The Wilding (28 page)
I saw at once that her health was decayed. She was leaning back, propped upon cushions as if too weak to sit up without them. Though the blue eyes were as bead-like as ever, the cheeks they glared from were sunken in, and her skin, that had been tight and youthful, hung slack from her jaw. The finger of Disease had traced a line from each corner of her mouth down to her chin, and when I looked at those creases in the flesh I perceived, for the first time, a sisterly resemblance to Joan.
The covers lay almost flat across the bed. It was hard to believe that they concealed a human body, let alone the imposing frame of Aunt Harriet. She had wasted, and wasted, until she was the ashes of the woman I had known I felt that if Hannah lifted her up in the bed, she would break and crumble into dust.
She had told me of this in her letter. I was no saint; I was come there partly hoping to witness her pain, an ugly hope but excusable in one she had so nearly murdered. I had expected to exult and go on my way cruelly rejoicing that she was, at last, hamstrung and hobbled. In the event, I was quite unable to exult. What I felt was not glee, but unease: it was impossible to look on her and not feel Death gaining on
me
.
All this passed through my mind while my aunt was still working her jaws and trying to pronounce my name. She managed ‘Jon’, but with difficulty, and I saw that her mouth moved only on one side.
‘You asked to see me,’ I said, in the tone of one who discharges an unpleasant duty.
Aunt Harriet glanced towards Hannah Reele. ‘Your aunt wished for your company earlier,’ the maid explained, ‘but she wasn’t able to make herself understood until a fortnight ago.’
Wished for my company!
Aunt’s jaws, again labouring, brought forth the word, ‘Mathew.’
‘She thinks I’m my father,’ I whispered. Hannah shook her head, which I took to mean that Aunt Harriet was enquiring after him.
‘Father’s very well. He knows I’m here.’ Aunt seemed disappointed at that; doubtless she would have preferred to sow lies and deception between us. ‘Mother knows, too,’ I added for good measure.
‘They – pleased? Eh?’
I supposed she meant, did they approve of my being there.
‘They wish my happiness, as always. Pray be brief in stating your business.’
Hannah murmured, ‘To that end – brevity – and because it tires her, I’m to speak for Mrs Dymond. Should she wish to speak for herself, she’ll cough.’
This my aunt confirmed with a jerky nod.
Hannah then asked, ‘When are you to be married, Master Jon?’
This was not at all what I had expected. Something in Aunt Harriet’s eager eyes warned me not to mention Poll Parfitt.
‘My parents wish to see me married but there are no plans as yet.’
Hannah cleared her throat. ‘Your aunt means, when are you to marry Tamar Seaton?’
Despite my resolve to remain dignified, I fired up at once. Was there no end to her insults? I said, ‘My aunt knows it to be impossible,’ and added, ‘This is the sort of talk that brought on the apoplexy.’
Hannah glanced at Aunt Harriet, who nodded for herto go on.
‘You write to her, do you not? At her lodgings?’
‘I’d lose my time if I did,’ I said, speaking directly to Aunt Harriet. ‘Have you forgotten she can’t read?’
‘
Couldn’t
read,’ Hannah corrected me. ‘We hear she’s learning her letters.’
I very much disliked her tone and said, ‘Lord! To see how people can rise in this world!’ to which Hannah, unabashed, replied, ‘I speak for my mistress. Do you know where Tamar Seaton is lodged?’
‘No.’
Aunt’s stiff jaws ground out, ‘Mathew knows.’
‘Father may know, I don’t.’ I saw the ghost of a laugh form on her lips at my use of the word
father
and I hated her for it. ‘He wishes us to remain apart.’
My aunt looked as if she had just turned up a guinea in the bedclothes. I understood it to mean that she took pleasure in my sufferings, and that spurred me to a revenge.
‘When are
you
to be married?’ I asked. ‘To Dr Green?’ My aunt breathed in sharply, her eyes a blue blaze, so that I felt all the satisfaction of a man who throws a stone and brings down a goose. ‘I can’t tell you where Tamar is,’ I said. ‘If you’ve no more to say, I’ll be on my way home.’
My aunt coughed and beckoned me close. I approached warily; there was an aroused, predatory cast to her features and for an instant I wondered if she was strong enough, after all, to do me some hurt, but the sight of her poor wasted neck put paid to that notion. She was muttering now, repeating something over and over. I strained to understand and was finally able to make out the words: ‘Here – whisper.’
Not without misgivings, I bent down to the bed. She gave off a sickly, dirty odour unlike anything I had smelt on her before. When her breath rustled in my ear I imagined miasmas, infections, plagues; it was as much as I could do not to shrink from her.
‘Chitton,’ she whispered. ‘Say it.’
‘Chitton.’ Was that the word? There was a place called Chitton, did she mean that?
‘Mrs Eliot. Say.’
‘Mrs Eliot?’
Again that look, as if I had just presented her with a diamond ring. Perhaps her wits were going; if so, it was not my concern. I rose, ready to depart.
‘Is that all, Aunt Harriet?’
My aunt’s mouth stretched in a noiseless laugh until her face seemed about to split open. She said, distinctly this time as if putting all her strength into the utterance: ‘Tamar. There.’
‘There – !’
Too late, I saw it all: since our last visit here, she had understood her mistake. Once she had grasped that – far from being his darling scheme – my connection with Tamar caused my father pain, she had made it her business to hunt out where my sister was hidden. She had lands in more than one parish, connections, money to fee intelligencers; she had at length found out a place where two women were being sheltered and her choice revenge on ‘Mathew’ was to break the secret to me, the last person who should be told.
She could not forgive my father. For what? For upholding the will, to be sure; but also for being ten times the man Robin was, and yet loving his erring brother despite all. Mathew Dymond’s natural goodness was a standing reproach to her, an open sore.
‘You needn’t think I’ll go,’ I said, though the words
Mrs Eliot,
Chitton
were already branded on my memory. She had even thought to make me repeat them. There was no doubt about the look that was on her face now: it was a hot, stinging triumph. I bent down to her again and said softly, ‘One of these nights, while you’re lying here so snug and warm behind the bed hangings, a door will slide open to the other world. You’ll see, then, who’s waiting for you.’
She managed to say, ‘My Robin.’
‘Oh, no! Your
true
love: the Gentleman.’
‘For shame,’ Hannah said in a curious flat voice that seemed secretly to agree with me.
‘He may come for you tonight. Sleep well,’ I added, going out of the room.
22
You needn’t think I’ll go
.
Every rational argument was against my going: it was playing Harriet’s game, my father would be distraught if he found me out, and there was an excellent chance of my coming home still more beaten and wretched than before. I do not know how long I stood in the lane, torn between reason and desire, before I was obliged to jump aside to let pass a cart – the boy at the reins must have been calling to me for some time if I may judge by the perfect shriek he gave just before it rattled by, which finally alerted me to my danger. In the end, what decided me was no kind of reason at all, but something I felt in my bones: that if I hung back now I was no man and never would be, only Mathew Dymond’s boy.
Though I had heard of Chitton, I had never been there and had not the faintest notion how I might reach it from End House. I must find out, and quickly, for with luck I might find Tamar and hurry back home in one day, and my parents be never the wiser.
It was not yet noon. After a moment’s thought I made my way to the inn and asked if anyone could tell me how to get to Chitton, for I was called there on urgent business. I was proud of my quick-wittedness, and prouder still when a gentleman finishing up a plate of cold meat said the village lay in his way, and he would take me in his coach if anyone could vouch for my respectability. That was easy enough, since several of the men in there could attest that I was Mrs Dymond’s nephew and (so they believed) her heir. It was scarcely the moment to disabuse them.
‘Can’t she spare him a horse?’ someone murmured behind my back, but fortunately the stranger did not hear. Despite everything Aunt Harriet could do, the world was still on my side and of my mind.
I got into the coach with this benefactor, who seemed a generous, Christian man: the sort of man, indeed, whose company acted as a restorative after the hellish atmosphere of my aunt’s house. When I pulled some bread and beef from my pocket (I had not eaten since raiding Mother’s pantry early that morning) he produced a bottle of wine and offered me a pull at it to help the meat down. I took only one swig, but as I was already drunk with my good fortune, and the food, and being free of my aunt, and going to see Tamar, I grew so excited and flushed and repeated my gratitude so often that he must have thought me overcome by a single mouthful of drink; I suspect that by the end of the journey the poor man heartily repented of his kindness.
‘I’m forever in your debt, Sir,’ I cried, leaping at last from the coach onto the grass. ‘May God reward you.’
‘And also protect you, young man,’ was his wary reply from the window as the coach rattled off again.
I was standing on a low bank or bailey surrounding the church, the village sloping away below. Those houses I could see were large and handsome, much in the style of Tetton Green, but of a lighter-coloured stone. However, they were laid out differently; whereas Tetton Green stretched itself out in a line, the buildings here huddled in a flock. A fresh, clean scent came to my nostrils: somebody was cutting up wood. I stood breathing its perfume for a moment, clearing my mind and allowing my cheeks to cool, for I was still a little flushed. Then I crossed the road to where a maidservant was spreading washed shifts on bushes. Watching me approach, the girl giggled as if she liked me, but she could tell me nothing of the lady I sought. Nor could a man hoeing in another garden across the way. I began to wonder if my aunt had made a fool of me; had she perhaps, in one last act of spite, sent me on a wild goose chase?
At the third place where I asked, a woman came to the door and said she knew of a Mrs Eliot, yes, and I would find her at the house round the corner. ‘A big one with a big gate. There’s a mulberry leaning out into the street,’ she said. As I went away she did not close the door. When I looked back she was still there, staring after me as if at some freak of nature. I suppose I
was
a strange object, my chest working like a bellows from the fear that I might find myself unwelcome and come away from the house more wretched than before.
I rounded the corner and at once observed the mulberry in the distance. As I approached, I saw it was intended to form one of a pair stationed on either side of the front gate, but this tree was diseased; that was why it drooped through the fence and into the way. When I came up to the house I was struck by how much more fitting a healthy tree, a flourishing emblem of prosperity, would have been, for the house
was
prosperous. It stood back from the road, imposing beyond anything I had imagined, with a fine staircase sweeping up to the door. Betwee and me stretched a garden laid out for show, its beds in formal knots and a yew avenue trimmed into fantastical shapes. I have never seen the point of such extravagances. I am not even fond of espaliers: the best shapes for plants are the ones God makes them in. Mrs Eliot evidently had other ideas and employed gardeners to keep her trees fashionably deformed.
The tall gate in front of me looked so discouraging that I was surprised to find it open. Passing through, I made my way along a gravelled alleyway between the beds, intended for carts and coaches but also catering admirably for gentlemen and ladies who might wish to stroll and admire the garden.
The front doorknocker was a great coiling, toiling knot in brass, difficult to lift: it seemed that in this house nothing was undertaken lightly or unadvisedly. For a brief eternity, I weighed it in my hand – there was still time to go away – then let it drop.
A manservant answered and would have sent me round the back of the house, but I said I was not there as a tradesman; I was come to visit Mrs Eliot; upon which he made an insulting show of looking round for my horse and servant. I was in no mood to bear with this and said, ‘Pray do as you are bid.’ At last he took my name and went off to enquire, leaving me in a small damp-smelling room where the warmth of the spring day was yet to penetrate. Against one wall stood a musical instrument, the lid painted to show scenes of gay life: cavaliers drinking and a gentleman and lady playing lutes together. I admired it from a distance, not liking to touch.
After a few minutes the manservant came back and showed me into a long, thin, chilly apartment that left the musical instrument in the dust, as it were, since its entire ceiling was painted. At the same time as I observed this, I became aware of a lady seated at the far end of the room. It would not do to approach her with my eyes rolling in my head, so I ignored the marvels above me in order to appear before Mrs Eliot as a sane, though horseless, man.
She was arranged in a gilt chair by the fire, her feet propped up on a little stool. As I neared her, I put my hand to my hat, in preparation. I had my story ready: I was come from Mathew Dymond of Spadboro to enquire after the health of Joan Seaton, and to ask if I might have a few words with her. No mention of the younger woman; that must come later. If Mrs Eliot believed Tamar to be a widow there was no reason why she should think ill of me; I was resolved to be careful nonetheless.
The manservant went on ahead and murmured something to his mistress. He then stepped aside and indicated that I might approach. I had the hat off my head, and was sweeping it before me in the approved style, in the same instant that I realised the woman in the chair was Tamar.
‘Jon! Welcome!’ was the first thing she said, while my heart whirred like a beetle under a glass. The second was, ‘Fetch refreshments,’ to the manservant, and the third, ‘Is there bad news?’
‘Bad?’ I stammered. The man left the room with a suspicious backward glance at this nobody from nowhere. ‘No, I mean, not that I know of.’
I would have given anything not to speak in that ridiculous, squeaking fashion but her eyes showed only delight.
‘Doubly welcome, then,’ as , indicating a chair. ‘Pray sit – rest. You look bone-weary.’
I could not have said the same of her. Gone was the tough, mannish frame of the drudge I used to know. Health glowed in her cheeks, in the thickness of her red-gold hair, in the creamy softness of her bosom. This was a woman who ate well and slept well, a woman who knew what it was to be warm. My eyes crept lower: yes, she was plumper in the belly than elsewhere.
As I sat down Tamar took a small pot, dug a finger into it and began rubbing ointment into her hands, pausing from time to time to observe the effect. A scent of roses and beeswax wafted across to me; either the perfume, or the heavy ring she wore (
not
my keepsake, by the by) reminded me of Aunt Harriet.
‘See that, Jon?’
‘What?’
She held her hands out towards me.
‘White as snow,’ I said.
‘Liar!’ She grinned. ‘But they’re growing whiter. I’ve no work to do – nothing at all.’
I pictured her poor blue feet in the lock-up and wondered if she put beeswax ointment on those, too, and if the flesh of her entire body was now creamy and perfumed. As soon as this thought took root in my mind, I plucked it up: it was a poisonous weed.
‘What must I say to Mrs Eliot?’ I asked.
‘Shhh!’ She giggled. ‘
I
am Mrs Eliot. The mistress of the house is Mrs Godolphin.’
‘Is that why you wear a ring?’
‘Mr Eliot died of the plague. He was a coarse, common sort; I’m the daughter of gentlefolks.’
‘And Mrs Godolphin believes all that?’
‘She says she does, and that’s the same. Besides,’ she gave me a hard look, ‘they
were
gentlefolks.’
I supposed so, if gentry compensated for bastardy. What else gave me the right to look down on Hannah Reele?
‘Did my father pay for you to be lodged like this?’
She laughed. ‘Of course not! Not that he pinched us, mind; I don’t complain of him, only we pay more now. Mrs Godolphin allows us the run of the house.’
‘Do you dine with her?’
‘She’s all the company we have but Mathew – and now you. But never you mind her! She’s not here to see us.’ In those words I heard the old Tamar, not yet polished away.
‘And Joan? How is she?’
‘She cried when Hob flew off –’
‘Oh, did –’
‘– but she’s better than she was. Her bad teeth have been pulled. She’s the widow Seaton, now.’
I said, compelled by politeness, ‘Would she wish to see me, do you think?’
Tamar put her head on one side as if considering. ‘She’s asleep.’
The sullen manservant knocked and entered with a tray. She signalled to him to set it down on a nearby table.
‘Will you take something, Jon? Some wine? Gingerbread?’
‘Thank you, I’ll wait,’ I said and then, yielding to impulse, ‘No, I’ll have the wine if you please.’
The man’s nostrils flared as if he had expected nothing more from such a boorish visitor. I flushed as he poured a glassful and brought it over to me.
‘Go now.’ Tamar spoke sharply; perhaps she, too, had suffered his contempt. When he was gone she rose and waited on me herself. Standing, she was heavier round the middle than I had first perceived.
‘The best wine I’ve ever tasted,’ I said. ‘Better even than my aunt’s.’
‘And the gingerbread? Can’t I tempt you?’ Dangerous words, between us two. I smiled in answer, she returned my smile, and for an instant, despite the delicate sweetmeat laid so neatly upon the salver, there was a whiff of the wood and the cave.
As if to restore us to our civilised selves, Tamar went back to her seat and began to prattle like any pampered miss. ‘How did you know I was here? Come, you
shall
tell me.’
‘Aunt Harriet found you out. She must have a spy.’
Tamar at once grew serious. ‘Here, in this house?’
‘No, no. She only wished to know where you lodged.’ Even as I said this, I knew it was a lie. ‘I can’t say,’ I admitted at last. ‘Perhaps she has a spy here; I don’t know.’
‘The servants dislike me,’ she said thoughtfully.
‘She did it to spite my father.’ And she had succeeded, thanks to me and my dishonest, promise-breaking ways. ‘He mustn’t know of this visit. You won’t tell him, will you?’
‘Never.’ She was protecting Father, not me. ‘Why
are
you come, then? To find out how we live?’
‘I can see you’re thriving – both of you.’
Another woman might have blushed, but she gazed on me in such a frank and friendly manner that I could not care about the blush. She said, ‘Joan hopes the little one’ll favour Robin. She thinks I favour Robin, now I’ve got some flesh on me;
you’re your father’s child
, she says.’
‘Your hair curls like his.’ And like mine. Yes, I thought drily: all considered, the child had every chance of favouring Robin. But then Tamar’s hair was reddish, and she had those tawny eyes. Could it be, after all, that she was not his daughter? Not that it made any difference: full sister, half sister! I took another sip of wine to give me courage and said, watching her face for signs of jealousy, ‘Father wishes me to marry.’
She nodded. ‘Aye, you should! Who is she?’
‘Nobody you know. Poll Parfitt.’
‘Poll Parfitt. Poll Dymond.’ She tried out the name. ‘Does she love you?’
‘She’s foolish enough.’
Tamar smiled.
‘You don’t care,’ I accused her. ‘Did you never think
we
might marry? I mean if … I could marry you.’
‘I shan’t marry anyone,’ Tamar retorted. ‘I haven’t lived poor so long, and got a bit of money at last, only to give it away to a husband!’ She laughed at the very idea.
‘Well,’ I said, striving to appear cheerful, ‘When I’m wed, my father may perhaps allow me to visit you – at End House, I mean.’
‘Oh, no, Jon! Mathew says we must rent it out.’
I stared. ‘In God’s name, why?’
‘We’re known. I can’t be Mrs Eliot, not in Tetton.’
‘No,’ I said dully. Had anyone told me how much I would suffer on hearing that news, I would have called him a liar. I tried another way. ‘Tamar, when I said you don’t care, what I meant was –’
‘Don’t, Jon! You’ve surely not come for that, to ask if I would’ve married you, things being different? Things are as they are!’
‘Tamar,’ I said, trembling because it was agony to speak, and worse to remain silent, ‘I swear to God, if I could marry you, I would. There’s nobody I love more.’ She turned her face away from me, towards the fire. I said, ‘Things
being
as they are, then, I repent of it all – all the harm I did you.’
