Year of Wonders

by Geraldine Brooks

  We entered the cottage, and she set the bunch of roots upon a crowded workbench and washed her hands in a bucket. “Be kind enough to sit, Anna Frith,” she said, “for I must needs sit, too, or crick my neck standing here.” She shooed a gray gib-cat off a rickety chair and pulled up a stool for herself. I was grateful to have found Anys alone. I would have been pressed to account for my visit had it been old Mem working solitary in the garden, and I would have been ill-set to raise the matter on my mind if her aunt were sitting at our elbow. As it was, I hardly knew how to begin upon such a delicate subject. Although we were of an age, Anys and I had not grown up together. She had been raised in a village closer to the Dark Peak, and had been sent to her aunt when her mother died untimely. She had been about ten years old. I remember the day she arrived, sitting straight and tall in an open cart while all the village came out to peer at her. I remember it so vividly because she returned every stare and never flinched from the pointed fingers. I was a shy child then, and I remember thinking that if I had been her, I would have been hiding under the burlaps, wailing my heart out.

  She handed me a glass of strong-smelling brew and poured herself one, also. I inspected the contents of my cup. It was an unappealing shade of pale green, with an even paler froth atop it. “Nettle beer. It will strengthen your blood,” Anys said. “All women should drink it daily.”

  As I lifted the cup, I remembered, with embarrassment, how as a child I had joined with others to mock Anys Gowdie, who would stop by the path or in the midst of a field and pluck fresh leaves, then eat them where she stood. It shamed me to recall how we had taunted her, crying out, “Cow! Cow! Grass-eater!” Anys had only laughed and looked us over, one by one. “At least my nose isn’t stuffed with snot, like yours, Meg Bailey. And my skin isn’t bubbling with blebs, like yours, Geoffry Bain.” And she listed all our defects to us, standing there taller than any other child her age and glowing with good health, all the way from the top of her glossy head to the tips of her fine, strong fingernails. Not so very much later, when I was first with child, I had gone to her, humbled, and asked her to guide me in what greens I could gather and eat to strengthen myself and the babe I carried. It had been an odd thing, at first, the taste of such stuff, but I had soon felt the benefit of it.

  The nettle beer, however, was new to me. The flavor, as I sipped, was mild and not unpleasant, while the effect on my tired body was refreshing. I held the cup to my lips longer than I needed, so as to postpone launching myself upon my awkward subject. I need not have troubled. “And so I suppose you need to know whether I lay with George,” Anys declared, in the same un-inflected tone that might have said, ‘And so I suppose you need some yarrow leaves.” The cup trembled in my hand, and the green stuff sloshed onto the swept-earth floor. Anys gave a short laugh. “Of course I did. He was too young and handsome to have to slake his fires with his fist.” I hardly know how I looked at that, but Anys’s eyes as she regarded me were lit with amusement. “Drink up. You’ll feel better. It was naught more to either of us than a meal to a hungry traveler.”

  She leaned forward to stir some leaves steeping in a big black kettle near the fire. “His intentions to you were otherwise. If that’s what’s worrying you, set your mind easy. He wanted you to wife, Anna Frith, and I told him he’d do well with you, if he could talk you around to it. For I see that you’ve changed somewhat since Sam Frith passed. I think you like to go and come without a man’s say-so. I told him your boys were his best chance to win you. For, unlike me, you have them to look to, so you can never live just for yourself.”

  I tried to imagine the two of them lying together discussing such things. “But why,” I blurted, “if you were on such terms, did you not marry him yourself?”

  “Oh, Anna, Anna!” she shook her head at me and smiled as one does at a slow-witted child. I felt my color rise. I was confounded as to what I had said that had amused her so. She must have sensed my vexation, for she stopped smiling, took the cup from my hand, and looked at me with seriousness.

  “Why would I marry? I’m not made to be any man’s chattel. I have my work, which I love. I have my home—it is not much, I grant, yet sufficient for my shelter. But more than these, I have something very few women can claim: my freedom. I will not lightly surrender it. And besides,” she said, shooting me a sly sideways glance from under her long lashes, “sometimes a woman needs a draught of nettle beer to wake her up, and sometimes she needs a dish of valerian tea to calm her down. Why cultivate a garden with only one plant in it?”

  I smiled hesitantly, as if to show that I could see the jest, for it fell into my heart that I wanted her good opinion and would not have her think me a dim and simple girl. She rose then to be about her work, and so I left her, more confused than when I’d arrived. She was a rare creature, Anys Gowdie, and I had to own that I admired her for listening to her own heart rather than having her life ruled by others’ conventions. I, meanwhile, was on my way to be ruled for the afternoon by people I loathed. I trudged on toward Bradford Hall, passing through the edge of the Riley woods. The sun was bright that day, and strong shadows from the trees fell in bands across the path. Dark and light, dark and light, dark and light. That was how I had been taught to view the world. The Puritans who had ministered to us here had held that all actions and thoughts could be only one of two natures: godly and right, or Satanic and evil. But Anys Gowdie confounded such thinking. There was no doubt that she did good: in many ways, the well-being of our village rested more on her works, and those of her aunt, than on the works of the rectory’s occupant. And yet her fornication and her blasphemy branded her a sinner in the reckoning of our religion.

  I was still puzzling over this as I reached the woods’ abrupt edge and began skirting the golden fields of the Riley farm. They had been all day scything there—twenty men for twenty acres. The Hancocks, who farmed the Riley land, had six strong sons of their own and so needed far less help than others at their harvest. Mrs. Hancock and her daughters-in-law wearily followed behind their husbands, tying up the last of the loose stalks into sheaves burnished by the sunlight. I saw them that afternoon through Anys’s eyes: shackled to their menfolk as surely as the plough-horse to the shares.

  Lib Hancock, the eldest brother’s wife, had been a friend to me since childhood, and as she straightened for a moment to ease her back, she raised a hand to shade her eyes and perceived that it was I, walking at the field’s edge. She waved to me, then turned for a word to her mother-in-law before leaving her work and crossing the field toward me.

  “Sit with me for a short while, Anna!” she called, “For I am in need of a rest.”

  I was in no hurry to get to the Bradfords’, so I walked with her to a grassy bank. She dropped down on it gratefully and closed her eyes for a moment. I rubbed at her shoulders and she purred with the ease my kneading hands brought her.

  “A sorry business about your lodger,” she said. “He seemed a good man.”

  “He was that,” I said. “He was uncommonly kind to my boys.” Lib tilted her head back and gave me an odd look. “And to me, of course,” I added. “As to everyone.”

  “I believe my mother-in-law had him in mind for Nell,” she said. Nell, the only girl in the Hancock family, was so strictly kept by her many brothers that we often jested that she’d never get wedded, since no man could venture near enough to see what she looked like. Knowing what I now knew of Mr. Viccars, I laughed despite my sadness.

  “Was any woman in this village not considering the bedding of that man?”

  I have said that Lib and I were close—we had ever exchanged girlish confidences. It was this habit, I suppose, that led me into the account I made her then, a bawdy confession of my own lust, which I had the right to confide to her, and then that which I did not: the news I’d just learned of Anys’s sport with my lodger.

  “Now, Lib,” I said at last, rising reluctantly to continue on my way, “mind you do not prate my news all around the Hancock house this night.” />
  She laughed at that, and pushed me playfully on the shoulder. “Oh, and as if I’d be talking of tumblings in front of Mother Hancock and that houseful of men! You’ve got a peculiar view of our household, you have. The only mating fit for remark at the Hancock table is when the tups get put to the ewes!” We both laughed then, kissed each other, and parted to our diverse toils.

  At the edge of the field, the hedgerows were deep green in their glossy leaves and the blackberries beginning to plump and redden. Fat lambs, their fleeces gilded by sunlight, grazed in lush grasses. But for all its loveliness, the last half mile of this walk was always unpleasant to me, even when I wasn’t so fatigued. I disliked all of the Bradford family, and I especially feared the colonel. And I misliked myself for giving way to that fear.

  Colonel Henry Bradford was said by all to have been an intelligent soldier who had led his men with uncommon valor. Perhaps his military success had made him arrogant, or perhaps such a man should never have retired to the quiet life of a country gentleman. In any case, there was no sign of wise leadership in the way he conducted his household. He seemed to take a perverse amusement in belittling his wife. She was the daughter of a wealthy but ill-connected family, a vapid beauty whose looks had stirred a brief infatuation in the colonel that lasted just until he pocketed her marriage portion. Since then, he had never let pass an opportunity to disparage her connections or slight her understanding. She, though still quite beautiful, had become brittle after long years of such treatment. Cowed and nervous, she fretted constantly over where next her husband would find fault, and so kept her staff on constant edge, always reordering the household routine so that the simplest tasks became effortful. The Bradfords’ son was a rake-shamed, drunken fanfarroon who fortunately stayed mostly in London. On the rare occasions he was at the Hall, I tried to find excuses for declining work there, and when I could not afford to do so, endeavored to stay out of his line of sight and made sure I could never be entrapped into being alone with him. Miss Bradford was, as I have said, a proud and sour young woman, whose only glimmer of goodness seemed to come from a real solicitude for her unhappy mother. When her father was away, she seemed able to quiet her mother’s nerves and soothe her fretfulness, and one could work there without fear of tirades. But when the colonel returned, everyone, from Mrs. Bradford and her daughter down to the lowliest scullery maid, tensed like a cur waiting for the boot.

  Since Bradford Hall had a moderately large staff, I was only required to serve at table for parties of some size or importance. The Hall had a great room that looked very well when arranged for dining. The two big bacon settles were pulled out from the walls, their dark oak polished to a rich, black gleam. At leaf-fall, just after the hogs were slaughtered, the scent of the new-cured flitches hanging inside could be overpowering. But by late summer, the bacon was long eaten and only a faint and pleasant smoky aroma remained beneath the fresher scents of beeswax and lavender. Silver shone in the low light and the canary, glowing in large goblets, warmed even the cold faces of the Bradfords. No one, of course, ever thought to tell me who the guests were that I would be waiting upon, and so I was pleased to see at least the friendly faces of the Mompellions among the dozen at that day’s dinner.

  The colonel’s pride was gratified by the presence of Elinor Mompellion at his table. For one thing, she looked exquisite that afternoon in a simple gown of creamy silk. A few fine pearls gleamed in her pale hair. But more than her delicate beauty, Colonel Bradford appreciated her substantial connections. She had been a member of one of the oldest and most extensively landed families in the shire. It was noised about that in choosing Mompellion, she had spurned another suitor who might have made her a duchess. Colonel Bradford would never be able to fathom such a choice. But then, there was so much about her that eluded him. All he grasped was that a connection with her enhanced his own standing, and to him that was all that mattered. As I dipped to take away her soup plate, Elinor Mompellion, seated to the colonel’s left, placed a hand lightly on the forearm of the London gentleman to her right, interrupting the flow of his prattle. She turned to me with a grave smile. “I hope you are feeling quite well after your dreadful night, Anna.” I heard the ring of the colonel’s butter knife dropping onto his plate and the hiss of his indrawn breath. I kept my eyes on the dishes in my hand, afraid to risk a glance in his direction. “Quite. Thank you, ma’am,” I murmured quickly and slid on to clear the next plate. I feared if I gave her a second’s chance she would continue to converse with me, causing Colonel Bradford to expire from shock.

  At the Hall, I had learned to keep my mind on my duties and let the talk, which was mostly trivial, wash over me like the twittering of birds in a distant thicket. At that large table, little of the conversation was general. Most people exchanged empty pleasantries with those seated next to them, and the result was a low buzz of mingled voices, broken occasionally by Miss Bradford’s affected, mirthless laugh. When I left the room with the meat platters, that was the state of things. But by the time I returned, carrying desserts, all the candles had been lit against the gathering dark and only the young Londoner next to Mrs. Mompellion was speaking. He was a style of gentlemen we did not much see in our small village, his periwig so large and elaborate that his rather pinched, white-powdered face seemed lost beneath its mass of tumbling curls. He wore a patch on his right cheek. I expect that whichever of the Bradfords’ servants attended his toilet had been unfamiliar with how to affix such fashionable spots, for it flapped distractingly as the young man chewed his food. I had thought him rather absurd on first glimpse, but now he looked grave, and as he spoke, his hands fluttered from lace cuffs like white moths, throwing long shadows across the table. The faces turned toward him were pale and alarmed.

  “You have never seen anything like it on the roads. Innumerable men on horseback, wagons, and carts bulging with baggage. I tell you, everyone capable of leaving the city is doing so or plans to do it. The poor meantimes are pitching up tents out on Hampstead Heath. One walks, if one must walk, in the very center of the roadway to avoid the contagion seeping from dwellings. Those who must move through the poorer parishes cover their faces in herb-stuffed masks contrived like the beaks of great birds. People go through the streets like drunkards, weaving from this side to that so as to avoid passing too close to any other pedestrian. And yet one cannot take a hackney, for the last person inside may have breathed contagion.” He dropped his voice then and looked all around, seeming to enjoy the attention his words were garnering. “They say you can hear the screams of the dying, locked up all alone in the houses marked with the red crosses. The Great Orbs are all on the move, I tell you: there is talk that the king plans to remove his court to Oxford. For myself, I saw no reason to tarry. The city is emptying so fast that there is little worthwhile society to be had. One rarely sees a wigg’d gallant or a powdered lady, for wealth and connection are no shield against Plague.”

  The word dropped like an anvil among the tinkling silver-ware. The bright room dimmed for me as if someone had snuffed every candle all at once. I clutched the platter I carried so that I would not drop it and stood stock-still until I was sure of my balance. I gathered myself and tried to steady my breath. I had seen enough people carried off by illness in my life. There are many fevers that can kill a man other than the Plague. And George Viccars hadn’t been near London in more than a year. So how could he have been touched by the city’s pestilence?

  Colonel Bradford cleared his throat. “Come now, Robert! Do not alarm the ladies. The next thing they will be shunning your company for fear of infection!”

  “Do not joke, sir, for on the turnpike north of London, I encountered an angry mob, brandishing hoes and pitchforks, denying entry to their village inn to any who were traveling from London. It was a low place, in any wise, nowhere I would have sought shelter even on the filthiest of nights, so I rode onward unmolested. But before long, to be a Londoner will not be a credential worth owning to. It will be surprising how many
of us will invent rusticated histories for ourselves, mind me well. You’ll soon learn that my chief abode these last years was Wetwang, not Westminster.”

  There was a little stir at this, for the town the young man was mocking was a good deal bigger than the one in which he was presently being entertained. “Well, good thing you got out, eh?” said the colonel, to cover the lapse. “Clean air up here, no putrid fevers.”

  Down the table, I noticed the Mompellions exchanging meaning looks. Trying to still my shaking hands, I set down the dessert I carried and stepped back into the shadows against the wall. “It’s hard to believe,” the young man continued, “but some few are staying in town who have the easy means to go. Lord Radisson—I believe you are acquainted with his lordship—has been bruiting it about that he feels it his duty to stay and ‘set an example.’ Example of what? A wretched death, I warrant.”

  “Think of what you are saying,” Mr. Mompellion interrupted. His voice—rich, loud, grave—cut off the Bradfords’ airy laughter. Colonel Bradford turned to him with a raised eyebrow, as if to censure rudeness. Mrs. Bradford tried to turn her titter to a cough. Mr. Mompellion continued, “If all who have the means run each time this disease appears, then the seeds of the Plague will go with them and be sown far and wide throughout the land until the clean places are infected and the contagion is magnified a thousandfold. If God saw fit to send this scourge, I believe it would be His will that one face it where one was, with courage, and thus contain its evil.”

  “Oh?” said the colonel superciliously. “And if God sends a lion to rip your flesh, will you stand steadfastly then, too? I think not. I think you will run from the danger, as any sensible man would.”