The 31st day of July to the 1st of August 1752

Lammas Eve to Lammas Day

Luminary: Moon is in decline 54 minutes after 1 of the morning.

Observation: Saturn sets 34 minutes after 11 at night.

Prognostication: Trouble is stirring for one of High Rank.

 

Dusk was gathering fast as Nat sank down below the great oak tree, trying to draw no attention in his direction. Around him, a gathering of young fellows were sprawled; a few he recognized as labourers from the estate, broad-shouldered as bullocks, with mud-caked boots and bovine wits. Fifty yards away, on the Church Common, the newly lit bonfire was already six feet high, sending flames of scarlet and gold leaping into the air. He gazed upwards, easing his neck after a day bent over his quill. Soon the night would be black, for the young moon was still hidden below the horizon. Above their heads shone the leaden pinpoint of Saturn, his ring invisible without a spyglass.

The talk all around him was of the new calendar and the disappearance of eleven days.

‘Can you credit it? Parliament is saying, after the third of September, the very next day is to be the fourteenth of September!’

‘Codswallop, in’t it? Eleven days sliced off our lives? What about us wages?’

Nat wished he had a memorandum book to collect his observations. He must write a humorous piece: The Observations of Old Hodge upon the Gregorian Calendar.

A better-dressed fellow broke in, with an air of authority. ‘The length of your life won’t change, Ben. ’Tis only the date that’s changed.’

‘Aye, but ’as them Parliament fellows told the geese to fatten eleven days early for Michaelmas? And bid the Glastonbury Thorn to blossom well afore Christmas?’

There was laughter at this. Another voice piped up: ‘The farmer says them calendars has got out of kilter with the sun and stars. So all the pay days and birthdays and feast days has got to be changed.’

‘Lammas is Lammas. Mother Nature knows that. Come Lammastide the seed grows as fast by the moon as by sun,’ persisted Ben.

Nat wondered if any of them knew the astronomical reason for that. Over the coming weeks the vast sphere of the harvest moon would swing close to the earth, looming heavy and bright almost from sunset to sunrise, a vast celestial lamp by which to gather the crops home.

Through the gloom he spied the approaching dairymaid. ‘Any more of this excellent cider?’ he called, raising his tankard.

‘Just for your good self, sir? Or is you standing a round for the lads?’ Her eyes gleamed amber in the firelight, and her lips were wet.

‘I’ll stand a round, Zusanna.’ As he handed her a sixpence, her fingers, warm and sticky, were slow to withdraw.

The other drinkers grunted approval as cider splashed into their cups. Turning to acknowledge them, he noticed two newcomers had joined the throng; the first, from his silk coat, could only be Francis De Vallory. It was the first time he had seen the boy at close quarters. His face was unattractively long, the goatish impression accentuated by a jutting chin, and he held his tankard awkwardly, as if his knobbly wrists might snap. Nat could see little resemblance to the boy’s father. His mother must be a bloodless sort of woman, to have produced such an heir.

His companion was a marked foil to him – handsome to a classical degree, and possessed of eyes as large as a prize heifer’s, which laughed in the firelight but contained no warmth. Again and again he flipped a coin up into the air and caught it on the back of his hand, with the practised knack of a racketeer. Nat puzzled over where he had seen the lad before; those mocking eyes and oily curls. Yes – he was known as Darius, one of the hawkers, peddlers and ne’er-do-wells that camped down by the river. So the milksop lordling had a liking for such low company? The Devil only knew what his father made of that.

The word ‘dead’, uttered in a low voice, drew him abruptly back into the general conversation. ‘Drowned, she were. By the stepping stones. Buried tomorrow.’

‘How’d she drown there? T’int no more than waist-high.’

Nat tilted his head quickly to catch the reply.

‘I heard she gone crack-headed, old dame Hart. She’d gone a-wandering in the moonlight, all alone. Din’t know night from day no more.’

Nat stared. That was preposterous. Widow Hart had been upright and shrewd; he remembered her bright eyes lighting up her girlish features. Whenever he called at her cottage, their conversations had been lively and spiced with pleasurable intrigue. Yet she had been naïve, he could see that now; unaware of her own significance as the searcher, the recorder of the village’s mortalities.

‘Her daughter is back.’ That was the better-spoken voice again, succeeded by silence. It belonged to a burly fellow in a sober brown coat, with a young female at his side – perhaps his daughter?

‘Who’s back? That Tabitha? Back from London?’ demanded Zusanna from Nat’s elbow, where she had slunk in close to press her leg against his. ‘So why don’t she show her face then?’

The man half-turned to the fire. He was a broad-faced fellow, with lightish hair tied in a ribbon.

‘She’s keeping watch by her mother tonight.’

The dairymaid snorted. ‘Is that what she told you? Hell-cat!’

Nat, deducing that this newly arrived daughter might well be the nymph he had seen at the pond, found himself speaking aloud. ‘This Tabitha is Widow Hart’s daughter?’

At once, he wished he could unsay his words. The burly man, whom he now recognized as the local constable, took a few steps toward him, peering down into his face. ‘Who are you, fellow, that wants to know?’

Before he could answer, Zusanna said silkily, ‘It’s only Mr Starling, Joshua.’

‘Only Mr Starling.’ The man’s voice was hard and flat. ‘And what is your business here, Mr Starling?’

The labourers turned to watch. The young girl at the constable’s side pulled on his arm, eager to leave.

‘Whatever my business is, it is certainly none of yours.’

Damn it! Nat couldn’t stop the drink from putting provocations in his mouth. In the hush the only sound was the crackle and spit of the fire. The De Vallory cub was watching too, plague take him.

‘Joshua,’ Zusanna wheedled. ‘Don’t be ill-tempered.’

It was no use – the constable’s face loomed over Nat.

‘I’ve been watching you, Mr Nat Starling. I’ve seen those papers you’re forever sending down London way. Now what might they be about, I asks myself? I have powers to intercept the post in the King’s name. Mark my words, I will find you out.’

‘Father, please.’ His daughter tugged at his sleeve.

Nat flinched to think of his latest commission being publicly exposed, a crude re-telling of The Ladies’ Secret School for Pleasure. Or even worse, any hint of his and Widow Hart’s inquiries into the parish records.

‘Be my guest,’ he said, sweeping off his hat in a gesture of mock gallantry. ‘Though if a gentleman cannot correspond privately with his friends, this is not the free and fair England I once believed it was.’

Gratefully, he heard a rumble of ‘Ayes’ and ‘Hearken to that,’ from the men around him. The constable, it seemed, was not a popular man.

‘We shall see,’ Joshua barked. Then, drawing his daughter away with him, he turned and left the gathering.

Nat wiped his mouth, wondering what manner of inconvenience he had just brought down upon his own head. One thing was certain – he must not allow that damned constable to pry too deeply into his affairs. Boyish laughter broke into his thoughts. The De Vallory heir and his swarthy friend Darius were watching him, dark and light heads conferring close together. Pox the pair of them! He wished he had not drawn the whippersnapper’s attention.

‘Shall I tell you what goes on at Lammas Eve?’ Zusanna whispered, drawing her arm through his. ’Tis a night to go wandering, deep in the woods. You’ve heard the song: “It was upon a Lammas night, When corn rigs are bonnie …” She sang tunelessly, tickling his neck with her hot breath.

Nat pulled away to look down at her. ‘So it’s a night for lovers to take to the forest? To break old bonds, forget tedious old husbands and abandon oneself to the corn spirit?’

‘Aye, it be that.’ Zusanna held his eyes.

‘I shall bear that in mind, then, my dear. Good night, all.’ He heard a little squeal of dismay from the dairymaid as he leaned hard on her shoulder to stand up, before setting off alone across the green. He hoped that no one had noticed the direction he walked was quite opposite to his lodgings at Eglantine Hall.