‘I…“ Matthew fumbled to a stop, looked around for help that wasn’t there, gathered himself, and said, blinking rapidly, ”I offer the old terms and… and three pence more rent a year.“
It was not much of an offer but more than he probably should make, considering he had probably been losing money on the land instead of making it, with the waste he’d made of it these past five years.
Master Naylor looked to Gilbey. “And you offer?”
‘A shilling and a half rent a year and a tithe of whatever profit I make from the land above that,“ Gilbey said evenly. Half again as much the ready money Matthew presently paid, plus a tithe that was no part of the present lease. Discontented murmurs ran among the onlookers at such a hopeless outbidding of Matthew. There was little liking in the village for Gilbey Dunn.
Master Naylor leaned a little forward to ask Gilbey with open curiosity, “What is it you plan to do that makes the land worth that much to you?”
Gilbey made a small shrug as if it hardly mattered. “Pasturing, I think. I’ve a mind to run a few more milch cows and maybe some beef, once it’s cleared to use again.”
He said it simply but Simon doubted that was the whole of it. Gilbey and money found their way to each other too often and too seemingly easily for anything to be that simple. And here was Gilbey, sure enough, beginning to bargain, saying, “But I’d not expect to pay above half-rent this year, what with the cost of clearing it and me not able to use it until that’s done.”
‘But still answer for the tithe,“ Master Naylor returned, knowing Gilbey as well as Simon did, ”supposing you should make something from it this year after all.“
‘Aye, I’ll still answer for the tithe,“ Gilbey agreed, with a shade of grudging behind the words.
Master Naylor looked to Matthew. “Can you better what he offers?”
Matthew sent an angry look Gilbey’s way before saying sullenly at the ground in front of himself, “No.”
Master Naylor looked to Simon, asking as he had to, for form’s sake, despite they already knew what Simon must needs answer, “What say you, Perryn? Would I do well to give the lease to Gilbey Dunn or not?” Wanting Simon’s yea or nay in the matter because Simon was Lord Loveil’s reeve and Gilbey and Matthew were Lord Lovell’s villeins.
And Simon answered strongly, refusing to be a coward at it, “All considered, I see no reason he shouldn’t have it for what he’s offered.”
He looked at Matthew then, trying to let him see that he was sorry, but an outraged exclaim behind Matthew had already jerked his head around toward his wife shoving out from among the onlookers. A dull, deep flush swept up Matthew’s face as he moved to stop her; and Simon’s own wife, Anne, was behind her, trying, as Simon had asked her, to hold Mary back and talk her into quietness, but Mary was having none of either Anne or Matthew. Leaving Anne behind and passing Matthew with a sideways swipe that shoved his reaching hand away, she closed on Gilbey, to say fiercely, thrusting a pointing finger at his face, “You’ll put your nose into other people’s lives once too often, Gilbey Dunn. That’s our land you’re taking! You mind what I say!”
“Mary, please,” Matthew pleaded from behind her. “It’s done. Come away. Please.”
“Our land!” she insisted at Gilbey who was making no move to answer her, only standing there, and now Anne was there, too, taking her by the arm, trying to make her heed but being as ignored as Matthew was.
It was Father Edmund saying from the table with his quiet priestly authority, “Mary. That’s enough,” that stopped her. She pulled up short, threw him a glance hot with anger, threw other glances at Simon and Master Naylor no less angry, then let herself be drawn away by Anne, with Matthew following close on her other side; and as Anne circled her away around the onlookers, Mary turned her anger and thrusting finger on him instead, making Simon glad not to hear what she was saying while they went.
Beside him Master Naylor took up as if undisturbed by any of it and said, “Then, Gilbey Dunn, let the lease on Farnfield be yours on these terms. To run for ten years, from Midsummer to Midsummer, at a shilling and a half rent a year and a tithe of your profit above that, with the rent to be one shilling for this first year because of the land being much in waste. Agreed?”
Gilbey opened his mouth as if to protest the change to what he had offered, then changed his mind and said, “Agreed.”
He and Master Naylor and Simon all looked to the jurors, their decision not needed in a matter like this but their witness wanted against later disagreement, should it come. They all nodded understanding of what had passed, and Master Naylor said, “Let it be so noted,” to Father Edmund, who nodded in return without looking up from his pen scratching across paper.
Gilbey bowed to Master Naylor and to Simon and withdrew, leaving Simon glad to be finished with both him and the lease despite knowing there would be listening to Mary over it later. Their father had always called her his ‘little bird’ because she had been-and was-so small built and lively, pretty in her childhood and pretty enough now, for that matter, he supposed, but the word for her that always came to Simon’s mind was “shrew,” and as good a question as to why she’d married Matthew Woderove was why had Matthew had married her.
Still, to each their own and, “There’s only the dividing of William Bonde’s land between Alson and young William still to do today,” he said.
‘And that should be no trouble?“ Master Naylor asked in his ear as Alson Bonde hobbled forward on her son’s arm. Her husband had been St. Frideswide’s villein and therefore how his property would go between his widow and only son was Master Naylor’s concern, but he freely depended on Simon’s knowledge of the village and its folk in such matters, just as Simon depended on his in others, and Simon whispered back, ”No trouble. They’re well agreed, the last I knew.“
Father Edmund rose to bring his own stool for old Alson sit on although it meant he’d have to stand to write and was thanked by her smile as she sat down gratefully.
Master Naylor inquired what the custom was concerning the Bonde holding, and Alson, whose legs might be old but whose wits were well with her, said the custom was for half of it to go the widow for her life, the other half to the eldest son. “And that part is easy enough,” she added, “there being only young William,” patting her son’s hand where it rested on her shoulder as he stood beside her.
Young William was somewhere past thirty years old, having been born toward the end of the king-before-last’s reign, and though he was married and had three sons of his own, none of them were named William, and he was likely to stay ‘young William’ all his life, however old he came to be.
‘You say the same?“ Master Naylor asked him.
‘I do.“ His certainty was easy and unhesitant. There were few complications in young William. A fondness for too much ale on a Sunday afternoon or holiday, followed by a desire to sing more loudly than anyone so constantly far off key should ever do, was the worst that could be said about him. He was good to his wife, good to his children, good to his mother, and even if he seemed never to have a thought of his own about how things should be done, he followed other folks’ ways and how things had always been done without making trouble over it. There was no reason Simon knew that he shouldn’t have his share of his father’s holding, nor did the jurors, when Master Naylor asked them, ”What say you? Is this dividing evenly between widow and eldest son the custom as you know it for the Bonde holding?“
The jurors had been ready for the question. They bent toward each other in busy comment only briefly before Tod Denton, as the oldest, said for them all, “Aye, that’s the way it’s been since any of us remember. The holding divided ‘tween widow and eldest son, with her share going back to the son when she dies. God keep you in possession of it a long while yet, Alson,” he added.