Before they went upstairs Mrs Tuke opened a door leading to a walk-in cupboard and came out carrying something heavy in a large brown paper bag. ‘Here,’ she said brusquely. ‘You’ll mebbe not want to share. I wouldn’t.’
Curious, Harriet peered into the bag. It was a cream-coloured chamber pot. ‘Oh – thank you.’
‘Everybody empties their own,’ Mrs Tuke stated. ‘Except Mr Tuke and I wouldn’t trust him to not spill, but I won’t do anybody else’s.’
‘Quite right, Mrs Tuke. You wouldn’t want to.’
‘You can empty my piss-pot now, Harriet,’ Noah said from where he had one foot on the stairs. ‘That’ll be one of your wifely duties.’
She stared up at him. ‘No, it won’t. It says nowt about that in ’marriage vows.’
‘And you might get a clout if you’re not careful.’ He turned to go up the steep staircase.
Harriet glanced back at her parents-in-law, who were looking at her intently. Mr Tuke’s lips were lifted in a sneer, but his wife’s eyes held hers in a steady expressionless gaze.
‘First time he hits me,’ Harriet told them calmly, ‘I’ll hit him back. Just so that you know.’
Mrs Tuke held her look for another brief moment and then said mechanically, as if she said it every night of the week, ‘Time for your bed, Mr Tuke.’
The bedroom where Noah was waiting for her was large, but divided into two by a thin partition which ran from the window almost to the door. Noah’s bed was on one side and another bed on the other, each ‘room’ having half the window. A lamp was lit on Noah’s side of the partition.
‘Who sleeps in ’other half?’ she asked cautiously.
‘Fletcher. Ma and Da have a room at ’other end of ’passage.’
‘There’s no door between us,’ she said.
‘No.’ He was already pulling off his shirt and unfastening his belt. ‘That’s why I went outside, to tell him to wait a bit afore coming up.’
She swallowed. ‘It’s raining. He’ll not want to wait outside.’
‘He’ll not want to come up either,’ he grinned. ‘He’s in ’cowshed.’
‘You’ll have to fix a door,’ she said. ‘I don’t like to think he’s just on ’other side.’
‘He’ll not listen.’ Noah stripped off his breeches. ‘Get undressed, Harriet. Come on, look sharp.’
She gave a deep sigh. Better get it over with, she thought, pushing the chamber pot under the bed. It probably won’t take long.
Noah was demanding, as Harriet guessed he might be, and was quick the first time and fell asleep instantly, but he woke again a few hours later and rolled on top of her. She shushed him. ‘Your brother might hear,’ she whispered.
‘Let him,’ he muttered. ‘If he don’t like it he can sleep somewhere else, like in ’cowshed!’
She was sure that Fletcher wasn’t sleeping. She heard the springs of his bed creaking as he turned over, so she knew that he must be able to hear Noah grunting and gasping and probably her low whimpering too, for Noah was not gentle, but rough and persistent. She tried her best to keep quiet and not cry out.
The honking croak of a gaggle of geese flying overhead woke her the next morning and she turned over to find Noah’s side of the bed empty. She gave a tired sigh and wished she could sleep a little longer, but part of the bargain was that she would help on the farm. So what can I do, she thought as she poured cold water from a jug into a basin on the washstand and washed her hands and face. I’m a town woman; I know nothing about living in ’country.
She dressed in her old skirt and warm jumper and looked out of the half window. It was still not quite light, but as she gazed across the yard and beyond a gated fence she saw a long meadow, a grey sky and flatland and a glint of brown water, which was the estuary.
Downstairs Mrs Tuke was in the kitchen, stirring something in a pan over the fire.
‘Morning,’ Harriet said, and Mrs Tuke turned round, cast an expressionless glance at her and merely nodded before turning back to the ritual of stirring.
‘Can I do anything?’ Harriet asked her.
‘Like what? I’ve managed all these years wi’out any help.’
Harriet shrugged. This was not going to be easy. ‘My ma and me, we allus shared our tasks,’ she said. ‘At least we did when we were both working, but lately – well, after Ma became ill, I did most things.’
She knew she was more or less talking to herself as Mrs Tuke appeared to be totally uninterested, but she felt she had to make some sort of effort to bridge the gap between them. She could understand the antipathy that Noah’s mother might feel towards her; after all, for her son to bring a complete stranger into her home without so much as a by-your-leave was hardly tolerable.
Harriet wondered how her own mother would have felt if she’d arrived home with a husband without a word; but then, she considered, I wouldn’t have got married without discussing it first. I’d have taken a courtship slowly.
‘What was ’matter wi’ her?’
The question interrupted her reverie. ‘Sorry, what?’
‘Your ma.’ Mrs Tuke faced her. ‘What was her illness?’
Harriet shook her head. ‘I don’t know,’ she murmured. ‘She’d had a cough which settled on her chest.’ She put her hand over her eyes and pressed them. ‘Then she seemed to get worse. She had no strength, but – but I never expected her to go so fast. When Noah came to ’house …’ She paused as Mrs Tuke stood looking at her. ‘He said he’d wait with her while I ran for a neighbour – I couldn’t afford a doctor, you see – and when I came back, she was dead.’ She heaved a breath. ‘Just like that. I was gone onny a few minutes.’
‘Sit down,’ Mrs Tuke said. ‘Gruel’s ready. Men’ll be here in a minute. Except for Mr Tuke; he’s still abed.’ She gave a disparaging twitch of her mouth. ‘He’ll not be up for another hour.’
Harriet sat down at the table. ‘Well, why not?’ she responded. ‘He can tek it easy when he’s got two sons to help him.’
‘They’ll not do it right for him,’ Mrs Tuke declared. ‘Never have done.’
The door was flung open and Noah rushed in. ‘Breakfast ready?’
‘Isn’t it always?’ his mother muttered.
He gave a grin when he saw Harriet sitting at the table. ‘Morning,’ he said slyly. ‘Glad to see you up bright and early. Have you found her some jobs, Ma?’
‘No.’ His mother served them both a dish of gruel and put the pan back on to the fire, but lifted it off again as Fletcher came in. He nodded at Harriet, but avoided looking at her directly and sat down opposite Noah.
‘Da not up yet?’ he asked, as his mother poured the gruel.
‘For heaven’s sake,’ she ranted. ‘When is he ever?’
Harriet ate the thick and creamy gruel, but she felt a burning tension in her chest. She avoided catching anybody’s eye, feeling like a spare part that didn’t belong here, but she also felt that the simmering atmosphere was not wholly down to her presence.
‘Are you not eating with us, Mrs Tuke?’ she ventured.
‘No. I eat when it suits me.’
‘Ma doesn’t eat wi’ us,’ Fletcher told her. ‘Except at supper. She prefers to eat on her own.’
When the men had finished breakfast and drunk a mug of tea, they both pushed back their chairs and left the table and went out again, and Harriet wondered at their manners. Neither of them had thanked their mother.
She got up too and cleared the dishes and stacked them in the sink.
‘Thank you, Mrs Tuke,’ she said. ‘Can I wash ’dishes, or is there owt else that needs doing?’
Mrs Tuke gave a dispassionate shrug of her narrow shoulders. ‘You can let ’hens out,’ she mumbled. ‘And feed ’em some corn, then look to see if any of ’em have laid.’
‘Erm, where’s ’hen house?’ Harriet said diffidently.
‘Bottom of ’yard,’ Mrs Tuke answered. ‘Near ’field. You’ll need to tek ’basket to carry ’eggs in,’ she said as Harriet draped her shawl round her shoulders. ‘If there are any,’ she added. ‘They go off lay at this time of ’year.’
‘Do they?’ Harriet said. ‘I didn’t know.’
‘Don’t know much, do you?’ She glanced scornfully at her new daughter-in-law.
‘Not about country matters, no, I don’t,’ Harriet responded. ‘But I’m a quick learner – given ’chance,’ she added.
‘Let ’em into ’field wi’ ’sheep,’ she was told, ‘and mek sure you fasten ’gate or else they’ll all be off and then there’ll be summat to say.’
I don’t know how I’m going to be able to stand this, Harriet thought again as she went across the yard. All this tension, nobody wi’ a good word to say to anybody. What’s up wi’ them all?
There was a light drizzle and a chill wind and she shivered as she walked carefully across the muddy yard; she didn’t want to skid and land on her backside. She’d forgotten to ask Mrs Tuke if she had a spare pair of rubber boots as Noah had suggested, but even if she had remembered she would have hesitated in case she made a blunder.
Noah and Fletcher weren’t about and she wondered where they were and what they were doing, but as she approached the hen house Fletcher appeared from round the back of it with a spade in his hand. They both stopped in their tracks.
Harriet spoke first. ‘I’ve to let ’hens out.’
He gazed at her for a second before asking, ‘Do you know what to do?’
‘Don’t I just open ’door?’
He gave a wry grimace. ‘On a day like today they don’t allus want to come out.’
‘Don’t blame ’em,’ she said. ‘So how do I mek ’em?’
‘You’ll have to go inside and persuade ’em,’ he said, and smiled. ‘Give ’em a shove if necessary. Then when they’re out, open ’field gate and let them in there. Do you know where ’corn is?’
Silently she shook her head and followed him to a wooden lean-to with a metal bin inside it.
‘In here,’ he said, taking off the lid to show her the grain. ‘But be sure to put the lid back on when you’ve filled ’bucket, or else we’ll lose it all to rats. Onny half fill it,’ he added, ‘and scatter it over ’grass.’
She grimaced. ‘I hate rats,’ she said. ‘Can’t stand ’em.’
‘Well, we have to live with ’em,’ he said. ‘And they have to eat to live, like all creatures do, but scavengers that they are, we have to mek sure they don’t eat anything that we want, so everything’s to be securely fastened.’
‘What about foxes?’
‘What about ’em?’ He looked straight at her now, not avoiding her glance as he had at breakfast, and today his eyes seemed more blue than grey.
‘Well, don’t they go after ’hens?’
‘Aye, they do, and that’s why they’ve to be shut up every night. Do you want me to help you fetch ’em out?’
‘N-no, thanks,’ she said. ‘I’ll manage.’
He nodded and walked off and she watched him for a moment, seeing his ponytail swinging across the back of his neck, then she turned to the hen house and unfastened the bolts and turned the iron key which Mrs Tuke had given her.
‘Come on then, my beauties,’ she cooed, entering the warm, straw-smelling structure. ‘Let’s be having you.’