Free The Wilding by Maria McCann Page B

whatever advantage I might have gained by surprise. In the privacy of her chamber, protected by her loyal servant, Aunt Harriet had now ample time to compose her face, her voice and her excuses. I even wondered if her swooning had been feigned.
    There was nothing for it but to go back to the cider-makingI went to Paulie and asked if his boy would help me. The lad came forward willingly enough and I took him with me to the cider-house.
    Despite my instructions, it appeared that nobody had examined the mill since I had gone away. The murc we had previously ground lay slimy and stinking beneath a cloud of flies.
    ‘Will it serve, Sir?’ the boy asked doubtfully.
    ‘No. Fetch a bucket of water.’
    Together we rinsed and wiped down the mill with a view to starting the next batch clean.
    The press was also in a sad condition, the cheese of apples and straw all dried out and shrunken. I put a few jugfuls of water through it but not even paupers would have drunk what came out. Sighing, I unpacked the cheese with the boy’s help and set it aside to be spread on the vegetable beds.
    The boy and I then loaded the mill with fresh apples. He seemed eager to stay but I was sick of his childish company and sent him away, telling him I would be wanting his help later on.
    Once he was gone I did not bother with the horse but turned the mill myself – turned it until I felt the sweat on my back – stopping only to scrape down the pulped apples. I craved exhaustion; it seemed only right that I should be going in circles since I had discovered precisely nothing, except that my aunt had noble antecedents and her maid was half a vagrant. This princely intelligence had cost the girl her livelihood and would cost me mine if I made my other customers wait much longer.
    I hated Aunt Harriet. For the first time in my life I cared nothing for the cider I was making; I would gladly have pissed in it. And yet, with all this, I could not leave without seeing Tamar. No matter what Rose said, I was sure my aunt had dismissed the maid to get her away from me. How would Tamar and Joan live, now? On herbs and mosses and a few pennies from making up amulets?
    When I had ground enough apples I brought back Paulie’s boy. Barley straw was piled ready and together we heaped up the murc with the straw, layer by layer. Again that sweet, generous juice ran into the vat before my arm was put to the press. This first must should have been carefully reserved to make my aunt a special cider, but instead I left it there, to be lost in the inferior pressings that would follow. I hoped that this cheese, too, would soon run dry and have to be helped along with water; I hoped to see it ooze with a nasty, murky paste squeezing between the stalks. They say good cider cures anything. I felt just then that a drop of the bad sort has also its uses, and would be the very drink for my aunt.
    *

    When we had rebuilt the cheese I returned to the house to wash off the sticky sap that clung to me. Hannah Reele was climbing the stairs as I passed below; I nodded to her and she paused, then came down again to tell me that Aunt Harriet was not yet out of bed, but ready to receive me whenever I could leave my labours in the cider-house and pay her a visit.
    I thanked her and asked if she knew why my appearance had so affected my aunt, for (I put on a long face) she was not one for faintings and swoonings, and I was anxious lest being widowed had undermined her strength.
    ‘She took you for a ghost,’ said Hannah.
    This was the last answer I expected. I repeated stupidly, ‘A ghost?’
    ‘Yes, Sir. The master’s.’
    As far as I could tell, Hannah was a girl who spoke little and generally the truth. I said, ‘Nobody’s ever taken me for Uncle Robin before. Am I so like him?’
    ‘Not very,’ Hannah admitted. ‘Only your hair.’
    My hair does crinkle like Robin’s. It seemed Aunt Harriet was inventive, in her way, but not inventive enough. I said, ‘How could she see my