A Country Marriage (41 page)

Chapter 16

Sins of the Flesh

As soon as she opened her eyes the next morning, Mary could feel the brooding remorse that had arrived overnight to settle heavily in the pit of her stomach. Not so long ago she wouldn’t have understood the skulking disquiet for what it was, but since the night of the harvest home all manner of things had changed, and she knew very well now why guilt was such an insidious emotion. It was crafted that way on purpose; to eat away at you until you made good your ways. And she also knew that even if she never set eyes on Francis again, as far as her conscience was concerned, yesterday evening she had gone too far.

With the coming of the pale new dawn, everything about last night felt horribly wrong, although, rather contrarily, she only needed to close her eyes briefly enough to conjure the feel of Francis kissing her to wish him here with her now. Perturbed, she sat up and pushed back the blanket, screwing up her face at the smell of tobacco in her hair and the dirty feel of her skin. Lowering her feet to the floor, she padded silently past her slumbering son, and as she climbed down the ladder, her eyes fell on George – still soundly asleep where they had placed him last night – and the weight of her remorse doubled. With his mouth wide open, he was breathing heavily, and as she slipped past him, her nostrils caught the sourness of perspiration mixed with the stale fumes of cider.

Stepping outside, she noticed how the first rays of sunlight had drawn a wispy summer mist over the valley in the manner of a veil concealing the features of a blushing bride. She paused to admire the prettiness, inhaling a breath of the fresh air and feeling how it lifted her mood. Then she stripped off her petticoat, laid it over the top of the pump, and cranked the stiff handle. Bending under the spout, the feel of the shockingly cold water striking her skull made her gasp, but she did it again regardless, and then reached about for the tablet of soap to lather her hair and then her body. Shivering with cold, she doused herself one final time, and with her hands trembling and her teeth chattering, tried to rub herself dry with the threadbare huckaback. No longer quite so wet, she grabbed for her petticoat, but the stale and unpleasant reminder of last night’s atmosphere in the barn made her toss it aside. Tiptoeing back indoors, she reached into the pile of laundered clothes for the largest garment she could see – one of George’s work shirts – and pulled it over her head. Then she tugged at her tangled hair, attempting to persuade it into place. Without a fire it would take ages to dry, but she hadn’t decided yet whether or not it was wise to risk waking George. She looked over her shoulder at him. He would need to be ready for church soon anyway, though, so slipping her feet into her work boots she clomped to the woodshed and struggled back with two hefty logs. After returning for some kindling and hay she arranged it arbitrarily in the hearth and set it alight, and as the flames started to take hold she pulled up a stool and sat as close as she could, running her fingers through her hair in the hope of helping it to dry.

She looked across at her husband again. His behaviour last night had been completely out of character – but then so had her own – but perhaps, with the burden that he had been carrying recently it was understandable, desirable even, that for once he should be able to cast it all aside. Perhaps he would be different now. Perhaps all of his concerns had been building up inside him and now, after a good old-fashioned randy, he would be less troubled.

It was impossible to recall last night, though, without thinking of Francis; something she had been trying to avoid. She wanted to be angry with him. She wanted to blame him for what she had done and even more so for what she had wanted to do. Still, there was no need to take it any further. In fact, she knew for sure now that she wouldn’t. It had seemed all very well last night, when they had been alone and he had kissed her with such passion that she had wanted to drag him down the side of the cottage and let him finish what he had started at the harvest home. Safe in the darkness, with George all but unconscious, she had been feeling confused, and Francis, Francis was handsome, warm and, it seemed, totally captivated with her; a heady combination that would be hard to resist at the best of times, let alone when she was feeling so alone. With a sigh, she stole another glance at George. Well, she’d had her momentary escape from dreariness and now, this morning, things had no choice but to return to normal.

*

‘Who do I have to thank for getting’ me home, then?’ George asked, his head propped on his hand. ‘Will?’

Mary faltered.

‘No, not Will,’ she said, concentrating on holding Jacob still as he pulled to escape from her arms. ‘He tried but he couldn’t move you. You were a deadweight. Francis Troke put you in the cart an’ brought us all up.’ As his name left her lips, she felt her face flash hotly, but a quick glance to George told her that he had sunk his head in his hands and wouldn’t have seen.

‘Oh, no; I hoped to hear it was family but I suppose Francis is as good. I owe him,’ he observed, and setting aside his spoon, gave up trying to eat. ‘Forgive me. A man shouldn’t ever lose himself to drink.’

She looked up, unable to contain a smile. He looked as guilty as she felt, something that brought relief since it meant that he wasn’t looking closely enough to observe her own disquiet, and frankly, she had little capacity this morning to care for the source of
his
discomfort, certain in her mind that, whatever it was, his was the lesser sin.

‘Don’t fret so. ’Tis the male condition to overdo the drink from time to time and it ain’t as though you make a habit of it, so if I were you, I’d say my sorrys and my thank yous and pray that your head gets back to normal real soon. Maybe I’ll ask Martha for a remedy.’

‘No, I beg you not to. In my experience of these things the cure is oftentimes worse than the ill.’

‘Nonsense. When I see her after church, I’ll ask what she advises.’

*

A week or so later, and to Mary’s mind, George’s mood seemed better. In themselves, the improvements might each have been small and unremarkable, but she took it as a sign that things were returning to normal, although now the fact that she wasn’t sure what was responsible for this latest change nagged at her. Since the wedding party, he had shown her more consideration, and in the past few days had been to the farm only once, telling her that his pa wanted to discuss buying some heifers, and then, when he had returned, she had been pleasantly surprised to find that he was still in talkative mood.

‘They seem a fair price,’ he told her.

‘Aye?’ For once, she was glad of the conversation, even though she had no knowledge of the subject. ‘Where’s this then?’

‘Over Furzey Common way. Pa wants us to ride over and take a look.’

‘Oh.’

‘So it’ll need to be Saturday afternoon. You won’t mind, will you?’

‘Not at all.’ Based on recent events, she was flattered that he was even telling her. ‘Is Will going? Or Robert?’

‘Not as far as I know. It seems it’s
my
opinion that Pa wants.’

‘Well that’s good, isn’t it?’ she asked.

‘I ain’t so sure what Will thinks on the matter, but I must say ’tis nice to be asked,’ he concluded, to which she nodded, thinking that she knew exactly how that felt.

*

Over the next couple of days Mary tried further to fathom what had caused the improvement in George’s behaviour. It seemed to stem from Sunday morning, after the night of the wedding celebration and perhaps, therefore, it arose from remorse. He really had drunk far too much, far more than she had ever known him drink before – and to pass out and have to be carried home was unheard of for any of the Strongs. Even Tom had never done that. Maybe it had been a shock to him, although she still couldn’t work out why he had been drinking cider in the first place. He had always told her that it didn’t agree with him, so it made no sense. In fact, neither of his brothers drank cider; they both drank ale, so she couldn’t hold
them
responsible for plying him with it, either. The only person she knew who drank cider was Annie. Mixed up with many other, entirely different memories of the evening, was the vague notion that he had tried to tell her something. She could no longer recall his exact words, but he seemed to have been on the point of confessing to something; something about – what was it – having done something bad? Maybe that had also been playing on his mind, whatever it was. Oh well; she would probably never get to the bottom of it, but the fact of the matter was that he seemed different this week, contrite, almost. Admittedly, at night he was still simply climbing into bed and falling asleep – or at least appearing to – but that was no great loss, a civil atmosphere and some conversation having long since become preferable to his soulless physical endeavours.

The sun that morning was warm, and quietly weeding nettles from between the rows of beans, she cast her eyes out over the valley. The previously uniformly green grain fields now resembled quilts, hand stitched with the blushing rose-pink of the willowherb, the dainty white of the campion and the gaudy scarlet of the poppy, while overhead the scythe-like wings of the swifts soaring in search of insects punctuated the otherwise unbroken azure sky; not that she noticed much of it as she stared fixedly out. It was all very well feeling pleased that her husband was back to his old self, but the frightening reality, which she had so far avoided facing, was that this was
it
now. She was here, in Keeper’s Cottage, with the first of what would undoubtedly be a half-dozen or more children, tending vegetables, keeping house and getting into bed at night with a man who had no idea that she had real physical needs, let alone the wherewithal to satisfy them.

Laying down her trowel she walked the length of the row of beans and up the path at the end, where she sat down and looked out over the meadow. She realised now that she wanted to be touched. No, it was more than that; she
needed
to be touched. She wanted to feel a man’s hands on her body in a way that brought her skin alive, rather than made it creep. And she wanted to be kissed; kissed by a man who desired her, not on the forehead like an obedient daughter. She wanted to feel the way that Francis had made her feel, momentarily, that distant night of the harvest home and then again on the night of his sister’s wedding. But now it was more than just a need borne of mere curiosity; now it had developed into an overwhelming and all-powerful longing that surprised her with its intensity. And she was beginning to think that if she didn’t do something about it, there was a very real chance of ending up like her mother; frustrated and bitter. Contemplating the situation now, it was obvious that George was never going to touch her in such a way, and so she faced a dilemma, although in truth, only fleetingly. She readily accepted that Francis’ motives were probably those of self-satisfaction together with a not-inconsiderable degree of devilment – he wanted to do it to prove that he could – but she found that, surprisingly, she no longer particularly cared. He was handsome and skilled but, more to the point, he wanted her – actually, physically,
wanted
her – and coupled with the fact that he understood the need to be discreet, he was in truth, her one single chance to experience what she believed was missing from her life. And that was why, despite the possible consequences, she knew now that she would almost certainly go through with meeting him.

As it happened, it was George who made the final decision easy for her, arriving home that evening to announce, ‘I promised Annie that I’d go and have a bit of a talk with James.’ When he hesitated, she thought it was as though he was trying to decide just how much to say. ‘Seems he’s started misbehavin’ and she thinks maybe he’s missing… his pa.’

‘Maybe,’ she agreed, thinking it highly unlikely. As far as Tom had been concerned, James had been a kind of trophy; heir to Summerleas and something that neither Will nor George had, at least, not until recently. Other than that, he seemed to have taken little interest in the boy, and for his part, James had appeared to cower in his presence. Still, George always did seem to do everyone’s bidding. ‘All right,’ she answered him. ‘I’ll see you later then.’

‘Aye. But don’t wait up,’ he added, and with a brief kiss on the top of her head was gone, leaving her staring at the table and their discarded supper bowls, evoking in her mind the way that their future looked; two empty vessels, side by side but not quite touching, the stark realisation simply serving to further harden her resolve.

*

The following afternoon, frightened by her own boldness, Mary walked down through the hay meadow to where she guessed Francis was working. Apart from the
see
-
eep
of a greenfinch searching for sun-baked seed pods among the fallen grasses and the
tswee
by way of answer from its mate, there was no other noise to carry on the languid air. And as she picked her way through the uneven hummocks of pale stems, she could see through the shimmering heat haze that he was raking the cut grass into windrows. As she drew near, he looked up and rested on his rake.

‘Can I talk to you a minute?’ she asked, narrowing her eyes in the brightness.

‘Course. Follow me.’

Taking the rake and glancing quickly towards the top of the field, he walked swiftly down to the trees and, with her heart thumping, she followed, unable to believe that she was doing this. At the lower edge of the field, he took several paces into the dappled shade of the coppice, and checking that they couldn’t easily be seen, laid the rake on the ground. A few steps away from him she hesitated, and apparently sensing her trepidation, he held out his hands to her. She moved a couple of steps nearer and took them; they were hot and their dryness made her own feel clammy. He pulled her a step closer.