J.KARUU · 1. An Account in Cloth
The cloth had torn beside the seam, where the thread was stronger than the stuff it held. Ruth could see that before she spread it flat, but the miller's messenger had put his finger through the opening and called it bad stitching.
“Keep your hand out, Peter.”
He withdrew it. Rain dripped from his hat onto the flags by the door.
Lucy brought the second board from beside the bed and laid it across the trestles. Between them they lifted the heavy cloth, its damp folds smelling of ditch water and old dressing. It covered the table and hung almost to the floor. Ruth turned back a corner to keep it from the hearth.
“There,” Peter said. “Along your seam.”
“Alongside it.”
She set her thumb against the stitches and pulled. They held. An inch beyond them, the grey fabric opened under less pressure, showing pale, furry ends.
Peter watched without speaking.
“If I stitch that together,” she said, “you'll bring it back with another tear. It wants a piece let over the worn part.”
“He said eighteen pence.”
“For the seam you told me of.”
Outside, a cart wheel struck a hole, followed by a man's tired oath. Lucy smoothed the sound cloth with both hands. At fifteen she already knew when to leave bargaining to her mother; she also knew not to begin cutting before it was finished.
“How much more?” Peter asked.
“Sixpence.”
“For a scrap?”
“For a sound scrap, shaped, laid, and sewn twice round.”
Ruth opened her stock chest. The top pieces were too light. Under them lay a length she had bought before the last account was paid, counting on work that had since gone elsewhere. She drew it out and laid the damaged cloth against it.
Peter touched the brim of his hat. “I can say do it. I can't say when he'll settle.”
“How much of the old account did he send?”
“Nothing with me.”
She looked at the cloth, then at the length in her hand. Refusal would preserve the material and leave the morning empty. The mill would stand without its repaired cloth; while it stood, the miller had another reason for keeping his money.
“Two shillings for this repair, then. The old account separate.”
“I'll tell him.”
“Tell him before I carry it over.”
When Peter had gone, Lucy took the chalk.
“Here?”
“A little farther. Feel underneath.”
Her daughter rubbed the fabric between finger and thumb, moved the mark, and waited. Ruth nodded.
The rain had stopped, though the light remained poor for August. Ruth moved the trestle nearer the window. At thirty-four she could still sew through a long day without spectacles, but she had begun to resent work done in half-light: the stitches took longer, and the price never grew to account for it.
Lucy cut while Ruth unpicked the old work. The sound of the shears travelled through the boards. They saved a narrow strip that would serve for binding; the rest Ruth placed by the hearth for wiping greasy tools. Very little left the cottage without first being asked to do something else.
“Mrs. Tye wants the sheets turned,” Lucy said.
“When did she ask?”
“Yesterday. I said we'd see after the mill cloth.”
“What did she offer?”
“A shilling for the pair.”
Ruth drew a length of thread across the wax. “We must look at them.”
“I told her that too.”
They worked facing one another, feeding the weight across the boards. Ruth's palm pressed into the leather that guarded it as she drove the needle through the doubled edge. Lucy kept the patch flat, easing a small fullness before it could become a crease. Once Ruth stopped her and made her take out four stitches. The girl did it without complaint, though her mouth tightened.
“A fold there will rub,” Ruth said.
“I see it now.”
By noon the window had cleared enough to show the washing on the next cottage's line: two shirts hanging motionless, wet as when they had been put out. Ruth ate bread standing while Lucy finished the last side. Then they exchanged places and examined each other's work.
The patch lay close. Ruth pulled across it, first gently, then hard enough to lift the cloth from the boards. Nothing shifted.
“Fold the clean side inward,” she said. “I'll take it while the path holds.”
They wrapped the bundle in an old sheet and tied it. Lucy stayed to clear the table. There was their own mending to be done, a basket beneath the bed that had waited through three paying jobs.
At the wash edge, the path narrowed between a shallow ditch and grass marked by cattle. Ruth carried the bundle high against her breast. Water shone in the hollows where hooves had broken the ground, and twice she turned sideways to pass without brushing the cloth against the sedge.
Hester Bell was bringing two cows towards the cottages. A boy followed with a stick held across his body, too far behind to be useful.
“Take the grass by me,” Hester called. “That middle bit won't bear you.”
Ruth stepped where she pointed. The ground yielded but held.
“Still out, then?” Ruth asked, nodding towards the cows.
“While there's something for them. Another wet week and I'll be fetching feed before I meant to.”
One cow reached for the wrapping sheet. Ruth turned her shoulder away.
“Mill work?”
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