The Almanack Read online

  As Jennet carried the struggling, bawling infant into the parlour, both men turned and made a hasty escape.

  Two hours later, the child at last lay red-cheeked and exhausted in her linen-cushioned basket. Tabitha watched her warily, as if she might at any moment rouse herself again. Little Bess was no longer the drowsy babe-in-arms she had last seen; she was a stocky creature, as tall as Tabitha’s knee, and every inch of her bold and wilful. From the moment Jennet carried her into the parlour, the little maid had stared at her with undisguised dismay, her tiny lip trembling as she clung to Jennet’s gown. Dressed in a stained bonnet and smock, she toddled round the room, her grubby fingers poking everywhere they shouldn’t. After a long and tedious period of assessment, Bess had bravely made an approach to Tabitha, gaping upwards at this tall woman who was entirely a stranger.

  ‘Ma-ma,’ she babbled, and Tabitha stepped dutifully forward, forcing a rigid smile. But from the expression of terror in the child’s face, she might have been an ogress. Bursting again into tears, the child scurried at surprising speed back to Jennet and buried her face in the girl’s skirts.

  ‘See how my mother has spoiled her,’ Tabitha complained; the child would not even take a spoon of bread mush from her hand. But then, she had not given Bess a thought this last year or more, save only to earn the five pounds she paid yearly for the child’s keep. The notion of being this peevish brat’s new guardian appalled her. She could think only of one solution, and that was to rid herself of her quickly, before she hurried back down the highway to London.

  FOUR

  A Riddle

  On man’s vitals I constantly prey night and day,

  And with fretting and vexing, I wear them away.

  I force him to search with a diligent eye,

  To find out the thing he’s least willing to spy;

  For when he has found it, it makes him look sad,

  Nay, a hundred to one, but it makes him turn mad.

  Though my colour by most is allowed to be green,

  And I soon grow apace, I more often demean.

  The 31st day of July to the 1st of August 1752

  Lammas Eve to Lammas Day

  Luminary: Moon is in decline 54 minutes after 1 of the morning.

  Observation: Saturn sets 34 minutes after 11 at night.

  Prognostication: Trouble is stirring for one of High Rank.

  Dusk was gathering fast as Nat sank down below the great oak tree, trying to draw no attention in his direction. Around him, a gathering of young fellows were sprawled; a few he recognized as labourers from the estate, broad-shouldered as bullocks, with mud-caked boots and bovine wits. Fifty yards away, on the Church Common, the newly lit bonfire was already six feet high, sending flames of scarlet and gold leaping into the air. He gazed upwards, easing his neck after a day bent over his quill. Soon the night would be black, for the young moon was still hidden below the horizon. Above their heads shone the leaden pinpoint of Saturn, his ring invisible without a spyglass.

  The talk all around him was of the new calendar and the disappearance of eleven days.

  ‘Can you credit it? Parliament is saying, after the third of September, the very next day is to be the fourteenth of September!’

  ‘Codswallop, in’t it? Eleven days sliced off our lives? What about us wages?’

  Nat wished he had a memorandum book to collect his observations. He must write a humorous piece: The Observations of Old Hodge upon the Gregorian Calendar.

  A better-dressed fellow broke in, with an air of authority. ‘The length of your life won’t change, Ben. ’Tis only the date that’s changed.’

  ‘Aye, but ’as them Parliament fellows told the geese to fatten eleven days early for Michaelmas? And bid the Glastonbury Thorn to blossom well afore Christmas?’

  There was laughter at this. Another voice piped up: ‘The farmer says them calendars has got out of kilter with the sun and stars. So all the pay days and birthdays and feast days has got to be changed.’

  ‘Lammas is Lammas. Mother Nature knows that. Come Lammastide the seed grows as fast by the moon as by sun,’ persisted Ben.

  Nat wondered if any of them knew the astronomical reason for that. Over the coming weeks the vast sphere of the harvest moon would swing close to the earth, looming heavy and bright almost from sunset to sunrise, a vast celestial lamp by which to gather the crops home.

  Through the gloom he spied the approaching dairymaid. ‘Any more of this excellent cider?’ he called, raising his tankard.

  ‘Just for your good self, sir? Or is you standing a round for the lads?’ Her eyes gleamed amber in the firelight, and her lips were wet.

  ‘I’ll stand a round, Zusanna.’ As he handed her a sixpence, her fingers, warm and sticky, were slow to withdraw.

  The other drinkers grunted approval as cider splashed into their cups. Turning to acknowledge them, he noticed two newcomers had joined the throng; the first, from his silk coat, could only be Francis De Vallory. It was the first time he had seen the boy at close quarters. His face was unattractively long, the goatish impression accentuated by a jutting chin, and he held his tankard awkwardly, as if his knobbly wrists might snap. Nat could see little resemblance to the boy’s father. His mother must be a bloodless sort of woman, to have produced such an heir.

  His companion was a marked foil to him – handsome to a classical degree, and possessed of eyes as large as a prize heifer’s, which laughed in the firelight but contained no warmth. Again and again he flipped a coin up into the air and caught it on the back of his hand, with the practised knack of a racketeer. Nat puzzled over where he had seen the lad before; those mocking eyes and oily curls. Yes – he was known as Darius, one of the hawkers, peddlers and ne’er-do-wells that camped down by the river. So the milksop lordling had a liking for such low company? The Devil only knew what his father made of that.

  The word ‘dead’, uttered in a low voice, drew him abruptly back into the general conversation. ‘Drowned, she were. By the stepping stones. Buried tomorrow.’

  ‘How’d she drown there? T’int no more than waist-high.’

  Nat tilted his head quickly to catch the reply.

  ‘I heard she gone crack-headed, old dame Hart. She’d gone a-wandering in the moonlight, all alone. Din’t know night from day no more.’

  Nat stared. That was preposterous. Widow Hart had been upright and shrewd; he remembered her bright eyes lighting up her girlish features. Whenever he called at her cottage, their conversations had been lively and spiced with pleasurable intrigue. Yet she had been naïve, he could see that now; unaware of her own significance as the searcher, the recorder of the village’s mortalities.

  ‘Her daughter is back.’ That was the better-spoken voice again, succeeded by silence. It belonged to a burly fellow in a sober brown coat, with a young female at his side – perhaps his daughter?

  ‘Who’s back? That Tabitha? Back from London?’ demanded Zusanna from Nat’s elbow, where she had slunk in close to press her leg against his. ‘So why don’t she show her face then?’

  The man half-turned to the fire. He was a broad-faced fellow, with lightish hair tied in a ribbon.

  ‘She’s keeping watch by her mother tonight.’

  The dairymaid snorted. ‘Is that what she told you? Hell-cat!’

  Nat, deducing that this newly arrived daughter might well be the nymph he had seen at the pond, found himself speaking aloud. ‘This Tabitha is Widow Hart’s daughter?’

  At once, he wished he could unsay his words. The burly man, whom he now recognized as the local constable, took a few steps toward him, peering down into his face. ‘Who are you, fellow, that wants to know?’

  Before he could answer, Zusanna said silkily, ‘It’s only Mr Starling, Joshua.’

  ‘Only Mr Starling.’ The man’s voice was hard and flat. ‘And what is your business here, Mr Starling?’

  The labourers turned to watch. The young girl at the constable’s side pulled on his arm, eager to leave.

/>   ‘Whatever my business is, it is certainly none of yours.’

  Damn it! Nat couldn’t stop the drink from putting provocations in his mouth. In the hush the only sound was the crackle and spit of the fire. The De Vallory cub was watching too, plague take him.

  ‘Joshua,’ Zusanna wheedled. ‘Don’t be ill-tempered.’

  It was no use – the constable’s face loomed over Nat.

  ‘I’ve been watching you, Mr Nat Starling. I’ve seen those papers you’re forever sending down London way. Now what might they be about, I asks myself? I have powers to intercept the post in the King’s name. Mark my words, I will find you out.’

  ‘Father, please.’ His daughter tugged at his sleeve.

  Nat flinched to think of his latest commission being publicly exposed, a crude re-telling of The Ladies’ Secret School for Pleasure. Or even worse, any hint of his and Widow Hart’s inquiries into the parish records.

  ‘Be my guest,’ he said, sweeping off his hat in a gesture of mock gallantry. ‘Though if a gentleman cannot correspond privately with his friends, this is not the free and fair England I once believed it was.’

  Gratefully, he heard a rumble of ‘Ayes’ and ‘Hearken to that,’ from the men around him. The constable, it seemed, was not a popular man.

  ‘We shall see,’ Joshua barked. Then, drawing his daughter away with him, he turned and left the gathering.

  Nat wiped his mouth, wondering what manner of inconvenience he had just brought down upon his own head. One thing was certain – he must not allow that damned constable to pry too deeply into his affairs. Boyish laughter broke into his thoughts. The De Vallory heir and his swarthy friend Darius were watching him, dark and light heads conferring close together. Pox the pair of them! He wished he had not drawn the whippersnapper’s attention.

  ‘Shall I tell you what goes on at Lammas Eve?’ Zusanna whispered, drawing her arm through his. ’Tis a night to go wandering, deep in the woods. You’ve heard the song: “It was upon a Lammas night, When corn rigs are bonnie …” She sang tunelessly, tickling his neck with her hot breath.

  Nat pulled away to look down at her. ‘So it’s a night for lovers to take to the forest? To break old bonds, forget tedious old husbands and abandon oneself to the corn spirit?’

  ‘Aye, it be that.’ Zusanna held his eyes.

  ‘I shall bear that in mind, then, my dear. Good night, all.’ He heard a little squeal of dismay from the dairymaid as he leaned hard on her shoulder to stand up, before setting off alone across the green. He hoped that no one had noticed the direction he walked was quite opposite to his lodgings at Eglantine Hall.

  FIVE

  A Riddle

  A tall and slender shape I bear

  No lady’s skin more white and fair:

  My life is short, and doth decay

  So soon it seldom lasts a day.

  Yet to mankind I’m useful ever,

  And many hidden things discover;

  Which makes all those who round me tend,

  To with a sigh lament my end.

  31st day of July to 1st day of August 1752

  Lammas Eve to Lammas Day

  Sun rises: 43 minutes after 4 in the morning.

  Observation: Seven Stars rise 52 minutes after 9 at night.

  Prognostication: Hidden truths will always out.

  Tabitha watched a flock of birds wheeling in a pink sky limned with gold. Just beyond the garden stood the skeleton of a tree, where a blackbird perched, his lonely song fluting in the still air. The garden was as still as a waxworks; the distant sound of the river a melodic surge and fall. It was her first spell of peace since she had woken that morning; she would have liked to write to Robert, but their parting had made that impossible. Jennet had gone, at Tabitha’s insistence, to join her friends at the Lammas bonfire. Thankfully, Bess was again deep in slumber, making tiny curling movements with her fingers. It was time for the night watch.

  By the light of a new wax candle she began her mother’s laying out, washing her mottled flesh and placing sweet rosemary and lavender in its hidden folds to keep her body fresh. Next, she dressed her, thankful that the death-rigor was leaving her limbs. Muttering apologies, she garbed her in her best Sunday gown of blue stripes. Then every ribbon, knot and braid had to be loosed to allow her soul to escape her body. Easing the cap from her head, she unwound the wiry grey plaits and fetched her comb. A bloody wound was revealed on her mother’s scalp. She lifted the candle flame closer to inspect it, lying ugly and gaping and darkening to black.

  She had seen drowned folk before, and knew that when the tides sent bodies drifting down the Dee, a body could be bumped and scraped along the riverbed. But this was no such wound for her mother bore no other marks or scratches. She tried to imagine her mother falling directly on to a sharp stone, but she could make no sense of it. Neither was there any of the foam that usually besmirched the mouths of those who drowned.

  The candle had burned a good few inches when she allowed herself to rest in the chair at her mother’s side. Muttering a few half-remembered prayers from her childhood, she felt her eyes droop. She was near drunk with tiredness, ill-equipped for the coming days of mourning.

  Sleep claimed and held her fast, until in the depths of the night a movement at her side woke her. There stood the child Bess, prattling to herself in the darkness. In the candle’s guttering glow, she saw tiny fingers lift and stretch upwards to grasp her mother’s dead hand.

  Suddenly all Tabitha’s stoppered rage ignited: at Robert and his conniving wife, at the Irish thief who had duped her, at the spiteful parson – and mostly at this hindrance, this child who dared to live when her own mother was lost to her forever. Before she could stop herself she pushed Bess aside, and the child slipped to the floor. A moment later, her scream split the night.

  At once shame, hot and queasy, overcame Tabitha. Her anger left her and she felt instead ferocious pity. Bess had only wanted to greet her old playmate – God only knew what fond hours the two of them had shared together. She pulled the child on to her lap, clasping her squealing, wriggling body. For a long spell, she did her awkward best to hush her, until her sobs ceased and her little body slackened into sleep. Then, wary of waking her, she gently set her down.

  Tabitha felt wide awake once more. Through the window, a scrap of moonlight shone, and she could sense the garden exhaling its night scent. Beyond that, the thicket began, and the path to the river. A sudden sound, two stones clinking together, alerted her to something moving. Possibly a darker shape – or perhaps not. She stood very still, straining her eyes to catch a glimpse but discerning nothing. There were plenty of creatures living in the wood, she told herself: foxes, owls, even a badger or two. A long spell of silence passed. The only sound was the rattling tremor of leaves lifted on the breeze. The creature must have turned back and gone.

  Wondering what time the day would break, she looked about her for her mother’s almanack. Not finding it on its usual shelf by the Bible, she began a thorough search: under the bed, in the linen box, even feeling beneath the mattress. Next she searched the parlour, still without success.

  Somewhere in the cottage was a small wooden box, where her mother’s few precious objects were collected. She sank to her knees and groped for it in the alcove beside the fire. A tinkling sound led her fingers to a small piece of ironwork. She held it up to the candle: it was nothing but a stubby square-headed nail head, rather rusty and dirty. Abandoning it on the mantel, she paced back and forth. If the almanack was missing, had someone taken it? No, it was more likely that her mother had hidden it away. She returned to the bedroom, and explored the thatched ceiling.

  Every year her mother spent a precious shilling on the Chester almanack, entitled De Angelo’s Vox Stellarum, and every day she consulted the little book, her calendar, diary, horoscope and entertainment. Her mother had been no poet, but she had once called it the loom on which she spun her life; a frame that carried the warp and weft of her days. It was a guide to t
he sunlit hours, a reminder of when the moon was dark or bright, and a reckoner to plan each season’s tasks. Though she struggled to comprehend their exotic symbols, she puzzled over the charts of astronomy, watching the sky in eager hopes of eclipses, meteors and comets. De Angelo’s prophecies, on the fates of countries and kings, were deliberated on as profoundly as any events at hand in Netherlea. Yet her mother’s supreme pleasures were the cunning Enigmas and Riddles, which entertained her busy mind for the whole twelvemonth.

  Groping with her hands along the roof beams of the far corner, Tabitha found an unfamiliar small object tacked to the wall, and, lifting the candle, discovered a tiny wooden cross. She knew it to be made of rowan twigs, a protection against evil. Her mother had always disdained such country claptrap – but latterly, it seemed, she had been fearful enough to make such a charm. Growing more alarmed still, Tabitha felt beneath the eaves until she found a recessed space, barely a foot wide. There sat the box, locked but with no sign of the key. Shaking it, she found it rattled.

  There had been a time when Tabitha had lived entirely upon her wits and her fine form, sharing rooms off the Strand with her friend, Poll Shepherd. It was Poll who had shown her how to lift a few extra coins, or even better, a pocket watch, and leave the gentleman none the wiser. ‘Bleed a few drops and they don’t even feel it,’ had been Poll’s advice, and thus, the curious art of the picklock had formed part of Tabitha’s education. Now, taking a long pin from her mother’s shelf, she unfastened the box’s crude lock within minutes. Lifting the lid, she found a fold of paper containing a lock of her own father’s grey hair, a pair of ancient buckles, and a faded pink ribbon her mother had worn on her wedding day. Then a sheet of fresh paper fell out, newly inked in a large and fine hand. She read it rapidly, puzzling over its dedication:

  A Riddle for Mistress Hart

  I see you as you watch and spy,

  Consumed with curiosity;