The Wilding

by McCann, Maria

  I jumped up. ‘The men, the men in the village! They saw –’

  He shook his head.

  I sat down hardly knowing what to say. In some respects my father’s offer was more than I had dared hope. He had even come round, in some degree, to my view of things. Yet his proposal, while dealing mercifully with Tamar, left justice entirely to one side. I did not think the Dream would let me go free for mere charity. Sitting there perplexed, I recalled something that I had not yet tried.

  I said, ‘You’ve kept a secret from me all this time.’ I was struck by the sudden pallor that spread through my father’s cheeks, giving him the look of a man recently bled by the surgeon, but he said only, ‘What secret?’

  ‘When Uncle Robin died. You received a letter but you never told me what he wrote.’

  He heaved a deep sigh, signifying defeat. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘He did acknowledge Tamar, at the end. He wrote a will to that effect, but the letter didn’t say where the will was kept. I was to go to him and hear it from his lips.’

  The colour was already beating back into his face but his eyes were still watchful, suspicious even; though the room was chilly, I noticed a faint shine of perspiration at his temples.

  ‘It’s what I guessed,’ I said to comfort him. ‘Did he know who his nurse was? Tamar said he did, and that’s why he gave her the ring.’

  ‘He may have.’

  ‘Please, Father, be frank with me. He’d seen Joan since she left Tetton, hadn’t he? Tamar remembers him going into the cave with her mother, when she was still a child. Tamar was sent outside,’ I added, in case my meaning should not be clear.

  ‘God grant him forgiveness,’ my father said wretchedly. ‘Few men have his temptations, Jon. It’s a wonder he didn’t go wrong more often.’ I tried to seem touched by compassion for Uncle Robin’s thorny path in life as Father went on. ‘Yes, he knew Tamar. He wrote that he was in mortal terror.’

  ‘Of her?’

  Father shook his head. ‘He may have feared her a little, but his terror was of God’s judgement. What a thing to have on your conscience!’

  For a moment I was boggled: this was my father speaking, the same man who was set upon my abandoning Tamar. But then, he did not believe the child was mine.

  I said, ‘So the will was a matter of conscience?’

  ‘Of right, of justice, of dying at peace with God. But then I let him down.’

  ‘No, Father! You went at once.’

  ‘I should’ve taken the horse. You said so, at the time. But his mind seemed clear – as if he was strong –’ His voice caught and again I marvelled at the depth of my father’s love for his handsome, selfish brother. He got control over himself, however, and added, ‘Harriet said he was wandering, at the end. Perhaps he tore up the will and never knew it.’

  ‘She didn’t nurse him, to know,’ I said. ‘He wanted justice and we have to respect his wishes.’

  Father said sharply, ‘Indeed? And how would you set about it – whip your aunt through the village?’

  ‘First we must find the will. That’s what the dreams are about: Robin’s telling me it isn’t destroyed.’

  ‘You and your dreams! Robin had the girl with him, by his bedside. Why wouldn’t he give the will to her?’

  I thought. ‘There might be reasons. She can’t read, for one. He needed someone like you to witness it, someone respected who couldn’t be pushed aside by my aunt.’

  Father surprised me by an abrupt nod. ‘I grant you. Or he mightn’t want Tamar to know she stood to gain. There’s such a thing as poison, after all.’

  ‘If you think that, so would Harriet. She’d point the finger at Tamar before you could say “witchcraft” and blame her for the sickness, everything. No, it had to be given to somebody else, if only to protect her. That’s why he kept it ready for you.’

  ‘Where, then? Where?’ Father rocked softly back and forth, as absorbed in the riddle as I had ever been, then stopped short and put his hand on my arm. ‘Jon. You must promise me something.’

  ‘I do. I have.’

  ‘Not that. If we find a will’ – here he paused, as if to consider all the possibilities – ‘or if you find one when I’m not with you, you must let me read it first.’

  v> I was so delighted at that ‘we’, which declared us fellow conspirators against Aunt Harriet, that I gladly swore to this condition. My father perhaps wanted to feel himself alone, if only for a moment, with the brother he had lost; he wished to keep faith with him at last. And it seemed that my uncle knew of my promise and approved it, for that night I sank down through the layers of sleep and dissolved in its black waters, dreamless as the dead.

  * * *

  The following morning the windows were blank with frost. In the office Father explained to me his plans for the kitchen garden, both of us wearing gloves and caps indoors and our breath steaming over the paper. I approved his scheme for rearranging the vegetable beds and for training Scarlet Lady beans against the side of the cider-house. We then went out to mark up plots with pegs and string but with the ground so hard there was little we could do. Though I knew how fast Nature’s wheel turns, the summer crops seemed distant as America. We had seen days better suited to working outside, and had let them go; I thought perhaps Father wanted me out of the house, so we could talk without being overheard by my mother, but he did not once broach the subject of Robin or his will.

  We went into the cider-house. Father took a cup and tapped the last of the early hogsheads.

  ‘Not bad,’ I said, admiring the golden transparency of the drink.

  He tasted it. ‘Aye. It’s kept well for earlies.’

  ‘I’ll marry, Father,’ I said suddenly. I had had enough of murky doings and secrecy. ‘I’ll marry once everything’s cleared up.’

  ‘And if it’s never cleared up – if we never find anything?’

  ‘Then I suppose my dreams will continue.’

  Would any woman want a man so tortured by the nightmare? And who did I want? Poll? To go from Tamar to Poll was an extraordinary thought, to be sure. Father refilled the cup and held it out to me.

  ‘I dreamed something last night,’ he said.

  It was as if the shed was lit up with torches, or as if the Final Trump had sounded. I held my breath.

  ‘I opened this hogshead, this one here,’ Father went on. ‘It was sealed with seven seals, like in the Bible.’

  I thought this horrible, and said so.

  ‘They were like twists of paper. I tasted the drink and it was sour and red. Blood-red. Yet here’s the cider, nothing wrong with it.’

  Disappointment filled me.

  ‘You see, son –’

  ‘My dream’s not of that kind,’ I said, handing back the cup.

  * * *

  The next day I must return to Aunt Harriet, if the remainder of her crop were not to rot. Mother brushed down clothes for me, sealed me a jug full of mulled cider (though this would be cold long before I came to drink it) and wrapped me up some bread and cheese and pie to eat on the road.

  ‘And when you’re finished there, I hope you’ll come home and we can go on again, the way we used to,’ she said.

  We were in my chamber, Mother turning out old garments that were now too small for me to wear. Some had lain folded in the press for years, waiting to see light again, but there was no younger brother growing out at heels and elbows who could have used them. She held up a dark-blue jacket.

  ‘Alice can have this for her nephew. Remember it?’

  I had some hazy recollection of crowds and booths. ‘Did I wear it to the fair?’

  ‘We bought the cloth there. I cut it big, to grow into.’ Laughing, she held it against my shoulders. It might have fitted when I was about twelve or thirteen years old.

  She wanted to touch me, to make up with me. I wanted it, too; I wanted everything the way it used to be, but life had come between now and then. Mother threw the jacket onto the bed, where it fanned out as if showing itself off. />
  ‘Your father’s going to Tetton with you,’ she said. I could think of nothing to say; I could think of nothing to think. She added, ‘To be of help.’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘Whatever’s needful.’

  She looked as shy as a young girl. She knows, I thought. About Tamar, my dreams, everything.

  I said, ‘Well, that’s good, I suppose. If Aunt Harriet will lodge him.’

  ‘If she won’t, he has money for the inn.’

  It seemed everything was decided. I was going back to Tetton Green with ‘Mr Mathew’ by my side.

  ‘He needn’t watch over me, you know. I’ve promised not to see her and I won’t.’

  ‘You may have to,’ she said, surprising me. ‘Better for you if he’s there. He won’t let them off with a thing.’

  * * *

  The day of our departure was savagely cold. My father’s cheeks were mottled red and blue; I had wrapped a cloth around my mouth and nose in order to breathe more easily, for the air gouged at my nostrils. Father drove until his fingers grew numb, then I took over until mine were as bad; he took up the reins again while I scrubbed my hands together and clapped them in my armpits for warmth.

  Despite this cursed weather he was in a good mood, mild as milk. I had made up my mithat I was glad of his company, though I found it hard to know what he intended to do apart from taking the reins every so often. I kept turning over what my mother had said: he won’t let them off. Until recent events had brought out my father’s tougher side, I had always thought of him as too gentle for his own good. How much of him remained hidden from my knowledge? He had married late, at thirty; he had been a full-grown man, in a world that did not include me, until a moment’s pleasure brought me squealing into that world. Like any child, I found it strange that for most of my father’s life I had been faceless, voiceless, not even thought of.

  The roads were hard with frost and Bully’s hoofs clattered alarmingly at times, but he kept his footing. As our wheels crunched through frozen puddles, I began to ponder the nature of accidents – all manner of accidents, from an overturned coach to the deaths of my brothers and sisters. Was there a purpose in these things? Why, out of all the children born to my parents, was I the sole one let to live, while the rest, equally innocent and deserving, lay in the churchyard? Was it God’s will that I should grow to manhood, in order to put right a wrong?

  The cold was growing on me. I closed my eyes and huddled up tighter, allowing myself to drowse off as Father urged Bully along the lanes.

  16

  The Wilding

  ‘Careful, Father. You have to drop down here, look.’ I slid into the ditch and called up to him. ‘Once you’re down it’s solid enough.’

  My father slithered after me. ‘I know this place,’ he said, looking around. ‘We used to play here as boys.’

  ‘Did you go into the cave?’

  ‘Sometimes. But this here –’ He indicated the ditch. ‘We’d walk towards it blindfolded until the ground gave way. Robin was best. Even if you pushed him, he never cried out.’

  ‘Did all the village lads come here?’

  ‘A good few.’

  We picked our way over cracked and soiled ice, trampled into the mud by other feet than ours. The sky was already growing dark and the black opening to the cave, when we turned and came up against it, seemed to float in the air, a devouring mouth without a face. I was suddenly loath for him to enter, and said, ‘It’ll be dark within.’

  ‘I’ve a tinderbox.’ As I made to move forward he plucked me back by the sleeve. ‘Wait, son. What if somebody should be inside?’

  ‘Robbers, you mean?’

  He coughed delicately. ‘No. Well, what can we do? Call.’

  I went forward to the hurdle and called, ‘Tamar!’

  She appeared almost at once, bundustifyund with what looked like every garment she possessed. Her face, though dirty and bone-sharp, had a sort of shine to the skin; I had seen this shine before on the faces of women who were with child.

  ‘This is Tamar Seaton,’ I said.

  ‘Welcome, Master Jon. And Mr Mathew.’ Tamar stood nervously, twisting her hands together.

  I said, ‘So you know my father?’

  She addressed him, not me. ‘Am I wrong? Beg pardon, Sir.’

  ‘I am indeed Mathew Dymond,’ he said, weighing her up. ‘Have you seen me before, young woman?’

  ‘At the funeral, Sir. And you look like Mr Robin.’

  We stood awkwardly at the entrance to the cave. Someone had cut down the thorn bush where Joan used to hang her amulets. I blew on my fingers to show we were suffering from the cold and Tamar wordlessly indicated that we should follow her inside.

  ‘Is Joan here?’ I asked as we entered the familiar stale-smelling darkness.

  ‘She can’t move from the place now.’

  ‘Have Dr Green’s men been back?’

  ‘Jon,’ my father cut in, ‘this no longer concerns you.’

  Walking behind him, I was unable to see Tamar, but his words must have brought her up short since my father stumbled a little before moving forward again.

  We came to the straw-strewn chamber where Joan passed her days. ‘Pray sit here,’ came Tamar’s voice, and I guessed she had guided Father to the flattish piece of rock where I usually sat. I heard him take out the tinder-box.

  ‘Allow me one moment,’ he said. I was curious to know where Joan was, and why she remained silent, but not wanting to annoy my father again I contented myself with groping my way to a corner where I could rest my back against the wall.

  A spark shot up from the tinder, then another. Then a light caught and grew, bringing streaks of moisture out on the walls, so that what had seemed a boundless darkness shrank around us as Father lit a candle and held it out in the unclean air. At last I was able to make out Joan, lying nearly under my feet. Perhaps Father was watching me, for almost at the same instant he brought the candle down where its beams fell directly upon her.

  She was nothing but a death’s head; the fat around her eyes was all shrunk away so that her eyeballs protruded. I thought I could have run my finger round the rims of her eye-sockets, right down behind those eyes, and the fancy sickened me. Deep shadows round the jaws showed where her cheeks were sunken in from lack of teeth.

  My father studied her in silence.

  ‘Is she asleep?’ I whispered.

  He motioned me to silence and continued to gaze. I glanced over his shoulder at Tamar whose own face, away from the candle, showed only as a dim triangle.

  ‘Yes,’ Father said suddenly, and I understood: at first he had been unable to reconcile the relic before him with the girl he had known.

  He turned to Tamar. ‘Be so good as to wake her.’

  She came forward, bent over her mother and began softly shaking her by the arm. A wet chink appeared in the bulging eyes, but the sleeper had not yet seen us. When she did there was a spasm of her entire body.

  ‘Tamar!’ she gasped.

  ‘Hush,’ her daughter said. ‘They’re friends.’

  Joan gave no sign of hearing the last word. She flinched from my father, twisting round in an attempt to hide her face.

  ‘She’s still half asleep,’ Tamar explained. She hissed to her mother, ‘Lie still, will you!’

  The old woman subsided into the straw.

  ‘I’ve never seen her like this,’ I said.

  ‘She’s failing for lack of food.’ Tamar looked up at my father. ‘And warmth.’

  At this, Father produced some bread, butter, cordial and cold meat which he had brought with him from Spadboro. Tamar eyed them longingly but made no move to eat; instead, she explained how Dr Green had frightened away those who came seeking amulets. These days they stayed at home, and with them their precious offerings: pennies, loaves, pieces of meat. Nothing, now, in the frozen wood but birds and rabbits, which Joan was grown too frail to catch.

  ‘Can she still sleep out the winter?’ I asked.

&nbs
p; ‘If she does,’ said Tamar, ‘she’ll sleep for good.’

  ‘Have you nothing at all to eat?’ my father said. Tamar rose, fetched a cloth and showed him its contents: a mess of boiled pease, twisted up in the clout without dish or spoon. I wondered if Tamar had stolen it. They had evidently been trying to make it last; there were blots of mould upon it and a musty smell sufficient to disgust anyone not rendered bestial by hunger. My father looked very grave. Silently Tamar put away the cloth and again bent over her mother.

  ‘Come, wake up. Wake up.’

  Joan muttered and curled into herself.

  ‘I can’t stay forever,’ my father said.

  This hint put new strength into Tamar. She shook Joan without stopping until the older woman was forced to open her eyes.

  ‘Joan!’ my father said loudly, as soon as she did so. ‘I’m Mathew Dymond. Robin’s brother.’

  Joan turned her face to him.

  ‘And this is my son. You know Jon, don’t you? Jon?’

  ‘Know him?’ she murmured.

  ‘Good,’ said Father, as if he had desired precisely this answer. ‘And now, Jon, I want you to go outside and leave us alone.’

  ‘But Father –’

  ‘You too, young woman. Jon, make sure she stays away from here.’

  With a sigh, I rose. Tamar followed me out through the cave entrance and into the ha-ha.

  ‘Sent out again,’ she remarked as soon as we were out of earshot.

  ‘How dare you!’ I snapped. ‘My father is an honourable man.’

  ‘I only meant, out into the cold again.’ She was laughing at me. ‘Or do you think Joan’s of an age for sweethearts?’

  ‘Were she the most beautiful woman on earth, she’d be safe with him.’

  Tamar walked up and down along the ha-ha, smirking to herself as if she knew better, then turned and pointed back towards the cave. ‘See that tree, there? The apple?’

  ‘I can tell an apple tree,’ I said coldly.

  ‘You should put your hand on it, for luck.’