I, Coriander (6 page)

My father ordered all the windows of our house to be opened so that her spirit could find its way home. A mournful wind came whistling in, wailing its woe into every room, blowing out all the candles and bringing with it drizzling fog that hung about the house long after the windows had been closed again.

Danes washed and perfumed my mother as lovingly as if she were in an enchanted sleep, dressing her in a plain white shift and covering her shorn head. She looked so still and beautiful, her skin as white as candle wax, her hands folded together holding a winter rose from her garden. Black crape was hung round the bed and at the windows. All the paintings and mirrors were turned to the wall. Mourning clothes and cloaks were ordered from Master Thankless and mourning rings were bought. She lay in the great oak bed for three days, my father at her side, weeping inconsolably and saying over and over that she must be left there, she was just sleeping, she still might wake.

It was as if my world had fallen down, as if the house had lost its walls. I woke up in the morning, I went to bed at night as if I were someone else, someone without thought or feeling.

On the day of the funeral my father was almost wild with grief. His apprentice Sam dressed him and helped him down to our barge as if he were an old man unsteady on his feet. No coffin had been ordered; my father would not hear of it. He wanted my mother’s body to go back into the earth and replenish it. She would have wished it.

It was then that the whispers and rumours grew louder, for it was thought most shocking that my mother was not to be buried in a churchyard. This confirmed the neighbours’ worst fears, that she had been a stranger, with airs and graces that did not belong in this world.

It was dusk by the time we set off, and stillness was over the water. The sky was a bluish black and flakes of snow were falling. No one accompanied us. No priest, no mourners, just me, my father and Danes, the four bargemen and two servants. My mother’s body was placed on the barge wrapped in a white winding sheet. Silently we made our way upriver, the ripple of the water and the rhythm of the oars the only song that was sung. Past Whitehall, out of the city into the countryside, back to the meadows she had loved.

In the gloom it bore no resemblance to the place we had visited so long ago. Here I had danced with my mother under a canopy of leaves, the grass full of wild flowers. And there, where she was to be buried, her grave a raw wound in the earth, was the spot where we had kept our food baskets cool from the midday sun.

We each held a torch, a light against the gathering darkness, the white of my mother’s shroud the only thing that could be seen clearly.

‘We are but shadows that have a short time dancing in the light,’ said my father, tears running down his face. ‘There never was one as lovely as thee. Go free, my love, and one day we may be together again. Amen.’

He threw a rose down into the grave.

‘We live to die, we die to live eternally.’

As he said these words, I heard a loud cawing sound and looked up to see a raven perched high in the oak tree above us, its shape outlined dark against the night sky, its cry shattering the stillness like breaking glass. My father took hold of my hand and pulled me closer to him so that I was hidden by his mourning cloak.

By now it had started to snow heavily. Two gravediggers covered the grave until the earth lay flat and even. We stood there frozen with the cold. Only when the meadow had turned white and the grave was lost in the new snow did we make our way back to the barge. I shivered as I heard the raven’s haunting cry bidding us farewell.

The barge made its way back downriver on the outgoing tide. Black water. Black barge. My mother had taken with her all the colours of the rainbow.

I
t was as if that day we buried not only my mother but a part of my father as well, for the man who now sat in his room refusing to eat looked nothing like the strong and powerful father I knew. His face was gaunt; he had cut off all his long hair so that it stuck out in tufts. He did not shave and seemed hardly aware of anyone’s presence.

The house was now mine to roam. I could do what I liked, but all I wanted was for my mother to be there. Joan, the cook, having no food to prepare, sat in silence at the kitchen table. The servants were hardly to be seen. It was as if the whole house was cast under a spell. Danes seemed as bewildered by my mother’s death as my father.

Two cold and dreadful months passed. The black crape was still draped in every room. The sheets on the great oak bed were still unchanged and every day my father placed another winter rose on her pillow. He would allow no one to touch her dresses or her jewels.

I was beginning to think that this melancholy state would go on for ever when one evening Master Bedwell came to see my father.

I had been sitting with him in the living chamber, both of us staring silently into the fire. I was telling myself a story about a princess and a dragon. My father, lost in his thoughts, was jolted back into the present by a servant announcing Master Bedwell’s arrival.

‘I am not in,’ said my father. ‘I will see no one.’

‘I need to talk to you,’ said Master Bedwell, brushing the servant aside. ‘This cannot go on.’

‘There is nothing to say,’ said my father, turning back to look into the fire.

‘There is a great deal that must be said. I would like to talk to you in private,’ said Master Bedwell.

I got up to leave, but my father took hold of my hand and sat me down beside him.

‘Well?’ he said.

‘I have come on an important matter,’ said Master Bedwell, looking at me uncertainly.

‘You may speak freely,’ said my father.

Master Bedwell started to walk back and forth in front of the fire and then addressed himself to the flames, where most of our thoughts seemed to be that evening.

‘You have enemies and there is much talk.’

‘There has always been talk,’ said my father angrily. ‘I know people say Eleanor was a cunning woman, even a sorceress. Men cling like drowning sailors to the hope of a life everlasting and a forgiving Lord. Then, if that fails to bring them comfort, there are always magicians, sorcerers, witches and fairies to blame for their misfortune. Blame everyone and everything but do not blame yourself. What fools are men!’ My father’s laugh was hollow.

‘Cannot you see that we are living in dangerous times?’ said Master Bedwell, opening his arms wide. ‘Gossip flies. All this could be taken away from you tomorrow and you would be left with nothing.’

‘What more can anyone take from me?’ said my father, his head bent down. ‘Everywhere I go I carry my hell with me.’

‘I know, and I am greatly sorry for it, but I am talking of worldly matters. A word in the wrong ear could be catastrophic for you. Oliver Cromwell is confiscating the wealth of those who supported the Royalist cause, and you have never made any bones about the fact that you think the King should never have been beheaded. And now there is this bad business at Worcester.’

I knew about Worcester from Danes. She had told me that Oliver Cromwell had defeated the newly crowned King of Scotland, Charles II, there. The King himself, with a price on his head, had escaped to France.

‘What are you suggesting I should do?’ said my father.

‘Marry again. Marry a good Puritan woman.’

‘What! Eleanor is barely cold in her grave,’ said my father.

‘Nobody can replace Eleanor. I know that. But you could find a woman with whom you could rub along and who with her piety would stifle gossip. It would allow you to keep your wealth and your home. I have connections in Bristol who could help you.’

‘This is folly!’ cried my father, getting up and striding over to the window. ‘I am not a Puritan! I have no sympathy with their cause.’ He pushed his hands angrily through his hair and turned to face Master Bedwell. ‘Do you really believe that they would take this all away?’ he asked.

‘Without hesitation, my dear friend. You have heard what befell Master Needham. He has been made bankrupt. He too was a self-made man with no connections in Parliament, no relatives to help him, no link with the Puritans. We are in the midst of a terrible storm and I fear that it can only get worse,’ said Master Bedwell. ‘For pity’s sake, think before you lose everything.’

T
hat night I went to bed feeling uneasy. I woke to find that the window in my room had blown open and the rain was pouring in. I had to battle to close it and still the window rattled like a skeleton shaking its bones. Lightning flashed and I felt sure that I could see demons and alligators crawling across the walls. My heart pounded as I pulled the covers over my head. I wished my mother were there to make everything all right.

I could not get back to sleep, so I got out of bed and went on to the landing. Looking down, I could see my father’s study door open and warm light shining into the cold, gloomy hall. Holding my breath, I tiptoed down the stairs, hoping with every creaking step that he would come and rescue me.

I stood by the study door and looked in. My father was sitting at his desk. In front of him was an ebony casket inlaid with tiny stars that glittered in the candlelight. I had never seen it before and was curious as to what it held. I went closer, expecting at any moment that my father would look up and ask what I was doing, but when he did raise his head, he seemed to look straight through me as if I was not there.

I stood beside him and looked in the casket. At the very bottom was something silver, as insubstantial as gossamer. Carefully I put my hand into the casket and touched it.

I nearly jumped out of my skin when my father said suddenly, ‘I should have given it back to her.’

‘What should you have given back to her?’ I whispered. He still had a faraway look in his eyes.

‘Her shadow. She gave it to me on our wedding night and told me to keep it safe. She said that if I ever returned it, she would have no choice but to leave and we would be parted for ever.’

I stood staring at the shadow as it shimmered restlessly at the bottom of the casket. A dull light shone from it. It awoke in me a distant memory of a mirror I had once seen.

‘Now I do not know if I did the right thing,’ continued my father. Then he cried out louder, ‘Oh Lord, did I do the right thing?’

I asked as softly as I could, ‘Father, was my mother a fairy?’

My father looked up and, as if seeing me for the first time, said, ‘What are you doing here, Coriander?’

‘I was woken by the wind and I was frightened,’ I said.

He looked down at the casket and closed the lid quickly.

‘How long have you been standing there?’ he asked.

‘Not long. Is that really a fairy shadow?’

‘It is nothing. The casket is empty,’ said my father curtly.

‘But I saw...’

‘Nothing,’ interrupted my father. ‘You saw nothing. You heard nothing.’ Then he added softly, ‘Nothing but a fairy tale.’

8

What Will Be

I
wish I could unpick the stitches of time that have become all tangled and twisted together. If I could have done that, my mother would still be here and everything would be all right. But everything was not all right, and I wondered now if it ever would be again.

Some months after her death my father came back from Bristol saying that he had met a godly widow called Maud Leggs, and it was arranged that come next Wednesday they were to be wed.

I wanted to say ‘Wait, please wait,’ but the look on his face told me this would be unwise. Since the loss of my mother, my father had become a cloudy man, given to sudden changes of moods and temper: a ship on a rough sea, blown by invisible storms, his maps and stars lost for good. Danes called him a man under an evil spell.

The day of the wedding arrived. My father was as much out of sorts as the rainy weather, finding fault with the smallest details. His water was not hot enough, his shirt was itchy, his shoes were too tight, his servants were too slow, his coffee was too cold.

So it went on until finally Master and Mistress Bedwell came to accompany him to church. I would dearly have liked to go with them, but my father thought it unnecessary, as it was just to be a simple service. He refused to have anything made of the wedding, saying that it was unseemly to do so. This set tongues a-wagging, confirming that my father had something to hide. ‘The sooner it is over the better,’ he said to me as he left.

I stayed looking out of the window with Beth, my beloved doll, waiting for them all to return.

It was raining quite hard when the garden gate finally opened and my father came in with a large, shapeless lady who waddled like a goose, followed by a string bean of a girl who looked awkward and ill at ease. My father ushered them quickly into the house where the wedding party stood in the hall shaking the rain from their cloaks and hats. Servants rushed around busying themselves, taking away the wet outer garments and giving the party something to talk about as they were left standing there, like an ill-matched group of figures in a painting.

My stepmother was no beauty. She was round and squat with a face not unlike a potato that had been scrubbed. She had deep pockmarks and a thin scar of a mouth, two tiny beady eyes and a small upturned piggy nose given to sniffing and snorting. She smelt of sour milk. Her voice told me that she was not city bred.

‘Ah,’ said my father, relieved to have something to say. ‘This is my daughter Coriander. Coriander, this is Mistress Maud Leggs and this is her daughter Hester.’

‘Don’t you mean Mistress Hobie, sir? I am your wife now,’ said Maud, smiling at him and showing an odd assortment of black teeth.

My father looked taken aback at her words, as if a spell had been broken and the truth of what he had done had only now occurred to him.

My stepmother looked down at me and said, ‘Coriander, that be a fancy name.’

‘It is a name dear to my heart,’ said my father. ‘It was given to her by her mother.’

Maud scrunched up her nose disapprovingly, and sniffed. ‘It is not a Christian name.’