by Alix Nathan
Dreams he’s in the field sowing. Kempton rides up. He’s doing it wrong.
‘You’re no good, Warlow. Don’t know how. I’ll get someone else.’ He pushes Warlow and the ground is cold, hard with frost like rock.
‘Powyss’ll do it! I’ll get him.’
Powyss rides up. Both men on horses. Kick him back down with their boots.
He half-wakes. Where is this? Not his bed, that’s why it’s cold. He shifts his position. Sleeps again.
Something creeps into his sleep, makes him open his eyes, listen. Stirring, voices overhead. Powyss! Listenin again! No, he can’t think of it. Sleep. Sleep.
No Warlow boys scare crows any more so no one’s up before dawn. Windows are small, blocked where broken. Light slips in around the shadowy room until a bar of brightness strikes him. Just as children’s feet crash down the stairs straight to the hearth.
Gasps and shrieks wake him; he shields his eyes. Hears them back away.
‘Mother!’ Some run upstairs.
He turns from the one bright window. They stand in a huddle. It’s where he lived once. Or is he dreaming? It’s not where he lives now. Who are they? He doesn’t know them.
Their faces show horror. Their eyes squeeze up. Like when the woman Catherine saw him. But they don’t try to smile.
He opens his mouth to speak.
‘What are you?’ says one.
‘Devil!’ says a puny boy. ‘Us’ll curse you!’
‘Get out, get out!’
‘Damned devil, get out!’
‘Devil, go away from here!’ They scream these things together.
His throat is dry. He’s hungry, thirsty.
‘I’m…’ but nothing comes. He clears his throat and they back away further. It’s not a dream.
‘I’m John Warlow.’
The younger girl bursts into sobs.
‘You’re not! You’re not our father! You’re a devil man!’
He recognises her. She looks like Mary. But she recognises nothing. He sees her shrink from his animal claw. His head all over hair. Dirt and stink. His eyes begin to fill.
‘Mary!’ She runs from him, his outstretched hand.
Their mother appears. He had a wife before. But she were thin.
‘You are returned, John.’ He struggles to recall. There’s something he needs to remember. It is his wife. Hannah, she’s called.
He stands up and they run into corners or cling to their mother.
‘It be not his fault him do look so,’ she says to them. ‘Get thy bread and cheese and go to school now. Little John make up the fire then go to Kempton’s.’
The children disperse, then re-form in a knot and rush out. He is alone with the woman who is his wife. But not the wife he had before.
She mashes the tea, pours some for him. He sits. She hands him bread, a piece of cold bacon. Stands away from him.
‘The childer have grown,’ she says. She’s looking at her hands.
This is where he lived long before. Mary’s his, but the others are not; he doesn’t remember them. Mary’s sweet face. But she did run away.
‘Mary…’
‘Polly. Polly is a good girl.’
He stares at her. Something about Powyss he has to remember.
‘Powyss’s childer?’
She glances at him. Looks down quickly. ‘Your childer, John. Them’s fed well since you left.’
The tea seeps in. Not a dream.
‘Hannah.’ She turns away, won’t look at him. ‘I live in the dark. You’re growed fat.’
‘It were five year ago you went.’
‘Where I lives devils came. You’re not like you were.’
‘I know nothing of devils.’
‘Women be devils.’
‘What is it you say, John Warlow?’
‘You’re with child.’
She moves behind the table away from the talon pointing at her belly. Won’t look at his face.
‘Now I remembers. What him said. The man Price. Him said I were in prison. Where I live. When I were in prison, you. You. Where is Powyss? Where is he?’
He gets up out of his chair, swaying, looks about him. Lumbers towards the staircase. ‘Where is he?’
‘Mr Powyss is in the big house, John.’
‘I do live in the big house!’ She must wait. Cannot leave. Is glad she sent the children out.
‘Powyss. Powyss.’ He shuffles back on painful feet, round the table. His steps are small, feeling for shards and splinters. She pities him.
An enormous tiredness afflicts his limbs. He leans on the table, claws spread before him. He would lie down if he could and sleep. Sleep forever. I’ll put my head down on the table and she’ll come and hold me. Like when I were a boy with fever. Mary did hold me to her.
His head droops further. Tears pour onto his sleeves, his hands.
‘You’re tired,’ he hears her say.
But the man’s voice. The man’s whining voice comes again.
‘Powyss fucked…’ He looks at her face all bleary now through his crying eyes.
‘Powyss do fuck your wife, him say to me. Women be devil’s whores. Them’ll lift their skirt for any man!’ He reaches out to grasp her. She backs away.
‘That’s not true, John.’ Won’t look at him.
‘You do it with him when I be in the dark. Where I live. You do it with him. Do it in hedges for a penny.’ He’s panting. So much talking. Remembering. ‘Big or small.’ Head is full.
He feels a surge of energy, like once before. In his arms, his shoulders. He stumbles round after her, grabs her upper arms, shakes her. Back and forth, back and forth. She cries out at the pain of his nails. She’s as small as a cat in his grasp.
‘Cry out, damn you! Cry out for damned Powyss now! Him’s not comin. Kempton can’t hire him. See, him’s not here. I’m here. I’ll do it, Kempton. I’m here.’ His mind teems. He pushes her. ‘Look at me, devil, devil’s whore.’
He shoves her again. She falls backwards, one arm trapped behind her back. Struggles to get up.
He drops down on all fours. Straddles her as best he can beneath her belly. Pinions her fist with his left claw.
‘Devil! Devil! Look at me!’ She turns her head away from his slaps, shuts her eyes at his spittle.
He hits her face to open her eyes, but she won’t, won’t look at him. Bangs her head against the ground again, again, again, again, again; his fingers slip and he presses – make her look at me, make, make – presses until he chokes the life out of her and when he removes his hands the blood from his claws is a string of beads about her neck.
* * *
—
POWYSS WOKE because the shutters were still open. He groped for the bottle but it was empty, found useless phials in his pockets. Recalled fleetingly his note to Hannah.
She will come! He’ll change his clothes, wash. The place must be tidied up, cleaned. He stooped to pick up bottles, shoes. Why hadn’t Samuel done this?
There were several knocks at the door and Jenkins came in before he’d told him to. Too bad! Perhaps finally the man will have to go. He’ll promote Samuel to butler. He can be trusted.
‘Jenkins!’
‘Sir, you must come. You must come now!’
‘I must? Must come now? Jenkins, what is this?’
‘Sir, Warlow. Mrs Warlow. You must come.’
A bolt. A bolt through the heart.
He ran straight out, with neither coat nor hat, through the garden, along lanes and through a wood to the wretched hovel. How long it took, how ridiculously long.
Samuel and Valentine Tharpe, the magistrate neighbour, were there outside, waiting for him. At a distance, a group of young children stood silently, held back by village women.
‘Powyss.’ Thar
pe shook his hand. ‘Warlow is apprehended. I advise that you hear from your man here before you go in. I’ll call him.’
He beckoned to Samuel, who trembled at the sight of him, chewed his finger ends.
‘I did bring your note for Mrs Warlow, sir. There were no answer so I did look through that window. At first I did think…’ He stopped and went red. ‘I did see Warlow and Mrs Warlow on the floor, sir. But they did not move, you see, sir. And Mrs Warlow’s face were looking towards the window. It were hard to see, sir. But I did think it were blue.’
‘As I say, two constables have hold of Warlow, Powyss. Will you go in?’
Powyss shook, feverish though chill. His face was grey, his body thin, for in his recent condition he had not welcomed food.
Inside, Warlow was roped to a chair with a constable on either side. He was an extraordinary sight, for he seemed both man and beast: man because he sat upon a chair, his hands limp, almost lifeless as no animal ever held its limbs even in sleep; beast because his head was a mass of matted hair, his human features lost among it. On his feet were boots through which his nails protruded inches like an eagle’s talons.
For a moment Powyss recalled a painted print he’d once seen of Nebuchadnezzar on all fours, mad, dwelling in darkness. The haunted face had hung in his imagination for days.
Warlow took no notice of them, his look locked within himself, yet at the same time somewhere far beyond.
Powyss barely glanced at him, having known all along that this was how the man would look. He couldn’t think of him, wanted him expunged. He searched for Hannah.
‘Take Warlow upstairs until I call you,’ Valentine Tharpe instructed the constables, who until now had stared at their feet, embarrassed. They unknotted the rope hesitatingly, but Warlow was entirely docile, and after they’d tied his hands behind him they made their slow way out of the room, as though leading an ox to market. Tharpe went and stood outside with the doctor, who had just arrived.
She lay on her back, clothes disordered over her swollen stomach, her head twisted, loose, her face a distortion.
He stood against the wall. A heavy silence from above, murmuring voices from outside oppressed him. He wanted to be sick, shifted his position and the plaster behind his back moved.
Oh, if he could tear the place down, this hellish hovel, this wreck of a habitation! Why was he here? What was this place to do with him, this wretched hellish place? This woman, her skirts raised, revealing her feet, her calves, a provocation. Oh, he had used her, he had used her. He had!
He must look; he couldn’t. He must look, couldn’t bear it. It was not her face! She was never like this. Yet he must look, must search her face, must find her again somewhere behind the expression of terror. There had to be something of her serenity, when at last she’d lost her suspicion, had ceased her resistance to him, it had to be still there, always there. Calm, containment, even pleasure behind the scream strangled in her pulled mouth.
He fell on his knees. If she opens her eyes, but oh they have closed them! Grey-blue even in this light, this darkness. If she opens her eyes she will smile and I’ll tell her I never meant this to happen. Never. Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, oh Hannah, Hannah. I abandoned you. Tried to forget you. Come home with me now! Come, oh come home!
He held back from touching her, for she was too precious and he unworthy. He began to shudder like a man in a palsy, clawed his head with his hands to rid himself of it. But he must touch her. Touch. It had been so long ago. He took her hand in his and despaired at its coldness, wanting to die, too, longing to die.
He held her hand against his face, hearing only howling in his head. Why was she on the ground? Why was she here, on the ground, here, thrown down like this? He’d take her up, run back with her to the house, out of this hole, where she shouldn’t be. She should never have lived here.
Her hand against his cheek, as it had been, sometimes in life. Still. Lifeless, her body yet suggested life. Might the child live? He placed his hand on her belly, but it was silent. The child will have moved, she will have felt it moving. Did it die at the same moment that she did? Did it die? Could it still be alive? Could it be merely quiescent? He must know, must find out, rose up to ask the doctor, but his legs shook so that he fell back down and throwing himself on her breast finally broke, wept, a child himself.
He would stay here with her. Why should he leave? He stroked her hand, talked to her, tried to explain, but how poor everything he said was, how feeble his excuses, what worthless declarations! He had not protected her, had not saved her. Had not saved himself.
There was a cough outside the door: the doctor needing to go about his business. Fury burst in him. No! You cannot come in. Get out! Get out! He wanted to scream at them. Leave me, me and her, she’s mine, nothing to do with you. Get out! I can not, I shall not leave her.
A hand touched his shoulder.
‘Mr Powyss, I must examine the body and write my notes. I can give you a powder for calming.’
Powyss laughed in scorn.
‘I have plenty to calm me, plenty.’ With help he stood, moved apart but would not leave the place, would not take his eyes from her. Again leaned up against the wall, plaster crumbling at his back.
The magistrate came in and went upstairs. There were heavy, shuffling steps as the constables guided Warlow down his own cramped staircase.
Powyss saw the creature and shut his eyes. He had no energy to kill him now. None. Man become animal. Man become animal by his own instructions. How could he kill his own creature?
As they took him to the door Warlow bawled out: ‘No light! No light!’
‘He’s been living in the dark for years,’ Powyss heard himself say. ‘He will not be able to stand the daylight. You must cover his eyes and in due course he must wear spectacles with smoked glass in them.’
‘He’ll be hanged before then,’ Samuel said.
‘Was it you who raised the alarm, Samuel?’ the doctor asked him.
‘I ran straight to the constables and they did come with the magistrate here. They did think Warlow would fight, but he were still on the ground. He were asleep, sir.’
‘Take me home,’ Warlow said. ‘The devil did die. It is safe. Catherine’ll bring my food.’
‘He’ll go first to the Moreham lock-up, Powyss,’ Tharpe said. ‘Women from the village have taken the children away. Come now, man, I’ll walk back as far as your house with you.’
They stood in the doorway until the procession was out of sight, Samuel, the constables, the hideous, hapless Warlow, blindfolded, stumbling along the rough path through bluebells.
* * *
—
THERE WAS A PERIOD OF LUCIDITY, like a perfect day when hills cut out of ice take each their place in the humming air.
Powyss rose soon after first light, resumed the old order of his life. He inspected the sky, made his rounds of flower garden, kitchen garden, glasshouses with notebook in hand, breakfasted and then went to the library to plan and read.
There was an immediate problem. Price had vanished. His clothes and few belongings had been cleared from his cottage and no one could find him anywhere. Enquiries in Moreham among his revolutionary friends and followers were fruitless. The boy Jack was missing, too, thought to have run off with Price, who’d also taken Powyss’s horse.
He drew up an advertisement for a replacement master gardener and meanwhile noted down instructions for the labourers.
In the library he sketched diagrams and made lists for the horticultural year, consulting Miller’s Gardeners Dictionary as usual, checking previous gardening calendars he’d written.
The afternoon clouded. In the sweating heat of the hothouse he tripped on a chipped brick, fell against the door jamb and cut his forehead. Blood dripped through wooden slats onto the earth, smeared his hand and he went into the house to wash it off.
/> Leaning over the basin in his dressing room, watching the swirl of red in the water like smoke, he imagined it filling with blood from his slit throat. His razor lay nearby. Did he have the courage? Was it too good an end for him?
An opened bottle stood beneath the wash table, unopened phials in its drawers. The day had exhausted him; he blacked it out.
The following day he tore up the advertisement for the master gardener, summoned the garden labourers and sent them on their way with the order that they take what fruit and vegetables they could eat for a week. The diagrams and lists lay where he’d left them, the notebooks he’d taken around the grounds with him yesterday were in any case quite blank.
In came Jenkins, Cook, Samuel and Annie in turn, each to be relieved of his or her position, rewarded with a generous sum and a fair reference to be shown to future employers. Mrs Rentfree protested.
‘I cannot think but that you do surely need a body to cook for you, Mr Powyss, for you certainly cannot do it yourself.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Rentfree, but I’d prefer it if you would now seek another position. This money should tide you over until you find an agreeable employer.’
‘But who will employ a woman of my years, however good I am at the cooking? For writing I cannot.’
‘Samuel and Annie will help you with your search.’
‘Pah! Good-for-nothings. If you had only kept the Holy Book by your side, I always thought, Mr Powyss.’
Samuel pleaded, when it came to his turn. ‘Let me stay with you, sir.’
‘No. I’m sorry, Samuel.’
‘I’m the only man who know how to handle your collection, sir.’
‘Choose a piece, Samuel. Choose yourself a piece as a reward for your good work.’
‘No! Oh no, sir. I couldn’t never do that.’
‘I am going away.’
‘I’ll go with you. Wherever you go, sir. Or let me stay and guard everything. I’m loyal, sir, more nor all the rest.’
‘Thank you, Samuel. You have indeed been loyal.’ But he waved him away and called for Catherine.