The Wilding

by Maria McCann

  13

  The Kind of Man I Was

  That evening, as I sat at supper with my aunt, I thought I would lose nothing by trying her with the story of the ‘drunken fool’ at Brimming. If it offended her, she could always bid me hold my tongue.

  I had noticed that Aunt Harriet, like her sister, had a fondness for wine. I do not mean that she ever took too much – she was too careful for that – but she preferred to pay more for wine rather than confine herself to beer and cider. I therefore made a point of taking wine with her at supper, and drank off a toast to her health and happiness.

  Aunt Harriet, who never missed a thing, said, ‘It seems your tastes have changed,’ which was the very opening I wanted.

  ‘Cider’s still to my taste,’ I said, ‘but I wish to take less of it.’

  My aunt said quite amiably, ‘You’re scarcely a drunkard, Jonathan.’

  ‘No, but when I was at Brimming … still, when a man vomits up slander, it’s more than drink talking. It’s the wickedness of his heart.’

  Shaking my head, I continued to eat. At the same time I was willing her, with every fibre of my being, to ask who the man was, and what he had said. She did not. Smiling through my disappointment, I went on with the meal.

  ‘Who was this?’ she asked at last, as if she had only just understood my words. ‘Vomiting? Slander? Not you, surely?’

  ‘Oh, no, Aunt! A drunken sot at Brimming. Very quarrelsome and insulting.’

  I >‘I’m surprised they stood for it. They’re a rough lot out there – the women worse than the men.’

  She was hovering round the bait.

  ‘Oh, it wasn’t them he insulted, it was us – our family. You know how it is; nothing shuts the mouth of a drunkard. Tell me, Aunt, shall I boil the sour cider in the morning? You’ll have to tell me how you want it, so I don’t make it too sweet.’

  ‘We haven’t much honey,’ said my aunt, ‘so you’re in no danger there.’

  We continued eating. I felt like a hunter who sees the prey pass by his trap, come back, sniff it, move away again.

  ‘This man at Brimming. What did he say?’

  I made a great show of confusion. ‘I’m not sure I remember.’

  ‘Oh, stop that nonsense. What do you think I am, some mincing girl?’

  Bang! The trap closed with my aunt inside it.

  ‘I’m afraid you’ll be angry with me,’ I pleaded.

  Her face was grim. ‘I give you my word I won’t.’

  ‘Very well,’ I said, soft and treacherous as the Gentleman himself, ‘only remember what you promised, Aunt, because it is hateful. The fellow was far gone in drink. He followed me about, slobbering on me and ranting of some evil he said was done here.’

  She waited.

  ‘He had the face to say that my Uncle Robin bedded your sister, and he – he fathered a bastard child.’

  ‘My sister was a trollop,’ said Aunt Harriet, so calmly that I felt an acute desire to needle her.

  ‘My dear Aunt, what are you saying … ?’

  ‘A bitch in heat,’ my aunt replied still in that maddeningly blank manner. ‘Did your intelligencer’ – she seemed to sneer at this word – ‘tell you about this precious jewel of ours?’

  ‘He said she –’

  ‘She came of a weak and stupid mother – a degenerate – and showed all the signs of going the same way. My late husband was generous to a fault; he bore with her, tried to keep her folly within bounds until we could find her a husband. But then she must make a set at him, too. I put a stop to it at once, to pro tect Robin.’

  ‘The act of a loving wife and sister.’

  She glared at me. ‘I’m not one for dressing up wickedness in fine language; I let her know my mind. She didn’t like that, so she abandoned our protection and ran after the soldiers. A woman of good family, to become a camp follower thrgh stubbornness and pride! Did you ever hear the like!’

  ‘Never,’ I agreed. ‘What I heard, Aunt,’ and here I looked her straight in the face, ‘was that someone in the house dragged your sister outside to the village men, saying she was able to dress any amount of flesh, and she was delivered over to the soldiery for rape.’

  My aunt remained silent and motionless. I had anticipated exclamations, denials, justifications, but not this. I knew, as clearly if she had told me, that she was trying to work out who my teacher was, what else I might have learnt, and whether I had a witness up my sleeve: in short, where this game was leading.

  ‘He must think me a gull,’ I said, as if to comfort her. ‘How could anyone believe such savagery took place here, at End House?’

  ‘Envious folk will believe anything bad,’ my aunt murmured. Though her voice was soft, the pupils of her eyes had shrunk up like a cat’s. ‘What’s this fellow’s name?’

  ‘Oh … John, James, something like that. I don’t know his surname. He wasn’t one of the farm men,’ I added, helpfully giving the most useless detail I could think of. My aunt flashed me a look of pure hatred.

  ‘Did he say how he came to know about my sister?’

  ‘He heard about her, I suppose.’

  She shocked me by bursting out laughing. ‘Is that all he did? She must’ve lain with half the county since then.’

  ‘Aunt,’ I said. ‘I’ve been thinking. If your sister’s children were discovered – if such children existed – could you find it in your heart to make provision for them?’

  ‘If, if,’ my aunt said. ‘Why should I?’

  ‘My father, then, if he made them a gift. It might reclaim them, and put an end to rumour.’

  ‘It’d do neither. Besides, nobody knows where my sister is. Did this man say where she could be found?’ She looked hard at me.

  ‘No.’ I was returning her gaze, assuming an air of the utmost innocence, when to my horror her cheeks bloomed a sweet, delicate pink – as near as Aunt Harriet’s waxen skin could get to a boiling flush. Had I not known what it stood for, I might have found it charming, but as it was I felt sick. I had given myself away. She had guessed that my drunkard was a fiction, and that my informant was Joan. At length she said, in a biting voice, ‘What a double-dyed fool you’d be, to go after my sister.’

  ‘I’d never go after her, Aunt. You yourself told me, when I first came here, that she was dead.’

  Plainly she had forgotten that, and she was confounded. Seeing her blink with panic, I could not help but exult. But it was only an instant before she replied, ‘You do right to correct me. I confess, for many years now I’ve thought of her as dead; but she may live. Has Mathew talked about her?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘And what does he say?’

  ‘That she’s an agent of corruption,’ I admitted.

  ‘There you are. Mathew’s known for his fair-mindedness. Take heed of what he tells you.’

  ‘He is fair,’ I said, ‘when he’s told the whole story. Tell him only half of it and he makes mistakes like other men.’

  ‘Then tell him this nonsense you picked up in Brimming. See what he says then.’

  ‘I will,’ I said. ‘I’ll go tomorrow, and I’m very grateful for your advice, dear Aunt.’

  *

  I had lost my head a little, perhaps because of the unaccustomed wine-drinking, and was not sure what I had achieved apart from letting slip that I knew too much – which was very foolish of me. But I had not revealed Joan’s whereabouts, or that her child had been a daughter, or who her daughter might be. As for the story of the rape, I could not say whether Aunt Harriet had condemned or cleared herself. My belief hovered between her and Joan, sure of neither, and I longed to get back to Spadboro and again consult my father.

  However, I slept well that night, with no repetition of the cart dream, and I concluded that as far as Robin was concerned I had done no great harm.

  * * *

  The following day I performed a daring experiment. I smoked out a new hogshead with sulphur, poured off the sour cider from the old one into pots and kettles
, had it boiled in my aunt’s kitchen (and oh, what a time that took), added honey and spices and sealed it all up again. I cannot say I took as much pleasure in it as in making fresh cider. I have, in general, a disgust of doing a thing twice when once should be enough; besides, the heat and steam of the kitchen were enough to turn the mice drunk.

  When all that was done I put Paulie’s boy back into slavery, and made him help as I milled another batch of apples and set up a new cheese. After that I wiped off my hands before going up to my chamber – Joan’s chamber – for my coat.

  What with all my delaying tactics I had still not finished up the last of the crop. This was certainly not a time to be going back to Spadboro, making yet another encumbrance in a time full of business, but I had told my aunt that I would and pride would not permit me to back down. First, however, I must make sure Joan was not still lying alone. Were I to go away while Tamar was missing, I might well come back to discover her mother dead.

  I hurried along the path, fretting at what I might be about to find. Soon, panting as urgently as a lover, I was standing at the hurdle.

  ‘Joan!’ I called. As I did so I heard a tussling sound behind an ivy bush. ‘Is that you, Tamar?’ Thesound came again, and the bush swayed as if something was caught up in it. Picking up a stone, I flung it as hard as I could into the foliage to see what would break cover: there was nowhere to flee to except the next bush, some five feet away. I expected to see a fox shoot away over the grass, or a scolding bird heave itself into the air, but the leaves closed over my stone without giving up the secret. My heart began to beat more rapidly.

  ‘Who’s there?’

  Thinking it was some wicked boys come to tease the old woman, I threw again. The ivy tod shook violently, there was a cracking sound and two men broke from the bush. Thickset, respectably clad and of middling age, they had not the look of thieves. I wished I had not flung that last stone.

  ‘And who might you be, young master?’ said one of them, eyeing me in no friendly manner. I knew him, now: I had seen him worshipping in Tetton church.

  ‘Jonathan Dymond. You’ll know my aunt, Mrs Harriet Dymond.’ At this the second man nudged his companion, and nodded; the first one now came forward, holding out his hand, though I hesitated to take it. ‘And you, Sir? Who are you?’

  He said, ‘We’re on parish business. Come to visit your friends, have you?’

  ‘I gave you my name. What’s yours?’

  ‘Never you mind,’ said the second man. ‘This is a lonely place; I’d watch myself, if I were you.’

  ‘Is that your business – threatening people?’

  ‘Warning them is what I call it.’

  As one, they turned and made for the path. I stood listening until the sounds they made faded away along the ditch. When I turned back to the cave, Tamar was standing just inside the entrance, leaning against the cave wall. She beckoned me with a finger and I went inside.

  ‘I heard you,’ she said. ‘I don’t like coming out when they’re there.’

  ‘You know my voice, surely,’ I said, stumbling along as my eyes adjusted to the dark.

  ‘Yes; but every time I talk to someone they write it down on a paper.’

  ‘Who employs them?’

  ‘Dr Green. He suspects us for witches.’ Her voice grew mocking. ‘I think you’re safe, though, Mrs Harriet’s nephew.’

  I wondered whether Aunt Harriet had anything to do with the men’s visit, and if so, how she could have acted so quickly, or known where to look. I said, ‘What does Dr Green want with your visitors?’

  ‘Someone who’ll give evidence against us.’

  ‘Have they found anyone?’

  ‘Ann Whinwood. Joan made her an amulet against childlessness, and now rsquo;s with child she can’t keep her mouth shut. The parson heard about it and made her bring him here, and my stupid mother won’t rest till we’re hanged.’

  I could now make out Joan lying on the ground nearby.

  ‘This is how she talks about me,’ the old woman put in. ‘Me, that raised her.’

  ‘You’ll have us on the gallows,’ Tamar hissed. ‘Coming out with your nonsense about the Gentleman. If you’d just shut your mouth, you old bitch, and let me talk!’

  Joan’s straw rustled furiously.

  ‘It’s not like it used to be,’ I said, trying to comfort them both. ‘They can only go so far, and they know it. His Majesty’s no friend to witch-hunts, and nor, I think, is Sir Gilbert Sellis.’

  ‘I’ve not seen the King or Sir Gilbert round this cave. One day,’ she muttered to her mother, ‘you’ll start your nonsense and they’ll take you away. And then I’ll turn evidence, by Christ I will.’

  ‘Robbing’, rasped Hob.

  ‘You wouldn’t do that to me,’ Joan whined.

  ‘What, not to ’scape the rope! And get rid of that bird, he’ll hang you if I don’t. If I catch hold of him I’ll wring his neck.’

  ‘Who’s the robber?’ I asked.

  They stopped bickering. Joan stared at me.

  ‘Robber?’

  ‘He said “Robbing”.’

  Tamar burst out laughing.

  ‘Not robbing, Sir,’ Joan said nervously. ‘I thought you knew.’

  ‘Knew what?’

  Joan looked down, away from me.

  Tamar said, ‘Robin. It’s Robin. She taught Hob to say his name.’

  ‘He was kind to me,’ Joan muttered.

  ‘Kind?’ Tamar laughed. ‘Did you ever in your life see such a pitiful thing as she is?’

  Joan said, ‘He did what he could. You don’t know, Sir.’

  ‘Here,’ Tamar said. ‘I’ll light the lantern – we’ve oil, for once – and you can tell him the whole sorry tale. Lord knows I’ve heard it enough.’

  Joan’s reply to this was an indignant huffing. Anxious lest Tamar should provoke her too far, I said courteously, ‘If it please you, Joan, I should very much like to hear.’

  ‘Then for you, Sir,’ she said, with a sniff in the direction of her daughter, ‘I’ll tell it.’

  * * *

  It seems that Joan had indeed left Tetton Green in the train of common camp-followers, where her refined manner attracted at once the scorn and envy of a she-bully, a virago who for half a day made her life still more wretched. Fortunately for Joan, that same refinement also brought her to the notice of an officer, who took her aside and asked if she was willing to do honest work. She gladly consented, though without any idea of what was meant by working, and he led her to a wagon full of wounded. These were the men without wives to nurse them, and Joan’s task was to supply the lack.

  I now understood how my father, searching among the camp-followers, had failed to find her and had gone away. Thus did Joan lose her truest friend and her one chance of rescue, having come so close that I could not bear, even after all these years, to let her know how nearly she had missed it.

  She kept at the work for several weeks. The wagon was a covered one, and despite its noisome stink she seldom went out into the fresh air. She had no wish to; she ate her ration, and slept, alongside her patients. It was one of the most extraordinary times of her life, she told me: she saw men in such a plight as to melt the heart of the Gentleman himself, with bodies burnt or gutted, or cradling an inflamed and rotting stump where once was an arm or leg, and yet she handled them without pity, having none to spare. She could look into the face of a young boy sweating with agony and say to herself: You’re a man like the rest! Had you been in the Guild Hall, you’d have done like the rest! This lack of tenderness made her a good nurse; when more experienced attendants fainted away, Joan remained unmoved. She cared little if she went on like this forever, lying under canvas among the sick and dying, since she had nowhere else to go. Soon, however, unmistakable signs informed her that she was indeed with child. She stayed on as long as she could before the other nurses observed her condition. ‘I was driven away, Sir,’ she said. ‘Obliged to strike out elsewhere.’

  Hearing that
her old enemy, the virago, had been quietly despatched one night, Joan went back among the camp-followers, seeking out the desperately poor women who could school her in her new life, and a bitter lesson they gave her. Unless she would take herself a protector, they said, her only way was labour: washing pots or filthy linen, or digging the fields. If she wished for outdoor relief, she must return to where she had been living before. So back came Joan to Tetton Green, not without a whipping or two along the way, hating the place but forced to throw herself on its mercy. She was ready to eat any amount of humble pie, provided a parish loaf came with it.

  ‘I had to, Sir,’ she told me. ‘My teeth were falling out, what with being starved and the little one on the way.’ She was picked up a couple of villages away by a farmer with a cart, and wept with thankfulness, ‘for my feet were blistered so bad, like walking on embers.’

  On the outskirts of Tetton, however, she began to feel dread at the coming encounter with the villagers. As she sat wondering if she should go back after all, she observed a man walking in the fields by the side of the road. It was Robin, out alone and, I would have thought, with enough on his mind to furnish contemplation for twenty such walks. She sat trembling b he did not see her. After a while she looked back and saw him in the distance, growing smaller and smaller as the cart sped on.

  She said, ‘Oh, Master Jon, if only I’d talked with him before that day! If only I’d known!’

  I thought of my nightmare, and my horror of talking with the ghost. On arrival at the village Joan made her way to the parsonage, where the parson refused to help her on the grounds that she was a notoriously lewd woman.

  ‘Was that Dr Green?’ I asked.

  ‘Aye. I came out from his house and it was the same as last time, people spitting as I passed them. And then I saw Robin coming back from the fields …’ Her mouth quivering, she went on, ‘I began to rail … I didn’t see why he should bear a good character. People were following us along. But he just took my arm – he did it in front of all of them, Sir, I never forget that – and said, “Have faith in me,” and he walked with me round the back of the house. They didn’t dare follow – they thought he was taking me to Harriet, but he couldn’t do that, you know.’