Constance assumed it had been the same in 1918 when her father, Arthur Downer barely twenty-years-of-age had arrived home and got down on bended knee to ask his Eleanor to marry him. He’d decided to look to his future, not his past. It was the only way he could move forward and prove to himself that he had indeed lived through it. Those nightmares of his served to prove one could never outrun one’s history, however.
People were different back then, she mused. They were stoic and private and oh so very proud. The adage of the British keeping a stiff upper lip was indeed the case. These days everything was plastered all over the Internet and talked about until it had been dissected into microscopic pieces. Dignity was a dying word in her opinion. She blamed a large portion of it on television chat shows. It was compulsive viewing watching others air their dirty laundry publicly.
There’d come a time the same year the terrible news that Ted had died reached them when she too had tried to lock her experiences away. To pretend they’d never happened. But just like with her father they always crept back, beckoning to her in the darkness when her defenses were down. Her choices were taken away from her back then. She’d had no say in the way it all transpired. Things were different now, people’s sense of morality was different. Her life could have been so very different had the lyrics played a different tune in a different time.
The feelings that had consumed her sixteen-year-old self, however, were too powerful to contain, they refused to be boxed away and seemed to intensify daily. There was nothing for it and nowhere to vent, and so she set about her mundane routine at the factory hoping to still her mind. These confusing and frustrating new emotions consumed her the first time she laid eyes on Henry.
‘Henry,’ she whispered to the empty room where she still couldn’t quite believe she now lived. Her mouth forming the name she’d cherished so and her gaze settled on the framed certificate on the wall. It had been hung on the walls of the Downer family’s old haberdashery shop on the ground floor of Pier View House to state her father’s qualification as a tailor.
Pier View House had lived several lives since the days her parents had run A Stitch in Time in the ground floor space. These days it was a light and airy art gallery. Constance herself had converted it into an emporium of sorts a year or so after her parents passing. She had a talent; she’d discovered inadvertently one winter’s afternoon when having sourced an armful of comfrey from the side of a boggy riverbed. She happened across old Mrs Glyn, her headscarf knotted tightly under her chin to keep the biting wind off the Solent at bay.
Her varicose veins were playing merry hell with her she said after enquiring as to what Constance was up to with an armful of comfrey. ‘It’s no more than weed,’ she said, shaking her head with such vigour that the bread she’d just brought to make jam sandwiches for her and Mr Glyn’s supper threatened to slip from the bag. She readjusted it in her arms while waiting for Constance to explain herself giving her the once-over as she did so. What a woman pushing fifty was doing getting about in an ensemble so bright she could be stood on a rock at sea and used as a beacon for the passing ships was beyond her. She straightened her sedate tan coat. Mind, Connie Downer had always been a bit of an oddball.
‘I make a poultice with it to ease the ache in my knee, Mrs Glyn. This cold weather’s no good for it.’ Mrs Glyn might have only been twenty years older than Constance but she’d known her since she was a little girl and as such had always addressed her by her formal title.
Mrs Glyn’s eyes narrowed. ‘A poultice you say? Would it help with my veins?’
‘It may do Mrs Glyn, but I can’t make you any promises.’
‘I’ll try anything; the pain’s driving me potty.’
Constance had trudged back home in her wellies making her way through the shop oblivious to the trail of mud she was leaving behind. The shelves of A Stitch in Time were still full of cotton reels, zippers, and buttons. They were items that for whatever reason—Constance suspected it could have something to do with the newly opened big supermarket— were rarely required by the general public since her parents passing. This was despite her valiant efforts to keep the business running. She passed through the door at the back of the shop and took the stairs gingerly, thanks to her aching knee. It dawned on her then as she placed the herbs on the kitchen bench that the absence of her parents, who’d gone within six months of each other, was not so sharp today.
The comfrey leaves needed to be chopped, and she set about doing this. The poultice she was going to prepare was a recipe from Molly’s journal. It was for the relief of aches and pains. The knee Constance had twisted as a child tripping down the stairs of the folly as she made to get away from the evil witch, still plagued her on occasion. The comfrey poultice always eased it.
Next, Constance added water to the diced leaves and with her mortar and pestle bashed away until it was the consistency of an unappetizing soup before tipping the green mess into a large bowl. She added a couple of handfuls of flour and mixed it with her hands until it had a gloopy texture. Once she was satisfied it was as it should be, she scrubbed her hands clean and retrieved the swathe of muslin cloth she kept in the cupboard before cutting it into two equal sizes. She split the comfrey poultice evenly between the two and wrapped them parcel like before taking one around to Mrs Glyn’s cottage down the way.
Constance fussed around the older woman affixing the poultice into place over the bothersome vein for her. ‘Have you a clean tea towel, Mrs Glyn?’
‘Of course, me luvvie. In the bottom kitchen drawer.’
Constance reappeared a moment later and wrapped the tea towel around her leg before pulling a piece of cord she’d cut from a reel in the shop and tying it into place. ‘Now then Mrs Glyn. You tell Mr Glyn to get his supper tonight while you kept that leg elevated this evening. If you do that by tomorrow, hopefully, you’ll be good as gold.’
Indeed the following morning Mrs Glyn appeared at A Stitch in Time and announced she felt sprightly enough to dance the cancan. She lifted her skirt as though to give an example before thinking better of it. Word of Constance’s miraculous poultice spread the way the word always spread on Wight. Constance rose from being an eccentric spinster to Constance Downer of Ryde, Healer and when she wasn’t in earshot, it was whispered she was, in fact, a witch. Such was the demand for her services that she decided the time had come to reinvent A Stitch in Time. A sale was had, the shop cleared of all its stock and a new sign declared the premises to be Constance’s Curealls. If you were an islander and if something was ailing you then Constance’s Curealls was your first port of call.
Of course, it was muttered behind her back that it was in her blood by those who were old enough to remember the story. She was descended from Molly Downer now, wasn’t she—the last witch on Wight—so it should be no surprise…
Chapter 12
MOLLY DOWNER, THE WITCH OF BEMBRIDGE
How Molly left everything to the parson.
In Bembridge Town there lived a Dame,
Now Molly Downer was her name,
And she in story has her niche,
Because they say, she was a witch.
All by herself she did reside,
No friend or partner at her side,
In a snug cottage warmed with thatch,
And people called it Witches Hatch.
Miss Molly, who was ne’er a wife,
There lived a lonely life,
And in seclusion passed the hours,
For folk were frightened of her powers,
In fact her most strange husbandry
Truly frightened all and sundry.
She was I fear most happy when
She could bewitch the Customs Men,
Her guiles she used, with every ruse,
To bring in free trade brandy booze.
The Customs Men so runs the tale,
Would, at her name, turn deathly pale.
And should they be inclined to mock her,
She’d threaten Dave
y Jones Locker,
Now parson, hearing of her way,
Betook upon himself to pray
That Moll should give up charm and spell,
In case she ended up in hell.
Our Molly, who was well past twenty,
Liked the parson good and plenty,
So she spoke the reverend fair,
Carefully dressing up her hair.
But of his words, she took no heed,
And altered neither word nor deed.
And so it was that in the end
He was poor Molly’s only friend.
Now Molly one day feeling ill,
Decided she would make her Will,
And without waiting one more minute,
Bequeathed her house and all things in it.
And being of all kin bereft
Her fortune to her friend she left.
Then Molly dressed her in her best
And laid her down for her last rest.
Stiff on the kitchen table bare,
The parson found her lying there,
Dead as the Dodo, stark and cold,
And in her hand, her Will did hold.
So when he’d had sufficient toddy,
Sexton buried Molly’s body,
Then parson, fearing witchcraft’s seed,
The burning of her house decreed.
And so, as soon as she was buried,
To burn the house the people hurried,
So that no feature should survive
To keep her charms and spells alive.
From miles around the people came.
The cottage roared with smoke and flame,
And as the night in blackness fell,
The fire had conquered every spell.
Though not yet quite as I shall tell,
For here and there, as timbers fell,
A useful piece some sinner took,
Or souvenir was pinched for luck.
Now in the churchyard, by her grave
Whom parson tried so hard to save,
They set a stone with Molly’s date,
All wondering what would be her fate.
But Molly’s art was not quite tamed.
Some witchcraft seemingly remained.
For if, when summer’s sun is high,
This old churchyard you come by,
You’ll find the stone, which was set there,
Has vanished, quite, into thin air.
–Ballads of the Wight
J.R. Brummell
͠
Molly’s leather bound journal filled with herbal curealls lived in Constance’s faded blue memory box. It had been pressed into her coltish twelve-year-old hands as she played with the neighbourhood children at Appley Folly by a local woman, Elsie Parker.
Elsie was a grandmother and thus far too old to be the main caregiver to an unruly tribe who terrorized the locals in Bembridge. Mrs Downer wouldn’t let Constance or her older sister, Evelyn associate with the family given their common status. Constance assumed Elsie had chosen her to approach to return the book as she was the youngest and therefore most malleable of the Downers. Mum could be quite formidable should the mood so take her and Evelyn, a known tell-tale tit. The animosity between Elsie Parker and Mrs Downer of A Stitch in Time stemmed from the trifling matter of an unpaid bill for mending services.
Elsie elaborated to a bewildered Constance that her late mother, God rest her soul, had snatched the book from Molly’s cottage in the days following her death. The stone building had stood empty and alone, cooling its heels, unlike the local folk who were feeding their voracious superstitious appetites, until the only thing that could satiate it was the cottage being burned to the ground.
Elsie’s mother had been not much more than a curious tot at the time and didn’t know why she’d seen fit to pocket such an item. The only reasoning she could give was that there was nobody to stop her and it had felt very daring to do so. That the book was in her possession had remained her lifelong secret, she’d not known what to do with it once stolen and was frightened of the consequences should she disclose what she’d done. As she lay struggling, her breath coming in short grasping bursts in her last days, she’d urged her daughter to give it back to its rightful owners, the Downer family of Ryde. And Elsie, a superstitious woman herself, was doing so now by handing it to Constance.
This was the first Constance had heard of a Molly Downer, and Elsie was only too happy to relay the tale of how this long since passed relative of the Downer family was the last witch on Wight. Constance’s eyes grew wide ignoring the other children calling her back to continue playing their game as she listened enthralled with the tale;
‘Of course, it depends on how you define witch.’ Elsie stated. ‘People were quick to point the finger at anyone who was a bit different back in those days.’ She made a harrumphing sound. ‘Still are in my opinion, but with Molly, well there was the unfortunate business of the curse. Poor love didn’t have the most salubrious of starts neither what with her being born the illegitimate daughter of a reverend no less.’
‘What does illegitimate mean?’ Constance interrupted wondering as to Elsie’s sudden plummy tone as she rolled the foreign word forth.
‘Well, now you’re old enough to know what a bastard is, int ya?’
Constance flushed, she’d heard Elsie’s grandchildren referenced as such.
‘Well, there you go then. Molly’s mother was known as a healer, and although her family wanted nothing to do with her once they found out she was to be an unwed mother, they gave her enough money to build a little cottage in Hillway. She grew up in that cottage, and she had a best friend for most of her young life. They were inseparable even when their heads began to be turned by the local boys. Molly was a pretty girl, and the fellows were sweet on her, but not everybody liked her.
‘There was a girl of a similar age to her called Harriet, who took an instant dislike to Molly. It was jealousy on Harriet’s part, and she made poor Molly’s life a misery by teasing and taunting her. She’d developed a thick skin, though over the years, had to, didn’t she? The stigma of being illegitimate had seen to that, and as she grew, she learned the healing skills of her mother. Sadly, Molly’s mother grew ill and passed on when she was a teenager as did her father. He never formally acknowledged her, and he left her a pittance to live on.
‘It wasn’t long after that life turned sour for Molly. She had a terrible falling out with her dear friend, and here’s where it all gets a bit muddy. Some say the two friends fought because, Molly was a God-fearing, and chaste young woman and when she learned her friend was carrying on with a married man she let loose. Others say it was because her friend married and Molly felt she’d been abandoned after losing both parents as well. Whatever it was, it was around this time that she tripped up and sealed her fate by cursing Harriet. She was heard to say that should any good fortune fall upon her, she would die before possession.’
Constance gasped, and Elsie looked pleased with the reaction.
‘Well, Harriet got sick, didn’t she? The very same day she received a letter telling her she’d been bequeathed the sum of twenty pounds. Of course, Molly didn’t help her cause by becoming a recluse who lived, by all accounts, in squalor. The local folk liked to talk of poppets and bottles of liquid hanging in her windows.’
‘What’s a poppet?’
‘It’s a little doll, int it.’
Constance was picturing it all in her mind, but Elsie wasn’t finished yet.
‘Then there were the rumours of her being thick as thieves with the smugglers who used to roam our shores, but I’m not sure about all that. There were those who wanted to try her as a witch, but the trials had recently stopped. When she was found dead, it’s said the villagers stripped her body, and after finding no mark of a witch, they ransacked her cottage before burning it to the ground.’
Constance exclaimed at the cruelty of it all.
‘There’s nout so cruel as folk,’ Elsie said, nodding
sagely. ‘Now take that book and do what you will with it. It's yours by rights.’
Constance was unsure as to whether she should thank the woman or not, but Elsie had done what she’d come to do. She’d already turned away and begun to holler at the youngest of her grandchildren who’d dropped her knickers to go for a wee on the grass verge of the Esplanade path, uncaring that several couples taking in the sea air were tutting their disapproval at such carry-on.
͠
Now, on this seemingly normal Tuesday morning, the shard of light sneaking into her room was gaining strength, and there were sounds of life in the corridor outside her room. Constance realized she was unsure of how much time had passed, she’d been so lost in her thoughts. She wasn’t ready to clear them away for the day though, not just yet and her eyes flitted to the drawer in the bedside cabinet where she kept her old blue memory box. She retrieved it now, lifting the lid, her fingers touching the items hidden within it. She’d never told a soul about the book, waving Norma’s nosy questions away at the folly that day with a vague reply that it was an old recipe book she was to pass on to her mother, that was all. It was Mrs Parker’s way of making amends for her tardy bill paying, she’d fibbed. She’d taken the book home and hidden it under the loose floorboard beneath her bed. It was safe from Evelyn’s all-seeing gaze there.
The hidey-hole was Constance’s secret and home to her most special things. She kept the rose her childhood friend Jonathan had given her, hidden between the pages of a notebook, dried and pressed. There were ticket stubs too, from films she’d seen with glamorous women hinting at life beyond what she knew on Wight. A programme for the circus dad had taken her to see as a special treat in Portsmouth one Christmas was secreted away too.
Oh, what a wonderful treat that day at the circus was, she recalled even now so many years later. She’d been mesmerized by the beautiful tightrope artist and had spent weeks afterward unsuccessfully attempting to cross her skipping rope. Mum was not best pleased to find it tethered to the washing line and a drain pipe with her broom repurposed as a balancing pole. Then, as the girl, she’d been reached the cusp of womanhood the shells had been added to the box. Her pretty shells, whose watercolour patterns time had not seen fit to fade. One for each day of the week.
The Promise Page 9