Rose Daughter (5 page)

“Oh, fiddlesticks!” said Jeweltonguc, shortly after they had
turned off the main way onto the rutted little track to Rose Cottage. “I forgot
to ask about a green witch! Fiddle, fiddle,
fiddlesticks.
If Lionheart
hasn’t got the chimney clear, there’ll be no living with her. It’s odd, though;
I didn’t see a signboard for a greenwitch, did you? Fd’ve expected her to be in
the centre of town. Longchance is a little bigger than we expected, isn’t it?
Or more energetic, at least. I thought... well, never mind. I’m glad of it; I
like it; it has a good air. But I’d’ve guessed it might almost support a seer
or a small magician, and I didn’t see hide nor hair of any of the professions.
Well, a penny saved. And it will be much harder to sneak anything of that sort
past Father in a house the size of Rose Cottage.”

But they arrived home to discover Lionheart triumphant, if a
little red from scrubbing, and two fully functional chimneys.

Opring advanced. Beauty and Lionheart were relieved to find
that their awkward carpentry and inexperienced mends were holding firm and
that, so far as they could tell, there was nothing terribly wrong with their
little house. They hoped the thatch would keep the rain oul one more year; perhaps
next spring, somehow, they could find the money to have it redone. Meanwhile,
their father slept in a truckle-bed by the warm banked kitchen fire downstairs,
and the three sisters rigged a patchwork canopy—Jeweltongue took time out from
making shirts to put together scraps from her mending basket—over the mattress
they shared in the loft, so that the pattering rain of little many-1 egged
creatures falling out of the thatch did not trouble them as they slept.

Beauty began to have strange, vivid dreams unlike any she
had had before. Sometimes she saw great lordly rooms like those of a palace,
though of nowhere she had ever herself been; sometimes she saw wild landscape,
most often in moon—and starlight. Sometimes she saw her family: Jeweltongue
speaking to a young man wearing a long apron, his hands covered with flour;
Lionheart, with her hair cropped off so short that the back of her neck was
bare, rubbing the ears of a horse whose nose was buried in her breast, while a
man with a kind earnest face stood leaning against the horse’s shoulder; her
father, in a fine coat, reading aloud from pages he held in his hands, to an
attentive audience.

And then one night her old dream came back. She had not had
it in so long—and her life had changed so much meanwhile—she had almost
forgotten it; or rather, when she remembered it, which she occasionally did.
she thought of it as a part of her old life, gone forever. Its return was as
abrupt and terrifying as a blow from a friend, and Beauty gave a convulsive
lurch in bed, and a half-muffled shriek. and sat up as if she were throwing
herself out of deep water.

“Oh, help!” said Jeweltongue, who lay next to her and was
awakened by Beauty’s violence. “My dear, whatever is the matter?” She sat up
too, and put an arm round Beauty. rubbing her own eyes with her other hand.
Beauty said nothing, and Jeweltongue began to pat her sister’s arm and back in
a desire to comfort them both. Beauty turned jerkily and put her head on her
sister’s shoulder. “Was it a bad dream?’’ said Jeweltongue.

“Yes,” said Beauty. “Yes. It is a very old dream—I’ve had it
all my life—I thought it had gone—that I had left it behind in the city.”

“All your life?” said Jeweltoague slowly. “You have had this
nightmare all your life and I never knew? I—”

But Beauty put her hand over her sister’s mouth and said,
“Hush. We were different people in the city. It doesn’t matter now.”

Jewekongue kissed her sister’s hand and then curled her own
fingers tightly round it and held it in her lap. “1 swear you must he the
nicest person ever bom. If I didn’t love you, I would hate you for it, I
think.”

“Now you know how I fee! the six hundred and twelfth time in
a row you’re right about something,” said Lionheart sleepily from Jeweltongue’s
other side. “What is happening?” she said through an audible yawn, “It’s still
dark. It’s not morning already, is it, and 1 have forgotten to open my eyes?”

“No,” said Jeweltongue. “Beauty’s had a nightmare,”

“Nightmares are hell,” said Lionheart feelingly. “I used to
have them—” She stopped abruptly. “Not so much anymore,” she said, “except some
nights, when the beetle and spider rain is bad, I start dreaming the thatch is
leaking.”

“I’m all right now.” said Beauty.

“No, you’re not,” said Jeweltongue. “I can still feel your
heart shaking your whole body. Whatever is your nightmare about? Can you tell
us?’’

Beauty tried to laugh. “It sounds so silly. I’m walking down
a dark corridor, with no doors or windows anywhere, and there’s a monster
waiting for me at the far end. I can’t see it, but I know it’s there. It’s—it’s
... I suppose it’s just that I haven’t had it in so long. But it seems so—so
much stronger than it used to. I mean ... you always feel like you’re in a
nightmare when you’re having it, don’t you? Or it wouldn’t be a nightmare. But
tonight.. .just now, I was
there.’’’

There was a Jittle silence, and then Lionheart sat up as if
to climb out of bed but stopped with one foot touching the floor. “If
Jeweltongue would remove herself so that she is no longer sitting on my
nightgown, I will go brew us some chamomile tea. It’s good for almost
everything; it should be good for nightmares too. You stay here so we don’t
disturb Father.
¹
’

After that first time the dream came back often, but Beauty
did not wake her sisters again. She grew accustomed—she forced herself to grow
accustomed—to the feeling that she was there, that the only difference between
her waking life and her life in the dream was that in the dream she did not
know where she was.

She looked for details in her waking life that she would not
be able to match in the dream, in some hope that such small exact trifles would
orient her so firmly to the world of Rose Cottage and Longchance that the dream
would distress her less when she found herself once again in that great dark
not-quite-empty place, but this did not turn out as she wished. If she examined
the wood grain in the walls of Rose Cottage one day, the next night she dreamed
of examining the wallpaper in the corridor in the flickering light of the
candles. If she touched the wall in reaction to the uncertainty of what she
could see, or guessed she saw, she felt the slight roughness of the paper
itself, the seams where the lengths met, and the slickness where the paint had
been drawn on over the stencil.

She found that her dream had changed in another way. She had
begun to pity the monster she approached.

She feared him no less for this: she did not even know why
she felt pity and grew angry with herself for it. She would rush along the
endless shadowy corridor with her head bowed and her amis crossed across her
breast, feeling grief and pity and raging at herself, Why do I feel sorry for a
monster who is going to eat me as soon as seen, like the Minotaur with his
maidens? When she woke, she remembered how, when she was still only a child,
she had realised that she did not seek to escape, but to come to the end of the
corridor and get it over with—whatever it was going to be. And she remembered
how sick and dizzy and helpless and wild—almost mad—that realisation had made
her feel. It’s only a dream, she had said to herself then, and she repeated it
now, silently, in the peaceful darkness of Rose

Cottage, with the reassuring sound of her sisters’ breathing
by her side. It’s only a dream. But why do I dream of a terrible monster
waiting for me, only for me?

Jeweftongue gained her first commission to make fine shirts,
for the family who held the Home Farm. “She bought two of my rough shirts for
her husband a little while ago and said at the time that the work was far too
good for farm clothes. Oh dear! It’s just what I want to believe, you see.”

“Home Farm?” said Lionheart. “Maybe the squire’ll hear of
you and order a dozen brocade waistcoats.”

“Oh, don’t!” said Jeweltongue. “I want it too badly. The
squire has a big family, and they like good clothing. Mrs Bestcloth has already
told me.” Mrs Bestcloth was the draper’s in Longchance. “She says they’re the
only reason Longchance even has a draper’s and that someday one of them will be
in when I am, and she’ll introduce me.” Jeweltongue buried herself in her task,
sitting by the window while daylight lasted, drawing closer to the fire as dusk
fell. Their one lamp lived at her elbow; Lionheart grumbled about cooking in
the dark, but not very loudly. All three sisters resisted the temptation to
stroke the good fabric Jeweltongue was working on and remember the old days.

But Lionheart had begun to grow restless. She had thrown herself
into rebuilding the second shed to be marauder-proof, so they did not have to
bring Lydia and the chickens indoors at night—“Just before I went mad,” said Jeweltongue,
who was the one of the three of them who minded most about a clean house and
therefore did more than her fair share of the housework. Then Lionheart built
Ihem a new and magnificently weatherproof privy—“Please observe that all my
joins join,’
’
she said—and finished clearing the meadow round the
cottage so it was a meadow again. Beauty had helped with both shed and privy,
but she was more and more absorbed in reclaiming the garden, which didn’t
interest Lionheart in the slightest; and Lionheart was, indeed, enjoying
herself, although her hurling her materials round and swearing at her tools
when she had not skill enough to make them do what she wanted might have led
anyone who knew her less well than her sisters to believe otherwise.

But there were no more major projects to plunge into and grapple
with. Lionhcatt trimmed the encroaching undergrowth back a little from the
track that led from the main way to their cottage; but after that she was
reduced to chopping wood for their fires—and this late in the year they only
needed the one fire for cooking—and the cooking itself, which was necessarily
plain and simple and which she had furthermore grown very efficient at. “Who
wants to be indoors in spring anyway?” she muttered. “Maybe I’ll apprentice
myself to a thatcher.”

One morning she disappeared.

“Oh, my lords and ladies, what will she get up to?” said
Jeweltongue, but she had her sewing to attend to. Beauty spent the day in the
garden, refusing to think about anything but earth and weeds and avoiding being
torn to shreds by the queer thorny bushes which there were so many of around
Rose Cottage.

Lionheart returned in time to have the last cup of tea, very
stewed, from the teapot, and to get supper. “Where have you been?” said
Jeweltongue.

“Hrnm?” said Lionheart, her eyes refocusing from whatever
distant menial picture she had been contemplating. “Mrnm. Don’t you grow
awfully bored just looking at one stitch and then the next stitch and then the
next? I have been giving you something to distract you, by worrying where I
was,” replied Lionheart, but, before Jeweltongue could say anything else,
added, “Have you met our local squire yet? Or his sister? The sister is the one
you want to put yourself in the way of, I would say. She looks to be quite vain
about her dresses.”

“Lionheart, you didn’t!” said Jeweltongue in alarm.

“No, no, I didn’t,” said Lionheart. She dropped her voice so
their father, dozing in his chair by the fire, would not hear her. “What would
I say? ‘Good day, sir, in the old days my father wouldn’t have let you black
his boots, but now my sister would be glad of a chance to make your waistcoats?
For a good price, sir, please, sir, our roof needs rethatching’?” Lionheart’s
careless tone did not disguise her bitterness, nor did her sisters miss the
glance she gave to her hands. In the old days they had all had lady’s hands;
even the calluses Lionheart had from riding were smooth, cushioned by the
finest kid riding gloves, pumiced and lo-tioned by her maid. Lionheart raised
her eyes and met Beauty’s across the table. “I know that look,” said
Lion-heart. “What sororal sedition are you nursing behind that misleadingly
amiable stare?”

“I am wondering what you thought about the squire’s sister’s
horse,” said Beauty.

Lionheart laughed. “It’s the right target, but your arrow is
wide. The squire’s sister drives a pair of ponies oider and duller—although
rather belter kept—than those farm horses we brought here, and the squire
himself rides a square cobby thing suitable to his age and girth. But if you
had asked about the squire’s eldest son’s horse ...”

“What?” said Jeweltongue. But Lionheart refused to be drawn.
She stood up from the table and began to bang and clatter their few pots and
pans, as if to drown out any further questions. Finally Jeweltongue said: “Have
a little care. Mrs Oldhouse says the tinker will not be here again for months.”

Their father woke up, stared bemusedly at the cup of
now-cold tea sitting at his elbow, and went back to musing over his pen and
scribbles. “May I make you some fresh tea, Father?” said Lionheart, guiltily caught
mid-clash.

“No. no, my dear, I am not thirsty,” he said absently; then
he looked up. “You have been away, have you not? We missed you at lunch. Have
you had an interesting day?”

A smile Lionheart looked as though she would repress if she
could spread across her face. “Yes, Father, a very interesting day,” she
replied.

“Stop making those absurd grimaces,” said Jeweltongue with
asperity. “You look like you have bitten down on a mouthful of alum.”

Lionheart was very thoughtful for the next few days, and
while Jeweltongue tried a few times to wheedle something further out of
her—with no success whatsoever—Beauty fell that if Lionheart had decided to
tell them nothing, then nothing was what they would be told, and declined to
help wheedle. Furthermore, she was by now too preoccupied with her garden to
think long about anything else.