The Bride's Farewell (5 page)

Leading Jack, Pell asked politely if the old couple minded her taking the spot next to theirs, and seeing how young she was, with a boy they took to be her own and no husband in evidence, they took pity on her and granted their assent. They were glad to have a girl set down between the Gypsy wagon and their own, despite the questions raised by the fatherless child. The couple were Mr. and Mrs. Bewes, and pleased to make her acquaintance.

“This is Bean,” Pell told them, letting go of him at last as he struggled away after his new friend.

“An unusual moniker,” said the woman, drawing her eyebrows together. “Named after his pa, was he?” She was fishing, unable to settle for so little information.

“No,” Pell said, but on second thought smiled, not wishing to sow suspicion where she needed friends. “He is my brother. The youngest of five.”

“Five brothers!” crowed Mrs. Bewes, hands clutched to her breast. “What a comfort for your poor dear mother.”

Pell did not explain their circumstances further.

“And you are here to buy a horse? Or to sell one?” Mrs. Bewes looked at Jack.

I am in need of work, Pell thought. I left home in a hurry. My brothers are dead and my mother has only Lou and the little girls at home.

I will never, ever marry.

A knot of panic formed near her heart. What could she say to this woman? She forced herself to smile. “We are seeking—” she glanced at Bean, who was out of earshot—“to buy. Perhaps.”

“Well, then, without a doubt you’ve come to the right place.” Mr. Bewes looked kindly at her, but his wife merely nodded. If the condition of the girl’s clothing was anything to go by, money was not plentiful at home. Perhaps she was hoping for a bargain, or a miracle.

“We are in search of a nice solid pony, strong enough to pull a plow but not so heavy he can’t be rode to the next village in the dead of night.” It turned out that the old woman was a midwife, still active in her trade. “Our Pike deserves retirement and a quiet old age, poor thing, after eighteen years’ hard work. Nowadays, all he’s good for is to trundle along in front of a wagon at half a useful pace.” She grunted. “And that goes for his lordship as well.”

Pell smiled.

“Will you take tea with us?” Mrs. Bewes asked and, without waiting for an answer, poured out into delicate china cups, as genteel as if she were sitting in a velvet chair in her own gracious parlor. She removed a small leather bottle from her apron and tipped its contents into her teacup.

Pell caught a whiff of gin and peppermint.

Mr. Bewes explained that he was hoping to accomplish his business and set off for home as soon as possible. “I’m too old for this,” he said, and Pell understood. The atmosphere of the fair, equal parts thrill and menace, offered the kind of excitement that sickened the soul. An excess of alcohol had so far made the crowd cheerful, but she knew it would not be long before the mood turned.

“I’ll happily stay with the horses,” Pell offered, “if you would like to look round with Mrs. Bewes.”

Her offer was gratefully received, and she sat with Esther watching the comings and goings of the fair until finally the couple returned, and Mrs. Bewes urged Pell to take a turn with her husband. “The place is riddled with Gypsies and heaven knows what else,” she whispered, too loudly, with a meaningful nod at Esther. “I think you’ll find the protection of a man a blessing.”

Pell retrieved Bean from Esmé and, gripping him tightly by the hand, set off with the old man. She would certainly find work here, she told herself. Horses needed grooming and guarding, and owners would not want to leave a wagon, or a beast, unattended.

The noise did not abate as evening closed in, rather the opposite, owing to the combined effect of drink and high spirits. Everywhere fires burned; the wood smoke blew around Pell’s head and up her nose, a welcome smell over that of ordure and blood. She could hear pipes and fiddles emerging here and there in the dusk. The smoky gray evening made a perfect dull foil for flames and the flickering glow of lanterns.

She saw Bean’s eyes glow huge like beacons in the failing light. Plenty of ugliness to be found here, Pell thought, despite it lying low. And he’s just the child to see it all. She folded his cold hand between her two and squeezed it tight.

Pell managed to follow Mr. Bewes and discourage him once or twice from horses he’d regret buying. She offered guidance so subtle that it made no particular impression on him, but when he settled on a big skewbald gelding, well built and sound, it was thanks to judgment other than his own. Even in the half-light she could tell that the animal was strong, intelligent enough, and willing. As they turned to go, the owner swung Bean up onto his horse’s back, saying, “See? Quiet as a lamb he is. Wouldn’t hurt a fly.” The big horse turned his placid brown eye on Bean and they held each other’s gaze for a moment. And then Bean leaned forward and laid his cheek against the broad soft neck.

“There’s your answer,” crowed the man. “Boy knows a good horse when he sees one!”

Which was true enough.

Ten

T
hey returned to find the Gypsy caravan empty and Mrs. Bewes crouched over her fire, stirring a pot of barley-and-bacon soup. She insisted that Bean and Pell join them, and they ate together, Pell grateful for a hot meal and the luxury of meat. Mr. Bewes snorted when Pell asked if they were missed at home.

“Six married children, all with children of their own. There’s more than enough of them to run the place into the ground perfectly well without us,” he said. “And Mrs. Bewes does enjoy having no one to please but herself.”

The lady in question adjusted her skirts and settled back comfortably to prove his point. “Now if only I can prevent Mr. Bewes from finding himself a suitable animal for at least a day or two, I might even have a chance to see the sights.”

The old couple retired to their wagon for the night, and Pell lay beside Bean on a pile of sacks with Jack tethered close by. She felt comfortable enough but couldn’t sleep, despite being tired. It was impossible to ignore the party that had begun nearby with a pair of fiddles and a Jew’s harp, joined a few minutes later by a makeshift drum, penny-whistles, and flutes. At first the songs were loud and wild, but after some time they turned melancholic, and eventually, in a haze of half-waking, half-remembered dreams, Pell slept.

She awoke later in the dark to the sound of a gruff burble of words, stern and low at first and then sweet as a lover’s, and she wondered who might have settled behind them. The voice affected her oddly, its soft hypnotic flow insinuating itself into the space between sleep and wakefulness. With no face to put to the sound, she nonetheless felt the tug of it.

What remained of the night was restless. Men with too much drink in their bellies staggered into strange camps, attracted like moths to any lantern or campfire. Nearby, a stallion, smelling every mare on heat in the square mile, screamed and groaned
unnnh unnnh unnnh,
rearing up and thudding down with all his might. Those mares were answering him too, and the already volatile atmosphere thickened.

People began rumbling their annoyance, and a few shouted, “
Shut the beast up!”
But the trumpeting, groaning, thudding, and chain-clanking went on, and Pell thought, Someone’s got to do something about that horse. But nobody did, and for the rest of the night she lay awake.

In the early dawn, when the possibility of sleep had passed, she edged away from Bean and stoked up the fire for the kettle. Quite near to Jack, a man sat awake in the near-darkness nursing a smoldery fire and a pipe; when he spoke, Pell recognized at once the voice she had heard in the night. A pair of shaggy deerhounds lay crouched at his feet like sphinxes, heads up, eyes alert. He had black hair streaked with gray, and his eyes glittered blue-black and gold, reflecting the fire. When he spoke to his dogs, they turned their heads gravely to listen.

They were the only two people awake in the vicinity, though the entire town would soon begin to stir. When he turned and held her gaze, Pell shivered, unable to look away, knowing what Mam would say about staring at a strange man in a place like this. But he didn’t change expression, just looked at her until his curiosity had been satisfied, and then turned away. When next she dared to look, he and the dogs were gone.

Mr. Bewes rose and dressed, anxious to revisit his horse, while Mrs. Bewes reminded him that their budget wasn’t a penny over twenty pounds no matter what sort of animal he fell for, if he didn’t want his family going hungry all winter. Her husband tipped his hat and was off, dodging a child dressed in nothing but a pair of his big brother’s boots.

The sun came up strong and hot, and despite yesterday’s rain a thin curtain of dust hung in the air, rendering horses and men indistinct. Boys with great sacks of feed on their shoulders jostled each other and called out to buyers. It became difficult to push through the crowds. One man grabbed on to Jack’s headstall and said, “What you asking for this one, girl?” and pointed to a bony-polled bay who might have had half a soup spoon of thoroughbred blood in his veins, and said she could have him for eighteen guineas and him worth “more’n twice that.”

“Thank you, no,” Pell said politely, thinking,
Anything I paid for that horse would be too much
. She had already seen a fair few horses worth owning, but many more you couldn’t have paid her to ride away.

All that day Pell sought work, and all that day heard nothing but rejection, often in the least flattering terms and sometimes accompanied by offers that had nothing to do with honest wages. The liveries had legions of small boys to do their bidding. At the Coach and Horses she applied to help with grooming and mucking out, but the owner’s wife said without any civility that they’d plenty of help and didn’t need doing with a snake in the henhouse and her own bastard besides. Pell clasped Bean by the hand and took her leave with a careful dignity she didn’t feel. For an hour or two, she joined a milling group hoping to find places as household staff, but the takers for workers without proper references were few and far between. At another hotel she offered to cook or clean or serve, but they were too busy even to reply. By late afternoon she had exhausted every possible avenue and thought bitterly that she might have better luck in the empty villages all those people had left behind.

Returning to camp, she found Esther’s children gathered around Mr. Bewes and his new horse. The animal was marked like a Friesian cow, with a broad honest chest and four good legs all around. He lowered his head and lipped the front of Bean’s shirt, and the boy wrapped his arms around his nose and nuzzled his cheek, making chirping noises like a bird. The horse looked no worse in daylight than he had the night before, and Mr. Bewes clucked to him and led him round in a circle.

“He’s a beauty, ain’t he?” said he, but Mrs. Bewes wasn’t pleased.

“What do you think of that man,” she complained loudly to Pell, “wasting good money on a Gypsy nag?” And she refused even to look at the horse.

Mr. Bewes winked at Pell, but the couple were put out with each other. Mrs. Bewes attempted to exact revenge by demanding the money to buy a lovely pony, thirteen hands and smart as a whip, the perfect mount for her favorite grandson, “who’s been begging for a horse of his own,” said she, “since he could walk.”

“Foolish woman,” snorted her husband. “All that talk of being careful with money, and then wanting six months’ wages spent on a child.” He shook his head. “Twenty-nine years we’re married, and her determined to put me in the workhouse every one of them.”

Pell expressed her sympathy for him, and when the time came for them to leave she bade them farewell with a cordial smile, and they wished her luck finding a horse. But it was her own worsening situation that occupied her now.

At the Haunch of Venison tavern on the other side of Salisbury, her father—having considered the day too warm and the night too cool to search for runaway children—redoubled his ever-futile attempts to slake his thirst. He would tell his wife that they could not be found, which was close enough to the truth, for they could not be found by a man whose only view was of the back room of a drinking establishment. It was not long before he could not find his own elbow, either, and so he slept under a bench till dawn, satisfied that the price of half a dozen flagons of ale had saved him the cost of lodgings.

Eleven