Slammerkin - Emma Donoghue [116]
Oh, it was delicious, this moment before the demand, before the rebuff. Because of course she would say no. She had no intention of risking her new life for a roll in the grass with Daffy Cadwaladyr.
He'd better not try it. He'd better not take a single liberty. Mary wouldn't even need to speak, in fact; she would simply push him off her, the moment he stopped talking and climbed on top of her. Because every man came to a moment like that. Young or old, civil or boorish, they all reached a point where what was happening in their heads was rendered irrelevant by what was happening in their breeches. Even the gallantest gentleman, when he was all talked out, would take hold of a girl and crush her against him as if she were no more than a mattress. They couldn't help it; it was their low nature. It wasn't worth getting upset over. What was it Doll used to say, cackling all the while? They'd fuck a goat if they couldn't find a woman, dearie. They'd fuck a hole in the wall!
Daffy had stopped talking, without her noticing. It was as if he'd run out of words. He did a peculiar thing, then; he reached out and touched Mary's cheekbone; lightly, as if he was brushing away a speck of coal dust. She thought of Doll, that first morning, wiping mud out of the lost child's eyes.
Her throat hurt, all at once, as if she were swallowing a stone. She wished the two of them could stay forever frozen in this moment, hidden in the grass, as the setting sun slid across the fields of Monmouth. Before any asking, any refusal. While this strange, tame young man was still looking at her as if she were worth any price.
It all came down to the market in the end, she reminded herself. When corn was plentiful, the price of bread would fall. Whatever a woman gave away, she cheapened. Men wanted what they couldn't afford. For all Daffy's book-learning, Mary knew he'd turn out to be the same as every other man, in the end; for all his soft talk, she knew exactly what he needed from her. A hole in the wall.
Mary Saunders had never given anything away for free, and she wasn't about to start now. She let his hard fingertips move across her mouth, for a long second, while she gathered all her powers of refusal.
'Marry me,' he said simply.
She sat up so fast she scraped her elbow. The black world spun round her. 'What?'
'Didn't you hear me?' he asked, blushing red.
Sick with dizziness, Mary started laughing. It was all she could think to do.
Daffy put his hand over her mouth, as if to seal it up. 'Let me speak,' he said hurriedly. 'Give me a minute. It's a very sensible plan.'
'It's a nonsense!'
'No,' he gabbled, 'no, listen. I'm a cautious man—'
'You're a fool with swollen breeches!'
He blinked at her, startled. Very well; let him know how coarse she could be. Let him realise what an impossibility he was asking.
Daffy got up on one knee, and knotted his hands together. 'I swear,' he began, 'I swear it's not just a matter of ... amorousness. It seems to me—it has seemed to me for some time now,' he corrected himself, 'that you and I have much in common.'
Mary let her mouth twist into a smile. Was that what he called it?
'I mean,' he added hastily, 'we neither of us seem to have any immediate prospects of bettering ourselves, but when we consider the matter closely, we're both in a position to profit from our experience.'
'Daffy, man, what are you talking about?'
He cleared his throat with a donkey's bray and rushed on. 'I know you're fond of the family, as am I, but they can't expect us to stay forever. What I mean to say is, by the end of the year I'll be ready to set up my own sign as a staymaker. And you—you're almost qualified for dressmaking, and millinery, and such, aren't you? Mrs. Jones is always saying how quick a learner you are. And so before too long it might be possible for us to...'
'Marry?' she asked in the long silence.
Daffy nodded so hard she thought his head might crack off. 'I'd wish,' he said, straining for the words, 'to be the kind of husband who's as much ... friend as lover. Do you understand me? What