First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women Read Free Page A

that had year after year rotted unnoticed in these hills now made sure the townspeople couldn’t ignore the fact of their decay.
    My parents and my aunt and the townspeople walked back along the hot street. The morning was so still that the walkers could hear, even above their chatter, a steady hum. Masses of bees were gathering in the Square, organizing to set out and pillage the moors, where gorse and heather and wild flowers were in full bloom.
    The procession soon arrived at the house rented by my parents. It was at the end of the main street, which was also the edge of the town. With its gothic front windows on either side of a heavy wooden door, and its lawns and hedges, it looked as out of place as a palace among the two-roomed miners’ rows on either side where most of the townspeople lived. The house was block-shaped with four large bedrooms upstairs; downstairs, the entranceway gaveonto a passageway that went past the doors of the living-room and the library and ended in the kitchen.
    The townspeople could have gone round the side of the house to the backyard, but it was presumed they’d want a glimpse of the inside of the big house. They went through the front door and along the passageway. The men took off their caps, and they all, men and women, filed through quietly, looking around curiously at the grandeur of the place. Through the open doors of the living-room they could see dark leather chairs, Persian rugs, mahogany tables; as they passed the library, they could see shelves of books from floor to ceiling, more books than anyone could ever want to read. They went into the long kitchen and out through the back door into the yard, with its brown lawn and high privet hedges.
    Now the women put their coats aside and the men stripped to their waistcoats. Two long wooden tables with benches on either side had already been set out. Some of the women went back into the house and came out carrying trays heaped with sandwiches and mugs of beer. The townspeople sat down at the tables. My father came out, then my mother and my aunt, who’d changed their clothes, and were carrying me and my sister. My mother now wore a long black skirt and a white blouse. My aunt had put on a plain brown dress and brown shoes. My sister and I were placed gently on the warm grass beside the tables. My mother and my aunt sat together at the table nearest the back door.
    The mugs were raised and clinked together in a toast. The musician began playing. He was an elderly man, one of those who’d lost a leg at the Muirton mine disaster years before. Now he played fiddle music at gatherings like this—reels and laments, laments and reels. Each blended into the other with ease.
    My father, his thin fair hair carefully in place, sat on a stool at the head of the second table. He wore the same double-breasted black suit and elegant black shoes he’d worn to the ceremony. He hadn’t taken off his gloves. They were made of black leather and glistened in the sun. He didn’t eat or drink. Some of the men tried to draw him into conversation, and he nodded a few times, that was all.
    After a while, my mother signalled to the fiddler and he stopped playing. She stood up. The townspeople were silent.
    “I just want to thank you all,” she said in her deep, calm voice. She had a smooth, unlined face. Perhaps she’d avoided smiling. Perhaps she hadn’t found much to smile at. “I don’t want to make a speech. Just to thank you for being here today and thank you for making newcomers such as us welcome in Stroven. Now please enjoy yourselves.”
    She sat down and the guests applauded her words by banging their beer mugs on the tables.
    My father applauded her words, too, his gloved hands clumping against each other. Then he stood up, and the guests thought he wanted to make a speech, too. But he didn’t. Instead he walked over to where my mother sat.
    “Sarah, I’d like to hold the babies,” he said.
    The townspeople were watching. The birds,