Gwenda was so shocked that she did not know what to say. It had never occurred to her that Perkin might not pay them. She felt a stab of fear as she realized there was nothing she could do about it.
Wulfric said slowly: “Well, what’s to be done about it? Shall we go to the Long Field and take the seeds back out of the ground?”
“I’ll have to owe you this week’s wages,” Perkin said. “I’ll pay you when things get better.”
“And next week?”
“I won’t have any money next week, either – where do you think it’s to come from?”
Gwenda said: “We’ll go to Mark Webber. Perhaps he can employ us at the fulling mill.”
Perkin shook his head. “I spoke to him yesterday, in Kingsbridge, and asked if he could hire you. He said no. He’s not selling enough cloth. He’ll continue to employ Jack and Eli and the boy, and stockpile the cloth until trade picks up, but he can’t take on any extra hands.”
Wulfric was bewildered. “How are we to live? How will you get your spring ploughing done?”
“You can work for food,” Perkin offered.
Wulfric looked at Gwenda. She choked back a scornful retort. She and her family were in deep trouble, and this was not the moment to antagonize anyone. She thought fast. They did not have much choice: eat, or starve. “We’ll work for food, and you’ll owe us the money,” she said.
Perkin shook his head. “What you’re suggesting may be fair-”
“It is fair!”
“All right, it is fair, but just the same I can’t do it. I don’t know when I’ll have the money. Why, I could owe you a pound come Whitsun! You can work for food, or not at all.”
“You’ll have to feed all four of us.”
“Yes.”
“But only Wulfric will work.”
“I don’t know-”
“A family wants more than food. Children need clothes. A man must have boots. If you can’t pay me, I will have to find some other way of providing such things.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.” She paused. The truth was, she had no idea. She fought down panic. “I may have to ask my father how he manages.”
Peg put in: “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you – Joby will tell you to steal.”
Gwenda was stung. What right did Peg have to take a supercilious attitude? Joby had never employed people then told them at the end of the week that he could not pay them. But she bit her tongue, and said mildly: “He fed me through eighteen winters, even if he did sell me to outlaws at the end.”
Peg tossed her head and abruptly began to pick up the bowls from the table.
Wulfric said: “We should go.”
Gwenda did not move. Whatever advantages she could gain had to be won now. When she left this house, Perkin would consider that a bargain had been struck, and could not be renegotiated. She thought hard. Remembering how Peggy had given ale only to her own family, she said: “You won’t fob us off with stale fish and watery beer. You’ll feed us exactly the same as yourself and your family – meat, bread, ale, whatever it may be.”
Peg made a deprecating noise. She had been planning to do just what Gwenda feared, it seemed.
Gwenda added: “That is, if you want Wulfric to do the same work as you and Rob.” They all knew perfectly well that Wulfric did more work than Rob and twice as much as Perkin.
“All right,” Perkin said.
“And this is strictly an emergency arrangement. As soon as you get money, you have to start paying us again at the old rate – a penny a day each.”
“Yes.”
There was a short silence. Wulfric said: “Is that it?”
“I think so,” Gwenda said. “You and Perkin should shake hands on the bargain.”
They shook hands.
Taking their children, Gwenda and Wulfric left. It was now full dark. Clouds hid the stars, and they had to make their way by the glimmer of light shining through cracks in shutters and around doors. Fortunately they had walked from Perkin’s house to their own a thousand times before.
Wulfric lit a lamp and built up the fire while Gwenda put the boys to bed. Although there were bedrooms upstairs – they were still living in the large house that had been occupied by Wulfric’s parents – nevertheless they all slept in the kitchen, for warmth.
Gwenda felt depressed as she wrapped the boys in blankets and settled them near the fire. She had grown up determined not to live the way her mother did, in constant worry and want. She had aspired to independence: a patch of land, a hard-working husband, a reasonable lord. Wulfric yearned to get back the land his father had farmed. In all those aspirations they had failed. She was a pauper, and her husband a landless labourer whose employer could not even pay him a penny a day. She had ended up exactly like her mother, she thought; and she felt too bitter for tears.
Wulfric took a pottery bottle from a shelf and poured ale into a wooden cup. “Enjoy it,” Gwenda said sourly. “You won’t be able to buy your own ale for a while.”
Wulfric said conversationally: “It’s amazing that Perkin has no money. He’s the richest man in the village, apart from Nathan Reeve.”
“Perkin has money,” Gwenda said. “There’s a jar of silver pennies under his fireplace. I’ve seen it.”
“Then why won’t he pay us?”
“He doesn’t want to dip into his savings.”
Wulfric was taken aback. “But he could pay us, if he wanted to?”
“Of course.”
“Then why am I going to work for food?”
Gwenda let out an impatient grunt. Wulfric was so slow on the uptake. “Because the alternative was no work at all.”
Wulfric was feeling that they had been hoodwinked. “We should have insisted on payment.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“I didn’t know about the jar of pennies under the fireplace.”
“For God’s sake, do you think a man as rich as Perkin can be impoverished by failing to sell one cartload of apples? He’s been the largest landholder in Wigleigh ever since he got hold of your father’s acres ten years ago. Of course he has savings!”
“Yes, I see that.”
She stared into the fire while he finished the ale, then they went to bed. He put his arms around her, and she rested her head on his chest, but she did not want to make love. She was too angry. She told herself she should not take it out on her husband: Perkin had let them down, not Wulfric. But she was angry with Wulfric – furious. As she sensed him drifting off to sleep, she realized that her anger was not about their wages. That was the kind of misfortune that afflicted everyone from time to time, like bad weather and barley mould.
What, then?
She recalled the way Annet had fallen against Wulfric as she stepped down from the cart. When she remembered Annet’s coquettish smile, and Wulfric’s flush of pleasure, she wanted to slap his face. I’m angry with you, she thought, because that worthless, empty-headed flirt can still make you look such a damn fool.
On the Sunday before Christmas, a manor court was held in the church after the service. It was cold, and the villagers huddled together, wrapped in cloaks and blankets. Nathan Reeve was in charge. The lord of the manor, Ralph Fitzgerald, had not been seen in Wigleigh for years. So much the better, Gwenda thought. Besides, he was Sir Ralph now, with three other villages in his fiefdom, so he would not take much interest in ox teams and cow pasture.
Alfred Shorthouse had died during the week. He was a childless widower with ten acres. “He has no natural heirs,” said Nate Reeve. “Perkin is willing to take over his land.”
Gwenda was surprised. How could Perkin think of taking on more land? She was too startled to respond immediately, and Aaron Appletree, the bagpipe player, spoke first. “Alfred has been in poor health since the summer,” he said. “He’s done no autumn ploughing and sown no winter wheat. All the work is to be done. Perkin will have his hands full.”