Souls Dryft

by Jayne Fresina

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Genny

  1537

  The creature struggled into this world, fighting and kicking, much the way I was always told I would leave it.

  They gave me a drink of mugwort in malmsey. I sweated, sinking into a nightmare, in which I wore a kirtle of pale blue that had no sleeves, but for a short puff at the shoulder. I could smell flowers, fresh and sweet as they are after a rainstorm. The floor under my feet was slippery, like the frozen surface of the lake. Before me there was a great glass door that spun and people passed through it. Faster and faster it began to spin. I stared, mesmerized. I couldn’t understand any of it and I screamed at them to bring him back to me. I wanted another chance.

  Someone said, "Tis a girl." There was a brisk slap and then a high-pitched wail.

  "So you’ve woken up and about time too!" Tilda exclaimed, pushing a white bundle into my arms. I looked down at an ugly, wrinkled old man who did not open his eyes, but showed a toothless mouth of discontent. "Isn’t she a beauty?" said Tilda stupidly.

  It was the ugliest thing I’d ever clapped eyes on. The creature kept its swollen eyelids firmly shut, only its mouth opening and closing. "It looks hungry," I said.

  Old Mistress Cobb came into view. Her wizened face bore frightening resemblance to the babe in my arms and I was struck with the idea that she’d sold my real babe — my fine, strong son – to gypsies and replaced it with a changeling of her own loins. She croaked at me. "Put the babe to the breast, Missy Know-all. It wants mother’s milk."

  I was horrified. The creature was dependent on me for everything already. No, no, this was all wrong. I must still be in that nightmare, which began when someone cruelly told me Will was dead.

  But yet again, I get ahead of myself. It is months now since Will left on his ship, the last day I saw him. Although it pains me to write, I must tell you how it happened that he was lost.

  * * * *

  I’d known all along that some tragedy would strike, so when they told me of the shipwreck, I did not fall down weeping, but went calmly to my chamber, where I stayed in bed for three entire days. At first they thought it was shock; then they thought I was struck with the same sickness that took hold in the villages. Sir Brian was the first to fall ill with it and die, soon after our return from London. I was certain he must have brought the fever back to our village. Mary Sourpout, now a rich widow, was busy redecorating his manor house and had, so I heard, great plans for the grounds. I suspected those great plans had much to do with the handsome, thick— shouldered young gardener she hired to help.

  Since Sir Brian’s death, several other folk took to their beds, the old and infirm being most at risk. Now it was assumed that I too had contracted the fever.

  Listlessly waiting for death, I lay in bed while the house lived on around me. Master Culpepper murmured his lessons softly below. Nathaniel chirped away still, but in a quieter fashion, aware perhaps of something being amiss and not knowing why. The branches of the elder tree were still, no breeze to play with them, not a solitary breath to blow upon the leaves, while the feed bucket banged across the cobbles, even with no wind to push it.

  Too angry to cry, I was resentful of the sun that dared show its face so cheerily. I was full of hatred for the folk who still lived and laughed, while he could not. I was bitter, on Will’s behalf, for the future wrenched away from him – from us. I remembered how he once told me he wanted a woman to grow old at his side and my heart wept. Now he would never grow old with me or anyone. And I remembered Lady Talbot’s words to me, "Forgive while you can, for our time is short." I tortured myself with regret.

  Tilda visited with the news that Bob Salley was finally dead and there were more deaths in the village. Her father, Alfred Gawtry, was thankfully preserved by the amount of ale in his blood.

  I too lingered in purgatory, neither dead nor living. There was no desire to write now and I put my story away. Will was lost and so too was my pirate, for one could not exist without the other. The grief twisted inside. I wanted to scream at the injustice, but instead I rolled over, muffling my cries in the mattress. And then, at my lowest point, I thought that mayhap Quill was right; I distracted the Captain from his work and it led to this accident. I was to blame then. The guilt burned sour, churning up my emotions so that I could not even eat.

  Nathaniel chiseled a little wooden marker for my grave, carving on it the words, Genny, she Reste here n Peeses. After a while, however, he grew bored waiting for me to die and brought me strawberry tarts – knowing the way to my heart already.

  "Why don’t you get up?" he demanded. "There’s lots to do outside. Come on, dozy ‘apeth!"

  "I shall give you a clip round the ear, if you speak to me like that."

  He stuck his little chin in the air. "But I’m a man, and yer just a ruddy woman. You do as I say!"

  Evidently he listened to his grandfather too much, so I decided to get out of bed and rejoin the living. Someone had to put that boy in his place and, as usual, it would have to be me. I hung my grave marker over the bed instead and Nathaniel was quite satisfied with that.

  The house was festooned with bunches of herbs, hanging from the beams to sweeten the air and, so we hoped, keep contagion at bay. It was a cheery, festive look – incongruous at that time of mourning. A fiery, ill-tempered dragon still rolled about in my belly, but I thought it was grief and guilt that curdled there, punishing me. For weeks I drifted along in a fuzzy cloud. Once, I stopped to watch a spider spin her web on the orchard wall and her structure was almost complete before I was even aware of so much time passing. Another morning, when I rode out, I became light-headed and dizzy. Fortunately I had the sense to dismount. My face turned up to the sky, I watched a flock of geese, their wings whirring as they passed overhead, and that was the last I remember, until waking to find Suzannah leaning over me.

  "This will put a stop to your gallivanting," she exclaimed. "If Tom Tewke had not found you this afternoon, you would be crow bait. In your condition you should give over thinking of yourself."

  And thus my malady was revealed. It was not impending death, but a new life to be.

  "I suppose you expect to be pampered now," she grumbled. "Well, there are many people in this house, and I only have one pair of hands."

  I assured her that I expected no special treatment, but she continued to nag about how I would discover the true shackles of womanhood now. If I thought a woman’s lot so distasteful before this, she said smugly, I would soon suffer real discomfort. "Motherhood is always a thankless struggle," she spat, "but yours shall be even harder, alone as you are, no husband at your side."

  After she left my chamber, I felt that presence again — a subtle displacement of the air around me. Rufus insisted there were no ghosts in his house, only memories that tripped and bumped against the door at the foot of the staircase, knocking it off the latch when all the residents of the house were already accounted for elsewhere; memories that caused the feed bucket, so recently hung upon its hook in the barn, to suddenly roll and rattle around the yard on a windless day – while we were all inside eating our supper, pretending to ignore it.

  Into this strange, unhappy house, my child would be born. I was afraid for it, and for me.

  As I lay, pondering this great responsibility he left in my untried hands, the bed beside me dipped, where someone sat and placed her hand gently on mine.

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Even now her son was dead, Suzannah’s hatred for me never wilted. She was hot and dry inside, and the little bonfire of her grief combusted into a raging fire of resentment and madness, as if I, not death, stole him from her. One evening, as I walked along the narrow passage to my bedchamber, she blocked the way; a ghostly figure in her white nightshift, with her pale hair in a long braid over her shoulder. I tried to walk around her, but she was stronger than she appeared, suddenly shoving me back to the staircase.

  "Why did you come back?" she whispered, her white face looming over me
, lips drawn back over her teeth. "No one wants you here now. I doubt that child is even Will’s. You are a wretched cuckoo, trying to take over my nest." As she spat out the last word, she bit her tongue so hard it bled; the gash of crimson blood was bright against her ghostly pallor. "If I were you, I would go, before some harm befalls me and my bastard."

  I tried to push her away, but her arms were hard, sinewy, driven by a powerful, violent hatred.

  "I want you gone," she hissed. "Once and for all I shall be rid of you."

  My candle fell, the flame extinguished, the holder clattering down the steps. It was not unusual, of course, for things to bump on those stairs, so it roused no one to my aid. She dragged me by the hair, pulling me to the crest of the staircase, kicking at my legs. I was not the scrapper I once was, for now I had another body to protect, not just my own.

  "What yer doin’?" a small voice called out.

  At first I thought it was Nathaniel. Suzannah’s fingers released me and she turned. "Go back to your bed," she spat.

  "Shan’t," came the reply.

  With her attention diverted, I crawled from the edge of the stairs, feeling my way along the uneven wall.

  "Your brother left me in charge," Suzannah hissed. "Where do you go now?"

  "To Rufus, o’ course. He waits for me."

  "Go back to your bed," Suzannah commanded in a frenzy. "If you go to Rufus again tonight, I will tell your brother. You are a wicked girl – a sinner."

  The door at the foot of the staircase opened and Rufus called out, "Grace! Must I wait for you for all eternity?"

  I peered down through the railings that separated the staircase from the small landing. A young man waited below, one foot on the second step, looking back over his shoulder, his manner furtive. His hair was curly and short, not yet a bit of grey to be seen. The scar on his forehead proved to me that this was indeed Rufus, but he had both his hands and he raised them now toward the dark shape at the top of the stairs, gesturing for her to jump. She laughed, a soft deep, sensuous sound. "Catch me, Rufus!"

  Suzannah gave a strangled groan of despair. "Go on – jump! May you crack your skull open."

  The dark shape moved quickly down the stairs, leaping the last few steps. In a brief, breathtaking moment I saw a red gown, billowing out as she jumped. Her long hair swept by, a black cloud scenting the air with lavender. She landed heavily and twisted her ankle, falling against the wall. Rufus was too slow to catch her, but she was not angry, only amused by her own clumsiness.

  These were the sounds I heard daily – the thump, the knock and then the latch lifting, when the illicit young lovers passed out of the light and out of the house’s memory again.

  Suzannah drifted away through the moonlight, as if she forgot me; then I heard the chink of her bolt being drawn across. I sat there a while, heart pounding, hoping I might see more, but the memory was silent for now, the little scene not to be replayed again yet. I realized that when Rufus raised his hands to the woman on the stairs, he wore that opal ring upon the finger of his right hand – the hand now missing. I still wore that ring on a leather chord around my neck, hidden from view, keeping it close to my heart. Will had warned me not to tell anyone I had it, and I assumed that was to keep it safe from robbers. Knowing the oddities of his family, I thought nothing of his suspicion that someone might try to steal it from me.

  The next morning, Suzannah gave no sign that she remembered the encounter. She shouted at Nathaniel to stop playing with his food and fretted to her husband that the hens were off laying. Rufus replied that she probably nagged them too much. To me she said nothing, except to remark on the mud I brought in on my boots; even that was not directed at me, but about me, as if I was merely another unwelcome presence in the house, not a real person at all.

  Rufus had his feet up on the table, his dirty boots unnoticed by his wife, who saved her spleen for my unwitting footprints. Behind the door to the staircase, the memory of Grace bumped and knocked; the door latch lifted. In the yard, the feed bucket rolled about, even with no wind and despite the fact that it was put back on its hook twice already that morning. No one looked up, or commented on it. It was just another day at Souls Dryft.

  * * * *

  In late August, Lord Edmund Percy and his new bride returned to Sydney Dovedale. Their arrival that day was heralded by a line of blackbirds taking off from the orchard wall in a great cawing and complaining, scattering into the seamless, plunket sky. Under the guise of listening to Master Culpepper’s poetry, I was actually enjoying a nap under a pear tree, while Nathaniel collected caterpillars. Now, hearing the noise, the boy planted his small feet into nooks in the cobblestone wall, lifting himself to see over. He exclaimed with solemn disappointment, "’Tis only ol’ Baggybones come back again."

  According to Lady Talbot, who often wrote to me now, the Percys had waited until there were no more reports of sickness in the area; now they came to take possession of my uncle’s fortress, traveling with an entourage of servants, horses, mules and carts – which became stuck in the ruts of the lane because they were so heavily laden with coffers and furniture. A large wooden crate brought up the rear and a spectacularly fat boar grunted in bemusement, sticking its muddy snout between the bars. Bagobones must surely have been at her wits end to travel in such ignoble company.

  "That’s a bloody big feller," exclaimed Nathaniel, pointing at the boar. "I wager he’s right well cross at bein’ stuck in there so long. ’Spect ‘e wants to come out and run about."

  I knew exactly what he was thinking. "He’ll chew you up for his supper if you go near him, Nathaniel Downing. You stay away, do you hear?"

  He giggled. "No need to get yer breeches in a twist. Lord love yer, woman, you’ll nag me into an early grave." He picked up a number of colorful sayings from Rufus, making Suzannah blanch with his clever mimicry. Nathaniel would very soon be eight, and any day I expected to wake and find him eighteen. He was fearless and arrogant, but still had that eagerness for my company, not yet having outgrown it. One day, when he was older, he would leave me. I knew it, as if I could see it already. Idolizing the memory of his seafaring uncle, he already swore to follow him out to sea, as soon as he was old enough, to explore new worlds, a brave pioneer.

  "I’ll bring Captain Big Nose back for you, Genny," he would promise, smiling up at me.

  But all that was in the future; for now he was a loud-mouthed boy who loved me and cursed me alternately, a trial on my nerves.

  I wondered what my uncle would think to see his youngest daughter returned. She married a milk-sop lad, expecting to ride rough-shod over him, but Millicent was in for another unpleasant surprise. Having suffered enough oppression in his youth, and now being a long way from his father, Lord Edmund could finally breathe on his own – and breathe he did, as gustily as his thin lungs could allow. I doubt you will be at all shocked to hear how I supported the young fellow in his rebellion against her.

  For his own good, of course, and not for any vengeance of mine.

  * * * *

  Autumn came quickly that year. The air sharpened, the sky lowered, and the elder tree shed its golden leaves with the careless haste of a Millicent Bagobones, shrugging off her garments because they were no longer the fashion. The change of seasons was a reminder to us all that life went on.

  As we strolled along the lane one foggy evening, Master Culpepper took advantage of Nathaniel’s eagerness to run on ahead without us and clasped my hand in his, whereupon he proceeded to explain why he should marry me, all his reasons being charitable and kindly meant. But practical, good sense is not always very compelling, and I looked again at his soft hands, which would never scale a flint stone fortress for me.

  On the surface he was the same now as he always was and, if I imagined myself watching him through my window as I once did, he was still a fine figure, a gentleman above most others. Yet I was no longer behind my window. Having lived in that house with him for almost a year, I knew his habits and foibles. I knew myse
lf better too.

  We stopped in the lane and I could hear Nathaniel, dancing over the wheel ruts, singing in the distance, his breath gasping in and out.

  "What about Nathaniel?" I said.

  "Nathaniel?" Doubt crept into the tutor’s voice. "He is not your son."

  "He is my husband’s ward. I will not abandon him."

  There was silence while the damp fog gathered around us and a little wind fluttered through my hair which, as Suzannah reminded me daily, ought to be covered by a widow’s wimple.

  "If you insist," he said eventually, "I suppose I must agree to take him too."

  Not expecting this concession, now I was obliged to say that, although flattered by his proposal, it was too soon yet for me to think of it.

  "It will be very hard for you to raise your child alone, without a father," he warned.

  I finally agreed to consider it, once the babe was born. Satisfied with this much slender agreement, he walked on quickly, foregoing his chance to make the most of our time alone in the mist. A man with a love of poetry should surely have realized the need for romance and wooing at that moment, but, with his proposal neatly put aside for now, he thought only of getting inside to the warmth of the fire.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Suzannah plucked the goose with quick fingers and I knew she wished she could tear the black hair out of a certain head likewise.

  I had picked holly that day and now, with help from Rufus and Nathaniel, I stuck it in among the dented platters on the mantle, adding sprinkles of ruby and emerald to the dreary stone and grey pewter.

  "Just like your mother," Suzannah exclaimed suddenly. "She always liked the color red. It got her noticed, of course."

  Usually she did not mention my mother in front of Rufus. He went still, not looking at her. Shocked, I continued pricking my fingers on the holly as I rearranged it.