by Mary Stewart
‘You bet he will, once he knows you’re home,’ said William, suddenly cheerful. He started down the stairs again. ‘They really are competent, aren’t they? And of course if Hodge was a witch’s cat as well – Oh, golly!’ This as he caught sight of the clock in the hall. ‘Look at the time! I’ll have to rush! Thanks a million, Miss – I’m terribly sorry, but I’ve forgotten your name.’
‘It’s Ramsey, but won’t you call me Geillis?’
‘I – well,’ said William, not committing himself, ‘thanks, anyway. I’ve got to go, but please may I come over, and help you, the way I used to?’
‘Of course you may.’ I would not have dreamed of querying his use of words. ‘But just a minute, I forgot to ask, where’s the key to the poisons cupboard?’
‘Under the pot-pourri.’
‘And the attics?’ I had to raise my voice. He was ahead of me, and already at the baize door. ‘How do you get to the attics?’
‘Through here. From the kitchen.’
‘The kitchen? But I didn’t see a door there.’
‘The back kitchen. A door in the corner. Looks just like a cupboard. I won’t forget the bike! Goodbye!’
The baize door shut behind him with a soft puff of dust.
* * *
Trefoil, John’s-wort, Vervain, Dill,
Hinder witches of their will.
The scented leaves rustled, and gave up the key. I knelt and opened the cupboard door.
It was as William had described it, full of bottles with detailed labels printed in red, with the POISON warning on each one. Boxes, too, similarly marked, and full, when I investigated a couple of them, of what looked like the raw ingredients of the distillates and decoctions; dried leaves, stems, roots, to me unrecognisable.
I sat back on my heels, regarding them, and wondering again why, since Cousin Geillis had apparently foreseen, and so carefully prepared for her end, she had not taken more pains to leave detailed instructions for her successor. Though the actual end had come suddenly, nothing, surely, had been left to chance. The essentials had been taken care of, and long before the event; the will, the letter, the consigning of Hodge to my care, the hiding of the still-room keys until the transparently trustworthy William could show them to me. So I could take it that the lack of direction about the precious still-room contents was deliberate, too.
And where did that leave me? Did she mean me to assume her mantle – herbalist, wise woman, witch? – as today I had assumed her actual clothes? Circumstances seemed to be pushing me that way. Perhaps, I thought, but not seriously, her knowledge and skill would come to me with the ease and brilliance of today’s fragmented vision …
What did come was a memory of that long-ago day beside the River Eden, and Cousin Geillis’s sharp comment: ‘The only luck you have in this life is the talent you’re born with. The rest is up to you.’
Well, I knew all about hard work. Just give me time, Cousin Geillis, as you have given me your calm refuge, your tools, your precious solitude. Give me time to be myself, know myself, become a little used to happiness. The rest will be up to me.
I locked the cupboard, buried the key back among its protective petals, and went downstairs.
I made myself cook and eat lunch before I attempted to look for the attic door. I even washed up and then sat, carefully leisurely, over a cup of coffee, before at last making my way through to the back kitchen.
Now that I knew, of course it was obvious. In the days when maids had been kept here, the back staircase to the garret bedrooms would open from the kitchen. The first of the two cupboard doors was, as I had guessed earlier, a broom closet. The second gave on a flight of narrow wooden stairs which led steeply up between boarded walls. There were no banisters, and the treads were bare.
A step sounded on the flagged path outside. I turned, expecting to see Agnes, but it was a young man, a youth of perhaps sixteen. He wore stained trousers and a ragged sweater, and had a carrier bag in one hand. He did not pause in the doorway, but walked straight into the house and dumped the bag on the table. There was no need to ask who he was. Brown hair, blue eyes, fresh complexion, thickset body. At a guess that was a certainty, Jessamy Trapp, Agnes Trapp’s son.
‘I’d take care how you go up there, I would surely,’ he said. ‘There be a main of strange things in the roof, I reckon.’
11
‘You must be Mrs Trapp’s son?’ I asked him.
‘Aye. Jessamy’s my name. She sent me over with a pie for your supper, and to say she was baking today so she made two, one for you and a bigger one for her and me and Gran, so you wasn’t to think it was any bother, and a pot of her own pickle besides.’
There was something about the way he spoke, something about the wide smile, that suggested what, at its best, could be termed a lack of intelligence, what country people called ‘something missing’ or, graphically enough, ‘fifteen shillings in the pound’. Jessamy Trapp was obviously far from being the traditional village idiot, but I suppose he could have been termed simple. He was continuing placidly, still with that charming smile, the blue eyes beaming with a mild, uncomplicated interest.
‘Just till you get your own shopping, my ma says. You never went by, you see, so she knew you’d not been into town. You not going this day?’
‘No. I was busy here. But she really shouldn’t have troubled. It’s too much – far too good of her – please thank her for me.’ I took the pie-dish and pot out of the bag and set them on the table. I was embarrassed, and trying to hide it. ‘They do look good! Plum chutney, too! I love it. From your own plums?’
‘Nay, we’ve none o’they. It’s from your’n.’
I looked up quickly, remembering the fruitless state of Thornyhold’s orchard, but there was nothing sly or provocative there, merely a statement of fact. He smiled again, guilelessly.
‘Did you find the old lady’s bike, then?’
‘Yes, it was in the shed. I couldn’t find the pump, though. Do you know where it is?’
‘Couldn’t say. I’ll ask Ma.’ He was looking vaguely round him as he spoke. ‘It’s maybe somewhere here in the back kitchen, but you’d be hard put to it to find anything in this lot.’
‘Have you a bike yourself?’
‘Aye, but mostly I walk. There’s a short cut through the woods that saves near half a mile. I’ll show you if you like.’
‘Thank you. Some time. Well, thank you mother for me, will you, Jessamy, and tell her I will try to get some shopping done for myself tomorrow. Goodbye, then.’
I turned to mount the attic stairs, and found that, far from going, Jessamy Trapp was just behind me.
‘Dunno what you’ll find up there, miss. Must be a main long time, since anyone took a broom to it,’ he said, and because there seemed no civil way of stopping him from escorting me, I went on, and he followed.
There was dust on the stairs, scuffed as if there had been some recent traffic that way. At the first-floor level was a small square landing, and there the stairs took a bend towards the back of the house. At the top of the next flight, and lighted by a roof-light, was a door. It was shut, and, when I tried it, locked. But beside it, hanging on a nail, was a Yale key.
With Jessamy on my heels, I opened the door and went into the attic.
There was only one attic, a long room running the length of the house, lit by the three dormer windows I had seen On that sunny afternoon it was full of light and air, but extremely dirty. Against the wall opposite the windows was a double rank of boxes, standing on their ends, each one containing a slanting wooden block covered with bird droppings. Some of the boxes also held large earthenware bowls, and in them were what looked like old nests. In the centre of the floor stood a covered feeder, like a lantern with a roof to keep dirt out of the food, and several spaces through which birds might feed themselves. Beside this stood a metal water-trough. There was no food, and no water. Everywhere was dirt, feathers, dust, droppings.
The attic was, in fact, a discused pigeo
n-loft.
Not quite disused. With a clap and whistle of wings a pigeon flew down from its perch in one of the boxes, and strutted hopefully, head jerking, towards the feeder in the middle of the room.
* * *
‘Well, now,’ said Jessamy’s voice behind me, ‘there’s one of them back.’
‘Back? Back from where?’
‘Dunno. Left the window open always, she did, let them fly free, she said. But pigeons always comes home.’
‘How many did she have?’
‘Dunno. Used to see them, quite a flock, flying their ring over the woods there. Nice birds, pigeons. Friendly, like.’
‘Well I’m sure they haven’t been here for quite some time. That bowl’s dry as a bone, and there’s no food to come for. When Miss Saxon was first taken ill, I’m sure she would make certain that someone—’
‘Food’s over there.’ He pointed. Between the windows stood a crock of the kind my mother had used for ‘putting down’ the eggs in waterglass for the winter. It was covered with a heavy wooden lid. Jessamy lifted this, scooped out a handful of mixed grain, and threw it to the pigeon on the floor. The bird stopped its strutting and began, eagerly, to peck.
‘Water’s downstairs,’ said Jessamy. ‘She used to bring it up in a jug. Well, now, if Ma didn’t always be telling her to watch that dratted cat of hers.’
‘Cat? What do you –?’
I stopped. It was clear what he meant. There was a dead pigeon lying on the floor just behind the door.
‘Told her, my ma did,’ said Jessamy, stooping to pick it up. Its wings fell open, trailing, in a light flurry of dust. The neck hung loosely, the head dangling.
‘Hodge?’ I spoke doubtfully, eyeing the dead bird. ‘But the door was shut and locked. How could Hodge have got in?’
‘Window,’ said Jessamy, simply. ‘Told you, that was always open for the birds. You know about Hodge, then?’
‘I know he lived here, and that she was very fond of him. He’s gone, too, hasn’t he, Jessamy?’
‘Aye. Good thing she’d never know what he’d been up to. Went the day after she was took away. Pigeons gone, and cat gone, too. Seemed like nothing could stay when she’d gone herself. And likely, you won’t want to be bothered, neither. Don’t you fret about this. I’ll take it away for you.’
He lifted the hand holding the dead bird. As it moved, the living bird, which had been greedily eyeing us the while with one anxious ruby eye, fled upwards with loud wings fanning a plume of dust into the air. It landed back into the box from which it had come.
With a smooth movement, quick as any cat, Jessamy reached into the box and, before the flustered bird could turn to fly again, caught and lifted it, turning with it cradled in his hand.
‘Like I said, you don’t want to bother yourself with these birds, miss. I’ll take she as well, and I reckon she’ll go to a good home.’
‘Well, if you’re sure you know someone—’
This time there was no flare of light, no touch from the air. But a vivid blink of memory, as if someone had flicked open the shutter of a lantern. Jessamy stood in front of me, smiling, with the living bird cupped between his palms and below it the dead one, dangling. It was black, and looked like a crow hung up to scare its fellows.
I did not consciously notice this. What I was seeing, in that extraordinary shutter-flash of memory, was my father’s curate taking my rabbit away to fill a rabbit pie.
I said quickly: ‘No. No. I’d like to keep it, for now anyway. I’ll be glad if you’ll take the dead one away and bury it, please, but let’s put the other one back, shall we?’
‘All right, miss,’ he said agreeably, and handed the bird to me. ‘Do you want me to fetch some water up?’
‘No, thank you. It’s all right. I’ll bring it up later. The window’s open, anyway. Thanks very much for coming, Jessamy, and thank your mother for me, will you?’
To my relief he accepted the dismissal, and went. I crossed to a window with the pigeon nestling in my hand, and watched him go. As the wicket gate clicked shut behind him I turned back to survey the pathetic pigeon-loft.
It certainly smelt very strongly of pigeons, and the air was full of the feather dust that they must shed all the time. But there were signs, which I had not mentioned to Jessamy, that many other birds must use the place. The rafters – for the attic was right under the roof – held abandoned swallows’ nests, and in the dust near the feeder, and on the deep sills of the windows were dozens of prints of smaller birds’ feet. More interesting than all, perhaps, was a small grey object, the size of a peanut shell, which lay beneath a beam in the dimmest corner. An owl’s pellet. I regarded it thoughtfully. It was to be supposed that, however welcome the wild birds were, no owl would be persona grata in a loft where pigeons bred. It must have come in to roost since the loft was deserted by the tame birds and their caretaker. Since Cousin Geillis’s departure, in fact. The pellet was fresh, dark grey and still moist. Searching, I found two others, only one of them beginning to dry to paler grey.
So the birds had all gone. Nothing strange about that. Only that William had never mentioned them.
I opened my hands, and the pigeon, released, flew straight down to the floor at my feet and began to feed again. I left the attic, closing the door behind me. I locked it, and this time pocketed the key and took it with me. Then I went downstairs, and out once more into the garden.
The bicycle had been wheeled back into the toolshed, presumably by William, who had pumped up the tyres as he had promised me. It would not have surprised me if I had found the missing pump quietly restored to its clamps on the bar, but it was not there. I looked for, and found, what must be Hodge’s ‘bed in the shed’ – a deep pile of sacks, old carpet, and newspapers in a corner behind a tea-chest which acted as umbrella-stand for garden canes and a birch broom. No sign of a cat, and the sacks and paper were cold. I walked down the flagged path as far as the herb garden, calling his name, but without hope. Then back to the house. Now that supper was provided for, I no longer wanted to make the trip to town. I would do a bit of cleaning, I decided, and leave the store cupboard till morning.
Possibly the most surprising thing about that day was the discovery that I enjoyed housework. My parents’ house, the vicarage, had of course not belonged to us, but in any case ‘helping mother’ is not the same as working for oneself in one’s own house. I had certainly been mistress of the house after her death, and tasted some satisfaction then, but never with this heady knowledge that the place, and all about it, was my own. It was, in fact, the first thing that I had ever really owned. Throughout my youth nothing had been mine; even my childhood’s toys and books, the pictures and small ornaments from my bedroom, had been quietly removed and given away when I was from home, like the rabbit and the dog and all else I had thought to own. That the trivia of today are the treasures of tomorrow would not have occurred either to me or to my mother; I only knew that all the small things that make the landmarks of growing up had disappeared. I had come to Thornyhold almost empty-handed, the most dowerless of brides. And now this …
Cousin Geillis must have seen it, and understood how, along with everything else, it would help to develop the strong sense of properly that I had, the two-way need of belonging, and the almost fierce sense of responsibility that went with it. Thornyhold, with all it contained, would be safe with me.
So for the rest of that day I cleaned my kitchen out, every cupboard, every shelf. Every pan was scoured, every piece of china washed. The curtains went into a tub to soak, and the mats went into the sunshine.
By the time I was feeling really tired, and most things were back in place, it looked quite different. So good, in fact, that I went out and gathered a big bunch of asters and snapdragons from the tangled garden at the front of the house and put a vase of them on the windowsill. There was a clean cloth on the table, the cushion covers from the Windsor chair and the old rocker were in the tub along with the curtains. They could go out tomorrow
, and let us pray for a fair wind to dry them.
Then it was dusk, and time for supper. I put Agnes’s pie into the oven to heat, then went upstairs and ran a deep, hot bath. By the time I was dry again, and had put on housecoat and slippers it was quite dark outside. As I drew my bedroom curtains I heard an owl hoot close by. Tomorrow, I thought, the town and my shopping list, bank, food, telephone. The rest of the cleaning could wait. Till I expected company? With an odd lifting of the spirits, I realised that I did not need company. I had never been so happy in my life.
As I opened the baize door on my way to the kitchen I thought I heard a sound from the back premises. A soft thud, like something falling. I went through. Nothing. The back door stood open still, and I went outside, to stand for a few moments, listening. The night was warm, and smelled fresh and sweet. I looked up through the trees at a sky full of stars and faintly moving tides of shifting cloud. The owl called again. I wondered if he was on his way to the attic roost, but nothing stirred in the still night. As I turned to go back into the house the scented strands of mint brushed my long skirt and I smelled rosemary.
Happiness, driven out momentarily by the faint worry of that unexplained sound, came back with a rush. I reached up under the jasmine and took the key down from its nail. Then I went into the warm and welcoming house, my house, and shut the door behind me. I locked it, and drove home the bolts. Now for a glass of sherry, and supper …
I went into the bright kitchen.
There, on the mat beside the Aga, sat a cat. Thin, matted, eyes large, their distended pupils hard and very bright, staring at me, sat a big black cat with white shirt and paws, the hair along his back still ridged and stiff from fear or hatred.
But not of me. He stood up, stretched, spoke, and began to purr.
12
‘And was it you who killed that pigeon?’ I asked.
It was some time later. First things first, and the first was that the cat was starving. I warmed some milk and put it down, then unearthed a tin of cat food I had seen in one of the cupboards and gave him as much as I dared. He took both, ravenously but with perfect manners, then stretched again, jumped straight into the Windsor chair, and began to wash. While I had my sherry he washed; while I dished up my supper he washed; while I ate an apple he washed; only as I finished a cup of coffee did he consider himself fit for the fireside, and curl up, purring loudly, but still staring, wide awake, at me.
