‘A foreigner? From overseas?’
She pouted. ‘No, I told you. Don’t you ever listen? He was Scots. Not local, though. He came here on one of the ships.’
‘But you’ve not seen him since?’
‘No. But when he comes I shall be waiting. I will let him dandle me. And when he does, I’ll carve him to the bone.’
Hew groaned. ‘You are the most bloodthirsty baggage I ever clapped eyes upon. Were it not sufficient to declare him to the coroner, and see the blaggard swing?’
‘You think they would believe me against a rich man?’ she said scornfully, ‘No, I swear, I’ll slit his throat.’
‘Suppose he will not come? You’ll have a better chance of finding him if you leave me whole.’ He looked pointedly up at the knife.
‘Well then, I doubt I shall.’ She tossed him a napkin, and gingerly he dabbed at his throat.
‘What would you do,’ she asked, ‘if I should let you go?’
‘I’d go and be damned, and to Hell with your father and his killer. I am bloodied and sore and heartily sick of it all.’
‘And what about me?’
‘What about you? You cannot think that I care for you, Jennie? A cut-throat, a cheap little whore?’
She ignored this. ‘You do though,’ she said shrewdly.
He conceded, smiling, ‘Aye, perhaps. Why did you run away?’
She fell silent a moment. ‘My mother said things,’ she answered at last.
‘What did she say?’
Jennie set her lip. ‘She said that my father was black in his heart, and I was like him and a whore. That I will always been the dyer’s child, polluted with his stain. Well then, I will show her, for I am my father’s child, and he did want a better life, and I will make one too, and will not live like she does, in the stink and stew.’
There were tears in her eyes. Hew had not seen her cry before. She no longer noticed him. He was able to stand up, and take the knife. Gently, he set it down. He held out his hand to her, almost touched her, and withdrew. ‘I must be gone. I’ll come again.’
She made no objection. Only as he left she said, ‘I won’t be here.’
It was days before he came again, days spent in college and with Meg, where in the fright of Meg’s attack, and the fear of what succeeded it, he forgot the dyer’s child. And when he came at last it was as if he had imagined her. The trinkets and the plums, the little chest and bed had disappeared. The pictures on the wall had been scrubbed away.
A Coffin Crust
Lucy Linn had not known what to do. As Meg lay frothing in her bed she tried to recall the doctor’s instructions. Doctor Locke had been terse and Lucy was afraid of him. Now the convulsions had returned she could not remember what he had told her. The maid was no help. She had taken one look and fled the room in terror. Lucy could not manage it alone. In despair, she risked her husband’s wrath and did the one thing she could think of: she sent for Agnes Ford. It was Agnes who undressed Meg and gave her the medicines that the doctor had prescribed, Agnes who nursed her and soothed her to sleep. And it had worked out well, for as Agnes had folded and hung up her clothes she found what she was looking for, the little leather pocket filled with carrot seed. And Agnes knew that it was providential after all. She had the means to make her husband lie with her. She left Meg sleeping soundly and went home to make a pie.
Tibbie stared out of the window at the rain. It seeped through the casement, spotting the wall. ‘Why has my father gone to Cupar?’ she demanded, pushing down the latch.
Her mother sighed. A strand of pale hair had escaped from her bonnet, softening her frown. Impatiently, she tucked it back. She was making pastry with the last of the white wheaten flour. They would have to bake their bread with oats and barley, or at worst, with stony peas. Archie would not suffer it. He would return from Cupar out of sorts, and if the trip had shown no profit, nothing would be right. She made the pie to mellow him, the remnants of a hare dismembered in the dish with parsley and sweet cicely in a sauce of wine and blood. There was not enough pastry to shape a full coffin.
‘He hopes to win the markets there, since business here is slow.’
‘His cloths will all be sodden. He’ll scuttle homewards crosser than a crab,’ her daughter said relentlessly. She ran her finger down the windowpane, chasing the drops. ‘Could you not have dissuaded him, Mother? You know he will vent it on Tom.’
‘He’ll not be driven from his purpose. But you’re keen to take Tom Begbie’s part. I thought you despised him?’
‘Aye, mebbe. Perhaps ,’ she gave a subtle smile, ‘the tide will turn, now that his lass has gone.’
‘You father will not countenance the match. No more will Tom,’ her mother warned. ‘He has no eyes for you.’
‘We’ll see, then.’ Tibbie came towards her. ‘What is that you’re making? Coffin-crusts?’
‘It is your father’s pie. You shall have a pudding.’
‘You know I hate blood pudding,’ Tibbie pouted. ‘Anyhow, what about Tom?’
‘Whisht will you, harping on Tom! There’s bread enough, and cheese.’
‘Minnie, are we poor?’ the girl asked seriously. She rolled a piece of paste between her fingers. Agnes snatched it back.
‘Of course not. Do you want for meat?’
‘Yet we do not have the dainties we were wont to have,’ the girl persisted. ‘The little cakes with currants, and the raisins of the sun. Our ale is weak like water, and the bread is hard and coarse. I almost broke a tooth today.’
‘Ungrateful wench!’ Her mother scolded, yet her tone was fond. ‘We wait upon your uncle to return with these good things. Your father will not waste his coin to buy them in the marketplace, when Gilbert can fetch them for nothing.’
‘Except he does not fetch them. So we’re poor.’
‘You must not think it, for your uncle will come soon. There! I’ve shaped the crust to pattern like the hare. It’s bonny, don’t you think?’
Tibbie looked critical, wrinkling her nose. ‘There’s not enough paste for the ears. It looks like a cat. It smells like gib-cat too!’
Agnes laughed. ‘Strong-seasoned, aye. To tempt your daddie. Meat to please a man.’
‘He’s welcome to it then. What is it that you tempt him to? What would you have him do?’ the daughter teased.
‘Nothing, hussy! Tis a sweet to coat his humour when he comes home from the fair.’
‘Ah, then you confess it, that his humour will be sour!’
‘I do not confess it, but indeed the rain . . . if he does not prosper . . .’
‘Then, for sure, we are poor.’ Tibbie stamped her foot.
‘Pray, do not sulk. It spoils your looks. You may take this pie to the pastry-cook, and ask him to bake it in his oven till the crust be good and brown, and send it with his boy. And if you see the boy, you need not flirt.’
Tibbie ignored this last. But she objected, ‘In the rain? It will prove a damp pie, for all that.’
Agnes was exasperated. ‘Take it in a cloth, it is not far. Here’s a penny for to pay for it. And here,’ she felt a little deeper in the pocket, ‘buy some comfits, if you will.’
Tibbie reaching out her hand to grasp the coin had caught her look of hopelessness. She paused, and shook her head. ‘I’ll wrap it in my cloak to keep it dry. I will not stay for comfits. Not today.’
They could tell from the rattling of the shutters to the shop, that the trip had not gone well. Presently they heard him on the stair, and Tibbie, sinking back into the shadows, sat as though intent upon her needlework, quiet and hidden until she was called. Agnes stood nervously, close by the fire. The pie had returned from the pastry-cook, and kept warm, pungent, on the hearth. In places the coffin had split, and hot pools of gravy spilled from the crust. Agnes set out bread and butter on the board. It needed nothing more.
Archie Strachan was drunk. He swayed a little as he walked towards the bench and sat down heavily. Agnes smelled the whisky on his breath. She did not
meet his eyes. She could feel them hot upon her, belligerent within the fat red face. Without a word, she cut into the pie and began to ladle liquor on his plate. The weaver sniffed suspiciously. ‘What’s that?’
‘It is the last hindquarter of the hare. I put him in a pie-crust with the leavings of the wine.’
‘Tis pungent.’
‘It is the liquor of his blood. You like him so.’
He did not comment further, but began to eat the pie. The crust was crisp and melting and the hare flesh black and cloying, dripping from the bone. Dribble glistened on his chin. At length he broke a piece of bread and mopped the liquor from the plate. He licked his fingers carefully.
‘A piquant hare.’
‘Aye,’ she said. ‘Will you not finish him?’
‘No more tonight.’ He patted his great belly, satisfied. ‘Some ale, though. Where’s our daughter?’
Tibbie slipped out from the shadows, pouring the ale. Boldly she enquired of him, ‘Father, did you like the pie?’
‘The pie?’ He belched contentedly. ‘I liked it well enough.’
‘My mother was most curious to make it well for you.’
Agnes shook her head in warning.
Archie frowned. ‘Curious? And she might well take pains with it, when I am up at dawn to tout my wares. And what have you done this day, I ask you, save watch your mother bake indifferent pies?’
‘Twas a good pie, Father, I am assured of it.’ She stood her ground. ‘And I have sewn new seams on all the linens, and have finished off the sheets. My mother says I stitch as neat as any semster.’
‘Does she? Tis well, for you may yet have to sit and sew linens, to make us our bread.’
But he did not seem angry now, as though the hot pie in his stomach had perversely cooled his heat. Tibbie stroked his hair. ‘I shall do it, if it comes to it,’ she soothed him, ‘yet I cannot think it will.’
Her father closed his eyes. He did not seem to hear her. ‘Ale!’
‘May I have the leavings of the pie to take to Tom?’ she pressed him.
‘Tom?’ He stirred. ‘Why, let him starve. He has sold nothing today.’
‘Leave it,’ murmured Agnes, tugging Tibbie’s sleeve. ‘We’ll feed Tom later. Pour the ale.’
The weaver complained of a thirst, drinking deep. He trembled. ‘Wife, tis cold in here.’
‘I’ll put a log upon the fire.’
‘My toes are cold. Like ice within my boots. Undo the laces, Tibbie. Rub my feet.’
‘Minnie, it’s not cold,’ his daughter frowned.
‘Like as not the rain has soaked him. Do what he asks.’
She pulled off the boots. ‘His feet are quite dry.’
‘Rub them, child,’ her father whispered, ‘for I cannot feel them.’
‘I’m doing it, Father. Minnie, look, his feet are blue. I cannot warm them.’
‘You must come towards the fire,’ urged Agnes.
Archie struggled to stand. ‘Where is the place? The world is spinning.’
‘It is the whisky,’ she told Tibbie. ‘Go and fetch Tom!’
Archie took a sudden lurch, flailing with his hands. He staggered, and his legs fell under him. Agnes caught his head before it struck the board. His eyes were fixed. ‘I cannot move my legs,’ he whispered, ‘tis a heaviness, a creeping over all, that drags me down. I cannot move them. Help me, Agnes.’
‘Hush, it is the drink. You’re dull through lack of sleep. Here’s Tom. He will help you to your bed.’ The three of them lifted him, legs trailing useless behind him, onto the bed. ‘Minnie,’ said Tibbie, and pointed. Dark waters spread over the quilt.
‘Shh, tis nothing. Tom shall fetch a pothecar. Archie, do you hear?’
‘Aye,’ he answered faintly, ‘I can hear you far away. I do not want the pothecar.’
‘Are you content?’
‘Quite peaceful, aye. It’s strange, I cannot find my hands.’
‘I must change your hose.’
‘Ah, let me rest. For why would you change them?’
‘Archie, you have pissed yourself,’ she answered boldly. Her daughter blinked. ‘You’re lying in the stew. But surely you must feel it, wet and cold.’
‘You lie,’ he said uncertainly, ‘why would you lie? I tell you, I feel nothing.’
He did not stir as she began to strip his clothes.
Tom said, ‘Mistress, tis not right. I will fetch the apothecary.’
Agnes looked upon the bare legs, draped unfeeling on the bed. She frowned a little. ‘Aye.’
Archie lay three hours upon the bed. He felt no pain. Even his choler had evaporated, leaving him a sombre quietness, his sanguine looks at last drawn sad and pale. He answered all the questions put to him, in a distant, lucid voice, as though he found some place of relaxation far away, where everything was clear to him. The apothecary was fascinated. He pricked his soles with pins, moved boldly to the calves and thigh and pinched the inner surface of the groin. He pressed the palms and fingertips, the nailbed to the quick, and at the last was satisfied there was no feeling there. When finally the pulse grew slow, he shook his head, and with complacent sorrow said, ‘He’s poisoned, then. There is no hope.’
‘Poisoned?’ Archie Strachan’s unfixed muscles jerked their last response. His eyelids and his brows flew open in astonishment, and locked. ‘Poisoned, Agnes? How?’
He spoke no more. The paralysis that crept upon his body reached his heart and stopped it dead, with that last look of hurt surprise, indignant, frozen there forever on his face.
‘Poisoned,’ said the pothecar, and closed his patient’s eyes.
‘What did you put with it?’ The coroner prodded the remains of the pie, and sniffed the liquor dubiously. Agnes sat very still.
‘The quarter of a hare.’
‘No roots or mushrooms? Parsnip? Grass?’
‘None of those,’ she whispered. ‘Twas a plain roasted hare, with a pudding in his belly, and we ate him yesterday. The remains I put in the pie, with onions and sweet herbs in a blood wine sauce.’
‘Twas good meat, and not tainted?’
‘Aye, for sure.’
‘And no one else did eat of it today?’
‘My daughter ate the pudding, which had roasted in his belly.’
‘And yet no one ate the pie?’ he repeated patiently.
She shook her head.
‘Well then, it seems clear to me, the poison that he took was in the pie.’
Agnes shrank. ‘It was a good pie.’
‘As you say,’ he answered pleasantly, ‘then you shall prove the point, by tasting it.’ He pushed the dish towards her.
‘Sir,’ she faltered, turning pale. ‘I cannot, sir.’
‘Why not? If it were a good pie, as you say, why would you shrink from tasting it? And you will not then it would seem to prove you know it for a bad pie.’
‘Sir,’ Tibbie spoke out tearfully, ‘consider that the pie my mother made . . .’
‘You saw it made, I’ll warrant?’ he enquired of her.
‘I did so, I swear. It was a good pie. But we did not have it by us all the time. It went for baking at the pastry shop.’
‘I see.’ He said good-humouredly, ‘You think your pie was poisoned there?’
‘Well, sir, no … we do not know it was the pie.’
‘Then would you care to taste it?’
‘No!’ cried Agnes fearfully. Tibbie looked at her. ‘But Mother, why?’
‘I fear it.’
‘Be ware,’ cautioned the coroner, ‘that your refusal proves your guilt.’
‘It does not prove,’ Agnes answered with a sudden flare of spirit, ‘that I know the pie is poisoned, only that I fear it might be so.’
‘I observe the difference,’ he remarked. ‘Then why might it be so?’
‘Because my husband ate it.’
‘Aye, and no one else. Which brings us back to this. Why did you make the pie for him alone?’
‘For there was little mea
t. My husband had the choice of it. And what remained, we might have shared, when he was taken ill.’
‘Might have, aye.’
‘I think that you suspect me, sir.’
‘I do suspect the pie. Come, lass, Tibbie is it, will you take a bite?’
‘I beg you, no,’ cried Agnes. ‘Sir, my husband died. I fear it for a bad pie.’
‘Then confess it. Spare your daughter,’ he said clear and kindly. ‘Come now, tell us, what was it that you put with it?’
She stammered, ‘It must have been the seeds.’
‘Good lass,’ he coaxed her gently, ‘aye, the seed. And what was that?’
‘I had them from a herbalist. She was a witch, I doubt. I was deceived in her. I swear to you, I meant no ill. They were carrot seeds, promised to provoke my husband’s lusts.’
He raised an eyebrow, glancing at the body, ‘Did it work?’
Agnes flushed unhappily. ‘You see that it did not.’
‘Well,’ he scratched his head, ‘and I may put this to the justice clerk, I do not think that it will help your case. Witchcraft will compound the crime. I must tell you, things look grave for you. The pothecar has sworn he heard your husband speak your name before he died. Few indictments are more damning than the accusation of a dying man. Unless you eat the pie, and prove him wrong, I must take you into ward to face your trial.’
‘Shall my mistress not be bailed, sir?’ Tom asked bravely.
‘Tomorrow we shall look to it, when I make my report. Mistress Ford, I have ever found you honest, and am loath to take you hence. It must be done.’
‘You should know,’ whispered Agnes, ‘I am with child.’
‘Mamma!’ Tibbie cried.
There was a long pause while the coroner tried to make sense of this. At length he said sceptically. ‘You are with child?’
‘I am.’
‘And yet your plea is that you fed your husband seeds to stir his lust?’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘A pregnant wife solicit husband’s lusts! Forgive me, mistress, this is new to me.’
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