Maggie's Child (3 page)

‘Hello, Lizzie. They produced well today; you will have your work cut out now.’

 ‘Maggie, are you sick, gal? You look pale, are you feeling unwell? You look done in to me. You are nearing your time, it’s too much for you carrying the load you do, here -’ The girl spoke with speed as she moved from behind the blue slab counter towards her mistress, ‘- sit’. Lizzie slid a milking stool across to Maggie.

Maggie formed the words she wanted to say in her head, but they stuck in her throat. She looked down at the floor to compose herself. Lizzie was a friend, and Maggie, being close to breaking point, was ready to confess what she had done. She took a deep breath and sat on the stool. When she did speak, it came out in a croak, an emotional sob.

‘I lost the baby a few hours back. Jacob is very angry with me, so be on your toes tonight. He will probably come to you, and his mood is not a good one. I buried her in the corner of Dupp’s Meadow along with the others. It is sad, but I feel for Jacob. He does so want a son.’

She used the pretext of having a girl to disconnect her from Nathaniel. Sooner or later it would go around the village that a boy child had been abandoned. Jacob never ploughed the top half of the meadow; he buried his parents and a brother in what he called
The Family Plot
. He did not believe in the church being the only place to bury people, and several years ago made a place for his dead family on the farm. Before she had washed, Maggie went to the meadow, made a mound of fresh earth and on top she laid a posy of wild flowers. The mock grave sat at the end of the row with her other children. Only she knew it was empty, but did what would be expected of her. Jacob would want her to bury his child in the family area. She also expressed her concern for Jacob to Lizzie in a soft tone. She wanted the girl to be able to tell people Maggie was sad, and thought of her husband during her loss. The game of pretence was her protection. The few farm hands that worked the farm loved her, and they often made sure Jacob kept his fists to himself. Sometimes he got away from their watchful eyes and gave her a good hiding, but she avoided situations to provoke him whenever possible.

Lizzie started towards her with her arms outstretched. Maggie put her hand out to ward her away, and smoothed her apron. She could not cope with being held by another at that moment.

‘Ah gal, I am that sorry. Aw, Maggie. You do not carry well, t’is the same with our Henry’s missus, Mildred. Lost seven now she has. T’was your sixth, wasn’t it?’

Maggie willed the girl to stop talking. She would not have said anything at all, but she needed their farm workers to know she was no longer pregnant, and the story she invented.

‘Fifth. Not a breath did this one take.’

Maggie gave Lizzie a wan smile, and went back to her home and as she crossed the yard, from the corner of her eye, she could see Lizzie scuttle towards the wood barn. The news of their loss would soon be gossip on the farm.

Maggie tidied away the baby items and crib she aired in the back parlour. She had made a show of keeping things normal, despite the fact she would not have the opportunity to use them. She went through the nesting motions in the home to fool Jacob. As she placed them back into storage, the task brought about genuine sorrow. Jacob would expect to see a measure of emotion; she had always done so in the past, so she never held back the sobs that burst forth. After a few moments of sadness, and yet another bout of tears, she took comfort knowing there was a living being with her blood in its veins. Despite the dull sensation inside, and the overwhelming urge to scream, Maggie allowed herself a small smile. There would never be a chance to hold him again but her son lived; a triumph over Jacob.

A Blackbird announced the end of the day, and the light faded. With it came a deeper melancholy mood. Maggie thought about her son and who was holding him in their arms, while she prepared vegetables for a man she despised.

The aroma of fresh bread could not remove the memory of the baby perfume she had inhaled that day. Mutton stew simmered slowly and the meaty smell permeated the farmhouse, but still the memory of the sweet, soft flesh lingered for Maggie.

Jacob broke the spell of silence when he crashed his way into the kitchen. Muddied boots were thrown against the hearth to dry off ,and he scraped his chair away from the table. Each sound resonated in Maggie’s ears. They sounded far louder than ever before, and the sounds irritated her nerves. The tension in her body made her limbs ache but if she relaxed, Maggie convinced herself she would explode in temper.

‘Managed the cows, did you?’Jacob grunted the words through a mouthful of bread. His words held an edge of sarcasm.

Maggie carried the stew pan to the table and ladled his meal into a deep bowl, all the time avoiding his eye.

‘Yes, there was a good yield. Lizzie will have plenty to churn for selling tomorrow.’

She sat at the other end of the table. Jacob made it a rule that they ate alone and first. When they had finished, Maggie took the extra food to a rundown cottage across the yard. A simple building where the few farm workers they had ate and rested. Lizzie lived in a smaller building to one side. She was the only female, and Maggie insisted she had private accommodation, although she suspected Lizzie spent a large part of the nights with the men in their beds.

Jacob grunted an approving sound during the slurping of his meal. Maggie hated his crude manners. Her parents may have been poor, but they knew how to conduct themselves at a table. Her husband behaved like the pigs at the trough, all grunts, and mashing sounds.

She nibbled at her own meal, though her stomach was in no mood for food. While she chewed, she reflected on her past, to when she was fifteen, and upon her parents. She thought back to the reasons they had sold her to the bully seated in front of her.

***

June 1851

Maggie’s father took ill with pneumonia one winter, and it left his lungs weak. He weakened even more after the death of her eldest brother; killed in a farming accident three years later. It was a dreadful incident. He worked parring nettles when a bull charged. A field worker for the squire let it into the field by mistake. After his death and her father’s illness, Maggie, and her mother, ran the farm for a few months. Maggie, although fifteen years old and fit, found the work of two men, plus her own chores, far too hard. The family struggled to maintain the fields and the barns, yet, despite working all hours of the day, the squire reclaimed them, and the main farmhouse, for others to manage. He allowed the Eagle family to remain on in a small, one bed-roomed cottage rent-free on the edge of his estate. Her mother claimed, with him being part to blame for her brother’s death, it was his way of clearing his guilt.

Maggie slept on a narrow truckle bed for a few months, and earned a meagre wage working the fields for the new tenants. She took on more chores around the home but nothing she ever did for her mother was right. Despite her hard work and bringing in a salary, her mother labelled Maggie as lazy. A good for nothing. Her father was too weak to argue so kept quiet, and simply turned over in his bed whenever her mother ranted and raved about trivial things. Maggie was surprised when she returned home from work one evening to find the widower, Jacob Sawbury, seated at their table. It appeared he approached her father about Maggie going to work for him. Maggie, grateful her time at home might be nearing its end, listened to his offer.

‘It’ll be more than the Squire pays and a free meal thrown in, providing she can cook.’ Neither he nor her mother spoke directly to her, and Maggie dared not speak out. to decide.

Cramped living conditions, a sick father, and an ungrateful mother were not the ingredients for a happy home. Farmer Sawbury offered her accommodation and work. Maggie prayed for a better life, and now her chance might be just around the corner, however, this farmer had a poor reputation in the village, and Maggie became nervous about her future. Her father tried to say something, but a coughing fit prevented him from asking questions. He waved his hand in a gesture to her mother, indicating for her to make the decision.

Maggie watched as his thin, feeble arm flopped onto the grubby blanket. Both she and her father didn’t have to guess as to what her mother would decide. Her mother was a cold-hearted woman, and there was not a lot of love for Maggie – if any – and money served a better purpose.

‘You needn’t think you are getting her for nowt. Worth a something, she is. And neither is she staying under your roof without being wed. Marry her,
and
fetch me a hefty bag of coins, and she is yours.’ The pair shook hands in a solemn deal, and Maggie stared in despair. Sold for a bag of coins. There had been no point in her protesting, and did not want to listen to a lecture. She simply hoped life was about to take a turn for the better. Maggie was not going to upset her mother. Arguing might make her change her mind, and Farmer Sawbury was her ticket out of the clutches of a mealy-mouthed woman. As far as Maggie was concerned, her mother was dead. She also knew had her father been well, he would have bartered her the same way, and probably held out for more money. She was a nobody in the house, merely another mouth to feed.

When I leave here, I will never return. I mean nothing, nothing to them. Nor they to me.

Her mother organised the wedding for early morning of June second; a Monday. A quiet ceremony, to be held at St. Mary’s church in Redgrave. A beautiful sunrise greeted Maggie but she could not find excitement in the weather, nor the wedding.  She was tired from her chores the day before, and those she had to complete two hours early because of the wedding. Also, they were a mismatched couple in Maggie’s eyes, and she could not see it to be an ideal arrangement. Her husband-to-be was tall; extremely tall. She was as petite as he was wide shouldered. Ten years spanned between them. Maggie understood he had been married when he was her age, and his wife died in childbirth five years after the wedding. Maggie knew no more about the man beside her. She did not even know if he smiled, he had never done so in her presence. His dark eyebrows knitted together across a furrowed brow, and mingled with lank, unkempt hair. His face, swarthy dark from working outside in the sunshine, reminded her of the gypsies who moved from farm to farm. He was not a handsome man, and most definitely not her choice of husband if romance had been her luxury.

For the ceremony itself there were no fineries, no gold band, only solemn words. Her parents gave their approval to the nuptials for the official documents. Her mother attended and signed as a witness. When all formalities had been completed, she pulled her shawl around her shoulders and walked away. Not a glance or a word was offered to her daughter. She did not say goodbye, or offer her congratulations, to her new son-in-law. The woman simply nodded at the vicar and returned home to her husband. Maggie was left with a stranger.

She looked around at the empty church. Her wedding day, and not one person congratulated her. Even the vicar had taken his coin and left for home without a word or acknowledgement for the young bride.

Bride
. Maggie gave an inward sigh.
No pretty gown for me
. Maggie wore the same shabby dress she pulled on every day. Ridding it of field aroma, she had rubbed it down with rosemary the evening prior to the ceremony. It smelled fresher but she struggled to get it any cleaner; a pathetic outfit for a young girl’s wedding attire. She glanced around, trying to make a memory of the day. The light shone through the beautiful stained glass windows, and cast shadows of colour across the white stone. It gave her little comfort but she stared at them nonetheless. A cough echoed around the sanctuary, and she noted her husband beckoned her to leave the building with a abrupt movement of his arm towards the main entrance.

‘We’ve finished here.’ His voice echoed and made Maggie cringe. He showed no reverence or respect of where they were. Apart from saying the few words the parson required, he had said nothing else. His impatient tone made Maggie relieved he never said any more, and just left the building.

Maggie inhaled deeply.

Courage, Maggie. You are a married woman now. A married woman!

 Mrs Sawbury. Maggie mulled over her new title, shook her head in disbelief, and stepped out of church behind the man who had given her his name. They walked in silence along Churchway, and onto a winding lane that would take her to her new home. Jacob tut-tutted when she stopped to pick a bunch of Stinkwort and Milkweed, but even he could not resist picking a few juicy blackberries. Maggie gathered several for later in the day. The only worldly goods Maggie owned were in a tied piece of flannel: a pinafore that had seen better days, a few strips of rags for her monthly cycle, a pressed flower taken from the garden she had left behind, and now, a few blackberries. The June day was warm, the sky clear, and Maggie in her innocence saw the world in a different light to her new groom. While she collected the juicy fruit, Jacob removed his cap and mopped his brow.

‘Ruddy heat, it will bring about a storm and the crops will suffer.’ He kicked a stone into the ditch beside him.

‘What crops do you grow, sir?’ Maggie was relieved he had broken the quiet spell.

‘You can call me Jacob or husband, none of this sir lark. We have wheat, barley and potato fields. Our cows earn us our squire’s rent with their dairy, and the pigs and sheep are the finest around. You’ll be in charge of the hens.’

He strode on, muttering. ‘Wasted a perfectly good morning because of your mother and her wedding clap-trap. That parson was as bad, dragging out his pompous sermon. All for a scrap of a girl to clean for me.’

The more he muttered, the faster he walked. Maggie broke into a trot to keep up with him, but found herself lagging behind when they reached the brow of the hill leading to her new home. At the top, she took in her surroundings and let her lungs settle. She had arrived at Windtop Farm.

A patchwork of rust-gold and green fields spread out before her, ablaze with ripened produce that swayed in the wind either side of the meadow. The scene took her breath away. Heads of wheat and barley rippled as if waves along the surface of a river. Wild flowers of every colour lined the hedgerows. Various shades of green leaves and stems, hosted a rainbow of colours, each nodding their heads in patches woven throughout the meadow. Maggie threw open her arms with glee, releasing the child within. Her fair hair fell from its ribbon and tumbled onto her shoulders. Maggie inhaled the perfume of a summer’s day. She watched birds swirl a dance on the gentle breeze, butterflies flitted from bush to bush, and a rabbit bobbed amongst lush green vegetation. Below and across the fields she could see the river Waveney.