‘He chose a wife for his son?’
‘Of course he did. Would such a handsome fellow as Sir William have married her otherwise? She’s not at all pretty and a very thin little thing.’
‘Well, I expect there were other things about her that he liked.’
‘Yes, my dear. There was a large dowry from her father’s glassworks. The Hall and estate needed her father’s money to keep it going.’
‘Wasn’t the old Squire very rich then?’
‘Oh yes. But in the days after the old Regent, all the gentry wanted to live as the Royals did, with their gluttony and - and, well, with their wicked ways.’
Quinta’s eyes widened. ‘What wicked ways?’
‘Never you mind.’ Laura looked pensive. ‘There was a time when we all thought his son would turn out the same. He was a wild one in his youth, too wild, and - and, well, his father sent him away to the University. He calmed down after that, thank God.’
‘Well, Sir William is very handsome. I remember the celebrations in the village when he wed. The ladies in their pretty gowns and bonnets, flowers in the church and decorating the horse and carriage that took them away afterwards. And there was a barn dance for the villagers, just like the harvest supper.’ Quinta would like such a wedding for herself but knew it was unlikely and sighed, ‘What do I have as a dowry?’ She didn’t really expect an answer.
‘You have a beautiful countenance, my love, and that is your good fortune. And you are as pure as the day you were born. You will have a sweetheart who will fall so helplessly in love with you that he will not seek for any other dowry to become your husband.’
Quinta wondered where she would find this sweetheart.‘Like Farmer Bilton?’ she responded tartly.
‘He does not love you. He wants a skivvy; that is all.’
No, he wants children, Quinta thought, and that seemed a reasonable wish to her, but not to her mother, so she said, ‘And more rent for Top Field.’
‘When he inherited Bilton Farm he wasn’t accepted by the gentry at first and he was too anxious to please his betters. He was hard-working, though. He laboured all hours to get that farm to rights and we all wondered if he would choose a local girl for his wife.’ Laura took a sip of ale. ‘But he was too mean-spirited to court a woman and who would want a miser for a husband?’
‘Is he that bad? He has offered to help us.’
‘He wants to help himself. It suits him to have us out of here.’
‘But we would have a proper home at Bilton Farm,’ Quinta argued.
‘He does not have to wed you to give us that. It would be perfectly respectable for the two of us to live there as his servants. He asks too much.’
‘But we don’t want to end up in the workhouse!’ She thought for a moment. ‘We could ask for parish relief to pay our rent.’
‘Dear heaven, no! Think of the shame of it.’ Her mother gazed out of the window and muttered, ‘Something will turn up.’
Quinta thought that they had been waiting two years for ‘something to turn up’ and it never did. When Father had been alive they had relied on him. He had been strong and resourceful and always got them through, whether it was bad harvests, illness or sick cows. He had known what to do.
‘What will turn up, Mother?’ she asked anxiously.
‘I don’t know.’
Neither did Quinta. But she had to do something. Mother might want her to have a sweetheart, just as she had had when she was young, but where would she find one in the workhouse? Someone had to be sensible about Farmer Bilton’s offer. Quinta did not want to wed him any more than her mother wished it. But neither did she want to be destitute.
She said, ‘You must accept Farmer Bilton’s offer for me, Mother. You do not have to be anxious on my account for I should not mind becoming his wife.’
Laura stared at her. ‘My darling child, you do not know what it means to be a wife. I shall not let you do it!’
‘Why not? He is not young and handsome but he has wealth enough for both of us.’
Her mother stretched out a hand. ‘Come and sit by me and I shall tell you why not.’When she was settled, Laura continued: ‘He is not as old as I am, my dear, but it is not about his age, for if you truly loved him his years would make no difference. Tell me, before he called today, did you think of him at all?’
‘Sometimes. He is our landlord.’
‘When you did think of him did your heart beat faster in your breast?’
Quinta let out a small guffaw. ‘No.’
‘Did you yearn for him to take you in his arms and kiss you?’
Quinta grimaced. ‘Never.’
‘That is because you do not love him as you should love a husband. You cannot marry him.’
‘But why do I have to love him, Mother, if he gives us a home?’
Quinta saw a spark of irritation in her mother’s eyes and realised she had annoyed her.
‘There are things in marriage that need love,’ she answered shortly.
‘What things?’
‘Married things. If you do not love him, how are you to share his bed? How are you to lie with him and have his children? You do not want to be doing married things with a man you do not love.’
‘But we would be living in his farmhouse instead of the workhouse!’ Quinta persisted.
‘Did you hear what I said?’ Laura’s cough erupted noisily but she struggled on. ‘Marriage is for ever and I shall not let you tie yourself to him for the rest of your life.’ She breathed in hoarsely. ‘I have said no. Now that is enough!’
Quinta knew when Mother was angry and that was now. She didn’t like them to quarrel because it made her mother’s chestiness worse. ‘I’m sorry, Mother,’ she said. ‘I’ll mix some honey and warm water for you.’ When she brought the drink she added, ‘If he had offered marriage to you instead of me, would you have wanted that?’
‘No! But if he had asked me I would have wed him instead of you. I would have put up with him.’
Quinta frowned. ‘Would it be so awful?’
‘Yes, it would, more especially for you because, to you, he
is
an old man. You - you are a lovely girl and you will grow into a beautiful woman and have a handsome young gentleman to court and wed you.’
Quinta wasn’t so sure. Where would she find a ‘handsome young gentleman’? There were two ladies in the village whose sweethearts had taken the King’s shilling and not come back, and those ladies were still spinsters. Their lads had been killed in Spain or on the battlefield at Waterloo, or taken their bounty and a dark-haired maiden to settle in foreign parts. Most of the men who stayed behind had gone down to the navigation in the valley to mine coal or make iron or glass. There were plenty of young girls in the town for them to wed.
The only handsome gentleman she knew was Sir William, and he was no longer young. His father had lost two boys before him to the war and would not let his third son fight, insisting he managed the estate and made a good match. And he did.With his wife’s dowry he built furnaces for iron-smelting, using coal he found beneath his feet. She had seen him in church sitting beside his pallid wife dressed in her silken gowns and bows, and had wondered what it felt like to wear such finery. Sir William’s older sister had worn French bonnets, before she had married her Scottish laird and left the village.
‘But Farmer Bilton will look after us and buy me a new bonnet.’
‘And you will have to share his bed to pay for it!’ Laura snapped.
‘Well, how else are we to pay for our keep?’ she answered petulantly.
It was then that her mother struck her. With the flat of her hand across her face. Sharply, and it stung. Her mother had never hit her before in her life. Not ever. Quinta was so surprised she stood there, speechless, rubbing her hand on her reddening cheek.
‘Do you know what that will make you? You must never think like that again. Never! Do you hear me?’
Bewildered, Quinta simply nodded. But she didn’t understand. She went to church and read the Bible. She knew right from wrong and it’s not as though she wouldn’t be married to Farmer Bilton. Annoyed, she asked, ‘Then why would it be right for you to marry him?’
‘Because it would! Because I am older and I have had a husband before.You - you are young and pretty and untouched and he’s not having you. He’s not! Tell me, would you have
ever
looked on him as a husband if he had not suggested it?’
Quinta had to admit to herself that she would not. When the hunt came through Five-acre Wood she thought that some of the Squire’s friends were dashing and handsome as they chased the hounds and she had had a fancy that, one day, she might be a lady to one of them. But a fancy was all it was. Or ever could be. She shook her head.
‘He does not love you, my child. Nor demand that you love him. All he wants is the use of your young body to bear his children.’
‘Yes, I see that now,’ Quinta answered. Now she understood why Mother had hit her. ‘But what’ll we do? We’ll never get the rent we owe him and he’ll turn us out.Where shall we go?’
‘I don’t know.’
Quinta did. The workhouse. She had walked past it once, in the town, when the gates were open, and glimpsed the wretched folk inside. That’s where they sent you if you had no work and nowhere to live. There was a family living in a makeshift hut on the moor beyond Five-acre Wood that was better off than the desperate souls in the workhouse. Is that where she and mother would end up? Living rough and scavenging off the land? Quinta couldn’t let that happen. Mother would never survive the cold nights, not with her cough.
‘But if he makes us homeless, why should we not live in his house?’
‘I cannot live under his roof knowing you had to share his bed to pay for it.’
‘But I want to look after you properly and have that cough seen to. I could try and love him, Mother.’
‘You don’t know what you are saying, child.’
‘Stop calling me child,’ Quinta said irritably. Farmer Bilton did not think of her as a child. ‘I am of an age to be wed.’
‘Yes, and I won’t see you as a wife to an old man,’ her mother retaliated sharply. Then her face softened a little and she added, ‘Oh Quinta, my darling, you are beautiful and I want better for you. A handsome young man who will adore you and court you as your father did me.’ She started to wheeze again.
‘It’s time that chestiness went, you know.You have had it for months now. Go upstairs and rest. You don’t cough as much when you lie down.’
‘Who will see to the pots and the tea?’
‘I shall, and the hens and the garden. And I’ll do a bit of gleaning in the fields before the daylight goes.’
‘The wheat’s nowhere near ready for harvesting yet.’
‘Oats might be ready and they are better than nothing.’
‘You’re a good girl, my little Quinta. I’m sorry I slapped you.’
‘Yes, I am, too.’
‘But you mustn’t ever think like that again. Noah Bilton is a wicked man for even suggesting it and I am very angry with him.’
Quinta heaved a sigh. It was all very well her mother having dreams and fancies for her, but they could not survive at Top Field without Father. They would be homeless and destitute by Midsummer.
Chapter 3
‘Farmer Bilton’s here again, Mother.’
‘Come away from the window.’
‘I wish he wouldn’t ride along the brow every day like this, reminding us he’s there,’ Quinta commented. ‘He never used to.’
‘He never wanted us out before,’ Laura answered. ‘He’ll go when he knows we’ve seen him.’
‘In that case I shall show myself now.’ Quinta took a tin bowl from the table and went out of the front door before her mother could stop her.
‘Good morning, sir,’ she called. She was too far away to see his response and she did not wait for it. She straightened her spine and whisked around the side of their cottage and out of his sight.
The sun was up but the air was fresh. Top Field was the highest point hereabouts and it caught the breeze winter and summer alike. She was not used to the pasture without Darby yet, and habit caused her to look for him as she walked across to the wooden henhouse. He had taken them backwards and forwards to market as long as she could remember. But he couldn’t pull the donkey cart to market anyway as one of the shafts had broken and she didn’t know how to mend it.
Beyond the pasture was Five-acre Wood which belonged to the Hall. A fast-flowing stream marked the boundary. It was a crisp morning for late May and, where the sun’s rays lit up the flowing water, a gentle mist rose from the scrubby ground. May was always a lean month, when their winter vegetables were over and new crops were too young to pull. Still, they had the hens to keep them going. As she shooed them out of their coop, she was glad of her woollen shawl knotted firmly across her chest. She found three small eggs and knew there would be more as the days grew longer.
Her attention was diverted, quite suddenly, by a sharp crack splitting the quiet air. Birds cawed raucously and scattered upwards from their roosts. Who was out shooting? It was a similar noise to the shot that had made old Darby start and slip in the mud a few days ago. Once down he had been unable to get up again; she remembered his pain.
She thought it was too early for hunting unless a rogue fox had got into the breeding pheasants and the gamekeeper was seeing him off. She scanned the woodland for signs of a gun but thought the shot must have come from the moorland beyond the woods. She hoped it wasn’t poachers or travellers. They were all to be feared. At Easter she had heard tales of vagrants about and her anxiety mounted. She took the eggs indoors, relieved to note that Farmer Bilton had ridden out of view.
Laura Haig was dressed and downstairs, stirring porridge in a blackened iron pot suspended over the kitchen fire. She wore a clean apron over her neat gown and a pretty lace cap on her head. Even in their straitened circumstances, Quinta thought, she did not let her standards slip.
‘Only three today,’ Quinta said.
‘Enough for a Yorkshire pudding,’ her mother replied.