Nine months after sleeping with Farmer Lodge I was having a baby and as I hadn’t slept with anyone since it must have been his. This was the birth of many troubles and problems to come but it was also to be the start of something magical and enjoyable. I was to have many moments of happiness, which far out weigh the bad points.
Later on in the year I was to hear of a woman called Gertrude moving into the village. She was to become Gertrude Lodge, Farmer Lodges (my love’s) wife. I was really disheartened by this and started to think about what had happened only 12 months ago now. Farmer Lodge was the father of my child and yet he didn’t once do anything to help me or support me through this time; and now he was marrying a woman of whom I didn’t know as she was a land owner, like him whereas I wasn’t so I couldn’t marry him. I felt this was unfair as not only had he loved me but also he got me pregnant and now he doesn’t want anything to do with me. Perhaps it is true what they all say about men not wanting children and if they get their lover pregnant then they leave them as there was neither a form of contraception or abortion back then.
Life as a mother was hard and trying. The income I brought in was low enough but to add to matters I had to feed and cloth a baby. I eventually plucked up the courage to go and ask Farmer Lodge for a raise and gave him the reason for my asking. I thought that it was the least e could do for me after what he had put me through all that mental torment and physical pain. As I walked in to confront Mr Lodge I could sense the strong smell of perfume, which arose out of the door almost like someone was trapped within. I realised Gertrude must have been there but I still persisted on my quest for freedom from this man and for also the help I deserved. As I put my hand against the door it was warm but at the same time damp due to the years of rain pounding down upon it. It was a vast oak door of which I couldn’t push open on my own so I found the knocker on the door and banged it. The sound rumbled long and low until I had heard some movement and the door was swung open as if to say in a mild dismay, WHAT? I was to say the least surprised at the reaction Farmer Lodge had to me when he opened the door. His mouth half open as if he wanted to speak but some invisible force was preventing it.
‘He…He…Hello,’ he said as if scared of me.
‘Why hello,’ I replied in a sort of comforting voice.
He appeared worried about something although I wasn’t sure what and from the look of him it seemed he didn’t know either. He invited me in after having stood around on the doorstep just staring at me as if in disbelief. On entry I looked around for Gertrude. In the corner of the room an extremely beautiful but also concerned looking person sat. I assumed that this was Gertrude and so as a nice person I said hello and asked her name. She didn’t reply so I just went about my business and asked Farmer Lodge about the rise. The strangest thing of all is he stood up once the question was put forward, said yes then walked out of the room in a type of trance as if he was under a spell of a spirit or something of that origin. As soon as he left Gertrude sprang up from the corner of the room making me jump. She landed on me as if in an almost upset but dominating way she asked me to look at her arm. At first I thought that she was crazy but then as she persisted with the question I said yes. She pulled the clothing back from the arm to reveal a really bad withered arm. This put me into a flash back in which I remembered a dream I had acquired the previous night. It was of me lying in bed when Gertrude entered my room. She was taunting me with her wedding band and eventually I had snapped and grabbed her by the arm and flung her to the ground. At first I believed it to be a bad dream but this proved that the theory wrong. I decided that as I had got what I came for I should leave if not to hide my identity from Gertrude.
For the next few months I avoided all contact with Gertrude and led a separate life in isolation. I decided to go and visit the conjurer and see what he recommended for my vision. After a lot of promiscuous contemplation he invited me into his room in which I looked into this portal type place. Only I could see what I saw but the bits I did see I didn’t want to see again. I would tell you but these are secrets that only I will know as that’s how I want to keep it. As a member of the Antidisestablishmentarianisms club I believe firmly in not allowing people to find out and manipulate the secrets that I have hidden for so many years and for so many reasons.
Anyway after the conjurer I carried on with my life as a milkmaid looking after my son and earning less than the total minimum wage. At about 17 – 18 years of age my son was usually out most nights with his mates from the local school. He was out with friends one night when after indulging in a few pints from the local tavern he and others wondered back home. Making enough noise to wake the dead they did something, which was to change not all but only my sons life. The group of friends accidentally set a hey rick on fire. They all scattered but my son (to drunk to walk) couldn’t so when the authorities arrived they found him next to it. He was sentenced to death by hanging. This wouldn’t normally have happened but at that point there was a lot of destruction to land and property around that area so there was a inevitably a person now to make an example of.
After the death the farmers wife Gertrude died due to stress and the withered arm. I decided to go and live somewhere away from the village but later returned to my dead end job as a milkmaid. There was however a small annuity left to me (from Farmer Lodge who funnily enough wasn’t seen in the village again presumed dead) but I declined as I only had myself to live for and nothing to motivate me. This is how I have spent the rest of my life doing what I’m best at – milking cows.
