A Country Marriage (40 page)

Arriving back in front of him, hoping with all of her might that she didn’t look as bewildered as she felt, and grateful that he seemed too far gone to pay heed anyway, she didn’t think she had ever felt so laden with regret; so hollow; so utterly disappointed. But somehow, her legs carried her on until the moment when the music stopped and she tried to stand still, the room continuing to spin without her until, eventually, she was able to focus on George bowing exuberantly in front of her and then sinking to the floor.

Alongside her, she could hear a woman’s breathless laughter and turned her head to see Annie, doubled over next to him.

‘Oh dear Lord… I fear… I’m too old… for this. Far too old.’

‘No,’ Will was disagreeing, shaking his head and supporting her on his arm, ‘…you saw… Pa just then… so there’s hope… for all of us… yet.’

Then, as she took in the sight of George crumpled in a heap, she heard Annie go on to observe, ‘I doubt you’ll get much trouble from him tonight;
there’s
a skinful if ever I saw one.’

‘Aye,’ she replied between breaths. ‘Looks like he’s been at the cider, although he don’t normally touch it.’ With Annie wandering away, still laughing, she stared down at her drunken husband, thinking that it truly was the final straw. ‘George?’

He looked up at her, blinking.

‘Annie? You still there?’

‘No, George,’ she replied and held out her hand to him. ‘It’s me, only you’re far and away too befuddled with drink to see it.’

With considerable effort, he staggered to his feet.

‘Oh, there you are, Mary, my wife.’

‘Oh for goodness sake, George!’ she groaned, buckling under his weight as he leant on her shoulder.

‘You know I think I should tell you… that I done a bad thing.’

‘I can see that.’ Despite her resolve, the sight of his face, gripped by concentration, made her shake her head and then smile. This evening might have been miserable but, in truth, little of the fault could be apportioned to George, and at this precise moment, despite being horribly drunk, he looked unusually happy; carefree, even.

‘Can you? Can you see it?’

‘No need to go looking so surprised, George, we can all of us see you been at the cider – an’ you know how bad that gets you.’

‘No, no. Well, cider… aye… maybe just little taste but not
that
thing,
another
thing… a terrible, bad thing… not that I meant for it… but Annie, she…’

Sagging beneath his weight, she shook her head. What drivel. Well there could be no mistaking that tomorrow, come reckoning time, he would pay the price for this with an almighty sore head.

‘Whoa, George, c’mon brother.’ To her relief, Will seemed to be coming to her aid; relieving her of his bulk.

‘Good job he don’t make a habit of this,’ she remarked to him. Her husband, though, slipped through his brother’s arms to collapse in a heap at their feet, and staring down at him, she shook her head. ‘Only, I don’t know which is worse; that he’s so drunken or that he’s talking such gibberish.’

‘Aye. I don’t recall seeing him like this in many a year. I’ve hardly seen him all night anyway, let alone seen him on the cider. And he’s going to be difficult to get up the hill to Keeper’s Cottage in such a state, too.’

She had been thinking much the same thing and had been on the point of concluding that there was really only one thing for it.

‘I suppose we could always leave him there to sleep it off—’ but before she had the chance to look to Will for a response, seemingly from nowhere, Francis Troke had arrived and was starting to pull George to his feet. What was he doing? And why wasn’t Will stopping him? With George hanging from his shoulder, though, Francis was already – by means of half-dragging and half-walking her husband – persuading him towards the door. And when he cast a look back over his shoulder, she noticed that it was directed at Will rather than herself.

‘Should I put him… in the cart?’

‘Aye, much obliged to you. I’ll come and take him up home,’ she heard Will responding.

To her dismay, though, Francis seemed to have other ideas.

‘No, it’s all right. It’s on my way. Are you ready, Mary?’

Feeling Will’s eyes upon her, she hesitated. Clearly, there was a right answer and a wrong answer to his question, but which was which? Yes or no? Ride – to all intents and purposes alone – with Francis in the cart or err on the side of propriety and decline an innocent offer of help?

‘I have to fetch Jacob,’ she muttered, and turned about, her quandary leaving her momentarily unable to remember where he was. What foolishness, though! Why would Will – or indeed anyone else for that matter – judge her for accepting the kindness of a family friend? And why was she so concerned that they would suspect anything, anyway? There was nothing to suspect! Nothing had happened. At least, not beyond the confines of her mind, it hadn’t.

‘Will you fare all right with him in that state or do you want me to come up and help?’ Will wanted to know when she returned with Jacob in her arms.

She shook her head and then nodded. Oh for goodness sake – why was everyone being so considerate?

‘I’ll be fine. Thank you, though,’ she replied, allowing him to help her up onto the cart.

So close yet again to Francis, she held herself rigid and heard him tell the horse to walk on. Francis Troke was taking her home. How on earth had this come about? And what, precisely, was
this
, anyway? Did he genuinely intend simply to help her? Or did he have something entirely different in mind?

Once they were beyond the torch-lit yard, she felt him looking across at her, but the only way she could think to quell the excitement surging through her seemed to involve pretending that he wasn’t there. And, as though coming to her aid in the matter, a coarse snoring erupted behind her, while at the same moment, from where he was clutched to her chest, her son offered a disgruntled whimper.

In the darkness, Francis had to coax the reluctant horse to cross the ford, and in that moment, her eyes wandered to the pool of lantern light and the movement of his hands on the reins. Despite the chill of the night, they would still feel warm and—

‘Stop there a moment.’ She looked about. Unbelievably, they were already at Keeper’s Cottage, and when he jumped down from the cart she watched him reach to unhook the lantern and then followed its bobbing progress towards her. ‘Give me your hand.’ No. She couldn’t trust herself; not to feel his grasp, she couldn’t. ‘Mary, come on: don’t be foolish. ’Tis pitch black an’ you can’t risk falling, not with Jacob in your arms.’ He was right of course; it would be easy to misplace her foot and fall and so, somehow, she managed to extend her hand and let him help her to the ground. ‘Now, let’s get you two inside and then I’ll come back for George,’ he was saying but this time, when he reached for her hand to guide her down the steps, she took it, the comfort and reassurance of his warm grasp as frightening as she had known it would be.

A step ahead of her, she watched him push open the door, place the lantern on the table and then wait while she crossed the room to lay her sleeping son in his cradle. And when she turned back towards him, her eyes fell once again on his hands as they removed the smoke-stained chimney of the oil lamp and his fingers offered the wick carefully into the flame of the lantern. When it flickered to life, a dull pool of yellow light drew her eyes to his face and the sight of him looking back at her. In that split of a second, cocooned in the anonymity of the night, she felt for certain that there was no one else on earth but the two of them. And if, all along, it had been his intention to ignite her desire for him, then she realised that he couldn’t have staged it more perfectly.

‘Thank you.’ Her voice, sounding uneven, seemed barely to disturb the silence.

‘Pleased for the chance to be of service,’ he replied equally softly and, letting out a long and tremulous breath, she lowered her eyes. It was hopeless; despite everything that was wrong about it, she still longed desperately for him to kiss her again. ‘So what are we going to do with your husband, then?’

She blinked rapidly. Her husband. Yes. Entirely unprepared for being torn from the realisation that every inch of her body was still willing him to touch her, her mind seemed unable to address the matter.

‘Um… best put him there, on the pallet bed.’ In the name of all that’s holy, pull yourself together, woman. Nothing can happen, so think! ‘Yes, I fancy he’s so drunken he’d sleep in a mud pool.’

‘Bide here then and I’ll fetch him in.’

When he disappeared up the bank and into the night, she went to stand in the doorway, desperate to think of a reason for him to stay. Despite all of the hostility she had once felt towards him, she knew that, just now, when they had been in the cart, she would have let him take her, willingly and completely in his thrall, to the farthest corner of the land; and although she recognised it for the ludicrous notion that it was, she longed for him to suggest it. But instead, what she heard was the sound of him struggling down the steps, her snoring husband over his shoulder. Having never seen anyone manoeuvre someone the size of George with such ease, she quickly moved around the table to help him lower his inert form onto the pallet bed.

‘Thank you.’

At her words, he nodded.

‘I’ll just go and see to your horse, then.’ How utterly beyond explanation it felt – indeed, how utterly foolish – to want to cry. To cry for what, though: for the way he made her feel? For the way that she felt so desperate? Or for the way that all of this made her marriage feel so unfair and so hopeless? Whatever the reason for it, the source of all of her confusion was right there, just at the top of the bank. And in a moment, he would no doubt come down to tell her that he was done. No. He couldn’t go; the thought of it alone was twisting at her insides. But, flashing through her mind, the dozen or more excuses for prolonging his stay were all nonsensical. And in any event, she could hear him coming back down the bank, and with seemingly nothing in her power to stop him, she was struck by the perfectly normal manner in which he was saying, ‘Well, since that’s everything taken care of, I’ll bid you goodnight then.’

She nodded, feeling her throat tighten to the point of hurting.

‘Thank you again,’ she managed to answer, but then, as he stepped outside and went to move up the bank, all she could feel was terror at the prospect of losing him. ‘Wait, wait,’ she whispered, stepping outside and pulling the door closed. Two steps above her, she saw the speed with which he turned about and put down the lantern, and then felt how he grasped the hand she was reaching towards him. Pressed against the wall of the cottage, she had no way of knowing who kissed who, only that it didn’t matter since all the dancing about in denial was finally at an end. ‘Oh Lord,’ she whispered against his neck. ‘Please don’t go. I want this so much.’

‘I know, Mary, believe me I do. But this is neither the time nor the place.’

‘I’m not much minded to care—’

‘Maybe not, but I want it to be just right for you.’

‘What? I don’t—’ Was he truly refusing her? And after his behaviour these last weeks, months, even?

‘I don’t want it to happen in a rush, or for you to look back and regret it.’

She shook her head. He
was
. He was
refusing
her.

‘I won’t…
please
… Francis, I
need
…’

But she could feel his hands on her arms now, and the way that he was holding her further away so as to look at her.

‘No, Mary, listen. I want very much for us to be together, but not here, like this.’

‘But—’

‘Trust me, Mary, this ain’t how you want it to be. Someday, though, someday soon that is, you’ll happen upon a proper chance, and when you do, you come and find me.’

How on earth could he do this to her? Surely no man in the land ever waved away a woman offering herself up to him? Well, she wouldn’t let him leave her; not in this frenzy, she wouldn’t. She had never, even for a single moment, been reduced to such a state by a touch or a look or a word from George, and if what this man maintained about wanting her was true, then she wasn’t just going to let him walk away; not tonight. But with no real clue as to how to prevent him, all she could think to do was to kiss him. And when she did, even her limited experience was enough to reassure her that he had been speaking the truth: he did want her.

‘Francis, please, I beg you again, don’t go; ’tis unbearable.’

Through the absolute stillness of the night air, voices drifted towards them, and with her face buried against his neck she froze, feeling him turn in their direction.

‘Look, we can’t neither of us risk getting caught like this,’ he whispered. ‘But especially not you.’ And, while she was trembling too much to offer a meaningful protest, she felt him fold away her arms and was left to watch as he stepped aside to pick up the lantern and head silently up the bank.

Left alone in the darkness, she could still hear voices, his among them she was certain; not that she was inclined to hear what they said because disbelief and desolation seemed to have drained her to a state of hollowness; to a desiccated husk left on the ground after the harvest. Eventually, though, she could hear them no more and, growing cold, she crept inside to collapse onto a stool at the table, shaking and drained of every ounce of life.