“The spare candles went for last night’s wake. Sym’s gone for more firewood and I’m well enough till he comes back. What is it you’re wanting, Gilbey?” He wouldn’t be there if he did not want something; his complaining was meant to make her feel small so he could get the better of her. Though his wife had been her friend and they had hoped Sym would marry his girl, Meg had never liked Gilbey.
He sat down across the table from her. “You’re in deep trouble, my girl.”
Meg frowned, misliking his familiar tone. “You needn’t have come out of your way to tell me that. And there’s ways out of our trouble, so you needn’t be troubling yourself over it, thank you.”
“’Tis not out of my way at all but very much in my way,” he said. “That’s why I’m here.”
Meg straightened and for the first time looked directly at him. He wasn’t there to talk about the cart, but something more serious.
“Go away, Gilbey Dunn. For pity’s sake if nothing else. I’ve griefs enough to deal with. I don’t need arguing today.”
“It’s to end the arguing I’ve come. And a bettering for both of us in the bargain.”
Meg’s tired brain could not see what he was aiming at. “There’s no use in talking to me about the lands. I’d not part with them if I could. They’re Sym’s.”
“That’s as may be, and there may be more said on that before it’s done, but no, ’tis you who must answer what I’ve come to ask, Meg.”
“And what would that be?”
“That you marry me.”
Meg stared at him.
Gilbey leaned across the table toward her. “Think on it, Meg. You’d not have to live in this half barn anymore. Think on my house and how you’d live there. I’d keep on the woman I’ve hired. She’d help you see to the place. You’d not need to wear yourself so close to the bone as you do now.”
Meg kept on staring, wondering just how befuddled her wits had gone. He could not be saying what she thought she heard.
Gilbey put a hand out toward her, but she pulled her own back. His voice warm with persuasion, he went on, “Look you, it would serve us both well. Better than maybe you’ve thought. How can you hope to keep up, all alone, with what you couldn’t even with Barnaby alive?”
“My sons…”
Gilbey dismissed that possibility with a wave of his hand. “You know them better than that. Even if Sym is let to take the holding-and that’s not certain, mind you. Bailiff and steward both know things about him and have their own mind on the matter-it’s still like as not that he’ll lose it all anyway, even faster than his father would have. Marry me and there’ll be someone to see to you and your land both.”
“The lands aren’t mine,” Meg insisted.
“There’s nothing says a widow can’t inherit her husband’s property. A strong word from me to the steward would do it. He’d be willing.”
His certainty about that made Meg suspect that Gilbey had asked him a long while ago. She rose to Sym’s defense. “It goes to the eldest son if there’s one. That’s where it goes.”
“And Sym will lose it. You have to know him well enough to see that, even with a mother’s eye. Both your boys will be the better for a firm hand directing them the way Barnaby never could. I’ll swear to find them both good marriages if you’re wanting that.
“Hewe-” Meg began feebly.
“I’ll help him to the priesthood if that’s what you’re wanting. Your marrying me would make things come right for you, and both the boys as well.”
“What are you doing, talking of marriage?” Sym snarled from the doorway. “She’s barely a widow and sure not for the likes of you!” He shoved the door back hard enough to crash it against the wall and strode toward the table. “Take your scheming, miserly self out of here, Gilbey Dunn, away from my mother and out of my house!”
Gilbey rose to his feet, not apparently offended or frightened. “Your house? I think not, boy. You’re not of age. Even if the steward gives you seisin of it and your land, someone will have the keeping of it-and of you, God help them-these few years more. Maybe your mother. Maybe someone else. But not you yet. And from the smell of ale on you, the day you take it for your own will be the worst day for the holding since your father took it.”
“Better that than your having it!”
“It Meg marries me, then you can have the house at least. Let that satisfy you for the while, boy. Let your mother come live where the animals are kept in the barn instead of the kitchen!”
“She’d rather live with animals than you!”
“Sym!” Meg rose to her feet between them. She did not want the quarrel to freshen, not when they were so in debt to Gilbey, not until that was settled and the quarrel could be faced on open grounds, not the hidden ones of debts unpaid, or unpayable. And not with Sym just drunk enough to not think what he was saying. Gilbey had the kind of temper that simmered long and deep.
But Sym was past heeding. “My mother’s not marrying anyone. And never you, no matter what! Rather we all starve here than take a thing from you! Don’t go trying to lay your hands on anything of ours or you’ll find I’m man enough to put you where you ought to be!”
“Sym!” Meg came around the table to grab his arm and shake it. “Sym, you mind your tongue! There’s no need for words like that! You stop it!” Still holding on to him, she said to Gilbey, “You’d best go. It’s too soon for me to be hearing things like you’ve been saying. Best you go.”
Gilbey nodded, his gaze on Sym speculative. “Aye,” he agreed, moving toward the door, keeping wide of Sym’s reach though he was the boy’s match and better. “I’m going. But you think on what I’ve said. You’re a clever girl, Meg, and you can see the possibilities in our joining.”
“There’s devilment in it, that’s what there is!” Sym shouted at his back and the closing door. He turned his temper on his mother. “What are you thinking of to listen to him like that? And Da not cold in his grave yet!”
“Barnaby’s cold enough,” Meg said. “It’s a winter grave.” She sighed. “Sym, there was no need to say those things. Listening does no harm. We need to know what’s in his mind. It doesn’t hurt to listen.”
“But you’re not thinking of doing it!” It was no question, only a flat demand, and he sounded like his father as he made it.
As she had learned to do with Barnaby, Meg only looked back at him flatly, until he twitched his eyes away. Then she said, “I’m tired. You go help Hewe find some wood or there’ll be no fire by morning. I’m going to bed.”
Not even much caring if he obeyed her, she left him standing there and went to crawl under the ragged covers of her cold bed in its corner.
11
MEG SLEPT HEAVILY. She awoke once in the dark to hear the tick of sleet against the wall and eastward shutters, but slept again, and next woke to know by the slant of pale light through the crack around the window and under the door that the morning was well along and the day sunny.
It was the thought of sunshine more than anything that drew her from bed. There was a full fire on the hearth and evidence by way of dirty dishes that both Sym and Hewe had managed to feed themselves. She went to stand close to the warmth, taking a bread crust from the table to chew. The coarse weave of her gown shook out its own wrinkles and except for needing to pad her shoes with fresh straw against the cold ground before she put them on, she was ready for the day. She checked the chickens and found they had been fed, too, and the floor under their roost cleaned. That would be Hewe’s doing, because Sym scorned to have anything to do with “the clacking things,” saying that was women’s business-though he ate the eggs readily enough when they could be had. And the goat was gone, probably staked out to graze what winter grass there was behind the house. Maybe Sym had done that, Meg thought.