She pushed open the shaky doors of the barn, emerged from the gloom, and ran toward the house.
• SEVEN •
JOAN burst into the kitchen to find Susan Goodyear sitting on a stool in front of the fire. The girl hummed tunelessly and did not look up. Her small hands lay idle on her coarse apron and her head hung listlessly as though her physical energy had been sapped.
“I was walking—in the meadow,” Joan blurted out in a voice she felt must surely betray how distraught she was. She was still clammy with fear and her heartbeat roared in her ears.
But Susan showed no interest in where Joan had been or why. She ceased humming and looked up slowly, reluctantly drawn away from whatever had held her attention. She nodded her head and said that her mistress had come down, pointing in the direction of the parlor. Joan went through the narrow passage that connected the kitchen with the parlor, pausing only long enough to catch her breath and brush the telltale hay from her skirts. She could feel the heat in her face, the flushed cheeks, and thought how absurd she must have looked rushing like a madwoman from the barn, terrified of a whisper and a piece of wood. But the evil had been palpable. She could not deny it, although she could not make sense of it rationally. Dread still clutched at her heart, and it was only the shock of seeing Margaret Waite that dislodged the thought of the barn from her mind.
At her friend’s entrance Margaret Waite rose from a chair near the fireplace and smiled thinly. She was dressed in
widow’s weeds, but carelessly, as though she had been forced to wear the sable garments. Her face was gray, the features sharpened by grief. Her pockmarked cheeks were hollow, and it seemed to Joan that death, which had so recently seized upon her husband, had somehow already marked her as well. Joan tried to hide her dismay as she took the chair offered to her and sat facing the widow. “God bless you in your bereavement, Margaret,” she said. “How is it with you?”
“Oh, Joan, my dear good friend,” the widow said in a tired voice, “would that a happier occasion had brought us together after so long an absence.”
Joan scorned the consolatory platitudes by which clergy and laity were wont to stifle the natural outpourings of grief, and therefore refrained from talking of heavenly mansions. She knew Margaret wanted more at the moment an ear for her anguish than a tedious lecture. After expressing her sympathy as briefly and simply as she could, she sat back and listened while Margaret vented her grief, mindful at the same time that but for the grace of God this wretched state might be hers too. Margaret spoke fondly of her dead husband, enumerating his virtues as though she had forgotten how long the two families had known one another. Nothing she said would have suggested to a stranger how hard she had borne down on her husband throughout their married life. Now it was all roses, roses without thorns. But Joan did not feel it was her place to dispute this picture of marital bliss, and she noticed too that Margaret scrupulously avoided saying anything about the manner of her husband’s death. She wondered if the widow had determined to put the awful business from her mind, or was merely being cautious. Joan listened with a sympathetic countenance, and when the opportunity presented itself, she brought up Margaret’s long-dead brother, remembering that it was his strange death that had given rise to Margaret’s participation in Ursula’s conjurings. “It’s a great shame,” she remarked, “that you have not your only brother alive to comfort you.”
Margaret replied, “Yes, Philip would have been a great comfort, and had he lived I would heartily wish him at my
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side now, but since he is dead, I would not wish him other than where he is.”
Joan concluded from this circuitous response that Margaret was satisfied her brother’s soul was in heaven. Joan decided to pursue the topic further. “I quite forget how it was your brother Philip died.”
Margaret paused and her brow furrowed as though the recollection caused considerable pain. “He was murdered,” she said. “It has been almost twelve years now since his death.”
Margaret’s eyes glazed with emotion as she recalled the gruesome details. The disappearance, the discovery of the naked decaying corpse, the futile inquiries.
“I do not remember him well,” Joan confessed, although in fact she remembered him quite well. He was an ill-tempered youth, prone to quarrel.
“He was a well-proportioned young man,” said Margaret, “handsome one might say, with raven hair. He was most beloved of our family, the favorite of our mother, and he had many friends, each of whom would have trusted him with his life if need be.”
“Blessed is he who has so few vices,” said Joan.
“He had not a one,” Margaret asserted. “Or if he did, they were such vices as make men admired by other men. He had a strong will—a hot temper, some would say who knew him least. But I thought it no vice, and he kept clear of violent quarrels such as bring to ruin some young men’s lives.”
“It is for that reason, then, that your faith is so strong that he is in heaven?”
Margaret looked surprised at the question but answered promptly. “Wherefore should his soul not be in heaven, being the virtuous man he was? Besides,” she said, “I have more recent confirmation that sets my old fears and uncertainties at rest.” She folded her hands complacently in her lap and smiled at the crackling fire. For a few moments she was lost in her own thoughts, and Joan was certain they had to do with her brother. She sat there motionless, like a figure in a painting, seemingly oblivious to Joan’s presence. She started from her trance only when Joan asked in the most casual
voice possible just what sort of confirmation Margaret might mean.
There was something about the widow’s expression that suggested to Joan that she wanted very much to say, but was afraid. For a moment Margaret’s large gray eyes took on a strangely distant look. Joan restated her question. “This confirmation you speak of—the certainty you possess of your brother’s state—”
“Ah, yes,” said Margaret. “I am certain indeed.”
“But how?”
Margaret leaned back in her chair while a thin smile of satisfaction played at the corners of her mouth. Joan felt her friend would presently tell—tell all. She could feel the revelation coming, like the distant rumble that plays herald to a summer storm. “I have had confirmation,” Margaret repeated.
“I don’t understand,” Joan prompted, affecting confusion.
“It passes understanding,” Margaret replied mysteriously. The satisfied smile returned.
“Oh, won’t you tell me?” Joan pled.
The older woman continued to smile mysteriously.
Frustrated but not willing to give over her effort, Joan decided to resort to an invention, praying the innocent falsehood would be redeemed by whatever truth it uncovered. “I too had a brother,” she said sadly. “He died very young.”
“Did you?” Margaret responded with what seemed genuine interest. “I never knew. Strange, in all these years I never knew.”
“He was only a child when he died.”
With her sad expressive eyes, Margaret communicated her regret and sat upright in her chair, as though to welcome Joan’s further confidence.
“I would I knew his immortal state,” Joan said, trying to make the wish sound casual.
“There is prayer, the consolation of the Church,” Margaret said hopefully.
“Yes, there is that,” Joan agreed. “And yet the confirmation of which you speak—”
“Oh, yes, it was a confirmation indeed,” said Margaret.
“If one were only to have a more direct knowledge, to speak with the souls of those we loved. Lift the veil, so to speak. ”
“Lift the veil,” Margaret echoed thoughtfully. “Yes.” Suddenly her reserve vanished, or seemed to. She leaned forward so that her face was very close to Joan’s and said, “Oh, dear friend Joan, I must tell you. I cannot keep from it for my very life. It is hard to lose a brother and then live in doubt as to the fate of his soul. We trust in Christ and the
sacraments, and yet what secret sins may bar the most seeming-virtuous from the heavenly mansions must remain in doubt unless some surer witness be sought—and found, as I have.”
“As you have?”
Margaret nodded and looked beyond Joan to the kitchen passage, as though to insure that the message she was about to communicate would be heard by Joan alone. “My fears were assuaged by my brother Philip’s own lips.”
“But how could that be?” Joan exclaimed.
“I swear it is true.” Margaret then began a disjointed account of her dealings with Ursula, which started with her discovery that the Crispins’ servants and her own were meeting at night in the barn. She had investigated, determined at first to put an end to such mischief, but when she discovered the nature of the meetings her curiosity had got the best of her. By some strange instinctive sympathy, Ursula had known of her long-standing concern for her murdered brother, and one day when Margaret was chastizing the girl for luring her own servants into idle pastimes, Ursula had told her everything that was in her heart.
“Everything! Certainly she was a witch, then,” Joan said, shuddering at the memory of the barn loft.
“She knew of my concern for my brother,” Margaret replied defensively, a hurt expression in her gray eyes. “How could she have known that unless she had had some communication herself with the other side?”
“With the Devil?” Joan suggested.
“With the other side,” Margaret insisted. “I do not think
it is of the Devil. If it were so, why would I have been assured my brother was in heaven? It is not the Devil’s labor to console the bereaved with hopes of heaven, where I must go if I am to see my dear Philip again,” the widow reasoned earnestly.
“By what means did your brother converse with you?” “With his very lips, as I said before.”
“But how could that be?” Joan asked impatiently.
“It was his spirit that came.”
“You saw it with your own eyes.”
“No—yes, yes, I did see."
Joan looked at the older woman. Her eyes were luminous now with the recollection of the miracle. She stared into the space between them as though the vision were recurring even as she spoke.
“You said both yes and no, as though you were confused,” Joan persisted. “Tell me, what was the circumstance of this most remarkable apparition?”
“More than once Ursula had spoken of my dead brother,” Margaret said quietly, “how it might be possible to have intelligence of his soul, where it was now, in what abode and what happiness he enjoyed or was deprived of. I begged her to tell me how this might be done, and for a long time she refused to say, explaining that she feared offending the spirit.”
“But what of her familiar?”
“Oh, he. She said he came to her of his own will—originally, that is. Afterwards he was at her beck and call. But only after. To summon a spirit from his place of rest was not easily done, she said.”
“What caused her finally to agree to summon your brother?” Joan asked.
“I had to make certain offerings.”
“Offerings?”
“Yes.”
“To whom?”
“Why, to God. It was all of God—not of the Devil, as they claimed at the trial.”
“What sort of gifts?”
“The offerings? Money, jewels, trinkets. To me it was all worth it.”
“This money went to Ursula, then?”
“No, it went to the poor. She told me so.”
“I see,” said Joan, trying to hide the skepticism she felt. “And after you gave Ursula money—for the poor—she agreed to conjure up the spirit of your brother to satisfy your doubts as to his condition.”
“That is what I did.”
“Where was this thing done—in the barn loft?”
“No, although it was there Ursula first spoke of it, taking me aside from the others. They were not to be permitted the vision, you see. Not even my husband.”
“Why not?”
“It was my brother's will. Ursula said he wished to see only me, and no other soul. That was one of the conditions.” “And the other?”
“That the thing would be done in her mistress's house.” “At the Crispins'. That seems to me a strange condition.” “About that I do not know, but that was the condition. Oh, yes, I remember now what it was Ursula said. She said the disbelief of my husband’s nephew had so offended my brother’s spirit that he would not visit the house.”
“So you went to the Crispins’.”
“I did.”
“And they—your sister and her husband—were also witnesses?”
“No, only I.”
“I wonder that your sister Jane did not have as great a longing to visit with her brother’s spirit.”
“I think she did, for she loved him as much as ever I did. Yet her husband had little patience for such business and she feared to offend him.”
“How were you able to have the house for yourself?” Joan asked.
“Oh, that wasn’t difficult,” replied Margaret, smiling her thin smile again. “Ursula knew well my sister and her hus-
band’s comings and goings. It happened one night when they were at a friend’s house for supper, having taken their two little ones with them. The servants had the house to themselves. On this night she beckoned me to follow her, and we went into the great bedchamber of the house. There I saw my brother’s shape as I remembered it, and heard his voice tell me that all was well with him. I asked him what heaven was like, and then he described such a place of wonder and beauty that I almost wished myself dead to enjoy it with him. I asked him if the streets were indeed paved with gold, and he said they were but for such toys the blessed have only contempt, loving gold for its color and brilliance alone and not as a purchase of wickedness. Then I asked him how it was he died and he said he was murdered for his purse. Had I been less amazed at speaking to him, I would have asked the name of his murderers but I forgot myself.”
“And his spirit stood before you?” Joan asked, quite caught up in her friend’s account.
“In a manner of speaking,” Margaret answered after a moment’s hesitation. Her brow furrowed and she looked as though she were trying hard to remember exactly how it was. “The chamber was dark and very cold, for no fire had been laid. I remember asking Ursula if we might have a taper the better to see by, but no, she insisted that the darkness would help her put her mind to the conjuring. We sat at two sides of a little table my sister uses to write upon. Ursula held her face in her hands and mumbled beneath her breath.”
“Did you hear any of these words?”
“Some I heard but did not understand them. It was a foreign language I think she spoke—or a language of spirits.” “And after she conjured?”
“The conjuring went on for some time. Ursula’s voice grew louder, more insistent. I began to doubt, but it was about then that—that—”
Joan urged Margaret to continue.
“I heard a voice behind me. It was my brother’s voice.” “How were you sure it was your brother’s voice and not some other’s?”
“I was not sure, at first, but he called me Meg, by which name I had not been called since a child. I said, ‘Who calls me Meg so familiarly?’ And he answered, ‘What, Meg, do you not know your own dear Philip’s voice?’ Then I remembered that thus he used to call me. Meg. He used the name when we conversed familiarly. I knew then that it was my brother indeed. The voice sounded distant, as though strained. It came from behind me in the chamber, and when I turned around to see for myself Ursula shouted at me, ‘Nay, Mrs. Waite,’ she said, ‘do not do so, for the spirit expressly forbade it!’ ‘What?’ cried I, ‘my own brother forbidding his sister to look upon him?’ ‘It is for your own good,’ she said, ‘for spirits, even those of the blessed, are horrible to look
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upon.
“So you believe then it was Philip Goodin himself that you heard behind you?”
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“And saw, Joan, for before she could warn me of the danger of looking I had turned and glimpsed my brother’s form. The spirit was of middle height and dressed as my brother used to dress. The face was in shadows, but oh, I tell you, Joan, I know it was my brother indeed. Never had I felt such joy as then. My gratitude knew no bounds. The agonizing doubt that for years I suffered was suddenly lifted from me.” Joan grasped her friend’s hands, which were trembling with excitement generated by the recollection, but Joan could not help asking, “Could it not have been some other standing there, someone who slipped in the door of the chamber and out again without your knowing it?”
The widow gave Joan a sudden sharp look of reproof and said, “The table where I was stood between him and the only door to the chamber. No mortal thing could have slipped by me, for my eyes were never closed and I would have heard him tread upon the floor. No, what you suggest, Joan, is not possible. It was my brother’s spirit I saw and heard. His words proved it, as did his strange appearance and disappearance. It was the last time I saw the spirit. I did not seek a second interview, nor did Ursula offer to provide one. Within a week she was arrested.”
“At her trial you testified against her,” Joan said.
Margaret sighed deeply. “That’s true,” she said. She did not elaborate. Her face was full of guilt.
Joan would have liked to ask more about the apparition, for in her own mind she was less than convinced. The existence of spirits and their ability to communicate with the living she did not dispute, but she reserved the right to doubt whether any single manifestation was a spirit in truth, a figment of the imagination, or a fraud. She was not sure how to interpret Margaret Waite’s experience, but somehow she felt it was no true ghost the widow had seen. She was considering this when voices were heard coming from the shop. It was the nephew. With him was Brigit Able. The girl was carrying a heavy parcel, which turned out to be funeral garments. She said she had spent a good hour or two at the tailor’s shop waiting for Mr. Osgood to complete them and she was now distraught for all her chores left undone. Margaret told the girl not to trouble herself about the chores but to lay the garments on her great bed upstairs. As Brigit left to do this, John Waite commenced a discussion with his aunt regarding funeral arrangements. Joan rose to go. Margaret rose too and embraced Joan. “Thank you,” Margaret said, looking at Joan in such a way as to plead with her not to tell anyone of what she had said. Joan received the message and nodded. Then Margaret showed Joan to the door.
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