‘It’ll do.’ She almost snapped it. The flush had deepened, but not, I thought, at my reference to the stripped fruit trees. It was anger. But she left the matter aside for a moment to show me the gift which, as usual, she had brought me. She dumped a big basket of blackberries on the table with a rap that set the fruit jumping. ‘Brought you these. I told you there was plenty near by us. And I put some of our crab-apples in, too. Do as well as anything to make a good set.’
‘Well, thank you! How very kind.’ I seemed to be saying that, with various shades of insincerity, almost every hour on the hour. ‘That’ll save me another trip to the quarry.’
‘That’s right.’ Suddenly, from the look in her eye, quickly veiled, I knew that that was exactly why she had picked and brought the fruit. Why on earth should it be to her advantage to stop me going over there again? I shrugged it off mentally, and turned away from her, stirring the juice.
Behind me, she said, sharply: ‘About the book.’
‘Oh, yes. I gather you’d seen this book? I mean, you do know that my cousin had it?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Well, the first one in the still-room inventory seemed the likeliest one to me. It was called Goody Gostelow’s own Home Remedies and Receipts.’ I glanced back at her. ‘Was that the title you remember?’
‘That’d be it!’ The blue eyes shone with excitement. ‘That’d be it!’
‘I thought it might,’ I said, stirring. ‘But I’m afraid it isn’t there.’
‘What do you mean, it isn’t there?’
‘Just what I say. There’s a list in the inventory of all the books in the shelves, and as far as I can make out, all the others are there, but not that one. Maybe she lent it to someone?’
Her voice rose. ‘She wouldn’t do that! She couldn’t! If she was going to let anybody take a look at it, that would be me. If it’s gone to old Madge … but she wouldn’t do that! Not Miss Saxon!’
I looked at her curiously. My look seemed to bring her to herself. She said, more calmly: ‘The Widow Marget that lives over to Tidworth. No friend of mine. Nor no friend of Miss Saxon’s neither, I shouldn’t think.’
‘Then she probably didn’t lend her the book. But if you know her, why don’t you ask her next time you go that way?’
‘I might, at that,’ said Agnes. She sat down at the table. Her fingers were plucking at her skirt. She looked sulky and deflated. For the first time since I had met her, I felt sorry for her, without quite knowing why.
I stirred the jelly. ‘Did you ever actually see the book?’
‘Once. But Miss Saxon wasn’t one for letting her recipes out, and she took it away before I could get anything much puzzled out.’
‘Did she never give you any of her recipes?’
‘Oh, yes, the comfrey salve and some of the teas. But the rest she kept. She gave me a medicine once for mother’s cough that was sovereign. That was her word, sovereign. I’d rightly like a look at that one before the winter comes.’
‘Of course.’ I bent to sniff at the boiling juice. It smelled done. I spooned a little out on to a cold plate. ‘Agnes, you said you couldn’t get it “puzzled out”. Do you mean it was handwritten?’
‘Oh, yes, it was in writing, and some of it very faint and scratchy. Terrible hard to read, it was. But I’m no great reader of books, anyway!’
The jelly wrinkled to a set on the plate as I tilted it. I lifted the jelly pan over to the table, and took the warm jars from above the Aga. ‘I did hear something about Goody Gostelow – Lady Sibyl. Mr Dryden told me. I was thinking that, if she lived so long ago, and with all the – well, the stories about her, the book might have some sort of value. So perhaps the lawyers have it, or my cousin may have put it in the bank, or something. Don’t be upset. I’ll find it, and let you know.’
She looked mollified. ‘Well, I’ll be glad. Not that it’s desperate, but when people promise something, and people have looked forward to something …’ She let it hang. ‘That jelly looks all right. Here, let me, I’ll sort the covers for you. You did look on all the shelves?’
‘What? Yes, I did. You know yourself that it’s not here in the kitchen, or in the drawing-room or the den. I’m sure I didn’t miss it in the still-room, but you can look for yourself if you like. That’s the key there on the dresser.’
My very readiness must have reassured her. She shook her head. ‘Not if you’ve looked. I’m not so handy with books, myself. It’ll turn up, maybe. If you ask at the lawyer’s, I’ll maybe go and see the Widow Marget. There, that’s the labels done. I’ll help you pick these new brambles over.’
She found a big bowl, tipped the blackberries from her basket, and sat down again at the table.
I finished pouring the jelly, and set the pots aside to cool. Four pots I got, and felt absurdly proud of myself as the sunlight, streaming through the window, made the rich colour glow more beautifully even than wine.
‘Good enough for the jam tent at the show?’ I asked her, laughing.
‘I said you’d not got a lot to learn.’ Picking busily, she darted a look at me. It was a friendly one, and smiling. ‘That’s done for the year, the show, I mean, but there’ll be others. Some day, maybe, you’ll go along o’ me to meet the other ladies? We’ve meetings all year.’
‘Well, thank you. I think I’d like to.’ I laughed again. ‘But not to show my home cooking. Not yet, anyway.’
‘Time enough,’ said Agnes. Another glance. ‘Did you like my soup?’
‘It was delicious. What was in it, apart from the leeks and the cream?’
‘Just what comes to hand. Mushrooms and such, and wild herbs of my own recipe.’ A few minutes more, while I joined her in picking the fruit over. ‘You not finding it too lonesome here, then? You sleep all right?’
‘Beautifully, thank you. That dog, Agnes, the one I was complaining about, it seems to have gone. Whose was it?’
‘All the folks have dogs hereabouts. Maybe it’s got shut in for a change.’
‘Let’s hope it stays that way. One thing I’ve been meaning to ask you, have you any idea who took Miss Saxon’s pigeons? William told me that someone came with a basket and took them away. Did you see them go?’
This time she nodded. ‘Chap that took them works over towards Taggs Farm, two mile past that to Tidworth. Name of Masson, Eddy Masson. It was him got her started, giving her a clutch. Never got keen like him, though, Miss Saxon didn’t. She just liked to fill her place with such creatures. Used to take the ones that was no good, and give the best ones over to Eddy Masson again. She said once that when she went, he’d promised to take them. And took them he did, but I don’t know if he’d keep them. Why?’
‘I just wondered. I suppose the one that’s still here was out and flying when the others were picked up. How many did she have?’
‘Nine or ten.’ She laughed. ‘If you don’t go to count the rest that used to come in for the food. Wild pigeons, squirrels, the lot. And not just in the attics. I’ve seen robins and such on the tea table, and that dratted cat never moving to get rid of them.’
‘How dreadful. Now, you’ll have a cup of coffee, won’t you?’
Over the coffee we talked neutrally. She did not mention the recipe book again.
‘Is there anything I can give you from here?’ I asked, finally, as she showed no sign of leaving. ‘I was just going out into the garden. William has been helping me there, but I haven’t got everything identified yet. I’ll be dividing the plants soon, if there’s anything you’ve got your eye on.’
But she shook her head, took her leave, and went away down the drive.
As soon as I was sure she had gone I let Rags out into the walled garden for a run, then took him upstairs to the attic. The pigeons – still only three – cooed and rustled and flew up to their perches, where they sat shifting from foot to foot, watching us warily. The dog eyed them, but without interest. All he seemed to want, as yet, was sleep and food, and to feel secure. I left him with food and w
ater and an old blanket, and locked the door as I went out. Then back to the toolshed to remove any trace of his occupancy. Until William came for him I was taking no risks.
After lunch I finished picking over Agnes’s brambles. They were good ones, plump and very ripe. A few were too ripe, and these, together with the stalks and leaves, I put aside and threw out on the compost heap by the back gate. The rest of the fruit went into the jelly pan.
Just as it came to the simmer I heard a sound at the back door. Not Agnes again, surely? William, come for the dog? Or perhaps – the quick jump and thud of my heart told me who I had been hoping to see. But it was Jessamy, with a bulging carrier bag gripped in hands stained with blackberries.
‘Why, Jessamy! Come in. Are those for me? Your mother’s just been here, and brought me loads! But how sweet of you.’
He dumped the carrier on the draining-board. He was breathing hard, and his blue eyes, so like his mother’s, looked vague and strained. ‘Them’s no manner of good. Don’t ’ee touch ’em, miss.’
‘The brambles? Why? I’ve just picked them over, and they’re beauties. What d’you mean?’
The dull, wooden look came down again over his face. He looked away. ‘Nothing. Nothing. But don’t you be touching they. No manner of good. I picked un these instead. These be healthy berries. And I put elder in with they to keep the witchcraft away. Don’t you fret about that, neither. I ast before I took the elderberries down.’
‘Asked whom? Your mother?’
‘Nay. Nay.’ He looked scared. ‘Ast her that lives in the tree.’
Oh mercy me, here we go, another touch of old England … Aloud I said, gently: ‘Well, thank you, Jessamy. Now will you let me take another look at that arm of yours? How does it feel?’
‘Better. It be great.’
He pushed back his sleeve and held the arm out. My bandages had gone, and a rag, crumpled but quite clean, had replaced them.
‘You’ve not been to the doctor, then? Who put this on?’
‘She did. I had to tell her about th’ dog, you see, when I gave her the witch-knot. But she don’t know I came here and you was still awake.’ He was agitated, trying to reassure me. ‘Never told her, miss. I never told her.’
‘That’s all right,’ I said soothingly. ‘Don’t worry. Just let me take a look, will you?’
The cloth came away with a mass of dark-green pulp. Under it the wound looked fine; clean, pale, healing fast. The bruising had already faded to a dirty yellow, the punctures cleanly scabbed over.
‘This really is great, Jessamy! What on earth did she put on it?’
‘Leaves. Some she grows out the back. And ointment, Miss Saxon’s that was, some she made every summer wi’ the same plant. Swore by it, she did.’
‘She was right. I won’t put anything else on it. Let me bind it up again.’
‘Sovereign,’ said Jessamy, as his mother had done. He repeated it, like a child pleased to have remembered a lesson. ‘“In or out, that’s sovereign.” That’s what she used to say.’
The scent of the stuff was familiar, evocative. Yet how? And when? It smelled of a damp meadow, the edge of a pool, a stream lapsing through green weeds. I could almost hear the rustle of Cousin Geillis’s dress, feel her peering over my shoulder as I started to replace the poultice. Comfrey, that was it; called knitbone, bruisewort, consound. The roots boiled in water or wine and the decoction drunk heals inward hurts, bruises, wounds and ulcers of the lung. The roots being outwardly applied cure fresh wounds or cuts immediately. (‘In or out, that’s sovereign.’) The recipe – Home Remedy or Receipt? – unreeled in my mind as if I had made it a hundred times. For the ointment, digest the root or leaves in hot paraffin wax, strain and allow to cool … And from somewhere faint and far back, a sentence that ran like a tranquil psalm: Comfrey joyeth in watery ditches, in fat and fruitfull meadowes; they grow all in my garden.
‘Jessamy—’ My voice sounded almost as faint and far away. ‘If you need any more of the salve, I’ll give you some. There’s plenty in the still-room.’
‘Thanks, miss. Thanks.’ He rolled his sleeve down. ‘And you won’t touch they brambles? You didn’t drink the soup. Don’t you eat those, neither.’
‘How did you—?’ I stopped, blinking at him, still bemused. I said feebly: ‘It was delicious. I did thank your mother.’
A hiss from the stove, and the sweet-acrid smell of burning fruit recalled me sharply. I hurried to lift the pan aside. Behind me he said anxiously: ‘Don’t tell her.’
‘What? Oh, the brambles. No, I won’t tell her. But look, if that arm starts to trouble you at all, you must see a doctor, whatever your mother says. Do you want your carrier back?’
He shook his head, making for the door. Just before he went out he paused. ‘You will chuck they berries away, miss? That paddock’s broth of hers don’t do any good at all.’
For quite a few seconds after he had gone, I stared after him at the oblong of empty light which was the doorway. Old England, indeed. I did not dare believe my ears. But Jessamy apparently saw himself as being in my debt, and it would do no harm to listen to him.
All right, then, preposterous though it was, Agnes had tried twice to drug my sleep. The first time, with the pie, she had succeeded; hence the nightmare. The second time, with the soup, she had failed. And now a third attempt, with the brambles. Paddock’s broth, indeed. Poison? Highly unlikely. Then what? Something to drug me to sleep again while Agnes roamed the house? Looking for what? That book? Again unlikely. Even if that was what she had been searching for earlier, she had no reason now to doubt my promise to let her see it. She had already had the chance to see everywhere except in the still-room, and now I had offered her even that. So why?
I lifted the jelly pan off the stove, and dumped it on the draining-board beside Jessamy’s carrier bag. Jessamy meant me well, certainly, but I could not believe he was right about this. Even if for some reason Agnes wanted me to sleep soundly tonight, drugging the brambles would not ensure it. The jelly would, in the normal way, not be used for weeks, even months, and then in small quantities and at times she could not predict. Besides, I might well, as one did, give one or two pots away, or send them (as in fact I had intended) to the parish sale of work.
But – to get back to the first question – why drug me at all? The first time – the pie – was no more than a well-founded suspicion, but the soup seemed to be a fact. ‘You didn’t drink the soup,’ Jessamy had said, and I had wondered how he knew. But I had already had the answer: ‘You was still awake.’ So they had not intended to come to the house that night, or surely Jessamy would have had to warn her that the drug had not worked. Agnes, I remembered now, had asked me if I had slept well, just as she had asked after that first night.
There was more. She knew about the dog. Jessamy had told her. And though she knew about the bitten arm and the dog’s escape, she had not mentioned it when I gave her an obvious lead. The inference was that she had known Rags was in the big house, and had sent Jessamy there herself. Not to feed him; the bowl had been dry and empty. Not to release him, either; the rope had been gnawed and snapped.
So, if he was neither feeding the dog nor letting him go, why had he been sent? And there again I had the answer, in the dog’s torn skin, the frantic leap that had snapped the rope and let him escape, the bitten arm, the tuft of hair left in Jessamy’s hand. ‘I had to tell her about the dog when I gave her the witch-knot.’ I had no idea what a witch-knot was; something like an elf-knot, I supposed, a tangled skein of hair; but almost certainly Jessamy had used the term for the tuft which he must have hidden in his pocket when he handed me the soiled cloths to burn.
I left it at that. There was little point in any further guessing. I could ask him next time I saw him, and it was even possible that he might tell me. William had said that he was gentle enough, but he was afraid of his mother, and did as she told him. Well, that fitted. He had been no more than stupid with the dog: if he had thought to take scissors h
e could have got his witch-knot without the bite, and they would still have the dog.
They would still have the dog. That was the crux. Agnes could do as she liked with her spells, her paddock’s broth, her witch-knots and her ‘meetings’ – covens? – up by the quarry, as long as no living creatures were made to suffer. I would not trouble with poor Jessamy. I would tackle Agnes herself as soon as I saw her, and get the truth out of her.
Perhaps the strangest thing about it all was that, though puzzled and uneasy because I could not see what was happening, I was not frightened. It was as if Thornyhold itself, embattled against evil, was infusing into the nervous, unsure girl I had been, some sort of strength (I hesitated to use the word ‘power’) which was a shield. The shade, or rather the shining, of Cousin Geillis’s presence; doves that brought messages of peace; scented flowers and herbs that hindered witches of their will. They grow all in my garden. All that needed to be said, I had said to William: ‘I don’t know whether such things exist or not, but if they do, trust in God and they can’t hurt you.’
I came back out of my thoughts and into the sweet-smelling, normal kitchen. The sunlight glowed in the four pots of jelly. Four was enough. I would tip Agnes’s fruit out, and Jessamy’s with it. And while I thought about it, I would get some of the comfrey salve, and put it on Rags’s tail. If he licked at it, it would do him no harm. In or out, that’s sovereign.
I hefted the heavy pan and carried it out to the compost heap. The birds were busy, with no apparent ill effects, on the discarded pickings. Agnes’s brambles were surely as innocent as Jessamy’s. In any case, sooner than hurt anyone’s feelings, I would bury them all out of sight. I emptied the pan, took it back indoors and got the carrier bag and tipped that, too, then went to the toolshed for the spade. I dug a hasty pit beside the compost heap and began to shovel the discarded fruit into it.
I was just finishing the job when I heard the front wicket clash, and moments later William’s father appeared round the side of the house, making for the back door. He had raised a hand to knock when he saw me, and turned to greet me.