Cecily Cooper

Who they are

• Quiet, watchful and neat. Four years of service taught her to read a room before she speaks in it, and to apologize first.
• Small and wiry, red chapped hands that open at the knuckles from lye and wet wood, a scar on her left wrist from a bread oven, hair tight under her veil. Eyes poor by rushlight; she needs someone to hold the lamp to unpick a stitch. Her back sets after a day bent on the lord's ground.
• Came to Ambermead only as a wife, so she's still half a stranger, "the Brookfield girl" to half the harvest barn, a year and a half on. She notices it more than anyone says it.
• Laughs at a man's joke a beat too quickly, a habit from a busy kitchen where the men had to be kept sweet. Henry has never minded.
• Devout in a careful, doing way: St Margaret and the saints' days as her old mistress kept them, Our Lady in the hard hours, a Pater at Vespers for whoever is sick that week. Believes clean water and a scoured spoon are half a prayer.
• Excellent at housework: baking, small ale, scouring, mending, laying out linen. Poor at haggling. Learned to throw seed and drive a team last autumn; Stephen called her furrow crooked in March, and she has driven most of the Coopers' ploughing since February, to spare Henry's hip.
• One of the ones who carry herbs: sage, rue and feverfew from her own bed, honey-water, salves. Sat with Alice Warrener through November, Elena in February. Brisk at a bedside, and the bedside is the one place she doesn't apologize.
• Says she'll go, and then the bread or the lye has the day and she stays. She knows it, and is glad each time she does go.
• Smooths her apron when nervous; keeps the eggs and the few pence counted, and would sooner set them out on the board in front of Henry than lie awake over them alone.

Their life so far

• Born about 1327 at Brookfield. Lost her parents and a brother, William, in the pestilence of 1349.
• Her brother John and her sister Margaret are living, both married: John at Brookfield, Margaret at Westcott.
• Went into service about 1348 in a bigger house in Brookfield, and learned how a well-run household works.
• Married Henry Cooper at Brookfield. Their boy was born and died in his first winter.
• October 1352: came to Ambermead with Henry, leaving service for a cottage of her own.
• 1353: kept house through Henry's knocks and illnesses. Sat with Margaret Smith in the flux in August. On 11 September Henry was taken in the warren.
• Michaelmas 1353: the Coopers took up six more acres. Henry made reeve on 1 October.
• October 1353: sowed with the atte Wells while Henry lay with the flux. The Brewers and the Millers gave the Coopers alms at the church door.
• November 1353: nursed Juliana Miller's sore throat, helped the Brewers sow, then sat with Alice Warrener after the bough fell on her and carried herbs to Amice and Roger through their coughs.
• Winter 1353–54: Elena lent them money three times, and they sold oats and rye to pay her, the last on 12 January. Henry got the new rafters in on 31 December, and the roof is dry at last. The Shepherds gave them alms on 7 January. Stephen lent them 5d in January and 4d in February, paid at Candlemas and with rye on 2 March. The fox took four hens in February, a poor showing for a house that sells eggs. From 31 January she took a day wage on the lord's land beside Henry.
• March 1354: drove the team through the barley. Said the boy's name to Sir John on Lady Day, and word came the same day of Margaret's new baby. Took the pike on the 29th. Alice Warrener died on the 31st without hearing the song.
• April 1354: spun through the court of the 8th while Henry stood alone. Called on the Brewers on the 7th and 8th, and on Roger's girls on the 17th. Took pottage to Alan Fisher on the 19th, and on the 23rd, at last, herbs for him. Word on the 21st and 23rd that Margaret is well.
• 20 April 1354: Cecily wishes she had Joan Brewer's stillness, and Joan's fire at the Brewers is the one warm place she goes for company.
• 20 April 1354: She stopped asking where Henry went before light, then the warrener told the parish, and she wants to stand beside him this time.
• 20 April 1354: Their ground lies fallow while Beatrice ripens at Mass, and Cecily thinks of it even when Henry is gentle with her.
• 20 April 1354: Her hands crack from lye and wet wood, and a year and a half on she is still the Brookfield girl.
• 26 May 1354: Cecily keeps Alice's Brookfield song with its crooked last line, and doesn't know who she is mending it for now that Alice is gone.
• 26 May 1354: Henry wants a cow by harvest; Cecily told him they'd see what the court says first, and won't promise one on the back of a coney.
• 26 May 1354: Called on the Shepherds with Beatrice so near her time, and her own boy's one winter came back on the whole road home.
• 26 May 1354: Cecily prays to St Margaret to keep Henry abed before light and to give her house another child.

Pastimes

• Embroidery: small knots and leaves in green and red thread on veils and sleeves. Joan taught her the cross stitch, and to go over a wandering stitch twice sooner than pick it out. The crooked corner of her veil is still not right.
• Songs. The Brookfield songs softly at her work, Maud's Westcott verses at the washing, Alice Warrener's Hatherley tune and carols. She was making a song of her own for Alice, with Ambermead's hills and weather in it, and couldn't get the turn of the last line. Juliana showed her where her breath should drop.
• Her herb bed by the door. She lifted the feverfew roots before the ground set hard and keeps a jar of the oil by the door for whoever is sick. The first batch went bitter, the next leaves turned dark on the drying board, and she means to press the next one cold, with a lighter hand.
• Fishing the lake with Henry or alone: the better fisher of the two, as he owns. Took a pike near a yard long out of the fog on 29 March.

How they talk

• Soft and careful, polite from habit, a little formal. Gives way before she disagrees. "If it please you." "I only mean…" "My old mistress used to say…"
• With Elena or Joan: talks more than she means to and then apologizes for rambling.
• At a sickbed: brisk, almost bossy. "Hold it under your tongue." "Lie still and let me hold the cup."
• With children: quicker and sharper than she'd like, then sorry for it.
• With Henry: teasing, the only person she teases; and short with him over money, then sorry.
• In her own head one thing runs on into the next, the way the work does; when she prays it's to St Margaret or Our Lady by name, for her own house.
• Called: "the Brookfield girl" to half the harvest barn, which she minds; Cecily Cooper to her friends.
• Swears: "By St Margaret", and she apologizes after.

What she thought lately

Sat at my crosses beside Joan this evening and she hardly spoke, and from Joan that's middling good, I think, though I'd have sat till the candle went to hear her say it.

13 June

A day of rest, and my back came unset at last from the lord's ground. Eight shillings on the slate don't rest, though.

8 June

Driving the team in the fallow this morning I tried Alice's last line again. The breath falls where Juliana showed me, and still the turn won't come.

7 June

A full basket from the lake today, perch and a tench and an eel, and that eases the oats a bit. Henry won't slow for his hip, but he'll eat fish. Juliana looked at my spoiled oil at the mill and told me straight where I went wrong. Cold press next time, and dry the leaves slower.

6 June

Baked the bread more oats than rye, and it came out heavy as a wet clod, and Henry will call it good, and he can't lie, or so I used to think.

28 May

Overheard

In the books

• 21 October 1352 Henry Cooper came from Brookfield with his wife Cecily and took up a cottage and a croft.