Jane Borodale - The Knot

‘I did worse than that, I gave the man a large quantity of money, and then he disappeared. I can’t explain, but I do feel very bad about it,’ he says. He know that sounds weak-willed. He is irresponsible, a bad citizen, worse than those women for at least they, in their ugly, easy complacency, did not actually go out of their way to court trouble for the man. He pictures the beggar made vulnerable with that gold in his hand, killed for it by other beggars, vagabonds or lawless rufflers. He pictures him in the tavern drinking it off in a night, and dying of drink. And who would know?

Dr Turner leans forward on his stick so that Henry can see up close the very substance of his face. It is like a natural exclamation of rage. Hair sprouts from his nostrils, his eyes are red-rimmed. ‘It is not about salving your conscience, Henry. It is about changing things. You have been blessed with certain privileges, and in the eyes of God you must employ them in ways that create a change. I was brought up where the stink of the tannery permeated every crack of life, every breath, each mouthful of food. I was inured to its poison, and yet I never wish to forget what poison is or what it does to men. There are many different kinds of poverty, Henry,’ Dr Turner says. ‘Who are you or I to say that one man’s suffering is worse than another man’s. It is not our task to judge between sufferings, only to help where relief can be given. Your man may well have made those sores himself by laying irritants like spearwort or crowsfoot upon his members, a known practice in these parts amongst their kind. But what else is he to do, being whipped from parish to parish? With no home to speak of. Poverty is the visible, residual poison of a bad society, it eats away at the lives of those who have little or cannot help themselves.’ He pushes his cap about on his head.

‘These changes in the Church are not moving fast enough to reinstate an antidote. All this mealy-mouthed absolution and confession that we’ve lived with for too long has made us lazy.’ He snorts. ‘That’s not a way to improve the world, is it? People don’t like to hear that. How much easier it was to go to a priest, smell the frankincense, bleat unworthiness and be absolved like infants. Cut into a Catholic’s flesh and be warned, you may see whey running from the wound instead of blood.’

Henry looks shocked.

Turner flaps his hand dismissively. ‘There is still too much Romish pox about.’

‘If a man has to make amends how can he properly go about it, if he is not to just hand out bits of gold?’

‘By making an effort.’ Never had such a simple word sounded so menacing and unachievable.

‘God gave you hands, didn’t he?’ Turner holds open his own palms skywards as if to be inspected.

‘Use them!’

Henry’s ears are ringing all the way home.

Chapter VI.

Of TUTSAN or PARKE LEAVES. At the top of the stalks groweth small knops or round buttons which bring forth floures like St Johns grasse, when they are fallen or perished there appeareth litle small pelets very red, like to the colour of clotted or congealed dry blood, in which berries is contained the seede. The roote is hard and of wooddy substance, yeerely sending forth new springs.

THE GREAT FROSTS HAVE COME. The fields and hedges are white and the early morning air in the ribbon of valley beneath the slope is quick with birds. The redwings are here, getting down to the business of stripping the last of the haws, and filling the hedges with a gregarious, weighty presence that sets the squirrels chattering angrily. Crisp, seeded heads of wild angelica are spiky with crystals.

Henry walks down to Broadmead to cast an eye over the cattle. They should be brought in for the winter now; they stand cold and miserable in the hoary grass, breath in clouds about them. He must talk to his stockman. He walks on and stops by the Cary, the little course that runs down off the Mendip, through Somerton and winds out across the Levels. There is vapour rising from the river. One moorhen nervily shrugs itself through the water at the edge near the overhanging reedy bank, black plumage against the blackish water, a faint wake the only clue to its movement.

He calls in at the barton to see it is ready for cows, and then goes back up the hill to eat with his family. He takes a shortcut across the back of Horse Close, and then without thinking turns past Widow Hodges’s place. Rounding the corner of the new wall he comes across her suddenly, weaving a wide-mouthed, greenish basket in the cold without looking at her hands, as if they had a way of their own and could work on without her.

‘Good day to you, Master Lyte,’ she says. Her nose is running. Her hands are very pale in the November light, almost flashing as they move, twisting withy against withy. The flickering lids of her eyes are very dark and seem to latch on to his movement as he passes, as a hawk’s gaze might, fixing to the warmblooded gait of rabbits. He is unwilling to put his back to her, and turns once to raise his hand absurdly as he bids her good morning.

It is warm in the hall by comparison. He stamps the frost from his boots. Hannah has boiled black puddings and somehow the cold makes them all seem even more delicious.

‘That woman gives me the shivers, Frances,’ he complains.

‘Your Widow Hodges? All men find old women disconcerting, Henry.’ Frances is amused. ‘Once past childbearing age, a woman’s use is ill-defined even if working, particularly if she has no husband to tend. Men are unsettled by their ugliness. They are afraid of withered things.’

‘Gardeners are afraid of withered things,’ Henry concedes, going off to his unformed Knot.

It is good to stand up straight after two hours’ digging and to quench his thirst with a long draught from the flagon Mote’s boy brings him, instead of waiting, tetchy, inside at his desk, for the slop-slop of the maidservant’s stepping up the corridor. The lawns are steaming where the sun hits the frost. He wipes his mouth. He needs to decide what shrubs to plant for the low, trimmed hedges that will form the body of the Knot.

He has considered the cost of bringing down from London some of the newly introduced box-tree. They say Buxus is best planted at this time of year, and he is tempted, because the hedges of box he saw in France and Holland were firm and densely foliated, and agreeably disposed to being clipped into shapes. But they also say it has little use in medicine, and with its reeking, astringent smell like cat’s piss it could prove a mistake for his garden. Hyssop, though apt to grow straggly, has a mildly aromatic charm of its own, and many virtues.

Henry sits down on the upturned new waterbutt, just delivered from the coopers, and examines the progress so far. The bricklayers finished their final course last week, and the garden wall stands ruddy and crisp. Tobias Mote’s children are clearing up the hardened bits of lime mortar all along its base. The joiners over at Kingsdon are measuring up now for the pair of doors.

Henry calls over to Mote. ‘Has the smith sent in his bill for the ironwork?’

‘Not yet. I can fetch the hinges in the afternoon if you’re in a hurry for them.’

‘I’d like to get them as soon as possible because the trees will be in soon and those doors will keep out nibblers.’

Mote crosses the sea of opened earth.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ he says. He takes off his soft cap and scratches his head. ‘It’s only that there are a few things we should mind.’ He pauses.

‘Like?’

‘Like we’re getting a bit forward of ourselves.’

‘Are we?’

‘That plot needs a lot of husbanding before it’s fit. If you want the handsomest plants you’ll need, well, diligence.’

‘What are you saying, Mote?’ Henry sighs inwardly. ‘I sense a dampening of enthusiasms coming on.’