She rose from her chair, and at once he got to his feet and put his hand on her arm. “You can’t go like this!”
“I can’t stay,” she replied quietly.
“I mean . . .” He meant that he could not believe that she could defy him, that she could turn down his wealth and name and love. He could not believe that she could refuse him, and prefer such a little thing—not even a baby yet—a homunculus that had barely quickened. It was a nothing, it was a nothing, less than a hen’s egg that he might eat for his breakfast, and yet she was putting it between them. It was not possible to imagine that she should choose a life of poverty and shame with a fatherless child over the comfort and wealth that he could offer her, and his name, his pride and his name.
“But I love you!” he burst out.
There was a world of sadness in the smile that she turned on him. “Oh, I love you,” she replied. “I always will. And I’ll take a comfort in that, when you’re gone away to your beautiful house and I’m here alone.”
Without another word, she turned and walked away from him, just as if he were not a young gentleman, and the son of a great man, just as if he were not the greatest prospect of her life: a husband of unimaginable wealth and position, and her savior from shame. She walked away from him without looking back. She walked away from him as if she were never coming back, and she left him alone at the table laid with breakfast in the best coaching inn of Chichester.
Alinor went home in a dream, setting one foot before the other. She did not hail any passing cart for a lift. There was only one that went by her, and she did not see or hear it. As she walked, it started to snow, little specks of white snow like a dust that whirled around her, and she pulled up the hood of her cloak and let it settle on her head and her shoulders. She could not feel cold; she did not know that it was snowing.
She watched her feet in her worn boots going steadily south down the road, through the village of Hunston, through Street End, and she felt the familiar rub of the ill-fitting left boot against her heel. She held her cape tied tightly around her waist and changed her basket from one frozen grip to another, hardly noticing the weight on one side or the other, nor how her back ached.
She sat on a milestone to catch her breath after an hour’s walking, and watched the snow fall on her gown, a speckle of white against the brown wool. When she got to her feet she brushed herself off and shook out her cape, gathered it around herself again, and walked on. She did not notice that her hands were so cold that they were white as the snow and her stubby fingernails were blue.
Ned’s ferry was tied up on the far side of the rife, outside the house, so Alinor clanged the dangling horseshoe with the new bar and saw him open the top half of the ferry-house door and then come out, a piece of sacking over his head and shoulders. He went hand over hand till the ferry was at her side and held the raft against the ebbing tide as she stepped in.
“You brought the snow with you,” he remarked.
“All the way,” she said as she stepped into the gently rocking ferry.
He noticed that she did not grasp his hand or cling to the side as she usually did. He guessed that she was distressed at Rob going away.
“How’s our lad? Was it all right there?”
“Fair,” she said. “They’re good people.”
“Did you leave him gladly?”
“Fair,” she said again. She gave him a small rueful smile. “He didn’t cling to me and beg me not to go.”
“Good lad,” he said. “He’ll do well.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
Hand over hand on the frozen rope, Ned pulled the ferry back to the island side and held it against the pier as she stepped lightly out of the boat. He tied up, and together they went through the half-open door. She took off her cape and shook the snow and the wet out of the door, and then hung it on the peg. She put down her basket and warmed her hands before the little fire. Every action was so familiar that she moved without thinking, as if she had decided not to think.
“Shall I mull you some ale?” he asked, looking at her composed face, and wondering if she would break out in tears, or if she was truly as serene as she seemed.
“That’d be good,” she said. “I’m chilled through.”
“Could you not get a lift?” he asked, thinking she might be exhausted by walking.
“No. I saw nobody going my way.”
“You’ll be tired then.” He invited her to comment, but still she told him nothing.
The poker hissed as he dipped it into the jug of ale, and he poured her a cup and took one for himself. “This’ll put some color in your cheeks,” he said uncertainly.
She did not reply, but wrapped her cold hands around the cup and took a sip, her eyes on the leaping flames of the fire.
“Alinor, is anything wrong?” he asked.
She sighed, as if she would tell him everything. But all she said, as she smiled at him through the steam from the ale, was: “I’m well enough.”
Richard and Alys walked home late Monday evening from Stoney Farm, and on Tuesday morning Alys was sleepy when Alinor called her. She sat in silence, her head bowed over her bowl of gruel at breakfast time and scowled at her uncle when he said that he hoped she had not missed the early tides when she had been ferryman.
“Are you coming with me to the mill today?” she asked her mother. “She’s doing the laundry.”
Laundry days at the mill were notorious for Mrs. Miller’s bad temper. “Lord,” Alinor said smiling, “I’m not surprised you want a companion.”
“Also, she’ll pay us for eggs. She’s not got enough. Not even her hens can bear her.”
Ned sat down on his stool at the head of the table. “And do you have your dowry?” he asked.
“Most of it,” Alys said.
“I have the five shillings I promised you,” he offered. “And I’ll add another.”
“I’ll take it!” she smiled. “And on Saturday we’ll have this week’s wages.”
“You’re taking your mother’s wages as well as your own?”
“Uncle, I have to,” Alys said seriously. “And besides, she’ll get it back. When I am Mrs. Stoney of Stoney Farm I’ll give her a present every day.”
“Oil of roses,” Alinor named the one ingredient that she could never afford to buy from the herbalist at Chichester market. “I shall bathe in oil of roses.”
“Ah, you’re each as mad as the other,” Ned said. “Come on, I’ll ferry you across.”
On Wednesday, the lad who was hedging was taken ill, and the two women clipped and laid the hedge, standing for most of the day in thick mud or in the briny cold ditch, bending and breaking the stubborn stems, their hands bleeding from a hundred scratches.
Alys straightened up, grimacing with pain. “My back aches,” she said.
“Have a rest,” Alinor urged her. “I can finish the last bit.”
“Aren’t you tired?”
“No,” Alinor lied. “Hardly at all.”
“I’ll finish,” Alys said grimly, and bent again hacking and twisting the stems.
Friday was cheese-making day at the tide mill and Alinor spent the day in the icy dairy, churning the butter, skimming the cream, and pressing the cheese while Alys did the hard work outside. Everything was to be ready for Friday night, and Mrs. Miller would take it herself to Chichester market on Saturday morning.
When Alys had finished the morning chores she came inside and worked alongside her mother in the dairy, their hands red and raw with cold. At noon, when Mrs. Miller rang the bell in the yard, they went into the kitchen and sat at the table to eat: bread from the mill oven and curds from the cheese. They both pressed their hands together and tucked them in the warmth under their arms to bring the feeling back to their numb fingers while Mr. Miller gave thanks for his own good dinner. Richard Stoney and the other mill lad sat opposite them, their faces pinched with cold. Mrs. Miller, seated at the head of the table, had fine white bread to eat and soft cheese, her daughter Jane on one side, little Peter on the other. Mr. Miller sat in silence at the end of the table before a solitary leg of ham. He went out as soon as he had eaten to make sure that the outside workers did not take too long over their break. Richard winked at Alys, nodded his head to Mrs. Miller and Alinor, and followed him with the other lad.