Eppie Read Free Page B

with the chores and see to the
child later, once Gillow and Wakelin had come to the table.
    She took her red and blue striped dress from the wooden box
at the end of the bed. Slipping it over her chemise, she dressed quickly, and
whipped her conker-hue hair into a bun, like a sagging robin’s pincushion. The
other box contained the family’s best Sunday clothes and their warm winter
clothing.
    Sacking partitioned the bedchamber from the living quarters.
Dominating the parlour was Gillow’s loom. Her spinning wheel was set before the
one-pane window.
    Lighting a handful of hay and faggots, she worked the bellows
until the open fire blazed, and set about preparing breakfast.
    Beneath the chimney-hood, a cauldron was suspended by a
chain from a fire-crane, alongside the black kettle, with its tilter. Close by
was a bake stone and a baking pot on a griddle. The villagers of Little Lubbock
had a communal bread oven. Some cottages, like Gillow’s, also had a small oven
to the side of the fire for baking.
    Although an attractive woman, Martha was not the least vain.
If anything, she was slovenly in appearance. Yawning widely, she stirred oatmeal
in the three-legged skillet. Around its rim was an inscription. She had never
learnt to read, but Gillow said it read Ye Wages of Sin is Death ; an apt
maxim that succinctly summed up his philosophy on life. She did not wholly
admire his piety and had a hunch that, in the struggle between Christianity and
the native paganism that was so strong in the village, the latter reined victorious
in his mind. Of course, he would never admit to this, nor would she goad him
into acknowledging his superstitious beliefs.
    From the oak dresser, where jugs hung above trenchers, china
plates, a butter working bowl and meat dishes, she fetched spoons out the rack.
Ladling the gruel into wooden bowls, she shouted her usual morning greeting: ‘Gillow!
Wakelin! ‘e that dun get up by five, ne’er do thrive.’
    She stepped into the bedchamber.
    Gillow, thick with sleep, was dragging on his clothes. Seeing
his wife’s stricken expression as she stooped over the cradle, tussling with the
baby’s blankets, he stilled in this pursuit. ‘Martha? What’s amiss?’
    She clasped her hands against her cheeks. ‘The bairn’s
went!’
    ‘Gone? Don’t talk foolishly.’ Fetching out the turnip and
fox-hide cushion, a stony look sprang into his eyes. ‘Where’s that idiot lad?’
    In a trice he had ascended the steep ladder behind the beam
of the open fire and leapt in the wool-loft where their son slept. Angrily, he
clambered down. ‘As I guessed.’
    Stooping beneath the low threshold he stepped into the
garden, breathing in the bracing country air through his bulbous nose. The sun
peered above rolling hills. Dew glistened upon regimental rows of cabbages that
marched down to the picket gate.
    Dank Cottage nestled in a hollow beside a fast-flowing
stream. It was the last homestead of a higgledy-piggledy cluster of stone
cottages that lined the lane. Most had tattered thatches mended with nets. Tied
to Bill’s thatch was a field gate to protect the roof from gales.  
    ‘Wakelin! Are you out there?’ Gillow shouted.
    Overcome by spasms of after-birth pain, Martha sank,
despairingly, onto a comb-back chair beside the table.
    Snatching up his black felt hat with its two blue magpie
feathers, Gillow marched to Miller’s Bridge, beside the cottage. The stream
bank was festooned with coppiced willows, their spindly branches in full leaf.
    Clutching her shawl about her shoulders, Martha struggled to
his side, ignoring her soreness. ‘You’re not thinking he’s drowned her are you?’
    The thought played on his mind, though he shook his head
reassuringly. Turning his back on her, he marched off. ‘You go back to the
cottage.’
    Picking her way around potholes, she paced after him towards
the packhorse bridge at the furthest end of the lane. Above the roaring river,
buzzards soared effortlessly in a