Read Online The Wilding by Maria McCann - Free Book Online Page B

hadn’t my aunt said that Robin was already soiling his bedding before the girl arrived? It was just as likely that my uncle’s comfort had been increased by the ministrations of his strange but diligent servant. All I could do was proceed with care, and wait.
    * * *

    ‘Your mother’s written,’ my aunt said when she came home.
    ‘Thank you, Aunt.’ The seal on this letter was unbroken. To avoid opening it in her presence, I put it in my pocket. She raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

    ‘Did you find what you wanted at the market?’ I asked.
    ‘Yes.’
    I understood her: two could play at secrecy. Well, I’d be sworn my secrets were as interesting as hers. I bowed to her and withdrew to my chamber.
    Son
    You must return now. I can say no more. Leave the apples and come away. You can return to them later. Your father and I will be sorely displeased if you again fail to return .
    Your loving
    Mother

    I went downstairs again. Aunt Harriet was standing by a window, looking out onto the road; she seemed to be waiting for something to happen. As I put the letter into her hand, she flashed me a peculiar look. It came to me that what she had been waiting for was just this moment; she knew why my mother had written.
    ‘ Can you leave the apples?’ she asked.
    I considered. ‘Yes. What’s in the press is nearly finished; put someone to make small cider from it and we’ll press new in a few days.’
    ‘And what about the murc left in the mill? How long before it goes sour?’
    She made no pretence of caring about my mother’s distress; she was not even curious as to its cause. I was secretly angry at my mother for calling me away at a time when I had already too much on my mind, but I loved her a great deal and Aunt Harriet not at all.
    ‘I couldn’t say,’ I replied. ‘Have it watched over and if needful seatched over Binnie. I’ve already saved you a good part of his fee, dear Aunt.’

    * * *

    Was I pleased to return to Spadboro? To greet my mother and father, certainly, though both seemed distant and distracted. Mother kissed me and helped me off with my coat; Father, looking tired and pale, patted my shoulder and said it was good to see me safely returned home. It was a chilly afternoon; Alice was summoned to light the fire earlier than usual and we sat round it. My parents several times exchanged looks but seemed in no hurry to begin, while the silence thickened round us like ropey cider.
    ‘Well,’ I said at length. ‘I thought to find one of you dying, or the thatch burnt off. Am I to know why you called me back?’
    Again they exchanged looks. At last my father said, ‘Your aunt wrote to me. She says you are ensnared by a whore from the village.’
    Blunt words indeed, from him. At first I could make no sense of them, and was silent as I tried to fit this intelligence together with what I knew of my aunt and the time I had passed with her. Afterwards, I realised that my silence had done me harm; my parents were waiting to hear a loud clamour of innocence, but I was too puzzled to make it.
    ‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘I’ve never consorted with whores. I have no kind of acquaintance in Tetton Green, and my aunt knows that.’ A thought came to me. ‘Does she mean Tamar?’
    Mother shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
    ‘And that’s how you call her, by her Christian name?’ asked my father.
    ‘Because she’s a servant – she lives with my aunt! Is Aunt Harriet saying she keeps a whore in her house?’
    My father here gestured towards my mother, who got up and left the room. Watching her go, I felt afraid as I had never before done with either of my parents.

    ‘Now, Jonathan,’ my father said. ‘What have you done with this girl?’
    ‘Nothing.’
    ‘Harriet says you stole property and gave it her, and that the two of you go walking in the woods and hiding from decent people.’
    ‘Property? I gave her a log – mine to give – and a bowl of murc that she begged for a sick