The Care and Management of Lies Read Online Free PDF Page A

their minds was whether cows were to be moved from Barnaby to Pickwick, and whether their wives might get a bit of work, pin money earned darning pokes up in the oast house, still bearing the spicy must of last year’s hop-picking season. But soon there grew among these men something akin to envy. Though not a soul could articulate such feelings, it was clear that the farmhouse had been bathed in new light, as if it had been given a stark coat of white paint—and they wouldn’t put that past Mrs. Kezia Brissenden, Miss Marchant, as was. They could see that Tom had a freshness to him too, as he left with his workers to go out into the fields each morning. And it wasn’t that Kezia didn’t respect her role, or Tom, or the farm she had married as much as the man. She took it as it was, loved it for what it would forever be, just as she loved her husband. Kezia was Kezia, and nothing, it seemed, would change who she was, or who she might be in her world. Tom knew all this, could see and feel her establishing her place. She was not simply filling the role of another woman before her. It entertained him, this Kezia-ness that was enveloping Marshals Farm, named for a dark prison in Dickens’ day. And it never bothered him; he knew that at the center of Kezia’s rural life, they stood together, hand in hand, and all else would grow from there.
     
    I t was when they had been married precisely twenty-four days that Kezia realized that she had become somewhat disengaged from life beyond Marshals Farm, and decided to venture out beyond her immediate wifely domain of the house, the kitchen garden, or the village shop. She had been thinking about her mother. Mrs. Marchant had supported her husband in the many ways expected of a parson’s wife. She was active in the parish, with coffee mornings, flower arranging, visits to the sick and bereaved, and committee work. But she took her “days out” without apology or explanation, and Kezia could never remember a time when she had questioned where her mother might have gone at those times, or when she would return. Was it weekly that this happened? Or every fortnight? She wasn’t sure, but she supposed her mother had taken the train to London, or to the coast. A visit to an exhibition, or to Whitstable, where she might enjoy a plate of oysters, a cup of tea, and a walk along the seafront. On the morning of Kezia’s wedding, Mrs. Marchant came to her daughter’s room—not, to Kezia’s surprise, to give a lesson on married life, on what might be expected in the kitchen or the bedroom, but to slip into her hand the grand sum of ten pounds.
    “Keep a nest egg, Kezia, your private money. Keep it safe and add to it, if you can, but never let it go. A woman needs money of her own, as much as she requires time beyond the home. Start as you mean to go on, Kezia, dear. Claim what you require at the beginning with no explanation, and beyond that day you will never have to account for yourself, as long as the house is a good house, the food is on the table, and your husband sleeps well at night.”
    Then she kissed her daughter, placed her hand on her cheek, and left.
    Kezia had a nest egg of her own, held safe in the bank—money earned while working at Camden, together with a small bequest from a maiden great-aunt. But she took her mother’s advice, and kept a tin in the bottom drawer of her dressing table, into which the ten pounds was duly placed.
     
    O n this, the first day that Kezia claimed for herself, she dressed in a sturdy walking skirt, her stout leather boots, and an old cream linen blouse that had seen better days—all good enough for what she planned. She packed a sandwich, placing it in a knapsack along with an earthenware bottle of lemonade. She took a book and a bound journal—she had kept such a daily record of her life since childhood. Kezia left Ada to the kitchen and the cleaning, and upon the table set a fresh pork pie and a loaf of crusty bread—probably too