The Hidden People

by Alison Littlewood

Genres: Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology; Historical Fiction; Historical Thrillers; Historical Fantasy

Synopsis

Lizzie Higgs is gone, burned to death on her own hearth - but was she really a changeling? Albie Mirralls met his cousin only once, in 1851, within the grand glass arches of the Crystal Palace. Unable to countenance the rumours that surround her murder, he travels to Halfoak, a village steeped in superstition. Albie begins to look into Lizzie's death, but in this place where the 'Hidden People' supposedly roam, answers are slippery and further tragedy is just a step away.

Release date: October 6, 2016

Publisher: Jo Fletcher Books

Print pages: 303

Sample

Chapter One

It was at the Great Exhibition that I first saw my cousin, and even then I could not but think of it as a convergence, not merely of the great new powers of industry and machines with those of hill and tree, but of different times. Here was the future, loud and brash and busy, and here all the idle repose and gawping of the past, drawn to this place to marvel upon its arrival. The year was 1851, and that was utterly apt, for the apex of the century had been crested and we were now rushing headlong towards the next at a pace that must surely increase a thousandfold before its end.

I can still recall my first words to young Lizzie, as I already thought of her then, though I blush at the memory. I can only apologise for being what I was: young and rather callow and a little too pleased with myself. I was tall, dressed in a new silk top hat and floral waistcoat, and sporting, best of all in my own eyes, my first real moustache. I smiled down at the shy creature, under the gaze of my father and her own, and said, ‘How do you find this, the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations?’

Under the modest and rather worn brim of her bonnet, her plump lip twitched. A single blonde curl bobbed prettily. I should say that Lizzie – or Elizabeth Thurlston, as she was then – was my rural cousin, a denizen of the fair lands far to the north of our capital, and she had come up to London by train with so many others to admire all the wonders within the Crystal Palace. We had timed our own visit accordingly, though it had entailed a reorganisation of our plans so that we could attend on a one-shilling day, rather than our appointed Friday, when the charge was increased to two shillings and sixpence. It was especially crowded; the roads had been all but blocked with omnibuses, cabs, private broughams and flies. Of course we did not mention it when we met them beneath the great elm tree which stood near the Prince of Wales Gate. I was not, I hope, so irredeemably without good qualities as that.

‘I ’aven’t seen it yet, Cousin,’ she replied, her voice as gentle as the bounds of propriety could command, although with the unfortunate trace of Yorkshire in her vowels.

Still, I couldn’t help but recollect that whereas my mother had married well, her sister was said by all accounts to have married somewhat low, and as such I had never had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of my cousin until this very day. And yet the great progress of the iron rail had been so rapid that such meetings must surely have become rather commonplace. It was said that half the population would make their pilgrimage to see the Great Exhibition before its end, though afterwards I discovered that the nearer number would be a third; still a remarkable total.

I glanced up at the towering elm which marked our meeting place. Outside, the day was of mixed character. Spears of bright light occasionally found their way between lowering grey clouds, so that it was unclear whether rain or sunshine would come to dominate. The tree filtered it all, casting a cooling shadow across our faces. It had been said that the opponents of the exhibition – for such did exist, if it can be imagined – had fought most bitterly against the felling of Hyde Park’s ancient trees to permit the construction of the Crystal Palace. Not wishing to let anything impede their progress, the committee had duly made some alteration in their design, and as a result the trees themselves had been enclosed within a barrel-vaulted transept, held aloft by soaring arms of iron; a feature which I now felt had come to be the glory of the whole.

My father, at his most expansive, exchanged some pleasantry with his brother-in-law and indicated the way forward into the exhibition. The commotion of it already rang in our ears: the rhythmic thrumming of cotton manufacture, of steam-driven machinery and marine engines; the clatter of hydraulic presses and the rattle of the latest Jacquard looms. It was wonderful and it was fearful, and I tried to peer beneath Lizzie’s bonnet once more, thinking of a sudden that I should very much like to see the expression in her eyes.

My father broke in upon my thoughts with a sharp, ‘Take Lizzie’s arm, Albie,’ and I had no time to cast a remonstrative glance at his use of the diminutive form of my Christian name before her little hand – somewhat browned by days spent out of doors – slipped around my left elbow. I had no further opportunity to spy upon her features as we processed together side by side into the bustle and the noise, surrounded not only by the heady sound of industry, but the endless murmuring of a thousand human conversations.

We wandered at liberty and without design, through the exhibits of the colonies and other nations, before returning to the western side of the structure, where was housed all the progress and pride that our own fine country could offer. I forget what it was of which we spoke. We watched the inexplicable operations of piston and cog, smiled over splendid silks, tapestries and exquisite china and gasped at the magnificent Koh-i-Noor diamond. We stood apart whilst her father pressed through the crowds of men dressed in their smock-frocks to see a noisy flax-crushing machine and a mechanical reaper. Then all the latest medical and scientific apparatus was spread before us, as well as the accomplishments of modern horology in the form of intricate watches and clocks, their numerous ticks and springs giving way all at once to the midday chimes.

Lizzie raised her chin to me, and I saw the delight in her nut-brown eyes before my father cried out, ‘Look! Let us see whether we shall have a storm.’

It was then that I was introduced to a most curious exhibit: that of the Tempest Prognosticator.

We waited for a school of charity girls, bedecked in wide white collars and straw bonnets, to move aside before we gathered around it. At first, it was unclear what it was we were gazing upon. Concentric rings of what appeared to be brass surrounded a central pillar turned from shining ebony or some other dark wood, culminating in a device a little like a crown, a little like a bell.

‘A barometer,’ my father pronounced. ‘Most ingenious! Science and the powers of animal instinct, working in harmony . . .’

Animal instinct? I knew not of what he spoke. I found my attention already wandering a little, for Lizzie had begun to trace a ring around the exhibit, running one finger along the rail, and when she saw me watching, a little smile almost mischievous in nature crossed her lips. Then she leaned in, her eyes narrowing, and she wrinkled her nose.

I found myself peering more closely to see what had disturbed her countenance, and then I did and I recoiled. At the base of the instrument, arranged in a circle, were twelve bottles, and in each bottle, if I did not mistake myself, was a leech, each vile curled form pressed against the glass.

I turned to my father. I do not know if I managed to keep the disgust from my face, but if I did not he gave no sign of noticing.

‘Leeches have a singular talent, besides their medical advantages,’ he proclaimed. ‘They have a certain sensitivity to electrical conditions in the atmosphere. When a coming storm is detected, they endeavour to climb out of their prisons, a motion that is sensed by these small hammers – there! – causing them to strike the bell. The more agitated they become, the worse the storm and the more the bell shall strike.’ He laughed. ‘But the jury is motionless and the bell is silent. Thus, we shall have no storm!’

He never suspected how very wrong he was, and yet no one else spoke. We merely contemplated the strange, almost alchemical-seeming invention, and my father smiled as if he had dreamed it up himself.

After a time I found I did not know where to look and so instead I read the information which accompanied the exhibit. I noticed with a start that its creator was named, of all things, Dr Merryweather; but I had no wit to make a humorous remark upon it, for I could not help but think of what must be entailed in the care of such an instrument. Clocks must be wound after all, and this, too, must surely place certain demands upon its owner. I imagined a maid polishing the glass, oiling the shining metal, brushing dust from the smooth wood. And what then? Would the possessor of such a thing have to take each leech, freeing it however momentarily from its confinement, and in order to preserve its life, press each in turn against his skin? The thought reduced me almost to gloom, a most unaccustomed state for my then self, and presently we moved on and I hardly know where it was we went or what we looked upon. I only know that Lizzie’s arm was in mine once more, and that she was quite unaffected; as I suppose she should have been, being a child almost of nature herself.

At last we came to a crystal fountain, and its liquid tones sang away my melancholy. It was situated by another great elm, or perhaps the same one, my senses and my memory being, by then, entirely dazzled. Lizzie did not appear to notice. She chattered away about how they would break their journey, since rail hadn’t yet come to Halfoak, and I became a little confused, thinking at first she said our folk; and then I understood, but she was already speculating that maybe one day it would, and then she could get about quite easily. And there she stopped as a new sound impinged upon our senses.

One of the exhibited organs, a device intended, I believe, for the Queen’s Procession, had begun to ring out, accompanying the tinkling of the fountain with a new tune, one I instantly recognised. It had been published some few years before and was already quite familiar. I had barely named the melody in my mind when Lizzie slipped her hand from my arm, clutched both instead in front of her, drew in a deep breath and began to sing.

All things bright and beautiful,

All creatures great and small,

All things wise and wonderful,

The Lord God made them all.

As she sang, her voice suddenly rising strong and pure above it all, the sunlight speared through the crystal of the roof, through the great boughs of the tree, and laid its dappling upon her, a finer lace than any the exhibition could offer. I realised that conversations had quieted, that people around us had stopped to listen just as if Lizzie were an exhibit herself, made not of wood or iron or glass but of flesh and blood. She was an angel; she was a bird. I watched her as she sang of all God’s creatures, of flowers and glowing colours and of tiny wings; of the greenwood and the meadow, the sunset and the morning. She sang with her eyes closed, as if conscious of no one, the small coarseness in her speech quite untraceable in her song.

The rich man in his castle,

The poor man at his gate,

God made them high and lowly

And ordered their estate.

How apposite it was! And then her song was done and the tones of the organ faded away, and I realised that everything around me was just as it had been: the machinery, the busyness, all the rushing progress of our age. Time had started again, and I shook my head at my own muddle-headedness as she rejoined our small party.

I could not think of what to say, and yet I felt I should speak. Such, I believe, is ever the impetuosity of youth.

‘Just as our good queen has named herself Victoria,’ I said, ‘choosing to forgo her first given name, Alexandrina, and instead named herself – why, I think you should rather be a Linnet than a Lizzie!’

I felt my father’s eyes upon my face and I let out a small spurt of laughter along with my words.

The lady did not reply; she merely dipped in a rather artless yet charming curtsy.

Her father laughed too, and I only realised then how little I had heard him speak when he barked out in rough tones, ‘’Appen she should make it Vicky, then, and you shall be Vicky and Albie!’

I knew by the white press of my father’s lips the extent of his disapprobation and horror at such a suggestion. I do not know if our relatives from the north ever knew it, but he was a still pool whose waters ran deep, and I could sense the anger simmering within him, even if his voice remained low. With an even greater excess of the politeness that ever characterised his conversation he wished them well for the long journey that was ahead of them. He told them of our pressing engagements and the demands of the City, and on both our parts, he took our leave.

I nodded at Mr Thurlston and shook his hand and had time only to press Lizzie’s palm in mine before we were hurrying away; before I had even time to gather myself or properly say good-bye. It was only then, as we left through the high and shining doors and put the palace of crystal behind us, threading through the bustle towards the grey rooftops beyond, that it even occurred to me to remember that our good queen, besides choosing the name by which she should be known, had elected to marry her own first cousin.

And yet my father had no cause for either fear or anger. I did not see Lizzie again, not for many a year; and even then, it was not for some time after she was dead.

Chapter Two

The irony is not lost upon me that I barely heard Lizzie spoken of again until 1862, a little more than ten years later, the year after Prince Albert had died. So much pomp and wealth and importance, and still they could not prevent his passing; the typhoid took him the previous December, as it had taken so many others. Queen Victoria was of course plunged into the deepest mourning, for theirs was ever said to be a union of love and not simply one of convenience or state.

Our once-happy queen now wore black, was surrounded by black, and her very heart was said to have fallen into darkness. It was rumoured that she preserved his rooms just as they had been while he breathed; that hot water was brought each morning as if he were about to rise from his slumber and wash his face; that his linen was refreshed each day, as if she were endeavouring to make it appear that nothing had changed when in reality, everything had.

I was sitting at dinner with my father, his hair now quite grey, and Helena, my wife of the last eighteen months. She was dressed with her usual neatness in a watered silk, her raven-dark hair swept back from her high, clear forehead, adorned by a lace cap and with two neat little ringlets about her ears. She was pale of complexion, sweet of lip, and her brown eyes were always calm, reflective of her even temper. She was what Father called a sensible female, and he was right to say so, for she had been known to steer my course if ever it became uncertain. She had a visage of which the words of Lord Byron might have been written: She walks in beauty, like the night. And yet she knew at once if the haberdasher tried to cheat her by so much as an inch or the housekeeper helped herself to the tea.

My mother had never known her, having died of an ailment of the heart some years previous to Helena becoming Mrs Albert Mirralls. Our Yorkshire relatives were on my mother’s side of the family, though some illness had kept them from the occasion of her funeral, and after that unhappy event I had scarcely heard them referred to again; so it came as something of a surprise when Father suddenly leaned forward and said, ‘Do you remember your cousin Elizabeth?’

I had so much thought of my cousin of the north as ‘young Lizzie’ that for a moment I did not know of whom he spoke. Then I remembered, and I flushed. ‘Certainly.’

‘Well, a most singular thing has happened to her, my boy. You remember I told you of her marriage to a cordwainer – a shoemaker in Halfoak – James Higgs was his name, I believe.’

I agreed that he had indeed told me of such a thing, perhaps two or three years since, although I still recalled my feelings upon hearing that pretty little Elizabeth Thurlston had consented to become plain Lizzie Higgs.

‘Well, it appears that a quite horrible occurrence has taken place, and you must not be shocked to hear us speak of it, my dear. But possibly you should prefer to leave the room?’ This last was addressed to my wife, but she demurred, insisting in her gentle tones that she would stay. She ever had a way with my father – her own parent was Mr Sherborne, a trader in possession of some repute, substantial means, and perhaps as importantly in my father’s eyes, no living sons.

‘Well, what do you think! She has passed away, poor thing. It is quite, quite terrible.’

Now that he had not laid eyes on her for many a year, he sounded utterly contrite at her fate, but I did not reflect upon that. I found that a lump had risen to my throat and stayed there, and the sight of my father’s face, struggling as I knew he was to find words when words usually came so easily to him had filled me with apprehension.

He turned and looked at me, his eyes shining momentarily as the gaslight flickered and hissed. ‘He has killed her, Albie.’

He had not called me Albie in many a year, but I did not think of that either. I frowned. ‘Who? Who has – who would—?’

‘Her husband.’

‘What? Father, how could such a thing be? It must be false. No one would ever—’

My wife reached across the table, placing her cool hand on my own where it had curled into a fist.

‘It appears that he was suffering under some delusion, my boy. Perhaps he was prone to it; I do not know his family. And those in the country – well, sometimes their thoughts run in unfortunate grooves. Unfortunate, indeed.’

‘Whatever do you mean?’ My voice was taut with anger, my words blunt. At one time my father would have taken a strap to me for such a thing, but now he only sighed.

‘I am told he thought she is – or had been, rather, stolen away by the fairies.’

My mouth fell open. It was Helena who spoke into the silence left by my astonishment. ‘The fairies?’

My father raised his hands in front of him, staring at them for a moment as if the answer was suspended in the air between them, and let them fall once more. ‘It is apparently rather common where they come from. People believe all manner of things. Elves churn the butter; witches charm milk away from the cows; trolls populate the bridges and the woods. Why, when I was a boy, my own mother told me of a place called Runswick Bay, where a hob in a cave could cure the whooping cough, if he was persuaded with just the right charm.’ He paused. ‘And sometimes, they say, the fairies take a fancy to a newborn babe or a lady of comely features—’ here he glanced at me, ever so briefly, ‘and steal them away, leaving one of their own in their stead. Wearing a semblance of the one who is stolen, naturally.’ A note of contempt stole, at last, into his voice.

For a moment, I could not think how we had begun. I only pictured my cousin, stirred by the sound of a hundred clocks striking the hour all about her; the delight that was in her eyes. The delight that was in mine, when I heard her sing, in her beautiful voice, of beautiful things.

I shook my head. ‘But, Father – how do we proceed from fairies to uxoricide? The killing of one’s own wife – of little Lizzie—? Both are surely naught but fancies. It cannot be so.’

He cast a glance in my direction. ‘She was no longer a child,’ he reminded me. ‘And fancies – sometimes, it seems, they can run too free, to the harm of all. James – or Jem, as I believe he was known – thought his wife stolen away and a changeling left in her stead. To one superstition is joined another: that various charms will effect to chase away a changeling, when the real wife or child must be returned. Such was his belief.’ He paused. ‘Perhaps, after all, we must pity him, rather than—’

‘Pity? Pity!’ For a moment I could only repeat the word. ‘If what you say is true, sir, we must—’ Once more I felt Helena’s hand on my arm.

My father rubbed his eyes. ‘One such charm entailed the holding of an afflicted person over the fire.’

His voice was so low, it was a moment before I could absorb his words. I could not speak but words crowded in upon my mind: words and images too, and some of those images were terrible, and they stopped my breath.

‘She was burned, Albie.’ He met my eye at last. Now he only sounded weary; weary to the bone. ‘He held her over the fire and she was consumed by it.’

Helena made a choked sound; her hand left mine and went to her throat. I rose to my feet. I could not listen; I could not think. ‘Not possible,’ I said. ‘Not possible!’ I slammed my hand down upon the table. This couldn’t be. My cousin was a child. She was all artlessness and innocence, a shy smile on plump lips; delighted, nut-brown eyes. She was an angel; she was a bird. She was a sudden pure voice, and I heard it; I swear, in that moment, I did, returned as if to mock me.

He made their glowing colours,

He made their tiny wings . . .

She was my Linnet. I had pictured her as a sylvan maid dancing in some green meadow, and perhaps now she was; perhaps she was.

We spoke for a time of how awful it was, but I barely listened to the pronouncements of my father or the softer exclamations of my wife. I felt as if my blood were heated within my veins. It was like something from a savage land, or a history book, or one of the wilder romances that ladies liked to read. It surely wasn’t anything that could happen to a real person, let alone a relation, however distant in geography or condition of life; let alone my little Lizzie. I kept staring into the fireplace as if it could enlighten me, but it was cold. All about us was solid and dependable and just as it had always been: the gleaming mahogany; the heavily dressed mantle, with its velvet covering and fringe; the objets de vertu, each set upon its little circle of lace; an ancient needlepoint bearing the words from scripture: Teach me what is good. I could rest upon none of it.

At last, Helena endeavoured to turn the conversation to brighter things, though with little success. We were a taciturn party and the hour was yet early when we retired to our rooms. I think that even then something was beginning to stir within me, an intimation that this incident would not let me go so easily.

I met my father’s eye once more as we said our good nights, and I knew in that look that what had taken place would haunt him too. However, it did not strike me until afterwards that there was more than sorrow in his expression. Inconceivable as it might appear, I think an idea had started to grow within him that should never have taken root and yet which I could not bring myself to tear asunder; that if he had not taken our leave of my cousin that day, in the palace of crystal, everything might have been different. That in some distant and peculiar way, the terrible thing that had befallen young Lizzie was entirely his fault.

Chapter Three

The clock set into the old church tower was as curious a thing as I had seen, perhaps even since my cousin and I had glanced at each other from the opposite sides of a display case wherein stood the Tempest Prognosticator. There was no tempest now. Halfoak was drowsy with sunshine, making the old stone of its houses glow with golden light. The church at the heart of the village was built low to the ground, nestling like some wood mouse settling into its burrow. The tower was only a little taller than the rest of the structure, pockmarked with age and seen through a skein of floating pollen as if through a veil. Behind the church wall were glimpses of the final resting place of the flock to which it had ministered throughout the years. In front of it was the village green on which I stood, and behind me was an inn of ancient construction.

Upon the green itself stood the tree which I knew at once must have given the village its name. A tall, raw, twisted thing, the oak was greened over with a canopy of leaves, and yet it stood upon only half a trunk. The damaged section was blasted, the wood charred and dead where it must have been struck by lightning. It had not been forgotten though, for coloured ribbons trailed from the living branches, soiled and limp, the remnants of some past Mayday celebration to welcome in the summer, perhaps, or maybe simply as a remembrance of how the village had come to be called Halfoak.

It was the clock set into the church tower which most caught my eye, however. It had a plain white face, perfectly ordinary, as far as that goes. The hands were of black iron, or so it appeared, and were also perfectly ordinary, other than the fact that they were too many in number. The hour hand was shorter, as is usual; the other two were a little longer, and the same length.

I blinked again. I realised I had heard of such things before, but I had believed them long vanished from the world. I almost heard a voice, excited and chattering: The railways ’aven’t come yet, not to ’Alfoak, but mebbe one day soon . . .

Well, it had come here now, or within ten miles at least, and here was its witness: one of its minute hands showed Railway Time, otherwise known as London Time, marching across the land, set by the great Observatory at Greenwich and relayed across the nation by electric telegraph; whilst the other showed local time, that ordination originally fixed by use of a sundial, which even now I could spy set into the wall of the church, its gnomon and part of its dial plate quite rusted away. It had been some years since stationmasters were armed with almanacs and schedules listing all the differences so that passengers could be apprised of the necessary corrections to their watches as they travelled across the land. I looked at my own pocket watch now, and found, with equal parts of annoyance and amusement, that it had stopped at around midday.

The time in Halfoak was either twenty-three minutes past five, or about that number until six o’clock; or perhaps both at once. Standing in the heart of the sleepy village, I bethought it a good thing that the clock was not required to tell the year, though the very configuration of its timepiece suggested somewhen in the past. I decided I should assume local time to be the one trailing, and I tried not to smile. At least I was not to catch a train by it; not yet, at any rate.

I almost felt I had dragged the modern day into the heart of the riding along with my bag containing changes of clothes and some sundry items, which I had set down gratefully by the serving hatch of the Three Horseshoes a short time previously. I introduced myself and enquired if they had a room. It had felt like an age since I had alighted from the train at Kelthorpe, the nearest town, and hired a carrier to bring me the rest of the way by cart, since there was not a pony and trap to be found. I was now in the wilds indeed, somewhere close to the border between the south and west ridings, and I still felt rattled by the jolting journey; the springless cart was a far distant relation of the smooth and efficient hansom cab of the City. It was in some part due to my discomfiture that upon entering the inn I had walked into the taproom rather than the parlour, and yet it was there I had found my host, a Harry Widdop, according to the enquiries I had made.

‘We’s got two,’ said the fellow, a suitably stout and ruddy-faced man with his shirt sleeves rolled about his elbows. ‘Which does tha want?’ And he glared at me as if all my future happiness hung upon my answer.

I explained that I had not had the good fortune to visit the region previously and that being the case I had no preference; which one would he recommend? At which he eyed me with suspicion, his eyebrows drawing down into a frown, his sandy mutton-chop whiskers bristling, and he slammed down the tankard he was engaged in polishing. He disappeared from view and I just had time to reflect that what these Yorkshire fellows lacked in volubility was more than amply compensated by their forcefulness of speech when he reappeared from a doorway to one side of the hatch. He gave a little toss of his head, which I assumed was an instruction to follow him from the public area into his domain.

The door gave entry into a narrow passage. Widdop stopped only to choose, at length and with some forethought, a key from a peg on the wall, leaving an identical key hanging at its side. He led the way along the passage and up a narrow and creaking stair of bare and somewhat worn wooden risers and proceeded along a corridor carpeted in some long-faded pattern which ended in a white-painted door. He pushed it open – there was a keyhole, but the door was not locked – and brought me into a surprisingly bright and airy chamber with a well-curtained bed, a washstand and a dresser backed by a much-speckled mirror. The window stood slightly open, admitting a soft breeze smelling of summer meadows, but he crossed the room and abruptly pulled it closed. I was engaged in thinking that I should open it again the moment he quit me when he sharply pulled the curtains across, covering glass and shutters alike, and plunged us both into shadow.

I endeavoured to keep the surprise from my expression, but I must have met his gaze somewhat stupidly for he pronounced, ‘If tha should want ter shut out t’ moon. ’S unlucky to look upon it, wi’ t’ moon up high.’

I nodded, as if I had the first inkling of what he spoke, and he told me his terms – which were most reasonable – and, after pressing the key into my palm, left me alone in my new abode.

The first thing I did, of course, was to cross the room, the boards beneath my feet surely announcing my every step to anyone below, and open the window. Off to the