Eppie

by Robertson, Janice

  ‘I’m not going to be ignorant,’ Eppie said forcefully. ‘I’m going to learn lots of things.’

  ‘Learning doesn’t necessarily make a person less ignorant, nor kind, come to that. Take Thurstan. Though he’s educated, he has a cruel way about him. A wise person is he who holds God in reverence.’ He winked at Martha. ‘Anyway, what sorts of things have you in mind to learn, my little maid?’

  ‘I want to know why the warbler that wove a nest cup in a bed of reeds at Lynmere didn’t know that she was raising a cuckoo. Ella and I found her five eggs splattered after the baby cuckoo pushed them out. And I’ve always wondered where the moon goes in the day.’

  ‘I remember asking the same question of my father. He said the moon buries itself in a vast pit in the earth. It’s afraid to come out in case the sun melts it.’

  Eppie grew excited with ideas. ‘How do you reckon spiders live without bones? Lying in my sack this morning a spider, the size of our cauldron, crawled over my face. Why do I have nightmares about things I’d rather forget, like the spoon-hanging boy? And if someone gets stuck up a tree, why does that make them scared to climb along high branches again?’

  Gillow knocked his pipe on the hearth. ‘The only thing I want to know is where our daughter gets her fanciful notions? It certainly ain’t from you or me.’

  Martha blew out the candle and watched the glimmer drown in its grease. ‘Talk for yersen. I’m never short of ideas. There may be summat in what Eppie says about fear. I’ve often wondered if there’s some dread behind the fits that Wakelin suffers. It’s like he’s churned up inside. If he has any worries, he never talks about them.’

  Gillow grinned at Eppie. ‘I’ve never known your brother to be scared of o’t. He’s as hard as the gristle in the kidney pies yer mother makes.’

  Rising swiftly, Martha snatched the fox-cushion and playfully walloped him in the stomach.

  ‘Don’t do that!’ Leaning against the chimney beam, he brought his bandaged hand to his forehead. ‘That was the headiest ale you’ve ever brewed.’

  ‘The ale doesn’t usually affect you. You’re most likely coming down with the same sickness as Eppie.’

  It was approaching two in the morning when Martha slid out of bed and dressed.

  Drifting between sleep and waking, Eppie opened her eyes at the rustle of a frock. ‘Mam? What ya doing? It’s still bedtime.’

  Hurriedly coiling her hair, she drew near. ‘Your cold sounds worse.’

  ‘I can only breathe once every half hour.’

  ‘You must be really poorly!’

  Gillow turned restlessly in bed.

  ‘You’re going to see Wakelin, ain’t ya?’ Eppie asked.

  ‘I’m taking him a jacket. Twiss will be wanting a bone.’

  ‘Mister Lord said Wakelin mustn’t have any food.’

  ‘Then his lordship will have to lock me in the stocks alongside Wakelin. I suppose I’m breaking du Quesne’s rules, like Wakelin. Wakelin acted out of conscience bringing me the firewood. Now I’m acting out of conscience taking him food and water, but I can’t rest easy knowing he’s starving. You go back to sleep.’

  Foaming waters splashed in the stony darkness. A keen wind gusted, crying through the trees.

  Catching Martha’s scent, Twiss sprang to his paws.

  Wakelin was slumped over the stocks, a chain secured around his neck. He raised his head as she trod close. ‘Who’s zat?’

  His breath smelt strongly of gin.

  ‘You’re drunk! Where did you get the liquor? Tom?’ Immediately, Martha was annoyed with herself. She had intended to remain even-tempered despite his erring ways. She stroked Twiss’s damp fur, which smelt fusty, like a damp blanket.

  Ravenous, Wakelin bit into a pig’s pluck faggot and chewed noisily, slavering. ‘’Cors a’m drunk. A’m al’us drunk.’

  Martha touched his shirt. Drenched, it stuck to his skin. ‘You’re as cold as death.’

  ‘What d’ya expect?’

  She sniffed with disdain.

  ‘Yur, I ain’t even allowed out for a call o’ nature, though that stink’s rotten eggs and a few unsavoury things you wouldn’t want to know about. After Thurstan visited The Duck to celebrate his dubious rise to magistrate, he and Cudbert had some entertainment using me as a shooting target.’

  She draped the jacket over his shoulders. ‘Where did you get that sheep’s heart?’

  ‘Huh? Oh, gypsies. Yur, that were it. They found a dead sheep lying about.’

  ‘Since Gillow ate it he’s been sick lots and has the squitters. I can’t think anything else could’ve made him so ill.’

  Wakelin drained his bottle. ‘Guilt.’ He thrust his fist at her. ‘About these.’

  She glanced at the tavern not more than ten paces away, a tilted mushroom against the raven-black sky. Moonlight winked on the attic windows. ‘Hush, you’ll wake folk.’

  ‘Every day these stumps is a reminder that pa’s always there, always on me back, trying to control me life. He never lets up. Never sees I want to live me own life. Do as I please.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said, wiping his face with the cloth that she had brought the food in. ‘None of us can do exactly as we like, at least not all of the time. We must pull together. Help one another. Follow rules like not stealing firewood. For the last time, I am telling you to stop.’

  He mimicked her severe voice, raising it several pitches. ‘Stop! Stop! Why don’t you stop? I’m sick to death of you ranting on at me.’ Resentment was in his eyes. ‘Why should I let du Quesne tell me what to do? You’re as bad as the rest, letting him walk all over ya.’

  ‘I live my life and let others live theirs. I can’t see what’s so wrong with that.’

  ‘Sometimes you’re a numb-skull, Ma. Can’t ya see? Ya don’t live your own life. You’re not free. You live by du Quesne’s paltry rules. He thinks he’s better than us, but he ain’t. You even let pa bully-rag you when he’s a mind.’

  ‘He don’t bully-rag me.’

  ‘He do and ya know it. Everything you say to me is about trying to make me live a shallow life, like you. All I ever get is, do what yer pa says Wakelin, do what du Quesne says Wakelin.’

  ‘It is sinful to act the way that you do at times. Your father is purple in the face from telling you not to steal.’

  A deadly cramp crushed the muscles in his thigh and he grimaced. ‘For all yer blab, you ain’t so wonderful, so righteous.’

  She took a deep breath to steady her nerves. ‘I am a God-fearing person.’

  ‘God-fearing, yur, but not du Quesne-fearing. If only ya knew.’

  ‘Right, that’s it! I’m off home.’ Seething, she paced away.

  ‘Off ya trot,’ he said caustically. ‘Home to what don’t belong to ya. Home to her.’

  There was a cruel ring in his voice that arrested her steps. Turning to face him, she spoke tentatively. ‘Now what are you on about?’

  He lowered his head, so that his forehead rested upon the hard, greasy timbers. He spoke almost in a whisper, his voice shaking. ‘It ain’t ownee the wood I’ve stolen, Ma.’

  Leaden clouds blotted out the stars.

  She took a step back through the drizzling rain.

  ‘Wakelin? What else?’ She didn’t really want to know, but curiosity had got the better of her.

  ‘Yuv gorra understand. I only did it for you.’

  ‘Wakelin, tell me. What else have you stolen?’

  He shivered violently. ‘I stole her, Ma. Her. Eppie is Genevieve du Quesne.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  SHADOWS FROM THE PAST

  ‘Don’t be silly. Genevieve du Quesne is dead.’

  ‘No, Ma. It’s your Eppie what’s dead.’

  ‘That’s a very cruel thing to say.’

  ‘True, nevertheless.’

  ‘You’re only making this up because I wasn’t pleased about the logs.’

  ‘I wish. Why d’ya think I hate going to church? It’s because seeing her and
Gabriel together is too much to bear. Why d’ya think I drink so hard? It’s because of me guilt about taking Genevieve.’

  ‘You’re raving with the drink.’

  ‘Listen, Ma. At least listen to what I have to say, then you can choose whether to believe me or not.’

  Unwillingly, he recreated the torment of that night.

  ‘If it hadn’t been for Gabriel I might’ve been able to forget. I could’ve got on with me life. In me head, though, I always hear his screams.’ Weakly, he added, ‘It were Talia what encouraged me.’

  ‘Talia?’ Martha breathed.

  ‘I didn’t reckon on what she were at first. I was blundering along the tunnel with Genevieve when this all-bones dead ‘un came shambling at me in a dripping frock.’

  ‘Are you saying you saw her bugaboo? Now that is ridiculous.’

  Mirrored by their troubled minds they sat battered by the rain. Martha had no energy even to drag up the hood of her cloak.

  Battling with her inner turmoil, she forced the words, ‘If what you say is true, the baby in the coffin, the day that it passed our cottage, was my Eppie?’

  ‘I’ve already said an’t I? I’d proved I was cleverer than that half-wit, Thurstan. I’d stolen his cousin from under his warped nose. In me heart, though, I knew he’d won. He had our Eppie. I was outta me mind knowing I’d cast her away as though she meant nowt to me. I longed to smash that hearse, to tear her out of the coffin and hold her.’

  ‘When Eppie was in church she saw you beside Genevieve’s tomb.’

  ‘Eppie’s tomb. It looked like she’d died having a fit.’ He massaged an ache in his shin.

  Under the cloak of darkness it was easy to imagine that they were the only people in the world, though the threat of unseen others was the terror Martha knew she must face if she allowed herself to believe him. Too often he told untruths. ‘No, Wakelin, I flatly refuse to believe you.’ She made to rise.

  He had gone this far and knew he must convince her. ‘When Eppie was being born, old Salty gave me a hard time. Steam this, Wakelin. Scrub that, Wakelin. I told the interfering beezum to go boil ‘er warts.

  ‘I woke in a sweat. I’d had a nightmare about Josias and Hepsie and how their deaths had stung ya. I went to look on Eppie, to reassure meself that she was all right, ownee she weren’t.

  ‘I held a candle over your face. You looked so peaceful. I couldn’t bear the thought of you waking and finding her dead. I had this idea. If I swapped the bairns you need never know. I had to be fast; dawn weren’t far off. I guessed Eppie must’ve only just died, but I scattered rosemary in the cradle in case there were a lingering stink.’

  More than anything he could have said to her, this grim reminder struck home. How else could he have known that there was rosemary in the cradle? It had been brushed out whilst he lay in a stupor in the loft.

  It was some moments before she spoke, and then in a daze, her voice shaking. ‘Why? Why did you do it? I’d have accepted Eppie’s death, eventually. Mothers lose their children all the time in the village. It was wrong of you to take Eppie, far worse to steal Genevieve. Whatever shall we do now? What will Gillow say?’

  ‘I wouldn’t risk telling him. You said he was swift with the knife when he sliced off me thumbs. Pa would gut me quicker than du Quesne could toss a rope around me neck.’

  Martha’s thoughts were pierced with dread. She did not want to think. She wanted the terrible things unsaid. If she was to believe him, and now she could think of no reason to disbelieve him, she must kill the love she felt for Genevieve. ‘Wakelin, why ever did you have to tell me? I could’ve gone on living a simple, contented life with Eppie.’

  ‘I never meant to tell ya, Ma. Honest. I thought it’d always be my secret. Things have got me down. The gin didn’t help. It loosened me tongue. It’s all pa’s fault. Ever since I were a lad he’s made me feel bad about who I am, made me hate mesen. I try to bottle up me anger. It does no good.’

  ‘We must take Eppie back.’

  ‘Throw oursens at the mercy of du Quesne? He don’t have none. What’s the reckoning his lordship will say that you n’ pa put me up to it?’

  Martha stared at him, askance. ‘Her mother must have her back.’

  ‘Fine. So du Quesne discovers that Eppie is his daughter. D’ya reckon he’ll welcome her with open arms? Straight off he’d nail her skull on the wall in his study, alongside the rest of them weird beasts. I’m telling ya, Ma, she can’t never go back.

  ‘Another thing, when Thurstan was chucking me outta the church I spotted Eppie hiding in du Quesne pew. I’ve gorra feeling summat is going on between her and Gabriel. When I crept back to look in at the window, to check what she was up to, I saw her and him grinning at one another, all friendly like.’

  Afraid that she might betray her knowledge about the friendship between the children, Martha rose and trod torpidly away. ‘I have to go. Your pa will be wanting me.’

  ‘Take Twiss will ya. He likes to keep me company, but it ain’t good for him out here.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  TROUBLED MINDS

  Martha’s old way of life was shattered.

  Her mind in torment, she stood beside the hearth, gazing upon Genevieve. The child’s face was grubby from yesterday, her flaxen hair stuck to her sweaty skin.

  Almost, Martha could believe what Wakelin had told her, that she had been part of the conspiracy to steal her from her parents. Fingers pressed against her throat, she felt the rhythm of her pulsating veins and imagined a noose tightening around her neck’s soft clamminess.

  Dreading uttering her first words to the girl, she wrung her hands in agony. Genevieve was bound to notice her acting differently towards her.

  Filling her mind with the cares of the day, she fought to cut out thoughts of the du Quesne girl. Having milked the cow, she trudged along the mossy path to the cottage. With no inclination to raise her frock above her ankles, her hem swirled into muddy puddles.

  ‘Hello, Mam. I’m feeling a bit better.’

  Face averted from the girl, Martha set to cleaning the floor. Gillow had finally got around to laying pitching stones, gathered from the stream, after Martha complained, almost incessantly, about the moles that excavated heaps of soil onto the earth floor. The wide chinks left between the stones were apt to fill with hardened dirt.

  Eppie gazed at the back of Martha’s head, her damp bun bobbing as she threw her weight into scrubbing, intent on wiping away each lump of fat, every speck of blood and grime. ‘Did anyone catch you?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘Did anyone see you with Wakelin?’

  Martha’s voice sounded thin, tight. ‘No.’

  Eppie crawled out from the coverlet and examined the empty basket set beside the hearth. ‘What did ya take him?’

  No answer.

  ‘Mam?’

  Martha’s face felt hard, constricted with masked emotion. ‘Mmm?’

  ‘To eat?’

  ‘This n’ that.’

  ‘But what?’

  Martha sat back on her heels. ‘I can’t remember. What does it matter?’

  Eppie was startled by her sharp reply. ‘It don’t. I was wondering if he liked it, that’s all. His belly must’ve been rumbling, like mine.’

  Martha threw herself back into her work.

  ‘Is he all right?’

  Martha emitted a breath of exasperation. ‘Who?’

  ‘Wakelin, of course! Mam, why are you being all silly?’

  Wringing the rag into a tight sausage, Martha slapped it into the pail. Water slopped over the sides. ‘Do you want some tack?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ For some reason that she could not understand, Eppie felt nervous of Martha. Shivering, she crawled back into her bed.

  ‘Make up your mind,’ Martha said sharply.

  ‘If you want, though I … ’

  Martha broke twigs with force, as though wringing the neck of one of her geese. Dry moss caught light. Soon the fire blazed.
r />   Ladling poached eggs upon a chunk of bread, Martha said frostily, ‘It’s on the table.’

  ‘If it ain’t no bother, would you mind if I have it here?’ Eppie asked meekly.

  ‘Why should I care where you have it?’ Martha averted her eyes from the child’s steady, puzzled gaze as she handed her the food. ‘Eat it up quick, else it’ll go cold.’ Hurrying outside, she sloshed filthy floor water over Gillow’s cabbages.

  Miserable, Eppie stared at the runny egg whites. She knew she ought to tell Martha that they were not properly cooked, but was afraid to.

  Anger was Martha’s way of shutting out appalling thoughts and images. Striding to the wring-shed, she flung the pail at the back wall and slammed the door. Closed off, away from the world, her body shook from broken sleep. She wished she could die rather than endure a day of anguish with the du Quesne girl. It was no good. She had to go on. Make pretence that everything was as usual. She needed time to think what was best to be done with the child.

  Rushing into the parlour, she snatched up the sack of carded wool. Fast and furious the spinning wheel whirled.

  Swallowing the last of the eggs, Eppie gripped her heaving stomach. In an alarmed voice, she cried, ‘I’m going to be …!’ Sick splattered upon the scrubbed floor.

  Martha pressed her thumb against her temple in an effort to reduce the painful rush of blood throbbing through her head. ‘You are so naughty!’

  Eppie stared frightened-eyed at Martha’s severe face. ‘I’m sorry, I couldn’t keep it in.’

  Martha’s solid composure crumpled. Throwing her hands against her face, she sobbed. ‘You don’t love me anymore!’

  Diving out of bed, Eppie hugged Martha. ‘I do, Mammy! I do, I do!’

  ‘I am a wicked, cruel person.’

  Eppie giggled at this extraordinary declaration. ‘Don’t be daft; you’re the best mammy in the world! Did Wakelin shout at ya? Is that why you’re upset?’

  Martha did not know for how long she could keep up the pretence. ‘I’m not myself. I feel wretched.’

  ‘I’ll do the chores,’ Eppie offered. ‘You go off for a nice sleep.’