The blush on my face betrays my lie, the smirk on John’s shows his disbelief.
‘Go tell your pretty tales to Mam, then. She’ll believe you, no doubt.’
He runs off in the direction of the village, and I fret so about what he might be doing there that I forget to wash the clams.
‘What happened to these?’ Mam asks, wrinkling her nose as she picks them over. She holds the stone up to the light, takes the coin, nods.
‘We meant to rinse them,’ I say.
‘Meant to. No use.’ She scoops them up, drops them into a bowl and hands it to Annie, wiping her sandy hands down her petticoat. ‘Wash these at the well. Don’t come back until they’re clean.’
I hold my hands out before Mam’s words have fixed themselves in me. Annie’s eyes open out like full moons. ‘Just me?’ she asks. ‘By my own?’
‘Aye, you’re old enough now. Be gone, lass, make yourself useful.’
Annie takes the bowl as though she’s been handed a casket of gold and skips out of the house into the fading light. Mam and I stand, listening to the rattling of the clams and Annie’s singing drifting, the table between us, each leaning against a wall. She throws me a look that makes me wary of the conversation to come, suspicious of her reason for sending Annie away, then runs to the door and pulls it open.
‘Back,’ she shouts. ‘Back here.’
The rattle returns.
‘Only go to the well if the green’s empty. If there are villagers there, even ones you’ve seen here, leave and come home. Talk to no one. Understand?’
Mam steps in, closing the door. She presses a hand to her forehead. ‘She’s still innocent of their hate. I’d not have a stone thrown or a taunt spoke and steal that from her.’
I think of the ill will we’ve found in the village since the new magistrate is come, the venomous accusations this morning. The farmhand. But I cannot reply, for Mam is making me fearful. There’s a brittleness to her movements and the way she avoids my eye. I wait, swallow down my disquiet. She is building up to something.
Taking the clay figure from by the fire, she turns and strokes it, lifts and peers at it. ‘Dry,’ she says. ‘What should be done with it now, dust think?’
‘I think we should leave be.’
‘The netter should go unpunished?’
I run my hand over the table, brushing crumbs to the floor. ‘He’s lost some teeth, had his eye blackened.’
She places the figure on the table, looks at me until I’m forced to turn away from the crumbs and meet her gaze. ‘You think you’ve another path now, happen?’
Her face is expressionless, voice gentle. I do not think she mocks me, but I’m not sure. I cannot reply.
‘He made promises, did he? Prattled a tale of a better life?’
I say nothing but I know she can read the answer on my face. Her talk is perilous and I feel my fragile happiness under siege.
‘I do believe he cares for you,’ she says. The hope I want to take from her words is stolen by the pity in her eyes. ‘For a lad like him to come here, to warn us of the villagers and return, just to see you. You’re right to think it means something. The feelings are real. The promises are not.’
‘But if the feelings are real, why can’t the rest be? He wants to be with me. We will find a way.’ I realise in this moment that I believe it with every part of me. When two people feel as we do, so purely and without any doubt, they can make it possible. We will make it possible.
‘Oh, lass,’ she says, stepping around the table, making to stroke my hair and then hesitating, hand wavering in the air. ‘I wish I could tell you it were so.’
She brings her arms around her own waist, and I wonder when she was last held by flesh not of her own. She knew love once. So long ago she can’t remember how it feels.
I take her hands, rub them so the truth of my feelings can be pressed into her. ‘It is so, Mam. It was for you and Father. It is for me.’
‘Your father was not the only son of a farmer. And I was not—’
My grip on her tightens. I do not mean to hurt her. ‘Not what? What am I?’
Whatever I am, that affords me less chance of happiness than she had, she was my maker. I manage to stop myself saying it, for even now I know that whatever she has made me it was not of her own choosing.
‘You are poor, lass. We have nowt to offer on your behalf. God knows, I wish it wasn’t so.’
‘God knows I’ve as much right to happiness as any.’
‘God knows you were chosen by another and it is to him you must turn if you want to live.’
I drop her hands as though her flesh burns me as her words do and press my fists into my eyes. She’ll not have the satisfaction of my tears. The flickering in my eye and snarling through my bones brings a feeling of such uncontrollable wildness that it scares me. I fear what I’ll become when it takes me over. Already, it has caused me to pain Mam in every way possible. And this I chose, just as Daniel prepared to offer me another life. A peaceful life.
‘You want something that cannot be. It pains me to tell you, but it is so. If you should try to walk a different path, with one not of us kind, you’ll not escape. He will destroy the one you love so that you may be claimed back.’
I bring my fists down on the table so hard that the clay figure rattles. I will not hear her words. I have resisted my power, have caged the dog. He’ll not find us. I will steer my fate, take my own life in hand, as she never did.
‘You cannot remember how it feels, too much time has passed.’
A smile transforms her face, surprising me. ‘I remember saying these same things to my mother. It was all not so very long ago, lass. Though sometimes it feels another life.’
She sighs, rubs the small of her back and lifts her face towards the tattered roof. ‘All I want is to protect you. You put yourself in the way of pain.’
She cannot understand. Her time to protect me is gone.
‘Better to embrace what lies within yourself than search for happiness in another,’ she says. ‘Don’t be feared to discover your own power.’
‘You take me for a fool, if you think this will make me reveal—’ I almost say ‘the dog’, the words dance in my mouth like bees.
She steps forward. ‘It’s all right. You can tell me. Share your burden. Tell me what you’ve conjured. ’Tis here to protect you as you grow into your powers, nothing to fear.’
Her eyes are clear and soft, as I remember them from when I was small, those times when I ran to her for comfort, burying my face in the welcoming folds of her petticoat. When she wiped my tears and washed my scratches. Should I speak, the dog will run separate from me as Dew-Springer does and have its own will, no longer controlled by mine.
But I am weary with hiding it. Perhaps if I tell her she’ll teach me to master a familiar that runs separate, and keep it under my bidding.
As I open my mouth to let the bees out I hear Annie laughing and clams rattling, and next the slam of the door and pounding of feet. Not just Annie’s but Seth’s too.
‘Sorry, Mammy, I know you said not to talk to anyone but it was only Seth and he’d already seed me, hadn’t you? So I thought—’
‘Aye, right,’ Mam says. ‘Stop that prattling now.’
She takes the bowl of clean clams, places it in front of the clay figure, blocking it from Seth’s view. And I’m saved from revealing the flicker in the corner of my eye. Exhausted, I pull out a stool, sit and lay my head on the table.
Seth stands in the doorway, beaming, clutching a pail. Another offering, no doubt, though he clearly needs no potion today. He looks from Mam to me.
‘Now, then,’ he says. ‘What’s this?’
Bewitched
When at last the day was done Daniel stood in his room, rubbing soap on to a cloth, dipping it into the bowl of water ready to wash the filth from his body. He paused to rescue a drowning spider, catching it and crouching to tip it gently into a corner of the room, watching it scurry into a hole in t
he wall. His skin stung when he had finished washing, but the ashy scent of the soap left him refreshed and he crawled under the blankets, relieved to rest his exhausted bones.
Sleep denied him. His mind would not let his body settle, but went over instead the events at dinner that night, hearing Father’s words again and again until his head pounded. He could find no way around his plight.
The conversation about Molly had been halted by Parson Walsh arriving to collect the buttermilk they donated to the poor. For the first time, as Daniel had listened to his assurance that the family it was given to were deserving, he realised it was the Haworths. He had never truly understood the depth of Sarah’s poverty.
He turned, kicked off the blankets.
If Father would despise the match with Molly then he would be filled with fury if presented with the daughter of one he loathed. They would be forced to run away. No Bett to care for them, nor even Father to advise. He and Sarah would be banished, alone in the world to make a living, build a home. He could not see a path that did not lead them to a hovel, a diet of buttermilk. He was not bold, never had been, and had never envisaged facing such a foolhardy choice.
He was but a step away from safety.
Tomorrow, he could seek her out, tell her it could not be. Undo the damage he had done, take that one step to the life expected of him. A predictable, unchanging life.
He could see this life but remained untouched by it, for he would go through the whole of it unseen. His heart thudded, his breath failed. The only way to calm himself would be to bury his face against Sarah’s neck and breathe in the salt-scent of her skin, to see the turbulent blue of her eyes and hear her voice. She was both his turmoil and his comfort. And he wondered now if she had bewitched him, that he would yearn for her so, that he would act so recklessly.
His hair grew hot and damp. But even in his fear, he knew the peaceful life without her in it was not for him. He wanted what they spoke of, to share the little house with her, to dance on May Day together. He must have this life, would do whatever it took to bring it about, however afraid he was, however surprised by his ability to imagine beyond the ordinary.
Daniel turned and buried his face in his sweat-soaked pillow.
‘If I am bewitched, then let it be so,’ he whispered. ‘If I am bewitched, let it be so.’
And to this refrain, at last, sleep crept over him.
Infused with Light
‘Seth’s brought us buttermilk,’ Annie says.
Mam takes it from him, places the pail of white, watery slop on the table. Its sour smell begins to fill the room. ‘Thank you,’ she says. This time of year we can rely on a regular supply, and though its taste is not sweet, it does keep the belly filled.
‘It was given freely, by those that have to those in need. The actual milk of human kindness.’ He chortles at his own humour, looks around for approval. Finds none. ‘But wait – why these solemn faces on such a beauty of a day?’
‘Our real Sarah’s went away and this one is having a new life with Daniel,’ Annie says, shaking her head.
‘Hush, Annie, I said it was to be our secret.’
She wipes her nose and shrugs. ‘I only keep secrets for real sisters.’
‘Wait, what’s this?’ Seth asks. ‘What is all this? Springtime love blossoms?’
His smile is broad, like a child given a gift and I cannot stay solemn in the face of his joy. He will see the truth of our feelings. My blush is answer enough.
‘Why, this is wonderful news. Happy news.’ He beams at the stony faces of Mam and Annie. ‘We celebrate, do we not, Ruth?’
‘Celebrate we might, for two other people. Those who reach too far can only fall.’
‘A young man from the village?’ Seth asks.
‘Aye, and she’s set her hopes on the highest there. The family will not consent.’ Mam rearranges the two bowls on the table. Picks up the clay figure and slips it on to a stool, furthest from Seth. ‘Though I do believe their feelings run pure,’ she says quietly, face turned away from me.
‘Well, then,’ Seth says. ‘All cannot be lost, if the feelings are as you say. Who is the young man?’
‘Daniel Taylor.’ His name on my lips. Sweeter even than the flawn.
‘Ah.’ Seth lifts his face to the roof, considering. Praying, perhaps. I wait, impatient to hear his thoughts on Daniel. ‘Well, yes I see your dilemma.’ He chuckles. ‘Oh my, you choose a wealthy family. The only farm in the village.’
His smile fades when he sees my expression. He clears his throat. ‘Ah, but still, as your mother says, the love is there. Is it not?’
‘It is.’
‘I shan’t never love a man,’ Annie says as she peers into the buttermilk and dips her finger in.
‘Good lass,’ Mam says.
‘When I’m growed,’ Annie says, slurping around her finger, ‘I’d rather be a man than love one, anyhow.’
Seth laughs. ‘That will take more than prayer, little one.’
She scoops a handful of buttermilk. She has said her piece and the conversation no longer interests her.
‘So you see my objection?’ Mam asks. Her eyes follow movement on the floor, and I know she watches Dew-Springer, but will not speak to him while Seth is here.
‘It is difficult, to be sure. The father is not one to take monetary matters lightly.’
They are all against us. Even Seth, who has been our ally all these years, gently dissuading those that have wanted to attack us in God’s name.
‘But you choose wisely, my dear.’
Mam snorts. ‘A wealthy family?’
‘But the most compassionate, the very kindest and good of heart. Of all the young men in the village, oh you have chosen the ray of light. There is hope.’
He bounces over to me, bends so our faces are level and clutches my hands. His palms are warm and wet, his eyes that look into mine so earnestly quiver. There are times of melancholy that come upon him, and times when he sees only joy, despite what may be in front of him. But his words bring my dreams alive and I choose to notice only them.
He rushes over to Mam, cloak flapping and catching on the corner of the table. ‘I can help, I will intervene. If they are ardent and constant, as even you believe, then I can persuade the father. He is a man that wants to be assured of his place in heaven, for his dear wife awaits him there, and given the role bestowed on me I am the only one with the power to convince him that this is the way.’
There is a pause in which Annie burps and grimaces, and I think for a moment that she’ll puke over the table. Buttermilk looks no different going in or coming out.
Mam steps back from Seth as he stands almost touching her. ‘Your thoughts are no straighter than hers today,’ she says. ‘There are times when you see the world as more beautiful than it is. Remember. Know yourself.’
He sighs and lifts his face again. ‘I see the world as God intended, touched by His hand and infused with light. And love.’ He turns to me and beams.
Annie climbs down from her stool and shuffles towards me, bent a little and clutching her belly.
‘This is His doing, I feel the truth of it.’ Seth speaks so fast in his excitement that his words smash into each other. ‘To bring together the sweetest young souls of the village and in doing so welcome a far-flung family back to the flock. And I am his instrument. I am chosen.’
He looks around at us, chest heaving, eyes bright with wonderment at this great revelation. Right now I truly believe every word he speaks. How can Mam oppose us when even God chooses us to be together?
‘You carry yourself away, Seth,’ Mam says.
He wags a finger at her. ‘No, no, no. Recently I am struck by the goodness, the very godliness, I find in the humble village folk, the honesty and integrity.’
Mam catches my eye, and I look away, refusing to acknowledge that we know this to be untrue.
‘This new magistrate brings a wave of morality and I am confident it is all we need for the village to welcome yo
u, with warmth, without judgement.’ Seth presses his hands together, smiles at us all. ‘Young Gabriel, who works on Master Taylor’s farm, enquired just the other day whether we might see you in church. He seems to show a care for you in particular, Sarah, and we may perhaps entreat him to speak your case with the father.’
Such ignorance. ‘Oh nay, he of all—’ Annie tugs on my arm and turns a miserable face to me. I sigh. ‘Greed has got the better of you again, little cub.’
‘She has a hunger, poor thing,’ Seth says.
‘Sit her down still, I don’t want another tableful of her guts,’ Mam says.
Annie shuffles to a stool like an old woman, removes the clay figure from the seat and places it on the table with a thump before sitting. Exposing the true depths of Mam’s trade. I wonder if Seth is so sure of God’s choice now. He glances at the figure, looks puzzled.
‘A queer plaything. Yours, little one?’
Annie slumps forward, chin resting on the table, teeth clacking as she replies. ‘Nay, it’s Mammy’s, for burning and sticking pins to punish the netter.’
Silence. Seth swallows and looks from the table to Mam. I lean forward. The air is suddenly tight between us. He will withdraw his offer to intervene now, I know it.
‘It will surely be an advantage to you all that these two are united,’ he says. ‘To be accepted in the village again. To live by more fitting means. You will be protected.’
Mam says nothing, though I know as well as she there is no protection for us in the village any more.
Annie begins to whimper and gulp, and I lift her and run for the door, stepping through just before the buttermilk makes its reappearance.
The White River
Father grunted as he sat down, waiting as Bett filled a basket with a jug of ale and bread for them to take to the fields. ‘Ploughing first, lad, before the day heats.’
Daniel yawned and nodded. ‘Late night, was it?’ Bett asked.
Father raised an eyebrow. ‘Out till after dark again.’
Cunning Women Page 14