Lud-in-the-Mist

by Hope Mirrlees

But Mistress Ivy trimmed. "I didn't say that poor father was poisoned with osiers. He died quiet and peaceful, father did."

"All the same, you think there was foul play. I am not entirely disinterested in this matter, now that I know Dr. Leer is connected with it. I happen to bear him a grudge."

First Mistress Ivy shut the door on to the street, and then leant over the counter, so that her face was close to his, and said in a low voice: "Why, yes, I always did think there had been foul play, and I'll tell you why. Just before my father died we'd been making jam. And one of poor father's funny little ways was to like the scum of jam or jelly, and we used to keep some of every boiling in a saucer for him. Well, my own little brother Robin, and her little girl—a little tot of three—were buzzing round the fruit and sugar like a pair of little wasps, whining for this, sticking their fingers into that, and thinking they were helping with the jam-making. And suddenly my stepmother turned round and caught little Polly with her mouth all black with mulberry juice. And oh, the taking she was in! She caught her and shook her, and ordered her to spit out anything she might have in her mouth; and then, when she found out it was mulberries, she cooled down all of a sudden and told Polly she must be a good girl and never put anything in her mouth without asking first.

"Now, the jam was boiled in great copper cauldrons, and I noticed a little pipkin simmering on the hearth, and I asked my stepmother what it was. And she answered carelessly, 'Oh, it's some mulberry jelly, sweetened with honey instead of sugar, for my old grandfather at home.' And at the time I didn't give the matter another thought. But the evening before my father died ... and I've never mentioned this to a soul except my poor Peppercorn ... after supper he went and sat out in the porch to smoke his pipe, leaving her and him to their own doings in the kitchen; for she'd been brazen-faced enough, and my father weak enough, actually to have the fellow living there in the house. And my father was a queer man in that way—too proud to sit where he wasn't wanted, even in his own kitchen. And I'd come out, too, but I was hid from him by the corner of the house, for I had been waiting for the sun to go down to pick flowers, to take to a sick neighbour the next day. But I could hear him talking to his spaniel, Ginger, who was like his shadow and followed him wherever he went. I remember his words as clearly as if it had been yesterday: 'Poor old Ginger!' he said, 'I thought it would be me who would dig your grave. But it seems not, Ginger, it seems not. Poor old lady, by this time tomorrow I'll be as dumb as you are ... and you'll miss our talks, poor Ginger.' And then Ginger gave a howl that made my blood curdle, and I came running round the corner of the house and asked father if he was ailing, and if I could fetch him anything. And he laughed, but it was as different as chalk from cheese from the way he laughed as a rule. For poor father was a frank-hearted, open-handed man, and not one to hoard up bitterness any more than he would hoard up money; but that laugh—the last I heard him give—was as bitter as gall. And he said, 'Well, Ivy, my girl, would you like to fetch me some peonies and marigolds and shepherd's thyme from a hill where the Silent People have danced, and make me a salad from them?' And seeing me looking surprised, he laughed again, and said, 'No, no. I doubt there are no flowers growing this side of the hills that could help your poor father. Come, give me a kiss—you've always been a good girl.' Now, these are flowers that old wives use in love potions, as I knew from my granny, who was very wise about herbs and charms, but father had always laughed at her for it, and I supposed he was fretting over my stepmother and Pugwalker, and wondering if he could win her heart back to him.

"But that night he died, and it was then that I started wondering about that jelly in the pipkin, for him, liking scum as he did, and always having a saucer of it set aside for him, it wouldn't have been difficult to have boiled up some poison for him without any danger of other folks touching it. And Pugwalker knew all about herbs and such like, and could have told her what to use. For it was as plain as print that poor father knew he was going to die, and peonies make a good purge; and I've often wondered since if it was as a purge that he wanted these flowers. And that's all I know, and perhaps it isn't much, but it's been enough to keep me awake many a night of my life wondering what I should have done if I'd been older. For I was only a little maid of ten at the time, with no one I could talk to, and as frightened of my stepmother as a bird of a snake. If I'd been one of the witnesses, I dare say it would have come out in court, but I was too young for that."

"Perhaps we could get hold of Diggory Carp?"

"Diggory Carp?" she repeated in surprise. "But surely you heard what happened to him? Ah, that was a sad story! You see, after he was sent to gaol, there came three or four terrible lean years, one after the other. And food was so dear, no one, of course, had any money for buying fancy goods like baskets ... and the long and the short of it was that when Diggory came out of gaol he found that his wife and children had died of starvation. And it seemed to turn his wits, and he came up to our farm, raging against my stepmother, and vowing that someday he'd get his own back on her. And that night he hanged himself from one of the trees in our orchard, and he was found there dead the next morning."

"A sad story," said Master Nathaniel. "Well, we must leave him out of our calculations. All you've told me is very interesting—very interesting indeed. But there's still a great deal to be unravelled before we get to the rope I'm looking for. One thing I don't understand is Diggory Carp's story about the osiers. Was it a pure fabrication of his?"

"Poor Diggory! He wasn't, of course, the sort of man whose word one would be very ready to take, for he did deserve his ten years—he was a born thief. But I don't think he would have had the wits to invent all that. I expect the story he told was true enough about his daughter selling the osiers, but that it was only for basket-making that she wanted them. Guilt's a funny thing—like a smell, and one often doesn't quite know where it comes from. I think Diggory's nose was not mistaken when it smelt out guilt, but it led him to the wrong clue. My father wasn't poisoned by osiers."

"Can you think what it was, then?"