Apples and Prayers (16 page)

‘Even if I do tell,' she added, ‘I wouldn't be able to sit on a bumpy cart for hours on end… doing a tour of the parish… I might dislodge the child!' 

She placed her hands on her belly and gave me a plaintive look that was hard to disagree with. A cart ride was hardly likely to make her miscarry, though her discomfort would be palpable.

‘Then who'll take your place on the wagon, Alford, if you can't do it? A May Day procession's nothing without a May Queen.'

‘And there's the rub Morgan,' she said. ‘I can't think of any girls who'd be willing, nor the right age… and certainly not chaste enough… to take my place.' 

She rubbed her head in a semblance of thought and I began to fear where this was heading. 

‘There's one person though…' 

Here she stopped and gave a grin that betrayed her roundabout ways.

‘Oh no,' I said. ‘No, no and three time No! I couldn't… I wouldn't…'

‘You
shouldn't
either Morgan, but you
must
! Please, please,' she pleaded. ‘You'll be saving me in more ways than one. Do say you'll take my place on the wagon. Do it, please?'

The prospect was ludicrous and I told her so. ‘Alford, think of it. I'm well beyond the age, by ten years or more! Look at my face!'

‘There's nothing wrong with your face, Morgan. Your bones are fine…'

‘Look at my nose,' I said, trying to find a feature with which to defeat her.

‘What's wrong with it? It's not like it's a sheep's nose! It's beautiful, my dear. John Toucher thinks so. As do many men. Or so I've heard.'

‘Go to,' I said to her and swiped at her teasing. ‘I'm no young girl. I'm certainly not fair. And well you know it. Those men won't be smiling. They'll be laughing at me. A woman of my age shouldn't parade herself. Certainly not when younger women from hereabouts could carry the position. It's unthinkable. No, Alford. No.'

‘But Morgan, you won't have to show your face. Tell me. Where's it written that the May Queen can't wear a veil? Consider it. Drape some muslin round your head. From a distance, they won't know if it's you or I who sits on top of the cart.'

‘With muslin draped around my head, Alford, I'll look like a corpse and nothing like a May Queen!'

‘But Morgan,' she persisted. ‘There's only two girls in the village who could do it and they'd no more show themselves off than turn Protestant! Kate Kingston's face is so riddled with the pox she looks like a kitchen colander. And the Veitche's girl is far from perfection. You're worried about your nose? She's got a carbuncle on hers, the size of a cauliflower!'

‘How very uncharitable you can be, Alford!' I said and we laughed.

‘But it's true, Morgan, forgive me. I mean nothing against the girls' reputations, but at this moment their faces are… less than fair, shall we say? You must say yes, Morgan. There's no other remedy. Please. Please!'

‘And why couldn't they cover their faces with muslin, as you've asked me to do? Answer that. Nobody would be any the wiser for the deceit, if it were me or them parading in your place.'

‘They can't do it, Morgan… for the very reason that
I
can't do it. Think about it.' 

These last words were uttered forcefully and accompanied by a sudden clutching of her belly and buckling of the knees. I knew then that Alford could no more do it, than carry in hay bales to the barn, or milk the dairy cows.

‘What'll we tell my Lady?' I conceded. ‘She'll no more believe it than I can at present.'

‘Listen Morgan,' Alford said. ‘We're standing in the morning dew. Haven't you taught me yourself? We'll make a remedy.' And she began to rhyme. ‘
The fair maid who the first of May, Goes to the field the break of day, And washes in dew from the hawthorn tree, Will ever handsome be
.'

I hoped there might be some truth in the words of her song, for it then became clear that I'd been talked into it, by means I can only call mischievous. Me, May Queen? Me, goddess of growth and of flowers? It was my own fault. Weakness and sympathy for the girl. I knew I'd have to do it.

‘All I can think of is feigning sickness, Morgan. That's all we can do. My Lady'll sympathise… and you'll step into my place. Nothing more than one maid assisting another. She'll think nothing of it, surely?' 

I gave her suggestion a moment's thought. ‘Fine,' I said. ‘Fine. But I'll tell you what, Alford… and listen well my girl… for this isn't the first time I've told untruths to protect you in neglect of your work…'

‘What can you mean, Morgan?' she acted.

‘You know full well what I mean, Alford! I've woven webs of deceit for you as long as your arm, while you've been off gallivanting with your boy. And if you hadn't been gallivanting with him, you'd be able to sit on a cart for a morning. I'll do it for you, so long as my face is veiled. I'll do it to save your discomfort. But your sickness is going to be proper… not be play acted. How about I pour a pint of mustard water down your throat, to be sure?
Then
your puking'll be real enough for my Lady… and recompense to me for my pains in the matter.'

‘Morgan Sweet!' she exclaimed and we both shook our heads; mine in resignation to the trick she had played and hers at the thought of the mustard.

We then crossed the garden to the hawthorn hedge and bathed my skin in the dew. I knew that my face would be veiled on the day and that no one would see me for the impostor I'd been asked to be, but I wanted to make doubly sure my complexion was fair enough to act the maid in procession. I also made an offering – a bunch of Lady's Mantle – for her intercession in the smooth running of the matter. What with our Holy Virgin's blessing, the face wash of dew that had tightened my rough skin and a mask of daisy sap to remove the pimples, I might yet pass off as a seemingly young May Queen if, in truth, beneath it all, I was just as plain and addled as any woman of my twenty-five years or so.

That evening, Alford and I cut and sewed ourselves green swags and sashes from the ancient curtains, which had lain in the trunks for many years, gathering dust in the corner of the rafters. 

Our work as seamstresses done, we set ourselves ready to play out the lie that we'd planned earlier that morning. It was just before my Lady came in the following morning to fetch Alford for the May procession, that the young deceiver drank the cup of water I'd mixed with mustard. She puked, right as my Lady entered the room. It couldn't have been better timed.

‘Where's our May Queen?' my Lady asked politely, as she came down to find us in the kitchen. At that very moment, Alford spilled her guts with a cry. ‘Whatever in God's name's wrong, Alford?' my Lady shrieked in sudden concern. When Alford had stopped reeling from the unpleasantness of her trickery, she offered a feeble reply.

‘I've been so all night, my Lady,' she lied, though her lurching from the sting of the mustard was real enough. ‘It hurts me so,' she feigned. For my part I simply nodded. I wouldn't lie in words, even if I was lying in deeds.

‘But you're so pale my girl,' my Lady observed with great worry. It was true. The sudden violence of the emetic had taken all the colour from Alford's cheeks.

‘She does look very pale, my Lady,' I dissembled.

‘Why didn't you tell me this earlier, Morgan?'

‘I thought she might recover in time, my Lady.'

‘And recover you must! You've duties to perform.' She seemed resolved to see Alford ride upon the cart. I could see the young girl's heart sinking.

‘She can't ride the cart in such a state, my Lady,' I said, practically. ‘We'll have retching all over the dresses and flowers. Think of it, ma'am. All that bumping and rumbling along the lanes… she can barely keep a cup of water down while standing on firm ground. It'll be a disaster.'

‘And what are we to do then, Morgan, pray tell me, if you're so wise?' Her tone was justly cutting. ‘We're set to depart to make the village rounds within the hour, you know.'

‘Which is why we have to find someone else to take the young girl's place right away, my Lady,' I suggested.

‘No, no, no, that won't do, not at all!' she countered. 

With this firm denial, Alford performed her trick once again. The stink made my Lady as good as agree on the spot. To my own and Alford's considerable relief, she conceded to Alford's sickness. She also agreed with me that we couldn't find another girl in time to take the part, although she found the switch with me most unusual. She agreed, however, on an impressive veil. That would perfectly disguise me from detection so they thought they saw a virgin girl riding. Well, perhaps.

I then dressed up in the robe we'd stitched together, wearing my stays tight, to push my bosom upward and make a sweet cleave of it, in a youthful way. 

When it came to making me up for the part, we anointed my skin with periwinkle sap for a thorough cleansing, celandine for my several warts and whitening my teeth. To finish my complexion, my Lady dusted me with orris and a little rouge. Then, to hide what we'd just achieved, we draped an imposing veil over my head. I have to say myself, I looked half passable, masked in greasepaint and shrouded like that.

Before we set off, Alford swore I looked no more than sixteen summers and, where her deceits had tricked me into this in the first place, her flattery now got the better of me.

In fact, the people were so drunk by the time our procession passed, I don't think they would have noticed if it had been an ass's head rising from the neckline of the May Queen's robes, let alone my own. At my Lady's instruction, Alford kept herself privately back at the Barton, until our cart returned from its rounds.

As for that procession, the cart was pulled by a moody, sour bay mare from my Lord's stable. The horse was old and unsuited to such a pageant. She pulled and bucked out of the stable, which made for the bumpiest of rides. It was better that I endured this continual jolting than Alford. The mare was drawn on by the odd-jobber, Rawlings, who waved his moth-eared hat and smiled to the crowd as though the procession was his and not the May Queen's.

‘Hi there, you old nag!' he shouted, as he beat the animal on with brisk swishes of his withy. I trusted he meant the horse instead of me. He must have drunk such huge amounts of dandelion beer and elderflower wine before we left, for he stumbled his way along the lanes, barely able to keep to his feet. It made for an unsettling ride, in the extreme. By the time we'd circled the parish and returned home, his breeches were muddied through and torn at the knee in several places from tumbling down. He wasn't the only one though. It seemed that the whole village had washed its sins away with copious bottles of sense-numbing juice, as they lay on the green verges, or underneath the shade of overhanging trees.

My Lord and Lady rode ahead of us, their obedient mounts parting the way through the crowd. As we turned the corner from the Barton's lane, over the bridge and up to the village, men, women and children cheered us on, whirling reels to Woodbine and Coppin's pipe and fiddle. They seemed to fall over more times than not, so the only ones left standing were the children, who found it all a riotous game.

‘Alford! Alford!' cried Dufflin, as he saw us round the bend. I waved at him from my high chair behind the belligerent horse. Dufflin was dodging his way between the dancers to keep up with our cart's progress along the higher lane. ‘You look… why, you look… beautiful Alford!' he called out. I felt flattered, if not a sly dissembler.

‘You've got yourself a fine one there,' another said. 

The young lad came to an abrupt halt, running bang into the other's chest at full pelt. He fell to the floor, as though he'd hit a tree. 

That tree was John Toucher. ‘A lovely young girl indeed,' John Toucher laughed.

I wondered if he'd ever spent such compliments on me.

From where I was sitting, I saw it all acted out before me, like the scenes of a play on a distant stage. The gauze of the veil that hid me from view made it seem as though life was happening elsewhere; as though I was a spirit come down from above, to watch the antics of the living one last time. There were small hounds yapping, livestock braying, children running in and out of their elder's feet, lewd and furtive couples kissing in bushes and farming men passing their time in idle talk, oblivious to our passing by, as though it might have been just any old day in the calendar. 

All this distraction suited me well, for in the end no comment was made about my sitting there in Alford's stead and she, in fact, received much compliment in the days that followed.

When it was finished, Alford and I swapped back to our rightful places and I was pleased to have the journey over. At least she hadn't had to endure the rickety ride of Rawlings' mare and put her child at risk. She was also now recovered from her ordeal by mustard; a small price to pay, I thought, for the favour I'd done her.

Although the month began with such festivities, it wasn't all a time of playfulness. There was always much work to be done. Last year's cereals were still piled up in the threshing barn, where they'd been carefully stored over winter. Proper storage is vital. Rye left to mould in the damp season, causes fire in the veins when it's ground into bread and eaten; visions in the mind like scenes from the underworld; weird fantasies, delusions. If the boils don't kill you, the mania will. A good husbandman guards carefully against it and keeps some of the threshing work over til May. Threshing makes good wet-weather work, something we're used to beneath Buckland's leaky skies.

We did have some warm breezes I recall and the tree blossoms were already on display for the bugs and the bees. But the grass wasn't yet fully grown and the cattle needed feeding up on last year's hay, added to with some newly threshed grain. This would keep them strong until the pasture was lush and ready. Haymaking had been delayed a week or two, with all the recent flooding and threshing also gave us chaff, to feed the hungry pigs and poultry, my Lord's horses. Not forgetting grain for our very own loaves. It isn't all about the animals.