There was no lock on the bedroom door when I reached it, but then they didn’t need one with a slight, middle-aged woman inside and a strong young guard below, armed with a rifle.
She had pulled the pallet into the darkest corner of the room, away from the tiny window in the eaves, and was crouched motionless on it, like a sparrow with a broken wing. When she heard the door creak she turned her head sharply, and I saw the shine of her eyes in the darkness.
I said nothing, but flung myself at her, gripping her small, fragile body, holding her safe.
“It’s me, Aunt Jennet,” I whispered into her matted hair. “I’ve come back.”
XIV
What Happened to Eliza
I went on holding her, stroking her back with one hand, as you do to soothe a baby. An empty bowl rolled across the floor and clanged against the timbers of the wall; a cold wind was blowing through the gaps in the thatch.
She was shivering against me. I took off my cloak and wrapped it around us both. I tried to warm her with my body, the heat of my breath against her cheek, and slowly her arms came up to hold me.
We must have clung together silently for some time. I was trying not to weep at the state of her, at the whole dreadful situation. Then at last she spoke, huskily, as if she hadn’t talked for a long while.
“It’s good to see you, child.” With her fierce brown face close to mine, she examined me with her old shrewdness, touching my cheeks gently. “Much has happened to you, I can see that.”
“What about you, Aunt?” I whispered. I couldn’t worry her with my own troubles, not yet. “I come back to find — this! The Militia in the village and you a prisoner!”
She didn’t seem to be listening. “Silas Seed was back in the village yesterday, but they wouldn’t let me ask him how you were.”
“Silas was here?” I said, amazed.
She nodded. “He saw me arrested.”
“He knew, but he said nothing to me!”
She twisted her hands together. “When I heard the news about Matt, I feared for you at Murkmere.”
“You never told me Matt was a spy.” I looked into her eyes as if I could search out their secrets. “You’re in grave trouble, Aunt. What have you been plotting against the Lord Protector?”
She shook her head wearily. “I need plot nothing. Things will take their own course. The country’s stirring, the south and soon the east.”
“There’s so much you haven’t told me. Why did they find books from Murkmere here?”
She hesitated, but I stared her out. “I’m old enough for the truth, Aunt Jennet. Can’t you see?”
She nodded at last. “Come close, then.”
I couldn’t help smiling, for there we sat on the pallet pressed together for warmth, whispering at each other. “We are close.”
“Closer still. No one else must hear.” She put her mouth against my ear so I felt the tickling rasp of her breath. “I’m going to tell you a story.”
“A story? Now?” I hissed, half-exasperated.
“Trust me, Aggie, and listen.”
I thought hunger and cold had addled her poor brains, but I couldn’t bear to stop her when it might be our very last meeting.
“I never wanted you to go to Murkmere,” she said grimly. “You see, I’d heard too much from your mother.”
“It was my mother who stole the books, wasn’t it? And then ran away?”
“Not Eliza! She couldn’t read. I was the clever sister, she had the looks. Her head was always full of fancies, not facts. When she went to Murkmere as a housemaid, I think she dreamed she’d marry the Master. Gilbert Tunstall was young and handsome and athletic. It was before he lost the use of his legs.” My aunt shook her head, pursing her lips. “Silly hopes that came to nothing when Mr. Tunstall found his bride.”
Her voice stopped. Was that all there was?
“How did the Master meet his wife, Aunt? You said it was a story.”
She frowned, huddling into herself. “It’s Eliza’s story, not mine, and I suspected even then that that was all it was — one of her stories.”
She took a breath. And then I didn’t interrupt her again as her hoarse whisper went on and on against my ear.
“There was a ball at Murkmere one hot summer’s night. Eliza was helping carry food in for the buffet. She noticed Mr. Tunstall leave, for a breath of air, she thought. He was gone awhile. Eliza went to fetch some jellies from the kitchen, and on the way back Mr. Tunstall came in at a side entrance with a girl.
“Eliza said she was so startled she stood stock still, with the jellies jiggling in the bowl. You see, the young lady was all wet, soaking wet; her silver ballgown was dripping. She stood in a pool of water and stared at Eliza with her large dark eyes, and there was something so wild and helpless about her that Eliza fell under her spell there and then.
“And someone else had done so as well. The Master.
“Her name was Blanche, but Mr. Tunstall never said how he’d found her. He just asked Eliza to fetch her some dry clothes.
“They were married very soon afterward, Gilbert Tunstall and Blanche. He asked Eliza if she’d continue looking after his wife, be her personal maid. Of course Eliza agreed.
“But it didn’t make her happy
“She’d say a little when she came to see me, but I was busy with my teaching. By now I was in charge of the school. She did say there was a kitchen maid who’d wanted her position, a Dorcas Crumplin. She was a spiteful bit, jealous of Eliza.
“And there was Silas Seed. He was a pretty lad of eleven or thereabouts. He’d already gone to the bad, listened at keyholes, was always where Eliza didn’t expect him. She thought he even spied on her in her bedchamber. She found him in her cupboard one night when she was undressing.
“Then there was Blanche.
“Eliza loved her, but Blanche was a strange mistress. She seemed to care nothing for company, scarcely knew how to behave. A restless soul, she was, staring out of windows, never settling to embroidery or books. The hems of her dresses were always muddy and torn, and Eliza was always mending the rents. Blanche brought wildflowers and grasses from the mere into the house, and wouldn’t allow them to be thrown away when they rotted. There was talk about her among the servants; the air was thick with rumor.”
I broke in at last. “What sort of rumor?”
“That she was unnatural. She was always down by the mere watching the swans. The servants said she talked to them in their own language.”
The wind rustled through the straw thatching above us and shook the little window. I shivered against my aunt.
“The whisper grew that Blanche Tunstall was one of the avia,” she said, quieter still.
“The avia! Did the Master hear the rumor?”
“He must have. But he loved her, was besotted with her. He wouldn’t stand for any criticism, and he had a temper. Eliza was too frightened to say anything to him. She knew he didn’t believe the old story of the avia, anyway. I should have been more support to her, but I was married, with a baby on the way.”
“A baby?” I said, startled. I’d always tried to find out my mother’s story; it had never occurred to me that my aunt had one of her own.
“Only two days old when she died, my little girl. She had come early. She wouldn’t suck. She was too weak to survive long.”
I pressed myself against her. “I’m so sorry Aunt.”
She shook her head brusquely, dismissing my pity. “I was pregnant at the same time as Blanche. After seven years she was expecting at last. My own baby died the same night the Murkmere baby was born.”
“But I thought the baby died at birth with its mother,” I whispered.
“Blanche died, but the baby survived. No one knew, save the midwife and Eliza. The midwife told Eliza to find a wet nurse so the baby might live. She said that the sooner the baby was away from Murkmere the better, that the servants had believed the baby would be unnatural like its mother. If they discovered it hadn’t died, they�
�d be out for its blood. The midwife even told Gilbert Tunstall that his baby daughter was dead.”
“That was a terrible thing to do!”
Aunt Jennet shook her head. “She thought it safest. Eliza herself didn’t know what to do. In the end she did what the midwife told her, she brought the baby here. She didn’t know what had happened, of course — she thought I’d be able to feed the Murkmere babe with my own and save its life.
“My Tom, seeing me so distraught, had already dug a grave out the back and buried our baby when Eliza arrived. When I saw the little thing swaddled up in Eliza’s arms and heard its mewl, my milk began to leak through my bindings at once. I thought she had been sent from heaven, like a miracle, to make up for what I’d lost. We pretended she was mine. In a way I thought she was. None of the villagers guessed.
“Time went by. I longed to keep her, but in my heart I knew it wasn’t right. Then something happened.
“All this while the Master had been grieving at Murkmere, thinking that both his beloved wife and new baby were dead. He was ill with the despair of it. One night he must have lost his reason. He threw himself from the old watchtower.”
I jerked back from my aunt in shock.
“He never walked again,” she said grimly. “When we heard that he was lying half-dead in bed, we knew we had to return the baby. She might give him the will to live.
“Eliza went to Murkmere and demanded to see him alone. The servants sneered at her for thinking better of running away; they thought she’d come to beg for work again. But she told the Master our secret, and together they hatched a plan. It was the saddest day of my life, but it was the saving of him.
“I was to leave the baby at the gates of Murkmere, so she would be seen and taken in. I was in such a state, leaving her like that, but Eliza heard later that she’d been found and was safe in the head keeper’s cottage. In due course the Master had her brought to his own rooms in the Hall. He told the servants that he’d adopt the foundling as his ward and heir in place of the baby he’d lost. In the village they believed that my baby had died suddenly in its sleep. No one guessed the truth, and I — I was grieving all over again.”
I held her tightly a long moment.
“So Leah is the Master’s daughter,” I said. I found I wasn’t surprised; it was as if I’d sensed it all along.
“But she is Blanche’s daughter too,” said Aunt Jennet. “That’s why he couldn’t acknowledge her. She’d have been in danger. He knew he could trust Eliza to say nothing.”
“But he could acknowledge Leah now, surely?” I said. “The servants won’t remember her mother; they’re all from the Capital.”
“What about Silas Seed? And Dorcas Crumplin is still there.”
I frowned. “But the Master trusts Silas.”
“Who knows why he keeps the secret? It’s none of our business. But the books came from the Master, he gave them to Eliza to give to me for saving his daughter, and maybe to keep my silence down the years. Eliza knew I wouldn’t want money. They were the best present I could have had, books that hadn’t been approved by the Lord Protector.
“They opened my eyes, those books. Eliza was almost afraid to touch them. She married your father soon after, and forgot I had such wicked, dangerous things in the cottage.” My aunt smiled. “But I found I couldn’t go on teaching the approved ways when I knew they were wrong. In the end I had to give up.”
“I wish you’d told me.” I looked at her steadily. “I’ve read a book too, a proper book.”
“Be very careful, Aggie.”
“I will be.”
There was no sound outside on the stairs or from below, only the hissing of the wind through the thatch. My aunt’s face was grave. “I may be taken away from here, Aggie. If I don’t come back —“ I couldn’t bear her to go on. I flung my arms round her and spoke into her soft, seamed neck. “They shan’t take you for trial, Aunt! I’ll tell the Master what’s happened. He’s a Minister. His word will set you free.”
“But Aggie, dear child, it’s been years since he gave me those books. He won’t remember.”
“I’ll remind him!”
I stared at her sad, doubting face, trying to fix a picture of it forever in my mind. I longed to protect her, she who’d always protected me, but my heart was full of foreboding. I didn’t know if I’d succeed in saving her, and she knew it too. I couldn’t add to her fears by telling her everything that had happened to me over the past week, and now for her sake I had to face going back. My triumphant escape had come to nothing.
And now I feared for Leah as well.
My aunt spoke again, hesitantly. “There’s something more I should tell you before you go.”
“What is it?”
“You’ll say nothing of what I’m about to say? No one knows this, no one.”
I nodded, puzzled.
“When Eliza brought Leah here she was like a pearl, even when I first took her swaddling off, all her newborn redness gone, her little back so smooth and white. She was quite perfect in every limb. She cried and fed and slept as all babies do. But Eliza told me something years later. I didn’t know whether to believe her.”
“What did she say?”
“I knew she’d helped the midwife, of course. I knew she was there at the birth.” Aunt Jennet’s voice faded. Her face was suddenly haggard.
“What’s the matter, Aunt?”
“Eliza said she saw …”
“Saw what?”
“The baby looked different then. She saw it was born with wings.”
XV
Return to Murkmere
Jethro had no skill for hiding. I knew he was skulking behind the broad oak across the road before he emerged — I could see his anxious face peering round at me. “Where’s your cloak?” he said as we hurried away.
“I left it for my aunt. I must return to Murkmere, Jethro. I must speak to the Master on her behalf.”
He nodded, but his face was somber. He slung his jacket around my shoulders against the wind. “Best ride through the Wasteland. You’ll avoid the soldiers that way. I’ll come with you, see you safe. I’ve seen no one from the estate searching for you yet.”
“You won’t,” I said bitterly. “I’ve been a fool. Silas must have known all along that I’d have to return for my aunt’s sake. No wonder he let me escape. No doubt he told the stable hand who came with me to let me go. That’s why I haven’t been pursued.”
Jethro saddled up Tansy and untethered my mare. We had to pick our way over the Wasteland’s marshy ground, which was half-hidden by patchy snow. I was in a fever of impatience. What if the Militia were already leaving, hustling my aunt away with them?
The gates were closed; no one was about in the chill wind. “Someone may hear if I pull the bell rope,” I said, dismounting.
Jethro dismounted too. He put a hand on my arm. “One thing, Aggie.”
“What now?” I said, as sick to my stomach with apprehension as I had been when I first arrived at Murkmere. The rooks sat in the distant treetops eyeing us, their feathers ruffled sideways.
“You always were impatient, Agnes Cotter.” He sighed, and spoke carefully, not looking me in the eye. “Now that you’ve decided to return, I want you to meet me here at the gates as a regular thing, every fortnight, say,” he cleared his throat, “so I can give you news of your aunt.”
I thought of the comfort of seeing someone from home. “It’s not too much trouble, Jethro?”
He had gone quite red with the wind. “Nay, but we must plan it carefully, or it will be dangerous for us both.”
We had to pull the bell rope for some time before a keeper came, but he recognized me and let me in without question.
I trotted the mare up the drive and around to the stables. The ostlers helped me dismount and led her away. Suddenly I was cold to the bone, lost without the little chestnut, her kindly eye and reassuring temperament. I didn’t see the stable hand, but I felt the others’ eyes on me, saw the quick glances
flicking one to another. They were wondering why the mistress’s companion should return without her cloak. How much did they know about my escape?
The sweep’s empty cart was by the kitchen entrance, the ladders and brushes taken, no sign of the sweep or his boy. I slipped around to the vegetable garden and entered the Hall that way, through the unlocked door, leaving the blustery open spaces behind me.
I was relieved to see that Silas’s door was shut. I was hurrying along in the direction of the Master’s rooms, trying to think of what to say to him, when Dog came toward me from the opposite direction. It was almost worth my return to see her mouth agape.
“So you’ve come back.” Even her flat voice could not hide her surprise.
I forced my cold legs into a mocking curtsey. “As you see.”
Her face tightened. “The Master said he wanted to see you if you returned.”
“I wish to see him too,” I said airily, though my heart beat faster at her words.
“You’re in trouble, Miss Clever.”
I ignored that, and hurried on. The iron chair wasn’t outside the door; I could hear the wheels clanking inside as if the Master were moving himself restlessly about the room. I waited, shivering in the draft, until there was silence. When I knocked and his voice said, “Come in,” it seemed to me that there was weariness and displeasure in it, and my legs felt almost too weak to carry me across the threshold.
His chair was by the window, with the bright white daylight falling on the hollows and lines of his face and on the branching veins on the backs of his hands.
At least he is alone, I thought. But it seemed a great distance I had to cross to reach him, and as I was halfway across the expanse of richly woven rugs and polished oak, Silas came out from the anteroom where the nurse usually sat, carrying a physic bottle and a little glass.
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