‘Who was it?’ Margaret Harris called sharply as Cat entered the kitchen.
‘A poor, hungry old woman,’ Cat said, not meeting her eye.
‘Another of them vagabonds, looking to steal our victuals no doubt!’ Cook clucked.
Cat drew herself up. ‘She’s a poor old crone, bent almost double and riding the world’s thinnest mule. I sat her down in the shade of the orchard.’
Margaret Harris strode over to the window and stared out at the unfortunate beast. ‘Lord save us, the wretched thing’s eating my lavender! Kate, go at once to the yard and tell young Will to take it away and give it some barley.’ She turned back to Cat. ‘You can take the old woman one of yesterday’s loaves and draw her up some water from the well. Beggars can’t be choosers.’
Cat reached for one of the flagons, but Lady Harris caught her hand. ‘Do have a thought, child: these wandering people carry all sorts of diseases with them from the cities. We want no pox or pestilence here. Surely she must have her own drinking vessel?’
Then, as if her maid might already be infected by her contact with the vagabond creature, Lady Harris left the kitchen at speed.
Cat caught up one of the twelve new round loaves which stood cooling on the rack where Cook and Nell had placed them earlier. Then, recklessly, she took down an old pewter bowl and dipped it swiftly into the bubbling furmity pot. The crock of rum was on the floor; hefting it, Cat poured a good dash into the bowl, and over her shoes into the bargain.
‘God’s teeth!’ Now she would have to wash them at the well or go round all day stinking of liquor, which certainly wouldn’t enhance her already tarnished reputation. Clutching bread and bowl to her bosom, she ran back to the orchard.
The gypsy’s fingers fixed on the furmity bowl like a falcon on a mouse. For a second the two women stood there, connected only by the pewter dish, and Cat felt a strange low thrumming in her bones. Then the Ægyptian broke the connection sharply. Holding the bowl close, she scooped the porridge into her mouth, barely drawing breath as she wolfed it all down.
‘Not enough rum,’ she pronounced at last, wiping her mouth and handing the empty bowl back to Cat. The loaf she stowed away in some great hidden pocket of her pantaloons.
Cat pursed her mouth. She had expected if not gratitude, then at least some acknowledgement of her trouble. She stuck her hand out, palm up, hoping that at least the spirits would be more gentle towards her, but the crone pushed her hand away. Cat had the sudden, distinct impression that she did not want to touch her. ‘You said you’d read my hand!’ she said sharply. ‘’Twas for that I brought the furmity and the bread and risked the wrath of my mistress.’
‘’Tis not the wrath of thy mistress thou needs fear, maidie,’ the crone returned. She winked, horribly. ‘I’ll cast the stones for thee, but do not blame me if thee like not what thee hears.’ And so saying she delved into the other capacious pocket of her breeches and drew out a little leather pouch that jinked as she moved it. ‘Touch the stones, maidie, and think of the things that most trouble thee,’ she instructed, and Cat did as she was bid, thinking of Rob and her fear of captivity, of the altar cloth and her dreams of escape. They felt cold and smooth, like pebbles from a stream, except for a roughness on one side.
‘You must draw four stones, one at a time, and put them down there, on the ground.’
Cat’s fingers caressed the stones, as if to pacify them, to soothe their predictions. Then she selected one and put it down. On the upmost surface three scratched lines had been inscribed into it like a crooked letter
c
. ‘That’s for thy past,’ the crone said. She peered at the stone like a thrush regarding a worm. ‘Now there’s a mystery,’ she said cryptically. ‘A wild mix of blood you have there, my lover; and blood will out. Take another.’
Cat frowned. Her second stone bore a pattern like two broken links in a chain.
‘’Tis a time of change, but the results of this change will depend on your perseverance.’
Cat’s jaw firmed. If perseverance was what it would take to get her out of here, perseverance she would have. But if they were going to marry her to Robert by the end of the summer, then perseverance would hardly serve. ‘For how long must I persevere?’ she burst out. ‘I fear there are some things that may not be endured or turned back, whatever I do.’
The old woman clacked her teeth. ‘Patience, birdie. Take a third.’ She watched as Cat put it down next to the other two. A stone bearing a zigzag line. ‘Ah, the lightning bolt.’ She made a face. ‘The casting down of vanity and the wrath of God.’
Cat frowned. Now the Ægyptian was sounding like Nell Chigwine. ‘Are you quite sure? Is there no other reading of the sign?’
‘Don’t question the stones, maidie. Unless you want worse.’
‘I don’t think I believe your stones!’
‘I’ll stop, then, and be on my way.’
Cat sighed. ‘No, please don’t. I’ll hear the rest, if it please you.’ She took a fourth stone quickly out of the bag and put it down. The symbol on it was shaped like a roughly hewn
r
, but all in angles.
The gypsy burst out laughing. ‘There it is, there it is!’ she crowed. ‘I knowed it, I did. Ah, but the spirits speak loud to Old Maggi atimes. There she is, as bold as day:
raido
, the journey. Ye’ll be going a long way, birdie, a very long way from here, and at the end of your journey will be a union between Earth and Heaven, all your dreams come true.’
Cat regarded her suspiciously. The promise of a long journey was exactly what she most wished for: all the way to London, with any luck. But the talk of a union between Heaven and Earth taxed her, for might that not mean that the journey was one’s path through life, culminating in death and the ascension of the soul? Which was all very well, but surely was applicable to each and every one of God’s children. She suspected the old woman kept a store of such charlatanry for her customers, hoping they would go away content with such generalities.
‘Catherine Anne Tregenna, whatever do you think you are doing out here, consorting with such a creature!’ Margaret Harris came storming down the path towards them.
Cat’s face flamed. The pewter bowl lay in clear view, and the Mistress was sure to recognize it as one of her own.
‘And you!’ The Mistress of Kenegie’s fury was now directed towards the old gypsy woman. ‘Take your devilry away from here directly or it’ll be the worse for you. Invoking the spirits will see you burned as a witch. You are lucky that I am a Christian woman and do not hold with the loosing of a soul by such violent means – but if I find you on my land again beguiling any of my retainers, you may be sure that the Constable will drive you into the sea off the Gurnard’s Head, and you’ll meet a number of your own kind among the bones down there. Now take your mangy animal and away with you: and don’t you stop in Penzance or I shall know of it!’
She grabbed Cat by the arm, then recoiled. ‘By the Lord’s wounds, Catherine, you stink of liquor! You add another malfeasance to your tally, my girl. Why a good man like Robert Bolitho should ever wish to take such a one to wife, I cannot imagine. You had best mend your ways, or he’ll look elsewhere and you’ll find yourself a spinster, or worse.’
The old crone scrabbled up her stones and stowed them away. Then she straightened up and looked Lady Harris full square in the face.
‘Great sorrow will fall on this place; and nothing I can say or do can stay it. Thy life be long, Lady of the Mount.’ She turned away. ‘But thy husband will be in his grave ere long,’ she uttered hoarsely. To Cat she hissed, ‘Thee, birdie, need not fear marriage.’
Cat stared at her. ‘Why ever not?’
‘Because as Catherine thee’ll never be wed in this world,’ the Ægyptian said, and limped painfully away.
That night, in the confines of her narrow cot, Cat pondered the old woman’s words. She had been thinking about the gypsy’s pronouncements all day; they had woven a complete cat’s cradle of a tangle in her head. Sometimes she thought she had pulled a thread away from the muddle and that it shone bright and clear in her hands: that she need not fear marriage, for she would not be wed. But then that thought was spoiled by the realization that if she were never to marry, then that was a fearsome thought indeed. To be consigned to work all her days away at the whim of whatever household she fetched up in, to depend on the charity of others: was that not even worse than marrying Robert, who, while dull and not the least bit rich, was at least a decent, hard-working man who would keep her in whatever comfort he could afford? Then she thought about the great sorrow the Ægyptian had spoken of. Was the pestilence coming again to this corner of Cornwall? It had already carried off her father, a tough and sturdy man; if it could bring him low, it could sweep all in its path. Or would war explode suddenly on their peaceful shores, as it had at the end of the last century? The gypsy had told her, though, that perseverance would save her, so surely neither war nor plague was destined to take her life. And what of the long journey she had been promised, which would finish by uniting Heaven and Earth? That was in the end the question that vexed her most.
Perhaps she would be taking the road to London after all, to live in a great house and move in high society, and who knew then what her future might be? Even though the memory of Sir John Killigrew pawing her made her hot with shame and disgust, it proved that great men found her pretty enough to kiss; and maybe the Ægyptian was plain wrong when she said Cat would never marry. After all, she had said that ‘as Catherine’ she would never wed ‘in this world’: perhaps another world awaited her in another place. If the Countess of Salisbury took her away from here, to be her private embroiderer and maid, perhaps that fine lady would have a pet name for her.
This thought carried her to the matter of the altar cloth, for surely such a great project was all about perseverance? Fired by conviction, she drew her design out from beneath the bed, unrolling it with care.
The Tree of Knowledge stretched before her in the candlelight, stylized and elegant. Birds sang in its branches, flowers of all types bloomed in a blaze of glory, small creatures played at its foot. On either side of its trunk the man and woman leaned, their bellies pressed modestly against the wood, Eve’s hand fixed around the fruit that promised knowledge and damnation.
Cat gazed long and hard on her design, and the more she looked upon it, the more she became convinced it contained the key to the conundrum. She traced its graceful contours, running her fingers over the rough linen as if it might somehow speak.
‘A long journey,’ she whispered to herself. ‘A union between Earth and Heaven.’
And suddenly the cat’s cradle was unravelled and there the answer lay: the Wood of Life, with its roots buried deep in the Earth and its branches reaching up to Heaven, reuniting the worlds of the sacred and profane in a single elegant symbol. For Cat, that was enough. She had her sign; her destiny was clear.
Tomorrow, after church, she would devote her free afternoon to working on the altar frontal that would save her, would carry her on a long journey and provide her with a fine new life, away from Rob, away from Kenegie, away from Cornwall, as she had always dreamed it would.
I was in the garden with Alison a few days later when my mobile phone rang. We’d just come back from the solicitor’s office in Truro where they were handling the probate of Andrew’s will. There had been an accident on the A
30
, causing a huge tailback of traffic, parking in Truro had been difficult, the clerk had lost a crucial form which required Alison’s signature, and we were both tired and a little fraught. Relaxing in the canvas chairs with a new piece of embroidery – a simple scarf with peacock feathers worked into the corners in a combination of satin stitch and chain – with the larks singing high overhead, and a glass of chilled Chenin Blanc, was proving wonderfully recuperative. So when the harsh polyphonic noise of the ringtone sounded, it was a most unwelcome intrusion. How unwelcome I was not to guess.
‘Hello?’
Stupidly, I had not checked the screen before answering. Michael’s voice caught me unpleasantly by surprise.
‘Ah, you’re still alive, then?’ He sounded faintly disappointed. ‘I left you several messages, but you never replied,’ he accused.
I said nothing.
‘Where are you?’ he pressed.
‘I’m down in Cornwall with my cousin Alison, though it’s none of your business where the hell I am.’
There was a pause, an intake of breath at the other end of the line. He wasn’t used to hearing me feisty and self-sufficient, let alone downright rude. Then he laughed. It was, I thought, a rather nervous-sounding laugh. ‘How amazing. So am I. In Cornwall, that is.’
Alison reached across the table and took my mobile from me. ‘Hello, Michael. Yes, that’s right, she’s here with me. Trevarth Farm, just above Gulval, in the hills north of Penzance.’ She listened for a moment, then nodded. ‘If you’ve got the Landranger map, it’s clearly marked. Just ask anyone you see on the road if you can’t find it; or call Julia for more instructions once you’re closer. We’ll expect you in forty minutes. There’s a crab salad for tea; I hope you’re not allergic to shellfish.’ She pressed the red button, closing the connection, and handed the mobile back to me.
I stared at her. ‘What on earth did you do that for?’
‘You two need to make a civilized end to your affair, for Anna’s sake. Shake hands and start behaving normally towards one another. After all, you can’t avoid each other for ever, and you might as well do it while I’m here as referee.’
‘That’s easy for you to say, but I’m not ready to see him again. I’m going to have a shower,’ I said stiffly, pushing myself out of the chair.
‘Put on your red dress!’ she called to me as I went in. ‘It makes you look really pretty.’
When I came back down again forty minutes later, clean and tidy from my shower, my hair bound back, my make-up refreshed and the red dress on simply because it was the only thing that didn’t require either washing or ironing, I found that Michael had somehow already arrived. He was sitting with his back to me in an old deck-chair, knocking back a glass of wine and chuckling at something Alison had just said, looking annoyingly at home.