The wicked have waited for me to destroy me (Psalm 119)
The following morning Pert and Fenestra were just finishing their porridge when there was a loud knock on the door. Fenestra went to open it, and returned with wide eyes and a frightened expression. Behind her was Urethra Grubb.
“Fetch your mother,” she said gruffly, but Mother was already coming down the stairs.
“Mistress Grubb,” she began, but the woman cut her off.
“Rent!” she barked. “Christmas tomorrow. Need the rent now.”
She stood in the middle of the kitchen and seemed to fill it all by herself. She was almost as broad as she was tall, a squat, toad-like figure. One eye was rheumy and half-closed, the other looked out bright and malevolent over her coarse red cheek, missing nothing. She wore many layers of black shapeless clothing, hung with ribbons and braids, belts and buckles, and stood foursquare on massive legs and large hobnail boots. On her head was a battered hat with a single incongruous flower.
When Pert saw her walking about the town she moved with a strange gait, stomping, head down, her arms not swinging but held straight down and her feet shaking the pavement. She stepped aside for no man, and others would crowd into the gutter to avoid her. She was known to have a finger in every pie, and she stirred those fingers around so that everyone who dealt with her was perpetually off balance, not knowing exactly where they stood, never certain what her motives could be, and what they needed to do to escape her attentions.
She was the kind of woman who walks into a room with her nostrils spread for the smallest odour, the merest speck of dust, who would pick up and read every scrap of paper one left lying around, who thought nothing of peering into dustbins to see what you had thrown away or opening doors in your house to see what lay behind them, who would stop your children in the street and frighten them into telling who you talked to and who visited you and what you said about her. But her worst and strongest weapon was the sheer unrelenting malice she bore the world. She was there, and she would never retreat, never go away, and she let no one forget it.
Pert sat silently watching, and Fenestra scurried to stand behind him. She put her hand on his shoulder, and Pert felt her shaking.
Their mother hesitated, confused. “But ... you usually ... there are five more days, surely?”
“Now, Potentia, if you don't want to spend Christmas in the street. Get it now.”
His mother turned and ran up the stairs, returning with a cloth purse. “I may be a few pence short ...” she muttered, and emptied the contents into Mistress Grubb's hand.
The woman counted under her breath. “Six pence short. Bring it tomorrow.”
“But it's Christmas ...”
“Tomorrow. Send the boy.”
She transferred her attention to Fenestra. “When are you going to send this one to work in the shop?” she barked.
“Please,” faltered Fenestra, “I don't want to work in the shop ...”
“Silence! You'll do what you're told. Do something useful, stop cluttering up that school, fooling around with boys ...”
“Please, I never ...”
“Be quiet. How old are you?”
“Please, thirteen.”
“Hmph! You look about ten, scrawny little scrap, you are. Need to work, build you up a bit. I'll take you when you're fourteen. Time your family did something useful instead of robbing and sneaking around. No argument!”
She glared at Pert and his mother, and stumped out. The floor shook, and the door slammed behind her.
“I never robbed anything,” Fenestra squeaked, and began to cry. Her mother came and put her arms round her.
“What did she mean?” asked Pert.
“Nothing, she meant nothing. It's just the way she talks,” his mother said. “I'll find the six pence and you can take it to her after morning service.”