The Familiars

by Halls, Stacey

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Alizon must have told her that I’d found John and was looking after him. That’s when she started threatening me. She told me she’d put a curse on me if I didn’t lie for Alizon. She wanted me to say I’d never seen her, that the old man was making it all up, that his mind was weak and he couldn’t tell up from down.

  ‘But Peter had already written to John’s son and he arrived not long after, from Halifax or somewhere. John told him he’d forgiven Alizon, that he was a God-fearing man who believed in mercy and that’s what God wanted him to do. He’s a good man, John Law. But his son Abraham wouldn’t hear of it. He sent for Alizon and questioned her. Demdike came with her and they put the shivers in him, I think. Demdike was denying everything, screaming and cursing all over the place, and Alizon was crying. I was just stood there, not knowing what to do. And the son turned to me and said, “Have you seen these here women before? Did this girl curse my father?”

  ‘I couldn’t speak, and John was squealing like a pig in the corner. His son, Abraham was red in the face and looked like he was about to kill someone, and I was frightened. So I said yes, I’d seen them.

  ‘He tried to make them break the curse but Alizon couldn’t, and Demdike said only the person who’d put it on could take it off. So that was that. Abraham sent for the magistrate, and Peter asked me to leave because of all the trouble I’d caused.’ Her voice was thick. ‘I worked there for nearly ten years. He knew I was a good worker so he found me a job at the Hand and Shuttle. His brother-in-law is the landlord.’

  My mind was empty. My thoughts were still. I stared at my stockinged feet, small and dainty in white silk. Alice did not speak, and we were silent for a long time, until a thought came to me.

  ‘But how does that involve Elizabeth Device? What were you doing with her that day?’

  ‘She came to the Hand and Shuttle one night. Somehow she found out I was there, I don’t know how. Alizon and Demdike had been arrested, so she’d already lost her daughter and mother. People were giving her funny looks when she came to see me. Well, you can see why. I was afraid I’d lose my job there as well, so I said she had to leave. She asked me to go to her house that Friday, said she was having some neighbours around to talk about what they could do to help those that’d been arrested. She said I had to help, that I was …’ Her voice shook. ‘She said I was the reason her daughter and mother were in gaol.’

  I shook my head. ‘But you were only trying to help.’

  ‘She was desperate … angry. I could tell she just wanted to do something. And I wanted to help. Like a fool I went. I had to do something to stop them turning up at work and getting me in trouble. And even after that, after I went to Malkin Tower, she was waiting for me near your house in the forest. I cannot escape them.’

  There was real fear in her voice now. I remembered her whimpering in her sleep.

  ‘But what happened at Malkin Tower? What did they speak of?’

  Alice shrugged. ‘We ate a meal and they talked about how they could help Alizon and Demdike. It was just a meeting of people who knew the family, neighbours and the like. Apart from me and one other person.’

  ‘Who was that?’

  At this, Alice bowed her head.

  ‘My mother’s friend Katherine. Mould-heels.’

  ‘Why did she go?’

  ‘She was with me when—’

  We both jumped out of our skins when the door was flung open and my mother swept in, her face hard with displeasure.

  ‘You did not think to send someone to the village to fetch me?’ she demanded.

  I sat up straighter and glowered at her, resenting the interruption.

  ‘Richard’s sisters did not stay long. They were travelling from Kendal back to Forcett.’

  ‘How did they know you were here?’

  ‘A servant here is a cousin of someone at the house where they were staying.’

  Her black eyes were penetrating.

  ‘What did you tell them?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I lied.

  The silence that followed indicated her deep disbelief.

  ‘Supper is almost ready,’ was all she said, and she left the door open behind her.

  I went to close it quietly, and crept back towards Alice. All the questions I could have asked were ripe, hanging in the room. I could have reached anywhere and plucked one easily, but I chose the first one that came into my head, from the last thing she had said.

  ‘Alice, you said Mould-heels was with you when … what?’

  Alice was silent now, and outside the window the wind rushed down from the moor, sounding almost like a child crying. She covered her face with her hands.

  ‘Alice! What’s the matter?’

  ‘I cannot speak of it,’ she whispered. ‘I cannot bear it.’

  ‘Whatever it is, it cannot be so bad.’

  But she would not tell me, and I could feel the waves of my mother’s irritation lapping at the door. The last thing I needed was another afternoon of combat. I felt troubled as I went downstairs to dinner, as though something apart from the wind was pressing in at the windows, wanting to be let in.

  CHAPTER 14

  That night I had The Nightmare. I woke, paralysed with fright, to a candle at my side, a familiar but frightened face behind it. My legs were twisted in the sheets and I was soaked with sweat. I was so scared I thought my heart would leap right out of my chest, and Alice sat with me until my breathing calmed and the shadows at the corner of the room grew less frightening. I hoped I had not been screaming, but the alarm in Alice’s eyes and a tightness in her jaw made me think I had.

  ‘It’s all right now,’ Alice whispered. ‘Was it the boars?’

  I nodded and gasped, and that feeling of dread arrived again, so I checked between my legs for a trickle of blood, but they were dry. Eventually Alice went back to bed, and her breathing began to slow too. We had been at my mother’s for a month, and in all that time I’d been free of The Nightmare.

  Since that breakfast, my mother had not mentioned my going back to Gawthorpe, and neither had I, but I should have known her better than that. Perhaps if I’d had the plaster figure of Prudence with me in my chamber, I might have remembered to exercise it once in a while, but my old friend remained miles away in my room at Gawthorpe.

  I was sitting in the kitchen with Mrs Knave, eating biscuits hot from the oven, when Mrs Anbrick arrived to tell me someone was here for me. I’d known it from the moment I woke up: a change in the atmosphere, a shifting sense of unease in my stomach. My time was running out.

  ‘Who is it?’

  I did not need ask. The black skirts of my mother entered the kitchen before she did, smooth as a fish gliding across a pond. Her face was set for battle.

  ‘Fleetwood, come out of the kitchen now,’ she said.

  The dread stirred in my stomach, pinning me to the chair.

  Mrs Knave bowed her head, her chubby hands brushing awkwardly at her apron. I fixed my mother with the most hateful look I could summon and rose, stepping past her, remembering how she had untied Richard’s letter then kept the contents to herself. I had not thought to ask her what he had said, and his letter to me remained unopened on the desk in my chamber.

  ‘You cannot avoid him forever, Fleetwood.’

  Her voice rang behind me in the hall as I went to wait in the parlour. I had decided I would not speak to her again.

  I sat shivering, even though the room, with its high, narrow window, was close and stuffy. Dust danced around in the watery beams of light, and a chessboard lay on a stool by my chair. My mother sometimes played chess with the housekeeper and sometimes with herself. It was something she had always done, but for the first time I realised how pitiful that was, with her alone in this room and me upstairs. Well, she could have asked me if she wanted to play; I would not feel sorry for a woman who chose so often to be alone. I drew my sleeveless robe around my stomach, put my hands in my lap and waited.

  Puck came in fir
st, greeting me with his tongue when he saw me and coming to sit beside me. My mother came in next, her pattens clacking on the stone flags, with a deeper, heavier tread of soft calfskin boots and that familiar jangle of coins behind her.

  ‘Fleetwood.’

  I heard and saw him at the same time. His earring caught the light and his clear grey eyes shone. He looked first at my face, then my stomach.

  You are still with child, I heard him think.

  I had forgotten how conversations could be held in silence when you are married, when you know the flesh and bones of someone and could know them in a dark room. Why not their mind too? My mother looked unblinkingly from one of us to the other.

  ‘You look well,’ Richard said.

  I said nothing.

  ‘Fleetwood?’ my mother spoke.

  ‘You may go,’ I said coldly.

  She looked appealingly at Richard, but his grey eyes were fixed on my black ones as intensely as if I might disappear at any moment.

  She closed the door. I did not hear her pattens in the hall, so after a few moments I said ‘Mother’ and she went clacking off.

  Richard took the seat opposite mine and, to both our surprise, Puck gave a low growl and then barked.

  ‘You have turned the dog against me too?’ Richard said in a light way, but his eyes were sorrowful.

  ‘He has a mind of his own.’

  Richard swallowed and removed his black velvet hat, offering it to Puck to sniff as a sign of peace.

  ‘Remember me, boy?’ I felt doubly betrayed when Puck went to him, nuzzling into his hand and grinning broadly. ‘There we go,’ Richard said softly, rubbing him all over and patting him in the hard way he did.

  ‘I forget how long a journey it is up to these parts,’ he said eventually, resting his hat on his lap.

  ‘You do not mind when you have a hunting trip.’

  ‘I did not say I minded.’

  ‘Your journey did not take a month, though.’

  My boldness surprised us both. Richard opened his mouth then closed it again, changing position in his chair.

  ‘No. I had some business to attend.’

  ‘That came before your wife? How could you do it, Richard?’

  ‘I’m sorry. Come home, please.’

  I pressed at my eyes and remembered the last four years: us riding together, shopping together, lying together, laughing together. It felt like a lifetime of happiness.

  ‘Gawthorpe is not the same place without you. It’s our home; we should be there together.’

  ‘You are never there!’

  ‘I am. I want to be there, with you.’

  ‘All these secrets, Richard. And lies.’

  I remembered Alice’s words: I am afraid of lies. Now I knew what she meant: lies had the power to destroy lives but also create them, as Judith’s belly was round with the ones Richard had spun.

  ‘I am happy here.’

  ‘Happy? With your mother? You cannot stand your mother.’ He did not lower his voice. ‘What is there for you here apart from idle servants and dusty rooms?’

  ‘If they are dusty it’s because you do not give my mother enough money,’ I whispered. ‘Something I would never, ever have suspected seeing as I brought an awful lot of it to this family.’

  He reached into his pocket for his purse.

  ‘How much more does she need?’

  ‘How much do you pay for your mistress?’

  He pulled the bag open and set some coins on the mantel, as though he was paying my lodgings at an inn.

  ‘That is four women to pay for now, is it not?’ I went on. ‘Two mothers and two wives? I suppose it’s no coincidence that standards slipped here when you added another household to your stable. Did you know the poverty you were keeping her in?’

  ‘Of course not. If she needs anything, she need only ask. I will make it right. Perhaps James made some adjustments to balance the books that I was not aware of.’

  ‘Then I will ask James why he has been sending sweet soap to Barton while my mother’s staff make hers.’

  A smile played at the corners of Richard’s lips, and I knew he was amused that I was defending her. My chest churned with rage and I waited with my hands clasping the arms of my chair. He could not tease me into forgetting he had taken a month to come to me.

  Dressed in his fine black velvet robe and doublet, he must have been warm, and I noticed the colour in his cheeks, from heat or shame or frustration.

  ‘I have come to bring you home,’ he said finally.

  ‘How long have you kept her?’

  He exhaled, as though I was testing him.

  He was not used to me disobeying him. I was not used to disobeying him.

  ‘Not long.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘A few months?’

  ‘So she is fertile, then. Success at last: a prize breeder. And you the sire of a fine calf, which is more than your wife can give you.’

  ‘Don’t make yourself ridiculous. People are not cattle.’

  ‘Women and cattle are very similar, actually.’

  ‘You are being absurd.’

  The chessboard caught my eye and I lifted an ivory pawn, holding it up to catch the light. I recognised it immediately as being my father’s set from Barton. I set it back in its place and saw it was before the queen. Using the pawn I bumped her off, sending the piece crashing to the floor, where she rolled on the threadbare carpet underneath the table. I imagined my mother on her hands and knees searching for it later.

  ‘Will you have me executed, like the king?’ I said.

  ‘Fleetwood, I care about you. Do you think I wished to see you so ill? Every time you have carried a child you have almost died, and it is my fault for making you that way. I did not mean for this to happen – I turned to Judith as a way to stop it from happening, to protect you.’

  ‘To protect me? Keeping your mistress in my house was to protect me?’

  ‘You hate that house; I knew you would never go there.’

  ‘And you were right. You know me better than anyone, Richard. Except you forgot one thing: that I could read. You thought I would never go in James’ study and find out all the betrayals committed in ink. They were there for me to see all along.’

  ‘How did you know to look in the ledger?’

  My heart began to beat faster.

  ‘I needed to check something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘An order of linen. It is not important.’

  I tried to act dismissively but he was a hunter, and he had caught the scent. His eyes narrowed.

  ‘Who did you come here with?’

  ‘No one.’

  I stared him down, and he did not like what he saw, for he said, ‘You have changed, Fleetwood.’ I waited, but he said no more, only impatiently, ‘Are we not to be given refreshments?’

  I did not speak, and turned my face to the grey window. Richard shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  ‘Roger came not long ago with a parcel for you.’ I watched him from the corner of my eye. ‘The ruby necklace.’

  ‘The one that went missing?’

  ‘His maid found it at the bottom of Jennet Device’s bed. She is an opportunist, clearly.’

  ‘She is a thief. But she had no opportunity – I did not leave her for a moment.’ Then I remembered my journey down to the kitchen for Roger’s cold pie, and my heart sank. ‘Did she leave the hall at any point?’

  ‘I suppose she must have.’

  ‘And you apologised to the servants?’

  A flicker of shame crossed his face, and as we sat in furious silence, the other events of that day flooded back to me – how so much had happened.

  ‘And the chambermaid, Sarah – how is she?’

  ‘Not recovered, but better. The doctor arrived in time. She is still being cared for by her mother.’

  ‘Are you sleeping in our chamber?’

  He shifted again. ‘Yes. I have brought our carriage here, for you to
take back to Gawthorpe. I have some business with my agent on the border, so I will go on to Carlisle before coming home. You can leave tomorrow.’

  I thought of Alice, resting upstairs on her truckle bed. I thought of what might be waiting for her if we returned.

  ‘I cannot come back.’

  Something seemed to stir in Richard, and he spread his fingers wide, his rings glittering, then clenched his fists.

  ‘As sorry as I am for the way you discovered what you did, my patience is wearing thin. No man wants an unruly wife. There is a fine line between being tolerant and being made a fool of.’

  Tears sprung in my eyes, hot and angry.

  ‘And I suppose you have not made a fool of me? I am no different from one of your precious falcons. You have me on a leash, then with a flick of your wrist I am back at your arm.’

  At last he had the modesty to look aggrieved. Even as I spoke, I knew I was acting outside the boundaries of womanliness, of wifeliness. I did not have a beautiful face nor the manners to go with it. It was hardly a surprise he left our bed and with it our union, I thought miserably.

  ‘It is time for you to settle into your new role,’ was all he said.

  ‘As a neglected wife?’

  ‘As a mother.’

  ‘I wish to stay here a little longer.’

  At that moment, as though she had been waiting, there was a sharp knock on the door and my mother came in.

  ‘You have readied her things?’ Richard asked.

  She nodded, and glanced at me.

  ‘I will not go,’ I said.

  Light and thin as a knife through butter, my mother’s words sliced through me.

  ‘You will not stay here while your husband needs you. It’s time for you to leave.’

  I stood up from my chair, drawing myself up to my full, unimpressive height, and said coldly, ‘If that is your wish, so be it.’

  Richard left to go further north on his horse, and I went to my chamber. By the time I had reached the top of the staircase a plan had formed in my mind, and immediately I relayed it to Alice.

  ‘You can return to Gawthorpe with me, as my midwife and companion, and those are the terms on which I’ll forgive Richard.’