Trying not to make a sound, she stepped into the parlour and started to wrap the last scraps of food in a kerchief. There was scarcely anything left, only Bess’s Saint Faith cake, a few withered apples and a handful of nuts.
The church bell had just rung out midnight when she returned to the bedroom.
‘I’m feared I won’t hear the time in this storm,’ Jennet whimpered.
‘I’ll listen out for the bells.’
Setting a newly lit rushlight in its holder, Tabitha found her mother’s almanack, and leafed through the pages until she found what she needed:
1752 October Hath XXXI Days
6th Day Saturday. St Faith, Virgin and Martyr. Sunrise 8 minutes past 5.
Finally, she laid down next to the girl and placed a comforting arm around her bony shoulders.
‘Try to rest,’ she whispered.
The next four hours were a purgatory, filled with snatched spells of dozing and horrified awakenings. Soon after the bells rang out four faint chimes, Tabitha got up, wanting plenty of time to arrange matters. The wind was still raging outside, buffeting roof-boards and whistling through the thatch. Going back to the parlour she revived the fire and threw some oats into the pot. Darius pretended to sleep on, but she caught him watching her through his long black lashes. When she set the porridge down before him he asked for light.
‘All our candles are gone,’ she said. ‘Not even a rushlight until we make some more.’
Putting on her red cloak, she unlatched the front door and was blown backwards as the rain buffeted her, sending spitting darts into her face. It was still pitch dark, and she could sense, rather than see, tree branches lifting around her. The air was biting cold.
Stepping back inside, she saw Darius pulling on his boots.
‘She ready?’
‘I’ll go and see.’
Jennet was still curled up on the bed, though her eyes were wide and stared at nothing.
‘Listen,’ Tabitha said, so quietly that it was scarcely a breath. ‘Get dressed and go with him, as far as the gate. Then tell him you have forgotten your bundle of food. I’ll be waiting inside.’
‘I cannot go,’ she whimpered. ‘What will Father say?’
‘Just do as I tell you and all will be well.’
It was a struggle to dress Jennet in her gown and grey cloak – she recoiled at every touch. By the time she was ready Darius was pacing the room, bundled in dry clothes.
‘You,’ he barked at Tabitha, grasping Jennet’s arm and directing the point of his knife at her breast. ‘Not a word to the law, or I’ll slice her. Got it?’
She nodded. ‘I’ll stay low, wait here. I’ll do anything to keep her safe.’
Then turning to Jennet, she said, ‘Good luck. Be brave, my girl.’
Jennet cast her a despairing glance. Then, held tightly in Darius’s grip, she was half-dragged out of the front door into the gale. Tabitha waited at the door, her nerves stretched to their limits. First Darius, then Jennet reached the garden gate. Timing was all.
‘Jennet! Your bundle, with the food and money,’ she shouted. ‘You forgot it. Come back.’
She heard Darius curse, but a moment later Jennet stumbled back towards the cottage door. Tabitha hastened her inside, dragging off her wet grey cloak, and cast it around herself, pulling the hood down low. Then, snatching up the bundle, she stepped out into the rain and slammed the door on the bewildered Jennet.
Darius was a pale blur, waiting for her on the track. He called to her, but his words were snatched away by the wind. As soon as they moved from the cottage door, he was nothing but a grey phantom ahead of her, and she hoped she was little more to him. She followed him, striving to stay a few paces behind him, her feet moving blindly onwards, her shoes sinking into wet mud and puddles. In a minute she was soaked to the skin, her heavy skirts dragging around her ankles. On a night like this, even the countryside she knew so well could bewilder her like a foreign land. She strove to read her surroundings, trying to wipe her eyes free of stinging rain. Every few moments there came a lull in the wind when she could hear Darius’s steady breathing and the wet slap of his footsteps. As her eyes grew stronger she could see his silhouette more clearly before her, as light on his feet as a muscled tomcat, well used to padding through woodland at night.
The mud beneath her feet stopped squelching and began to crunch as they reached the gravel path. The river was running high, and sounded like a hissing giant, waiting in ambush. Somewhere in the sky above her was a tiny sliver of moon, but it was obscured by rainclouds. The stars, too, gave off no glimmer of starlight. Could not this murk be turned to her advantage? For a few moments, she considered trying to lure Darius off the path, but that felt too perilous.
Then the mournful bleating of sheep told her they were passing to the right of the farmer’s pasture. Darius was slowly descending ahead of her, and she felt herself, too, moving downhill. The river had to be her best chance, but what she could do with it was as yet unclear. Too quickly they came upon its roaring presence; a rush of pale movement hurtling past them, throwing freezing pinpricks into her face. She tried to sight the stepping stones but could see nothing breaking the surface’s foam. If Darius wished to escape, he had been a fool, truly, to wait at the cottage while the waters rose so high.
His face was a smudge of pallor in the dark.
‘Which way to the boat?’
Her hand was numb from holding her hood down over her face. Not daring to speak, she tugged his sodden sleeve, and motioned for him to follow her. Joshua kept his boat upriver towards Chester, by the bank where her mother’s body had been found. Now that she led the way, she felt Darius watching her back, convinced he would notice from her figure and gait that she was an imposter.
Soon she had greater worries to occupy her. The last half-mile was like a maze built on a marsh; the usual riverside path had disappeared beneath the rising waters, and she had to move to higher land, feeling her way along the spongy banks. Little rills of panic assailed her. Once, when Darius startled her by coming too close, she lost her footing and slithered down a mud bank, arms flailing, only saving herself by clutching at a sapling. Beside her, the river roared, barely a hands’ breadth away.
Painfully, she hauled herself back up to higher ground. She was frightened of falling, but more frightened still by visions of Darius’s victims. Her mother’s last moments had been spent near this very spot, in terror of this man. Poor, foolish Francis had also been butchered by him. She moved forward, calf-deep in the sinking marsh, as terrified exhaustion threatened to overwhelm her.
At last, she felt spikes of furry bulrush meet her outstretched hands. Just then, like an omen of good fortune, she heard the faint notes of Netherlea’s church bell announcing five o’clock. She stopped in her tracks, trying to understand the lie of the land. A sickly glow in the east was illuminating the sky. Where was the boat? It was years since she had been here with Joshua, and now she could only sense hundreds of dark furry spikes, moving like waves in the wind. And if she found the boat, what then? Her usefulness would be over.
Darius’s heavy hand fell like a dead weight on her shoulder.
‘Where is it?’
Still holding her hood up with her frozen hand, she turned away from him and looked up-river. There it was, a dozen paces away; the stump of a mooring and the bobbing shape of a boat, covered in a dark oil-skin. Not daring to speak, she lifted her other arm and pointed, waiting for him to move towards it. If he would only be distracted by the boat, she could try to run away … But instead, he grasped her arm, and dragged her through knee-high water towards the boat. Too late, she remembered the strength and whiplash swiftness he had shown in Netherlea gaol. Clumsily, they both stumbled onwards in a flurry of splashes, and he whipped off the oilskin. Finally, he yanked Tabitha towards him, snatched down her hood, and pulled her face so close to his that she could smell his dog-like breath.
‘Did you think I wouldn’t know you?’ he taunted. ‘You’ll
wish you’d never tried your poxy tricks before I finish with you.’
The next moment, she felt herself thrown into the air; then, with a shriek of pain, she struck the solid bottom of the boat. For a long moment, she was winded, and her head spun. With a great effort she raised it and saw that Darius had turned his back on her as he untied the boat from its mooring. Testing her body, she found that the base of her spine hurt, but she could still move. This is your chance, her mind screamed.
She raised herself up on her elbows, reached for the gunwales, then hefted herself up and over the side of the boat and plunged into the water. Gasping, she spluttered as mud-thick water blocked her eyes and nose. Then, finding her feet in the slutch, she took a deep breath, kicked out, and launched herself towards a patch of rushes.
There was a sudden sound of rushing air behind her, culminating in a violent whack and splash. The end of the oar had barely missed her shoulder. She launched herself deeper and further away, through the hard but springy rushes. Burrowing into their centre, she crouched, trying to make herself as small as possible as Darius hit out again with the oar, cursing and raging.
‘You stupid bitch! I’ll make you beg for your last breath, just like I did your mother. The old baggage woke from the blow I gave to her head, but she didn’t struggle long under water. But I’ll draw it out sweet and slow for you.’
Tabitha listened in growing dread and rage, wishing to God she had a knife to drive deep into his black heart.
When he grew quieter she inched her way forward, observing him through a gap in the stalks. It was getting lighter every minute, and at last he sat down in the boat, attempting to paddle it through the reeds towards the main flow of the river. She was shivering from head to foot, and her teeth were chattering so violently that she feared the sound would betray her.
Just as he edged the boat forward he turned; his rage had not yet burned away. He yelled out at her, and she tried to shrink away beneath the water.
‘I curse you, festering whore! You think this is ended, but you’ve still got my master to reckon with. I’ve seen you swallowing his every crafty word. You reckon him such a great good fellow, while all the time he plays you for a fool. May you rot in Hell!’
With dreadful slowness, he manoeuvred the boat through the rushes, until it hung at the very edge of the river’s tidal flow. The main torrent was a dirty, foaming mass that swept along branches and debris in its flow. Gripping a handful of rushes with one hand and the oar with another, Darius steadied the boat, trying to judge the best moment to steer out into the current. Suddenly he let go, and the boat shot out into the race, spun around like a leaf in a whirlpool, tilted to vertical and capsized.
In an instant, Darius disappeared beneath the surface. Tabitha strained to look for him in the half-light; but, while the up-ended boat floated upstream, its oarsman never broke the surface again.
She stared at the spot for a long time, blinking sleepily, unable to rouse herself. She knew she had to act but was having difficulty remembering what it was she must do. Finally, she noticed the shoreline and tried to drag herself towards it. It was no use: her clothes dragged her backwards into the river, clinging and trapping her weakened limbs.
She shook her head and blinked. The sun was getting brighter with every moment; a marsh bird whooped and fluttered nervously in the sky. She drew heart from the slow transformation of the world around her, the retreat of the darkness and the fresh pinkish light of dawn. Pulling drenched hair from her eyes she noticed smoke rising from Eglantine Hall’s tall chimneys behind the trees. With anguished cries of effort, she slithered up to the shore, until at last, with much panting and heaving, she hauled herself up and on to the grassy bank.
TWENTY-NINE
A Riddle
I grace the cottage, court and town,
My feathers are as soft as cygnets’ down:
Four feet I have and yet my head is bare,
My curtains wrap and yet no window’s there;
One half the year as if with leaden wand,
Death’s elder brother does o’er me command,
But sometimes he to active love gives place,
And makes me fruitful with her warm embrace.
The 6th to the 30th day of October 1752
Luminary: The day shortened to 10 hours long, decreased 6 hours 26 minutes.
Observation: Opposition of Saturn and Mars from Virgo and Pisces.
Prognostication: It is not safe to be too secure.
When Nat first heard the sound of knocking, he thought it must be a shutter banging in the infernal wind. He pulled his coat more tightly around his shoulders and hunched over the fire, too exhausted to investigate. The Cambridge coach had rolled into Chester well after midnight, and all his fellow passengers had trailed into the golden-lit entrance of the Cross Keys Tavern. He alone had held back; his business in Cambridgeshire had already delayed him damnably, and he was rattled, as if the uneasy wind had infected him with its fretfulness. So he ordered a glass of negus to be sent to the stables, and after a delighted reunion with Jupiter, was soon up in the saddle. There had been no letter from Tabitha for three days, and anticipation of her surprise the next morning glowed like a hot coal inside him, through all the dark and drenching ride back home.
The banging continued to penetrate his reverie until he noticed that the knocks were being struck in weak beats of three. He stood and yawned, leaving his night robe warming before the fire. Taking only a candle, he went downstairs in a flurry of chasing shadows. In the hallway, he could hear nothing at all. Curious, he opened the front door and found daylight seeping into the sky, and a heap of wet clothing discarded on his steps. Investigating with the toe of his boot, he was horrified to find that a person lay within it; and, even worse, that it was Tabitha who lay there, senseless on the ground.
For sweet pity’s sake, he cursed. Why had he not investigated sooner? Swiftly he carried her upstairs, her limbs hanging stone cold in their dripping garments. Then he laid her in a high-backed chair beside the fire, fetching a blanket and bottle of spirits. She was insensible and her face had a bluish cast; across her cheek, a swollen ridge was sliced, a wound the length of his finger. God spare him – but at least she breathed, faintly but regularly. In a panic, he pulled at her wet clothes, peeling off her sodden grey cloak, heavy skirts and petticoat. What price modesty when his sweet love might die?
Her garments were gritty and stained muddy brown and smelled of the river. He had got as far as her stays when he found the knots seized – he sliced through them with his knife. Trying not to look too hard at the curves and crannies of her nakedness, he dragged her clinging shift up over her head and began to dry her with the blanket. She shivered, her eyelids flickering, but remaining closed. Once his own green Chinese robe was wrapped around her, he reached for the cauldron of water warming by the fire. Gently, he washed her face, and then the skeins of her long hair, lathering it with almond soap and cradling her head as mud and broken leaves were rinsed away. Tenderly he dried the snake-like tangles that dripped down to her waist. He was thankful to see her colour improve, and a pulse beat at her neck. He carried her over to his bed and laid her down. Then he set a warm cup of brandy to her lips.
The spirits made her gasp, and her eyelids fluttered. Finally, she blinked, and looked at him for the first time.
‘Dammit, Tabitha. Are you trying to scare me to death with such a greeting?’
She stared up at him, seeming not to see him. Fetching a hot stone from the fire and wrapping it in flannel, he pushed it inside the bed.
‘I need warmth,’ she whispered hoarsely. He obliged, and she clung to him, knotting trembling fingers into his shirt.
‘What happened to you, my poor love?’
‘Darius. Came to the cottage.’ In fits and starts she recalled her ordeal. ‘I think he’s dead,’ she ended. ‘Save me, Nat. I thought I would die.’
Damn the rogue to hell! He had almost lost her. He kissed the wound on her face, tasting
the iron-saltiness of her blood. As he did so, her mouth slid to his throat, exciting a pang of pleasure. He was holding her gently in his arms, but she pulled him tighter against her, bone to bone, locking them together. He tried to free himself. This could not be honourable, he told himself; to take advantage of a half-drowned woman.
‘I am so cold,’ she begged.
‘Tabitha, stop.’
His blood was heating and hardening, nevertheless. He kissed the top of her head, as though she were a child. Still she clung to him, trying to absorb every ounce of his heat. Her eyes were open and glassy, her lips parted, her hair a Medusa’s nest. She looked like a wild woodland creature, a tangled dryad of the forest.
‘Warm me, Nat.’
Her breath tickled his neck, and a pang shot directly to his groin. She was a pitiable creature plucked from the hands of Death himself, but she was also an extraordinary being: Agape, the muse he had searched for all his life. She moved beneath him, and his bones grew incandescent. I am on the edge of the precipice, he marvelled; if I leap, everything will change. Then all argument ended – he could no longer think of anything but her.
Kissing her, he felt a deep tremor in her jaw; her mouth was warm and yielding, yet still her skin was cold as a shroud. He chafed her arms and found himself pulled closer still. Involuntarily, he groaned. Damn his blood, she was trembling in his arms, shuddering, her eyes half-closed. Her icy hand snaked down and lifted her robe, uncovering the length of her naked leg. Now she was tugging at his shirt.
‘I thought I would die,’ she whispered. ‘Bring me to life again.’
Her wide eyes were no longer unfocussed but piercing him, shining with tears. For an instant he puzzled over the meaning of her words; then he lost himself, plunging into the crimson darkness.
The Almanack Page 19