The Wilding

by McCann, Maria

  ‘She’s told you why I fainted.’

  ‘A curious error, Aunt: I’m not so like him.’

  ‘More like him than anyone else in this house. What were you doing on the stair?’

  ‘I intended to knock at your chamber door,’ I lied. ‘There was nobody downstairs when I arrived so I let myself in the back way.’ Another lie, and a stupid one since I’d had the horse with me. Had I gone to the front door first she would have seen him waiting there, but mercifully her mind was on other things.

  ‘I’ve rid myself of that girl,’ she announced, peering at me in the hawk-like way she had, but thanks to Rose her blow fell short; I only smiled.

  ‘You’ve found yourself a laundress?’

  ‘Not yet. But she had to go.’ She held out her fingers fanwise so that I could admire her ring, which I now saw was of gold, engraved with a pattern of dog-rose. ‘She took this from Robin while he was incapable.’

  ‘Shameful,’ I responded. ‘When did you find her out?’

  ‘The day after you left.’ She was a better fencer than I: the answers came back pat, without a pause.

  ‘What ingratitude, and you not over his death yet. He must be constantly in your thoughts.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  I recalled what Hannah had told me. ‘My mother still dreams of her father, you know.’ (This was true.) ‘She says he’s watching over her from the other world.’

  ‘If Barbara thinks that, I’m surprised she doesn’t turn Papist,’ Aunt Harriet shot back. ‘I stand by good Protestant doctrine. The dead don’t go wandering about our heads at night.’

  ‘Then why do we dream of them, Aunt?’

  ‘Why do we dream of cabbages?’ Aunt Harriet sneered.

  There was no doubt about it: she was fully recovered and back to her old self.

  * * *

  The cider-apple season is a long one. Even so, I could no longer stay at my aunt’s since so many villagers also had early varieties needing to be pressed; I would soon be obliged to return to the neighbourhood of Spadboro and my work there. There was no difficulty in doing this: I could easily finish up my aunt’s earlies and return for her lates.

  First, however, I had to carry out my promise to Tamar. I knew nobody in the village who could supply me with pens, ink and paper, so I took some from my aunt’s private store, leaving her money in return along with a note that said, ‘I have not time to explain now, dear Aunt, but you will find this amply repays what I have taken’ – as indeed it did.

  I had no expenses at End House and consequently had not touched the wages paid to me by Joshua Parfitt and other people. With these in my purse I went to the market the next day – Aunt Harriet, supposedly still weak, was staying at home – and purchased two good thick blankets from a weaver. I then bought a heap of hot pasties, folded them in the blankets and walked from the market directly along the lane and into the wood where Tamar and Joan (who had, as foretold, left the parson empty-handed) lay huddled against the cold. They were more than thankful; they wept. When I saw how they fell on the pasties, tearing at them like starving dogs, I thought the villagers could not be paying much for their wicked pleasures.

  Afterwards they huddled together to keep in the warmth, bundling themselves in the blankets like a courting couple so that they resembled one body with two heads.

  ‘We spent months like this once,’ said Joan in that curious cracked voice that nagged at my memory. ‘Tamar was a tiny mite; she won’t remember.’

  ‘Where was that?’

  ‘Somewhere up in Gloucestershire.’

  ‘What, in a cave?’

  She smiled at my ignorance. ‘Not as good! A cottage burnt out during the war. It was bitter cold – worse than this. When we weren’t looking for food we slept the time away, kept our strength in.’

  ‘But you must’ve een.’

  ‘Snails, roots, anything. I’d catch birds with a string. If you sleep you don’t eat so much; we just about hung on. Sometimes a labourer’d bring us a cabbage or a bit of pottage, something left over.’

  I wondered what he had received in return. Joan’s words opened a window through which I glimpsed an unimaginably hard time, the wheeling years of hunger bringing round biting winters and blistering summers that had fused mother and daughter together. And yet, even while I pitied them, I also felt a strange envy of their wandering life. I had always thought of myself as a careful and hard-working son. Now I saw that I had grown up like a puppy, gambolling about in my careless way, while they had faced out hunger and violence; they had known and endured more than I ever could. This it was that made Joan seem so old, when her daughter could not be far into her twenties, if that. I recalled the unease I had felt on first meeting Tamar, the feeling that she was not of the same breed as ordinary folk.

  And Tamar – what did she see when she looked at me? Just that, no doubt: a pampered puppy. Is it pleasant, Sir, being so virtuous?

  The portrait being scarcely flattering, I was glad to turn to the next part of my errand.

  ‘You asked for pen and paper.’ These things had so little in common with the life I had just been picturing that I thought perhaps Tamar had begged them in a spirit of mockery – this, in spite of my having seen the amulet.

  It was Joan, not her daughter, who answered. ‘Yes, indeed Sir, if you please.’

  ‘You say you can’t write,’ I pointed out – not unreasonably, I thought.

  ‘I can, though. I’m telling you different now, Sir; I trust you now.’

  I brought out the paper and pens from under my coat. Joan grew as excited as when I had handed them the warm pasties. It was extraordinary to see an old beggar-woman so delighted with the tools of scholarship.

  ‘What do you want them for?’ I asked, passing her the paper. ‘Can’t you make your amulets from leaves and bones?’

  Joan seemed not to hear my question but pressed the paper to her breast, her eyes wide and wet. She was gone away into another world and there was something pitiful in her dumb, gleaming face.

  ‘She’s overcome,’ said Tamar. ‘You’ll be glad of your kindness one day, Master Jon.’

  ‘Yes. Well.’

  ‘Now if we had firewood we’d lack for nothing, nothing at all.’

  I marvelled at the shamelessness with which she turned thanks inside out. She was not a vagrant for nothing: here was one who could beg an apple peel and end by carrying away the tree.

  ‘There’s none to be had,’ I said. ‘I’ll cut you some for next year; but as for seasoned wood, my aunt will never give it.’

  ‘I know that, Sir,’ said Tamar.

  There was a silence. I thought about that ‘next year’. By then they might be gone, or dead.

  ‘Where’s your raven?’ I asked to turn the subject.

  ‘Out scratting for food. He’ll come back when it’s dark.’

  ‘Did you teach him to talk?’

  ‘He taught himself.’

  Another silence.

  ‘Your aunt has a big woodpile,’ Tamar said after a while.

  ‘It’s overlooked by the house. No, Tamar, I can’t.’

  ‘Of course you can’t, Sir,’ cried Joan, coming back to herself. ‘What’re you thinking of, girl? He’d be thrown out by his ears!’

  ‘He has a home to go to,’ Tamar said, grinning to show this was an attempt at wit.

  Joan also favoured me with an almost toothless smile. ‘We have to take care of our Master Jonathan. No, Sir, you just make sure the gate’s unbolted when it comes dark. Tamar’ll do the rest.’

  Panic rose in me. ‘What about Geoffrey?’

  ‘Don’t worry, Sir,’ Tamar said. ‘He’ll be none the wiser.’

  Perhaps not, but I would. My conscience pricked at the very thought of it; I saw myself transformed in the moment of consent from a dutiful nephew to a whore’s accomplice preying on his own kin.

  ‘Supposing I did, it could only be for one night,’ I warned them, secretly glad that this was the case. ‘Tomorrow I le
ave for home.’

  They bowed their heads in acceptance.

  ‘My word, Sir! Listen to the wind!’ said Joan. As if on cue, she and Tamar fell silent. Even inside the cave, I could hear how it wailed. Shuddering in the draught that blew in through the hurdle, I knew I would do what they asked.

  * * *

  ‘What of the Redstreaks and the rest?’ my aunt demanded the next morning. ‘You won’t forget?’

  ‘Of course not. As soon as all the earlies are pressed I’ll come straight back and have a look at them.’

  ‘Very well,’ she said, as graciously as if she were paying me.

  We liked each other no more than we ever had and I thought with longing of my parents. I missed their honest faces; I was more than ready to continue in my old roun did, it cith good fellowship and laughter, taking a bit of bread and cheese and gossip along with my wage.

  I had, as agreed, opened the gate the night before: my final act of friendship towards Tamar and Joan before my departure. Strolling to the well in order to give the press one last sluice down, I glanced at the woodpile. I could perceive no difference in its size or shape, but then I had never observed it with any care until now. The gate was securely fastened. However skilful a thief, Tamar could hardly have bolted it after her; Geoffrey must have found it open. He would be on the watch in future.

  There was nothing I could do: the women must lie cold, unless Tamar could wheedle firewood from one of her men.

  She could not ply her trade in Joan’s presence, surely? But then it came to me that Joan might well have done the same in her youth, and raised her daughter to think nothing of it.

  It seemed I had gone about the world deaf and blind up until then; I felt I was learning a great deal, in those days.

  7

  Of Home, and the Dreams I Had There

  Though I knew my mother to be strong in her way, and capable at times of guiding my father with a firm hand, I had never been so aware of the warmth and force of her nature as when she opened the door to me and at once, without a word, folded me in her arms. I felt I had indeed come home. In my mother there was none of my aunt’s spiteful pride, none of the sly, fierce, spiky comradeship of the young fox and the old, just the generous love of a mother towards her son.

  I held her tighter and longer than was my custom. ‘End House is well enough, dear Mother’ – I kissed her cheek – ‘but I’d rather be here with you.’

  ‘My darling son! We’ve missed you,’ cried my mother, still clinging to me. ‘Your father’s in the orchard, piling up, you must go to him. Oh, and Simon Dunne’s been asking after the horse. I promised you’d see him paid.’

  ‘My aunt had such a crop of earlies, we’re only just done.’ I took her hand and we walked together into the house. ‘I hope you didn’t think I was dallying there, Mother. The girl’s gone.’

  ‘We had a letter from Harriet said as much,’ my mother admitted. ‘And how did you leave your aunt? You were of help to her, I hope?’

  ‘She sends cordial greetings to you both,’ I lied. ‘She’s not like anybody else in our family, is she?’

  Mother shook her head. ‘A different breed of person.’

  ‘Is that because of her noble blood?’

  ‘Perhaps. Your father knows her better than I.’ My mother smiled as if, though sorry for Aunt Harriet’s loss of her husband, she had often felt the need of patience when dealng with that disagreeable lady.

  I said, ‘I think noble blood must be half vinegar.’

  Mother laughed and squeezed my arm. ‘You went there of your own free will! Go and find your father while I tell Alice you’re here for supper.’

  *

  Father was turned away from me, bent over a heap of apples. I thought he looked stooped and burdened, but when he turned, saw me and straightened up, he at once cast off the years and flung out his arms in welcome, his face aglow with the kindly cheerfulness I remembered from childhood. I ran to him and he enfolded me, patting my back as if I were still a little one, though I was now as tall as he – perhaps taller.

  ‘I’m delighted to see you looking well, Father.’

  He said nothing; I think he was unable. But his embrace left me in no doubt of my welcome.

  ‘It’s a fair crop,’ I said, pulling free at last. ‘Shall I start at once?’

  ‘That’s a right helpful, dutiful offer,’ Father said, beaming on me. Though I smiled back, I was not so very happy at this speech, which told me he had lately been considering me neither helpful nor dutiful. He then went on in a more practical vein. ‘If between us we pick ’em – you, me, your mother – and then allow time for digestion, you can do a four-day run, come back and help us mill, eh?’

  I said of course I could, and showed willing by going with him round the orchard, noting which early trees had a bright ring of cast-off fruit encircling the roots, and which still had apples clinging to their boughs and would need to be finished off by hand.

  Smooth going, so far. The awkward part began at supper, which we sat down to an hour later.

  There was a little bustle at the start, since my mother had changed plans for the meal in honour of my return. They had cut into a ham and had the very best cider glasses, engraved with apple boughs, put on the table. These glasses, a wedding gift to my parents from Aunt Harriet herself, were grander than anything we usually drank from and were hardly ever brought out, for fear of breaking them. Though hungry, and eager to begin, I could have wished for something simpler. To my troubled conscience, the mingled perfume of food and drink carried a whiff of the fatted calf.

  Father said grace and then proposed a toast in cider: ‘Here’s to this year’s. May it be equal in brilliance and beauty.’

  My mother laughed as we clinked glasses. ‘Are you sure it’s the cider you’re toasting, and not some fine lady?’

  Since he was a devoted husband, as she well knew, we all joined in the laughter, and set to with a will. The ham, cut into little pieces, had been stewed with onions and cream and I know not what besides. It was exceedingly rich, even after the food at my aunt’s house; I think my mother meant to show me that home, too, had its comforts.

  ‘Talking of fine ladies –’ said Father.

  Now I was for it. They were eager for news of Aunt Harriet, of End House and also (since I seemed to have unshackled myself from her) of the mysterious whore who had been sent packing.

  ‘You’ve pressed a great many apples for your aunt,’ my father began. I took my cue and described the varieties I had milled and pressed, the combinations thereof, her mill (which was of a different make from ours) and the loss of good fruit when I was called home and my instructions neglected.

  ‘And with all those servants!’ my mother exclaimed, baffled by such profligacy.

  I said it was a pity, but my aunt had been taken up with the discovery of the thief and retrieving Uncle Robin’s ring, and had forgotten to give the necessary orders.

  Father nodded his head. ‘Harriet won’t be what she was, not now she’s widowed,’ he said.

  I said I had never known her as well as I might but, widow or not, she was an altogether formidable lady. At this my parents exchanged glances.

  ‘Did she seem to like you, Jon?’ Mother inquired. I recalled what Aunt Harriet had said about that famous will of hers, and how women wanted her to inscribe their children in it.

  ‘To be honest, Mother, I think not. I can’t say I liked her.’

  ‘Your relations were civil, though,’ my father urged.

  ‘Yes, of course. I said I’d go back for the late varieties.’

  ‘Then we can ask no more.’

  We were already overheated with the rich food. Father mopped his brow. ‘It seems the – difficulty – has blown over.’

  ‘Difficulty, Father?’

  ‘He means that girl,’ said my plain-speaking mother.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’ve scarcely given her a thought of late. Shall I tell you what I know?’

  Mother said,
‘If it’s fit to be told.’

  ‘He would not repeat anything unfit, I’m sure,’ said Father, crediting me with his own delicacy.

  ‘She had a gold ring of Uncle Robin’s. Aunt Harriet says she stole it.’

  ‘Of course she did,’ said Mother. ‘Robin never gave a thing away in his life.’

  Father replied, ‘He may have done, Barbara. He knew he was dying.’

  My mother’s expression altered as she looked back at him. Recalling herself, she went on, ‘And the girl was brazen enough to wear it?’

  ‘Whestify" did or not, Aunt found it out.’

  ‘And took her before the constable?’

  I stopped, brought up short. ‘I suppose so. I don’t know.’

  ‘He’ll send her back to her parish,’ said Mother.

  I wondered what my parents would say if they could know that she was earthed in the wood just behind my aunt’s house, warmed and fed by their son; that she claimed she was the only one to care for Robin in his last days; that their son partly believed her, despite having witnessed certain proof that she was a whore, a filthy Maid Marian, just as Aunt Harriet had said; that I was now become her protector in every sense except the carnal one; and that my most recent exploit in the Robin Hood line had been to help her prey on my own family. But why had the constable not whipped her away? Thinking aloud, I said, ‘Tetton Green may be her parish. Her mother –’

  ‘Mother?’ they cried in chorus.

  ‘She begged in the village,’ I said with a calmness I did not feel. ‘She’s gone now.’

  I had stumbled badly there. I must keep what I knew separate from what I was supposed to know, even in my own mind, lest one should fly out and smash the other to pieces.

  ‘These beggars are a plague,’ Mother remarked. ‘After the war, yes, there were bound to be beggars with so many injured and ruined and what not. But not now.’