The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [95]
They had been cold to each other for so long and, even though she did not love him, she couldn’t bear it any more. What did it take, then, to save a marriage? A little gift, a show of love. Perhaps, if she were determined, if love were returned, she might even somehow manage to feel love again herself. Or near enough to get by. This was her hope.
The pony was never mentioned now. Tom didn’t want to think about it, probably didn’t even want it back, she guessed. Once or twice, on some pretext like, ‘I just need to drop this at John’s’ she had been to her brother’s, and Tom had made no comment. She had been careful always to come straight back. Perhaps, in time, she could stay a little longer. Luke she had not seen or heard from. A few times Tom had mentioned him. He might have suspected he was in the Forest somewhere. It was hard to tell.
To outward appearances they seemed tranquil enough. But never once, since the incident in May, had there been any intimacy between them. Tom had been quiet, but cold – or evasive, which was the same thing. When the harvest had come, at which time the hired men often slept out at the granges or in the fields, he had seemed glad of the chance to go, and made no attempt to return home at nights.
She entered the field just as Brother Adam gave the order for the men to rest.
Tom was surprised to see her. He even looked a shade embarrassed as she came towards him and gave him the basket, explaining: ‘I picked them for you.’
‘Oh.’ He didn’t, it seemed, want to show feelings in front of the other men, so he turned up his scythe and started to sharpen it with a small whetstone.
The men were moving over towards the cart where a lay brother was dispensing beer. Tom had his own wooden mug tied with a thong to his belt. She untied it and went to fetch some beer, then stood quietly by while he drank.
‘You came a long way,’ he said at last.
‘It’s nothing,’ she answered and smiled. ‘The children are all well,’ she added. ‘They’ll be glad when you’re back.’
‘Oh yes. I dare say.’
‘So will I.’
He took another gulp of the thin beer, muttered, ‘Oh, yes’, and non-committally went back to sharpening the scythe again.
Some of the other men were coming over now. There were nods to Mary, an inspection of the basket, some appreciative murmurs: ‘That’s nice.’ ‘Nice strawberries your missus brought you there, Tom.’ ‘Be sharing them will you, then?’ The mood of the little group was rather jolly. Tom, still a little cautious, went so far as to say: ‘Maybe I will, and maybe I won’t.’ Mary, relieved by the light-hearted mood, was anxious to laugh.
So the conversation went on, as it often does when people really have nothing to say, each person feeling obliged to keep the little stream of laughter going at the centre while, at the edges, those of a different humour form eddies, their muttered jokes and darker comments sometimes curling away and sometimes re-entering the stream.
‘Them Prides look after you,’ came now from the centre. ‘Here’s Tom with strawberries and the rest of us got nothing.’
Mary laughed gladly at this friendly comment and smiled at Tom.
‘I ’spect Tom gets everything he wants, eh, Tom?’ from the edges. Though a bit cheeky and sadly inaccurate, Mary laughed at this, too, and Tom, a little flummoxed, looked down at the ground.
But then some evil spirit caused one of the younger men at the edge of the group to cry out in a raucous voice: ‘If you’d married her brother, Tom, you could have got a pony!’
And again Mary laughed. She laughed because they were laughing. She laughed because she was anxious to please. She laughed because she was caught, for a moment, by surprise. She laughed only for an instant before, realizing what had been said, and seeing Tom’s stunned face, she checked herself. Too late.
Tom saw something different. Tom saw her laughing at him. Tom saw her gift for what he’d suspected it was, a ploy like giving an apple to a pony to keep him happy. These Prides were all the same. They