Agnes strokes her bird. She looks at John, with a level gaze. “We made a promise to each other.”
“And what does your mother—your, ah, stepmother—say to the match?”
“She…was not in favour. Before. And now,” she gestures towards her belly, “I cannot say.”
“I see.” His father pauses for a moment, his mind working. And there is, to the son, something familiar in this silence of his father’s, and just as he is staring at him, frowning, wondering, he realises what it is. This is the face his father wears when he is contemplating a business deal, an advantageous one. The expression is the same as when a cheap lot of skins has come his way, or a couple of extra bales of wool, to be hidden in the attic, or an inexperienced merchant has been sent to barter with him. It is the expression he assumes when he is trying not to let on to the other party that he will come out of the deal better off.
It is covetous. It is gleeful. It is suppressed. It chills the son, right down to the marrow of his bones. It makes him clutch the edges of the chair beneath him with both hands.
This marriage, the son suddenly sees, with a choking sensation of disbelief, will be beneficial to his father, to whatever dealings he has with the sheep farmer’s widow. His father is about to turn all this—Agnes’s bleeding face, her arrival here, the kestrel, the baby growing in her belly—to his own good.
He cannot believe it. He cannot. That he and Agnes have, unwittingly, played into his father’s hands. The thought makes him want to run from the room. That what happened between them both at Hewlands, in the forest, the kestrel diving like a needle through the fabric of leaves above them, can be twisted into a rope with which his father will tether him ever more closely to this house, to this place. It is insupportable. It cannot be borne. Will he never get away? Will he never be free of this man, this house, this trade?
John begins to talk again, in the same honeyed voice, saying how he will go out to Hewlands directly, to talk to the yeoman’s widow, to Agnes’s brother. He is sure, he tells them, he can broker an agreement, can draw up terms beneficial to all. The boy wants to marry the girl, he says to his wife, the girl wants to marry the boy: who are they to forbid this union? The baby must be born in wedlock, cannot be delivered into this world on the wrong side of the sheet. It is their grandchild, is it not? Many weddings are brought about thus. It is nature’s way.
At this point, he turns to his wife and gives a laugh, reaches out a hand to grab at her hip, and the son must look at the floor, so queasy does he feel.
John leaps to his feet, his face flushed, all eagerness and fervour. “It is settled, then. I will go out to Hewlands, to set out my terms…our terms…to…to seal this most…sudden…and, it must be said, blessed union between our families. The girl will remain here.” He beckons to his son. “A word with you, in private, if you please.”
Out in the passage, John lets the pretence at geniality drop. He grips his son by the collar, his fingers cold against his skin; he pushes his face right up to his.
“Tell me,” he says, with low, grizzled menace, “there are no more.”
“No more what?”
“Say it. There are no more. Are there?”
The son feels the wall pressing into his back, his shoulder. The fingers grip his collar with such force that they stop the air in his throat.
“Are there?” his father hisses into his face. His breath is vaguely fishy, loamy. “Will there be other Warwickshire doxies lolloping up to my door to tell me that you swelled their bellies with a child? Must I be dealing with others? Tell me the truth, now. Because, by God, if there are others and her family hear of it, there’ll be trouble. For you and for all of us. Understand?”
He gasps, pushes back against his father but there is an elbow pressed into his shoulder, a forearm across his throat. He tries to say, no, never, there is only her, she is no doxy, how dare you say such a thing, but the words cannot make it to his mouth.
“Because if you have ploughed and planted another one—just one—I’ll kill you. And if I don’t, her brother will. Do you hear me? I swear I will part you from your life, with God as my witness. Remember that.”
His father gives one final shove to his windpipe, then moves off, out of the door, letting it clang shut behind him.
The son bends over, drawing in air, rubbing at his neck. As he draws himself upright, he sees Ned, the apprentice, looking at him. The two stare at each other for a moment, then Ned turns away, back to the bench, leaning in to examine his work.
—
John walks directly to Hewlands. he doesn’t stop at his stall to chivvy Eliza, to mete out criticisms and judgements, or to check on the stock. He doesn’t pause to exchange words with a guildsman he meets on Rother Street. He takes the path to Shottery and hurries along it, almost as if the girl might have the baby at any minute and somehow nullify this opportunity. His steps are quick and, he is pleased to think, sprightly, especially for a man of his years. He feels the anticipation of a good deal ahead of him, senses that particular pleasure run through his veins, like a cup of wine. John knows this is the moment, that a deal must be struck without delay, lest things change and the advantage slip away from him, as well it might. He has the upper hand, yes, he does. He has possession of the girl, in his house; he has the boy, who will require a special licence to wed because of his youth, the signed permission of his parents. There is the matter of the old debt between them, but their most pressing issue will be the girl. They need her to be married, in her state, and no marriage can take place unless he, John, agrees to it. It is the perfect position. He holds every card. He allows himself, as he walks the path, to whistle out loud, an old dancing tune from his youth.
He finds the brother in a distant field; he must pick his way through the filth to reach him, the brother leaning on his crook, watching him approach, without moving.
Groups of sheep shift around him, turning their bulging eyes on him, veering from him, as if he is a large and terrifying predator. Gloves, he mutters to them, under his breath, without letting his smile drop, you’ll all be gloves before ye know it. You’ll be worn on the hands of the Warwickshire gentry before the year is out, if I have anything to do with it. It is difficult, as he steps over the field, to prevent the glee from showing on his face.
The puddles, beneath his town boots, are frozen white clouds, solidified into the ridges and furrows of mud.
John reaches the sheep-farming brother. He holds out his hand. The brother looks at it for a moment. He is a huge man, with a look of Agnes about the eyes, with black hair tied back from his face. He is dressed in a sheepskin cape, like the father used to wear, and carries a carved cudgel. Another fairer, younger lad, also with a crook, hovers in the background, watchful, and for a moment, John feels a slight qualm. What if these men, these brothers, these people, mean to harm him, to wreak vengeance on him for his wastrel son who has taken the maidenhead of their sister? What if he has misread the situation and it is not, after all, to his advantage, and he has made a grave mistake in coming? He sees, for a fleeting moment, death coming for him, here, in a frosty Shottery field. Sees his corpse, the head stoved in by a shepherd’s crook, his brain spattered and spent, steaming in the frozen earth. His Mary a widow, his young children, little Edmond and Richard, fatherless. All the fault of his errant son.
The farmer shifts his cudgel to his opposite hand, spits emphatically on the ground, and takes John’s fingers, giving them a painfully strong squeeze. John hears himself give a high, almost girlish cry.
“Well,” John says, with the deepest, manliest chuckle he can muster, “I believe, Bartholomew, we have matters to discuss.”
The brother looks at him for a long moment. Then he nods, looking past him at something over John’s shoulder.