Wakenhyrst by Michelle Paver

Author:Michelle Paver [Paver, Michelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781788549554
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

They reached Ely in time for luncheon. Maud had been worrying about this, but Clem solved it for her by dropping her at the White Hart where she always lunched with Father, and taking himself off with a promise to collect her from Hibble’s at three. Lunching together would have been impossible. But as Maud ate her venison pie in the inn’s private dining-room, she cursed her lack of initiative. Couldn’t she have managed a picnic on the way home?

To console herself, she gobbled her raspberry fool, then made a detour to the haberdashers’, where she treated herself to one of the new long corsets. It was a slightly alarming sheath of india-rubber and clock-spring steel that reached almost to her knees. The girl in the shop said it was very effective at subduing the hips. Maud was too embarrassed to try it on and made her disguise it by wrapping it up twice.

She reached Hibble’s at a quarter to three, with just enough time to select two promising novels for herself and have them included in Father’s parcel. Clem was waiting outside. He’d shared an apple with the mare. Maud smelled it on his breath when he helped her into the dog-cart.

Mysteriously, the morning’s carefree mood had turned to constraint. As they headed home, Clem sat in silence. Maud glanced at her gloved hands in her lap. She thought of the eczema beneath the Nottingham lace. I am hideous, she thought. He can’t possibly like me.

He was taking the other route back, through Wakenhyrst and over the Common. As they left the village, they came upon a boy relieving himself behind a hedge. Maud pretended not to notice, but the boy sniggered at Clem, who repressed a grin.

For the first time it occurred to Maud that he too was a village boy. Village boys were coarse and foul-mouthed. They lived for killing things and chasing girls. What if Clem was the same?

Halfway across the Common, he yawned. ‘Beg pardon, Miss.’

She blushed. ‘You seem tired. Have you been eel-babbing again?’

He grinned. ‘Fancy thee knowing that, Miss.’

She felt a bit better. ‘Why do you always go at night?’

‘Why, becorze that’s when they bites, Miss. You needs a warm dark night when the moon rises late and there’s a bit of a wind from the south or south-west.’

She glanced at him in surprise. It was the most he’d ever said in one go. ‘But aren’t you afraid to be in the fen at night, what with the ferishes and the hobby-lanterns?’

‘I don’t take no notice, Miss, long as I’ve my bit of rowan. ’Sides, old Jubal keeps an eye out for me.’

‘Is Jubal a friend of yours?’

‘Sort of a cousin, Miss.’

‘But how extraordinary! I’ve been friends with Jubal since I was little! But that’s a secret, so promise you won’t tell.’

‘You, friends with old Jubal?’ He whistled. ‘An’t you the rum un, Miss Maud!’

She basked in the compliment. ‘Do eels taste nice?’

‘Proper good eating. Now dun’t tell me you an’t nivver ate a eel?’

She giggled.

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