Tidelands

James tried to assert himself over the rising noise. “I am still taking evidence here,” he claimed. “And I will take a decision.”

“In writing,” Mr. Miller supported him. “Decision in writing.”

“Swim her!” someone said, and there was immediate agreement. “Swim her.”

“That’s the only way!”

“Search her, and then swim her.”

For the first time Alinor looked towards James. Her eyes were black with terror. “I can’t,” she said flatly. “That, I can’t.”

“She’s very afraid of water.” Ned spoke rapidly to James. “Very afraid. She’s afraid even on my ferry. She can’t be swum.”

“Stop this!” Alys demanded, her voice high with panic. “Stop this!”

“Sir?” Rob’s young face was anguished. “Mr. Summer?”

James rose to his feet. “This is not the time or the place,” he ruled. “I am going to order her arrest—”

“She’s already arrested!” someone shouted from the back. “We want her tested!”

“Tested now!”

“In water!”

The crowd surged forward and Ned and Rob found they were pushing against grasping hands and a mass of bodies. Ned tried to get his arms around Alinor and pull her towards him, Rob faced out towards the people, who were crowding more and more closely. He slapped their hands away from his mother, trying to get between her and them, but they were coming from every side of the room and he could not block them all. Richard Stoney had hold of Alys, dragging her back from her mother, pulling her away, following his own mother and father, who were leaving, thrusting their way through the crowd, out to the yard to the wedding cart, fearful of what was happening.

“Stop this!” James shouted, but his authority was melting away in the crowd’s rising heat. “I order you to stand still!”

Ned got Alinor around the waist and was pulling her away from the crowd in the kitchen, taking her into the house, towards the parlor door. Alinor, with people pulling at her gown, dragging at her apron, snatching off her cap so her hair tumbled down around her frightened white face, was fighting to go with him, pushing as hard as she could to stay in his arms and make their way towards the parlor. James, seeing what they were doing, came out from behind the table and opened the parlor door, got hold of Ned’s jacket, and hauled him backwards, the three of them head-to-head when he felt Ned suddenly flinch and recoil: “You’ve a belly on you!”

Alinor, white as skimmed milk, her jacket ripped from her shoulders, her cap lost, her apron pulled aside so everyone could see the swell of her pregnancy, looked her brother in the face amid all the noise and said: “Yes, God forgive me.”

“A belly?”

“Not now,” James said quickly, but it was too late: someone in the forefront of the crowd had overheard.

“The witch’s whelping,” someone exclaimed.

“No!” Mrs. Wheatley exclaimed. She pushed through the crowd to Alinor’s side. One glance at her blanched face and her curving body confirmed her guilt. “Oh! Alinor! God forgive you. What’ve you done?”

“With child?” Mr. Miller asked, disbelievingly. “Alinor Reekie?”

Everyone was stunned into silence and stillness. Alinor turned to face shocked and hostile gazes. Rob was looking at his mother in complete bewilderment. “What? Ma?”

“Whose child?” Mrs. Miller demanded, her voice sharp with renewed fear. “That’s what I want to know? Who’s the father? What’s the father? What has she done now?”

In the frightened silence, they heard Sir William ride into the yard and the clatter as he dismounted and came to the kitchen door.

He took in the scene in one swift glance: Alinor held between her brother and James Summer, her cap off, her hair falling down, her apron torn, and her rounded belly straining against her gown. Nobody said anything.

“Mr. Summer,” said his lordship icily. “Come out here, and tell me what the devil is going on.”

Everyone spoke at once, but Sir William threw up a hand to silence them. “Mr. Summer, if you please.”

James threw one anguished look at Alinor, released her, and went out, the crowd silently parting to let him go. Ned stood between his sister and their neighbors but now there was no need to protect her; nobody wanted to touch her. Nobody moved, or even spoke. They were all straining their ears to hear the low-voiced conversation between the two men on the threshold, and then the snap of Sir William’s fingers summoning the miller’s lad, and the clip-clop of Sir William’s horse being led away to a stable. Alinor fixed her gaze on the floor. Long moments passed, an unseasonal bee buzzed against the parlor window. Alinor, distracted by the noise, turned her head and made a little gesture as if she would release it.

“Leave it,” Ned ordered tersely.

Sir William appeared in the doorway. “Good people, don’t crush yourselves, now. No need to be all squashed in here. You’d better all come out into the yard,” he said generally.