Free A Country Marriage by Sandra Jane Goddard

particular.’ When her mother-in-law’s voice tailed off, she followed the direction of her stare. It seemed to lead to Annie, who had come through the doorway bearing a pat of butter towards the scullery. When she disappeared from sight, she could make out the sound of a brief exchange; the voices too hushed to distinguish actual words. But when she reappeared, her expression seemed fixed with a deliberate air of insincerity; the sort of smug expression a person might adopt if they wanted everyone to think they knew a secret. ‘But that day I seen you in the square,’ Hannah resumed once Annie had gone, ‘getting down with your basket from your pa’s cart, I thought to meself, now there’s a very tidy young lady.’
    Unable to help it, she giggled.
    ‘If Ma heard you say that she’d tell you that I never looked tidy a day in my life.’
    ‘Nonsense, love. It’s what caught my eye about you. Anyway, I don’t mind admitting that I had the very devil of a job to get you both in the same place at the same time. George can be real stubborn when it suits him. And even before that , it took me Lord knows how many weeks of plotting to find reason to waylay your pa so as to get him to tell me all about you.’
    What? Her father had been in cahoots with Ma Strong? Goodness.
    ‘He never mentioned that you’d spoken of me.’
    ‘Don’t count he did, lovey; that’s men for you. Anyway, after that I still had to persuade George that he ought to meet you a couple of times; give you a chance.’ When Ma Strong laughed, it was with a chesty gurgle. ‘ Now , course, he’s glad he did and that’s how he is; gets his mind set on summat and there ain’t nothin’ or no one as can change it. He gets that from his pa. His brother Tom’s the same, you know; stubborn as mules, the three of ʼem. The number of times I had to drag those two boys apart when they were small.’
    ‘Like two of my brothers.’
    ‘So I suppose what I’m trying to tell you, love, is that with you bein’ so… young, you might find you’ve a job on your hands to begin with. But remember this: all men got their flaws.’ And what, she wondered, smiling politely back at Hannah, were George’s? ‘So to my way of looking at it, choosing a husband is a vexing affair anyway, since all you can do is pick one lot of faults over another; perfection never being one of the choices.’
    ‘All I truly hope for is to be a good wife,’ she ventured quietly, ‘but in truth I’m not even sure what that means—’
    ‘Well I shouldn’t werret yourself, love, since I’ll wager that he doesn’t, either. Indeed, if it’s of any comfort, then I could name you more than a few women who’d claim that even after thirty years of bein’ wed, they’re still vexed by that question!’
    ‘So… what do you do, then?’
    ‘You just keep going, love. And you take heart from what succeeds.’
    ‘Oh.’ It hardly felt like the most helpful of answers.
    ‘Look,’ Hannah was saying and reaching across for her hand, ‘you seem a bright enough girl, so I’m sure you’ll work it out just fine.’
    While there could be no doubting that her mother-in-law’s comments were well meant, at the same time, they did give rise to another question and that was: which one of them was she doing her utmost to convince?
    *
    The following morning, George set to work finishing the henhouse, but with his mind free to wander, he found himself thinking about the last couple of days and how, so far, being wed had been far more testing than he had ever imagined possible. The trial of their wedding-night – uncomfortable enough at the time and barely any less so now – persisted in his mind in the manner of an unsettling dream, a relic of something he wished he could put behind him: Mary standing stiffly as he undid the buttons of her dress; his fleeting temptation to lower it down over her shoulders, her slender neck seeming quite inviting; the discomfort of being stricken by memories