The Hidden People

by Allison Littlewood

  “Whatever do you mean?” It was an effort to keep my voice from shaking. Anger—nay, rage—was boiling within me. How dare she? It was mine—and now she held it as if she could not bear the touch of its pages upon her fingers, as if she were too fine to be soiled with such matter. Still, she found what she sought and began to read, her high, sing-song tone grating on my nerves:

  “It minded me of someone else I met once, who put my arm in his, and I thought he might wish to make a wife of me but he did not . . .”

  “That is enough!”

  “Poor, poor Albie. What you must have felt, to hear your little Lizzie pouring out her feelings for another in its pages. I had no idea you were suffering so.”

  “It was not—I—she did not speak so of her husband. And it is of no matter, no consequence; that is not why I came to Halfoak.”

  “Is it not? Is that not her hair upon your dresser, my love? It is a little too pale for my own, unless living in such a place is turning it quite grey.” She paused, looking into my face, which must have been stricken. “And of course it was not her husband. That little hussy most likely had a dozen followers. Oh, Albie! You did not think it was you of whom she spoke?” Her eyes widened in wicked delight. “Oh, you goose!”

  “Helena—”

  She turned the page and read on, her vowels flattened in a dreadful exaggerated semblance of a Yorkshire accent. I was certain my cousin could never have spoken so bluntly. “Ah saw ’im agin yester-neet, ridin’ ’is ’orse. ’E was so easy in t’ saddle, like as if ’e was borned theer. An’ ’e looked on me and tipped ’is ’at an’ winked so pretty, ah could not doubt but—”

  “Stop—stop it at once!” I leaped towards her and snatched the book from her hands, hearing the crack of its spine, the tearing of paper, and I saw only my wife’s white face, so close to mine and yet full of fear, of horror, and I gave some inarticulate cry and raised a hand and pushed her from me as hard as I could.

  She fell back, her grasping hands catching the bed-curtains and dragging them with her. I tried to catch her, but she landed in a heap on the floor at the side of the bed. I said something—I know not what—some words of apology, of regret, but she squirmed away from me, her face turning from white to crimson in a moment. I could see the darker imprint of my thumb upon her jaw. I pulled the curtains away from her, reaching for her hand, but she snatched it back. “Helena, I am sorry. Please, allow me to assist you.”

  She opened her mouth and spat at me and I stared at her, completely astonished. Then she pushed herself up, edging around the wall towards the door.

  “Pray, Helena—my dear wife—do not be afraid. I did not mean—”

  “I am not your wife,” she said. Her brows were drawn down like thunder. “Is that not what you have wished to hear? Well—it is the truth!”

  She turned and fled from the room, not troubling to close the door behind her, and I stared after her, not knowing what I could do or what to say. After a moment, I sat down heavily upon the bed. The journal was in my hands, in a most wretched condition. I started running my hand across its cover, over and over, as if I could undo all the harm it had undergone since it was new.

  I opened it and began to read. There was nothing else to be done, and so I immersed myself once more within the life of another.

  Jem insisted I went to see the bairn again to-day. He said Tommy Aikin is his friend and the least I could do was bring myself to be a friend to his lass, even if I did think I was better than them. I didn’t bother arguing, I just went. I didn’t like it much. She still hasn’t sorted out Christening the thing, though she said she didn’t reckon the parson would do it, and I suppose she’s right there. And she still don’t have a name for it. She said she’d not found what it is yet, but I reckon if she did want it to be stolen by the fairies, she couldn’t have gone about it better.

  Tommy wasn’t there, he was working, but Mary Gomersal was. The baby was crying and carrying on and Mrs. Gomersal said it was because she’d given it the cure. She says the true bairn will be back by midnight, and if it’s not, the fairies will regret it. Then she said she was off, and told me I’d best not upset matters because it was all done and dusted, like she’d just give it a bath or summat.

  Anyway Essie said she felt better about it. I told her I’d brought some milk and sugar for if she wanted help feeding it, and she nodded but then she said she didn’t see any point till she got her own baby back again. No good feeding one of theirs, she said, and I told her she’d best do it just in case the fairies were mad once they got it back again to see a half-starved creature. That seemed to do the trick and she fed it, though it was a weakling little thing, hardly wanted to sup or sleep or cry or anything, just stared at me with these big blue eyes, till I couldn’t help but think it were old, older than the hills, and I hardly knew what to think of the little thing at all.

  I reached the bottom of the left-hand page and skipped across to the right, where I caught the latter part of an account of a brawl breaking out in the inn over rough words said to Tommy Aikin. I shook my head in confusion. This didn’t follow at all. Even the tone of voice had changed. And then I noticed the furred line between the pages, suggestive of several leaves having been ripped from the journal. I ran my fingertip down the roughened line. I stood and cleared the fallen bed-curtains from the floor, shaking them out to make certain that no papers were concealed in their folds. I searched the floor and under the dresser, but there was nothing. Had Helena secreted them within her clothing? Had she even had the opportunity? How could I tell what she might have done?

  I am not your wife. Is that not what you have wished to hear? Well, it is the truth!

  I sank down once more. I read on a little further, but I found no mention of the infant: nothing of its cure, nothing of what that had meant. I had no doubt that Mrs. Gomersal’s herbs would have failed in their purpose, but what had become of the mite after that?

  And then, after I had thought to find no further mention of it, I caught the word “baby,” and I read on.

  Well there is no baby, not any more.

  I caught my breath, forcing myself to continue.

  There is no baby, not any more. It flowed out of me and I couldn’t stop it, and there was nowt I could do. And now Jem knows I am false because like he says, his wife was with child and I am not, I am barren, and that’s a fairy, and that means he can do anything he pleases.

  So I said again that I’d tell, and that shut him up a bit. I don’t know if I meant it or not; it just doesn’t seem right to me and I think summat needs doing but I don’t know what and I don’t know who I would tell. Parson don’t care for owt that isn’t in his own backyard and there isn’t any constable here, not in Halfoak. The old squire or the young squire both would only be glad, though it’s not nice to say and I don’t like to think on it. I don’t know what possessed me once. But it doesn’t matter, not really. There isn’t nowt here, nowt being taken care of like it should be taken care of. It’s all left to folk to do what they will, and sometimes folk don’t do the right thing, and who am I to say it should be different? Still, it rattles Jem’s cage when I say it. It sent him mad as a fox put in with the chickens. Still, what’s it matter? Nothing is going to bring it back. It isn’t going to make me feel any better, though it did just for a minute, when I saw his face. But there’s nowt I can really do about making him angry. I cannot breathe without doing that. So it doesn’t really make any difference, not now, not to me or any one.

  When I read that, though not understanding the half of it, I bent my head and I wept. For my poor cousin to endure such unhappiness, to be thus estranged from her husband, was unutterably sad, and I hated to think of her that way, stuck in this place, all alone, miles from those among her family who would have taken pleasure in helping her—and yet I had not helped her.

  There were two lost children in Halfoak. I bowed my head over her book, where she had written those sad words with her own little hand. And I thought of her longing
for and crying over someone else, a person she perhaps had thrown herself upon for comfort, when he was an unworthy object for her affection; when all the time a better man was thinking of her.

  I can kiss but I can’t wed you all,

  But I would if I could, great and small,

  I long for to cuddle you all,

  For you see I’m a beautiful boy

  Aye, you see I’m a beautiful boy.

  I shook the words away. Many a girl in the village had fallen prey to the same infatuation, and doubtless in many other places besides. Who would not admire the son of a landowner, so fine upon his horse? For the man she had written of could only have been Edmund Calthorn. It was a tale that had been told many times before, and in as many places. And in Halfoak there was so little in the way of society; there were so few comparisons to make. How many females, then, must have made him the hero of their imagination, though he was so dissolute a creature?

  And I—I had not thought of Lizzie at all. I should have; the guilt written upon my father’s face had testified to that. No: I had not thought of her when I should have done so, and then all might have been well. Instead, I had allowed myself to be shaped and influenced by my father. I had taken his choice when it was placed before me, rather than holding tightly to the little hand that had once clung to my arm.

  And now she was dead—dead! I wept at the thought of it, and I pitied her. Her poor shortened life had ended in misery and fear and the most insufferable pain; it was more than any being should have to endure.

  I read on, the words blurring and shifting upon the page, and I realised I had seen this before, that I had caught up with myself; there was nothing more. I had reached the account of them forcing their dreadful physic down her throat.

  . . . There was a knock on the door. He says, go and see who it is, wife, only he said wife like it meant summat else. And I didn’t move so he went to see and they came in and stood there as if they didn’t even know who I was.

  Then he says tha shall take it like it or not, and he had it in a jug, and it stunk . . . he said I had to drink it and I would not. I don’t know what she puts in that stuff, but its fowl and I said I would not have it, not in my own house with my own husband, and he did nowt but laugh. The others didn’t though. One of them got a hold of my shoulders and shoved me down, and held me on the floor, and I said it hurt but they didn’t care. The other went and grabbed my hair, right at back of my neck, and I started to cry then since I didn’t think they would have done that, helping just as if owt they said even made any sense. All the time, they would not even say nowt to me nor look at me. It were like I was nothing.

  I stopped reading and stared into space. I pictured Jem and his uncouth friends, surrounding Lizzie around her own hearthrug, the size of them; their strength. And yet somehow I could not see it at all. It had all gone dark to me. Would Yedder, foolish as he was, pull a woman’s hair? Would Tommy? And after all I had seen in Halfoak . . . I shook my head. All I could think of was a little china jug, smashed all to pieces.

  Did you see to t’ bis’lings?

  No. It was not the men of the parish who dealt in herbs and hedge-medicines. I closed my eyes, picturing the scene. There was Lizzie, pleading against their madness—their ignorance. There was Jem, an angry husband, slighted by her. And the little jug, held to her lips—

  And everything I thought I knew suddenly changed.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  A short time later I strode down the white road towards the village and Mary Gomersal’s neat little cottage. I had not said goodbye to Helena; I did not suppose that she would speak to me. I could not think of her now, and in truth I did not know what I should think. Other matters must occupy me, things of a most pressing nature: the reason I had come to Halfoak. I felt the truth was opening to me at last, as a lock yields to an imperfect key only after much pressing.

  I soon arrived at her gate and found her much as I had before, her unnatural cub at her heels, playing some unknown game with leaves torn from a mulberry bush, while mother and youngest daughter diligently wove straw with their sun-browned fingers. Mrs. Gomersal looked up at once, as if some sixth sense had informed her of my presence.

  She stood and dropped the thing she worked upon, not a mat or a bonnet or some such useful thing but a doll made of corn, some of the ears still bearing grain. The girl had been busy dressing hers in ribbons, scraps of cloth and little flowers. She waved it at me now. “A kern-baby,” she said, “for when t’ harvest’s done an’ t’ fields are ploughed. They’ll plough it into t’ ground, see? For luck, for next year’s crop.”

  “Stop yer natterin’, Flora.” Mrs. Gomersal spoke in a low voice, but in a tone that would not be brooked. “’E dun’t want ter listen to thee.”

  No: I did not want to listen. Nor did I speak.

  Mrs. Gomersal bade me good day, in a sweeter but no less uncertain voice. I examined her countenance, trying to read the traces of the past written upon it, but I could not. I tried to picture her presenting her little jug of herbs to my cousin and telling her to drink. Had she really forced it down her throat? Had it been the false “cousins” at all? I could almost see her, standing upon the threshold, ready with her “cure”; her face set and no pity in it at all.

  I didn’t think they would have done that.

  But Halfoak was like that, wasn’t it? All the harshness and difficulties of life were here; the lack of forgiveness and the stern judgement; the sin and its fruit, hidden beneath a veil of sunshine and sweetness.

  Mrs. Gomersal dropped a curtsy, still waiting for me to speak. “Pray tell me, madam,” I said, “why, when I asked you directly who had helped administer certain ‘cures’ to Elizabeth Higgs, you sent me to enquire of her husband’s friends—his ‘cousins’? Were you afraid of some reprisal for the part you played in it? Or did you merely take pleasure in distracting and toying with me?”

  She took an involuntary step back; the heel of her boot struck the step. She did not look around but snapped at the girl, “Go inside—go inside at once!”

  Flora scrambled to her feet, spilling chaff and scraps of fabric from her pinafore. In another moment she was gone. The boy did not move, but continued laying out leaves like playing cards upon the path. He was unconscious of my presence and his mother appeared unconscious of his, as if she did not expect him to heed her.

  Her mouth opened and closed. Then she said, “Sir, I only ’elped them as needed it. I only ever try to ’elp, that’s what I does.”

  “Did you help when my cousin was held over the fire? Did you very kindly help with that, Mrs. Gomersal? Or did you merely stand back and watch her burn?”

  She shook her head earnestly. “Now, sir—I’ll ’ave none o’ that.”

  “You sent me to Jem’s cousins, but they were not there when it happened.”

  “I—no, sir. I’m sorry for it, sir. Only—it were t’ way you looked at me, is all.”

  I swallowed hard. It was what I had expected, yet I had not been certain until she confirmed it. I saw the scene before me once more. They, Lizzie had said. They.

  “It was you. You and—and Ivy.” The girl had been in my abode. She had swept the very fire which had consumed Lizzie Higgs. Had the girl no shame? “You knocked her down. You held her hair. And what then? Did you throw lamp oil upon her dress to help the fire along?”

  “Not that! Never, sir. I told yer, I’ll none on’ it. I teld ’im what ’e ’ad to do, an’ that’s it. It were ’im what did it all.”

  “Is that how the constable would see it, do you think?”

  “Jem’ll never blame me.” She pulled herself taller. “’E’ll not do that. I teld yer, ’er own ’usband did what ’e did, an’ ’e’ll stand by it. See if ’e dun’t! All I did was try an’ ’elp ’em all, by God an’ t’ Bible an’ owt else they’ll ’ave me swear on!”

  “Perhaps you are right,” I said. “Perhaps he is not so cowardly as some, to hand over another in their place.”

  �
��They would ’ave ’elped if ’e’d asked ’em. Anyone would. They’d ’ave ter. It’s t’ only way, when the ’idden people get in.”

  I paused. “That was the reason why you had me see her remains, was it not? You thought to yourself, here comes one who will look into the matter, who will stand by her. And so you sent me in to where she was—why? Did you think it would frighten me from Halfoak before I could even begin to ascertain the truth? Is that the reason for all your warnings about Pudding Pye Hill—about her cottage? To make certain of my leaving it?”

  “Sir—sir!” Tears sprung into her eyes. “You speak as if I planned it all—as if I did it all, and not them! The ’idden people! As if it was all my design, and not—not to try and fritten them away! You don’t know what it’s like ’round ’ere, sir. You dun’t know what they’re like!”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but at their mention I could not speak. All I could think of was my wife: my wife, who was not as she used to be. Who was now querulous. Unnatural. A shrew. Who was changed.

  “You must see it, sir. It’s plain for all to see what lives ’ere. I did summat because I must. The folk—the good folk—they’d take ’alf t’ village if they could. We’d all ’ave nobbut cuckoos’ nests, an’ not a mouthful nor a penny nor a roof on us own, if we give ’em leave. An’ they’d drive us mad wi’ pretendin’ to be the folk we know, the ones we love, sir, an’ all the while, they’re not—”

  At that she threw her apron over her face and wept into it. I did not know what I should say. I waited until she let it fall and uncovered her reddened eyes. Then she turned to her son.

  “You see, I know what it’s like, sir. See ’im sittin’ there at me feet? Aye, look at ’im! See ’is black eyes an’ wild hair and wilder ways? You think I’d wish that upon another, sir, when I see it every day an’ can ’ardly bear the sight? I were only tryin’ to be kind an’ spare the lass what I ’ad mesel’. I did what I ’ad ter, sir, an’ what the wise woman said I must. Tha’s all a body can do, in’t it? I din’t do nowt wrong, sir, if I din’t manage to do nowt right!”