The Hidden People

by Allison Littlewood

  The warden threw open yet another heavy door, which squealed on its hinges as it revealed an ill-lit stairway leading down. It might have been the opening to Hell itself, which was no doubt fitting enough. “Through here,” he said, in a voice as roughly formed as the stone steps. I shivered. The walls exuded a cold dampness that penetrated my bones. I could see the rot blackening the brick. This was no modern conception of a gaol, no Panopticon; but some measure of satisfaction came over me that all was so dismal and disheartening.

  The broad-shouldered fellow led the way, his bulk almost brushing the irregular walls, ducking as we passed beneath a lintel scarred with indecipherable scratches. The passage tended downward until we turned a corner, like Athenian sacrifices in the labyrinth of the Minotaur, and a row of doors was revealed, each with a small hatch set into it.

  The warden jangled his keys on their great iron ring as if he were warning the inmates to silence, and at that moment I did not know what had possessed me to come. I should be at my desk in the City, taking care of some minutiae of a contract or writing in the ledger. I should be sitting beside my wife as she bent over her sewing. I had not informed my father that I had come here; I could not begin to imagine what he would think of the undertaking.

  There was to be no halting it now. As the warden led the way to a door just like all of the others, a series of pictures suddenly rose before me: all the possibilities I had ever imagined of my cousin’s murderer’s face, like photographs capturing only the most miserable ideas and iniquitous of features. There were bullet-shaped skulls and beetling foreheads; dark, sunken eyes; surly mouths; jutting, gallows chins; in short, all the most ignoble examples of physiognomy that could be conjured by a heated mind.

  The door opened. A thin figure stood respectfully within, his head bowed, his arms hanging loosely by his sides. He had not yet been convicted, so he did not wear the broad arrow; his grey uniform hung from him in swags cut for a more substantial fellow. His face was hidden from me and I was thanking my Maker for this mercy when he raised his head.

  It is universally thought that interior ugliness does not always reveal itself by exterior show, but I could never consider even moderately prepossessing the appearance of the devil who had murdered my cousin. And yet still he revealed a well-shaped face, a straight nose, a fair-set forehead unmarked by care and cheeks that were only slightly hollowed from privation. But it was his eyes that I most desired to see, and I looked into them most intently. They were blue, the exact colour of the morning sky. It struck me that they were too pale, that they betrayed his weakness of character; indeed, his guilt; but I knew if I had met him in some other circumstance I should never have thought it. In truth, I could see no evil in them. His character must therefore be a matter of clever concealment, for I should have thought him simply a man. The imprint of what he had done, if anything were open to view, rested only in his sagging frame, which spoke of quiescent exhaustion. I may not have been able to make out his wickedness, but I saw a man close to dashing all hope away, and I was glad of it.

  I examined his little cell. Its contents were few and mean: a narrow pallet took up one side, its straw stuffing poking through holes in the thin sacking; the very sight set me to itching. The farthest corner held a bucket, its ill-fitting lid failing to keep its foetor from my nostrils. A simple shelf held a cup, a jug and a Bible. A tiny window was barred with iron; there was no other ventilation, only a cold exudation rising from the stone floor.

  That was all, save for a further bucket, full of twisted strands of unravelled fibres, and beside it, a solid lump of unmatted rope, black with a tarry substance which I now noticed also coated Jem Higgs’ fingers: an outward sign perhaps of his black heart. He had been passing his time picking oakum, and I dared hope, thinking upon his crime. He surely deserved worse punishment—the treadmill or the hand-crank—but after his conviction he would instead find his life’s surcease at another rope’s end.

  The warden rasped something about minutes as the door clanged closed. I was alone with my cousin’s murderer, and I did not know where to begin.

  I watched for some sneer to appear on his features, or some other sign of his depravation, but there was nothing, not even curiosity. I opened my mouth, still not sure what I should ask: was he sorry? Did it not try his soul to have ended the life of so sweet a creature? Instead, I blurted, “Did you truly believe your story? Did you honestly think her a changeling?”

  At first he only twitched his lips, as if he were unused to their operation and was only now finding their purpose. “I knew she weren’t me wife, sir. She wan’t the person I wed.”

  A thousand words struggled to my lips. “She was sweetness itself. She was a bird.”

  “If you say so.” He shrugged.

  “I do say so.”

  He raised his eyebrows as if wondering how I could ever have heard of her, and I was reminded uncomfortably of the years that had passed in which I had never seen her, had barely even thought of her. His features lapsed into a languid exhaustion. “’Appen that’s why they wanted ’er. I allus said she ’ad the prettiest voice in ’Alfoak.”

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  “They say the hidden people watch out for the best on us, sir. They only want the lightest and fairest. I reckon it were ’er voice that did for my Lizzie. She were a songbird, all right. I reckon they ’eard ’er singin’ and knew she belonged wi’ them an’ not wi’ us.”

  His words were so close to my own thoughts that I could scarcely believe he had uttered them. And it struck me for the first time that, albeit by marriage alone, I was related to this man. We were kin; cousins even.

  He turned to look at me and I had the disconcerting feeling that he was reading my thoughts. “Who are you?”

  I drew myself up and informed him that I was the murdered lady’s cousin. He merely narrowed his eyes and said, “Tha’s got summat of it on you, I can tell. Been to ’Alfoak, ’aven’t you?”

  I opened my mouth to reply and found I could not. I had not just “been to ’Alfoak”; I was living in his house and sitting by his fire. I had looked into his private rooms; I had seen the spectacle of my wife prancing in his wife’s dress.

  “I’d watch it, if I was you.”

  I lifted my head, suddenly feeling as if I were the prisoner and he the warden.

  “Look too ’ard, an’ you’ll fade,” he said. “If yer too interested in t’ ’idden people, yer won’t ’ave nowt left for ordin’ry things. They call it an ’alf-dream. It’s like a spell they cast.”

  I shook my head. This was not to be borne—I was not the one to be questioned. I straightened and said, “Elizabeth gave you cause to hate her, did she not? How long was it since you had decided you wanted her dead? What made you think of concealing your actions with such a fantastical tale—was it your acquaintance, the wise woman?”

  It was his turn to be mute.

  “Did Elizabeth beg you for mercy when you held her over the fire? As—as she—”

  He shifted his head, but instead of the expected defiance, I saw that his eyes were brimming with tears. “It weren’t ’er, sir,” he whispered. “It couldn’t ’a been ’er.”

  “No, of course it could not. How easy it would be for you if your story could only be true; if you did not burn your wife but merely rid the village of some hobgoblin that had come to haunt it. If she were not even a human being at all, let alone—let alone the very one you had promised to love, to take care of all her days. Be a man! Confess what you did, if not to your gaolers, then tell it to me. I have to hear it. I need to hear it!”

  “It in’t no tale.” His voice was rasping and low. “If it were ’er, what ’appened to ’er? What made ’er say the things she did? Why would she—?”

  “Why would she what?”

  He stared down at the floor, gathering himself. “She weren’t me wife, sir. I in’t makin’ it up. I knew it ’ud be trouble, bein’ in that ’ouse, so near that ’illtop. But it were a fine ’ouse, see
, a good ’ouse, an’ she were a fine lass, our Lizzie. She said she wanted summat better than were in t’ village, an’ if I wanted a body like ’er fer a wife I ’ad ter gi’ it to ’er. An’ so I did it, I took it, an—an I’m sorry fer it! Better I’d never clapped eyes on that ’ouse, or on ’er—”

  I waited.

  “So they took ’er, t’ folk did. They must ’ave. An’ I knew it were a changeling in ’er stead, on account o’ right when she came, I noticed t’ mop-stick were missin’.”

  I blinked.

  “They take a stock o’ wood, see? An’ they spell it to look like t’ one they stole. So that’s what they must ’ave done. An’ I tried all sorts, sir. I tried wards an’ charms an’ ’erbs an’ all I could do to get ’er back again. After that, fire was t’ only way. It’s all that were left. Aye, an I’ll tell yer what, it would ’ave worked, an’ all! I should ’ave been there, see, to fetch my real Lizzie back from t’ ’ill, when t’ moon were full, only they took us off an’ wun’t let us go.”

  The silence lay deep. Of course, he must cling to his story; it was all that stood between him and the gallows. It would take a greater skill than mine to see to the bottom of the matter. All I knew for certain was that my cousin was gone, and that there was nothing but a question where she had been: an empty space, something like the memory of a song.

  His eyes narrowed. “Tha knows summat,” he said. “Tha must ’ave found it.”

  I started. “Whatever do you mean?”

  “Tha knows—about ’er an’ ’im.”

  “Him?”

  He turned and spat upon the floor. “Tha said I’d got cause. Well, mebbe I ’ad, but I’m more a man than ’im for all that. It din’t matter, see, what she’d done, not ter me. I put ’er to t’ fire cos I ’ad ter, an’ that was all. But you ’ave to tell ’em.”

  “Tell them what, pray? Tell whom?”

  “Tell ’em where yer found it. ’Er journal.”

  I pressed my lips together.

  “Tha did, din’t tha? It’s writ all ower yer. ’Ow’d you know, otherwise?” His expression changed, turning to one of pleading. “Tha’s got ter tell ’em. Please, sir.”

  “I did not. I found nothing.”

  “Yer must ’ave.” He almost wailed the words. “It’s t’ only thing—”

  “No.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I’ve teld yer nowt but t’ truth.”

  “And I—”

  “Aye?”

  Blood suffused my cheeks. I turned from him and hurried to the door. I beat twice upon it and the sound rang hollowly along the passage.

  “No! Tha can’t just go.”

  Footsteps grew louder in the passage.

  “I—I’ll prove it to yer!”

  I turned to see Higgs crouching like a feral creature, his hands clawing at his face. “Dig ’er up!” he said.

  I stared at him.

  “It’s nowt but a stock o’ wood—you’ll see!”

  “A stock of wood?” I spoke coldly. “I did see her, man. I saw what you did. I cut a lock of hair from her poor scorched head—”

  A frown crossed his features, but he shook it away. “It’ll not work till she’s back under t’ ground! Aye, dead and buried, as all should think—once she’s there, back in t’ earth where she came from, she’ll turn back into what she is!” He lunged across the cell and grabbed at my sleeve. “I burned t’ firewood, sir, an’ that’s all. Tha’ll see! Just dig ’er up—”

  The door opened. The warden strode in, saw the prisoner grasping at me, stepped forward and struck him a resounding blow with his stick.

  I ducked beneath his arm and as I moved into the passage, I caught a last glimpse of Higgs’ pale face, a streak of blood running from his skull. I could still hear the man calling after me, undiminished, “Dig ’er up! It’s t’ only way—just dig ’er up!”

  I heard more thuds of the warden’s stick and the voice was quelled at last. The warden locked the door upon his prisoner and turned, straightening his jacket and his countenance. I felt I should calm my own racing heart, but I could not. My cheeks still burned, and I burned inwardly too. Jem Higgs was a murderer, and yet he had forced me into a falsehood. I told myself that it was only to be expected as a sign of his wickedness, that he could force others to wickedness; and yet . . . and yet.

  I heard his cries as the warden showed me out of the maze, not in reality, but in my mind: Dig ’er up—dig ’er up! It was the call of a madman, an incurable. Did he intend to escape the noose, if not by his wild story, then by going to Bedlam? Did he think me not in possession of my senses? He surely could not imagine I would consider the notion, even for an instant. Still, it instilled into my mind the most dreadful images. I could see her beneath the ground, shut into her tiny coffin, her body frozen and stiff. I could see her face with its wide white grin, the only part of her that was not just as he said: a blackened stock of wood.

  I banished the thought. Jem Higgs was an evil man, steeped in evil deeds, and I should have anticipated that nothing but evil would come of my visit. I should leave the discovery of the truth and the administering of justice to those who were most fitted for it. I should collect my wife and leave Yorkshire for ever, removing once again to my father’s high ceilings and calm rooms, the epitome of civilised society so different from everything I had known and seen since I first set eyes on Halfoak.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  That evening, before retiring to my hotel, I wandered about the cobbled streets. There was no train to Kelthorpe until the next day, the timetable not being quite so regular as could be wished. The stationmaster had merely shrugged when I quizzed him on the matter, as if to say, What shall I do? For no one wishes to go there, and I could only nod in a resigned fashion, for I did not entirely wish to go there either.

  Now I walked upon a well-paved footway, free of wheel-ruts and the leavings of horses, passed by only shop-boys hurrying about their errands, a sandwich-man carrying boards advertising mustard, a constable whose breath bore no taint of drink and ladies whose bonnets were prettily bedecked with ribbons and frills. The day had continued as grey and dull as ever; even sunset left no trace of rose upon the sky, and I was relieved at the sight of it. It was so calming to be cool! To wander about at leisure without the oppressive sun beating down upon me at every moment. There was only the thought of Helena waiting for me, anxious and alone, to weigh upon my shoulders, and I wore that lightly enough, for the thought had seized hold of me that tomorrow—yes, tomorrow, we would return home to London.

  I looked down at the smuts that had irreversibly smeared my coat. Such was the province of the city; I could smell the taint of coal-smoke even now entering my lungs. But here, all was rational. The people about me were engaged in the solid and practical requirements of business. Here, men believed only in what was true; what they could see and touch and prove; and as the church bells chimed the hour, I felt glad to be standing within it. Another turn, and a fine chapel came into view: there was its clock, steadily measuring out the days, with its hour-hand and a single minute-hand, thus brooking no confusion. Everything was ordered and in its place, and it acted as a salve upon my heart.

  I wandered a little longer before turning towards my lodgings and retiring to my room. The bed was a little hard but comfortable, well-curtained against draughts, and as far as I could ascertain, without any miniature intruders. My head sank into the pillow, which rose in two clouds on either side of my ears, and I listened to the old accustomed sounds of evening: the rumble of wheels on a well-paved road; the rattle of shutters, and not a single tweet of a lark or hoot of an owl.

  I listened for them, and found I could barely sleep a wink.

  The following morning I was roused early when the maid of all work came to set a fire in the grate. Still half in the land of sleep, I informed her it was an extravagance that would not be required, though the moment she left I realised the room was rather chill after my days of waking under Halfoak’s summer skies. It w
as of no consequence; I would not be lingering long enough for a fire to heat the room.

  I broke my fast hastily and took my leave for the station. Before long I was rushing through the world once more, on my way towards the countryside and eager to see my wife, and hoping that the hayricks might have been moved a little farther from the rails.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The progress of the horse and cart was sleepy in comparison with the rush of iron and fire and steam; the irregularity of the country lanes made it impossible to rest, as did the ceaseless chasing of my thoughts. I looked out instead at the fields and could not help being a little dismayed by the sight. As I neared Halfoak, all had turned to summer once again, and yet it now had become evident that the picture it offered of bucolic contentment—like to something in a painting—was superficial only.

  The carrier had lately informed me that we had reached the “owd squire’s lands.” The corn harvest had been “fossed to begin,” he informed me, too early, before the hay was even in, and I could indeed see men setting about the golden ears with their sickles, followed by women gathering and tying the swathes into bundles, children gleaning what had fallen, and behind them all, partridges pecking at what was left.

  Despite the clearness of the sky, each little group appeared half hidden in a mist; I realised the phenomenon was caused not by the heat or insects attracted to their sweat, but by the sheer quantities of chaff which floated about them as they worked. I wondered what it must be like to breathe it in, and soon discovered the answer for myself as we passed through a drift of it; it combined with the white dust thrown up by the horse’s steady plod first to dry my tongue, and after a short time to tickle my throat and I started coughing. I noticed then that many of the workers wore cloths about their faces. And I saw too that the crop was not golden, that it had passed beyond golden to a pale withered brown that spoke of friability; it must surely crumble to pieces as quickly as it was gathered in.