Wakenhyrst

by Michelle Paver

  Maud closed the book and gazed out of the French windows. Frost spangled Chatterpie’s perch, but the magpie had already been and gone. In the orchard Clem raised his cap. Maud responded with a smile. She’d seen less of him over the winter, although on one treasured occasion he had shyly admired her skill at typing. She’d offered to type a letter to his cousin in Bury and he’d said he would think on it, but to her disappointment he hadn’t mentioned it again.

  Father came in with more pages for her. He asked if he had any engagements and she told him they were due at the Rectory for tea. He frowned. ‘Heaven preserve me from idle old maids.’

  When he’d gone, Maud set to work. As she typed, she wondered why he had taken such a strong dislike to what people were now calling the Wakenhyrst Doom. Occasionally over the winter she’d checked his notebook, but he’d written nothing since the day she’d given him the watch-chain, so she was no closer to an answer.

  From The Book of Alice Pyett,

  transl. & exegesis by E.A.M. Stearne

  Here begins a treatise which by the mercy of Jesus shall relate the life of this sinful wretch Alice Pyett, who was blessed with the gift of sacred tears.

  Twenty-two years after she had her first crying, the Lord commanded her to have her revelations written in a book, so that His goodness might be known to all men. Accordingly this creature found a priest, who set a pair of spectacles on his nose and wrote what she told him in the year of our Lord fifteen thirteen.

  When this creature was fourteen years old, she was given in marriage to a worshipful burgess of Bury St Edmunds, who was then aged forty-one. For some months thereafter this creature enjoyed her sinful life, for her husband let her go about in a fine kyrtle and gown, fashionably slashed and underlaid in many colours.

  Then as nature would have it, this creature was got with child, and in succeeding years she was brought to bed of seventeen children. During that time she began to long for chastity. So she said to her husband, I may not deny you my body, but I no longer wish to lie with you. But her husband insisted that she should continue to pay the debt of matrimony, and he used her as he had before. And this creature obeyed with much sorrow, and she would rather have licked the ooze in the gutter. And she began to hate the joys of this world.

  ‘Father,’ Maud asked innocently as they were having tea at the Rectory. ‘What’s “the debt of matrimony”?’

  The rector spluttered into his teacup. Miss Broadstairs turned puce.

  Father regarded Maud coolly. ‘My dear, you’re not an historian. I’d rather you simply transcribe what I give you without trying to understand the medieval idiom.’

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  ‘Another scone, Dr Stearne?’ Miss Broadstairs said brightly.

  ‘Thank you, no; superlative as they are.’

  Watching Miss Broadstairs fidget with the teaspoons, Maud wondered how the rector’s daughter had come by the knowledge of what men did to women in the bedroom. Perhaps she too had once watched a pair of dogs disporting themselves in the mud.

  The Book of Alice Pyett had begun with pages of rambling prayers, and for weeks Maud had typed Father’s drafts without taking in a word. But it was different now that Alice had embarked on the story of her life.

  At first Maud had been puzzled that Father should see fit to set prose of such frankness before his fourteen-year-old daughter. Then she had realised that he didn’t expect her to understand it. To him she was merely an extension of the typewriter.

  As she typed, she found herself thinking about Maman. Like Alice, Maman had been married young: in her case, at sixteen. Like Alice, Maman had never been allowed to do anything; she’d always had things done to her. She had been ‘given in marriage’ and ‘permitted’ fine clothes – although only if Father approved of them.

  And he hadn’t stopped there. Recently, Maud had been startled to learn from Miss Broadstairs that her mother’s name had not in fact been Dorothy, as she’d always believed. Maman had been christened Dorothée. Father had re-named her on their marriage. Like a pet.

  Maman’s family had made its fortune in tortoiseshell, and Father had been happy to take her money, while expunging all trace of her origins from her habits and manners. But he’d approved of the continental custom by which on her marriage she had ceased to sign her own name, and had thereafter written: Epse. Edmund Stearne, meaning Epouse (wife) Edmund Stearne.

  It was Father who had decreed what Maman ate, read, did and thought. If he’d ever given her a choice in anything, he’d been the one who decided what she could choose from.

  Like Alice, she had continued to pay the debt of matrimony. Maud wondered if it had been as distasteful to Maman as it had been to Alice. And whether Father had cared.

  As Maud sat in the Rectory drawing-room, she watched Miss Broadstairs anxiously watching Father for signs of boredom. He left early, assuring his crestfallen hostess that Maud would remain behind to keep her company. The rector left with him.

  Smiling away her disappointment, Miss Broadstairs gently enquired whether Maud’s eczema was any better. Maud said it was not, and Miss Broadstairs patted her shoulder. ‘Not to worry, dear. Appearances aren’t everything.’

  Maud looked at her with sudden hatred. I’m not like you, she wanted to snarl. You may be content with sorting dirty jumble and riding your bicycle for an hour on a Saturday afternoon but don’t ever try to make common cause with me.

  All at once, her defiance crumbled. This is my future, she thought bleakly, as she stared at Miss Broadstairs’ hunched shoulders and self-effacing smile. I will be an ugly old maid whose only purpose in life is to keep house for Father.

  On the wall behind Miss Broadstairs hung the pair of engravings which Maud had known since childhood. Last year Woman’s Mission: the Helpmeet of Man had fed her fantasies of mattering to Father. Now the picture that horrified her was The Comfort of Old Age: a woman devotedly holding a spoon to the lips of a feeble old gentleman in a Bath chair.

  That will be me, thought Maud. Richard and Felix will get married and leave, but no one will marry me because I am plain. I will be the maiden aunt who stays at home and does nothing until she dies.

  To prove that she wasn’t Miss Broadstairs, Maud began secretly reading Father’s newspaper instead of simply skimming it for mention of the Doom.

  She read about Class Warfare and the Suffragist Movement and Liberty dresses, which seemed to involve not wearing stays. Most of it she didn’t understand, but she longed to bob her hair and become a New Woman – whatever that meant.

  Miss Broadstairs always declared that science wasn’t for girls, so Maud took to reading her grandfather’s books, as she used to do before Maman died. Maud especially enjoyed one by a gentleman named Darwin, as it was all about Nature. It made the startling assertion that the animate world had created itself, without the need for God.

  The week before Christmas, Maud happened upon something even more intriguing. She was in Ely with Father, and in Hibble’s she found a booklet called Plain Words for Ladies and Girls by Dr Anthony Buchanan, A Physician. While Father was elsewhere, she slipped her find among the books he’d selected and told the assistant to wrap them up. The lad obeyed without question; and as it was Maud’s task to unwrap the purchases when they got home, she easily extracted her prize and took it unnoticed to her room.

  Dr Buchanan proved disappointingly vague on what he termed ‘connection’, but he was a revelation when it came to the curse. ‘The menses,’ he wrote briskly, ‘result from the monthly maturation and discharge of the unfertilised egg. The widespread fallacy that a female is impure at such times is without foundation. Provided she washes the genital parts and uses napkins, there is no uncleanliness and she need feel no shame.’

  Thoughtfully, Maud removed one glove and scratched the back of her hand. There is no uncleanliness. They had lied to her. They had taught her to feel ashamed for no reason.

  Still scratching, she turned to the chapter on babies. Her liking for Dr Buchana
n curdled. According to him, a pregnant woman’s bodily health was ‘almost wholly under the influence of her mind. She must not give way to fretful emotions, especially to false alarm at the fancied danger of her condition. It is important to convince her that her terrors are groundless: that pregnancy is not a state of infirmity or danger, and that the few instances she may have known of miscarriage or death were owing to the improper conduct of the women themselves.’

  A God-fearing man, Dr Buchanan also inveighed against married women taking measures to prevent conception. ‘No right-thinking gentleman should allow his wife to adopt such wicked practices.’

  Maud thought of the Dead Hand and Biddy Thrussel’s herbal tonic. Maman had been devout. She would have known that what she was doing was a sin, but she’d done it anyway. She must have been desperate. Not every night, eh?

  There was a tightness in Maud’s chest which made it hard to breathe. She went on scratching until she drew blood.

  Next morning her eczema was worse again. She found her grandfather’s etymological dictionary and looked up ‘eczema’.

  ‘From the Greek, ekzein: to boil over.’ Like lava.

  AT Christmas the dykes froze. Maud heard the swish and crackle of skates along the Lode. Three weeks after New Year, she lost her faith.

  It happened quite suddenly. She simply woke up and it was gone. As she lay in bed it occurred to her that between religion and superstition there was no difference, since both were based on unreason. To kill a man to redeem the sins of others was as irrational as tapping a hole in one’s eggshell to stop a witch using it as a boat.

  The relief was immense. She felt as if a stone had been lifted off her shoulders. The thorny walls that had bedevilled her childhood were no more. They’d been swept away like a riverbank in a flood. Jubal was right. It was all moonshine.

  The best of it was that she no longer had to worry about Maman down in that horrible vault. The vault was just a hole in the ground with bones in it. Maman wasn’t there. She wasn’t anywhere.

  It was Sunday, so Maud went to church as usual with Father. She sang and knelt at the proper times, but she didn’t pray. Instead she looked around her at the headless stumps of saints smashed in the Reformation by people who’d happily worshipped them a few years before. She gazed at the ceiling with its interlocking beams and large wooden angels; at the little grinning devils by their feet.

  She thought, this church was built in the years after the Black Death had killed a third of the people. It was built out of fear. It’s a bribe to God: Please don’t do it again.

  ‘All things bright and beautiful,’ she sang, ‘the Lord God made them all.’ Presumably, the Lord God had also made the malaria which had killed nine of the blacksmith’s children in Wakenhyrst, prompting his desperate wife to smother the last one in its cradle, ‘to get it over with.’

  Maud thought of Maman waiting in the south porch eleven times to be churched. Father and Mr Broadstairs favoured the old-fashioned ways which decreed that a woman was unclean after confinement, and must be cleansed before she could resume her place in the congregation. For some reason Leviticus stipulated that the period of uncleanliness was twice as long if the baby was a girl. Having a girl made you twice as dirty.

  ‘The rich man in his castle,’ sang Maud, ‘the poor man in his cot.’

  Moonshine. All moonshine.

  During the sermon she continued to reflect on ‘all things bright and beautiful’. The Lord God didn’t make them all. The herons and warblers in the fen, the starlings and willows and purple marsh-grass: it existed because of Mr Darwin’s process of evolution. Maud found this reassuring. Nature was all there was. And Nature was enough.

  She became aware that Father was also gazing about him. He appeared unsettled. She wondered if he was thinking about the Wakenhyrst Doom.

  The Society of Antiquaries had completed the restoration and the Doom had been exhibited to the Fellows at the Ordinary Meeting in London. Yesterday Lady Clevedon had called at Wake’s End in high excitement. ‘No thank you, Maud, I’ll only stay a moment. Ah, good morning, Dr Stearne, I bring splendid news! You’re aware that last night Lord Clevedon was Guest of Honour for the unveiling at Burlington House? I fancy you declined your own invitation?’

  ‘My work…’ murmured Father.

  ‘Quite so. Well, the Society has finally agreed that since we funded the greater part of the restoration – including of course your own very handsome contribution…’

  Father inclined his head.

  ‘… it’s only right that our Doom should return to St Guthlaf’s!’

  ‘Oh, that’s excellent news,’ cried Father. To Maud’s astonishment, he seemed genuinely pleased.

  She asked Lady Clevedon if the Doom was to be hung in its old place above the chancel arch.

  ‘Oh no, dear, I gather that parts of it are a trifle indelicate – naked sinners and so forth, it wouldn’t do at all. We’re having it hung in the chamber at the foot of the tower. There it can be seen on request, but the rector will hold the key, so it won’t distract the villagers at worship. I think that most proper, don’t you, Dr Stearne?’

  ‘Quite so, Lady Clevedon. When may we look forward to the painting’s arrival?’

  ‘In a fortnight. I’ve asked Miss Broadstairs to arrange a small private view on the fifteenth of February: the Parish Council, local “notables”, sherry, that sort of thing. I hope we may count on you and dear Maud to attend?’

  ‘We’d be delighted.’

  After Lady Clevedon had gone, Maud said, ‘And shall we really attend, Father? I should so like to see the Doom.’

  ‘Of course we shall,’ he said with every appearance of surprise. ‘Didn’t you hear me tell Lady Clevedon?’

  ‘I thought you might change your mind.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, because… Sometimes it seems as if you don’t – like the Doom.’

  ‘What an extraordinary idea. How could I form a view when I’ve never set eyes on it?’

  He was looking down at her with an incredulous smile and she felt very stupid and young. She also realised that she’d come alarmingly close to betraying the fact that she’d read his notebook.

  The sermon came to an end. Sensing Maud’s eyes on him, Father turned his head. Did she imagine a glint of amusement in his light-blue glance?

  She had no idea whether he’d genuinely lost his antipathy for the Doom, or whether this was a pretence. You’re no match for me, his eyes seemed to say. Don’t attempt to fathom what’s in my mind.

  As they were leaving St Guthlaf’s, Miss Broadstairs intercepted them. ‘I hope you don’t object, Dr Stearne, but I wonder if I might have a quiet word with Maud?’

  ‘By all means,’ said Father, not bothering to conceal his relief that she wasn’t after him.

  ‘Maud, I have something important to ask you,’ said the rector’s daughter when they were alone in the vestry. ‘And I know that you will answer with perfect honesty, as you always do.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Broadstairs,’ mumbled Maud. She wondered how soon she could escape.

  ‘I couldn’t help noticing that you weren’t praying. Are you feeling quite well?’

  ‘Quite well, thank you.’

  ‘Forgive me but I don’t believe that you’re being entirely frank.’

  Maud didn’t reply.

  Miss Broadstairs sighed. ‘Why won’t you confide in me?’

  ‘There’s nothing to confide. Please, I must go, Father is most particular about meals—’

  ‘You know I do notice things,’ said Miss Broadstairs in a hard voice that made Maud blink. ‘You think I’m just a foolish old maid. But I’ve lived longer than you and I know rather more than you suppose.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ said Maud.

  ‘Oh, I think you do. I think you’ve decided that you’ve outgrown my father’s sermons. That’s it, isn’t it?’

  Maud tried to edge around her, but Miss Broadstairs caught her arm in a painful grip.
‘Girls your age, they always know better. Don’t give me that sullen stare. Tell me why you didn’t pray!’

  ‘Very well,’ Maud said stonily. ‘It’s because I don’t believe in God.’

  Miss Broadstairs let go of her. She gave a scornful laugh. ‘I know what’s happened. You’ve been reading some book and it’s led you astray. Something by Mr Darwin, perhaps? And now you believe that instead of God’s great design, the world simply happened, entirely by chance.’

  ‘That’s not what Darwin said,’ muttered Maud.

  ‘Ah, and you understand it so much better than I, as you’re so much cleverer!’ Her horsey features had gone rigid. There was a blob of spittle at the corner of her mouth.

  ‘It has nothing to do with Darwin,’ retorted Maud. ‘I worked it out for myself. When Maman died you told me that Father let the baby live instead of her because a baby is born in sin and if it isn’t baptised it can’t go to Heaven. A baby? How can it be born in sin, it’s never done anything!’

  Miss Broadstairs flinched.

  ‘Hasn’t it ever struck you as horrible,’ Maud went on, ‘that the symbol of our religion is an instrument of torture? “He suffered on the cross that we might live…” Why? How can torturing a man do any good? How can blood wash away sin? Because God says so? Well, it doesn’t! My mother’s blood didn’t wash away my father’s sin!’ Her voice cracked. She was back in the hot June dawn, staring at the scarlet stain on the divan and breathing the sickly-sweet smell of Maman’s blood.

  Miss Broadstairs was making gobbling noises in her throat. Maud turned and fled the vestry.

  She didn’t get far. The path was icy and she slipped and would have fallen if Clem hadn’t grabbed her elbow. ‘Steady, Miss.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she panted.

  Through her thick winter coat she felt the strength of his hands. She forgot all about God and Miss Broadstairs, she was conscious only of Clem. Her eyes were level with his collar. Above his muffler she saw the brown skin of his throat, and a patch of golden hairs on his jaw that his razor had missed. She saw his mouth. She breathed the warmth of unwashed flesh, and her own flesh responded with a tight hot throbbing between her legs.