Silent on the Moor (16 page)

She licked at my hand and I scratched behind her ears. “Feed her up, then. She must keep up her strength if she’s going to whelp. Prepare a quiet place, warm and safe, perhaps the bottom of a cupboard if you can find one suitable,” I told Minna. “And line it with some towelling or an old blanket.”

She bobbed a tidy curtsey and left me, cuddling Florence and crooning a little lullaby. I made a mental note to write the happy news to Portia. She would be greatly diverted to know of Mr. Pugglesworth’s prowess.

As soon as I left the house, my feet turned toward the poultry yard, almost before I realised I intended to go there. Hilda was there, wrapped in a shawl and tossing kitchen scraps from a pail as she clucked her tongue at a plump chicken, muttering under her breath.

“Leave off, you great fat brute. You’ve not even given a single egg in a fortnight. I ought to put you in the cookpot.”

“You have the countrywoman’s gift for poultry, Miss Hilda,” I called. “I do not think I have ever seen such plump birds.”

She looked up, scowling, and threw the rest of the scraps out in a single motion. She stood for a moment, uncertainty rising in her face, then she made a sound of resignation and crossed to where I stood.

“I suppose you want an apology for what I said.” Her eyes were wary, and I made no move toward her.

“Not unless you mean it. I’ve always hated telling someone I was sorry because I ought to.”

She said nothing for a long moment, her eyes fixed over my shoulder as she turned the matter over in her mind. I nodded toward her little flock.

“I meant what I said. They are very fine birds. You ought to be proud of them.”

I turned to leave her, but she snorted, a derisive sound, but not one that was intentionally insulting, I fancied.

“Any fool can raise a chicken,” she retorted.

“I assure you that is not so. My brother Benedick once attempted to keep a flock to raise egg money. He managed to forget to shut the henhouse the same day Father acquired a new mastiff. Poor chickens.”

Her lips twitched, but she did not smile. “You have brothers then? Besides Valerius?”

“I am the youngest daughter of ten children. I’ve five brothers altogether. Believe me when I say you have met the best of them.”

She fell silent again and it occurred to me that she was
simply unused to conversation. Lady Allenby had mentioned that Hilda was seldom to be found and rarely engaged with the rest of the household. It was entirely possible she had never had a proper friend.

“Valerius is by far the most easygoing of my brothers,” I continued. “I wonder, is he anything like your brother, Redwall, was?”

She shook her head slowly. “You must have heard tales of Redwall by now. You must know what he did to the villagers. He was thoroughly spoilt and undeserving.” Her complexion was mottled again, a sure sign she was becoming distressed.

I cast about for a safe subject, then decided recklessness might serve as well. “I understand from Ailith that you mean to marry Mr. Brisbane.”

Her mouth gaped, then she closed it with an audible snap. “I suppose you think I am a fool. You’ve come to taunt me.”

“I assure you, Miss Hilda, I am in no position to taunt anyone. But Brisbane hardly seems like a good match for a young lady of solitary temperament. I merely wondered if you had thought the matter through.”

She jerked her head angrily. “Of course I have. I don’t really
want
to marry him. You must know that.”

“Naturally. You do not even look at him, so you cannot wish to marry for love of the man.”

In spite of herself, she laughed, a wheezing, unfamiliar sound. “No, I most assuredly do not love him. But I want my home. And I am so deadly tired of not having money.”

She kicked at her pail, rather like a tired child, and I realised that was precisely what she was.

I seated myself quietly on the step, and after a moment
she began to speak, not to me, but in a low, faraway voice, as if she had forgot I was there.

“Poverty is so wearing. I remember what it was like to have nice things. When I was a child I had the prettiest dresses. And picture books. And a pony of my own.”

“There is always a pony,” I murmured, but she did not seem to hear.

“But then Papa died, and Mama was never good at figures. Nothing seemed to pay as it ought to. And Redwall left, just when he ought to have been making it better. He left and travelled the world, letting the capital run through his fingers like water and here we sat, watching it all fall apart, sinking a little further each year. We turned our clothes and when that would no longer serve, we went to the attics and wore things that were half a century out of date. Who was to care? No one ever comes here. No one visits, no one even knows we exist. And then Redwall came back and for one brief, dizzying moment, I thought it would be better. I thought he would put everything to rights.”

She fell silent again, lost in her memories. I ventured to ask, “And he did not?”

Her mouth twisted in bitterness. “No. He was sick, you could see it in his eyes when he arrived home. Malaria. And the treatment for it only made him worse. He lasted less than two years. He had every chance in the world, every advantage, and he squandered them all.”

I thought about the entries in his notebooks, the mentions of doses of something that began with a
q.
Quinine, no doubt, to ease the symptoms of his malaria.

Hilda’s gaze sharpened suddenly. “I know about the col
lection,” she said, her voice flat. “I know it was lost with the house. Mama and Ailith think that Redwall kept it back to save us, but I know the truth.”

“I am sorry for that.” I paused, wishing I could give her some reassurances that Brisbane would take care of her little family, but I had none to give. Though I believed Brisbane was a man of honour, I could not speak for him. “How did you discover the truth?”

“I went through Brisbane’s papers,” she told me roundly.

I stared at her. “Miss Hilda, I am appalled.”

“You may not judge me,” she returned, her face white to the lips. “You have not lived as I have.”

“You misunderstand me. I am appalled I did not think of it myself,” I told her truthfully. I had spent a fair bit of time alone in his rooms, and I had not troubled to read his papers. “Although Brisbane always seems to know when I am up to mischief. I daresay he would have known what I was about.”

Her colour returned, and she seemed mollified at my approval. “It is so unfair,” she said fiercely, “that we should be ruled by men. They control our very happiness, and yet they do not see fit to tell us anything. We have no more consequence than these chickens,” she finished, nodding toward her little flock, contentedly scratching the ground in front of their tumbledown little henhouse.

We were silent a moment, and it was the pleasantest moment we had yet passed. There was a sympathy between us, and I ventured an expression of sentiment.

“I am sorry for your loss, Miss Hilda. It is difficult when those we love disappoint us so acutely.”

She gave a short laugh. “Love? I hated Redwall. He had
the life I ought to have had, the life I
would
have had if I had been a son.”

“And you think you can still have that life, that independence, if you marry Brisbane?” I asked her gently. “It will never work, you know. He will not marry for money and he cannot marry for love because he loves me.”

Her eyes narrowed and I shook my head, intuiting her thoughts. “I know what you are thinking and believe me, it will not work. He cannot be tricked into marriage by compromising his honour.”

“Why?” she demanded. “Hasn’t he any?”

“Oh, yes, and he guards it rather ferociously, but his notions of honour are quite different from ours. If you were to climb into his bed and arrange for, say, Godwin or Mrs. Butters, to find you, he would simply shove you onto the floor and go back to sleep. He has very little tolerance for deceit.”

Her hands tightened, creasing the unbecoming tweed of her skirts. “If I do not marry him, I will have no life at all.”

I rose, brushing the dust from my skirts. “I am sorry you believe that, Miss Hilda. I can think of no worse reason to marry than that, and I speak from experience.”

Uncertainty clouded her eyes once more. “But you want to marry him. You must—why else would you have come?”

“Oh, yes. I mean to marry him. But not because I want him to give me a life. I want to marry him to share the life I already have. The difference, I think you will find, is a significant one.”

I
set off for Rosalie’s cottage then, my ears constantly straining for any sound from the Grimswater bell. I ought not to have bothered. I might well have imagined that I had heard anything at all. But I was aware now of a sort of watchfulness, a stretched-on-tiptoe feeling of the moor itself, as though it waited for something or someone.

I told myself it was just a fancy and hurried on, reaching the cottage in good time. I had just set my hand to the latch of the front gate when the door of the cottage opened, and I heard Brisbane’s voice.

I cannot answer for what I did next. Brisbane must have known I had made Rosalie’s acquaintance; I had every right to call upon her. But instead of declaring myself, I ducked
behind the little stone wall and crept along until I rounded the corner, keeping myself tucked out of sight below the line of the shrubbery. I was careful to keep opposite the direction Brisbane would have to turn to set off for Grimsgrave, and I could only pray he would turn his steps in that direction. I did not think he would much care to find me playing the spy, nor would I care for the consequences. So I crouched in the shrubbery, concealed by the stone wall, and watched.

Brisbane emerged, his hair tumbled as usual, his black greatcoat flung over his shoulders. Rosalie stepped out with him and stretched out her hand.

“Do not forget what you came for,
chavvo,
” she said, proffering a bottle. It was filled with a thick red syrup and tightly-stoppered by the look of it, doubtless one of her remedies, but I was more intrigued by their conversation. Try as I might, I could not remember what the word
chavvo
meant. Magda, my Gypsy laundress, had been rigid upon the point of never teaching me a word of her language. I would have given my right arm to know it now, I thought bitterly.

Brisbane turned back to take the bottle from her, slipping it into his pocket. At that moment, Rook bounded from the cottage, thrusting his great head under Brisbane’s hand. Brisbane smiled and rubbed the dog’s ears, murmuring something I could not hear. He straightened after a moment, then turned to Rosalie.

“Parika tut,”
he told her. She nodded, and he paused, turning to look over the moor toward the crossroads and the path back to Grimsgrave. “You ought not to live here alone. Are you not frightened of the
mullo?
”

She gave him a little shove and laughed. “
Kakka, chavvo.
I have no reason to fear the
mullo,
do I?”

“I suppose you don’t at that,” he replied. He turned on his heel and left her then. Rook followed him as far as the gate, whining a little when he was left behind. Rosalie stood watching Brisbane until he had taken the turning at the crossroads and began to descend down the moor, his black coat billowing in the wind.

“Aren’t you cold out there,
chavvi?
” she asked, turning to the shrubbery where I was hiding.

“Not a bit,” I told her, rising and brushing the leaves from my hair. “I dropped my ring. I was looking for it.”

She laughed, clicking her fingers for the dog to go inside. “You are a bad liar, my lady. Come inside and I will make tea to warm you.”

I gave up the pretence then and followed her inside, stamping my feet to restore the circulation.

The fire was blazing merrily as usual, and the air smelled of spices and something sweet as well. I sank into a chair by the fire and something tightly coiled within me seemed to relax.

“Roses,” she told me, putting her hands under my nose. I breathed deeply, feeling a rush of summer as I inhaled.

“But roses will not be in bloom for more than a month,” I protested. “The scent is too pure to be dried rose petals.”

“Not dried,” she corrected. “The oil from the rose. Very difficult to extract, and very costly. I made my perfume today, always in spring, just before John-the-Baptist returns.”

“Oh, do you expect him soon?”

She shrugged, shifting the long, dark ringlets over her shoulder. They looked darker now, perhaps a bit less silver
than had been there before. I wondered if she used more than just perfume to enhance her attractions.

“A few days, a few weeks. It does not matter. He will come. Always with the spring.”

Rook padded over and laid his head on my knee, gazing up at me with adoring eyes. I laid a hand on his rough head, and to my astonishment, felt a hard lump rise in my throat.

Rosalie came then and put her own hand on my shoulder.

“You are lonely today,” she said softly. “Rook has a gift for sensing it. Let him comfort you.”

She moved away then, discreetly, to gather the tea things, and I laid my face against the lurcher, wetting his fur with my tears. I
was
lonely and feeling appallingly sorry for myself. It was not a state to which I was accustomed. I had been lonely for the better part of my marriage, but I had never acknowledged it. I lived then wrapped in cotton wool, seeing the world through misty glass, a pretty specimen pinned to a collector’s card.

But Edward’s murder had stripped the scales from my eyes, and I saw things clearly now. I was no longer sleepwalking through my life, and I wondered sometimes if it was worth it, to feel so sharply the bad as well as the good. I was capable of happiness now, real happiness, and passion as well, I thought with a rueful memory of Brisbane’s strong arms. But I was capable of despair as well. I missed my sister; Brisbane was being thorny. The moor was a lonely, isolated place, and there was little warmth and comfort for me there.

“This cottage sits at a crossroads,” Rosalie said, bringing the tea things to the table. I lifted my head, drying my eyes quickly. “It sits at a crossroads for you as well,” she added.

“How so?” I peered at the plate of oatcakes she had brought to the table. Plain and good as earth; with butter and honey they were delicious.

“Because you must decide. You have been drifting, one foot in the past, one in the present. But you must step forward into the future, or you will linger in limbo forever.”

She handed me a cup of steaming tea and I gave her a repressive look. “I thought limbo was a Catholic notion,” I told her.

“I do not speak of your soul, lady. I speak of your heart, of yourself. You do not wish to be as you were, but you are not entirely who you will become. It is difficult to be a stranger to yourself, is it not?”

I put the cup down, untasted. “Are you quite certain you do not practice the fortune-teller’s arts, Rosalie? You have assessed me quite accurately.”

She shook her head, smiling, her coins jangling at her ears. “It does not take a crystal ball to know you. I see people, lady. That is my gift. So many come to me because they are troubled. Would they come to me if they were perfectly happy? No, they come because they know Rosalie can see them for what they are, and can help them see which paths lay before them.”

I sipped slowly at the tea, feeling it warm me through to my bones. “You do not give them a little nudge down the right path?”

“Who is to say what is the right path? If a girl comes to me because she carries a child but has no husband, I will offer her pennyroyal to shed the child from her womb, or raspberry leaf to strengthen the womb to carry it. The choice is entirely hers.”

I toyed with an oatcake, turning over her words in my head. “I wonder. I have been stubborn, bullheaded even, and I wonder if I ought to have gone back to London with my sister.”

“You doubt yourself. That is the surest way to misery,” Rosalie advised. “Do not waste, lady. Eat the oatcake or give it to the dog. Do not crumble it to bits.”

I began to nibble it, licking the honey from my fingers. My manners when with Rosalie were appalling, but perhaps that was part of the pleasure I took in her company.

“How am I to know, then, if I am on the right path? I have made myself miserable, and perhaps another as well.” I thought of Brisbane with a guilty pang.

Rosalie was thoughtful for a long moment, sipping at her tea whilst I made a mess of the oatcake. “If I would know someone, lady, I do not listen to what they say. I watch what they do. Tongues lie, bodies do not.”

I laughed aloud. “That seems a very simple formula. Too simple. It cannot possibly be correct.”

She shrugged again, her expression pitying. “Why must you
gorgios
always make things more complicated than they are? Be simple, lady. Nature is simple. And we are not so far removed from the savages we once were.”

I shook my head, scarcely believing that an uneducated Gypsy woman was lecturing me on what, with a little judicious handling, might well be a corollary to Darwinian theory.

“Perhaps you are right,” I said at length.

She smiled, baring those beautiful white teeth.

“Perhaps. Remember, lady. If you would know a person, stop your ears to their words, but mark their actions. Think on what I have said, and you will know what to do.”

I looked up at her, startled, but she rose then and went to freshen the pot of tea. I looked into the fire, considering carefully what she had said and stroking Rook’s ears. He gave a little sigh of contentment.

“Would that everyone were as easy to please as you,” I murmured into his fur. He did not reply.

The afternoon was drawing to a close as I left Rosalie, and the long purple shadows of Thorn Crag were lengthening across the moor. Just as I reached for the latch of the garden door, Godwin pushed it open from the other side.

“Lady Julia!” he cried. The wind must have risen a little, for the bushes behind him fluttered. I rubbed my hands over my arms, raising the blood. “May I have a word?”

I longed for the fireside after my chilly walk, but Godwin’s habitual good-natured expression was serious.

“Of course.”

“I have just learned that you have been working in Redwall’s study.”

“Yes, I have. I was hoping to write a catalogue of his Egyptian collection. It will help to sell the things when the time comes.”

He shook his head, his dark gold curls waving about his ears. “You ought not to be there alone. I carried them in when they arrived, and I know how heavy they are.” He brought his head closer to mine, lowering his voice. “Thee must not hurt thyself. Thou’rt too delicate for such things.”

I stared at him, taking far too long to realise this was north country wooing at its finest. He reached for my hand, and I pulled it back, giving him my cheeriest smile.

“You are very good to be concerned, Godwin, but I am quite careful, I promise. I will call if I have need of you,” I told him, making a note never to rely upon him if I could help it. His demeanour had always been friendly, but this impertinence was something new.

He was not abashed. If anything, my cool amiability seemed to amuse him. He smiled, and dropped his eyes to my lips, then lazily moved his gaze back to my eyes. “You do tha’,” he said, then stepped back to let me pass. I did so, keeping to the edge of the path so I would not brush against him.

He sloped off the opposite direction then, whistling a little tune. Just then Brisbane stepped onto the path, arms folded over his chest, his expression inscrutable.

“If you want to rendezvous with the hired help, Julia, you ought to make quite sure you are alone,” he suggested.

“Do not be foul,” I said irritably. “I have no greater interest in Godwin than you have in Hilda Allenby.”

His brows rose and he blinked at me. “Hilda?”

“Yes,” I said, matching the coolness of his tone. “I am reliably informed that she means to marry you. So once more, I find myself offering you my heartiest felicitations on your upcoming marriage,” I added, alluding slyly to the entanglement he had suffered during our last investigation.

“I would sooner cut off my own head than marry Hilda Allenby,” he said flatly.

“Oh, I know that, but the lady in question seems most insistent. I suggest you look carefully under your coverlet before you get into bed. She has rather medieval ideas about compromised honour.” I bit back a smile. In spite of our recent difficulties, teasing him was a delicious pastime.

But Brisbane was not laughing. He reached out and gripped my arms, his face a breath from mine. “Why do you not leave?” I noticed his pupils then, and I reached a hand to brush a fingertip over his brow, ignoring the question. We knew well enough the answer, the both of us.

“You have been dosing yourself with an opiate,” I said softly. “The migraines are returning.”

“More vicious than ever,” he said, grinding the words between tensed jaws. “I cannot sleep now but I have dreams—” He broke off and passed a hand over his brow, catching my hand in his, crushing it.

“What sort of dreams?” I dreaded the reply. I knew only too well what grim horrors stalked his dreams, and I knew it was his desperate attempts to push these visions away that brought about his virulent headaches.

“Death,” he said finally, his eyes never wavering from mine. “Every time. I see it coming, and there is nothing I can do to stop it.” He closed his eyes and gave a little groan, pulling me to him. His heartbeat was slow and steady, dulled by the opiate he had consumed. “You must go, Julia. I know I cannot command it. I have known since the first moment I met you, you cannot be ordered to obey. But I can ask you, beg you, on bended knee if I must. Leave this place,” he said harshly, his fingers biting into my arms.

I thought of Rosalie’s words then, and I realised that all the while Brisbane had been telling me to go, he had been pulling me closer to him.

“You impossibly stupid man,” I told him. I put my arms about his waist, and we stood thus, clinging together for a
long time, the air turning purple around us as dusk gathered in the ruined garden.

At length he pulled away and rubbed his thumbs over my cheeks, catching my tears. “That’s the second time today,” I said, feigning cheerfulness. “I am becoming a regular blubberpot.”

“You will not leave me, will you?” he asked at length, his tone resigned. I studied him in the fading violet light. The strong, almost arrogant planes of his cheekbones, the aggressive nose, the seductive underlip, its fullness offset by the purposeful, even cruel upper lip. There was just enough light left to see the tiny scar on his cheek, white and curved as a crescent moon.