The Green Ribbons

by Clare Flynn

  ‘It’s not just about doing this, though. About making love,’ she said. ‘This is the way it is only because there was already a strong feeling between us. I just hadn’t realised it. I have always loved being with you, Merritt. Our walks in the woods and by the canal. Our conversations. The work we did together on the lending library. Whenever you tell me anything I’m fascinated. I could listen to you talking for hours.’

  He said nothing.

  ‘Oh, Merritt, I only came here today in the hope that it would make me see sense. That looking at this place again would make me think differently about what happened between us. I hoped that seeing this sordid little place would make me see what happened as sordid too. I thought it would help me to forget how I felt being with you. I hoped it would make me see again why I did it. Why I asked you to do it. I hoped it would make me love my husband again. But it’s no good. I don’t just love being with you, Merritt, I love you.’

  Merritt gasped and Hephzibah saw his eyes were misted over.

  ‘You love me too?’ he asked. ‘You really love me?’

  ‘I think I fell in love with you when you told me how the books in your house were out of control. I just didn’t know it at the time. My husband has never read a book in all the three years I have known him. He speaks only of horses and racing results. I fell for his good looks and his air of excitement. He was so different from everything I had ever known and that cast a spell on me. I was enchanted. You however are so like everything I have ever known and everything I have ever cared about, so that talking with you is like slipping on a well-worn pair of favourite gloves that have moulded to the exact shape and size of one’s fingers.’

  ‘I’m flattered,’ he said, laughing. ‘It’s not every day I get compared to a pair of old gloves.’ He was overwhelmed with joy to know that she felt the same way about him as he did about her. He pulled her towards him and started to kiss her again, but this time she pulled back, her hands on his shoulders to keep him at arm’s length.

  ‘None of this helps our situation though,’ said Hephzibah. ‘Everything I said yesterday was true. I made a bad choice when I married Thomas Egdon but now I must live with it.’

  She looked at Merritt and saw the shadow of pain disfigure his face.

  ‘It doesn’t have to be so. Come away with me, Hephzibah. We could go to Italy, to France, find an island somewhere, have our child and spend our life together. Let’s just go. We can disappear. Who cares what people say if we are far away and cannot hear them?’

  She gave him a rueful smile and laid her palm against his cheek. ‘Oh Merritt, Merritt, Merritt, if only – but it would never work. You would lose your living. Your reputation would be destroyed. We would be the talk of the county and our reputation would follow us wherever we went. We can’t live on love alone.’

  ‘We’ll find a way. I could become a tutor to a family.’

  ‘Tutors are single men. No family would take in a man with a wife and child in tow. Not that I could be your wife when I am married already. That would make me your mistress. And our child a bastard.’

  Merritt was about to protest when she spoke again, her voice brisk and practical. ‘Do you have any idea what tutors earn? Obviously more than governesses – but, believe me, that’s not saying much. And people would expect references. They’d want to know why you walked out of your living in a country parish. It would not be long before they discovered the reason, and what respectable family would entrust the education of their children to a man who had fathered a child with a married woman, one of his parishioners to boot?’

  Merritt put his head in his hands.

  ‘I don’t want to be apart from you,’ she said. ‘I have never felt pain like this before. But this is the price of love. These past two days I have known the greatest joy of my life and the greatest sorrow. We must be strong, Merritt. I need you to help me be strong.’ She stood up and straightened her clothes. ‘You leave first this time. Don’t look back. Say goodbye now and know that you will have my heart forever.’

  ‘I want you with it,’ he said, his face contorted with pain.

  ‘I know, my love.’

  ‘But the baby?’ He looked at her in anguish. ‘Our baby, if we have conceived it.’

  ‘We have – I told you I am certain,’ she said, her voice solemn. ‘The child must never know you are its father but I will ensure you get to spend time with him or her. Lots of time. I promise, my darling. I will find a way. Now go. I beg you.’

  He kissed her again and she clung to him, then taking a deep breath, she pushed him through the door. When he had gone, she watched his retreating figure through the small filthy window, her eyes misted with tears. When he had vanished over the brow of the hill she dried her eyes and left the hut and headed back to Ingleton Hall.

  An old woman with a black eye-patch was watching the shepherd’s hut from a clump of trees. She was on her way back after collecting rushes for the basket-weaving that supplemented her income as a washer-woman. Her name was Mercy Loveless and the surname was a better fit than her given name. She’d never had time for people and her temperament had worsened in the ten years since she lost one of her eyes in a haymaking accident.

  The reeds were heavy on her shoulders and Mercy stopped to rest for a moment. Laying them down, she stepped behind a bush to relieve herself. She was rearranging her undergarments when she saw Parson Nightingale emerge from the old shepherd’s refuge.

  ‘What’s ’e bin doin’ in there?’ she said to herself. Mercy often talked to herself. Many in the village called her mad; more were afraid of her; all gave her a wide berth. She watched the parson stride away in the direction of the village. ‘Can’t be no good as comes from a man ’anging about where ’e don’t belong. Fancy I’ll wait and watch ’ere a while. Happen ’e’s bin up to no good with summat or someone.’

  Mercy’s patience was rewarded within ten minutes, when Hephzibah Egdon stepped out of the hut. The old woman waited until she had disappeared over the brow of the low hill, then shook her head. She muttered, ‘Bloody outsiders – and them doing the naughty.’

  There was one person in Nettlestock who neither feared Mercy Loveless nor cared whether or not she was a mad woman. Abigail Cake had always found Mercy to be that most useful of individuals – someone prepared to share privileged information in return for a half side of bacon, a sack of coal or a bag of potatoes. Trouble was, Mercy hadn’t had any news worth sharing. Not in a long while. But now her luck had changed. Mercy knew Abigail Cake was acquainted with the two male Egdons rather better than was fitting for the daughter of their bailiff. If anyone was going to go in for playing at handie dandie in Nettlestock they’d better understand that Mercy Loveless would know all about it.

  Half an hour later Mercy was sitting in the kitchen of the bailiff’s cottage, smoking her pipe and swigging from a mug of ale, while Abigail stirred a stew on the range.

  ‘And ’im as is meant to be a man of God. And ’er as is meant to be married to squire’s son. ’E were grindin ’er corn. Bold as brass.’

  Abigail wiped her hands on her apron. ‘You saw them doing it?’

  ‘Not exactly. But what else would a man and a woman do inside an empty ol’ building which ’asn’t bin used since Dick Farthing died three Michaelmas ago? Only one reason to go in there. And them with the door shut tight. Up to no good, I say.’ She bounced one fist against the palm of her other hand. ‘Reckon if I’d got there a few minutes sooner I’d ’ave ’eard them moanin’ and groanin’ and taking a turn among the cabbages like a pair o’ pigs.’

  Abigail smiled and turned back to the pot of stew.

  ‘I said to mesel I did, that Abby Cake will find this interestin’, she will. She’ll make it worth my while to spend my time trailin’ all this way to share such useful information. She’s a good girl is that Abby, I said.’

  ‘Times are hard, Mercy Loveless. It’ll have to be turnips.’

  ‘Turnips! Who do thee think I am, Abby Cake? I can di
g turnips out the soil mesel. Na! I want a nice side o’ bacon or a barrel of ale.’

  Abby reached up to the shelf above the cooking range and took down a tin box. She opened it and pulled out a handful of coins and dropped them into the old woman’s palm. ‘There. Best I can do now. But you bring me more information about those two and maybe I’ll see my way to letting you have a brace of pheasants.’

  ‘Thou’s a good lass, Abby Cake. Smart like ya mother afore ye. Now lemme have another ale afore I go. To see us on me way.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  What likeness may define, and stray not

  From truth’s exactest way,

  A baby’s beauty? Love can say not

  What likeness may.

  (from Babyhood, Algernon Charles Swinburne)

  As soon as her baby boy was placed in her arms, Hephzibah forgot all the agony of delivering him. She looked down at his small, squashed-up face, red and wrinkled, the tiny bud of a nose, his head with hardly any hair, and she fell hopelessly in love.

  Thomas was at home when the child was born, pacing the landing outside her room while she laboured. He grinned with pride when presented with his son.

  Even the squire was forced to acknowledge that his only surviving son had finally done something right, but showed little interest in the baby once he knew it was safely delivered. ‘They’re all the same, babies. Can never tell ’em apart. All bloody ugly. Look like little piglets and make a hell of a lot more noise.’

  Thomas, once he’d got over his relief that at last his manhood would no longer be questioned by his father, slipped back into his usual habits, with long absences in London and at his horse trainer’s. He now had five young horses being trained in the stables at Lambourn. Two of them had been competing for a season, but so far the results had disappointed and Thomas used this to justify his spending more time watching them train on the gallops, as well as going to every race meeting in which they ran. Hephzibah now accepted his absences with relief: all her misty-eyed illusions about him had vanished since she had fallen in love with Merritt.

  In the early months of her pregnancy she saw Merritt at least once a week when he took the Sunday service in Nettlestock. She tried to refrain from watching him, keeping her head bowed as though in devotion, but inevitably her gaze would lift and she shivered with desire and longing when she looked up. With her eyes closed she luxuriated in the sound of his voice. Every Sunday was a beautiful torture.

  As the evidence of her pregnancy grew, she had stopped appearing in public and hence had a break from church-going. She felt thankful that she was able to avoid the pain of seeing her erstwhile lover, mixed with a desperate longing to be near him.

  One afternoon, she bumped into Merritt when walking beside the water meadows. She had believed herself safe from any risk of seeing him as it was within the grounds of the Hall, so he must have walked that way deliberately in the hope of seeing her. She was seven months into her pregnancy and it was the first time the parson had seen her this way. Trying to avoid him, she turned back and walked away into the woods, but he ran after her. He wrapped his arms around her then placed his hands over her bump, crying out when he felt the baby kicking. Overcome, she pressed her own hand over his, before pulling away from him and walking briskly back towards the hall.

  Now that Edwin was born, she knew she had to fulfil her promise to Merritt that he would have plenty of opportunity to see his son, even if none to acknowledge him. The parson had called at Ingleton Hall to enquire after her and the baby’s wellbeing, but Hephzibah was unable to face him, and was wary about his reactions on seeing his son, fearful that he would give himself away in the presence of Thomas, Mrs Andrews or the squire.

  She waited until a month after the birth then, recovered from her confinement and the weather being mild, she took the baby out in the carriage to call at the parsonage, purportedly to arrange the christening.

  Mrs Muggeridge showed them into the drawing room and went to summon the parson who was reading in the garden. Hephzibah was tempted to follow the housekeeper outside to join Merritt in the garden but this would risk their being overlooked from the road, over the hedge, or by Mrs Muggeridge from the kitchen window. She didn’t want anyone other than herself to witness Merritt’s first sight of his son.

  She settled into a chair with the sleeping Edwin in her arms and waited nervously. Merritt appeared in the doorway, his face flushed, his freckles prominent from exposure to the summer sun. He ran a hand through his hair, then stepped back and called over his shoulder to his housekeeper. ‘Mrs Muggeridge, please give Mrs Egdon and me half an hour to discuss the christening arrangements and then you can bring us in a tray of tea.’

  He closed the door and leaned against it, looking across the room at Hephzibah and the baby, as if afraid to move closer.

  Hephzibah beckoned him. He gulped a lungful of air, then went and knelt at her feet. She parted the shawl to reveal the sleeping child’s face and Merritt gasped.

  ‘Merritt, meet Edwin. I have named him for my stepfather.’

  ‘May I hold him?’ he said, his eyes brimming with tears. She nodded and placed the little bundle in his arms. He bent his head down and breathed in the smell of the baby, then kissed its head. Hephzibah untied the cap from the boy’s head so Merritt could better see his son. He cupped his hand around the small head, then kissed the baby again. He looked up at Hephzibah, and shook his head, unable to speak.

  Eventually he said, ‘He’s beautiful. I am overcome. We made him, Hephzibah. Our little boy. I love him so much. I love you so much.’ His voice broke and he brushed a tear from his eyes. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t expect to feel this way. To feel so much love for him.’

  The baby opened its eyes and looked straight at his father. Edwin gurgled and smiled at this strange new person, then his face reddened, transformed into a scowl, and he began to bawl.

  ‘I need to feed him. Do you mind?’ She held out her arms and Merritt gently placed the howling baby in them. He watched, fascinated as she undid her blouse and gave the baby her breast. Hephzibah looked up at him and could see the tenderness and longing in his face. She was the cause of so much pain. It was clear he wanted to protect her and the baby, to be with them, to care for them, to love them. She had denied him that possibility. Yet she knew that if faced with that terrible choice again she would do exactly the same. Edwin was the result of what they had done and it was impossible to imagine life without him. And as for Merritt – they could never be together but nothing could take away the sweetness of her memories of being with him.

  ‘Oh my darling girl, how I have missed you,’ Merritt said, as if reading her thoughts. ‘Not a day has passed when I haven’t thought of you, when I haven’t relived what happened in that miserable hut. To see you in the distance or among the throng at church on Sundays has been the most terrible agony, knowing that I can’t speak to you, touch you, kiss you, experience again the joy of being with you. I can’t do it any longer. I can’t go on living like this. We are a family. We must be together. We have to leave Nettlestock. We have to go somewhere where no one will know us, where no one will find us.’

  Hephzibah wanted to say yes. She wished there was a way she could wave a magic wand and turn back time to that fateful day when Thomas Egdon had found her on the way to the village. If she had left the house only a few minutes earlier or later they would never have run into each other. She would have walked on into the village, knocked on the parsonage door and told Merritt everything and he would have felt able to declare his feelings for her. Her eyes stung and the tears welled up in them.

  ‘We’ve been through this, Merritt. You know it’s not possible. I feel the same as you do. Just now, seeing you holding our son. You can’t imagine how that felt to me. You can’t imagine how it has felt pretending that he is Thomas’s child.’ Her voice broke.

  The baby began to cry again and she moved him onto the other breast. ‘Thomas doesn’t like me feeding him. He says it looks as
though I’m a common villager. He wants me to have a wet nurse or to feed him with milk from a tin. He got Mrs Andrews to try to persuade me to have the bailiff’s daughter come to take care of him.’

  ‘Abigail Cake?’

  ‘Yes. Her child is now ten months old. Oh, Merritt, you have no idea how horrible my life is there. I don’t want that Cake woman anywhere near Edwin.’

  ‘Then we must run away together. Please, my darling, let me make a plan. Just give me a little time.’

  Hephzibah eased the baby off her nipple and the child immediately went to sleep. She laid him on one of the fireside chairs, making a nest for him out of cushions and covering him with his shawl. She and Merritt stood side-by-side for a moment watching him sleep. Merritt’s hand reached for hers and she turned towards him.

  There was a loud knock on the door and they sprang apart as Mrs Muggeridge backed into the room, bearing a large tray. When she had laid out the tea things, the woman said, ‘May I take a peek at the baby?’ Without waiting for an answer she was across the room and bending over the child. ‘He’s a bonny little thing, isn’t he? He has your colouring, Mrs Egdon, rather than Master Thomas’s, but I can see he’s going to be as handsome as his father. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some gooseberries to preserve.’

  When the door was closed behind her, Merritt and Hephzibah fell upon each other. He held her face in his hands and kissed her tenderly at first, then with mounting urgency. Hephzibah extricated herself from his hold. ‘We can’t. We mustn’t. We’re only making it harder for ourselves.’

  ‘You have to understand, Hephzibah, everything’s different now. We are a family. We need to be together. I don’t want my son growing up under the influence of the squire and his spendthrift son. I can’t stand aside any longer.’

  He ran his hands through his hair and shook his head. ‘I should never have agreed to you living this lie. I can’t sleep at night for thinking about you in Thomas Egdon’s bed, his hands touching you where only my hands should be, your body under his, able to have you whenever he wants to, to use you without loving you. It’s a sham and I can’t stand it any longer. I won’t tolerate it, Hephzibah.’