Longbourn Read Free

shut the door. He wiped his hands on his trousers, tongue exploring a troubling tooth. He sat down. The souse wobbled on the table as Mrs. Hill cut the bread.
    Sarah slipped into the pantry, where she gathered up the mustard pot and the stone jar of pickled walnuts, and the black butter and the horseradish, and brought this armful of condiments back to the kitchen table with her, setting them down beside the salt and butter. The feeling was returning to her hands now and her chilblains were a torment; she rubbed at them, the flank of one hand chafing against the other. Mrs. Hill frowned at her and shook her head. Sarah sat on her hands, which was some relief: Mrs. Hill was right, scratching would only make them worse, but it was an agony not to scratch.
    Polly ambled in from the yard with a cloud of fresh air, rosy cheeks and an innocent look, as though she had been working as hard as anybody could be reasonably expected to work: she sat at the table and picked up her knife and spoon, and then put them down again when Mr. Hill dipped his grizzled face towards his linked fists. Sarah and Mrs. Hill joined their hands together too, and muttered along with him as he said Grace. When he was done there was a clattering and scrabbling of cutlery. The souse shivered under Mrs. Hill’s knife.
    “Is he upstairs then, missus?” Sarah asked.
    Mrs. Hill did not even look up. “Hm?”
    “The scotchman. Is he still upstairs with the ladies? I thought he’d be done up there by now.”
    Mrs. Hill frowned impatiently, slapped a lump of the jelly onto her husband’s plate, another onto Sarah’s. “What?”
    “She thinks she saw a scotchman,” Polly said.
    “I did see a scotchman.”
    “You didn’t. You just wish you did.”
    Mr. Hill looked up from his plate; pale eyes flicked from one girlto the other. Silenced, Sarah poked at the pickled brawn; Polly, feeling this to be a victory, shovelled hers up into a grin. Mr. Hill returned his baleful gaze to his plate.
    “There’s no one called at the house at all,” Mrs. Hill said. “Not since Mrs. Long this morning.”
    “I thought I saw a man. I thought I saw him coming down the lane.”
    “Must have been one of the farmhands.”
    Mr. Hill scraped the jelly up to his mouth, his jaw swinging back and forth like a cow’s, to make best use of his few teeth. Sarah tried not to notice him; it was a trick to be performed at every meal time: the not-noticing of Mr. Hill. No, she wanted to say; it was not one of the farmhands, it could not have been. She had seen him. And she had heard him, whistling that faint, uncatchable tune. The idea that it could have been one of those rawboned lumpen boys, or one of the shambling old men you’d come upon sitting on stiles, gumming their pipes—she was just not having it.
    But she knew better than to protest, in the face of Mr. Hill’s silence, Mrs. Hill’s brittle temper, and Polly’s general contrariness. Mrs. Hill, though, seeing her disappointment, softened; she reached over and tucked a loose strand of Sarah’s hair back inside her cap.
    “Eat your dinner up, love.”
    Sarah’s smile was small and quickly gone. She cut off a piece of souse, smeared it with mustard, and then horseradish, then blobbed it with black butter, spiked a slice of pickled walnut, and placed the lot cautiously between her lips. She chewed. The stuff was hammy, jellied, with melting bits of brain and stringy shreds of cheeks and scraps of unexpected crunch. She swallowed, and took a swift gulp of her small beer. The one good thing about today was that it would soon be over.
    After dinner, she and Polly and Mrs. Hill sat, silent with fatigue, and passed the pot of goose-grease between them. Sarah dug out a whitish lump and softened it between her fingertips. She eased the grease into her raw hands, then flexed and curled her fingers. Though still sore, the skin was made supple again, and did not split.
    Mr. Hill, out of kindness to the women, washed up the dinner