Peculiar Ground

by Lucy Hughes-Hallett

  Cecily made as though to take his hand, but the distance between them prevented it, and she was still too weak to move. She said, ‘When I seemed to be dying, I thought, with Meg gone, there was no one from whom you could know how you came to be, and the thought shocked me. Now I have told you. It was a strange world. Our experience was singular, but everyone who has lived through these times has been tested.’

  Edward turned his face to the shutter. It was as though he had swallowed a noisome meal, and must labour to digest it. At last he said, ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘I have heard he is in America. I would like to believe it.’

  ‘Will you tell Mr Norris?’

  ‘Perhaps, if we meet again.’

  ‘It is damnable. And that the man should go unpunished.’

  ‘He is your father. And for me he was something for which there is no name. Godfather, he called himself. We cannot detest him without hating ourselves.’

  Cecily closed her eyes. Their lids were purplish-grey and sweat beaded her white forehead.

  Their Uncle Rivers came into the room. It was to his quiet manse that Edward had brought Cecily, and all the danger she carried with her, and the preacher had taken them both in without demur. He saw how blankly Edward looked at him, and checked.

  ‘I have told him his parentage,’ said Cecily.

  ‘And you have exhausted yourself,’ said Rivers. ‘Sleep now.’

  He led Edward out into the garden and they walked up and down beneath the poplars down by the river until it was too dark for them to see each other’s faces. The trees exuded a perfume as opulent as any the magi carried with them to Bethlehem. For a long while Edward’s gestures were abrupt and hostile, but then at last he hung about his uncle’s neck, the neck of the man, now three inches shorter than he was himself, whom he had sometimes thought might be his father, and he sobbed like a lost child.

  *

  On discovering they have a mortal disease men, and women too, are each as one journeying in cheerful company, who finds himself suddenly separated from his friends, a fog coming down. Figures can be dimly seen, moving among the trees, but the sound of voices is muffled, and then entirely lost.

  The godly say that the gate into heaven is a strait one, and that only the virtuous may pass. For those who think as I do, that straitness carries a different meaning. The thought upon which I dwell is that the aperture through which we go from nature to eternity is wide enough only for one passenger. There is no wedlock acknowledged there, no room for the holding of hands.

  ‘In sooty weeds again, Mr Norris?’ my Lord said to me this morning. ‘I insist you walk always beside me today. Your blackness makes an excellent contrast with my brilliance.’ His new coat is of carnation-coloured damask, with apple-green facings, and his pearly waistcoat is embroidered all over with gillyflowers. He would not be surprised to find me filling my journal with sombre thoughts of death and loneliness. I am his gloomy jester, a stock figure from the old comedies. I provide the gloom, he the jests. He likes me for it, as I like the sagging lips of his melancholy-faced hounds.

  Mr Rose writes that Lord X has purchased a goodly site abutting the River Thames at Brentford. There is work to be done there. I leave tomorrow.

  *

  There was no court to attend at Whitehall that winter, the King being removed. Lady Woldingham’s house in the Strand remained shuttered through the dark time of the year.

  In the latter part of February Wychwood’s trees still looked bare, their stems slick in the perpetual drizzle, but those viewing them from afar might see a greenish veil over them.

  Mr Goodyear and Mr Armstrong met close by the black pyramids of yew flanking the drive to Wood Manor. Goodyear had two children tagging behind him, not his own offspring. They followed him like hungry dogs.

  Goodyear nodded at the house. A light was moving within. ‘Mr Lane wants it for himself,’ he said.

  ‘I daresay he does,’ said Armstrong. ‘But his Lordship knows what’s right.’

  ‘He knows it, but will he do it?’

  Armstrong didn’t answer. He had another line of thought to pursue. ‘There’s not many who survived. A few years back they’d have been saying she must be a witch. They’d have been looking for marks on her. You take my meaning? Her master’s mark.’

  Goodyear said to the girl and boy, ‘There’ll be snowdrops by that tree. Grub up a clump if you can. We’ll plant them for Grammer Meg.’ He pulled out a dibber from the pouch at his side and handed it to the girl.

  They went reluctantly. Having lost one protector, they liked to stay close to their new one. Goodyear’s men were astonished by his patience with them. Needy little runts, and him with a forest covering half of Oxfordshire to manage, and all the spring clearing and planting to be done, and now, on top it all, this flimflam his Lordship had dreamed up with Mr Norris.

  When the children were gone he looked levelly at Armstrong, who was his closest friend, but whom he sometimes disliked. He said, ‘I tell fairy stories, but that doesn’t mean I believe in them. Meg was learned, and that made folk afraid of her. It didn’t save her, though. You know it. We all do. If Miss Cecily came through the sickness, it’s because she’s had good luck.

  ‘If all those who died this past year were cursed and cast out, then the devils down under would be having a busy time of it now. You know it’s not that way. Your brother didn’t deserve a bullet. And no more did the pestilence take your sister on account of anything she’d done or neglected to do. The psalmist said that the enemies of the righteous would be as chaff before the wind, as though the good grain would fall and be saved. Lord forgive me, but I cannot agree. We are blown about, all of us, regardless of our faith and of our works. There are a multitude who have lost their trade, and their children, and their lives, this past year, and I’m thankful I’m not one of them. And there’s another multitude who can no longer believe that there’s one above who cares for us.’

  Armstrong crossed himself. Goodyear laughed, and reached out to ruffle his hair as though he was a child. ‘What’s worse, a papist or a heretic? You’ll not mention my opinions, I hope, and I’ll not tell Parson what I just saw you do.’

  The children came back, their hands full of bulbs and the white underground parts of snowdrop stalks. ‘Come, we’ll bury those poor striplings,’ said Goodyear. Armstrong followed them over to the spot where – the churchyard being full of bodies five deep – Meg still lay. Seeing them begin to dig, the ranger’s two curs set themselves to help, throwing up a spray of chilly earth until Armstrong growled at them and they slunk behind him. Six hands – two large, four small, all grievously chapped – firmed the earth around the fragile shoots. Three noses ran with mucus. Six eyes were red and wet. Armstrong fidgeted where he stood, and then said in a strange harsh voice, ‘There’s many more as would have been where she is if it hadn’t been for you, George Goodyear. I spoke out of turn and I’m sorry for it.’

  That night, for supper, the last apples from the store were eaten, baked, with hard cheese, in Goodyear’s household. ‘There’s preserved damsons still,’ said his wife, ‘and dried currants. But there’ll be nothing more fresh until the radishes come.’

  *

  There are but a few days until Whitsuntide, the date set for the celebration. I am lately returned to Wychwood and there is much to be done. Mr Rose and I are turned impresarios. Outdoors, we are conjuring up a theatre. Within, the great hall is our factory and tiring room. My Lady has given us permission to rummage through the presses in the attic, where old coverlets and hangings are stored, and has granted us dominion over a pair of maids – one handy, the other gormless – who sit all day stitching the stiff and musty stuff into drapery for the scene, and robes for the performers.

  I was present, this morning, when my Lord and Lady disputed the propriety of our show.

  She – Is it seemly, do you think, when so many have lately been forced out of their homes, that we should be celebrating the repossession of ours?
<
br />   He (down on his knees, examining the model auditorium Rose had set out on a low table) – Why yes! As those poor citizens celebrate when they return to their own places.

  She (reaching out to tap his cheek with her fingertip) – You are too glib.

  He – Come, this is where you will sit.

  He reached up and drew her down onto her knees as well, so that the light stuff of her morning gown lay like a pool of sulphur around her, and they peeped at each other through the miniature arches, as though they were two giants peering into a mortal’s garden.

  She – This is better than a play. Where, tell me, is my seat?

  He – There in the centre, so that all the actors’ eyes will be trained upon you, and so will the eyes of those who watch from the side-benches.

  She – And you by me, I dare say. You pretend that it is the spectacle that we will watch, but the actors will gaze out at the audience, and they will see all eyes trained, not on them, but on their patron. Now I understand why you are so particular over the embroidery for your new coat.

  He – And why I will cover you with Brussels lace, as the roadside is covered with a froth of flowers this Maytide.

  They were flirting with each other, long-married as they are. It was the effect of the miniature palisade between them. Nothing like distance and obstruction to hurry intimacy along. I have not seen them so jocular together since the death of the heir.

  I wonder how many of those who come to our performance still hold privately to the opinion that such displays are the devil’s work. The theatres are busy again, but minds change more slowly than laws.

  Our text is to be Joshua at the walls of Jericho. It seems to me a perverse theme for a fête to be held in a house so newly walled around, a house whose denizens were, only a few months past, self-immured within those walls. But my Lord’s son was given a hunting horn for his birthday, and he has been clamouring for an opportunity to display his skill in sounding it. So Joshua it will be, and the trumpets will sound seven times seven, and the people of Israel will storm the city we are constructing. It follows therefore that the flimsiness of the aforesaid city (all made of painted cloth) will be advantageous.

  There will be singing, and much dancing, but little declamation. I have only a small troupe of actors to call upon. Mr Goodyear is a fine speaker, and will play Joshua. My Lady has laid claim to the part of Rahab, the treacherous whore. I am prim enough to be scandalised at her wish to assume such a character. That actresses are now allowed on the London stage is no precedent for one such as her. That great ladies have appeared in private entertainments as allegorical virtues, or personating the Olympian goddesses, is one thing; this is quite another. But I dissemble my thoughts. Her dress, fashioned from red damask and corded with gold, will be magnificent.

  *

  The lime trees were in flower again along the road to Wood Manor. Robert Rose felt the sticky gum adhering to the soles of his shoes as he walked. The scent, at twilight, was as insinuating as plaintive music. He had known it since he was a tiny child in this place, but he had not had it in his nostrils in years.

  He passed by the manor-house and went to a kind of fosse that bounded its orchard. In one place the ditch had been filled, turfs spread over it. He walked up and down a while, his hands clasped behind his back. John Norris came across the paddock and found him there. Each man was startled to see the other, but they greeted civilly, and sat together upon an upturned barrow.

  ‘Meg lies here still,’ said Norris. ‘A village-woman has told me that the dissenters buried their dead in a plot which is now within the circumference of the park.’

  ‘I don’t believe she would rest, wheresoever she was laid,’ said Rose. ‘She was a Pythagorean. She once told me that she hoped to return to this world transmigrated into the body of a hare.’

  ‘A species full of a bounding energy set dancing by the weather. I hope that she has had her wish.’

  Rose said, ‘She was my teacher and friend.’

  ‘I once saw her spit on your shoe.’

  ‘I know it. I angered her that day.’

  Norris waited a while and then said, ‘I would gladly know more about her.’

  Rose stood, and they walked together so that they could speak without watching each other’s countenances.

  ‘My grandmother was said to be a witch,’ said Rose.

  ‘So you have told me.’

  ‘There is but a fine distinction to be made between philosophy and forbidden enquiry. Some of my grandmother’s knowledge was dross – incantations to ferocious old gods and naughty spirits. Some of it was gold – she knew how to predict weather and how to find water with a twitching twig. Her simples were efficacious. Meg was her student. When I came back here, at the time you and I were first collaborators, Meg made herself known to me with the express purpose of passing on my grandam’s lore, of which her memory was, she thought, the sole repository.

  ‘I was curious. I listened to all she could tell me and made a record of it. But I was also contemptuous. I am impatient of those who would turn sound knowledge into misty legend. I scolded her. I was arrogant and wrongfully self-satisfied. On the day that Edward shied a ball at you she had told me her intention to turn him into some sort of a human sacrifice. I berated her. I knew the boy would come to no harm. I have seen him dive. He is at ease in the water. But the ceremony smacked to me of charlatanry. He was very much bound to her. I thought she abused the power she had over him. Cecily saw no wrong in it, but to me Meg’s plan was unholy, and I told her so roundly. I hold still to my opinion, but I wish we had not quarrelled.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ said Norris, though he was not to blame, or any way involved.

  ‘She had a most remarkable mind,’ said Rose. ‘Would to God it could have saved her from the pestilence.’

  The two men walked back by moonlight to the great house, while owls hooted to each other unseen.

  Cecily

  On the day of the fountain I, Cecily Rivers, came back to Wychwood.

  I was not the person I had been. I wonder whether anyone can be, who has once believed herself to be dying. I have observed it in soldiers, how absent they appear even when returned from the wars. And in young mothers. They say that a careless girl becomes a matron and a worrier, both in the same instant. I think now it is not the newborn responsibility that makes her anxious, but her own danger. The pangs of birth bestow children, but also the knowledge of how tenuous is our hold upon life.

  What a close acquaintance with mortality brought me, though, was a fierce grasping. I would have my mother’s house. I would have Norris, for all his diffident footling. My cousin must give me a dowry: I was sure he would do it. I would have a life such as that my Uncle Rivers enjoys. I would study, yes, but I would also roam alone in the woods, and ride, and go to London to teach and be taught. I was full of impatience and greed. Edward, who had made himself my gallant protector, said he was quite frightened to have unloosed such a virago upon the world.

  We slept the night in Wood Manor, with only our horse-cloths for bedding. The servants were fled, and every stick of furniture had been burnt. In the morning I made myself a garland. Though no one else knew it, not even my chosen bridegroom, I meant that day to feel again how a lanky man’s body could become pliable and luxurious against mine. I had only the snuff-coloured gown my Aunt Rivers had given me, but I tacked a fine lace collar to it. Wreathed in bindweed and forget-me-nots, I thought myself a festive apparition.

  Wychwood was as merrily en fête as I. From first light there were people passing the foot of our driveway, and turning into the lime avenue. We broke our fast with dried apricocks – tough and wrinkled as shoe leather – and Edward trotted out to beg a loaf and a pitcher of milk from the lodge-keeper. He came back with reports of the iron gates’ curlicues decked with starry-blossomed blackthorn branches and posies of wood anemones. We elected to walk by way of the Cider Well, so that we would arrive unobtrusively, slipping into the park by the little lakes
ide gate to join the company when they were already assembled.

  I had never been inside a theatre then. Perhaps otherwise I might have judged the play, or masque, or ballet (I hardly know what to call it), more stringently. But there is an especial piquancy in seeing one’s friends play-acting. They are recognisably themselves, but they are also strange. The doubleness is at once frightening and delicious, like conversing with a person standing behind one’s back, while watching her face in a looking-glass.

  My cousin sat majestically enthroned in the centre of the audience, shining like the pale spring sun in his silvery silks. His wife was beside him until, midway through the show, she rose, cast aside her mantle and walked onto the stage, transforming herself as she did so from great lady to adventurous libertine. The audience – both the gentry seated in tiered rows around the amphitheatre and hoi polloi (myself among them) standing behind to peer through the arches of the pergola – seemed alike to quiver with pleasant shock.

  How transgressive was her metamorphosis! She, who was always so demure, became, without benefit of mask or face-paint, a loose-living woman, Rahab the whore of Jericho, she who sheltered her nation’s enemies and helped them to escape.

  She received the Israelite spies (two young men in long smocks, who sang a vainglorious ditty about their military exploits to the accompaniment of pipes). She supervised their entertainment by a troupe of Canaanite strumpets who danced lustily, flourishing veils made from stuff I recognised as the canopy that once draped my mother’s tester bed. She connived and conspired, with much fluttering of her hands and shushing with finger on lip. And at last, to a great strumming and scraping of musical instruments, she flung a scarlet rope. Or rather Mr Armstrong’s son, known for his ability to crack whips and cast fish lines, stood behind her and flung a rope on her behalf.

  It seemed to fly around the stage, enclosing dancers and musicians in a loop of brightness, before an attendant caught it and fixed it to a post. The spies then hitched up their smocks and, swinging from the rope, twirled themselves out of Rahab’s window, and out of the hostile city of Jericho. Or rather, they skipped off the stage. The harlots (among them young Holly Goodyear, whom my mother had taught to be a rare needlewoman) were singing and simpering and waving their braceleted arms aloft. Lady Woldingham, with a profound curtsey, withdrew from the stage to great applause.