Chapter 2
There were flowers to pick, and garlands to weave; small ale to decant, and the butter to churn; old rushes to rake out, new rushes to strew. And a smoke-blackened hall to make new. For Viviana’s wedding.
To whom should these tasks fall? Why, the youth and the young. To Matilda, in fact, that was daughter to Sarah, the cook at the hall; and to Dick, son of Gertie, who lived Bere Marsh way, and came over to ‘do’ for the family each day. (There be some as do say how Old John were Dick’s father, but he never owned, and our Gertie’s as still as a stump. But that’s as may be.)
They were down to the Stour, these two, young Matilda because she’d been sent, and Gertie’s son because he’d seen her go and, Sweet Jesus, bedding Mattie would release more pent-up passion than the crucifixion at a passion play!
Now Mattie was reaching far, far out over the river, plucking cattails where they grew close by the bank. Dick held her hand, bracing their bodies while she leaned out, out over the water.
“I mid drop you right in,” he threatened.
“If you dare…!” she threatened back.
It would be the end of his carnal ambition. And the end of morsels from hall that she slipped him out-door. He settled for watching her straining, lean and lovely, picking bulrushes. Parting from their plants, the stems came up with a squeak.
Then Dick reeled Mattie in.
“Thank you,” she told him, registering his expression, and teasing him for it, stroking a stiff, velvety rush-head, rubbing it across her cheek, pretending to nibble the tip…
… and laughing, “Silly Dick!”
From the bank she fetched great buttercups, tall, glossy, and majestic. Like Mattie herself. What a sheen to her hair.
“See?”
“What?”
“Butter in my cheeks.” She held the flowers against her face, their glossy surfaces imparting green and yellow lights to her complexion. For an instant she looked like the Virgin in stained glass. Not, mind you, that these innocents had ever seen the glory of that substance in a vill as rude as Okford.
“Please, Mattie.”
“Begging don’t suit you.”
“I d’love you.”
“That’s what they all d’say.”
Ah, methinks young Matilda would have done better picking flowers by herself, for Richard needs must now expire for want!
“Just a kiss, then.”
“Get off, you.”
“Bet you never was.”
“Was what?”
“Kissed.”
“Lots of times.”
“Who by, then?”
“Shan’t say!”
She bent to pick some ragged-robin from the long grass back of a headland, careful to keep one eye on the devil beside her.
He knelt down too. Such gorgeous calves revealed beneath her skirt when she bent forward. Milk white, like chalk. And, oh, to touch… “We could lie here a while, Mattie, and…”
“Richard Bastard, you got a dirty mind!”
“ ’Cause you got a pretty body. Come on, Mattie, you’m too long a maiden. Let’s!”
To his surprise she didn’t react shocked, didn’t even respond directly. She just said, “Sixteen’s not old. And anyway, you don’t know.”
“Just this once.”
“And get stuck with a kid by a bumpkin like you. Ha!”
“I’d marry you.”
“I can do better. Folk d’say you was sired of a Nincubus!”
“If’n I was, you’d not rightly resist me.” The irrefutable logic of Richard’s remark sank in slowly, but it sank in deep. “Why d’you hold out on me, Mattie?” he asked. “You’ll be over-old for a good man soon.”
“You’ll screw the Abbess of Shaftesbury before you bed me!”
“Mattie…”
“You can have just a kiss, then.” He started to gather her in. “Just one, mind!” She still pushed him away, but with less force.
“I promise.”
Ferns for garlands and greenery grew back in the woodland away from the bank, where… “Richard, hold my basket!”… she ran to gather them, reaching low to pick the tough fronds at the base, cutting her hand on coarse brown bracken of last year’s growth. “Ow!”
Dick ran to the headland, tore the innermost leaves from a plantain and, bruising them, came to her aid. “Here, Mattie.” For minutes they knelt thus, her hand between his, the plantain’s astringent slowly working, the cool moist greenness of the plant warming, to hand heat, to blood heat, to…
“Let us go sit in the sun, Mattie. ’Twill be warmer there.”
So they did. And young Dick changed the dressing, and the new cool dressing warmed; and he changed it again, and they warmed. And the sun played on fields, and on grasses, and woodland, and the breeze ruffled hair, while they clasped tight their hands till the cut was long closed—nay, forgot! The scab was near dry when he licked it to heal it with spittle, and she laughed while he nibbled her fingers, and tickled the insides of her wrists with his scrub of young beard and his tongue. It was warm on the headland, so warm in the sun. Too warm. But, though the basket of flowers that she’d gathered might wither and droop, there was yet other lifestuff to stiffen and wax in the sun. For Viviana’s wedding.