by Rhys Bowen
“It’s still at my parents’ house, I’m afraid,” she said. “I’ll have to write to them and ask them to send it to me.”
“Well, I can’t let you have anything without it, my dear,” the woman said, looking more kindly now. “It would be more than my neck is worth. They have fines, even prison for those who abuse the system.”
“I see. Thank you anyway.” Emily came out into the bitter wind. How was she going to feed herself and her child with no ration book? But if she wrote to her parents and asked them to post it to her, then they’d know where she was living, and she didn’t want that at all costs. She went back up the hill to Bucksley House, her footsteps dragging now.
“Mrs Trelawney,” she said, “I don’t know if Lady Charlton has told you that I’ll be taking my midday meal here while I work on the garden.”
“She might have mentioned something about it.” The woman eyed her coldly.
“So I wondered if I might have a few staples from your kitchen so that I don’t have to bother you for my other meals,” Emily said. “A little flour and sugar and tea, butter . . . those sorts of things.”
“Those things are on ration these days,” Mrs Trelawney said. “Do you have your ration book?”
“I don’t. It’s at my parents’ house,” Emily said. “I’ll have to send for it, but in the meantime . . .”
“I suppose we can spare enough to keep you going,” she said grudgingly.
“And I wondered, if you bake bread for the house, if you could maybe bake an extra loaf for me,” Emily dared to add.
“As if I don’t have enough work around here,” the woman snapped. “You think I’m your servant, too?”
“Of course not. It’s just that I’ve never had to bake bread, but I’m willing to learn if you can show me.”
“I don’t want you under my feet. I’ll bake you the loaf,” she said.
Daisy came into the kitchen. “She can share my rations, Mrs Trelawney,” she said, having overheard the last of this conversation. “I’ve got my book, and I don’t eat much.”
“I expect we’ll manage then,” the woman said with an exaggerated sigh. “Did you take up the clean clothes to Her Ladyship’s bedroom?”
“I did,” Daisy said. “What would you like me to do now?”
Emily looked at her with secret admiration. She seemed so naive and awkward, but she knew how to work with people like Mrs Trelawney. The older woman was looking at Daisy almost fondly. “You’re a good little worker, I’ll say that for you,” she said. Her expression hardened as she turned back to Emily. “So you’ll probably be wanting your supper here tonight, seeing as how you’ve no provisions yet.”
“If you don’t mind,” Emily said. “But after that, as I said, I’ll just share my midday meal with you and manage for myself in the evenings. I can make do with something simple like bread and cheese.”
“Bread and cheese?” The woman sniffed. “That will give you bad dreams, that will. But then you’re probably going to get bad dreams anyway in that cursed place. I’ve only been in there a few times myself, and each time I felt it—that malevolent presence. You’ll feel it if you haven’t already, believe me.”
She grudgingly packed a basket with tea, milk, sugar, bread, butter and jam. “They’ll keep you going for now,” she said. Emily thanked her, and carried them back to the cottage, where she unpacked her belongings, putting them away in the rickety chest of drawers. Then she went up to the attic, unpacked the books from the trunk and dragged it down the stairs, before going up again to retrieve the books. As she placed the books on top of the trunk, she fingered the leather-bound journal. I suppose I can read it now, she thought. Daisy said it would bring me bad luck, and it already has, so my luck can’t get much worse at this moment. But still she hesitated. Not now, she thought, although after all the tales about the cottage she had heard, her curiosity was piqued. She put it down and went back to her chores. Then suddenly she was overcome with exhaustion. She lay on the bed and fell asleep. In her dream, she was hiding in the upstairs room. “They won’t find me here,” she was saying, and then she realized that she had long black hair flowing over her shoulders. She awoke with a start, her heart thumping, to find it was almost dark. The dream had quite unnerved her. Had she been dreaming about the witch who had once lived in the cottage? But she had actually been the witch in her dream. She tried to shake off the feeling of unreality as she splashed water on to her face. Mrs Trelawney would be waiting to serve supper, and would not take it kindly if Emily were late. She put on her mackintosh and hurried up the path. Daisy and Ethel were already seated at the kitchen table.
“Well, there she is, queen of the cottage,” Mrs Trelawney said. “Thought you’d had a better offer, we did.”
“I’m sorry,” Emily muttered, taking her place at the table. A large bowl of something brown and spongy was put in front of her. With it came the overwhelming smell of onions.
“What is this?” she asked politely.
“Tripe and onions,” the housekeeper said. “You have to take whatever meat they can give you these days.”
Emily had never eaten tripe in her life. She wasn’t quite sure what it was, but seemed to remember it being something to do with a cow’s stomach. She tried a mouthful. It felt slimy and chewy as she fought to swallow it. She was all too aware that if she rejected it, she would be fed the worst scraps of everything from now on, if she was fed at all. She swallowed bravely, holding back the bile that rose in her throat. She washed it down with mug after mug of tea. As soon as she had eaten it, she got up.
“Would you excuse me? I’d like to finish cleaning the cottage tonight so that I can start work on the garden tomorrow.” She didn’t wait for an answer. As soon as she was clear of the house, she disappeared into the rhododendron bushes and vomited her meal on to the carpet of leaves. Her stomach still heaved as she made her way down to the cottage. It was pitch-black, and she stumbled several times. How was she going to find her way on dark winter nights? She certainly couldn’t carry a candle in this wind. Then she realized she’d have to leave a lamp in the cottage window to guide her.
This time, the cottage felt warm, but the shadows from the flickering fire emphasized the bleakness and were somehow unnerving. She realized she had never slept in a house alone before, and wished she had accepted Lady Charlton’s invitation for a room in the big house. But I have to learn, she thought. She took out pen, ink and paper, deciding it was time she wrote to Clarissa, but she couldn’t make herself put the words down. She didn’t think Clarissa would think badly of her, but she couldn’t risk losing one of her only friends. So she did what Alice had shown her and banked up the fire, then she got undressed and climbed in between the cold sheets. Wind rattled at the windows and moaned down the chimney, filling the cottage with smoke. The grim reality that this was her future overwhelmed her.
“I want to go home,” she whispered.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The morning dawned bright and breezy. As Emily opened the back door to step out to the privy, she heard a small noise at her feet. A black cat sat there, looking up at her with anticipation.
“Mew?” it said.
“Hello.” She bent to stroke it, and it purred, rubbing against her legs. When she went back into the house, it darted in front of her. “Well,” she said, “I suppose you can stay. But you’ll have to be a good hunter. I can hardly feed myself.”
The cat settled itself in front of the fire. She looked at it fondly. At least she was no longer alone. “You’ll have to have a name,” she said. Blackie, Sooty, Satan . . . she toyed with several, then settled on Shadow. “My Shadow and I,” she said. It felt quite satisfying.
After a couple of slices of bread and jam, she went out to work, starting on the kitchen garden, which was in serious need of weeding. The summer crops had died off, and she now knew that winter vegetables should be planted in their place. She weeded and dug out dead plants all morning, then picked the few remaining apples o
n the trees, carrying the basket up to Mrs Trelawney. The woman actually looked pleased.
“Well, fancy that. They’ll come in handy. Now I can bake a couple of pies for the harvest festival on Sunday. I was wondering what to take this year, what with not having much in the garden. And I don’t suppose there’s a marrow left?”
“A couple of little ones,” Emily said. “There’s a good-looking pumpkin.”
“There you are then.” Mrs Trelawney nodded with satisfaction. “A pumpkin it will have to be. If you pick it and bring it up to the house, we’ll take it on Sunday.” She looked up from her baking. “It’s not what it used to be, of course. Before the war, there was always a rivalry here. Mr Patterson at the school always grew the biggest marrow, and Dickson the carter, he always had the best-looking cabbages. And in those days, we had the three gardeners, so we had plenty of good-looking produce to carry up to the altar, although Her Ladyship has never been much for church herself. Won’t set foot in the place here. But we servants go.”
They had a hearty vegetable soup and cold pork pie for their midday meal, then Emily went back to work. She was interrupted by Simpson with a message from Her Ladyship. Would she take sherry and dine with her that evening? So she changed out of her work clothes and presented herself at six o’clock for sherry. The outdoor work seemed to have done her good, and she was feeling quite hungry when they sat down together by the big fire.
“So did you survive your first night in the cottage?” Lady Charlton asked. “Did you meet the ghosties and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night that Mrs Trelawney seems to think inhabit it?”
“Actually, I slept remarkably well,” Emily answered. “And I have a room-mate. A small black cat.”
Lady Charlton chuckled. “How appropriate for a witch’s cottage.”
“Was there really a witch here once?” Emily asked.
“Depends what you mean by ‘witch,’” the lady said. “Long ago, a cow would die and the owner would claim that someone had cast a spell on it or had given it the evil eye. There have been several women who lived alone in that cottage, and that is always suspicious to the general population. Why is she living alone without a man? Surely that must mean she is up to no good.”
“But I was told there were murders?”
Lady Charlton chuckled again. “You don’t want to believe anything the villagers tell you. There was one woman who disappeared, and the rumour went about that the man she was betrothed to had killed and buried her. But her body was never found, and the man in question also disappeared from the neighbourhood soon after. If you want my opinion, what probably happened was that she ran off with a handsome gypsy who was camped nearby. Anyway, it was a long time ago.”
“Before your time here?”
“Oh yes, before my time here,” she said. “I’ve lived in this house for thirty of my eighty-three years. Less than half my life. I wasn’t overjoyed to come here in the first place, but Henry inherited the title and property, so we had to give up a rather exciting way of life abroad and settle down here. Naturally, we hoped for more children after James, but sadly that didn’t happen.”
How ironic, Emily thought as she watched the flames flicker. Two women who had wanted more children in their marriage and had not been able to have them. And here she was, with one brief encounter with a man and a child growing in her belly. She put her hand to it now. In spite of her expanding waistline, it still didn’t seem real.
They dined at one end of the table in the large, chilly dining room. There was a clear broth followed by lamb’s liver in a rich gravy, and then rice pudding with sultanas. Emily found it extremely satisfying, but Lady Charlton apologized. “I’m sorry we have reverted to nursery food,” she said. “In spite of living in the country and having a home farm, it becomes harder and harder to obtain decent meat.”
They took coffee by the fire, and then Emily got up to leave.
“I do hope I can persuade you to join me for dinner every evening,” Lady Charlton said. “It is extremely tiresome to dine alone, and I get the feeling that you enjoy an old woman’s stories.”
“Oh, I do,” Emily said. “I love to hear about your experiences in different parts of the world.”
“Well then, why the reluctance?”
Emily shifted uneasily. “I suppose I feel I should be learning to stand on my own two feet, not have someone else cook for me.”
“Rubbish,” Lady Charlton said. “What else does Mrs Trelawney have to do but to cook? And if she cooks for one, it is just as easy to cook for two. So I think we’ve closed that matter for me. And when can I expect you to join me in the house, sorting through my husband’s collections? Is there really much to do in the garden at this time of year?”
“The rest of the roses need pruning, and the kitchen garden should be restocked with winter produce to keep us going,” Emily said. “I’m going to speak to Simpson about onion sets and Brussels sprouts and the like. I know a little bit about planting those now.”
Lady Charlton smiled. “Quite the little farmer.”
As Emily made her way back down the hill, she allowed herself a small grin of satisfaction. She had acquired some skills. She was able to earn her keep.
Back in the cottage, she settled herself at the table, close to the fire, the cat at her feet, and took out her writing set.
My dear Clarissa,
I am sorry I have ignored your last letter for so long, especially when you are going through such a harrowing time with the influenza cases. We have not seen any sign of it here yet, thank goodness. I hope it does not succeed in travelling across the Channel, although I suspect some of the returning soldiers will bring it with them.
Again, my lack of response has not been through laziness. On the contrary, I have been extremely busy, planting onions, ploughing, picking apples . . . quite the little farm girl—that’s what Lady Charlton said. You would have been amused to see me trying to wrestle the plough behind two giant horses!
But my real reason for writing only now is that I did not know how to put into words all that has happened recently. My life has turned upside down, Clarissa. I wrote of my hopes and dreams, my marriage to Robbie and a life in Australia. All dashed, I regret to say. He was killed, Clarissa, being frightfully brave and piloting a doomed plane away from a village.
And that is not all. I hardly dare to write this, and I beg you not to show the letter to anyone else—most of all, do not mention it to my parents. I find myself in the family way. I am overcome with shame as I write the words, and yet in some way there is a joy in having Robbie’s child. At least a small part of him still lives. But as you can imagine, I have no idea how I am going to face the future. Certainly not with my parents, who have made their views on the subject more than clear. For the moment, I have taken up residence in a cottage at the edge of an estate close to Dartmoor. The owner, Lady Charlton, has been surprisingly understanding. I will help her with her garden and with cataloguing her husband’s collections in return for having a place to live. To the rest of the villagers, I’ll be Mrs Kerr, war widow. I only hope that
She broke off, as there was a knock at the front door. She got up and opened it, expecting a visit from Alice, or maybe Simpson with more coal, and was surprised to see a strange man standing in front of her. His jacket was tied together with string. He wore an old, shapeless hat over shaggy hair, and his face was half-hidden by an untrimmed beard. Emily recoiled at the smell of him.
“Yes? Can I help you?” she asked, while the thought crossed her mind that she was a long way from any assistance. They would never hear her in the houses across the lane if she shouted for help.
“I’ve got a sore thumb.” The man held it out to her. Emily looked. It was more than a sore thumb. It had a great, yellow blister on it, and the skin around it was angry, swollen and red.
“That looks awful. You should see a doctor,” she said.
He frowned. “My sort don’t deal with doctors.” He paused. “That requires
money. Besides, you’re her, aren’t you?”
“Her?”
“The wise woman. The herb wife. It says so on the gatepost.”
Emily stared at him as if he were talking a foreign language. “On the gatepost?”
“That’s right. We tramps have signs of our own—signs that other folks can’t read, telling us where we’ll be welcome. And your gatepost says that the wise woman lives here.”
It was so improbable that Emily had to laugh. “I’m no wise woman,” she said, “but that is certainly a nasty-looking thumb. Come inside, and I’ll see what I can do for you.”
He wiped his feet carefully before coming in. Emily made him sit by the fire, and she put the kettle on the stove. Then she went to find her nail set—a pretty little kit from Paris in a morocco leather box that had been one of her twenty-first presents. She poured boiling water over the scissors and tweezers. Then she cut off part of the clean tea towel Mrs Trelawney had given her. There would be hell to pay about that, she thought, but she had to clean up the man’s hand or he’d die from infection.
Seen up close, the thumb looked even worse, and her insides heaved as she cleaned it with the boiled water.
“I think we had better open up this blister,” she said.
He nodded.
She took a tentative little snip with the scissors and pus streamed out. She snipped more away until all the pus was gone. Then she held his hand close to the lamp, retrieved the tweezers and carefully lifted something out from the wound. “There,” she said. “You had some kind of big splinter in your thumb.”
“That’s right. I did. I were climbing over a fence and this ruddy, great splinter went right in. I tried to pull it out and it broke off.”
“Well, it’s out now,” she said. “I’m going to wash it again with the hot water, and then I’ll bandage it up with this clean cloth. That’s the best I can do. I don’t have any disinfectant, I’m afraid. I’ve just moved in.”
“You’ve done a grand job, little lady,” he said. “I reckon you are the wise woman after all. Are you going to bring the place back to what it was? My fellows will be pleased to know that.”
