The Town House by Norah Lofts Page A

which was her everyday one nowadays.
    ‘No. He put a new man on the very next Monday. I went to him. Martin, I spoke for you. I went on my knees, and I cried. He took no notice. Then I lost my temper and told him flatly he was ungrateful when you’d been hurt beating off robbers on his behalf.’
    ‘They weren’t robbers,’ I said. ‘There was nothing to steal that night – except the ponies, and they made no attempt upon them. They let Crooky go by, and the ponies, until the last that I was riding. I think even Crooky knew.’
    ‘Knew what?’
    ‘That I was to be set on. You were here, Kate, when Armstrong said they had ways of dealing with those who went against their rules.’
    ‘But they might have killed you.’
    ‘They probably meant to. In any case, lying out all night I should have died. It was only lucky chance that I was found.’
    ‘Then they’re murderers. And they should be punished.’
    ‘Who by?’
    ‘The law. The constable.’
    ‘I have no evidence against anyone. Whom could I accuse? It was dark, and foggy. I never saw a face, or heard a voice.’
    ‘Then if it was Armstrong’s men it was because you were doing Webster’s smith work and he should have stood by you.’
    ‘Maybe in a way he has; maybe he put on the new man just until I was better.’
    Kate shook her head.
    ‘No, I made sure of that. And he seemed so against you, somehow. I think he would have sacked me, simply for being your wife, but Margit got married and left us short-handed on the floor.’
    ‘Why should he be against me? I always served him well. I shall come along in the morning and see him.’
    ‘I don’t think it will do a ha’porth of good,’ Kate said.
    In the morning I dropped Kate and the children at the door of the woolshed and went to look for Master Webster. He was m the stables and the moment he saw me his face darkened.
    ‘What d’you want?’
    I forced myself to be meek.
    ‘I’ve come back to work, Master.’
    Not here. I’ve no use for blabbermouth jugheads.’
    ‘Me?’ I was never more astounded. I was of sheer necessity the soberest man who ever wore shoe-leather, and I never talked to anyone. Even Kate hadn’t known why I worked so late so often, until Armstrong had come and let it out.
    ‘Yes. You. You got yourself tipsy in the Smith’s Arms and bragged about what you were doing here after dark.’
    ‘I haven’t been in the Smith’s Arms since the day Armstrong broke it to me I couldn’t join the Guild. Who’s the liar who said he saw me there? I’ll break his neck!’
    ‘Shouting at me won’t mend matters. This was all gone into at a full meeting of Guild Aldermen.’
    ‘What was? You know yourself, I told you at the time, that I was spied on and reported to Armstrong and that he came and saw me and threatened me. You said take no notice and go on as we were.’
    ‘Nobody spied on you. You made that up when you realized, sober, what you’d said in your cups. And it was a poor reward for my pandering to you.’
    ‘Pandering to me?’
    He fixed his eyes on some point behind me, over my shoulder and said in a wooden way which told that he was repeating something said before,
    ‘You wanted to keep your hand in – on the smith work, and I was silly enough to let you shoe a pony now and then. For practice, against the time you hoped to get back into the craft. Ain’t that right? Out of charity I did it.’
    I saw his plump red face, the eyes avoiding mine, the lips moving, spilling out the lies; and then the red mist came down and blotted it out. I could feel, beforehand, the supreme pleasure of smashing my knuckles through the mist and on to that well-padded jaw. But this time I held my hand. Hit him and short-handed or not he would give Kate her quittance, and what she earned was, at this moment, all there was between us and starvation.
    Whirling about at the back of my mind was the thought that free men can suffer humiliation deeper and more hurtful than any a serf can ever