Later that Sunday afternoon, Selena curled up on the sofa in the living room, closing her eyes. The fire warmed her feet, and she rested her head against the cushions. She had some thinking to do. The walk and lunch with Nick had been pleasant and Selena was reliving moments in her head, attempting to analyse their relationship. She recalled the moment their gaze locked, just after he had pointed out a wonderful view from Deadman, beyond Staple Hill, and told her he’d love to see her interpretation of it on canvas. There had been something in his eyes, but Selena wasn’t sure what it was, professional interest, admiration or something more. He had quoted some lines from one of his favourite poets, Selena couldn’t remember the man’s name, about the beauty of the fields: she recalled the soft tone of his voice as he had murmured;
‘Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough.’
It had stirred something in her heart.
Nick was intelligent; he seemed sensitive, considerate; he was attractive – very much so – and he was a deep thinker. But she didn’t know if he was a friend or a potential lover. The signs from him weren’t clear and Selena wasn’t sure that she wanted a lover. Besides, at the end of June she would return, fresh and strong and resilient, with a carload of new paintings, to her old life in Manchester.
Her fingers touched the malachite pendant as her thoughts turned to the new friends she had made; she’d enjoyed the impromptu lunch at The Stonegallows Inn with Laura and Joely on Thursday. In their own different ways, they were both delightfully spontaneous and brimming with enthusiasm, a perfect foil for her own tentative approach to people she hardly knew. The time she’d spent in a relationship with David had done that to her: she hadn’t been so unsure of herself, so insecure and withdrawn before she’d met him. But she was recovering.
Her mind drifted back to Joely’s suggestion that she and Laura should come up to the field on Wychanger Lane where she lived with Matty and stay for lunch: she was sure Selena would find the panoramic views that stretched for miles well worth photographing. Then, in the car on the way home from Taunton, Laura had asked her if she’d be free on Thursday afternoon the following week to go with her into Ashcombe Primary School. Scott Finch, a friend from her supply work there, was the Year 6 teacher and he had agreed that it would be lovely if Selena would go in to his class and show them her sketchbook, a slide show or a few paintings. Selena had said she’d be delighted. It was another opportunity to build up her shaken confidence.
Selena sighed happily. She felt at home in Sloe Cottage at this moment, cocooned, safe and warm. She drifted into a hazy dream where she was in the oak conservatory painting a picture. Soft words, a distant breath, whispered in her ear, telling her what to paint: a landscape, the image of a hill in the countryside, the colours all reds and russets, a bloody sun. There were clumps of gorse in the foreground, scrubby yellow bushes, and a dry-stone wall, a patchwork of grey and brown slabs stacked horizontally. The voice told her to imagine that she was travelling slowly along a dirt track. She saw an elm tree, heavy branches of sprouting green leaves above a sturdy trunk and beyond, the copper sky was hung with heavy clouds, as if a storm loomed. The picture’s point of view, as Selena dreamed it, was that of a woman, Selena herself, who was riding along a bumpy road, gazing at the landscape from a kind of primitive wagon pulled by a plodding carthorse. Her heart felt heavy, as if she had lost someone dear to her, as if her chest was constrained by anxiety.
Then the dream whisked her back to the conservatory where she saw herself engrossed in her work again, her brush loaded with mulberry paint; the scene was now a gloomy twilight. In her dream, her painting was interrupted by a single knock at the front door. Selena left her painting and her brush and rushed towards the door, but she was gliding through the air, her bare feet not touching the ground. She tugged the door open and a small child stood facing her, a girl with pale red hair and no face. Selena jerked back, shocked, and the faceless child spoke words that were soft as cotton.
‘I will come back to you.’
Selena flinched as if stunned by a strong electric charge, then she was flung upwards towards the ceiling, powerless to stop the impetus that carried her through plaster and wood into an attic that had once been thatched, threads of straw sticking from beams. She hovered, stuck in time, unable to descend. She called out in her dream, but the power that held her fast would not let her go. She was high in the eaves of the house, and something scurried in a corner beneath her, a squirrel, and she was so high that she feared whatever held her would suddenly let go and she would fall. Then it happened, the grip slackened and she was released, tumbling, dropping through the air, sure she would hit the ground with a hard bump.
She opened her eyes. She was awake, on the sofa again; the fire had died down, the room was gloomy and the air was chilly. Selena glanced over her shoulder; shadows clung to corners and she blinked, shivering, afraid. No one was there. She breathed out slowly, stretched her arms and legs, placed another log on the fire and pulled out her phone. It was almost six o’clock.
Then the phone burst to life. Selena checked the caller, held the phone to her ear, took a deep breath and said, ‘Hello, David.’
His voice came back quickly, insistent. ‘Selena, I have to talk to you.’
She said nothing, waiting. Her heart was banging hard, thundering in her ears; he still had the ability to do that to her.
He tried again. ‘Can we talk?’
Her tone was flat. ‘I’m listening.’
‘Can we meet?’
‘I’m not in Manchester.’
‘Then where are you?’ He was clearly incredulous.
‘It doesn’t matter where I am,’ Selena said. ‘What do you have to say to me?’
He sounded frustrated, annoyed. ‘I need to talk to you about the baby, of course. Our baby.’
Selena swallowed. ‘There is no baby.’
He was louder in the earpiece, fierce. ‘You had a termination?’
‘A miscarriage,’ Selena replied quietly.
‘Oh,’ David was momentarily stunned, then he said, ‘I didn’t know.’
‘There was no reason why you should.’ Selena’s words were tinged with bitterness.
‘It was my child…’
‘You walked away.’
David’s voice took on a wheedling note. ‘Selena, I want us to try again. Since we… parted ways, I’ve realised I want to be with you. I miss you. Veronica’s impossible to live with.’
Selena shook her head. ‘I don’t blame her. You told her I had been chasing you. You lied.’
She could hear him thinking what to say to her. Then his voice was almost a whine. ‘I’ve realised it’s you I love, Selena. Please, let’s try again…’
‘No.’ Selena was surprised how quickly the word flew from her mouth.
‘Where are you? I’ll come round and we can talk.’
‘I don’t want to talk…’
‘You owe me that much.’
‘I owe you nothing.’ Selena was amazed at her self-control: despite her thumping heart, she was quiet but firm. ‘I don’t think we have anything else to say.’
His voice became cracked and emotional, as if he might cry. ‘I won’t give up on us, Selena. I will find you and make you understand – I know it’s what you want too.’
Selena held the phone tightly in her fist. ‘Go back to Veronica, David. Please, I don’t want to talk to you again.’
With a press of her thumb, she blocked his calls. Selena was shaking. Talking to him had uncovered the old wound he’d left when he walked away, but she was making progress. She was sure of that now: her head was ruling her heart, she never wanted to speak to him again.
Her instinct was to phone Claire, then Laura, and tell them both what had happened. The solidarity of other women was so important now. But her hand holding the phone still trembled and her body was rigid with the tension of the conversation. She touched the malachite pendant on its long chain. She’d breathe deeply, make a cup of tea and return to the fireside. Then she’d call upon her friends for some moral support.
Christmas 1682 was a quiet day at Slaugh Cottage. Will Cotter sat at the hearth, his head in his hands, while Grace moved slowly around the room, lifting the blackened vessel of pottage and heaving it over the fire, filling his cup with mulled ale, putting a taper to the tinders, coaxing the fire to leap into flame. Then his eyes were on her, watching as she sat on a stool in the corner, her sewing on her knee, letting out a dress by the light of the candle. Finally, he spoke.
‘She is an ill-favoured woman, Mistress Harriet Harper. What she has done has put me out of sorts. I never did take to her. She had no business sending you home.’
Grace nodded agreement in his direction. Her back ached and she was tired.
Will continued. ‘I will beg them to take you back to work at the farm after… after the lying-in. They know you are a strong worker. You fill your pails quicker than any other milkmaid. It avails them to have you at Hill Top.’
‘I hope you are right.’
Suddenly, he stood up, tall and sinewy, his legs shaking. ‘I have failed you, Grace. You had no mother to teach you and I have let this thing happen when I should have protected you. Now we have nothing but ill fortune.’
Grace looked up from her sewing. It was the first time her father had spoken openly of the baby; for several weeks she had noticed him staring at her, his expression miserable, and she could not bring herself to mention it. Now his words filled Grace with fresh sorrow and she hung her head. ‘Father, it is not your fault. Please do not say such things.’
‘If I had been a good father and taken more heed, then you would not be shunned in this way. But I allowed you to wander by yourself, to do as you will, and now this has befallen us.’
Grace put down her sewing and moved to sit next to him. ‘Do not blame yourself. It is I who have wronged you.’
‘Who knows what our fate will be in the new year?’ Will stared into the blaze, one side of his face illuminated in the flames. ‘If Harriet Harper should talk to her husband, if Joseph Harper should listen to his wife’s sharp tongue, what then? Will I too be sent away? Will we no longer have a home here in Slaugh Cottage, but be cast out instead? You, me and the baby, Grace?’ He looked haggard. ‘We are beset with ill fortune, we both. It has been this way since your mother died. And now you are with child, what will become of us?’
‘Do not fret.’ Grace stood up, stretching her aching back, and then she placed her hands together, thinking. When she spoke, her voice was clear and strong. ‘It is Yuletide, and a new moon shines over us. Let us do our best to eat and drink and make merry. Trust me, Father, there are ways and means to prosper, to change our fortune, and I will seek them out. We will have another mouth to feed, and we cannot turn back time to change that.’ She gazed at her father’s troubled expression and she was suddenly determined. ‘I will pour you a glass of ale and then I will go out for a while. I will not let you down.’
Grace watched her father staring silently into the flames: he was deep in thought, not listening. She poured ale from a pitcher and placed it in his hand, then she wrapped herself in the sheepskin cloak and left the house quietly, wandering in the direction of the old oak tree beyond the gate. Across the road beneath the tree, she would find acorns: planted in the light of the new moon, they would be sure to bring luck and abundance in the new year. She would make herself an amulet from a polished acorn to wear over her heart for when the baby came; it would keep them both safe.
She stood beneath the oak, picking up fallen bark for the fire to bring good health and healing when burned. Then she moved to her beloved blackthorn tree. The plump purple sloes were already stored in a jar in the larder, steeped in gin and sugar. But Grace wanted to pluck several of the spines which she hoped could protect her; she would dry them, keep them in a basket. They were sharp and fierce, and would be sure to ward off anyone who would wish to do her or her baby harm.
She tugged several barbs carefully, snapping them free of the branch, clutching them in the rounded palm of her hand, then she knelt silently in front of the old stone well. Her head bowed, she whispered low words into the water. She heard her voice come back to her, a resounding echo from the well’s throat, and she closed her eyes and stood up to face the thin sliver of moon. She wished from the depths of her heart that there would be no more bad luck, not ever again.