The Magpie Tree

by Katherine Stansfield

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, you had different names on the moor, didn’t you? Why are you using your true name now, for this case?’

  She shrugged and set Mrs Williams’s fur hat on my new red curls. ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Of course it matters! It’s who you are.’

  ‘Names are just letters. You know that better than most, Shilly. Or would you prefer it if I called you by your real name?’

  ‘But Anna Drake isn’t your name, is it?’ I said, and felt like taking off my ring and throwing it at her. ‘That’s why you’ll use it. You promised you’d be honest with me, Anna. That’s why I said I’d come with you.’

  ‘“Anna”. See? You have it. What more needs saying?’

  ‘A great deal more,’ I muttered, but she wasn’t listening, whoever she might be. If there were ever to be answers, she’d make me wait for them.

  She said we should each take a few things, and that she would send for her case once we knew where we’d be staying.

  ‘Will the case be safe here?’ I said.

  She locked it with the little key she kept on a thin chain round her neck. ‘I’ve paid handsomely to ensure it.’

  ‘More spending.’

  ‘Time we were earning, then,’ she said. ‘Come on. The coach will be leaving soon.’

  That cost us dear too, for Anna had paid for seats inside the coach when we could have saved and sat outside. It was such a warm day I didn’t see why she’d wasted the money and I told her so.

  She hushed me, glancing at the others squashed in the coach with us. ‘It wouldn’t do to arrive in Trethevy looking too poor to ride inside. We’re seeing a squire, remember.’

  ‘But we are too poor, aren’t we?’

  She wouldn’t answer. I wondered if there was more money tucked about her person than she let on. If there was, then it would be gone soon enough if she was in charge of it. I’d have to have my wages regular and keep them myself or I’d be in the poorhouse before too long. My wedding ring might have to be pawned after all.

  The coach was full on leaving – six of us inside and the wise souls riding with the driver. We stopped many times as we crossed the moor and the faces changed, but not the smell of sweat and not the lurching that made me regret the eggs I’d eaten before we left Jamaica Inn. After Camelford there was only three of us – Anna and me and a young man who slept, his mouth fallen open and spittle sliding down his chin.

  He woke with a start when the driver shouted Bossiney! Bossiney! and the coach tumbled to a stop. The spittle man got out and in his place came a young woman with a braggaty face. The marks weren’t the pox. They were the mottles people were born with. A misfortune. I had to look out the window to keep from staring. And I was glad I did look out, for not long after we left Bossiney’s narrow streets I saw the finest sight of my short life. It was the sea.

  I had seen it before but only from the high reaches of the moor where it had the shine of a new sixpence, and the thinness of a sixpence too. A scratch of light on the edge of the world the sea had been to me then, a small thing, but now I saw it was a great slipping shakeabout of the sky’s blue and slate and gorse colours. I wondered if the sea was bigger even than the moor itself, and as I was so wondering I heard a strange noise, a grindy-clack like the black cat at the farm had made when she watched birds on the barn’s roof. But I was the black cat in the coach that day, grindy-clacking my teeth at the sight of so great a thing as the sea. I wished to eat it – to have it in my mouth and keep it for myself. Know it better.

  Anna was likewise bewitched, and leant across me to have a better view, almost lying in my lap so I had two things to enjoy.

  ‘I’d happily never go back to London if it meant seeing this view every day,’ Anna said.

  ‘Quite lovely,’ said the young woman sitting across from us. She fiddled with her cuffs. She liked Mrs Williams, that was me, better than the sea. I could see it in her soft smile and the tilt of her chin.

  Then the sea was gone for we were jouncing downhill, fields and their walls getting between me and the blue greatness, but I had no time to feel the loss sorely for we went over a bridge with a lurch that threw Anna to the floor. I helped Anna up and the coach climbed the hill beyond. On the other side of the road to the sea was now a thick bank of trees that kept pace with us.

  I didn’t like this. The trees were very close together, all higgledy-piggledy trying to peer round their brethren, peering at the coach as we passed. I didn’t know there could be so many trees in one place. On the moor, the ground had been thick with stone and that had kept trees sparse, stopped their roots, and the wind had kept short and twisted what did find a way to grow. The trees in this part of the world were tall and so broad I couldn’t see beyond the wall they’d made. I hoped we’d soon pass their darkness but before we had outrun them the coach stopped and the driver shouted Trethevy.

  ‘This is it,’ Anna said, opening the door.

  ‘I think it was back a way, where the sea—’

  ‘Get out if you’re getting!’ yelled the driver, readying to crack his whip and be off again.

  Anna hauled me from the coach and then the driver was away, taking with him the woman. She watched me from the coach’s window, her braggaty face growing smaller, and so more beautiful, and then winking out.

  Before us was a wide house with many chimneys. More of the thickety trees were crowded nearby, flanking the house on two sides. They creaked their knees in the bare breeze, a great spread of them, stretching how far I didn’t know. A prickle crept up my neck as I thought to myself, there could be anyone watching me in there. They’d be able to see me without me seeing them. That gave all the knowing to the trees and their hidden watchers. I was weak and ready to run.

  But Anna wasn’t having that.

  ‘Time to go to work, Shilly. Let’s see if we can’t put a stop to this nonsense of witches.’

  She pulled the rope and set the bell clanking because we were business callers now, not hiding our true purpose like when we ferreted in the places the moor kept its secrets. The door opened.

  ‘Yes?’ said a sour-faced woman with a sour voice.

  Anna told her we wanted the reward. She didn’t say it quite so bold as that, of course, but that was the bones of it. The money.

  ‘Is the squire at home?’ Anna said.

  ‘He is,’ the sour-face said, ‘and I’m to admit callers about them women in the woods.’ This fact seemed to rankle with her, but she let us into the hall.

  ‘Have you had many calling about the reward?’ Anna said, and I could hear the worry in her voice.

  ‘You’re the first,’ the sour-face said. She looked us up and down all sneering. ‘But I don’t suppose you’ll be the last.’

  And with that rudeness she led us down a passage wide as the whole house I had lately left.

  Her clothes were plain as mine had been before Anna dressed me better, though not as worn as mine from working on the farm. This woman had decent fastenings on her dark-blue dress and wore a clean apron over it, which I had never had about me. She clumped along, a grumbling step, and I thought her to be fifty or so and likely a housekeeper.

  Anna spoke low to me. ‘We must have cards made, once we’re established.’

  ‘Cards?’

  ‘To announce ourselves. It doesn’t make a good first impression if we can only give our names verbally on arrival.’

  Would my name go on such a card? Even if she said it was there, I would have to trust she wasn’t lying, and she was good at that. I needed to learn my letters. Then I could be more certain about the things Anna Drake said.

  The sour-face took us to a room and shut us in. The room was awash with sickly light for the walls were green, the rugs too. The place was filled with chairs and small tables, as if a party was thought to come but each person would be made to eat alone. Anna took a chair by the window and bade me sit next to her and stop fretting, but the window gave on to the trees outside
and they were still very darkly gathered. I moved to the other side of the room, the corners of tables catching at me as I went.

  ‘Must you roam like that?’ Anna said.

  ‘I’m looking at the pictures,’ I said, seeing the frames and fixing on them to hide my being ill at ease.

  But that was a poor choice and no mistake, for the frames were made of wood and they held nothing but more woods still! Every painting in that room was of trees – boldly alone or clumped together as if whispering. I peered for signs of life beneath the branches. People taking charge of the tallness gave me comfort, but such comfort was thin. It was as if the woods had come inside the house. And what did they want from us?

  Something dropped into the fireplace with a rustle. I scurried to sit with Anna and pressed myself against her.

  ‘What was that?’ I whispered.

  ‘I don’t know – a twig, dropped by a bird? Does it matter? Shilly, you’re pinching me.’

  ‘We must be careful. The woods are watching—’

  ‘Hush!’ Anna said. ‘We’re trying to get rid of witches, not be mistaken for them ourselves.’

  ‘You said you didn’t believe they were witches.’

  ‘I … I’m reserving judgement on that matter.’

  I sat back in my chair. She had come closer to my way of thinking about such things as witches and curses and other parts of life that were strange troubling. And she needed me for all of that business. She’d have to keep me close.

  Anna twisted so that our hips were not so snug together. ‘A child is missing, Shilly. That’s the matter at hand. I’d ask that you—’

  A woman screamed outside the door.

  THREE

  There was the slap-dash-slap of soft shoes in the passage. And then silence. I got up and opened the door a crack. There was no sign of anyone but shouts reached us. I strained to catch the word that sounded so vexatious to the shouter.

  ‘What is that she’s saying, Shilly?’

  ‘Fidge-un,’ I said, trying to give the shout some letters.

  ‘Which means?’

  ‘How should I know?’

  I went and sat beside her again, and then the door was thrown open and a wide man was bearing down on us.

  ‘My sincere apologies,’ he shouted.

  He got hold of Anna’s small hand and it was lost inside his meaty one, and then my own hand was being crushed.

  ‘You’ve had no tea!’ he roared, and was back out in the passage thundering. When he seemed satisfied someone had likely heard him, he dragged a chair across the floor, hauling it through the rucks it made in the rugs, and thumped it in front of Anna and me.

  Now I had a chance to look at him, and there was a good lot to look at. He wasn’t tall but he was broad – his neck especially so. It was the same width as his reddened face and that was no thin bit of him. I thought him to be somewhere between thirty and forty. His eyes were grey, one of them lazy.

  ‘Thank you for seeing us, Squire Orton,’ Anna said.

  He waved her words away. ‘We don’t stand on formality here in Trethevy. Call me Sir Vivian.’

  Anna gave a good attempt at a smile. ‘How kind. Sir Vivian, my name is Miss Drake, and this is Mrs Williams. We offer a service which I gather you might need.’

  As much as he was able, given the tightness of his chair, Sir Vivian leant towards us. The chair creaked like the trees beyond the house. With his bad eye not able to move freely, he had one for each of us as he said, ‘You get rid of witches?’

  I said yes as Anna said no.

  ‘Which is to say,’ Anna said quickly, ‘we will ascertain if the problem thought to be supernatural can be explained more rationally. We use the methods of Scotland Yard. You might have heard of the new branch there. The detectives?’

  ‘They’ve taken a child, you know,’ Sir Vivian said. ‘These women. Taken a boy. From right here in Trethevy. From my land!’

  ‘I gather there’s a reward offered for the boy’s safe return,’ Anna said.

  ‘And for the discovery of who took him. I’m on the bench, you see. Much as my tenants would like to string these wretches from the nearest tree, you have to hang with due process if you’re a magistrate.’

  On hearing this from Sir Vivian I wished to spit, for I had no love for magistrates.

  ‘Why not just turn these witches out?’ I asked him. My family had been turned out more times than I cared to remember. It was an easy way to be rid of poor people. ‘If they’re on your land—’

  ‘Ah, but they’re not, Mrs Williams. The women are cunning, as you’ll soon discover.’ The squire fixed me with both his eyes – the good and the bad. ‘They’ve taken up residence in a cottage across the river, on land belonging to my neighbour Trunkett, and they’ve chosen well in that regard for Trunkett will not be moved to action.’

  ‘You’ve asked him to remove them?’ Anna said.

  Sir Vivian’s already red face now went redder still and he puffed and blew like a fretful child. ‘I have! Went down to his estate myself, all the way to Truro. Beseeched him in person. The man won’t take action.’

  ‘And what reason did he give?’

  ‘That my reasons weren’t good enough,’ Sir Vivian said, fussing with a loose thread on his chair’s cushion. ‘Trunkett says the women have done nothing wrong, that he won’t be party to persecution on the basis of superstitious nonsense. Thinks himself greatly learnt does Mister Trunkett.’

  ‘Forgive me, Sir Vivian,’ Anna said, ‘but your neighbour might be right. These women may be as worldly as you or I, but even … even if they are of the … What I mean to say is—’

  ‘If they’re witches,’ I said.

  Anna swallowed, then went on quickly, ‘Yes, even if they are such, they may be innocent of the charge laid against them. It does no good to presume guilt.’

  ‘Whether they be witches or no,’ Sir Vivian said, ‘I must have the means to be rid of them before they strike again.’

  I heard more shouting from the passage. That same strange word as before. Fidge-un. Fidge-un. And then the sound of pans falling. Sir Vivian paid no heed to the row. He was asking Anna for letters to recommend us.

  ‘We’re without them at the present moment,’ Anna said, ‘having come to Trethevy as soon as we finished our previous case.’

  ‘Ah. That is a pity.’

  ‘But not a problem, I’m sure. I would be pleased to write to our last client and ask for a letter to confirm our services.’

  Write it out herself, she meant. Such was the trouble we found ourselves in.

  The door opened then and a girl came in with a tray of fine teacups and a shining pot. She set the tray on the littlest table nearest us and then scurried to be gone, but before she could close the door again a beast had barged past her and come stalking into the room.

  ‘Oh no you don’t, you blighter!’ Sir Vivian shouted, charging at the creature.

  I saw then that it was a cat, but I didn’t trust my eyes for it was a huge thing, all hulking shoulders.

  The cat hissed and wrapped its limbs around the girl’s ankles. The claws must have found their mark because she screamed, and screamed louder still when Sir Vivian tried to drag the beast away.

  ‘Pigeon! You rogue!’

  Free of the cat’s attack, the girl rushed from the room, but the cat leapt from Sir Vivian’s clutch and raced after her. The squire quickly shut the door and sat down again. A scratch on the inside of his wrist was wetly red.

  Anna cleared her throat. ‘A spirited animal.’

  ‘Is it the witches’ doing?’ I asked. ‘Such people can make beasts do as they didn’t ought to. I have seen it.’

  Anna tapped the arm of the chair but said nothing. The tapping I knew to be a sign of her disquiet at such talk of witching, but the not saying so was a sign of change.

  Sir Vivian dabbed at his bloodied wrist with a handkerchief. ‘I wish that were the case, Mrs Williams, and that you could rid Pigeon of his tempers when you rid me of
those wretched women. But Pigeon was a fiend long before they set up home in the woods. He’s my wife’s pet, and she will indulge him. He plagues poor Lucy and is forever chasing her.’ He looked mournfully towards the door. ‘She might have stayed to pour the tea.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ I said, and set to stirring. It did no good to be idle when people were offering something for free. As well as the tea, the tray bore a plate of neat mouthfuls of cake I thought fine. ‘Strange,’ I said, ‘for a cat to be called after a bird when one would be so afraid of the other.’

  ‘My wife has a talent for such surprising notions.’ Sir Vivian took the cup I offered. ‘Her list of infant names contains not a few unusual choices.’

  ‘Expecting then, is she?’ I said.

  The squire gave a funny cough and took to staring at his teacup, and Anna, well. I’d seen that look from her before and knew I’d said something I shouldn’t. Well-to-do people didn’t like to talk of babies coming.

  The squire coughed again. ‘There is some … urgency, one might say, in having these women gone. That is …’

  ‘I understand,’ Anna said. ‘Given the nature of the crime, a child being taken, your fear is quite personal in nature, if I’m not mistaken?’

  ‘You are not, Miss Drake,’ he said, and beamed with what looked like relief. ‘That is why I must be rid of these women in the woods as soon as possible, but you must work with stealth as well as haste. If the pair should know that you are in my pay, well. Let us say, there may be consequences.’

  ‘For us or them?’ I said.

  ‘Why, for everyone, Mrs Williams. The future of Trethevy depends on it.’ Here his voice hardened. ‘You must help me be rid of them.’

  ‘You mean that we must find the boy,’ Anna said, ‘and find out who has taken him.’

  ‘Whoever that might be,’ I added, for Anna had been right to talk of suspicions. They had led many a good soul to the gallows.

  ‘Yes, yes. Quite so,’ the squire said.

  ‘And his name?’ Anna said.

  The squire squinted. We waited.