by Betsy Tobin
“I do not know,” I say, for truly I do not.
“Whose mother is she?” he asks. It is an innocent enough question, but it hits the mark. Anne rises quickly, and taking up the leather strap used to carry kindling, leaves the cottage without a word.
“She has no children,” I explain once she has gone. “That is why she has been asked to look after you.” He frowns slightly, as if this somehow cannot be. “Have you eaten?” I ask. He does not answer, merely stares at the closed door, through which Anne has just departed. “Long Boy, are you hungry?” I say a little more loudly. At length he turns to me, his eyes dark and troubled.
“My mother is cold,” he says finally. I think of all the things that I could say in response, but something tells me I must tread carefully, for there is turmoil in his eyes.
Instead I bring him broth and bread, and he eats hungrily, absently, just as he did before the illness. While he is eating Anne returns, loaded with kindling, and begins to stack it in a pile by the fire.
“I want to go out,” says Long Boy, his mouth filled with bread. I glance in Anne’s direction and she frowns.
“Not yet,” I answer. “You must rest.”
“When?” he asks immediately. I nod toward Anne.
“She will tell you when the time has come,” I say. He looks at her darkly and I read disapproval in his eyes. “Perhaps soon,” I say pointedly, and Anne nods tentatively. “I must go now,” I tell Long Boy.
“Where?” he asks. Anne looks at me and our eyes lock.
“To my mother,” I reply.
The boy troubles me, for although the fever has gone, it has clearly left its imprint on him. As I approach my mother’s cottage, I see a small crowd standing outside. Samuell stands in front of the door facing them, and nods to me grimly from afar. The dozen or so people speak among themselves, but when they see me silence falls upon them like a shroud. I cross at once to Samuell, who takes my arm and eases me away from the others.
“What happens here?” I demand. He looks at me uneasily.
“The magistrate has ordered a search,” he says in a hushed tone. “Goodwife Cooper and Widow Smythe are within.”
“They search her person?” I ask. He nods. “May I at least attend them?” He shakes his head no.
“None but the two, according to his orders. And they shall report their findings directly to him.” I turn toward the crowd. Most of them do not meet my eyes.
“Why are they here?” I say angrily after a moment, raising my voice so they will hear. A few murmur in response. “What business have you here?” I shout. Samuell lays a hand upon my arm. I turn back to him.
“Please,” he says urgently. “I will bring the women back to the alehouse, and the crowd will no doubt follow.” I nod slowly. A few in the crowd have shuffled silently away. The others hang their heads like stray dogs.
“How long have they been within?” I ask Samuell. He bites his lip.
“Some time now,” he replies. I think of my mother and her fiercely private nature. She must have known that it might come to this, for a search is often done in cases where witchcraft is suspected. After another minute, the door to the cottage opens and Goodwife Cooper and Widow Smythe emerge silently, their eyes masked in secrecy. The crowd stirs a little, presses forward around them, but Samuell moves swiftly forward with authority and ushers them away. The two women bow their heads discreetly and he leads them away toward the alehouse. A few in the crowd follow at a distance, the others gradually disperse.
I wait until they have all gone, then approach the cottage door. I knock gently, then open it and poke my head inside.
“Mother?” The room is dark and it takes a moment before my eyes find her in the poor light. She is perched upon the side of the bed, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, her head bowed. At the sound of my voice, she lifts her head and I let myself in, carefully bolting the door behind me. I cross over to her side and sit beside her on the bed.
“Are you all right?” I ask. She nods then, just barely, but everything about her has gone rigid, as if her very center has been frozen. Her face is white and drawn, and her lips are pressed together in a taut line. Only her eyes cannot be checked, for they alone betray her horror.
“It is done now,” I say gently. She turns to me then, shakes her head slowly from side to side. “What is it?” I ask.
She starts to speak, then swallows her words and closes her eyes.
“Surely they found nothing?” I ask urgently. She sighs deeply then, and with her eyes still closed she places a hand gently on her side, beneath her ribs. In that spot, under her clothes, she carries a scar from long ago. “The scar,” I say. She opens her eyes then, lets her hand fall into her lap.
For all my life my mother has carried this scar. It is the length and breadth of a finger and is raised and reddened, though the color has altered somewhat over the years. Now that she is growing old, the skin around the scar hangs down in fleshy folds, lending it a slightly protuberant look. I have never known its origin; only that it has always been a part of her. Once when I was very young, she lifted me upon her hip and as she did I reached a tiny hand to touch it. Her whole body bristled and she dropped me like a sack of flour. I lay on the floor crying, and she stood silently over me, her chest heaving with anger. I never tried to touch it again.
“What of the scar?” I ask her urgently. “What did they say?”
She turns to me and for the first time raises her head to meet my eyes.
“They say it is the devil’s teat.”
“You told them otherwise?” I ask slowly.
“Yes, of course. I told them it was from a wound. That I have had it many years. Have carried it all my life,” she adds. She pauses then, lapses into sullen silence. I wait for her to continue.
“What did they say?” I press her. She turns to me with a look of disbelief in her eyes.
“It makes no difference how many years, do you not see?” She shakes her head from side to side. “They will think what they wish.”
“No. This cannot be. Did they ask you where it came from?”
She nods.
“Did you tell them?” I ask this quietly, for this is something even I have never asked of her.
“I told them it was from a man,” she says, her voice hardening. And suddenly her eyes are wide and far away, lost in time.
“What man?” I ask, though I know full well the answer.
She looks directly in my eyes. “Your father,” she says.
And then it strikes me that they are right: my father was the devil and he has left his mark upon her. I turn to her and she is hunched over: the carcass of a woman.
“Who was he?” I ask.
“It makes no difference,” she says without emotion. “He is dead.”
“How did it happen?” I persevere.
She stares ahead of her. “It was . . . so long ago,” she says shaking her head. “I was someone else then. Younger than you are now.” She reaches up a hand to touch my face, but her hand halts in midair, then drops into her lap.
“I had not yet begun to birth babies, though I often assisted my own mother. I helped my father as well, in the fields, and with the cows. He sold his milk to many others in the village.” She pauses then, lowers her voice. “And to the Great House.”
Something in her tone makes me frown. She has always shunned the Great House. Before I went to work there, I never knew she’d entered its borders. After a moment, she carries on.
“I went there thrice weekly. With milk and butter we had churned ourselves. There was never enough to satisfy them; they always wanted more. We kept very little for ourselves. My father was anxious to build a small herd. We had three dairy cows but he wanted half a dozen. And so we scrimped and saved and did without. And then one morning early in spring I rose at dawn to do the milking and found them dead in the field. They must have died early in the night, because by the time I got to them, they were stone cold, and the birds had found them first.
I was afraid to tell my father for his temper could be fearsome, and my mother was away. She had left the previous evening to birth a child and had not yet returned.
“I found him in the barn sharpening his scythe, and when I told him of the cows he dropped his tools and ran straight to the fields. I followed at a distance, and by the time I arrived his face was wrecked with bitterness. He turned and looked at me as if I was a complete stranger, and I knew then that he was lost. He left me in the fields with the corpses, and shut himself inside the house with all the drink that he could lay his hands on. I waited for my mother to return, but she did not. In the late afternoon I finally walked up to the Great House to tell them there would be no milk. I called around at the kitchen, as was my custom, but when I found it empty I made a tour of the barns, searching for a stable hand. Not a soul was about. I found out later they had all gone to the chapel for a christening. My mother had birthed the baby not two weeks earlier, to a serving girl on the estate.
“I thought I heard a noise from the stable, so I went within. It was dark inside and I could see a horse in the box at the far end, a large chestnut mare. Someone was behind it but I could not make out who, so I took a step inside and called out. I must have frightened the mare for she started and backed up within the stall, and then I heard a man swear, for the horse had trod upon his foot. I could tell at once that he was drunk, just as my father was at home. And then he came around and showed his face, and I recognized the master of the Great House, your master’s father.” She pauses then, looks at me briefly, then looks away, the memories crowding her.
“He was old and ugly with drink. There had been much talk of him that spring, for he’d nearly killed a serving man in his employ not three weeks earlier. He had thrashed him with a horsewhip for the tiniest offense. But the rich do not get punished for their sins, and the matter had never come to trial, though the man in question afterward went lame and lost an eye.” She shakes her head then, takes a deep breath.
“He was . . . an evil man. All those who worked under the Great House roof suffered as a consequence. I would not have let you near there had he remained alive. But he died a dog’s death two years later, and I thanked the Lord the day I heard.” She turns to me as if the tale is told, and then I see a shadow cross her eyes.
“What happened in the stable?” I ask gently. My mother pauses and I see her chest rise and fall, her breath coming sharply.
“He came around the horse toward me and his face was twisted with anger. I apologized for giving fright to the mount, but when I tried to leave he grabbed my arm and asked me what my business was. I told him why I’d come, and once again I tried to take my leave. But he refused and held me firm. He asked if I could saddle a horse. When I answered yes he forced me toward the mare. I did not know what had gone before, but her eyes were white and round with fear. I did not like the look of her and said that we should take her out into the yard. He shook his head and ordered me forward. The horse was two heads taller than myself and nearly filled the stall. As soon as I went near she began to thrash from side to side and bay. I truly thought that I might perish if I went into that stall, and I turned and told him so.
“When I did I saw that he was partially unclothed. He’d taken off his doublet and all that remained were his shirt and breeches. That is when I saw the knife. It was small and silver with a pearl handle, a gentleman’s knife, but I could see the blade hanging open by his side. He took a step toward me and I remember thinking that I had nowhere to run, for it was the mare behind me and him in front. I hesitated and he took another step and the mare startled. She jumped and kicked at me and I was knocked forward by her feet. She’d kicked the air out from my chest and I fell upon the ground not two steps from where he stood. He waited until I sat up, then he grabbed my arm and dragged me to the stall opposite. I struggled at first and he held the knife up to my face and said that he would cut me. I could smell the stench of liquor on him, so I kept my place. But he would not be satisfied, could not do at first . . . what needed to be done. This made him even more angry, and he hit me with his fist several times about the face and body. And then he held the knife and forced me to . . . revive him . . . until he was able to finish.” My mother pauses then, her chest heaving from the effort of the memory, her eyes filled with pain. I place a hand upon her arm and she flinches without even realizing. A length, she continues.
“The mare was our witness. I stared over his shoulder into her eyes and wished that I had chosen her instead. Afterward I began to cry, and once again he grew angry. He ordered me to stop but I could not and then he drew the knife again and said that he would cut me if I could not be silent. Just then there was a noise in the yard and when I screamed he took the knife and slashed me here. The door to the stable opened for a moment. I looked but could see no one, for I was on the floor. But he could see. He screamed at them to leave us, and then I heard the footsteps of a child run away across the yard.
“He left me then, cursing the child. There was much blood upon the floor from the wound and the smell of it all around. The mare stood watching me, and suddenly she was calm. It was then I saw the blood upon her chest, for he had cut us both. I waited there with her until darkness fell. By then the blood had stopped and I was able to walk home, where I found my father unconscious on the floor from too much drink. I dressed the wound as best I could, and waited for my mother to return.”
“She came at dawn the following morning, tired and upset because the baby was born still after more than two days of labor. My father woke and was still mean with drink. There was so much desolation in the house. All that we had worked and saved for had been lost. Or so it seemed that morning.” She shakes her head and stops talking.
“Did you tell her?” I ask quietly.
She lifts her head to look at me. “I found that I could not,” she says. “I caught a fever and spent some days in bed. By the time I had recovered, the wound was nearly healed, though the scar remained. My mother did not see it until many months later, long after I fell pregnant. By then she did not want to ask. By the time you were born, my father had run off and drunk himself to death. My mother died of smallpox the following spring. It was a miracle that you and I were spared.”
I stare ahead: cannot picture the young woman in the tale, cannot fathom that it is my mother, nor that I myself have played a central role. But most of all, it is the idea of my father that I cannot stomach. And the terrible violence from whence I came. Something rises up in me: the need to purge myself of the story seeded deep within. But my mother begins anew, and I raise my head to listen.
“When you first went to work at the Great House, I felt some fear. As if the house itself was partly responsible for what had happened. But I told myself that he was dead, and that your mistress seemed a decent and charitable woman. I had seen her many times about the village, and though we’d never met, I had a sense that she too had suffered at his hands. And the child, the boy: his tragedy was clear enough for all to see. Somehow I thought that we were joined to them by suffering, and though I could not bring myself to enter the Great House, it seemed both right and natural for you to be under its roof.”
She looks at me for confirmation of this choice, or perhaps for absolution, but I find that I am too stunned to offer it.
“Why did you not tell me earlier?” I ask at length.
“What purpose would it have served?” she says. Perhaps she is right. Some truths are only agents of suffering.
And yet I had a right to know. For I am like the scar upon her belly: we are what remains.
We sit in silence, trussed in memory, until darkness falls. And by the end of day a curious thing occurs: our silence forms a kind of harmony. It is the first time I have felt anything like companionship with my mother.
I leave her finally and return to the Great House, for there is nowhere else to go, and it seems as if the walls themselves exert some power over me, pull me back within their confines. I have forgotten entirely about my
mistress in the interim, and when I enter through the kitchen, Cook looks at me a little strangely, as if something about my person has altered.
“She asked for you,” she says, nodding upstairs. I stare at her, do not reply. “I told her your mother was in need,” she adds.
“It was the truth,” I say without explaining further. I turn and leave the kitchen, make my way toward the great hall and its portrait gallery. It is there I find him, and he is waiting for me. The portrait seems almost alive: his eyes are full of venom and they lock me in their gaze. Perhaps my mother is wrong—perhaps I do not belong beneath his roof. But the portrait holds me frozen to the spot: I stand for several minutes until I hear a noise behind me. I tear my eyes from those up on the wall and turn to see the painter at the end of the gallery. He watches me intently, and the look upon his face is uncomprehending.
“Are you all right?” he asks, taking a step forward.
I shake my head and push past him, run up the stairs to the haven of my room, where I collapse into sleep.
But I cannot stop him from my dreams. He comes to me just as he is within the Great House portrait: a man of forty-odd years, tall, dark-complected, stern of visage. In my dream he is perched upon the giant mare, clutching a bullwhip tightly in his hand. And then I see that she is drenched in blood. It oozes through her chestnut coat as if through a carpet, and the foam flies about her mouth. Her urges her forward and she takes a step, then falters, her long legs trembling. He begins to beat her savagely with the whip, and she meets my gaze for one brief moment, then collapses under his weight, the whites of her eyes glistening. He rolls free from her and with one swift movement draws the pearl-handled knife and slits her belly lengthwise like a vast ripe fruit. The skin of her belly opens and out tumbles the boy, the crooked boy, fully clothed and blinking back his fear. His father raises the bullwhip and the boy stumbles to his feet and runs away, leaving his father shouting obscenities in his wake. I turn and watch the boy disappear around the corner of the yard, and when I turn back to the master his demon eyes glow red. He sees me now, raises the whip in my direction, but when I try to run I find that I am frozen to the spot. The mare’s blood runs in rivers across the soil, and soon it surrounds me like the tide. I glance down at my feet and they are awash with her suffering.