Wrecker Page 17

  A sudden loud snorting noise made me jump out of my skin. It sounded like a great beast blowing air from its nostrils. Then was a clomping on the stone floor, like hooves. A pair of moonlit eyes appeared in the darkness underneath the bell tower – eyes too far apart to be human. I thought I saw a pair of horns. It was the Old One, and those were his cloven hooves we’d heard. Beelzebub, himself, had lured us here. But the next moment there was a deep bellow that was answered by the baying of other creatures. Clattering hooves sounded on the stone flags, and one by one a herd of cows, white patches on their flanks, filed towards us. Gideon pulled me out of their path just in time, and I watched them butt one another through the door and out into the night. It wasn’t the devil we’d found, but a few hungry cows that had come into the abandoned church and begun chewing on the straw bell ends. I was alone in the dark with Gideon, and for one brief moment at least, his arms were around me.

  14

  On midsummer’s eve, I mixed some hempseed with baccie and had a good smoke in Mamm’s bedroom, sitting in my favourite straight-backed chair. When the right mood came over me, I crept out into the courtyard with a handful of the hempseed in my apron pocket. I walked about on the wooden doors of the fish cellar until my feet found the best spot for conjuring. It crossed my mind that Gideon would disapprove of what I was about, but hadn’t the Good Lord made the medicines in the hedgerow, and given them their special powers? It was a cloudy night and the narrow alley out to the lane was pitch black. By rights, I needed to be a maiden for the charm to work, but I hoped the secret might be unlocked anyhow. I closed my eyes and chanted the spell three times, throwing hempseed around me.

  ‘Hempseed I sow thee, Hempseed grow thee,

  And he who my true love will be,

  Come after me and show thee.’

  It grew cold as deepest winter and my feet left the ground so that I stood on vacant air. Borne aloft by the spirits, I moved through a field covered in foggy dew until I hovered under a yew tree. The boughs sang with the voices of hundreds of birds. Slowly, a man loomed out of the mist with a scythe in his hand. He set about swinging the scythe under the shade of the tree, his back to me so I couldn’t see his face. I began to shake along with the branches of the tree. I knew that if the charm was to work, then the wraith of my future husband would appear before me when I opened my eyes. It grew dark and all at once the birds became silent. Footsteps sounded close by, echoing against stone. Was my husband about to show himself?

  He spoke. ‘Who’s there at this late hour?’

  I knew that voice. I opened my eyes and saw the fellow step out of the alley. My heart sank for it was only Nathaniel Nancarrow. He had seen me too, so it was too late to run into the cottage.

  ‘What brings you here, Nathaniel?’ I asked.

  Perhaps I’d spoken more coldly than I meant to, for he stopped just outside the alley and came no closer. ‘I was coming up the lane and heard a voice. I wondered if something was amiss, it being so late.’

  ‘Nothing is amiss.’

  ‘Are you sure all is well with you? You don’t seem yourself.’

  ‘I am well. You need not trouble yourself further.’

  ‘Well then, I’ll bid you good night.’

  This appearance of Nathaniel, of all people, seemed to prove Gideon right. My charms were a worthless folly. I went back into the house, almost knocking over Tegen, who’d been hiding behind the door.

  ‘Are you spying on me, Teg?’

  ‘I heard voices and wondered who it was out there.’

  ‘I went out to take the air.’

  ‘I heard you talking to someone.’

  ‘Nobody of any note.’

  ‘Oh, Mary, how can you say that, when I know very well it was Nathaniel.’

  I sat at the table, tired and dismayed. Mamm snoozed in her chair. ‘So you were eavesdropping on me. If you want to know, I was chanting that old rhyme to find out who was to be my husband. When I opened my eyes, who should I see before me but Nathaniel.’

  ‘Then you are to marry Nathaniel!’ she cried, her hand to her mouth.

  ‘Marry Nathaniel? I could no more marry him than I could fly over the rooftops on a yard broom.’

  ‘And why not? He is a . . . I mean to say Nathaniel is a great friend to we Blights.’

  ‘You’re cross with me, ain’t you, Teg?’

  ‘I’m going up to bed.’

  ‘I’ve still got some hemp, if you want to try your luck,’ I called after her.

  When she’d gone, I tarried awhile, slumped at the table. I was just rousing myself to follow Tegen up the stairs when I heard Mamm’s faint voice.

  ‘You shouldn’t tease her so, she’s a good girl, is Teggie.’

  I got up to my feet with a sigh. ‘I didn’t mean to wake you, Mamm. Go off back to sleep.’

  ‘Don’t be running off now. Stay and talk awhile. We never jaw these days. Now, why don’t you tell me who it was you tried to conjure with the hemp out there?’

  ‘Never mind about that,’ I said.

  ‘Going out in the courtyard at night throwing hemp about to conjure up a man’s spirit – all you’re doing is spreading seed for the birds to eat. It won’t do no good, you know? No more than the Widow Chegwidden’s herbs will cure me of the chronic.’

  ‘Don’t say such things, Mamm! You’ll get better, I know it.’

  ‘It was that minister you was hoping to see out there, and don’t pretend otherwise.’

  I sat back down at the table with a sigh.

  ‘You were ever a wilful girl,’ said Mamm. ‘The times I had to scold you when you was a little one, always in scrapes and getting folk’s backs up. What a merry dance you led me, with no father about the house to show master. Fine and proud I was of you, just the same.’

  ‘Tell me about Dad,’ I said, meaning to head her off from talking about Gideon. ‘Tell me the stories you told us when we were small, how handsome he was, how brave, the way he was drowned trying to save the men in his crew.’

  Now she was all of a-tremble, straightening out her apron over her knees, and making a little pucker out of the cloth to wring it in her fingers.

  ‘I tried to rear you decent and rear you ignorant, so if you learnt any wicked ways it weren’t from me,’ she said, fretting. ‘I built your Dad up in your mind too much, maybe, when you was a scamp. I wanted you to hold your head up when you thought of him and try to be good and worthy.’ She gave me a furtive look. ‘Maybe I put too many fanciful notions into your head.’

  ‘Aye, but he did die a hero. It’s true, ain’t it?’

  ‘Oh, God help me! What have I done?’

  ‘What are you saying of, Mamm? Tell me the truth!’

  She moaned and writhed in her armchair. ‘He died at sea, that much is true. It was hard on me, I was carrying Teggie at the time, and it was a rare enough thing to get an honest day’s toil out of him for he only ever worked when the fit took him. We was always scat, and I had to scrimp to get by. And where was he when my poor baby boys died? Up in the kiddlywink, drinking and gambling with his mates, that’s where.’

  ‘So those yarns Loveday Skewes used to spread about Dad were true? He was no more than an idle gadabout.’

  ‘He wasn’t a bad man, my pet, just a dreamer. It was his nature. He never liked to be tied down.’ I turned away from her in vexation, but she spoke on. ‘I see him in you at times. Look at me, Mary!’

  Slowly, I turned round. She was pink in the face, her breath coming thick and fitful, her hand clutching at her throat. Quickly, I fetched a pot of the Widow Chegwidden’s herbs from the stove, crouched by her and blew on the brew to cool it. I put it to her mouth, but she turned away.

  ‘I hoped I’d live long enough to marry the pair of you off, at least. This foolishness that’s come over you of late, Mary, it has to stop!’ she wheezed.

  ‘Be quiet Mamm, I beg of you,’ I said.

  ‘Take a care for yourself. They be talking about you. The Widow told me this afternoon. I
can barely breathe for fear of it?’

  ‘What did the widow say? Tell me, Mamm!’

  ‘Someone out there has a secret – one of the bettermost, she reckons. Some dark thing you was seen to do. Tell me you’ve nothing on your conscience, Mary!’

  ‘It’s muck and lies. I’ve done no more than what half the village does. You know where the tea and sugar comes from, don’t you, Mamm, but you drink it all the same.’

  ‘Tegen says if you was to step down as teacher, you’d be off the hook.’

  I shook my head. ‘Tegen would say that. I ain’t backing down.’

  ‘Just like your father. Listen to me, my girl. You must learn the sense of things, wise or foolish, according as they may happen – and not as you wish them to be.’

  On Sunday, I went to teach the class. As Aunt Madgie opened the door to let me in, I looked for a sign in her face that she might be about to spread a dark lie about me. But her cold and stony gaze gave nothing away. When I tried to move past her she put her crook in my path.

  ‘You have stopped using the catechisms I gave you. Explain yourself,’ she said.

  ‘I didn’t like to use them. They are meant for children below seven years, but some of the doctrines might give the little ones nightmares.’

  ‘The doctrines are intended to scare them, so they will learn clean, frugal habits and proper restraint. How else will the children learn the virtues of duty, hard work and foresight, and know to shun the evils of luxury?’

  ‘What does it gain a little child to be told that Hell is a dark and bottomless pit, full of fire and brimstone? Do we want to them to wet their beds at night?’

  ‘You are too soft. It is little wonder one of the boys goaded you last week.’

  ‘Surely, larkish youngsters have always liked to goad their elders and betters.’ I stepped over her crook and slipped past her down the dark hallway.

  ‘I will bring this matter to the attention of the Society, mark my words.’

  ‘As you please.’

  I squeezed past her and went into the kitchen where the class was always held. The children stood about in groups. The boys smirked at the sight of me and were in no hurry to take their places at the forms. The girls sat down quicker, giving one another sly little looks. Not one of them would look me in the eye as they sat down, a row of sour little pouts. They seemed changed since last we’d met. Even Sarah Pengilly, who I had made monitor and had thought my friend, looked down at the table rather than meet my gaze. Fewer of the children of the bettermost had come along, and the numbers were lower than before.

  ‘Let us begin the Testament class,’ I said. ‘We will see what the Scriptures have to say about children who show no respect for their elders. Martin, you will read first.’ This was met with sneers and snorts from the bigger boys. Martin was a poor boy from Uplong Row, and one of the worst readers.

  ‘Silence!’ I snapped. ‘Turn to page three, all of you.’

  Martin bent over the table, his face close to the paper. As his eyes passed along the line of words he made low noises that had little to do with the marks on the page before him. The other boys shook with stifled laughter. After a short while Martin turned to me with a pleading look.

  ‘Him don’t know his halfabet, missus,’ said Kit Trefusis, smirking.

  ‘Tell us, what do “A” stand for, Martin?’ said Peggy Combelleck. She sat across the table from Martin. She sounded kindly, but I didn’t trust her.

  ‘“A” do stand for “happy”, don’t it, Martin?’ said Kit, and burst out laughing, which started the other boys off as well.

  Martin looked from face to face, his bottom lip wobbling.

  ‘Right to the top of the class, boy,’ said Kit, in a proper snot’s voice with his nose in the air as though he were the teacher.

  I wasn’t going to stand for this. ‘Kit, go and wait outside the room until I’m good and ready to deal with you,’ I said. He took his time getting to his feet and dawdled out, slamming the door behind him.

  ‘Eliza, you are to read next,’ I said. My voice was high and shaky. ‘And if anyone cheeks me again today they can expect the stick on both hands. Have you all got that?’

  Without Kit as ringleader, they were quieter, but my nerves were in shreds by the end of the class. When I’d sent them out I called Kit back into the room. He stared at the floor, sneering.

  ‘You see this stick,’ I said, picking the nasty thing up from where Aunt Madgie had left it. ‘Look at me when I’m speaking to you, boy.’ He took no notice. ‘Very well. This is your last chance. If you’re a bad boy again next week, I will beat you with this stick, and smartly too.’ He mumbled some words. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said I ain’t scared of the stick. I’ve had it at home plenty of times.’

  When he’d gone, it was a long time until I could breathe easily again. Wearily, I began clearing up the Testament books and stacking them on top of the cupboard. After a while, I heard Gideon talking with Aunt Madgie out in the hall. Hearing his voice out there, I had a fervent urge to get a sign from him, some proof he would protect me from those who blackened my name and spread dark rumours about me.

  ‘I am sure the children are making adequate progress,’ he said to Aunt Madgie.

  ‘Too soon to say,’ Aunt Madgie answered. ‘Your Miss Blight has yet to prove she can rule over the children in the way she ought. Lighting fires and other mollycoddling ways won’t make them better soldiers of Christ.’

  ‘We should give her some leeway, Mrs Maddern. Perhaps by doing things in her own way, she will in time inspire devotion in the children.’

  ‘Devotion?’ she said. ‘Well, you’d know more about that than me.’ I heard her crook tapping on the floor as she went into the back of the house. I tidied my hair as best I could, and straightened out my skirts under my hands. Luckily, I wore a plain black dress of the sort Gideon favoured. His footsteps echoed out in the hall as he came nearer, so I stepped into a shaft of soft sunlight that slanted down from the high window. Gideon stepped onto the creaking floorboards of the kitchen, and I could barely breathe, knowing he was there. I didn’t look up until I’d gathered the books and put them in a pile. When I did, I found Gideon frozen to a spot over by the door, in a kind of rapt daze. He held some tattered old books in his hands.

  ‘I have brought some copies of The Child’s Companion and Youth’s Instructor, both rather well-thumbed,’ he said. ‘And this too, an old geography. The covers are gone, I’m afraid, but I don’t think the lie of the land has altered too much since it was published. I thought they might prove useful.’

  He came over and handed me the books. I opened them, glancing at a page or two before putting them in my basket. Gideon drew a breath as if about to say something, but instead he clapped his hands and rubbed his palms together. ‘Well, well, well,’ he said. ‘I’ve been meaning to speak to you – about the school funding and a few other matters. Suffice it to say, we have just enough subscriptions to continue for the weeks ahead. And we’ll have another collection at the Lovefeast.’

  He went on for some time about all the things that needed doing for the Lovefeast, but I took none of it in. When he was done with his little talk, we left the house together and walked in silence to the end of Back Street and onto the little stone bridge. We stopped there for a bit, side by side, looking over the wall at the narrow river gushing down to the sea beneath us. I put my basket down.

  ‘You are a little paler than when last I saw you,’ he said.

  ‘It would suit me better if the class were held elsewhere,’ I said. ‘Where Aunt Madgie can’t snoop on me.’

  ‘I can’t help but agree. I see the strain she is putting you under. It’s not too much for you, I hope?’

  ‘I’ll put up with it. And some of the children are doing well, I think.’

  ‘I am sure of it.’

  As he said nothing more, I picked up my basket and took a step across the bridge, letting him know I was on my way.

  �
�Well now, before we part, I have just recollected another matter I wanted to mention,’ he said. His voice shook, which wasn’t like him. ‘I’ve been thinking about that friend of yours, Johnenry Roscorla. After our encounter at the alehouse, I wanted to reassure myself about certain misgivings I had. You and he were close once.’

  ‘Once, but not anymore.’ I looked away from him, down the lane on the other side of the bridge.

  ‘I only raise this, because I wouldn’t like to think this rift between you and that young man was in any way related to your work in the Society,’ he said. ‘I feel it is my duty to say that, if you still have feelings for him, then your work in the Sunday school should not be a hindrance.’

  So, all along this was what Gideon had wanted to say, that I should go and wed Johnenry. I was mad enough to chuck the basket of books over the bridge and into the river.

  ‘I don’t love Johnenry, and I’m not quitting as school mistress,’ I said.

  ‘Love isn’t constant over time. Please consider what you have lost. I would be greatly at fault if I had raised expectations in some way, had perhaps made you feel you were above your neighbours.’

  ‘Well, I’m truly sorry to disappoint you, but Johnenry is walking out with Loveday Skewes now,’ I said. ‘And what about your own affairs? Is Mrs Stone over her illness? Is she back at home? And who was the woman from St Buryan who came to your house while you were abroad?’

  He took a step back, as if I’d struck him. ‘I’ve done what little I can for Anne Treveil, I assure you,’ he said. ‘And I’m afraid there was another woman before her, both of them in the days before I was married. I did these women a great wrong that I can never undo. I would give them more, but Ellie counts every penny. She complains that we cannot hope to raise a child on what I earn as a minister. There, you have it. It’s better that you labour under no illusions about me.’