Read A Country Marriage for Free Online Page A

in their direction. Perhaps she would pass them by; go and talk to someone else. A hand grasping the back of her chair suggested otherwise, though and in the instant that she felt it, she turned, her eyes suddenly and unexpectedly separated from George’s by an expanse of the pale flesh of Annie’s chest. Not waiting to see where George’s eyes went next, she directed her own firmly to her lap.
    ‘Dance with me, George?’ she heard Annie’s breathy voice asking over her head.
    She held herself rigidly, waiting to hear how George would reply. Surely he would refuse her; this showy woman who smelled of – what was that – roses? What she wanted was to see George’s face; to gauge his reaction but on the other hand, she didn’t want to risk having to look at all of that heaving flesh. When she did risk a glance through her fringe, it was just as a man’s hand made to grasp at a woman’s wrist; a wrist bearing a golden-coloured band. Gypsy gold, her mother would have said.
    ‘Not tonight, Annie,’ she heard George eventually answer, there being no doubt as to his firmness on the point. She risked raising her head a little further; not far enough to see either of their faces but enough to see Annie snatching her wrist from George’s grasp and turning away. Finally, it felt safe to look up and see that with the demeanour of someone unexpectedly defeated, Annie was making her way onwards and out of the barn.
    ‘Everything all right over there?’
    She turned towards the voice. It was Hannah Strong calling across. Presumably, then, she had witnessed what had just happened. Would there now be a fuss of some sort? She hoped not. She hoped that would be the end of it. Beside her, though, it was hard not to notice that George was downing the entire contents of his mug in one go.
    ‘Just fine, Ma,’ he called back, immediately pouring himself another draught from the ale jug.
    For what seemed like hours afterwards, and craving somewhere quiet to fall asleep, she sat watching proceedings grow ever more rowdy. When George wandered away to keep company with friends, she wondered whether Ellen might come and talk to her but when she saw her wending her way towards the door, apparently bidding people goodnight as she went, her hope faded. Had she known earlier that George was going to be gone for so long, she would have plucked up the courage to go and sit with her instead of remaining on her own. Well, more fool her: she had missed her chance. Disappointed with herself, she gave a long sigh. She felt utterly exhausted and the throbbing in her forehead – a pounding sensation that had started before she had even left home to walk to the church – hadn’t let up, even for a minute. Supporting her head in her hands, she pressed her thumbs into her temples, willing it to stop.
    ‘So, tell me then, you seen that brother-in-law of yours lately?’ It was a question that drifted across to her from a conversation being carried on nearby. She had been listening to the participants on and off all evening and with only the mildest of interest now, waited to hear the response.
    ‘Which one’d that be, then?’ the second voice asked, beginning to sound rather hoarse.
    Earlier, she had turned discreetly to look at the speakers; a pair of middle-aged labourers leaning against the barn with their fraying and misshapen hats pushed to the backs of their heads, their belts unbuckled – for, she surmised, relief from indigestion – and their faces puckered and red from the exertion required to down a worthwhile quantity of ale.
    ‘Um…’
    ‘Only, on account of all my sisters being wed, I got the three o’ the buggers, see.’
    Despite her fatigue, she felt her lips forming a smile and pictured the precarious angle of the mugs of ale that they had spent all night clinging to as though life itself depended upon them.
    ‘Hmm. Well, if I’m not much mistaken, the one I have in mind lives just this side of Winchester, over at