True Born (12 page)

"Because you are spending it all!"

"Did I not say, you have the soul of an
accountant! We will not continue long! Those rides over the moors
get more and more tedious, even if it's now once every three
weeks!" Marcus had assured him.

John had shaken hands with them and left,
hoping that one of the other soldiers could take over the planning
of the attacks with as much care and strategy as he had, for Marcus
would ride at anything that moved, and pray that he made it
out.

When, therefore, John settled in the
farmhouse he could afford, with money left over for animals, seeds
and instruments, he realized by the look of disuse of the land that
he had a lot of work to do, and that he would need knowledge and
help. Perhaps he, like Marcus, had gone at something and just
prayed he would make it work.

He therefore put an advertisement in the
paper, looking for an experienced farm hand and a servant, to start
with.

The Earl, however, saw the advertisement and
spread the word: whoever helped or worked for John Crawford would
be doing him an injury.

A great house like Halford Castle cast a long
shadow over the place where it stood, but John would not go further
afield because this was his homeland, and he did not want to be too
far away from Georgiana. He did not, therefore, get postulants for
the jobs, except for a very drunk man as a farm hand and a reformed
prostitute of forty-five as a cook, neither of whom had anything to
lose by angering the Earl.

They were hired, and the cook, Abby, did her
best to show her loyalty to John, who had understood her desire for
change, and her fear for her future. The farm hand, however, though
forced to stay away from the bottle of gin during the day by his
master, did not know much about modern agricultural methods, and
scratched his head every time he was asked a question.

John read books, rode through other men's
lands, picked up what talk he could hear, but the year was getting
on; it was August already, and he knew he needed to start planting
if he were to have winter harvests.

He was in a grim mood, between the fact that
Georgiana was once more with Hugh, and the malicious coward was
ensuring that he should never prosper. He was fighting a desire to
go to Halford and give Hugh the same treatment he had given him in
London, or worse, when a small carriage bearing his crest, the
walking leopard holding a rose over seven castles, appeared outside
the house.

John stood up and rushed to the door,
thinking it was Georgiana, who could not bear her life with her
husband any longer and was coming to him.

He managed to see through the light reflected
on the window of the carriage that there was a woman inside, and he
quickened his pace; but he knew even before the door opened that it
was not Georgiana.

It was his cousin, Hester Stowe.

She opened the door herself, stepped down
without help, and stood looking at him with the hooded black eyes
which were strangely beautiful. She also stretched her hand to him
again and he shook it: hers was dry and strong.

"Has something happened at Halford?" he asked
with concern.

"Not at all," she replied, "Everyone is in
excellent health. Will you ask me in?"

He motioned towards the house and she moved
past him. He walked behind her noticing how straight her back was,
how unyielding her frame. It seemed as if her legs were not moving
naturally, but gliding. Her dark hair was gathered in a very tight
bun, though it shone in the sunlight.

There was nothing girlish or carefree about
Hester.

When they were inside he asked Abby to
prepare some tea, and it was Hester who poured it for both of them
when it came.

She didn't drink hers, but with her hands on
her lap said, "I have come about your advertisement."

"What advertisement?"

There was only one, but he couldn't
understand what she meant, or what she would have to do with
it.

"The advertisement for workers at your
farm."

"Do you know of anyone willing to sidestep
Halford's threats?"

"Yes," she said calmly. "Myself."

He frowned. "You?"

"Indeed," she assured him. "My father was a
farmer and I made it my business to know everything that he was
doing. I often oversaw the men working, and even tried my hand at
the work to know more. We had sheep, cows and we planted grains and
even vegetables. It was a land not unlike this one."

John set down his cup, and decided to speak
as straightforwardly to her as she had done to him.

"There are many things about this that I
don't understand," he said. "For one, why would you be defying Hugh
when you depend on him?"

"Because I don't plan to keep depending on
him. I want to make my own way in the world and I know I am capable
of it. Certainly, if anyone can understand, it ought to be you,
even if I am only a woman!"

"But you would lose your reputation if you
worked with a man, and lived on his land."

"You offered a house on the grounds," she
said. "And that would suit. As to the scandal, it does not bother
me. I do not mean to marry, but to make my own way in the
world."

"You would be cut off from your rich cousins,
should things ever go wrong!"

"I do not see why they should go wrong," she
said with confidence. "It's fertile land, and you have a good
stretch of it. Things can go wrong with the weather, but I suspect
you are too clever to depend on your first crop. I suspect you have
reserves. It is bound to be a success."

"I don't require anyone to be looking at
account books or running a household, I require someone strong, who
can work next to me," John warned her.

"I know what is required, and I am strong,"
she said.

John was looking at her without saying
anything. She stared back at him for a moment with eyes that seemed
not to blink; it rather seemed like a heavy curtain fell over them
sometimes.

She said, "Farming has changed over the last
years. My father was successful in incorporating the new
techniques, and I would be passing that knowledge on to you. You
could have a healthy business with sheep and cows, and your land
can yield four crops a year, but you must know what to plant and
when, so as to keep the earth as fertile as possible. I know these
things, and I could guide you."

Hester poured him more tea, and her pulse did
not tremble. She continued, "I can find the best seeds in the
market, no one will cheat you or give you less than the best, and I
can negotiate the price. I can find the best tools. I can put that
drunk man I saw lolling about to work, I have done it before. I can
work alongside the two of you with my own hands. We will all
work."

He still said nothing and she kept talking,
no word wasted, no change in her tone, "You will start modestly,
but I don't doubt that when you have had some success you will be
able to get other people to work with us. People are frightened
now, because they think you shall make a mess of it, and they will
have courted Hugh's wrath for nothing. They need to see you
succeed." She added in a matter-of-fact tone, as if this were of no
great concern, one way or the other: "People are like that. You
can't expect anything else from them."

John was watching her as she talked, and now
asked, "And what is it you want in return?"

"Fair wages, a rent-free house, and if you
find my work good, in time, I would want a small part of the
profits, that I may put away towards my old age."

John didn't want to say anything about the
oddity of her deciding so young that she would not marry or have
children, when she was a beautiful woman, even if her character
were cold and dry. She seemed to have come to the conclusion that
she would work hard on the land, live in a stone house alone, save,
grow old and die.

Yet, she also seemed competent and honest as
she sat before him, and he had not found anyone else for the job.
He needed to plant immediately, and he didn't want for there to be
a mistake in what he attempted. She was right that people needed to
see him succeed, and it was not a matter of pride for him, but of
love. He needed to go forward, to feel that he was getting closer
to his goal, which was to lure Georgiana to him by being able to
provide for her and for her sisters.

Hester was strange, but he was not afraid of
her. What could she do? He had understood that she knew what she
was talking about, though she was a woman, and that she would work
hard and be honest, and he did not have the luxury to think beyond
that.

"All right," he said, "I shall give all that
you ask. We will put it in writing, if you want."

"No need," she said, and stretched her hand
out again, like a man.

He shook it.

John Crawford was the only man Hester had
ever met who was worthy of the name.

She had known this with the same immediate
certainty that she knew everything, the very day that he had walked
into Halford House and braved England's high society to slap his
half brother on the face for treating his mother cruelly.

After that, John Crawford had shone above all
men in his pride, in his determination never to be subdued, never
to sue or ask for anything, in his courage. He had walked through a
hundred other men who had cowered before him in Halford House, he
had burst through the gates on his horse to throw the Earl's bloody
wig at the Countess, he had gone away and come back with the money
to start his fortune in spite of all the obstacles Hugh had thrown
at him.

Here was finally a man, and he had no
weakness, except love for a woman who did not deserve him.

What would Hester have done, had she had a
man like him and anyone had tried to force her to forsake him? She
well knew that a woman belonged to her father or husband, she was
his property and he could beat her, lock her up, declare her mad,
take every comfort away from her; but even had she been forced to
marry a man like the Earl, Hester would have braved all of that and
more, and nothing would have kept her from John.

The moment she had seen his advertisement,
she had realized that there was no place for her but by his side.
She had come, and had worked next to him on his farm, she had
showed him what to plant and how, had pulled the plough like an
animal when it was stuck, sowed seeds by digging each hole with her
hands so they would take. She was up before he was and stopped
working after he did.

The crops of wheat and barley were planted,
and healthy cows grazed on the land. Later they would plant
turnips, whose roots would give nourishment to the earth and
prepare it for another crop. Hester milked the cows and made butter
and cheese, and helped shear the sheep for wool. She had put
William to work, and Abby kept a good house for her master.

This was what Hester could do, and it was
much for a man who needed to make his way like John. She did not
begrudge him anything, nothing would ever be too much, but he would
not have a house, a land, a life to give to Georgiana. He could not
have a mind and a heart such as he did, and want her. That was a
desire unworthy of him.

That morning, even as she thought these
things, Hester had smelled the water in the air, and knew that what
was coming would not just be rain, but a storm.

She heard the barking of the shepherd dogs
outside and, when she went to them, she saw they were nervously
warning her of imminent danger.

Where were the sheep? Not in the pen! And
John was out in town, buying supplies, though she knew that he
would hurry home when he saw the weather. It had turned very
quickly, though she should have been more attentive to the signs
that a storm was gathering.

William, the farm hand, was cowering in the
barn with an almost empty bottle of gin. He was afraid of lighting
and had taken advantage of John's absence to seek comfort in
drink.

"I will have your hide!" she screamed at
him.

"I am nae shepherd!"
he shouted back.
He was in no state to help.

It was his job to walk the sheep back, and
instead he had hidden in the barn to drink and the beasts were in
the fields, lost. She ran to the house and told Abby to let John
know that she was going in search of the sheep. If something
happened to them, he would lose a third of his investment.

The dogs guided her, running in front, their
tongues hanging out. The sheep had wandered far! Damn William and
his drunkenness, she would give him reason to fear lightning when
she threw him out with no roof over his head.

There was no rain yet, but lightning appeared
as if the sky were cracking like a crystal bowl. She saw the sheep
ahead: they were frightened, and had moved to the edge of a
cliff.

God help me, they might jump over the
side! 
she thought desperately.

Hester motioned for the dogs to move, to get
between the cliff and the sheep. "Come on, boy! Go! And you!"

One of the dogs went, barking in fear as the
thunder became so loud that it sounded as if the heavens would
explode. The other dog cowered, though she beat it to make it
obey.

She would have to go there herself.

Hester felt the first fat drops of rain and
ran to stand between the cliff and the beasts, her long black hair
riding the wind. She reached her arms out as if to catch any sheep
that went forward, or to keep them back with the power of her
will.

This was what John saw when he rode over as
swiftly as he could, once Abby told him what had happened. His eyes
met Hester's and she seemed like a sorceress who could command
nature, with her white face and her mad hair. Lighting crossed the
sky behind her and yet she stood, keeping the sheep from the long
drop, unafraid.