The Ballad of John Clare (24 page)

Heath Field is caught tight now in a taut net of straight fences and new-planted hedgerows. She climbed over one fence after another. She pushed between the quick-thorn bushes and the thorns tugged at her cloak. A fox barked in Royce’s Wood. She quickened her step. The wind sang among the branches of the willows along the dyke edge. She jumped the stream, holding up her skirts. She strode with a purpose. The moon came and went behind the scudding clouds and she seemed to walk through the darkness with a possessed assurance. She did not stumble. There was a shepherd’s lambing wagon at the lower end of Heath Field. She gave it a wide berth. When she came to Torpel Way she followed it westward to Maxham’s Green Lane, drawing her cloak about herself.

It was only as she passed the piles of fencing slats at the edge of Snow Common that her pace slowed and for the first time she caught her foot on the rough tussocks of the common. When she saw the rounded form of the Otter’s squat looming out of the shadows, dark against the sky like a tumped burial mound, she seemed to falter. She stood a-while and the moon caught her face. She watched the white trickle of smoke rising from the Otter’s smoke-hole that was quickly torn to ribbons by the wind. She shook her head, turned on her heel, and began to walk away. Then she turned again, clenched her fists and boldly strode to the canvas flap of the door:

“Kitty Otter!”

She startled herself with the loudness of her voice. Inside there was a rustling and a scuffling.

“Who’s there?”

“’Tis I, Betsy Jackson.”

The canvas was pulled back and Old Otter’s face peered blearily out of the doorway. Behind him Betsy could see Kitty Otter throwing sticks onto the fire.

“’Tis Betsy Jackson right enough.” He turned and called over his shoulder. “Her as blows oboe in the church music.”

Kitty nodded:

“Bring her inside, bring her inside, it’s a cold night as has blown her across the common, she must be needing something bad.”

Old Otter pulled the door open and Betsy entered. The sharp smells, part apothecary’s shop, part smoke-house, part fox’s den, took her aback, but only the wrinkling of her nose betrayed her. She sat down on a stump before the fire and pulled the bonnet from her head. Kitty looked her up and down:

“What brings you here Betsy Jackson, from John Close’s farm …as once was wed to Tom Jackson of Stamford …ay, and there’s more I could tell but will stay my tongue for I do not speak ill of the dead.”

Betsy looked across at her, startled:

“What do you know of Tom?”

“There ain’t much Kitty Otter don’t know child …but she can keep a secret as fast as a stone. What’s the matter with ye?”

She smiled, kindly beneath the smoke stained wrinkles. She reached across and hung an iron kettle over the flames.

Betsy looked into the fire and said nothing. There was a long silence, then Kitty turned and nodded fiercely at Old Otter. He wrapped a blanket about himself, filled his pipe, took a smouldering stick from the fire and pushed through the door-flap. Betsy watched him go.

“Won’t he be cold?”

“No, he has a hollow tree, he’ll be right enough.”

Kitty reached across and took Betsy’s hand. She patted it between her own.

“Now …”

“I am with child.”

Kitty sucked the smoky air between her teeth.

“I thought as much from the moment you come through the door. But you ain’t some slip of a girl as don’t know what she’s doin’ til the damage is done, Betsy. How did you get quick? Who done it?”

Betsy shook her head:

“To tell the truth I had thought I was barren or I would’ve took more care … for Tom had often mocked me …”

“Let’s not talk of Tom …now, what will ye do? Who’s the daddy? Is he worth his salt? Could he provide for ye?”

Betsy hesitated. She looked pleading at Kitty.

“You promise to keep my secret?”

“Upon my mother’s grave.”

Betsy leaned forward and whispered into Kitty’s ear.

Kitty stared at her.

“John Clare.”

She dropped Betsy’s hand and got up to her feet.

“John Clare!”

She turned away from the fire, then turned back again.

“There ain’t much can shock Kitty Otter, but you have shocked me this night Betsy Jackson. Little John Clare as is courtin’ Mary Joyce, and them in each other’s thrall as though each was witched by the other?”

Betsy nodded.

“Why, I have seen them walking on this common not long since, and it seemed to me that they had drawn a circle about themselves that none could enter …and now ‘tis you as carries his babby?”

Betsy nodded again.

Kitty sat down, as though overcome with weariness, she shook her head and her grey hair fell down in straggles across her face. There was silence but for the crackling of the fire. Then Betsy reached across and touched Kitty’s knee:

“Sometimes a body can’t help herself …it was Plough-Monday, John fell into my arms, and I did ache for him.”

Kitty’s voice turned fierce now:

“Ah, a Plough-Monday bastard …and it won’t be the first … and him as drunk as a new-dropped calf I shouldn’t wonder.”

Betsy hung her head and said nothing.

“Have ye told John Clare? Has any word of this reached Mary Joyce’s ears?”

Betsy was careful with her answer:

“I have told John only, and he will have nothing of me.”

“And what of the babby?”

For the first time Betsy shed tears. They trickled down her cheeks and she wiped them away with her sleeve.

“Why else would I have come to you Kitty …”

She put her hand to her belly.

“Though, God knows, for ten years I did yearn, and Tom did mock, and nothing came …and now where there should be joy there is only shame.”

Kitty’s face softened. She took Betsy’s hand again.

“Ay, ‘tis best it goes …‘tis best old Kitty twines it from ye, or God spare us the consequence. You’re strong and young enough to bear more when the time is ripe.”

Betsy nodded.

“Must you work tomorrow?”

“No, John Close has give me Ash Wednesday free.”

“All well and good.”

Kitty lifted her hand to her lips and whistled through her fingers, piercing and shrill. Soon Old Otter was pushing through the door. She winked at him, but without any flicker of a smile.

“’Tis the old affliction. We’ll need to fill the tub.”

He nodded. Without a word the two of them took kettles and pots from the shadows and lifted them to the doorway. Kitty pulled a blanket over her shoulders and fastened it with a bronze clasp.

“We’re away to the stream to fetch water. You stay here and sup on this while I’m gone.”

She reached into the roof and pulled down a poppy head, a dried stalk of white hellebore and a stem of penny-royal. She dropped them into a wooden bowl, pounded them with a stick and poured boiling water from the hissing, spitting kettle onto them. She put the bowl into Betsy’s hands.

“This will be a harsh night for ye Betsy Jackson, but it will pass with the dawn and soon enough will be forgot.”

Betsy lifted the bowl to her face and sniffed the bitter steam.

Kitty threw more wood onto the fire then turned back to the door:

“Come on Otter, there’s work to be done.”

With a clattering of pot to kettle they disappeared into the darkness. When they returned they raked out the fire and set the water over the glowing coals to boil. Old Otter pulled a wooden tub from the shadows. Whenever a kettle came to the boil the water was emptied into the tub and filled again from the stream. Again and again the pots and kettles were filled and brought to the boil and emptied into the tub. Kitty, Old Otter and Betsy were glistening with sweat. The squat was so filled with steam that even the fire disappeared in the hot, stinging mist, and every hanging plant and skin dripped sharp and fetid moisture onto the floor.

Kitty dipped her hand into the tub. She whispered to Otter and he pushed through the flap with an empty kettle in either hand.

“Take your clothes off Betsy Jackson and climb inside.”

Betsy’s face was streaming with moisture. She was gasping as though she could drown in steam. Her eyes were half-closed and her thoughts already fevered with the poppy-head tea. Kitty helped her unbutton and unfasten herself. She held Betsy’s hand as she climbed into the tub. The water was so hot that Betsy gasped.

“It’ll do ye no harm. Settle down and drink some o’ this.”

She pressed a bottle into Betsy’s hand. Hoping for cool water Betsy lifted it to her lips and poured it into her mouth, she found herself choking on gin.

“Ay, you’ll have tasted that before I shouldn’t wonder.”

When Otter returned with the kettles Kitty seized them from him and put them onto the fire.

“That’s enough of water …now skin me some withies.”

The canvas flap dropped and he disappeared again into the night.

The willows, pollarded since time ever was, have been marked for felling with streaks of glistening red paint that seemed to shine like open wounds as the moon rode out from between the clouds, and then close again as it disappeared. Old Otter reached up into one of them, chose two long supple withies and cut them with his knife. He sat down on a stump and skinned away the bark so that the whip-thin clean white wood was laid bare, as pale as Betsy’s flesh. He carried them back to the squat and whistled. Kitty’s claw-like hand pushed out through the side of the door flap. He pushed the withies into it. She pulled her hand inside.

“Now leave us be.”

He turned and trudged away and soon enough the sound of Betsy’s retching and crying were lost in the wind. He came to his hollow dotterel and slipped through the cracked bark of its portal. Inside his little fire was glowing still. He threw more sticks onto it until it blazed and crackled. He squatted on his haunches with his back pressed to the rotting wooden wall. He took a blazing twig and lit his pipe. He sucked and spat into the hot coals. The tree was its own creaking chimney. Tobacco and wood-smoke were swept up into the night. Above his head the thin branches lashed each other in the wind and the torn clouds raced across the moon. He closed his eyes and puffed himself into contentment.

Suddenly from the squat there came a scream, long and piercing, then there was only wind again. He poked the fire with his boot and paid it no more nor less mind than he would the screech of an owl, or a vixen on heat, or a rabbit with a weasel at its throat.

*******

Betsy was woken by the grip of a hand to her shoulder. She was warm under a heap of skins. She opened her eyes and saw her clothes spread out and drying on branches in the firelight. The shadows of the squat were dancing in the flames, all steam and water was gone.

“’Tis an hour short of the dawn, time you was gone Betsy Jackson.”

Betsy pulled herself unsteadily to her feet. There was a wringing pain in her lower belly. She was stark mother naked, her skin still puffed and pink from the hot water. One by one Kitty Otter handed her clothes to her and slowly she put them on, welcoming their warmth and dryness against her skin. Kitty pulled the door-flap aside and Betsy went out into the night. The wind had eased and the air was fresh and kind. Her head was still thick and throbbing with the gin and poppy-head tea, she breathed deep. Then she pulled her purse from her pocket and pressed it into Kitty’s hand. Kitty neither thanked her nor opened it. She thrust it into the pocket of her leather apron.

“Here’s something for thee …”

Kitty reached down and picked up a nest of soft green moss. Lying in its cup there was something that Betsy could not bring herself to look upon. She took it and covered it gently with her hand.

“Do with it as ye will …it must not stay here.”

Betsy nodded and turned away.

“Go careful now, bathe again and sleep. You’ll be well enough come Thursday.”

Betsy turned and disappeared into the night.

Kitty dropped the door-flap and muttered to herself:

“And if you ain’t you’ll need more than my physic to save ye.”

She lifted her fingers to her mouth and whistled, soon enough Old Otter was pushing his way into the squat to join her.

*******

And now, in the last dark of this Ash Wednesday morning, with the stars beginning to fade and the cockerels stirring on their rafters, Betsy Jackson stops in Snow Common and stoops to pull primrose leaves and cover the little bundle she holds so careful in her hand. Unsteadily she treads the lanes to Heath Road, clutching it as tenderly as little children will carry some dead thing that they have found, a wren maybe, perfect in its red-brown freckled feathers, or a shrew.

She steps slow and stumbling, as though each foot-fall costs her dear, her face as blank as a statue carved in wood or stone. It is as though she sleep-walks, until some little stumble wrenches her into pain again. She is coming to the village now and stepping as quiet as she is able. She is walking up Woodgate, past the Clare’s cottage that is deep in sleep. And now she passes Butter Cross and makes her way over the street towards the church. She is not going home. She is stumbling through the lych-gate and into the churchyard. Her swollen skin is ashen now. All pink has been driven from her cheek. Her lips are open and seem to be shaping words that cannot be heard.

She threads her way between the headstones and drops to her knees beside the skeps. With her right hand she is tearing at the grass against the wall. She pulls up a ragged turf and digs into the soil beneath with her fingers. She is making a hole, scooping it out and patting it smooth with the back of her hand.

Tenderly she lifts the primrose leaves. There is enough light now for her to see clearly the little glistening red kernel of flesh that would have been her child lying on its soft green bed. She leans forward and lays the nest of moss in its tiny grave. Her tears drop into the hallowed soil. She lays the leaves tenderly on top of it and covers it with earth. She gently puts the turf on top of it and pats it down. For a while she looks at the place, as though trying to hold it in her memory. Then she pulls herself to her feet as the dawn strengthens, and hurries home to John Close’s farm before any soul ventures out into the day.