Alinor was about to reply when they heard a shout from the gate and the rumble of wheels. Alys ran to open it and then she called to her mother: “Look who they’ve brought from Chichester!”
For a moment Alinor’s head bobbed up in the certainty that it was James Summer, come to claim her before them all. “Who?”
“It’s Rob!”
Alinor hurried out to the gate. “Oh, Rob! Oh, Rob!”
“Now then,” said Mr. Miller kindly. “You would think he’d been gone to Afric and back. He’s only been away a week.”
“But I didn’t think he’d come till tomorrow morning for his sister’s wedding!” Alinor exclaimed. “How are you, son? How was your first week?”
Rob, smartly dressed and grinning, bounded down from the mill wagon and hugged his mother, ducked down for her blessing, and kissed his sister. “Mrs. Miller came into the shop and bought some ratsbane, asked them if she could give me a lift home, and they were happy to let me go early,” he said. “I’m to be back at work Monday morning at eight o’clock, so I can stay for the wedding and overnight.”
“How kind of you.” Alinor turned to Mrs. Miller, her face glowing with happiness. “Neighborly indeed. I thank you.”
“Ah well,” the other woman said with unusual generosity. “He’s a fine young man and a credit to you. Is all well here?”
“Oh, yes,” Alinor said. “And we made a meat pie for your dinner. I didn’t know what you would get at market.”
“He dined well enough.” Mrs. Miller nodded towards her husband, whose red face and merry smile indicated a long stay in the market tavern while his wife and children were selling their cheeses, butter, and eggs. “But we shall be glad of something to eat.”
“I shall be glad of one of Mrs. Reekie’s pies,” Mr. Miller said cheerfully. “Nobody makes a meat pie like Mrs. Reekie.”
Alinor shook her head deprecatingly as Mrs. Miller surged past her into the kitchen. Alys and Alinor took the horse from the wagon, led him into the stable, hung up his heavy collar and bridle on the hook while Richard and the lad pushed the wagon into its place and unloaded the goods. Mrs. Miller had bought sacks of wool in the wagon for spinning, a new milking stool, some wooden bowls, and two feather pillows.
“Spent all that she earned,” Mr. Miller confided to Alinor.
“Shame on you,” Alinor said loyally. “Mrs. Miller is one of the best housewives on the island.”
“And what about this girl of yours?” Mr. Miller asked, giving Alys a casual slap on her bottom. “Is she going to make a good housewife to Richard Stoney?”
“I hope so,” Alinor said, drawing Alys to her and detaching her from Mr. Miller.
“Have you put the horse away?” Mrs. Miller bawled from the kitchen doorway.
“Aye!” Mr. Miller hollered back. “I’ve done all my work for one day. And they’ve done theirs. Are they getting paid today?”
Mrs. Miller disappeared back into the house and came out with their wages, a shilling for the two of them.
“Thank you very much,” Alinor said, as Mrs. Miller went back into the house and Alys and Alinor turned towards the yard gate.
“Is that right?” Mr. Miller asked suddenly. “A shilling, for a day’s work when you’ve done everything on the farm today?”
“It’s right,” Alinor said stiffly. She could have added—but hardly generous for a girl getting married tomorrow—but she would not say a word. Rob beside her stiffened, and she put her hand under his arm and gave it a little squeeze.
“It’s not right,” Mr. Miller said with the resentful persistence of a slightly drunken man. “Here! Betty Miller! You come out here!”
“Really,” Alinor said. “It’s right, Mr. Miller. Shilling a day, for the whole day, because we stopped at sunset.” She gave Rob a little push towards the yard gate.
Mrs. Miller came bustling out of her kitchen door. “And who’s shouting me out like I was a milkmaid?” she demanded.
Rob nodded to Mr. Miller. “Thank you for the lift in the wagon, Mr. Miller,” he said. “Good evening to you, Mrs. Miller.” Tactfully, he went to the yard gate and waited for his mother out of earshot as Mrs. Miller surged out and stood, hands on hips, glaring at her husband and Alinor.
“What’s this?” she demanded.
Alinor shook her head. “Nothing,” she said. “Really, nothing.”
“You’ve underpaid the Reekies,” Mr. Miller said mulishly. “Mother and the maid.”
“Sixpence each, as I always have done.”
“Sole charge!” he said, like a man who has discovered a password. “Sole charge. They had sole charge of the farm today, so that makes them like a yard man. Or like a bailiff. Sole charge. Good as a man. Good as two men.”
“You want to pay a woman and a maid as much as two yard men?” Mrs. Miller demanded scathingly.
“No,” he said, “course not. But they should have . . . and the pretty maid is getting married . . .”
Alinor noted the fatal slip of calling Alys “pretty” to his slate-faced wife.
“Who pays them?” Mrs. Miller suddenly demanded of him, going close and taking him by his linen collar as if she would choke him.
“Why, you do?”
“And who watches them, and keeps them right and clears up after their mistakes, and all the mess they make?”
Alinor let her gaze slip away from Mr. Miller’s crestfallen face to the creamy rosy sky over the harbor, glanced towards her son, Rob, waiting at the gate and wished herself home, with her children at the dinner table.
“You do,” Mr. Miller said sulkily.
“So, I think it’s best left to me and them, isn’t it? Without any man coming in and wanting extra payment for ‘pretty’?”
Mr. Miller had been defeated twenty years ago by the iron determination and chronic bad temper of his wife. “I was just saying—”
“Best not to say anything,” Mrs. Miller advised him smartly.
“Feeding the horse,” he said, as if to himself, and turned towards the stable.
“And we have to go,” Alinor said smoothly.
“Old fool that he is,” Mrs. Miller said.
“Good night, Mrs. Miller. We’ll see you tomorrow at church,” Alinor said.
“Good night, Mrs. Reekie,” she replied, recovering her temper now that she had won. “And God bless you tomorrow, Alys.”
Alinor and her two children walked down the track to the ferry crossing, where Rob ran ahead like a boy to ring the chime.
TIDELANDS, FEBRUARY 1649
The wedding was to be simple. Alys and Richard would be married before the usual Sunday morning congregation at St. Wilfrid’s Church, Alys in her best gown with her new white apron and new white linen cap. Richard would wear his best jacket, and Ned would lead the bride to the altar. The service would follow the new style as ordered by parliament: Richard would make brief promises, and Alys would assent to her own vows. After the wedding in St. Wilfrid’s, they would all cross the rife, take a goodwill drink at the tide mill, and then go on to Stoney Farm for the wedding feast. There would be good food, and healths drunk, and finally the young people would go to bed in the big bedroom under the thatched eaves.
Alys did not sleep until the crowing cock from the barn told her that the night was nearly over, and then she turned on her side, sighed with anticipation, and slept deeply.
The morning of her wedding day was freezing cold but clear, the ice on the harbor so white that the seagulls whirling above it were bright against the blue sky and then invisible against the blanched landscape. Alys, waking late and tumbling down the stairs to eat gruel at the kitchen table, swore that she would not wear her cape but would go into church in her gown and new apron and cap.
“You’ll freeze,” said her mother. “You have to wear your cape, Alys.”
“Let her freeze,” Ned advised. “It’s her wedding day.”