The House Where It Happened

by Devlin, Martina

  He rose, lifted his hat from a side table and was gone.

  The mistress went to the casement to wave him off with her handkerchief. “Still here, Ellen? Run along and check my green woollen gown in the panelled chest for moth damage. This trial will be a spectacle for the common people, but I need to look my best.”

  I made my way to her bedchamber, thinking about how my master’s arrival would brighten up the house. He was always laughing, teasing the childer, calling for food or wine, and planning fishing trips with Frazer Bell. He used to tease me, too, as if I was a bairn, but lately he was not so inclined to treat me like a wee lassie. And I had liked the change in him, though it had made me nervous as well. With just cause.

  I found the gown: it had a grease stain on the bodice, but a dab with chalk should lift it. I held it to me, admiring myself. A generous mistress would give me her cast-offs, but Mistress Haltridge cut them down for Sarah. It was on the short side, but forest green was a colour that suited my red hair. Any gown I ever owned was grey or blue, on account of being dyed here on the island. Only shop-bought clothes came in such rainbow shades.

  What would James Haltridge think of me, in such a gown? I asked my reflection. His eyes would linger on you, my heart replied – and I shivered at the thought. From pleasure. From a sense of risk, forbye. And maybes, wrong though it was, the risk lent colour to the pleasure.

  * * *

  That same day I fell into crabbit humour, trying to keep up with my own and Peggy’s work. Out to the yard I ploughtered, with a bucket in my hand and my skirt kilted up to the knees, to bring slops to the ‘greyhound sow’. She was called that for a reason – thon pig could clear fences, with her long legs. If I hadn’t stayed to scratch her back with a stick, which set the old dame snuffling and squealing like a piglet, I’d have been back indoors and looking less trollopy without my much-darned blue woollen stockings on show. As it was, I heard hooves behind me and thought it was Frazer Bell.

  “Am I forgotten already?” called a familiar voice.

  I knowed it was him before ever I turned my head, but still I wanted the proof of my own eyes. When I was in swithers about my monthlies, and trusting to a potion that might be kill instead of cure, I thought maybes I’d feel differently about him when I saw him again. Not a chance. I let go of the bucket and went running up to him, as he swung his leg over the saddle and dismounted.

  “Oh master, you’re a sight for sore eyes! Welcome back, sir. Thank God you’re home.” I had to keep hold of my two hands so I didn’t forget myself and reach out to him. How I longed to do it!

  “Was I not expected? I sent a line by post to tell your mistress I was coming.” He rested his hand on my shoulder, and my legs nearly gave way beneath me. His fingers kneaded the flesh at the side of my neck, just for a moment, before he dropped his hand. Two of my master’s fingers were broken and set crooked, from trying to tame a gelding which ended up taming him. But no hand could have been dearer to me. His face was creased with tiredness, stubble on his cheeks and chin. There was dirt from the roads all over his coat, and a smell of horse off him. But my master had never looked so beautiful to me. My eyes never left his face – they were saying what my tongue could not.

  He understood, and smiled at me. He had his own white teeth, my master – not rotting or crooked, like some. When he was in Dublin, he always went to a Spanish barber in a place called Temple Bar, and had them cleaned and polished. That smile of his melted away the hard ride, and I caught sight of what he must have been like as a boy, looking for birds’ nests or collecting conkers.

  “Have I been missed?” he asked.

  “You’re always missed from this house.”

  “Aye, but did you miss me?”

  “I missed you, master.”

  For the space of a heartbeat, our eyes spoke to each other. And then the past weeks undid me, and I blew out a sigh.

  “What is it?”

  I longed to let it all pour out. ‘Ach, master,’ I wanted to say, ‘my monthlies were late and I was afraid I might be carrying your child. A half-brother or sister to Jamesey and Sarah. But I took a cure for it, and all’s well that ends well. Except I had it all to deal with on my own, and you far away from me. I was scared and lonely, and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life.’ Instead, I said, “Ach, master, such a time we’ve had of it since you left.”

  “I came as quick as I could.” He waited for me to say more, but I couldn’t trust myself to speak, and so he began talking about the journey. I hoped he did it because he wanted to tarry with me a shade longer. “I stopped at Ardee for a meal, but the coaching house was a kennel, so I rode through the night rather than stay over – and here I am. Ready for one of Peggy’s good, solid dinners.”

  “Peggy’s gone with the childer to Belfast.”

  “So she has – it went out of my head. Your mistress told me about it in a letter. But you wouldn’t see me go hungry, would you?”

  “Indeed I would’n, sir.” All at once, I realized my stockings were on show, all covered in darns, and I let down my skirt.

  He rooted through his pockets. “I brought lemons, off a merchant ship that arrived in Dublin only the day before yesterday. You might be able to use some in a syllabub.” He put one under my nose. “Breathe in,” he invited.

  You could smell the sunshine off it. Even better was the heat from his hand so close to my face. I was filled with the desire to bend my cheek into that hand, in the hopes he’d hold it the way he cradled the lemon.

  Maybes my feelings showed in my face, because he said softly, “Did you ever think of me, Ellen?”

  “Every day, master.”

  He went to speak, but the mistress came running out then – she must have seen us from the casement. “James! You’re home!” And he caught her up in his arms and spun her round, his hat falling off. She buried her face in his shoulder, saying his name over and over. And I looked away.

  “I’ll see about some dinner,” I said, and I might as well have been talking to myself.

  * * *

  I fried up a feast of salmon for my master, and the whiles he ate I lit a fire in their bedchamber. The mistress tied on an apron and fussed over him, watching every spoonful that went into his mouth, while I toiled up and down stairs with buckets of hot water for him to bathe in front of the fire. He was anxious to wash off the muck from his journey, and his limbs were stiff from sitting on horseback. The mistress came up after me, to check I remembered to put towels warming on the fire screen, as if I’d forget anything bearing on his comfort, and when he followed her to their chamber she sent me off to unpack his bags.

  As I sorted through his linen, it struck me how my master would prefer a bar of plain soap to the scented sort the mistress used, and I went to the storeroom and got one. But my mistress took it from me at their door. “Keep an eye on Mistress Dunbar. And don’t disturb us again unless you’re sent for – your master and I have much to discuss.” I caught a flash of his wet back before she shut the door in my face. He was humming as he soaked, and the firelight danced on his smooth, light-brown skin.

  I stood rooted to the spot outside their bedchamber. We had joined our bodies together in the closest act a man and woman can do together, but I had never seen his naked back.

  I should have turned away, but no power on earth could move me from where he was. I heard splashing, and the mistress’s laughter. “Here, let me wash you before you soak the place entirely.” She begged for news of the city, and he launched into an account of the marriage between two dwarves in Dublin – a spectacle which attracted a crowd, including members of the gentry. The mistress was merry, calling for more details, and never once mentioned witchcraft or the goings-on at Knowehead House.

  By and by, I realized I would be in trouble if I was caught there, and managed to pull myself away. Downstairs I crept, stopping to peep in at Mary Dunbar, alone in the parlour. Her head was close to the embroidery frame, working on her stitching. Once, she w
as never without a minister or a brace of elders at her elbow. But since so many witches had been uncovered, and her fits had stopped, the ministers were occupied with trying to wring confessions from the witches. As concerned for the black sheep as the white, they’d say. I wasn’t so sure. As for the elders, they were avoiding Knowehead House. Mercy Hunter told me some folk went by the Low Road to save them passing the house.

  I looked at the cause of it all. “Can I do anythin’ for you, mistress?”

  Mary Dunbar stuck her needle in the embroidery frame and came towards me, skirts rustling. “Do you like living here?”

  “Islandmagee is in my blood. I can imagine livin’ no place else.”

  “I mean in Knowehead House. How do you feel about the house, Ellen?”

  “It’s a fine house. But provided it has a roof that does’n leak, one house is much the same as another, mistress.” My words were intended to keep her calm – I didn’t want to have to cope with another fit – but in my bones I felt Knowehead was a house like no other.

  “Is it?” She shivered, her eyes roaming from ceiling to floor to fireplace. “This house isn’t like any I’ve ever set foot in. It holds itself apart from the folk that eat and sleep and go about their business in it. This house has a mind of its own. I sometimes think it could stand up and walk, if it took the notion. If walking fitted in with its plans.” Her eyes fastened on mine, needy. “Surely you’ve noticed?”

  “Houses don’t have minds. Houses don’t make plans.” I was trying to convince myself, as much as Mary Dunbar, but I faltered.

  “This house does.” She brought her mouth close to my ear. “You must have heard it at night. Muttering away to itself. Creaking with laughter.”

  “That’s just the timbers settlin’.”

  “I used to think it was the witches whispering to me. Trying to frighten me into doing what they wanted. Now I’m starting to wonder.” She laid her knuckles against her eyes and pressed down. From behind them, her voice was bone-weary. “Maybe it’s the house to blame. Maybe the witchcraft wasn’t brought into the house by outsiders. What if it’s part of the house already? Built into it, the way you’d build in chimneys and casements . . .” She took her hands away from her eyes. They were red-rimmed and blinking. “There’s witchcraft here, all right. But have you ever thought the house might be the cause of it?”

  My mouth went dry, my heart crowding my throat so that I couldn’t manage a swallow. Mary Dunbar had read my fear. “Aye, mistress, there is something about Knowehead. You have the right of it.”

  “But why was I chosen? That’s what I can’t figure out. Why me?”

  “Chosen for what?”

  “To do the bidding of Knowehead House.”

  I should have gone back to the kitchen, leaving her to whatever thoughts were preying on her mind. I wasn’t paid to be Mary Dunbar’s nursemaid, and I didn’t want her unsettling me with that kind of talk. For the first time in my life, I was sleeping on my own, but now I’d have welcomed Peggy’s cold feet on mine. These nights, when I heard the house creaking, I lay there worrying about what was making the noise.

  Or who.

  I was afraid of what she might say coming back to trouble me that night, when I lay on my own in the dark. Aye, I should have gone away, but I couldn’t help myself. Maybes I was jittery at having my own doubts about the house brought out into the open. But all at once I remembered them women penned together on the say-so of a lassie, the same age as myself, and I spoke my mind. “Are there no witches after all, mistress? Are you takin’ it all back?”

  A flash of panic crossed Mary Dunbar’s face and she caught me by both arms, fingers digging into my flesh. “I cannot go back on it. The house wouldn’t like it. It would find a way to make me suffer.”

  “You’re sufferin’ already, mistress. Maybes it’s time for you to go on home. Back to your own folk. The house might a wanted you before, but it’s finished with you now. You’ve served its purpose.”

  “Hush, can you hear it?”

  “Hear what?”

  “The house. It’s listening to us.” She cocked her head to the side.

  I found myself listening too, though I couldn’t tell you for what. I laid my hand, which was shaking, against my breast, and my heartbeat raced beneath it.

  All at once, she shook herself, and returned to her embroidery. We might just as well have been chatting about the weather. She picked up her needle and said over her shoulder, “I want to be here. The house wants me too. I’d stay forever if I could. Perhaps I will. Just like Mistress Anne.”

  My knees were knocking together now. I edged towards the door, longing for the safety of my kitchen. “Mistress Anne is here?”

  “Aye, she’s always here.”

  “And what about Hamilton Lock?”

  “It’s different with him. Prayers used to drive him away. But he’s stronger now. He comes and goes when he wants, and not on anyone else’s say-so. But the house is using him too. The house is using all of us.” She smiled, sweet as honeycake. “You too, Ellen Hill. Everything you do, it’s because the house persuades you to it.”

  I left her to her sewing. Such talk was more than flesh and blood could bear.

  I made sure to wedge the kitchen door open in case my master called for me – his merry face would cure this gloom. Then I fetched the broom to use the time profitably, hoaking out clocks from the corners. But Mary Dunbar had unsettled me, and in the end I brought the rush-bottomed chair to the door, and sat looking out at the hens.

  When I went across the yard to use the privy, I saw the shutters on my master and his lady’s chamber were closed. Back into the kitchen I clumped, torturing myself with pictures in my head. Finally, my master’s footsteps sounded on the passageway overhead. He came down the stairs, opened the parlour door and greeted Mary Dunbar. A clatter followed, and an oath from him.

  I rushed in. Mary Dunbar was on the floor, spittle shining on her chin, having a violent attack of the hiccups. It sounds little enough, but these were no ordinary hiccups. They ripped through her body with a violence that made your insides sore just watching. It was a wonder they didn’t split her asunder. Her embroidery frame was cowped over, the skeins of thread tumbled every which way. My master had her propped up, thumping her on the back.

  “Master, best leave her be, she’ll likely take a few minutes to come out of it.”

  “Isabel told me she’s been taking fits. I had no idea they were so brutal.”

  “Thon’s nothin’.”

  Mary’s hands, which had been hidden by her skirts, moved and settled on her belly. My eye was drawn to one of them. A thick darning needle pierced the hand, running for three or four stitches alongside a vein. The needle had been left stuck in, thread dangling, the way you’d pin it to a piece of material. Beads of blood oozed out.

  My master saw what I did, swallowed, and looked away.

  “I’ll see to this,” I said. “What happened your hand, Mistress Mary?”

  The hiccups were dying down, and between gulps she was able to answer. “It’s Mistress Anne. She said I told you too much. To punish me, she said she’d make a pincushion of my eyes. She tried to stick needles in, to blind me, but I held my hands over them.”

  I gritted my teeth, seized the needle and thread, and pulled it free from the skin. She let out a yelp at the pain, but it was done before she could struggle. Blood flowed out after it, and I pressed my apron to the wound.

  “Why are you being punished?” asked my master.

  “Mistress Anne is put out about me filling the gaol with so many of her kind.”

  “Who is this Mistress Anne?” Even as he said the name, he scowled. “Surely you can’t mean my mother?”

  The mistress rustled in, without her cap on, her fair hair loose on her shoulders instead of plaited round her head.

  “Isabel, your cousin’s talking about someone by the name of Mistress Anne. She seems scared to death of her. Have you any idea who she means?”

>   The mistress caught my eye, giving a slight shake of the head. “James, she throws out all sorts of names. The other day it was nothing but Mistress Latimore.”

  Mary began writhing. “Mistress Anne, oh Mistress Anne, for pity’s sake, let me alone!”

  “Should we not bring her to the couch, Isabel? She can’t be comfortable on the floor. Ellen, take her legs.”

  I reached for her ankles, and she kicked out when I touched her. “You’re hurting me!” I dropped her feet.

  “Does she mean us or this Mistress Anne?” asked my master. Ignoring her protests, he caught her under the oxters and set her on her feet, still holding on to her. He pressed Mary Dunbar into a chair, and turned back to us. “Is this the first time she’s used the name Mistress Anne? I fear it’s no more than an unhappy coincidence. But I wish she wouldn’t.”

  Mary Dunbar leaped out of her seat and sank to her knees, hands knit together. “She has the soldier’s sword. Take it off her, I pray you!”

  “Which soldier, Mary?” asked the mistress. “Do you mean Captain Young?”

  “She’s swinging it about. Forgive me, I never meant to tell on you, Mistress Anne. I’ll say no more, I swear it on my life.” The bones on her hands shone through onion-thin skin. “Sweet Jesus! She says she means to chop off my . . .” Mary Dunbar nodded her eyes towards her breasts, which she covered with her arms to protect them. “Have mercy! I haven’t told them where to find you, or what you look like. They only have half your name.”