The Forest (26 page)

Mary had stood for a while in the little barn after she had gone in to feed the pony. At first she had been so surprised that she had just stared. Then she had frowned. Finally, after glancing up at the loft where she had spent so many happy hours that winter, she nodded.

That must be it. She couldn’t see any other explanation. She even whispered, ‘Are you there?’ But this was met only by silence. Then she sighed. ‘I suppose’, she murmured, ‘that’s your idea of a joke.’ She hardly knew whether to laugh or cry.

She walked outside after that, and went over to the fence and looked across the open ground to the trees. She half expected a signal, but there was none. Forgetting even the pony for a few moments, she stood gazing out, as if in a dream.

This was his way of letting her know he was there, watching over her. She felt a warm rush of happiness. Then she shook her head. ‘But what have you done now, Luke?’ she muttered.

Then young Harry appeared.

It had all gone to plan. Tom was almost chortling to himself with pleasure and excitement. The words had all been said, John Pride was looking at his son like thunder; the boy was close to tears. The whole hamlet was enjoying the joke as the Prides got out of their cart looking uncomfortable.

‘Better check none of your other animals is missing,’ he called out. ‘Maybe they all walked off! Eh?’ He had only just thought of that one. He was so pleased with it, and the laughs it produced, that he went even further. ‘Something about your place they don’t like, then, is it, John? Something they don’t like?’

Oh, they were laughing now. He glanced at the track. Mary should be arriving any moment. The final surprise. The triumph. She’d better hurry up, though. While everyone was there.

One of Pride’s younger children had run round to the cowshed, just to see for herself. She returned now, looking puzzled. She was tugging at Pride’s jerkin, saying something. He saw Pride frown and then walk round to the cowshed himself. Oh, this was rich! Now Pride was returning, looking straight at him. ‘I don’t know what you’re on about, Tom Furzey,’ he called out. ‘That pony’s in the cowshed.’

Silence. Tom stared. Pride shrugged, contemptuous now, after his shock. Still Tom stared. It was impossible.

He couldn’t help himself. He ran forward. He ran straight past Pride, through the yard to the cowshed. He looked in. The pony was tethered there. One look was enough. You couldn’t mistake it. For just an instant the thought flashed through his mind to take it, seize the rope and lead it out with him. But it would never work. In any case, the pony itself was hardly the point now. He turned and came back.

‘Whoah, Tom. Something wrong there, Tom?’ The joke was on him now. The little crowd was having its fun.

‘Run back home and lock himself in, did he, Tom?’ ‘Where did you think he was, Tom?’ ‘We know you was worried about him.’ ‘Don’t you worry, Tom. That pony’s safe now.’

John Pride was looking at him, too; but not exactly laughing. He was still puzzled. You could see that.

Tom walked past him. He walked past the crowd. He didn’t even look at his own sister. He went along the edge of the pond and down the lane.

How? It was impossible. Had somebody tipped Pride off? No. There wasn’t time. Pride hadn’t known. You could see that. Had his son guessed what had happened and stolen the pony back? Couldn’t have. Young Harry was with him all night. Who even knew? His sister and her family. Had one of them been talking? He doubted it. Anyway, he didn’t think anyone in the hamlet was going to do John Pride’s work for him.

Mary. The only link left. Could she have gone out in the night while he slept? Or got someone else to do it? He couldn’t believe it. But then, he thought, he couldn’t believe the way she’d behaved over the pony in the first place.

He didn’t know. He supposed he’d never know. One thing was sure: if he’d been made to look a fool before, he looked twice as big a fool now. It doesn’t matter where I walk, he thought, the ground is always going to be shifting under my feet.

She was standing in the yard alone when he got back. Just looking at him. Not saying anything. But you could see she knew there’d be trouble. Well, if that was what she wanted she could have it.

As he reached her, therefore, he didn’t say anything. He wasn’t going to, either. But suddenly swinging, with an open hand, he struck her across the face as hard as he liked and she crashed to the ground.

He didn’t care.

Harvest time. Long summer days. Lines of men in smocks, with long scythes, working their way slowly, rhythmically across golden fields. Lay brothers in white habits and black aprons, following behind with scythes and sickles. The air thick with dust; fieldmice and other tiny creatures patter and scuttle to the droning hedgerows; flies in summer swarms, everywhere.

The sky was cloudless, deep blue; the heavy heat of the sun was oppressive. But already showing itself in one quarter of the sky, a huge full moon was gently rising.

Brother Adam sat calmly on his horse. He had been to Beufre; now he was at St Leonards. He was going across the heath after that, to the fields above the little ford. He was being vigilant.

The abbot had come back the week before, then gone again, to London. Before going he had given Adam particular directions. ‘Be especially careful at harvest time, Adam. That’s when we have the most hired hands. Take care they don’t drink or get into trouble.’

A cart was coming up the track, pulled by a great affer, as the Beaulieu men called a carthorse. In it were loaves of bread from the abbey bakery, made from the coarser ‘family’ flour for the workers, and barrels of beer.

‘They’re to have only Wilkin le Naket,’ Adam had firmly instructed. This was the weakest of the several abbey beers. It would quench their thirst, but no one would get drunk or sleepy. He glanced up at the sun. When the cart arrived, he would declare a rest period. He looked across the other way in the direction of the heath. The wheat in the next field had been harvested the day before.

And there he saw the woman, Mary, dressed in a simple kirtle, tied at the waist, coming towards him across the stubble.

Mary took her time. Tom was not expecting her. That was the point. She was carrying a little basket of wild strawberries she had picked for him.

What does a woman do when she is forced to live with a man? When there is no escape; when there are children to share? What does she do when she lives in a farmstead where a marriage is over and yet is not?

They had been cold to each other for so long and, even though she did not love him, she couldn’t bear it any more. What did it take, then, to save a marriage? A little gift, a show of love. Perhaps, if she were determined, if love were returned, she might even somehow manage to feel love again herself. Or near enough to get by. This was her hope.

The pony was never mentioned now. Tom didn’t want to think about it, probably didn’t even want it back, she guessed. Once or twice, on some pretext like, ‘I just need to drop this at John’s’ she had been to her brother’s, and Tom had made no comment. She had been careful always to come straight back. Perhaps, in time, she could stay a little longer. Luke she had not seen or heard from. A few times Tom had mentioned him. He might have suspected he was in the Forest somewhere. It was hard to tell.

To outward appearances they seemed tranquil enough. But never once, since the incident in May, had there been any intimacy between them. Tom had been quiet, but cold – or evasive, which was the same thing. When the harvest had come, at which time the hired men often slept out at the granges or in the fields, he had seemed glad of the chance to go, and made no attempt to return home at nights.

She entered the field just as Brother Adam gave the order for the men to rest.

Tom was surprised to see her. He even looked a shade embarrassed as she came towards him and gave him the basket, explaining: ‘I picked them for you.’

‘Oh.’ He didn’t, it seemed, want to show feelings in front of the other men, so he turned up his scythe and started to sharpen it with a small whetstone.

The men were moving over towards the cart where a lay brother was dispensing beer. Tom had his own wooden mug tied with a thong to his belt. She untied it and went to fetch some beer, then stood quietly by while he drank.

‘You came a long way,’ he said at last.

‘It’s nothing,’ she answered and smiled. ‘The children are all well,’ she added. ‘They’ll be glad when you’re back.’

‘Oh yes. I dare say.’

‘So will I.’

He took another gulp of the thin beer, muttered, ‘Oh, yes’, and non-committally went back to sharpening the scythe again.

Some of the other men were coming over now. There were nods to Mary, an inspection of the basket, some appreciative murmurs: ‘That’s nice.’ ‘Nice strawberries your missus brought you there, Tom.’ ‘Be sharing them will you, then?’ The mood of the little group was rather jolly. Tom, still a little cautious, went so far as to say: ‘Maybe I will, and maybe I won’t.’ Mary, relieved by the light-hearted mood, was anxious to laugh.

So the conversation went on, as it often does when people really have nothing to say, each person feeling obliged to keep the little stream of laughter going at the centre while, at the edges, those of a different humour form eddies, their muttered jokes and darker comments sometimes curling away and sometimes re-entering the stream.

‘Them Prides look after you,’ came now from the centre. ‘Here’s Tom with strawberries and the rest of us got nothing.’

Mary laughed gladly at this friendly comment and smiled at Tom.

‘I ’spect Tom gets everything he wants, eh, Tom?’ from the edges. Though a bit cheeky and sadly inaccurate, Mary laughed at this, too, and Tom, a little flummoxed, looked down at the ground.

But then some evil spirit caused one of the younger men at the edge of the group to cry out in a raucous voice: ‘If you’d married her brother, Tom, you could have got a pony!’

And again Mary laughed. She laughed because they were laughing. She laughed because she was anxious to please. She laughed because she was caught, for a moment, by surprise. She laughed only for an instant before, realizing what had been said, and seeing Tom’s stunned face, she checked herself. Too late.

Tom saw something different. Tom saw her laughing at him. Tom saw her gift for what he’d suspected it was, a ploy like giving an apple to a pony to keep him happy. These Prides were all the same. They thought they could just hoodwink you and you’d be so stupid you wouldn’t notice. They’d even do it in front of other people to make a bigger fool out of you. Tom saw her openly laughing at him and then check herself as if she’d suddenly thought: oh dear, he’s noticed. He saw even greater mockery and contempt in that. And all the pent-up resentment and rage of that spring and summer rose up inside him again.

His round face flushed. With his boot he kicked the little basket, scattering the tiny strawberries in a red spray across the stubble. ‘You can get out of here,’ he told Mary. Then he swung his arm so that the back of his hand caught her across the face. ‘That’s right. Go on,’ he called.

So, choking, Mary turned and walked away. She heard their murmurs, some voices raised in remonstrance with Tom, but she didn’t look back and she didn’t want to. It wasn’t the blow that stunned her. She could understand it. But it was the tone of his voice which, it seemed to her, said plainly, in front of them all, that he did not care about her any more.

Brother Adam had been some way off when this happened, but he had seen it all and he could hardly let it pass. Walking across to the group, he told Furzey sharply: ‘You are on abbey lands. This sort of behaviour is not tolerated here. And you should not treat your wife in such a way.’

‘Oh?’ Tom looked at him defiantly. ‘You never had a wife, so what do you know, monk?’ There were looks all round at this. What would the monk do?

‘Control yourself,’ Adam said and turned away.

But Tom had worked himself up too far. ‘I can say what I like to you! And you just keep your nose out of business that don’t concern you,’ he shouted.

Brother Adam stopped. He knew he couldn’t let it go at that; and he was about to turn and order Furzey off the field when he thought of the woman. Fortunately, the lay brother in charge was standing close by. He turned to him instead. ‘Take no notice and leave him be,’ he ordered calmly. ‘There’s no point in his going after his wife when he’s in this state.’ He said it just loudly enough for a couple of the other hired men to hear. Retribution would have to follow, of course, but not now.

Then he went across to his horse and rode away. It was time to inspect the fields across the heath.

He had paused to talk to the shepherds near Bergerie, so it was not until he reached the open heath that he caught sight of her. He did not know whether he had supposed he might see her or not.

He hesitated, watching her for a little while as she walked through the heather. He saw her almost stumble. Then he urged his horse towards her.

As he drew close, she must have heard him, for she turned. There was a red mark across her face and it was clear that she had been crying. She still had almost three miles to go, across rough terrain.

‘Come.’ He leaned down, stretching out his arm to her. ‘Your village is on my way.’ She didn’t argue and a moment later, surprised at the monk’s strength, she found herself lifted up and placed easily astride the big horse’s withers in front of him.

They went at a slow pace over the heath, taking care to skirt the marshy ground. Far away on the right they saw a flock of the abbey sheep moving across the landscape.

The sun beat down heavily; the heather was a purple haze, its sweet scent heady as honeysuckle. The full moon added its strange silver presence to the azure sky.

They rode in silence, Brother Adam’s arms holding the reins around her body, and neither spoke until they were ascending the slope from a little stream in the middle of the heath, when she asked: ‘You are going up to the fields above the ford?’

‘Yes, but I can take you to the village.’ It only meant a detour of a mile of so.

‘I’d sooner walk down from where you’re going. There’s a back way through the woods. I don’t want them all to see me with my face like this.’