Wild Talent (2 page)
Still and all, we three were in a giddy mood as we made our way home under a clear sky, with moon and stars to light our path. Though Edith and Nellie are neither clever nor well-educated they are cheerful, good-hearted girls, and they never tease me, as George often does, for my bookish speech.
“I willna sleep,” said Nellie, “I am that overwrought with the dancing.” And Edith said, “Come home with me, my father will be long asleep” (for her mother is dead and she and her father live alone in their cottage). “It is nigh on midnight. Let's light a candle and look into the glass to see who we will marry.”
“We need an apple for that,” said Nellie.
“We have some keepers from my auntie's cellar,” Edith said, and that decided us. And so like three mice we crept into her darkened cottage, with our hands over our mouths so as not to wake Edith's father, who was snoring in a corner of the downstairs room.
Edith lit a candle and fetched the apples from the cupboard â poor things too long stored and shrivelled to nothing, but with flesh enough still to make one bite. With no bairns in the family, Edith had the upper room to herself, and so with candle in hand she led us up the stairs, stepping carefully so the boards would not creak.
She found her looking glass and gave it to Nellie, saying. “You are the eldest, you must go first.”
“Is it midnight? We canna do it before midnight.”
“Dead on,” said Edith, and she showed us her little clock. She handed Nellie one of the apples.
By candlelight, Nellie unplaited her long hair. Then she put out her hand for an apple. She took a single bite, spat out the chunk and tossed it over her left shoulder. “The comb âI must have the comb.” Edith put it into her hand, and she drew it through her hair, all the while peering anxiously in the glass at the space over her left shoulder.
“Who do you see?” we whispered. “Do you see a face?”
“Oh aye, I see him right there over my shoulder, with such a come-hither look!”
“Who? Who?” we hissed at her.
She shot us a mischievous grin. “I do believe it is none other than Robin from the big house,” and we all laughed, for she of course meant the heir to all this land, Mr. Murdoch's handsome elder son.
“Get away with you,” said Edith. “You see no such thing. What would young Robin have to do with the likes of you? My turn now,” and she took the glass from Nellie's hand. But when she had had her turn, she would not say who she had seen, only gave us a look like a cat in cream.
“Now you,” she said, and handed me the glass.
I did just as the others, but hard though I stared, I could see no face but my own, and over my shoulder there was naught but darkness. I like to think it was because I have yet to meet him, the Mr.Rochester to my Jane. But Nellie says it means I will not marry at all.
May 19
Where shall I begin? Everything has changed, and I cannot bear to imagine what tomorrow may bring.
Ever since the dance there was no avoiding cousin George. Everywhere I went on the farm, he was lying in wait. I swear he would have crept up these stairs at night, if not for fear of waking his sisters. This morning I was mucking the byre and when I looked up there was he was, lurking in the open doorway. As soon as I saw the grin on his face I knew what he was after. He slammed shut the barn door and started toward me. “A randy wee man,” Sally called him. He was no taller than I, but broad and strong, and I knew I was no match for him.
I snatched up an empty milk bucket and hurled it at his head. He ducked just in time.
“Why did you do that?”
“Let me be, or I will do it again, and I willna miss.”
“Why so skittish, Jeannie Guthrie? It's only a kiss I'm after â what's the harm in that?”
“George, we are cousins.”
“What matter? Cousins marry.”
“If you think I would marry you . . . ”
He grinned, though truth to tell it was more of a smirk.
“Mebbe it wasnae the kirk I had in mind.”
He moved closer, and I broke out in a cold sweat. There was no way of escape, standing as he did between me and the door. At that moment I spied a pitchfork leaning against a post; and at the same instant he reached for me.
And then all at once there was blood, and George was clutching his shoulder, and cursing in a shrill, outraged voice. The pitchfork, that a moment before had been standing harmlessly against the wall, was now lying at his feet. One of the tines had struck by his shoulder, piercing shirt and flesh.
He clutched his shoulder and stared at the blood welling up between his fingers. “You've killed me,” he said, and there was a kind of puzzlement as well as anguish in his look.
“I haven't,” I cried. “I didn't.” Something had happened, sure enough, and George without question was wounded; yet I felt it had naught to do with me.
“You're a witch,” he said, and what I saw in his face now was hatred, and bewilderment, and naked fear.
They fetched George to the steward's cottage, and the steward's wife cleaned his wound and bound it up while they waited for the doctor to come from the village. If his wound should turn bad he may die, and then I will be a murderess, and must be taken away to prison, and will hang. Though perhaps â and I pray it be so â the wound is not a fatal one. Still, he named me a witch â though I swear what I did was through no conscious intent, but a thing I could not control. They burned witches once; and not so very long ago they threw them in the water to see if they would float or drown. I think there are folk hereabout who still hold to such beliefs.
And after all his wound may be deep, and may fester, and he will die. And I will hang for it.
There is naught for it, but to run away.
Sunday, May 20
I have made a plan. Today out of shame I did not walk to the kirk with the others, but shut myself up in the cottage, and thought hard on what I must do. There are many ways my plan may go awry, but I can think of no better one. Even if George lives there is no place for me here, when I have impaled my cousin with a fork and have maybe been the death of him. I have made up my mind to go to London. I always meant to go there, though not so soon. No one knows me there, and I will change my name. I have a little money saved up from my wages that will pay for my railway ticket, and if I manage very carefully, a room for a week or two. There are publishers in London, and surely one will hire me, if only for some menial task. And whatever I earn I will send to my mother, save for what little I need for food and lodging.
I have packed my few books that were my father's; my good wool dress and my Sunday bonnet. My bondager's costume I will leave behind, all but my tackety boots, for it is a long walk across the fields to the station.
Monday, May 21
I
t was not yet light when I crept out of the house, and I dared not take any food from the larder for fear of waking my aunt and uncle; and so as I made my way in the chill grey dawn toward Berwick I was hungry and thirsty and my spirits very low. But as I came near Berwick I could hear the dawn chorus of the birds, and then the sun rose. From the fields all around came the fragrance of dew-soaked grass, and in the hedgerows the hawthorn was in bloom. I was sorry, then, that I must leave. But I thought, however drab and grey the city may prove to be, and whatever misadventures may await me there, I cannot stay in a place where they think me at best a witch, at worst a murderess. And I remembered how Father used to say that opportunity could grow out of mischance, so as I trudged towards Berwick station I imagined the oak desk, the sunny room, the shelves of books with my name in gilt; and I began to walk faster, with a lighter heart.
So here I sit, on the morning train to London, with my journal on my lap. The woman beside me stared when I sat down, and I know how bedraggled I must look, with my hem all smirched and my boots muddy where I cut across the fields.
But now we have crossed the great viaduct, the Royal Border Bridge, that spans the Tweed from Berwick to Tweedmouth, and the train is gathering speed, hurtling into England. Stone walls and lonely farms and flocks of black-faced sheep all rush by, and on the other side is the sea, the Holy Isle of Lindisfarne, and the twin castles facing each other across the bay. Soon we will be in Newcastle, with the Borders and my old life forever behind me. I mean to keep a careful record of this journey, writ plain and in proper English, as a novelist would; for when I come to write the story of my life, this will be the opening chapter.
I must not think any more about George. It was a wicked thing I did, whether I meant it or not, and it is a shame I must live with. But more wicked than the act itself, I realize now, was the guilty joy I felt as my weapon found its mark.
Adventure is my only reason for living.
âAlexandra David-Néel
. . . I am but the reflection of an unknown
bright light . . . I cannot help myself that all
these ideas have come into my brain, into
the depth of my soul; I am sincere although
perhaps I am wrong.
âMadame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
Tuesday, May 22.
M
uch has happened.
Only a few hours ago I was standing under the clock tower of Kings Cross Station, gazing out in a panic at the carriages and omnibuses rumbling along Euston Road. In my haste to escape I had not considered how immense London is, and how bewildering. Where should I spend the night? There was a hotel next door, but it seemed very grand and I knew I could not afford to stay there. I thought I would ask some respectable lady where I might find lodging, but there was such noise and confusion in the station, with everyone so hurried and preoccupied, that I quite lost my courage. And so I thought instead I would look for something to eat, for I had had nothing since Newcastle.
I bought a bun and a cup of tea and sat down on a bench near a book stall. So tired I was, so frightened and so close to tears, I could not think what I should do.
A young woman who was browsing at the book stall happened to glance in my direction, and after a moment I realized she was watching me with some curiosity. Presently she put down the book she was holding, and approached my bench. “Mademoiselle, you seem a little distressed. Is there anything I can do to help?”
She had a pleasant, open face and in her plain dark serge coat and skirt and sensible hat looked respectable enough, and so I took a chance and spoke to her. “Do you know where I might find an inexpensive rooming house?”
She glanced round at once, and replied, “
Mais oui
, I believe there are a great many such places around Kings Cross.” I liked her clear French voice, with its lilting accent.
“Perhaps you could direct me . . .” I started to say, and felt my voice tremble so that I could not go on.
She looked at me with concern. “Mademoiselle, are you quite alone in London? Have you no friends or family you may go to?”