Strange Deliverance, page 9
Chapter Eight
My father and Griselda were married in the first week in November.
He wore his leather trousers and jacket, with an embroidered vest over a woolen shirt; she wore a bleached woolen dress with a scooped neckline, and a headdress of white feathers and seed pearls. They both looked very nice, and also like a pair of complete strangers.
During the ceremony I glanced across the aisle several times to where Tam sat with his parents but he kept his head averted. His other sisters were bridesmaids; I hadn't been asked.
After the ceremony the happy couple went straight to Honeymoon House, the cottage that had once been used for quarantining. There they would stay for three days, undisturbed, food and drink provided free by the Council, as was the custom.
I still felt sick that I hadn't been able to prevent the marriage: it wasn't as though I hadn't tried. . . .
I tried my idea out on Tam one afternoon when we were alone in the Town Hall, doing minor repairs to the two models that always stood in pride of place in the entrance hall: Old Deliverance and New Deliverance. Of course the village had had a different name before the refugees arrived, but that was long forgotten. It was always the custom during the September celebrations for Deliverance Day for everyone to file past the two models, to admire the changes made during their years of occupation, and every year Mayor Gross made sure there was something else to congratulate him upon.
This year it had been the building of the new road down to where the smithy and metal-working sheds would be resited next year. The villagers had complained for long enough about the noise made by the hammering of metal, and the half-mile or so of distance should make a welcome difference.
Looking at the two models now, as we straightened here, re-glued there, it really was extraordinary the improvements the Mayor had initiated, like the man or not. Older houses pulled down, roads repaired, the construction of the Park, a crèche, a children's playground with swings, a roundabout, climbing frames, hopscotch markers and basketball nets and a skipping area. There was a men's outdoor club too, with built-in chess and checkers boards, horse-shoe pitching, quoits and boule. For everyone were the laundry, the bathhouse, the fresh-fish pond, the icehouse, the bathing-pool, the playing field (football, baseball and athletics), and proper sanitation pits. As far as work was concerned there were the weaving sheds, the dyeing and tanning works, the woodcutting and fashioning shops, the refurbished mill for grinding the corn, the boiling sheds for the sugar beet, a huge storehouse for potatoes, corn flour, sugar and the dwindling supply of salt (a teaspoonful per person per month). Then there were the buildings for the candle-makers, furniture builders, the recycling of all materials—for more clothes, rag-rugs, cleaning cloths, dusters—the soap-makers and a large pottery. Not to mention the feather-pluckers, the toymakers, the music-makers, the paper mill, the ink and paint processors and the brewery.
I plonked a green wool tree down onto the Main Street, eyed it critically, applied glue and stuck it down, my tongue poking out with concentration.
"Well, what do you think of it?"
Tam looked up from where he was re-aligning a fence. "It's a bit crooked. . . ."
"Not the tree, idiot! My Plan . . ." I tilted the tree a fraction to the left. Better.
"It wouldn't work! I don't believe in all that stuff anyway."
"All you want is to get rid of her!"
"Yes. But—oh, listen Pretty! If I thought for a moment it would help . . . Heck, I want you to be happy, too!"
"Why shouldn't it work?"
"Just think about it. You intend asking the Herb-Woman for a magic charm to stop my sister marrying your Dad. One, we don't know whether she will or can, and two, how on earth do you pay for a thing like that?"
And three, you don't believe in magic anyway, I thought. "It's worth a try. I've asked, and got, a meeting with her. . . ."
I had spoken to Perdita at the market on Saturday, where she was bargaining for thread with a basket of duck eggs. Her eyes widened when I told her what I wanted, but she hadn't laughed or anything.
"I can't answer for what my mother can or cannot do," she said "But I will ask her to see you."
"When?"
"A lunch-time? Monday, say?"
"Make it Tuesday. There's someone I need to see first. . . ." I wanted Tam to come with me. "How much will it cost?" I required time to work for some extra tokens, too.
"You'll have to ask her."
And with that I had to be content.
"So, you will come with me?" I glanced across at Tam.
He shrugged. "What use would I be?"
"You'd be there! I feel—a bit scared, perhaps. You know we're not supposed to visit her. Come on. All we have to do is say we are having lunch at each other's house and we've both got alibis. Go on, be a pal!"
He gave me a sudden grin. "If you're game, so am I. . . . Got any more of those trees? These two have come unraveled."
On Tuesday night I saved a couple of rolls and smuggled them out in my satchel in the morning. They were a bit stale, but the only luncheon we were likely to get. Making sure we were the last to leave school at twelve-thirty we strolled behind everyone else and, once they were out of sight ahead we made a quick dive into the cemetery behind the church, crossed into the orchards that sloped south from the village, coming out on the south-west corner. Skirting the tree-nursery we found a track that led to a small copse, behind which a thin trail of smoke rose straight into the air.
That must come from the Herb-Woman's cottage and, sure enough, there was Perdita waiting for us at the edge of the trees.
"Thought you might have changed your mind."
"No way," I said, although the thought had crossed my mind more than once since Saturday.
"How long do you have?"
"We have to be back at school at two, for math and PT," said Tam.
School hours were a moveable feast, depending on the time of the year and the requirements of planting, sowing, haymaking and harvest. Candles and oil were too expensive for illumination, so all hours of daylight were utilized during the winter, and the school was closed when we were needed in the fields or orchards, the crèche opening every day for those too young to participate. All part of Mayor Gross's Communal Plan.
"Time enough, then," she said. "Follow me."
There, behind the copse—birch, hornbeam, Spanish chestnut, beech, larch, mulberry, cedar, walnut, maple and oak—was the most ancient cottage I had ever seen. Long and low, with a thatch of reeds, it seemed to have made a bed for itself in the turf, like a wild animal scooping out a bed-hollow. To one side was a covered wood-store, on the other a large pen holding chickens and ducks. In front, where the land sloped away to the south, was a small orchard and a well-tended vegetable-garden, to the left of the orchard were bee-skeps, by the vegetable-garden the well. In front of the cottage was a pleasant confusion of herbs and flowers, most of these now tied and bagged for drying and seeds, although the bay, rosemary, sage and thyme were still green and fresh.
Perdita led us up a pebbled path to the open front door.
"They're here, mother," she said, and turned back to us. "Take care: two steps down."
"Come in, come in and welcome," said a low, rich-textured voice.
At first it was too dark to see anything clearly, but as my eyes grew used to the lantern-light above the table, with its real glass mirror reflectors instead of the usual metal ones, I began to distinguish one object after the other.
But it was my nose that did the first exploration. If you walk into anyone's house for the first time the essence of the home comes rushing to greet you before anything else, and if you are away from your own home for even a day or two, you can be surprised at its odor when you return.
Houses can smell of almost anything, but usually the scent that lies over all is a reflection of its interests. Food, good or bad, soap and polish or dust and grime; bodies, clean or unwashed, clothes, ditto; wood fires or the more expensive charcoal; tallow, oil or candlewax. Fresh, stale, sweet, sour, sharp, bland—I thought I had smelt them all. This cottage was different. For a start all the smells were clean ones, but there was the sort of mixture that you felt might change from day to day and not be impregnated into the walls and ceiling forever as in so many houses, even with a change of tenant and habits.
Here one smelt the pungent smoke of apple-wood, a rich stew, fresh-baked bread, airing clothes, drying herbs, stored apples, beeswax, cheeses, feathers, fresh milk, a spicy smell I couldn't identify and a sort of warm, furry aroma.
Then the Herb-Woman came out from the shadows and I found that Tam and I had stepped back a pace and were clutching hands. It wasn't as though we had not seen her before, although only at a distance. We both knew she was tall and dark-skinned, but here in the shadows and confines of her own home she suddenly looked twice as tall and much darker. Looking back now I suppose she must have been about six feet tall and broad with it, but to us she seemed like a giantess in the confined area of the cottage. But only for a moment; she smiled, and suddenly seemed a reasonable size again. Her teeth were very white against her nut-brown skin. I had never seen anyone with such a dark skin before, except in pictures; Nan had told me there were three colored people among the original refugees: a nurse, a medical orderly and a cook. They had handed their skills on to others, but had not married, nor had there been any children.
I forgot it was rude to stare. She had a hawky nose, black eyes, a wide mouth and greying crinkly dark hair plaited around her head—
"You'll know me next time, child." But the words weren't unkindly spoken.
I went bright red, I could feel the heat rising into my face. Remembering my manners too late, I bobbed her a curtsey.
"Beg pardon, ma'am: no offense intended."
"And none taken. Well, what do you think? Would I look better with a lighter skin?"
How had she read my mind? I blushed again, but she was the sort of person to whom you told the truth, so I looked at her again. Everything looked just right; I tried to imagine her with skin as fair as Lally's, but with her own features . . . No.
"It suits you," I said. "You'd look silly any other color."
She clapped her hands. "Well, child, that's just about the best compliment I've had in an age!" She beamed at us both. "Now I understand you have a problem, so why don't you take the weight off your feet, pull out a couple of stools—that's right—and just sit down and share a bowl of stew with Perdita. You won't have eaten yet? No, I thought not." She reached into a cupboard and brought out three bowls, real china ones, blue and white, not the coarse pottery we had in the village, and three soup spoons from a drawer and put a fresh roll in front of each of us. Perdita came in with a jug of water and sat down as well.
"We do have some bread, ma'am," said Tam, bringing out the rolls I had saved.
"And as stale as yesterday's news; mine's baked fresh. You just do me a swap, and you'll be doing my chickens a favor." She swung a small cauldron on a trivet away from the fire and, without spilling a scrap, transferred a generous ladleful of thick stew into each of our bowls. "Now, eat hearty; talk comes easier on a full stomach."
It was delicious, rich with thick chunks of vegetables; I identified potato, carrot, turnip, swede, onion, leek, celery, cabbage, beans, tomato, the whole touched with a hint of garlic and parsley. I complimented our hostess as I pushed back my bowl with a sigh of contentment.
"Glad you liked it. I always keep a pot simmering during the winter, just add a bit of this and that as we get it. That way I always have something to offer my guests."
Guests: I liked that. It made me feel more special, as if she would listen to us without laughing, or dismissing us out of hand.
She poured a little red liquid into three glasses—yes, real glasses: we only had two precious ones at home—and topped it up with well-water.
"My special distillation: do you like it? Blackberry, sloe and elder."
I nodded. Tam said: "Better than that cordial they make in the village!"
She took a chair at the head of the table, Perdita brushed crumbs into a tray, wiped the table with a small cloth, put the bowls and spoons into a bucket and carried them outside, presumably to wash up.
Her mother turned to us. "Now then, children: what can I do for you?"
This was going to be difficult. Tam and I looked at each other, "Well, I—that is we . . . No, it's really my idea. I wanted to know if it is possible to . . ." My voice trailed away.
"Let's see if I can make this a little easier for you. I'll make a guess that this has something to do with a certain wedding, and that you want to know if there is anything I can do to prevent it taking place? Am I right?"
"How on earth did you know?"
She smiled at Tam. "Not much is missed out here. I do have other visitors, you know, and people love to speculate."
I wondered for one wild moment whether Griselda herself had come to visit, asking for a love-potion to entrap my father, but decided that this was too far-fetched. After all, she had been unmarried for so long that she would have visited long before if she had believed in it all. . . .
"And what's in this visit for you, Tamerlane-the-Great? By this marriage you have much to gain and little to lose."
He glanced at me. "Pretty is my friend! I think I would even rather keep Grizzle if it means she and her Nan will be unhappy."
"I wouldn't ask that of him," I put in. "I want him to have his own room instead of the sofa or a pallet in the kitchen."
"Then what do you want me to do?"
I was silent. It had all seemed so simple yesterday, even this morning, now it wasn't. Any one of Tam's sisters were equally awful, but wouldn't that widow with three sons be worse? And that would mean, too, that Tam wouldn't get his own room; and supposing that Mayor Gross came up with an even worse alternative?
"I don't know . . . I just want life to be as it always has been, that's all."
"Life does change, you know, even as you do. What was—or is—so special about your life that this marriage would change?"
I thought for a moment. In the initial rejection of the thought of Griselda being in the house as my stepmother I had just known everything would be horribly different. Now I thought more carefully of what was most precious to me, and my words came more slowly.
"Well, first of all it's going to be bad for Nan. I help her with the housework, of course, but it's her house: she's in charge, she doesn't have to answer to anyone. It's nicest of all in the evenings after supper when my father goes down to the club, and we sit by the fire and tell stories or just talk. . . ."
"Anything else?"
I thought again; was there anything? I remembered another of Tam's trials.
"She hits Tam quite hard sometimes. I wouldn't want that. I'd run away!"
"Where to?" asked Tam, with interest.
"I don't know! Somewhere, anywhere . . . Oh, you know what I mean!"
"Well we certainly don't want that!" said the Herb-Woman briskly. "So, let's see if I've got this clear. You wouldn't find the thought of this marriage quite so reprehensible if there was no usurping of your Nan's position and you and she still had your time together in the evening. . . . Oh, and no smacking. Right?"
"Er . . . Yes. I guess so."
"You have been thinking about your Nan first, and all credit to you. But she isn't getting any younger. Don't you think it would help if she had another woman to help in the house? I know you do your best, but you're not always there."
"Grizzle's hopeless at housework and she hates cooking," said Tam gloomily.
"Then perhaps she would be grateful for your Nan to keep her cooking unchallenged, and Griselda would look after the bedroom and be allowed to reorganize and keep clean the parlor, so she could entertain her friends, seeing you don't use it very often. . . ."
No, we didn't; Nan usually entertained her friends cozily in the kitchen, which was a far nicer room. But how did she know?
"You'd be surprised at how people change when they can take a pride in a room or two of their own," said the Herb-Woman. "If she thought she could have her family and friends to visit in a place of her own, she would keep it immaculate, I'm sure."
It all seemed a bit simpler now.
"So," she continued, "we've solved one or two problems. Tam will get his own room, Griselda has her husband, your Nan will get some help, but she will still be in charge. But there is one person we haven't considered in all this. Your father."
"My father?"
"It's his wedding too, remember? How's he taking it?"
He seemed embarrassed by all the fuss, but I had caught him whistling the other day, a thing he seldom did, and he was cheerful enough.
"He—seems to be looking forward to it," I said, surprised that I hadn't thought about it before.
"Exactly. I know he missed your mother as a person desperately, and he's not a naturally open-hearted man, but after a while don't you think he must also have missed the comfort of a partner to share his bed and his innermost thoughts and feelings? Why do you think he goes out every night to the Club? Why do you think he hasn't wed again before this? Could it be that although he is a lonely man, he knows inside just how much your Nan might resent someone taking her dead daughter's place in his affections and that you might feel the same? Have you ever stopped to think he might not feel welcome in his own home?"
I was devastated. How could she criticize us like this! And yet . . . But before I could say anything she was off on another tack.
"Do you have any games at home? Chess, checkers, dominoes?"
I thought. "Dominoes, yes, and I think there's a chess board that doubles for checkers somewhere, but I think there are some pieces missing. No cards, though . . ."
"My sister loves games," said Tam unexpectedly. "Specially ludo."
The Herb-Woman smiled broadly. "I think I can see all your problems vanishing through the window. Tamerlane, you're clever with your fingers; your present to the bride and groom can be some new chess and checker pieces. When's the wedding?"
