The Wilding

by Maria McCann

  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 borr
ow 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.

  ‘Yes, Sir,’ she whispered at last. ‘He talked of it. He’d done somebody a wrong – he had to make amends. He was frightened of dying, Sir.’

  ‘He told you that?’

  ‘It wasn’t like telling me, Sir. He didn’t know I was there, not at the end. But he said it over and over. I heard him very clear.’

  ‘Who was the person? The person he had injured?’

  Her eyes swivelled away. ‘He never said.’

  It would do no good to press her just then. Instead I said, ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘Just before Mr Mathew came.’

  ‘My father arrived because of a letter. That was the letter you gave to the man in the village, wasn’t it?’

  ‘If you say so, Sir. Mrs Harriet was angry, she didn’t want Mr Mathew here. You won’t tell her it was me that brought him, will you?’

  ‘I’m a man of my word, Tamar. If you remember anything more –’

  She stiffened. ‘Listen – the Mistress –’

  On the breeze came my aunt’s voice: ‘Tamar! Tamar!’ The girl gathered up her skirts and ran into the house.

  * * *

  My dear son,

  I write again to call you home since your father misses you greatly. There is another reason why I would wish you to be with us – a matter of some importance. I know that after reading this you will not remain longer than is necessary to render good service to your aunt in her time of need and will soon return to your most loving

  Mother

  Dearest Mother,

  I am in receipt of yours and will return as soon as I may. My aunt has yet a good many apples to be picked and pressed, but I proceed with all haste. I am concerned at your ‘other reason’. Pray send one of the village boys to me if something ails you; let me know it, and I will render what assistance I may. I am sure you can find a way of wrapping it up that will leave him none the wiser and I will gladly reimburse him for his trouble.

  Your loving son,

  Jonathan

  * * *

  As I had informed my mother, there still remained a goodly number of apples to pick and press, but I was not ‘proceeding with all haste’; I dawdled and spun out my time as I pondered what Tamar had told me. Aunt seemed to take pleasure in talking, for once, and was in no hurry to send me away; everything was playing into my hand.

  I must not go just yet. A few days more and I might win Tamar’s trust; I was now convinced that, if she chose, she could point to the injured party. She had been with Uncle Robin through his last hours. If he was indeed raving, surely he had spoken the one name that pressed so cruelly on his conscience? As I worked I left the door of the cider-house open, and I waited.

  At last, shortly after breakfast one morning, I heard a scraping sound outside.

  ‘Let me help you, Tamar,’ I said, emerging into the sunshine.

  ‘Thank you Sir, but the mistress says I keep you from the cider.’

  ‘Nonsense. Besides, it was I that proposed it; a walk will clear my head. So – where are we taking this most wonderful log?’ I asked playfully. ‘To the wood, perhaps?’

  Her eyes widened.

  ‘You’d be surprised what I know,’ I said, laying a finger to my nose. ‘Here – catch hold of one end.’

  Out of the little gate we went and into the wood. This time there was nobody else about; we had the path to ourselves.

  ‘Won’t my aunt miss you?’ I enquired as we tramped along.

  ‘She’s gone to market,’ said Tamar.

  The cool, fresh air under the trees soothed my spirit. Tamar set a brisk pace; she walked faster, I think, than any woman I have known before or since, stepping easily on the uneven ground and carrying her end of the log without strain. All this she did in her long, heavy gown while holding herself bolt upright. I wondered if she really did wear stays all over, or perhaps no stays at all. Then I thought of other things: of her cleaning Robin’s body in his bed, and laying it out afterwards.

  I wondered at my aunt over this business of the laying-out. She should have employed an older woman; it was not usual, perhaps even a little shameful, to give such a job to a young maid. But perhaps Aunt Harriet knew what she did; perhaps Tamar was not a maid in every sense of the word, if my uncle –

  I must stop these thoughts, which threatened to taint with lewdness my memory of a man so dear to my father. As soon as I fixed my mind on our progress, however, I realised that we were on the path I had already trodden, the one leading to the place where the woman had slipped away from me. That was it, then: she had been hurrying towards a forbidden meeting, but not with a lover.

  ‘Tamar,’ I said.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘This old woman we’re visiting – is she the beggar-woman – the one Geoffrey drove away?’

  She answered without turning round, ‘Did he?’

  Was it my fancy, or was Tamar growing less respectful as we advanced deeper into the wood? It was impossible to read the back of her head. I have lowered myself to oblige a servant, I thought, and this is my reward. My aunt does well to cherish her hereditary rights.

  We were approaching the place where the other woman had got away from me. As we reached the holly bush, Tamar slowed and put down her end of the log.

  ‘Now, Sir, I must show you how to proceed.’

  She moved off the path onto the grass slope I had observed before and had taken only a few steps when she dropped through the ground, as one might drop through water, and vanished.

  The sweat burst out on my skin.

  ‘Tamar!’ I called.

  Her head popped up out of the grass like a rabbit’s. ‘Leave the log, Sir, and walk down to me. Take care where you put your feet.’

  I made my way down. When I had almost reached her the ground gave way and I fell, crying out, into a sort of dry ditch or ha-ha, a wrinkle in the face of Mother Nature running right across the slope but invisible from the top of it. Tamar and I were again side by side.

  ‘From here, Sir, you j
ust look for that oak’ – she indicated a fine tree to our left – ‘and walk along towards him, and in no time you’re there.’

  ‘There’ was such a place as I have never seen before and hope never to see again. It can only be described by the word hovel: an opening into the bank, partly shielded by hurdles smeared with clay and hung with scraps of oiled woollen cloth. At the entrance lay a mess of grey ashes, remnant of a past fire, perhaps the very fire I had smelt from the path.

  Next to the opening stood a blackthorn bush from whose prickly arms dangled small greyish objects, threaded along with bird bones and nutshells on wisps of sheep’s wool. These I took to be the amulets of which Rose had spoken.

  ‘Let me warn her first.’ Tamar pushed aside a spider’s web and entered the darkness within. Left outside, I felt equally compelled to follow her and to flee; these opposing impulses so warred within me that I was paralysed, unable to move in either direction.

  ‘She wishes to thank you,’ said Tamar, reappearing. ‘Come this way, Sir.’

  Going in, I thought of foxes, of witches, of the Black Woodcutter. The darkness at first blinded me, but as my sight cleared I found myself in a cool, ferny place smelling of clay and damp.

  ‘Through here, Sir,’ came Tamar’s voice from the shadows. Moving forwards, I stretched out my hands to protect myself and felt one of them graze against somehing smooth and hard: stone. I was, I realised, in a cave. The beggar-woman had found herself a shelter against the rain and the wind, one that no farmer or landlord could pull down, and she was snugly earthed. I could smell her now: the stale scent of a female beast in its lair.

  ‘How long has she lived here?’ I asked.

  ‘She comes and goes,’ was the answer.

  ‘Surely she’s too old to be travelling?’

  ‘Is she, Sir?’ Tamar said. ‘Pray ask her.’ At that moment my foot knocked against something soft; I recoiled in distaste as Tamar’s laughter rang out: ‘Mind yourself, Joan!’