A Country Marriage (5 page)

Refrains came and went; countless and identical, the rhythm and the participants never letting up. And then, with a flourish, it was over. Many of those who had danced left the floor. New couples appeared among those who remained. Would George want to join in? Seated next to her, he gave no sign. Should she suggest it? It looked like fun. And although it was an age since she had danced, once she heard a familiar tune she would probably remember the steps. Did George even dance, though? It wasn’t something they had ever talked about. Perhaps she should wait and see; after all, the last thing she wanted was to make a fool of herself. Yes, she would take her lead from him; that would be the sensible thing to do.

Back along the table, she noticed that Annie was getting to her feet, her unsteady progress bringing her in their direction. Perhaps she would pass them by; go and talk to someone else. A hand grasping the back of her chair suggested otherwise, though and in the instant that she felt it, she turned, her eyes suddenly and unexpectedly separated from George’s by an expanse of the pale flesh of Annie’s chest. Not waiting to see where George’s eyes went next, she directed her own firmly to her lap.

‘Dance with me, George?’ she heard Annie’s breathy voice asking over her head.

She held herself rigidly, waiting to hear how George would reply. Surely he would refuse her; this showy woman who smelled of – what was that – roses? What she wanted was to see George’s face; to gauge his reaction but on the other hand, she didn’t want to risk having to look at all of that heaving flesh. When she did risk a glance through her fringe, it was just as a man’s hand made to grasp at a woman’s wrist; a wrist bearing a golden-coloured band. Gypsy gold, her mother would have said.

‘Not tonight, Annie,’ she heard George eventually answer, there being no doubt as to his firmness on the point. She risked raising her head a little further; not far enough to see either of their faces but enough to see Annie snatching her wrist from George’s grasp and turning away. Finally, it felt safe to look up and see that with the demeanour of someone unexpectedly defeated, Annie was making her way onwards and out of the barn.

‘Everything all right over there?’

She turned towards the voice. It was Hannah Strong calling across. Presumably, then, she had witnessed what had just happened. Would there now be a fuss of some sort? She hoped not. She hoped that would be the end of it. Beside her, though, it was hard not to notice that George was downing the entire contents of his mug in one go.

‘Just fine, Ma,’ he called back, immediately pouring himself another draught from the ale jug.

For what seemed like hours afterwards, and craving somewhere quiet to fall asleep, she sat watching proceedings grow ever more rowdy. When George wandered away to keep company with friends, she wondered whether Ellen might come and talk to her but when she saw her wending her way towards the door, apparently bidding people goodnight as she went, her hope faded. Had she known earlier that George was going to be gone for so long, she would have plucked up the courage to go and sit with her instead of remaining on her own. Well, more fool her: she had missed her chance. Disappointed with herself, she gave a long sigh. She felt utterly exhausted and the throbbing in her forehead – a pounding sensation that had started before she had even left home to walk to the church – hadn’t let up, even for a minute. Supporting her head in her hands, she pressed her thumbs into her temples, willing it to stop.

‘So, tell me then, you seen that brother-in-law of yours lately?’ It was a question that drifted across to her from a conversation being carried on nearby. She had been listening to the participants on and off all evening and with only the mildest of interest now, waited to hear the response.

‘Which one’d that be, then?’ the second voice asked, beginning to sound rather hoarse.

Earlier, she had turned discreetly to look at the speakers; a pair of middle-aged labourers leaning against the barn with their fraying and misshapen hats pushed to the backs of their heads, their belts unbuckled – for, she surmised, relief from indigestion – and their faces puckered and red from the exertion required to down a worthwhile quantity of ale.

‘Um…’

‘Only, on account of all my sisters being wed, I got the three o’ the buggers, see.’

Despite her fatigue, she felt her lips forming a smile and pictured the precarious angle of the mugs of ale that they had spent all night clinging to as though life itself depended upon them.

‘Hmm. Well, if I’m not much mistaken, the one I have in mind lives just this side of Winchester, over at Micklehampton Down.’

The lack of an immediate response suggested to Mary that this information threw up more than one possibility, since a while passed before the second voice replied, ‘Ah, you’d be meaning
Eli
, then.’

‘Aye, that sounds like the fellow: Eli.’ To this, she could picture vigorous nodding followed by ale slopping from their mugs. ‘So, you heard from him then?’ the enquirer persisted.

‘Not these last weeks, no.’

‘Oh.’

She shook her head; all that convolution and apparently for nothing.

‘But ’tis a mite strange you should ask.’

Although, perhaps there was still a
chance
that this tortuous conversation might yet turn out to be interesting.

‘Oh? How’d that be, then?’

‘Well, see, I hadn’t thought to see him again now until the Goose Fair come the end of next month. But that’s on account of my overlooking Alresford Sheep Fair on Old Michaelmas, since you’ll no doubt recall how I always lends old Braisher a hand with the drove.’

‘Aye, I do indeed recall how you do just that.’

‘We–ll, you know how it is; makes for a couple of days’ work now the harvest’s in. That’s if you can
call
it a harvest this year. By my reckoning ’twas as bad a year as last.’

‘Worse even. An’ there’s no one as can blame the weather for it this time.’

‘No; a shrewd observation if ever there was one. But either way, there’ll be no one wanting much help with the threshin’
this
year and that’s for sure.’

‘No, them’s true words you speak; true words indeed.’

The sound of feet shuffling about in the straw suggested that one or other of the men was shifting his weight against the side of the barn.

‘So what’s your interest in old Eli, then, if I might enquire?’

At this, the two voices, having grown steadily louder, were lowered so much that she found herself straining to hear the reply.

‘Well, ’tis like this, see; last time you came back from your Eli’s, you brought word of them
disturbances
over Sussex and Kent and told us all how your Eli was quite a figure in the carrying of news around the villages, him being able to read an’ all.’ At this, the speaker paused and she sensed that disguised beneath his apparently circuitous approach to finding out what he wanted to know, lay the guile of a poacher. ‘So I was thinking how you
might
just know summat of more recent events…’

The poacher’s quarry, however, having by this stage overindulged in the generous supply of ale, apparently failed to notice the skilfully laid trap.

‘Aye, ’tis true; Eli’s as much a figure as any at they
gatherings
, as he calls them.’

‘They
Radicals
, you mean?’

‘Shh! Quiet yourself. ’Tis well known that barns have ears and in any event, it don’t do to go about calling them
Radicals
, since it serves to attract the wrong sort of attention, if you catch my meaning. ’Tis precarious-enough business anyway. No, they call themselves
The
Musical
and
Radical
Society
.’

‘Oh aye? Sings to theyselves, do they?’

Ducking her head, she smothered a giggle.

‘In point of fact, they do, aye. Each and every gathering starts with the singing of songs and
then
they sit and listen to the reading of pamphlets and tracts so as to discuss matters for themselves.’

‘Well forgive me then. I meant no disrespect but knowing so little of such things…’

‘No, well, ’tis fair enough. Indeed, I should
like
to go along meself before much longer, since the matters they discuss are of the utmost import.’

‘Well they must be, if they’re written down. In
pamphlets
.’

What on earth, she wondered, were
pamphlets
? Perhaps George would know. She would try and remember to ask him. Although that supposed that he was ever going to come back.

‘Aye, matters such as the raising of wages…’

‘I should say!’

‘…an’ reductions in them blasted tithes, an’ fairer rents an’ better poor-rates for them that falls on the parish.’

‘Lord alive, now there’s a worthy cause an’ no mistake.’

‘Aye. And I’ll tell you summat else for nothin’…’

‘Aye?’

‘They’re right with what they say, too.’

‘Aye? An’ what’s that then, if I might enquire?’

‘Well they
say
that if things don’t soon get better for ordinary folks like thee and me, then the sort of… unrest and…
protests
going on over there, will fetch up here.’

‘You reckon? What, even here in Verneybrook?’

Verneybrook? She forced her eyes wide and determined to listen more attentively. What protests? And what sort of unrest?

‘You can mark my words on it,’ the conversation continued.

‘You know summat more than you’re lettin’ on, then?’

‘I do not, no. But it don’t need no learning to see how such unrest might spread, do it? I mean, according to Eli, feelings are running high across the whole county.’

‘Well, you should know, what with you being
connected
…’

‘Indeed, indeed, I count I am, as you say, connected. But anyways, enough of such talk; seems to me I can see the bottom of this ’ere mug an’ there’s
another
matter that can’t be right. So how about we go an’ help ourselves to some more ale before them there no-goods piss it all into the hedge?’

‘A timely suggestion, my friend. Lead on.’

With nothing better to do, she turned to watch the pair’s progress towards the ale barrels. Was there, she wondered, any basis to what they had been discussing? But with no way of knowing, she turned back to take in the view across the barn, picking out that George was now heading towards her. Yes, the truth of the matter was that she had other, rather more pressing concerns.

‘Come on then, Mary, best get you home.’

Home. If only.

Somewhat stiffly she got to her feet and when he offered his arm, she accepted it so that together they began to pick their way through their guests towards the door.

‘Oh, forgive me,’ she mumbled when her shoe caught in the skirt of a woman sprawled in the straw. The woman, though, didn’t even stop snoring.

‘No harm done,’ he rejoined with a grin.

‘No,’ she agreed. Perhaps, all things considered, it was a just as well that her mother hadn’t come.

When they eventually reached the door, he held it open; the fresh night air beyond it as reviving to her head as a cool drink would have been to her parched mouth, and at the shock of it, she shivered.

‘Cold?’

‘A little.’ His concern, she noted, as they set off, didn’t extend to offering her his jacket.

‘Ain’t much of a traipse.’

She smiled, resolving that from then on, she would try to talk to him; well, at least try to answer his questions rather than just nod.

‘That’s good.’

Fragments from her earlier walk to the church unwound through her mind. Was that only a few hours since? It felt so much longer. The dread was still the same, though. Different hedgerows to pass maybe, but identical fears.

With the flickering glow from the lantern illuminating just a small circle at their feet, she glanced upwards. A speckle of stars was spread unevenly across the midnight sky and the harvest moon, brim-full and honeyed, was suspended above the beech hanger. Her instinct was to comment upon the prettiness of it, just as she might have done when out walking with her father, when her remark would have brought him to a stop to admire what he called
the
majesty
of
the
heavens
. Would George, though, have a mind for such things? It was hard to tell. And in which case, it was doubtless preferable to remain silent. No man wanted a wife with a head full of fanciful nonsense. Or so Ma always said.

‘Here, let me go ahead,’ he suddenly said, coming to a halt at the top of a steep bank, ‘only, the steps down are a mite uneven until you get used.’ And after descending a short distance, he turned back and offered his hand. Briefly, she hesitated. If only she could still her nerves! Chiding herself, she grasped it firmly and with her other hand lifting the hem of her dress, followed him down. At the bottom of the steps she noticed the smell of fresh paint, and when he depressed the latch and pushed the low door, it opened to the sound of scraping hinges. ‘Well, then. Welcome to Keeper’s Cottage,’ he said and going ahead of her, stepped inside to place the lantern on the table in front of him.