now, and then I’m back,’ I said. ‘Another village, and Tetton Green again. I’ll come for him in the morning.’
He nodded. ‘Agreed, Cider-Rat.’
This was a name given me from childhood, when I first used to hang about the press. I disliked it, but a nickname is like quicksand: the more you try to struggle free, the tighter it clings.
* * *
That night Alice mixed us a posset of wine and cream and eggs that fairly knocked me out, so that I was half asleep as I kissed my parents goodnight and went up to my chamber.
It was soothing to be held (such was the power of the posset, I might even say rocked ) in the embrace of this old familiar room. In the chill, elegant chamber I had occupied at my aunt’s house I had always felt that the very walls did not welcome me and were trying to thrust me out. Here I was at my ease and as I snuggled down between the sheets with their familiar odour of rosemary, I was so glad to have returned, so tired, so comfortable and so warm (Alice having been before me with a pan of embers) that I melted away at once.
During the dark hours I woke to find my mother in the room with a candle. She said I had been crying and shouting in my sleep; I had now done it two or three times and had just started again when she had risen and come to me.
‘I hope you have no bad conscience, son,’ she said gravely.
I shook my head. It was the cart dream, just as I had dreamed it before I went to Aunt Harriet’s: the misty figure, the sinister bright hair, the body lying crumpled in the road.
* * *
The next four days passed in much the same way as in previous years. Apples fallen, apples not yet fallen, apples going rotten, folk with mills, folk with no mills beating their fruit with wooden staves, murc standing in the mill, murc going straight into the press, the trickling of sweet must. My days passed in an innocent intoxication of the senses: the scent of crushed apples, the bite of the bitter-sharp cider they brought to me and the burn of the strong cheese they offered me with my bread, if I was lucky. All this I relished – and yet, perhaps, not quite so much as in the past.
Some of those waiting chided me for my lateness: Mr Drew at Tinsden, whose apples were far on in digestion, and Mistress Chinney at Lasden Magna. Hers turned in no time to vinegar, so we had to doctor them with honey and spices; but then they were an inferior kind to start with. Everywhere I went I begged pardon for the delay, and they were so relieved to see me that they mostly granted it at once. I cared little whether they forgave me or not; I had my parents to think of, and my aunt, and Tamar and Joan, and Robin – most of all Robin.
Like a gr me frow circling overhead, the dream cast a shadow over me. It followed me from my parents’ house, hunting me from orchard to orchard, and followed me home again. No matter where I was, or how exhausted when I fell into sleep, it came to me every night – worse, it did not leave me by day. I could never forget it, now. Each time I mounted the cart and clicked my tongue to the horse, I felt a sickly pang. If a mist came over the road (and there was mist aplenty in that season and that country) I sweated with fear lest this should be the journey when that dreadful sight would appear by the roadside, far from any help, and with no chance of waking.
* * *
‘And how’s the press, my boy – is the action still smooth?’
‘As silk, Father. Everybody says it’s a marvel.’
My father was like a child on the subject of my press, forever wishing to hear it praised, but as a rule he was the least childish of men so I was very willing to indulge him. His design was a marvel, cunningly made so that it came apart easily and yet, when screwed together, exerted as much pressure as a fixed device.
He had an excellent understanding of what was necessary and convenient, and was so observant that he could draw something onto a sheet of paper straight out of his head, without
He nodded. ‘Agreed, Cider-Rat.’
This was a name given me from childhood, when I first used to hang about the press. I disliked it, but a nickname is like quicksand: the more you try to struggle free, the tighter it clings.
* * *
That night Alice mixed us a posset of wine and cream and eggs that fairly knocked me out, so that I was half asleep as I kissed my parents goodnight and went up to my chamber.
It was soothing to be held (such was the power of the posset, I might even say rocked ) in the embrace of this old familiar room. In the chill, elegant chamber I had occupied at my aunt’s house I had always felt that the very walls did not welcome me and were trying to thrust me out. Here I was at my ease and as I snuggled down between the sheets with their familiar odour of rosemary, I was so glad to have returned, so tired, so comfortable and so warm (Alice having been before me with a pan of embers) that I melted away at once.
During the dark hours I woke to find my mother in the room with a candle. She said I had been crying and shouting in my sleep; I had now done it two or three times and had just started again when she had risen and come to me.
‘I hope you have no bad conscience, son,’ she said gravely.
I shook my head. It was the cart dream, just as I had dreamed it before I went to Aunt Harriet’s: the misty figure, the sinister bright hair, the body lying crumpled in the road.
* * *
The next four days passed in much the same way as in previous years. Apples fallen, apples not yet fallen, apples going rotten, folk with mills, folk with no mills beating their fruit with wooden staves, murc standing in the mill, murc going straight into the press, the trickling of sweet must. My days passed in an innocent intoxication of the senses: the scent of crushed apples, the bite of the bitter-sharp cider they brought to me and the burn of the strong cheese they offered me with my bread, if I was lucky. All this I relished – and yet, perhaps, not quite so much as in the past.
Some of those waiting chided me for my lateness: Mr Drew at Tinsden, whose apples were far on in digestion, and Mistress Chinney at Lasden Magna. Hers turned in no time to vinegar, so we had to doctor them with honey and spices; but then they were an inferior kind to start with. Everywhere I went I begged pardon for the delay, and they were so relieved to see me that they mostly granted it at once. I cared little whether they forgave me or not; I had my parents to think of, and my aunt, and Tamar and Joan, and Robin – most of all Robin.
Like a gr me frow circling overhead, the dream cast a shadow over me. It followed me from my parents’ house, hunting me from orchard to orchard, and followed me home again. No matter where I was, or how exhausted when I fell into sleep, it came to me every night – worse, it did not leave me by day. I could never forget it, now. Each time I mounted the cart and clicked my tongue to the horse, I felt a sickly pang. If a mist came over the road (and there was mist aplenty in that season and that country) I sweated with fear lest this should be the journey when that dreadful sight would appear by the roadside, far from any help, and with no chance of waking.
* * *
‘And how’s the press, my boy – is the action still smooth?’
‘As silk, Father. Everybody says it’s a marvel.’
My father was like a child on the subject of my press, forever wishing to hear it praised, but as a rule he was the least childish of men so I was very willing to indulge him. His design was a marvel, cunningly made so that it came apart easily and yet, when screwed together, exerted as much pressure as a fixed device.
He had an excellent understanding of what was necessary and convenient, and was so observant that he could draw something onto a sheet of paper straight out of his head, without
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