I won.
She was everything I am not: tall, full-figured, sloe-eyed, dark. You could easily picture her in a sultan’s palace, strands of rubies plaited into her hair. Her frock was of peacock blue silk—silk, for an afternoon in the courtroom? But on her it looked wonderfully right—right out of the harem.
“How kind you all are.” She spoke in a dark-river sort of voice, as though her throat were filled with dusk. She was staying in a village not twenty miles off, but her dusky voice made it sound like an island of spicy winds and bursting pineapples. Just the place to be marooned.
She despised witches, she said. It was witches that had driven her uncle Harry mad. It was in honor of his memory that she made it a point to attend the trial of every witch she possibly could, in his honor that she celebrated every conviction and hanging. She could only do so, of course, during the summer months, when she visited her cousins. Otherwise, she lived with her family in London, which was mercifully free of witches.
Presently, Eldric sat beside me on the step. “Here’s a possible solution: You and Tiddy Rex and I will stand at the very back of the courtroom, and if you feel ill, we’ll leave.”
“Fine.” The taste of ashes rose in my throat. Just fine! Let me be ill in front of everyone and die of humiliation.
Tiddy Rex kept hold of my hand as we entered. I remembered the depressing courtroom smell of cardboard and eel and moths—and please don’t tell me moths don’t have a smell. I assure you they do.
The court had been called to silence. Eldric leaned in to whisper, “Who’s the person sitting beside Judge Trumpington?”
“She’s the Chime Child,” I said.
“The Chime Child?” said Eldric. “Your father said she wasn’t a child, but I hadn’t quite imagined—”
“She’s very old,” I said. “She says she’s getting too old.”
“The Chime Child, she got to be grown,” said Tiddy Rex. “She got herself a job too scareful for brats.”
“Too scareful?” Eldric looked at me for explanation, but the glass-pictures were coming to me again, slicing me full of memories. Stepmother, lying back on her pillow, saliva creeping out the sides of her mouth.
“You tell him, Tiddy Rex.”
“A Chime Child be a person what see the Old Ones an’ spirits an’ the like.”
Saliva dripping down Stepmother’s chin.
But this was a dream memory, not a true memory. This was how I imagined Stepmother must have died. It was foolish, no doubt, to have inquired into the symptoms of arsenic poisoning: Once I stuffed the information into my memory, I couldn’t stop imagining each stage of Stepmother’s death.
“At the trial o’ a witch, or any Old One, there got to be someone from the spirit world, because—well, it’s like they knows more about witches an’ such-like than us regular folks.”
“She looks remarkably corporeal,” said Eldric. “Not at all like a spirit.”
“She don’t be no spirit,” said Tiddy Rex. “Leastways, she don’t be no proper spirit—do she, Miss Briony?”
I would simply ignore my dream memory of Stepmother leaning over the basin, ignore the bloody . . . Quick someone, say something!
Eldric could be counted on to oblige. “How, then, does she come to be an improper spirit?”
“She don’t be improper!” Tiddy Rex’s voice went into a squeak. “You got it wrong, Mister Eldric.”
“He’s teasing, Tiddy Rex. She has a foot in the spirit world only because she was born at midnight. So she was born on neither one day nor the other.”
“Or on both days?” said Eldric.
I nodded. “And she belongs neither to the human world nor the spirit world, or as you suggest, to both. She has the second sight.”
The constable had been called to the stand. He spent a long while delivering his testimony, but it could be summed up in a few words. Nelly had red hair: One of the witches had red hair; Nelly was one of the witches. Nelly denied it, but a fellow can’t trust nothing what might be said by a witch.
Rose was called next. Eldric and I exchanged a glance. Each of us understood that he’d leave me to my eels and accompany Rose to the witness box. A glance. Hadn’t I once wondered at the way Eldric and his father understood each other so well without saying a word? I was growing fluent in their language. I believe I must have spoken it when I was small. It tugged at little strings that were not quite memory—nostalgia, perhaps? That longing for something you cannot describe.
Rose was all anxious-monkey smiles and indirection. She had a great deal to say about the fire department and the letters she’d written the firemen, and she spoke about the dangers of fire, and somehow got on to confiding that she didn’t like the same-colored food all on one plate. But about her experience with the witches, she’d only say that they’d taken her ribbon.
“Which is not very clever,” she said, “because a pink ribbon does not match up at all well with red hair.”
“You speaks on color, Miss Rose.” The Chime Child spoke in the accent of the Swampsea, with its round vowels and pinched-off consonants. “What does you think on the color o’ yon Nelly’s hair?”
All heads swung toward the prisoner’s box. Nelly held her chin high, looking neither left nor right. It brought to mind her feet, dancing round the Maypole. It must have been four years ago or more, but I hadn’t forgotten her dancing feet.
“Do her hair match the hair o’ the witch you was speaking on?” said the Chime Child. You’d never guess from her plain, gravelly voice that she lived in a world of midnight births and the second sight. “The witch what thinked to thief you away?”
“The witch’s hair and Nelly’s hair don’t match at all.” Rose was very firm on this, but she started to waffle when she went on to say that despite that, neither of them should wear pink, and before she’d finished, you could tell that Judge Trumpington and the Chime Child had lost whatever confidence in her opinion they might have had. Their opinion was doubtless confirmed when Rose shrieked that I must cover my ears (it was almost noon), and they summoned the next witness, who was Eldric.
The air was saturated with yawns when he took the stand. His long fingers fidgeted about for want of a paper clip or a saltshaker or a scrap of the London Loudmouth. I found myself wondering what he’d think when Rose and I stole away to London. Who’d tell him we were missing?
Eldric seemed quite a different person in the witness box. I’d never seen him so—so efficient, for want of a better word. There were no humorous asides, no hint of the bad boy. His account of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth was precise and complete in every detail, except for the bit about the naked backsides. That, he left out.
I noticed particularly.
I had, so far, withstood the courtroom and the eel-sick. But after Eldric had finished, the reflection-slices returned. I saw Stepmother and the white pillow and the black hair and blood and spit. I saw myself too, saw my own bird hands holding a spoon. My hands were feeding Stepmother. My hands were feeding her soup.
And then the sick-sandy smell of eel saturated the courtroom. I tore my hand from Tiddy Rex’s, I pushed through the courtroom door. But the smell followed me down the courthouse steps, round the side alley, where only the dogs could see me heave my breakfast onto the cobbles.
14
Nineteen Chimes
The village children were playing on the railroad tracks, which reminded me that the maiden run of the London-Swanton line had been delayed for want of a permit. But I wouldn’t think about it. I wouldn’t let myself slide into that Möbius strip of worry, where I remind myself that once Mr. Clayborne’s men have finished rebuilding the pumping station, the Boggy Mun will re-infect Rose with the swamp cough. That it will then be too late to run away to London because Rose will only bring the swamp cough along with her.
See how I’m not thinking about it?
Eldric was playing with the children. He rose from a clot of boys tossing horseshoes and waved me over.
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I waved back. I’m coming!
This was the fourth Friday afternoon we were to meet at the Alehouse. Friday is an exciting day. It’s payday, and market day, and bad-luck day, and Pearl-looking-after-Rose day, so you never know what’s going to happen.
Eldric said that my education had been sadly neglected. How, he asked, could a girl grow up in Swanton never knowing that the close of market meant the beginning of Two-Pint Friday? That customers and merchants alike simply slid a few feet north, into the Alehouse, where two beers could be had for the price of one, and the fish and chips were always hot and steaming.
I settled my hat (the ribbon is a very pale pink), I smoothed my gloves (pink monogram on white). Father must have suffered quite a shock when he finally noticed that Rose and I went about in a state of acute ventilation, for he’d ordered up more new clothes. I know it’s only that Father doesn’t want to appear mingy, but I confess, I like new clothes. I adore new clothes.
Perhaps I’m shallow. Yes, I’m shallow, I don’t mind admitting it. Perhaps I should admit that there’s no end to the depths of my shallowness.
Off I went, into the bustle of Friday market, which on this particular Friday was all squashed with oilcloth tents: A storm was blowing in from the north.
Tiddy Rex detached himself from the horseshoe-tossing boys and trotted toward me. He passed a group of girls skipping rope, grubby pinafores flapping, voices rising thin and high.
Tie the baby to the track.
Look! The one oh one!
The train goes click, the train goes clack,
Look, the baby’s done,
For,
Five,
Six,
Seven . . .
Tiddy Rex touched my hand. “Mister Eldric, he brung that rhyme all the way from London.”
All about us, life carried on in its disordered way. A donkey passing, carrying spices and flies. Mad Tom, poking his umbrella into rubbish bins and rabbit holes, looking for his lost wits. Petey Todd, pinching an apple from the greengrocer’s bin.
Petey has a spacious view of what belongs to him.
“Mister Eldric!” called one of the skip-rope girls. “I maked ninety-four, I did.”
“Ninety-four!” Eldric pounced to her side. “You should get a blue ribbon or a gold medal! But I haven’t either.”
He paused, as though considering. “Could you make do with a blue-ribbon bit of fish?”
How the girls laughed!
“Or a fish fried like a medal?”
“I found milady at last!” said Cecil’s voice from behind. He turned me about by my shoulders and looked me up and down—at my skirt (four pleats, checkered in two tones of white), at my shirtwaist (dusted with glinting beads), at the netting (placed strategically across the chest).
“Staring is rude.” I suddenly wished the netting hadn’t so many holes.
“You don’t mind when he stares at you.” Cecil jerked his head toward Eldric.
“He doesn’t stare,” I said. “He looks.”
“I’m desperate to talk to you,” said Cecil. “We’ve never even mentioned it.”
“It?” I said.
“You know,” said Cecil. “It.”
But I didn’t know.
“What are you playing at, Briony?” Cecil stared with his flat, fishy eyes. “I don’t deserve this kind of treatment.”
I stared back. I’m not jolly enough to play at anything.
“You want to pretend it didn’t happen?” said Cecil. “That’s what you always wanted; I see it all now. You putting me off after she died. First, Oh, but there’s the inquest! And then, Oh, but there’s the burial! And then, Oh, but we’re in mourning! I never thought you’d betray me.”
Tiddy Rex squeezed my hand. “What be the betrayment you done, Miss Briony?”
“I’ve no idea,” I said, although I hated to admit it. Even if Cecil doesn’t know what he’s talking about, I usually do.
“That’s the worst of all,” said Cecil. “If you’re going to betray me, at least be honest about it.”
“Let’s talk about this another time, shall we?” I said.
“Oh, but there’s the inquest!” said Cecil, in a squeaky female voice. “Oh, but we’re in mourning.”
“Is that the way I sound, Tiddy Rex?”
Tiddy Rex shook his head. “No, miss.”
I never thought I’d be glad to see Petey Todd. A person like Petey can only have so much fun stealing apples and must perforce increase his enjoyment by clipping Tiddy Rex on the shoulder and circling round to see the tears in Tiddy Rex’s eyes.
“Cry, baby, cry!” said Petey.
Yer mam is going to die.
Hitch yer sister to the plough,
She don’t matter anyhow . . .
“Never mind.” I put my arm around Tiddy Rex’s shoulder. “Petey can’t help himself. Poor thing. You know what they say about him?”
“They doesn’t say nothing!” said Petey.
“They say he’s soft in the head. They say he eats worms for breakfast.”
“Doesn’t!”
“Did you know, he can’t learn his letters?”
“I got me my letters,” said Petey.
“You do?” I made a clown face of amazement, big eyes, dropped jaw. “Can you make the first letter of your name?”
“Sure can! I can make a P.”
“You can make a pee?” Another clown face of amazement. “How lovely! But don’t do it in front of the young ladies.”
“It don’t be like that!” Petey stumbled into an explanation of his code of honor as it appertained to girls. But I turned away. I was done with Cecil, I was done with Petey.
But there are always more people one has to deal with, and on this particular unlucky Friday, it was Leanne. She’d sprung, seemingly, from nowhere, although she was rather robust to be an apparition. The skip-rope girls surrounded her, reaching for her green lace overskirt, which floated over some silvery, satiny stuff. The effect was very pretty and watery, although water doesn’t wear huge ropes of pearls.
“I’m glad you like it,” said Leanne. “But no hands, please.”
Eldric must have seen her since the trial; of course he had. Just look at the way he came prowling over, crunching his tie into genial disorder.
“What a pleasant surprise.” He shook Leanne’s hand. “Come and play!”
“Your frock, miss, it be ever so fine,” said one of the skip-rope girls.
“Them flowers in your hat,” said another. “They doesn’t be real, does they?”
The flowers weren’t real, but what lay beneath the netting at Leanne’s breast was. It was real. She was, in short, like a gland.
Swollen.
Leanne feminina regularitatis est.
But she didn’t breakfast with Eldric every morning, as I did. She didn’t laugh with him as they expanded their bad-boy Latin vocabulary. She didn’t have boxing lessons with him, and surely, he never admired her fist. Did he?
The sky turned to ashes. It snapped and growled.
“To the Alehouse!” Eldric promised fish and chips all round, and a blue-ribbon fish for the ninety-four-times rail-jumping girl.
The children stuck to him. They clung to his arms, they snatched at his jacket.
I hate children.
Cecil took my arm. “I made a botch of it before. Let me try again, talking to you, that is.”
“Talk away,” I said, following the group to the Alehouse. It was a kind of test. Can Cecil Trumpington walk and talk at the same time?
“You’re not as kind as you could be.”
How true, lamentably true. I’m sorry, Father. I do not love my neighbor as myself.
The bloated sky opened up. Rain fell in ark-loads. Cecil and I ran for the Alehouse. The children were already seated at the bar, in fits of laughter because Eldric had ordered a plate of gold-medal fish and chips.
“I don’t see what’s so funny,” said Eldric.
I’d have liked a plat
e of gold-medal fish and chips myself, but the rules were clear. Fisher-brats at the bar, gentry at the tables.
Leanne, Cecil, and I gazed at one another. The three of us, together, were thin as gruel. We needed Eldric as thickening agent.
The longer I looked at Leanne, the more I saw her as a bundle of clichés. Raven’s-wing hair, laughing eyes. Ruby lips, shell-like ears. You could probably mix them up and it would make no difference.
Ruby ears and shell-like lips?
Heaving cheeks and scarlet bosom?
I was rather surprised to find Cecil gazing not at the scarlet bosom but at my face. He’d spoken to me. He was waiting for my response.
Leanne helped me out, gazing at me with her curling eyes. “That frock does suit you wonderfully. Pity, it’s the sort of thing I can’t wear. It wouldn’t suit me at all.”
What did Leanne mean beneath her talcum-powder words? Was this one of those compliments that turns around to bite?
Then a marvelous piece of conversational good fortune came our way: The Hangman rose and walked past us. He was an enormous fellow. Heads turned, following him. Conversations faltered, leaving dribbles of silence, until he pushed out the door.
Don’t think about it, Briony; don’t spoil the day! Nelly’s hanging has nothing to do with you. It doesn’t matter that she’s a witch and is going to hang. Or that she’s not a witch and is going to hang. Just count yourself lucky you’ve avoided her fate so far. Just fall into the conversation about witches and hangings and ooh, isn’t it exciting!
Leanne was quite the witch hunter. Her entire family had been plagued by witches. Not only had witches driven her uncle mad, they’d brought her cousin out in boils; he had the scars to prove it. Not to mention her sister-in-law—
Leanne delivered herself of this information with a terrible sort of gusto. Her cheeks shone, her eyes were rosy. News of Nelly’s trial had brought her to Swanton initially, and now she’d returned to see Nelly hanged.
Don’t let her guess what I am! Let’s hope she’s like the others, who look only at the surface. Let’s hope she’d never think that a girl with black-velvet eyes and cut-glass cheekbones could be a witch.
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