As Meat Loves Salt (71 page)

Vermin are for the killing. Remember Basing-House.

Ferris was compassionate there!

Will you swear to that? You were not with him.

I do swear it.

You bleed for him, eh?

No!

Yet you have made him cruel. He will never be other with you now.

It laughed, a noise like bubbles in silt.

Your little serpent is now a widow. I put that lie in her mouth and sealed her tongue. Shall I unseal it?

I told him lies.

He lied also. The Father of Lies spoke through you both, and put you to bed together. I tasted him with you.

I covered my ears.

Sweet hero. In Hell are special embraces for him, hot, unbreakable
—

'Jesus! Jesus! Help me.’I screamed to block out the words, and fell back on the bed.

The hut dissolved. Lightning impaled the ground and I saw a jeering crowd all jostling one another. As they fell back into night I caught the scent of burning. The dark-skinned infant fell wailing and I knew it for a boy and mine but my feet were fused to the earth. Flame swelled behind the child like a wave of the sea and in terror I turned to run, but found myself in a narrow way between trees, where I knew there were snares. The thorns held me. I heard a squealing which might be from men or beasts — saw Ferris leap in the midst of a circle of men, as the bushes which pulled at me grew soft—

I understood I was in the hut, my hands pressed to my forehead and the palms all sweat. The drag on my limbs told me that I was fully dressed; sunlight pierced the walls.
Too late,
I said to someone, to God I think. The pity of it, when once I had been a boy who woke to pray, then ran downstairs to Father, my life perfect, a shining bowl. Since then I had filled the bowl with desolation. Myself and Ferris damned.

It might be that he was one of the Elect. He would turn from me, and repent; he and Zeb would gaze down from Heaven, cold angels, while I was torn and broken on the wheels of sin. He and Zeb—

Something tickled my wrist. I scratched at it and found the note Susannah had given me the night before. She had written on it in a blunt hand,
I Samuel20,11.

I wondered where she had found the pen and paper. Ferris's Bible lived in my hut — he never read it now, and I only kept it because it was his. Digging it out from the pile of belongings, I found the place.

And Jonathan said unto David, Come, and let us go out into the field. And they went out both of them into the field.

So I had been right about her, she had in a manner understood and this was her way of telling me. I could have wept on her bosom like a child. As it was I felt her kindness flow into me like an access of Grace.

I was in sore need of such comfort. I lacked courage with Ferris, yet to quit without having tried every means would be madness. Once, as we lay in bed, he had told me that when we lived together but as friends only, he had been so hotly drawn to me it was pain. Very well, I should work alongside him in the field, and act lovingly towards him. His barred
delight,
his untasted
honey,
should be constantly before his eyes, and his flesh should plead my case.

It was time I discovered if Caro meant to stay. If so, I would be both dove and serpent, until I understood what best to do. Taking a comb from the side of my bed I pulled it through my hair and beard. I then wrapped two washballs in a piece of cloth and set off to find my wife.

The rain from the day before had cleared the sky for a bright hard sun more fitted to early spring. In the field I saw the Tunstalls, bent to the earth, and Jeremiah not far off from them. No other soul was visible. I turned away, silently rehearsing my first words to Caro.

Outside the tent I found the child squalling on the grass and yearning towards me with its arms and legs. It should have been swaddled, and in this laxity I recognised one of Ferris's notions.

'I don't know your name,' said I, taking it up. There was not much of Caro in it, only the mother's roundness of cheek and lip, but that all babies had, even those whose mothers were very deathsheads.

'Black but comely.' I held the babe away from me to get a good look. It ceased screaming and seemed to regard me with curiosity. It was a Cullen: the skin alone was enough to settle that. Then the hand: I could see it would grow to be square in the palm, with a long strong thumb. That was my hand, but it was also Zeb's, supple and capable on the lute strings. The eyes were blue, but again, my own grey eyes did

not mean I was not my father's son. Did it know me, I wondered, and I folded it to my breast.

The tent door flapped open and Catherine came out. 'Ah, there's a sight,' she said. Before I could stop her she was yelling, 'Sister Jane! Come out here!'

There was no time to do more than try for a calm face and a level voice. Caro was out and curtseying to me, as self-possessed as if we had never met. Bowing awkwardly because of the child, I observed bluish-brown marks around her temples and jaw. A deep unbroken scratch began at her ear, crossed her neck and disappeared into her clothing. I tried not to stare at it.

'This is Brother Jacob,' said Hathersage, who as always these days followed practically on Catherine's heels. 'Brother Jacob, Sister Jane.'

'I am very glad to meet you, Brother,' said my wife. Her shyly upturned face put me in mind of her as a little girl, sitting on Izzy's knee and whispering in his ear that Jacob was
thwart.
I hoped I was smiling.

'The lad bids fair to be as handsome as you, eh?' asked Catherine.

A very pretty one,' I replied, thinking that this was like acting a play in a madhouse. ‘A boy? What is his name?'

'Dan, Daniel,' said Caro. I had been dreading
Jacob,
or worse,
Ze-

We stood at a loss and I dandled the babe as best I could. Ferris was nowhere to be seen.

'Have they made you a hut, Sister?' I asked.

'Not yet,' said Hathersage. 'We were not sure - Brother Christopher was away, and Sister Kane was afraid the men who attacked her, you know of this—?'

I nodded.

'—afraid they might return, and so she has been in with Susannah.' He waited, triumphant, while I worked it out.

'Then you and Catherine are espoused?' I asked him.

'We are,' his wife answered for him.

'I give you good joy — why — you must excuse me, no one—'

'I told folk to say nothing,' Hathersage explained. 'I wanted to give the news to Brother Christopher myself.'

'Well.' I jogged the child up and down. I would not ask them why they had waited for Brother Christopher's absence. 'Well! May you be happy. And Sister Jane, shall you live with us? What has Ferris to say?'

'Ferris is Brother Christopher,' Catherine explained to Caro.

'He says I may stay.'

"Then everything falls out pat. I have no special work on hand, come with me and I will build you a hut. You shall help pass the time by telling me your tale as we work.'

'We were making buttermilk,' Caro said, glancing hesitantly at the new spouses.

'O, no!' cried treacherous Catherine. 'Go get your hut built. You'll find Jacob a quick workman.' I saw she could hardly wait to get back into the tent with her Wisdom, who was even then slobbering on her neck.

'Come then, Sister Jane,’ and I walked away in the direction of the wood, keeping a firm grip on the child which might or might not be mine. I heard her tripping over the grass behind me but she took no pains to catch up.

'Now then,' I said, turning as we reached the first trees. 'None can hear us.'

She gasped and stared around.

I went on quickly, 'I mean only that we can talk. I will do you no harm,' and put the child, which had fallen asleep on my breast, into her arms. Caro watched me without speaking. I found I lacked the courage to begin at once, so told her to wait while I went back for an axe, which in my confusion I had forgotten to bring from the tent.

'Stay here,' I urged.

'Where would I go?' she replied.

I slowed my steps as I came near the tent, treading silently until I pushed through the flap. There was a scuffle as I entered. Hathersage turned his body away from me, I saw Catherine's skirt drop, and both blushed exceedingly.

I took my time finding a suitable axe-head, fitting it to a shaft and sawing off some rope from the smallest pile there. At the door

I hesitated as if in thought, returned and selected a turving-spade. Hathersage glared at me.

'I may need more rope,' I told them with the sweetest of fraternal smiles. 'Be careful, don't spill the buttermilk.'

The infant was beginning to whimper as I again approached the trees. As I laid down the tools I saw Caro arrange a shawl over her bosom, and knew she was about to put the boy to her breast. My child or my brother's child, I told myself. We were once like Catherine and Hathersage, I put my body inside hers.

Carp fiddled with her bodice. Daniel ceased whining and began to snuffle. A part of me wished my wife would let me see her giving suck, and I felt as if haunted by my own ghost.

The work proceeded slowly, for I went for the straight, slender branches that Harry would have chosen, but did not hurry in cutting them. Instead, I made much play with the axe and then reined in the force of each blow before it pierced the wood.

'Our bargain was that you should tell me your tale,' I said. 'I know in advance it will shame me.'

She regarded me curiously.

'I am not the man I was,' I said. 'I would do what I can to make things right.'

'Make things right?' she interposed. 'How will you—?'

As best I can. But be so kind, my dear, as to tell me the rest. How comes it you are alone?'

Caro drew her shawl more closely over the child's head. 'Some take me for a widow. I may be one.'

'What—'

'I was abandoned by my husband.'

I paused in mid-swing. 'Did you not abandon him?'

She made no reply and it came to me that by 'husband' she must mean Zeb. O, how could we get over that ground! I hacked at the branch harder than I had meant, severing it. Having propped it against the bottom of the tree I went on, 'So why are you come here?'

'To find him. Someone told me he lived on the common.'

With this woman, of all others, I dared not talk of beatings. Besides, my ear had fastened on her 'to find him'. Could it be that Zeb had lied to me, and given her the slip - it might be because of the

child? Enquiring through the lanes and taverns for one dark-skinned man by the name of Cullen, she had been sent after another. I cringed to think of her wandering in the whore-infested warrens near the dock, being pushed up against the wall, pinched and squeeze d by the drunken scum of the town.

Then I recalled that wives lie as well as brothers. I would try her a little further. 'How did you get to London? With the gypsies?'

She glanced up in alarm at this guess. I had perhaps given myself away and she would now know I had seen Zen. "That's how it falls out in the old tales,' I added casually. 'And you have no money?'

'All gone.' She seemed to have no questions to put to me. Zeb had known I was living in Cheapside, and at whose expense. I wondered how much of it he had relayed to Caro.

'I was in the New Model, and then in London, before I cam here,' I said. No need to tell her that the common thread was Ferris. Unable to whittle it any longer, I hacked through another branch. She shifted the child from the left breast to the right.

'I am very sorry,' I said. 'You did right to leave me without a groat.'

'Leave you?'

'However you want to put it. Forced away.'

Her face was puzzled.

'Never mind,' I went on, 'I will help you as far as I can.'

"That is most kind,' she said. I took my hand from the branch I was about to mark and stared at her. There was no mockery in her expression.

'One thing I do long to know.' It was mayhap too soon and she might not tell me for spite, but I could not hold back. 'Mother, Isaiah - what became of them?'

'How should I know?' Her face was now grown anxious.

I set down the axe. 'Caro, I'd sooner have the truth. No matter how cruel. Are they dead?'

'My name is Jane.'

I looked about. There was none to overhear. 'Surely between us you could be Caro.'

'Why, Brother?' Her voice was perplexed. 'Don't you like my name?'

For an instant I doubted myself. I stepped up closer and examined her. She was tanned and bore the marks of poverty and violence but she was Caro.

I took her by the shoulders, gently so as not to alarm, and crouched before her, our eyes on a level. 'Lord, wife, we are in a pitiful plight! Though the fault be all mine, we must pull
together.
Do you know anything of them?'

She shook her head.

'Did you know I was here before we returned from London?'

'They talked mainly of Brother Christopher. But why do you call me wife? My name is Jane Allen. Do you feel well, Brother?'