The woman smiled at the polite compliment. Alinor observed her smugness and wondered if she would be a kind mother-in-law to Alys, who would live with them at this farm and share a house with this woman for life.
“So, our young people want to make a match of it,” Farmer Stoney said to Alinor. “Richard came to me after harvest home and said he had plighted his troth without a word to me.” He chuckled, shaking his head. “Boys, eh? And he’s brought her back here a few times, and we like her very well. But I should really be talking with her father.”
“As you know, my husband’s at sea,” Alinor said cautiously. “He’s been gone nearly a year now. All the arrangements fall to me.”
“Your brother doesn’t act for you?” Mrs. Stoney inquired.
“I decide about my own children,” Alinor said with quiet dignity. “My brother advises me when I need it.”
“Does he know you’re here today?” Mrs. Stoney demanded.
“He does.”
“Well, you’re no fool, I know that,” the man said encouragingly. “But you must realize that we could look very high for Richard. He’s our only son and he’ll inherit all of this, when we’re gone. There’s nothing owed on the farm. I had it entire from my father, and I improved it, and I will pass it on entire. It’s a tidy inheritance.”
“I know,” Alinor said. “It’s a beautiful farm. But Alys was taken with your son even before she knew who he was, when she first saw him at the mill. She had no thought of all of this.”
Mrs. Stoney sniffed, as if to say that she doubted it.
“It would be a love match,” Alinor pursued. “But of course, she will bring a dowry.”
“Does she have her own linen laid away?” Mrs. Stoney asked.
“No,” Alinor said, thinking of the corner of the room of the little cottage, the box of treasures that held nothing but a paper contract and a red leather purse of dross. “Not yet. But by the time of the wedding, I will be able to send her with some sheets . . .” She saw the disapproving look on the woman’s face. “And some wool,” she added.
“This is what comes of sending him to the Millers’ farm,” Mrs. Stoney complained aside, to her husband. “You sent him to learn milling, but all he has learned is disobedience.”
“He can make his own choice,” her husband rejoined. “She’s a pretty girl and she knows all that she needs to know to be a working farmer’s wife. Isn’t that right, Mrs. Reekie?”
“She does everything at the tide mill,” Alinor confirmed. “Mrs. Miller keeps a very good place and Alys has learned housewifery there. She works in their dairy, she can milk cows, she can brew, she bakes bread, she cooks, she spins of course, and she sews. And I’ve taught her the herbs and the uses of them. She can read and write. You’ll find her very able in the dairy and the brewery, in the bakery and even outside.”
“Would she bring your recipe book?” Mrs. Stoney demanded.
Alinor flinched. She had a recipe book inherited from her mother with cures for all known ailments and injuries, the proper uses of herbs and how to grow them, use them, and distill them. It was her greatest treasure and the bedrock of her practice as a healer. “I will copy them,” she promised. “I will copy them for her. And, of course, if there were any illness or trouble I would come to you for free, as family.”
Mrs. Stoney looked as if it was not enough. “And these savings?” she inquired. “What dowry will she bring?”
“I have thirty-five shillings saved just now,” Alinor said with quiet pride. But obviously, this was not enough; the woman merely raised her eyebrows. “I will have another ten by their wedding day if they marry at Easter,” Alinor added. “And my son, Rob, will have his quarterly wages from the Priory at Candlemas. That’s another fifteen shillings.” Alinor tried to speak calmly about these tremendous sums of money, far more than she had ever earned before, but she saw Mr. Stoney’s glance at his wife and her firm shake of her head, her down-turned mouth.
“We can’t let him throw himself away,” he explained.
“I can add from my fees as I earn them,” Alinor said. “I attend almost all the births in Sealsea Island. I could promise a monthly payment in their first year of marriage—say—from my fees.”
Mrs. Stoney pursed her lips.
“My son is to be apprenticed to a Chichester apothecary,” Alinor said, her voice level, but her heart pounding. “He’s to go in the Lent term when Master Walter leaves for his university. I know he would want to see his sister happily settled . . .”
“An apothecary?” Mrs. Stoney asked, and when Alinor started to explain, she interrupted: “But what use is that to us?”
“She and Rob will inherit the right to the ferry, and Ferry-house—”
“I’m sorry,” Mr. Stoney said finally, “but we’re looking for a bigger dowry, to be paid in full on the wedding day. Maybe with land adjoining, maybe one of our neighbors. Not pennies as and when. Not as and when, Mrs. Reekie. It’s a pity that you don’t have a husband to earn a living for you. A great pity. But we can’t let Richard throw himself away. For all that she’s a lovely girl, and we like her very much. She would have been our choice, if the money had been right. We thought you’d have had more, to be honest. I’m sorry. We thought you were in a better way.”
Alinor gritted her teeth to stop herself exclaiming that once she did have more: her inheritance from her mother, her dowry in her mother’s red leather purse; but Zachary had taken it, as a husband’s right, and wasted it as a husband can do, and now Zachary was not here to answer for it, and the red leather purse held only shavings of old coins.
“But she has her own wages,” Alinor urged him, growing more anxious. “If you want her to keep working at the Millers’, she could bring home her wages. And she can spin.”
“Then he might as well marry our servant Bess!” Mrs. Stoney objected. “Maidservant wages as dowry! No, no, she’s a lovely girl but if she’s got nothing but thirty-five shillings and farm work wages. I look higher for my son than that.”
Mr. Stoney looked as if he regretted her sharp tone. “No disrespect,” he said.
“What did you have in mind?” Alinor asked. “For my brother would perhaps—”
“Nothing less than eighty pounds,” Mrs. Stoney said smartly. “I’d take nothing less.”
“Eighty pounds!” Alinor gasped at the unimaginable sum.
“We’re going to have to refuse,” Mr. Stoney said gently. “Regretfully but—”
“I have sixty pounds!” Alys interrupted suddenly from the door. She stepped into the room, white-faced, Richard behind her, gripping her hand. “I have it,” she claimed. “I have savings of my own that my mother doesn’t know about.” One fierce glance at Alinor warned her to say nothing.
“Were you listening at the door?” Mr. Stoney asked his son, frowning.
“We came past the window and we overheard,” his son replied. “We weren’t eavesdropping, sir, but my mother was speaking very clearly. We must marry. We love each other.”
“How much d’you have?” Mrs. Stoney asked the girl.
“I have sixty pounds,” Alys said boldly. From the pocket of her gown she pulled a fat red leather purse and put it down on the dark wood table before her mother. “Sixty pounds,” she said defiantly. “Sixty pounds down, and the rest to come. Is that enough?”
With a pang of terror Alinor recognized at once the heavy red leather purse that Mrs. Miller had pulled from its hiding place behind the brick in the millhouse chimney: it was Jane Miller’s dowry. She opened her mouth and found she could say nothing.
“Is that enough?” Alys asked, her voice shaking. “Is it enough?”
“It’s a surprise,” Mr. Stoney remarked gravely. “How has a maid like you got more savings than her mother?” He turned to Alinor. “How have you got a fortune like this? Did you know she had put this by?”
“My father gave it to me,” Alys spoke rapidly before her mother could reply. “His prize money from the navy. He won it serving in the navy, and when he came home last time, he gave it to me for my dowry. I was always his favorite. He gave it to me for my dowry if I wanted to marry before he came back.”