The Wilding

by Maria McCann

‘They grow wild,’ Father suggested. ‘They forget what it is to be industrious.’

  I said, ‘Well, the girl’s turned out of doors in this weather. That’s surely punishment enough.’

  * * *

  Before bedtime I took Bully over to Simon Dunne’s house.

  Dunne looked suspiciously at me, as if he thought I was bringing the horse back under cover of darkness to conceal some injury.

  ‘You’ve never stayed away so long before,’ he said.

  ‘It was at my aunt’s – that’s a new one for me. She’d a huge crop, Simon. She could keep Spadboro in cider.’

  ‘Fine for some folk,’ he grunted.

  I saw he was annoyed. ‘I didn’t know it’d take so long,’ I said. ‘I’ve a lot of houses still to call at. Did you want Bully while I was away?’

  ‘No.’ He shed some of his surliness with this admission. ‘I won’t be wanting him now, as long as you pay up, only I like to know where you are, and then I know where I am.’

  We had agreed to settle at the end of the cider season but Ilt I had abused his patience a little and therefore paid him what was owing up till then. The money restored Simon to his usual self but lightened my purse, which had already been bled by Tamar and Joan; had I not been provided for at my aunt’s house I think I would have ended that season in debt.

  ‘It’s only four days now, and then I’m back,’ I said. ‘Another village, and Tetton Green again. I’ll come for him in the morning.’

  He nodded. ‘Agreed, Cider-Rat.’

  This was a name given me from childhood, when I first used to hang about the press. I disliked it, but a nickname is like quicksand: the more you try to struggle free, the tighter it clings.

  * * *

  That night Alice mixed us a posset of wine and cream and eggs that fairly knocked me out, so that I was half asleep as I kissed my parents goodnight and went up to my chamber.

  It was soothing to be held (such was the power of the posset, I might even say rocked) in the embrace of this old familiar room. In the chill, elegant chamber I had occupied at my aunt’s house I had always felt that the very walls did not welcome me and were trying to thrust me out. Here I was at my ease and as I snuggled down between the sheets with their familiar odour of rosemary, I was so glad to have returned, so tired, so comfortable and so warm (Alice having been before me with a pan of embers) that I melted away at once.

  During the dark hours I woke to find my mother in the room with a candle. She said I had been crying and shouting in my sleep; I had now done it two or three times and had just started again when she had risen and come to me.

  ‘I hope you have no bad conscience, son,’ she said gravely.

  I shook my head. It was the cart dream, just as I had dreamed it before I went to Aunt Harriet’s: the misty figure, the sinister bright hair, the body lying crumpled in the road.

  * * *

  The next four days passed in much the same way as in previous years. Apples fallen, apples not yet fallen, apples going rotten, folk with mills, folk with no mills beating their fruit with wooden staves, murc standing in the mill, murc going straight into the press, the trickling of sweet must. My days passed in an innocent intoxication of the senses: the scent of crushed apples, the bite of the bitter-sharp cider they brought to me and the burn of the strong cheese they offered me with my bread, if I was lucky. All this I relished – and yet, perhaps, not quite so much as in the past.

  Some of those waiting chided me for my lateness: Mr Drew at Tinsden, whose apples were far on in digestion, and Mistress Chinney at Lasden Magna. Hers turned in no time to vinegar, so we had to doctor them with honey and spices; but then they were an inferior kind to start with. Everywhere I went I begged pardon for the delay, and they were so relieved to see me that they mostly granted it at once. I cared little whether they forgave me or not; I had my parents to think of, and my aunt, and Tamar and Joan, and Robin – most of all Robin.

  Like a gr me frow circling overhead, the dream cast a shadow over me. It followed me from my parents’ house, hunting me from orchard to orchard, and followed me home again. No matter where I was, or how exhausted when I fell into sleep, it came to me every night – worse, it did not leave me by day. I could never forget it, now. Each time I mounted the cart and clicked my tongue to the horse, I felt a sickly pang. If a mist came over the road (and there was mist aplenty in that season and that country) I sweated with fear lest this should be the journey when that dreadful sight would appear by the roadside, far from any help, and with no chance of waking.

  * * *

  ‘And how’s the press, my boy – is the action still smooth?’

  ‘As silk, Father. Everybody says it’s a marvel.’

  My father was like a child on the subject of my press, forever wishing to hear it praised, but as a rule he was the least childish of men so I was very willing to indulge him. His design was a marvel, cunningly made so that it came apart easily and yet, when screwed together, exerted as much pressure as a fixed device.

  He had an excellent understanding of what was necessary and convenient, and was so observant that he could draw something onto a sheet of paper straight out of his head, without having it set before him. He would have made an ingenious artificer, had he ever been apprenticed. Instead he had been trained up as a secretary (his own father having noticed his quickness in reading and writing) and before I was born had actually been employed as such. Since inheriting our home in Spadboro he had laid down his quill and would read only what interested him: works on farming, on philosophy, and sometimes sermons and poetry in place of the begging letters, flatteries and threats which were, he said, mostly his portion before. He was independent, now, and his time mostly taken up with improving his house and land. Though liked, he was considered an oddity by our neighbours, because he had more wit than the rest of them put together; as soon as I was old enough to distinguish wisdom from folly, I saw this and honoured him accordingly.

  ‘I reckon your press has earned a rest,’ he said, twinkling. ‘We’ll use the old one.’

  I helped him load a cart with apples for our mill. It was my second day at home after finishing the last few pressings and I was feeling the lack of sleep, the nightmare having dogged me all round the villages and right back into my bed again. I told myself there was no help for it; I could hardly return to my aunt’s house before her late apples were ripe, and besides, I perceived that Father had been hanging on, braving the risk of his crop turning to vinegar, for the pleasure of the two of us making our cider together. I must therefore stay where I was and defy the apparition.

  We pushed apples into the mill, my father pressing them down.

  ‘Ready, Jon?’

  ‘Aye, Father!’

  I turned the handle with a will.

  ‘Sure and steady,’ he said. ‘Remember me holding you up so you could reach?’

  ‘I can’t have been much help.’

  ‘You are now.’

  Where I was concerned my father was easy to please. All I had to do was labour alongside him; such simple companionship could win his mind, for a short while, even from his brother’s death. I reflected that it was a thousand pities that I must set off again for Tetton Green just when our own late apples would start to come to ripeness. It seemed to me that my father needed more sons, and my mother needed daughters to talk with in the kitchen and at the fireside. There was a sad dearth of children in our family: though my father and Robin had been two out of six, the other four died in infancy, while Aunt Harriet had no children at all.

  ‘If only Robin could be here,’ my father said, chiming with my own thoughts. I glanced at him; the familiar haggard look was once more stealing over his face.

  ‘Did he enjoy cider-making, Father? I never thought of him in that way.’

  ‘I mean, I wish he were still with us.’

  I nearly said, ‘Perhaps he is,’ but held back. My father claimed not to believe in ghosts, but he had failed to carry out Robin’s last wishes
and had not forgiven himself. To tell him of my dreams could only give him pain.

  This seemed a good time, however, to ask about the cart. Had the idea come a few minutes earlier I would not have spoken, for fear of spoiling his mood; since, however, he was already grown melancholy, it could do no harm. I dropped the handle so that the mill grew quiet.

  ‘Father, was Uncle Robin ever hurt by a cart or a coach?’

  ‘Hurt?’ Father exclaimed.

  ‘Didn’t you say once that he was?’ As I spoke, I wondered too late if he, too, was plagued by the dream and I caught my breath. His face, however, showed nothing but puzzlement as he shook his head.

  ‘Not as far as I know. Somebody else must’ve told you that.’

  ‘I was sure it was you. Oh well, I dreamed it, then!’ I laughed and again began to mill, turning the handle faster and faster while the apples hopped about inside.

  * * *

  Tamar and I were lying bundled together in the blanket. She said, ‘Won’t you look?’ and began sliding up and out of it so that I could see she was naked, her red-gold hair tumbling down over her shoulders and front. She parted the locks of hair like curtains and showed off her breasts to me: hard, unripe little things, the teats long and very red. She was thin and curved, like those figures carved on the fronts of churches, with a pale sheen on her skin, and rough, reddish patches under the arms and between the legs. She sat astride the bundle, with me still wrapped within, and rocked back and forth on her patch of tawny fur. I struggled against the blanket, trying to push her off, but she held onto me with her legs, jiggling and laughing at my attempts to free myself.

  I woke with a soiled nightgown.

  8

  On the Desirability of Marrying Off Young Persons

  I peered at the direction: my name did indeed appear there, along with instructions that the package be left with ‘Mr Simon, that keeps the horse Bully’.

  ‘From my aunt?’ I asked.

  Dunne grinned. ‘A word of advice, Cider-Rat. Don’t be a fool, and don’t take me for one.’

  ‘I never have, Simon.’

  Just the same, I hurried home without telling him my thoughts and managed to get upstairs unseen by my parents. My hope was that the package might contain a letter from Tamar. Ever since that dream I had found myself thinking of her, wondering if her nakedness had anything in common with my night visions, lost in this fancy until with a shock I recalled the real Tamar: she of the bluish feet, who skulked in a cave and stank like a polecat, she who had not even a comb for her hair. Yet I had seen a man come away from her, wretched as she was. Surely he must desire brutish pleasures! And drive a harsh bargain, too, so that she feared and dreaded him even as she hoped he would return.

  I had begun to mull over the idea of a rescue.

  One way was to bring her back with me and throw her on my parents’ charity. I did not think this would succeed. My mother was generous to the honest poor, but Tamar did not come under that heading. Besides, even if Mother should embrace her, which was far from my expectation, what of Joan? She could not be left behind, which meant I would be saddling my parents with two beggars to feed and sustain. It was impossible; they had not the means.

  In my chamber I put a chair against the door and unpicked the outer wrapping. The package was a fair weight. What could they have sent me? Some magical thing, perhaps – a pig’s heart studded with nails, some foul charm that I would have to smuggle out of the house before my parents saw it. By the time I got it open I was shaking. There was nothing inside but a good many sheets of Aunt Harriet’s paper, covered in an uneven hand and disfigured with splotches and scratchings from the pen. I unfolded the first sheet and read on, as follows:

  Master Jonathan,

  You will be surprised, Sir, to receive this. Not an amulet, you see, but a letter. You did not believe I could write one, perhaps, but then I never had paper from you before so now I will try my hand, see what I can do. I trust you can read this, I lose all my trouble else. It is hard going with the paper on my knee and the draught moving it about, but I have all the time in the world and I persevere.

  My daughter wishes me to say why she had the ring from Mr Robin and why she should get it back. She must be patient, I have other things to tell first. I am so frail now in my body that they must be told or else they will be lost with me and then the rest cannot stand by itself. Be patient, Sir, if .

  *

  I came into this world in 1623, not far from the place you know of where I am now so reduced. I was not born a beggar. My father was an educated man, respected by all that knew him.

  My mother was his second wife. When they met he was a widower with one child, a daughter, and my mother a quiet, homely sort of person, with a good dowry but not in her first youth and not much given to reading or conversation. However, in time they made a good match of it and I believe they were happy. I was born within a year of the wedding; his first daughter was at that time four years old.

  When I was about three a little boy was born to my parents, and then a girl when I was five. Both these babes died. My mother had no more children and when I was eight she died of a swelling in the womb, so my father was now a widower twice over. He loved both of us children tenderly and chose not to marry again so as to protect our inheritance.

  Two years passed, during which I mourned my mother. At the end of them I was only ten and still a child but my sister (for so I called my half-sister) was now fourteen and greatly admired by a local man. What is more, she claimed to return his affection.

  Father was against it from the start. His first wife had set aside money in her will so that my sister might have a dowry that would attract men of substance and reputation. This man had not the land or the wealth that must join with my sister’s fortune. It was whispered that he was in love with that fortune, and not with my sister, and Father refused to let her throw herself away.

  Oh, she was in a rage! She wept and screamed that our father had married whom he wanted, twice over, and she should be allowed to do the same. He told her he was a grown man, and rational, whereas she was a lovesick girl. She threatened to kill herself. I begged her not to, it was a terrible sin, and she called me a little cringing fool for my pains. We went on like this for days, my sister calming down and then breaking out again, until Father was driven to slap her face good and hard. Then she shut herself up in her chamber. Food was brought to the door but she refused to come out and take it.

  My sister had always bullied and belittled me; I was not displeased to see her nose put out of joint. Hearing her sob behind her chamber door, I walked away and out into the garden where I sat listening to the tinkle of a fountain, thinking how pig-headed she was and wondering when she would come to her senses.

  You see how violently my sister set her heart on this man, and how little I entered into her feelings. She was half a woman, while I was still a child incapable of understanding what ailed her. More than this, we had always been different. My sister took after her mother. This lady had been very beautiful (though my sister was not exactly that) and clever, and also pampered and indulged from a child, so that she could not bear to be crossed, and so it was with my sister. As for me, I took after my own mother, and my nickname was Miss Mouse. I was not so forward as my sister in courage or understanding, and (as she often reminded me) I had an inferior dowry. I desired nothing so much as to please everybody – I would have pleased even my sister, had she consented to be pleased. I never pictured myself accepting or rejecting a bridegroom, but always as being submissive to another’s choice.

  The battle in our house continued for weeks. Hunger soon obliged my sister to begin eating again but neither she nor our father would give way. Perhaps my sister would have buckled under in time, but in December Father fell ill. She was frightened then, and tried to make up, but he wanted her to promise she would not marry the man after he died, and she refused, sticking it out to the end, so that she and Father were never reconciled. We buried him three years aft
er my mother. His two wives were laid in the same grave and he went in with both of them.

  Father had threatened to write a will that would leave her penniless should she marry the man, but we found he had not carried out his threat. Instead, he had appointed an uncle as our guardian. Uncle Toby took much the same tack as Father had done: he was all for my sister marrying into wealth. He spoke to her most unkindly, saying that her wicked disobedience had killed Father. She wept so piteously at this that even I was sorry for her.

  Something changed, however, and within a few months Uncle Toby announced that my sister (who had just turned fifteen) might marry whom she would, provided she would wait until she was twenty-one so that nobody could say he had slacked his duty. I will not say my sister rejoiced, since I saw her crying, but she was a step closer to liberty. As for me, I could not understand why our uncle had set aside his brother’s dying wish. My belief now is that he received money from my sister’s lover in return for consenting to the match. Perhaps Uncle Toby hoped to have his bread buttered on both sides, as they say, for it was six years off and should my sister change her mind, he could keep the gift and perhaps get another such from another man. But this is all fancy and supposition.

  From fifteen to twenty-one is a dreary long time, to be sure. Offers were made, some of them most advantageous, but my sister was adamant in refusing every other man as long as her sweetheart continued to court her. I sometimes hoped one of the disappointed suitors would turn a tender eye on me, but none ever did. They could not excuse the smallness of my dowry or the plainness of my features. I was not so very plain, neither, except when I was standing next to her, but that was most of the time.

  My sister was married in the February of 1639. Apart from Toby we had an Uncle Jeremiah, an Aunt Susan and an Aunt Elizabeth, all on Father’s side, all of whom declined to attend or help in any way since they said my sister’s wilfulness had put Father in his grave. It made a shabby, shameful business of the wedding, but my sister said she did not care: she was as lawfully wed as any of them. Our only visitors were her bridegroom’s brother and a sister-in-law who turned out to be respectable people, civil to my sister and gentle towards me. They treated us better than our own kin had done and I was sorry to see them go.