It Began in Vauxhall Gardens - Plaidy Jean - Страница 34

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Peg was too frightened to speak. Melisande forced herself to say: "We have brought roast fowl for you."

"So you be the pretty foreign one. Come here, my dear, that I may look at 'ee. You b'ain't frightened, be you? 'Tis the same with all these servant girls. They want my charms; they want their plough-boys and their fishermen. But they'm scared of coming to me

to ask my help. What do you want, my dear? Speak up. You don't altogether believe in our ways, do 'ee? But you've come all the same."

"Is it true that you can give charms and potions to make people love," asked Melisande. "Can you make people love those it is good for them to love . . . even though they do not do so?"

"I can give a charm as will put a bloom on a young girl, my dear. I can smear her with jam like ... so that the wasps come a-buzzing round. Are there witches where you do come from? Are there black witches like some . . . and white witches like old Tammy Trequint?"

"I do not know of them. I lived in a convent . . . away from such things."

"I understand 'ee, my dear. You be like a bird as is let free. Mind someone don't catch 'ee and clip your pretty wings. Why do you come here?"

"I want a charm ... a spell ... a potion ... if you will be so good as to give me one."

"You want a lover. You should be fair enough without a charm."

Melisande looked into the hooded eyes and saw that they were kindly for all their strangeness. She said quickly: "I am afraid of. . . someone. I wish his attentions to be turned from me. I wish them to go . . . where they belong. Could that be done?"

" 'Tis a love token in reverse, so to speak."

"Can you give me such a one?"

" 'Twill not be easy. There's some who might come and ask such a thing and I'd know it would be no more than breaking a couple of twigs. But 'tis not so with you, my dear. We'll see. What does the other maiden want?"

Peg came forward. Her wants were simple. She wanted a love token to catch the young fisherman whom, try as she might, she could not catch without.

"Let me see what you've brought." She unwrapped the parcel of food. She sniffed it. " 'Tis good," she said. "Mrs. Soady have sent you and Mrs. Soady's my good friend."

She put the food on the table and, picking up a piece of wax, with expert fingers, she forced it into a metal mould. This she put on the fire.

She said to Peg: "Think of his face, my dear. Think of him. Conjure him up. He's there behind you ... a bonny boy. Close your eyes and say his name. Can you see him?" Peg nodded. The mould was drawn from the fire and left to cool.

"Sit you on that stool, my dear. Keep your eyes closed and don't for a minute stop thinking of him. When he's cooled down you shall have him. Just sit 'ee still now."

Peg obeyed.

"Now you, my dear. 'Tis not the same for you. 'Tis a double spell you need. Now first we must turn his affection from you like. I've got an onion here and I want you to pierce it with these pins. In the old days we'd use nothing but a sheep's or bullock's heart. But onions serve, and they be easy to come by. Now, my dear, take these pins and as you stick them in the onion you must conjure up his image. You must see him standing close behind you."

"This will not bring a misfortune to him?" asked Melisande anxiously. "There is no harm for him in this?"

Tamson laughed suddenly. "What be harm? Harm to one be good to another. If he do love you truly he might be happy with you. If he's to love this other, he might find sorrow there. Then that would be harm. So whether harm or good will come of this, I can't tell 'ee. I be a witch but a white witch. And I'll tell 'ee this, because I've took a fancy to 'ee: meddling with fate ain't always a good thing. 'Tis writ in the stars what shall be. Fate's Fate and there's no altering that; and when people come to me for spells they're after altering it. 'Tis devils' work to alter Fate. You got to call in magic. 'Tis more like to be harm that way than good."

"I know I must turn his thoughts from me. I know it would be a goodness to do so."

"Then stick in they pins."

The tears started to Melisande's eyes,

"'Tis that old onion. But tears be good. Tears never done no harm. Is it ready, well riddled with pins? He's there. He's behind you. He's tall and handsome and gay. He loves many, but not one of them as he loves himself. Now we'll roast his heart, and as we roast it, you must say with me:

'It is not this heart I wish to burn, But the person's heart I wish to turn . . .'

"Then, my dear, you whisper to yourself the name of her who should be his love, and you must see them together, and they must be joining hands while you do say those words. Say his name and her name . . . and see them bound together in love."

Melisande closed her eyes and repeated the lines after the witch. She tried to see Caroline and Fermor, to see them embrace; but instead she was filled with a passionate wish that she might have been Sir Charles's daughter, that she might have been the one who was chosen for him. Caroline would not stay in the picture. He was there, singing on his horse, leaning over to kiss Melisande, laughing at her, mocking her. And she was there, riding away from him, yet reluctantly, knowing he was gaining on her. Then she thought of the

nun who had broken her vows all those years ago and had died in her granite tomb.

"There!" said Tamson Trequint. "That'll do 'ee both. Now, my dear," she went on, turning to Peg, "here be your image. You stick pins in it every night, just where his heart is, and if you've seen him aright and you've done all I told 'ee, he'll be your lover before the coming of the new moon. Get on with 'ee now."

Peg said breathlessly: "Oh, Mrs. Soady did say she have a stye coming and what should she do?"

"Tell her to touch it with the tail of a cat."

"And Mr. Meaker be feared his asthma's coming back."

"Let him collect spiders' webs, roll them in his hands and swallow them."

"Thank 'ee, Mistress Trequint. Mrs. Soady said as something would be left for 'ee."

"Tell Mrs. Soady her's welcome."

They went out into the woods and the journey back was not so terrifying as the journey to the hut. They were too absorbed in what they had seen to think of the supernatural inhabitants of the wood. Peg was clutching her image and thinking of her fisherman. Melisande was less happy.

They crossed the lawns to the house.

"Quietly now," said Peg.

But Wenna, watching at her window, had already seen them.

Wenna had made up her mind. She would not remain passive any longer, for this was no time for passivity.

That wicked girl had not gone out to meet him; she was too artful for that. Like as not she was holding him off. She was more than wanton; she was cunning.

Wenna imagined her telling him that she was too good a girl to become one of his light o' loves. Clearly she had gone to the witch in the woods for a spell that would make him dance to her piping . . . dance to whatever tune she played; and her tune would be marriage.

So there was no time for delay.

Wenna went down to the kitchen.

Mrs. Soady was sitting at the table treating her eye with the cat's tail. The big tom-cat was on the table and Mrs. Soady was trying

120 IT BEGAN IN VAUXHALL GARDENS

to make him keep still so that she could wipe his tail across her eyelid.

"What be up to?" asked Wenna.

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