Cunning Women

by Elizabeth Lee

  ‘There,’ I say. ‘You’ll be cured while the first task’s done.’

  I look around at them. All three stare at me. Gabriel and Mr Taylor with bemusement, Daniel with something verging on terror.

  ‘I – at least, that’s how I think it was done. I saw it once.’

  Mr Taylor reaches for his hat. ‘Aye, well. Thank you, lass. But now, let’s about our day.’

  I hurry out, before Daniel can take me aside and question me. Happy to help Bett with the cheese. Gabriel runs to catch up with me before I can reach the dairy.

  ‘That were a good trick,’ he says.

  ‘No trick. I saw it done.’

  ‘I – I did not mean to offend,’ he says. ‘Before, when we were—’

  ‘I know you did it without thought to.’

  He takes off his cap and turns it in his hands, looking at me with a worried expression. I wish I could curse him again, to be away from here and never return. Drawing myself up I lift my chin, meet his eye, hoping he’ll lose his nerve. Just as I faced him the day he hit me.

  ‘Well, I – wait …’ He stoops to peer at my face, narrows his eyes. ‘Sometimes I could almost think that … We do not – know each other?’

  His words thrill through me, a warning, and I fight the urge to leave. I should have stopped myself from curing Mr Taylor. ‘How could we?’

  He continues to squint at me. ‘You almost make me think of—’

  A flare inside me. The scent of ash, the flash of ember eyes. I should act the demure girl he thinks me to be, but I cannot. I know him; his cruelty, his vanity. The anger caged within me scratches to be released. He, who thought me unworthy of his scraps when in my rags and simpers at me now I appear respectable. I will not grant him the power to destroy me by letting my rage give me away. I hold the dog in check, a task more difficult each time it rises. Force myself to tip my head, smile at him.

  He laughs, waves a hand. ‘Of course, it could not be. You are a innocent and she were a—’ He glances in the direction of the hill. ‘Well. I shall not blemish your ear by speaking what she were.’

  I shake my head a little as though confused and he backs away, waving his cap at me before replacing it. Hatred beats through me and I swallow the snarl in my throat, furious at myself for displaying such coyness in the face of his questioning, furious at him for forcing it upon me.

  Willing him away will not do. He is too close to knowing me and destroying all Daniel and I dream of. I need a more lasting plan, a permanent absence. I have the knowledge and skill to bring it about.

  I will gather all I need later.

  When at last I reach the cool of the dairy, Bett is unimpressed. ‘Where’ve you been at?’

  I shrug. She has already prepared today’s milk, and I hold the muslin so that she can pour it through, separating the curds and whey. I turn my head against the bitter stink, then hang the parcel and take down the curds from yesterday.

  ‘You can manage this?’ Bett asks.

  ‘Aye.’ I line the cheese press with muslin and put the curds in, squeezing out the last of the whey. Bett eyes me but says nothing, and so we work in silence as she wipes and turns the older cheeses, and I lean with my full weight, imagining it is Gabriel’s head I press down upon.

  A stain circles Annie’s face, a ring of grime where the cloth Mam uses to wipe her does not reach, like the streak of silt left on the beach when the tide goes out. Her hair is damp and her cheeks pink from scrubbing; the fox necklace sits on top of her clothes. This has been done for my benefit. As though I am no longer part of the family, but a visitor.

  She reaches her arms around me nonetheless, though not before rummaging through the food I’ve brought and taking the whispering shell Daniel found and sent for her. She turns it in her hands, holds it to her ear, mouth falling open in wonder. She’s grown thinner again in the weeks I’ve been living away, I’m feared to embrace her in case she breaks in my arms. I need to come more often. To feed her. To keep my place in their lives, as daughter, sister. To keep the dog at bay. Visitor I am not and shall not be.

  Mam too looks drawn and thin, though the weather warms and there should be food enough to be found. There’s something in the glittering intensity of her quick-flitting gaze, her sinister whispers to Dew-Springer, that troubles me. I fear Magistrate Wright has returned, but daren’t ask in front of Annie.

  ‘You’re busy with tonics, Mam?’ I ask, sitting at the table while Annie settles on my lap and takes another portion of food. She smells of mud and fresh air. The house seems small, drab and decayed. Fragile, leaning on the keck as it does. I am used now to solid, straight walls. ‘Many calling for an amatory in summer, isn’t it?’

  ‘Happen they’ve all no need of my amatory, but let nature do as it will. Like you.’ She makes to sit with us, stands again, turns her back and pokes at the dead fire. ‘There’s no appetite for us wares in the village, the new magistrate has them all feared to call upon me. Not one has asked for an enchantment on the crops, as usually they would this time of year.’

  I can hold my tongue no longer. ‘He hasn’t returned?’

  She shakes her head. ‘Bides his time. Waiting for good reason, happen.’

  I pray she doesn’t give him one. Does not walk the village selling curses. Does not send John on missions of revenge upon the netter. Open my mouth to say so, to brave the sharpness of her reply.

  ‘I’ll give you more food,’ I say. Cannot bring myself to challenge her on this day I feel myself a stranger here, this day I remain plagued by Gabriel’s questioning and the darkness it conjured in me.

  ‘We’ve no need,’ Mam says, without turning.

  Annie almost chokes on the mouthful she’s chewing, her eyes rounded with indignation. ‘But – Mammy, we do, we do have need, Sarah. You’ll not stop bringing food, will you?’

  ‘Nay, of course not, cub,’ I say, laughing. ‘I’ll have you stout and round so that you’ll not even fit through the door.’ I tickle her bony ribs and she squirms, giggles. Gone is the little fold of fat that had grown under her chin. ‘Won’t you have some, Mam?’ I ask.

  She stiffens, straightens. Wipes hair from her face and turns towards us. ‘Perhaps just a mite.’

  Sitting at the table, she pulls a small piece of bread from the loaf and places it in her mouth. In amongst the ashes behind her lies a patch that’s discoloured. Burned and crumbled clay. I look around for the likeness of the netter, find nothing.

  ‘Where’s John?’ I ask.

  ‘In the village,’ Annie says.

  ‘Fetching water,’ Mam adds quickly, though the pail sits in the corner behind her.

  ‘Nay,’ Annie says, frowning. ‘In the village you said, sorting things out, is what you said.’

  I understand immediately what this means. Once again Mam’s fury at one that has hurt her own sends her spinning, embracing a path of revenge that threatens those she means to protect.

  Annie turns to me, oblivious to the glare Mam gives her. ‘I’ve to heft the water now I’m big, but only I’ve to wait for night, Mam says it’s not safe in the daytime.’

  One winter I pulled icicles from the roof and ate them until my belly stung and my mouth was numb. I’ve the same feeling now, looking at Mam’s fevered eyes, thinking of what John is about in the village this moment, of Annie’s spindly arms heaving the pail of water. Of the talk I hear from women washing their laundry in the beck with me, of witchcraft and evil acts they fear. Of how Magistrate Wright even questioned fisherman Shaw and his wife about Papism.

  ‘Today I shall do it,’ I say, walking past Mam to fetch the bucket.

  I feel Mam’s gaze on me all the way to the well, as though she’s attached one of her seeing eyes to my back.

  Still, I pause to gather the flowers I need, with their white blooms and mouse-like scent. The farmhand shall not go unpunished.

  At the farmhouse I lie sleepless in my bed, as Gabriel’s words spin through me, as I remember Annie’s newly-cleaned face. As the do
g purrs at my back, inviting me to embrace it. I am a Haworth and always shall be, no matter my clothes nor where I lay my head. Family, not visitor. I wish for a moment that Gabriel had known me earlier, that he could understand the girl he so admires now is the same one he despised and ridiculed before. My desire for his suffering outweighs even my fear of discovery, and the dog drives me on.

  Silently, I rise and take the flowers, creep to the kitchen. The house creaks around me. No one stirs.

  The stench is musty and sour as I crush them in a bowl, mix them to a paste. My heart patters and stutters, in time with the prowling of the dog. It will be easy. I shall lace his food. Or pierce a wild strawberry and smear the potion within, then offer it and he’ll take it gladly. And he shall know me for who I really am, the respect he shows me as dairymaid shall be shown to my true self, before the end. And never shall he scorn me or my family again.

  It’s not a potion I’ve used before, nor even one I’ve seen Mam make, but she has told me of it should I have desperate need and I know the effect it will have. She has taught me well. He shall suffer spasms and his limbs shall set until he cannot move. Before long his breath will be stopped forever.

  I hold the bowl, stare down at the potion I can barely see past the hackles and teeth and burning eyes that obscure my vision, that fill my mind and beat through my body. I stand this way as my feet numb on the cold floor, as my fingers stiffen from hours of gripping, and the dog, little by little, recedes until I’m free. I stand all night.

  The sun has almost risen when at last I step outside, tip the paste away and wipe down the bowl. Return to my room and dress; pin my hair, place my coif, pull on my stockings. Wear once more the costume that hides me, and keeps me safe.

  Turning of the Air

  It was sheep-washing day. Daniel shivered with cold, despite the warmth of the June sun on the back of his neck, soaked as he was from standing in the river. His hands were red-raw and aching from hours of washing and gripping struggling, water-logged sheep. The buzz and bite of insects was ceaseless.

  Released by Gabriel’s need to take a piss, Daniel staggered to the bank and gulped down some of the posset Bett always prepared for this task, the milk still warm, the ale and spice spreading much-needed heat. His shoulders ached from the constant bending and the skin on his hands was loose and wrinkled.

  ‘Ah, there’s the lad himself,’ Gabriel said, though they had worked together all morning, slapping Daniel on the back. Too hard, voice straining to achieve jollity.

  It was not the words but the false tone that stopped Daniel mid-swallow. He shaded his eyes to see Gabriel’s face, twisted into an unaccustomed smile.

  ‘You – you’re wanting to carry on?’ he asked.

  ‘I ah – no, no. Just thinking we can speak a little.’ Gabriel cleared his throat, glanced to the sky and then back again. ‘Man to man, like.’

  Nothing in Daniel’s experience of Gabriel had prepared him for such words. He adjusted his expression from astonishment to mild interest.

  ‘I stopped to take the posset,’ he said.

  Gabriel nodded. ‘I will join you.’

  Blinking in the shade, they sat under a tree, each looking carefully at his own flagon. Only the faint sound of the sheep chewing as they dried in the sun.

  ‘Still tupping that lass, are ye?’ Gabriel asked at last.

  Daniel met his eye, said nothing. God had intended this soul to inhabit a boar or bull, surely. He was not fit to carry the body of a man.

  Under the steadiness of Daniel’s stare Gabriel flushed, took a gulp of drink and wiped his mouth. Belched quietly. Jiggled his right leg.

  Daniel drank his fill of the posset, stood and brushed down his breeches.

  ‘Dairymaid’s a pretty little bantam,’ Gabriel said.

  Daniel stopped. He felt the ground shift beneath him.

  ‘The – Sarah?’

  ‘Aye. There’s something about her.’

  Daniel’s breath stuck in his throat like straw and he remembered how Gabriel had felt he recognised Sarah when she first came to the farm. Did he know?

  Gabriel downed his drink, placed the flagon back. ‘Think she’d look at the likes of me?’

  Daniel waited, taking in the words, letting his mind catch up with their meaning. Was this a trick? There was an uncomfortable sincerity in Gabriel’s expression. He spoke the truth, Daniel knew it, though he hardly dared to trust it.

  There was such naked yearning in Gabriel’s eyes that Daniel was moved to pity. Even now.

  ‘I’ve had lasses before,’ Gabriel said, lifting his chin, ‘many a times, I’m no innocent.’

  ‘I – I do not doubt it.’

  ‘But now I’m thought to take a wife.’

  Daniel shook out his shoulders, cleared his throat, relieved.

  ‘I know my way around the cockles, I’ll not be asking a whelp like you about that,’ Gabriel said, leaning forward, hands clenched. ‘Not be asking any man about that.’

  Daniel quelled the image this brought to his mind. Gabriel was sweating, face the colour of a setting sun. Daniel could see that each word pained him like a hot ember on the tongue. Yet he persevered. ‘I’ve seen you with her,’ he said.

  Daniel waited to hear what Gabriel said next before refuting this. Still on edge. Watched the oldest ewe, the one destined for the midsummer feast, shake herself free of water and close her eyes against the sun.

  ‘Talking. She smiles when you speak with her. She never smiles at me. I need to know what to say.’

  He looked at Daniel, waited, daring him to mock.

  ‘I’m sure you have no need of my help,’ he said carefully.

  Gabriel scowled and waved away a cloud of midges. ‘I’ve just asked for it.’

  ‘She is a modest girl,’ Daniel said. ‘Reserved. She would need approaching gently.’

  ‘Quiet, like?’

  ‘Yes. Like an unknown animal.’

  Gabriel thumped one of his fists lightly on the ground. ‘All right, then. I can do that.’

  He rose and bent to place his lips by Daniel’s ear.

  ‘You’ll speak of this to no one.’

  It was not a request.

  Daniel remained standing, watching Gabriel haul another sheep to the water. He did not know why his advice had been truthful. Because he was certain of Sarah’s loathing for Gabriel, perhaps, or relief that they remained undiscovered. Or because he simply could do no other.

  The magistrate’s shoes tapped as he walked across the yard to the house. The cleanest the farm had ever seen, and Daniel did not know how he avoided the dust and dung that covered the ground. He was silent as he entered the kitchen, lifting his eyes to search the corners for cobwebs, running his finger along the wall, where Bett scowled.

  ‘Won’t you take a seat?’ Father asked. ‘There’s plenty food left if you’re hungry.’

  ‘I shall not, thank you.’

  ‘Then how can we help you, Magistrate Wright? Are you in need of another meeting?’

  ‘It may well come to that,’ he said. ‘For there is disturbing news from the village and I am concerned regarding a family there, the Shaws? You know of them?’

  Father rose. ‘He’s a fisherman, is he not? He seems an honest—’

  The magistrate lifted a hand, silencing him. ‘I do not need the man’s history, I am wondering if you see them at church, that is all.’

  Daniel opened his mouth, about to defend the Shaws, but as he thought, he could not recall having seen them in church. His instinct to protect was silenced by his fear of speaking untruths where God was concerned.

  ‘I have heard tell they were not present even for the Easter service? They held their own – celebration?’ The magistrate’s gaze bore down.

  Gabriel began to shake his head, but Father threw him a warning glance. ‘I’m sure they were – I couldn’t rightly say,’ Father said. ‘Perhaps the parson …?’

  ‘Parson Walsh has been less forthcoming than I had hoped. There is a
lso another matter you may know of. Concerning the netter.’ He strode around the room, turning the pans that hung on the wall, peering into the trough. Bett folded her arms and glared at him.

  ‘S-Sam Finch?’ The brute who had lost a tooth to Sarah’s brother’s fist. Unease flickered.

  ‘Indeed. A sad spate of ill events have befallen him – his entirety of food souring while he was about prayer at church last Sunday, the sufferings of he and his wife with sickness and inflaming of the skin – that cannot be laid down to poor luck. There is an evil hand at work, I fear, and I know that Master Gabriel here spoke of a bad grace towards him by a certain family in the past?’

  He spoke of fear and yet it was something else that Daniel saw in him: appetite.

  ‘Aye,’ Gabriel said, standing so quickly that his chair scraped along the floor. ‘Aye, I can help you out there for certain, there’s a bad blood flowing towards the Finches from that family up the cursed hill.’

  ‘Just – only one incident,’ Daniel said, before Gabriel had even reached the end of the last word. He laughed, trying to show how trifling an occurrence it had been. He was met with silence. ‘No more than a squabble, surely?’

  Gabriel snorted. ‘Happen it was more a attempt at murder by that Devil-boy.’

  Daniel kept his eye on the magistrate. Surely a gleam of elation in his eye at the word Devil. He stepped to the fire, glanced into the pot that hung above it, stirring the contents and lifting the spoon to his nose. He grimaced. Daniel did not dare look to see Bett’s reaction.

  ‘You distort it, Gabriel,’ he said. Gabriel looked at him in surprise, and anger.

  ‘Yes, and you’re not so slow to use your own fists when provoked,’ Bett said.

  Again Daniel felt the most extraordinary urge to kiss her.

  Father snapped his fingers and pointed. ‘You overstep, lass. Be gone to your own hearth and return tomorrow with a sweeter tongue.’

  For a moment Daniel thought she might argue, but she merely walked to fetch her neckerchief and left. The magistrate stepped aside as she passed, as though she carried some contamination.