The Ghosts of Heaven (10 page)

“Leave it be,” he said. “And come for a walk with me.”

Anna still did not move, but he was waiting. Watching.

“Very well,” she said, quickly and small.

“Very well indeed,” said Robert, smiling.

They walked in silence from Tunstall Cottage along the track that led along the top of Callis Wood. Anna walked with her head down, so her hair protected her gaze again. She said nothing by way of reply to his attempts at conversation, and presently he stopped trying.

When they crossed the track down to Fuller's Mill, the trees were no longer called Callis Wood but Horsehold Wood, and from here it was a short walk to the path that led to St. Mary's.

“Oh,” said Robert, seeing the churchyard ahead of them. “Perhaps you would not have come this way.”

Anna shrugged.

“I wanted to come here today. I want to come here every day if I can. To see Mother.”

Robert gave a nervous little nod.

“Your father is dead, too, Anna?”

“Some few years ago.”

Robert nodded.

He tried to sneak a glance sideways at Anna when he thought she wouldn't see. That hair, the way it curled to her shoulder and hung upon her black dress. Her pale skin. He remembered seeing her slender calves the day before as she dangled her feet in the water. With the sunlight behind her, he was able to see the outline of her legs through the cloth of her dress, even black as it was. The blood stirred within him.

“I will speak plain then,” he said.

Anna had reached the gate of the giving ground, beyond which the bodies of the dead were slowly releasing their souls to heaven, or other places.

“You have no father to speak for you and your mother is gone, too. I do not think you are foolish, Anna. You must be wanting for support. I can offer you such support.”

Dear lord!
thought Anna.
What does he mean?

“My lord,” said Anna, “I do not know what you mean.”

Overnight, as she'd lain awake in bed, walking through the events of the day of her mother's funeral, nothing seemed as strange as the boy Robert giving her a silver locket. In the end, she had decided that it was his way of trying to buy some time with her body on the forest floor, and yet now here he was speaking of even wilder things.

“I can make you a good life, Anna. You will want for nothing. My father is a rich man. I myself have already—”

“Your father…?”

Robert was not listening.

“I can make you a good husband, Anna. You will want for nothing. I can see to that.”

“Husband?”

“Yes. I am making you a proposal. You will come and live at the manor to be my wife.”

“The manor? You'll take me to the manor?”

She was so dumbfounded she could not think.

“You'll take me as your wife? To the manor?”

“That is my proposal.”

“But—you can't! What do you think? Your father is a knight! Mine was a laboring man. You cannot surely believe your father would agree to such a thing.”

“I will speak to Father. I will get him to understand that I wish it to be.”

“You want me to be your wife?”

“I do.”

“And you'll take me to the manor?”

“I will. Until such time as I move to my own property.”

“And you'll bring Tom with me, will you?”

Anna felt the blood of her own body stir in the evening heat now.

She saw Robert's face, his mouth moving, his eyes dead, as he spoke some words, which were these; “I shall see that your brother is well cared for. We can perhaps send him to the poor house in Deepdale. I will pay a doctor to look at him. Perhaps something can be done.”

“But he's not to live with me?” Anna asked, trying to keep her voice smooth.

“You can hardly expect that. No, Tom will be ably cared for elsewhere when you come to the manor.”

That was that.

Anna forgot that she was William Tunstall the laborman's daughter, and that she was speaking to the second son of Sir George Hamill.

“How dare you? How dare you!” she cried.

She swung herself through the church gate and shut herself in.

“You would take me away from Tom? To be your wife? I would never marry you. Not ever! Even if it were such a thing that could happen! You fool!”

Robert's face burned at her.

He snatched the gate open and went in after her.

“You get away from me, Robert Hamill,” she said, but Robert came on.

“Have a care what you say,” he said, and grabbed her wrist. For one so slight he was strong, and he twisted her wrist so she fell to her knees.

“Stop that,” she shouted. “Stop that.”

But he did not.

He pulled back her lovely long red hair in his hand, tipping her head and then he planted his mouth on hers.

She tried to pull away but he grasped her hair all the harder, and then she bit his lip so deep that she tasted the blood that welled into her mouth before he pushed her away.

He staggered back holding his mouth, blood dripping between his fingers onto the dry grass of the giving ground, and while he stood there, surprised, angry and rejected, Anna made good her escape. She did not stop running till she slammed the cottage door behind her and threw the bolt, and the echo of both came back from the far side of Welden Valley.

Tom looked up from the floor. Suddenly the stupidity of what she'd done rushed into her. If Robert Hamill decided to be vindictive, he could probably get his father to throw them off his land, and then, even this pitiful hovel and the few things they owned would be lost to them.

She stared at Tom for a long time before she realized he was speaking to her.

“Will we eat, Anna?” he said.

Anna shook herself. Her hair hung damp on her forehead; there was heat in her chest. She looked at her young brother.

“Will we eat?” he said again, and Anna could only think of the stupid thing she'd done.

 

10
SIN

So that'll be him
, thought Anna.

She'd come out of the mill with a bundle to tie, to take up to the tentergrounds, and sensed something. Someone.

There he was, and God, he was as thin as they'd said. Like Anna he was draped in a long black dress, but there the resemblance ended. The cassock hung off him like a shroud on a scarecrow. Where Anna's skin was pale, his was sallow and gray, and what little hair he had left clung to his skull. But he was tall, and his eyes seemed to have found her the moment she left the mill.

He was standing in the trees, at the edge of Callis Wood. He stood perfectly still and Anna didn't know whether to acknowledge his presence or just go about her work. They'd been talking about him yesterday. Down at Gaining Water smithy. She'd gone there with the two pennies her mother had owed Jack Smith, since she'd managed to get Ma Birch to pay for the poultices she'd been having. Anna didn't want Jack Smith to have anything over her, not even tuppence. At the smithy, she'd found Jack and Elizabeth talking to John Turner and Adam Dolen about the minister who'd arrived at the manor house.

Anna kept her distance from Adam Dolen, but he was the one in the know. Since his Grace was living at the manor house now, he boasted, she knew everything that was going on there. She knew all about the Rural Dean, and why he'd come.

So Anna had given Jack the two coins and hurried away.

And now here he was. Standing in the sun pools that flittered down between the thick green leaves of Callis Wood. Watching her.

Her heart pounded.

But Father Escrove turned, walked away along the bank of Golden Beck, and was gone.

 

11
RIGHT- AND LEFT-HANDED MEN

Dusk in Welden Valley. Owls hooted in the half-light. The faintest of breezes twitched the tops of the trees. Golden Beck danced on as it had since water first curled its way through the cleft of rock that wound its way down to the place where Deepdale now sat.

*   *   *

Anna Tunstall sat in Tunstall Cottage. Tom was playing outside in the late evening warmth while she boiled herbs. Her mother had believed there was a cure for Tom's fits, and had tried many varieties and mixtures of plants, but without success. Despite the heat of another fierce day of sun, Anna bent over a pot on the fire, stirring, watching the tea revolve at the end of her spoon, believing the answer lay in there, somewhere. The endless turning hypnotized her for a while; she gave up wondering if she'd ever cure Tom, and began to think about herself. She still knew she ought to find a way to give that heart back to Robert, but it felt lighter about her neck now. It was by far the most special thing that had ever entered her life and at the very least, she knew she couldn't leave it lying around for Tom to find and start asking questions about. So for now it could sit as safely under her dress as anywhere, and she'd give it back as soon as ever she could find a way to make him take it.

*   *   *

Helen Fuller was putting food on the kitchen table at the mill house. She called to her husband, John, but he didn't hear her. He sat by the now-silent hammers in the mill room, wondering how he could afford to renew the lease on the mill if Sir George put up the rent, as he'd said he would.

*   *   *

Left-handed Jack Smith was beating his wife because of something she hadn't done, and outside the smithy, little Harry Smith was thumping Hettie Smith with his fat left fist while Hester stood by, unblinking.

*   *   *

Sir George Hamill was returning from a constitutional walk with Hector, the wolfhound. Sir George's walks were slow, but Hector was very old, and they suited each other as walking companions. Sir George reached his right hand out to stroke Hector's shaggy head.

*   *   *

In the manor house, lying on his bed, Robert Hamill stared at the ceiling, as he had done hour after hour. When the old servant Edward was sent to fetch him to supper, Robert said he was sick, and would not eat.

Grace Dolen heard that news from Edward.

She stole up to Robert's room again, and this time, in his misery, he did not send her away. Instead, he poured out his tortured heart to her, and she listened eagerly, joyfully drinking in everything he had to say, though she was careful not to smile. The boy was miserable, but she saw he had become angry, too, and she knew that was something she could use.

*   *   *

It was a hot night. All Robert's windows were open, as were the windows of his little sister, Agnes, who sat awake on her bed, listening in the dark as her brother cried and sobbed and spoke to the wet-nurse called Grace. She didn't catch every word. But she heard enough to make her excited, because here was her brother Robert telling Grace that he had been bewitched, and some other things besides.

And here was Grace replying, saying, “Yes, sir. She is a witch.”

*   *   *

Much later in the finally cool night, with only the sound of owls and the rushing of Golden Beck for company, a figure slipped through the trees of Horsehold Wood, heading down into the valley, a stick of charcoal in their left hand.

 

12
THE CURVE OF LIFE

The axle of the waterwheel of Fuller's Mill was thick, almost two hands across. Its end was a flat smooth disc of age-pale wood, which constantly turned. And somewhere in the night, a line had been cunningly marked on that disc; a single line that wound to the center and, always spinning, seemed to forever shrink to nothing, and yet never disappear.

Tom had scampered ahead that morning, down the track through Callis Wood, to the mill.

He was enjoying his days sitting in the sun, watching Anna come and go, listening to Helen Fuller talk to him sometimes, and splashing in the millrace when the sun got too hot.

So when Anna arrived at the mill, she found Tom surrounded by a small group of people: John and Helen Fuller, John Turner, Anne Sutton, and from Deepdale, just arrived with a load of cloth on a sweating pony, young Simon Bill.

Anna saw that they were half watching Tom, and half watching the thing that he was staring at, fixedly, without blinking; the spiral on the axle end.

“Who set that there?” said Anna.

No one gave her an answer. There was something about the line that provoked silence. They all stared at it, and then they all stared at Tom Tunstall.

“Come. Come here, Tom!” Anna called, and tried to pull Tom by the arm.

He resisted. Without words, but he shook her off.

“It's time to work,” Anna said to John Fuller. “Is it not?”

He turned to her, dream-held.

“Hmm,” he said, quietly. “Yes. Time…”

“Who set that there?” Anna asked again. “Helen, who? Did you do that?”

Helen shook her head.

“Anna?”

She didn't seem to be seeing Anna Tunstall, though she stood right in front of her. Then her eyes brightened a little.

“Anna? Anna.”

“Helen, it's time to be at work.”

Helen stirred.

“Yes. You are right, Anna.”

But she didn't move.

Anna shook Tom's shoulder. Nothing.

She stood in front of him, and slowly he leaned around her, to keep his eyes on the axle, and then Anna spun him hard, forcing him to look away.

“Gentle with your brother,” murmured Helen, and Anna angrily marched up to the axle end, and pulling a rag from her pocket began to rub at the charcoal line. She rubbed fiercely, but couldn't remove the burnt wood marks, yet she did enough to smear it, spoil its form. Hide it.

She turned back to the group.

“It's time to be at work!” she yelled, and she watched in amazement as the five of them seemed to wake from a sleep, stand and stare at each other for a few moments and before hurrying off to be at their business, as if they were embarrassed.

Anna turned to Tom, who was now sitting on the flags outside the mill, staring across the water of Golden Beck.