Three generations of land-people ago, a greedy merchant had cheated the sea-people who had rescued him from drowning, and they had been angry. But when they asked the town councillors to right this wrong, the town councillors had said that as the merchant was of the land, like themselves, they would not decide against him.
The sea-people are no more cruel than those on land. But they had lost several of their own in the storm that had foundered the false merchant’s ship, and they guessed—correctly—that the land-merchant’s faithlessness was for no better cause than a desire to recoup financially. So then the king and queen of the sea-people had let their wrath run free, for they had asked for redress to be offered honestly and had been denied.
The water had risen in the harbour and beaten against its walls till all the ship docks were washed away. And the sea-people said: This is what you have earned, for your greed and your treachery, that this kind harbour shall never be kind to you again, and the merchant trade of which you have been so proud is denied you for as long as the sea-people shall remember you and your decision, and the sea-people’s memory is long. If any shall set a boat in this harbour, it shall be overturned; and if any shall set foot on the bridge at the head of the harbour, then shall a wave rise up and sweep them off and into the sea where they shall drown, as your merchant might have done.
And so it was. At first the towns, who had been rich and fat for a long time, could not believe it; and they set to work rebuilding the docks, and repairing their ships, and repaving the bridge at the head of the harbour, and they grumbled as they did it, and particularly they grumbled at the greedy merchant who had brought them to this pass. But in a year’s time they had all but bankrupted themselves, all the merchants of both towns, and the banks that had loaned them money, and the outfitters that had provided the goods; and there were no longer any workers who would take jobs on docks or ships either, because there had been too many freak waves, too many sudden storms, too many drownings.
Over the three generations since then, the towns had shrunk back from the harbour, and looked inland for their commerce, and the farmers, who had once been considered very much inferior to the merchants of the sailing trade, were now the most important citizens. The merchants and bankers and outfitters either died of broken hearts or moved away; and the hired workers learned to cut a straight furrow instead of a straight mast, and the sailors mostly went north or south, although a goodly number of them, too, went inland, and became coopers and cordwainers. It was said that the original merchant who had caused the trouble changed his name, and took his family to the other side of the world, but that bad luck had pursued him even there, and he had died in poverty.
Jenny’s family had been farmers on their farm for many generations, and were little touched by the change in their status. They were farmers who cared about farming, and what the people around them thought of farming seemed to them only amusing, because everyone must eat, and that is what farming is for. Perhaps they had a few more cousins on the town council in the three generations since the collapse of the sailing trade than they had previously, but this did not greatly change their outlook either, so long as the towns continued to provide markets and fairs, and enough hungry and prosperous folk to buy farm produce. There had never been any sailors or fisherfolk in their family, and they believed in their blood and bone that the sea was an unchancy thing at best, and better left alone. Even the tale of the sea-people’s curse could not stir them much; it was too much what they would expect of sea-people, had they ever thought about it.
A system of longer inland roads sprang up to connect the two towns, for even without the harbour their people had too long been closely involved with each other to break off relations now. The new connecting road curved far inland, staying high on the ridge above the harbour so that the road might cross while the stream that fed it still lay underground, and as a result it was an hour on a fresh horse even between the two towns, and nearer three between outlying farms.
Once the betrothal had been officially set and posted, the parents of Jenny and Robert relaxed, a little, about letting them visit each other; and if Robert rode over to see Jenny in the afternoon, her parents expected to put him up overnight and he rode home the next day, and vice versa. There were some words spoken between Jenny and her parents, for her parents felt that it was not proper that she ride all that way alone, and sent someone with her, usually right to the gate of Robert’s family’s farm; and let her know further that they would still not allow this at all if it hadn’t been clearly understood that there was a sister still at home as well as Robert’s mother, and that Jenny would share the sister’s bedroom. Jenny, scarlet with shame, said this was nonsense, and that furthermore it was unnecessarily tiring and tedious for whoever was sent with her; but her parents said that it was in this wise or not at all, and so she yielded, but with a less good grace than was usual with her.
It had been tacitly assumed by each family that the extra pair of hands would be put to use, in a little way to make up for when the pair of hands they were used to having available weren’t there for a long afternoon and overnight; but because the parents of each child were very cautious with the parents of the other child, they did not exchange any words about the relative usefulness of their two children. It would have been very awkward if they had been less cautious, since Jenny could lay her hand to almost anything, indoors and out, while Robert seemed capable of almost nothing without so much explanation that it became easier to do it yourself—or so Jenny’s father said to Jenny’s mother, more than once, in exasperation. Jenny’s parents had begun to try to teach Robert the running of their farm—much of which should have been familiar to him already but mysteriously seemed not to be—and tried to believe that all would be well, once the boy was married and settled.
It was but two weeks before the wedding, and the final frenzy of preparation was beginning. It was not to be a grand wedding, but it was to be a large one, with many people staying through the day and into the evening, and much food eaten, and plenty of musicians for plenty of dancing. Jenny’s parents could not but notice that there was a growing edge to her excitement that was not . . . what they would expect or want in a bride-to-be, and all their previous fears about Robert rushed upon them again. Her mother tried to talk to her, but she would not listen; and the odd edge to her excitement grew more pronounced; till at last her mother, desperate, said: “Child, you know we love you. We will not ask you any more questions that you do not wish to answer. But if—for any reason—you wish to call the wedding off, for pity’s sake, tell us, and we will do it for you.”
Jenny rounded on her mother then, in a way she never had, and screamed at her, and said that her parents were determined to destroy her happiness, that they did not need to tell her again that they did not like Robert, that of course she wanted the wedding to go as planned, and to leave her alone!
Her mother, shaken, pulled away from her daughter, turned and left her, and Jenny threw herself sobbing on her bed.
Jenny’s mother said to her husband, “There is nothing we can do. Something is wrong, dreadfully wrong, but we must let her bear it herself, for she will accept no help from us.”
They left her alone that day, shut up in her room, and went on about the farm work and the wedding preparations with heavy hearts.
And Jenny, after several solitary and gloomy hours, crept out of her room and down the stairs, and to the barns. She saddled her mare, Flora, and led her down a soft path where the mare’s iron shoes would not ring and give them away, and mounted and rode off. Jenny looked back after she had run off her first misery with a gallop, and saw that her long-legged wolfhound bitch had followed her. She scolded her, and Gruoch’s ears drooped, but she peered at her mistress up under her hairy brows, and clung to Flora’s heels, and showed no sign of going home as ordered. So they went on together, the three of them.