Ingenious pain, Andrew Miller [little red riding hood ebook .txt] 📗

beneath his parents' bed, gifts that James accepts or refuses strictly according to whether or not he wants the thing itself. Peter Poundsett trembles with hope. His tormentors draw back.

A month passes. The children watch. A second month, and still they hesitate. It is as if James has drawn a circle around the boy, and though the children press their toes against its edge, none of them dares step in.

Until at last they do. It is a Friday, morning break, a week before the school is closed for the hay harvest. Kitty Gate, the blacksmith's girl, broad and ten, flings a stone at Peter Poundsett's

leg as he crouches beside James, playing marbles by the priory wall. James hears the noise, hears Peter's gasp, looks at him, looks at Kitty. Keeping her eyes on James, she reachs slowly down to clutch a second stone. James looks away. It is his turn to roll. Peter whispers: 'Jem?' Then louder: Jem!' There is no answer. Kitty understands, enough if not all. She lets out a whoop, then throws, hard and true, striking her victim in the face and tearing his lower lip which instantly blooms into a rose of blood, velvety petals tumbling and splashing on to his shirt.

Miss Lucket has witnessed the entire scene from the classroom window. Now she swings like a lame fury from the schoolhouse door, the strap trailing from her hand. She is afraid that they will scatter before she can reach them, but Kitty is transfixed by the sight of Peter Poundsett's face, and the first she knows of Miss Lucket's approach is the sear of the strap across her back, the shock of it knocking the girl off her feet. But Kitty is not Miss Lucket's true target. She hurries on, opening and shutting on the hinge of her good leg towards the wall where Peter Poundsett stands, and where his betrayer calmly watches her come. More than anything she wants to bring the strap down across his face, a thing she has never done nor even contemplated before. She draws up breathless before him, raises the strap, but as their eyes meet the rage goes out of her. Blue as the cornflower in the fields beyond them, his eyes contain no malice. It was not goodness she saw in him before; neither is this its reverse. They stare at each other for several seconds. Then she turns away from him, takes Peter Poundsett by the collar, and marches him into the schoolhouse, the boy, like something incompetently butchered, bleeding and howling beside her.

Harvest. The village prepares itself like an army on the eve of campaign. Joshua Dyer takes on what help he can afford; ninepence a day plus vitals for a man, a penny for boys and women. Most years, local cottagers supply his needs, once they have brought in their share of what remains of the common meadow. Now and then the road delivers strangers: soldiers, sailors even, deserting, lame, or paid off after Dettingham, Fontenoy, Culloden.

It is during the harvest of 1749 that Widow Dyer, carrying bread and cider out to the workers, suffers a paralytic seizure, and it is James, sent to find what has become of the refreshments, who discovers her, stretched out on the track like a mound of laundry. The sight is intriguing. He walks around her twice, observing her fat calves, her hair, tumbled out from beneath her linen cap, and the great congested moon of her face. A blue-bottle parades on her cheekbone.

He waits to see if she will do anything, if, for example, she wiU die. Her mouth is working, mouthing silent pleas. He drinks from one of the dropped flagons, spilling some of the liquor over his chin. Then he goes to find his mother.

It takes eight men, half winded and shuffling in their boots, to carry the widow back to the farmhouse. They set her on the trundle bed in the parlour then send for the parson, who sends for the curate, who comes sweating from the fields to read the prayer for the dying. The family stand around the bed awaiting the moment of her departure. Her breath is like a sack of coals dragged over a stone floor, but by

the evening she lies more easily. Charlie is sent to Madderditch to bring Mr Viney.

Viney arrives, his grey mare glow^ing Hke milk in the dark. He examines the Widow, Joshua holding a candle beside his mother's face. Viney bleeds her, then says: 'Let her bide where she is. If she lives out the night, send for me again. Prayer is the best physic for her now.' He drinks a glass of cider with Joshua, then mounts his horse and rides up the darkness of the lane.

Joshua and Elizabeth sit up in the parlour. Elizabeth works with her needle. The house settles, groans; the widow wheezes and snores. Dawn reveals her living still. Charles is needed in the fields. James is sent to bring the apothecary.

It is an hour's easy walking to Madderditch. Viney's house, dressed in ivy, stands on the outskirts of the village. The front door is answered by Viney's aunt, a gossip of the Widow's who reads the note - penned by Liza - explaining the boy's errand and leads him inside. She sends a servant to fetch the apothecary then stands eyeing the child with some interest. So this is EHzabeth Dyer's bastard, her shame. They say the child is dumb. She does not like his looks at all. A bastard should be the humblest creature on God's earth. This one contemplates her as if she were the cook. She says: 'Do you not know what you are? Do you not know what your mother is? Shall I tell you, child? Shall I?'

Viney comes in; his face - shrewd, worried, kindly - is bright with heat. His aunt passes him the note and leaves the room. He reads it through a pair of folding spectacles, nods his head.