The Cheesemaker's House (21 page)

I come to with a start as a different type of pain pulses through my body. It builds from deep inside my abdomen and grips me, making me gasp for my breath. I cry out in agony and shock – yet at the same time the pain is oddly expected.

As is the old woman's soothing voice beside me. “Shush, child. It is good mother nature, that is all. It will pass soon enough.”

She is right, it does fade, but I know it will come back. She moves across the room to an opening where there shouldn't be one, and pushes a curtain aside.

“Thomas,” she calls quietly, “you must go to Ravenswood and tell them to prepare. Alice's time has almost come.”

I hear footsteps on a wooden stair. “I cannot do that, Mother.”

“Thomas – you must.”

“I cannot. You will have to go.”

“Don't be a fool – I cannot leave Alice at this time.”

“I will stay with her.”

“A man has no place in the birthing chamber – it is ill luck.”

“I have the gifts, Mother. It is different with me.”

I feel myself struggle on the bed, trying to pull myself away from that time. But then there are gentle hands on my shoulders as Thomas slides onto the pillows beside me. The shape of his body, his touch, his scent, are all so very familiar.

“Alice,” he pleads, “do not let them take our baby.”

“It cannot be undone now,” I find myself murmuring.

“I beg you, Alice...”

“We would have nothing, Thomas, less than nothing.”

“It matters not.” His voice is sulky, like a child, but I open my eyes and see his gazing down into mine, filled with a pain which is very much a grown man's.

“Thomas, I...” But the pain is back. He grips my shoulders as I writhe and he murmurs soft words I cannot properly hear. When the contraction passes the warmth of his body against my back steadies me, and I drift into sleep, my breathing in a rhythm with his.

I know this peace can't last and I somehow manage to will myself away from that time. I can hear rain on the window and I can smell rosemary. The scent helps me to wake, and when I open my eyes the room is bathed in the steady glow of the bedside lamp and not the flickering of a candle. I feel sick with relief.

But it was only a dream. Or was it? Yes, it must be my fever making it seem especially real; after all, I know about Thomas and Alice the cheesemaker, so why would I not dream about them? Then I remember the flagstones under the floorboards in my hall; I knew nothing about those, but they were there all the same.

I haul myself up the bed and hug my knees. I need to go back to what I know from historical facts; I know that Alice existed and that she married Charles from Ravenswood Farm. I know they had a child called Joshua. I know that at some time – maybe while her family still owned New Cottage – a baby was buried in the barn. But I know nothing about a Thomas, or his mother, and I badly need to talk to Margaret about how to find out.

I pull on my dressing gown and set off down the stairs to find my phone, but as I reach the hall I hear a key in the back door and William starts to bark. Within moments Owen appears through the door and the dog slips past him, making a beeline for the kitchen.

“Oh, God – I haven't fed him. What time is it?”

“Almost ten o'clock – and what are you doing out of bed?”

“I…I wanted a drink,” I falter. I can't tell him the real reason I came downstairs; it's too complicated.

“Come on then, let's sit you down in the kitchen and I'll make you one. Then you can tell me what to feed William; at least if I do it he might start to like me a bit better.”

Owen is right. As soon as he opens the can of dog food William calls a truce. He even rather endearingly puts his paw on Owen's leg, the way he does to me when he thinks I've forgotten to give him his biscuit.

Without asking what I want, Owen makes two mugs of camomile tea and carefully drops some tincture into mine.

“It's OK, you won't taste it,” he tells me as he puts the mug in front of me.

I sniff it cautiously. “What is it?”

“It's good for fever – and sore throats.”

I am too tired to ask him to be more specific.

I look across the table. Owen's eyes are sunk into his head and the circles beneath them are almost bruises. Both his hands are clasped tightly around his mug, but I reach across and stroke his fingers.

“You do too much.” It is a statement of fact.

He shrugs. “I have no choice.”

“You do.”

“No. Could I have left an old man gasping for his breath? Could I leave Adam to run the café on his own? Could I not come back to make sure you're OK?”

“I am OK.”

He loosens his hand from the mug and puts the back of it on my forehead. “Apart from the high fever, that is.”

“I'll be alright. My throat only feels like one person's sandpapering it now, and not an entire army.”

“Oh, Alice,” he smiles and shakes his head. “That still doesn't mean I'll not worry about you all night.”

“Then stay.”

I don't know what makes me say it and he looks shocked that I have. “Oh come on, Owen,” I bluster, “I don't mean it in any sort of…you know…sexual…way. But if you're here then you won't have to worry about me so you'll sleep. And I won't have to worry about you worrying about me and so I'll sleep.”

He gives my hand a little squeeze. “I'm sorry Alice, I can't.”

“Why not?”

“I just can't.”

“That's not a reason.”

He drains his camomile and stands up. “No, it isn't, is it?” He is half way to the kitchen door when he stops. “I don't suppose your spare bed's made up?”

“No, it's not. It's OK Owen, if you're uncomfortable with it, then that's cool. But if you could just let William out then help me upstairs before you go – I really do feel rotten.” I'm laying it on with a trowel, but it's for his own good.

He nods. “I'll take you up first.”

He says nothing more as I lean on his arm all the way to the bedroom and he tucks me under my duvet. Then he disappears to let William out and I am scared he won't come back. But after a while he does, with a glass of echinacea water and the rosemary scented flannel. He places it gently on my forehead then to my surprise stretches out beside me.

“I'll just stay until you drop off,” he explains, but in truth it is he who falls asleep first.

It is not an exaggeration to say it is complete and utter bliss to wake with Owen beside me. Even though he is semi clothed and half in and half out of the duvet. At some point during the night he must have woken and peeled off his cords and jumper, but I can't remember – I have slept the sleep of the dead. Just like he's doing now.

But William isn't and I can hear him scratching and whining in the garden room. I creep out of bed as quietly as I can and go downstairs to let him out. The rain has stopped but it's a dank, chill morning and I can't see the Moors for the low cloud that envelopes them. That it is light means we have slept for a long time but when I check the clock I am amazed to find it's half past nine. I do feel better though; hardly any headache and no sore throat at all.

Just as I'm giving William his biscuit I hear Owen's footsteps on the stairs. Damn. I'd been going to take him a mug of tea in bed – and climb back in next to him. Clearly it's not what he wants and I feel confused and rejected. What the hell is going on here? I want to scream the words at him, but of course I don't.

“How are you this morning, Alice?” he asks, as though nothing has happened. Which, of course, it hasn't.

“Much better thanks,” I mumble.

“You're sure?” He reaches out his hand and puts it on my forehead very tenderly. I suddenly soften towards him.

“Yes. I had a really good night's sleep and my throat's fine. Honestly. Come on, I'll make us a cup of tea. And maybe some toast? Are you hungry?”

He shakes his head. “No, as long as you're sure you're OK I have to be getting on. There's a mountain of paperwork I need to catch up on and today's my only chance.”

It is hard to stop myself turning away from him. “That's fine – I understand.” But I don't. Not really.

“Now just you keep taking that echinacea and I've left a few headache pills in the kitchen.” And he is the concerned herbalist again, no more and no less, and I am so bitterly disappointed I don't even wave him down the path.

I mope all morning and instead of moping all afternoon I decide to go to see Margaret. I am increasingly certain that the man who jumped off the bridge was the father of Alice's baby and he was called Thomas, so logically (if there is any logic to this at all) he may well have been the philanderer in Owen's gran's story. Hopefully Margaret won't think I've put two and two together to make about nine.

Thankfully, she doesn't – or at least I don't think she does, anyway. We are sitting in her conservatory in the fading afternoon light so I can't see her face very clearly, but she doesn't sound overly perturbed when I tell her about the conversation I heard between Alice and Thomas' mother when I fell, and about the dream I had yesterday evening. In fact, she takes it all in her stride.

“So we're looking for a Thomas, then? One who died between…what did we say now? 1723 and 1729?”

“Yes, that's right. It would have to have been before Alice married because, well, you don't think the dream means that the baby was Alice and Thomas's, do you?”

She looks at me, head on one side. “You do, don't you? Even though Owen's gran's story implies that she turned Thomas down.”

“I don't know, Margaret; one moment it all fits together in my head and the next it seems so improbable.”

“Well, if we do find a Thomas who jumped off the bridge it would seem to give credence to the rest of your visions.”

“Visions?” I shudder. I hadn't thought of them as visions. That makes them scary somehow, like I'm a clairvoyant. Except that clairvoyants see the future and I see the past. I sink my head into my hands.

“Margaret – I just want this to stop. Whatever it is.”

“I suppose,” she replies slowly, “that it's easier for me, just looking on. It's a little adventure – a bit of excitement. But you are in the middle of it, experiencing it. It must be pretty frightening.”

“I think it would be more frightening if Richard hadn't seen and heard things too. And it helps hugely that you don't think I'm a complete and utter nutcase or that I'm making it up.”

Margaret smiles. “Well you've always struck me as pretty grounded, Alice. Does Richard have any idea about why it might be happening?”

“He thinks it's Owen. He says weird stuff's always happened around him.” And I tell her about the young Alice.

“So is Owen seeing these people too?”

“I haven't asked him.”

“Do you think you should?”

“Oh, Margaret, I can't. For a start he looks so exhausted and worried all the time, and then I don't really know where I stand with him, although thanks to you we are at least friends.”

“Thanks to me?”

“Well yes – he told me you'd been bending his ear all afternoon that Sunday so he'd decided to come around.”

“Hardly. He just popped in for a quick cuppa and I told him you'd got the wrong end of the stick about Imogen. Still, I'm pleased it spurred him into action. He was miserable without you and you were miserable without him.”

I look at her dumbly. I am still miserable without him. Or with him. I don't even know which. I change the subject.

“So how are we going to find Thomas?”

“I think the best place would be the County Records Office. It might be fun if we went together – how about one day next week?”

I agree without hesitation.

In Monday morning's post, among the Christmas cards, is a letter from the archaeologists. It's a bulky little package that I have to sign for, because it contains the key and the few scraps of ribbon they found around the baby's neck. The letter itself says that the skeleton is too young for them to be clear about its gender and the size probably meant it was the product of a late miscarriage rather than a pregnancy that went full term. They are also a bit woolly about the date – first third of the eighteenth century, but Lucy did warn me that carbon dating is not too reliable with so recent a find.

They are now awaiting my instructions about what to do with the skeleton because of my wish to give it Christian burial. Not my wish – Owen's. Somehow I can't bear to leave it in the archaeologists' office any longer so I arrange to collect the baby on my way to work.

When I get home I am at a loss about what to do with it. The tiny skeleton is neatly packaged in a cardboard storage carton with the date and place of find written on the outside. It is clinical, a little harsh, and it makes me feel uncomfortable. I put the box in one of the empty kitchen units in the barn, as close as I can to where the bones were found.

I still want to share this news with someone (not Owen), and the need to find out just who Thomas was now seems more urgent. So I give Margaret a call and we decide to visit Northallerton Records Office next morning.

The original coroner's records have been put onto microfiche so Margaret takes 1720 to 1725 and the librarian sets me up at the machine next door with the next volume. She fusses and flaps, showing me how to insert the fiches and to move the focus of the machine around and I become increasingly impatient.

Finally she leaves me alone and I start to scan the words in front of me; tiny, old fashioned handwriting I find hard to read. I search the screen for any name which could be deciphered as Thomas.

We have been going for about half an hour when I find him. I am so surprised to see the name leap out of the copperplate I almost squeal with excitement – then I remember where I am.

“Margaret,” I hiss, “I've found Thomas.”

She jumps up and stands behind me, while I read the entry aloud.

“‘In the matter of the death of Thomas Winter, charmer, of Great Fencote on 2
^nd
inst. The court heard evidence of Giles Westland, incumbent of the parish of St Andrew's, and Charles Allen, farmer, that the deceased was of good character and sound mind. The coroner therefore orders the death of Thomas Winter to be recorded as by drowning and that his body be released to his mother for burial. Dated this seventh day of May, year of our Lord 1727.'”

I turn to look at Margaret. “It fits.”

Her fingers touch my shoulder. “It's a bit scary, isn't it?”

“What? That Richard and I have seen things that have a basis in historical fact?”

“Yes.”

“I don't know if that makes it more or less scary right now. Anyway, I'd better copy it down so I can show him.” My hand is shaking as I do so, and once I have finished Margaret bundles me off to Caffé Bianco for a restorative coffee. But only after I make her promise not to tell Owen where we've been.

She agrees. “Perhaps now isn't the right time.”

When we walk into the café Owen makes such a big fuss of us that Adam comes out of the kitchen. I haven't seen him for ages.

“Come out back with me a minute,” he urges, “then I can tell you all about Dean while I get the mince pies out of the oven.”

The kitchen is warm and spicy, and I prop myself on the edge of the table. “So – what's he like? Are you happy?” I ask, settling down for a long chat.

Adam puts the baking tray down. “He's wonderful, I'm fine – but it's Owen I really want to talk to you about. Any chance we can meet up for a quick drink tonight?”

“Not tonight – Historical Society.”

“Do you have to go?”

“I do, rather. How about tomorrow?”

“Fine. Let's make it at the leisure centre then Owen will think I'm going to the gym.”

I hesitate. “He…he doesn't seem himself, does he?”

Adam shakes his head. “You don't know the half of it, Alice – not the half of it.”