Hosts of Rebecca

city are as Tessa Lloyd Parry, I thought; knobbled knees on their winter pavements, the drumstick wavings of their starving children, the ragged droop of their twisted crones.
From a lopsided womb had come Tessa, spewed, not delivered, and she had not walked since birth. Strange you can pass the cripples of the poor without a second look while the sight of crippled gentry brings you to tears. Strange is Man’s pity. The cripple in rags is revolting but pity is flung at the cripple in silk.
Cutting hearts in oak trees now, entwined, pierced, dripping with blood.
We met in secret, of course, with a tongue-pie for Tessa and a belting for me if her dad, the Squire, got hold of it, and if old Ben, the servant, knew of our meetings he kept it pretty well buttoned. Special, this Sunday – Tessa’s birthday, being June, and a cameo brooch for presentation from me – thieved by moonlight from Morfydd’s room. Death by fire for the thief if she found him.
O, that Sunday!
Larks were singing in the unbroken blue and just enough heat in the air to evaporate Waldo’s dewdrop. White-sailed schooners ploughed the estuary and the mountains were fleeced with the splashing brooks as the bath plug came out of spring. Bedsheet clouds were billowing round Gabriel who was sorting them out for weddings and shrouds, and the old sun, catching alight to the flame of summer, flung golden swords over the bright green country. O, wonderful is summer! Crescent wing on bubbling air, the eaves-chattering sparrows, with a million hearts leaping to the wooing every square mile, including me. Singing, face turned up to the sun, my heart was pounding with every step nearer to Tessa. Down from Cae White to the woods of the Reach, leaping the gates, diving over the hedges to Tessa’s red lips and a once-a-week loving – through Waldo’s game preserves now, into Squire’s field where his rams were grazing. Clovenhooved swines, these, with the faces of Satan and enough lust in their matings to satisfy Nick himself. Never took to rams much, preferring their wives and their children with their thumb-sucking daintiness. So over the gate with me and I landed on one’s back, gripping his horns, heeling his sides, and away across the field we went as things insane with the other ram following and baa-ing blue murder. Nothing like a ride on a ram, says Joey; an art in itself, says he, for if you can stay on a ram in June you’ll ride most things. Through the lambs we went and over his backside went me, with his mate catching me square as I presented the target, the devil, bowling me somersaults. I fled with rams after me and belly-dived the fence into Bully Hole Bottom. Duck Waldo’s fence again and the mantrap faces you; try it with your toe for the fun of it, risking your foot for the joy of it, and the game birds rise to the shattering crash. Wait, steady. Stand stock still, for the woods have eyes, one pair especially. Over by there, a bit to the left. Motionless he stands, old Grandfer Badger, carved in stone, every nerve trembling, for he knows what is coming if I get within reach of him. Nose down to leaves he stands, hoping to be missed in the forest stillness of branch and leaf. Hands in pockets, I started whistling, wandering towards him, kicking at stones, not the least bit interested in badgers. Then leap the last yards. Shoulders screwing he dives for his earth, frantic, for the earth is a fox hole and not designed for badgers. In! Kneeling, I stared into darkness, then cursed his soul, for he kicked with his hind feet and shot out pebbles to blind me. Down flat for revenge then, one arm down the hole. Legs waving, I reached for him, fingers prodding till I touched his backside, then walked my fingers to the stump of his tail, gripped it and heaved; and the earth is rumbling to the thunder of his indignity. Red in the face, he is, bracing his forelegs, scraping his hindlegs, for that swine Jethro Mortymer’s got hold of my tail. Heave. Grandfer heaves back. Seen and unseen we grunt and strain, but he is a grandfer and I am younger, and out he comes bellowing. Roaring, he comes, stumps of teeth bared, wheeling for the conflict, snapping, snarling. Away, me, followed by Grandfer, leaping the boulders, putting up pheasants. But wait!
Little Mam Pheasant is lying in leaves, and her beak is red and her chest is heaving, for Waldo and his gun have passed her in flight, and she turns up her head to the tickle of my finger. Dad Pheasant now, head on one side, inquiring; cannot make out why she’s broody in June. Soft was her neck in the twist of my fingers and the wind did a sigh as her little soul flew upward. Up in a branch with her, for Mam has a fancy for pheasants; up beyond the reach of thieving badgers, and on to the river. Running now, hobnails thumping for the last quarter mile. Breasting a rise I raced down the hollow and along the bank where Tessa sits waiting.
“Tessa!”
Sitting as I left her last Sunday. But different this time, sweetened by the year of our parting. Breathless, I reached her, and knelt.
“Tessa,” I said, gasping.
The way she looked, perhaps, the narrowing of eyes. No need for mirrors. I kissed her. And I heard the quick inrush of her breath as I put my arms about her and kissed her again and her yellow straw hat fell off to her shoulders and her hair tumbled down to the force and fire. Great was the strength in me, sudden, unpitying, and she turned away her face and twisted in my arms, and there was a trembling within her that leaped to my fingers. Soft was her breast. …
“Jethro!” she said, sharp.