Hiding From the Light. Barbara Erskine

couldn’t tell if he was smiling or irritated.

      ‘Not just the cats. Me, too.’

      There was a moment’s silence. ‘I’m missing you lots, too. No one’s scratching the sofa any more.’

      She gave a wistful chuckle. ‘You know I tried to stop doing that.’

      There was a fractional pause. ‘You are sure you’re OK?’

      ‘Quite sure. Peggy and Dan are coming down at the weekend with another load of stuff from Waitrose. They seem to think I’m going to starve. Which is silly. There are a couple of lovely food shops here.’

      She stood staring out of the kitchen window for a long time after he had rung off. She felt bereft.

      Max jumped up onto the window sill beside her and she fondled his chin. ‘He said he’d come,’ she whispered. ‘But I don’t think he will.’

      The nights were colder now as late summer pitched into autumn and lately they had been very foggy. She switched on an electric fire in her bedroom. Central heating would be necessary at some point soon. She must find a good local man to work on the cottage. The cats were both asleep on her bed and she had locked the doors downstairs. Time enough for night-time excursions when they had grown used to the place and found their way around and she had found someone to put in a cat flap.

      Clutching her dressing gown around her, she tiptoed down the landing into the bathroom. It was irredeemably cold, with cracked linoleum on the floor and chipped white enamel fittings. The hot water however came from an electric immersion heater in the linen cupboard which blessedly and unexpectedly worked with enormous enthusiasm. She ran a bath and added some shower gel beneath the taps. Carpet, bathroom fittings, shower, hot towel rail – they were all on her list.

      She rubbed steam off the mirror with the corner of a towel and peered at her face. It looked grubby: dust and earth had transferred from hands to nose, hair, eyes, and she was grey with fatigue. She frowned. That did not look like the face of someone living out their dream. She peered closer. For a moment it had not looked like her face at all. Frightened, she glanced behind her. But of course there was no one there.

      Exhausted, she slept the moment her head touched the pillow, one cat at her feet, the other in the crook of her elbow. In the bathroom the steam slowly cleared. As the temperature dropped one by one the old oak floorboards creaked, settling into place.

      Quietly, Min extricated herself from Emma’s sleeping arms and, jumping from the bed to the window sill, sat staring down into the dark garden.

       22

      The dream was there lying in wait for her. One moment she was drifting in and out of consciousness as she tried to get comfortable on the new unaccustomed mattress, still missing the solid reassuring form of Piers beside her, and the next she was standing, dressed in a long gown and embroidered shawl, in a strange room, by a heavy oak table staring at an open window where someone had called her name.

      ‘Mistress Sarah! Hurry!’ The figure at the window looked surreptitiously over his shoulder, clearly afraid. ‘Hopkins and his madmen have gone for Liza. You’ve got to come!’

      She felt her stomach turn over with fear.

      It was Hal. His father Tom managed the Bennetts’ farm. She hurried to the door. ‘Hal? Where are you?’

      But he had already run away.

      Her breath came in short gasps; her mouth was dry with terror. It was only when she could see the thatched roof of the cottage that she slowed down and began to think. Hopkins was a dangerous man. She knew how he worked, setting neighbour against neighbour, encouraging spite, subtly enflaming suspicion and engendering hatred. Anyone who crossed him or questioned his methods was liable to be arrested. Everyone despised him, but with the country at war with itself and everyone afraid, and with him claiming to have Parliament’s authority for what he did, there was no one to gainsay him. No one!

      Her heart hammering under her ribs, she climbed awkwardly over the fence and tiptoed down the line of the hedge towards the back of the cottage. She could hear shouting. Men and women. They must have come and found Liza somewhere in the garden. Oh please God, let her be all right. There was a rousing cheer. She crept closer. She couldn’t see round the corner of the wall. Keeping out of the sight of the windows as best she could, she ran towards the cottage and edged carefully along under cover of the tall hollyhocks, then carefully she peered round. She could see them now, a crowd of men and women in the lane. They were bundling something – someone – into a cart. There was another cheer and they were gone. She could hear the horse’s hooves on the mud and stones of the lane and then the laughter and shouting of the crowd who followed behind.

      ‘Wait!’ she shouted. No sound came from her mouth. For a moment she found she couldn’t move, then she was running towards the gate. On the path she stopped suddenly, looking down. The old cat lay there, its body broken and bloody, its eyes still open as it stared up at the sky. ‘Oh no!’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Oh, Liza, no.’ She crept down the path into the cottage and stared round. The room was empty. Where was the other cat? Suddenly it was terribly important that she find him. ‘Blackie? Blackie, where are you?’

      She glanced up the stairs. ‘Blackie. Are you there?’

      The cat had crawled upstairs to die. It gazed at her from swiftly dimming eyes, its ribs broken, stomach and spleen ruptured, its face smashed, all from the boot of one man. As she knelt beside it and put a gentle hand on its head the pain and fear were already passing. In a minute it was dead.

      She looked round, sobbing. ‘Liza?’ The word was soundless on her lips. ‘Liza, why didn’t you hide from them?’

      Sweet Jesus. She could feel it. She could hear it in the echoes. Evil. Terror. Death.

      ‘Liza!’ She was screaming now as she ran down the stairs. ‘Liza, come back!’

      Her sorrow and fear turning to anger, she ran towards the gate. There was no sign now of the rabble in the lane. The dust was settling. Nearby a thrush hopped out of the hedge, a snail in its beak, looking for its usual anvil. The stone had been pushed to one side by the scrabbling of a dozen pairs of feet but the bird spotted it at once and began to hammer the shell in quick brutal thumps as she watched.

      Sobbing, she made her way home.

      ‘Papa?’ There was no answer. ‘Papa? Where are you?’ Her voice echoed down the oak-panelled corridor.

      He was in the great hall, speaking to his steward. ‘What is it, Sarah?’ Anthony Bennett turned with a frown. His expression softened as he saw his only daughter.

      ‘They have taken Liza. The witchfinder and his rabble have taken Liza, Papa. You have to do something!’ She saw her father’s steward scowl. John Pepper had worked for the Bennetts for as long as she could remember. She had never liked him.

      ‘It was only a matter of time, mistress. That old woman has cast the evil eye too often for my taste, or anyone else’s in the town.’

      ‘That’s not true!’ Sarah’s eyes blazed. ‘She has done nothing but good. I remember her making medicines for your family many a time, John Pepper!’

      ‘And my family died, mistress!’ The retort had an almost triumphant tone to it.

      ‘They died of marsh ague, not of a curse!’ She was indignant.

      ‘And who is to say that? Liza gave them medicines. Maybe they were poisoned.’

      ‘Enough!’ Anthony Bennett slammed the book he had been holding down onto the table. ‘Leave us please, John. We’ll continue our discussion later. Sarah, calm yourself. I fear there is nothing you can do. The law must take its course.