The Lonely Furrow Read online

  Who now living remembered why that already narrow window should have been barred?

  Henry had had a sister, Margaret, pretty as an angel but dim-witted beyond belief. There was this weak streak in the Tallboys family; most of the children they bred were big and strong, precocious. But now and again, as though in compensation, the family produced a simpleton.

  That Knight’s Acre should include a dim-wit girl was a pity but not a tragedy. That the head of the family, Sir James Tallboys, and his formidable wife, Lady Emma should, at Moyidan, the real centre of the family, have another dim-wit as heir was a catastrophe which neither would acknowledge. Their Richard was slow to learn, was delicate, was shy; all the usual parental excuses. Then the day came when, the Moyidan family visiting at Knight’s Acre, Richard of Moyidan and his cousin Margaret of Knight’s Acre had each recognised in the other the perfect mate. Found in the hay, no real harm yet done, they had been torn apart and Margaret locked in her room. This was not her first escapade but everybody intended that it should be her last.

  She’d gone out by the window on a summer day, making for Moyidan but easily diverted by the sight of a carter, resting himself and his horse by the water-splash in the lane. To the end of his days the carter believed that he had spent a summer afternoon with one of the Little People, the fairies who lived in Layer Wood. Margaret had been found, brought back and the window barred. At Moyidan, Richard had used one of his tried weapons—he would not eat a crumb until his parents agreed that he should marry his cousin Margaret. And at Knight’s Acre, the Lady Sybilla, pious, knowing that marriage of cousins, even sound healthy ones, was against canon law and needed a special dispensation, had discovered that Margaret was pregnant; only just; a week, ten days. The marriage had been quickly and cunningly arranged and its outcome had given everybody a delightful surprise; a lusty boy, a real Tallboys in everything but colour of hair and eyes…

  Of all this Griselda knew nothing; she saw the window barred and was discouraged; then hopeful. Despite the dragging feeling in her left side she thought that if only she could squeeze through the narrow opening she would be free. Free to speak to somebody who did not pretend to be deaf or not to understand, somebody not in this senseless plot.

  It was not easy, but then nothing had ever been easy for her. Now, carrying her left side as a load—but in her time she had carried heavier and more awkward ones—Griselda forced herself through and saw that the drop was negligible; just on to the roof of the new part, the other part, single-storied. From there to the ground.

  The nearest house was the priest’s and, moving a bit crabwise, Griselda made for it. She could remember being a bit gruff to Mistress Captoft on that terrible day; but she knew how to apologise. For a long time, in fact before everything became too much for her, Griselda had copied Lady Sybilla in every way; and Lady Sybilla had once said that only a well-bred person could apologise gracefully. That piece of information Griselda had tucked away and now, dragging that side of her which seemed not to belong, she planned her apology and her appeal for help.

  Mistress Captoft, as everybody knew, had money and she had spent some on the priest’s house. There was now a tiny room just to the right of the door where parishioners, needing spiritual or physical comfort could wait, shielded from the weather and yet not disturbing Father Benedict in the parlour. It was very difficult to get access to him; even calls to deathbeds were obstructed by Mistress Captoft who would suggest trying a good dose first. She made very potent brews.

  The day was already darkening when Griselda knocked urgently on the door of the priest’s house. The light was behind her and Mistress Captoft did not notice anything strange in her appearance except that her hair was in disorder. Her errand could be guessed; one of the sick men was about to die.

  Good afternoon. I have come to apologise for being brusque the other day. I need help. Mistress Captoft, you and Father Benedict must help me. I am in danger. It is a matter of life or death.

  Poor woman, completely incoherent. Mistress Captoft reached back and opened the door of the little room.

  ‘Come in, Mistress Tallboys. There, sit down. Now tell…’

  Here the angle of light was different, revealing the distortion of Griselda’s face, the wildness of her eyes.

  Mistress Captoft prided herself upon being level-headed. Once when she lived in Dunwich she had been called upon to deal with a little boy, so badly bitten by a dog that one side of his nose was hanging by a mere thread of flesh. She had kept her head, clapped the loose flesh back into place, secured it—and stopped the bleeding—with a stiff plaster of flour and water and administered a good dose of febrifuge. Later she had the pleasure of seeing the boy as good as new except for a slight lumpiness on one side of the nose; and even that, she had thought complacently, would be less noticeable when his face attained full growth.

  She was calm now, though a little taken aback.

  ‘Sit down,’ she said. Griselda, anxious to prove that she was not mad, sat down as bidden. The room was so small that it contained only one chair and a stool. ‘Take a deep breath,’ Mistress Captoft ordered. ‘Now, try to tell me, quietly.’

  Another burst of gibberish; not merely words mispronounced or slurred in a way for which the distortion of the mouth could account; sheer nonsense, accompanied with wild gestures.

  The woman was mad; and madness was more a priest’s business.

  ‘Wait here. I will fetch Father Benedict,’ Mistress Captoft said. She went nimbly away but, keeping her head, remembered to pull the latch string through so that the door could not be opened from inside the little room.

  She said from pure habit, ‘I am sorry to disturb you. It is Mistress Tallboys. I think she has gone mad.’

  Father Benedict looked up from his writing and went through the process, familiar to her, of coming back to everyday life.

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Talking nonsense. And looking horrible.’

  He thought; Poor Mattie! She made a great sacrifice in coming with me to this barbarous place where there is no one of her kind with whom to associate, no shops, nothing to see from the window except a sheep-fold. Small wonder that she tends to exaggerate! But even as he discounted something of what she said, he observed that some of her bright colour had drained away and that she had lost some of her self-possession.

  ‘Drink this,’ he said, pouring wine from the jug which invariably stood ready to refresh and strengthen him as he pursued his studies. ‘I will go to her.’

  ‘I think better not. In addition to the nonsense and the wild look… I have just remembered! There is a smell. Like a wild animal. Somebody once told me that such a smell went with madness. I will run to the house and fetch her husband. It is for him to deal with.’

  An indirect and unintentional reflection upon his manhood. People so often made that mistake about priests—though Mattie should have known better.

  ‘My dear, if he could have dealt with her, why is she here? Subjected to strain or shock, women often become incoherent.’

  Alone in the tiny room, seated on the stool, Griselda thought that, so far, she had not done badly: Mistress Captoft had listened and seemed to understand; had said that she would fetch Father Benedict. The right thing to say, since he was the one with authority. She waited.

  ‘I think I should come with you,’ Mistress Captoft said. ‘She looks very frail but the mad often have more than natural strength. She could be dangerous.’

  ‘To me?’ He gave her a look, half humorous, half rebuking. ‘No meddling!’

  She accepted it. But she remembered to say, ‘I pulled the latch-string. Put it back as you go in.’

  It was this adjustment of the latch-string as the priest entered which made Griselda suspicious. Here, without realising it, she had also been locked in. Why? Because Mistress Captoft was in the plot, too?

  Father Benedict appeared not to be. Having adjusted the string of the latch and closed the door, he stood for a second or two, a big so
lid man, reliable and authoritative, greeting her as a priest should greet a parishioner: God bless you, my child.

  Griselda, remembering her manners, slipped from the stool and made the bob due to his office. Then she sat again. I must remember not to raise my voice or wave my good arm about. The other, the left, was too heavy and she held it by the elbow supporting it, somewhat in the manner of a woman with a baby.

  ‘Now, Mistress Tallboys; take your time. Something has upset you. Tell me.’ He sat in the chair, folded his hands and seemed prepared to listen.

  Not one intelligible word. Urgent, emphatic, fluent. Had this been his first encounter with her he would have taken it for her native tongue, one unknown to him. But he had known her for years; knew that she was as English as he was himself. Also, before he had immured himself here as parish priest at Intake, he had been clerk and general amanuensis to a merchant in Dunwich and had, of necessity, acquired not merely a smattering of various languages but also the sensitive ear which must make a bridge between people who could not allow differing languages to impede business.

  But what Mistress Tallboys was now saying fitted in nowhere; not French or any of the varieties of German; not even Spanish or Italian. A language apart; the tongue of the mad. He was rather less credulous and fearful than the average man but a little shiver ran over him as he remembered that to speak in strange tongues was one sign of being possessed by devils. Such a state would be in keeping with her looks, so haggard, so distraught. Perhaps, poor creature, she knew what ailed her. He shivered again as he considered the possibility that she had come to him trusting him to act as exorcist.

  In theory it was within the power of any properly ordained man to cast out devils: Christ had left such power with His Apostles and through ordination, the touch of a Bishop’s hand, the humblest parish priest was directly linked with St. Peter, the Apostle chosen to be the founder of the Church; in actuality exorcism was a dangerous, tricky business, not to be lightly undertaken. Never by one man alone. Never without consent from one’s Bishop.

  I am over-fanciful, he told himself. But he did move his right hand and made the sign of the Cross in the air between them. Then he said, ‘Mistress Tallboys, I did not understand you. Perhaps if you spoke more slowly…’ It was a frail hope but all he had.

  So! Griselda thought; they are in the plot, too! He understood; she understood. Now he is keeping me here, telling me to say it all again, but more slowly, while she runs off to fetch Henry.

  Father Benedict sat in the chair between her and the door. A big solid man in a chair which, though not large, was solid. Her glance, frenzied, sly, went to the window; not a casement, just a few panes set in the wall. No escape. Trapped again.

  We’ll see! Nothing to be lost be trying.

  Swiftly, despite the heaviness of her left side, she jumped up, lifted the three-legged stool and drove it at him. One leg hit him in the mouth, another in the chest; the third just missed his shoulder and struck the back of the chair. The onslaught, made with all her remaining strength, inspired by desperation and fully in accord with the streak of violence which was part of her nature, toppled him. Griselda stepped over his legs and opened the door and ran straight into Mistress Captoft who stood in the narrow entry, a freshly lighted candle in her hand.

  Mistress Captoft had gone through one of those periods when a minute was an hour of anxiety. Without words he had told her not to meddle; he was priest, he had authority; he was a man of good physique but he was not, especially when just roused from work, very alert and he was, at any time, slow at summing up a situation. And there he was, alone with a mad woman. And now she had, as the day darkened, a perfectly good excuse for going in and satisfying at once her curiosity and her protective instinct. She was taking a candle to set on the shelf which, jutting out between the chair and the stool, served as a table in a room too small to accommodate such a thing. By its light, when the door flew open, she saw Benedict on the floor, tangled with the fallen chair. She hardly noticed Griselda pushing past, making for the outer door. She did not know or, knowing, would have cared that the mad woman’s hair had flicked across the candle and begun to blaze and sizzle.

  ‘My dearest,’ Mistress Captoft said, speaking and behaving in a manner forbidden by man—but not, she was certain by God, ‘she hurt you.’

  She helped him up and took him into the warmer room. He was bleeding from the mouth but that, thank God, was not the deadly symptom that it sometimes could be. A bad enough injury but superficial; both lips split. Water, ice cold from the well. Alum, the drying powder. Even as she ministered to him the broken lips swelled and when he spoke his words were blurred, too; but at least they made sense. He said, ‘They must be warned. She attacked me, unprovoked. There are children there.’

  He was showing courage, a virtue he greatly admired and had seldom been called upon to exercise. He did not even mention the other, worse hurt which the other leg of the stool had inflicted.

  ‘You must tell Master Tallboys. She is dangerous.’

  ‘I can’t leave you, my darling.’

  ‘Of course you can. I’m all right now. Run along, tell them to beware. Please, Mattie, do as I say.’

  ‘If you are sure…’ But then, he had always been sure, of himself, of her. ‘Very well. I shall be back in no time.’ She put a log on the fire, lighted another candle.

  Left alone, Father Benedict tried to probe his hurt and thought it curious that though from the outside it was so widespread that he could not determine whether it was in his belly or his chest, it was worse inside. A full breath was like the stab of a knife. It was nothing and to say anything would simply worry Mattie. Leaning himself in the attitude which seemed less painful, and taking only shallow breaths, he returned to his work.

  Mistress Captoft went briskly to Knight’s Acre. There was no light in the front, so she went around into the yard. The kitchen window was golden and through it she saw something not unlike a scene in one of the morality plays which in Dunwich she had so much enjoyed. The girl, Joanna, dishing something out of the black pot, the little boy, already served, in the act of lifting his spoon, Master Tallboys holding a tray. Caught in a timeless moment… And God be thanked, so far unharmed.

  What with haste and lack of breath, she sounded slightly incoherent at first and Henry said, ‘But how could she? The door…’ Then he set down the tray, snatched up a candle and hurried away. Across the hall in a few long strides and up the stairs, two at a time. The door was locked. The room empty, the window open but offering so small an exit. Was it possible? Not only possible, but fact.

  Downstairs again he said, ‘Which way did she go?’

  ‘I do not know. My concern was with Father Benedict, injured, bleeding…’

  ‘I hope not seriously,’ Henry said, but he was already busy with his lantern and his lack of real concern confirmed Mistress Captoft’s opinion of him as an unfeeling fellow.

  ‘A stool wielded by a maniac can be a dangerous weapon,’ she said, rather reprovingly, making for the door; anxious to get back.

  ‘Wait,’ Henry said. ‘I can light you home. Joanna, bolt both doors and on no account open until you hear my voice.’ He had no idea of where to search. He’d start with the track and the lane into which it led—as far as the water splash—in her weakened state Griselda was unlikely to have gone farther than that. He’d shout and wave the lantern on the edge of the wood. Then—and with reluctance—he would try the village. A fine lot of talk that would cause.

  Bursting out of the priest’s house, Griselda had turned left, towards the lane, towards Baildon. The mere act of running, with one side so heavy, demanded so much attention that for a little time she was not aware that her hair was blazing. (One old woman in Intake, closing her shutters for the night, saw what she thought was a ball of fire, travelling slowly along the far edge of Grabber’s Green—the villagers still called it that, convinced that by turning his own land into a sheep-fold, Sir Godfrey Tallboys had cruelly wronged them. S
he was alone at the time and crossed herself, muttering ‘Lord preserve us!’ for anything unusual was a portent, usually of evil. Nobody else seemed to have seen it and she did not mention the strange sight, for since portents were uncanny, those who brought news of them were unpopular.

  Griselda, like any woman who cooked, knew the two ways of extinguishing flames; by water or by smothering. She tried to smother her burning hair by pulling her skirt over her head. The stuff was old and thin and since she had for a long time lost interest in her appearance, splashed with grease. It flared up like timber. Her last conscious thought was that she must get to the water-splash.

  Candles used in lanterns were thicker than ordinary ones but, through the panes of thin horn which shielded them from the wind and from movement, gave little light. Henry held his high to make it more visible from the wood’s edge and as he walked called Griselda by name. Before he reached the dip in the lane where the water ran he thought he could smell something like meat roasting. Vagrants, he thought, somewhere just inside the wood’s cover, cooking a rabbit. He could see no fire, though. He halted and called at the top of his voice, ‘Where are you? I mean you no harm. I need help.’ The last word seemed to hang in the silence which otherwise remained absolute.

  He almost walked into Griselda’s body. Recognisable only by a piece of petticoat, charred all round, from which the flame had been extinguished when she fell. He knew it, for it had been one of his mother’s dresses. Griselda had taken over Lady Sybilla’s scanty wardrobe and made the best use of it, both for herself and her child. When any garment was too worn for outward wear, she’d made it into shifts and petticoats. A bit of silk, the colour of a dove’s neck, sorry remnant of a length which Sir Godfrey had been so pleased to find, so proud to pay for, on one of the few occasions when he had money in his pouch, now identified something half charred stick, half meat on a neglected spit.