Midsummer's Eve Read Free Page B

not. Her body, made larger by her state, continually shook with merriment, for no one appreciated her mirth as wholeheartedly as she did herself. George Cherry, her husband, was a little man, not much above his wife’s shoulder, and he seemed to get smaller as her bulk increased. He walked in his wife’s shadow and his almost sycophantic titter never failed to follow her hearty laughter.
    Soon after that visit two disasters struck the place.
    Mrs. Cherry had milked the cows. “I always believe in keeping going till me times comes,” was a favourite saying of hers. “Never was one to believe in lying up too early like some.” So she kept to those farm duties which she could perform and halfway across the yard from the cowsheds she saw a riderless horse galloping past the house.
    She went to the gate and out to the path. By that time the horse had turned back and was coming towards her. She saw it was the Tregorran mare which was in foal. She shouted, but she was too late to get out of its path and as it galloped past her she was knocked back into the hedge.
    Her shouts had brought out the workmen.
    She was, we were told, “in a state.” And that night her child was born dead.
    Meanwhile Tregorran’s mare, attempting to leap over a fence, had broken a leg so it had to be destroyed.
    The neighbourhood discussed the matter at length.
    I went with my mother to call on Mrs. Cherry when she had recovered a little. It was about a week after the incident. Her fat face had lost most of its colour, leaving behind a network of tiny veins. She shook like a jelly when she talked; and for once did not seem to find life such a joke.
    My mother sat by her bed and tried to cheer her.
    “You’ll soon be well, Mrs. Cherry, and there’ll be another on the way.”
    Mrs. Cherry shook her head. “I’d be that feared,” she said. “With the likes of some about us who knows what’ll happen next.”
    My mother looked surprised.
    “You see, me lady,” said Mrs. Cherry conspiratorially, “I knows just how it happened.”
    “Yes, we all do,” replied my mother. “Tregorran’s mare went mad. They say it sometimes happens. Unfortunately there was the foal. Poor Tregorran.”
    “’Tweren’t nothing to do with the horse, me lady. It was her . You know who.”
    “No,” said my mother. “I don’t know who.”
    “I was standing at the gate when she passed me. She said to me, ‘Your time won’t be long now.’ Well, I never did like to as much as speak to her, but I was civil-like and I said yes it was close now. Then she said to me, ‘I’ll give ’ee a little drink made of herbs and all that’s good from the earth. You’ll find it’ll give you an easy time, missus, and it’ll cost you so little you won’t notice it.’ I turned away. I wouldn’t take nothing from her. That was when it happened. She went off muttering, but not before she’d given me a look. Oh, it was a special sort of look, it were. I didn’t know then that it was for my baby.”
    “You really don’t think Mother Ginny ill-wished you?”
    “That I do and all, my lady. And not only me. I heard she had a bit of a back-and-forther with Jim Tregorran.”
    “Oh no,” said my mother.
    “’Tis so, me lady. I know she have cured some warts and such like but when there’s trouble around ’ee don’t have to look too far to see where it do come from.”
    My mother was very disturbed.
    As we walked home she said: “I hope they are not going to work up a case against Mother Ginny just because Tregorran’s mare ran amok and Mrs. Cherry stood in her path.”
    My father was coming out of the house and with him was Mr. Hanson, our lawyer, and his son Rolf. I was delighted as I always was when Rolf came. I loved Rolf. He was so clever and he had a special way with me. I believe he liked me as much as I liked him. He never let me know that he considered me too young to be noticed. He was eight years older than I but was never superior about it as Jacco was,