St James' Fair

by St James Fair (retail) (epub)

  ‘It would be wonderful to be able to walk without such a limp. I’ve always felt different from other girls and Hester says no one will every marry me because of my leg – and because I don’t have a dowry, of course,’ Grace sighed.

  Alice frowned. ‘No dowry? But of course you’ve a dowry! You’ve this mill for one thing and your grandfather was a rich man. He owned a lot of other property as well. He’d have left it all to you because there wasn’t anyone else and he was careful about things like that. He’d have made a will, I know that.’ She stood up with her hands on her hips and a determined look on her face, then she said, ‘I tell you what, come to see me at the Fair and I’ll try to find out what’s happened to your grandfather’s property. And I’ll make up a potion for your leg and give it to you at the same time. Promise me you’ll come. It’s very important. We own Archer’s Freak Show and you’ll find it easily because Jem always gets a good site in the middle of the field. Come on Monday evening because that will give me time to make my enquiries.’

  Grace found that she trusted this strange woman but she was still very puzzled. ‘But how do you know all this? Who are you?’

  The woman patted her gently on the cheek as she said, ‘My dear, I lived here when I was a girl like you. Your mother and I were close. She was a very trusting girl, and now I see that she was silly in a way because she believed what people told her. She never thought them capable of lying so she got her heart broken. That’s why she had to die. I’m sorry.’

  Tears filled Grace’s eyes. ‘My mother died of a broken heart! Oh, how terrible. There’s one thing I’ve been frightened of – tell me, she didn’t kill herself, did she? I couldn’t bear to think of her doing that.’

  A bleak look crossed Alice’s face. ‘Kill herself? Oh, no. She was more a victim of other people than a victim of herself. Don’t grieve for her too much. She couldn’t have gone on as she was. But I know she’d want you to be happy and to have what’s yours by right so remember to come and see me at the Fair. Do not forget.’

  The last words were said with fierce vehemence and there were tears in the woman’s eyes. Seeing them Grace thought, ‘This woman must have been very fond of my mother.’ So she held out her hand and promised, ‘I’ll come. We’ll meet again on Monday.’

  As if drawn by some force which they were unable to resist, they stepped closer and clasped each other in a warm embrace. Alice’s hands cradled Grace’s head on her shoulder and tears ran down her cheeks as she said through her sobs, ‘You’re a lovely girl. Your mother would be so proud of you…’ Then she pushed at Grace’s shoulder and said, ‘It’s growing late and you mustn’t travel the roads in the dark. You’d better go home now, my dear.’

  She held the grey mare while Grace climbed into the saddle and they stood looking at each other for a few minutes, not knowing what to say, until Alice raised a hand and gave a little wave. Then Grace urged her horse forward into the leafy lane. Her crippled leg felt sore but her heart was light and her mind was full of a host of new thoughts and impressions – the strange encounter had given her much to think about.

  Before Bettymill disappeared from view, she turned in her saddle and took a last look at the place which might belong to her – might, she stressed to herself, for she had endured too harsh an upbringing to expect things to turn out well. The solitary black figure in the middle of the clearing had one hand raised in farewell. Grace waved back and called out, ‘I’ll see you at the Fair.’

  When the fretwork of tree branches swung back behind the grey horse and the last sounds of Grace’s departure disappeared, a deep stillness fell over the huddle of old buildings in the wood. Then, very slowly, the woman in the black dress stopped waving and dropped her arms by her sides, letting her head slump forward. For a long time she stood still with huge tears running down her cheeks like rain. She looked like a statue representing sorrow.

  It seemed that her tears came from an unquenchable well for they flowed on relentlessly, but after a long time she brought her clenched fists up to her mouth and bit viciously into the knuckles. It did not bother her that she drew blood for she welcomed the physical pain and her tears mingled with blood on her hands at the same time as the gasping sobs made her shoulders heave. She stood with her hands against her mouth till she managed to control her emotion and examine the damage she had inflicted on herself. Then, careless of pain, she wiped her bleeding knuckles on the side of her skirt and walked slowly back towards the mill house. At the door she untied the string with which Grace had secured it and stepped inside.

  In the dim room she looked around longingly. Her eyes rested on the empty fireplace, the dirty windows and the dust-covered shelves of the dresser. Walking warily as if she was acutely sensorily awakened, she crossed the floor and opened a little door in the righthand wall which revealed a flight of rickety wooden stairs leading to the first floor. Bending her head, for she was tall, she entered the doorway and disappeared upstairs. Soon her footsteps were going from room to room, stumbling up and down on the uneven floors till eventually she re-emerged from the doorway carrying a frayed wicker basket and her flat straw hat. Placing the hat on her head she went back outside, tied the door up again and walked over the grassy sward to pick up a long stave that leaned against the mill house. Beside it was an overgrown rose bush, thickly covered with small pink flowers and she broke some of them off before holding the little nosegay up to her face and inhaling its sweet scent. Then she stuck the roses into the brim of her hat and prepared to leave, but before she went there was one more thing she had to do. Positioning herself in front of the house, she stood very still and stared fixedly at it for a long time as if branding its image into her brain. After that she turned slightly and stared at the old mill: she seemed to be trying to take in every detail of the thick undergrowth, the broken roof, the lichen-stained waterwheel, the grey slates of the roof, the rioting bushes with their enchanting flowers. There were no more tears and no weakness in her now, for her eyes were dry and burning with determination.

  When she had looked her fill, she took the stave in one hand and lifted up her basket, which had nothing in it except a few bits of broken china. Without a backward glance she strode off up the shady lane towards the main road. At the first clearing, where Grace had paused and where the path took a turn to the right, Alice hesitated. She wanted to look back, but with an effort restrained herself and stood very still facing forward for a few moments before striding on with her face hard and controlled.

  When she reached the main road she did not hesitate again but headed away from Lauriston in the direction of Maxton village. Alice was a tall, erect woman with a striking figure and she marched along with long regular strides, staring straight ahead and oblivious to other people she passed on the way, and she met many for the roads leading to Lauriston were thronged with itinerants making for the Roxburgh field. There were traders, pedlars, quacks, merchants, cottagers with flax for sale and others driving a few cattle or geese that they hoped might find a buyer. All were eager to camp near the Fair field so that they could be out early on Monday morning and secure a good pitch for themselves. One or two of them knew Alice from other fairs and greeted her by name but she only acknowledged their greetings with a swift word and kept striding on, never pausing to gossip with them. They looked surprised because her eyes kept staring straight ahead like the eyes of a woman following an irresistible lure.

  It was dark when she passed through Maxton, never looking to right or left, but she knew she had almost reached her destination. Half a mile farther on, she noticed a secret sign scratched on a stone by the side of the road next to a deep wooded gully through which the road wound. She crossed a stream at the bottom by a small bridge and then turned off the road on to a path that led into the heart of the gully. She guessed by the sign that it was here that Jem’s waggons were parked and she was right, for before her as she trod up the path she could see the glimmer of their cooking fires. Her approach was heralded by the fierce barking o
f dogs but she calmed them by calling out as she walked, ‘It’s only Alice, it’s Alice…’

  The carts of the freak show were lined up behind a stockade of bushes and people were moving about among them. The draught-horses were grazing by the side of a burn and a motley pack of dogs could be heard scavenging about in the undergrowth, sending up game. Sometimes a rabbit took a chance and shot out in a bolt for freedom but it was unerringly pursued by one of the dogs, which caught its quarry and despatched it with a vicious snap of terrible teeth.

  The arrival of Alice was hailed by people hunkering down beside their flickering fires and she waved in acknowledgement of their calls but hurried on towards her own caravan. Its door stood open and a set of movable wooden steps led up to the interior. She laid her basket on the first step and called out softly, ‘Jem! Are you in there, Jem?’

  Immediately there was a startled clatter from within and the bulk of Jem appeared. He was wearing a collarless white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a scarf knotted around his neck. He grinned at the sight of her and cried, ‘Alice, I’m glad you’re back but why didn’t you stay there till tomorrow, lass?’ He stuck out a hand and half-pulled her up the steps into the dimness of their caravan. Still holding his hand she sat down heavily on the bunk by the far wall and her tears began to flow anew, flooding from her like a torrent.

  Jem’s florid face looked stricken. The sight of tears always unmanned him. He knelt down beside her, reaching out to enclose her in his arms and saying, ‘Oh, don’t take on like that, Alice. What’s the matter? Nobody’s hurt you, have they? If they have tell me who they are and I’ll MURDER them…’

  She shook her head and sobbed even more agonisingly as she reassured him, ‘No, no Jem, it’s nothing like that. I shouldn’t have gone there. It was stupid of me. But if I hadn’t I wouldn’t have met her – thank God I did!’

  This ambiguity confused him and he asked her, ‘But what’s the trouble then? When I left you this morning, you said you’d sleep the night there. You weren’t disturbed by anyone, were you? I wish you’d tell me. I know something’s up. Did you meet someone who scared you?’

  ‘No, I met a young girl at the mill but she didn’t scare me, far from it. There’s nothing to fear from her.’ She gave another sob and clutched him to her as if she needed his strength.

  He hugged her close groaning, ‘Oh Alice, I don’t care what this trouble is all about, just tell me. You’ve been acting funny for days. I’ll look after you no matter what it is. You should know that by now.’ Her tear-washed face was turned to his as he went on brokenly, ‘I wish I’d made you stay in Carlisle. Something tells me you shouldn’t have come here. You’re in danger. I’ll send Long Tom back there with you now if you like.’

  She looked sadly at him, ‘I can’t go back. Not now. I’ve things to do here. I used to live in this part of the world, you know that, don’t you Jem?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, you said you lived at that old mill.’

  She went on, ‘But I’m afraid in case someone I used to know when I was a girl recognises me. That’s all.’

  ‘Would it matter if you were recognised?’ he asked slowly.

  She nodded, ‘Yes, it would matter if I was seen by the wrong people. I’d be in trouble – a lot of trouble.’

  ‘With the law?’ asked Jem cautiously and Alice nodded again. He hugged her close and there was relief in his voice when he told her, ‘The law – is that all! Who cares about the law? You’ll be safe enough with me. I’ll not let anybody near you. I’ll not let you out of my sight. Is that why you dyed your hair, my dove?’

  For the first time that night she gave a small smile. ‘Yes, that’s why. I’m sorry. I know you don’t like it but I’ll wash it out when we get away from here.’

  ‘But why do you want to stay? I’d be better pleased if you went back to Carlisle now. I’ll be worrying about you the whole time,’ he told her.

  ‘No, I can’t go back. I’ve something to do now since I met the girl. I’m safe enough with you to look after me. And anyway, I’m a different woman in every way to what I was when I lived here. I’d be hard to recognise, I think.’ She put both arms round his waist and wept against his chest as if she was mourning her lost youth and he crooned gently over her as if she was a baby. In a time she was calmer and wiped her eyes as she gazed at him saying, ‘You amaze me, Jem. Don’t you want to know why I’m in trouble with the law?’

  ‘No, I don’t care,’ was the reply. ‘I don’t want to know anything about it. Whatever you did I’m sure you didn’t deserve the punishment you’ve had. I don’t care what it was. It won’t make any difference to the way I feel about you.’ He held her close till she relaxed in his arms and when he felt her head droop, he said, ‘I’ll look after you, Alice.’

  She smiled at him and said in a voice of great earnestness. ‘I’ll tell you the whole story one day. I promise you I will.’

  ‘Only when you’re ready but stay with me Alice, that’s all I want,’ he entreated her.

  She kissed him in confirmation of this and then stood up to take off her heavy shoes. When she was barefoot, she stared into a scrap of looking-glass on the wall as she tidied her hair. Then she put on a large apron that was hanging behind the caravan door and when she was dressed in her workaday wear, she turned back to the watching man and said in a new brisk tone, ‘Now tell me, what’s been going on since I left? How’s poor Billy?’

  ‘He’s worse than ever, shouting and raving ever since we got here, terribly excited. You’ll have to give him a draught or he’ll kill somebody.’

  She nodded. ‘All right. I’ll make one straight away.’ Jem stood still with a frown on his face. ‘I’m worried about Billy. He’s getting too strong. I’ll have to ask around at the Fair to find if there’s any of his people there. If the old woman’s still alive she’ll want to know about him because she was fond of him and he was never wild with her.’

  ‘Why did she give him to you then if she was so fond of him?’ asked Alice.

  ‘She knew she couldn’t keep him. She’d not been well and she was growing old. He’d have ended up on a gibbet sure as death if she’d kept him.’

  Alice sighed. ‘It’s so sad. Poor Billy. The Vikings used to keep men like him. They used them as warriors and sent them out of the longboats first because they were so strong and hadn’t any fear. They called them berserkers.’

  Jem was interested, ‘Did they now! You know such odd things, Alice. But there’s no longboats any more for the likes of Billy now. They wouldn’t even take him in the Army when the war was on. It’s a worry what’s going to happen to him when I can’t go on mastering him and I’m like the old woman, I’m not getting any younger either and no one else can cope with Billy when he’s wild. I’ll have to ask his people what’s to be done.’

  Alice stared at him. ‘But you’re as strong as an ox, Jem! You can carry four men on your back and still walk upright as a tree. You don’t feel ill, do you?’

  ‘No, nothing like that but I’m over fifty years old,’ he reminded her. ‘I can’t stay like I am forever. I’m luckier than most but I’ll have to grow old one of these days. How do you fancy living with an old man who likes his porter and his pipe – just you and me together.’

  She laughed. ‘I’d love it but I don’t think it’s going to happen for a long time. Now, where’s my box of herbs? I’ll have to fix a strong draught for Billy if he’s as wild as you say.’

  When she and Jem emerged from the caravan half an hour later, the shadows of night had gathered like velvet beneath the trees and the flames of the cooking fires were leaping up in bright orange streamers towards the dark vault of the sky. Jem and Alice made a tall and handsome couple as they walked slowly from group to group, talking to first one grotesque or misshapen creature and then another.

  As they gathered together in the firelight of their night camp, the exhibits from Jem’s freak show looked like figures out of a vision of Hell. Some were tiny and hunched:
others immensely tall, angular and skinny. A young and pretty-faced woman had a long, luxuriant black beard that flowed over her chest in magnificent ripples. Meg the dwarf sat by the fire suckling a baby and regarding it with love as it clung to her little breast. Alice bent down to look at the child and told its mother, ‘She’s growing up awful bonny, Meg. You’re making a grand job of her.’

  Meg looked up anxiously. ‘She’s going to be normal-sized, isn’t she Alice? She’s not going to be a dwarf like me and him over there?’ She jerked a thumb across to where a wizened little man called Hans was turning a spit handle over the fire. He was even smaller than Meg, barely three feet tall, and he also had an immense head, a broad barrel chest and doll-like legs that did not look strong enough to bear the weight of the top half of his body.

  Alice reassured the tiny woman. ‘Don’t worry. I think your baby’ll be normal because it’s the right size now for its age. Jem told me that he got you from a woman who kept babies in boxes to stunt them and Hans was raised by somebody that put knot grass, dwarf elder and daisy root in his food when he was a child so that he wouldn’t grow. That means the smallness of both of you is artificial, it’s not something that’ll be passed on.’

  The bearded woman who was listening, raised her voice and called to the dwarf Hans, ‘D’ye hear that, you little bastard! If you hadn’t been so greedy and eaten everything that was given to you, you might be as big as Jem today. Ha, ha, ha!’

  Her vengeful cackle rang out amongst the trees and the dwarf turned an angry face towards her, spitting out, ‘And how did you get that thicket on your face? It’s a good thing you’ve not got a bairn or it’d be born with a moustache and Jem’d have another freak to show off to the crowds.’ Soon they were all quarrelling, shouting and swearing at each other. It was the normal way for them to spend their evenings.

  Alice and Jem’s attempts at pacification were interrupted by an extremely tall, thin man who stepped into the circle of light and told Jem, ‘One of the bears is sick. I’m worried in case it’s going to die. Maybe Alice could have a look at it.’