The Wonder Tales

Chapter Four-1

Chapter Four

It was soon widely known across Berrie North that Bridget Pettigrew was refusing her food.

Her love of fine fare was common knowledge on both sides of the town, and at first it was held that she must be sickening for something. But when Tobias saw her passing The Moss and Mist late in the afternoon, brisk in step and ruddy of cheek, he was moved to doubt it.

‘Mistress Pettigrew,’ he called, darting out of the door in pursuit of her.

‘Why, Mr. Dwerryhouse!’ she said with her merry smile, and stopped at once. ‘I would have come in to bid you good day, only I was lost in my thoughts.’

He bowed, and waved this aside. ‘I only wished to enquire after your health,’ he explained.

Bridget rolled her bright blue eyes and gave a tiny sigh. ‘Tis most kind of you, but unnecessary, for I am quite well.’

Tobias was unsurprised to hear of this. ‘Forgive me if I seem inquisitive,’ he replied, ‘or if the question seems odd to you. Have you perchance… encountered anything strange hereabouts? Perhaps in the last day or two?’

Bridget looked up and down the largely empty street, and leaned nearer to Tobias. ‘I have not made it widely known but I do not mind telling you, Mr. Dwerryhouse. There is a fine old damson tree in my mother’s garden. Beautiful, but near upon dead, poor thing! Only it has borne a fruit! I discovered it yesterday morning. It is as true as that I stand here. ‘Twas an odd colour, for I never heard of damsons being amber before. But it tasted very fine! And I have never felt better in my life.’

Tobias heard this with sinking heart, and though he congratulated Mistress Pettigrew upon her blooming good health, he could not help ending his remarks with another enquiry. ‘Ah… it is said you are not disposed to eat. I hope this is not true?’

‘Such fussing!’ she chided. ‘Of course I eat. Why, I have eaten an entire bowl of broth today already.’

Tobias spared a glance for the late afternoon sun, and forbore to make any reply. He merely wished Mistress Pettigrew a pleasant day and withdrew, reflecting with mild regret that her ample curves were unlikely to survive the effects of the amber-coloured damson.

The next report to reach Tobias’s ears concerned Dorothea Winthrope, elderly and lame these many years past. Her faults of temper were generally overlooked, for the pain in her withered left leg must be her excuse. Until she was seen to walk, and unaided, her battered oaken sticks nowhere in sight! This sudden recovery improved her spirits, too, for she occasionally smiled at those she met as she rambled through the streets, and was even known to produce sweets from her pockets for the town’s children.

This seemed an instance of unalloyed good to Tobias, at least at first. But abstemious Dame Winthrope arrived at The Moss and Mist that same evening and called for wine, which she continued to drink until she could hold no more. She made a merry drunk, Tobias could only admit, as she laughed and sang the evening away under his hospitality. But when she returned the next night, and the next and the next, he began to revise his opinion. She made as enthusiastic a drunk as Mistress Pettigrew made an ascetic, and more than made up for the continued absence of Barnaby Longstaff.

Tobias could well guess the source of Dame Winthrope’s curious behaviour, but he put himself to the trouble of enquiry nonetheless. Dorothea beckoned him closer and said in an exaggerated whisper, much slurred: ‘I have heard it said that naught can equal the benefits of a good greengage, and upon my word, ‘tis the truth! A dear, dear tree gifted me with such a specimen, and I ate it at once. Have you ever eaten greengages, Tobias? I should imagine not!’ She grew thoughtful and added, ‘Though I do not know why they are called greengages, as it comes about. I did not expect them to be blue.’

Tobias thought of the contents of his strongbox, so uselessly locked away, and braced himself for further such reports.

And rapidly they came. Garrulous Nell Quartermane ceased to speak, at least during the sunlit hours. All her verbosity returned at night, though at the expense of her hearing. A beautiful snow-white plum was the source of her misery — and her delight, for after many barren years she was at last with child.

Marmeduke Pauncevolt, a polished man of refined habits, became suddenly foul-mouthed. But since the fine jessamy pomegranate responsible also carried off his gout, Tobias was left to imagine that vulgarism was no excessive price to pay.

Hattie Strangewayes found a crimson pearmain on her way to market, and ate it up. Her spectacles she promptly threw away, her eyesight being no longer in need of such aid. But with her short-sightedness went her frugality, for she was heard to have stepped at once to Verity Wilkin’s shop and ordered no fewer than seven new pairs of boots.

When sensible, proud Fabian Mallory ate a viridian apricot, he slept a whole night through for the first time in twenty years. He celebrated the cessation of his insomnia by swimming naked in Russet Lake, and wandered back through Northtown in a similar state of undress, to the scandal of all he saw.

Tobias began to feel that something must be done, and took it upon himself to patrol the neighbourhood for further miraculous fruits. He was aided in this endeavour by Theo Penderglass, and the two covered much ground between them. They confiscated a pair of apples from the Lynwood, an apricot and a pear from the old churchyard, and several plums, cherries and peaches from the scattered trees along winding Ashling Lane. These they locked away with the apples and Clarimond’s peach, but to no particular avail. The next day, Ebenezer Witherspoon’s persistent cough was cured by a periwinkle pear, at the expense of his mild-mannered ways; and Malachi Amberdrake devoured a coquelicot peach, which dispelled the black moods which had long darkened and troubled his days, but took every strand of his luscious tawny hair away besides.

Tobias made it known that the fruit should be avoided, and did his best to remonstrate with those as yet unaffected. But the glittering fruits continued to appear, and the citizens of Northtown continued to indulge.

South of the river, the story was the same. Clarimond put herself to the trouble of walking into Heatherberry Spinney twice a day, and all the way to the market. She divested various trees of innumerable apples, peaches and pears, all dappled in bejewelled colours and redolent with aromas delicious beyond compare. She warned all that she saw to avoid the beautiful fruits, but no one listened — or perhaps they could not resist the compulsion to eat.

Betony Summerfield, cruel and vain, became a boon to the poor, and dotingly fond of children; though the perfect features of her face were much marred by a series of pockmarks, appearing as she indulged in a burnished aurulent plum. A claret-coloured pear carried off the pains in Nathaniel Roseberry’s back, though his night-time rambles came to a sudden end, for he became perishingly frightened of the dark. Ambrose Dale’s arthritic fingers were much improved by a silver-spangled apple, but his beloved, overpriced flowers became a source of great torment to him, for he could not approach so much as a single blossom without suffering a violent fit of sneezing. Elvy and Aldwyn Aelfwine ate a pair of velvety cerulean peaches, and were cured of a crippling shyness; but the fruits took the sight from Elvy’s left eye, and the hearing from Aldwyn’s right ear.

Even Maggie Muggwort succumbed, to Clarimond’s great dismay. She plucked the apples from her own trees at Thistledown full three times a day, and each new crop was more abundant than the last. But Maggie could not withstand the allure of the fruit, despite Clarimond’s warnings. A fine lilac specimen relieved her of fatigue, and she grew positively frenzied with energy. But this brought with it an apparent compulsion to speak her mind, which took Clarimond aback.

‘These are much nicer than yesterday’s, since I am sick of the scent of lavender,’ she said one morning, as she brought in tea and pastries for Tobias. ‘And I wish you would not bid me clean the scullery again today, for it makes my hands red, and I’ve a wish to catch Rufus Elwood’s eye.’

When Clarimond and Tobias blinked at her in silent astonishment, she took careful measure of the latter’s black shirt and pronounced it “gloomy”. ‘You look far nicer in green,’ she informed him. ‘So the mistress thinks, if she were not too lily-livered to say so.’

With which brutal truths she withdrew, leaving Tobias to stare after her in amusement and Clarimond to blush with dismay.

‘Do I look better in green?’ Tobias asked at last, a smile curving his lips at the sight of Clarimond’s pinkened cheeks.

‘I must own that I have previously expressed such a thought,’ Clarimond admitted. ‘Though it is rather too much to so malign today’s shirt, for it is not at all gloomy!’

Tobias plucked at one of his full sleeves, rolled up above the elbow. ‘I suppose it was too much to hope that Maggie might not succumb,’ he reflected.

‘What with my obliging trees producing flurries of apples every few hours? I cannot keep up with them, though I do try.’

‘I think you must abandon the attempt,’ said Tobias. ‘As must I, for it is far too late to curtail the extent of this peculiar plague.’

‘There is no sign of Pippin Greensleeves, I suppose?’ Clarimond made the enquiry without much hope, for naught had been seen or heard of the wandering musician in some days — not since he had paid his visit to Thistledown House.

Tobias shook his head. ‘He seems vanished entirely, and no wonder, for he must know that he would find himself unpopular.’ He sighed and rubbed at his forehead. ‘I do not know what is to be done, Clarimond.’

‘Shall he be reproached?’ asked Clarimond. ‘It must be said, I have heard few complaints about the fruit.’

‘Because all about us are disordered in their minds, and have no real notion what they have lost.’

‘Save, perhaps, Betony Summerfield. Though she seems cured of her vanity, and cares nothing for the state of her face.’

Tobias merely looked thoughtful, and made no reply.

‘I wonder where it shall end,’ said Clarimond.

‘I wonder what it is for,’ said Tobias. ‘For if Greensleeves is behind it, you may be sure there is a purpose intended.’

Clarimond did not much fear a worsening of what Tobias called the plague, for it seemed to her that the fruit had already done its worst. Almost everyone in Berrie Wynweald, Northtown and Southtown together, had partaken of some manner of apple or pear or peach, and many had been consequently changed; what more could it do?

But the old orchard trees did not content themselves with a growing abundance of fruit. Once their wizened branches were so laden down they could not possibly produce any more, the trees themselves began to grow and spread and multiply, at an impossible rate. Three days later, Clarimond awoke to find her little patch of orchard much expanded, and her shrubbery rapidly disappearing behind a new crop of tangled little trees. After a week, her garden was covered entirely, her beehives unreachable beneath the hoary arbour.

Her road to market grew virtually impassable, as peach and plum and damson trees encroached upon the streets. The pathways were strewn with fallen fruits, exquisite to behold in their jewel-coloured array, but difficult to wend a way through; and poor Clarimond’s flagging willpower was sorely beset by the feast set out before her, whenever she had cause to leave the house.

The market itself was changed in character, for the citizens of Southtown took little interest in the produce and wares that had always been sold before. Now the stalls were abundant with apples and apricots and cherries, great baskets of them heaped up in sumptuous array, their skins dappled in vivid colours and sequined with silver and gold. Soon, thought Clarimond in dismay, she would be obliged to partake of the fruit out of sheer necessity, or starve entirely away.