Free The Silent Hours by Cesca Major

traces a line on the garden table, expression peaceful, enjoying the warm wash of sunshine that is trapped in our little courtyard. I go to hang the clothes out, humming off-key, relishing the smell of the garden: rosemary and clean laundry. She gets up to return to the shop, waving at me to stay and enjoy the sunshine a while longer. I thank her and watch her return inside.
    She is replaced by another at the table. An argument returns.
    Vincent is sitting in the same seat, his expression furious, his eyes on me as I sit opposite him, my mouth half-open. I suggested Monsieur Coudran as a possible husband for Isabelle, a recently widowed farmer with at least fifty acres and a big farmhouse in need of a woman’s touch.
    He didn’t let me finish the sentence. ‘You would marry her off to that old man, who has barely any of his own teeth left?’
    ‘And how do you expect her to live? What are we going to be leaving her?’
    Vincent is silent. I see my chance.
    ‘It is true that Monsieur Coudran is a little older than she is …’
    At this Vincent snorts.
    ‘But he has the farm and …’
    ‘Do you remember when Renard had to sell his land? Monsieur Coudran only offered him a third of its real worth and the poor man accepted. Broke him. No, no, Isabelle won’t be offered up to him as a second wife.’
    In a quiet voice I persist: ‘Who is she to marry, then?’
    ‘There is time enough to think of that,’ he says, ending our conversation.
    As the daughter of a shopkeeper, we can’t hope for a particularly advantageous marriage. Vincent doesn’t seem able to grasp this fact. I know he wants to keep her close for as long as he can; ensure that easy smile never leaves his sight, keep hold of one child. A large part of me wants that too, but she can’t stay with us for ever, she deserves something more. And yet there seems to be no one suitable in the village – or no one up to Vincent’s exacting standards – and with so many men gone, the whole village seems to be a gaggle of women, no husbands in sight.
    I bite down my reply, reaching for the glass of water in front of me.
    Vincent is looking out at the fields beyond, mist stretched out like a wispy hand on a lilac horizon, a lone bird of prey hovers nearby, a sudden dive as it sees something in the long grass. His face has closed off to me, the knowing sparkle in his eyes dimmed. There will be no point continuing to nudge him. His enormous hands rest on his thighs, like he is posing for a portrait; traces of mud seem worn into the knuckles, testament to helping with the harvest. We will stay in this village until those hands became lined and cracked.
    Can he really expect her to stay here, too?
    I simmer, one finger sliding across the top of the glass. Beads of water cling to the outside. Staring at them, I take another sip. If only we could find her someone. She is blossoming before us, walking differently, straighter, wearing clothes in new styles, her hair loose, next to me in my aprons and wooden shoes she seems from another place entirely. I worry for her working in the town, the action and temptations of her new life.
    ‘Limoges,’ she had scoffed. ‘Hardly.’This from a girl who was so excited by the opening of the tram stop that she waited three hours to see the first carriage go by, pointing to the trail of tracks leading out of the village, out into the world.
    Where would she end up if she could?
    I want Vincent to be right: perhaps she will be able to attract a man with exciting prospects – a wealthy landowner who has a good eye for beautiful things.
    I am still in the courtyard but this is another scene, a different day; the time when things all shifted for us.
    I am watering the plants, watching the water trickle into the soil, form a pool on the surface, spray the leaves with fine droplets. The clouds sit fat and low in a greying sky but rain hasn’t fallen in days. I shiver and wrap my cardigan around me with one arm.
    Vincent stands inside