briskly along the chill hallway to retrieve the linens from the dining table, but at the sound of the men’s voices, she paused with her hand on the doorknob, uncertain whether to interrupt.

  ‘Well, a good many of them won’t be dining with their families today,’ she heard Will’s voice remarking. ‘No goose in the Bridewell.’

  ‘Aye. Not that most of ’em would have had food to put on their tables anyways,’ her husband’s voice was answering him.

  ‘But from what I been hearing, it ain’t the real destitute men that’s been taking part in these riots…’

  ‘Protests,’ her husband corrected him.

  ‘…that’s been taking part in these protests, anyway. ’Tis men with pro
per employment and learning, or so I hear.’

  ‘Who among us ain’t destitute, as you so politely put it?’ To her ears, George’s voice sounded particularly short, especially for a conversation with his brothers. ‘Eh? Answer me that. Still, it’s different for the pair of you, here, with all this. And in comparison to some people, even I’m fortunate, since I’ve just about wage enough to provide what we need. But what if me and Mary already had five or six children? Or more? And what if they were sick? Or what if I couldn’t dig ditches ten hours a day come rain or shine to bring in this pittance of a wage? What then? Eh?’

  She listened intently, wishing she could hear more clearly what they were talking about. Trying to calm her breathing, since the act of eavesdropping was causing her heart to race, she glanced guiltily over her shoulder, back towards the kitchen. Sounds of plates being stacked and the low murmur of the women’s voices was continuing regardless; not that it really mattered because she knew she couldn’t stand here for much longer before Hannah would wonder where she was and open the door to peer along the dark hall. For a moment, she considered what to do for the best – interrupt their discussion or not – and then decided that to dither over such a simple errand was ridiculous. And so, fixing a light smile and before she had the chance to change her mind, she grasped the doorknob – clammy now under her chilled palm – edged open the door and peered, blinking, into the room. Only slowly did the three of them look in her direction. Her eyes fell first on Will, sprawled backwards in the same chair that he’d occupied at dinner. Next to him was Robert, slumped forward onto the table. And, seated in his father’s chair, George was leaning towards them, his eyes animated and his finger pointing as though reinforcing his view.

  ‘Forgive me intruding,’ she ventured to say despite their staring, ‘but Ma Strong wants the linens.’

  ‘Aye,’ George beckoned her into the room. ‘Do what you will.’

  For a while, then, none of them spoke, the only sounds in the room coming from the slow popping of logs in the dying fire and the flap of the linens as she folded them ready for laundering, but as Robert raised his head and sat back to allow her to remove the final cloth, she saw him look across at George and ask, ‘So this unrest, could it spread here, to this part of Hampshire then? Could there be trouble for Pa? For the farm?’