The Wilding

by McCann, Maria

  ‘It’ll only die,’ said Simon. ‘You should’ve left it where it was.’

  Tamar felt in my pocket.

  ‘Be careful,’ I said, remembering that ferocious beak.

  ‘He knows me.’ She seized hold of him and at once wrapped him round. Were I Hob, I don’t know that I would find much comfort in being swaddled; I thought Simon was most likely right, and the creature would die, but I had handed him over alive and Tamar must look to him now.

  ‘Back you go,’ said Father, leaning across and kissing me. ‘And not a word to your aunt.’

  ‘No need to tell me that.’

  ‘Not a look, then. Not a smile. I’ll retur for you as soon as I can.’

  It came to me that this hurried farewell on the road, with Tamar fussing over a raven and all of us shivering and hoarse with cold, was my last meeting with the mother of my child. I did believe the child was mine. Nothing Father said, no matter how reasonable, could persuade me otherwise.

  ‘Tamar,’ I said. She was stowing the bundled bird inside her cloak, and looked up as if expecting to hear some question. I had a little ring, a keepsake from a boyhood friend; I groped for her hand and pushed the ring into it. Tamar said nothing, but stretched out her arms as if to embrace me.

  ‘Jon, get down this minute,’ my father rapped out. ‘Get onto the road.’

  I was shamed by tears that would come no matter how I strove to prevent them. The lantern showed me Tamar, looking at me more softly than I ever recall her doing before that moment.

  It ended as my father pushed between us. He relieved me of the lantern, hung it on the side of the cart for safety and took me by the shoulders, saying, ‘Be a man and get down.’

  Feeling more boy than man, I climbed down and waved as the cart pulled away. Only my father waved back. Dunne was busy with the horses. Tamar sat motionless, seemingly studying me, until her pale face dissolved in the darkness.

  As I turned to go back to Aunt Harriet’s house I realised that I had made Tamar the same gift as Robin had: a ring. It seemed I could never carve for myself, but must forever be following and aping someone older. I felt very small and wretched as I let myself in by the back gate, locking it behind me.

  17

  Concerning Corruption in Cider

  Next morning I was awakened by a banging on the chamber door.

  ‘Come in,’ I called.

  Little Billy stood before me. The lad was not an indoor servant: what was he doing here, when he should be with Paulie? Perhaps I was still half asleep.

  ‘Please, Mr Jonathan, the mistress says you’re to come down to breakfast.’

  ‘With all my heart; but what time is it?’

  ‘Never heard the church bells, Sir, but Mrs Harriet says you’re late.’

  It was coming back to me now. I wondered where the Seaton women had woken up this morning: surely not in a feather bed. With the unwieldy fingers of the hasty man I bungled my way into my clothes, my buttons and ties quarrelling with me and my shoes refusing to go on, while the boy stood watching me struggle.

  ‘Tell my aunt I’ll be with her directly,’ I said. When he was gone I stepped to the window and opened the shutter. Nothing but the familiar outlines of the winter wood, and a bitter edge in the ir as if snow was coming.

  *

  Downstairs Aunt Harriet was still seated at the table, very splendid in a gown of black velvet but with no food set before her. I greeted her, sat down to my place, and asked if she wished to speak with me.

  My aunt came straight to the point. ‘Those creatures had visitors last night.’

  I pretended to laugh. ‘What, in this weather?’

  ‘Drunken men will do anything.’

  If ever a woman could testify to that, I thought, she was the one. ‘Did you see anybody, Aunt?’

  ‘I? No. Rose heard men behind the house.’

  ‘Robbers, perhaps,’ I suggested maliciously.

  Her fingers pleating a linen napkin, she appeared to study me. I put my hand to my right cheek, where was some itching and soreness, and found a deep scratch, scabbed over. At once my face burned like a furnace. The heat came in waves, worse and worse, until it seemed it would never go down. I could not think of a single thing to say; my guilt was marked twice over, in the scratch and in this painful blush.

  ‘Robbers,’ my aunt echoed. She regarded me with what looked like amusement for a moment and then her gaze went inwards as if she was thinking. My face began to cool, since her eye no longer pierced mine, but I would rather have been anywhere than sitting opposite her at that table.

  Rose entered and I asked her for bread and broth. This brought my aunt’s attention back to me.

  ‘So, you didn’t hear anything?’

  ‘I slept too well.’

  ‘And yet you’re late out of bed.’

  To this I had no answer.

  ‘You’ll sleep better at home,’ she went on with relish. ‘Is Mathew coming for you today?’

  ‘I expect him, yes.’

  She pounced. ‘Oh? What about the bad cider?’

  ‘You mean the one we boiled up?’

  ‘No. There’s one gone ropey.’

  ‘Ropey!’ I exclaimed. My aunt’s house seemed to breed sickly cider.

  ‘I got Binnie to look at it; he says you’ve squandered my fruit.’

  ‘Binnie’s never had a ropey hogshead, I suppose.’

  ‘Not here.’

  Next year, I thought, he would have the work again, and was welcome to it.

  Rose entered with my broth, laid it down and hurried out. Since my aunt plainly regarded me as a poor workman, I thought she would let me off the spoilt cider and hand it over to Binnie, but she went on, ‘You’d better sample it – see if you can put it right.’

  ‘Father likes to travel early,’ I said lamely.

  ‘Oh, you can take a look,’ said my aunt. ‘Go after breakfast. Goodness, Rose, what is it?’ she cried as the servant appeared yet again. ‘You do nothing but hover!’

  ‘I beg pardon, Mistress, but Dr Green is back.’

  Just for the tiniest part of an instant, I saw my aunt freeze. Rose had blundered: she should not have said ‘back’, or not in front of me. Aunt Harriet recovered directly, saying as if in surprise, ‘Dr Green? At this hour?’

  ‘Yes, Mistress. He says it’s urgent.’

  Aunt Harriet flung down the napkin and left the room. I watched the linen unpleat itself as if it, too, felt the relief of being out of her hands.

  * * *

  I had hoped my father might come for me as soon as he had delivered the women to wherever they were bound. But perhaps he, or Simon, had chosen to rest the horses first. I had nothing to occupy myself and no one to visit, so I thought it could do no harm to look at the spoilt cider. Having armed myself with a tankard from the kitchen, I went off to the cider shed.

  Paulie’s boy peered out from the window of his father’s lodging as I passed. I guessed he would come out to join me and I was right: after a moment he appeared, wrapped up against the cold, and asked if he could come and press apples.

  ‘Oh, that’s over with, Billy. All finished.’

  The boy skipped listlessly about me in the yard until I took pity on him. ‘Very well,’ I said. ‘Come and see the ropey cider.’ He brightened at once and trotted along like a lamb towards the cider shed.

  ‘So, my aunt employs you within doors now?’ I asked him by way of conversation.

  He shook his head.

  ‘No? Then how was it she sent you to my chamber?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ the child said. ‘She called me to come inside and wake you up.’

  ‘Where were the other servants?’

  ‘Don’t know, Sir.’

  Something had been going on while I lay asleep, that was plain: something that upset the running of the household. I wondered about Dr Green’s urgent business with my aunt. Had he and his men planned an arrest for this morning? If so, my father and Simon had arrived in the nick of ti
me.

  When I pulled open the door to the cider shed, the hogshead stood against a wall, its top lifted off.

  ‘What fool did this?’ I demanded of the boy.

  ‘Don’t know, Sir.’

  ‘Open to every infection … ! Was it Binnie?’

  The lad shook his head but I was not convinced, suspecting as I did that Binnie had set out to destroy my credit. He could have spared himself the labour, since I had none for him to destroy.

  The boy watched solemnly as I mounted onto a wooden stool, bent over the hogshead and scooped up some of the cider with my tankard. As I broke the surface an unwholesome smell escaped from the drink, and as I let the contents of the tankard drop back again I perceived the ropes of slime, just as my aunt had described them.

  Paulie’s boy wrinkled his nose.

  ‘Want some?’ I held out the tankard.

  ‘Ugh! No!’

  ‘Best thing in the world for worms, toothache, deafness, baldness, Billyness –’ I pushed it towards him, and the child ran out of the shed, laughing.

  Left alone, I wondered if I could be bothered to go through with the cure, which meant straining out every single rope of slime. I would have to tap the hogshead and drain it through cloth, burn sulphur for purification and start again. Even that was far from being a sure thing.

  It occurred to me that Binnie might have taken the top off in order to throw in a rat or suchlike and thus foul the cider. He might even have taken it for a cure; there are fools who fancy cider is improved by every kind of nastiness, when all it needs is good, pure apple-must, a sound barrel, and time. Spying a rake in the corner of the shed, I removed my coat and shirt, shuddering at the coldness of the air, took up the rake and mounted the stool again. The implement reached to the bottom of the hogshead without meeting any obstruction, but in order to make certain, I stirred the cider vigorously and put my arm in up to the oxter, with my face nearly in the icy brew, straining to feel if anything brushed against my fingers.

  ‘Mind the stool,’ I said over my shoulder, hearing the door open. The next minute there was an almighty shove at my buttocks, the stool dropped away beneath my feet and I was being upended into the cider.

  I was doubly at a disadvantage, from leaning over and from having one arm far down inside. With my free hand I endeavoured to lay hold of whoever was pushing me, but to no avail, and as I let go of the side of the barrel I could no longer brace myself and was forced deeper in. I kicked out furiously with my feet, and struck against the body of whoever was trying to drown me, only to propel myself still further into the liquid, so that my face was under the surface. When I screamed, all that came out of my mouth was bubbles, and now whoever was behind me grabbed my ankles and made to pull them upwards. I curled myself like a shrimp to keep my feet down, but with my nose and mouth full of cider it was not long beforI lost the battle. I felt myself turned head over heels, and the hands let go of me. I was inside the hogshead, borne down by my own weight, scrabbling violently but unable to lift myself out.

  My brain and body were now those of a dying animal, feebly repeating its useless motions. I was gone – lost in terror and despair – when I received a violent shock all along one side; there was a rending sound and I was again aware of someone pulling me by the ankles.

  *

  When I came to I was lying on the floor of the shed with Paulie bending over me, and so cold that my entire body shook as if I were having a fit. The stink of cider was well-nigh overpowering: I looked around and saw the hogshead that had nearly been my coffin a few feet away from me.

  ‘How are you, Master Jon? Can you speak?’

  I choked up vile, sour cider out of my nose and mouth. Paulie pulled me so that I was sitting upright. ‘That’s right, get it out,’ he urged as my shoulders heaved.

  I now perceived Geoffrey Barnes leaning against the wall of the shed and looking capable, in every sense, of shouldering me into the drink. Seeing my coughs and heavings begin to subside, Paulie asked what had happened. Weak and gasping for breath, I was forced to lie down again on the ground before I could speak, but my wits were neither drunk or drowned.

  ‘I fell in,’ I said craftily.

  ‘Give thanks to God the lad found you,’ Paulie said. ‘I’ll tell your aunt.’

  Before I could stop him, he left the shed. I was surprised that Barnes let him take the message, since he himself was often employed as an indoor servant, while Paulie was not. It struck me that if Barnes were indeed the would-be assassin, he had procured himself some time in which to finish me off. He did nothing, however, except pick up my coat and throw it over me, saying I should be put to bed and a poultice applied to keep off the cold. Frightened as I was, and closely as I watched, I could perceive no malice in him, and my fear began to go down.

  Paulie returned saying my aunt was in her chamber, but would be with us directly, and then we waited for what seemed an hour. I know it cannot have been half so long, but I was feeble and sick and craved warmth.

  ‘Did you tell her yourself?’ Barnes demanded at last.

  ‘I told Hannah,’ Paulie replied. ‘The mistress was in her chamber.’

  ‘And Hannah went up to her straight away?’

  ‘She did.’

  Barnes tapped his feet. At that moment I heard someone approaching the shed from outside, and Aunt Harriet burst in upon us.

  I stared at her, trying to puzzle out what was odd about her appearance. Her hair was arranged in its usual style and there was nothing peculiar about her dark-blue gown. Was it that, being taller than my aunt, I was unaccustomed to seeing her face from below? The perspective did not become her: she seemed all jowls as she stood over me, not even troubling to bend down as Paulie had done.

  Her first question was: ‘Has nobody the sense to cover that hogshead?’ She must surely lack a woman’s heart, I thought. Her breast enfolds some mechanical device; a clock perhaps, whose ticks serve for a heartbeat.

  I said, ‘I’m nearly drowned, Aunt.’

  ‘You seem alive enough to me.’

  I could find nothing to say to that.

  She turned on Paulie. ‘How did you find him?’

  The dwarf spread his hands helplessly. ‘If it please you, Mistress, the boy came running to us, said he heard a noise, a splashing like.’

  ‘Perhaps I might take him inside,’ Barnes suggested, seeing me still shivering.

  ‘Perhaps you’ll wait until you’re bid,’ retorted my aunt. Barnes seemed not to resent her temper – he had had years in which to accustom himself to it – but by way of a hint, he bent down and tucked the coat more closely around my body.

  ‘Very well then,’ she flared at him. ‘If you think best!’

  He put his hands under my armpits and asked could I walk. Once he had helped me up, I could walk well enough; we cut a ludicrous figure, for there was not much he could do for me. There was no need to carry me, or even lead me by the hand. Then it came to me that perhaps he knew more than he said, and was staying by me as a form of protection. This did not make me feel any happier.

  At my chamber door I told him I could manage very well if Rose would bring me up some towels and something hot to drink, but still he lingered.

  ‘Master Jon,’ he said at last. ‘May I speak?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Sir, have you really no recollection of what happened?’

  I thought quickly. ‘Why? Is there something I should know?’

  ‘What I mean, Sir, is why would you bend forward so far as to fall in? You know the danger.’ As indeed I did; the impossibility of getting out of a hogshead, once in, had been drummed into me from childhood onwards.

  ‘I must’ve had some reason,’ I said.

  ‘If I may suggest something, Sir, I think Rose should stay with you.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘You’ve been chilled to the bone and a fever might take hold. You should, Sir. You should have someone with you.’

  His eyes seemed simultaneously to warn a
nd to deny. What would I not have given for the ability to read his mind!

  ‘What about my aunt’s dinner?’ I said.

  ‘I’ll send up my wife as soon as it’s well in hand. Until then, she can bring you something hot to eat, and a poultice; and I’ll send the boy too.’

  ‘That’s well thought on,’ I said, and passed into my chamber, where the familiar bed-scent of night and my body was quite overpowered by the odour of bad cider. The very first thing I did was to bolt the door: I had no intention of permitting another ambush. My saturated clothes, clinging to me like a shroud, had me swearing before I could peel them off. I could not wait for Rose or the towels; I took a sheet from the press and rubbed my skin until I was dry enough to put on my nightgown and get into bed. There, I curled up tight and pulled the blankets high round my neck, but I continued to shiver.

  There came a tap at the door.

  ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘Rose.’

  I let her in. The tray she carried bore two bowls: one full of the broth I had eaten earlier, and another containing bandages and mustard paste.

  ‘My word, Master Jon!’ she said, setting down the tray. ‘You’re white as snow!’

  ‘And as cold. Could you fill me a warming pan?’

  ‘Aye. When you’ve had this.’

  I gulped down the hot, salty liquid not for hunger but to get its heat inside me. I think I would have knowingly drunk poison, were it only hot enough. The boy arrived while I was finishing it up and settled in a chair near the bed.

  Rose hurried downstairs and returned with the warming pan. She took the empty broth bowl from me and passed the pan down the bed, first one side, then the other, while I rolled about to keep from being burnt.

  ‘You’ll be right in no time,’ she said, laying down the warming pan and turning to her poultice. ‘Here, unbutton.’ She smeared mustard over my neck and chest, clapping the cloth on top. ‘The dinner’s going to be late. Do you think you could stay on your back, Master Jon, to keep this in place? I haven’t time to bind it.’