The Wilding

by McCann, Maria

  Mother was sniffing the air. ‘What’s this?’ she said, moving out of my father’s embrace. ‘Hungary water?’

  put hight="0em" width="1em" align="justify">I told her it was on me, not him. * * *

  A good sluicing with Hungary water would have improved the smell of Master Blackett’s house: an odour of creeping mould, though disguised just then with the scent of his last dinner. We were brought through by his clerk to a room crowded with papers and volumes, where Blackett greeted us and invited us to sit.

  ‘Now, to our business,’ he said. A packet which I supposed to be Joan’s lay on the table, ready to his hand; taking it up, he paused and looked at me over the tops of his spectacles. I had already noticed he had a habit of doing this; I wondered why, if he wore the things to any purpose, he must needs keep peering over them.

  ‘I find myself in an awkward position,’ he said, turning to Father. ‘Had you taken this’ – he drew his finger softly along the top of the packet – ‘and destroyed it in ignorance, the law would have nothing to say to you. As matters stand …’

  ‘Robin’s life was irregular, we know,’ said Father. ‘Pray proceed.’

  Still the man hesitated. ‘As his brother you perhaps anticipate some legacy? A very natural, fraternal hope,’ he added, as if to retract a slander.

  ‘All I hope for is the satisfaction of having carried out his wishes.’

  The lawyer looked as if he had heard that tale before. ‘And this young man … ?’

  ‘Is of my mind,’ Father assured him. ‘I take it this is a true and proper will, then, and unfavourable to us?’

  ‘It appears to be correctly drawn up.’ He unfolded the packet. Inside was the document Father had told me about; I could just make out, in the shadow of Blackett’s elbow and upside down on the page, the signature. I stared at it. It appeared fresh from Robin’s hand, as if he might enter the room at any moment; yet his urgent body, that had made mine, was now dissolved, invisible save in these black marks that would themselves dissolve as the ink faded.

  ‘Your brother’s lawyer was Master Ousby of Tetton Green. At the time of his client’s death, Master Ousby should have informed your sister-in-law of the will.’ Again he peeked over those spectacles, and there was a flicker of amusement. ‘This he failed to do.’

  ‘Then she knows nothing of it?’ I asked. Strange to think that, for once, Aunt Harriet had spoken the truth!

  Blackett inclined his head. ‘Unless, of course, she heard from her husband, as is customary?’

  Father said, ‘I doubt it. Pray read the will.’

  ‘Strictly speaking, the widow ought to be present.’

  ‘Can’t she hear it later? And you must only show her a copy; if this falls into the hands of my sister-in-law, you needn’t hope to see it again.’

  on the p height="0em" width="1em" align="justify">‘Strong language,’ the lawyer observed. ‘No stronger than is called for. I’ll be frank with you, Master Blackett: my brother had dependants not recognised by his wife. She’s allowed them to fall into destitution; I hope this may lift them up again, and place them out of her power.’

  ‘May I ask what you mean by “dependants not recognised”?’

  ‘Tamar Seaton, his natural daughter, and her mother. Mrs Dymond has behaved with the utmost cruelty towards them.’

  ‘She’s not obliged to provide for such people,’ said Blackett.

  ‘But if provision is made in her husband’s will –’

  ‘Indeed. If provision is made. Pray bear with me a little and indulge my curiosity. You say Mrs Dymond was aware of this irregular union. Why, then, should your brother keep her in ignorance of his arrangements?’

  ‘If you knew my sister-in-law, Master Blackett, you would never ask such a question.’

  The lawyer permitted himself a smile. ‘Then let me ask another. How did you happen to come across it?’

  Now I saw where he was leading. It seemed we did benefit from the will, for Blackett clearly suspected us of being its authors.

  ‘Joan Seaton gave it me,’ Father said. ‘I told you this before.’

  ‘She gave it to Mrs Dymond’s brother-in-law? She must repose great trust in you.’

  I hung my head, for Joan had never ‘reposed great trust’ in me. Thinking myself at the very heart of the game, I had been utterly out of it. In taking her son under his protection and raising him as his own, Mathew Dymond had done one thing for Joan Seaton that she never forgot; to her mind, nobody, not even that son, could come near him. Seen in this light, her writings had been a way of sounding me, of preparing me, as it were, for the much more important document that was to come. In time, finding me honest, she might have yielded up the packet, but with Mathew such caution was needless. Meeting him again, she had not hesitated; no sooner had I gone into the wood than she had placed her precious secret in his hands.

  Father said now to Blackett, ‘I’ve helped her in the past.’

  ‘And how did Mistress Seaton obtain possession of the will?’

  ‘Tamar Seaton was taken on as a servant at End House and nursed my brother in his last illness. I can only assume she used a false name since my sister-in-law had no idea who she was, but Robin knew her. He ordered her to open a box in the sickroom and take out the document she would find at the bottom.’

  ‘Did he say it was his will?’

  ‘No. He told Tamar the women must keeeigd of it and wait until Mr Mathew called upon them. I believe he meant to instruct me accordingly, but died before he could do so.’

  Blackett said, ‘You will forgive my question. Could the woman have forged it, or had it forged?’

  ‘She hasn’t the means or the friends,’ said Father.

  ‘Wouldn’t Master Ousby have a copy?’ I asked. ‘Why didn’t he come forward when Uncle Robin died?’

  ‘At the time of your uncle’s death, Ousby himself was gravely ill.’

  Father said, ‘But when he recovered?’

  ‘You mistake me. He died of his sickness. His clerk had neither money nor learning enough to take his place, and his affairs fell into disorder.’

  ‘She has the devil’s own luck,’ Father exclaimed. ‘Are all his papers lost?’

  ‘His widow had the sense to keep hold of them. With your consent, I will send my clerk to search.’ He looked straight at Father. ‘Are you content for me to do so, and to seek out any witnesses?’

  ‘By all means, Master Blackett, only let him say as little as possible. This will could melt away like morning dew.’

  ‘You may rely on me to know my business,’ Blackett reassured him. ‘Since you are both legatees, I feel justified in reading its contents to you, but I must warn you that if no copy survives among Ousby’s records, well!’ He shrugged as if to say: you may as well stop now.

  Promising to bear this in mind, we begged him to proceed. He ran through at speed, pausing to explain clauses and turns of phrase as he felt it necessary, and skipping over a long list of bequests to past servants and friends in the village, before I made my appearance in Blackett’s homely translation as ‘my nephew Jonathan Dymond, a lad after my own heart, in whose handsome looks his father lives again’. I flushed at these words, which to my thinking trumpeted my paternity to the world, and I flushed worse when it came to me that Robin had divined my secret likeness to himself – a likeness of more than body – before I understood it myself: a lad after my own heart. I almost hated him for it, dead though he was: the Dymond I wished to be cut from was not Robin but Mathew. Blackett, seemingly unaware of my distress, went on to announce that Robin had bequeathed me twenty pounds and a miniature of himself as a young man. For Mother’s sake, I strove to conceal my humiliation and appear pleased. My parents had precisely the same remembrance as was left to them in the previous will.

  ‘Mrs Harriet Dymond has a life interest in the estate,’ the lawyer went on, running his finger down the page.

  My father whistled. ‘Only that!’

  ‘After her death the entire
estate passes to Mistress Joan Seaton and her daughter, Tamar Seaton. Until they enter into their inheritance, the Seatons are bequeathed an allowance of forty pounds per annum. If I may say so, Mr Dymond, that leaves them very snug indeed.&rsquo

  Father sat stunned. I heard Joan’s cracked voice saying, ‘He always loved me best.’

  ‘The deceased names Tamar Seaton as his natural daughter,’ Blackett said. ‘And that’s your understanding also?’

  ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘But Joan Seaton may never inherit. She’s younger than her – than Mrs Dymond – but sickly.’

  ‘They can’t fee a lawyer,’ Father added, ‘and Mrs Dymond is sure to contest this.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Blackett said drily. ‘She has no children – the widow, I mean?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘All to the good. He’s made fair provision for her. Are you acquainted with anyone by the name of Abel Canning?’

  Father shook his head. ‘Is he a legatee?’

  ‘He witnessed the will. So, Master Jonathan, how do you like your twenty pounds?’

  ‘It’s more than I expected.’

  He scrutinised me over the tops of those spectacles, his dark eyes putting me in mind of Hob. ‘That is indeed the royal road to satisfaction. The will shall be copied, Mr Dymond, never fear.’

  *

  As we walked back through the village, I said to Father, ‘Shall we fee him, since Joan and Tamar can’t? I could do it out of what Robin left me.’

  He looked doubtful. ‘Let’s first see what comes out of Ousby’s papers. I don’t want Blackett to think this will is forged.’

  ‘Why would we forge it?’ I protested. ‘We’ve no interest; the estate goes to Joan and Tamar.’

  Father sighed with exasperation. ‘A woman protected by your family, who claims she’s carrying your child – no interest?’

  ‘That, perhaps, but –’

  ‘The lawyers know nothing of your …’ – he hesitated – ‘… kinship. You might be planning to marry Tamar, might you not?’

  ‘Why would I marry my uncle’s bastard?’

  ‘Stranger things have happened,’ Father said. ‘Even when the wench was penniless.’

  ‘Am I always to be –’

  ‘Jon! Listen to me. Forgery’s a serious matter.’

  We stopped and stood facing each other. He was breathing fast, though our walk had been leisurely, and he kept grip on me, as if afraid I would run off and do myself some hurt. I was not accustomed to consider my father as old, but in that instant I glimpsed the old man he would become.

  ‘You never spoke of this before,’ I said.

  ‘I never saw it before but I do now. If there’s no copy we can’t go on.’ Seeing me about to protest, he held up his other hand. ‘We must drop it entirely.’

  ‘What of Robin’s wishes?’ I accused him. ‘You said your only desire was to fulfil –’ but here I broke off, seeing his eyes spark with resentment. He was so rarely angry, and I so unaccustomed to him in this mood, that I quailed even before he spoke.

  ‘Take care – take care!’ He flung my arm away from him. ‘I’ve loved my brother all my life – loved him before you were so much as thought of! D’you fancy I’d give up if I once saw a way forward?’

  ‘No,’ I mumbled.

  ‘No! Then let’s say no more. In any case’ – he was already half way back to his more amiable self – ‘there may yet be a copy.’

  * * *

  My life now began to settle down into its accustomed round – if I may say that, when my duties remained the same but everything within me was changed. My days of innocence were past; I felt I had grown old overnight.

  Days came and went, cold and rainy, cold and clear. Father wished me to be constantly by his side. Though we did only what we had always done, I felt he was reminding me that I belonged with him and Mother. On mild days, when we could get a spade into the ground, we turned over the earth so that the next frost would break it, or dug out corners of the garden that were lying fallow. If the earth was too cold or sodden for work, we mended walls and gates.

  During this time a man called Samuel Beast came to help with the heaviest jobs. Despite suffering much mockery on account of their surname, the Beasts were both numerous and industrious, and consequently of some account in the village. Our Samuel Beast suffered like the rest; one day he said to me that it must be a fine thing to be called Dymond, and I wondered whether he would still say that if he knew all. Hearing our talk, Father interrupted and said he wanted to consult me as to the desirability of damsons: he still hankered after these, being partial to damson cheese, but my mother had come out fighting against them since she considered the fruits all stone and not worth the trouble they gave. Though I knew he had asked me mostly to turn the talk away from names, I was glad to give him my advice, which was that he should set them, and that Mother would come round in time.

  Everything in our house, nay, our village, was dear to me, even the disputed rights of a couple of damson trees. I would look up from my labours and see the blue smoke rising from our chimney, our neighbours’ houses close by and the clumps of trees dotted about the hills. Familiarity does not always breed contempt: it seemed to me that all goodness, all of Nature’s beauty, all kindliness, all neighbourly help, were here. This place had been my Eden; as a child I had pictured the Angel waving his fiery sword from the boughs of our ‘Old Man’, the twisted ancient Redstreak at the top of the orchard. Since then, I had tasted the fruit of a more fatal Tree, yet my love for Spadboro – its well-trodden pathways, the shape its roofs cut into the sky, its fields bare or scattered with blossoms – was grown all the more tender for knowing myself to be a wilding there.

  When our fingers were numb and our bellies empty the three of us would repair to the house. A copper shoe in the fire bubbled with scalding cider, so that drinking was a pleasure laced with pain. Samuel Beast was happy to join us in that and in a hunk of bread and cheese before we went out again, flushed and rubbing our hands, to heave up ragwort or split logs. I gave my entire strength to the labour, ate well, and slept soundly at night, and my parents praised me; yet all this time I was straining my ears, like a dog, for some word of Tamar.

  *

  Father had not waited for the will before providing for the two women – that much I knew, and would have expected of him – and was kind enough to tell me something of how they were living: he had lodged them at a distance from both Tetton Green and Spadboro, under a respectable roof and in a village where he hoped they might continue unknown. His intention was that, as far as possible, Joan should recover her health, and that in their refuge Tamar’s child should be born.

  Where might that refuge be? I lay awake at night, considering. Money is much, to be sure, but not everything: there is also reputation. How, then, had he persuaded decent people to take on such disreputable women? Had they been received into some almshouse, under the watchful eyes of attendants bent upon their reform?

  At first I hoped he or Mother might let something slip, but when I considered what secrets they had guarded for over twenty years, I saw the folly of such hopes. More and more often, as I stood among the garden plots, surrounded by well-loved sights, a creeping sourness would infect my soul. I attempted to get clear again, to keep my thoughts wholesome, but the sourness spread regardless. It seemed there was no purpose for me in this world, that my existence, for all its hard-won wisdoms, its industry, its patched-up respectability, was bare as the winter earth. There was only this difference: that in a little time the earth would teem with new life.

  * * *

  ‘You talked of marrying,’ Father said one night at supper. I saw him glance at Mother and my stomach gave a twist.

  At the time, I had spoken honestly. The trouble was that whenever I pictured my wedding day (and that I did only if someone else spoke of it, as now), what I saw at the ceremony was the smiling faces of my parents. The bride, who should have been all to me, was nothing but a gown walking by my side.<
br />
  Mother reached out and laid her hand on my arm. ‘You’ve waited long enough. A good wife is a comfort and support to a man; you won’t regret it.’

  On my plate lay a portion of salt pork and winter cabbage. I hacked at the pork with my knife.

  ‘And you’ll have children,’ Father added.

  I stared at him. Did he mean that any young man naturally produces offspring, or that all the fruitfulness of our family was bred into me, son of the only Dymond who had proven abilities in that line of work?

  ‘There’s plenty of time,’ I said.

  ‘Less than you think.’

  Mother said, ‘It is not good that a man should be alone.’

  ‘I’m not alone while you live.’

  ‘You talk like a child,’ Father said. ‘You must marry; that’s how things go in this world.’

  I pushed away the pork and cabbage. ‘You love me, you wish me to have what others have …’

  ‘But?’

  ‘I can’t see myself – I mean, there’s no woman –’

  ‘No woman?’ Father said sternly. ‘Search your heart, Jon, and your conscience.’

  His words silenced me. I heard the clock and wondered if they also heard it, and were drawing a moral instance from it.

  ‘What’s the difference?’ I said at last. ‘Call it what you like; I don’t want to marry.’

  ‘Jon … son … your happiness is of the greatest consequence to me. You know that. I might even consent to your marriage with her, if –’

  Mother gasped, ‘Mathew!’

  ‘He doesn’t mean it,’ I said coldly.

  ‘If you could marry. The thing is, you can’t.’

  ‘I know that. So why shut her away from me?’

  ‘Because I know how it is between men and women – with or without a wedding.’ He held up a hand to check my protest. ‘You think me cruel, I daresay. A young man sets his heart on a woman, he’s all cut up with love …’ He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t last. You’ll marry and forget her.’