Wakenhyrst

by Michelle Paver

  Maud had been a little startled on reading all this. Alice Pyett didn’t seem quite worthy of Father’s attention. Surely she might simply have been mad?

  ‘Perhaps you’d care to help me in my work,’ he said after Ivy had cleared the table. ‘Copying, preparing indices, that sort of thing.’

  Maud was so overcome she couldn’t speak. Her mind flew to the engraving in the Rectory drawing-room. Woman’s Mission: the Helpmeet of Man showed a pretty woman pouring tea for a scholarly gentleman bent over his books. Maud saw herself ministering to Father and assuaging his grief.

  Next morning she sought Clem in the kitchen garden. ‘You were right about Father!’ she cried.

  He broke into a sheepish grin. ‘Wor I, Miss?’

  He was in shirtsleeves. She saw the little gold hairs on his forearms, and a tiny scrape of blood on his jaw where he’d cut himself shaving.

  You are so beautiful, she told him silently. A perfectly beautiful young man.

  FATHER took Maud to Hibble’s bookshop in Ely and bought her a black and red Remington typewriter. She mastered it in a week, and he set her to typing his monograph for the Society of Antiquaries.

  Hitherto, ‘Father’s Research’ had formed the backdrop to her life, but she hadn’t had the least idea what it was about. As she embarked on the astonishingly intimate task of deciphering his handwriting, the purpose behind all those visits to libraries over the years was revealed. He’d been trying to track down the last surviving copy of The Book of Alice Pyett.

  With the zeal of the convert, Maud became intensely keen on the fifteenth century.

  ‘The Black Death was a recent and terrible memory,’ Father wrote in his Introduction. ‘This meant that fear of the Devil was at its height. Were we to attend a church service in Pyett’s time, we would behold a ceremony quite unlike our own. There would be wavering rushlight and clouds of incense masking the stench from the graveyard outside. Every effigy in our church, every column and saint, would be picked out in brilliant colours. Only the priests would sing, and only in Latin. As for the congregation, being mostly illiterate, they would imbibe the lessons of Scripture from the vividly painted pictures on the walls…’

  With each page that Maud typed, Father’s quest for Alice Pyett became hers. His search had taken him from London to Paris, then all over the Continent and back across the Channel to the archives of an old Catholic family, the Butler-Parrys.

  Astonishingly, their seat lay not far from Wake’s End, just across the county border in south-west Norfolk. A fortnight ago, Father had written to Sir Julian Butler-Parry, seeking permission to examine his papers; so far, with no response.

  Every morning, Maud watched his face when the post brought nothing from Norfolk. She felt for him. His cause had become hers.

  Happily, Chatterpie seemed to find the clatter of her typewriter reassuring, and these days he went on eating even when she looked straight at him. As the weather grew warmer she took to opening the French windows a crack. When she paused in her typing she would listen for the faint yet audible snap of his beak.

  One afternoon, Father came in and saw the magpie. ‘Good Heavens,’ he exclaimed as Chatterpie fled shrieking to the orchard. ‘Have you acquired a tame bird?’

  ‘Oh no, he’s quite wild,’ Maud said proudly. ‘But he tolerates me. If I’m late putting out his food, he taps on the windowpane. Sometimes I delay it on purpose, just to make him do it.’

  ‘“Chattering pies in dismal discords sung,”’ murmured Father as he scanned the pages she’d just typed.

  ‘“Pie” means noisy, doesn’t it?’ she ventured. ‘Do you think there might be a link with the name “Pyett”?’

  He nodded without raising his eyes from the page, although whether at her typing or her idea, she couldn’t tell.

  I am happy, she thought, watching him return to his study. I want this to go on for ever.

  With her new-found confidence, Maud made two improvements to the household.

  First she obtained money from Father to pay an outside laundress – thereby earning the gratitude of the entire staff. It was so easy that she wondered why Maman had never done it. Hadn’t she dared? Or hadn’t she cared?

  The second change was precipitated by Felix. Now a beautiful, chubby three-year-old with blue eyes and flaxen curls, he was the darling of the servants; Maud felt nothing for him except vague dislike. The week before, he’d developed chickenpox, and Nurse had bandaged his hands to stop him scratching. Having dosed him with Quieting Syrup, she told Maud to watch him for an hour while she did the darning; they both knew this meant taking a nap.

  ‘You watch him,’ Maud said coldly. ‘I have work to do.’

  Nurse blinked. ‘Dun’t you take that tone with me, my girl. Work, indeed! An him your own brother—’

  ‘—and you’re a servant, so do your job.’

  Maud watched the spongy features pucker with outrage. Nurse snatched her darning and glared at her. Then she sat down heavily beside the sleeping child.

  No more meals upstairs, Maud promised herself as she went downstairs. From now on I shall eat with Father. The reign of Nurse is at an end.

  In late August, Father received the long-awaited letter from Norfolk. He was jubilant. Sir Julian had invited him to stay and examine his family archives at leisure.

  ‘You’re rather young to be left in charge,’ said Father as he shrugged on the ulster Maud was holding out. ‘Still, I daresay you’ll manage.’

  ‘I’m sure I shall,’ she said, feeling extremely grown-up.

  ‘Wish me luck!’ he called as he ran down the steps to the carriage. She trembled at the intimacy of the remark.

  For three days she heard nothing from him. Then a telegram arrived: PYETT FOUND! MS V FRAGILE STOP SIR J WONT LEND STOP AM STAYING TO MAKE COPY SEND FOUR QUIRES PAPER PENS SPARE SPECS. Bursting with excitement, Maud rushed into his study to collect what was needed. She couldn’t help noticing that his notebook was missing from its drawer. Poor Father. He must have taken it with him so that he could confide his grief to its pages.

  Two weeks went by without a word from him. She tried not to feel left out. She slept badly and her eczema flared up. To her horror, Clem noticed. He called it ‘the huff’, and suggested a cure. You said a charm and buried an eel’s head in the ground; as the head rotted, so the huff disappeared. Clem offered to catch an eel for her and she said she would think about it. In fact, she was busy collecting what she needed for Biddy’s potion. She already had cinders from a blacksmith’s forge, and Biddy had the other ingredients. It only remained for Maud to gather some old man’s beard an hour before dawn on the night of the full moon.

  In the third week of Father’s absence a telegram finally arrived, instructing Maud to send Jessop to Ely in the dog-cart to meet the 2.50 p.m train.

  By seven that evening, Maud was seated opposite Father at the dinner table. It was the first time she’d put up her hair, in two braids coiled at her ears, but Father was too preoccupied to notice. His face was pale from overwork and glowing with a fervour that made her think of medieval monks.

  The Book of Alice Pyett was written in something called Middle English. Maud gathered that this was an entirely different language and that before Father could begin to study The Book in detail, he must prepare a translation.

  ‘Will that be immensely difficult?’ she asked shyly.

  ‘What, the translation? Good Heavens no. But obviously as The Book is so long it will take time. No, the real meat will be the interpretation, the exegesis.’

  ‘I’ll do everything to help,’ she said.

  He didn’t reply. His pale-blue eyes were moving from side to side as if following something on a horizon only he could see. Clearly he relished the task ahead.

  Maud pictured the day when he revealed his discovery to an astonished world. She saw herself – much slenderer, and free from eczema – accompanying him on lecture tours. Not even in her imagination could she make herself pretty, but she fancied that i
n a well-cut tunic-jacket and narrow skirt she might achieve a certain distinction.

  They would travel the globe together, Father giving lectures to learned societies, and she seeing to his every need. On trains and in hotels they would have long, intimate discussions about The Book, and he would listen respectfully to her ideas.

  ‘Such a bond between them,’ people would murmur admiringly. ‘He thinks the world of her, you know.’

  That was the night of the full moon, and as Maud set out her coat, galoshes and muffler for her early morning foray to gather the old man’s beard, she floated on dreams of glory. A spark flew off her candle. She knew it was a sign that something momentous would happen tomorrow.

  And to think that back in the spring, she had thought her life was empty! How rich it seemed now, how crammed with incident and possibility. Chatterpie, Clem, Alice Pyett, Father. Above all, Father.

  She doubted if she would sleep a wink.

  She woke when it was still dark. Plenty of time to collect the final ingredient for Biddy’s potion.

  She was tip-toeing past Father’s bedroom on her way downstairs when she heard him cry out. Then a laugh: sly, muffled. Unmistakeably Ivy.

  Maud stood listening at the door for some time. An image came to her of the two dogs copulating in the mud. She wondered how long this had been going on.

  She remembered Father’s ‘superlative’ good humour on Easter Sunday, and the way he had pressed his lips together as if at some pleasant private memory. ‘If one persists, one can always achieve one’s desires.’ That had been five months ago.

  It seemed important to know the worst, so Maud made her way quietly down to Father’s study and took his notebook from its drawer. She opened the curtains and raised the blinds.

  Then she seated herself in his easy chair and began to read.

  MAUD skipped the first few pages, which she’d seen when she was a child. After that Father had written nothing for five years. Nothing about Maman. He had passed over her death without a word, and had only resumed writing in January this year.

  15th January 1911

  Last night I had the dream again. Why?

  It’s eighteen months since Dorothy died, and things have been going so well. That’s not to denigrate the poor darling, it’s simple fact. She made an excellent wife, but I was never destined to be a paterfamilias. She was such a typical woman: passive, emotional, no conversation beyond the kitchen and the nursery. What could she give a man like me?

  The truth is, she held me back. There. I’ve said it. When God took her it wasn’t only a release for her, but for me too. At last I was free to pursue my work. I hate to think of the time I’ve lost; of the accolades that might now be mine.

  So why these dreams now?

  It’s always the same. I am breathless and terrified, forcing my way through a long, narrow passage tiled in oxblood ceramics; hot to my touch and repellently glossy. I’m frightened, yet unspeakably excited. I mustn’t put my hand on those tiles – yet I always do. The feel of that thick, wet, bloody glaze… I wake entangled in bedclothes in a state of self-pollution.

  I don’t understand why this is happening.

  2nd February (Candlemas)

  No dreams, but bad headaches. This is too frustrating. It would be dreadful if my health broke down now, just when I’m on the brink of finding The Book of Alice Pyett.

  Miss Broadstairs dropped another ‘little hint’ about a governess for Maud. To silence her I’ve written to an agency and engaged a suitable female – but to commence only after Easter. I must have peace until then.

  13th February

  Tea with old Grayson proved surprisingly helpful. He advises against wasting myself in clerical work and suggests hiring a secretary. The idea has merit. Miss Broadstairs would do it for nothing, but I couldn’t stomach that dog-like devotion, not to mention that wart. And yet were I to retain a stranger, I’d have two of them, a secretary and a governess twittering about the house. Insupportable. There must be another way.

  More importantly, Grayson pointed out that as Dorothy’s death deprived me of regular connection, it is this which poses the greatest threat to my health. When a strong constitution finds no outlet this causes a congestion in the blood, resulting in headaches and other disturbances. Grayson suggests re-marriage, but I see no necessity. Thanks to Dorothy’s settlement I have no financial need, and as regards my bodily requirements, there must be some other way that won’t impede my work.

  Meanwhile, the good doctor advises countering the urge to self-pollute with cold sponge baths and oatmeal porridge. He also suggests shunning ‘lewd pictures’ – which is rather rich, coming from him. I’ll try the sponge baths, not the porridge; I can’t abide the stuff.

  14th March

  This past month has been a trial. Dreams frequent, sponge baths useless. The only thing that helped was the trip to London – i.e. Piccadilly: of doubtful cleanliness, but at least my needs were met.

  It also cleared my head, and on the train I had an idea that might make hiring a secretary unnecessary. To test my hypothesis, I’ve instructed Miss B. to set a précis for Maud.

  25th March

  I was right: no need to retain a secretary or a governess! At one stroke I’ve solved both problems and saved a considerable amount of money. Maud, when properly trained, will make an acceptable typewriter, and may in time be trusted with minor tasks requiring no exercise of judgement. As she matures, she shall run the household, thus precluding the need for a housekeeper. I would have preferred an amanuensis with a more agreeable appearance, but such is life.

  27th March, London

  Memorable day. After seven years of searching, I have found the best clue yet to The Book of Alice Pyett!

  How strange is Fate, that my search should have led me back to the Reading Room at the British Museum where it began – and that the trail points to Marsham Hall in Norfolk, of all places. I gather that old Butler-Parry is an affable fool who lives for his guns and his fishing-rods. So much the better. I wrote to him today, and pray for a speedy response.

  As I was leaving the Reading Room, Jacobs sidled up and enquired about my ‘quest for the delectable Alice’. Yes, mock all you like, you beady-eyed little Hebrew; I shall soon wipe the sneer off your greasy Levantine snout.

  N.B.: No dreams for days. Piccadilly helped.

  30th March

  Still no word from Butler-Parry, but I remain convinced that his archives contain The Book. If – when! – it is found, it will be essential to keep the discovery quiet from Jacobs and my ‘friends’ in Academia. I must be free to publish as I see fit: first the monograph detailing my search, then my translation and exegesis.

  31st March

  I had to speak sharply to Ivy, for she’d dusted my desk carelessly. She was sullen, thrusting out that mouth of hers. On leaving, she paused with her rough red hand on the door.

  Her black hair betrays her Gypsy blood. According to local tradition, Gypsies settled at Wakenhyrst after it was abandoned during the Black Death. The girl has the boldness of her race, and no doubt its dishonesty. I shall have to keep an eye on her.

  2nd April

  Agreeable visit from old Grayson after dinner. He brought his volume of Charcot studies.

  I gather that today’s medical men rather deride the Frenchman’s work, but our good doctor remains loyal, having in his youth witnessed some of the great man’s demonstrations. Grayson gave a lively account of watching the Frenchman perform ovarian compressions on a comely young patient with hysteria. Apparently she was clad only in her shift and the amphitheatre was strongly lit, the better for the gentlemen of the audience to observe her convulsions.

  The photographs in Grayson’s volume are remarkable. Via hypnosis, Charcot could make his female hysterics do whatever he wanted. One woman ate charcoal, believing it to be chocolate. Another crawled on all fours, barking like a dog. I should have liked to have seen that.

  We talked late into the night and I rang for brandy.
Ivy brought it, scarcely concealing her pique at being kept from her bed. After she’d gone I quipped that she would make a promising subject for a psychological study à la Charcot. Grayson chuckled. ‘Psychological study! If you please to call it that!’ A vulgar remark, but I couldn’t entirely suppress my mirth.

  It’s that mouth of hers. It puts me in mind of the groom’s trick of taming a mare by twisting her lip in a rope.

  3rd April

  Dream came twice. Confound old Grayson and his photographs.

  5th April

  Dream most troublesome. Chloral and Dover’s Powders no help.

  Excerpt from Grayson’s book on physiology: ‘Woman is an animal that micturates once a day, defecates once a week, menstruates once a month and parturates once a year. Her inclination to copulate depends upon her rank, the lady being never so inclined, the female of the labouring classes always.’ How true. They do everything they can to inflame our baser instincts. Take Ivy. An illiterate born in a pigsty, she exists solely to satisfy her bodily appetites. No imagination, no curiosity. Magnificent shape.

  16th April: Easter Sunday

  Deo gratias, a solution has been found! Ivy in my study, twice after morning service. In certain respects she resembles her namesake of the plant kingdom, Hedera helix: surprisingly strong, and entwines with vigour.

  Dinner with Maud proved something of a trial. Those hands.

  17th April

  Cum Ivy, stans. Bene. Is this a sin? I think not. God wishes me to work, and for that I must be healthy. To keep my health, I need to vent. Ergo, I must have Ivy.