Apples and Prayers

by Andy Brown

  Cuckoo. Cuckoo.

  To hear a cuckoo early one morning in spring, as I had heard these several weeks before, is one thing. Auspicious good luck.

  But to hear one call on St. Mark’s Eve is terrible misfortune.

  I’d begun the month listening to the cuckoos in our garden and it had filled me with the greatest joy. Now that we could hear them singing on this dreadful night, the ghosts of our village yet barely faded from my memory, it seemed as though the month was closing with dreadful foreboding.

  I was too scared to let myself fall asleep that night, but when I did nod off, I dreamed a dream that built on what I’d seen. To begin, I dreamed simply of my chickens and a mighty egg laid underneath the biggest hen in the coop. I took it to mean Alford’s child. But the dream soon became disturbed by echoes of the cuckoo’s haunting cry as we’d stood upon that bridge. With that ill omen, the egg in my dream cracked; some quarrel, or a dark betrayal. And yet the dream became much worse, as I dreamed myself back into the churchyard, with the whole village trooping there before me again, like the legions of the damned.

  Could it be that all these gentle souls would die this year? And where was I? Where was my spirit wandering that awful night? I didn’t dare entertain the question. We die and, those who are still living, must wait til kingdom come to be so reunited, just as those who die must wait in Heaven for those they leave behind. The time of our dying then, in that great scheme, is of no lasting matter.

  Our digger, Ben Red would – if his own wraith hadn’t been parading there that night – be busy digging plots for the whole year. And Coppin, the coffin maker, building boxes from here on to eternity.

  VI

  The warmth of late April was broken by heavy rains on the first of the following month. The air turned muggy and heavy like a laden sack. Then thunder rolled in from the distant coast and settled over our wet plain, bringing with it a deluge of fat raindrops that exploded on the earth with sweetness as much as wetness.

  The Barton stands above the flood plain. In dry weather, the land is passable in a waggon. During the rains, you have to make the journey by foot, my Lord and Lady riding on horseback. Then the river becomes high and swollen, with white crests on the rapids, where the droughts of midsummer leave only slow and shallow pools. With heavy rains, however, the fords often overflow and the river bursts its banks, flooding the fields. It washes down the lanes and over the fields in torrents, carrying clay off the land and filling the ditches with muck and leaves that later need clearing. We have to hire gangs of labourers to dig them out.

  At such times, there’s a dampness in the air that works its way through clothes and into skin. Only the frogs take gladly to it. At night you can hear them calling in their pools, like drunken layabouts belching in the taverns.

  Yet, when the rains are high, we’re fortunate that the tidemark seldom reaches us in the Barton. Last year we found countless fish stranded on the grass where the waters had receded and made our baskets full with them while scaring off the herons. Some fearful folks said this was the work of the Devil and swore that they’d seen fish flying over the tops of the trees in great shimmering shoals. This was a dangerous admission, for people less broad-minded than us would have taken their fanciful claims for witchcraft. And they would have paid dearly for that.

  With all this warmth and water, the world was quickly greening. Where the apple trees’ twigs had not so long ago been barren, now the earlies were blossoming… great pink pom-poms of flowers, like girls in May bonnets, sweet with sap and nectar, the promise of the coming autumn’s fruit. Doilies of cow parsley thickened the hedges. Beyond the Barton’s pale, the bluebell woods were carpeted in purple and, in the bunch grass of the fields, the purple heads of orchids stood tall, like the legion banners of angels.

  Throughout our woodlands, songbirds were raising their fledgling broods. Courting snipe flitted through the boggy fields. Those that weren’t so clever as to outwit our snares, ended up on the Barton’s dining table. At dusk, bats skimmed across the surface of the pond, before the black of night came down and the Maybugs flew against our windows, drawn towards the nightlights burning in our kitchen.

  After the rains, the warmed ground made moisture rise into the air as a balmy, afternoon haze. One evening, as I looked across the valley to the village church on top of its hill, it seemed to me more like the early morning than the day’s end, with blankets of mist rising off the land into the cooler air.

  On the second of the month, the village men lit bonfires on the hills and higher ground above the Barton. A warning to witches and other malevolent dabblers. The bales were lit as dusk fell. They kept them burning until the next day’s early hours. It was only then, as the new day rolled in, that the men put an end to their stoking, drunk as they were, those rotten sops in wine, with skins full of dandelion beer and potent elderflower wine.

  There was, in fact, a burning of a woman they called a witch, two years past in Killerton to the day. A serving girl called Jacobs, in the service of the Duke of Devonshire, was arrested by the Justices. Like me she was practiced in herb-lore and ministered concoctions to the commons to relieve their ailments. I heard she was the best at gout and arthritis, but also knew a salve for gonorrhea. Lord knows there was plenty of that in the district. She was also with child and, it was said by some jealous young serving man, that the Devil himself had lain with her, setting his seed in the core of her sex.

  At least, that was how Jacobs confessed in gaol, under torture of the law. They dunked her, but she didn’t float, which men said proved the rumour true.

  In fact, the stronger rumour was that the child belonged to the Duke himself.

  To make matters worse for Jacobs, she possessed, from birth, a line of red marks along her belly, like the rows of dugs on a bitch dog. After they dragged her out of the water, they saw them. The Justices proclaimed that Jacobs’ strawberry marks were the Devil’s teats themselves, for suckling her impish offspring.

  They shaved her hair and made the girl confess.

  The child was soon born, under the duress of Jacobs’ inquisition, although it died straight after. Some say that the child came into this world in the human form, but with a cat’s head; others that it took the form of a child, but with bat’s wings, for flying from coven to coven.

  Such lies put me in fear of these people’s sanity, for they must have been more bewitched than Jacobs to believe in such stories. They also put me in fear of my own safety, with all my knowledge and practice in herbs.

  No sooner was the child out, than Jacobs herself was burned at the stake in Killerton square for the crime of witchcraft. I wouldn’t attend the spectacle. It seemed to me the poor girl had done nothing more wrong than satisfy the Duke’s desires and probably no choice in that either. In doing so, the jealousies of his serving men had been roused. Whether she dabbled in the black arts I couldn’t say, but it made me fear for any maid who might make preparations at the still.

  Where witchcraft does exist, however, it’s a dire threat to us all. Come May, the real witches are abroad in their covens, whittling broomsticks from ash and birch. There in their groves, they daub themselves with aconite, drink draughts of heliotrope, belladonna and henbane, to make a flying potion that lifts from the ground into the sky.

  In preparation against such evil, Alford and I made the Barton safe with hag stones, hung upon the threshold elder bush, to keep the witches and the warlocks at bay. But when the first light of morning had risen and no witches had come our way, we breathed in with relief and readied ourselves to go a-Maying, collecting plants from the hedgerows – birch, rowan and hawthorn blossom – singing all the while.

  ‘Here we go gathering knots of May,’ sang Alford in her cheerful way, although there was something furtive about her, that I wasn’t yet able to put my finger on.

  When I pressed her to tell me what she was hiding, she let me know. ‘It was my good luck yesterday, Morgan,’ she said, ‘to be told by our Lady that I’d be this
year’s May Queen in procession.’

  ‘Well, good news again, Alford,’ I replied, a little wary. ‘You’re having a lucky time of it. First Queen Pea and, now, the Queen of May. Why, you’ll be the queen herself at Court Royal before too long.’ Her cheeks blushed full with colour.

  ‘It’s good, Morgan,’ she mumbled, ‘only in as far as I was flattered by my Lady’s request.’

  ‘And in what way is it not so good, Alford?’ I asked her, sensing some reluctance. ‘Why not excitement at the prospect?’ I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t wholly pleased at the chance.

  ‘It’s my condition, Morgan,’ she said. ‘It works against me.’ She whined to gain my sympathy. ‘I haven’t found the courage… yet… to confess to my Lady…’

  ‘She doesn’t know!’ I said.

  ‘I don’t think she can, Morgan.’

  ‘But you’ll have to tell her soon, Alford. She’ll notice as soon as next set eyes on you.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ she simpered, ‘but I’m too cowardly to make the confession. Mightn’t it cost me my place at the Barton?’

  I wondered why she worried so about telling, but fears for her employment clearly drove it.

  ‘Even if I do tell,’ she added, ‘I wouldn’t be able to sit on a bumpy cart for hours on end… doing a tour of the parish… I might dislodge the child!’

  She placed her hands on her belly and gave me a plaintive look that was hard to disagree with. A cart ride was hardly likely to make her miscarry, though her discomfort would be palpable.

  ‘Then who’ll take your place on the wagon, Alford, if you can’t do it? A May Day procession’s nothing without a May Queen.’

  ‘And there’s the rub Morgan,’ she said. ‘I can’t think of any girls who’d be willing, nor the right age… and certainly not chaste enough… to take my place.’

  She rubbed her head in a semblance of thought and I began to fear where this was heading.

  ‘There’s one person though…’

  Here she stopped and gave a grin that betrayed her roundabout ways.

  ‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘No, no and three time No! I couldn’t… I wouldn’t…’

  ‘You shouldn’t either Morgan, but you must! Please, please,’ she pleaded. ‘You’ll be saving me in more ways than one. Do say you’ll take my place on the wagon. Do it, please?’

  The prospect was ludicrous and I told her so. ‘Alford, think of it. I’m well beyond the age, by ten years or more! Look at my face!’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with your face, Morgan. Your bones are fine…’

  ‘Look at my nose,’ I said, trying to find a feature with which to defeat her.

  ‘What’s wrong with it? It’s not like it’s a sheep’s nose! It’s beautiful, my dear. John Toucher thinks so. As do many men. Or so I’ve heard.’

  ‘Go to,’ I said to her and swiped at her teasing. ‘I’m no young girl. I’m certainly not fair. And well you know it. Those men won’t be smiling. They’ll be laughing at me. A woman of my age shouldn’t parade herself. Certainly not when younger women from hereabouts could carry the position. It’s unthinkable. No, Alford. No.’

  ‘But Morgan, you won’t have to show your face. Tell me. Where’s it written that the May Queen can’t wear a veil? Consider it. Drape some muslin round your head. From a distance, they won’t know if it’s you or I who sits on top of the cart.’

  ‘With muslin draped around my head, Alford, I’ll look like a corpse and nothing like a May Queen!’

  ‘But Morgan,’ she persisted. ‘There’s only two girls in the village who could do it and they’d no more show themselves off than turn Protestant! Kate Kingston’s face is so riddled with the pox she looks like a kitchen colander. And the Veitche’s girl is far from perfection. You’re worried about your nose? She’s got a carbuncle on hers, the size of a cauliflower!’

  ‘How very uncharitable you can be, Alford!’ I said and we laughed.

  ‘But it’s true, Morgan, forgive me. I mean nothing against the girls’ reputations, but at this moment their faces are… less than fair, shall we say? You must say yes, Morgan. There’s no other remedy. Please. Please!’

  ‘And why couldn’t they cover their faces with muslin, as you’ve asked me to do? Answer that. Nobody would be any the wiser for the deceit, if it were me or them parading in your place.’

  ‘They can’t do it, Morgan… for the very reason that I can’t do it. Think about it.’

  These last words were uttered forcefully and accompanied by a sudden clutching of her belly and buckling of the knees. I knew then that Alford could no more do it, than carry in hay bales to the barn, or milk the dairy cows.

  ‘What’ll we tell my Lady?’ I conceded. ‘She’ll no more believe it than I can at present.’

  ‘Listen Morgan,’ Alford said. ‘We’re standing in the morning dew. Haven’t you taught me yourself? We’ll make a remedy.’ And she began to rhyme. ‘The fair maid who the first of May, Goes to the field the break of day, And washes in dew from the hawthorn tree, Will ever handsome be.’

  I hoped there might be some truth in the words of her song, for it then became clear that I’d been talked into it, by means I can only call mischievous. Me, May Queen? Me, goddess of growth and of flowers? It was my own fault. Weakness and sympathy for the girl. I knew I’d have to do it.

  ‘All I can think of is feigning sickness, Morgan. That’s all we can do. My Lady’ll sympathise… and you’ll step into my place. Nothing more than one maid assisting another. She’ll think nothing of it, surely?’

  I gave her suggestion a moment’s thought. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Fine. But I’ll tell you what, Alford… and listen well my girl… for this isn’t the first time I’ve told untruths to protect you in neglect of your work…’

  ‘What can you mean, Morgan?’ she acted.

  ‘You know full well what I mean, Alford! I’ve woven webs of deceit for you as long as your arm, while you’ve been off gallivanting with your boy. And if you hadn’t been gallivanting with him, you’d be able to sit on a cart for a morning. I’ll do it for you, so long as my face is veiled. I’ll do it to save your discomfort. But your sickness is going to be proper… not be play acted. How about I pour a pint of mustard water down your throat, to be sure? Then your puking’ll be real enough for my Lady… and recompense to me for my pains in the matter.’

  ‘Morgan Sweet!’ she exclaimed and we both shook our heads; mine in resignation to the trick she had played and hers at the thought of the mustard.

  We then crossed the garden to the hawthorn hedge and bathed my skin in the dew. I knew that my face would be veiled on the day and that no one would see me for the impostor I’d been asked to be, but I wanted to make doubly sure my complexion was fair enough to act the maid in procession. I also made an offering – a bunch of Lady’s Mantle – for her intercession in the smooth running of the matter. What with our Holy Virgin’s blessing, the face wash of dew that had tightened my rough skin and a mask of daisy sap to remove the pimples, I might yet pass off as a seemingly young May Queen if, in truth, beneath it all, I was just as plain and addled as any woman of my twenty-five years or so.

  That evening, Alford and I cut and sewed ourselves green swags and sashes from the ancient curtains, which had lain in the trunks for many years, gathering dust in the corner of the rafters.

  Our work as seamstresses done, we set ourselves ready to play out the lie that we’d planned earlier that morning. It was just before my Lady came in the following morning to fetch Alford for the May procession, that the young deceiver drank the cup of water I’d mixed with mustard. She puked, right as my Lady entered the room. It couldn’t have been better timed.

  ‘Where’s our May Queen?’ my Lady asked politely, as she came down to find us in the kitchen. At that very moment, Alford spilled her guts with a cry. ‘Whatever in God’s name’s wrong, Alford?’ my Lady shrieked in sudden concern. When Alford had stopped reeling from the unpleasantness of her trickery, she offered a feeb
le reply.

  ‘I’ve been so all night, my Lady,’ she lied, though her lurching from the sting of the mustard was real enough. ‘It hurts me so,’ she feigned. For my part I simply nodded. I wouldn’t lie in words, even if I was lying in deeds.

  ‘But you’re so pale my girl,’ my Lady observed with great worry. It was true. The sudden violence of the emetic had taken all the colour from Alford’s cheeks.

  ‘She does look very pale, my Lady,’ I dissembled.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me this earlier, Morgan?’

  ‘I thought she might recover in time, my Lady.’

  ‘And recover you must! You’ve duties to perform.’ She seemed resolved to see Alford ride upon the cart. I could see the young girl’s heart sinking.

  ‘She can’t ride the cart in such a state, my Lady,’ I said, practically. ‘We’ll have retching all over the dresses and flowers. Think of it, ma’am. All that bumping and rumbling along the lanes… she can barely keep a cup of water down while standing on firm ground. It’ll be a disaster.’

  ‘And what are we to do then, Morgan, pray tell me, if you’re so wise?’ Her tone was justly cutting. ‘We’re set to depart to make the village rounds within the hour, you know.’

  ‘Which is why we have to find someone else to take the young girl’s place right away, my Lady,’ I suggested.

  ‘No, no, no, that won’t do, not at all!’ she countered.

  With this firm denial, Alford performed her trick once again. The stink made my Lady as good as agree on the spot. To my own and Alford’s considerable relief, she conceded to Alford’s sickness. She also agreed with me that we couldn’t find another girl in time to take the part, although she found the switch with me most unusual. She agreed, however, on an impressive veil. That would perfectly disguise me from detection so they thought they saw a virgin girl riding. Well, perhaps.

  I then dressed up in the robe we’d stitched together, wearing my stays tight, to push my bosom upward and make a sweet cleave of it, in a youthful way.