The Hidden People

by Allison Littlewood

  I shook my head. There was no sound save that of my own breathing, and that was too loud and ragged for a grown man. I reminded myself that the house was old and that it was settling around me, adjusting to my sudden presence; that was all.

  I turned and made my way back down the stair, eager to be gone. I drew the front door closed behind me, draped the dress over one arm and turned the key. Only then did I recollect that I had not closed the shutters, and yet I found myself so reluctant to re-enter the cottage that I persuaded myself in an instant that it could not possibly matter.

  But there was still another room into which I had not looked. Slowly, as if some unseen force were drawing me towards it, I went to the window and peered in. I know not what I expected to find, but it was not what I saw: the opposite wall was lined with shelves crammed full with the moulds of men’s feet. I blinked, and realised they were lasts, some with new leather being formed upon them, all neatly labelled with little squares of cardboard, each no doubt bearing the name of somebody from the village. He had been a cordwainer, had he not? And here was his workshop. I peered around the shutters, my discomfort at being there quite forgotten in my curiosity. There were tools hanging from pegs on the right-hand wall: awls, broad knives, files and implements for which I had no name. A gleaming stack of shoe-buckles sat upon another shelf next to coils of waxed cord. Bowls full of brass sprigs and hobnails sat upon a bench and a paste-pot with its brush jutting from it stood by ready to be applied. There was a pile of tongues, all cut out and ready to be stitched into pairs of boots no doubt paid for by the harvest money that Widdop had spoken of. And in one corner there were sheets of hide, soaking in some unknown substance.

  I could not help but think of stories I had heard of the fairies, coming out at night to stitch with their fine needles and tap with their little hammers, carrying out the shoemaker’s art in far more delicate fashion than man’s hand could ever accomplish. Perhaps James Higgs had chosen this cottage for that very purpose; such ideas could not but enhance his industry with a kind of glamour, if tales of the good folk were put about. And then I looked down at the floor and saw no fine pair of fairy-stitched shoes but a pair of rough labourer’s boots, sturdy and strong for tending the fields, and I upbraided myself for falling into such a reverie. I reminded myself of the man who owned such a workshop and what he had done, and the strangeness of my position returned to me: here I was, a stranger to both of them all these long years, peering in at a little corner of their lives. No, of his life—and this whilst I bore his wife’s funeral gown in my arms.

  But surely the man deserved no consideration from anyone; it was he who was the intruder now: an intruder upon a sane and rational world. I turned my back on the possessions from which he had rightly been separated and walked out through the gate. I was about to turn down the path and make my way from the hill when instead I glanced up towards the summit.

  I froze. A lady was standing there, a short distance away, upon the path that led to the barrow. Her figure was tall and her bearing erect, and her back was turned to me so that I could not see her face. Her dress was gleaming white, almost dazzling in the sun, and a neat bonnet, equally brilliant, entirely hid her hair from view.

  I opened my mouth to greet her, but words had left me. I expected every moment that she would turn and I would see her face and an odd reluctance stole over me so that I thought of simply stealing away from her. I was not sure her face was anything I wished to see. An image of the fireplace rose before me, followed by that of a cracked and blackened visage, a body abandoned in a village wash house, and a strange fear took hold of me. What if she should turn as I was trying to leave? What if she started after me, more quickly than ever I could run? In my mind her step was light and airy; she might reach out and grasp my shoulder before I even knew that she followed.

  I gritted my teeth, reminding myself that I was not such an ignorant creature as to be afraid, and I walked towards her. The lady, like a being glimpsed within a dream, slowly began to turn. The sun’s light was momentarily dimmed by the passing of some cloud and I saw then that her hair was dark and that her cheek was pale, and as I watched her lips parted into a welcoming smile.

  I caught my breath, and then I heard her voice: “Albie—I knew it would be you!”

  It was my wife. My wife, standing there on the golden path with the sunlight glancing brightly from her bonnet and her dress—and yet I did not know how she had come to be there; indeed, I doubted the evidence of my eyes.

  “Will you not speak?” Her smile, so open, began to fade from her lips.

  “I—”

  “My dear, are you well? You have turned quite pale.”

  I knew that I had to make some reply and so I assured her that I was quite well.

  “Are you not pleased to see me? I enquired after you at the inn. They said that you would be here. Such a pretty place, is it not?” Her glance wavered over the cottage and then back towards me. Her eyes narrowed as she fixed upon what I carried, draped across my arms like a—like a body, I thought, and suddenly I could not rid myself of the image.

  “I tried the cottage first, since that is where I was directed. My dear, did you not hear my knock?”

  I frowned. The rapping I had heard could certainly have been a knock upon the door, and yet it had not sounded so: rather, it had seemed to come from the bedrooms, or even the air itself. But then, I was a stranger to the house; perhaps it possessed odd echoes of which I knew nothing.

  I roused myself at last and said, “But, Helena—how came you to be here?”

  Her smile had entirely fled her lips. “Why, for you, of course. I came here for you. I sent a telegram . . .”

  “But I have not received one—I have had no time to receive one, not here, let alone to tell you—”

  “Tell me what, Albie?”

  To tell you not to come, is what I had been about to say, and she knew it. I fell silent. I no longer knew what to say; indeed, my head was swimming most alarmingly. It must have been the shock of seeing her, and the heat; it could be nothing to do with the strange notions that had taken up residence in my mind; my imagination was my own and if it were beset by a thousand odd ideas, I would surely not be overwhelmed by it.

  “I am sorry, my dear.” I forced a smile. “I am happy to see you, of course—I am merely surprised at your being here. Did my father have no objection to your making the journey?”

  “I can manage your father, Albie.” Helena smiled, but I did not; I did not doubt that she could, but I also knew my father to sometimes display a good humour he did not feel. I doubted he had consented to the matter quite so easily as she was making out. It had been an impetuous decision, not at all like her, but there was nothing to be done about it now.

  “Come, take my arm and we shall walk back to the village,” I said. “Isn’t it charming? And the air is so pleasant, after the City.” I turned a little towards her and she stared at my arm. No; she was staring downwards and I realised she was still focused upon what I held: another woman’s pretty dress, laid out, like—

  No. I would not think of it. Instead, as I folded the garment to hold more easily beneath my other arm, I quickly explained its purpose, and her eyes softened at last, her expression giving way from irritation to concern.

  “Oh, Albie!” she said, “I can see things have been difficult for you. It is good that I came.”

  Somehow I could not bring myself to voice agreement. It felt rather as if some new disturbance had come and that the air was reacting somehow, re-forming itself around us. But Helena put her hand on my arm and despite my headache, we made our way steadily homewards, or at least, back towards the village. I told her of all that had passed, though I did of course spare her the more lurid particulars of the spectre lying within the inn’s wash house, in the place of my fair cousin.

  It was no time at all before we were entering the inn together, and my good host immediately abandoned his position by the casks to greet us both, but mainly, I think,
to see what item of clothing I had brought. The moment he laid eyes on it, his countenance fell.

  “Is it all right?” I asked, surprised.

  “Aye—it’s right enough, I s’pose.”

  “Whatever is it? It looks fine enough—it is a quite delicate material, and with a clean white trim, you see here—” I felt Helena’s gaze on my face at my sudden interest in feminine dress, but I did not meet her eye. I still could not imagine what was wrong.

  Then he said, “Aye, it’ll do. Prob’ly dun’t mean owt, anyroad. It’s just, wi’ it bein’ green an’ all—”

  “Is green unlucky?”

  He snorted. “It’s not that—it would be if she were getting wed in it. But it’ll ’ardly matter for owt now, will it? It’s just—well, it’s not right. It’s their colour, in’t it?”

  He gloomily pondered the gown, rubbing his whiskers in a musing fashion, and I could do nothing but stare at him. I felt my cheeks redden. But of course, it was “their” colour. How could I not have thought of it? Even if I did not believe in such creatures—and of course, I did not—I should have known that.

  I crushed it in my hands as if I could banish it from sight. “I could fetch another,” I said, as I realised too that I had forgotten about inner wear: linens, stockings, a corset, everything that was proper. How had I been so foolish?

  “It’ll serve,” he said. “Mary were tellin’ us, she dun’t think she can get ’er dressed right, not really. She might ’ave to cut the frock, lay it on t’ top, like.”

  “And it will be a closed coffin, will it not?” Helena’s voice was crisp and clear, all brisk enquiry without a hint of dismay. We both looked up at her as if she had awoken us.

  “Aye,” he said, at the same time as I murmured, “Yes.”

  “There then,” the landlord said, taking the offending article from me and moving away. “I’ll gerrit sorted.”

  I sat for a while with my wife, giving brief answers to her queries about the village and its inhabitants and the funeral, as far as I was able to concentrate through the fog of my thoughts. I told her of the “ca’penter” who was also an undertaker, of the strident parson and his ranting, of Mary Gomersal and her elfin child, feeling all the time at some distance, as if I were still standing in another place; caught, perhaps, on a sunny hillside. But the thing that was uppermost, that refused to be banished from my mind, was to wonder how I ever could have been so foolish as to see that my cousin was sent to her grave wearing the colour of the fairies.

  Chapter Eight

  Whether it was an unlucky day or not, upon the Friday everything went amiss. From the beginning, Helena arose pale and cross from our bed. She rubbed at her eyes, complaining most bitterly about the lateness of the hubbub that had come from downstairs, though I confess I had not noticed it—I had slept quite soundly, and that, she told me with a hand to her forehead, had made it worse, disturbing her further with my noisy exhalations. The bed was lumpen, and she proclaimed it most likely infested, becoming all the more incensed when I observed that if it was, I had been entirely unconscious of it.

  Helena had previously professed her disinclination to wear any article that was darker than grey—but such a grey! She had brought with her a pale watered silk, but it had such an unseemly shine that it surely would not do for a funeral, let alone for mourning, and I said as much.

  “Mourning!” she exclaimed, as if it were a ridiculous idea. “For a distant relative of my husband’s—and one I never once met?—why, that would not call for even ordinary mourning. And you know, Albie, that I cannot bear the smell of dye, even if there had been time to blacken my good silk. Why, anyone of any breeding would decry such a thing as a silly affectation, if not absolute nonsense.”

  I could see there was no use in remonstrating, and of course she had not her full wardrobe at her disposal so even had she been inclined, there was little chance of her now producing a sombre-coloured crape or even a bombazine.

  I then ventured to suggest that, as a lady, perhaps she had better not attend the funeral—after all, I reminded her, our own dear queen had not seen fit to attend that ceremony for Prince Albert—but she gave me such a sharp look as to instantly quell my words. Her vehemence quite surprised me; Helena had always been so level, one might even say a little too reserved. An image rose before me of my father effecting our introduction, he talking too much in the most jovial tones he could muster, and Helena’s low responses. We had been at dinner with a number of acquaintances and I particularly recalled the high, tinkling chatter of the other women around us, arrayed in their brightest and most gaudily frilled and quilled dresses. Science had lately risen to new heights when it came to the extraction of the most brilliant dyes from such dull matter as coal-tar, and all were racing to outdo one another in dazzling the eye with their violets and fuchsines and garnets. Helena had followed no such fashion, no doubt to the opprobrium of the ladies, but to my father’s undoubted approval. Her gown had been of a soft, quiet shade of blue-grey and it had struck me that evening that she was like some calm island in the midst of noisily crashing waters that only broke harmlessly upon her tranquil shores.

  Break upon her. I shook my head at that thought, reminding myself that I had known it to be a fine thing, and her a fine woman, from the moment I was thrown together in her company. Helena was a lady of simple elegance, all that any man of reason could desire, and now I told myself that I should have the good sense to capitulate to her wishes.

  She bustled about the room, gathering together my black armband, my hat with its crape trim and my black gloves—and yet there too things went awry, for she could not find the right one. She searched the wardrobe and cupboards, decrying the roughness of the wood and the meanness of our accommodation, and at last she ran her hands down the pockets of my frock-coat, whereupon she let out an exclamation. In the next moment she had slipped her fingers inside and withdrew them again, only for her triumph to give way to confusion as she stared at the little lock of golden hair in her hand.

  She stared at me, the shining strands bright against her own dark hair, but already I thought I could detect the scent of charring, borne by that curl and now creeping through the room towards us.

  “Your cousin’s?” she asked.

  I gave my affirmation and when she spoke again her voice was the model of politeness, though it shook a little. “How often,” she asked, “had you seen her in your life?”

  “Just once, Helena. As I told you.”

  She looked down once more at the pitiful lock of hair, her expression one of disdain, possibly even disgust. “Do you intend to have it made up as a keepsake?”

  “I—I hadn’t thought of what to do, my dear. I suppose I merely wished to have the possibility. Do you think I should?”

  Her eyes shone with a sudden fierceness as she crossed the room to the washstand and cast the thing into one of the china dishes. She turned her back upon it—and me—rubbing her fingers together as if to rid herself of the touch of something tainted.

  Tainted. The word rose to my mind, and it brought anger with it. My cousin had been an innocent, duped into a bad marriage with a worse man, and she had not deserved what had befallen her. And now all the countryside was alight with tales of little folk and devils, just as if her fate were one to relish for the entertainment it afforded.

  Well, today they could have entertainment enough: my poor cousin would be laid to rest at last, and there would be an end of it.

  I had begun my own preparations, donning my funeral attire then taking up my hat and smoothing down the crape, conscious of my wife’s eyes upon my face, when I heard the sound of hooves in the yard outside.

  I went to the window and stared down. Widdop had informed me that the village would expect a walking funeral, with pallbearers alone, but I had insisted that my cousin should have a hearse and coach, and the carpenter-undertaker had assured me he would take care of it all. It would still be a simple affair in comparison to a London funeral, of course, in p
art because of the necessity for all to be expedited swiftly, but also because it seemed to me to be more fitting: a modest funeral for a modest girl in a modest village. Now here was our hearse: nothing but a cart hung about in black ribbon, more suited to some rather sombre Mayday parade, with three boys sitting in the back of it, no doubt to assist him in carrying the sad object into the church. Their cloaks looked as if they were last dyed the colour of despondency many years before. Our “coach” followed. At least the horse drawing the “hearse” was properly black, if an inelegant, sway-backed creature. Ours was chestnut with a dark sheet thrown over it, as if such a tawdry thing could address the lack of sable.

  My wife, leaning at the window next to me, gave a burst of dry laughter. “No plumes, I see.”

  My irritation returned. “Of course there are no plumes—we are not in the City.”

  “I am perfectly aware of it,” she answered drily.

  In the yard, the landlord was greeting the undertaker and his lads; he went to the wash house door, turned the key in the lock and pushed it open; the space filled with shadows and I turned away from the window. After closing my eyes a moment in due solemnity, I led the way outside.

  When we emerged, the little gathering had moved to the front of the inn and the coffin had already been settled on the cart. I was glad to see that it at least had been draped in a fine black velvet cloth. Widdop’s daughter emerged from the inn bearing a tray weighed down with bread, cheese and beer, and the lads set to with obvious relish. The parson had declined to attend on me before the service, or at the high tea to be given after it; I tried to swallow my resentment as I looked across to the church and saw that although the peals had begun, he was not even to be found standing at the door.

  The undertaker turned to us, still clutching a piece of bread and butter, and ran his gaze up and down our figures. He hastened at once to the “coach” and returned with his mouth full and his arms overflowing with crape. “Lucky I brought these,” he said in muffled tones, and shook them out straight: two more rough cloaks, such as those worn by his lads.