Lisa Read online

  “Thank’ee, missus,” Lisa said, falling into the country speech and glad that she would see Toby after all. “I’ll be to your place by five.”

  That night she tried once more to pump her guardians as to where she had come from and why she could remember nothing before she was nine, but no more than she already knew was forthcoming.|

  “Be thankful, lass, that the good Lord saw ter bring you ter us,” Uncle John said. “Ay’ve allus thought your da could no more take the sight of you after your ma died. But you wus allus a pretty lass, hand and all.”

  "For days at a time she forgot all about her hand, for it lived out of sight in one of the mittens she sewed for it. Instead of being flesh-colored and strong and cunning like her right hand, it was a horrid shiny pink with the fingers all bent in a claw and grown to each other, and her thumb grown to the side of her hand. It was an ugly, useless hook of a thing that she kept out of sight and where possible out of mind in its covering. She once saw a woman at the market who had spilled boiling water on her arm, and the red shiny scar looked like her own scarred hand. The only one she had ever deliberately shown it to was Toby, who once asked why she always had it covered. When he saw it, he gave the same soft whistle of intaken breath he gave when he saw a crippled animal. He touched the hand so gently that she hardly felt it through the scarring, then carefully himself put the mitten back on the injured hand. He never referred to it again, and on her part she kept the offending part covered even when they swam in rainpools that sometimes formed in hollows of the unyielding, inhospitable heath soil.

  The following morning, clutching a small bundle of clothing, she made her way through the predawn darkness to Toby’s. Aunt Sarah had surprised her by brushing the back of her workworn hand across her eyes, and Uncle John had given her a small New Testament as a farewell present.

  “Mind your manners, lass,” he said, “and don’t forget your prayers, and all will go well with you. Mayhap we’ll see you on a market day. Sure you don’t want me to go with you past the bog?”

  She shook her head, dumb with misery at all she was leaving. With a final wave she plunged into the darkness along the familiar, well-loved paths. Here was where she and Toby had snared the doe rabbit about to give birth and had let her go. And here was where the boys had tormented Toby when they first met. And here was where the young horse had thrown her into the gorse thorns and Toby had made her get up on him again, scratched and bleeding as she was. And here was where they saw the adders fighting, both of them rearing up to topple one another. And here ... And here ... The tears ran scalding down her face as she walked past one landmark after another. Dear God, what had dreary, stinking Burresford to do with her?

  She pulled herself together before descending into Toby’s yard, where his father Rob was harnessing a horse to the cart that now had its wheel in place. Toby was up on a draft horse, leading a string of four others, each one with a small pony snubbed wild-eyed close beside. Lisa’s heart fell. Poor things, they like her were going to an unknown fate that was certain not to be a happy one. At least the horses would be working out in the open sunlight at what they were bred and trained for, but these little wild things would be consigned to the everlasting dark below ground for the rest of their work-shortened lives.

  By the time they got underway, the grey, luminous light of earliest dawn had become a band of rose limning the hilltops and fading into a clear, translucent blue overhead. Millions of tiny cobwebs amid the gorse bushes flashed silver from the beads of moisture along their delicate strands. Larks, golden plovers, pipits, and lapwings chirped and sang in a morning chorus that all but drowned out the creaking of the cart, jingle of harness, and occasional snorting of the horses. The great feathered hoofs thumped softly in the earth of the cart track, but the air was so still and the dew so thick that no dust rose. The ponies, frightened and balky at first, seemed finally reassured by their larger, calmer cousins and assumed a gait between a walk and a trot, their necks pulled out almost straight by the tugging ropes.

  Three hours saw them through Dunwiddleston and on the road to Burresford. Toby’s father, like so many of the farm folk, spoke only when he had to, thought he had let off some choice oaths when the ponies got panicked in the unfamiliar streets of the town. They stopped for an hour beside a stream to let the horses drink and rest and to have some bread and cheese and buttermilk themselves. Toby’s father was soon asleep and snoring, and Toby and Lisa wandered down the stream slowly, skipping stones across the pools.

  “Oh, Toby, I don’t want to go!” she cried out suddenly, throwing her arms around him.

  “It be too bad,” was all he said, but he hugged her back, putting his hurt, bewildered face down on her shoulder.

  “I’ll get back, Toby,” Lisa promised. “Somehow, some way, I’ll be back.”

  How long they would have stood there like two lost children there was no way of knowing, for a distant shout from Toby’s father broke them apart and sent them trotting back to the horses. Toby soothed down the ponies, his hands and voice magical, and soon they were on their way again. The road now led through a narrow valley whose hills cut off the wind, and before long horses and humans alike were coated with dust and sweat. The burnished coats of the horses were dark and curled with perspiration, while runnels of dirt slid down off their shoulders and under their bellies. The sun crept overhead and slowly slid down its bright hot path into middle afternoon.

  “It shouldn’t be more than an hour or so now,” Toby’s father muttered. “It’ll still be plenty light when we get in.”

  They plodded along, stunned by the heat and their weariness. Lisa hardly knew when she became aware of a distant rhythm behind them, more a faint vibration of the air than a noise. She turned and saw that Toby was looking back as well. The vibration became increasingly insistent until there emerged from it the unmistakeable sound of galloping hoofs. Shimmering in the heat waves of the valley, a distant form wavered and flickered, at times seeming to float above the road. Nearer and nearer came the indistinct shape, taking form gradually as the heat distortion lessened with the closing distance.

  “’Fore Gawd, Ay hope ’ee pulls up quick, else them horses’ll ’ave a fit,” Toby’s father said.

  The horseman, whoever he was, showed no signs of slowing, even though Toby waved his arms wildly trying to get his attention. Closer and closer he came as the young horses on the line behind Toby began prancing nervously and moving up on each other. Never so much as slackening his speed, the horseman was all at once upon them, a vision of red-gold coat blackened with sweat and streaked with white lather, a wild eye and flared red nostrils. The rider’s white teeth were bared in a grimace, his eyes squinted against the dust and light, his clubbed hair as red-gold as his horse’s coat, and his white shirt streaked with dust. A blob of foam from the great red horse’s mouth landed on Lisa’s bare arm as the horseman pounded past, looking neither to right nor to left. The powerful sweat-streaked haunches disappeared into the rider’s own dust, leaving a snorting, bucking, kicking tangle of horses in his wake.

  Toby had turned loose the line and had all he could do to manage his own horse. A scream of pain came from the crush of falling, kicking horses, followed by a torrent of loud oaths from Toby’s father, who had jumped off the cart and was trying to sort out the mess. Toby tossed his horse’s reins to his father and disappeared into the midst of the tangle, which slowly subsided to reveal a draft horse clear down with a pony under him. His rope untangled, the horse lunged readily to his feet, but the pony had to struggle wildly, at last standing on its two hind legs and the snapped off bones of its front ones, the lower legs and hoofs flopped out to either side.

  Lisa felt tears spring to her eyes and she felt sick as she saw the poor little crippled thing standing there patiently now, its rear end cocked up like a toy hobby horse. Toby undid its halter while his father got out of the cart a heavy mallet used to pound the linchpins through the axles. Grimly he walked over to where Toby was crooning t
o the little horse. Standing slightly behind its head, he raised the mallet and felled the pony with a great blow between its ears. The pony twitched once and then lay still. Toby put his hand on its nostrils and nodded.

  “Master Jarrell’ll pay well for this,” Toby’s father promised as he put the mallet back in the cart.

  Besides the dead pony, one horse had pulled a tendon and there were some wicked rope burns among the others. Toby jumped back on his horse, and the little caravan resumed its way once again, leaving the pitiful mound of fallen pony where it lay. Before they were even out of sight, one of the hawklike European buzzards had appeared from nowhere, circling cautiously before descending to its feast.

  Because of the lame horse, they made poor time the rest of the way, and dark was upon them as they clopped through the first cobblestone streets of Burresford. They were headed for a field on the other side of town where the horse fair would be held for the next three days, but their way would take them right past the shop that would be Lisa’s new home. She got stiffly down off the cart and thanked Toby’s father for the ride. Tears blurring her vision, she waved to Toby, then reluctantly carried her bag inside the store as the clopping of hoofs on the cobbles dwindled and lost themselves in the rumble of a passing team and wagon.

  The door had a little bell attached that tinkled as she entered. Though fruits and vegetables, many of them looking wrinkled or brown-splotched from being kept too long, took up the front of the store, there were bins large and small in the back of corn meal, flour, corn, rye, wheat, oats, beans, lentils, and herbs and spices. There were crocks and tubs of pickles and relishes of all kinds, and a bin of cheeses. Along one wall were shelves of bolts of cloth and various cooking implements and utensils. As long as she lived she would never forget the unique blend of spicy odors overlaid with a breath of ripe — and overripe — fruit. Later she had only to rub dill or sweet basil between her fingers, or smell apples fallen in the orchard to conjure up that dim, cluttered store, its lights turned low in the early winter dark to save gas.

  “ ’Enry!” a woman’s voice bawled from the back of the store. “ ’Ere’s yer bloody ’elpmeet come at last!” This was followed by a guffaw of laughter.

  She saw Aunt Tatty come out from behind a stack of barrels just as a back door slammed and Uncle Henry appeared. His unshaven jowls, glistening with perspiration, wobbled fatly as he greeted her. “Where you bin, girl? We thought you’d mayhap changed yer mind.” His speech was small town, acquired through years in Burresford, while his spare older brother had kept the rougher country speech of the farm.

  “A horse went lame,” she explained. “Some idiot came galloping by us and scared the colts into a fit. We lost a pony and had to go slow the last four or five miles.”

  “No matter,” he said, looking her over with little pig eyes, bright and shrewd. “Come on through. We’ve a cold joint for supper.”

  “You mind the store, “Enry,” Aunt Tatty broke in, “and I’ll show ’er ’er room and feed ’er. I know you; you’d give ’er the whole joint if ’twas left up ter you.

  Lisa followed her beefy behind as it swayed through a narrow passageway and into a small room with a coal grate on one side and a huge sideboard full of plates of all kinds on the other.

  “Pretty, ain’t they?” her aunt said. “Ay kind of collect ’em like. That one Ay got when we went ter Lunnon three years back.” She pointed proudly to a plate in the place of honor that had a scene of the Tower of London, garish in hideous blues and greens and magentas.

  Uncle Henry must be doing very well indeed if he could afford to let his wife buy plates just to look at, Lisa thought to herself as she followed Aunt Tatty up a narrow, steep flight of stairs and into an attic room that was fairly large, though the slanting roof made much of it unusable. Lisa put down her sack and sat on the edge of the lumpy bed with a sigh.

  “Tired, dearie? Never mind, a hot cuppa tea and sommat ter eat will put you right in no time.”

  Down she followed the ample backside again. She washed much of the road dust off at the pump in a little courtyard behind the kitchen. In one corner was a lean-to shed that covered a hole leading to an open drain in the street outside. The stench was unbelievable, even after a bucket or so of water was sluiced down the opening. Lisa thought with nostalgia of the sweet heather that formed a natural, clean-smelling bathroom for humans and beasts alike at the farm.

  When she came back in, Aunt Tatty was slicing a grey, wizened, unpromising looking roast of mutton. With it were cold roast potatoes from an earlier meal and green beans cooked grey. Dessert was a curiously tough and oversweet pudding. The only good parts of the meal were the cucumber and onion pickles and a loaf of crusty white bread with sweet butter on the side. Lisa couldn’t remember ever having eaten white bread. She really felt almost too tired to eat, but she forced down what she could, knowing that if she woke hungry in the middle of the night there would be no raiding of the kitchen possible, for the stairs to the attic squeaked fiercely.

  Her aunt kept up a running fire of conversation, mainly about trivialities. Burresford was a very modern town, she learned, because they were in the process of covering their open drains, and they already had horsedrawn wagons to take away garbage. Pigs were no longer allowed to be raised within the town limits. “It won’t be long ’fore Burresford needn’t take a back seat even ter Lunnon,” Aunt Tatty declared. On the other hand, the price of everything was going up, and you wouldn’t believe what you had to pay to have a cleaning girl in. Lisa felt a twinge of premonition and knew now why Henry and Tatty, as stingy as they were, had offered to take her in.

  Finally Tatty disappeared toward the store and Henry came in. The store, Lisa learned, stayed open until ten at night on the off chance that some late customer might come in. “Ay made a success of this business,” Uncle Henry announced around a mouthful of potato, “because Ay didn’t stick ter one kind of merchandise like most of those other poor buggers. So Ay get folk coming in here for apples, and leaving with a hammer and a couple pounds of oats and some cloth fer the missus’ apron. Store’s doing well and will do even better when Ay get a full line of hardware. There’s lots ter be made in this business if yer sharp enough.”

  Lisa had no doubt he was sharp. Anyone who liked his food as well as old Henry did would stir himself to keep well fed. When she came in from washing the dishes at the pump, he had settled himself with a pipe in front of the glowing grate.

  “Luckiest thing in the world that ever ’appened ter me,” he said thoughtfully, “wus not being the eldest. Poor old John, ’e got that miserable farm because ’e wus the eldest, and ’e’s worked ’imself ter an early grave trying ter make it go. ’Tis way too near the moor ter ’ave good soil. So now ’e looks twenty years older ’n Ay do. When our da died, Ay couldn’t wait ter run off ter town. Ay worked in the textile mill fer nine years ter save money towards this place — Ay wus a foreman ’fore Ay wus through. Then Ay quit and apprenticed myself ter a grocer fer ter learn the business. Ay ended up buying it from ’im. From there on, Ay never looked back.”

  Though stunned by her weariness, Lisa was suddenly aware of a new respect for her uncle. No wonder he liked his victuals; he’d had precious little of them when he was working to buy the store. At last she could stand it no longer, though, and she told him she had to go to bed.

  “’Ere,” he said, heaving himself to his feet, “Ay’ll see you up those stairs. They’re steep and dark.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Lisa assured him, lighting a candle from the one on the table.

  “Well, Ay’d feel better ter know you wus safe in bed,” he argued, following her out of the room.

  Too tired to argue, she slowly climbed the stairs, his footsteps behind her making the boards squeal and groan. At her door she turned to wish him goodnight, but he good naturedly nudged her inside and shut the door behind. Belatedly her nerves twanged with alarm as she saw him lick his already wet lips that were stretched in a lascivious
grin. With revulsion she saw his fat belly straining against his trousers and his little pig eyes glinting as he looked at her.

  “Come on, girl,” he wheedled in a falsely sweet tone, “ ’ow’s about a kiss? No more nor a kiss, Ay promise.”

  Lisa knew instinctively that if she screamed, somehow it would all be blamed on her, and she pushed him off silently. He grabbed her and bit her neck, his breath wheezing noisily, and with one hand he fumbled with his trousers.

  “One sound out of you, you little bitch,” he warned, “and it’ll be out on the street with you.”

  He pushed her back onto the narrow cot despite her struggles, and when she bit him, he hit her a stunning blow alongside her head that made her ears ring. “That’ll teach you ter bite and claw, you little wildcat. Now give over, there’s a good girl.”

  Weeping with rage, she nearly screamed in spite of herself when he violently squeezed a breast. His knee came up, hiking her skirt and spreading her legs. Another hard blow stilled her struggles. His pants were down around his knees and he was starting to thrust blindly at her, puffing and wheezing in the heat of his passion.

  “’Enry! Where in tarnation did you get ter? ’Enry!”

  With a muttered oath he hurriedly got up and struggled into his too-tight trousers. Furtively he scurried out of the room and creaked down the stairs. Tatty had meanwhile gone out in the courtyard to see if he was relieving himself. When she came back in, Lisa could hear her asking him where he’d been.

  “Only in the storeroom, luv,” he whined.

  “Then why didn’t you answer?”

  “Ay did, but you didn’t ’ear me.”

  “Humph.”

  Lisa lay there numbly, hearing over the hurting of her head their preparations for bed. Their room was right below hers, and soon there was the unmistakable sound of rutting, with creaking springs, groans, and cries. It suddenly occurred to her that she had never heard Uncle John and Aunt Sarah at it; in fact, she couldn’t imagine them making love. It was as if the lonely farm had somehow sucked them dry and left only the husks of their dessicated bodies. They were maybe in their early fifties but looked seventy, while Uncle Henry was in his middle forties and like most fat men looked even younger when he was clean and shaven. Oh God, how was she going to prevent being alone with that fat animal again?