The Hidden People

by Allison Littlewood

  “Tha’ll do no such thing,” Mrs. Gomersal cried. “Tis madness—what’s t’ squire’s lad to me?”

  “Less, perhaps, than he was to Essie Aikin.”

  Her eyes flashed with vicious fury.

  “Your dalliance was first, but her child was his also,” I went on, “and with her so young and fresh and pretty—the baby was a threat to your existence, and so you removed it.”

  She stepped towards me, hissing like a snake. “Tha’s got no proof o’ that. I’d do no such thing, no such—” She reached out her hands; they curled into claws. I did nothing to prevent her. Let her do what she would; let all see what she was.

  But the constable was in her path and he waved something before his face. “No proof?” he said. “None? You see, certain papers have come into my possession, Mrs. Gomersal. They give a very different account.”

  He began to read from the pages I had glanced over, but had not had the time to finish:

  They said the bairn could not say its name and so they held its nose and poured cure straight down its throat. It coughed and then it swallowed. It didn’t seem to do no harm, but it didn’t do no good neither.

  Essie were happy with that, she said it was done and it were her bairn after all, but Mary said no. She said you could tell by looking in the eyes and she had Essie do it too, longer than enough, until she saw what she meant. I don’t know what it was she saw. I said it were Mary’s ideas reflected there, and that they were nowt, but Essie said she knew all about it, since Mary had been with a fairy herself, and she wouldn’t hear nowt against her.

  He looked up. “It seems this wise woman is not the only one to claim acquaintance with the fairies, is that not so?”

  At first, Mrs. Gomersal did not answer; her lip trembled. When she spoke, her voice was a growl. “Whose hand is that? Who is it that accuses me?”

  The constable opened his mouth to answer, but I burst in, “It was written by my cousin—by Lizzie Higgs! Her voice accuses you from the grave, Mrs. Gomersal—she cries from the ground.”

  “Mr. Mirralls.” The constable grasped my arm and drew me back.

  “Look at her—you know what she did next—you see it in her face!” I endeavoured to gather myself. “She burned the child, so badly that it could not live long enough to take her living from her. And then my cousin came to know it. She was in Essie Aikin’s confidence, but she saw things too; I believe she always knew more of Mary Gomersal than the woman would allow. Lizzie saw their comings and goings on the hill—Mary’s, and Edmund Calthorn’s. She could hardly fail, her cottage being where it is—ah, they always said it was an unlucky house! And they were right, though not for the reasons they imagined. My cousin knew too much altogether, did she not, Mary? And when she learned of what you did to the child, she wanted to tell. You heard of it—probably her husband told his cousin Thomas Aikin, Essie’s father, and thus it came to your ear, and so you turned on her also. What was it you said to her—to her husband? That she was an unnatural wife, to wish to turn her back on you all—so unnatural, in fact, that she could not really be his wife?”

  Mrs. Gomersal stared at me with hatred in her eyes. “I said nowt! Jem came to me—he teld me Lizzie ’ad been taken too, that she’d gone wandering on t’ ’ill, only it were never ’is Lizzie what came back—”

  “And so you helped him get rid of her, just as you helped Essie Aikin kill her child!”

  “It weren’t ’er child. It weren’t anything.”

  “You accused my Lizzie before she could accuse you. You got rid of her before she could harm you. She would have seen you in prison for what you did. Such would have been right; but instead, you stuffed your poisons down her throat and forced her to swallow them. You pushed her down before the fire and held her to it, did you not? Did you not pity her as she burned? Had you no mercy in you?”

  At first Mrs. Gomersal said nothing, but then she flew at me. The constable caught her and held her back. “An’ what o’ that?” she shrieked. “What o’ that? It’s only ’is word. There’s nowt to say it were true! Nowt! What did I do? I asked a mam to look into her babby’s eyes an’ see what she would. I teld Jem Higgs ’is wife weren’t actin’ nat’ral, an’ ’e saw she weren’t. What else is there? Prove to me I’ve done summat wrong an’ I’ll walk to gaol mesel’—I’ll weave t’ rope about me own neck!”

  I was frozen. I could do nothing more. I waited for the constable to march her towards the cart; to put her in irons; for something to happen. Nothing did. The day stretched on, the sun kept shining; all was soundless and weighted with heat, and nobody moved at all.

  Then came a sound: the boy, whispering his nonsense to the insect he gripped so cruelly. I knew that all would come to nothing: Mary Gomersal would go free and I would return home having failed my cousin as well as my wife. The constable would speak of the madman who had once come to Halfoak with his lunatic accusations and his derangement, and no one in this place would ever contradict him.

  The boy went on with his little whispers and I heard another sound below that, a small clicking made by his captive, exactly like the winding of a watch counting down the passing seconds. Slowly, I turned to the constable. “I have proof,” I said.

  Mary’s gaze darted to me. “There can be none. No proof can exist against them who is innocent!”

  I edged around her and the constable and knelt at the little boy’s side. He did not turn to me, nor appear to notice I was there. The insect went on with its clicking and he went on with his whispering, and I began to whisper with him. Encouraged, he spoke louder until he began to sing, as I had once heard his sisters do:

  Tell-pie-tit

  Thy tongue’ll split

  An’ ev’ry dog in the town’ll get a little bit!

  I looked up at Mary Gomersal. The constable was gripping her arm, preventing her from flying at me. Softly, so as not to disturb the boy, I said, “Did my cousin die because she was a changeling, as you insist? Or was it because she was a tattle-tale—because she wanted everybody to know what you had done?”

  I reached out and stroked the boy’s curls and he turned his head towards me. “Child,” I said, “do you sing of the magpie?”

  His mother cried out in protest and attempted to lunge towards me, but the constable’s grip held.

  The boy shook his head. His smile was like sunshine.

  “What, then?”

  He screwed up his face as if he did not like to speak. Then he brought his hand down—smack!—upon the cricket, and he raised it again, laughing in delight at the sticky mess he had made. “Lizzie Higgs!” he said. “Lizzie tell-tale!”

  “It means nowt—he dun’t understand!” Mary struggled. “He’s simple as simple—he dun’t know anythin’! You think that’s proof of owt at all? It in’t!”

  Constable Barraclough cleared his throat. I knew him to be thinking the same. “But it is,” I said. “Others in the village sing about the fairy maid, do they not? You might have heard them. ‘O there I met with a bonny maid, as bright as any fairy.’ They would not admit of it, but I believe they sing of Lizzie Higgs. And yet in this house, they sing of the tell-pie-tit and talk of tattle-tales. Why should they do so unless what was uppermost in their minds was the fear that my cousin would tell what they had done? And Mary Gomersal saw her dead—because she was afraid of her!”

  Mary shrieked, twisting in the constable’s arms like a very devil, so that his colleague had to come forward and assist him in restraining her. “No—no! It’s all lies—she were a fairy! A fairy, an’ she ’witched us all!”

  At my side, the boy at last realised there was a problem and began to cry, his face crumpling as he looked from his mother to the constables and back again. In another moment the girls spilled from the door, all bewilderment and concern. Flora came and took the boy’s hand and pulled him to her side.

  My gaze dropped to her feet, to the dolls they had been engaged in weaving, and I thought of something else. I stepped forward and picked one up, and
spoke as if musing. “You say you believe in them,” I said. “You believe that they live, hidden and secret, inside Pudding Pye Hill; in the land where it is always summer.”

  “I do.”

  “And the doorway stands open, does it not? Held open by an iron blade, placed there by Jem Higgs in the hope it would allow his true wife to return to him.”

  “I said so!”

  “And that is why this summer is interminable—why the sun will not stop smiling on Halfoak. Because the door stands open and it will not stop spilling out. Why, if that blade is not removed, it could be summer for ever.”

  Her eyes blazed, as if it had just occurred to her that here was set before her a trap.

  I turned to Flora and Ivy. I held up the corn doll. “What is this?”

  “A kern-baby, sir,” Flora answered.

  “And its purpose?”

  “It’s to give an ’ome to t’ spirit of the ’arvest.” She frowned in confusion. “It lives in t’ doll. It ’as to, see, when all t’ corn’s cut down. Where else would it go? So it lives in there, till t’ land’s ploughed again, an’ they plough that doll into t’ soil, an’ t’ spirit goes back into t’ land an’ makes new corn grow.”

  For a moment, there was silence. “You believe, then, that the summer will end. The autumn will come and the men will plough.”

  The girl frowned, wondering why I should even ask; but she saw the eyes all looking at her and she said nothing.

  Mary hissed, “Fairies. All of it, the fairies—!”

  I turned to her and slowly smiled. “You see how it is,” I said to the constable. “The wise woman must practise her charms because if she does not, she would not eat. And Mary Gomersal believes in the fairies because she must.”

  “Must! Of course I must! Someone ’ad ter do it—if I din’t, they’d be all over t’ place! They’d ’ave our lives—our souls—our ’omes—” She faltered.

  “I believe I have heard enough,” the constable said, “and from your own lips, Mrs. Gomersal. I dare say this wise woman will confirm your part in it.”

  Her eyes narrowed to slits and she fairly spat with fury. “The wise woman? Her! Why, if ’er cures ’ad done what they ought to, I’d ’ave been set up in t’ first place. If them ’erbs ’ad worked afore it were ever born, none o’ this would ’ave been! There’d ’ave been no bairn, she’d never ’ave ’ad nowt to tell, I wouldn’t ’ave ’ad to—”

  I did not know how to answer. It was the constable who said, “What’s that—you gave it a cure for being a changeling before it ever came into the world? How so?”

  “Fool!” she answered. And then she turned her gaze upon me. “Aye, I did, or she thowt I did. She were a simpleton, that lass! I teld ’er it were sure to be such a pretty child, it were at risk from bein’ stole afore it were even out of ’er belly. An’ she took it right enough, drained it straight off in a mouthful.”

  I frowned. “But it didn’t work—you didn’t even want it to work. You needed it to be a changeling—”

  “Oh, you dolt!” she said. “She thowt them ’erbs were for a changeling, but it weren’t no fairy them ’erbs was meant to cure. It were meant to bring it off!”

  I stared at her, my whole being suddenly frozen. Nothing moved. The world stood still; no time passed. The constable said something, I knew not what. The girls had begun to cry too. I could not fathom her words; I could not think straight.

  At last I stammered, “But—herbs meant to take a child’s life while it still grew? They were not the same herbs you gave to my cousin—to Lizzie?”

  “O’ course!” she spat. “What I gave to one, I gave t’ other. It were all for t’ same thing, to send a changeling away. It ’ad to look right, an’ it made no diff’rence. Besides, Mother Crow’ll not cure owt for nowt, even for me! And anyway, it were only one of ’em that were havin’ a bairn.”

  I stared at her. She looked back at me and I watched as the defiance in her eyes gave way to something else. She had realised the truth.

  And so had I.

  Her lips began moving once more. I caught the words, “Aye, well, I’m sorry for it, but—” and, “No matter, it changed nowt in the end—” but I heard none of it, not really. I was barely even present. I was in the cottage, half in a dream, standing cold-footed in the pantry. I was feeling my way along a shelf. I was reaching down a little jug I found where it had been concealed. I was mixing the residue that lay within with water, making it into a paste so that it could mingle with the tea. I closed my eyes and Helena’s face was waiting for me there. I heard her low voice—not your fault . . .

  I could not conceive of the kindness she had found within herself to utter those words to me, after all that I had done. Leading her from her home, alone and friendless, and bringing her—where? Among whom? I barely knew. She had never suspected, as she spoke those words, that they were anything but the truth.

  I covered my face and saw only darkness. It was formless and empty and vast, and yet not endless enough to encompass all that I had lost; all that I had done.

  Someone shook my shoulder, but I did not respond. I knew that Helena was still there, in my father’s house. She would be waiting when I returned. For her, perhaps what had happened between us could still be mended. Perhaps she might one day find it within herself to look me in the eyes. But I knew I would never be able to look into hers again.

  At last, I returned to the world. The first thing I saw was Mary Gomersal: her set features and sharp eyes. “Oh,” she said softly. Her gaze was fixed on my own; she stared into me; she knew everything, saw it all. “Oh.”

  And she began to laugh as the constables led her away, twisting in their arms to look at me, not at her children or her house but at me, and her laughter rose, encompassing everything, becoming everything, and I heard it and I despaired. I knew there would never be a time when I would not hear it, echoing always in my ears.

  Constable Barraclough did not ask what her laughter meant. Possibly he thought her mad, but it did not matter. He placed her in the cart, his colleague on one side of her, and he settled himself on the other. I began to walk past them, my steps unsteady.

  His voice followed me. “Where do you go—wait! Sir—do you not return with us?”

  I did not reply.

  “Wait!” he called again, and he made some sound of exasperation. “If you must go, be sure to come to see me when you are next in Kelthorpe. I shall wish to speak to you!”

  I waved his words aside, a single gesture, and I continued to walk. It must have been enough; I heard the clop of the horse beginning its journey. I looked up into the blameless sky before I continued walking along the road. It was still such a beautiful day.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  I came to the little stream that bounded the edge of Pudding Pye Hill and leaned out over the cold, clear water. There was nothing special about it, but I wished it the River Lethe, so I could lay down and drink of it and forget everything that had passed: my very self; even my own name. I stared into it for a long time, lost in its endless dream, and then I turned. I knew where I must go, and my hand went to my pocket. The key to the door was still there, as if I had known I would need it again.

  The cottage stood abandoned once more, alone in the world, with only flowers and birds for company. I let myself in, moving like a marionette; the hands that held the key and turned it barely looked like my own; it scarcely felt like my own feet that carried me over the threshold.

  I did not look into the parlour. I feared that if I did, I should see Lizzie’s ghost at last, blackened and cracked and smiling upon the hearth. Instead I went up the stairs, the sound of my steps too steady and too solid to my ear. I did not enter the room I had called my own, but Helena’s. Everything was too still and silent; surely everything should be raging, in a tumult, united in outrage at all that had passed . . . but there was only me and the empty room.

  I sat upon the bed, my hands resting on the coverlet, staring at nothing. Then I rose and
went to the wardrobe and opened it. Helena had not had time to pack all of her belongings. Her dresses were still there, folded neatly upon the shelves, empty of her form and character. I plunged my hands in among them, as if I could seize hold of all that we once had and bring it back to me, and I bent my head and I wept, pressing my face into the cottons and silks and brocades.

  At last, even tears must cease. I drew back, staring at the water-spotted garments—had I ruined them also?—then it came to me that Lizzie had left her clothes behind her too; that I did not even know to whom these belonged, and I stumbled away from them.

  I made my way into the room where I had slept. There was the window where I had stood and listened to a violin, its tripping airs stirring my soul so that I yearned to follow after it. There was the place I had lain my head upon a borrowed pillow, reading the book I had taken from my wife, and another, from my cousin. I did not feel now that I had understood either of them.

  Here was the place I had pushed Helena away from me. I could not look at it. I turned and went back down the stairs, the sound of my steps once more too loud, too ordinary. There was the door I had locked against my wife, fearing what she might do; fearing what she might be. There was where I had torn the pages from her book to block up the chinks. That was another life; it surely could have no connection to me.

  I went into the parlour. It too was still and empty and I stood at its centre. I had stood here before, staring at the ceiling, listening to little feet tapping across the floor above. I had listened to a mouse, and taken it for—what?

  I turned and went to the kitchen door and saw, beyond it, the one that led to the pantry. I had meant to look in upon it too, to see everything, but I could move no closer. I knew what I had done there and I could not face it again.

  Instead I went back into the parlour and crouched before the fireplace, now cold and dead. I ran a finger across the hearth. This was the home which I had provided for my wife; here the fire by which I had bade her to sit. Here, where a young woman had burned; and I had burned there too, mourning a cousin I had met only once in my life; a woman I had never really known at all.