Page 68 of The Lady's Companion
He nodded, serious enough, but with that smile playing around his lips. “So ghastly that you cannot go back and make up?”
“Oh, no! It’s just...”
“... hard to swallow your pride, Mrs. Wiggins?” he asked, his voice kind.
She nodded. “Hard for him, too, I think,” she said in a small voice.
“Welshmen are a trial, so I hear,” he agreed, shaking his head. “And we all know David’s past. He was quite a blackguard in his younger days, and you know those army men.”
“He’s a wonderful man!” she exclaimed, leaping to the bailiff’s defense. “And as for the army, there never was a better sergeant, I am sure! And if you could see him with his wheat, and the sheep, and...” She paused and looked at the innkeep, watching his smile grow larger and larger. “Oh, sir! I’m a goose.”
He laughed. “Only a little one, a mere gosling.”
She finished her tea, pushed the cup away, and rested her chin on her hands. “You’re married, I know. Do you ever have disagreements with your wife?”
The innkeeper leaned back in his chair. “Oh, ho, so now it’s just a disagreement?”
“Well, yes,” she admitted. “But I wanted to rip his arms out and beat him with them!” She paused. “For a few minutes.”She leaned toward the innkeeper. “I hope you’ll overlook this silliness, sir.”
The innkeeper smiled and looked around the room vacantly. “Did someone just say we had a conversation? Funny, I disremember it.”
She gave the innkeeper her sunniest smile and rose to go when the whole building shook with a clap of thunder. It was followed by a tumult of rain. She sat back down in surprise.
The innkeeper went to the door and looked out “This is a relief for us, isn’t it? I own I do not like it when the sky turns green and it’s hotter than Dutch love. Thank God the storm’s broke.”
She went to the door and peered out. The street was deserted now, with people seeking shelter in doorways and under awnings. The rain thundered down, breaking the oppression that had hovered all day. She watched it with equanimity. When it stops, I can walk home in the cool now, she thought.
A sudden blast of cold air from the north made her take a step bade from the doorway. The innkeeper closed the door against it and went to the window with her. “I don’t like that,” he muttered, looking intently to the north. “Someone’s getting a load of hail right now, I don’t doubt.”
She nodded in agreement, then sucked in her breath so suddenly that he stared at her in consternation. “The wheat!” she gasped. “Oh, the wheat!”
She wrenched open the door and ran into the street for a better look up to the north, up the road she had just stomped in such anger. The innkeeper followed her into the street and took her arm, but she shook him off. “I have to go home,” she shouted, over the wind and rain. “I have to.”
“David would want you to wait,” he insisted, even as he released her arm.
“No, he wouldn’t,” she contradicted. “I know him much better than you.” And I know what that wheat means to him, shethought as she ducked her head against the worst of the rain and ran up the road. It’s every dream he’s ever had, and it’s his salvation from Waterloo.
She was soaked to the skin before she left the village, but she ran on, stopping only long enough when her shoe strap ripped to fling off both shoes, tug up her skirts and run faster. The lightning frightened her, but it was a fast-moving storm, and left only flickers of light and sullen thunder to accompany the pounding rain. Her side ached as she ran toward the farm, past the turnoff to the sheepfold, and into the barley field to save a few minutes. And then she was over the rise and staring down at the Waterloo wheat, holding her side and trying to catch her breath.
She gasped in horror at the sight before her. The wheat, beautiful and lime green only an hour ago, lay flat and churned into the ground. Hail littered the field like canister shot. If a mighty army had fought over the field before her, she knew it could not have looked worse. Words failed her, even thoughts, as she stared at all that destruction then sank to her knees, utterly devastated. When she caught her breath, she sat back on her heels finally, and smoothed her hair away from her eyes, thinking that if she could see better, maybe it wouldn’t be as horrible.
It was worse. Every stalk seemed bent and disfigured from the storm. As she grieved and cried, she saw the bailiff walking slowly up the slope, his hands held out, palm down, as though he could only stare in shock and measure his phantom wheat still. She didn’t think he saw her, a muddy little figure toward the top of the slope, so she stood up and started toward him, slipping, but running faster and faster until she threw herself into his arms and nearly bowled him over backward.
“Suzie!” he said, his voice hollow with pain. “Suzie,” he repeated, her name a caress this time. “Suzie,” he whispered,and her name held the whole world in it.
She could only burrow her face into his shoulder and cry, so he clung to her until she was silent. Unable to look at him, she wiped her eyes on his soaked sleeve. “I am so sorry about the wheat, David. How can you bear it?”
She didn’t really think he could hold her any tighter, or closer, but he did. “Wheat? Who cares about the wheat, Suzie? It’s you! Can you forgive me for being so rude? I love you.”
Her eyes widened, and then she understood him perfectly. “Oh, David,” she whispered. “I’m more important than the wheat right now?”
“Oh, God!” he exclaimed, hugging her to him again. “I can plant this stuff again. It’s you I can’t replace, Suzie.”
The rain poured down and she felt herself sinking into the mud, but she never felt safer or more secure in her life than at that moment. “I’ll gladly forgive you, my love, if you’ll forgive me.”
“Done, then,” he said, “and over and forgotten.”
From the comfort of his soggy embrace, she looked at the field. “This is terrible.”
