Slammerkin - Emma Donoghue [108]
He shrugged, then folded his arms. 'My future is a matter of some importance to me,' he said stiffly. 'What else should I spend my passion on?'
In the lantern light, her mouth was pursed up like a tight little rosebud. 'On Gwyneth, for instance.'
'Ah. No,' he said, finding it surprisingly easy to bring out the words. 'We're not to marry, after all.'
Mary's eyebrows shot up. 'But the mistress told me you've been walking out for years.'
'Well, my cousin is promised to a pig-gelder now,' he said, 'and there's an end to the matter.' As he said it, he almost believed it.
'No!' she said, narrowing her black eyes at him.
'I don't blame the girl,' he said lightly. 'Her family can barely feed themselves, and I'm in no position to marry yet. Who could blame her for trying for a better life?'
They turned down Wye Street in silence. The moon was enormous, and bright blossoms loomed out of the darkness. On a tree, narrow buds like fingernails clutched the sky; Daffy reached for one, and it pricked like a needle. It seemed to him that there was some urgency in the air, but then he always felt like that in February: a sense of something breaking out through his skin.
On Inch Lane Mary stopped, with her hand on the front door, and said, 'Truthfully, you know, I wasn't mocking your ambitions.'
He nodded in acknowledgement.
'I have a few of my own,' she added.
Her tone was curiously discreet; not one he'd ever heard from her before. Daffy craned his neck to watch as she disappeared up the narrow stairs.
'Go on, do it today,' Mary told Abi as they were dressing that morning.
'Don't know.'
'What are you so afraid of?' asked Mary, lacing up the older woman's leather stays at the back.
Abi shrugged. 'You trouble,' she murmured as she climbed into the brown holland skirt that Mary had reversed and hemmed for her. The girl let out a roar of laughter.
Abi had spent a fortnight thinking about it, but it still made her break out in a sweat along her hairline as she stood kneading bread on the kitchen table. All she knew was that to ask for something was to show a weakness: a back bared to the whip.
'Mistress,' she said quietly as Mrs. Jones bustled out of the pantry, wiping her hands on her apron.
Mrs. Jones spoke distractedly. 'Those meat dumplings are quite dried up, Abi, I fear we must throw them out.'
'Yes, mistress. But please?'
'What is it, then, Abi?'
The maid-of-all-work looked down at her hands, covered in dough to the wrist. She spoke through a tightened throat. 'I think. Wonder. I hear—' And then she broke off. She couldn't mention Mary's name; that would be tale-bearing of the worst kind. On the plantation, you could end up with your throat cut in your sleep for that.
'Come now, tell me what's the matter,' said the mistress with gentle impatience. 'Is it about the dumplings?'
Abi shook her head. 'Some say—' she began again. And then, with a sudden bluntness, 'I want wages.'
'Oh, my dear.' Mrs. Jones blinked at her. A long pause stretched between them. 'This is unexpected, Abi. After all the years you've been with us. Are you not content in our family?'
Abi made a painful shrug.
'What is it you lack? Tell me. Is it a new dress you'd like, for Easter? I never thought you cared about such things.'
She shook her head violently. 'Wages,' she repeated, as if it were a magic word.
'But what for, exactly? I mean, to buy what with?' Getting no answer, Mrs. Jones rushed on: 'You know you're still not used to our money, my dear. Remember that time you got tricked out of a whole shilling for that old slice of salt pork?'
Abi bit down on her lip. She knew it: all she'd brought down on herself was disaster. That whoreson of a butcher, she remembered him now. It was her first year in Monmouth, and when she'd asked for her change he'd denied she'd given him any more than thrupence. 'I said sorry.'
'Indeed you did, and it's all long gone and forgotten,' Mrs. Jones told her, patting Abi's floury elbow.
The maid's voice was hoarse with frustration. 'I just want some wages.'