Jaen Read online

  BETTY BURTON

  Jaen

  Copyright © 1987, Betty Burton

  Betty Burton is the author of the collection of short stories Women are Bloody Marvellous! and the highly successful novel Jude. She has served as a JP and as a tutor with the WEA, and has won several awards for her writing, including the Chichester Festival Theatre Award. Recently she was one of the writers working with Alan Plater on Central Television's excellent new serial Tales of Sherwood Forest.

  Born in Romsey, Hampshire, she now lives in Southsea.

  For the Hampshire Archers

  and the Nottinghamshire Burtons

  Especially for my father — Leon Archer of Romsey,

  my mother-in-law — Jessie Binch of Mansfield,

  my sister Margie, and brother-in-law

  Ben Burton of Shaftesbury;

  and for Barbara and David Randall-Holbury,

  Andrew Burton and Sheila Begg — Aberdeen;

  and not least for 'Fancy'

  (my cousin Clarice Crabb) of Romsey.

  THANKS!

  Mic Cheetham who pushed me over a few humps and Patricia Parkin who hauled me from the occasional trough.

  And thanks, Pen Isaac, for always seeing the funny side (even of dieting and some of my punctuation).

  Thanks also to the staff of Portsmouth Central Library for always coming up with what I was

  looking for.

  (And thanks, Russ, for searching around in the guts of the BBC Micro for five thousand lost words, and for forcing the Apple Mac to disgorge words when it would rather have swallowed them.)

  Contents

  Part One

  WEDDINGS

  Part Two

  CHANGES

  Part Three

  JOURNEYS

  Part Four

  HEARTH AND HOME

  PART ONE

  Weddings

  1

  1780 — SPRING

  Wedding day — Cantle

  'Jaen Hazelhurst.'

  She says it to herself. Jaen Hazelhurst. It sounds strange after being Jaen Nugent for about eighteen years.

  In the vestry of St Peter's, waiting for the writing up to be done, Jaen looks at Daniel Hazelhurst to whom she has surrendered her name in return for a ring and the right to be called Mistress Hazelhurst.

  He has not given either ring or name with great enthusiasm, but Bella Nugent, the bride's mother, is known on Blackbrook market for a tongue sharp enough to cut her lip, and for never being bettered when doing a deal. Jaen finds her mother's poker-faced expression a mystery to her, but why should she understand her mother any better today than she has ever done? It is not for nothing that Bella Nugent is called 'Master' by her hired hands at Croud Cantle. 'She'm a hard'n and no mistake.'

  At Croud Cantle they all work their fingers to the bone. Toes swollen from frost or heads banging from sun, they work. From dark to dark, every day of every year, they work. Backs breaking from hoeing, ribs tender from days working the breast-plough, they work. And when the dark comes they light oil-wicks and Bella Nugent and her two daughters press cheese or churn butter, then, at their ease, they comb and card and spin and mend and sew their clothes.

  Jaen does not come from a family at the bottom of the pile, but nearly so. In Cantle village, as in villages all over rural Hampshire, there are half-starved peasants who would give their right arm to have a bit of land like Bella Nugent has, for since Tomas Nugent went off and never came back, Bella has battled with the Croud Cantle land to keep herself and her two girls above subsistence level. She hires extra labour when necessary because there is a good crop and, because he can turn his hand to any job, she has hired and re-hired old malicious Dicken Bordsell for years.

  And now Jaen is going away from Croud Cantle, away from her mother and every bowl, platter and mug that have been her life.

  She is going away from Ju.

  From Judeth, her sister, six years younger and, until Dan Hazelhurst, the only warm body to have come close to her own. For twelve years Jaen had mothered Ju. But, when it had come to telling Ju that she was going to marry Dan Hazelhurst, that she must leave home, leave Ju and go over to Newton Clare and live at Up Teg farm, Jaen had put it off and put it off until it was too late and Ju heard it from their mother.

  Jaen Hazelhurst knows that her young sister is there, silent as she has been for weeks. Jaen has tried to make it up, but Ju deep in her well of misery will speak to no-one.

  The groom's mother, Nance Hazelhurst, has for years been sending girls off from the Up Teg farm, with a flea in their ear, girls who claimed that Dan was the cause of them growing big. Most of them were girls hired for turnip lifting or as scullery-maids — nobodies who Baxter Hazelhurst, Master of Up Teg Farm, would never consider suitable mothers for Hazelhurst grandchildren.

  But this time Nance told Baxter that Dan should marry the girl. Baxter Hazelhurst knew Bella Nugent and her reputation on Blackbrook market; she was a hardworking woman and decent enough to be associated with the Hazelhursts.

  'You take the girl,' Baxter told his son.

  Anyway, Dan was only two years off being thirty, time he settled down; a man couldn't go on for ever with his feet under his parents' table. Nance Hazelhurst thought if they didn't give him a push now, he would never make a move to get a place of his own. His three older brothers, when they had been in the same boat, had married and were set up with a bit of land and a few hogs running on the commons which their wives saw to, though the main labour of the entire family was put into Up Teg Farm.

  The two mothers stand and watch the marriage lines being made; this is their wedding. It has taken weeks and several meetings at Blackbrook to arrange.

  Today is a break. Like May-day, Harvest home, Blackbrook Fair or Plough Monday, it is an occasion. After she has provided the Hazelhursts with food and drink, Bella Nugent will go the mile or so up Howgaith Path to Croud Cantle, the small holding of land she has battled with since Tomas Nugent went off and left her to it, a dozen years back.

  Dan follows closely the entry of the marriage being made. Jaen has a secret feel of the hard ring Dan has just slipped on. Not exactly slipped on though, because after the first month in her present condition, everything seemed to swell up, starting from the ankles — sometimes she imagines that she is like one of the pig-bladders that boys fill till nearly bursting then throw over hedges for a lark. By her wedding day it has reached her wrists and fingers and it is still only her fifth month. Whatever shall I be like come August time?

  'There.' The Parish Clerk puts down the quill.

  'What do it say?' Dan asked.

  'That Daniel Hazelhurst, son of Baxter Hazelhurst Farmer of the parish of Rathley, and Nancy Hazelhurst, have married Jaen daughter of Isabell Nugent and the late Tomas Nugent of the Parish of Cantle on April 24th 1780.'

  Mistress Hazelhurst.

  Suddenly, now that she has the title, it seems not to matter. In the muddle of the last few months, the ring, and the protection of married status, have loomed over everything, yet it isn't anything really. A ring that seems already to be embedded in her finger — and the title 'Mistress'.

  2

  Even in church, the Hazelhurst men made no attempt to lower their booming voices and all the brothers jeered and joked in their cheerful-sounding way, the way they always do.

  'Come on, Gel, you'm dreaming.'

  'Bit of a nightmare more like.'

  Bella Nugent began to look irritable. Jaen guessed that it was because of the way the Hazelhurst Boys tramped into the little vestry as though they owned it. They would, they were like that.

  But it took better men than Hazelhursts to out-do Bella Nugent.

  'Remember where you are,' she said, and The Boys went quiet.

  'Ah 'tis the place that wouldn't be her
e if it wasn't for the likes of we paying our tithes,' one of The Boys said. It was meant to be a whisper, but male Hazelhurst voices had no experience of such control.

  Twisting inwardly, Jaen waited for her mother's sharp voice, but it did not come. The muscles around Bella Nugent's mouth tightened. Jaen could almost hear the comment her mother had made several times of late: 'I met couther famblies in my time.'

  'Well, 'tis all over here then. What are we waiting for?' As she spoke, Bella turned to Rev Tripp and held out her hand. The gesture was as unexpected as was the realization that this rough farm-wife was wearing gloves. Tripp felt annoyed at such show and profligacy among the lower orders and hardly knew what to do with the outstretched hand, so he touched a finger and made the sign of the cross at her.

  With the wedding pair leading, the party walked from the vestry. It was the first time that Jaen had been with so many of the Hazelhurst Boys and their wives and children. Old Baxter and his Boys were tall, wide men who revelled in their reputation for their famed Heighth and Breadth, and perhaps it was in an unconscious need to enhance this by contrast, that they all took small women for their wives.

  There were six Hazelhurst Boys. Dan was the fourth, or the third according to how you looked at it, Luke and Francis being twins, not that they were alike except in size. They had married from the top down as you might say — eldest first. Now that Dan had got Jaen, there was only Peter of marriageable age, then there was a gap of ten years between Peter and the next, Edwin, who, at fourteen, was no less a man of heighth and breadth than his brothers.

  A few Cantle villagers watched as the noisy family came through the porch. In the forefront — because he had known the bride since the day she was born — Dicken Bordsell who had worked at Croud Cantle farm since before Bella Nugent had come there.

  'Well now missis,' he said to his wife, 'young Jaen got herself summit there and no mistake.'

  To which Mrs Bordsell replied that it was summit she wouldn't fancy for a daughter of hers, but there you are, beggars can't be choosers and the girl should a thought about that munts ago.

  Jaen felt smothered by the bodies and voices that surrounded her — all Hazelhursts except for Mother and Ju. Mother was walking just behind, and she caught a glimpse of Ju's wild, red mass of hair and her resentful face, pale and angry — as it had been for weeks. Jaen blinked very fast and clenched her jaws to stop the tears that threatened. In looking about for Jude, Jaen had lagged a step behind Dan.

  'Come on then, Mrs Hazelhurst,' he said. His brothers roared out their approval as they always did at such times.

  Up Teg, the Hazelhurst farm, was some miles from Cantle, on the other side of the chalk-hills that enclosed the Cantle Valley, the valley in which lay Croud Cantle, Jaen's home for all of her eighteen years. Unlike Up Teg, it was a tiny holding of not many acres protected by the great chalk-hill of Tradden Raike.

  Because the entire Hazelhurst family had come all that way over from Newton Clare, Bella had arranged for some substantial refreshments and plenty of ale and cider to be put out in the back room of the Dragon and Fount. The inn was a few steps across the green from the church, and inside a few minutes of leaving the vestry, the wedding party and a few others whom Bella had invited to show that she had good connections, were intent on game pies and a dark-brown special brew.

  'It's a nice lay-up you done for us, Mistress Nugent, I'll say that.'

  'Thank you, Mistress Hazelhurst, I just hope there's plenty seeing there's so many and they'm so big. I never seen all your boys before, some on 'm makes Dan look quite small.'

  'Ah, and there's some more coming on, five on 'm, but only one boy as yet.'

  Bella nodded, acknowledging the presence of suckling babes and clod-hopping children.

  'I just hope for my Jaen's sake that hern takes a bit after our side — being her first.'

  'Ah well, what we hopes for and what we gets is two different things. And 'tis my belief anyway a big first one usually makes way for the others to come easier,' said Nance Hazelhurst. 'But don't you worry about Jaen. I seen all the rest on 'm into the world.'

  'An' she an't lost a father yet!' Baxter Hazelhurst clapped Bella on the shoulder with one hand and lifted a long draught with the other.

  Having done her duty as a woman and mother, Bella Nugent moved herself into a gathering of men and began talking markets and prices.

  Seeing her mother like that, Jaen had a swelling of pride that Bella was different, independent, capable — capable as any man. Jaen had been standing on the market at Blackbrook, selling Croud Cantle produce, as long as she could remember. They grew good stuff and Bella knew that she could bargain on that reputation. She liked nothing better than to talk of growing and selling.

  The baby flickered a kick — that's all over now, it reminded her. And again she controlled a desire to cry, to run from this great crowd of huge, loud men. She looked everywhere for Ju. Where was she? Gone off up Tradden on her own? Ju had been doing that for weeks now.

  Luke, eldest of The Boys — just, having Francis as his twin — said to his wife, 'Here, Martha, look at her, happy as a wet hen in a duck-pond.'

  'And who can blame her? You an't got no idear what your family's like when they'm all together. It's like being thrown into a herd a spring bulls — you'm all shoulders and bellow and snort.'

  Jaen could not hear what Luke and Martha were saying, but they were both looking at her — she felt that everybody was looking at her, except Dan. Bella was moving about seeing that people had enough to eat; Jaen went to her.

  'You seen Ju, Mother?'

  'I dare say she's somewhere about.'

  'She was outside the church, then she was gone — I never saw where she went.'

  Bella said, 'You know she don't like this kind of thing.'

  'I can't say I blame her,' Jaen said very quietly.

  Bella threw Jaen a jagged expression that said more than 'that's enough a that kind a talk.'

  'Ah well, it's your duty here, and mine; nobody takes no notice of a girl hooking off. She's probably curled up in some corner somewhere watching a spider making a web or summit — you know what she's like. Here, take some cake round. The sooner they has the cake, the sooner it a be over.'

  Jaen looked panic-stricken at her mother, and Bella knew that if she didn't clamp down hard, as she had had to do many times over the last weeks and months, then there might be tears.

  'Now, I told you, you'll be all right. You an't going far, only over to 'Clare, and that an't hardly no further than Blackbrook market. You a see us often enough. Anyway . . .' Bella began cutting up wedges of dark sticky cake.

  All right! All right! I know I made my bed. I know I've got to lie on it. I been told it often enough. I'm the one, I'm the one . . . nothing to do with Dan. I'm the one who has to leave home and everything . . . not him, never the man who has to go to strangers.

  Jaen was a past-mistress at pasting a smile over anger and anguish. Her large, wide eyes were bright and her cheeks glowing, and with her gold-red Estover hair, the Hazelhurst family had to admit that she was as pretty a one as ever had married into them.

  By eleven o'clock the toasts are done; the jokes that mean nothing to Jaen and Bella made; the casks are empty and the food gone. Jaen's panic and desolate thoughts of leaving Cantle and her mother and Jude have been pushed down. The baby rested, now making in her only little movements which are hardly distinguishable from the digestion of the rich cake and sweet apple wine Dan had insisted that she have to fortify herself for the journey.

  Whilst Jude have been there, whilst there is cake and ale, whilst the Hazelhursts are intent on feasting, Jaen still held the last slender threads connecting her to the Cantle Valley, to Croud Cantle, to home, security and dignity. Now the threads shredded and broke.

  'Come then, Mistress Hazelhurst, ready for off?' Dan takes her by the elbow and Jaen is pleased at the closeness of the rough cloth of his coat and the warm smell of his sweat.

  It will be
all right.

  As she walks with him in the confusion of a Hazelhurst exit, she plays the old game Ju loves. It will be right. It will be right. It will be all right, and so on. The baby objects to the crush in the narrow passageway of the Dragon and Fount, and reminds Jaen that even if it is not all right, it is too late now. She has made her bed.

  It is time to exchange their farewells. Jaen wonders which would cause the greater embarrassment, kissing her mother who hated that kind of thing? or not kissing her and being prompted to do so by Dan, or worse — by his mother Nance? She brushes Bella's cheeks lightly with her lips.

  'Ju will be all right now, won't she?'

  Bella brushed off the implied suggestion that Jude would continue not speaking to anyone, as she had done since she learned that Dan Hazelhurst had got her adored and necessary sister with a baby. Jude felt betrayed. Jaen knew it. She had known how very much distressed Ju would be at the prospect of their separation, but she had not suspected that she would be so devasted, so angry, so contemptuous of Dan Hazelhurst.

  'You leave Jude to sort herself out. There an't nothing you can do.'

  'She'll like the baby,' said Jaen.

  'Ah,' Bella made herself smile at her daughter, 'she'll be like a mother hen, you'll see.'

  Jaen reached down inside herself yet again to see if it is true, to see whether it is possible that those few minutes with Dan last winter could have brought on all this fuss.

  Her thoughts are snagged by the creak and jingle of hay wagons decorated for the occasion with leaves and spring flowers, and drawn by two yoked, wide-horned, red oxen.

  'My eye, now there's summit I an't seen since I is a girl,' said Bella. 'We used to have red oxes like that when our family lived down the West Country.'

  Baxter looked pleased: he is proud of his old breed of beast.