Daughters of the Witching Hill (25 page)

"Why would she say such a thing to you?" I took his fist in my hands, gently chafing it till his fingers loosened and threaded with mine. "Did you take something of hers without asking?"

"Only some turves of peat."

He couldn't have taken many, I thought, for peat was well heavy. Strong as Jamie was, it was nigh on impossible that he'd made off with more than was his fair reward for the digging he'd done.

"Our Jamie, if you were working for her and took some peat for yourself, all you needed do was ask her. I'll go round and talk to her."

"I was hungry, wasn't I, after digging, so I went into the kitchen. I was fair clemmed."

"Course you were. Anybody would be." But my heart sank at the thought of him seeing something in the Towneley kitchen that struck his fancy. A pewter mug or a brass candlestick.

"She sent me packing." He trembled in his outrage. "She hit me! Gave me a knock between the shoulders."

To my fright, Jamie began to weep at the injustice. Rarely had I seen him cry, but now his tears blinded him. He stumbled and would have fallen had I not held fast to his arm.

"Said folk with thieving hands had no business in her kitchen."

"Jamie!" I wiped his tears on my apron. "She made you dig all day, then never fed you?"

My hands sought the place on his broad back where Mistress Towneley had struck him, and I quaked at the thought of Jamie swinging round and hitting her back. Strong lad like him could kill a woman with one blow.

"She said I was to bide outside and wait for my dinner. Eat outside like a pig. Said I'd no business stepping in her door."

"You'll never go back there. Sarah Holden will treat you a sight better, Jamie, I promise. She'll sit you down at her table with the rest of her family and stuff you till your breeks won't fit anymore."

But Jamie wouldn't leave off brooding on Mistress Towneley. "I'll make her pay. Dandy showed me how."

"Hush," I pleaded. "Our gran wouldn't want you saying such things."

Full sullen, my brother stared off ahead. Presently he pointed.

"She comes," he said in such a voice as to make me leap out of my skin. "Her path crosses yours. There's no running away from her, our Alizon."

I spotted a golden-haired child heading our way from off in the distance. As the sun filled her halo of hair, my nape prickled, for I thought it must be some apparition—a spirit like Gran's Tibb. But when we drew closer, I saw it was only a thin girl, a few years older than our Jennet. Coming up behind her was a haggard woman in a threadbare kirtle that was near to falling off her gaunt frame. Annie Redfearn barely lifted her eyes as she dragged herself past us.

"It was a clay picture what killed our father!" my brother yelled at her.

"No," said Annie. "That's a wicked lie you're telling."

Such a sorry-looking thing she was that I wished I'd some bread to give her, even if she was Chattox's own flesh and blood. But it was all I could do to keep my brother from pummelling her.

"If there's a scalp and teeth buried at Malkin Tower," he fumed, "it's Chattox's doing. Chattox and Betty's, what died from flea bites."

Annie and her daughter fled whilst I seized Jamie round the waist to keep him from charging after them.

In truth, the sight of Annie Redfearn spooked me more than any spirit familiar could have done. I'd never seen anybody so forlorn. She wasn't like her mam, was Annie, no malice or scheming in her eyes, but a woman worn down to the bone, nothing left to her but want and despair. I could picture Annie sending her little Marie off to beg whilst she herself hid in the shadows. With her angel-bright hair, Marie Redfearn was pretty enough to fool folk into forgetting that she was a witch's granddaughter. Poor child was her family's only hope of charity. Gran had told me that Annie, in her younger days, had been a rare beauty, but it seemed a tall tale to look at her now.

Well thankful, I was, when we finally reached the gates of Bull Hole Farm.

"Our Jamie, put a smile on your face. You can smell Mistress Holden's cooking from out here!"

I teased my brother about being such a hard worker that he'd put the Holdens' hired men to shame and wouldn't it be something if Master Holden hired him. Why, then I'd always have an excuse to come round and have a natter with Nancy. Grabbing Jamie's hands, I led him in a wild jig, laughing with him till his bitterness melted away.

Nancy dashed out. "Alizon, look at me! I'm right again."

She beamed and I danced round with her, then Jamie took her hands and whirled her about, but Nancy jumped away from him when her mam came out to gawp at the pair of them. Saddened me, it did, to see Sarah Holden purse her lips at our Jamie.

"Nancy needs to stay quiet and build back her strength," Mistress Holden said.

My friend took my arm and drew me into the kitchen, leaving Jamie and her mother to follow.

"Mam won't let me rake hay!" Nancy lamented. "Instead she'll have me tied to the kitchen, cooking and spinning."

"Keep you out of the hot sun and harm's way," her mam said, fond but firm.

And she'd keep Nancy well away from the road, I thought, for fear of Chattox calling round again out of sheer spite. But it was hard to hold any grudge against Mistress Holden when she sat us down to thick pottage with barley dumplings, and she wasn't the least bit stingy, allowing our Jamie to wolf down five portions till even he could not swallow another spoonful. Looked so contented, my brother did, that I hoped Mistress Towneley was banished from his mind.

After thanking Mistress Holden, Jamie and I stepped out into the gleaming morning where the larks sang and reeled.

"You're a powerful-built man," I told my brother, kneading the muscles in his arms. "Make us proud, lad. Show the Holdens what you can do."

Swell with love, I did, to see him pick the biggest scythe and step into the long, waving grass. With swoop after swoop, he sliced his way through the hayfield whilst Matthew Holden and the hired men struggled to keep pace. Soon my brother's threadbare shirt ran dark with sweat and lay plastered to his chest and back, revealing the might beneath. I prayed that Matthew would see for himself what a fine hired man Jamie would make. If only my brother could find steady work with kind folk, I wouldn't have to fear for him so.

The only girl in a field of men, I didn't shirk my duties. Like the rest of them, I'd a scythe and strong arms to wield it, and I swung in time with Matthew. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught him looking at me, which made my cheeks burn. Was he looking at me in
that
way?
You are growing into a beauty,
Gran had told me not two days ago, her blind eyes fixed upon my face. But Mam had warned me not to get too full of myself, for there was nothing more tiresome than a vain, simpering girl. In truth, I hadn't much of a clue how I looked since we'd no mirror. Besides, I wasn't given to flirting and had vowed never to make the same mistake as Mam had done by throwing away my honour to satisfy the lusts of some wretched man who would just toss me away afterward and call me a whore. Nothing less than true love would turn my heart.

Yet the look Matthew was giving me was enough to make my knees knock. How could this be? He was my best friend's brother and well older than I was: a man of thirty-two with five children. Then again, wasn't Matthew Holden a widower in need of a wife? He was handsome enough in his way, for he shared Nancy's smile and her warm brown eyes. If I married him, my fondest dream would come true. I'd be one of their family, living in their home and spending every day with Nancy till she, too, married and moved away. What's more, if I were a yeoman's wife, folk would call me "Mistress." Mistress Alizon Holden. I'd sleep every night in a fine poster bed. Except I wasn't near ready to marry yet.

In a fit of sadness, I wondered if Matthew would consider me too far beneath him. Man like him could get a girl with a good portion, or a widow with land of her own and a herd of cattle. Perhaps the best I could do was marry a hired man like my own mam had done. Then Gran's voice whispered loud in my breast:
Girl like you could do better than settle for a widower with five children.
Straightening my back, I looked Matthew full in the face. With a fierce sweep of my scythe, I swore that I'd take a man as good as my own father over any yeoman's son.

Sweat poured down my face and the sun scorched my skin. By evening I'd be brown as bread, not that I minded. Folk could call me what they liked, but I wasn't afraid of hard graft. By Our Lady, I'd find a young lad with shapely legs, so I would, who knew how to make me smile. So I laughed and joked with the hired men and thought,
Let them watch me. Let them see my strength and will in each reach of my scythe.

After the hay was cut, Mistress Holden brought us buttered bread, cheese, and plumcake, whilst Nancy carried out the ale, cool from the cellar, but none too strong as we'd still plenty more work to do. Whilst I gulped from my mug, I thought to myself how clean and neat Nancy looked, not a wrinkle in her apron, her hair tucked smooth beneath her spotless white coif whilst I sprawled on the ground, my skin coated in sweat and grime. But she hung close by, giving me a melancholy look as though she envied me my freedom to work with the men. Catching her eye, I winked, and she grinned. And then, surrounded by the cut hay with its dust clouding the air, she began to sneeze and wheeze and cough till she near doubled over.

I jumped to go to her, but her mam got there first and hustled her back to the house. When I made to follow, Matthew grabbed my arm. I caught my breath to feel the heat of his hand on my wrist, and I thought that there was a bond between him and me no matter what folk said, for once he had been the little boy my Gran had saved from wasting away.

"Peace, our Alizon," said Matthew, smiling into my flustered face. "Nancy will be all right. Just let her mother look after her."

***

After we'd raked the hay and forked it into stacks to dry in the sun, we headed to the house for our supper. I yearned to talk to Nancy, but she was sat at the other end of the table, and with the hired men and Matthew's children yammering away, she could scarce hear me above the din. She looked to be in a sad way, and she still coughed now and then. It wasn't till I was helping her clear away the dirty crockery that we'd a short spell alone together. The men had gone out to look at Matthew's yearling colt, and Mistress Holden was putting the little children to bed.

"I'd a dream about you and Miles Nutter," I began, thinking it would cheer her or at least make her laugh, but she only shook her head and rested her pale fingers on my brown arm, which ached from scything and raking.

"Our Alizon, I'd give anything to be as robust as you. I'm tired of being such a frail thing. Mam almost forbade me to carry the ale out to you in the field. When she saw me coughing, she said I wasn't to leave the house for the rest of the day. I'm lucky she didn't send me to bed along with the tots."

"You're mended," I told her. "You're well as you ever were."

"Was I ever well?" Tears fell fast from her eyes, but she swiped them away. "I was never half so healthy as you, our Alizon. You can walk ten miles and be no wearier than if you'd walked from our door to our gate." She took my hand as though to gather strength from me. "Mam has a mind to send me to live with my godmother in Trawden Forest."

This time
I
wept, for I couldn't bear the thought of having her torn from me.

"She has a nephew looking for a wife," Nancy said, her voice flat, her eyes cast down to the floor.

"You're only sixteen!"

"Mam says I
must
go away, out of Chattox's reach. Father says I've the green sickness. My courses won't come. I haven't bled in almost a year and I only grow thinner."

"Green sickness?" My voice caught as I watched her crumple.

Nancy was one year older than I was, but she'd still the body of a scrawny child, no sign of womanliness about her, whilst I, for all my rough living, was shapely and rounded. Her appetite had never been like mine. Though her mother tempted her with the most delectable victuals, Nancy could never get much down. Her once-rosy skin had gone chalky of late. In truth, if I peered at her close, I could detect the palest tinge of green about her face.

She rested her brow upon my shoulder. "It's the virgin's disease, so my father says. The only cure is marriage. The longer I'm a maid, the worse it will get. Then with Chattox casting her evil eye on me—"

"Don't speak of her." Holding my friend's thin body, I wished I'd the powers to spirit her away to a place where she would be safe always. Never had I imagined that her good parents would be capable of strong-arming her into a hasty and unwanted marriage.

At the sound of Mistress Holden's approaching footsteps, Nancy and I pulled apart. I wiped my tears on my sleeve whilst my friend bent over the hearth smooring the ashes, so her mam wouldn't see she'd been crying.

As we trod home, Jamie was in high spirits, rambling on about flying colts and fire-spitting hares and Master Duckworth of Laund who'd promised him an old shirt. I just nodded my head whenever Jamie expected it of me, but I felt too oppressed for Nancy's sake to say much. How soon could her parents force her to the altar? First they'd have to post the banns and, God willing, something might happen in the meantime to strike some sense into their heads.