The House Where It Happened Read online

  “It’s I who should be in disgrace. Worry about my ewes drove me away so fast after prayers on Sunday, I did no more than bow at a distance to you and your cousin.”

  “Allow me to introduce you now. Mistress Mary Dunbar of Armagh, meet Islandmagee’s most eligible bachelor, Mister Frazer Bell, who has known my husband at least three times as long as I have.”

  “You sing my praises too kindly, mistress. But it’s true – I have known James since the day he was born, practically. We learned how to skim stones and scale trees together. He was always better at climbing than me. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mistress Dunbar.” Frazer bowed.

  He was not known for paying particular attention to ladies, though they enjoyed his company as much as men did, for he was a tonic. He had a merry nature, and usually had everyone else in high spirits along with him, though if you thought about what he said afterwards it never seemed out of the ordinary. It was just his glad-hearted way of putting things over. Usually it was some jest about how a ship had been wrecked over Donegal way, meaning the cost of fancy wines would fall miraculously.

  But only a pockle could fail to see he was immediately struck by our visitor. You can always tell when a gentleman notices a lady. It’s no different when a lad notices a lassie. Mercy Hunter says it’s a way they have of looking: taking everything in. Frazer Bell leaned on the mantelpiece, gazing down at Mary – just on the right side of polite – and ignored the glass of claret I knowed to fetch him straight away, without waiting to hear would he prefer punch. Usually he glugged it back in a swallow or two. This time, I doubt if he even saw the glass at his elbow.

  His voice was gentle as he addressed the guest. How did she find Islandmagee? Was it her first trip? How long could they persuade her to stay? I wondered what sort of figure he cut for a young lady who had already turned down an officer. His coat was not an eye-catching scarlet, but a good grey cutaway, a match for his eyes. He wore no fancy wig, but his own thatch was a thick chestnut brown. And his face, with its scattering of moles on his left cheek above the side whiskers, was an honest and well-meaning one. They were of an age, but he was no match for my master: neither as tall as him, nor as even-featured. Still, I’ll not deny he had his charm.

  Mary Dunbar peeped through her halo of curls at Frazer Bell. Some women blossom in a gentleman’s presence.

  “Would you allow me to show you something of Islandmagee, Mistress Dunbar? There are some ancient remains of interest.”

  “Frazer knows the island like the back of his hand,” said the mistress. “His family has lived here for generations.”

  “Only since the 1630s, Mistress Isabel, when my grandfather – for whom I was named – sailed across to stake a claim on some land. But I flatter myself I do know Islandmagee. Mistress Dunbar might like to explore the caves at the Gobbins. There is one called Moses Hill’s cave, where Sir Moses Hill hid out when the Irish were on the rampage, back when the Scotch first planted Ulster.”

  “Do all the caves have names, Mister Bell?”

  “Not all, Mistress Dunbar. A few do.”

  “What other names do they go by?”

  “Stop!” the mistress burst out and we all looked at her, startled. “I mean – stay a moment. I’ve often wondered how come a servant such as Ellen has a name in common with Sir Moses.” She turned to Mary Dunbar. “He was the landlord in these parts.”

  Everybody looked at me, and I stuttered at so much attention. “I can’t tell how it is we share a name. But there are plenty of Hills about here. Ordinary folk, not gentry like Sir Moses and his people.” I backed away.

  “Often, tenants took a landlord’s name,” said Frazer.

  “Anyhow, that’s enough history,” put in the mistress.

  “Wouldn’t it be fun to get up a party and pay the caves a visit?” said Mary. “What do you say, Mister Bell?”

  “I say why not, mistress. Spring is in the air at last.”

  Which only goes to show how taken he was with our guest, because most days it would skin you.

  * * *

  The following day, Peggy and I sat in the kitchen, taking our ease before it was time to prepare supper. Peggy produced a plug of tobacco and bit off a chunk with her gums, tapping it into her pipe. “Mister Bell slipped it to me yesterday,” she said, with sly delight. He knowed her from boyhood, and often brought dulse for her as well. It grows down by the rock pools at the foot of the Gobbins, and folk gather it to dry and sell at the fair. But Frazer Bell liked to give it away.

  We each had some claret, Peggy and me, which I managed to wheek away after Frazer’s visit before the mistress saw there were leftovers. I preferred port wine, but it was a treat, all the same, and I smacked my lips over it. How could you not savour something when you knowed it cost thirteen pence a quart? The mistress was always listing the price of goods, like a big stick to beat you with. But sometimes it just served to sweeten stolen pleasures.

  The peace of the late afternoon was broken by a violent tug of the parlour bell. It used to be that the mistress would come to the door and call if she wanted me, but I suppose she liked to look fancy in front of her cousin. I was expecting to be scolded for some transgression or other, but when I entered the room the mistress was trembling, her face drained of colour.

  Silently, she showed me the book of sermons she used to read aloud to old Mistress Haltridge. Pages were ripped from it. She pointed towards the fireplace. Blackened remains of paper were strewn on the hearth, as though put there on purpose after they were part-burned, to show what was done.

  “Tell me you did it for a jest and we’ll say no more about it,” she said.

  “Mistress, I had no hand, act or part in this.”

  “My husband used that collection of sermons to give you reading lessons, did he not?”

  “Aye, and other books. But I would no more put one of them in the fire than my own right hand.”

  “The children deny it, too. It was their grandmother’s favourite book. Hearing me read aloud from it was the only thing that gave her peace, in her last days.” She pushed it into my hands. “Get rid of this. I can’t bear to look at it.” She flopped down on a seat. “It’s starting up again. Knowehead is cursed.”

  She was only saying what I thought myself. For a moment I felt overwhelmed, but then I brought the bairns to mind. The household would be undone entirely if both the mistress and me gave way to our fears. One of us had to stay strong.

  I took a deep breath, bunched my hands into balls, and willed my voice not to betray my own doubts. “No, mistress, you must’n let yourself think that way. Please God the hauntin’ is dead and buried along with the aul’ mistress.”

  “It’s too much to hope for. You know as well as I do that your master’s mother saw a man in this house. A man who had no business to be here, but he came and went at will. And he’ll go on coming and going as he pleases – why should he stop now?”

  “We have to remember she was’n well.”

  “Her body was ill, not her mind.” She looked me in the eye, not as mistress to maid but as woman to woman. “Towards the end, when I sat up with her at night, she used to say things. But she wasn’t talking to me. She was talking to a butcher of women and children. She took that book out of my hands and held it against her heart, as if it could protect her from the Devil himself. You never saw such desperation in a person’s face. She was pleading, Ellen. Pleading with Hamilton Lock. Telling him the Haltridges had never harmed him, and there was no reason to bear ill-will towards us. I was terrified when I heard that. I interrupted to ask why Hamilton Lock would want to hound us. She said it was because of where we lived. It was down to the house.”

  A tight feeling came over me at that, as if my skin was shrinking and didn’t fit my body any more. The mistress shuddered, close to tears, and I wasn’t far behind. I put the book down and made so bold as to put my arm round her, taking as much support from her as she did from me.

  “Hush, mistress, try not to say
his name out loud.” My mouth dried up, and the rest came out in a croak. “It could maybes conjure him up.”

  She rested against me for a minute before shrugging me off – too proud to lean on a maid. “My husband forbids me to speak his name too.”

  “Name a thing and you give it power. Especially a name steeped in evil like his. Did the aul’ mistress say anything else?”

  “She was bargaining with him to leave her grandchildren be. ‘They’re innocent,’ she said. ‘They don’t deserve to be taken. Take me instead.’ And he did. But she might not be enough for him. Maybe he wants more. Oh sweet Lord, he’s still here! I can feel it! Can’t you?”

  I wrung my apron between my hands, and it’s a wonder I didn’t make a rag of it, so tight did I twist it. “Aye, mistress, I can feel something amiss in this house.”

  “I think he’s trying to tell me something, Ellen. He’s letting me know he heard me reading from this volume of sermons – and a holy book is just paper that can be burned, as far as he’s concerned.” We both looked at the book with its scorched and torn pages. She rubbed her forehead, where a vein popped out. “This act of mischief is just a tease. I fear there’s worse to come. James had no right to go off and leave us so soon. I’ll have to send for him – I’m not able for this on my own. But he won’t thank me for disturbing him in Dublin. The news was far from good in that last letter I had from him. He says his affairs will occupy him for longer than he bargained. He expects to be away for weeks, unless I bid him come home.”

  Only a few days ago, I’d have jumped at the chance of seeing my master, and passing the burden of my secret on to him. Now, though I was as fearful as her, I thought we should call on help closer at hand. With the best will in the world, my master would take some days to reach us. “Speak to the minister, mistress. Him and the elders helped us in the past.”

  “Should I? But folk will talk about Knowehead House if the kirk has to come here again. James won’t take kindly to it.”

  “Maybes the kirk will be fit to put a stop to the things goin’ on in the house.”

  “I’ll sleep on it. I know we need help but James really won’t thank me for drawing attention to the family. I’m afraid he’ll hold me to blame, rather than . . .” Unable to finish, she pressed her lips together, trying to control herself. “We have to hope for the best,” she said finally.

  “Hope for the best and prepare for the worst,” said Peggy, after I repeated what passed between me and the mistress. She sucked her gums. “I had that Dunbar lassie doon with me whiles you were with the mistress. Questions, questions. She’s a right Nosey Nellie, for all she’s a lady.”

  Later, after Peggy went to bed, my mind started chasing its tail. Tell you no lie, I thought about clearing out from Knowehead House. Something told me to pack my bundle then and there and walk back home to Carnspindle, black night though it was. I could be there in no time if I went by the pads through the fields. A matter of minutes would leave me ready for the road. I had nothing much to take – no call for a trunk or a cart ride for the little I owned. Shanks’s nag would do me.

  From when I was no bigger than a blade of grass, Ma taught me the one lesson she said I needed in life. What can’t be cured must be endured. But that night my mind was nipping at me, and I thought I wouldn’t be able to manage much more of it. Not this time. Sure I was only a cuddy, when all’s said and done.

  I put my mind to thinking about a new place. There would be an opening for a servant at the Orrs’ farm, with Ruth Graham in disgrace, but I hardly liked to benefit from her misfortune. Or put myself in the way of that goat Sammy Orr. I had a narrow escape with my master already. There had to be other places. Only the other week, Mercy Hunter told me about a family at the foot of Muldersleigh Hill looking for help. They had soldiers staying with them, and needed a hand with the cooking and cleaning. She was half-tempted, on account of her weakness for uniforms, but it looked like a heavy workload.

  But I pulled myself together. A job in the hand was worth two in the bush. The money I earned was wanted at home to help fill the bellies of all the wee’ans Ma had popped out. Seven of us living, the youngest only four years old. Da was too fond of rum for his own good. Islandmagee was crawling with shebeens and you’d swear he made a pledge to keep each and every one of them going strong. He was a carpenter by trade, but a drinker by inclination. The carpentry took him to sea as a young fellow. Most of the menfolk in these parts either go to sea or farm the land, and ships need carpenters. That’s where he came by his taste for rum. Ma says he drank because he missed the sea but I took that with a pinch of salt. Drinkers can always find an excuse.

  No, I couldn’t leave my livelihood and that was that. I forced myself to remember how much better off I was, in many ways, at Knowehead House. The helpings were plentiful, and I only had to share a bed with Peggy instead of four to a pallet at home.

  But if I was staying at Knowehead House, I’d need to keep my wits about me. And my distance from my master.

  * * *

  Mary Dunbar appeared in the yard the next morning, as I was coming back from rounding up the dun cow after it strayed on the road. By rights, Noah Spears should have seen about it, but he was nowhere to be found. The greyhounds let out a few yips when they spied her. But when I hushed them, they settled down quick enough – they were getting used to her.

  “You’re up with the lark, Mistress Mary. There’s buttermilk in the larder. Come inside. Will I fetch you a beaker?”

  “I had stomach cramps last night. I was in agony with them.”

  Now that I looked at her properly, I saw a shadow under each eye. “I’m sorry to hear it. Was it something you ate?”

  “It was a warning. Some visitors came to my bedchamber.”

  “At that hour of night? How did they get in?”

  “Through the window. Or they could have come in by the keyhole. Walls would never keep them out.”

  “I’m not follyin’ you, mistress.”

  “Witches. They were plotting together. I didn’t dare shut my eyes till cockcrow.”

  “Witches?”

  “That time I unpicked their knots and thwarted their spell. They mean to harm me for it. You should have stopped me untying those knots in the apron strings.”

  “Pardon me, mistress, but you were thran, so you were. There was no stoppin’ you. I did my best.”

  “I didn’t understand. You should have made me see the danger.”

  I disliked the way she was loading all the blame on to me. “I’m sorry you could’n sleep. A nap after breakfast might help you catch up. Now, I have chores to see about.”

  I tried to get past her, but she blocked my way, slight though she was.

  “This house scares me. Does it not scare you?”

  At that, I relented – she was only a lassie, after all. “Look, the sky’s clear this morning. Why not take a walk and clear your head of all them fancies?”

  “They’re not fancies – I heard the witches as clearly as I hear you now.”

  “Did you see them?”

  “No, only their voices. But I know they were there. Three of them. I couldn’t move a muscle while they were in my bedchamber – I was paralysed.”

  “Three women, mistress? Or was one of them . . . a man?”

  She hesitated. “They were all women.”

  That was a relief. But then I remembered Mistress Anne Haltridge’s cap in the apron folds. “Was one of them an aul’ dame, white-haired but with black eyebrows?”

  “They all kept their backs to me.”

  Peggy hobbled out with some leftovers in a pan for the pig. “Good day, mistress. It’s shapin’ up to be a nice, soft day. I trust you slept well.”

  “How could I, tormented by witches half the night?” And back indoors she ran.

  ‘Witches?’ Peggy asked me.

  “Aye, on account o’ thon handlin’ over the knots in the apron,” I said. “I’m afraid I called them witches’ knots. I should a held me tongue
. It’s put the notion o’ witches in her head. It must a been nigglin’ at her these past few days. She thinks the witches who tied the knots into the apron came back, and have been in her bedchamber – plottin’ agin her.”

  “Why would witches be bothered with a lassie like her? Surely they’d have other fish to fry?”

  “To punish her for spoilin’ their spell. So she says.”

  “Witches have places where they meet an’ cast their spells. I never heared tell of a young lassie’s bedchamber bein’ one of them. Besides, if there’s badness about, who’s to say witches are behind it?”

  “Who else could it be? Somebody playin’ tricks?”

  “Could be. It might be the livin’, all right. Or it might be . . .”

  She said no more, but I knowed what she meant. It might be the living. Or it might be the dead.

  * * *

  During supper, the mistress rang for me. “She’ll wear that bell out, if she does’n wear me out first,” I complained to Peggy. “They’ll be lookin’ for more salted herrings, I daresay. I’ll bring some in, to spare my feet.” I had salted them myself, under Peggy’s direction, and they were a tasty mouthful.