Chapter Twelve Come the Storm #2
Chime went the bell, rung by the warden, to draw in the last stragglers.
None had been late today. The congregation had an upright bearing and each face was fixed on the pulpit, where an eagle-headed stand held the Great Book.
Never before had there been such enthusiasm around the boorish, droning Mr Aldridge, whose favourite pastime was to point at each villager in turn and divulge their fated punishments should they not ask God’s forgiveness.
Today, he did not have that same zeal. For when the curate arrived – late – he beamed with the brightness of a pocket-shined pearl.
His eyes alighted on the strange woman and widened significantly.
She had a dress that buttoned up to her neck, gloves that hid her hands, and sleeves, too, to cover them.
A hat obscured much of her features, though what was on display looked fine and sharp, if thickly powdered.
‘This ain’t right,’ said Kensa, too loudly, shushed by those in the pews ahead.
‘That be true,’ agreed Isolde. ‘Over half the people here are self-confessed sinners and yet their backsides are glued to their seats.’
‘I ain’t confessing nothing,’ grunted One-Eyed Si from the row in front.
Everyone quietened down when Mr Aldridge cleared his throat and led the congregation into their first hymn.
On went the droning intonations as each voice dutifully churned through the verses.
Until the beautiful woman began to sing.
Hers was no dreary lull, no tongue skipping over words.
Here was a creature with a voice to charm the tide to rising.
And she sang to no one but Mr Aldridge. Turned her face on him, unmoving.
None could look away. Hush, as all stopped to listen.
Elowen was especially transfixed, though her expression seemed odd, mouth thin and disapproving, compared to the adoration carried by the others.
‘Merrin,’ whispered One-Eyed Si, imbuing this stranger’s name with longing, for only Kensa to hear. At its utterance, the singer’s pitch slipped into shrillness – as though she knew, as though she heard – then shifted back to gentler tones.
When at last the hymn ended, Mr Aldridge’s sermon began.
Although the curate usually dressed well, today he gleamed.
His double-breasted cassock was brushed, his cap perched neatly atop his head and his golden cross, elevated by a chain around his neck, sat with polished persistence against his chest.
‘It must be known that by virtue of being God’s dear creatures, we are subject to, ah, certain natural laws that we must, occasionally, succumb to,’ said Mr Aldridge.
A few amused grunts flitted about the assembled villagers.
‘Rather, it would be an unnatural thing should one’s affections – coming from self-love as granted by the Heavens – be separate from one’s existence.
Truly, such love as does grant us goodness in public should then be expressed in private. ’
Kensa clicked her tongue. ‘What’s he talking about?’
‘Lust,’ said One-Eyed Si.
As he spoke, the curate’s features grew rosier and his eyes never left the strange woman.
‘Fishiness is afoot here … ’ muttered Isolde.
Her sentence remained unfinished – as did the curate’s sermon – for a commotion struck the middle pews where Kensa had seen her mother and half-sister sitting.
‘Elowen!’ Mr Skewes cried.
Kensa’s legs straightened, propelled her to standing.
Shouts, then a shocked silence. Worshippers bent over the wooden benches and Kensa craned through the masses to see, to find Elowen slumped in her father’s arms, head lolling back.
Kensa vaulted over the pews, skirts lifted high and her feet catching laps and hands and prayer books.
She landed beside her mother – sweaty, dishevelled – and once there, worked quickly.
Kensa put her hand to Elowen’s mouth and sought breath in the way she had seen Isolde do. ‘She’s warm to the touch.’ There were no visible marks on her skin, though she was paler than her usual swan-skinned pallor.
Derwa shook her head, hand clutched at her throat. ‘How? There’s been no fever, none of her usual signs.’
‘What do you think, Isolde?’ No answer. Kensa craned her neck and saw the older woman had fled. So, too, had the singing stranger.
Along came the curate, blustering into view, stomach first. ‘What is this carrying-on?’
‘We need to get her out in the open air,’ ordered Kensa, speaking to the masses crowded around them, waving her arms to make space. Villagers fell back in a startled fashion, which might have been humorous, were it not for the circumstances.
‘Did you do this?’ Mr Skewes asked and Kensa realised he spoke to her. ‘Did you do this?’ He held the fainting girl to him, clutched like a doll. ‘And in God’s house, too! In God’s house, here among—’
‘Peter,’ hushed Derwa, although there was no stopping the man.
‘If you’ve cursed her, I’ll string you up as high as I did your—’
Elowen gasped into waking. Her fair hair was long enough to fall down her father’s arms and sweep the tiles. Even clammy and lips wobbling, she could have been mistaken for a saintly figure in a Bible verse.
‘Where did she go?’ Elowen trailed off, saw the faces staring at her with gawping mouths, and burst into tears.
A dozen voices spoke at once. Mr Aldridge demanded quiet and was not listened to, Old Sal blamed women’s troubles and Mr Skewes dragged his daughter – and Derwa – out of the church and into the grassy surroundings, marked with headstones. Kensa was quick to follow.
‘Don’t you come near her,’ warned the Coast Guard. He rounded his wiry body to block Kensa’s path and swept a tearful Elowen behind him. At least she was on her feet, if unsteady.
‘I’m all right, Pa,’ came a rasped reply.
‘There’s trouble heading to us, we all know it,’ said Mr Skewes, his weasel face animated and fierce.
‘I saw it when last in Bodmin, that sweating sickness taking hold. We can see the season’s slow to come this year, there’s naught to catch and foulness in the air.
’ Although this was not the first time Mr Skewes had fallen into superstition, he had never carried such heat behind it.
What’s more, he had never directed it fully on Kensa.
Theirs had always been an uneasy truce, an agreement to remove oneself from the other’s path.
It was different now, Kensa was different, and she did not bow her head or avoid his stare.
Instead, she stared back. And she did not trust what she saw.
‘Let me see my sister.’
Derwa was quick to mediate, seeking a solution. One she pushed, as always, onto Kensa. ‘Off you pop now,’ she said gently, though not without guilt. ‘He’ll be calmer once you’ve gone and I’ll see to our girl.’
Our. Belonging to Mr Skewes and Derwa. Even though Kensa’s blood was half shared by Elowen, it was as though the two held no possession of each other.
‘I’ve done nothing wrong,’ argued Kensa, raising her voice more than she meant to, hating how it cracked at the end.
‘Please—’ Elowen was cut off, coughing.
Mr Skewes continued his chastisement. It was a droning blur in Kensa’s ears.
Around the fully fledged adults, the two young women met one another’s gaze.
Kensa frowned, seeing an odd expression flicker over Elowen’s features.
One that spoke on need or sorrow or fear.
Such wild feelings Kensa never would have put to a girl so seemingly placid.
As though she realised her folly, Elowen cast her eyes down and severed their connection.
I don’t know you at all, do I?
No, was the reply.
Kensa swore it was her own mind summoning the word, swore it was the Old Ways or her heated conscience, even if it spoke with Elowen’s voice.
The tide had turned against Kensa. Heads poked around the church entrance, while Mr Aldridge’s sermons on benevolence continued to pound against the pews and beyond, into the churchyard.
There was no such sentiment in Kensa’s mind. ‘Have it your way.’
She stomped from the churchyard and there, waiting in the lane beyond, was Isolde. The healer turned to her apprentice with a ferocity Kensa had never known.
There was a harried pull to her jowls. ‘Where’s that harlot got to?’
‘She’s over there.’
‘Not your mother, the singing woman – Merrin!’
‘Left, I think, after what happened.’
‘O’ course she has! I am getting slow and inefficient and fucking old,’ said Isolde, nostrils wide and flaring. ‘Tell me, where does she live?’
‘How should I know?’
‘Because it’s your responsibility, Kensa! Everything that happens here, to these people, to this place, must be known to you! Have you not been paying attention?’
Kensa’s mouth was slack with hurt. She slammed the church gate behind her and clopped out onto the main lane that connected Portscatho to Gerrans.
Bugger each one of them, ungrateful, ignorant bastards.
Her anger took her all the way back to Bohortha and it took her fast. Isolde was not far behind.
Their matching tempers rattled around the cottage, batting into one another like the last two spools in a sewing box.
Even the chickens adopted their mood and pecked any boots which strayed near them.
Afternoon fell to evening and dinner had to be made, no matter their rift.
The pair clattered around the space, wordlessly shoving plates or bowls or spoons at the other, while their pheasant supper burned in a pot over the stove.
Isolde used a spoon to lean stew through her lips. ‘Humph.’
‘You’re welcome,’ said Kensa.
Fox poked her head through the kitchen door.
She sniffed at their distant plates, caught a whiff of their malignant bearing and quickly fled to pester the chickens.
Evening was chillier. Fog had begun its unfurling from the sea.
Isolde remarked on it. Kensa agreed. A truce was nearing them and the apprentice, despite her frustration, pulled it closer.