Shift, stays, petticoat, shoes. The stays feel unnatural and stiff, the petticoat is bunched at the waist. Three attempts to pin my hair and it begins to loosen and fall already. Pull the coif on to my head, trying to feel the position that Bett set it in.
In the hall there hangs a round, polished plate. The house is silent yet and I allow myself to stop there. The girl stares back with large, blue eyes, face exposed by the pulling away of hair. Like any other village girl. More serious, perhaps. I wonder what she would think of me, had she been born to this.
Daniel’s chin appears at her shoulder, his lips touch her cheek. She smiles, and is me again.
‘Shall I come with you?’ he asks. ‘Help on your first day?’
‘I can manage. Have you no task of your own, idle?’
‘Yes,’ he says, laughing. ‘Though it’s dung spreading and now I regret passing milking to you.’
‘Too late. You must away to your dung and leave me be. I am very busy about my work.’
The sound of footsteps and Mr Taylor coughing the night’s phlegm from his throat approaches.
‘Yes, miss,’ Daniel says, winking. ‘Then I shall see you tonight, when we are done.’
The beasts seem larger now I’m alone with them; the horses baring their great teeth, the oxen cracking their horns. Even gentle Pippin, with her eyes like deep pools, seems bigger and clumsier.
I take a breath, smooth down my petticoat. I am Sarah, the dairymaid. Reaching for the stool and pail, I settle myself, set to my task. Soon enough, though once I almost slip from my seat and once Pippin prances and almost spills the milk, the bucket is filled and my first task complete. I would skip to the dairy were I not so weighed down by the results of my efforts.
I swing the linen parcel at my side, walk as fast as I can up the hill, though the rub of these shoes and warmth of my clothes hinder me. News of my day, my new life, brims, waiting to burst from me.
My timing is good, they’re all sitting around the table, though it’s sparsely covered. I’ve eaten more food today than they have to share between them.
Annie jumps up, runs to me and throws her arms around my waist, buries her head in my petticoat.
‘All right, little cub,’ I say, crouching so that I’m face to face with her. ‘What news today?’
‘Seth comed, he didn’t need a cure but brought buttermilk and crammings, and he swinged me round and round and round.’
‘Until the buttermilk and crammings returned,’ John says.
‘And the babby spadgers are learning to fly,’ she says, skipping back to the table.
I follow her, placing down the parcel and unpacking the food. ‘That’s sweet,’ I say.
Mam presses her toothless mouth to my cheek.
‘See you’ve come just in time to eat our food,’ John says, grinning.
‘I brought my share.’
‘Well,’ Annie says, reaching across the table for a chunk of bread. ‘It is sweet for the foxes when the birds learn to fly because they eat the ones that have falled.’ She takes a huge bite, pushes the mat of hair from her face, continues talking around the food bulging in her cheek. ‘And today the one flapped and called, even while it was in the fox’s teeth.’ She uses both hands to shove the remaining bread into her already-full mouth, says something that I think is, ‘And the mammy bird flapped around it and called and called.’ Impossible to be sure, muffled as her words are.
She continues to chew, swallows, picks her teeth, oblivious to our stares. ‘Can I have the cheese?’ she asks, and I push it down the table to her.
When the meal is done I bring the gifts from my pocket, hesitant now to pass them out, as though I somehow set myself above them in doing so. Annie cups both her hands to take the pendant, full-moon eyes and mouth opened.
‘It’s so pretty,’ she says.
‘Here.’ I place it around her neck. ‘Like this.’
She dips her head, lifting the little fox to look at it. ‘I’ll wear it always and forever, and never not once take it off.’
John whistles through his teeth as I pass him the case, turns it in his hand. ‘’Tis not such a bad thing to have a worker in the family after all, then, even though it cannot be me.’
‘Cannot yet be you,’ I say.
He snorts in reply, reaches for his knife and slips it into the case. I can smell the leather from across the table.
It is Mam I’m most feared to pass my gift to, knowing her demand that all coming through the door must have a use. Here am I presenting a trinket.
She swallows as she takes the necklace, peering down at it in her rough palm. ‘Oh, lass,’ she says at last. ‘You should not have wasted your earnings on an old crone like me.’
‘No crone. Just my mam.’
She pats my cheek and I long to take her hand and keep it there always. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she says, putting the necklace on. ‘I shall wear it day and night and it will be like carrying you with me.’
I nod, embrace her. ‘Has he been back?’ I whisper. ‘Wright?’
She shakes her head. ‘Nay but – the stories I hear. The things they’re saying he …’ She catches sight of Annie watching and swallows her words.
‘All will be well,’ I say, though fear sickens me so, I can barely speak.
Mam smooths her hair. ‘Aye. Now. Tell all of your new life.’
Gifts given and tales of the luxuries of life on the farm shared, I help Mam with her work. We crush dried camomile leaves and prepare a brew, for though Alice Turner has been released by the sprite that tormented her, she still suffers with wild thoughts and frequent fears, Mam says. As we stand together stirring leaves and water in the pot over the fire, I can let myself imagine for a moment that I did not leave, that tonight I’ll lie with Annie curled at my side again.
But the light fades, and I know I must go. Annie and I take ash from the fire, sprinkle a ring around her mat, then I stand her by the open door to search her skin. Mam assures me she’s done it, but I must see for myself.
She hops from foot to foot, hugging her skinny body. ‘Too cold,’ she says. ‘Tarry till morning, look then.’
‘I can’t, Annie,’ I say, prising her arms from her chest so I can turn them and search the underside.
‘Why not?’
‘I’ve to live at the farm now, remember?’
She is still, wet brown eyes turned to me so that I can barely look at her. ‘But, why?’
‘So that I can work, and bring you food. So that we may all have a better life.’
She crosses her arms, stamps a filthy foot. ‘How is it better if you’re not here?’
I pull her to me but she resists. ‘Who will keep me safe?’ she asks.
I swallow back tears, force my voice to come calm and steady. ‘Mam will search for marks, John will ring the bell. You’ll be safe.’
She does not meet my eye, nor even lift her face to look at me. Tears drip from her chin and leave little splashes on the dusty floor, and if each one were a drop of molten iron on my skin they could not pain me more.
I cannot stay. Mam holds me, cups my face, gives the same smile I gave to Annie. ‘Proud of you, lass.’ Even John pats my shoulder.
I kneel in front of Annie, take her in my arms. ‘Farewell, little cub. I’ll see you again very soon.’
She turns away and I leave, each step another pain to my heart.
I’m halfway down the hill when I hear the call. The wind thins and steals her voice, but I hear my name nonetheless, know it’s her. She flies towards me, so fast that if I were not here to catch her she would run on forever.
She lands against me, thumping the air from my chest, almost knocking us both to the ground. I sink to the grass, holding on to her as though she’ll float away if I let go. Her arms are tight around my neck, fingers taffled into the hair that has fallen loose from my coif, and I tell myself that it is for us both, for us all, that I must leave.
The Darkness that Broods
‘Wickedness,’ Ma
gistrate Wright said. ‘Buried in the very breast of this community, a viper deep in the heart of you.’
Every face turned to him, every breath held. He did not bellow, but the steady authority of his voice, the lance of his gaze entranced them all. A small man, thin-faced and spotless amongst the dust and hay of the barn, the weathered faces and ever-present odour of fish in the crowd before him. Magistrate Thompson, gluttonous in every way, had been replaced by a being different from him in all aspects. There had been rumours of his interests in the flesh, but only when the village caught him with Phyllis were they moved to act. Even now, many preferred the appetites of the old magistrate to the rigour of the new.
Daniel leaned against the wall, present in body but removed in spirit. He lost himself in thoughts of the white skin that ran below Sarah’s shift, to the place where he had dared lay his hand only over her clothes. Of the wildness in her, the parts of her spirit she kept from him that he could never truly know, that both thrilled and disturbed him.
As if in reply to his sinful thoughts, when Daniel at last focused his eyes they fell upon Parson Walsh, standing at the edge of the crowd by the door. Quiet now, in contrast to his gregarious behaviour at the beginning of the evening, the minister’s face was crumpled and he wrung his hands.
Daniel glanced at the magistrate.
‘Papists,’ he said. ‘Hidden from sight, continuing with their rituals of abomination behind closed doors, but there are those among you who know of such happenings.’ He paused long enough for his audience to begin shuffling and examining their hands under his accusing stare. ‘And innocent you may be, and godly you may be in your own practices, but if you turn a blind eye to the work of the Devil through your neighbour then you are as sinful as he. And I in my duties to God and King and country must smoke out these traitors and bring them to justice, and you in yours must aid me.’
Daniel leaned forward a little, his stomach turning at each word, watching the furtive glances pass between those who called each other friend. Sam Finch, sunken-eyed and grey-skinned, stood a way apart from the fisherman Turner. Still, each let his eye slide to the other every so often, laden with guilt and suspicion.
‘And worse than this: witchcraft. Suspicious happenings, with a want of any natural explanation. Beware the darkness that broods amongst you. Light your candles at night, leave a jar to ward off evil at your doors. If you do not turn this malevolence away then you invite it in. Come instead to me, the instrument of right, and light, the very means by which the King asserts his will to you.’
A movement at the open doorway, barely there but he saw because he waited for it, knew it to be Sarah passing on her return from the secret visit to her family. He slipped round the side of the barn, at the edge of the crowd who all were intent upon the words of the magistrate.
‘Evil can bear the face of neighbour, friend, even family, those we trust, those we love,’ he was saying. ‘Look about you with sharp eyes. Those that hide wickedness become wicked. I call upon you to speak your suspicions in clear and honest voice and I will act. The only way to protect the innocent is to punish the guilty.’
Daniel had reached the door and already in his mind he and Sarah were at the river, her skin spilling warm beneath his hands. He made to step free of the barn and the foul words within, but these last held him. He had not attended when the brawling men were put in the stocks. Still, Gabriel’s description of how folk had jeered, hurling rotten cabbage and stones, had been unavoidable.
‘That lad Joshua fell to snivelling and calling out for his mammy by the end,’ he had said as they shovelled dung. ‘Little runt.’
‘Poor lad,’ Daniel said.
Gabriel snorted. ‘It’s well you’re hid away from the village here, you’re too soft for the lives of ordinary folk. There’s a demon loose down there, one of they devils, I don’t doubt, and each night changing form to a different animal, and bringing terrible fate to any it choose, and Sam and Nelly more than any, they’s saying. He’s not fit to work, even now.’ He had stopped to wipe his brow. ‘You should take more thought, all in the village is using witch marks and jars. Happen you’ll need protection here too.’
Daniel had not dwelt on his words, convincing himself they were rooted in no more than Gabriel’s hatred of the Haworths. But seeing the dread and suspicion the magistrate stirred tonight unnerved him. He felt more keenly the danger of his plan; should Sarah be exposed, the village would certainly condemn her as a witch, believing she had tricked them all.
Behind him, a shout of ‘papist’ rose, and the responding cry of fear and denial had him turning to see some scuffling. He did not recognise those involved.
At the edge of his eye that movement came again, the quiet shift of cloth at the doorway of the farmhouse. He hesitated, caught between his desire to protect, and the need to see Sarah. Parson Walsh hurried past, to where the commotion continued. One man, moving to protect the innocent.
Streak of Silt
I run along the edge of the water, laughing at the chill on my bare feet and legs. Daniel chases after, lifts and spins me round so that my toes make a circle of ripples.
He sets me down and I stand calf-deep, the bottom of my petticoat floating.
‘Oh, look what you’ve done.’ I strike his arm. ‘I’m wet.’
‘You’re standing in the river, did you suppose you’d stay dry?’
‘I held my clothes up, this is your doing, and on purpose, I think.’
‘I beg your forgiveness, lady,’ he says, smiling. ‘If that is your wish, so be it.’
He kneels at my feet, gasping as the water hits his waist, and gathers my dripping petticoat, holds it up to me. Places his free hand on my bare leg, at the back of my knee. Turns his face up to me, and I look down at him, feel his touch warm through the cold water, calloused hand against smooth skin. We stay silent a moment.
I laugh. Take the wet cloth from him, slap his shoulder with it. Shaking just a little. ‘Goffy,’ I say.
‘What?’
‘You know – goffy. You’re puddled.’ He looks at me blankly. ‘A fool,’ I say.
‘As I believe you’ve mentioned before.’ He stands. ‘You are in danger of repeating yourself.’
‘Nay, you’re the one in danger, for all this cheek.’
‘I shall happily take the risk,’ he says. Steps forward, arms around my waist, lips on mine. Body pressed against me, and he kisses me until I cannot breathe and no longer wish to, if only this can continue, and the blood races through me, warming my skin and beating through my head and I long to lie on the bank, pull him to me.
Sun rises and calls me from a content, comfortable sleep. I lace the stays and quickly tie the belt around my petticoat. Hold the pins in my teeth, twist hair into place and fasten it with a blind but expert hand, position the coif.
There is more to my life as dairymaid than I first thought; not just milking but also helping Bett with any work she chooses, from herding the geese to washing laundry in the beck. I relish each one, hoarding every new skill. Daniel has taught me to ride Bonny, even to swim, though I dare not go in deep. It is more than I ever imagined.
At meals I don’t wait for invitation, but fill my bowl with pottage, so much richer than at home, and eat as the others do. As much as I desire, more than I need. A marvel to me, still.
‘You’re filling out,’ Gabriel says as he waits in the doorway for Daniel to collect their basket of food. ‘See how your cheeks have plumped.’
I glance at him, do not respond. Can barely disguise my aversion.
Mr Taylor snorts. ‘That’s not the kind of comment to appeal to a young lass.’
Gabriel looks confused, but perseveres. ‘’Tis a fine thing. Sign of a healthy girl, good appetite, ruddy cheeks.’
‘Thank you,’ I say. Glance at Daniel, but he’s looking at Gabriel, frowning.
‘So my mam says, anyway.’ Gabriel’s face is the colour of the turnip we ate last night.
‘Does she?’
&n
bsp; ‘Yes, the poor old crab. I shall never be free to leave her, as you have.’ He laughs, and I know it’s meant as a clumsy jest, but I’m assaulted with yearning for Mam, Annie and John, so strongly that I feel it ripple across my face.
‘I’m sure Sarah misses her family,’ Daniel says. ‘And they her.’ I smile, comforted not only by his words but also, to my shame, by Gabriel’s miserable silence as he stares down at his hands.
‘Well,’ Mr Taylor says. ‘Miss you they might, but they’ll be glad of your wages when the year comes to an end.’ Blood trickles from his nose.
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘I can cure you of that.’
All heads turn to me and I remember, too late, that I am dairymaid not cunning folk here. Mr Taylor wipes his nose, but it continues to bleed.
‘I – I saw it done, once. Far away in my own – in the parts where I dwelled.’ I should stop, but it’s too late. My knowledge is spoken. And even now, despite danger of discovery, there is pride in sharing it.
I gently tip his head forward, catch the drops of blood in my cupped hand. He is silent, doing my bidding. Gabriel gives an uncertain laugh. ‘Well, lassie, how come you by such skills? It’s almost like you’re—’
Disquiet makes me short-tempered. ‘I told you, I saw – I remember how it was done.’ I look straight at Daniel. He sits pale and wide-eyed. Feared, and I know why, but I cannot stop now. ‘Fetch me the shovel.’
He nods and together we kneel by the fire. He holds the shovel, I drip the blood into it. ‘Hold it over the flame,’ I say.
He does my bidding, though the shovel trembles in his grip. Soon the drops are dried to dust. Casting my eyes about, I spy Bett’s goose-feather duster.
I catch Gabriel’s eye and nod to it. ‘Pluck me one of those.’
He laughs, glances from me to Mr Taylor, who simply shrugs. ‘Aye, aye, all right,’ Gabriel says, bringing me a feather. With care, as I’ve seen Mam do, I brush the dust on to the feather and, as Mr Taylor leans down when I bid him, blow it into his nose.
Cunning Women Page 19