‘Indeed they might. But consider, for I do like to consider, as you know, for sake of argument, suppose that she required a potion to provoke the menses that she not procure a child?’
‘I . . . had not considered it.’ Meg coloured. ‘She has a husband.’
‘So she has,’ Giles agreed gently. ‘Tis curious, you know. But if she does not want a child, the herbs you recommend will serve her just as well.’
Meg was silent. Then she said, in a small voice, ‘I have been foolish.’
‘No. But it’s a possibility. Indeed, it does surprise me it has not occurred to you, since you consider childbed such a cruel encumbrance.’
‘You mean,’ it dawned on Hew, ‘that Agnes wanted medicines for loosening a child?’
‘Probably not,’ said the doctor. ‘Most probably, she is afflicted with a blackened vaporous womb that is – forgive me, Meg – the cause of all her sorrows and her husband’s too and has left them both without a son. I merely make the other case, as possible, that Agnes finds herself unhappily with child, and looks to be relieved of it. Either may be true.’
‘Why do you do this?’ Hew cried, exasperated, ‘Either this, or yet the other; either yes or no!’
‘Because they are alternatives,’ Giles answered in astonishment. ‘Did they teach you nothing at the university?’
Nicholas was woken by the voices. He tried to lift himself from the cot, but the exertion overwhelmed him. There was stiffness in his limbs and thick fog in his lungs, as though they were not his, as though he tried to move and breathe within a heavy cloud of sand. His illness left him faint and short of breath, but unexpectedly detached. For months he had fought to take possession of his limbs, for self-control, and now command was lost, the cause was lost, he found the loss purgative. All that was done, in sickness and in cure, he now accepted quietly, and lay submissive, broken by his peace. The corpse did not belong to him. And though he knew the time would come when they would force it home, that he must take possession once again before he died, that men would come to do him hurt, he did not care. He could not imagine that it could belong to him again. It belonged to someone else.
‘How do I know I am alive?’ he asked aloud, ‘I think, but do not feel.’
‘Tis a question of some pertinence,’ replied a voice. Nicholas opened his eyes, which cost him effort.
‘Hew. I did not hear you come. How long have you been there?’
‘I was talking with my good friend Doctor Locke, when the discourse turned a touch sophistical, so I resolved to come to you. You were dreaming, I think.’
‘You have more questions,’ Nicholas sighed.
‘For the moment, no. There will be questions, though.’ His friend looked grave. ‘And it were well to be prepared for them.’
‘What shall I say?’
‘The truth.’
‘I have considered it. Why do you ask it?’
‘I am resolved to make a defence for you.’
‘Perhaps I do not want one.’
‘Perhaps I do not want to make one. Yet I am resolved.’ Hew changed his tone, ‘I met one of your magistrands today.’
‘Which one?’ His friend stirred a little, lifting his head.
‘A man called Duncan Stewart. He assisted at the examinations.’
‘He is not the best of them.’
Hew helped him to sit forward on the pillow.
‘I am relieved to hear it,’ he confessed. ‘I have to take the class next week, and find myself in awe of them. So I have come here for advice.’
Nicholas smiled. ‘I do not think that is why you are come,’ he whispered.
‘No, but it’s a start. I see you are comfortable here. Shall I bring you some books to read?’
‘Perhaps. What happened at the examinations? Was anyone elected?’
Hew told him what had happened. ‘What vexed me almost more,’ he concluded, ‘was Black’s prevarication, “for myself I should elect the boy, in conscience I cannot”. Too weak to speak against the principal, yet he pretends he sees some greater end. What the devil did he mean about his conscience?’
Nicholas was interested. ‘Do not blame Robert, though I grant he may be weak. He does not care for complication in his life. But he has a conscience. He has reservations, as to what awaits the boy.’
‘Then he must protect him.’
‘And he had the power. You overestimate his standing with the principal. I can tell you this: there is no doubt that this boy will suffer cruel misuse within the college. If he is fortunate, he may retain his life; God willing, he may even take the wreath. His days will not be happy ones.’
‘If he is bullied by the earl’s son, and his regent turns his back to it, then I will take his part myself.’
‘You may try.’ Nicholas sighed. ‘I had the same problem with young Duncan Stewart, but to a lesser degree. The principal took exception to my interference, even when he threatened fellow students with his knife. There are two bursars in the magistrand class, where once there were twelve. They are devout, hard-working men, and worthy of the laurel wreath. At the end of this year they will graduate. There will be no feasting, no gifts of gloves, but their honours nonetheless will be deserved. They may well go on to be regents. One of them may take my place. Assuming,’ he said wryly, ‘that you do not mean to hold the post for life.’
‘You will return to it,’ Hew interjected firmly.
‘I think not. One will take my place, where he will have no sway upon his students, but will himself be helpless, bullied and enthralled. And when he complains to the principal of violent misbehaviour and of truants from his lectures, he will be told, most graciously, that he may charge them sixpence and be glad, for each additional reading of the text. Your friend Stewart was perplexed,’ he smiled a little ruefully, ‘I would not take his sixpence to review the text, when he preferred to spend the lecture hour in bed.’
‘You do not ease my qualms about the teaching.’
‘The magistrands are well prepared. Theirs is a solid year, apart from one or two. But you see, without the bursars the balance tips towards the sons of men who buy their way. The bursars now are left exhausted. They share the work of twelve, and college servants too, for Gilchrist makes economies wherever he can misdirect their ends. The bursars, as you know, must sweep the floors and fetch the coals and light the fires. Aye, and they empty the waters and slops. And fetch the meal and air the beds. And being prepared in their texts, they are expected to assist their betters form their feeble grasp on learning. If I do not read over to the likes of Duncan Stewart, it will fall to them. And they are the last in their beds, the soonest to rise.’
‘You do not seem to care for rich men’s sons.’ Hew felt uncomfortable. As a boy at college, he had counted Nicholas his friend, and yet he was aware it had been Nicholas who turned their bed, who rose before the dawn to bring the light, who, when Hew came to wash, had brought the water for the jug. And he had accepted it. Had it been resented then?
‘For some of them,’ his friend said softly, ‘I have cared. For others, no.’ He fell silent, and then smiled a little. ‘Do you count it irony at all, that your sister is performing those most gentle offices which once I undertook for you?’
‘What offices?’ Hew asked suspiciously.
‘She reads to me. She trims my beard and combs my hair. But do not fret. I have no feeling for your sister.’
‘Not gratitude, I see,’ said Hew abruptly.
‘Not even that.’
‘I understood her to perform some strange experiment. To help you walk.’
‘She does so. It’s a trial.’
Hew’s temper flared. ‘She is come here to help you, at what personal cost and risk you cannot know. Whatever debt is owed to you from boyhood I will swear she has repaid a thousandfold.’
‘There is no debt. You claim me as your friend. I do not want your help, Hew, nor your sister’s. Why are you come, playing advocate? Have I engaged you? Leave me alone.’
‘They probably will,’ he conceded, quietly closing his eyes.
Hew let the door slam behind him. Meg and the doctor had apparently resolved their differences, and were talking together over a dish of beef broth. Hew begin to wonder whether he was not the alchemist of savage turns of temper, but then Giles was reconcilable to anything through food.
‘He is a difficult man to help,’ he interrupted crossly.
‘Ah. You’ve discovered that,’ Giles answered thickly, his mouth full of meat. ‘Take him some stew.’
‘We are not all so easily appeased.’ But nonetheless, Hew accepted the bowl that Meg prepared for him, and reluctantly returned to Nicholas.
‘I did not think that you would come again.’
‘Since you do not seem to care for my sister, I am resolved to feed you myself. You may pretend to like it, if you will, or not. It’s all the same to me. I see that she at least has left you clean and neat and your linen fairly fresh. Your company is now more pleasant than it was a week ago, for though you could not speak then, yet you stank.’
‘Forgive me.’
‘Why? Could you have helped the stink?’
‘My rudeness to your sister. I am sorry, Hew.’
‘Aye, it’s a trial. Take the spoon. You will be sorry indeed to have slighted her, once you have tasted her stew.’
He waited until Nicholas had finished eating. It was a slow and painful process. The muscles of his throat were tight and sore, and once or twice he gagged and could not swallow, though the veal dropped off the bone. The effort of eating exhausted him. At last he fell back and whispered, unselfconscious, ‘Can you call the servant? I need to make water.’
‘I’ll help you. Where’s the vessel?’
‘In the corner by the door. I cannot stand.’
Hew helped him up upon the bed, and held the pot. He watched as Nicholas arranged his clothes and sank back on the mattress. Then he asked bluntly, ‘Why do you draw your own blood? Is it some form of mortification?’
‘Phlebotomists do so to balance the humours.’
‘Aye, but not like that. Why would you not go to the surgeon?’
‘It is a private matter.’
‘To do with Alexander?’
Nicholas whispered, ‘Not in the way that you think. I find the effusion of blood brings release from disordered affections. When Alexander laid bare his feelings to me, I thought that he had been able to detect it, that somehow he sensed my weakness.’
‘Which weakness was . . . disordered affections?’
He said simply, ‘Lust.’
‘But Nicholas, we all have lusts for women. If we do not act upon them, it can scarcely count as sin.’
‘I have never lusted after women,’ Nicholas said sadly.
‘We never came upon them in the college,’ Hew retorted. ‘Since we were boys, you have known nothing but men. Effie the laundress may once have been young but has not stirred the loincloth of the loosest lad in college now for nigh on twenty years. That’s why we use her.’
Nicholas gave a faint smile. ‘Your sister has been kind to me. I know that Doctor Locke thinks well of her attractions, and for myself, I see them, but I cannot feel them, for my passions lie elsewhere.’
‘Doctor Locke? Does he …?’ Hew was distracted a moment. ‘No matter, tell me if you will then, where your feelings lie.’
‘With one of your magistrands,’ Nicholas confessed. ‘I swear to you, he does not know. I have behaved to him as I behaved to all the others, through the last four years. You would not pick him out among the crowd. He is a cheerful, quite ordinary lad. I cannot explain it to you. My comfort is that he does not suspect it. He is a trifle wayward in his habits, but they do not lean that way.’
‘You’ve had no hint of converse?’ Hew insisted.
‘Never.’
‘Then it’s not to be reproached. However we control our actions, we may not control our thoughts.’
‘This is how I have controlled them.’
Hew looked upon the scar. ‘Giles Locke tells me if you had gouged a little deeper, you would have spilled the artery.’
‘And washed the trespass clean. I have tried prayer and fasting. Still the thoughts come. I find that the blade brings release of a kind. There is a purging of the spirit in the flowing of the blood. This alone offers some peace from the turmoil. So yes, if you will, it is a form of mortification. It scarcely atones. But the pain is a reminder; I shall never act upon the will.’
‘Alexander’s revelation must have brought you great disquiet.’
‘I thought he saw through me.’
‘Yet you had never desired him?’
‘Why should I?’ he asked quietly. ‘Because I love one boy, must I therefore love all boys? Do you lust after every woman in the street?’
‘Most of them. In passing.’
‘Ah. I see you smile. I do not think you do. But understand how I have fought this.’
‘I begin to understand. But when you knew how Alexander felt, for all you protest, then you kissed him.’
‘Yes. For pity, for I did know how he felt. I know not how we should have resolved it. And for that kiss, I did the violence to myself which brought me here. Had I caught the vein, I could have washed the sin away. But there are many depths to Hell. The irony is, it was a chaste kiss.’
‘He left you letters,’ Hew persisted. ‘I saw you take the letters.’
‘Aye. I could not read them, though the drift was plain. You would think, would you not, I might have done him that last courtesy? I had not meant to keep them.’
‘And I suppose he gave no word of blackmail when he spoke to you?’
Nicholas was startled. ‘Blackmail? How? For he was artless, Hew. He was a child. He spoke wildly, from the heart. He could not threaten or conceal. How should I have killed him then? For passion, for love, for anger or fear? For pity, Hew! I kissed his head and sent him home. I promised him he should not fear, and when I saw him next, the child was dead.’
Seeds
Agnes had repented her deceit. The lass had come as guileless as a child. It was providential, surely, and simplicity itself to trick Meg into giving up the remedy. It was only part a lie. ‘I did no wrong,’ she whispered. God had disagreed, for what was done was not so easily resolved. She felt it now, the flutter in her ribs, the pittering of moths against a flame.
‘Where are you taking the sheets? It is too late to wash them.’
Tibbie was watching her. Wearily, she forced a smile. ‘It’s fair, and there’s a good brisk wind. I thought I’d rinse these out before the winter comes.’
‘But Minnie, it’s so cold!’
‘They’re Alexander’s sheets. I would not have them lie until the spring.’
‘Oh. Then I’ll help you,’ the girl said reluctantly.
‘No, lass, bide at home. I’ll call upon the dyer’s wife. The house is a low and foul place, but Janet has kept there since she lost her child. In pity, I should call on her. Don’t tell your dad.’
Her daughter nodded, understanding. ‘Aye. I’ll keep him sweet.’
‘I’ll not be long.’
This she must do on her own. And in the wind and water after all, with bloodied feet and breaking back, she might be rid at last.
The sheets had wanted washing, Agnes thought bitterly, shaking out the creases in the burn. The water was achingly cold. She had taken off her dress, and knelt down in her smock upon the stone. She pushed her skirts high, and pummelled with her bare arms on the rocks. When her arms became to ache, and she could not feel her fingers, still she did not stop. She looked at her wrists. The marks were faded now, the colour on her breasts become a film of grime. The other thing she could not cleanse. She stooped and scrubbed and bent into the freezing flow. The heavy load, the dragging of the damp sheets through the mud, the scrubbing with the soap of ash and lye, the dredging through the icy stream, the wringing out and stretching on the bank, were purgative, s
urely. Again and again she dragged and scrubbed and sluiced, until her spine ached hot and heavy to her belly and her thighs, and the sheets flopped sullen on the green. Agnes rubbed her arms and legs and rinsed off the trailing weeds, drying her feet on the gorse. She fastened her shoes and straightened her skirts, tucking the loose hairs into her cap. Hugging close her plaid, she made her way to the dyer’s house through the long grass.
She had not wanted to come. Not for the squalor, and the pity of the place, but for the fear.
She was afraid of Janet, frightened of her little house, perfumed like the sink with its smoke trails high and bluing, frightened of the dyer who lay dead. Dead, aye, and his bairn was dead, there was the rub. God knew, you could not clear the air around the house. It hung oppressively heavy, an indigo cloud. She swallowed, deliberately breathed in, a long choking draught of it, blinding her. She drank as though she hoped to drown in it, rattling at the door. And then Will came. He put out a hand to steady her, made bold by his concern. ‘Mistress, you breathe in too deep.’ And it was like drowning; she took in a great gulp of air, drinking in poison. He put out his hand to steady her. ‘Gentle, now mistress, breathe low.’ She felt his fingers stained with dye, and flinching, saw him colour at the hurt of it. He dropped his hands. ‘I cannot help you, mistress,’ he said abruptly, ‘if you are unwell, ye maun go home. My mother’s sick. My sister’s gone. There’s nothing for you here.’
He was a good man, and she had not meant to offend him. It was only the blue of his hands. There were tears in her eyes then, and not just from coughing.
Shivering, she recovered herself. ‘Ah, forgive me, Will,’ she pleaded, ‘I forgot the lye. It was for your mother, in her sickness, that I came. I fetched her some sugar.’
She had scraped an ounce or two from the sugar loaf Gilbert had brought, crusted, almost black within the centre, and wrapped it in a paper, close inside her bodice from the water and the wind.
‘I’m cold, Will. Won’t you ask me in?’
Uncertain, he stepped from the door. ‘This is no place for you. And my mother is not well.’
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