The Wilding

by McCann, Maria

  The softness at my feet wheezed and shifted.

  ‘If you stand aside, Sir, you’ll see better,’ said Tamar, and I realised that I was blocking the light. I moved to the left and two milky dots appeared in the darkness: the beggar’s eyes.

  At first I could see no more than that, not even that she had a head, but soon I was able to make out an indistinct shape. Swaddled in rags, the crone was sitting on the ground, her back propped against a wall of rock. This place served her, I suppose, for dining room, bedchamber and everything else besides, and when not wandering about begging alms she had nothing to do but sit there. God knows how long she had waited thus, motionless, for Tamar to return. I had not thought Englishwomen capable of it, only savages.

  ‘Thank you for your great kindness, Sir,’ she said, and at those words I started, for despite the cracked harshness of her speech, put out of tune by cold winds and wood-smoke, it seemed to me that I had heard it before.

  ‘Mistress, do you know me?’

  ‘How should I, Sir?’

  There it was again, that faint familiar note. Tamar began, ‘She has a deal of pain in her back, and –’

  ‘Christ preserve us!’ The air over my head split into screeching and scrabbling; something scaly clawed at my hair and was gone before I could strike at it. The women roared with laughter.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ shouted Tamar.

  ‘Nothing?’ The thing, whatever it was, some loathsome bat perhaps, was still flapping in the darkness of the cave.

  ‘Only Hob.’ She smacked her lips, inviting it to approach. ‘He won’t hurt you, Master Jonathan.’

  Concealed in some fold of the rock, the bird now commenced chuckling to itself in a wicked little goblin voice. One word – tomorrow – coming out very plain, the women again began to laugh.

  ‘Tell me, Mistress,’ I said, addressing the old woman, ‘is it true that you can read and write? I hear you make amulets to cure straying husbands.’

  These words put a stop to their laughter. ‘No amulets, nothing like that,’ said the old one, somewhat unwisely since I had walked past a row of them on my way into the cave.

  ‘Just good fortune, no harm,’ Tamar put in. ‘You know there’s no harm, don’t you, Sir?’

  I answered nothing to that; I was not displeased to have brought them up so short. Again I addressed the old woman.

  ‘But you can read and write?’

  ‘I can guess at some words.’

  ‘And write them?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I know someone who says you write like a scholar.’

  She cackled. ‘Do you hear that, Tamar? Folk will say anything!’

  Just then a cloud dissolved and a branch shifted in the wind, so that a sunbeam struck deep into the cave, right to the place where the crone was sitting. Again I started, for (allowing for dirt and neglect) Joan was not so old as I had fancied. I was not talking to a woman of sixty, but one per haps twenty years younger.

  ‘Can you write your name?’

  She shook her head. It occurred to me that Tamar and I should be getting back to End House; now that I could find my way into the cave, I could always return later.

  ‘Well, I wish you joy of the log,’ I said. I was about to add, ‘and will fetch you more,’ but on consideration I did not like her enough to promise that.

  ‘God bless and keep you, Sir,’ she whined in the tones of the professional beggar.

  ‘Farewell.’ Disgust rising in me, I turned and made my way out of the cave, Tamar shuffling after. It was a relief to emerge into the light and air of the outside world. I yawned and stretched, then looked about me and cried out: ‘Tamar! Who’s that?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Over there,’ I said, pointing. As she turned, I plucked an amulet from the thorns outside the cave door.

  She strained forward like a dog that scents game. At last she said, ‘There’s nobody there.’

  ‘A man in a blue cloak.’

  Tamar shook her head. ‘Gone.’

  I could not tell if she was glad of this or not. I remembered what Rose Barnes had said about men visiting the witch, and wondered was it perhaps Tamar they came to see.

  * * *

  At last, in the privacy of my chamber, I was able to unravel the amulet, which was fragile and cost me some pains to penetrate without tearing. Unwrapped, it consisted of a piece of writing in the shap wridiamond, with a scrap of rag stained reddish-brown, a few hairs and what looked like a dried mushroom folded inside it. The paper had been scrolled around them to form a lozenge-like shape and then sealed with some sort of gum. It struck me that the outside of Joan’s cave must be well sheltered from rain, for the writing, though faint and purplish – it looked like blackberry juice, or sloe – was still clear. It appeared to be a love charm. The legend, complete with marks, ran thus:

  turn

  wanderer

  turn three

  times round three

  three times cross and

  three times back three

  Under His tail & Out by His mouth

  Contrariwise, the Lord of this world

  Three hairs on his head

  Three nails on his foot

  home again

  wanderer

  turn

  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.

  Son

  You must return now. I can say no more. Leave the apples and come away. You can return to them later. Your father and I will be sorely displeased if you again fail to return.

  Your loving

  Mother

  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.