Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [584]
And so thanks to these circumstances, Jane Shockley found herself still in Sarum, often busy with community service. If she was restless, she gave herself as little time to be so as possible.
She liked Mr Mason and his Methodists. She even admired his efforts to get a regular temperance movement going in Salisbury, which despite much agreement on the subject in principle, had only met with sporadic success.
“I really can’t say I’m prepared to go the whole way and never touch another glass of beer,” she declared. For she thought it one of the small delights of the era that the inhabitants of such genteel places as the close no longer disdained to drink a glass of beer in preference to wine. “I always do, at every meal,” she assured Mr Porters, who was not sure whether to be shocked or not.
But she visited the workhouse with him, when her old friends in the close usually preferred to stick to the pleasant almshouses, and there were few places in Sarum she had not seen and understood.
“It’s the farm labourers on the plain that worry me the most,” Mason explained. “They have the hardest lot.”
But today, as Jethro Wilson and his two wretched children drove the cart away, he clarified:
“I always lament the lot of the poor farmers on the plain, Miss Shockley. But that man,” he glared after Jethro, “has only himself to blame.”
The great Michaelmas Fair at Salisbury that came at the end of the harvest time, was not a proper fair – for little important business was done. But it was carefully kept up all the same, for money was freely spent. There were harvest accounts to settle, clothes to buy, entertainments of every kind to spend money on and the market place was crowded with brightly coloured booths. It lasted three days and on the first two, Monday and Tuesday, it was open until eleven at night for all the peep-shows, rides and pleasures that the fairground folk who journeyed across the plain could provide.
It was on the Tuesday, at nine o’clock, that she saw Jethro.
He was standing stock still by the gothic arches of the big poultry cross. Occasionally he swayed a little from side to side. By the light from nearby windows, she could see that his face was red; he appeared to see nothing around him at all. His beard had several days’ growth. His two children were sitting miserably under the cross, half-dressed and shivering, but the handful of by-standers were paying no attention to them.
She gazed at them. Nobody moved. She went over.
His lips were moving, very slowly. He seemed to be mouthing words, but she could not hear anything as she stood beside him.
Then the little boy spoke:
“He’s singing, miss.”
“Are you cold?”
“Yes, miss.”
Singing. She drew closer. He was staring down the street towards Fisherton bridge, and was completely oblivious to her.
She put her ear close to his lips.
“Ther vly be on the turnip.”
Barely a whisper: the raucous old Wiltshire song, sung at every celebration. She listened again.
“Ther vly be on the turnip.”
It was just the first line: he was repeating it, under his breath, again and again.
“Will he be like this for long?”
The little boy shrugged.
“Dunno, miss.”
“His brain’s stopped,” the girl volunteered.
“So I see.” She looked at them. “You’ll die of cold. You’d better come with me.” Rather to her surprise, they got up obediently. She began to turn towards Brown Street, where Mr Mason lived.
“No you don’t, damn you.” He had suddenly been galvanised into life. He had both children held by the neck. His eyes were blazing at her. “Temperance bitch.”
“He don’t mean it, miss,” the girl said.
“I do,” he roared. He released the children, clenched his fists, and shaking with rage, took a step towards her.
“Run, miss.”
“Certainly not.”
She faced him calmly.
His eyes seemed to stand out;