A Curse Dark as Gold

by Elizabeth C. Bunce

  I knew Mrs. Tom only slightly, and when she swept across my threshold, something in me drew tight and still. A tall woman dressed in red homespun, she wore a white cap over her steel-colored hair and a woollen shawl round her square shoulders. She gave me a cursory nod as she knelt beside Paddy and began to sew him up with brusque, competent stitches.

  “He’s cold,” she pronounced. “Someone fetch some spirits.” Several flasks appeared in an instant. She shook her head at the crowd as she took one and poured out a measure for Paddy. “The rest of you have a drink as well.”

  Truth to tell, Biddy Tom was probably at least as able as Mr. Hale—maybe more so in a real emergency. Not just the town midwife, she also did most of the horse-doctoring, and dog-doctoring, and hen-doctoring in the village. The fact was, Shearing had an apothecary because it was fashionable to have one, but no one took him seriously. For “real” medicine, most everybody appealed to Biddy Tom.

  I stood in a corner up against the empty wool press while Mrs. Tom took over my finishing room. Low light from the waning day set the room deep in shadow, despite the oil lamps burning overhead. The fulling stocks kept up their steady slosh and thump as the hammers fell against the sodden cloth, beating the fibers tight together. The pounding was like a heartbeat in the mill, low and hypnotic. I felt myself pulled into their rhythm as the dusky room seemed to shift around me.

  Soon Biddy Tom had Paddy sitting up, flushed with liquor, telling his tale for the crowd. He made it sound exciting, and his audience, likewise warmed, drank up every detail. But I hugged myself tight and swayed a little with every fall of the stocks, seeing the old sign come swinging down, over and again.

  Bad luck. Nothing more.

  “You too, Charlotte Miller.”

  I jumped. Biddy Tom was right beside me, holding out a flask. I shook my head, but she pressed it on me. Her pale eyes seemed to look right down inside me, and before I knew it, I was choking down a much-too-large gulp of some truly dreadful home-brewed gin.

  “That’s better.”

  I didn’t see what was better about it, but I held my tongue, which was more than everyone else was doing. They had already turned the event to legend, expanding the tale as they passed it among themselves.

  “‘Bout time, too,” Jack Townley was saying. “Hardly seems right to start the season without the old curse popping up to bite us in the tail.”

  “Things go in threes,” Janet Lamb added. “Best be on watch, now.”

  “Aye,” someone added, counting it out, “There’s young Paddy and the sign, and then—”

  “Stirwaters is not cursed!” I said it much louder than I’d meant to—or maybe I didn’t. “I won’t have such talk in the mill, do you hear me?”

  Jack, Janet, and the others looked at me, cheeks red, emboldened by gin and excitement. Mistress or not, right then I was still the little girl they’d teased with tales of haunts and curses.

  “Nay? What about Lonnie, then?”

  “Aye, Lonnie!” Everyone nodded and I felt my own cheeks redden.

  “Lonnie Clayborn is a clumsy fool! He had no business on that carding engine—and you, Jack Townley, should have known better. He’s lucky he only lost a finger!”

  There was silence for a moment, until Paddy piped up. “What about your da’, miss?”

  “What about my father?” I found myself stared down by my entire staff. I stood straighter. “Mr. Hale said his heart gave out.”

  “Died in the mill, he did.”

  “Of course he died in the mill! Where else would he die?”

  “And your mam?”

  I stared at them, growing cold and hot by degrees. I could have used another belt of Biddy Tom’s gin, just then. “My mother?”

  “Aye,” Janet Lamb said. “Your poor mam, dyin’ without a son like that.”

  “Hasn’t been a son born to Millers these last five generations,” someone added.

  “Not and lived.”

  This was really too much. “Indeed? And what of your own family, Jack Townley? There hasn’t been a Townley girl as long as anyone can remember. Is that a curse, too?”

  “Well, the way my wife tells it, ‘tis.” Townley grinned amid a burst of laughter. I was about to sputter back some response, when Biddy Tom’s thin reedy voice broke through.

  “Ah, there’s no curse on this place,” she said, and everyone fell silent, all eyes turned toward her. “Bad luck in spades, maybe, but there’s a difference.” She tucked the flask inside her kirtle and gathered up her shawl. “Paddy Eagan, stay away from falling signs for a bit and you’ll be right as rain come the weekend. And you, George Harte, mind your hammering on windy days. Charlotte, show me out.”

  I followed Mrs. Tom back out into the dusky afternoon, hugging my arms against the chill. Mrs. Tom fixed her cap more snugly on her head and looked up into the wind.

  “Pay them no mind,” she said, bundling into the grey shawl. “Curse won’t breed where water runs past. Anyway, land here’s too strong for it. That’s your problem, Charlotte Miller—not a curse, just a powerful lot of magic, and none of it knowin’ which way to work itself.”

  I stared at her, patience failing me. Hadn’t we bad luck enough without talk of curses and magic calling the devil down on our heads?

  Mrs. Tom took my arm. Her hand was unexpectedly warm and fleshy, and I flinched. She gave me an odd soft smile that cracked the lines around her eyes. “Ah, missie.” She shook her head. “Your mam never believed, either. Just remember: There’s practical, and there’s practical. Don’t let your pride get in the way of your seeing.”

  She squeezed my arm a final time, whipped the shawl round her shoulders, and stepped out into the wind, which fell to a breeze and then stilled altogether as she carried on up the lane.

  Something about Biddy Tom had always made me uneasy, ever since I was a little girl and she treated Rosie for fever. I remembered it too clearly for comfort—I was only six or seven, and Rosie was near death, burning red and dry as paper to the touch. She’d been sick for days, and none of the remedies from Hale’s had helped. Finally, when Rosie turned cold and quiet one night past midnight, Father sent for Biddy Tom. I was scared of her—scared of her red cloak and scared of her low voice and scared of her too-clear gaze. I stood in the corner, holding tight to Mam’s skirts as the simples woman lifted my baby sister from her cradle and turned her this way and that, holding her too close to the fire as a packet of herbs smoldered in the embers, filling the room with heady, acrid smoke. Eventually Mrs. Tom went home, Rosie got well, and life went back to normal.

  But barely a year later, Mam and our baby brother died together, and Biddy Tom couldn’t do anything to help them. I knew what Father thought—everyone knew it or thought it, though no one said it aloud: Biddy Tom had done something to steal Rosie from death, and either God or the devil had claimed Mam and Thomas for payment.

  All that was long past, and Rosie could barely remember it. And though Mrs. Tom hadn’t done anything for Paddy but what any competent physician would do, I couldn’t help wondering what other, stranger remedies she carried in that bag of hers. It was something that did not bear thinking of.

  I was heartily glad to be home for dinner that night, grateful for the distraction and novelty of my uncle’s presence. We had left him all the day to fend for himself; he had still been abed when we rose, no doubt weary from his long journey, and we had not had the chance to return home for lunch. I had assumed he would wander over to the mill when he wanted us, but he had apparently found enough at the Millhouse to occupy himself.

  “Now, girls.” Uncle Wheeler drained his wineglass and set it down with a delicate tap. He was dressed for the evening in a costume of robin’s egg blue and butter yellow, and I wondered if he had any plain clothes stashed away in those portmanteaux. “It’s time we discuss getting you settled.”

  “Settled how, sir?”

  “Why, find a buyer for the mill and get you married off, of course.”

  Rosie
choked on her wine, and it took a clap between the shoulders to revive her.

  “A buyer?” I said, scarcely loud enough to be heard.

  “Married?” Rosie had turned scarlet.

  Uncle Wheeler smiled. “Of course,” he said. “You can’t mean to keep on in this fashion. The very idea of you girls working in that dangerous old mill…goodness, a boy was nearly killed there today! I’m sure this can’t be the life your parents would have wished for you. You’ll take my advice and forget this nonsense. Start looking toward a proper future for yourselves.”

  A bite of sausage burned in my throat. I took a sip of water to force it back down again. “But, sir, Stirwaters is our home. We couldn’t think of selling it.”

  That smile widened as Uncle Wheeler dabbed at his fingers with his napkin. “Charlotte, please. Look at yourself! You’re working yourself ragged. In fact, I think our first order of business should be to find you some help around the house.”

  “We really can’t afford to pay a serving-maid—”

  “My dear, I think you’ll find there’s always money for the truly important expenses. I do understand that this is a change for you, from the way you’ve been raised. But you come from quality—at least on one side—and I will not have you wasting your lives in this rustic little backwater. So tomorrow morning I’ll have a look over your books and see what can be done about arranging the sale. Rosie could probably marry on her looks alone, but for you, Charlotte, we’ll need some sort of settlement.”

  I lowered my fork to the table and tried to order my thoughts.

  “Uncle,” I said, “you must understand. It’s not just a matter of Rosie and me. There are other families depending on us as well.”

  “Those families are not my concern. Your father entrusted me to look after you two girls, and I must do what’s in your best interest.”

  “And Father trusted us to look after Stirwaters!” Rosie said.

  “Rosellen, truly. You must learn to control those little outbursts.”

  Rosie glared at him, her cheeks flaming. “We have had some offers,” I said hastily.

  His head whipped toward me, the little tail on his periwig flipping around his neck. “That’s my girl! Now—”

  “But please, you must let me handle it,” I said. “Stirwaters has been in our family such a long time—I do feel that we must be responsible for its future.” I tried to smile, hard as it was with Rosie staring at me as if I’d plunged the bread knife into her heart. “Please.”

  He was silent a long moment, watching me out of those green eyes until it seemed he could see right inside me. I dropped my own eyes to my plate.

  “All right, then,” Uncle Wheeler said finally. “Perhaps it’s too soon to discuss this. But I’m all you have left in the world now. I should keep that in mind, if I were you, Charlotte.” He blotted his lips one final time and rose from the table. As Rosie and I sat there in dismay, his expression softened. “I’m sorry. You must understand, I am only trying to do what’s best for you both. We’ll leave this issue for the time being, but do think about what I’ve said. You could both marry well, you know; there really is no need for all this.”

  The week did not improve from there. I spent the next morning in the dyeshed, dodging gossip about Biddy Tom and going over the inventory with Stirwaters’s dyemaster. Father had always stressed that Mr. Mordant was the finest dyer in our part of the country and we could not afford to lose him. He kept no apprentice, and worse, no dyebooks. He made everything up according to memory, behind closed doors, with an air of secrecy that had made a younger Rosie suspect him of witchcraft. Given the strange smells that emanated all hours from the dyeshed, it was no wonder she’d thought him brewing potions in there.

  Mr. Mordant’s secrets made Stirwaters famous for a glorious array of color. Buyers at the woollen halls knew to look for “Stirwaters Blues,” a waterfall of mazareen, Prussian, and a rare, deep logwood only he could make. Keeping Mr. Mordant employed (not to mention happy) cost an arm and a leg, but he was worth it.

  “Fustic!” Mr. Mordant rummaged among rows of dusty jars and battered packets. He knocked one of the jars off the shelf with his elbow, catching it a heartbeat before it shattered.

  “Sir?” I stepped out of his way as he pushed past, and bumped up against one of the great steaming vats. I put my hand on the rim to steady myself, and yanked it back with a hiss. The wool within roiled and turned in the bubbling violet stew. Blowing on my scalded palm, I did my best not to breathe the fumes, hot and foul as a chamber pot.

  “Fustic! I must have it here somewhere. Can’t make a decent gold without fustic. That straw-colored cassimere your mam likes so much won’t come out right without it.”

  “But—”

  “Ha! Here we go, lass.” He pulled a ragged paper pouch from beneath a stack of empty jars and peered inside it. “Won’t last the season out, this. Have to get more.”

  “All right,” I said again. “How much, and from where?”

  He swiped the list from my hands. “I’ll do the ordering, mistress. You won’t get my secrets this year!” He broke into wild, crowlike laughter.

  I stood there, stunned into silence. How had my father done this? The man was clearly crazy. And then I had my great inspiration.

  “You know,” I said, “I’ve heard some interesting things about the reds coming out of Springmill this year.”

  He raised his head slowly, a look of cunning in his dark eyes. “Never. Not Springmill?”

  “Oh, yes. Nearly as good as the imports. Or so I’ve heard.”

  He was quiet a good long moment. I watched him draw a circle with his foot on the stained earth floor. Finally, he sidled up to me and, in practically normal tones, said, “I’ll just make up a list of the things that I need, lassie, and bring it up to the office later this afternoon. Don’t worry about a thing. Springmill reds, my foot!”

  I let out a measured sigh. “Mr. Mordant, I do wish you’d consider taking an apprentice.”

  “I’m not dead yet, missie!” he said, a little too cheerily.

  “No, that’s the point, sir. At the very least, write down some of your recipes. You could keep them in the strongbox in the office, if you like. Safe and sound.”

  His narrow lips pursed tight. “Can’t write them down. That’s how the other ones trick you.”

  “The other ones?”

  “Other Ones, missie, Other Ones!” he said impatiently. This time I clearly heard the emphasis—the Naming. “You Millers,” he said, “always writing, writing, writing.” He ripped the list right down the middle. “Put everything down where it can be seen by anybody. And what good’s that ever done you? Nay, They’ll not trap me that way, They won’t!”

  He kicked the fragments of my inventory into the embers beneath the dyevat. “Never you mind about Them. We’re safe from ‘em here,” he said, patting me on the arm. “But I’ll tell you what, lass. You send that pretty sister of yourn down here once-a-while, and I’ll show her one thing or another.”

  I looked round the little dyeshed, at the pots and bottles and little packets, and thought about the real magic Mr. Mordant pulled off in here. “I could learn it,” I said.

  Mr. Mordant eyed me for a long moment, then shook his grizzled head. “Nay, lassie.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you don’t want to know how things are made round here—not really.”

  “That’s not true! I’m every bit as interested—”

  Mr. Mordant’s hand fell on my arm and stopped my mouth. He pointed to the wool boiling in the vat. “Lass, if I put this here wool to rinse in water drawn upstream from the mill, it won’t come out as dark or pure as if I rinsed it in water drawn downstream.”

  “But that doesn’t make any sense—”

  “No, it don’t. And there ain’t no reason to explain it, neither, but that something gets in the water at Stirwaters and makes it take color better. Something…not natural. This mill, it has moods, lass, queer humors.
Like a person—fair one day and foul the next, and you’ve got to know how to listen to it.” He nodded and turned away again. “And that’s what you don’t want me to tell you. So you send that sister of yourn. She don’t mind what I’ll have to teach her.”

  He took up his heavy stone roller and began to grind up a bundle of bark, clearly finished with me for the day.

  Rosie grabbed me on my way back into the mill. “It’s about time you showed up! Tansy Eagan’s in your office!”

  “Tansy Eagan! What can she want?”

  “Oh, I’m sure she’ll tell you.” She lifted a corner of my stained apron. “Where have you been all this time?”

  I said nothing—yet—about Mr. Mordant’s offer (let alone his moods and humors). No need to push my luck this morning.

  Tansy, a tall, gangly girl about Rosie’s age, was pacing furrows in my office floor. “Ah,” she said as I cracked the door. “I’ve come for me brother’s wages.”

  I looked her over as I came inside, doffed my hat, and sat down. She had the look of the queen hen about her—proud, puffed, and strutting.

  “Pay day’s Wednesday—bearing-home day, you know that.” Stirwaters always paid out wages on the day each week when our weavers brought back their finished cloth and fetched home the yarn for new work.

  “Heh,” said Tansy, with a smile that showed her cracked teeth. “Won’t be no more bearing-home for Paddy. Our mum’s decided this place is too chancy. She’ll be keepin’ him home where it’s safer now.”

  Paddy’s wages were nearing those of a man grown. Mrs. Eagan must be mad to make him quit. “What’s he going to do?” I asked. “Is she taking him to the loom?”

  Tansy sniffed. “Can’t think so. I’m her ‘prentice. Be workin’ me own loom soon enough.” She held out her wide, angular hand. “The wages?”

  Tansy tapped her foot impatiently as I counted out the coins (with a few extra we could not spare, for I was fond of Paddy and shuddered to imagine him home all day with Tansy and her mother. Spun from the same wool, those two were). “Have you got me mum’s yarn, then?” she asked when I was done.