Old Margaret didn’t return, despite Mother telling us she surely would. The days passed, the weather cooled, the leaves on the trees turned golden, yet we remained watchful. The landowners would be back – everyone expected it. Jane Redfern said we should block the path, Leathery Gwen suggested fresh crabs as a peace offering. No one could agree on what to do.
The very next Sunday Mother dragged us to church, making doubly sure we were tidy and that I, for once, was wearing my gown. Though the law fined people who didn’t go to church, no one had ever checked on our tiny parish – at least, not in the past. Things were different now, and the sight that greeted me proved it: everyone in attendance in their best clothes, singing loudly at the hymns. I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was fear that brought us here.
In the days and weeks that followed, shadows as dark as bruises grew under Mother’s eyes. And when she wasn’t trying to coax milk from Old Margaret’s cows, she was reminding Jem and me to keep our heads down.
‘You stay out of trouble, d’you hear?’ she warned. ‘Those landowners are looking for something to pin on us.’
‘Won’t Old Margaret ever come back?’ I asked.
‘She will, I’m sure of it,’ Mother said firmly. ‘That’s why we’re keeping her cows going.’
She’d roped us into helping at the dairy, and it was hot, stinky work. My brother, as always, was eager to please. But I wasn’t easy-natured like him, or sensible like Abigail, and was soon fed up of washing pans and rinsing cloths. Since Old Margaret’s disappearance, there’d been little time for boatbuilding, and we’d had to snatch odd moments before the light failed at the end of the day.
Then, another change.
People started being suspiciously nice to Jem – people who, as far back as I could remember, had chided us for our silliness and noise. Leathery Gwen offered him the pick of her crayfish catch, Saddleback Sally wanted his advice on her sows. Jane Redfern wondered if he’d like her father’s best cloak? In our hamlet of bonnets and muddy skirts, my lanky brother was suddenly a prince.
I thought it funny to begin with. ‘But you snore like a pig, and your feet smell of old cheese, Jem Sharpe!’
And he laughed, because he was baffled by it too – embarrassed, even.
The special treatment went on, day after day, and with it came new responsibilities. Jem was asked to check fences, weigh pigs for market, talk money with local merchants, plan services at our church. Rents were paid to him instead of Old Margaret, and he locked all the coins away in a battered box, which was then hidden in Old Margaret’s cellar.
All this began to nibble away at the brother I held so dear. As if the joy was leaking out of him and he was turning into a middle-aged man. It was typical of Jem to do his best at whatever task he faced. But he no longer had time for building our boat. And I got annoyed.
We’d carved out the trunk enough for us both to sit inside it, and shaped the underneath into a sort of hull. A few more hours’ work, and our little dugout boat would be ready to take down to the beach for testing in the water.
Yet on the very afternoon we’d agreed to do the finishing touches, I found Jem at the kitchen table, practising writing his name. I stood over him, impatient.
‘What about our boat?’ I asked. ‘Aren’t you coming to finish it?’
‘Can’t you see I’m busy?’ he replied, not looking up.
‘You’re turning into a right dullard, you are.’ I scowled at the top of his head.
Jem put down his pen and sighed.
‘Now don’t fly into a temper, Fortune,’ he said. ‘I didn’t ask for this to happen. But everyone decided it would be best to have a male in charge, at least while those landowners are still sniffing about …’
‘Balderdash!’ I cried. ‘The women here are more than capable, you know they are!’
Even so, a little voice chimed in my head. The world beyond our hamlet was a different place, with different rules. I’d seen it myself sometimes at market, when traders would ignore Abigail to deal instead with Jem. Then there was what Mother said, about keeping our heads down. After what had happened to Old Margaret maybe now wasn’t a good time to be different.
Jem picked up his pen again. He looked fidgety and pale.
‘I mean it. I’m not enjoying this any more than you are. Ask Mother if you don’t believe me,’ he said.
*
I’d planned to. Yet that night, noticing the frostiness between us, Mother explained before I had a chance to ask.
‘It seems those men in black cloaks have lost interest in us at last.’
It was true we’d not seen the landowners again since the day they took Old Margaret.
‘Having a young man to keep us in check seems to have worked,’ Mother said, though from the look on her face I wasn’t sure she agreed. ‘I’m sorry it fell to you, Jem, but you were our obvious choice.’
‘He’s our only choice,’ I remarked.
‘And don’t think I’m enjoying it,’ Jem muttered again.
‘Tsk. You’ve taken to it well, son.’ Mother ruffled his hair, frowning as she did so. ‘Though, by my word, these aren’t the locks of an important young man. It’s time you had your first haircut.’
Whilst she got to work on Jem’s curls, I sat on the stool opposite, pulling faces. Both Abigail and Mother wore their yellow hair in long neat plaits, whereas Jem and I had the same dark knotty curls that swarmed about our heads like bees. Slice by slice Jem’s locks fell to the floor. By the time Mother had finished, the difference was startling.
‘You’re the dead spit of Father!’ Abigail gasped, hands cupping her cheeks.
‘Oh Lord, he is,’ Mother agreed.
Frustratingly, I couldn’t remember what our father had looked like. But this serious young man with his long thin face definitely didn’t look like me any more, and I felt bewildered, almost scared. It was as if I’d just said farewell to my dearest friend, and a part of myself in the bargain.
‘Cut mine too,’ I insisted, suddenly.
Mother hesitated. Girls didn’t have haircuts: they plaited and combed their hair, or tucked it neatly under a bonnet.
‘It couldn’t look any worse,’ Abigail reasoned helpfully.
‘Just to the chin, then,’ Mother relented.
A few cuts and it was done. Though I liked smoothing it behind my ears and feeling the air on my neck, it didn’t make me resemble Jem again. If anything, we now both looked like strangers.