So I just made a non-committal sound.
‘When Ash talks to you, it’s like he’s really seeing you,’ Sophie went on.
‘Funny,’ I said lightly, ‘I remember thinking the same thing about your father when I first met him.’
‘About Dad?’ She stared at me. ‘Dad’s nothing like Ash!’
Thank God, I thought, but I just shrugged and shifted my battered bag to my other shoulder.
‘Drew mentioned that Ash was one of his students.’
‘Ex-students,’ Sophie corrected quickly. ‘Ash dropped out when the spirits called him.’
‘Did they call before or after his exams?’
‘Ash can’t be limited by oppressive conventions,’ she told me. ‘What’s the point of a piece of paper proving that you can recite a few facts?’
‘Well, it usually means you have a better chance of earning some money to live on,’ I said.
‘Money!’ Sophie’s voice held all the contempt of one who had never had to earn any. ‘Money is only good for buying things. I’d rather have wisdom, and Ash says you can’t buy that.’
‘Can’t argue with that,’ I agreed.
‘I have to stay at school until I’m sixteen,’ Sophie confided with a hint of defiance, ‘but then, if I’m ready, Ash says I can become his pupil.’
I didn’t waste my breath pointing out the downside of that idea. Sophie was too dazzled by Ash to listen. I tried another tack.
‘Was that his girlfriend?’ I asked instead, and was pleased to see her face cloud a little.
‘Mara, yes.’
‘She didn’t seem very friendly.’
‘She’s ascended to the seventh level,’ said Sophie enviously, as if that explained everything.
‘What – they can’t do smiling and saying hello on the seventh level?’
But that was a mistake. I had gone too far. Sophie bristled at my implicit criticism. ‘She’s really cool when you get to know her.’
I cursed myself as sullenness shuttered her face once more.
We walked in silence for a while, until Sophie broke it abruptly. ‘Did you mean what you said back there? About being afraid of water?’
‘Yes.’ I wished I hadn’t admitted it, but I couldn’t lie now. ‘I was caught up in a tsunami a few years ago,’ I told her. ‘I nearly drowned.’
‘A real tsunami?’ she gasped, fascinated – as so many people were – by catastrophe. I didn’t blame her. I had been the same until it had happened to me. ‘Really?’
I nodded. ‘The wave swept me out to sea.’ At least the thought of it had taken her mind off Ash.
‘Wow, that must have been so scary!’
‘It was.’
‘What happened . . . I mean—’ She blundered to an awkward halt, blushing furiously at the realization that she had sounded crass. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Do you mind talking about it?’
‘It’s okay,’ I said, though it wasn’t, not really. But I had talked about the tsunami with Sarah and with Drew and, beneath her gauche exterior, Sophie was a nice girl. I would rather she was interested in the tsunami than in Ash, with his creepy eyes and his stupid Temple of the Waters.
I told her about going to Khao Lak with Matt, and about parting at the beach, and I admitted to myself that it was getting a little easier in the telling. Sophie listened, absorbed.
‘Did Matt . . . ?’
‘No, he didn’t die,’ I said. ‘We were both okay.’
‘Did you know anyone who died?’
‘We didn’t really know anyone else there. There was a little boy on the beach the day before,’ I found myself saying. ‘He was called Lucas.’ I stopped, shifted my bag back. ‘I don’t know what happened to him,’ I said.
But that wasn’t true, was it? I did know. Or I was afraid that I did.
I had forgotten my plan to talk to Vivien Price until Sophie stopped. ‘I’m going straight on here,’ she said. ‘Vivien lives in Meadow Street . . . Meadow Road . . . something like that anyway.’ She pointed down a road on the right. ‘You just go down here, follow the road round, then it’s on the left. I’m sorry, I can’t remember if it’s the second or third turning, and I don’t know the number, either, but there’s a pentangle in the window – I remember that.’
I thanked her, and headed in the direction she had pointed. Preoccupied by Ash, by his eerie resemblance to Francis and his influence over Sophie, I didn’t even notice how confidently I was walking until I stopped at the end of Vivien’s road. Then I realized that my scalp was shrinking and tingling with recognition.
I had been there before, but not when there was tarmac beneath my feet. There had been no buses with squealing hydraulic brakes, no rumble of trucks, no lines of terraced houses squaring off against each other. Through a shimmer of petrol fumes, I saw scrubland as it petered into woodland. A scraggy cow regarded me incuriously before lowering its head to graze once more. I followed the narrow path as it wound behind a stand of willow, startling some sheep, which blundered away across clumps of rough grass.
And there, at last, huddled into the shelter of the wood was Sybil Dent’s cottage, mossy and skewed.
I blinked, and the image was gone. I was standing outside a perfectly ordinary terraced house, with my hand on the front gate, jarred back to the present, with adrenaline pumping through my veins.
The door opened before I was able to move. ‘Welcome,’ said Vivien.
‘You knew I was coming,’ I said. I didn’t even sound surprised.
‘You knew where to come.’
I opened my mouth to deny it, but then I remembered how unthinkingly I had made my way there and shut it again. Of course I had known where to come.
‘I need help,’ I said.
Inside, Vivien’s house was very calm and simply decorated, with none of the weird images that had cluttered Lucy’s walls. The kitchen at the back opened out onto a small yard, as Lucy’s did, and I caught my breath with pleasure at the sight of it. Every spare inch was crammed with plants, and already the air was heady with the scent of flowers. Fat bumble bees lumbered among the stocks. I had forgotten how beautiful an English garden could be on a sunny June morning.
‘Sit down.’ Vivien indicated a wooden bench charmingly set beneath a tumble of roses. ‘I’ll make some tea.’
I felt myself relax in the sunshine. It was a lovely place, a secret haven from the hard streets and the ceaseless traffic. A cabbage white fluttered past, and I followed it idly with my eyes. I found myself looking at an old ash tree. It was a big tree for such a tiny yard, I thought. It was funny I hadn’t noticed it when I’d first stepped into the garden. Absently, I reached down to tug Hap’s ears.
When Hap sees me pulling on my gown and my sturdy clogs, he scrambles up and stands watching me, his small black body quivering with anticipation from nose to tail. He knows they mean that I am going out. His head is cocked, his eyes alert as he waits for a word from me.
I hesitate. The neighbours like Hap no more than the servants do. They eye him with suspicion, and call their children away from him. Mindful of Ned’s reputation, I don’t take him out with me the way I used to, but I don’t like leaving him here with Margery and the maids, either. I can’t be sure they won’t be unkind to him when I am not by. Today, though, I am going out to Paynley’s Crofts. Why should I not take Hap with me? Have I become so scared of what others think since I married?
I am worried about Sybil Dent. Francis has been whipping up suspicions against her in the street. Alison came back yesterday, full of it. I overheard her telling Margery and Isobel. ‘They say she has a familiar, a cat with a swine’s face and a man’s beard.’ She paused while they squealed and shuddered. ‘And she has christened it Satan.’
‘Nonsense,’ I said briskly, coming into the kitchen behind her. ‘Who told you such a thing?’
Alison was vague on that point. She had it from Mistress Fawcett’s servant, who had it from Anne Dobson, who had it from Elizabeth Lamb, but I know it is Fran
cis who started it all. Suddenly everyone is muttering about witches.
‘Sybil has a fine tabby and she calls it Mog,’ I told them, but I am not sure it has done much good. Now they are just wondering how I know so much about her. Already they shrink from Hap. Perhaps I have made things worse.
Still, I cannot rest until I have warned Sybil to be careful.
Hap’s withered paw is trembling. His eyes, fixed on my face, are dark and shining with anticipation.
‘Come on then,’ I relent, and I laugh as he leaps forward with a yip of exultation and starts to chase his tail. It takes so little to please him. All he wants is to be with me. ‘We’ll go together.’
Hap scampers lopsidedly down the stairs in front of me, claws clicking on the boards. Margery is waiting at the bottom, and her lips thin at the sight of him.
‘Where are you going?’ she asks, as if she is the mistress and I the maid.
‘Out,’ I say coldly, fastening my gown. Ned has business in Hull and will be away for a fortnight at least. In the meantime Margery seems to have appointed herself gatekeeper, but I do not need to account to her. I pick up my basket and click my fingers as I open the door. ‘Come, Hap.’
Outside a weak sun has dispersed the pall of fog that has been hanging over the city all morning. In Paynley’s Crofts the air smells of wet leaves and wet earth, and the last wreaths of mist are still straggling over the hedgerows like rags.
I draw in a long breath. It’s only now I can feel my shoulders easing that I realize how rigid they have been. I’ve avoided the crofts ever since that last desperate encounter with Francis, and I’ve forgotten how much better I always feel outside the city walls, away from the press of buildings, where there is always someone to watch you or listen under your windows. The mood in the streets is often combative. Folk are quick to take offence, quick to argue, quick to fight, but they are better than the ones who whisper and point, and spin scandal out of suggestion or slander out of spite.
Out here in the crofts it is very quiet. There is just the sound of Hap snuffing joyously along the path, and the squelch of my clogs in the mud. In the hedgerows the teasels are bare and brown now, the willowherb bent and bedraggled. The brambles look tired too, and they spill across the path, catching at my skirts. Hap pounces on unseen creatures in the long, wet grass, and sends a pheasant bursting out of the hedge with a whirr of wings.
I am taking Sybil a cheese, and I swing the basket as I walk. I realize that I am smiling. I am thinking about Ned, and how in the privacy of our bed things have changed between us. I still flush with heat when I remember how it was for us that night after Francis came to dinner. I stopped remembering the orchard, and thought instead about the hardness of Ned’s body, about the sureness of his hands and the touch of his lips. About flesh against flesh, skin on skin. And something unlocked inside me. It was like blowing on sullen coals and seeing the embers glow, seeing dullness and greyness crackle into flames, into fire. My husband is a quiet man, a still man, but when the curtains are pulled around the bed, he explores me as if the marvels of the East are inscribed on my body, and the words pour from him, lover’s words that draw me into a web of desire and make my blood sing.
My husband, my lover. I think about the way he smiles against my skin, about the hard possession of his hands, and pleasure shivers down my spine.
Now I know why Alice smiled in the market that day.
I am so busy thinking about Ned that I don’t at first notice that Hap has gone. ‘Hap!’ I stop and turn to see if he is behind me. My first thought is that the mist has rolled in, but then I realize that the path itself is blurred and receding, and there is no sign of Hap. Frightened, I whistle for him, but no sound comes from my lips.
I lurched into the present, my lips still pursed in a whistle. Disorientated, I looked around the garden, and my heart raced with terror. Why were the flowers blooming? It was autumn.
No. Not autumn. It was summer. I pressed my hands onto the slats of the bench. It was summer and I was Grace Trewe.
‘Here we are.’ Vivien handed me a mug. ‘Nettle tea. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it—’ She stopped, catching sight of my face. ‘What is it?’
I clutched my hands around the mug. ‘I’m frightened,’ I said.
‘Hap! Hap!’ I am calling frantically, and suddenly he is there, wagging his tail, clearly puzzled by the note of fear in my voice.
I am puzzled too. My heart is beating fast, but I can’t remember now why I was in a panic. The mist has gone, the path is as it should be, Hap is at my feet. What could be wrong?
I bend to fondle Hap’s ears. ‘I don’t like it when I can’t see you,’ I tell him. ‘Stay close.’
He does until we reach the widow’s cottage, but he won’t come inside. He lurks at the edge of her garden, which is very neat, for all that her cottage is so poor.
Sybil accepts the cheese, but shrugs aside my warning about the rumours that are rife in the city. ‘We do what we must’ is all she will say.
I whistle up a skulking Hap and head home. He is relieved to be away from Sybil, and dashes in circles around me. I laugh at his antics, relieved, too, to be out of the strange cottage. I am thankful to Sybil for saving me from Francis, but the truth is that she makes me uneasy. But I have done what I can, and now I can go home with a clear conscience.
I am thinking how lucky I am, and deciding to make more effort to like Margery, when Hap stops suddenly and lowers himself to the ground. The hackles on his shoulders are rising, and his growl is so low it is little more than a vibration.
There is no one on the path ahead.
‘Hap! Stop that!’ I don’t want to admit how unnerved I am by his strange behaviour, but I can hear the telltale shrillness in my voice. I walk past him purposefully, swinging my basket to show that I am not afraid. ‘Come on now.’
He will follow eventually, I reason.
When I look over my shoulder, Hap is still there, still quivering with tension. I turn, exasperated now. ‘Hap!’ I call again. ‘Hap, come!’
He doesn’t move, and I shake my head irritably and swing back to go on, only to suck back a scream at the sight of a black-gowned figure blocking the path ahead of me. He seems to have appeared out of nowhere, and I take a faltering step backwards, my hand at my throat, where my heart hammers. It is Francis Bewley.
Now I know why Hap was growling. Why didn’t I trust him and turn back to go another way? It is too late now.
‘What are you doing here?’ I ask, and I am furious to find that my voice is quavering.
‘I was about to ask you the very same question,’ says Francis, ‘although I have a good idea of the answer. You have been to see your witch friend, have you not? You should have a care to your reputation, Mistress.’
I swallow the tremor of fright that his sudden appearance has given me. ‘There is nothing wrong with my reputation.’
‘Now there you are mistaken, Hawise. Do you really think that now you are married no one will notice that you dream your way through divine service? The women who frequent the alehouses are more devout than you!’
‘And how is it that you notice what I am doing during divine service, Francis Bewley?’ I am angry now, not afraid. ‘Should you not be wrapped up in prayer yourself, not eyeing the wives of the parish?’
His voice rises as he talks over me. ‘You flout your familiar in front of the neighbours. You consort with witches!’
‘Oh, sweet Jesù!’ I throw up my hands. ‘Hap is a dog. Sybil is an old woman!’ I stare at him and shake my head. ‘Truly, I think you must be mad.’
Something shifts behind the blank eyes. I have made a mistake. I take another step back.
‘You should rein in that tongue of yours, Mistress Hawise,’ he advises softly. ‘I am not a man to make a fool of.’
‘Why won’t you leave me alone? What have I ever done to you, Francis?’
‘You led me on,’ he answers instantly. It as if this has been rankling with him all thi
s time, and now he spits the words at me. ‘You let me believe you were like family to the Beckwiths. You let me believe you wanted me, looking at me with those big eyes, asking all those questions . . . ’
‘I wouldn’t have needed to, if you had shown any interest in anyone but yourself,’ I snap back. ‘I never lied to you, Francis. It is not my fault if you judged me wrong. If you had once thought to ask me a question, you would have learnt that I had no expectations.’
‘No, and yet here you are, married to one of the richest men in the city! Quite a prize for a maidservant with no expectations.’ Francis leans forward, his face alight with malice. ‘I am not the only one wondering how you managed that, Hawise.’
Only pride stops me backing further away from him. I am not going to tell Francis Bewley that Ned thinks me beautiful. I don’t want him to guess that my husband is a poet who seduces me with his words. I shrug instead. ‘He saw me, he wanted me, and wealthy men usually get what they want. It’s as simple as that.’
‘No little potions from your friend Sybil? No magic spells?’ He’s crowding me against the hedge, his breath sour on my cheek as I turn my face away. My flesh is prickling with disgust. I am sure I can smell apples, and my gorge rises. I can’t believe that once I hurried to meet this man. How our desires warp our understanding!
‘Let me past!’ I push at him with the flat of my hand, swinging my basket at him.
‘Oh-ho! So high and mighty now,’ Francis jeers as he bats the basket aside.
The next instant there is a blur of black, a snarl and a snap, and Francis yells as Hap sinks his teeth into his leg. Hap is only a small dog, but he has sharp teeth, and he isn’t letting go, no matter how Francis tries to shake him off.
‘You whoreson cur!’
It happens so quickly. There is a scraping sound, a flash. I see the brutal sweep of Francis’s arm.
Too late I think: knife.
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