I, Coriander Read Online Free PDF Page B

Gearing turned up.
    She was dressed as plainly as any woman I had seen and I wondered if she was very poor. My clothes and my mother’s had embroidery and fine lace, but Mistress Gearing wore a simple black wool skirt and jacket with a starched white apron and a plain white collar. Her hair was pulled back and hidden under a cap with flaps hanging down that made her look like a startled rabbit. She held a huge nosegay of flowers in which she buried her face and stayed with her back against the garden gate, refusing all requests to come further in.
    The whole thing seemed most vexing and I had determined by this time that I was not going to spend a month in the country with a badly dressed rabbit, no matter how good the air might be.
    ‘Did you come by carriage?’ enquired my mother.
    ‘Nay,’ replied Mistress Gearing, ‘I walked with purpose and God for company and shall go home the same way, with the Lord’s blessing.’
    ‘I will not hear of it,’ said my mother. ‘You must be footsore. Why, you are most welcome to stay with us for tonight. My husband has already arranged a carriage to take Coriander and Danes to Highgate tomorrow.’
    ‘Go on,’ Danes whispered to me, ‘go and greet her. She is probably shy and unused to the ways of the city.’
    ‘No, no,’ shouted the rabbit as I went up to her. ‘No, keep your distance, I pray!’
    ‘Mistress Gearing,’ said my mother kindly, ‘there has been some misunderstanding. I would not have dreamt of asking you to have Coriander if I thought she was still sick.’
    ‘I have heard that the child had a deadly disease,’ said Mistress Gearing, sniffing so hard at the nosegay that she was overcome with a fit of the sneezes.
    Then she let the truth of it out, all her words tumbling and stumbling over one another.
    ‘I wish I could say that she had been saved by the Lord’s providence, but strange rumours have reached us about your household, and my good husband asked me to come to say that he believes it is fairy lore and sorcery that has healed the child. We are God-fearing people and want no part of the Devil’s work.’
    ‘Come, mistress, what is this?’ said my mother.
    Mistress Gearing put her hands up in front of her. My mother could contain herself no longer and burst out laughing as Mistress Gearing ran out of the garden gate and up the street.
     
    M y father did not think it funny.
    ‘Thomas,’ said my mother, ‘she must be a very silly woman.’
    ‘She did not want me because she thought I had been made better by the fairies,’ I piped up.
    ‘What nonsense,’ said my mother.
    My father’s face was grave.
    ‘It is no laughing matter, Eleanor my love.’
    ‘Thomas, do not look so solemn. Do you not think the woman a fool?’
    ‘I think you must be more careful, Eleanor. Please, for my sake and Coriander’s.’
    His voice made me feel uncomfortable.
    ‘The old world has been washed away and a new order of fools is here. Have a care, my love. They bring with them an unforgiving Lord.’

6
    The Pearl Necklace
    I was nine summers old when my happy, carefree world was torn apart and turned upside down.
    It happened one cold wintry morning in January. I had been sitting in my mother’s bedchamber looking out of the window and up into the heavy sky. All it had to do was snow and then I would be able to go sledging with Edmund Bedwell. He was now twelve years old and his brother thirteen. Their father had married Mistress Patience some three years back and they had a new baby brother as round and plump as a sweet plum pudding. Now both the boys were studying at St Paul’s School and I was most envious of them. I could read and write well, too, and had a hunger for knowledge.
    Edmund told me grandly that learning Latin and Greek was too hard for the feeble mind of a girl.
    ‘What about good Queen Elizabeth?’ I said, putting my hands on my hips and trying to look very grown-up. ‘She was taught all those subjects and more