Job and another man began to hustle the two bailiffs along the passage to the stairs. Long Peter was so tall he could not stand upright in this part of the house; he was a man almost without fear, but he hesitated about touching the woman. He licked his lips and glanced at Dick Stable and Penrudduck, the others remaining.
Footmarker said: “Touch me and you’ll grow worms in your bowels a yard long. Your eyestll rot out and your tongue’ll swell till it bursts your mouth.”
Peter blinked and spat on the palms of his hands and made no other move.
She turned to me: “Maugan, you’re blind with anger now and full of some spleen. All right, let us not have further words until this mood has passed. There’s much to be done. Your grandmother “
Perhaps in my own feeling was a microcosm of all that men feel when they burn witches: anger trying to hide fear. It was as if I had a sort of love for her turned inside out so that one yearned to destroy it. One yearned to tear out one’s own beginnings as a frail human being. I grasped her by the shoulder. She shook me off; that old strange scent of hay; I grabbed her arm and turned it behind her; she clawed with her other hand at my face; scratches and blood beginning to drip; I twisted her arm and grasped the other.
As I pushed her struggling down the passage Mrs Killigrew came out.
“Maugan!” I rushed past her. “Maugan, leave her be, she’s here because we need her!”
Down the stairs, she tried to kick but her feet were in soft shoes that did not hurt; I felt sick and cold, anger like disease, a dysentery of the mind.
“Damn you, Maugan! If you put me out this’ll be the last of me; I’ll never come back again; never again; you’ll regret this it’ll be on your soul all the rest of your life.”
We were down without falling. Meg at the bottom, shrinking against the wall. There was nothing special in this struggling woman different from any other; panting breath and heaving lungs and reluctant halting feet; she was still talking, but the sentences were muttered and broken; I tried not to hear, still fearful of a curse.
In the hall and through it to the kitchens; out into the cobbled yard at the back; a lantern burned at the stable door; I released her with a final push; she nearly fell but caught the door.
“Get your horse or mule if you have one. If you’re on foot take a pony. That’ll be payment for what you may have done. Take it and go.”
She leaned on the door looking at me. “I never thought to see this day. That’s one thing I never did think to see.”
Now that I was free of her I wanted to shiver.
“Take a pony,” I said, “and go.”
It was like assuming command of a part-conquered fortress. The enemy had been driven out; now to re-organise the forces within.
Most of the curtains had gone, all the best furniture, even some of the beds. The house was like a cold echoing barn. Mrs Killigrew had been in bed with a return of the jaundice and had hardly realised the extent of the loss; she had in any case lacked the courage for open defiance. But she was angry with me for driving out Katherine Footmarker. This I had expected; the woman had grown to have an ascendancy over Dorothy Killigrew which amounted almost to a possession, and it was this more than anything else which I had felt to be dangerous in her continuing here. But what did startle me was to find that Footmarker had been openly treating my grandmother too.
So bad was Lady Killigrew’s breathing now that only immobility enabled her to live at all. To move from one side of the bed to the other was sufficient to cause her to gasp and clutch at the air with her mouth. It was a terrible thing to watch, and almost more terrible to see, trapped inescapably in this useless body, the same penetrating acidulous mind I had known all my life. It had in no way been affected by illness or disease. It watched resentfully the people who moved round her bed ministering to her wants. Kate Penruddock, Parson Merther, Ida and Sarah Keast, none of them escaped.
When I went in she set on me with a torrent of invective. What business had I to command this house, a nameless bastard brought up here out of mistaken kindness? God, to what depths had the Killigrews and the Wolverstones come? When I said I was only too willing to give up any ordering of this house to John as soon as he arrived home, she said he could not come too soon for her. In the meantime how did I propose to keep her alive, now that I had driven out the one woman who could help?
The servants, of whom there were only fourteen left, rallied round me well and soon the place was cleared up, such furniture as was left made the best of, the gate at the palisade guarded. There was one other risk that had to be considered, for we could not fight an army.
The next morning I went up to the castle and asked to see Captain Alexander. He saw me in the gun room overlooking the harbour. Much had been changed since I was last here, it was like a general’s tent in time of battle, with maps and charts on the walls.
“Captain Alexander, you may have heard that my father has stayed behind in London, having been arrested on a suit for debt. I have no doubt that his release will be arranged before long, but for the time being he cannot be here to help you in his position as Governor of the Castle. I thought I should tell you this.”
. “I obey orders here, Mr Killigrew. My orders have been to bring this castle to a state of preparedness. So the Governor has not concerned me greatly, my instructions having come from a higher authority. I don’t think your father’s private misfortunes are likely to concern us here.”
“Debtors have attempted to ransack Arwenack. I have driven them out.”
“That must be your own affair, Mr Killigrew.”
“I am glad you see it in that light.”
“Certainly. Unless I receive orders to the contrary.”
Having got what I came for, there seemed no virtue in prolonging the interview. He was clearly waiting for me to go.
“Do you intend to spend the winter here, Captain Alexander? You and all the men?”
He shrugged. “That will be decided at a meeting next week.”
“Held here?”
“Held here. Sir Nicholas Parker, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and Paul Ivey the fortifications expert, will confer here and decisions will then be made. It could perhaps be a convenience if you could accommodate them in your house. As you will appreciate, our quarters here are very full.”
“I’ll make arrangements.”
As I walked back to the house I wondered if enough beds were left and whether we could find food. But the effort was worth making. Alexander was slightly more gracious when I left. His goodwill could be of value.
When she left her last words had not been curses. She had shouted after me as I went back into the house: “Shame on yourself! Shame on you, Maugan, for turning away your only friendl All your life you’ll regret this dayl”
When I got in I had been violently sick, as if vomiting up buried urges.
My only friend? That evening when the early dark had been upon the house for nearly two hours I sat and discussed the future with another friend who had already forgiven me for my highhandedness of yesterday.
Dorothy Killigrew said: “I am happy for you, Maugan. When she was here for that Christmas I thought her a sweet girl. Pretty and elegant and of a sunny temperament. How lucky for you it has turned out so. I do pray you will be happy.”
“Thank you.”
“You know I have come to love you as one of my own children, and I shall hope you write to me from time to time. This is a house to leave. I tremble to think what will become of us.”
“I don’t think Father will stay in prison long. He has so many friends.”
“Friends who have been alienated, Maugan. If the Queen has gone against him then there is little hope of an early release.”