The Wilding (24 page)
‘You’re whiter than you were.’
‘I’ve had words with Aunt Harriet. I can’t tell you now,’ I cried as he put his hand on my shoulder. ‘Let’s be gone – gone!’
We mounted the cart and turned out of the yard. Rose waved to me from the kitchen window but nobody else from the household bade us farewell. I looked back, until trees hid it from view, at the house where I had been conceived. Despite Aunt Harriet’s hateful words about maggots and dead dogs, words that turned me sick each time I recalled them, I knew I was Robin’s. It was as if my flesh had always known it; and besides, I had the Dymond hair.
I tried not to think about my aunt’s festering mind, or about Tamar, and of course I could think of nothing else; those things, and the deception I had grown up in, were an agony to me.
Father broke in on my silence. ‘Your mother didn’t want you to come here,’ he said when we were some little way along the lane. ‘She’ll be glad to have you home.’
‘Aye.’
‘She’s killing the fatted calf – leastways, opening the potted ham.’
‘Aye.’
‘And there’s something else, something I couldn’t tell you in the house: when you went back for Hob last night, Joan gave me another paper.’
‘Did she?’ I answered listlessly. For once I was not interested in Joan’s scribblings.
Father slowed the horse and turned towards me. ‘Let’s have a look at you, child. Dear Christ, you’re green! We’re going back to Harriet’s.’
‘I’d sooner die,’ I said, and meant it.
He stared. ‘Strong words! And you left that mess in her bed – why? What’s all this between the two of you?’
‘Nothing.’
My father now began to look grim. ‘Either you tell me or back we go.’ He raised the reins to make good his threat.
‘It’s nothing,’ I burst out. ‘Only that my aunt tried to drown me in the hogshead.’
‘Are you mad?’ my father exclaimed.
‘
She
pushed me in.’ I told him of the dress, and the shift I had found dripping with cider. He listened in silence, his expression graver by the minute, and finally said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before we left the house?’
‘Because it can’t be proved. She’d only laugh in your face as she did in mine, and –’ I couldn’t bear that, I thought.
‘She admits it?’
‘Not in words, but she did it. She knows I helped them away.’
‘We’re going back this minute,’ Father said, and again made to turn the horse around.
I laid a hand on his arm. ‘Wait. There’s more.’
‘More than attempted murder?’ he cried in exasperation. ‘Well, suppose you go on!’
I could not think how to start. We sat staring at one another, our breath misting on the air, until I said, ‘It’s a long story. Let’s continue this way until you’ve heard it.’
Father clicked his tongue and the cart rolled forward. He was bracing himself; though he tried to hide it, I knew him too well not to perceive the effort. I said, ‘I don’t know what names to give the people.’
‘You don’t know their names?’
‘No. Nor my own.’
Father’s eyes flinched as if from a blow. I had seen that look of his before, when I accused him of keeping secrets from me. The innocent horse trotted on between the shafts as if no such thing as bastardy or incest existed in the world.
At last I said, ‘Why did you move to Spadboro?’
‘It was a better house.’
‘It was to raise me away from Tetton Green.’
My father let out all his breath in a sigh. For an instant I wished that I had not said anything, that I had let things lie and been as kind to him as he had been to me. However, it was done now and (I told myself) he had always been in possession of the truth, so that his kindness was from a position of strength, whereas I had been kept in chains of ignorance that I must break.
He gave himself a curious little slap on the thigh, as some comfort a dog by patting it, before saying quietly, ‘If that’s what your aunt told you, it’s false. We moved to Spadboro before you were thought of.’
‘It’s no use, Father. She’s told me who I am.’
His face darkened. ‘You mistook her.’
‘No. I’m the child of Robin and Joan.’
‘Harriet said that?’
I nodded.
‘Then may Satan and all his crew roast her by turns.’ My father cut the horse with his whip. ‘You should’ve given her the lie!’
‘I couldn’t – can’t,’ I cried.
‘Can’t? Have you thought about your mother?’
‘What of her?’
‘She talks of nothing but your return.’
We passed under boughs that tapped against our hats and powdered our shoulders with rime. There had been a frozen mist here, and the trees were spun into feathers. Their fragile brilliance made me wonder why, into the spotlessness of Creation, God had seen fit to introduce soiling, twisting, rampaging Man.
‘I do think of Mother,’ I protested. By this time I was close to tears and my voice betrayed it; Father must have heard but he turned his face away. ‘What am I to do?’ I wailed. ‘It’s not my fault!’
‘Isn’t it?’ he replied. ‘Every day we hoped to see you at home. No doubt you thought yourself a clever fellow, you and your letters! This is the fruit of that cleverness, and I hope you like the taste.’
We sat thus wretched for some time, I weeping and Father refusing to pity me, until we were thrown together by the horse’s passing over some uneven ground, which obliged Father to place one arm around my shoulders. I seized hold of his hand, saying, ‘You’d forgive me if you knew how I long to be your son.’
He at last permitted me to look him in the face, so that I saw that his anger had mostly gone off.
I said, ‘I’ve brought all this on myself – and on you and Mother. I know that.’
Father kept his arm round my shoulders as the cart jolted forward.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘God’s over Satan, now and forever="1em" aliuo;
‘So they say.’
‘And so it is. The wickedness at End House brought forth the love your mother – Barbara, I mean – has borne you all these years. Look at it in that light.’
I wiped my face. ‘But – forgive me – first tell me how I came to live with you. Why wasn’t I told anything?’
‘We naturally wished to shield you,’ Father said. ‘Joan found her way to us in Spadboro. Whatever Harriet says, we were already living there. You recall Joan’s writing of the in-laws who paid her a wedding visit?’
I nodded as understanding broke in upon me.
‘There you are, then. We were living at Spadboro when Harriet married, and Joan came to us there. May God forgive me, I almost shut the door in her face.’
‘Because you hated her.’
He shook his head. ‘Her case being so desperate, I wouldn’t have turned her away for that. But she was big with child … your mother had just lost a babe of her own.’
I pictured my poor mother looking sadly on Joan’s swollen belly.
‘We took her in. Barbara was still resting in bed, her breasts bound up. Joan’s pains began that very afternoon; everything came upon us at once. Barbara rose from her bed and delivered the child.’ His voice grew soft. ‘I never met her equal.’
‘Did Joan tell you I was Robin’s?’
He laughed at my simplicity. ‘We could see for ourselves.’
‘But did she?’
‘She wanted it known, yes.’
‘Why, when she didn’t care enough to keep me?’
‘She knew Barbara’s childless condition; she hoped we would take you in.’
I flinched. To be thus handed over seemed a crueller stain even than bastardy, as if my baby features had been marred by a hopeless ugliness not even maternal love could warm to.
My father went on, ‘We’d already lost three little ones.’
‘Lucky that I lay to hand, then,’ I said coldly.
‘No, no! You must understand: we loved you like our own. Barbara unbound her breast and put you to it and her milk began to flow.’ He patted my arm. ‘We took that as a sign.’
‘Had I known all this … or had it not happened …’ I gestured for lack of words. How many things might not have come about!
‘We meant well,’ Father said. ‘Are we to blame?’
‘What I blame you for is keeping me in ignorance of my sister.’
‘I knew nothing of her until Robin’s letter. How should I?’ He urged the horse through a ford and up the slippery bank on the opposite side.
‘I beg your pardon, Father,’ I said when we were again on level ground. ‘It’s certain, then? She is my sister?’
He cleared his throat. ‘Robin acknowledged her.’
‘But she’s with child by me!’ I cried out, as if exclaiming could alter the case.
‘By someone. You must keep away from her and now you know all, Jon, I’m sure you will. Before was ignorance and folly; in future lies repentance, and a fresh start.’
These words, intended to comfort me, had the opposite effect. Not that I wished to marry Tamar; but it was beginning to come home to me how much I was my father’s son – the son of Robin, who had never shown me any special love and for whom, as a boy, I had felt scant affection. A man all body and no soul, excited by food and drink, by a woman’s walk, by the smell of her flesh; a man who was weak and went after his pleasures in unlawful places. He had left Joan to her fate and had even fathered a second bastard on her … This thought brought on a still more terrible one: had there perhaps been more? Now I pictured my mother,
my mother
, walking away from the ditch where she had abandoned an infant. Its forlorn wail persisted far into the night but no rescue came. Towards morning it grew weaker. Dawn showed it stretched out stiff. Who could say what Joan might or might not have done?
Thus I went on, my fancy multiplying horrors, until I saw Joan grown old and battered, too feeble to do more than beg, while Robin lived on in comfort until, falling sick, he grew fearful for his soul. And now I was to cast off Tamar likewise. I came of a divided family and there was no doubt which side of that family I most resembled. I sat in silence, my head bowed.
After a while my father observed, ‘You don’t ask me what became of Joan.’
‘I think I know.’
‘As soon as she was recovered from her lying-in, she ran away.’ He sighed. ‘Utter folly! I had for some time been writing to Robin and was hopeful he might settle a proper maintenance on her. Perhaps she was afraid Harriet would follow her to Spadboro.’
With an effort I banished my horrible imaginings and said, ‘I always understood she went back to Tetton. She said so, I’m sure.’
‘Then she lied to you, or to me – or her memory’s going.’
‘Or she went when she was carrying Tamar.’
He shrugged. ‘The one thing we do know is that from time to time she returned to that cave. Now, about the document she gave me –’
‘I suppose I must read it.’
‘It’s not for you.’
I blinked. ‘What?’
‘Nor for me or Barbara.’
‘Stop … !’ I pulled at his arm, causing the horse to look round in puzzlement. ‘Please, stop driving for a minute.’
‘I can drive and talk,’ said Father. ‘Joan told me it was given her by Robin, so last night, while you were at End House, I opened the packet. I’ll own that I was expecting some crude forgery.’
‘But … ?’
‘It looks real, and he appears to have signed it.’
‘Are you saying it’s the
will
?’ I breathed. ‘She’s had it all this time?’
‘You know the proverb about counting chickens before they’re hatched. I don’t know what it is. It’s all in lawyer’s Latin.’
‘I never thought Robin was so old-fashioned,’ I said, surprised.
‘He wasn’t. If it is a will, then my belief is he didn’t want Joan or Tamar to read it. It was meant for a lawyer.’
‘They might not even realise it was a will.’
‘Quite.’
Not wanting to build up my hopes and then have them crash in ruins, I said, ‘It’s probably a recipe for hog’s pudding written by the learned and accomplished Aunt Harriet.’
‘I doubt it, Jon,’ said my father. ‘It has all our names in it, and Joan’s, and Tamar’s. I can read that much.’
19
Sorts of Inheritances
By the time we reached Spadboro I had promised my father to repeat nothing of what I had discovered concerning my parentage. He said it would distress, to no good purpose, a woman who loved me as tenderly as ever mother loved child, a woman who had hoped to shield me from such knowledge. The sight of her flinging open her chamber window, bending perilously out from the sill in order to wave, would have persuaded a stricter conscience than mine; I raised my hat to her, and the next minute she was running across the yard to greet us, her breath smoking like a dragon’s in the bitter air.
Most willingly did I embrace her as my mother. Joan Seaton might have borne me in her womb, but Barbara Dymond had poured out her generous maternal heart on me, and taken no end of pain in breeding me up.
Dinner was late in the day, since it had been held back for my arrival, and in no time she and Alice were laying out the potted ham and other good things, my mother saying she was sure her boy would be hungry after coming so far in such cold weather.
My father remarked that he hoped there might be enough for a mere husband. She laughed, saying he knew her well enough not to fret himself about that, before turning again to me.
‘Where’s your soiled linen? On the cart?’
I now recalled that, having changed into dry clothes, I had left my sodden ones at End House. My mother pretended to scold me, but was unable to keep from smiling. ‘Oh, well, it’s nothing,’ she said. ‘I’ll write to Harriet to send them on.’
Father glanced at me. ‘Jon and Harriet have fallen out.’
‘Oh?’ She looked up from the table. ‘Why?’
‘She dislikes my way with cider,’ I said.
‘There’s nothing wrong with your cider-making.’ Unsatisfied with my answer, she continued to bustle about the table, not looking at me, and then said, ‘So you won’t be going back?’
‘Nor speaking to her, nor having anything to do with her. She’s a bad, cruel woman.’
Mother was holding her favourite dish, a large piece of Delft decorated with birds. She laid it carefully down on the table to show she was about to deliver herself of something important. ‘Nobody ever thought Harriet too kind,’ she said. ‘But be very sure of yourself, son, before you cut her.’
I understood. Harriet had much to bestow: who knew what hopes my parents – all of them – had secretly cherished for me over the years? I said, ‘You mean I should hold to her at any price?’
She looked me in the eye. ‘No.’
Father came to stand by her and put his arm round her shoulders.
‘I’m blessed in my parents,’ I said. How naked and defenceless would I have been, but for their love: the Seaton boy, unschooled, unfed, driven from any shelter I might find; the Seaton boy, whose mother lived off men. Instead of which I had grown up free and happy, thanks to the people standing before me. If they had deceived me, it was done in kindness.
I could not call them guardians. Mathew and Barbara had been the two pillars between which I sheltered, all my young life. My natural mother, no matter how pitiful her tale, could never come near them.
As for Tamar, my father was right. The best gift I could make her was to stay away. My selfish yearnings could do nothing for her; his purse, much.
Mother was sniffing the air. ‘What’s this?’ she said, moving out of my father’s embrace. ‘Hungary water?’
* * *
A good sluicing with Hungary water would have improved the smell of Master Blackett’s house: an odour of creeping mould, though disguised just then with the scent of his last dinner. We were brought through by his clerk to a room crowded with papers and volumes, where Blackett greeted us and invited us to sit.
‘Now, to our business,’ he said. A packet which I supposed to be Joan’s lay on the table, ready to his hand; taking it up, he paused and looked at me over the tops of his spectacles. I had already noticed he had a habit of doing this; I wondered why, if he wore the things to any purpose, he must needs keep peering over them.
‘I find myself in an awkward position,’ he said, turning to Father. ‘Had you taken this’ – he drew his finger softly along the top of the packet – ‘and destroyed it in ignorance, the law would have nothing to say to you. As matters stand …’
‘Robin’s life was irregular, we know,’ said Father. ‘Pray proceed.’
Still the man hesitated. ‘As his brother you perhaps anticipate some legacy? A very natural, fraternal hope,’ he added, as if to retract a slander.
‘All I hope for is the satisfaction of having carried out his wishes.’
The lawyer looked as if he had heard
that
tale before. ‘And this young man … ?’
‘Is of my mind,’ Father assured him. ‘I take it this is a true and proper will, then, and unfavourable to us?’
‘It appears to be correctly drawn up.’ He unfolded the packet. Inside was the document Father had told me about; I could just make out, in the shadow of Blackett’s elbow and upside down on the page, the signature. I stared at it. It appeared fresh from Robin’s hand, as if he might enter the room at any moment; yet his urgent body, that had made mine, was now dissolved, invisible save in these black marks that would themselves dissolve as the ink faded.
‘Your brother’s lawyer was Master Ousby of Tetton Green. At the time of his client’s death, Master Ousby should have informed your sister-in-law of the will.’ Again he peeked over those spectacles, and there was a flicker of amusement. ‘This he failed to do.’
‘Then she knows nothing of it?’ I asked. Strange to think that, for once, Aunt Harriet had spoken the truth!
Blackett inclined his head. ‘Unless, of course, she heard from her husband, as is customary?’
Father said, ‘I doubt it. Pray read the will.’
‘Strictly speaking, the widow ought to be present.’
‘Can’t she hear it later? And you must only show her a copy; if this falls into the hands of my sister-in-law, you needn’t hope to see it again.’
‘No stronger than is called for. I’ll be frank with you, Master Blackett: my brother had dependants not recognised by his wife. She’s allowed them to fall into destitution; I hope this may lift them up again, and place them out of her power.’
‘May I ask what you mean by “dependants not recognised”?’
‘Tamar Seaton, his natural daughter, and her mother. Mrs Dymond has behaved with the utmost cruelty towards them.’
‘She’s not obliged to provide for such people,’ said Blackett.
‘But if provision is made in her husband’s will –’
‘Indeed.
If
provision is made. Pray bear with me a little and indulge my curiosity. You say Mrs Dymond was aware of this irregular union. Why, then, should your brother keep her in ignorance of his arrangements?’
‘If you knew my sister-in-law, Master Blackett, you would never ask such a question.’
The lawyer permitted himself a smile. ‘Then let me ask another. How did
you
happen to come across it?’
Now I saw where he was leading. It seemed we did benefit from the will, for Blackett clearly suspected us of being its authors.
‘Joan Seaton gave it me,’ Father said. ‘I told you this before.’
‘She gave it to Mrs Dymond’s brother-in-law? She must repose great trust in you.’
I hung my head, for Joan had never ‘reposed great trust’ in me. Thinking myself at the very heart of the game, I had been utterly out of it. In taking her son under his protection and raising him as his own, Mathew Dymond had done one thing for Joan Seaton that she never forgot; to her mind, nobody, not even that son, could come near him. Seen in this light, her writings had been a way of sounding me, of preparing me, as it were, for the much more important document that was to come. In time, finding me honest, she might have yielded up the packet, but with Mathew such caution was needless. Meeting him again, she had not hesitated; no sooner had I gone into the wood than she had placed her precious secret in his hands.
Father said now to Blackett, ‘I’ve helped her in the past.’
‘And how did Mistress Seaton obtain possession of the will?’
‘Tamar Seaton was taken on as a servant at End House and nursed my brother in his last illness. I can only assume she used a false name since my sister-in-law had no idea who she was, but Robin knew her. He ordered her to open a box in the sickroom and take out the document she would find at the bottom.’
‘Did he say it was his will?’
‘No. He told Tamar the women must keeeigd of it and wait until Mr Mathew called upon them. I believe he meant to instruct me accordingly, but died before he could do so.’
Blackett said, ‘You will forgive my question. Could the woman have forged it, or had it forged?’
‘She hasn’t the means or the friends,’ said Father.
‘Wouldn’t Master Ousby have a copy?’ I asked. ‘Why didn’t he come forward when Uncle Robin died?’
‘At the time of your uncle’s death, Ousby himself was gravely ill.’
Father said, ‘But when he recovered?’
‘You mistake me. He died of his sickness. His clerk had neither money nor learning enough to take his place, and his affairs fell into disorder.’
‘She has the devil’s own luck,’ Father exclaimed. ‘Are all his papers lost?’
‘His widow had the sense to keep hold of them. With your consent, I will send my clerk to search.’ He looked straight at Father. ‘Are you content for me to do so, and to seek out any witnesses?’
‘By all means, Master Blackett, only let him say as little as possible. This will could melt away like morning dew.’
‘You may rely on me to know my business,’ Blackett reassured him. ‘Since you are both legatees, I feel justified in reading its contents to you, but I must warn you that if no copy survives among Ousby’s records, well!’ He shrugged as if to say: you may as well stop now.
Promising to bear this in mind, we begged him to proceed. He ran through at speed, pausing to explain clauses and turns of phrase as he felt it necessary, and skipping over a long list of bequests to past servants and friends in the village, before I made my appearance in Blackett’s homely translation as ‘my nephew Jonathan Dymond, a lad after my own heart, in whose handsome looks his father lives again’. I flushed at these words, which to my thinking trumpeted my paternity to the world, and I flushed worse when it came to me that Robin had divined my secret likeness to himself – a likeness of more than body – before I understood it myself:
a lad after my own heart
. I almost hated him for it, dead though he was: the Dymond I wished to be cut from was not Robin but Mathew. Blackett, seemingly unaware of my distress, went on to announce that Robin had bequeathed me twenty pounds and a miniature of himself as a young man. For Mother’s sake, I strove to conceal my humiliation and appear pleased. My parents had precisely the same remembrance as was left to them in the previous will.
‘Mrs Harriet Dymond has a life interest in the estate,’ the lawyer went on, running his finger down the page.
My father whistled. ‘Only that!’
‘After her death the entire estate passes to Mistress Joan Seaton and her daughter, Tamar Seaton. Until they enter into their inheritance, the Seatons are bequeathed an allowance of forty pounds per annum. If I may say so, Mr Dymond, that leaves them very snug indeed.&rsquo
Father sat stunned. I heard Joan’s cracked voice saying, ‘He always loved me best.’
‘The deceased names Tamar Seaton as his natural daughter,’ Blackett said. ‘And that’s your understanding also?’
‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘But Joan Seaton may never inherit. She’s younger than her – than Mrs Dymond – but sickly.’
‘They can’t fee a lawyer,’ Father added, ‘and Mrs Dymond is sure to contest this.’
‘It’s possible,’ Blackett said drily. ‘She has no children – the widow, I mean?’
‘None.’
‘All to the good. He’s made fair provision for her. Are you acquainted with anyone by the name of Abel Canning?’
Father shook his head. ‘Is he a legatee?’
‘He witnessed the will. So, Master Jonathan, how do you like your twenty pounds?’
‘It’s more than I expected.’
He scrutinised me over the tops of those spectacles, his dark eyes putting me in mind of Hob. ‘That is indeed the royal road to satisfaction. The will shall be copied, Mr Dymond, never fear.’
*
As we walked back through the village, I said to Father, ‘Shall
we
fee him, since Joan and Tamar can’t? I could do it out of what Robin left me.’
He looked doubtful. ‘Let’s first see what comes out of Ousby’s papers. I don’t want Blackett to think this will is forged.’
‘Why would we forge it?’ I protested. ‘We’ve no interest; the estate goes to Joan and Tamar.’
Father sighed with exasperation. ‘A woman protected by your family, who claims she’s carrying your child – no interest?’
‘That, perhaps, but –’
‘The lawyers know nothing of your …’ – he hesitated – ‘… kinship. You might be planning to marry Tamar, might you not?’
‘Why would I marry my uncle’s bastard?’
‘Stranger things have happened,’ Father said. ‘Even when the wench was penniless.’
‘Am I always to be –’
‘Jon! Listen to me. Forgery’s a serious matter.’
We stopped and stood facing each other. He was breathing fast, though our walk had been leisurely, and he kept grip on me, as if afraid I would run off and do myself some hurt. I was not accustomed to consider my father as old, but in that instant I glimpsed the old man he would become.
‘You never spoke of this before,’ I said.
‘I never saw it before but I do now. If there’s no copy we can’t go on.’ Seeing me about to protest, he held up his other hand. ‘We must drop it entirely.’
‘What of Robin’s wishes?’ I accused him. ‘You said your only desire was to fulfil –’ but here I broke off, seeing his eyes spark with resentment. He was so rarely angry, and I so unaccustomed to him in this mood, that I quailed even before he spoke.
‘Take care – take care!’ He flung my arm away from him. ‘I’ve loved my brother all my life – loved him before
you
were so much as thought of! D’you fancy I’d give up if I once saw a way forward?’
‘No,’ I mumbled.
‘No! Then let’s say no more. In any case’ – he was already half way back to his more amiable self – ‘there may yet be a copy.’
* * *
My life now began to settle down into its accustomed round – if I may say that, when my duties remained the same but everything within me was changed. My days of innocence were past; I felt I had grown old overnight.
Days came and went, cold and rainy, cold and clear. Father wished me to be constantly by his side. Though we did only what we had always done, I felt he was reminding me that I belonged with him and Mother. On mild days, when we could get a spade into the ground, we turned over the earth so that the next frost would break it, or dug out corners of the garden that were lying fallow. If the earth was too cold or sodden for work, we mended walls and gates.
During this time a man called Samuel Beast came to help with the heaviest jobs. Despite suffering much mockery on account of their surname, the Beasts were both numerous and industrious, and consequently of some account in the village. Our Samuel Beast suffered like the rest; one day he said to me that it must be a fine thing to be called Dymond, and I wondered whether he would still say that if he knew all. Hearing our talk, Father interrupted and said he wanted to consult me as to the desirability of damsons: he still hankered after these, being partial to damson cheese, but my mother had come out fighting against them since she considered the fruits all stone and not worth the trouble they gave. Though I knew he had asked me mostly to turn the talk away from names, I was glad to give him my advice, which was that he should set them, and that Mother would come round in time.
Everything in our house, nay, our village, was dear to me, even the disputed rights of a couple of damson trees. I would look up from my labours and see the blue smoke rising from our chimney, our neighbours’ houses close by and the clumps of trees dotted about the hills. Familiarity does not always breed contempt: it seemed to me that all goodness, all of Nature’s beauty, all kindliness, all neighbourly help, were here. This place had been my Eden; as a child I had pictured the Angel waving his fiery sword from the boughs of our ‘Old Man’, the twisted ancient Redstreak at the top of the orchard. Since then, I had tasted the fruit of a more fatal Tree, yet my love for Spadboro – its well-trodden pathways, the shape its roofs cut into the sky, its fields bare or scattered with blossoms – was grown all the more tender for knowing myself to be a wilding there.
When our fingers were numb and our bellies empty the three of us would repair to the house. A copper shoe in the fire bubbled with scalding cider, so that drinking was a pleasure laced with pain. Samuel Beast was happy to join us in that and in a hunk of bread and cheese before we went out again, flushed and rubbing our hands, to heave up ragwort or split logs. I gave my entire strength to the labour, ate well, and slept soundly at night, and my parents praised me; yet all this time I was straining my ears, like a dog, for some word of Tamar.
*
Father had not waited for the will before providing for the two women – that much I knew, and would have expected of him – and was kind enough to tell me something of how they were living: he had lodged them at a distance from both Tetton Green and Spadboro, under a respectable roof and in a village where he hoped they might continue unknown. His intention was that, as far as possible, Joan should recover her health, and that in their refuge Tamar’s child should be born.
Where might that refuge be? I lay awake at night, considering. Money is much, to be sure, but not everything: there is also reputation. How, then, had he persuaded decent people to take on such disreputable women? Had they been received into some almshouse, under the watchful eyes of attendants bent upon their reform?
At first I hoped he or Mother might let something slip, but when I considered what secrets they had guarded for over twenty years, I saw the folly of such hopes. More and more often, as I stood among the garden plots, surrounded by well-loved sights, a creeping sourness would infect my soul. I attempted to get clear again, to keep my thoughts wholesome, but the sourness spread regardless. It seemed there was no purpose for me in this world, that my existence, for all its hard-won wisdoms, its industry, its patched-up respectability, was bare as the winter earth. There was only this difference: that in a little time the earth would teem with new life.
* * *
‘You talked of marrying,’ Father said one night at supper. I saw him glance at Mother and my stomach gave a twist.
At the time, I had spoken honestly. The trouble was that whenever I pictured my wedding day (and
that
I did only if someone else spoke of it, as now), what I saw at the ceremony was the smiling faces of my parents. The bride, who should have been all to me, was nothing but a gown walking by my side.
Mother reached out and laid her hand on my arm. ‘You’ve waited long enough. A good wife is a comfort and support to a man; you won’t regret it.’
On my plate lay a portion of salt pork and winter cabbage. I hacked at the pork with my knife.
‘And you’ll have children,’ Father added.
I stared at him. Did he mean that any young man naturally produces offspring, or that all the fruitfulness of our family was bred into me, son of the only Dymond who had proven abilities in that line of work?
‘There’s plenty of time,’ I said.
‘Less than you think.’
Mother said, ‘
It is not good that a man should be alone
.’
‘I’m not alone while you live.’
‘You talk like a child,’ Father said. ‘You must marry; that’s how things go in this world.’
I pushed away the pork and cabbage. ‘You love me, you wish me to have what others have …’
‘But?’
‘I can’t see myself – I mean, there’s no woman –’
‘
No
woman?’ Father said sternly. ‘Search your heart, Jon, and your conscience.’