A Country Marriage (53 page)

‘Mary, you do
know
what it is George does for the
Radicals
, don’t you?’

‘Course. They try an’ get fairness for all,’ she replied and started to rub his arms again.

‘But do you know how they go about it?’

‘Course I do. He told me a long while back how they go to meetings where they listen to people – learned people, he said – an’ they talk about what can be done to improve the lot of workers like himself, folk with families like us.’

‘Well that part’s true enough; they do hold meetings, aye but there’s a deal more to it than that.’

As he looked across to the fire, his expression unsettled her, and letting her hands fall still again, she asked, ‘This protest business, you mean?’

‘No, that’s another thing altogether, a more recent thing.’

‘So, what
else
is there, then?’

‘Well, when you said he’d talked to you, I hoped to hear that he’d told you himself, since it ain’t really my place—’

‘Francis,
you’re
worrying me more than
he
does now. Tell me, what is it they do then?’ Noticing how he was avoiding her gaze, she felt her pulse quicken and saw him twist his mouth into a shape that suggested misgivings. ‘Francis?’

‘Well, I’ll count you’ve a right to know, so seein’ as you ask, I’ll tell,’ but before continuing, he hesitated and gave a long sigh. ‘In good part, their
purpose
and the reason they
go
to these meetings is to agree on the landowners and farmers giving rise to the worst grievances, you know, raising rents or lowering the wages they pay or not offering proper work.’

‘So?’

‘Well, then ʼtis usual for someone to deliver a letter telling the farmer to set his house in order as regards the grievances and threatening trouble if he doesn’t.’

‘I don’t understand. What sort of trouble?’

‘That depends; could be a firing of their ricks or barns or a breakin’ of their machine if they got one—’

‘Aye I remember summat like that happening somewhere hereabouts last year.’

‘That’s right.’

‘But what’s that got to do with George?’

‘Well, that’s how he’s involved.’

Without meaning to, she pulled away from him.

‘You’re tellin’ me George
delivers
these… these threatening letters? Only I know he don’t
write
them, since he can’t read nor write, not even to sign his own name—’

‘No, ’tis for certain someone else that
writes
them but George is one of the volunteers that takes them and nails them to the farmer’s door or whatever.’

Flashing suddenly hot, she reached to steady herself on the arm of the chair.

‘Francis, how do you know this?’

‘Mary, I live next door to The Stag. I grew up gettin’ into mischief of all sorts with the Sharpe boys. I’m as good as one of ʼem, so it’d be hard
not
to know what goes on, besides which, where summat like this concerns
you
, I make it my business to know.’

‘An’ you’re certain it’s true, then? I mean mightn’t it be just… crowing… or gossip?’

‘I swear to you Mary, I know it for the truth.’

‘Well…’ Exhaling a long breath, she tried to recall what George had talked about last night, lost to know what to make of this discovery. ‘You’re right that I didn’t know. He didn’t mention that at all, but I suppose that’s not the worst thing he could be caught up in. I mean, if he just takes the letters about, well then—’

‘But that’s only the half of it, Mary.’

‘What do you mean, only the half of it?’ The uneasiness in her stomach that had started to subside a little was starting to knot harder again now and as Francis reached for her hands she could feel her heart pounding.

‘George is one of the rick-burners, Mary. He sets the fires.’

‘No!’ As the shriek of disbelief left her throat, things around her seemed to lose their form; the edge of the table drew away from her, the flames in the hearth took on a sinister roar and, at the corner of her eye, the tiny kitchen window momentarily went out of shape. ‘No,’ she breathed, feeling how his grip on her fingers was tightening. ‘No.’

‘It’s the truth, I promise you, Mary.’

‘No, he wouldn’t. I don’t believe you! George wouldn’t go about setting fire to ricks… to the property of others. For a start, it’s mighty dangerous.’ Shaking her head, she tried to pull her fingers from his grasp.

‘It is.’

‘No! I don’t believe you,’ she repeated, struggling to grasp how this could possibly be true. ‘I mean, why would you even
say
such a thing?
Why
? I don’t understand it.’ Bewildered, she had the urge to get away from him but the more she wrestled, the firmer he seemed to be holding on to her.

‘Mary, please—’

‘But why say it? You’ve no need to stir up trouble; I shan’t like you any the more for it… or him any the less!’

‘Mary, I knew this would be hard for you,’ he said softly, grasping at her flailing arms, ‘and believe me, I thought long and hard about whether or not to tell you—’

‘And is it plain enough for you now that you shouldn’t have?’ she cut in.

‘I thought you’d want to know.’ Although he seemed to be begging her to understand, the moment she sensed that his grip on her arms was loosening, she leapt from his lap to stare back at him. And when he stood up to reach for her, she wheeled away from his reach.

‘Well you were wrong because now that I
know
; I can’t
un
-
know
! Don’t you
see
that
?’ And turning abruptly about, she slammed her hands on the mantel and kicked at a log in the hearth, watching as a shower of sparks sprayed in all directions.

‘Mary—’

‘No. I think you’d better go.’

‘But Mary, all I wanted—’

‘Go please, Francis.’ Alarmed at the strength of her anger with him, she determined not to look back until, eventually, hearing the opening and closing of the door as he left, she let herself sink, trembling, into George’s chair.

*

A couple of days later, after wretched nights when sleep gained no ground in its battle against her turmoil, Mary struggled to know what to do. Earlier, watching George silently getting dressed for work with his thoughts clearly elsewhere, she had wanted to confront him and have him deny what Francis had said, but the fact of the matter was that she had no idea where to start with such an approach nor how to go about it without revealing how she knew. And in any event, with the sluggish arrival of yet another dreary dawn, it pained her to admit that Francis had most likely been telling the truth and that her husband was far more involved with the
Radicals
than she had ever supposed.

Standing now in front of the crackling fire, she realised that there was something humiliating about discovering that the man she had wed – the man with whom she shared a bed and by whom she had borne a son – harboured such disturbing secrets. On one hand, she was surprised to feel a certain pride that he felt so passionately about something that he was prepared to stand up for it but on the other hand, it left her wondering how much she and Jacob meant to him if he was so ready to break the law and put himself in harm’s way. And as if that wasn’t confusion enough to contend with, there was also a sense of being excluded; after all, weren’t husbands and wives supposed to trust each other with such things? But then in that respect, she reflected, it was little different to the rest of their life together; with the possible exception of Jacob, there was really nothing that joined them together any more; nothing, she thought rather sadly, apart from their names in the parish register showing that they had willingly wed.

She turned and stared out through the window. It was another bitter November morning, and she knew that, outside, the little bits of laundry that she had bothered to peg to the line would take ages to dry in the glacial wind, while inside, the meagre warmth offered by the fire was being whipped away by the remorseless icy drafts whistling under the doors and through the gaps in the crooked frames of the windows. But there was also something else contributing to her despair; something that was entirely self-inflicted and that in truth, this morning, had begun to feel as though she rightly deserved to suffer the pain of, because with two days now passed since her outburst at Francis, she had to accept that in all likelihood she had driven him away. She had always feared losing him anyway, but had never for one moment foreseen that it would be entirely through her own doing. And worse still, now that it was too late, she realised that she had directed her anger at completely the wrong person.

Chapter 22

The Riot Act

‘Right, Mary love, get a grip on his hand and expect him to squeeze the life out of it and George, well, I give you fair warning; this is going to smart terrible bad and there’s nothing I can do about that, so you best brace yourself and try an’ keep still.’

‘Just do what you got to,’ George replied, offering Mary his hand and squeezing his eyes tightly shut in anticipation.

Watching as Martha repeatedly dabbed the lotion along the length of the deep and bloody gash on the side of George’s neck, Mary felt his cold and clammy hand crushing the joints of her fingers as, with each touch, his whole body stiffened.

‘I thought you said there’d be no trouble,’ she was unable to help saying.

‘And there needn’t have been,’ he replied dismally, stretching his chin instinctively upwards and away from where Martha was cleaning his wound.

‘Try an’ be still, son,’ Martha cautioned him. ‘I know it ain’t easy but I got to make sure it’s good an’ clean or it’ll turn septic and you know why we don’t want that coming about.’

‘So tell me what happened,’ Mary suggested softly in the hope of distracting him from the worst of it. ‘Were they waiting for you, then? Did they know you were coming?’ The sight of her husband lying in such obvious distress was not something she had ever thought to see, and her overwhelming feeling, greater even than her sense of helplessness, was one of gratitude for Martha’s calming presence. ‘Were you set upon?’

‘No,’ he replied with a grimace, his eyes screwed up. ‘No, we were all right to start with. Everything was fine. Ezra had borrowed his father’s cart, and when we came across folk journeying on foot we stopped to let them up. It weren’t long before long we had a cartful.’ With her eyes fixed on Martha’s meticulous actions, Mary nodded. ‘One of the lads had a couple of jars of cider an’ he passed them about. Another had a tin whistle an’ he got us all singing. Everyone was good-humoured; united by our purpose, convinced of its worth.’

‘Hold steady a mite longer,’ Martha urged him. ‘I’m near done with this first bit.’

‘So what happened when you got there?’ Mary coaxed, George’s grasp on her fingers less crippling now.

‘Well, at first there were only a few people milling about. And truth to tell, I felt a bit let down. See, on the way over, I had a vision of us riding into a village full of folk just like us. But then Ezra saw the lot from Up Marcombe coming down the hill. And then, from up past the forge we heard singing or chanting, summat noisy at any rate, an’ a whole band of men were marching towards us. Two at the front were carrying some sort of banner, not some hastily put-together arrangement either but a proper banner of arms, red with summat emblazoned across it. An’ Ezra turned to tell me they were the Micklehampton members of the
Radicals
. Three score, maybe more and Lord, were they making a noise.’

‘Well, I reckon ʼtis good an’ clean now,’ Martha pronounced of his wound, ‘so this next bit won’t be near on so painful.’ Mary saw George give a short nod of his chin and watched as Martha drew the stopper from a tiny vial and, upending it onto the tip of her finger, showed her the amber-coloured oil. ‘Sea Buckthorn; does wonders for wounds like this but ʼtis hard to come by so ʼtis fortunate it only needs a scant amount.’

‘So there was a good number of you then,’ Mary remarked encouragingly to George, all the while watching Martha at work.

‘Aye an’ straight off, one of the Micklehampton lot took charge, directing us towards French’s Court.’ She frowned. ‘Chamberlin’s big house,’ he went on to explain.

‘Oh, I see.’

‘An’ when we got to the gates, we saw his steward, some overstuffed sort by the name of Paine trotting down the drive on his horse, all a-show with two of his bailey men in attendance and demanding to know our business. So the Micklehampton lad reached through the gate and offered him our paper setting out our demands; a wage of twelve shillings for married labourers and nine for single ones. But this Paine fellow wouldn’t even look at it, saying instead that we were to disband.’

‘Mary, love, tear some of this cloth into strips for me, would you? Yae wide and yae long,’ Martha gestured with the length in her hand.

‘Course,’ she replied, and taking the square of gauzy cloth from her, started to tear down its length. ‘So what did you do?’ she asked, turning her attention back to George.

‘Well, what we
didn’t
know was that Reverend Cole from St. James’ had seen us making our way towards Chamberlin’s estate, and guessing what we were about, took it upon himself to follow. He worked his way through our number and up to the front, and although I couldn’t hear his every word, I could see that he was trying to stop there being any trouble. Course, that just gave rise to a good deal of heckling such that before long, not one of us could hear what he was trying to say. So the next thing I see, two of the Micklehampton lads were lifting him up onto the bank an’ I tell you now, the sight of this vicar teetering atop this muddy bank was quite a thing to behold.’

‘Must have been,’ she agreed with a smile, noticing how, despite his discomfort, he couldn’t help his lips curling at the memory. Passing Martha a handful of the torn cloth, she looked at him as he continued.

‘But folk did start to listen, respectful at first, not knowing I suppose whose side he was going to take. He said how he understood our plight but then urged us all to go home, saying that behaving in a threatening manner would only bring trouble. Course, at those words quite a roar went up, I can tell you, an’ the last thing I heard him say was that we should think of our families and well, as you might count, that was like a flame to tinder, with every one of us shouting back at him, “We are! We are!”’ In his wave of excitement, he succumbed to a fit of dry coughing, and she watched helplessly as he pressed his hands to his ribs and groaned.

‘Maybe you shouldn’t talk no more,’ she urged with a look to Martha.

‘Hmm. Wise words with little chance of bein’ heeded,’ Martha observed. ‘Best you can do is fetch him a drop of summat to drink,’ she added, and set about laying the first of the strips of gauze across the gash on his neck.

Within moments she returned with a mug and held it carefully to his lips.

‘No, don’t try an’ raise your head, sip; just sip,’ she suggested – but as the liquid ran sideways from his mouth and trickled down the other side of his neck, he waved her away.

‘Enough,’ he said impatiently. ‘I’ll hold out for now rather than dribble like an infant.’

‘Well, ʼtis up to you,’ Martha commented matter-of-factly. ‘But each an’ every cough is going to send an almighty pain through those ribs of yours.’

‘Then so be it,’ he replied, such that all Martha could do was raise her eyebrows and return to her task. ‘So we told the reverend that we meant no harm to anyone and some of the lads at the front even tried to persuade him to help, you know, get him to present our case to the steward for us. But with that, I remember hearing a rumble of hooves over the turf, and suddenly, there behind us was the squire and a party of his fat friends, drawn from their ride-out by the sound of the commotion – or so they wanted us to believe – although it soon became apparent that they’d left the park by another way and ridden around with the sole purpose of penning us up against the gates.’

‘So it was the squire causing the trouble then,’ she surmised, watching as Martha liberally coated each layer of gauze with honey before laying the next over the top.

‘See; even
you
can see where the fault lay,’ George announced – and then pressed his lips tight in an attempt to subdue further coughing.

‘Aye,’ she agreed, uncertain whether his remark was meant as a compliment or as a slight.

‘So Chamberlin on his great mare was to the rear of our number and Robbie, as I later learned him to be – the lad from Micklehampton – was at the front, up against the gates, an’ I could see from those narrow little eyes of Chamberlin’s that it was Robbie he wanted. He was urging his horse to walk through us but she was shying about, unsettled by all the jeering and commotion and there was this fellow standing in the middle of our group waving him back, shouting to him that someone was going to come to harm. But Chamberlin paid no heed, none at all, and you could see from the colour of his face – florid it was – that he wasn’t about to be reasoned with. And then his cronies started pressing their horses in against us as well. So this other fellow holds up a stave he’d been carrying. I saw him with it earlier and it weren’t ever meant as a weapon but the squire’s horse reared up and that’s when folk started getting themselves away.’ Listening to his account, Mary realised that she had fallen stock-still and that, beside her, Martha had ceased her ministering to listen and regard his face.

‘An’ so that’s when you got hurt,’ she said, but by way of denial, George shook his head and then winced at the movement of his neck. ‘Lie still,’ she urged.

‘It wasn’t then, no. With all the to-do, the squire couldn’t keep control of his mare and she reared up again, setting him down among us, but quick as a flash, one of his companions rode forward and grabbed for the collar of his coat, dragging him back. He weren’t hurt; not one of us so much as threw a punch at him, although there were those threatening to, waving their fists at him. But you could see he was rattled and his temper was up, “Use your power man,” I heard him bellowing to one of his companions, “Read ʼem the Riot Act!” But he didn’t frighten any one of us, no, it just roused another round of jeering and fist-waving but instead of backing off, he came at us again with his crop raised. I could see his eyes a-bulge and all the while, one of his fellows was sat on his horse reading aloud from a paper, saying that by order of the King or summat, we were to disband. And in front of me there was this blonde lad, no more’n eighteen years if he was a day, shouting at the squire for all he was worth, almost spitting with fury, taunting him, saying how he’d got fat off the backs of the likes of us. And then with no sign of a warning, least, not that I saw, the others rode their horses at us and I got carried forwards, swept from my feet. I saw the squire lash out at the blonde lad and I saw him go down with the shock of it, right in front of me.’

‘Oh no,’ she gasped, feeling her hand flying to her mouth.

‘I pulled at him, trying to get him out from under the horses’ hooves and that’s when I felt one clout my ribs. But before I even struck the ground, I could hear the whistle of a whip and my neck feel as though it was being cut. And above it all I could hear the squire yelling, his voice all high and excited like the squealing of a girl; names, he was calling out the names of the men he recognised as being from his own lands, telling them he’d have them arrested. But the crowd was starting to break up. Some were climbing the banks to be out of the skirmishing and others were crawling through hedges or running back down the lane towards the village. I was on the ground, down in the mud but I could see and hear it all a-blur, the scattering of boots and the shouts of panic and pain and rage and then I felt someone jerking at my arm, yanking me upwards and the pain, the pain from my neck was searing and my ribs…’

‘Shh. Hush now then,’ she urged him.

‘Aye, it don’t do no good getting all excited with wounds like these,’ Martha was agreeing but Mary could see that in his mind he was still there; reliving what had happened.

‘Shh. Lie still.’

‘And then I saw Isaac, all twisted from the pain of a gash across his forearm lifting me into the cart and I could feel how we were bumping away out of the village and I recall saying to him, it’s happening all over again, ain’t it? An’ I mind asking him, how many more winters must it come to this afore the landowners see sense?’

‘Shh.’

‘But then I must have fainted clean away since I don’t recall his reply and before I knew it, we were back here…’

‘Thank the Lord.’

‘But we’ve got ʼem rattled an’ no mistake. For the first time ever they’re fearful. Aye, Mary, you could smell it; behind all that bluster there was real fear and it’s
us
, those who they’ve too long dismissed as peasants that’s the cause of it.’

‘Shh,’ she said again and moved to lay a damp cloth across his forehead.

‘I think I’d best give him summat,’ Martha said to her, as George writhed left and right and back again. While reaching for his hand, Mary hoped that Martha would indeed find something in her bag to soothe his torment.

*

In the early hours of the following morning, wishing that she hadn’t declined Martha’s offer of a sleeping draught to ease her own turmoil, Mary lay on the pallet bed, restless and uneasy. In the seemingly never-ending darkness, she had been consumed by the realisation that George’s escape had been a very narrow one, and that with a different turn of events she
could
have been lying there this morning as a widow. But, more disturbing than the actual possibility, was the small but insistent part of her that kept thinking how rash it would have seemed then to have fallen out with Francis. Perhaps it was just belated shock, but to be even capable of such thoughts was unsettling; after all, while a wife might dwell on the closeness of her husband’s safe deliverance from harm, what sort of woman felt disappointed by it?

Unable to bear the torture of her churning thoughts any longer, she got up and went to the window where she stretched her stiff limbs and peered out, grateful to be able to make out the first tiny patch of paler sky through the treetops. Then, in the hope that a few moments in the cold dawn air would free her mind, she slowly clicked down the door latch and stepped outside. As she had known it would be, the morning was a bitterly cold one, but in defiance of the piercing wind gusting unchallenged across the fields, she walked over to where the garden was at its most exposed and stood motionless, letting it tear at her with its icy claws until it felt as though all sensation had been blasted from her body.