“Nothing,” Alinor said. “Nothing’s wrong.”
Alys met her eyes and flushed as if she realized that her mother had guessed her secret. “Ma?” she said uncertainly.
“We’ll talk later,” Alinor ruled.
Alys blushed deeply, and drew closer to Richard, as if she were claiming him. “Ma, this is the man I’m going to marry,” she announced.
Richard flushed like a boy but stood with pride. “If you permit,” he said politely. “I have promised. I have given my word. We are betrothed.”
“Let’s see what your father says,” Alinor replied cautiously.
Holding Alys’s hand, Richard led the way up the path to the house. Alinor followed, thinking guiltily that Ned must be right, and the wildness that he saw in her had come out in her daughter. She had failed to control the lust that lived in every fallible woman since Eve, and she had failed to teach Alys any better.
The front door opened with a creak from disuse, and Mrs. Stoney stood in the doorway, her maidservant behind her.
“Good day, Mrs. Reekie,” she said formally.
“Good day to you, Mrs. Stoney,” Alinor replied, struggling for calmness.
The woman turned to her son. “Go and fetch your father,” she said. “He’s in the barn.”
Richard looked as if he did not want to leave Alys, but he went obediently as Mrs. Stoney led the mother and daughter into the best room at the front of the house. It was furnished sparsely with solid dark furniture; a large cupboard laden with expensive pewter took up all of one wall. There was one great chair with a woven back and arms, which was clearly for the master of the house, and a second chair beside it. Alinor put her basket of oils down by the door and moved tactfully to a smaller chair beside the dark wooden table, laid with a small piece of tapestry, anchored by a bowl of heavy pewter. Mrs. Stoney seated herself in the second-best chair; Alys stood beside her mother and was not invited to sit at all.
They heard the men coming in the back door and the noise of Mr. Stoney knocking mud off his boots. Then he came into the room. He was a short, bluff, red-faced man with a ready smile and a handshake for Alinor, who rose to greet him.
“How do?” he said to her. “How do?” Then he turned to Alys. “And how’s the prettiest maid in Sussex today?”
Alys curtseyed and went to him for a smacking kiss on both cheeks.
“Will you take a glass of ale, Mrs. Reekie?” he invited.
“Bess is fetching it,” his wife said.
“And the young people can walk round the orchard, I suppose,” he said.
Bess entered with a tray of pewter mugs, and Richard and Alys escaped.
“He loves to walk her round the farm,” Mr. Stoney confided. “He’s that proud of it. Our only child, y’know.”
“I know.” Alinor took a cup and sipped. It was home-brewed small ale and Mrs. Stoney had sweetened it with apples from her orchard. Alinor could taste the fruit. “This is very good, Mrs. Stoney.”
The woman smiled at the polite compliment. Alinor observed her smugness and wondered if she would be a kind mother-in-law to Alys, who would live with them at this farm and share a house with this woman for life.
“So, our young people want to make a match of it,” Farmer Stoney said to Alinor. “Richard came to me after harvest home and said he had plighted his troth without a word to me.” He chuckled, shaking his head. “Boys, eh? And he’s brought her back here a few times, and we like her very well. But I should really be talking with her father.”
“As you know, my husband’s at sea,” Alinor said cautiously. “He’s been gone nearly a year now. All the arrangements fall to me.”
“Your brother doesn’t act for you?” Mrs. Stoney inquired.
“I decide about my own children,” Alinor said with quiet dignity. “My brother advises me when I need it.”
“Does he know you’re here today?” Mrs. Stoney demanded.
“He does.”
“Well, you’re no fool, I know that,” the man said encouragingly. “But you must realize that we could look very high for Richard. He’s our only son and he’ll inherit all of this, when we’re gone. There’s nothing owed on the farm. I had it entire from my father, and I improved it, and I will pass it on entire. It’s a tidy inheritance.”
“I know,” Alinor said. “It’s a beautiful farm. But Alys was taken with your son even before she knew who he was, when she first saw him at the mill. She had no thought of all of this.”
Mrs. Stoney sniffed, as if to say that she doubted it.
“It would be a love match,” Alinor pursued. “But of course, she will bring a dowry.”
“Does she have her own linen laid away?” Mrs. Stoney asked.
“No,” Alinor said, thinking of the corner of the room of the little cottage, the box of treasures that held nothing but a paper contract and a red leather purse of dross. “Not yet. But by the time of the wedding, I will be able to send her with some sheets . . .” She saw the disapproving look on the woman’s face. “And some wool,” she added.
“This is what comes of sending him to the Millers’ farm,” Mrs. Stoney complained aside, to her husband. “You sent him to learn milling, but all he has learned is disobedience.”
“He can make his own choice,” her husband rejoined. “She’s a pretty girl and she knows all that she needs to know to be a working farmer’s wife. Isn’t that right, Mrs. Reekie?”
“She does everything at the tide mill,” Alinor confirmed. “Mrs. Miller keeps a very good place and Alys has learned housewifery there. She works in their dairy, she can milk cows, she can brew, she bakes bread, she cooks, she spins of course, and she sews. And I’ve taught her the herbs and the uses of them. She can read and write. You’ll find her very able in the dairy and the brewery, in the bakery and even outside.”
“Would she bring your recipe book?” Mrs. Stoney demanded.
Alinor flinched. She had a recipe book inherited from her mother with cures for all known ailments and injuries, the proper uses of herbs and how to grow them, use them, and distill them. It was her greatest treasure and the bedrock of her practice as a healer. “I will copy them,” she promised. “I will copy them for her. And, of course, if there were any illness or trouble I would come to you for free, as family.”
Mrs. Stoney looked as if it was not enough. “And these savings?” she inquired. “What dowry will she bring?”
“I have thirty-five shillings saved just now,” Alinor said with quiet pride. But obviously, this was not enough; the woman merely raised her eyebrows. “I will have another ten by their wedding day if they marry at Easter,” Alinor added. “And my son, Rob, will have his quarterly wages from the Priory at Candlemas. That’s another fifteen shillings.” Alinor tried to speak calmly about these tremendous sums of money, far more than she had ever earned before, but she saw Mr. Stoney’s glance at his wife and her firm shake of her head, her down-turned mouth.
“We can’t let him throw himself away,” he explained.
“I can add from my fees as I earn them,” Alinor said. “I attend almost all the births in Sealsea Island. I could promise a monthly payment in their first year of marriage—say—from my fees.”