A Country Marriage

by Sandra Jane Goddard

  Unsure how to greet his arrival, she glanced back up, unable to avoid noticing how, in this wintry light, his complexion seemed unnaturally pale and his expression empty. With her pulse racing, she watched as, rather than meet her eyes, he looked beyond her towards the back door; and feeling as though she had been slapped for the stupidity of raising her hopes, she suddenly realised that, in all likelihood, he was simply bearing a message from his mother relating to George.

  ‘Might I talk with you?’

  She nodded, her entire body rigid now as much with apprehension as with the bitter cold; and, as he registered her consent she saw him look uneasily about and eventually gesture towards the woodshed. ‘Let’s go in there a minute, out of this God-awful wind then,’ he suggested, his expression unchanged. Following him through the low door, she stood in the only patch of empty floor. With barely enough room for the two of them to stand side by side without touching, they were closer than felt comfortable, and she noticed how he was avoiding looking at her. With no idea what she expected him to say but bristling with self-consciousness, she reached across to where just five ugly potatoes remained in the wooden tray, their creamy yellow peel pitted with dark eyes that seemed to be mocking her anguish. She risked a glance at him and then rolled the most judgemental of the potatoes upside down. ‘I’ve come to beg forgiveness,’ she finally heard him say and, biting at her lip, forced herself to look up. ‘In trying to look out for you it’s clear now that I stepped out of place. But I need you to know that I did it without malice.’

  ‘Francis,’

  He raised his hand to quiet her and then, with an apologetic look, lowered it again.

  ‘No, I know you don’t want me here an’ I understand that, but I couldn’t bear for us to part with you thinking I was trying to… to cause trouble between you an’ George. I wasn’t.’

  ‘No, Francis, I—’

  ‘No, please Mary, hear me out and then I promise I’ll be gone. These last days I’ve had a lot of time to think and I’ve realised that in my desire to see you come to no harm, I interfered where I had no right, but now all I can do is ask you to forgive me.’

  As she listened to his words, the panic holding her rigid seemed to have spread to her mouth, and despite moving her lips she was finding it impossible to make any sound.

  ‘Francis,’ she finally managed to say. ‘I don’t want you gone.’ Seeing him look, she hesitated. ‘Don’t go, least, not yet. I couldn’t bear it, truly, I couldn’t. These last days have been the worst I ever knew. It wasn’t your fault and I see that now. Truth to tell, I saw it almost straight away but I was just too—ʼ

  ‘No, it was my fault.’

  ‘No, you were right to tell me. I needed to hear the truth. I mean, for ages I been wanting to know what he was up to, but when it came down to it, I wasn’t prepared for what it turned out to be. And so all them awful things I said to you, well, they were said in shock.’

  ‘Maybe so but you were right just the same.’ More than anything she longed to touch him, but noticing how he still hadn’t moved, she stayed where she was, awkward and unsure of how things stood between them. ‘Maybe I could’ve kept my peace but I thought you had a right to know what your husband was involved in. And I fancied how cross you’d be if you found out that I’d known all along and hadn’t thought to tell you. But since then, I’ve regretted not leaving well alone and wished and wished it could all be un-said.’

  ‘No, Francis,’ she said, finally daring to look at him properly, ‘I wouldn’t want you to lie to me, not ever. I know how it feels to be deceived, since my marriage is already full of lies, but when you told me what he’d been doing, I felt… betrayed and stupid; stupid for not seeing what was really going on, for not asking… for never even thinking… and then I felt even more stupid for siding with him over you, since I knew you were only trying to help.’

  All around them the wind was whistling through narrow gaps in the timber-lap walls and battering in erratic but relentless waves at the disintegrating roof.

  ‘You’re not stupid,’ he said, shaking his head and extending an arm to pull her against him.

  ‘Oh, Francis,’ she said in a long and quivery breath as she felt his arms about her stiff body. ‘Can you forgive me those things I said to you?’

  ‘Nothing to forgive,’ he whispered into her hair. ‘But if you can forgive me and then – humbly assuming I’m not getting ahead of myself again – maybe we can forget all about it.’

  ‘There’s nothing to forgive you for!’ she replied with a tearful giggle.

  ‘You can’t know how glad I am to hear that,’ he replied and, for a moment, she simply stood with his arms around her, her relief too great to express. ‘How is George?’ he asked after a while.

  ‘Asleep, least he was when I came out here. And he’ll mend, by and by. Your ma says ʼtis fortunate he’s otherwise healthy but although I try, I can’t overlook that he was willing to put himself in harm’s way.’

  ‘No and I understand that, although when I spoke to Ezra last night he was adamant that the bother wasn’t of their making. He says it was the squire’s fault.’

  ‘George said much the same thing and I’m minded to believe him, although summat he said the day before he went makes me think now that perhaps they were expecting trouble.’

  ‘Aye? What did he say then?’

  ‘Well when I asked him what me an’ Jacob would do if… well, if summat terrible happened to him, he seemed to have already thought about it, since he said most plainly that I should wed again.’ At the mention of marriage, she felt certain that he tensed.

  ‘Most likely to make light of it.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. He seemed real serious. He told me to go to the farm to start with and then to wed a new husband, as though he’d already given it thought.’

  ‘Maybe since you asked him a fair question, he just gave you a sensible answer. After all, that is what you’d do, isn’t it, if need arose?’

  ‘In truth I’d have no choice.’

  ‘Well you would have a choice but it’d be a very simple one,’ he said, and she pulled away to look at his face, surprised to see that he was grinning.

  ‘What?’

  ‘To marry me.’

  ‘You’d wed me?’

  ‘Today if I could!’

  ‘Truthfully?’

  ‘Of course truthfully. And since the other day, I’m even more certain of it. I’d wed you in the blink of an eye and, to be honest, I’m fair hurt that you’re so surprised.’

  ‘’Tis just summat of a shock, that’s all, since I can’t think of anything nicer. You truly mean that?’ she asked, and then seeing his expression of mock dismay, shook her head. ‘Don’t tease me.’

  ‘I’m not. I’d ask you right now if I could. I’ve thought about it oftentimes, although it probably does me no good to admit to it.’ Entirely unprepared for this revelation, especially after how she had spoken to him last time he was there, she burst into tears. ‘Please don’t cry so,’ he whispered. ‘If I’d known how it was going to upset you, I never would have said it.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she said and sniffed loudly. ‘It’s just that after that to-do between us, I realised how I never felt as happy as when I was with you. You’re so thoughtful and…’ With a long sigh, she paused. How on earth did she explain what she was thinking? ‘When I’m with you,’ she began again, ‘well, it’s what I thought it would be like when I wed George.’ She bit her lip and risked a brief glance at his eyes. Would he think it disloyal of her to talk in such a way? ‘Maybe it was just because I was so young but I thought there would be evenings when we’d sit together in front of the fire and summer evenings when we’d sit in the garden. And I thought that once we got to know each other, we would love each other.’ She looked at him again, able to tell only that he was regarding her intently. ‘But it ain’t like that. It ain’t even a bit like that. I don’t think we’ve ever sat together and although it was a bit different for a while, he a
in’t ever looked at me like you do.’ She paused again, aware that he was still and silent. ‘When you look at me, ’tis like you see me—’

  ‘Course I see you.’

  ‘—but when George looks at me, it’s like I irritate him… it’s like he resents me.’ With a shake of her head, she exhaled a long sigh. ‘Sometimes I’m so lonely, Francis, and when I thought I’d driven you away, I felt empty beyond all understanding.’ His hand, she could feel, was stroking her hair. ‘You know, earlier, when I was thinking that I’d lost you for good, I found myself realising that all I had to look forward to was living here in Keeper’s Cottage, bearing George’s children and living with his coldness for evermore.’ It had been the first time she had pictured the future so dispassionately, and even now the bleakness of it again brought tears. ‘And one day, when Pa Strong goes, we’ll go to live down in the farmhouse but I can’t help thinking that it’ll be much the same. Or maybe even worse, since on top of everything else, George will have the worry of the farm and I’ll have all that goes with it: the house, the dairy, the family. I mean, can you see me telling Annie what to do in the dairy?’ she asked, laughing now at the unlikeliness of it. ‘You know, I used to envy Annie and Ellen living in that nice house with all the family around them and I couldn’t understand why George kept saying we were better off up here. To me, this place just seemed harder and colder and damper and dirtier. But then I came to realise what it’s really like down there and what he meant. However nice it sometimes looks, it ain’t no easier; true, there’s more room but it’s simply filled with more people. And there’s no say in who they are, either. After all, none of us gets to choose our family.’

  ‘No, we don’t.’

  ‘And see, the thing is, if Tom hadn’t died, then most likely this place is all I’d ever know. But what I keep frettin’ over, is what if sometime soon, summat happens and we have to go an’ live down there? I can’t tell you how I fear to end up like all them women before me, squashed up against brothers-in-law and their wives and their children too and, well, it frightens me that one day I could wake up and wonder whether perhaps my life could have been different.’ With a sense that maybe she had admitted more than she should have, she bit her lip and looking at him, asked, ‘Does that seem a terrible thing to say?’

  ‘No, it doesn’t, not to me. It seems understandable and honest, all told.’

  Slowly she shook her head and let out a long, juddery breath.

  ‘And it don’t help that George doesn’t…’ for a moment she looked down again, ‘touch me, well, hardly ever. He used to make the effort but he rarely does now, which I don’t mind in the least any more, except that I’m surprised how unwanted that makes me feel; my own husband doesn’t even desire me.’

  ‘Then he’s a fool,’ he said, tightening his embrace. ‘An’ maybe he don’t love you but I do.’

  ‘You do, don’t you?’ she asked, a flicker of disbelief in her tone.

  ‘I do. I love you Mary Strong; sometimes so much I can barely think.’

  She rested her head back against his shoulder.

  ‘I love you too, Francis.’

  ‘An’ that being the case, if ever, well, you know… then I’ll be here to look after you.’

  ‘That’s real nice to know—’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘—but I’m m-makin’ your shirt all w-wet,’ she announced with something that sounded like an amused sob.

  ‘And I don’t mind that in the least,’ he whispered back.

  *

  Not long after first light the following morning, Francis crept up to where Mary was gathering eggs from the coop.

  ‘How’s George today?’ he whispered with a glance across to the back door of the cottage.

  ‘Well the bruising’s certainly come out this morning, same as your ma said it would. His ribs are a terrible sight, all blue an’ purple an’ black. An’ course he’s still in pain, pain so bad he can scarce move for it.’

  ‘So he’s not gone to work then?’

  ‘He couldn’t,’ she answered, refastening the hatch of the hen house. ‘He wanted to though. He even tried to get out of bed. But no, in the end he sent Robert up to the bailey with some story about falling out of the hayloft. Yesterday he asked Will to go for him but Will refused; said he’d have no part in it but young Robert even offered the bailey his own labour in George’s place; real good of him. Don’t know what Pa Strong knew of it, mind.’

  ‘What did the bailey say?’

  ‘Robert said he just thanked him and said that if George was back at work tomorrow, then no more would be said of it.’

  ‘So most likely he didn’t believe the story about the hayloft, then?’

  Standing up and looking straight at him, she shrugged.

  ‘George thinks not.’

  ‘An’ will he be able to go back to work tomorrow?’

  ‘By rights, no, he’s far from ready but seems he’ll have to, otherwise he’ll lose his job.’

  ‘Lord.’

  ‘Aye, ʼtis a worry, all right.’

  ‘Anything you need?’ he asked, picking up her bowl from the grass and handing it to her.

  ‘No but thank you all the same. Robert fetched me some bits from the farm earlier.’

  ‘Good. Well I’d best not stay any longer then,’ he said, glancing up towards the lane.

  ‘No, best not.’

  *

  It was later the same morning when Mary was sitting at the table, picking over fallen apples that Isaac Sharpe came thudding down the bank, ducked swiftly through the door and stood breathlessly asking for George. And now, barely a full minute after his urgent appearance, here she was, running full pelt down the hill with the cold air stabbing through her clothes, wishing that her husband had seen fit to tell her more, rather than just sending her off in a panic to the farm. Clearly, whatever Isaac Sharpe had just rushed in to tell him was serious – she could tell that much from the way he had shouted down to her – but as to why he was sending her for Francis, she had no idea. When she had called back to ask him, he had simply shouted at her not to waste time and to run. In those few seconds, it had crossed her mind that someone had seen her and Francis together but as she had run up the bank to the lane, she felt certain that if that were so, then his first thought would have been to confront her and demand an explanation, not send her off in search of her alleged lover. And for certain, he wouldn’t have allowed her out of his sight. But please let her be right on that score, she willed, gulping for breath as the track to the farmhouse came into sight.

  ‘Francis!’ she hissed, arriving moments later at the gate to the yard and seeing him working alone at the manure heap. ‘Quick!’

  She watched him turn towards her and saw how, at the sight of her frantic beckoning, he let the shovel clang onto the cobbles as he ran across to where she was hovering.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked, checking back across the yard and hastily withdrawing his hands from reaching for hers.

  Grasping his sleeve, she pulled him out into the lane.

  ‘’Tis George—’

  ‘What, is he worse or summat?’

  ‘No. No,’ she puffed, bending double with her hand to her side. ‘He sent me… to get you.’

  ‘Why?’ he asked, stooping to look at her face.

  ‘Don’t know. Isaac Sharpe came down—’

  ‘Isaac?’

  Trying to stand more upright, she tried to push aside a tangle of tumbling hair.

  ‘Running… he came running. Asked for George. I pointed and he rushed up the ladder. Then he came back down and George… George yelled for me to come an’ get you. He said to say nothing to anyone an’ speak only to you… an’ to bring you back with me—’

  ‘Why?’

  Red faced from running, she shook her head, still gasping for breath.

  ‘He told me to make haste… said it was desperate urgent.’

  ‘Is it about us, do you think?’ he ventured, looking quickly about again.


  She shook her head.

  ‘No. But whatever it is, it’s proper unsettled him. So please, just come.’

  *

  ‘I don’t understand, George. This doesn’t make any sense. Tell it to me again.’

  The sight of George, lying propped up on their bed talking to Francis, couldn’t have made Mary more uncomfortable.

  ‘Look, you must have heard about Saturday and how things got out of hand; most of the county seems to know.’

  ‘I’ve heard bits and pieces, aye,’ she watched Francis agreeing.

  ‘Well amid all the confusion, it seems Chamberlin and his cronies grabbed a couple of the men who were at the front of the mob, in the thick of the exchanges. Most likely they took them to the lock-up and called for the special constables. No one knows for certain what happened but this morning, more constables, from Winchester, not local ones mind, have been going about the parishes with lists of people to arrest.’

  ‘Have they been here then, the constables?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘But somehow my name’s on their list?’

  ‘According to Isaac, yours and Ezra’s, aye.’

  ‘But no one else from Verneybrook?’

  ‘Not so far as I was told.’

  ‘And did Isaac see the list for hisself?’

  ‘No. Someone in the know rode out from Wembridge at first light to tell the Sharpes, and Isaac’s first thought was to warn you. But not wanting to risk causing a stir at the farm, he came to me instead.’