The Wilding (7 page)

When I say ‘ran thus’ I mean it was something
like
that: ungodly gibberish and not easy to remember, though I would swear to the marks at each corner. The lines were uneven but the lack of a table would account for that. It seemed, then, that Rose had told me the truth: one of the women, at any rate, could handle a pen. I crumpled the spell in my hand and then opened the thing again, poring over it as if it might shed some light on the trackless way where I found myself; but I was as mired in darkness as ever.

*

Not so long ago, I had imagined I had only to wait until Tamar gained courage and spoke out, revealing my uncle’s secret. Now that I had spied into this wretched amulet, however, all manner of possibilities had opened to me along with its scribble: Tamar writing a letter under his dictation; Tamar substituting her own letter for his; Tamar taking his letter to Joan, who read it and then produced another more to her own taste. Each seemed equally likely, and equally pointless.

The worst possibility was that Robin had never written all. He had no crime to confess and nothing to put right; the women themselves had written the letter my father received. Even if I knew this for certain, and I was very far from knowing anything, what might their reasons be?

Had they perhaps done Robin some harm? My first childish thought was of spells, but I am sceptical of witchcraft. Poison, though … none could deny the power of poison. Slip it into a baked apple or a dish of broth, and what follows? Flux and vomit. Uncle Robin suffered both, and as a result my aunt stayed away from him, leaving all the nursing to Tamar. He was alone and helpless. My aunt had said his hands were stiff. How easy for Tamar to rub them as if to soothe the pain, and to slide the ring from his wasted finger. But (I now recalled) hadn’t my aunt said that Robin was already soiling his bedding before the girl arrived? It was just as likely that my uncle’s comfort had been increased by the ministrations of his strange but diligent servant. All I could do was proceed with care, and wait.

* * *

‘Your mother’s written,’ my aunt said when she came home.

‘Thank you, Aunt.’ The seal on this letter was unbroken. To avoid opening it in her presence, I put it in my pocket. She raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

‘Did you find what you wanted at the market?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’

I understood her: two could play at secrecy. Well, I’d be sworn my secrets were as interesting as hers. I bowed to her and withdrew to my chamber.

I went downstairs again. Aunt Harriet was standing by a window, looking out onto the road; she seemed to be waiting for something to happen. As I put the letter into her hand, she flashed me a peculiar look. It came to me that what she had been waiting for was just this moment; she knew why my mother had written.

‘
Can
you leave the apples?’ she asked.

I considered. ‘Yes. What’s in the press is nearly finished; put someone to make small cider from it and we’ll press new in a few days.’

‘And what about the murc left in the mill? How long before it goes sour?’

She made no pretence of caring about my mother’s distress; she was not even curious as to its cause. I was secretly angry at my mother for calling me away at a time when I had already too much on my mind, but I loved her a great deal and Aunt Harriet not at all.

‘I couldn’t say,’ I replied. ‘Have it watched over and if needful seatched over Binnie. I’ve already saved you a good part of his fee, dear Aunt.’

* * *

Was I pleased to return to Spadboro? To greet my mother and father, certainly, though both seemed distant and distracted. Mother kissed me and helped me off with my coat; Father, looking tired and pale, patted my shoulder and said it was good to see me safely returned home. It was a chilly afternoon; Alice was summoned to light the fire earlier than usual and we sat round it. My parents several times exchanged looks but seemed in no hurry to begin, while the silence thickened round us like ropey cider.

‘Well,’ I said at length. ‘I thought to find one of you dying, or the thatch burnt off. Am I to know why you called me back?’

Again they exchanged looks. At last my father said, ‘Your aunt wrote to me. She says you are ensnared by a whore from the village.’

Blunt words indeed, from him. At first I could make no sense of them, and was silent as I tried to fit this intelligence together with what I knew of my aunt and the time I had passed with her. Afterwards, I realised that my silence had done me harm; my parents were waiting to hear a loud clamour of innocence, but I was too puzzled to make it.

‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘I’ve never consorted with whores. I have
no
kind of acquaintance in Tetton Green, and my aunt knows that.’ A thought came to me. ‘Does she mean Tamar?’

Mother shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

‘And that’s how you call her, by her Christian name?’ asked my father.

‘Because she’s a servant – she lives with my aunt! Is Aunt Harriet saying she keeps a whore in her house?’

My father here gestured towards my mother, who got up and left the room. Watching her go, I felt afraid as I had never before done with either of my parents.

‘Now, Jonathan,’ my father said. ‘What have you done with this girl?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Harriet says you stole property and gave it her, and that the two of you go walking in the woods and hiding from decent people.’

‘Property? I gave her a log – mine to give – and a bowl of murc that she begged for a sick old woman.’

My father looked grim. ‘Is it your business to give gifts to your aunt’s servants? This girl isn’t company for you, child. Your aunt took her off the streets.’

‘It wasn’t an act of charity. She got herself a good servant – not very polished, perhaps, but –’

‘A good servant doesn’t angle for men who come to the house.’

‘What do you mean, angle? She asked my help, that’s all.’

‘You defend her as if you were her husband,’ my father said quietly.

My cheeks grew hot. ‘No, Father, indeed.’

‘Then tell me what you were doing in the wood. If you lie to me, Jonathan, and that girl comes here later with a big belly, I swear I’ll marry you to her, be she the biggest whore in England. Be honest, however, and I’ll stand your friend. Is that understood?’

How had Aunt Harriet known where we were? I had no time to think about that now.

‘Well?’ my father prompted.

‘Believe me,’ I stammered, ‘my aunt’s mistaken. We haven’t so much as looked at each other, not in that way.’

‘What, then?’

‘It was only the once. The old woman I spoke of lives there. Tamar took her the log and I helped carry it.’

‘She lives in the wood?’ My father was incredulous. ‘What in God’s name does she want with logs?’

I echoed Tamar’s own words. ‘She’s neither saw nor axe. She’s a wretched old woman, an outcast; had you been there, Father, you’d understand. We came straight back to my aunt’s house and all this time nothing took place that my own mother might not have witnessed.’

‘So you say; but you didn’t tell your aunt where you’d been. That argues a bad conscience.’

‘I thought it best. Aunt Harriet has a dislike of her servant.’

‘It’s your place as her nephew and her guest to respect your aunt’s feelings, not to side with a serving-girl against her.’

‘I know, Father, but Aunt Harriet can be hard to side with.’

Father was silent a while, apparently weighing this statement against what he knew of his sister-in-law. At last he said, ‘You’ll see no more of this girl.’

‘I’ve yet to finish the pressing,’ I said. ‘If Aunt Harriet’s apples are not to be wasted.’

Severity did not come easily to my father; nor was he the sort of man who could calmly contemplate the loss of another’s property. I saw him torn, and was sorry for it.

‘My aunt should’ve spoken to me,’ I complained. ‘All this is needless.’

‘Harriet has her own way of going about things,’ my father murmured, not meeting my eyes. ‘She means to do you good.’

I did not like this last speech, which made me think he was keeping a secret from me. At last he met my gaze with something like his old frankness and gentleness.

‘It would grieve your mother to find you in a difficulty,’ he said.

We were friends again – but nothing, after such treachery, would make me friends with my aunt.

* * *

When my father, after some grumbling about our own apples, finally gave me permission to return, I had regained a measure of self-control and was the picture of filial obedience. I smiled – I was quietly spoken – I promised to behave well all the time I was away; but it was with rage and humiliation gnawing at my heart that I set off for Tetton Green. Whatever Uncle Robin’s secret might be, I cordially hoped that in discovering it I might heap misery upon Aunt Harriet.

As I approached End House I smiled maliciously to myself. She would not be expecting my return, and I was curious as to what sort of welcome she would give her dear nephew. I got down from the cart and tied Bully to a post in the lane so as to make the last part of the journey on foot.

To knock at the front door would bring a servant. My intention was to enter at the back and thus beard my aunt without warning. I was in luck: the door leading from the lane into the yard was unlocked. I tiptoed across the cobbles and into the kitchen.

The room was empty. A tart of minced meat and onions stood on the table, waiting to be trimmed: Rose had already cut the pastry lattice but had gone away before fitting it into place. In a dish near the window lay a couple of skinned rabbits swimming in blood.

I crossed the kitchen and walked slowly along the corridor that connected it with the dining room, put my head in there just to be sure I would not miss Aunt Harriet, then went on through all the downstairs part of the house. She was nowhere to be found. I came back into the hallway and mounted the stairs. The treads creaked; my breath came quickly. I reached her chamber and tapped at the door. There was no sound from within. I dared not open the door. If I barged in, and Aunt Harriet was sitting inside, I would have played into her hands; my aunt was nothing if not cunning and would immediately pass off any shock as the natural surprise of a woman who finds her privacy violated. I wanted to see her dismayed with no cause for dismay; I wanted to see her shamed and struggling for words.

Where
was
she? Gone to market? Not gone to visit a friend, for she had none as far as I knew. I stood outside her chamber, feeling a fool.

A door banged at the front of the house. This was not at all what I had planned; instead of catching her, I would be caught. There followed a silence, and it came to me that what I had heard was not someone coming in, but someone going out. I crept to the banister to check if the way was clear. Thus it was that my aunt, newly entered from outside and fiddling with her gloves, glanced up and saw me standing at the top of the stairs.

Her reaction was everything I could have wished: even from where I stood, I could see her face drain of colour.

‘
You
… !
’ she cried.

I smiled, but otherwise remained silent and motionless. My aunt made to walk towards me, but after a few steps she sank down with a tiny, suffocated cry, keeling over sideways before sprawling full length on the floor. Alarmed now, I no longer acted the statue but ran down the stairs towards her. When Rose came through the door with my aunt’s basket, she found me sitting on the floor and Aunt Harriet lying senseless, her head in my lap.

* * *

While Geoffrey carried my aunt up to her chamber, there to deliver her over to the care of Hannah Reele, I went to fetch Bully from his station in the lane. Once he was safely in the stable, Rose took charge of me. She brought me to the kitchen and gave me gingerbread and cider-royal.

‘Who’d have thought it?’ she mused. ‘She’s tough as an old hen. Tell me again what happened.’

‘There’s nothing to tell. She saw me, said “You,” and fainted.’

‘She’s banged herself, all right.’ Rose picked up the pastry lattice and arranged it over the pie, deftly pinching the edges together.

‘Shall I send Tamar for the doctor?’

‘Tamar.’

‘What’s that look for, Rose?’

‘What look?’

‘My aunt’s been talking to you, has she?’ I blazed up. ‘It’s all false! That is,’ for Rose was now narrowing her eyes and I thought perhaps I had overstepped the mark, ‘my aunt’s mistaken.’

‘I don’t know what you mean, Master Jonathan. Your aunt doesn’t discuss her family business with me.’ I felt as if I had been slapped. Rose went on, with a little air of dignity, ‘But I do know that Tamar is no longer part of this household.’

I gasped. ‘Because of me?’

‘Because she’s a thief,’ Rose countered. ‘She took a ring from the master, God rest his soul. My word, you’re like snow! Don’t
you
go fainting on us, Sir.’ She moved the jug towards me. ‘Have a drop more cider-royal.’

During most of that day I was kept from my aunt’s room. Geoffrey relayed instructions that I was not to venture near and Hannah Reele, coming downstairs after an hour or two, reported that Aunt Harriet was delighted to learn that I was in the house, but was not yet equal to seeing me. Hearing this, I knew I had lost whatever advantage I might have gained by surprise. In the privacy of her chamber, protected by her loyal servant, Aunt Harriet had now ample time to compose her face, her voice and her excuses. I even wondered if her swooning had been feigned.

There was nothing for it but to go back to the cider-makingI went to Paulie and asked if his boy would help me. The lad came forward willingly enough and I took him with me to the cider-house.

Despite my instructions, it appeared that nobody had examined the mill since I had gone away. The murc we had previously ground lay slimy and stinking beneath a cloud of flies.

‘Will it serve, Sir?’ the boy asked doubtfully.

‘No. Fetch a bucket of water.’

Together we rinsed and wiped down the mill with a view to starting the next batch clean.

The press was also in a sad condition, the cheese of apples and straw all dried out and shrunken. I put a few jugfuls of water through it but not even paupers would have drunk what came out. Sighing, I unpacked the cheese with the boy’s help and set it aside to be spread on the vegetable beds.

The boy and I then loaded the mill with fresh apples. He seemed eager to stay but I was sick of his childish company and sent him away, telling him I would be wanting his help later on.

Once he was gone I did not bother with the horse but turned the mill myself – turned it until I felt the sweat on my back – stopping only to scrape down the pulped apples. I craved exhaustion; it seemed only right that I should be going in circles since I had discovered precisely nothing, except that my aunt had noble antecedents and her maid was half a vagrant. This princely intelligence had cost the girl her livelihood and would cost me mine if I made my other customers wait much longer.

I hated Aunt Harriet. For the first time in my life I cared nothing for the cider I was making; I would gladly have pissed in it. And yet, with all this, I could not leave without seeing Tamar. No matter what Rose said, I was sure my aunt had dismissed the maid to get her away from me. How would Tamar and Joan live, now? On herbs and mosses and a few pennies from making up amulets?

When I had ground enough apples I brought back Paulie’s boy. Barley straw was piled ready and together we heaped up the murc with the straw, layer by layer. Again that sweet, generous juice ran into the vat before my arm was put to the press. This first must should have been carefully reserved to make my aunt a special cider, but instead I left it there, to be lost in the inferior pressings that would follow. I hoped that this cheese, too, would soon run dry and have to be helped along with water; I hoped to see it ooze with a nasty, murky paste squeezing between the stalks. They say good cider cures anything. I felt just then that a drop of the bad sort has also its uses, and would be the very drink for my aunt.

*

When we had rebuilt the cheese I returned to the house to wash off the sticky sap that clung to me. Hannah Reele was climbing the stairs as I passed below; I nodded to her and she paused, then came down again to tell me that Aunt Harriet was not yet out of bed, but ready to receive me whenever I could leave my labours in the cider-house and pay her a visit.

I thanked her and asked if she knew why my appearance had so affected my aunt, for (I put on a long face) she was not one for faintings and swoonings, and I was anxious lest being widowed had undermined her strength.

‘She took you for a ghost,’ said Hannah.

This was the last answer I expected. I repeated stupidly, ‘A ghost?’

‘Yes, Sir. The master’s.’

As far as I could tell, Hannah was a girl who spoke little and generally the truth. I said, ‘Nobody’s ever taken me for Uncle Robin before. Am I so like him?’

‘Not very,’ Hannah admitted. ‘Only your hair.’

My hair does crinkle like Robin’s. It seemed Aunt Harriet was inventive, in her way, but not inventive enough. I said, ‘How could she see my hair and not my face?’

‘She can tell you better herself, Sir, if you ask her.’

‘I’ll be certain to,’ I said. ‘Surely she can’t think my uncle’s ghost would walk? He’s in the bosom of Abraham.’

‘Amen,’ said Hannah with a prompt certitude that I myself was far from feeling. ‘But his widow’s troubled, Sir. Troubled by dreams.’

Now she had caught my interest. Hannah slept in a small closet off Aunt Harriet’s room; she was well placed to know about any sleepwalking, sleeptalking or other signs of guilt. I again strove to appear sad and sympathetic.

‘My poor aunt! Does she suffer often?’

She nodded. ‘I’ve seen it before, Sir, in widows.’

I cast out a line to see what I would catch. ‘She dreams he’s with her, is that it? And then wakes to find she is alone?’

‘She didn’t say, only that the dreams are about him. I can always tell when she’s having one; she whimpers in her sleep.’ The notion of Aunt Harriet
whimpering
was an astonishing one to me. ‘Shall I tell the Mistress you’ll come to her by-and-by?’

I realised she was waiting to be dismissed. ‘Yes, of course. Go to her.’

As I watched Hannah go back up the stairs she seemed to glide as if she too had passed into the realm of dreams. Any moment now I would wake and find myself in my chamber at Spadboro, with my mother knocking on the door and calling me a slugabed.

On the landing Hannah paused and looked back, since I had still not moved. She was now standing directly in front of a great window that shed its wintry light on the stairwell; she was, in fact, just where I had stood when Aunt Harriet spied me from below. The outline of Hannah’s head was picked out against the window but her features were lost in shadow, reducing her to a mere silhouette. When I stood in her place, I too would have been silhouetted. All Aunt Harriet would have seen of me was my curls.

* * *

Wind keened in the tops of the trees. In the cave opening, on a dead, ashy patch of ground, lay my apple log with one end blacktops d a few small twigs laid around it. It had not burnt, being unseasoned, and the women must have known it would not; but despair will try anything.

‘Tamar!’ I called.

There was no reply. Despite my good woollen coat, I shivered; I could not stay for her unless I got out of this biting air. If nobody was at home, I could not be said to intrude, so I entered the cave, holding my hands out in front of me so as not to walk face-first into the rock. The interior was as dark as ever but once fairly inside I was out of the wind and surrounded by – I will not call it warmth, but a lesser cold. The keening in the treetops also died away and my ears picked up something else: a faint rustling. I tensed, expecting the raven to fly at me, but the sound, now that I was studying it, suggested a more weighty motion than that of a bird. I thought of Joan, newly awakened and raising herself on her bed of rags.

‘It’s Master Jonathan,’ I called. ‘Don’t be afraid.’

The sound stopped at once, but there was no reply. Now I was the one afraid, sick in fact, in dread of wild boars, or worse, laid up in there. A robber inside the cave could see me, though I could not see him; it was like walking blindfold among enemies, and as I realised my disadvantage my legs grew clumsy and weak. I began to back out of the cave without turning round, so that if someone came rushing at me out of the darkness we would at least be face to face. My painful breath and shuffling footsteps filled the silence, announcing my whereabouts to the silent, unseen presence within; at any moment I expected a knife to flash through the air and stick quivering in my heart.

All this took less than a minute, but in my sweating panic it seemed much longer. As soon as I emerged into the dull light of the wood, I turned and fled along the dry ditch and withdrew, faint and shaking, behind a tod of ivy.

Even sheltered there, I had to check several times before I was satisfied that nobody leaving the cave could see me. When I was convinced of this I crouched down, breathing deeply to quieten my leaping heart, and listened: no steps, no rustling, no sound of pursuit. I began to feel less frightened and more curious. I stood again, clamped my hands in my armpits and waited.

How long I was there I am not sure. I had just begun to find the cold intolerable when I heard a voice. Half fascinated, half in terror, I moved to the side of the bush and then had to duck as a man in brown passed so close that I could have laid a hand on him. He was perhaps thirty, burly and sallow-skinned; as he scrambled up the slope, his back to me, I saw that his garments were fresh and good, not shabby or stained with grass. This was no vagabond robber but a man from the village, and not the poorest neither.

If he had spoken, he was not alone. I kept very still as his footsteps traced the path overhead. When I could no longer hear him pushing aside the bushes I peeped out again. Tamar, wrapped in what looked like a blanket, was peering out from the cave mouth and seemed to be checking, like me, that the man was gone. She then pulled a hurdle across, to keep off the worst of the wind, before retreating inside.

I was not as surprised as I might have been. Certain ideas had formed in my head, while I waited behind the bush, as to the meaning of those mysterious sounds and the silence that followed as soon as I called outdiv height="0em">