The Hidden People

by Allison Littlewood

  This led me to no little sense of awkwardness as we entered through the old grey door and passed into the shady, stone-smelling narthex. There was much rustling of skirts and the murmur of voices, all rising and mingling in a ceaseless whisper. The squire’s mother was already in her place in the most easterly seat of the foremost pew, her head bowed. She looked at no one, and her son, leaning back with his arms spread along the back of the seat, stared only upwards. His posture would have been more suited to a settle in the inn.

  Farmers and their wives, labouring men with their boots newly polished, maids, mothers, grand-dames, all were taking their places in some social order of which I could make out nothing. Of course, the wise woman was not present. I had not for a moment thought she would be.

  The air remained warm inside the church, despite its stone walls filled with shadows. The parson was ready, standing to one side of the pulpit, his hands clasped. His lips were twisted into a semblance of permanent displeasure in spite of the size of the congregation. I half expected that he would notice us and usher us into a pew, but he did not; he was focused not upon the faces around him but a little above their heads, seeing only the ineffable rather than the earthly.

  I handed Helena into a seat a little towards the front of the church, and turned to see a burly farmer, barely smothering his indignation at our imposition. I opened my mouth to make some apology, but he turned away, shaking his head. He squeezed onto another row, making rather a noise about it, to some little sound of protest. I ignored it; surely all men could find a place here without turning the admittance of strangers into a matter of disruption? Where had these people been hiding when the time had come to bury my cousin, one of their own? My hand, unbidden, went to my pocket, where I had been wont to find that little lock of hair, but Helena grasped my fingers before I could, with a wiry clutch that did not speak much of affection. Her own hand remained quite cold.

  A whisper came from somewhere behind me. “Aye—that’s ’im.”

  There was something else I could not hear, then, “Thowt ’e would ’ave gone ’ome. Mustn’t ’ave owt to do.”

  “Likes it up there, does ’e? Pokin’ about—”

  I scowled at their insolence and looked around, but I could not identify the speakers. I did notice Ivy, sitting two rows behind me, and next to her Mrs. Gomersal and her other daughter, but they stared straight ahead. The boy was as blank as ever, and his mother turned his head with her hand, correcting his wandering attention.

  There was no young girl with an infant anywhere within the church.

  The parson cleared his throat. “Sun and rain,” he said. “Rain and sun: both fall alike on a land blessed by God and both are needed, though they may not be welcomed alike. Without God’s bounteous gifts the wheat will not grow. Without the rain, it will wither where it stands.” He looked about, though his stern eyes fixed on nothing.

  “But what of the land that turns its face away—what of the land that pays no heed to God’s ways? Why then should we blame the Lord when His people reject His bounty? What should He care if they should choose to take care of their own? It is God’s judgement if they do not live. It is God’s judgement if they do not flourish. And they shall not flourish!” He slapped his hand down upon the pulpit next to the open Bible, which I do not believe he had once glanced at. I thought of a cup of tea jumping in its saucer, but the sound rang louder and longer, echoing from the rafters, and something stirred up there, an almost inaudible rustling. Helena, next to me, let her head fall back and stared upward. I squeezed her fingers, but it was like touching something inert and an image rose before me: another hand, a cold, blackened hand.

  “They shall—not—flourish!” The parson enunciated each word, this time glaring into each face before him, one after the next. In the brief silence, no one moved; no one even breathed. Then came the tap of an idle boot swinging against its seat from somewhere behind me and I knew that it was her child: Mrs. Gomersal’s elfin boy. Next to me, Helena let out a breath. I looked at her, startled, not so much because of the volume of the sound but because it had been laced with amusement.

  “They shall be unwelcome in God’s house.”

  I shifted uncomfortably. Of all the gathered host, the ones most unwelcome in God’s house must have been my wife and me: outsiders, unwelcome; we did not understand the lives being lived around us.

  “They shall not lie in consecrated ground,” the parson went on, speaking as if one point had led to the other, though his meaning was dark to me. “Exiled!” He thumped the pulpit again and Helena let out a spurt of air, not a sound of alarm but again, thinly veiled amusement. She tried to remove her hand from mine and I endeavoured to hold onto it; then it was gone. I had felt no response, no warmth, no familiarity. It was as if we were not connected in any way at all.

  “We shall join our voices in hymn, ‘Lord, Ever Bridle My Desires’. We shall remind ourselves of the fruits of temperance and goodness. When we are joined, it must be within God’s fold and under His eye and within His love. Then, and only then, we become a family; when we are within the greater family of this village and, greater still, within God’s family. Then, and only then, will that family last—when its foundation is built upon a rock!”

  I thought I could begin to make out which way his words tended. I could not think why he had chosen today for his execrations; had he too expected the girl to attend? Or was he ever harping upon this? Did he take pleasure in seeking out any hint of unseemliness so that he could delight in reproving it?

  “Children are born within that love of a man and a woman, joined in the sacrament of marriage. Within that fold. Then, welcomed and Christened, they are safe within God’s family for always. They will never be lost. They will never wander in the wilderness—”

  From somewhere behind me, someone shifted; there came a low grunt.

  “—they will grow beneath the sun, draw sustenance from the rain, and from the love of both mother and father, and from the love they hold for one another—”

  A sharp sound escaped Helena’s lips. I stole a glance at her. Her hand was pressed to her mouth, but she was smiling under it. I could see it plainly; anybody could.

  “Helena,” I whispered, my tone one of warning, but it was of no use. As if in answer, a bark of laughter emerged from her lips, as sudden as a convulsion. It was louder than the parson’s voice.

  I did not see those around me, but I heard them shifting, turning to look at her; to look at us. I saw the eyes staring from the corner of my vision. The parson did not speak. Was he too staring at my wife? My wife—my dear Helena, my modest, calm, composed Helena, who now let out another peal of coarse laughter.

  My eyes opened wider as she rocked in her pew. “Helena!” I did not know what to do. I had never before experienced such a thing. I looked around helplessly, seeing the worst: the shocked eyes watching us, judging us, unblinking with the force of their disapprobation—nay, of their disbelief—and then Helena laughed again, dissolving with it so that tears poured down her cheeks.

  I did the only thing I could think of. I grasped her more tightly, my fingers sinking deeply into the flesh of her arm, and I began to pull her towards the end of the pew. Thankfully, no one had been seated next to us; there was none to bar our way.

  The parson did not react. As I watched, a ray of sunlight speared through the window at his back, bright as a sudden bolt of lightning, casting his face into darkness. I could no longer see his expression; I did not need to, for it was echoed in the faces all around us. The whole village was staring.

  “Pardon me,” I said, my voice low but audible enough in the silence following my wife’s strange fit. She did not laugh now, but tears still spilled from her eyes; I did not know if they were of sorrow or mirth.

  “My wife is ill,” I said again. “Pray, excuse us.” I half dragged her to her feet, thinking for an awful moment that she would sink to the floor; and then she stood and I put my arm around her and supported her. I did not look ba
ck until we reached the door, which I dragged open with one hand. It scraped dreadfully against the stone, underlining our egress, and then we once more stood in the burning heat of the day. I shut it after us, and all sound from within was mercifully cut off.

  Helena stared at me as if she did not know what could be the matter, or how she came to be standing there. I grasped her shoulders. It took great effort to refrain from shaking her. I had expected this day to bring examples of ill behaviour; I had not expected them to arise from within my own family. My shame redoubled the heat bearing down upon us from the sky. I did not admonish her as I had intended; I closed my eyes and swayed. I murmured, Wife—nothing more than that.

  She did not answer until I opened my eyes. She was peering at me just as a student of the sciences might examine a specimen under a microscope, as we had once looked upon the exhibits in the Crystal Palace—

  No. No, that had not been Helena—

  Her mouth twisted, as if she could see all my thoughts and knew my mistake.

  “Am I?” she whispered. “Am I your wife, Albie? Do we love one another? Is our child to feel the sun and rain upon its face?”

  I did not understand. Sun? Rain? I cared for none of her words; I could see none of it, only this ruined moment, here, now; our disgrace and our shame. I turned from her and began walking towards the cottage, seizing her arm as I did, drawing her along with me. She stumbled and would have fallen but I held her up, kept pulling her with me.

  What must they think of us? All had seen, except the girl I had thought to hire as a maid—a girl mired in debauchery—and yet now we were as shamed as anybody. Who would deign to cross our threshold now?

  There was no choice left to me. I must take Helena away. We must flee this place and hope this did not follow us all the way to London.

  I stopped suddenly. What if it did follow us? Worse still, what if Helena behaved in this fashion in the City—before our acquaintances—before my father? No, I could not countenance it. I could not permit it. There might be no place remaining for us here, but we surely could not return home. There was no choice left to us at all.

  With gratitude, I saw that we had reached the bridge. At least I could be thankful for the isolation of the cottage, which was as peaceful and calm and quiet as it had ever been; there, we should be away from it all. It had become our little haven, a gift from my cousin.

  The back of my neck burned. I did not know if it was from the sun—God’s sun—or from the thought of the church somewhere behind me, or of those eyes . . .

  Helena began to sing, softly, and in a mocking tone. I half expected the folk tune she had sung before, something about a sweet morning and a fairy girl, but it was not:

  All things bright and beautiful . . .

  I whirled, and this time I did shake her, until she could sing no longer; her teeth rattled in her skull. “What do you think, to sing that song?” I demanded. “It is hers—hers!”

  She stared at me, shocked, at last, as she should have been.

  I went on: “It was my cousin’s song. Her voice was sweet—yours—”

  Her expression hardened. “Mine is not? Is that what you meant, Albie? Ah, little Lizzie, the sweetest little Linnet, her song so much more beautiful than my own.”

  “It was. It was!” I pulled away from her, breathing heavily. The words had spilled from me without thought; it was too late to take them back.

  I did not know how she would reply, but for a moment she said nothing. She merely pointed towards the sky. “Do you hear that?”

  I realised there was something: a bird’s voice, rising into the air. At first all was music, then it gave way to a rough chatter that was almost unpleasant. It went on in that way, richness interspersed with shrillness, until I became conscious once more of Helena’s stare.

  “There is your linnet, is it not?” she said, and she laughed to see my expression. “How it shrieks!”

  My eyes narrowed in fury. I wished to tell her just what I thought: that her actions had made her ugly to me; but I did not say it; I only drew away from her in disgust. Shadows hung about her face like a cloud and I could no longer read what was written there. Had she only been teasing me with some notion of her recovery? I wanted to remonstrate, to question her, to say anything to establish that yes, here was my own dear wife; but not a sound emerged. It was as if my voice had been witched away.

  Querulous, I thought. Unnatural. Shrew.

  Her expression was blank, and yet there was a sense of brooding power all about her, concentrated in her once-beautiful eyes. I did not like the way she stared at me. I felt that she could see my every emotion, my every thought, and it made me unaccountably afraid; yet I could do nothing. For a moment I could not even move. I could not look away, nor hide myself, nor change into something that would please her. I was only what I was; I could not fathom what she had become.

  In the next instant she had turned and was hurrying ahead of me, away onto Pudding Pye Hill. I did not go after her. I would not take her arm. I gazed up at the summit. I could just make out the rough outline of the barrow against God’s pure blue sky. I do not know how long I stared. I did not know what it was that I should do.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I knew that Helena would already have retired to her room by the time I reached the cottage. What must she do in there all day—sleep? Consider the world outside her window? Dream? Perhaps she had some other tumultuous novel secreted from me. I stood at the gate, looking in. Outside, all was lovely if tangled abundance. Inside . . .

  I did not immediately go in, but meandered around the path. It had once been neatly sprinkled with cinders, which gritted beneath my shoes. The beds, edged with cheap shuttering, were bursting with ripe vegetables—globular onions practically lifted themselves from the ground, whilst runner beans dripped from their stakes. Some of the flowers were almost indecent in their brightness. There was a pungent scent of rotting fruit. Birds hopped and pecked among it all, appearing and disappearing like a cunning parlour trick.

  There was a spade set into what I suspected to be a potato patch. The blade was caked with mud, the wooden handle worn smooth and shining: it was clearly accustomed to be used, and I found myself thinking that it should be used again. I could not look away from it. And then I heard the echo of a murderer’s words, running through my mind: Dig ’er up!

  I shuddered and turned my back upon it, looking instead at the village. It was distant and beautiful, both familiar and yet unknown to me; it was hard to believe we had been so comprehensively shamed there. Everyone save us would still be in church, bowing their heads beneath the parson’s onslaught. Whatever had made him so angry? Surely he should set the example of peace in his parish?

  But no, not everyone was there. It struck me that the girl so traduced in his sermon did not know what had happened that morning, and further, she might be the only citizen of Halfoak who did not care.

  My father’s son railed within me against the thought of such a presence under my roof. It would be a daily reminder of their sin, one surely greater than our own. My wife had been taken ill—this beautiful isolation in which we found ourselves was not as conducive to her spirits as it was to my own, and I suddenly felt all the loneliness of our position. She had come here of her own volition, but it was because of me that she stayed, away from society, from family, from all that she knew. Having a young woman about the house, one to whom she needs must set an example, might be just the thing to bring her to her senses. We could then return home with no fear of dragging our shame behind us like unwanted baggage. And to have as that young person one who had recently become a mother, someone with whom she could share in a little of that excitement? It was a capital plan! A girl such as Essie Aikin would surely be grateful for any work we could provide; she might even be persuaded to bring the infant with her now and then, for Helena to coo over. That would surely restore my wife to more natural thoughts and womanly occupations, whilst also serving to distract her from whatever
ailed her so.

  I decided I should go at once. I could speak to the girl before the congregation emerged from the old grey building at the heart of the village, prove myself a sensible man before anyone could put it about that I was not. It would be arranged to the satisfaction of all before the day was out.

  Hope lent a spring to my step and I quickly reached the bottom of the hill, smiling at the sweet babble of the brook, before walking past the church. I hardly spared it a glance other than to note that I could not hear the intemperate shouting of its minister, nor did any song emerge or bell peal. Its silence was almost ominous, as if all within it had vanished into the air. Would that they had!

  Accompanied only by the hymns of birdsong and the blessing of God’s own sunlight, I soon reached the crossroads, and just beyond it the beer house, also silent now. A narrow opening was marked DOG LANE, the letters carved into a large stone, though barely legible; it was little more than a track, heavily rutted along its centre, too narrow for anything but a handcart.

  I walked along it, still hearing nothing but the birds and, now and again, the scraping of insects. The lane was edged on one side by a stone wall thickly overgrown with clinging ferns and nettles; I caught glimpses of fields over its unevenly laid top. On the other side, a tight cluster of little houses had been pushed into whatever space had been available. Walls supported one another; fences leaned; roofs sagged. From somewhere came the odiferous suggestion of a shared privy.

  I felt a moment of sympathy for those wretches forced to live in such hovels, and yet even the tiny, irregular patches of garden were full to bursting with colour and life. They were mainly given over to fruit and vegetables, though here and there were bursts of brilliant colour to lend a little cheer, some unknown flowers with neat rings of petals encircling their central, brightly coloured eyes.