He left a hard day’s work behind for two children who’d been up most of the night — the byre to be mucked out, hay carried in, ponies to be tended, sheep to be seen to, hens to be fed and their eggs found, the two old sows to be fed too — besides all the most-used paths to be shoveled clear before the snow on them was trodden down to ice too hard to shift. Jonathan ran down to the stream and fetched the hired man to help with the heaviest work, so by the time Uncle Peter came back, bored with the useless hunt and angrily ashamed with himself for leaving the farm when there was so much to be done, most of the important jobs were finished. Aunt Anne stayed abed all day, and Margaret was staggering with tiredness when she carried the stew-pot to the table for supper; but she opened another bottle of cordial for him (Aunt Anne rationed him to a bottle on Sundays) and he leaned back in his chair and belched and scowled at the roofbeams.
“Glad we didn’t catch ’em, sort of,” he said suddenly.
Margaret cleared away in a daze of exhaustion and went to bed. When she looked down from the top of the stairs he was still lolling there, his cheeks red in the firelight and mottled with anger and drink, and his shadow bouncing black across the far wall. He looked like a cruel old god waiting for a sacrifice.
Too tired to bother with lanterns or candles she felt her way into bed and dropped at once into that warm black ocean of sleep which waits for bodies strained to the edge of bearing, and slept too deep for dreams.
Next day Aunt Anne seemed worse. She lay under her coverlet with her knees tucked almost up to her chin, and all she said when anyone tiptoed in to offer her a mug of gruel or a boiled egg was “Leave me alone Leave me alone.” Uncle Peter, after two attempts to comfort her (quite good attempts — worried, voice gentle), lost his temper with the unreasonableness of other folk and stumped off round the farm, furiously banging the milk pails together and when milking was done starting on the unnecessary job of restacking the timber pile and refusing to be helped. Margaret took him out a flagon of cider in mid-morning (having poured half a bottle of cordial in first) but was otherwise far too busy with housework and cooking to pay attention to him or anyone else. Luckily Aunt Anne had done the baking two days ago, so there was bread enough for two days more, but even so there were hours of work to be done. When you have no machines, a household can only be kept sensible if certain jobs are done on certain days of the week, others on certain days of the month, others every day, and others fitted in according to season. Margaret usually hated housework; but now that Aunt Anne was moaning and rocking upstairs she was in charge, so she polished and scrubbed and swept with busy pleasure, humming old hymn tunes for hours on end.
It was only when she was laying the table for lunch that she realized that Jonathan was missing; she ran out to the paddock, and found that Caesar was missing too. Scrub trotted up for a gossip, but she could only spare him a few seconds before she ran back to clear the third place away, to pour the other half-bottle of cordial into Uncle Peter’s tankard so that he wouldn’t notice when she sploshed the cider in on top, and to think of a good lie. Luckily the stew smelled rich enough to tempt an angry, hungry man.
“Where’s that Jo?” he said at once when he saw the two places.
She ladled out the best bits of meat she could find and added three dumplings (Aunt Anne would frown and purse her lips when she found how lavish Margaret had been with the precious suet).
“I sent him down to Cousin Mary,” she said. “She’s got a bad leg and I didn’t know how she’d be making out this weather. I know Aunt Anne doesn’t speak with her, but I thought she’d rather we did something than that we didn’t.”
Uncle Peter chewed at a big gobbet of meat until his mouth was empty enough for speech, if only just.
“We’d all be happier if we hadn’t any relations,” he growled. “None at all.”
Margaret tried to sound shocked, because that was obviously what he wanted.
“What a horrid thing to say — why, you wouldn’t have any of us!”
He laughed, pleasedly.
“Aye, maybe,” he said, “but a man ought to be able to choose.”
He scooped up another huge spoonful of stew, which gave Margaret time to think what she was going to say next.
“But then you wouldn’t have anybody who had to stick by you. You’d only have friends and . . . and people like Mr. Gordon.”
He munched slowly, thinking it his turn.
“Right you are,” he said. “But mark you, I didn’t choose him neither. He chose me. And what I say is . . .”
Between mouthfuls he told Margaret more about the village than he’d told her in years. Mr. Gordon was right, but he had too much power and influence for a man in his station, and that had maybe turned his head a trifle. It was Squire’s fault, and Parson’s. Squire was a
ninny and Parson was a drunkard. The whole village was sick. But you couldn’t fight Davey Gordon and his gang, because nobody else would dare stand up for you. It was better to belong with them, and then at least you knew where you were. And, certainly, Davey had an uncanny nose for witchcraft of all kinds, and it was better to live in a sick village than one riddled with witches. And mark you, Marge girl, witch-hunting was good sport — better than cock-fighting.
When he’d finished his harangue Margaret fetched him bread and cheese and went upstairs to see whether she could do anything for Aunt Anne. She was asleep at last, straightened out like a proper person. Margaret slipped out and settled down to a long afternoon of housewifery. She was feeding the eager hens in the early dusk when Jonathan came back, riding Caesar, who looked bewildered by the distance he’d suddenly been taken, as if he’d never realized that the world was so large.
“How’s Mum?” said Jonathan in a low voice.
“Better, I think; anyway she’s asleep and lying properly. I told your father you’d gone to see whether Cousin Mary was all right.”
“Good idea. Our lot are, anyway. Lucy’s found a little rowboat and tethered the tug right across the dock so that she can’t drift about — she’s a clever girl, given the chance. And she and Tim got Otto down into the cabin, where there’s a stove, so they won’t freeze. I took them enough food for three days, I hope.”
“Did you try the footpath?”
“Yes, but there’s a locked gate across it, so it was a good thing we didn’t try it. It would be faster than going through Hempsted, if I can break the gate open. I didn’t see your dogs, but I heard them; if they smell Lucy and the others it’s going to be much more dangerous visiting the dock.”
“But couldn’t we tow them further along the canal, down to the bit beyond Hempsted? No one lives there or goes there.”
“I can’t start the engines, supposing they’ll go, until Otto’s well enough to show me how, and once they’re started they’ll bring people swarming round. When we do go, we’ll have to get down the canal and out to sea all in one rush.”
“If you can break that gate, Scrub could tow them for a few miles: that’d be enough.”
“You and your Scrub! Could he really?”
“Oh, yes, I think so. You’re so busy thinking about machines that you never remember what animals can do.”
“Well, you think about them enough for both of us.” “Not so loud, Jo!”
“It’s all right — it’d look funny if we spent all our time whispering to each other. Next time we can both get away I’ll climb out the night before and hide that old horsecollar in the empty house at the top of Edge Lane. We mustn’t be seen taking it.”
But that wasn’t for a full week. Aunt Anne’s mind-sickness left her, but a strange fever followed it which made all her joints ache whenever she moved, so she lay drear-faced in bed or else tried to get up and do her duty as a farmer’s wife with such obvious pain that