Bone House_ A Novel - Betsy Tobin [37]
“Perhaps there were two of them, or even more,” ventures Alice. There is silence for a moment. Our village is small: how could a group of men engage in such a task without the knowledge of others? Josias frowns and shakes his head.
“Perhaps they came from somewhere else,” he says. “Outsiders.”
“Aye,” says Rafe. “It is possible, for she was known throughout the county. I met a man in Chepton once who spoke of her as if she were the queen.” He pauses, smiles a little, and for a moment we are swallowed by her memory. It is Lydia who finally breaks the silence.
“Perhaps she was not truly dead,” she says tentatively. We raise our heads, regard each other; it is a thought that has passed through all of us like a silver thread. Rafe shrugs and Josias gives a little cough. Indeed, it would not be the first time such a thing has happened. There was a celebrated case not two years earlier in a neighboring county of a yeoman farmer who dropped dead plowing a field. During the course of his own funeral shouts were heard, much to the amazement of the onlookers, and when the coffin lid was pried open, he sat up and cursed those who’d put him there. The man lived for several months more and then died of drink when he collapsed in a ditch and drowned.
But the great-bellied woman would have needed the strength of an ox to raise herself from below the ground.
“No woman is strong enough for such a task,” says Rafe after a moment. “No man either.”
Cook enters then, carrying a large bowl of hot broth that she proceeds to serve. She has clearly overheard the talk and her mouth is pressed tightly in a grim line. When she serves out the last bowl she finally speaks.
“We’ve not seen the last of her,” she says. Then she picks up the serving vessel and disappears into the kitchen, leaving the rest of us wide-eyed.
After supper I slip away to Long Boy’s cottage but even as I approach the smell of fresh-made stew tells me that my mother has returned. When I open the door she is there in the darkness, kneading pastry of some sort. She pauses and looks at me, then raises a finger to her lips, for the boy lies sleeping in his corner bed. Once again, she looks tired and drawn, her face a pool of weary lines.
“When did you return?” I ask.
“This afternoon,” she says. “I came directly here.”
“How is he?”
“A little feverish, but it does not seem serious,” she says.
“Did he speak?” I ask tentatively. She looks at me.
“Of her?” she asks, then nods with a sigh. “I told him she is dead.”
I pause, unsure how to break the news, when she reads my mind.
“I have seen Mary,” she says grimly.
“She told you?”
“Aye.” She stares down at the lump of dough. “May God take pity on her soul,” she adds quietly. I frown.
“Is it possible she is alive?”
My mother glances up at me with a sharp, scornful look. “She was dead,” she says flatly. “I laid her out myself.”
I nod, take a seat beside her. It would be unwise to press her further. She is not given to speculation: she sees only the lay of things before her, never what they might have been. Just then the boy stirs and moans a little in his sleep, and in an instant my mother is at his side, her hand upon his brow. Satisfied, she returns to the table and resumes her kneading.
“How went the birth?” I ask quietly.
She appears not to hear me: she carries on with the punch and slap of dough, her jaw rigid.
“Mother,” I say. She stops and looks at me.
“The baby,” I say. “How was the birth?” She pauses for a moment, then returns once again to the dough, flipping it over and reaching for more flour.
“It was still,” she says, her voice as flat as glass.
After a moment she finishes her kneading, placing the dough on the stone hearth to rise. She brushes the flour from her hands.
“Stay with the boy,” she says. “I have some business to attend to.”
“At this hour?” I ask. “Can it not wait until morning?”
“It is best done now,” she says with a weary sigh. She puts on her wrap and then crosses to the fireplace, taking up a small iron shovel. “I won’t be long,” she says. I follow her to