Tidelands Page 44

  “I’ve not been robbed,” she said furiously. “Not robbed. I would rather have been robbed than this . . . I’ve been bewitched.”

  There was a hiss of superstitious fear from everyone in the little parlor.

  “What?” Mr. Miller asked.

  “What?” Mrs. Wheatley echoed. “Here, Mrs. Miller, sit down. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  Mrs. Wheatley helped Mrs. Miller into a chair. Alinor came forward and felt her forehead for the flush of fever, and caught a sideways glance from Alys. The bride was as white as if she had seen a ghost. Her lips parted, she turned as if to speak to her mother but she said nothing.

  Alinor felt herself grow terribly cold. Her hand dropped from Mrs. Miller’s forehead. “What’s happened?” she said quietly. “What’s happened, Mrs. Miller?”

  “Ma . . .” Alys whispered.

  Without saying another word, Mrs. Miller snatched the purse from her husband’s hand and opened the neck of the purse. “See this? Look what’s in here! Look at it. I’ll show you!” She gestured towards Alinor, who unthinkingly cupped her hands and Mrs. Miller poured out the contents of the purse. The coins were hot from their hiding place, and strangely light. Alinor held two handfuls of faerie gold, the shaved and chipped coins that she liked to collect, the lost currency of the old ones, the ancient coins of the Saxon shore. Inside the purse they had chinked like coins, weighed like coins, but here, spilled into Alinor’s hands, they were clearly counterfeit. With her hands filled with her own collection of coins, Alinor looked across at the blank horror of her daughter’s face, and knew at once what she had done.

  “Faerie gold,” Mrs. Miller said fearfully. “In my house. Changeling treasure. I had a purse here of good gold and silver, Jane’s dowry. I rarely touch it. I keep it safe in my chim—in my hiding place. And some witch has exchanged my savings for faerie gold. So that I wouldn’t know anything was missing! If I took it out and weighed it in my hands I would think all was well. I’ve been enchanted, and I didn’t even know. Some witch has taken it all. All my money!”

  “If I said once, I’ve said a hundred times: it was a stupid hiding place,” Mr. Miller started.

  “What about the chest?” She turned on him. “The chest under the bed?”

  He blanched and spun on his heel and tore from the room. They could hear his heavy feet pounding up the stair to the bedroom, the creak of the bedroom door, the two swift steps across the wooden floor, and then the noise of the chest being dragged out from under the bed.

  Alinor, her hands filled with faerie gold, stood as still as everyone else and listened.

  “God save us, God spare us,” Mrs. Miller whispered into the silent room. “That’s all that we have in the world. We’ll be ruined if that’s bewitched too.”

  They could hear him fumbling with the keys and then the creak of the lid. They could hear his sigh of relief and the chink of coins being stirred. Then they heard him slam down the lid, lock up, and come slowly down the stairs, putting the keys in his waistcoat pocket.

  “Thank God it’s there,” he said, gray-faced in the doorway. “The tide-mill money is safe. It’s your savings that have gone. Jane’s dowry. How much was there?”

  Even in the grip of terrible loss Mrs. Miller was not going to tell her husband how much she had put away over the years. “Pounds, I had,” Mrs. Miller said viciously. “More than forty pounds. How am I going to get it back from a witch?”

  “Could be a passing thief,” Mrs. Wheatley ventured. “Someone from the yard?”

  “What thief leaves handfuls of faerie gold? Nobody has come in here; nobody knows where I hide my money. It’s a witch. It’s got to be a witch. She’s magicked away my savings and left me hers in exchange. This is witch money. This is witch work.”

  The room was silent. The silence thickened, curdled. Slowly, as slowly as a thought dawning, everyone turned to Alinor. Everyone looked at Alinor, who had worked for Mrs. Miller ever since she was a girl, who was known as a cunning woman with skills not of this world. Alinor, who needed gold for her daughter’s dowry, her son’s apprenticeship, who was said by her own husband to whore for faerie lords. Slowly, everyone looked at Alinor, where she stood, her face very pale, her hands filled with faerie gold.

  “You saw me take the purse from the chimney on the day you went to the market for me and bought my lace collar,” Mrs. Miller said.

  Alinor remembered turning her head away and seeing the reflection of Mrs. Miller fetching her purse in the shiny silver trencher.

  She swallowed. “That was months ago,” she said. “In the autumn. Last year.”

  “But you knew of her hiding place?” Mrs. Wheatley asked.

  Alinor turned to her friend. “Yes. So did many, I should think.”

  “But you knew, Alinor?”

  “And you needed money,” Mrs. Stoney pointed out. “I never thought you would get the dowry together.”

  “We worked,” Alys burst into speech. “Everyone saw us. We both worked. Like dogs. Here at the mill, everyone saw us working here, and we spun, and I worked the ferry. And my father gave me . . . and my uncle lent us . . .”

  “I never thought it’d be enough,” Mr. Stoney contributed. “I thought you must’ve borrowed from someone.”

  “No!” Alinor said proudly, and then thought she should have said yes.

  “I helped Alys,” Richard interrupted, and received a savage look from his mother.

  “You had no business to,” she said sharply.

  “And even so,” Mr. Stoney said, “you only had your wages.”

  “His inheritance?” Alinor said. Her hands were shaking, the faerie gold sparkled.

  “What inheritance? He’s got no inheritance,” Mr. Stoney said.

  Alys looked at her mother, her eyes huge in her pale face and silently shook her head. There was no inheritance.

  “Mrs. Reekie, say it isn’t so!” Mr. Miller said to her quietly. “I’ve known you for years. Say it isn’t so.”

  “Of course it isn’t so!” Alinor repeated. Even to her own ears her voice sounded weak, the denial unconvincing. She stretched her hands towards Mr. Miller’s reassuring bulk, as if to give him the faerie gold.

  “No, I don’t want it!” he said, stepping back and whipping his hands behind his back. “I don’t want it in my house.”

  “Let me throw it out the door then!” Alinor turned to the kitchen, and the open door to the yard. But Mrs. Miller suddenly barred the way.

  “Not so fast,” she said. “You’ll have to answer for this. No dashing out. You hold that, till you prove it isn’t yours!”

  “And where’s my dowry?” Jane demanded.

  Alinor tried to laugh, her hands sticky with faerie coins. “Mrs. Miller, I’ve been your neighbor for all my life. My mother delivered you—”

  “And everyone said she was a witch.”

  “No, they didn’t.”

  “She did charming. She was a cunning woman. She could find things. She could take things,” Mrs. Miller reminded her. “She could cast . . .”

  “But I don’t. You know I don’t.”

  “Your hands are full of faerie gold! Where’s it come from?”

  “I didn’t take your money!” Alinor exclaimed. “I didn’t change it into this!”

  “Lay ahold of her!” Mrs. Miller said urgently, as if Alinor’s raised voice changed everything. “She’s cursing us. And you”—she ordered her husband—“you get the other church warden or the minister. She’ll have to be charged.”

  “Back to the church?”

  “Are you arguing with me?” Mrs. Miller shouted at him. “A witch in our house with her hands full of faerie gold, and you’re standing there arguing with me?”

  Mr. Miller cast one incredulous look at Alinor and went out of the parlor into the kitchen, and pulled on his winter cape. He threw open the door to the yard and everyone heard the sound of a horse. “Sir William,” Mr. Miller said with evident relief. “His lordship’s coming. He’s
a magistrate. He can decide what’s to be done.”

  Everyone in the parlor crowded around Alinor and led her through the kitchen and out into the mill yard to greet the solitary horseman. But it was not Sir William. It was James Summer.

  “His lordship’s on his way.” He smiled, but then he was silenced as he saw Alinor, her cupped hands filled with coins, surrounded by frightened people. “What is this? What’s happening here?”

  “It’s Mrs. Reekie, taken for a witch,” Mrs. Wheatley said, matter-of-fact, going to the horse’s head and looking up at James. “Mrs. Miller here has had her savings changed into faerie gold, and she accuses Alinor Reekie, who makes no defense.”

  “What?” James demanded incredulously.

  Alinor could not bring herself to face him, could not speak to him.

  “It’s not true,” Alys said, pushing forwards. “Of course, it’s not true.”

  “Then how are my savings turned into faerie gold, and the true coin gone?” Mrs. Miller demanded. “Who would do that, if not a witch? Who could do such a thing? And doesn’t everyone know that Alinor has always loved the faerie gold? Even when she was a girl she would find it and keep it?”

  “I didn’t steal your money! Of course I knew where you had it hidden. I’ve known for months—probably everyone does. But I didn’t steal it. I wouldn’t steal from you, or anyone! I’ve been in and out of your house and your yard all my life. I go into people’s houses all the time. There’s not many houses on Sealsea Island that I’ve not attended, and I’ve never ever taken anything. I’m a licensed midwife—”

  “Not got a license now,” a man remarked, making Alinor break off and look at him.

  “That’s not my fault!” she said. “How can you say that against me?”

  “What about Ned’s wife and baby?”

  Alinor gasped. “She lost her baby. I did everything I knew . . .”

  More wedding guests had followed James into the yard. Alinor looked around at a score of her neighbors and saw puzzled and fearful faces.

  “You know me. You all know me. I would never . . .” Alinor could barely speak, even in her own defense.

  “Well, someone did it,” Mr. Miller said heavily, looking up at James, who was still mounted, frozen with indecision, as everyone turned to him to rule on what was to be done. “What do you think, sir?”

  “Mrs. Reekie will have to go before a magistrate to clear her name,” James said reluctantly.

  “Is Sir William following you?” Mr. Stoney asked.

  “Yes,” James said. “He’s on his way.”

  “He’s a magistrate. He’ll do. He can hear the case against her now as soon as he comes,” said Mr. Miller, a church warden who knew the law. He went a little closer to James and took the reins of his horse. “We don’t want her carried off to prison in Chichester,” he muttered quickly. “She’s a good woman. We don’t want her put on trial for a thief. She’ll be hanged if more than three pounds are missing, and there was fifty pounds in that purse. Best keep this here, in the village. Best his lordship rules here, where we can keep it among ourselves. Better get started, sir, so no one thinks of Chichester.”

  James was shocked into action. He dismounted from his horse and the stable lad took it to the barn. “I’ll take the evidence here,” he said loud enough foreveryone to hear. “Sir William and I will confer when he arrives.”

  He tried to exchange a glance with Alinor, but she was looking away from him, at her daughter. Alys was white. She clung to Richard’s arm and her gaze was fixed on her mother’s face.

  “Where’s the defendant’s brother?” James asked, thinking Edward would have a strong voice in this frightened community.

  “We don’t need him,” Mrs. Miller interrupted. “He’s got no control over her at all. She does whatever she wants. He couldn’t even save his own wife. She has no father, and now she says she has no husband, though Zachary Reekie has no grave.”

  “Just disappeared,” someone said from the back of the crowd. “Spoke against her one day, and the next day he was gone.”

  “Mr. Ferryman is an important witness,” James overruled them. “Send for him.”

  James’s calm voice, his tone of authority, was stilling the sense of panic. Mr. Miller, looking around the people crowded into his yard, felt the desire for excitement, for violence, was diminishing.

  “Aye, that’s for the best. You go and fetch him, lad,” he said to the stable boy. He turned back to James. “You’ll want a table, and papers, sir,” he said, quietly deferential. “Best sit in the kitchen, if you don’t mind. It’s the biggest room, and we’ve got the table there and the Carver chair.”

  James nodded and Mr. Miller led the way into the kitchen, ordered that the big kitchen table be dragged to the back of the room, set the high-backed chair behind it, and indicated that James should sit in justice, with Mr. Miller standing beside him as a makeshift clerk of the court.

  “I have no authority,” James muttered to him as he took his seat.

  “Know Latin?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “That’ll do.”

  James sat square in his chair and put his hands before him on the table as everyone crowded into the room, sweeping Alinor, with them, still holding the old coins. Mrs. Miller put a sheet of paper before James and Jane set a pot of ink and a pen before him. As if they were watching a mystery play, the wedding guests filled the room, pushing Alinor forwards, to stand isolated before the table. Alys would have gone to her, but Richard took hold of her hand and gently pulled her to his father and mother at the side of the room.

  “I want . . .” she whispered to him.

  “Better wait here,” he whispered back. “See how this goes. Why did she think I had an inheritance?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Alys said, silenced.

  James dipped the pen in the ink, hoping that Ned would come soon and Sir William swiftly behind him. All he wanted to do now was play for time.

  “Name,” he said as if to a stranger.

  There was a little satisfied sigh. The deep terror of witchcraft was under the control of an authority. They need not scrabble to protect themselves against the unknown powers of the other world: a gentleman who knew Latin was taking responsibility.

  “You know my name,” Alinor replied sulkily.

  There was a murmur against her defiance.

  “She’s Goodwife Alinor Reekie,” Mrs. Miller interrupted. “Sister to Edward Ferryman, of Ferry-house.”

  James lowered his eyes and wrote his lover’s name at the top of the paper.

  “Age?” he asked.

  “I am twenty-seven,” Alinor replied.

  “Occupation?”

  “I am a licensed midwife and healer.”

  “No license,” someone reminded them all from the back of the room.

  Alinor lifted her head. “I am a midwife and healer,” she amended. “Of good repute.”

  “And the accusation?”

  Mrs. Miller stepped forward, trembling with anger, her voice low and passionate. “I am Mrs. Miller, of Mill Farm. I keep my savings, my daughter Jane’s dowry, in a hiding place in my kitchen.” Dramatically she pointed to the fireplace. “There! Right there! Behind a loose brick in the chimney.”

  Everyone looked to where the brick was missing from the chimney breast, and back to Alinor’s white face.

  “Months ago, in the autumn, in September it was, she was running an errand for me to Chichester Friday market. I trusted her to buy something for me. I trusted her!”

  There was a hushed comment on the notoriously mistrustful nature of Mrs. Miller. She continued: “I made her turn her back as I took my savings purse out of the hiding place. My secret hiding place. But she saw me. She had her back to me, but even so, she saw me!”

  There was a ripple of amazement.

  “How could this be?” James asked skeptically, his pen poised.

  “With her special sight she saw me, though her head was turned away. When s
he turned round I could see in her face that she had found me out. I just knew. She had seen me, with her witchy eyes.”

  There was a murmur. Everyone but Mrs. Wheatley and the Stoney family agreed that this must be proof. Mr. Miller shook his head.

  “You may not call her a witch until it is proven,” James reprimanded her, his level voice cutting through the talk. He turned to Alinor. “Did you see this hiding place?”

  “I saw her reflection in the trencher,” she said shortly. She gestured to the silver dish ostentatiously displayed on the big wooden dresser. “She told me to face the big platter and I could see her reflection, like in a looking glass. I wasn’t looking for her; but I did see her. But many people know that she kept her savings there. She sometimes paid with hot coins and her fingers were sooty. It was no mystery.”

  A couple of the Millers’ gleaners muttered yes, they had been paid with warm coins.

  “Is this the case?” James asked a little too eagerly. “The hiding place was generally known?”

  “Only a witch could have seen that reflection,” Mrs. Miller said staunchly. “No one else could have made me out.”

  Mrs. Wheatley pushed her way across the crowded room to the sideboard, looked in the silver platter. “You can see,” she reported to James. “You can clearly see.”

  “Why did you not change your hiding place?” James asked. “If you thought it had been seen?”

  Mrs. Miller hesitated. “I didn’t,” she admitted. “I didn’t.”

  Her words fell a little flat and she struggled to restore her credibility. “Because she enchanted me!” she declared. “I forgot all about it until now. I simply forgot until now, and I trusted her again and again, because I had forgotten that she had seen me. What’s that if not spell casting?”

  “Do you deny this?” James prompted Alinor, but she was not looking at him. She was looking across the room at Alys’s white face, seeing that Richard Stoney was holding her away. Alinor barely heard James; she was gazing at her daughter, her beloved daughter. She was thinking what she might have to do to keep Alys safe.

  “You have to answer me,” James prompted her.

  She turned her head and looked at him indifferently. “Yes, I did see her in the reflection,” she confirmed. “But I didn’t do anything about it. I’m not a thief. I don’t care where she keeps her egg money.”