Lament for a lost lover

“It was August,” said Harriet, “for I am a May baby. Little did that simple country maiden realize what would happen when she dallied in the cornfields with her lover. He was very good looking-she told me afterwards, for I never saw him, nor did she after they left, for she did not know then that besides planting the seeds of love in her heart he had planted something else in another part of her anatomy.” Her conversation grew racy and there were times when I was unsure of what she meant, but I gradually learned; she certainly was educating us all-myself no less than the others.

“In those days,” she went on, “there were no women players. Their parts were played by boys, which was trying for strolling players if they wanted women. No wonder they looked to the village maidens to supply their needs. Sometimes they played in big houses ... castles, mansions. That was what they looked for, but they did very well on the village greens, because there was little that appealed to country folk so much as fairs and strolling Players. So he played his romantic roles, Benedict, Romeo, Bassanio ... He was one of the leading players and took these roles on account of his good looks. It was a busy life for him-always on the move, learning new parts, searching for girls and persuading them to supply his needs. Oh, yes, he was very handsome. My mother said he was, and I don’t think she ever really regretted what happened. “The players moved on and he promised to come back for her. She waited but he never came. She used to make up all sorts of reasons why he hadn’t come back. She thought he had been killed in a brawl, for he was a great fighter and, she said, would pick a quarrel as easily as wink his eyes if anyone upset him. But she had her own burden to bear. A child whose father had disappeared. It was a great crime in the eyes of those who had never had the inclination or opportunity to be other than virtuous. Of course some girls would have gone to the river-there was one conveniently close to Middle Chartley-but my mother was not the sort for it. She had always had a great zest for life and she believed there was something good round the corner. She refused to see the dark side, and even when it was presented to her, black as soot, she’d swear she could see the light round the corner. ‘Only a matter of waiting,’ she used to say. ‘It’ll sort itself out.’ But of course my existence soon become apparent, and there were scenes of recrimination in the cottage on the village green. All the maidens who had succeeded in not getting caught, as they called it, were deeply shocked by my mother who had; they had to show their horror to prove their own innocence, you understand. She lived through that time, she told me after, because she was always hoping that he would come back. I was born and my mother worked hard in the fields and I was a constant reproof to her; all the local men thought that being no longer a virgin she was there to provide sport for them. She learned how to fight, for she was determined, as she said, to wait for my father.

“I was five years old when we went to the Hall. Squire Travers Main had taken a fancy to her when he was riding by with the hounds. In fact so taken with her was he that he decided that my mother was more interesting prey than the fox. I was with her at the time and he stopped, so she told me, to compliment her on the pretty child ... myself. He was a kindly man with a wife who had had a hunting accident a year or so before and was injured, he was no lecher. He had the occasional mistress, which was understandable with a wife in such a condition. However, the was that my mother was invited to the Hall to be a housekeeper or serve in some way ... in the beginning undefined, and she went on condition that I went with her. “Our fortunes changed from that day. My mother was companion and lady’s maid to her ladyship, who was also rather taken with her, and from this it was a short step into the Squire’s bed. There were no children, and both the Squire and Lady Travers Main took an interest in me.

“I was taught to read and write, at which, my dear Arabella, I made great progress.

By this time I had decided I would be a lady. I had had a taste of cottage life. I had been informed by village hobbledehoys that I was a bastard, and I found the taste bitter. It was different at the Hall. The Squire and his lady never called me bastard; indeed their attitude towards me suggested that far from being not on an equal footing with the village children, I was superior to them; and they were determined to make me more so.