Both Odilie and her father endured wretched sleeplessness that night but when dawn was about to break, they drifted into dreamless slumbers that made them oversleep their normal hours of rising.
Canny awoke liverish and in a grim mood. As he sat up in bed and scowled at Joe who had wakened him, it was possible to discern the iron in him which had made it possible to survive and thrive in a lawless society. His brows were lowered, his mouth thin and his blue eyes half-hidden by dropped eyelids. He looked menacing and Joe threw up his hands exclaiming, ‘Lord a’ mercy, what’s bothering you this morning?’
‘It’s Odilie. I can’t do it to her,’ Canny snapped, shoving his feet out of bed.
‘It was a mad idea from the beginning,’ said Joe unsympathetically. ‘You went off too fast as usual. You should have asked her if she wanted him.’
‘Don’t tell me what I did or didn’t do! Send a messenger and fetch that lawyer down here. Tell him it’s urgent. Then make me my coffee.’
Joe was impossible to deflate. ‘You know what coffee does to your liver. Miss Martha says you’re not to have it,’ he told his employer.
Canny gave a roar like a wounded bull. ‘I want my coffee and I don’t give a damn what Martha says! And I want that lawyer here…’ The last words were directed at Joe’s disappearing back.
Even before Canny had drunk his first cup of breakfast coffee, a beverage he had become used to in the Indies and which he imported for his own use, Grace was taking a folded note from the hand of the boy who had carried it from Havanah Court. ‘Maister Rutherford’s man said that I was to make sure the lawyer gets this at once,’ the boy told her. ‘He said Canny’s in a wax, lowerin’ like thunder.’
The girl nodded and ran with the message to her father, who was dressing for the office which opened on Saturday mornings. Because he was tying his neckcloth he tut-tutted irritably at the sight of the paper in her hand and told her to read it out to him.
‘“Come AT ONCE. Do not delay. Important business”,’ read Grace. ‘The “at once” is underlined three times, Father.’
‘Canny Rutherford!’ said Elliot in a voice of disgust and started stamping about the little dressing room. ‘What a damned man! Thinks I’ve no clients except himself. He and his daughter were up at Sloebank Castle for dinner last night, weren’t they? This must have something to do with that business. I’ll need to be quick and get it over with. Go and saddle the horse, girl.’
As Andrew Elliot was leaving the house he called over his shoulder to his daughter, ‘Come down to town later and fetch the horse from Havanah Court stable. I’ll leave her there and go straight to the office. Don’t forget.’
He found Canny waiting for him, still clad in his white nightshirt, with a long Paisley wrapper around his shoulders and a red velvet nightcap on his head. In spite of two cups of coffee, he still looked thunderous and as soon as Elliot’s head showed round the door, he called out impatiently, ‘Come in, come in, what took you so long? I’ve decided to back out now. I can’t marry my lassie to that man. I’ve seen too many of his kind – he’s not good enough for her. You’ve got to get us out of it.’
Elliot closed the door carefully behind him and, as was his habit when he needed time to think, leaned his back against it for a few seconds before saying, ‘The Duke’s the same man as he was last Wednesday morning when you were so pleased to be claiming him as a future son-in-law. What’s happened to change your mind?’
Canny stared bleakly across the room. ‘He’s a fool. If he’s not a drunk already, he soon will be. He’s a lecher too or I’m vastly mistaken. He’s greedy and stupid and insensitive and he’ll never appreciate Odilie.’
‘Who could?’ asked Elliot, with only the faintest note of sarcasm in his voice.
Canny shot a sharp glance at him but went on regardless, ‘I don’t care about the money. I’ve plenty more where the ten thousand came from. What’s been bothering me all night is what I’d have on my conscience if I were to do this to my girl. Her spirit would shrivel up if she was married to a man like that.’
Elliott pulled out a chair from the side of the table in the middle of the floor and sat down heavily in it. He sighed. ‘You’re a bit late thinking like this. You agreed to his first letter; you went to dinner at Sloebank; he showed her off to his friends. If he wants to go through with it, you’ll find it hard to back out. Cool down: perhaps you’re only overreacting, Mr Rutherford. You’d never met him before had you? What happened at the dinner? Did he insult you or something – has the girl been complaining?’
Canny shook his head. ‘No, none of those things. He was cordial enough. It was just that I saw what sort of life Odilie would have with him. I could see that she disliked him too, though to do her justice she never said a word about it, but I noticed if he brushed against her, she recoiled as if he was a snake.’
Elliot clicked his tongue. ‘My dear man, that’s normal. She’s virginal and probably terrified of men. Girls are often like that. It’s rather appealing. I sometimes think they do it deliberately.’
Canny glared. ‘My girl’s not like that. You don’t know Odilie if you even think it. No, I could tell that she didn’t like him. He repelled her. Remember, I gave her my promise that I’d call it off if she felt she couldn’t go through with it. So I want you to write to him and cancel our agreement today.’
Elliot gave a heavy shrug. ‘On your own head be it, but I hope you realise what’s likely to happen. He’ll crucicy you and all your family.’ He said nothing about what was likely to happen to his own career but he was thinking about it with disquiet.
‘It’s only money. I’ve plenty,’ said Canny.
The lawyer looked doleful. ‘It’s not just money, I wish it was. Who’s going to marry your girl after all this? It’ll be put about that the Duke turned her down because she’s coloured or ill-mannered or sickly – they could say anything. No one’ll believe that she was the one who did the rejecting. No one’ll ever believe that she refused a Duke.’
‘Odilie will easily find a husband. You’ve only to look at her to see that,’ said her loving father.
‘But what kind of a husband?’ said Elliot in an insinuating tone. ‘Certainly no man of rank and position will offer for her… the Duke’ll see to that.’
Canny frowned but held to his decision. ‘Don’t try to change my mind. Just work out what we can do. You’re a lawyer, you should know how to phrase it,’ he said.
Elliot frowned. ‘Mmm, perhaps we can say she’s been taken ill. I know! We can say she’s gone mad and you had to send her back to Jamaica. Thompson the surgeon’s come to town from Edinburgh. I saw him arriving at the Cross Keys yesterday. He’s an old friend of yours, isn’t he? He’ll give a medical opinion… He’ll say anything you want.’
Canny gasped in protest. ‘Odilie gone mad! I couldn’t say that, of course not. There must be another way. Can’t you think of something else?’
Elliot mused with his chin on his fist. ‘We could say you’ve gone mad and need her at home – no, that wouldn’t work because if she married him, she’d only be a mile and a half up the road. You could tell the Duke there’s madness in your family and she’s been advised not to have any children – but that mightn’t put him off because of the size of the dowry.’ He looked across at Canny and asked, ‘Are you sure this is what you want to do? It’s a tremendous chance for the girl and you know what those society marriages are like. They won’t even need to see much of each other once the deed’s done. They can maintain separate households if they like – no one will think anything about it.’
‘I know all that and I can see the trouble with the excuses but I know how much she dislikes him and I gave her my promise,’ said Odilie’s father, who was weakening slightly.
Elliot pressed his advantage. ‘As I’ve said before, you’re far too indulgent. Sometimes parents have to be firm for a girl’s own good. She might not be very enthusiastic at the moment but in the years to come she’ll bless you for this. Did she say anything to you about calling it off last night? No? Then she might not be as against it as you imagine. Think of the advantages of contracting this wedding against the disadvantages of backing out – and I don’t only mean financial. You ought to speak to Odilie about this.’
‘She’s not up yet and when we came home from Sloebank last night we were both so depressed we couldn’t even mention it.’
‘In that case, I’ll go over to my office for an hour until you’ve had time to talk with her. Then I’ll come back and we’ll make up our minds what to do.’
Odilie was in her lace-edged wrapper and yawning when her father tapped on the door. He made no pretence about the object of his visit and came straight to the point. ‘What did you think of him, my dear?’ he asked.
She gazed at him and her caramel eyes were bleak. ‘I disliked him, Father.’
‘Do you want out of the marriage?’
‘If such a thing is possible,’ she said in a polite and measured tone.
‘I’ll speak to Elliot,’ he told her and left, closing the door softly.
When the lawyer arrived back, Canny was dressed and waiting for him in the library. ‘It’s decided. We want to withdraw. Should I send him the money in orders or in cash?’
Elliot frowned. ‘I’ve bad news, Mr Rutherford. When I reached my office I found that there was a letter from Sloebank. The Duke wants to go ahead with the marriage and he’s most enthusiastic.’
‘So?’ Canny raised his eyebrows. ‘We write and tell him the arrangement’s cancelled. I send the money and that’s that.’
‘It’s not quite so easy, I’m afraid. He’s very touchy. He’ll be furious that we’ve waited for him to accept and then turned him down. It’s a calculated insult to a man like him. Duels have been fought for less.’
‘Odilie wants me to call it off,’ persisted Canny.
In spite of his habitual restraint, Elliot was on the verge of sounding frantic. ‘She can’t appreciate the seriousness of this. Let me speak to her, please.’
Canny agreed but without enthusiasm. ‘All right, speak to her but I want to know everything she says. If she’s still upset, I’ll call it off no matter what you say.’
When Odilie answered the summons to her father’s library, only Elliot the lawyer was there. ‘Sit down, my dear Miss Rutherford,’ he said in a tone as smooth as butter. ‘We’ve a great deal to discuss. I understand that you’re reluctant to agree to this marriage.’
She sat looking solemn. ‘I don’t care for the man, if that’s what you mean.’
The tall, grim-looking man and the dark girl with the proudly carried head stared at each other challengingly. ‘What exactly do you not like about the Duke?’ he asked.
She frowned. ‘I don’t like the way he looks for one thing, and he’s much older than I am. Then I don’t like his behaviour or his friends. He makes me feel uncomfortable.’
Elliot gave a thin smile. ‘We can’t all be an Adonis, unfortunately. As for his friends, when you’re mistress of the Castle, it’ll be up to you to invite the people who sit at your husband’s table.’
The girl gave a shiver and, seeing it, Elliot tried a different tack. ‘Your father has called me here to instruct me that if you want to withdraw from the contract, I must arrange that. But before I do so I must make sure that is really what you wish. You should first know that the Duke himself has repeated his offer – in most enthusiastic terms, I may add.’
She gave a little unsurprised nod and said, ‘I only wish this whole thing had never started.’
‘Perhaps – but it has. An offer has been made and accepted by your father, precipitately perhaps, but that’s his way. Now because of your whim, we’ll have to try to back out of it without too much pain being caused.’ She opened her mouth to protest but he kept on talking in a musing way, ‘We can’t say you don’t like him because he makes you feel uncomfortable, can we? Or that you don’t like his friends!’ He gave a little laugh at the absurdity of the idea as the girl stared at him without expression. Then he leaned forward and asked her, ‘How would you feel if we said you’ve been taken ill? Your father’s old school-friend who’s a doctor in Edinburgh has come to town for the Fair. He’ll testify that you’re not in a fit state to marry. That would be a good way out.’
‘But the Duke saw me last night and I was perfectly well then.’
‘You could have developed some ailment that doesn’t show. Something in the mind, perhaps?’
She stared at him in horror. ‘I should go mad, you mean?’
Elliot leaned back. ‘Your father’s against the idea but I thought you might consider it a possibility.’
She stood up, very flustered. ‘Certainly not! I’m not going to put myself through such a demeaning charade to save that man’s face. This is ridiculous. Can’t I just say I’ve changed my mind? People do that all the time.’
Elliot nodded. ‘You’re right, of course. If we said you’d gone mad or were even physically unstable you’d never find a decent husband though some man will still have you for your dowry no doubt.’
Odilie was pink-cheeked with anger. ‘How dare you talk about me as if I was an animal to be sold! I have some choice in this. If I don’t like the man I don’t have to marry him. Tell him that! Tell him I don’t like him enough to take him for my husband. Tell him he’s not to my taste even though he is a Duke.’
Elliot took a notepad and pencil from his pocket with a sigh. ‘All right, Miss Rutherford, that’s what I’ll tell him…’ He wrote a few words. ‘“Not to your taste”. But I hope you’re prepared for the consequences. Your poor father will suffer beyond his own imagining. How’s he going to take leaving Havanah Court? He’s so devoted to this house. Think of the work he’s put into it… and he’s not young any longer, the trouble could well kill him.’ Odilie’s eyes were anxious as she stared at the man in front of her. ‘What trouble? Why should Father leave his house? Surely it’s only talk about what the Duke will do to him. He wouldn’t be so petty.’
Elliot shut his notebook with a snap. ‘It’s not all talk, I’m afraid. I could tell you very sad stories about things that have happened to people who have annoyed the Duke in the most trivial ways – far beneath the scale of your rebuff. He’s a vindictive man, I’m afraid, and has immense power. The gossip about this wedding is all over the countryside already and he’ll be publicly affronted if you turn him down. It’s beyond imagining what lengths he’ll go to if you reject him but I know your father will be ruined, utterly ruined. So will you, come to that, but you’re young – and you’re the one who’s making the decision.’
His eyes were cold and unsympathetic as he went on, ‘Think about the consequences of this. Your position in this town will be impossible and your father will be broken – is that an incidental as far as you are concerned? The Duke will exact a terrible revenge. I’m telling you that the loss of your father’s money will only be the start of it. You love your father, don’t you?’
The girl nodded in a frightened way for she was only beginning to realise how tight was the corner into which she was being manoeuvred. Elliot pressed on, ‘Then if you love your father and don’t want to see him penniless, if you don’t want to see him driven out of his home and deprived of his friends, if you don’t want to see him ruined, perhaps even killed by the shame of it, start behaving in a realistic manner. I presume you know that your father started life in this town as a beggar – do you want him to die in the same condition because of you?’
She shuddered and sighed deeply. ‘So what you’re saying is that I haven’t any choice really. All the talk about being able to back out was only a lie. That’s what you’re telling me.’
‘Not a lie… it’s only that events have overtaken us. You must look on the bright side, Miss Rutherford. You’ll be a great lady,’ the lawyer told her.
Odilie’s face was bleak and she suddenly looked much older than her eighteen years. ‘I’m caught in a trap,’ she cried, and sank her head in her hands while her shoulders shook with silent weeping but Elliot’s sympathies were not awakened.
‘It’ll be a very silken trap,’ he told her.
When Canny Rutherford was called in and told by his grim-faced daughter that the agreement to marry was to stand, he took her hands in his, stared into her face and asked, ‘Are you sure, Odilie? Really sure, I mean? It won’t matter to me what I lose if you are against this.’
She stared back at him but her eyes were blank as she nodded her head. ‘Yes, I’m sure, Father. It’s too difficult to get out now so I’ve decided to go ahead with it. As Mr Elliot has reminded me, I’ll be a Duchess after all and that’s a great advantage. Don’t worry about me, I can look after myself. I’m not your daughter for nothing.’
He embraced her and told her, ‘You’re a strong-willed girl, I know. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you’ve a watertight marriage contract. You’ll be richer than him from the beginning and you’ll stay that way. He won’t be able to waste your money.’
She smiled bleakly but the words that were in her mind were not uttered. ‘Money isn’t everything. What about love? Am I never to know what that feels like? Apparently not.’
A baby lay in its cradle in the sunshine while its motherin her kitchen, fondly glancing out at her child every now and again with a rapturous smile on her face. The smile disappeared when she saw a gypsy girl come slinking through the garden gate and head up the path towards her door.
She pushed her head out of the open window and called with a fearful tremor in her voice, ‘I don’t want any pegs or horn spoons, thank you very much.’
Thomassin smiled and said sweetly, ‘That’s all right. I saw your baby and thought I’d put a blessing on it. Is it a boy or a girl, missus?’ She spoke in the peculiar wheedling way that gypsies had and the young mother came out of the low-roofed thatched cottage, wiping her hands and preparing to pick up the precious child. The girl’s flashing eyes intimidated her, however, for she was terrified of gypsies.
‘It’s a girl,’ she whispered. She knew it was best not to antagonise these people for she was a country girl and had lived in Town Yetholm all her life.
Thomassin knelt down by the side of the cradle and smiled even more sweetly. ‘She’s a flower, a beauty. She’ll break hearts and she’ll marry money – lots of money. Look at her little hands.’ She lifted one of the sleeping baby’s tightly curled fists that lay like drifted pink petals on the white cover. Still smiling gently, she opened the perfect little fingers. The mother smiled too, half-flattered and hopeful that the gypsy meant no harm. But she was wrong, for before her horrified eyes Thomassin took a needle from the fold of her shawl and stabbed it into the baby’s thumb. A scarlet pearl of blood welled up and the baby woke with a scream which the mother echoed when she sprang forward with both fists raised. Thomassin, still holding the baby’s hand, put out an arm to fend her off. ‘Stand back,’ she ordered. ‘Stand back, or I’ll curse this child. I need some red stuff from it, that’s all. I’ll put a spell of good fortune on the bairn if I get what I want.’
Intimidated, the mother hesitated and while the baby screwed up its face and howled, Thomassin captured a few drops of its blood in a tiny phial of glass. Then she dropped the little fist and ran away while the terrified mother hugged the equally terrified infant to her bosom and they both cried.
Rachel was in her dark and filthy bothy in Kirk Yetholm half a mile away when Thomassin came crashing in through the door carrying a full sack. ‘I’ve got it all! I’ve got a goose quill, a church candlestick, a snake in a silken bag and a phial of baby’s blood,’ she gasped.
The old woman was almost hidden in the shadows by the fireside but her voice came out loud and clear. ‘Go and pick a white rosebud and a red one and two leaves of white clover. When you’ve got them rinse them in fresh well-water. I’ll dry the snake’s head here by the fire. Leave the flowers at my cottage door and come back at midnight.’
Thomassin was disappointed. ‘At midnight? So late? I want to give it to him soon.’
‘At midnight,’ said Rachel firmly. ‘This can’t be done in daylight or in a hurry. The potion won’t be ready till Fair Day. I told you that already.’
It was after midday before Hester allowed Grace to leave Viewhill and fetch her father’s horse.
‘That’s only an excuse,’ she scolded. ‘You’re wanting to go down there to talk fancy with your friend. But make the best of it, she’d drop you when she’s a Duchess.’ It was not easy for Grace to maintain a meek attitude as she was harried through her work, but she managed to keep a curb on her tongue although something must have shown in her demeanour, there must have been a new look of defiance in her eye, for her step-mother was especially vicious and fault-finding that morning. It was only the fact that the grey mare had to be fetched and Hester herself was afraid of horses that gave Grace her eventual freedom.
Havanah Court looked deserted when she approached it and Joe Cannonball met her at the door. ‘You’ve missed Miss Odilie, she’s gone off over the bridge on her new horse. She’s in a funny mood, like her father. She said to tell you to go after her.’
‘What’s happened?’ asked Grace.
‘It’s that marriage of course but I’ll let her tell you the story herself. Poor baby, she’s low in spirits and could do with your company,’ Joe told her.
Grace knew that her father was busy in his office and Hester was almost certainly asleep, for she claimed that hot days exhausted her though she slept just as heavily on cold afternoons as well. There was no reason why an hour or two could not be snatched to spend with Odilie. When Stevens saddled the grey for her, she did not head for home but kirtled up her skirts and turned the safe old mare off along the cobbles of Bridge Street towards where Joe Cannonball indicated Odilie had crossed the river. Grace was happy at being in the saddle and raised her head with a smile for people she passed on the roadway. The sun shone down and when she was riding she felt whole and healthy, an entirely different person, temporarily liberated from the constraints of her damaged leg and not the cripple she was when she had both feet on the ground.
It was just short of twenty minutes to three when she trotted up the approach to the Rennie Bridge. The toll-keeper knew her and waved her on without asking for any money but when she reached the other side, she paused at the cross roads: one road went south to Yetholm, the second led to Heiton and Jedburgh while the third headed west in the direction of Maxton – and Bettymill! A feeling of excitement rose in Grace’s throat at the thought of going back there.
There was no sign of Odilie, no one to ask if she had passed that way and no indication of which road she had taken. On impulse Grace turned the head of the mare towards the west. If she met Odilie, good and well, but she had made up her mind to go to Bettymill.
The sun’s blaze was dazzling; it was the hottest part of the afternoon and there were no other people walking on the dry and dusty road as it twisted along the bank of the
Tweed. On the far side of the river was the elegant spread of Havanah Court, embowered in its gorgeous gardens, but soon the road made a sharp turn to the left and headed for the confluence of the Tweed with the Teviot. Grace paused by the place where the waters mingled and watched the brown Teviot water surge into the blue-grey flow of the Tweed. The rivers seemed to rush at each other like old friends, laughing when they met, surging round in great swirls as if they were clasping arms. The sight of such exuberance made the girl’s spirits lift – it was a beautiful day and she was free of her cares for a little while.
Happily she tapped her heel on the mare’s flank and set her trotting towards the next bridge that raised its humped back across the Teviot. Grace had not been over this bridge for a long time and the keeper did not recognise her. With a curmudgeonly look on his face he held out a hand for her penny toll but she leaned down from the saddle and apologised, ‘I’m sorry but I haven’t any money.’
‘In that case you’ll not cross,’ he said, jerking a finger at the bar behind him.
‘You could collect my toll from my father,’ she suggested, for now that she was on her way to Bettymill she was determined that nothing was going to stop her.
‘And whae’s your fayther then?’ asked the toll-keeper suspiciously.
‘He’s Mr Elliot the lawyer.’ The gate was swung open then, for Grace knew that Anrew Elliot was one of the turnpike trustees and no toll-keeper would dare to refuse his daughter the right to pass.
The road was prettier now because it ran along below ancient trees by the side of the field in which the Fair was to be held in two days’ time. She could see that people were already erecting stalls and driving in stakes for horses to be hobbled. Grace loved the Fair and in her mind’s eye she saw the empty field filled with crowds of people and animals, with stalls, sideshows and tents of every colour. She had visited the Fair every year for as far back as she could remember and would hate to miss it, but she reminded herself briskly of her resolution to stay away this year, then had to scold herself not to indulge in self-pity. Her decision to miss the occasion still held good for she was more afraid of disappointment or disillusion than she was of going without entertainment while everyone else was enjoying themselves. If her resolution faltered she thought how she would feel if she saw the fair-haired young gallant with another girl – or if she met him and he did not recognise her! No, she told herself, it was far safer to stay away and go on dreaming.
The old horse that was carrying her so steadily along was tall, nearly seventeen hands high, and Grace’s head bobbed above the hedgerows as she trotted on for about two miles. The countryside became strange to her as soon as she passed the Fair field but she vaguely remembered that the place she was seeking was set beside the river among a thicket of trees; she could recall her childish excitement when the carrier’s cart left the main road and took a path leading under low branches. She wondered if she would recognise the turn-off corner again so each time they reached a path or a gate, she drew on the reins and sat in momentary confusion wondering if this was where she should strike into the woods. But none of the places woke her memory and eventually she went clip-clopping on up little hills and down the other side.
She was on the verge of giving up, convinced that she’d lost her bearings and that her memory had played her false, when she saw a grass-grown path leading off to her right. All at once there was no doubt in her mind – she’d reached the place. Old memories came flooding back. She remembered sitting on the carrier’s cart with Jessie’s arm about her; she remembered the gnarled oak tree that was the marking post; she remembered the mysterious green fairyland look of the pathway that snaked off in front of her.
The sun was still blazing and because she was bonnetless it was a blessed relief to turn off by the ancient oak tree whose branches hung low over the roadway. A grass-covered ride stretched ahead of her. All at once she was a child again and remembered it as being wide but was surprised to see how it had narrowed. The branches still reached down however and the ground was high with weeds. She realised from the luxuriance of the foliage that the path had been neglected and unused for a long time. A familiar smell assailed her, of greenery and damp moss, of wild flowers and a marsh-edged river – the smell of Bettymill.
The path stretched ahead like a green tunnel. The old cart ridges underfoot had almost disappeared in thick grass and tall spikes of meadowsweet which gave off a delicious, almost intoxicating scent as the mare brushed through them. Above Grace’s head beech branches whispered and their leaves brushed against her face like caressing hands as she pushed through. In gaps between the trees, sunlight dappled the glades and lit up fading spikes of pink foxgloves and dying clusters of Scottish bluebells among curling fronds of pale green bracken. Bright pink campions dotted the banks and contrasted with the yellow stars of coltsfoot and the brilliant blue of cranesbill. The silence was like the hush inside a huge empty church and unhurried rabbits that bobbed slowly away at the sound of her approach seemed to move soundlessly. Some of them paused and stared up at the girl on the horse from round startled eyes but they were not really afraid because few people had passed that way for years.
The path led on for more than a mile, sometimes almost disappearing in the undergrowth but all the time heading deeper into woodland. Trees clustered closer and closer with the occasional young seedling almost blocking Grace’s passage. She could see that there were berries, turning pale orange already, on the branches of the rowan trees. Soon they would be scarlet, the sign of autumn. The rose hips were colouring up too and clusters of tight green brambles like little rosettes covered the ends of trailing thorn branches that reached out to grab Grace’s skirt as she brushed past them.
Her memory told her that the path to the mill was long so she did not despair of reaching its end for she knew she was heading in the right direction. As she pushed through the undergrowth, however, she hoped that the mill might not be so overgrown that it would be missed, but suddenly a grey stone wall and a broken roof could be spied rising above a line of trees. She jumped down from the saddle and led the mare by the bridle towards the buildings. Surprisingly the path was clearer here and the grass was beaten down as if someone had pushed a way through quite recently. A little wooden bridge, rotting in places but still capable of bearing weight, crossed a stream that was channelled between two stone embankments. Grace stood on the bridge and saw that the trodden-down path led up to the front door of an old house.
She remembered it well but her heart sank at the sight of its dilapidation. The last time she’d been there it had been very different, but now the window glass was broken and the wood of the door was split and it swung open on one hinge. She tied her horse up in the shade beside a patch of tall grass that would give sweet grazing and walked towards it. Behind the house rose the old mill which was even more broken down, for an ash sapling was growing through a gaping hole in the roof and though the wooden waterwheel was still there, it was stained with green lichen and some of the spars were missing.
For a moment Grace wondered if she should turn and ride away again. She’d seen what she came to see and the dilapidation was heartbreaking. Besides, from the state of the path it looked as if someone else had been there not so long ago and perhaps whoever it was still lurked among the trees watching her.
But something drew her on. She had old ghosts to lay. Walking slowly she reached the front door of the house and pushed it fully open. When she had visited the house as a child, the room was warm and welcoming with a fire blazing up the chimney and coloured rugs on the floor. A table covered with food always stood in the middle of the floor. There had been a tall dresser in a corner with pretty plates on its shelves and a tall clock with a painted face had ticked away the time. She stepped into the dimness and blinked to accustom her eyes to the lack of light after the blazing sun outside. Then slowly, she gazed around.
The dresser was still there, dusty and hung with cobwebs but the pretty plates had all gone. The clock had vanished too but the old round table stood isolated in the middle of the floor. In the corners of the room piles of dead leaves and dried twigs had blown in over many winters. Yet, in spite of all that, the room did not look too desolate. Someone had been there recently, for the middle of the floor had been swept and a chipped plate stood on the table. Grace saw that there were crumbs on it and lifted them to her lips: they were not yet stale. Disquiet filled her and she looked questioningly around. A candle stump stood in a puddle of dried wax by the side of the hearth and a bundle of twigs was laid in the grate as if someone had been interrupted in the act of building a fire.
All at once she became painfully aware of the isolation of the place and knew that even if she tried to get away there was little chance of escaping an attacker. If she called out, no one would hear her. Her skin prickled with sensitivity as if someone was watching her but there was no place in the room where an unseen watcher could hide. Her disquiet made her so unsettled, however, that she decided against going upstairs and ran back outside, closing the door firmly behind her and tying a bit of string through the latch to keep it secure, although that would be no deterrent to a determined intruder.
In the open once more Grace felt safer and decided that she had been silly. Some innocent tramp was probably living in the empty house or perhaps a pedlar on his way to the Fair was using it as a temporary lodging. There’s no reason to be afraid, she told herself and sat down to rest for a little before starting for home again. In the sunlit glade she felt warm and reassured so she lay down on the grass by the side of the mill lade which chattered through its course towards the river that could be seen glimmering silver through gaps in the trees.
She leaned on her elbow and looked down into the water of the lade which beckoned invitingly in the summer heat. Another memory wakened. Long ago she had bathed in that pool and she remembered standing naked in the water with someone – a woman – smiling down at her from the bank. On impulse she bent forward and took off her shoes and stockings, then dipped her thin white legs into the cool water. It gave her a delicious thrill as it surged around her legs and she kirtled up her skirt so as not to get it wet when she dropped off the bank and stood on the gravel bed of the little stream, staring down into the chattering water. Its flow was mesmeric and she was smiling as she watched it swirling around her calves. Though the day was hot, the water felt icy cold and stimulated the blood flow in her legs. She stared down at them – the right leg was white and strong-looking, a perfect leg, but the other was thin and wizened and seemed to belong to another person altogether. It was the leg of a cripple, of an imperfect girl. Balancing herself on the good leg, she moved the crippled one around gently in the water, holding it out and wriggling the toes as if trying to take some of the power of the rushing water into it. She wondered if the pulsing stream could make it whole and strong, could return it to what it had been when she paddled in the lade as a child, for her memory told her that she was not crippled then. She remembered running, jumping and splashing in the water. Her absorption was so complete that she did not see a woman walk up to the edge of the lade. Her reverie was broken, however, when a voice called softly from behind her, ‘What’s the matter with your leg, my dear? Have you hurt it?’
The tone was so friendly that Grace was not in the least frightened by the realisation that her suspicion was correct, unseen eyes had been watching her after all. She looked calmly up from her contemplation of her limbs in the water and said, ‘I’m crippled. I’ve been like this for a long time.’
A tall thin woman dressed in black had come out from behind a thicket of little trees at the side of the house. Now she squatted down on the grassy verge beside the mill lade and she and Grace both turned their eyes down to the legs shining white in the clear water. ‘It’s the left one, isn’t it? It doesn’t look too bad to me. Exercises would help. Have you seen a doctor about it?’ asked the stranger in a friendly and outright way.
Grace shook her head. ‘No. It’s been like this since I was small. My father and step-mother say that nothing can be done for it. I was sick in bed for a long time when I was seven years old and when I got up that leg didn’t work like the other one any more. I just have to endure it.’
The stranger raised her head and stared at the girl. She wore no bonnet and Grace noticed that her hair was as dark as Odilie’s but her skin was not dark and she had eyes of the palest blue like a spring sky. Those eyes were sympathetic when she asked, ‘You’ve only a step-mother – no mother?’
Grace wriggled her toes in the cool water and sighed. ‘She died long ago but she used to live here when she was a girl. That’s why I’ve come today. I’ve only just found out that this mill was her home and I wanted to see it. It’s lovely, isn’t it?’
The woman stood up abruptly and the look on her face had changed. When she spoke her voice quavered as if she was having trouble breathing. ‘What’s your name, my dear?’
Grace looked up in surprise. ‘Grace Elliot. My mother’s name was Lucy Allen before she married.’
The woman looked down for a long moment and her voice was husky when she said, ‘I knew Lucy Allen once.’
Excitedly Grace came splashing out of the water and limped over to her, exclaiming in delight, ‘That’s wonderful! How lucky that I met you. Tell me anything you can remember about her, please. I’ve never been able to find out much – my father won’t talk about her at all and Martha Rutherford knows something but she’s very odd about it for some reason. No one else knows anything – or at least if they do, they won’t say. Tell me about my mother – please.’
When the woman turned towards Grace her face looked strained and sad. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you but there’s not much to tell, I’m afraid. She had a short life, had poor Lucy, and not a very happy one – at least it wasn’t happy at the end although she was happy enough when she lived here as a girl.’
‘Oh, but she was happy when she had me, wasn’t she? I found a Bible that she’d written my name in and I could feel she was happy when she did that.’
‘Yes, she was happy about you, very happy. She loved you dearly. It was so painful – you were only a bairn when she went away.’
Grace was surprised. ‘Went away? I thought she died.’
The woman gave herself a shake as if she had said something wrong. ‘Of course, yes, she’s dead. She’s dead all right, but she had to go away first.’
‘Tell me, oh, please tell me,’ pleaded Grace but the stranger shook her head and said the same thing as everyone else. ‘There’s nothing much more to tell, at least I don’t know anything. She went away first and then she died in London.’
The terrible finality of that statement made the day lose its glory for Grace. It seemed to her that a cloud crossed the sun and dark shadows crept into the glades between the trees. A chill swept over her and she shivered, raising a hand to her eyes, as she said brokenly, ‘She went away. So she did not love me, either… no one has ever loved me.’
The strange woman saw the effect her words had on the girl and stepped quickly forward, saying in an urgent voice, ‘Oh believe me, she loved you. She loved you very much.’
Grace shook her head. ‘Why did she go away, then? It would have been bad enough if she died at home but to go away first – if she loved me, why did she leave me with a father who does not care about me – how could she?’ Her head fell forward like a broken-stemmed flower as the dreams of her loving, caring mother rapidly disappeared.
The stranger put out a hand and gently took hold of the girl’s chin, lifting her face up as she said, ‘Lucy didn’t want to go away, Grace. Please believe me. She was forced into it. She was brokenhearted to leave you. That’s true, as true as I’m standing here now.’
Grace looked up with bewilderment in her blue eyes. ‘How do you know?’ she asked.
‘I know because I saw her after she left Lauriston. She was bereft – no woman could have suffered more. She thought about you all the time, all the time.’
‘You must have known her well,’ said Grace, amazed. As she listened to the woman her face was beginning to look less stricken.
The answer was a vehement nod. ‘I knew her very well. It is because of her that I came back here today. I wanted to find out if there was anyone still living in the mill but it looks as if it’s been abandoned for years. It’s a miracle that I found you here.’ She took hold of Grace’s hand as she spoke and the girl could feel that the hand holding hers was trembling and there were tears in the woman’s eyes. After a little pause while they stared at each other wordlessly, the woman asked, ‘Do you know what happened to Lucy’s father, my dear?’
Grace shook her head. ‘The last time I came here I was six or seven – before I took ill. Jessie, our maid, brought me. The old man who was my grandfather was here then. Jessie told me he’d died when I was sick and I haven’t been back since – until today.’
Standing shoulder to shoulder they were almost the same height and together they stared around at the sad desolation. ‘It used to be so busy here – with the wheel turning, the water falling and the millstones grinding away all the time, day and night. It was like constant music,’ said the woman in a sad faraway voice.
Grace nodded. ‘I remember that, too. It was exciting. But the old man was so sad and Jessie used to cry all the way home after we came to see him – I remember that, too.’
‘Oh God – such sorrow!’ sighed the woman. ‘And Jessie – is Jessie still alive?’
‘Oh no, she died about ten years ago too – while I was sick as well. When I got better Kelly our skivvy told me that Jessie had died of the fever. Did you know her too?’
‘Yes, I knew Jessie very well. She used to live here in Bettymill too. There were five families living in the little houses at the back of the mill. How sad that they’ve all gone and the mill’s not working any longer.’ She sounded as if she was mourning.
Grace shook her head. ‘But it wouldn’t be worthwhile anyone staying here, would it? It’s a ruin.’
The woman turned to look closely at the girl and her eyes became sharp again when she said, ‘If both your mother and your grandfather are dead, my dear, this mill belongs to you.’
Grace was astonished. ‘To me! It can’t. No one’s ever told me anything about that and my father’s always saying that I’ve no dowry so I must do as I’m told.’
‘Your father – is he well?’ asked the woman guardedly.
‘Oh yes, he’s well and very busy. He’s a lawyer in Lauriston, he’s an important man.’
The answer was a nod and a small smile. ‘I’m not surprised. And he married again, I expect.’
Grace looked downcast. ‘Oh yes, it must have been shortly after my mother died – went away I mean – because I never remember a time when he wasn’t married. He has three other children, too.’ It was obvious from the girl’s tone that this was not a happy subject for her.
‘Whom did he marry?’
‘He married Hester.’
The woman gave a wild peal of laughter that rang out eerily among the trees. ‘Hester the maid! So he married the maid! Ha, ha, ha!’
‘She came from here as well. Do you know her?’ asked Grace in amazement.
‘Oh yes, I knew her but not as well as I knew Lucy or Jessie, not nearly as well.’ The woman impulsively threw her arms round the surprised girl and hugged her close, crying, ‘I’m so happy that I met you today. So happy, I can’t tell you how much.’ Then she held Grace away after a while and stared searchingly into her face as if she wanted to remember every feature. After a bit she said more soberly, ‘You must be wondering about me. My name is Alice Archer. My man and I run a travelling freak show and we’re coming to St James’ Fair on Monday but I wanted to see this old place again. He brought me up on horseback this morning but went back down the road to settle the waggons for the night. He’ll pick me up tomorrow. I hope you don’t mind me wanting to see your mill and spending the night in it.’
‘My mill!’ Grace looked around at her new and unexpected possession. The revelation that Bettymill might belong to her made the whole place seem different. The house was not so ruined-looking, it was almost habitable, in fact. ‘I could live here,’ she thought in delight and her spirits soared. It seemed as if her whole world had started to change for the better and she smiled at the stranger by her side. ‘Of course I don’t mind. Stay here as long as you like. Or ride back to Lauriston on the pillion with me. The mare could carry us both easily. Come back to Viewhill and see Hester and my father.’
The woman threw back her head and laughed but again her merriment had a strange undertone to it. ‘Oh no, that wouldn’t do at all. I don’t think I’d be very welcome at Viewhill. I was your mother’s friend, not Hester’s. Anyway, my husband’ll come looking for me tomorrow morning and he’d be worried if I wasn’t here – he’s always half-expecting me to disappear, I’m afraid. Don’t worry about me. I’ve seen what I came for – much, much more than I came for, in fact. Before you go though there’s one thing I want to do. Sit down on that stone and let me look at your leg. I’m a sort of a healer – I do a lot of it with the freak show folk and I might be able to help you make that leg better.’
Grace sat and watched with fascination as Alice’s strong capable hands rubbed and kneaded the wasted muscle of her leg. The woman’s touch seemed to send heat down into the girl’s bones as she worked. Now and then she instructed, ‘Bend your toes up – now down. Twist your foot to the side, bend your knee.’ After about twenty minutes, she sat back on the grass and looked up to tell Grace, ‘Your leg’s not as bad as it looks. The muscle’s wasted, that’s all. If you could do exercises every day and bathe it in a herbal potion that I make it would improve a lot.’
‘It would be wonderful to be able to walk without such a limp. I’ve always felt different from other girls and Hester says no one will every marry me because of my leg – and because I don’t have a dowry, of course,’ Grace sighed.
Alice frowned. ‘No dowry? But of course you’ve a dowry! You’ve this mill for one thing and your grandfather was a rich man. He owned a lot of other property as well. He’d have left it all to you because there wasn’t anyone else and he was careful about things like that. He’d have made a will, I know that.’ She stood up with her hands on her hips and a determined look on her face, then she said, ‘I tell you what, come to see me at the Fair and I’ll try to find out what’s happened to your grandfather’s property. And I’ll make up a potion for your leg and give it to you at the same time. Promise me you’ll come. It’s very important. We own Archer’s Freak Show and you’ll find it easily because Jem always gets a good site in the middle of the field. Come on Monday evening because that will give me time to make my enquiries.’
Grace found that she trusted this strange woman but she was still very puzzled. ‘But how do you know all this? Who are you?’
The woman patted her gently on the cheek as she said, ‘My dear, I lived here when I was a girl like you. Your mother and I were close. She was a very trusting girl, and now I see that she was silly in a way because she believed what people told her. She never thought them capable of lying so she got her heart broken. That’s why she had to die. I’m sorry.’
Tears filled Grace’s eyes. ‘My mother died of a broken heart! Oh, how terrible. There’s one thing I’ve been frightened of – tell me, she didn’t kill herself, did she? I couldn’t bear to think of her doing that.’
A bleak look crossed Alice’s face. ‘Kill herself? Oh, no. She was more a victim of other people than a victim of herself. Don’t grieve for her too much. She couldn’t have gone on as she was. But I know she’d want you to be happy and to have what’s yours by right so remember to come and see me at the Fair. Do not forget.’
The last words were said with fierce vehemence and there were tears in the woman’s eyes. Seeing them Grace thought, ‘This woman must have been very fond of my mother.’ So she held out her hand and promised, ‘I’ll come. We’ll meet again on Monday.’
As if drawn by some force which they were unable to resist, they stepped closer and clasped each other in a warm embrace. Alice’s hands cradled Grace’s head on her shoulder and tears ran down her cheeks as she said through her sobs, ‘You’re a lovely girl. Your mother would be so proud of you…’ Then she pushed at Grace’s shoulder and said, ‘It’s growing late and you mustn’t travel the roads in the dark. You’d better go home now, my dear.’
She held the grey mare while Grace climbed into the saddle and they stood looking at each other for a few minutes, not knowing what to say, until Alice raised a hand and gave a little wave. Then Grace urged her horse forward into the leafy lane. Her crippled leg felt sore but her heart was light and her mind was full of a host of new thoughts and impressions – the strange encounter had given her much to think about.
Before Bettymill disappeared from view, she turned in her saddle and took a last look at the place which might belong to her – might, she stressed to herself, for she had endured too harsh an upbringing to expect things to turn out well. The solitary black figure in the middle of the clearing had one hand raised in farewell. Grace waved back and called out, ‘I’ll see you at the Fair.’
When the fretwork of tree branches swung back behind the grey horse and the last sounds of Grace’s departure disappeared, a deep stillness fell over the huddle of old buildings in the wood. Then, very slowly, the woman in the black dress stopped waving and dropped her arms by her sides, letting her head slump forward. For a long time she stood still with huge tears running down her cheeks like rain. She looked like a statue representing sorrow.
It seemed that her tears came from an unquenchable well for they flowed on relentlessly, but after a long time she brought her clenched fists up to her mouth and bit viciously into the knuckles. It did not bother her that she drew blood for she welcomed the physical pain and her tears mingled with blood on her hands at the same time as the gasping sobs made her shoulders heave. She stood with her hands against her mouth till she managed to control her emotion and examine the damage she had inflicted on herself. Then, careless of pain, she wiped her bleeding knuckles on the side of her skirt and walked slowly back towards the mill house. At the door she untied the string with which Grace had secured it and stepped inside.
In the dim room she looked around longingly. Her eyes rested on the empty fireplace, the dirty windows and the dust-covered shelves of the dresser. Walking warily as if she was acutely sensorily awakened, she crossed the floor and opened a little door in the righthand wall which revealed a flight of rickety wooden stairs leading to the first floor. Bending her head, for she was tall, she entered the doorway and disappeared upstairs. Soon her footsteps were going from room to room, stumbling up and down on the uneven floors till eventually she re-emerged from the doorway carrying a frayed wicker basket and her flat straw hat. Placing the hat on her head she went back outside, tied the door up again and walked over the grassy sward to pick up a long stave that leaned against the mill house. Beside it was an overgrown rose bush, thickly covered with small pink flowers and she broke some of them off before holding the little nosegay up to her face and inhaling its sweet scent. Then she stuck the roses into the brim of her hat and prepared to leave, but before she went there was one more thing she had to do. Positioning herself in front of the house, she stood very still and stared fixedly at it for a long time as if branding its image into her brain. After that she turned slightly and stared at the old mill: she seemed to be trying to take in every detail of the thick undergrowth, the broken roof, the lichen-stained waterwheel, the grey slates of the roof, the rioting bushes with their enchanting flowers. There were no more tears and no weakness in her now, for her eyes were dry and burning with determination.
When she had looked her fill, she took the stave in one hand and lifted up her basket, which had nothing in it except a few bits of broken china. Without a backward glance she strode off up the shady lane towards the main road. At the first clearing, where Grace had paused and where the path took a turn to the right, Alice hesitated. She wanted to look back, but with an effort restrained herself and stood very still facing forward for a few moments before striding on with her face hard and controlled.
When she reached the main road she did not hesitate again but headed away from Lauriston in the direction of Maxton village. Alice was a tall, erect woman with a striking figure and she marched along with long regular strides, staring straight ahead and oblivious to other people she passed on the way, and she met many for the roads leading to Lauriston were thronged with itinerants making for the Roxburgh field. There were traders, pedlars, quacks, merchants, cottagers with flax for sale and others driving a few cattle or geese that they hoped might find a buyer. All were eager to camp near the Fair field so that they could be out early on Monday morning and secure a good pitch for themselves. One or two of them knew Alice from other fairs and greeted her by name but she only acknowledged their greetings with a swift word and kept striding on, never pausing to gossip with them. They looked surprised because her eyes kept staring straight ahead like the eyes of a woman following an irresistible lure.
It was dark when she passed through Maxton, never looking to right or left, but she knew she had almost reached her destination. Half a mile farther on, she noticed a secret sign scratched on a stone by the side of the road next to a deep wooded gully through which the road wound. She crossed a stream at the bottom by a small bridge and then turned off the road on to a path that led into the heart of the gully. She guessed by the sign that it was here that Jem’s waggons were parked and she was right, for before her as she trod up the path she could see the glimmer of their cooking fires. Her approach was heralded by the fierce barking of dogs but she calmed them by calling out as she walked, ‘It’s only Alice, it’s Alice…’
The carts of the freak show were lined up behind a stockade of bushes and people were moving about among them. The draught-horses were grazing by the side of a burn and a motley pack of dogs could be heard scavenging about in the undergrowth, sending up game. Sometimes a rabbit took a chance and shot out in a bolt for freedom but it was unerringly pursued by one of the dogs, which caught its quarry and despatched it with a vicious snap of terrible teeth.
The arrival of Alice was hailed by people hunkering down beside their flickering fires and she waved in acknowledgement of their calls but hurried on towards her own caravan. Its door stood open and a set of movable wooden steps led up to the interior. She laid her basket on the first step and called out softly, ‘Jem! Are you in there, Jem?’
Immediately there was a startled clatter from within and the bulk of Jem appeared. He was wearing a collarless white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a scarf knotted around his neck. He grinned at the sight of her and cried, ‘Alice, I’m glad you’re back but why didn’t you stay there till tomorrow, lass?’ He stuck out a hand and half-pulled her up the steps into the dimness of their caravan. Still holding his hand she sat down heavily on the bunk by the far wall and her tears began to flow anew, flooding from her like a torrent.
Jem’s florid face looked stricken. The sight of tears always unmanned him. He knelt down beside her, reaching out to enclose her in his arms and saying, ‘Oh, don’t take on like that, Alice. What’s the matter? Nobody’s hurt you, have they? If they have tell me who they are and I’ll MURDER them…’
She shook her head and sobbed even more agonisingly as she reassured him, ‘No, no Jem, it’s nothing like that. I shouldn’t have gone there. It was stupid of me. But if I hadn’t I wouldn’t have met her – thank God I did!’
This ambiguity confused him and he asked her, ‘But what’s the trouble then? When I left you this morning, you said you’d sleep the night there. You weren’t disturbed by anyone, were you? I wish you’d tell me. I know something’s up. Did you meet someone who scared you?’
‘No, I met a young girl at the mill but she didn’t scare me, far from it. There’s nothing to fear from her.’ She gave another sob and clutched him to her as if she needed his strength.
He hugged her close groaning, ‘Oh Alice, I don’t care what this trouble is all about, just tell me. You’ve been acting funny for days. I’ll look after you no matter what it is. You should know that by now.’ Her tear-washed face was turned to his as he went on brokenly, ‘I wish I’d made you stay in Carlisle. Something tells me you shouldn’t have come here. You’re in danger. I’ll send Long Tom back there with you now if you like.’
She looked sadly at him, ‘I can’t go back. Not now. I’ve things to do here. I used to live in this part of the world, you know that, don’t you Jem?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, you said you lived at that old mill.’
She went on, ‘But I’m afraid in case someone I used to know when I was a girl recognises me. That’s all.’
‘Would it matter if you were recognised?’ he asked slowly.
She nodded, ‘Yes, it would matter if I was seen by the wrong people. I’d be in trouble – a lot of trouble.’
‘With the law?’ asked Jem cautiously and Alice nodded again. He hugged her close and there was relief in his voice when he told her, ‘The law – is that all! Who cares about the law? You’ll be safe enough with me. I’ll not let anybody near you. I’ll not let you out of my sight. Is that why you dyed your hair, my dove?’
For the first time that night she gave a small smile. ‘Yes, that’s why. I’m sorry. I know you don’t like it but I’ll wash it out when we get away from here.’
‘But why do you want to stay? I’d be better pleased if you went back to Carlisle now. I’ll be worrying about you the whole time,’ he told her.
‘No, I can’t go back. I’ve something to do now since I met the girl. I’m safe enough with you to look after me. And anyway, I’m a different woman in every way to what I was when I lived here. I’d be hard to recognise, I think.’ She put both arms round his waist and wept against his chest as if she was mourning her lost youth and he crooned gently over her as if she was a baby. In a time she was calmer and wiped her eyes as she gazed at him saying, ‘You amaze me, Jem. Don’t you want to know why I’m in trouble with the law?’
‘No, I don’t care,’ was the reply. ‘I don’t want to know anything about it. Whatever you did I’m sure you didn’t deserve the punishment you’ve had. I don’t care what it was. It won’t make any difference to the way I feel about you.’ He held her close till she relaxed in his arms and when he felt her head droop, he said, ‘I’ll look after you, Alice.’
She smiled at him and said in a voice of great earnestness. ‘I’ll tell you the whole story one day. I promise you I will.’
‘Only when you’re ready but stay with me Alice, that’s all I want,’ he entreated her.
She kissed him in confirmation of this and then stood up to take off her heavy shoes. When she was barefoot, she stared into a scrap of looking-glass on the wall as she tidied her hair. Then she put on a large apron that was hanging behind the caravan door and when she was dressed in her workaday wear, she turned back to the watching man and said in a new brisk tone, ‘Now tell me, what’s been going on since I left? How’s poor Billy?’
‘He’s worse than ever, shouting and raving ever since we got here, terribly excited. You’ll have to give him a draught or he’ll kill somebody.’
She nodded. ‘All right. I’ll make one straight away.’ Jem stood still with a frown on his face. ‘I’m worried about Billy. He’s getting too strong. I’ll have to ask around at the Fair to find if there’s any of his people there. If the old woman’s still alive she’ll want to know about him because she was fond of him and he was never wild with her.’
‘Why did she give him to you then if she was so fond of him?’ asked Alice.
‘She knew she couldn’t keep him. She’d not been well and she was growing old. He’d have ended up on a gibbet sure as death if she’d kept him.’
Alice sighed. ‘It’s so sad. Poor Billy. The Vikings used to keep men like him. They used them as warriors and sent them out of the longboats first because they were so strong and hadn’t any fear. They called them berserkers.’
Jem was interested, ‘Did they now! You know such odd things, Alice. But there’s no longboats any more for the likes of Billy now. They wouldn’t even take him in the Army when the war was on. It’s a worry what’s going to happen to him when I can’t go on mastering him and I’m like the old woman, I’m not getting any younger either and no one else can cope with Billy when he’s wild. I’ll have to ask his people what’s to be done.’
Alice stared at him. ‘But you’re as strong as an ox, Jem! You can carry four men on your back and still walk upright as a tree. You don’t feel ill, do you?’
‘No, nothing like that but I’m over fifty years old,’ he reminded her. ‘I can’t stay like I am forever. I’m luckier than most but I’ll have to grow old one of these days. How do you fancy living with an old man who likes his porter and his pipe – just you and me together.’
She laughed. ‘I’d love it but I don’t think it’s going to happen for a long time. Now, where’s my box of herbs? I’ll have to fix a strong draught for Billy if he’s as wild as you say.’
When she and Jem emerged from the caravan half an hour later, the shadows of night had gathered like velvet beneath the trees and the flames of the cooking fires were leaping up in bright orange streamers towards the dark vault of the sky. Jem and Alice made a tall and handsome couple as they walked slowly from group to group, talking to first one grotesque or misshapen creature and then another.
As they gathered together in the firelight of their night camp, the exhibits from Jem’s freak show looked like figures out of a vision of Hell. Some were tiny and hunched: others immensely tall, angular and skinny. A young and pretty-faced woman had a long, luxuriant black beard that flowed over her chest in magnificent ripples. Meg the dwarf sat by the fire suckling a baby and regarding it with love as it clung to her little breast. Alice bent down to look at the child and told its mother, ‘She’s growing up awful bonny, Meg. You’re making a grand job of her.’
Meg looked up anxiously. ‘She’s going to be normal-sized, isn’t she Alice? She’s not going to be a dwarf like me and him over there?’ She jerked a thumb across to where a wizened little man called Hans was turning a spit handle over the fire. He was even smaller than Meg, barely three feet tall, and he also had an immense head, a broad barrel chest and doll-like legs that did not look strong enough to bear the weight of the top half of his body.
Alice reassured the tiny woman. ‘Don’t worry. I think your baby’ll be normal because it’s the right size now for its age. Jem told me that he got you from a woman who kept babies in boxes to stunt them and Hans was raised by somebody that put knot grass, dwarf elder and daisy root in his food when he was a child so that he wouldn’t grow. That means the smallness of both of you is artificial, it’s not something that’ll be passed on.’
The bearded woman who was listening, raised her voice and called to the dwarf Hans, ‘D’ye hear that, you little bastard! If you hadn’t been so greedy and eaten everything that was given to you, you might be as big as Jem today. Ha, ha, ha!’
Her vengeful cackle rang out amongst the trees and the dwarf turned an angry face towards her, spitting out, ‘And how did you get that thicket on your face? It’s a good thing you’ve not got a bairn or it’d be born with a moustache and Jem’d have another freak to show off to the crowds.’ Soon they were all quarrelling, shouting and swearing at each other. It was the normal way for them to spend their evenings.
Alice and Jem’s attempts at pacification were interrupted by an extremely tall, thin man who stepped into the circle of light and told Jem, ‘One of the bears is sick. I’m worried in case it’s going to die. Maybe Alice could have a look at it.’
They followed him to the edge of the clearing where a cage with metal bars on the sides stood. Three dark figures were huddled in one corner. As he approached the cage, the tall man made coaxing noises and called out, ‘Come out for a locust nut, come and get it, come on, come on…’ He held out his hand and two of the figures lifted their heads. Alice felt a chill of distaste at the sight of them, for their faces were pink-skinned and human-looking but their bodies were covered with coarse brown hair. She knew that their grotesque appearance was because they all had their faces and necks shaved in order to appear human when they were paraded before the credulous public dressed up as women and billed as the Pig-Faced Ladies. The bears had been trained to dance a lumbering quadrille which Alice hated to watch because the animals’ tragic eyes haunted her. She was sure that all of them – and particularly the biggest one called George – loathed the demeaning fate that was forced on him.
When they heard their keeper approaching their cage, two of them came ambling over towards the door snuffling eagerly and Long Tom, who with the aid of stilts and high-heeled shoes doubled as the Tallest Man in the World, said, ‘Here’s Jenny. She’s always the first. And Willy’s fine too but it’s big George that worries me. He’s so poorly that he can hardly rise.’
He opened the door of the cage and stepped in beside the animals, gesturing to Alice and Jem to follow. Gathering up her skirt to keep it clear of the stinking straw, she did so, swallowing down the nausea she felt at the rank smell of the animals. Two loomed over their keeper looking for titbits and he gave them what they wanted as he pushed past towards the third bear which lay in a pathetic huddle in a far corner. The animal’s yellow eyes were tragic and pleading in its grotesque face.
‘Take a look at him. Any idea what’s wrong with him, Alice?’ asked Tom, kneeling down beside the panting bear.
Alice gazed into the animal’s shaven face and noted the gathering glaze in his eyes. She sighed, ‘I think he’s dying, Tom.’
‘Can’t you do something? He’s my best bear. He’s the best dancer of the lot.’ Tom like everybody else in the show had great faith in Alice’s curative powers and her knowledge of herbal medicines.
‘Try giving him some brandy. That’s all I can think of,’ she said. She had little hope that anything would cure the poor animal’s broken heart but at least liquor would help it to die in peace.
Alice breathed a deep sigh when she stepped out of the stinking cage where the bear lay dying. In the open camp site, the smell of woodsmoke was sweet to her senses. Jem stood beside her at the cage door and she told him sadly, ‘That bear’ll not see the morning, poor thing.’
When she walked away, Jem shook his head and said quietly to Long Tom, ‘Get a couple of men to dig a grave for George and don’t let Alice see you burying him. You know how things like that upset her.’
Tom had travelled with Jem for many years, first in the boxing booth and then in the freak show, and he remembered how the big man had first met Alice, lost her again and spent years searching before he found her. He remembered travelling from town to town, asking everyone if they’d seen her and he knew how tenderly his old friend took care of his woman, how he considered her wishes in everything and how much he dreaded Alice disappearing again like a dream. For some unexplained reason Alice was prey to strange, engulfing melancholies and Jem did everything he could to avert them.
After he had given his orders, Jem ran to catch up with Alice whose dark outline could be seen heading towards the furthest caravan of the group. This vehicle was deliberately situated in the most remote part of the gulley and as she approached it, Alice heard the familiar thuds and strange animal grunting noises emanating from it. She knew the sounds showed that Billy was fretting, fretting, fretting. The noise was not worrying a tangle-haired girl, the daughter of Long Tom, who perched on the caravan steps with a piece of tatting in her hands. She was working very fast and concentrating totally on the work in progress. Jem caught up with Alice just as she reached the girl and asked, ‘How’s Billy now?’
The girl didn’t look up from her flying fingers and said with an expressive shrug, ‘Oh, just the same. I put his food in and left him to it. He’s finished. I heard him smashing the plate a little while ago.’
With a grin Jem thudded his huge fist on the closed door and shouted, ‘Billy, hey Billy. It’s Jem, Billy!’ The sounds from inside ceased and after a few seconds, Jem turned the key on the outside of the door and slowly pushed it open. Inside was pitch dark. Still talking soothingly, Jem stepped into the blackness but his muscles were tense and his fists were half-up. He called out as he went, ‘Where are you, Billy? I’ll light your lamp – if you’ve not broken it that is.’
Alice and the girl watching by the door saw the glimmer of a scratch of flint on tinder and soon a faint gleam of light appeared inside. They leaned forward to see more clearly and could just make out Jem standing with a lamp held above his head. On the floor on the far side of the caravan, a thickset and muscular young man was squatting surrounded by broken bits of china. It had only been one plate but he’d fragmented it.
When the lamplight shone on Billy’s face he smiled and at first sight he looked almost normal, for he had a mop of curling dark hair and a boyish, fresh-coloured face. He was wearing buckskin breeches and a shirt that had once been white but was so no longer because he’d wiped his hands on it after his meal. When he smiled, he showed stubby ridged teeth and his eyes glinted merrily. If it was not for those eyes, he would have looked like a splendid specimen of young manhood but they gave him away because they were the eyes of a madman. Jem walked on into the caravan asking softly, ‘How’s Billy, then?’
The answer was a crooning murmur and Billy stood up holding his arms out. He liked Jem. When he was standing erect he revealed his impressive height and the staggering width of his shoulders. He came ambling over towards Jem and said, ‘Hello Jem. Take Billy for a walk. Billy wants to go out.’
Jem had a calming effect on Billy. He patted his arm and said, ‘That’s good. You must be feeling better. But it’s dark and we can’t go out walking now. I’ll take you tomorrow. Look, I’ve brought Alice with me to give you some medicine that’ll make you sleep like a babby. You’ll take it, won’t you Billy, a sleep’s what you need.’
When he saw that Billy was acquiescent, Jem turned his head back towards the door and whispered, ‘You can come in. It’s all right. He’s calm.’
She stepped through the door and stood close to her man. Billy lifted his head and sniffed because like an animal he could smell her fear but Jem took her hand and said, ‘It’s all right, give Billy his medicine and then I’ll sit with him for a bit. He gets lonely shut up here in his waggon, don’t you Billy? But when we get to the Fair you’ll get out. I promise.’
Alice was carrying a tin mug in her hand and she silently handed it over. It contained the potion she’d concocted and Billy obediently swilled all of it down without pausing for breath. Then he wiped his mouth with his hand and smiled at her. She smiled back but nervously, for she never knew when Billy was going to turn awkward. Tonight he was genial enough but when he was having one of his blacknesses she found him terrifying; fits swept over his poor brain like thunderstorms across a summer sky and when he was in the grip of them he was hideously violent, breaking everything within sight. Only Jem could cope with him then. Alice shifted closer and remembered what he had said earlier about the time when he could no longer master Billy by superior strength. What will happen when that day comes, she wondered? She knew that Jem was right. He was growing older and Billy was growing stronger. In a couple of months the young man would be twenty and in the full strength of his manhood. Already he well deserved the title of his billing in the freak show, for Billy was the Strongest Man in the World who bent iron bars and split planks of wood with one blow of his fist.
As Alice clung to Jem’s arm she wondered what would happen when Billy wanted a woman. So far he had been strangely innocent sexually but that could not last much longer. What would happen when he had a need for sex? The potions she concocted for him contained ingredients that stifled desire and they worked well for the moment but she doubted if they would continue to be effective for much longer. Billy in search of a woman would be able to burst through any door and Alice made a mental note to tell Jem that Long Tom’s girl must stop acting as Billy’s watcher or something terrible could happen.
Jem sensed Alice’s nervousness and patted her hand when Billy handed back his mug. ‘Go back to our caravan, Alice, and I’ll sit here with Billy for a little while,’ he said and settled himself down on a wooden bench by the door. Billy came shambling over and sat beside him. ‘We’ll have a chat,’ said Jem companionably.
As Alice stood in the doorway she heard him saying, ‘That’s right. Sit near me, Billy and I’ll tell you about the place we’re going to on Monday. It’s called St James’ Fair. There’ll be lots of people and hundreds of horses. You like horses, don’t you? If you’re good you can go out and have a look at them…’
Billy was excited and bounced on his seat, the muscles of his upper arms and thighs rippling beneath his clothes when he moved.
‘Billy likes horses,’ he said in a childish voice.
‘Course you do and you like Jem too, don’t you? Sit down quiet again and I’ll tell you about the Fair.’ With one hand Jem pulled Billy back down on to the bench where he sat staring all the while at Jem who was talking in a soft, reassuring voice. ‘The Fair’s held in a big field facing a castle. It’s been there every year for a long, long time and people come from all over the place. We’ll make a lot of money and Billy’ll have two whole roast chickens to himself for supper and as much ale as he wants to drink. So you’ll behave well, won’t you Billy, when all the people come to see you?’
Billy nodded. ‘Billy’ll be good,’ he promised.
‘You’ll bend the bars and bite the nails in half but you won’t try to run away. Last time you did that you frightened all the ladies and a man wanted to shoot you. I had the devil of a job stopping him, Billy.’
Billy threw back his head and laughed as if the memory of the occasion was funny, though Jem remembered it very differently. ‘Billy won’t run away,’ he said gleefully.
‘That’s right,’ advised Jem. ‘You’ll have to wear your leg-chains for the show but the new ones are extra strong. It’d take two elephants to break them. Just do your tricks Billy and everybody’ll clap and cheer you and pay lots of money to see you.’
Billy threw back his head again and gave a huge guffaw, exposing his strong throat with muscles like hawsers up each side of his neck. When he was in a good temper, as he was at that moment, he looked like a big strong farm boy, a simple-minded plough laddie who could be relied on to carry out any heavy task that defeated the other men.
Jem stayed with him for an hour. Before he left, Alice’s potion was beginning to work and Billy was yawning, lying down fully-clothed on the floor ready for a sleep. Jem draped a blanket over his body and stood looking down at him with pity in his eyes. ‘Poor Billy,’ he thought. ‘I’m fond of you. I wouldn’t like to see you with someone who’d beat you or keep you under with cruelty. You’re not a bad lad. You don’t mean to hurt – you just don’t know your own strength.’
When he got back to his caravan, Alice was sitting alone in the circle of lamplight. She looked up when he entered and said, ‘You’re good to Billy. You like looking after people, don’t you Jem?’
He laughed. ‘I suppose I do.’
‘Was it because you wanted to look after me that you searched for me for so long?’ she asked.
‘I don’t think it was that. You haunted me and I looked for you for six years before I found you in London.’
‘I’m glad you did. I was nearly at the end. But why did you want to find me? We’d hardly spoken,’ she asked.
Jem’s face was solemn. ‘I just knew I had to find you. There was something about you – something lost – and I knew you thought I’d been responsible for McKay dying and I couldn’t stomach that because I’d nothing to do with it. I wanted to tell you that.’
‘I didn’t know who to blame, I was so angry,’ said Alice, shuddering as she remembered the first time she’d seen Jem. ‘I’d been cheated and deceived by so many people by that time, I didn’t know who to trust. Poor McKay trusted people and he died because of it.’
Jem sighed. ‘That toff who was running McKay killed him right enough because he matched him against a man twice his size and then bet against him. He wanted him to lose and he couldn’t care less if McKay took a beating. When he was knocked out like that I was mad because I knew what was going on. McKay was only a youngster. He shouldn’t have died.’
Alice’s face was grim as she remembered the inn near Northampton where they’d all foregathered eight years ago for a boxing match. She was with a young man called John McKay who’d been her man since she left Scotland. She’d let him pick her up on the road because a woman couldn’t travel without money or a man to protect her and she had neither so she was grateful when she met him. McKay was like Billy in a way, strong and simple-minded but he was also gentle and kind. He’d felt sorry for Alice and taken care of her.
McKay was a barefist boxer who was matched one day in a big bout organised by a group of gambling gentlemen against a lumbering and villainous-looking man who was said to be failing in his powers. When Alice saw him, however, she was afraid because he looked as if he had been drugged and when it came to the fight, he literally pounded her lover to pieces before her eyes. The blood flowed and McKay slumped on to the ground unconscious before a shrieking crowd who were too busy exchanging money to bother about him. Only the big man in charge of the ring seemed concerned. He held back McKay’s opponent and picked up the unconscious body as if it had been that of a doll. The big man who acted as the referee was Jem.
Now when she looked at him sitting beside her she remembered running behind him as he carried McKay slung over his shoulder up the inn stairs to a bedroom on the first floor. When a doctor arrived he pronounced McKay dead and told Alice that he would probably have died of his injuries anyway but the journey upstairs with his head hanging down caused the final trauma that killed him. She went raving down into the bar parlour and attacked Jem, pounding his chest with her fists and shrieking, ‘You killed him, you bastard! You did it deliberately!’ Someone quietened her down in the end and the innkeeper’s wife gave her a bed for the night. Early next morning she headed for London and a life on the streets. What followed was a period in her life that she preferred to forget.
Six years later, when she was being kept by a vicious and loose-living young buck in Chelsea, she met Jem again on the street in Covent Garden. He’d recognised her from the other side of the carriageway and hailed her, running across beneath the hooves of cantering horses to grab her arm. To her surprise he said that he’d been looking for her ever since that night in Northampton. They joined forces and she’d been with him ever since but she knew he was unsure of her. Nothing she said would reassure him. He did not know if she stayed with him because it suited her or because she loved him. As she watched him sitting in the lamplight beside her, she realised that the answer was love.
‘Do you realise we’ve been together for more than two years?’ she asked in a gentle voice.
‘I know. I was thinking about that this morning. It’s time we got ourselves properly spliced, Alice.’
Her face went sad in the candlelight. ‘Not yet, Jem. I don’t know if I can but if it’s possible there’s nothing I’d want more.’
‘What’s to stop us? I’m a widower and if you were married when you were young your man’s either dead or he’s found another wife by now,’ said Jem, but she shook her head and told him, ‘I’ll make enquiries in Lauriston. I promise you I will.’
He sighed. ‘You’re a mystery, Alice. You always hold something back. Maybe one day you’ll tell me the lot.’
‘I promise I will – one day,’ she said solemnly and leaned across to kiss him.