The Wilding (5 page)

In fact her letter was not so well expressed or neatly written as I have set it down here and took me some time to puzzle out. Of my parents, my father was much the better scholar and I wondered why he, rather than Mother, had not taken up the pen. I was pleased, however, at the words Mother had chosen, for her letter came to me already opened; it was a kind of triumph that Aunt Harriet, spying into it, had found nothing but kindness. Love for my mother and father swelled in my breast, the more tenderly in that I was about to disappoint them: I would return home only when I had done what I came here to do, and that would take longer than a week. Had they really needed me to make the cider, I would have returned; but I knew Father could do it all by himself.

Leaving the letter in my chamber, I made my way downstairs. My aunt was standing near a window at the bottom of the staircase, examining some silks a merchant had sent to her, and holding them under the light; she looked up on hearing my approach. As she did so, her glance fell on the window, which gave onto the front of the house. I saw her body stiffen. She put down her silks, calling, ‘Geoffrey! Geoffrey!’

Curious, I went to the window. All I could see was a beggar-woman, her shoulders bent and her head concealed in a clout, standing outside in the lane. She did not seem to be looking at our house more than any other, but I guessed she had glimpsed my face at the window, for she started to hobble away. The next minute, Geoffrey rushed past me and out of the front door, holding a stick. The beggar moved off, but not before he had fetched her a swingeing blow across the shoulders. I had heard my aunt calling, ‘Geoffrey! Geoffrey!’ before, but this was the first time I had seen him; he was a big man and as he entered again, panting after the sudden call to arms, I felt sorry for the woman he had driven away.

‘She’s gone, Mistress.’

‘She’s forever hanging round,’ said my aunt to me.‘In league with robbers, most likely. Any time you see her, Jonathan, tell Geoffrey at once.’

I turned back to the window just in time to see what nobody else saw: Tamar standing outside, staring after the beggar. She must have run around the side of the house. As she turned back towards me her fists were clenched and her face more bitter than I had yet seen it.

‘Does Tamar chase her away, too?’ I asked when the girl was safely out of sight.

My aunt looked surprised. ‘It’s Geoffrey’s job. Tamar hasn’t time to chase after witches.’

‘Witches, aunt? Is she really a witch?’

‘Who knows?’ my aunt responded irritably. ‘Whatever she is, she’s not welcome here.’

‘Where does she live?’

‘You know beggars. They drift with the wind. You may go, Geoffrey.’

She settled back to examining her silks.

* * *

I was now getting to know something of the servants kept about the house. There were six in all. Besides clearing tables and laundering clothes, Tamar helped in the stillroom when the mistress wished to make cures, perfumes and so on. Geoffrey Barnes, whom I had seen in action against the beggar, seemed to combine the tasks of a steward and an over-gardener. With the help of hirelings from the village he managed the heavy work about my aunt’s property and also went with her to market, lest she should meet with annoyance there; he was so trusted by Aunt Harriet that during busy times he was permitted to hire on his own authority. Geoffrey’s wife, Rose, did all the cooking and preserving of edibles; between her and Tamar there existed an uneasy truce. Anne James wiped furniture, swept floors and beat hangings; there was also a lady’s maid called Hannah Reele who was rarely seen outside my aunt’s chamber. Lastly there was a dwarf hunchback who looked after the stable and who was known simply as Paulie, like a child, perhaps on account of his short stature. Paulie had once been married, and had a young son who did not take after his father but was of the usual size. Mostly the dwarf preferred his own company, or that of the horses; it was said he had been melancholy ever since the death of his wife.

It was plain to me, even after a couple of days, that the house could have been run with fewer servants if my aunt had pleased to do more herself. In some ways she scarcely knew her own household, and seemed to consider this ignorance a duty she owed to that famous noble blood of hers.

My intelligencer when it came to the servants and what they did was not Tamar but Rose Barnes, a motherly woman who had warmed to me as soon as I ate my first meal at that house, when my plate had gone back to the scullery clean as a bone and Rose had asked Tamar who had so good an appetite. During the lulls when there was nothing to do but wait for the apples to give up their lifeblood, I could step across the yard to the kitchen and chat to Rose, who was of an inquisitive and talkative disposition. My aunt would have disapproved of my conversing with servants, had she known, but since she rarely if ever came into the kitchen, disliking the heat and the grease though liking the finished dishes, we were safe enough. On the day of the crone’s visit I called in to discover what Rose could tell me.

‘I see the old beggar was round here this morning,’ I said.

Rose, sitting peeling a dish of pears, nodded.

‘Is she really a cunning woman, Rose?’

She laughed. ‘Not very cunning, from what I hear.’

‘You’ve not been to her, then?’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t, Master Jonathan! But I know folk who have.’

‘Do you, indeed? What does she do?’

The kitchen was stifling; Rose wiped her brow. ‘She makes charms. A woman in the village had one to call home her husband but he never came back. I don’t think God likes us to meddle with such things.’

‘What’s in the charms? Herbs?’

‘Writing.’ Rose pushed aside a heap of peel and started on another pear.

‘Marks on paper, you mean – magical signs?’

Rose shook her head. ‘Proper writing. I can’t do it myself but I know what it looks like.’

‘She can
write
?’

Rose shrugged. My curiosity now well and truly inflamed, I watched her tip the peel into a crock.

‘My aunt says she doesn’t live anywhere. How can people consult her, then?’

Deftly, scarcely looking at them, Rose began to slice the pears. ‘She lives in the wood.’

I recalled the twist of smoke I had seen go up from between the trees. It could have been anyone: a charcoal-maker, a woodcutter, a tinker. Then I remembered the respectable-looking woman I had seen stumbling along the path. Perhaps she had been on her way to consult the witch. I wondered if I could find my way back to the place where she had slid off the track and vanished.

‘Your aunt wouldn’t like you to go there,’ Rose said.

I was amused at her guessing my thoughts so easily. ‘I’m curious, that’s all. I’ve no use for amulets.’

‘Or anything else, eh?’ She was looking slyly at me now.

‘What do you mean, Rose?’

‘Men go there as well as women.’

‘Do they? Why?’

‘That I couldn’t tell you. You must ask a man.’

‘Rose,’ I asked, ‘how is it that you know where the beggar-woman lives, but my aunt doesn’t? Hasn’t she heard the talk?’

‘Your aunt doesn’t speak with many people,’ Rose returned. ‘It was the same when your uncle was alive, always private in everything. You know what they say in the village?’

I shook my head. ‘What?’

‘“None so deep as a Dymond.”’

I laughed. ‘They can’t have met my father, then! He’ll talk to anyone.’

Rose said, ‘Yours is an established family, of course, but when Mr Robin married your aunt he had more of a position to keep up.’

She spoke respectfully; yet I could have sworn she was laughing at all of us.

* * *

That night at supper my aunt put me to the question.

‘You say Mathew received a letter from my dear husband.’

‘Yes, Aunt.’

‘Who brought it?’

I was at once on my guard. ‘A boy.’

‘A boy? Doesn’t he have a name?’

‘I don’t recall hearing any.’

‘And you didn’t see him?’

‘Not well. It was dark when he found us. Why do you ask?’

‘I ask,’ she said grimly, ‘because I sent no letter. As I explained to you, my servants are forbidden to carry messages from anyone else.’

‘But surely – from Uncle Robin?’

She took a sip of wine and softened her voice a little. ‘You forget what I told you, Jonathan. Towards the end of his life your uncle’s wits were wandering; he was bedevilled by fears and bugaboos. When a husband grows impotent in his mind, a wife must assume his authority.’

‘But my father was glad to have that message,’ I said. ‘I can’t think it did any harm.’

‘I would’ve written to Mathew myself, but the end came on faster than expected,’ she replied. She looked around to make sure that Tamar was not present, then, lowering her voice, continued: ‘Robin’s fingers were so stiff he could scarcely move them. And yet he managed to write, or get someone to write it for him, and have it carried out of this house in defiance of me. It’s that girl, I’m sure. She had a hold over him.’ It had never occurred to me that Uncle Robin had not wen the letter himself. My father had found nothing unusual in the writing – or had he? I could think of no suitable reply.

‘The boy who brought it – would you know him again?’

‘I don’t know, Aunt.’

‘We shall see.’ She picked up a bell from the table and rang it. Tamar appeared at the door.

‘Fetch Paulie’s son,’ Aunt Harriet barked at her.

Tamar vanished. After a few minutes, during which neither of us ate anything, she was back at the door with a young boy who gaped to see the supper table and all the good things on it.

‘Come here, Billy,’ my aunt said, beckoning. ‘Tamar, you may go to the kitchen.’ She waited for Tamar to get far enough off. ‘Now, Jonathan. Is this the boy you saw at Spadboro?’

‘I don’t know, Aunt. May I hear him speak?’

‘Say something, child.’

‘Mistress …’ the boy began, only to trail off.

My aunt tutted. ‘Say the Lord’s Prayer. I suppose you know the Lord’s Prayer?’

Awkwardly, as if he had only just learnt it, the boy stammered through the sacred words until at last he came to ‘the power and the glory’ and faltered again into silence.

‘Well, Jonathan?’ said my aunt.

‘I don’t know.’

She gave me a look so sharp that her eyes could have sliced through my bones; but supposing they had done so, she would have found no deceit lurking in my marrow. Even after hearing the boy speak, I did not know if he was the one I had seen at Spadboro. I really could not tell.

* * *

A fine big apple log stood at the door of the cider shed.

‘There,’ I said. ‘If my aunt objects, tell her this is the one Geoffrey cut yesterday. I’ve only given you what would have come to me.’

‘Then I thank you, Sir, from the bottom of my heart.’

‘I’ve plenty more,’ I said. ‘I can spare you this.’

‘We won’t forget your kindness.’ She blushed as she spoke; I thought it made her almost pretty.

‘How will you get it to your – old woman?’ I asked. She had no cart or barrow to carry the log away; I wondered what my aunt would say if I lent my own cart to a servant girl.

Tamar laughed, the first time I had seen her do so. at’s no trouble at all, Master Jonathan! I’ll take it with me next time I go to her.’

‘But it’s heavy.’

‘No, no!’ and she bent and lifted it with ease. ‘I’ve carried more than this many a time.’

We left it propped up outside the shed so that she could fetch it whenever she chose.

‘I’ll come with you one day,’ I said, ‘and cut you some wood. We can borrow an axe and saw from Geoffrey.’

‘He won’t lend them, Sir.’

‘He will to me.’

Tamar hugged herself with pleasure and I decided to take my chance.

‘Tamar?’

‘Sir?’

I lowered my voice to a whisper. ‘Did Mr Robin ever ask you to take a letter for him? Or send a letter to anyone?’

Her face, that had been bright and exultant, now grew wary.

‘I’ll not get you into trouble, Tamar. No matter what you say to me, my aunt won’t hear of it, I swear.’

After a little hesitation she said, ‘He did, Sir.’

‘Do you know who it was for?’

‘No. He asked me to give it to a man in the village, and the man was to pass it on again.’

‘You were a good servant to my uncle, it seems.’

‘He said so, Sir. He gave me this.’ She fumbled in the neck of her gown and pulled out a gold ring threaded on a cord. ‘I can’t wear it on my finger. He said never to let Mrs Harriet see it. You won’t tell her, Sir – now you’ve sworn?’

I could see why my aunt would disapprove. ‘A ring? Why?’

‘For cleaning him up when he was stinking,’ she whispered. ‘Mrs Harriet wouldn’t, you see.’

‘I thought my aunt cared for him until she took you on.’

‘She burnt rosemary in the room, Sir, and scattered orris. But she never went near the bed. It wasn’t a job for her; she’s of noble blood.’

‘So you did all that.’

She nodded. ‘And laid out his body, Sir.’

‘You were with him a long time, then … Did you ever think, Tamar, that my uncle had something on his conscience? Something he wanted to put right before he died?’

Tamar’s eyes had been veiled, turned towards the ground. Now she lifted her face and looked directly at me. She was nearly as tall as I and for a moment we stared at each other in silence. Something was working behind her fox features, sharpening them to a new intensity.