A Country Marriage (7 page)

‘Robert, how many more times must I point out that if you raised your eyes from your boots, you wouldn’t walk into so many things?’

‘Aye, sorry George.’ It was the voice of a young lad, albeit unusually soft and apologetic in its tone and as she drew closer, she caught sight of George ruffling a crown of mousey-brown hair. Without looking up, its owner stepped aside to let her through.

‘Hello.’ Although she offered her greeting with a smile, it met only with the top of his head. For certain, though, it was the same young lad that she had observed last night, perched alone in the corner of the barn, mindful of nothing except a plateful of food. Denied a view of his face, she tried to remember what George had said about his age: fifteen, maybe? It seemed about right; he was certainly still afflicted by the ranginess of youth, she noted as he loped away, offering her no greeting in return.

‘Looks like you been busy, the pair of you.’ It was Hannah appearing from the scullery to lift a heap of darning from the table. ‘Your pa’s up Top Orchard checking on the pears,’ she added with a glance to George. ‘Ellen, love, come and do something with this pile of mending, will you? He’ll be down soon, though, if it’s him you’ve come for.’

‘I was hoping for the loan of some tools,’ George answered his mother.

‘Why don’t you just go and fetch what you need, son? Your pa won’t mind. And you, Mary, love, sit yourself down. Give your feet a break this while.’

Doing as she was bid, she pulled back the nearest chair and sat down. Around her, the kitchen felt vast – but then it needed to be big in order to accommodate the huge brick fireplace and mishmash of oversized pieces of furniture. The table alone, she was certain, was as large as the single room of her new home. But courtesy of the aromas – yeasty baking mingled with oaky wood ash – it felt mellow and inviting. And that being the case, she found herself wondering why on earth George had wanted to leave it for the damp and cramped conditions up the lane.

‘So, how do you like Keeper’s Cottage then?’

Lord, were her thoughts so easy to read?

‘Oh, just fine, Mistress Strong, thank you.’ Perhaps her eyes
had
been flitting about rather a lot.

‘Now, lovey, you can’t go on calling me Mistress Strong; not now we’re family. Annie and Ellen both call me Ma Strong. How does that sound?’

She smiled. At least George’s mother was friendly.

‘Thank you. It sounds just fine. I’ll try ’n remember.’

‘An’ is everything
all
right
?’ Her mother-in-law’s question seemed decidedly specific and guessing at her meaning, she looked into her lap.

‘Fine, thank you.’ Somehow, she could feel Hannah regarding her; could even feel that it was with some doubt as to her honesty.

‘All a bit new, lovey, ain’t it?’

She nodded.

‘A bit, yes.’ There was no need for her to know the intimate details. There was no need for
anyone
to know those.

‘Nothing that a bit of time won’t remedy.’

‘No.’

‘Time and familiarity; the one coming from the other.’

‘Yes.’

‘And ’though I say so myself, there’s not many a man of George’s years that works harder or lives cleaner.’

‘No. I know.’

‘He just needs to settle to it. You both do.’

‘Yes.’

‘You see, Mary, men don’t always know what they want, even when it’s put right under their noses. And since the dear Lord saw fit to bless me with four sons, then I think I’m as well versed as any to say so.’ She risked looking up from her lap. Maybe her mother-in-law would be forthcoming in the way that her own mother hadn’t been. ‘You see, when Tom and Will both chose to wed at the same time, I felt for certain that George, although a few years younger, would be quick to follow suit. So when he didn’t, I’ll own to being fair surprised. From where I stood, it seemed there was any number of young women willin’ to throw in their lot with him. I even put a fair few of them in his sights myself; not that any of them ever took his fancy. And although I’ve never been able to rightly say why, it always seemed to me that he was holding out for summat in particular.’ When her mother-in-law’s voice tailed off, she followed the direction of her stare. It seemed to lead to Annie, who had come through the doorway bearing a pat of butter towards the scullery. When she disappeared from sight, she could make out the sound of a brief exchange; the voices too hushed to distinguish actual words. But when she reappeared, her expression seemed fixed with a deliberate air of insincerity; the sort of smug expression a person might adopt if they wanted everyone to think they knew a secret. ‘But that day I seen you in the square,’ Hannah resumed once Annie had gone, ‘getting down with your basket from your pa’s cart, I thought to meself, now there’s a very tidy young lady.’

Unable to help it, she giggled.

‘If Ma heard you say that she’d tell you that I
never
looked tidy a day in my life.’

‘Nonsense, love. It’s what caught my eye about you. Anyway, I don’t mind admitting that I had the very devil of a job to get you both in the same place at the same time. George can be real stubborn when it suits him. And even before
that
, it took me Lord knows how many weeks of plotting to find reason to waylay your pa so as to get him to tell me all about you.’

What? Her father had been in cahoots with Ma Strong? Goodness.

‘He never mentioned that you’d spoken of me.’

‘Don’t count he did, lovey; that’s men for you. Anyway, after
that
I still had to persuade George that he ought to meet you a couple of times; give you a chance.’ When Ma Strong laughed, it was with a chesty gurgle. ‘
Now
, course, he’s glad he did and that’s how he is; gets his mind set on summat and there ain’t nothin’ or no one as can change it. He gets that from his pa. His brother Tom’s the same, you know; stubborn as mules, the three of ʼem. The
number
of times I had to drag those two boys apart when they were small.’

‘Like two of
my
brothers.’

‘So I suppose what I’m trying to tell you, love, is that with you bein’ so… young, you might find you’ve a job on your hands to begin with. But remember this: all men got their flaws.’ And what, she wondered, smiling politely back at Hannah, were George’s? ‘So to my way of looking at it, choosing a husband is a vexing affair anyway, since all you can do is pick one lot of faults over another; perfection never being one of the choices.’

‘All I truly hope for is to be a good wife,’ she ventured quietly, ‘but in truth I’m not even sure what that means—’

‘Well I shouldn’t werret yourself, love, since I’ll wager that
he
doesn’t, either. Indeed, if it’s of any comfort, then I could name you more than a few women who’d claim that even after thirty years of bein’ wed, they’re
still
vexed by that question!’

‘So… what do you do, then?’

‘You just keep going, love. And you take heart from what succeeds.’

‘Oh.’ It hardly felt like the most helpful of answers.

‘Look,’ Hannah was saying and reaching across for her hand, ‘you seem a bright enough girl, so I’m sure you’ll work it out just fine.’

While there could be no doubting that her mother-in-law’s comments were well meant, at the same time, they did give rise to another question and that was: which one of them was she doing her utmost to convince?

*

The following morning, George set to work finishing the henhouse, but with his mind free to wander, he found himself thinking about the last couple of days and how, so far, being wed had been far more testing than he had ever imagined possible. The trial of their wedding-night – uncomfortable enough at the time and barely any less so now – persisted in his mind in the manner of an unsettling dream, a relic of something he wished he could put behind him: Mary standing stiffly as he undid the buttons of her dress; his fleeting temptation to lower it down over her shoulders, her slender neck seeming quite inviting; the discomfort of being stricken by memories of more enticing flesh and the resulting moment of hesitation that had given her the chance to pull away from him. With hindsight – a gift he knew to be treacherous at the best of times – he deeply, deeply rued failing to grasp the opportunity. If only he had. How things might then have turned out differently! No, no, no; he had been down that regret-paved path before and knew all too well how it led only in the direction of endless torture. No, much better to justify that moment of hesitation by remembering how badly she had been trembling and how he’d had no wish to alarm her. Hm. Deep down it didn’t change it for what it was, though: flimsy defence for his false-heartedness.

Tossing aside the hammer, he squinted along the ridge of the henhouse, surprised to find that unlike his own character, it ran straight and true. At least he could do
something
right, then. He turned about. Close by was a pile of rough-sawn planks, and selecting the uppermost, he looked it over for fitness as roof covering. As a task, it proved poor distraction, though, his mind returning yet again to what he had come to think of as
his
predicament
. If nothing else, he
did
feel a certain sympathy for his new wife. After all, he had brought her here to his family – none of whom she knew – and straight away it had been obvious that she was completely overwhelmed. It didn’t help – then
or
now – that
he
had felt awkward with
her
too. She had clearly never been alone with a man before but then, wasn’t that something he had convinced himself that he wanted in a wife? And if so, why, now, did her innocence feel like such a tremendous burden? Of course, it might all have been less difficult had she aroused some desire in him, maybe then he could have just seized her, kissed her and hoped for a favourable response. As it was, she had looked as though he ought to have just pecked her on the cheek and tucked her into bed, an uncomfortable recollection that reawakened the memory of watching her undress and his shame at his reaction. It was fair to say that he had been completely unprepared for how very slim and childlike she was. And then, of course, in that very moment of seeing her naked, his brother’s comments about her shape had flashed through his mind to extinguish even the faintest glimmer of desire he might otherwise have been able to summon. Damn Tom Strong. May the man burn in hell for his remarks.

Gripping his fingers tightly around the handle of the saw, he urged the quivering blade back and forth through the coarse plank.
Don’t dwell, don’t dwell
, he muttered in time to its rasping.
Don’t dwell
, he repeated as the off-cut dropped onto the grass and he reached for another plank. What about
last
night, then, his mind seemed to taunt? Lining up the second plank, he shook his head. No, last night wasn’t as bad. Against all expectations he had detected a change in her; a modest one admittedly, barely discernible even but a change nevertheless. Granted, she still wasn’t the most willing or responsive participant and he was almost certain that at one point she had been gritting her teeth but she
had
seemed a little less petrified. Still, it had been his decision alone to choose such a young and naïve wife, the downside of which was now becoming apparent; he would have to be patient with her. Surely, that was preferable, though, to having discovered on his wedding night that his new bride was as…
practised
… at such things as Annie, appealing though that might in some ways have been.

Annie. Inevitably, his mind drifted back to her. She still fascinated him, although she wasn’t necessarily the sort of woman to whom he wanted to be wed, a realisation that had contributed in no small part to his eventually choosing Mary. Certainly, Annie had all the experience and confidence that Mary didn’t, although to make any sort of comparison was entirely unfair. And it didn’t do to dwell on where Annie might have gained all that alluring experience, either. She had certainly already acquired it before she met Tom, and although it was so much part of her appeal, it was also, surely, why Tom had such difficulty keeping her under control. No, he didn’t need that sort of trouble from a wife, whatever the less-than-exciting alternative.

Exhaling a long, slow breath, he wiped his hand across his forehead. A few months back, his best and most sensible hope had seemed to involve finding a reasonably capable and accommodating wife who he might eventually grow to like or possibly, even love. And the first time that he’d met Mary, he thought that maybe he had found her. So, why, now, was he wondering what had possessed him to marry her? Contrariness was bad enough in a woman but definitely
not
an admirable trait in a man.

He paused from sawing the planks and straightened his back. Well, second thoughts were no good to him now. By any assessment it was far too late for regrets. Of far more use would be to come to terms with the situation and accept that it was down to him and him alone to make a go of it. And this morning, out here, in the light of day, there felt to be just the slightest of possibilities that given time and sufficient encouragement, she might
eventually
turn out to be what he wanted. Working in the garden yesterday, he had seen a little of what people – and by people, he really meant his mother – had said about her; that she might only be seventeen but she knew the way of things when it came to keeping a home and a piece of land. So perhaps what he needed to do now was to try to get her to stop fearing him. Then, maybe, with an equal application of hard work and good fortune, everything else might fall into place. Either way, now that they were inextricably bound together – and given that he had no one but himself to blame for that – it had to be worth hoping for. Turning back to the partly finished henhouse in front of him, he gave a resigned sigh, and reaching for the hammer, determined to direct all of his efforts to getting it finished.