The Town House Page 6

  ‘There’ll be only eleven months between them. If Stephen isn’t walking I shall have to carry them both to work.’

  ‘But I shall be earning,’ I told her.

  She smiled as though it hurt her.

  ‘I know. But there will be four to feed then.’

  She had carried Stephen cheerfully and willingly and never ailed much. This was different. She was sick, and miserable. I was little comfort. To me there was something wrong, almost obscene about this begetting without being able to support. I was ashamed, and that made me peevish. It was at this time that something went out of our hut, something which had made it, despite its squalor, a happy home. Kate and I now seemed to take an unholy pleasure in making sharp remarks to one another. One day, when she was complaining, I said,

  ‘I warned you, didn’t I. You would have been better off at Abhurst.’

  She swung round on me like a swordsman.

  ‘You mean you’d have been better off as an unmarried apprentice, with your feet under somebody else’s table.’

  The weapon to wound was there, at my hand, and I seized it.

  ‘If it comes to that, I am an unmarried apprentice,’ I said.

  Kate shot me a glance of hatred and then began to cry.

  ‘That’s right. Throw that in my face!’

  We had never been married. We had arrived in Baildon as man and wife and never dared risk drawing attention to ourselves by offering ourselves to be wed. There was that question, ordinarily so harmless, to us so dangerous, ‘Of what parish?’ It would have been easy to lie, but Holy Church has a long arm. It might have occurred to the priest to make inquiries whether these unknown people were free to marry, and that would have been disastrous. Sailing under false colours we had come into Baildon, voiced for by Old Betsy, and under those same false colours we must go on.

  Now, sobbing bitterly, Kate poured out all her hidden shame and doubts. No wonder, she said, everything went wrong with us, living in mortal sin, as we were. And if she died in childbirth, as well she might, she would go straight to Hell as a wanton. She went so far as to ask whether being born free could make up to Stephen and the child that was coming for their bastardy.

  Her distress distressed me. I said I was sorry for having spoken as I had, and we kissed and made up. But every quarrel – of which this was but a sample – took something from us which no reconciliation could fully restore. I understood, during the next few months, what makes men go and drink themselves silly in the ale-house. I should have done so, many a night, had I had any money.

  VIII

  The day dawned that brought the end of my apprenticeship. Nothing had been said over-night, but I had not expected any sign, for during my two years at Armstrong’s I had seen an apprentice become a journeyman. (Journeyman does not mean a man who journeys to his work; it means a man who works by the day, jour being the Norman for day.)

  It was one of those enchanted days of late summer touched by the first breath of autumn, golden and blue and heavily dewed as I set out for work, carrying Stephen, as I had done for some weeks, and walking round by Master Webster’s woolsheds. Even Kate was more cheerful this morning.

  I went, as soon as I reached the smithy, to the nail where my apron usually hung. It was not there. I pretended great surprise and anxiety. Then the others gathered round me, chanting,

  ‘He’s grown too big for his apron

  He’ll have to get another one.’

  The reply to this sally varied with the nature and wit of the new journeyman. I said, ‘How can I get another? I’ve earned nothing yet!’ and that was well received, with more laughter.

  I then went to take up my tools. They too were gone and again I pretended concern. They gathered round me,

  ‘He worked so hard for a dinner a day

  He wore his hammer clean away!’

  The next remark was prescribed. I must turn round and cry in mock dismay,‘What shall I do?’

  Then they all bellowed,

  ‘Become a journeyman!’

  After that there was a moment or two of jollity, with good wishes and drinking, turn and turn about, from a jar of ale, which, according to rule, should be provided by the senior workman present. It was an understood thing that on such a morning, the master should allow ten minutes for the little ritual. On this morning my apron and tools were returned to me, and I was, at last, a journeyman of the Smith Guild in Baildon town.

  Presently Master Armstrong arrived, stood by my shoulder while I finished a job and then said,

  ‘Step across the road with me. I’ve something to say to you.’

  The ‘Smith’s Arms’ stood directly across the road from the forge; we took a seat on the bench and Master Armstrong called for ale. This, I thought, was another stage in the process of being recognized as a journeyman. When the ale came I expected him to speak some words of salutation, but instead he took a deep draught and then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

  ‘You ain’t going to like this, Martin,’ he said. ‘But thass no good blaming me, nor nobody. Rules is rules and they hev to be kept. Last Guild meeting I brung up your name and said you’d done your time and was a handy skilled worker; but they ain’t taking you.’

  The cobbled lane, the forge opposite with its smoky red fire and the haunches of the waiting horses and donkeys began to rock and swing before my eyes, slowly at first and then faster, until all I could see was a blur. I realized that my eyes had filled with tears; I was about to cry, like a child. My throat ached and felt wooden. I lifted my mug and took a tiny sip and swallowing it eased me so that I was able to say,

  ‘In God’s name, why, master?’

  ‘You worn’t born here. And do you go back where you come from, you’ll fare no better. There they’ll hold agin you that you didn’t do your full time there. See?’

  At that moment it seemed like a cruel blow aimed at me personally by malignant fate. Later on I understood better and knew that I was but one of many men of all crafts who were, in the towns, superfluous to requirements. All through my lifetime, ever since the great rising of 1381, on all but the most old-fashioned manors the serfs had been buying themselves free and had thus been at liberty to apprentice their sons how they would. So every year more apprentices qualified to become craftsmen than old craftsmen died or retired, and those safely inside a Guild were casting around for excuses to keep the young men out. Often the excuse was flimsy, invented. In my case there was no need. I was a ‘foreigner’; my exclusion needed no cunning twist and would cause no searching of, conscience on anyone’s part.

  ‘What’s to become of me then?’ I asked.

  ‘Ah,’ Armstrong said. ‘Thass the question. But I got the answer. I’m sorry for you, Martin, and I’m making you this offer outa goodness of heart. You mind that. I brung this up at the Guild meeting too, and they was all agreed. You can’t be a full journeyman, nor claim the rate laid down for such. But you can go on as a paid apprentice, see? They looked up the rules, laid down in past years when there was a shortage of apprentices. They was paid then, anything between quarter and half the standard rate; and you being a bandy sort of chap, I’d give you half.’

  I looked at him, and quickly away, lest he should see the loathing in my eyes. I’d had, from eating at his table and a hundred other little things, evidence of his meanness and cunning. Pretending to do me a favour he had prolonged my apprenticeship for a year. Now, pretending to do me another, he was getting a skilled, finished workman at half rate.

  But I had no choice. Half pay was better than no wage at all. I said humbly,

  ‘Thank you very much.’

  He jumped up quickly and said,

  ‘Let’s to work then.’

  All that day, added to my own bitter disappointment, was the dread of the moment when I must tell Kate. She did not, however, weep, or rail against Armstrong and the Guild; only the deepening of the lines in her face, the increased droop of her mouth, betrayed how shrewd the blow had been. I had dreaded he
r tears, and yet now, perversely enough, I wished she had cried. I might then have been moved to take her in my arms and comfort her. Once in a hard winter I saw a tree entirely encased in a coating of ice. Our poverty and our worries, and our defeated hopes were putting a similar casing around our souls. Soon we should have lost even the memory of love, and be dull, plodding work animals, no more.

  Kate had said, miserably, that there would be but eleven months difference in the age of our children, in fact there was less than that, for Robin came into the world a little before time, a small, ailing baby, unlike Stephen. When I carried my second son to the Alms Gate I was the subject of coarse jests about being such a quick worker. ‘Do you get any faster,’ one man said, ‘you can knock off work and live on your Trimble.’

  This time Kate sold her woollen gown and the hood. Since her place in the woolshed had not been filled, she dragged herself back to work at the end of a week, frail as she was.

  ‘That way we shall get something in hand,’ she said fiercely. ‘We can save my wage so long as the Trimble lasts. With two to feed – and God knows how many more on the way.…’

  ‘There’ll be no more, Kate.’ That was a promise which would cost me nothing to keep. I was not like my neighbour Dummy who could go through the performance which ended with a baby feeling nothing for the woman he bedded with. Yet, though our joy in one another had been lost, somewhere between Stephen’s birth and Robin’s, we were still a unit, we two against the world, as helpful to one another as we could be, a good wife, a good husband, good parents so far as our means allowed. Kate still washed and mended and cooked. I mended the roof and hunted for firewood, and every morning and evening I went to the woolshed so that I could carry the heavier child.

  On one cold March evening, miserable with falling sleet, I found Kate awaiting me at the gate, with something of liveliness back in her face again. When I went to lift Stephen she stopped me, laying a hand on my arm.

  ‘The ponies from Bywater have just come in,’ she said, ‘and without Old John. He dropped dead on the road. If you went to Master Webster now you might get the job.’

  It was a sensible suggestion; and Kate knew that ever since September I had longed for a chance to leave Armstrong; for I held in my mind the certainty that if he had stood up for me strongly enough, saying that he needed me as a journeyman, his word would have carried weight, even against the rules. Yet pride is a curious thing and will pop up in the unlikeliest places.

  ‘But I’m a skilled smith,’ I said, without thinking. Those few words said it all. I’d strained and sweated, and waited and almost starved in order to be a smith, not a pack-whacker to a pony train.

  ‘On half pay,’ Kate said.

  I knew the need to defend myself. ‘Should I earn much more, if anything? Pack-whacking is an unskilled job; anybody can do it and that sort of job comes cheap.’

  ‘They get about. They pick up things. They do errands for people along the road and get gifts that way. I’ve seen Old John come in with food for a week.’ She tightened her arms about Robin and braced herself to move.

  ‘If it’s beneath you to care whether we eat or not…’ she began sourly.

  ‘I’ll do it. Where shall I find him?’

  ‘In his office. Through the yard, there, to the right, where the light is.’

  ‘You take the baby home,’ I said, ‘I’ll bring Stephen.’ He could by this time walk a little, and holding his hand I went into the wool yard and knocked on the door.

  The room inside served as office and living room, was well-lighted and warm. Tally sticks stood in every corner. Master Webster stood by an open cupboard on whose shelves lay samples of wool.

  ‘Well?’ he said.

  ‘I’m told that one of your pack-whackers is dead. I wondered if you would give me his job.’

  He pinched his upper lip between his finger and thumb, pulled it out and let it go again.

  ‘You’re a foreigner. I’d sooner hev a man that knew the roads.’

  ‘I could learn my way about, master,’ I said, humbly.

  ‘Wasting my time meanwhile. You’re the smith they wouldn’t let into the Guild, ain’t you?’

  I nodded, gritting my teeth together, for I saw in this the beginning of a hard bargain. The man nobody wanted.

  ‘Pack ponies are hard on their shoes,’ he said. ‘Now suppose I rigged up a forge, right here in the yard. Could you shoe the ponies as well as drive ‘em?’

  ‘Of course I could.’

  ‘It’d hev to be done on the quiet. Now and agin I’d hev to send a beast to Armstrong or Smithson, and if they queried why my trade dropped off, thass easy explained, ain’t it? Pony’s likely to cast a shoe anywhere.’

  ‘That is so,’ I said.

  ‘Mark you,’ he said,‘I’m doing you a favour. Making a job for you, you might say.’

  I’m truly grateful.’

  ‘So you should be. Now, as to wages.…’

  I saw his fingers working as he reckoned. They tapped out a sum which was fourpence more than I was earning at Armstrong’s. With a gallon loaf costing a penny it was an increase worth considering; and I bore in mind Kate’s words about a pack-whacker’s chances to earn a little extra here and there. So I sold myself into another bondage for an extra fourpence a week.

  IX

  Within a week I was well aware of the advantages in my new job. For a trained craftsman, who had mastered his trade and passed his apprenticeship to become a mere driver of pack ponies was a come down, but it had its compensations. As Kate had said, we got into the country and it was in the country that food was plentiful and cheap.

  When I joined Master Webster’s teamsters it was winter and we were not collecting the dirty fleeces from farms and sheep runs, we were carrying the picked-over wool down to Bywater.

  Bywater was a small port, much smaller, we understood, than Dunwich or Yarmouth, but it had obtained, during the reign of the great King Edward the Third, one priceless privilege. It was allowed to export a certain amount of wool, in defiance of all the rules governing the Staple. This was because at some critical moment during the King’s wars with France, this small town’s fishing fleet had chanced to be in harbour, and had been able to offer the King eighteen vessels for the transport of troops to France, shortly before the great battle of Crécy. The privilege of being able to export wool freely, was its reward.

  The Bywater people often laughed and joked about the privilege, saying that when King Edward granted them the favour, the limit he had set on their export had been far in excess of all the wool shorn in East Anglia, for Norfolk and Suffolk were not then reckoned to be sheep-rearing districts. The favour was, they said, ‘like giving a one-legged man permission to dance a jig’. But things had changed since then; sheep runs had been established on many a ploughland and in my time Bywater exported every bale of wool the licence allowed.

  Ships that set sail laden with wool, returned with other commodities and there were goods to be found in Bywater that could be obtained nowhere nearer than London. On the very first journey I made to Bywater we were stopped by an innkeeper at Nettleton. His little daughter was ill and he wanted an orange for her. She had once eaten an orange and all through her fever had craved another. I was lucky and found four and when I delivered them into his hands on the return he almost wept with gratitude. He took me and my fellow-driver, a lively little hunchback called Crooky, into his house and gave us each a mug of his best October ale. Then he asked which would we rather have, sixpence apiece or our pick out of his store-room. Crooky, who had no family and was a drinking man, chose the sixpence. I went to the store-room and stared about at more stacked-up food than I had ever seen in my life.

  ‘You mean I can have anything?’

  ‘Anything you can carry. Could you have seen the little wench’s face when I put the thing into her hands! Take what you like and call me still your debtor.’

  I chose a great ham, which, sliced into pieces by any of the keen knives in Cooks
Lane and sold piecemeal, would have been worth four shillings.

  ‘And I’d sooner give you that,’ said the innkeeper, when I had made my choice, ‘than the sixpence yon fellow took. The pig it came off fed on the scrapings of the plates, and drunk the wash-up water, and the smoking was done by the fire that we cook on. So it cost me nowt.’

  That was my first experience as a doer of errands. Others followed. Not all the people we obliged were so deeply grateful and wildly generous, but I always remembered a farmer’s wife who had broken her needle. She lived a long way from the road we travelled and had twice walked the five miles and stood a whole morning in the biting wind to catch us on our way down to Bywater. She gave us the errand, and the money for two needles and asked us when we should be returning. We told her, and when we came clattering along, the unladen ponies trotting and thinking of their own stable, there she was, with two grey geese on long leads of plaited rushes.

  She said, in a shamefaced way,‘Would you take these in payment? The needles had to be paid for in coin, and I have no more, nor shall till the calves are sold. But they’re good geese, right fat.’

  ‘A goose, for carrying a needle!’ I said, in astonishment. ‘Payment enough and over.’

  ‘But I can’t walk to Bywater – the calves would starve; nor I can’t sew with a goose, and my poor man’s hose all agape. I’m much obliged to you both. Besides,’ she said, grinning, gap-toothed, ‘the geese cost nowt. Gander do his work for pleasure, goose lay the eggs. All summer they keep the grass down so I can walk dry-foot to tend the calves. Whass to a goose?’

  I could have told her. To a goose there were some feathers to add to the collection in order, one day, to have a feather pillow. Then there was a fine hot savoury meal, and fat to spread on our bread on many a cold morning; and bones to boil, with an onion or two, into a heartening broth.

  Oh, and there was more to it than that. There was me saying to Kate,

  ‘You were right. Snatching at Old John’s job was the best thing I’ve done so far.’