‘I apologise,’ Father said. ‘She has been with us a long time, sometimes I think she supposes to be more daughter than housemaid.’
‘You have been too lax with her, perhaps,’ the magistrate said. ‘This has indeed been of use. There is a turning of the air, a wickedness riding in on the breeze, that you would do well to prepare for, I fear.’
Again that word, though he betrayed nothing of the sort.
He turned to the door, and then back, as though with an afterthought. ‘Oh, I hear you have a new dairymaid not from these parts.’
Daniel’s heart gave a sharp kick and he could not be sure he did not cry out aloud.
‘I should like to meet her.’
‘She has retired to her room,’ Father said.
‘Nevertheless.’
Daniel began to rise, praying that Sarah had not left to visit her family, but Father said, ‘Gabriel, bring Sarah to join us.’
Gabriel was gone before Daniel could speak.
‘Ah,’ the magistrate said as Sarah appeared. He took her arm and led her to the light spilled by the fire, fingered the edge of her coif, tipped her chin to inspect her face, lifted her petticoat just a little and peered at the tips of her shoes. Her trembling showed in her clothes but she kept her expression obstinately calm.
Gabriel stepped forward, then checked himself. Father glanced at Daniel, gave a frown and slight shrug.
‘I see,’ the magistrate said, turning to Father. ‘You are satisfied with this one?’
‘Oh, indeed,’ Father said. ‘A good little worker.’ He smiled at Sarah, though she did not return it, just slid her wide eyes to him.
‘Very well,’ the magistrate said. ‘Then I shall leave you for now. Remember, light your candles. I see you have no witch jar yet. Do not tarry.’
The door had barely closed when Father gave a loud burst of laughter, looking at each of them in turn.
‘Well, I’ve never seen the like. Poor little lassie, I would not have batted an eye had he opened your mouth and counted the teeth.’
‘Had he laid another finger on you I’d have split his face,’ Gabriel said.
Sarah smiled at Father, ignored Gabriel.
‘Should you like to return to your room?’ Daniel asked.
He stood, placed a hand on the small of her back and led her away. Still shaking.
Garlanded with Leaf and Flower
Not yet light when I’m woken by a fist hammering on my door. For a moment I think I’m at home, with Annie by my side, and fear the crowd has come to attack. A dream of Magistrate Wright, leaning down and whispering that he knows my real name, clings to my mind.
At the edge of my eye, shadow flickers. I try to swallow the taste of ash, cannot rid myself of the sight of the dog’s eyes. Words fall from my lips in a whisper, unknown yet familiar, a call upon dark forces to bring suffering to the one that threatens us. I cannot stop. The power I’ve embraced seethes through me, beyond my will or bidding, bringing with it both exhilaration and terror.
The rap on the door comes again, thrusting me back to the world around me, releasing me from the grip of darkness. Bett pokes her head into my room.
‘Up, lassie, work to be done.’
Then she’s gone. Scrambling into my clothes, remembering the warm, dry touch of the magistrate’s hand, I follow the sounds of her raking the ashes and thudding pots on to the table.
‘Busy, busy, busy,’ Bett sings as she heats water and surveys the carnival of food – two legs of mutton, bread, elderflowers, milk, cream and cheese. This would feed my family for months.
‘The best night of the year, and the busiest day to prepare. Never before have I had another pair of hands to help me out.’ She frowns when she catches me hiding a yawn. ‘And not much use your hands will be if your head’s still a-bed – wake up, lass, get yourself to the garden.’
And so begins a day like I’ve never known. First I pick gooseberries, whitecurrants and apothecary roses. The petals are used for salads and rosewater, but I keep back a few to give to Mam, for those that may need the spirits brightened.
Bett keeps me busy with chopping, boiling, stirring, pouring, as well as my own tasks of milking, turning and wiping the cheese, collecting eggs. All the while she is full of instruction, giddy with anticipation. I’m grateful for the work, to fill my mind and steady my hands.
‘What happens at the festival?’ I ask, adding gooseberries to the pot where one of the mutton legs cooks. The scent of herbs and meat so rich that I want to take the spoon and have at it.
She turns from stirring the sops in wine. ‘It’ll be a rampage not a festival, if we don’t have this fare prepared in time.’
I can almost taste the food already. This mutton will be cooked until it falls from the bone. I lick my lips.
‘But midsummer’s the best night, with the fire and everyone comes, and all the feasting and dancing and wine.’ Bett looks over her shoulder, wipes her red face. ‘You will think you’ve been swept to heaven, and to have made the food and see the whole village enjoy it – worth every drop of sweat.’
She presses her hand to her back and groans. I glance around. We’re alone.
‘There’s nowt so healing as the midsummer sun,’ I say. ‘Away outside and close your eyes, turn until the sun falls upon the part that ails you. You’ll be cured while the sun sets.’
She scratches under her coif, frowning. ‘I’ve no time for healing now, too busy for midsummer sun. On with your tasks. Too much tattling.’
Then, with her back now turned and just as I’m raising the spoon to my lip, ‘And don’t eat it.’
We work all day and at last, as shadows lengthen and sunlight ripens, the food is ready. Bett and I begin to carry it to the fallow field where the men are laying out the fire, sleeves rolled up and hair damp with sweat.
Daniel winks at me and heat rises in my face. Even now, though I see him daily, though our plans of a life together are set. The days of standing in the sun washing and shearing sheep have browned him, blue eyes bright against burnished skin.
Bett clears her throat and looks away. ‘Enough time for that later – set to it, lass.’
I keep to the edge of the crowd as the magistrate holds the flame. He watches it intently, and I think he would not be inclined to notice me at this moment, but after his inspection I take extra care. I wear no coif but the white campion Bett twined in my hair and my new clothes still disguise me. But is it a mistake to put myself in the way of others? The cunning woman’s daughter has no place here.
He puts the flame to the wood and it begins to blaze and spark. A cry goes up from the villagers, the fiddlers play and there is some jostling around the food and ale. Boys jump through the fire’s cleansing smoke. I watch the children, garlanded with leaf and flower, dancing hand in hand, running and laughing, sitting in the grass with their shoes off, eating food by the handful.
One day this will be Annie. Next year, perhaps. I’ll dress her in ribbons and plait her hair and she shall play with her friends rather than the spirits lurking in the plague hamlet. So long as she remains unmarked, her unblemished skin is proof of her innocence. We’re done hiding her from the lascivious eye of the last magistrate, but must now protect her from a whole new cruelty.
Bett presses a small cup of wine into my hand. It is not my first. She wears buttercups around a straw hat and clasps the arm of a tall man.
‘Your food is fit after all, so you have earned a drink.’ She looks up to the man, who raises his eyebrows at me. ‘You should have seen the mess she made.’
He laughs. ‘I pity you, lass, for she’s a hard taskmaster. As I know to my cost.’
‘Oh, and there was I thinking I was your love,’ Bett says.
‘You are, heart-root.’ He dips his head to kiss her cheek.
Bett away from the farm is sweeter, softer. This I already know, but seeing her with her husband is like seeing a thistle transformed to a daisy.
She looks at me. ‘Sorry. A glass or t
wo of cider and he thinks we’re still courting.’
The wine is sharp and slightly spiced in my mouth, warm in my stomach. ‘I’m so happy.’
‘All right, go steady with that, will you?’
Nathaniel tugs gently on Bett’s arm, leading her towards the circle of dancers. She pulls against him for a moment, clasps my hand and squeezes it.
‘Enjoy yourself, lassie. But remember not to bring attention on yourself, aye? Keep yourself quiet, stay at the edge of the crowd. Should anyone know you, they’ll accuse you of trickery and worse.’
I understand her words. Wine prevents me from feeling them.
The jig the fiddlers play is fast and though I’m sure I cannot dance my body sways and feet pat in time to the music. It brings delight but also something more – a memory of John’s sweet voice when he was a lad, a sudden yearning to see him here, carefree and dancing. Never have we been part of such a joyful gathering. I watch as all laugh and talk and dance. All except Phyllis Ross, who stands by the food, watching, keeping space between herself and all that come near her.
I know it was she Magistrate Thompson took in the woods, the story was whispered to me the first time I joined the women washing clothes. She seems but a slip of a lass. I’ve tried to protest her innocence, as much as a newcomer can, but none will listen.
Across the crowd I look for Daniel, who of all in the village will surely offer her a kind word, but once more find myself facing Gabriel.
‘Oh, I brought you wine,’ he says, holding out the cup as if to prove the truth of his words. It looks absurdly small clasped in his great, meaty fist.
‘I’ve some already.’
‘Yes, I see.’
I look past him. Somewhere nearby is Daniel.
He clears his throat, stands awkwardly holding the wine and his cider. ‘You are a timid lass,’ he says.
‘I am not.’
‘No, no, not timid, I misspoke. I mean, that is, you are – a innocent.’
He calls me whore when in my rags, innocent when dressed like any other girl. ‘Really you do not know me so well as to pronounce my character,’ I say.
‘But I should like to.’
‘Why?’
He shifts his weight, goes to lift his cap and spills wine down his tunic, curses quietly. Sweat balls and trickles down his cheek. He squints into the setting sun, then back at me. Clears his throat again. ‘I have not the pretty words you deserve, but to see you there all the time, with those eyes and your—’ He gestures towards me, spilling more wine. ‘And I a farm worker and you a dairymaid, it’s clear that …’
His voice peters out. Were it not for the taste of his thumb still on my tongue, his fist on my cheek, I might pity his stumbling advances. I stare him down, made bold by wine and anger, until he hangs his head and I’ve the satisfaction of watching colour spread over his face.
Past him I see Daniel, and call out to him. He glances at Gabriel, hesitates, then walks over.
Gabriel looks at me miserably, and walks away. I am filled with momentary pity, and must remind myself of the brute he is.
‘Shall you dance?’ Daniel asks.
‘Oh I – don’t know that I can.’
He takes my empty drink, throws it to the grass and pulls me, laughing and protesting, to the circle by the fire. And I am moving, my head filled with music. The warmth of flames on my face, the voices of those around me. Daniel’s hand in mine. We dance on and on, until we can barely breathe.
If only my family could be part of this. If only the fear of discovery did not lurk in the shadows. Then I would have crossed the river, to become the new Sarah.
As the music slows, so do we. Daniel leans so close I feel his lips against my neck. ‘Come with me,’ he whispers.
We break away as the music begins again, run from the light and the faces towards the darkness that hides us. His hand in mine. Once, I turn back to see if anyone watches. Gabriel looks towards us but he’s talking to the blacksmith’s daughter and I don’t think he notices us leave.
Other lovers will be in the woods, but I know already where he’s taking me. We’ve barely reached the riverbank when we stumble to a stop, hands still clasped. The air is cooler here and I feel the heat of his skin, step closer.
His chest heaves from dancing and running. He lifts a strand of my hair, entwined with flowers, shakes his head a little. ‘You look beautiful tonight. You’re always beautiful.’
He presses his lips to my own, tasting of ale and the sweet pudding I made earlier, and he kisses me so that I feel he will not ever stop. I don’t ever want to stop.
The ground rough beneath me, the river babbling in the night. And us. Nothing more. I want this, I know I want it with every part of me, only here and only him. Daniel pushing my petticoat higher. My breath coming faster. Yet my hands shake as I unlace his tunic, I’m clumsy, tangle the ties. He breaks off, looks down at the mess I’m making, laughs.
‘Here, let me,’ he says, sitting back, unpicking the knots. ‘There.’ He strokes my face. ‘Are you happy?’
‘So happy.’
His smile fades and he drops his head. I know why. I sit up, place my hand on his tunic. ‘Are you not?’ I ask.
‘No, I am.’ He laughs a little. ‘I couldn’t be more – it’s you, and you’re so beautiful. It’s just, I – we are not yet wed and – to sin this way.’
I should free him, cover myself, catch my breath and walk away. But I cannot. The yearning is too great to let him go so easily. ‘We shall be married,’ I say. ‘We’ll have our house and you shall farm and we will have that life, Daniel. God knows that we shall.’
‘And you will bake the bread.’
‘And we’ll dance and –’
We speak together, laughing. ‘– and eat flawn.’
I lie back down. He follows. ‘God knows we shall be wed,’ he says.
‘Then it’s not such a sin,’ I say. Though really, just now, I don’t care if it is.
Crisp and Brittle
As Father drank ale at the table, Daniel made an excuse and stole into his room. Stepping lightly, straining to listen for footsteps. His mother’s nightshift lying on the bed, worn thin in patches where Father had rubbed it between finger and thumb, held it to his nose and wept into it, like a child with a blanket. She had been gone twenty-two years. There could be no trace of her left in it, yet he would not relinquish her shift, nor her place to another.
Daniel took the key, as he had once before, turned it and winced at the creak of old leather as he lifted the lid. The ring, he knew, was tied by a ribbon threaded through the lace of her wedding gloves. He felt no guilt. It was to come to him, Father had told him so on his sixteenth birthday. Soaked with ale and tears, he had opened the trunk and shown Daniel the ring, promised that were he to find a girl worthy, one that he could love as Father had loved, he was free to offer it to her.
Daniel knew that he had.
All day he had carried a soft-spun happiness, for what he had spent each waking and dreaming moment imagining had come, and they were together, and always would be. He had been woken by the chill of fine rain but cared not, for he was with Sarah, and there could be no sweeter start to the day.
She had sat forward, hand clutched to her side, back turned to him as she reached for her clothes.
He placed his hand on hers. ‘Show me.’
Her fingers had loosened just enough for him to lift them. The mark she hid was dark red, as big as his thumbnail, flat against her white skin.
‘Is that it?’ he’d asked. ‘It – it’s just a birthmark, it’s nothing.’
‘The mark doesn’t trouble me,’ she said. Tears standing in her eyes. He had not seen her like this. ‘But what it means.’
He took her hands, pulled her to him, kissed her. ‘There is no meaning to it. I’ve seen the like on calves and pups and piglets. Just a mark on your skin.’
She had given a smile he wished he could believe. ‘Aye, you’re right. I’m sure you’re right.’
When they parted, he had felt the strip of his skin where they touched was peeled off and taken with her.
In the yard Gabriel had grabbed him by the tunic and hauled him to the shelter of the orchard.
‘You took her away,’ he said, flicking a chunk of damp hair from his eyes. ‘Didn’t you? The dairymaid, and you knew I’d my eye on her, I was just warming her up and you took her away.’
‘She – you walked away, you were done.’
Gabriel brought his face in close. ‘If she was not lying under me in the woods, I was not done.’
A brutal image had entered Daniel’s mind and would not be gone, no matter how he pressed his eyelids together and concentrated on the drip of water through leaves.
‘Were she not such a innocent and you not such a whelp, I’d be thinking it was she you were tupping through the night.’
Daniel had forced out an unconvincing laugh. Breathed in the scent of air washed clean. ‘Enough trouble to manage one girl, and the talk of sweethearts and what’s to come, eh?’ He slapped Gabriel on the arm. ‘Couldn’t begin to take on another. Eh?’
The frown had lifted slowly from Gabriel’s features.
‘And, as you say,’ he ploughed on, rain seeping through his tunic, ‘she is not the kind to go lying in the woods with no promise made, I think.’
‘Not with the likes of you, anyhow,’ Gabriel said, shrugging. ‘Still, you took her from me. So if you’re wanting to know who I lay with last night, it was your little blacksmith girl. Split her like a gutted fish, and she was begging me not to stop.’
Daniel had stared, sickened.
He shook his head now, freeing himself of the memory. Calmly, carefully he took out a petticoat and apron from the trunk until he found the wedding gloves. Faded and smelling of dust and mildew, crisp and brittle so that he feared they might crumble in his fingers, he lifted them and worked on the knot in the ribbon. Wondered at the woman who had worn them, who had never held him as a babe or washed the dirt from his knees.
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