Familiar Spirits

by Leonard Tourney

  “Just what are you implying, sir?” said Trent, glaring at Matthew. Trent was a big man, nearly six feet in height, with the broad heavy shoulders of a laborer. One of his thick black brows was lifted dangerously.

  “I imply nothing,” said Matthew, trying to keep his voice calm and assured in the face of these hostilities. “I do nothing more than answer the questions you put to me. I hope, my masters, that there have been no complaints abroad about my constableship. I am useless in his trust without your confidence and support.”

  “There have been no complaints we know of,” said Walsh, apparently mollified by Matthew’s soft answer. He glanced sideways at his colleague and seemed relieved that the larger man appeared ready to give over this quarrel, which by now was beginning to draw the attention of passersby.

  “There have been no complaints,” Trent agreed coldly. “See, now, we three are making a public spectacle of ourselves. I have said what I have said, Mr. Stock. A wise man need only once be warned of his duty, or of a peril. Let us be on our way, Mr. Walsh. Good day, Constable.”

  “Mr. Trent, Mr. Walsh.”

  Matthew watched as the two men proceeded quickly up the street. His heart beat rapidly with his anger and his mind raced with arguments and rebuttals, proofs and stratagems, so that there was no help in the sharp autumn air, in the familiar street, or in the thought that he would soon be at his

  own house and hearth. There was only frustration and determination. He knew what he had seen, and he would be damned if he would let any alderman, parson, or magistrate—if it came to that—tell him otherwise. Nor would he allow himself to become the instrument of another man’s personal vengeance just because the present atmosphere of fear and danger gave occasion for it.

  On his way home he stopped at the Waites’. He was relieved to find all as he had assured the magistrate it was, calm and ordinary. Arthur was still at his station. The young man looked very bored.

  “Calm, is it, Arthur?”

  “The usual comings and goings, Mr. Stock. Your wife paid a call on the glover’s widow.”

  “Did she?”

  “About four o’clock it was, sir.”

  “Is she still within?”

  “No, sir. She’s gone home now.”

  “Very good, Arthur. I suppose you’ll want your supper too?”

  “Yes, Mr. Stock.” Arthur rubbed his right elbow and winced, as though an ague had settled there.

  “Some trouble with your arm?” asked Matthew.

  “It’s been bothering me all afternoon,” Arthur said. He cast a worried look at the house. “You know, sir, I was thinking about the glover’s house and what has transpired there. Mr. Waite’s death, I mean, then Ursula Tusser having lived right next door. They say a witch can curse a body and make the limbs shrivel up like a prune.”

  “That’s what they say.”

  “My arm never hurt till now, sir,” said Arthur,

  “Maybe it’s the cold weather,” suggested Matthew.

  Arthur shook his head doubtfully. Matthew patted him on the shoulder and told him not to worry. But the idea had wormed itself into the young man’s brain and would not be dislodged by easy assurances. He had been on duty since noon and had heard all the stories, twice over. He wanted to know what the constable made of them. The whole town

  knew what had happened. Wasn’t he in personal danger standing there outside the house the half day, exposed to evil eyes and God knew what spells from within? “They say she’s a witch,” Arthur whispered.

  “Who?”

  “Mother Waite.”

  So it was Mother Waite now. Not Mrs. Waite or Dame Margaret or any other name suited to her place as a freeholder’s wife of a respected Chelmsford family.

  “Only now you thought of these things?” asked Matthew.

  “Oh, sir, I have thought of them since hearing that I was to stand here.”

  “Well, I am heartily sorry for your arm’s discomfort, Arthur, but, as I say, I think it will be right as rain soon enough.” Matthew told his deputy to go home to his supper, and advised him that his services might be needed on the next day at Malcolm Waite’s funeral.

  A worried look crossed Arthur’s face. “The funeral?”

  “Malcolm Waite’s funeral, lad. A piece of churchyard fits every body.”

  Arthur cast an anxious look at his arm, which did not seem to hang as straight as before. “Yes, sir,” he said without enthusiasm.

  “And, Arthur ...”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Your arm will mend in God’s time. Don’t worry. Say your prayers when you get home and have a good supper. A full stomach and an easy conscience will set the worst fears to flight.”

  “Good night, sir.”

  “Good night, Arthur.”

  Matthew watched him as he walked down the street. Arthur moved slowly in the fading light, as a man does when the activity of the mind robs the legs of their strength and one foot shuffles before another out of mere habit. While he walked, his good arm held the other protectively.

  • NINE •

  MATTHEW looked for his wife and found her at length in the garden, where she was watching the last glow of day far in the west under the mass of ragged, smoky clouds. He greeted her and asked if she was not cold standing there. She seemed to be meditating something. She returned his kiss but in a distracted way; her mind was elsewhere.

  ‘Tm not cold,” she said. “The kitchen was like a furnace. Betty has held supper. A shoulder of mutton.”

  “Arthur Wilts told me you had visited Margaret Waite.” “I did. A disturbing visit in every way.”

  “How so?”

  Joan held nothing back, not even the alarm she had felt in the barn loft.

  “You’re sure it wasn’t Brigit or Susan—or perhaps John, the nephew?”

  “Susan was in the house, except when I saw her journey out to the privy. My oath upon it that she was never in the barn. When I returned to the house, Brigit was still out with the nephew at the tailor. No, I don’t think it was John.” “The mare stirring . . . perhaps the cat you saw . . . Strange how it regarded you,” he murmured, visualizing the scene.

  “No,” she said positively. “It was neither cat nor horse.” “I’m quite at a loss then,” he admitted. “But they were just whispers—human voices—and footsteps and a creak and a thud, you said.”

  “The strangest feeling of dread came over me while I was in the loft, a horrid place. I found this wicked thing.”

  “What wicked thing?

  She described the image, its grotesque parody of the human form.

  “A wicked thing indeed,” said Matthew, “but it was not that alone that frightened you, nor the whispers and noises.”

  “No, it was not those. It was a presence ... a presence of something not of this world.”

  “A ghost?” he asked lightly.

  But she was entirely serious. She looked at him reproachfully, with an expression that suggested her disappointment. As though to say, “I thought you would understand, but you do not.”

  He recognized her seriousness. It fell like a pall on them both as they walked back to the house and entered the kitchen. Betty was standing at the hearth. Joan told her to serve the supper. Husband and wife sat down at the table and waited before speaking again until the food had been served, Matthew had carved, and Betty was excused to other labors.

  Joan broke their long silence with a question about his afternoon. Where had he gone?

  “To the manor. I and Trent and Walsh and the parson.”

  “The aldermen?”

  “To report to the magistrate. About the gathering in front of the Waites’ this morning.” He told her about the meeting and the walk home, how the two men had pressured him regarding Margaret Waite.

  “A fine pair of birds,” she said scornfully. “A pox on them. No wonder they spoke against Margaret. A fox will prove no harmless dog if it does take a dozen years. Trent is out to settle an old score against her husband. Him
dead, the widow must serve.”

  “What old score?”

  “Don’t you remember? It’s been some twenty years. Malcolm Waite served his time as town searcher, in the course of which duties he brought our good butcher, now alderman, to account for his tossing of bones and other filth in the river, a

  thing expressly prohibited by law. His transgression cost the butcher three shillings and some odd pence.”

  “A paltry sum,” snorted Matthew. “I had forgotten the story, if I ever knew of it. But who would nurture a grudge like that for twenty years?”

  “Peter Trent, our most revered alderman, that’s who. The butcher has never forgot the incident. I myself heard his wife speak of it and claim the charge was all trumped up out of Malcolm Waite’s envy. Now Trent bullies the widow. I’ll wager it was Trent who was the most obnoxious on the way. Walsh is made of water compared to his fellow.”

  “It was Trent for a fact.”

  “He made threats, didn’t he? He’s a bully.”

  “I wouldn’t call them threats,” said Matthew.

  “Not threats?” she exclaimed, her eyes flashing dangerously. “Why, husband, what else would it be called?” “Strong admonishment,” he said, pursing his lips to indicate he agreed it was something more.

  “Marry, husband, well may you make such an antic face when you speak nonsense. Of course it was a threat. These are aldermen your plain honest dutifulness has offended, no mere town tipplers or errant knaves. Their displeasure might well be your undoing. Yet I like not their boldness. I would fain know where good Alderman Trent feels free to speak for me and the rest of the town. If I want the Waites persecuted for witchcraft or other high crimes and misdemeanors, I will tell him so myself and am not about to have such a clodpole upstart alderman as he is, who cannot rule his own house and lets that wastrel son of his haunt every alehouse in Moulsham until I know not what hour and—”

  “Peace, Joan, peace!” Matthew cried, laughing despite himself, for her fury often had a comical side and it did now. Joan had worked herself into a dither, gesturing wildly and looking fierce. Suddenly she burst out laughing herself. Betty came into the kitchen to see what had provoked such merriment. Seeing nothing more than her master and his wife talking at table, she disappeared again.

  “I concede to your wording, Joan,” Matthew said, drying

  his eyes with the napkin. But Joan made another face, mimicking Trent’s glower. “Oh, stop, stop, for pity’s sake,” he declared. “I’ll die of laughing.”

  “Let Trent be Trent,” she said after her antic humor passed and she reached across the table to caress his face with her hand. “But pray tell me, how will you proceed in this business? I hope you will not burden poor Margaret in her time of mourning. It’s true she was thicker with Ursula than we supposed, but it’s over now. What’s the point of raking it all over again to her detriment? Let her be, I say.”

  “Never fear,” Matthew said. “We shall have no burdening of widows, no persecutions. But I must investigate, Joan, there’s no help for it. The magistrate says I must, and if I do not, then Trent will. He wants my job as well as his own, and if he takes up the business, then you can say good night and amen too to the Waites and their kin. They’ll all be charged and we’ll watch them hang, one by one.”

  Joan shuddered at the thought. “Let us pray no more apparitions trouble us.”

  “Amen,” he said.

  “And if they do?” she asked.

  “If they are nothing more than serving girls gawking from windows, I’ll not care a groat, but if they go about causing deaths, then they must be looked into. In the meantime I’ll speak with Thomas Crispin. Ursula was his servant. He may know more than he has told—certainly Margaret Waite did. What a careless affair Ursula’s trial was is now made plain by these fresh discoveries.”

  “What will you ask of him?”

  Matthew shrugged. “It’s an ill mason that refuses any stone.”

  She considered the proverb and agreed.

  “I’ll do it after the funeral tomorrow.”

  “Ah, yes, the funeral,” she murmured ruefully. “Would that Malcolm Waite’s burial were the end of this business.” It was the night of the week when by custom the Stocks had their apprentices and servants in after supper for games and songs, for readings from Scripture and other edifying

  books. Betty now reappeared to ask if supper was done and the master was ready for such pastimes. In fact, neither Matthew nor Joan was in a mood for such lighthearted fare, but both felt duty bound by the tradition, and Matthew nodded his head. He no sooner did so than the servants and apprentices filed into the kitchen, talking noisily. Matthew directed them to their places at the long table as the talk subsided.

  “What shall it be, young sirs and maids?” Matthew boomed with forced cheerfulness. “Japes or songs, riddles or some new thing learned at the street corner when your minutes might have been more profitably spent learning your trade?”

  “The witch, Mr. Stock. Tell us of the witch that was seen today!” cried several young voices. Betty joined in the chorus, as did Peter Bench, his pale long face animated with interest.

  Matthew*was reluctant. Joan said, “Best satisfy their curiosity, husband, or they won't ask you to sing later on.”

  The apprentices laughed, and so did Betty. They encouraged him more strongly. He gave in.

  “It was not a witch at all, but simply Brigit Able, the glover’s serving girl, whom all of you know and see daily,” said Matthew.

  There were groans of disappointment and disbelief.

  “But, sir, I had it from the baker’s wife that it was a spirit indeed that was seen. Both at the window and elsewhere around the town,” proclaimed the squeaky voice of the youngest of Matthew’s apprentices.

  “In the town they all say it was Ursula Tusser that was seen there,” said Peter Bench. “The same that appeared to frighten Mr. Waite to his death.”

  “Aye, it’s all true, Samuel,” said the oldest of Matthew’s apprentices to the youngest, making a terrifying grimace at the same time. “And she’ll be coming for you tonight!”

  Samuel’s eyes grew round with horror, but the laughter that followed, touched even as it was with a certain nervousness, put the boy at ease.

  “Here, now,” said Matthew sternly. “Let’s have no more of

  witches. Mr. Waite will be buried tomorrow and it behooves us to speak well of him and his house.”

  “Will the shop be closed then?” asked Peter.

  “During the hours of the funeral it will,” answered Matthew. “Well, now, what is your pleasure?”

  “Songs, songs!” cried they all.

  “Very well,” said Matthew, smiling. “What shall we sing?”

  ‘“A Merry Maid Went Milking’!”

  “‘Summer Wanes Apace’!”

  “‘Follow Thy Fair Sun’!”

  “Ah, I like the last. The verse is most fitting, I think. Someone fetch the lute who’s a match for the strings and accompany me. On the second verse, all join in!”

  The lute was brought. Peter Bench seized the instrument and tuned it with great care. When all was ready, Matthew began to sing:

  “Follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow!

  Though thou be black as night,

  And she made all of light,

  Yet follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow!”

  By the time the rest of the company joined in at the second verse, the apparition of Ursula Tusser seemed all but forgotten. Matthew was quite caught up in his music. Indeed, all the voices blended sweetly. But Joan sat with a sad countenance, for even Thomas Campion’s melodious songs could not dispel the shadow of her fears.

  • TEN •

  THE NEXT DAY, UNDER SKIES OF SUCH THREATENING HUE THAT IT SEEMED NATURE HERSELF WAS GRIEVED AT THE GLOVER’S DEATH, MALCOLM WAITE WAS BURIED.

  The funeral was well attended by the curious, who showed more interest in the now notorious widow than in her late husband. Every pew in the
church was filled and—to the churchwarden’s dismay—a multitude of gawkers kept watch and ward amid the gravestones in the churchyard, where they showed little respect for Malcolm Waite or the graves they trod on. Rumor had done her work. If there was a man in the shire who had not heard of the glover’s strange death, he was blind and deaf and dumb too. Christmas and Easter would not see a tithe of the crowd.

  The ceremonies began with a procession of mourners, who had come up High Street led by the undertaker’s apprentice, a thin, sallow-faced boy fitted out in sable suit and carrying before him a standard draped in black crepe. The boy marched stiffly and self-consciously to some drumbeat in his head, looking straight on. Behind him appeared the gaunt, lean-jawed figure of the town undertaker, a man named Wynnyff, the very image of death himself, with his gray pallor and drooping mouth, and his eyes fixed on the cobblestones.

  The undertaker led the horse at the front of the funeral cart, a four-wheeled conveyance with a canopy under which was the coffin. The coffin was crowned with sprigs of holly and myrtle, symbols of immortality. After came the handful

  of mourners for whom the glover’s death had been more than a curiosity.

  The widow was supported on both sides by her sons, who had arrived early that morning to see their father buried. Behind them John Waite and Thomas and Janet Crispin walked together, along with the Crispins’ little girls, who were dressed like miniature adults. After the children came Joan, the only friend of the family who had dared to be seen in public with the suspected woman. At the end of the procession were the servants of the two families and a group of Thomas Crispin’s apprentices and workmen from the tannery. Their attendance was obligatory and their faces showed it. Matthew, standing by the church door, spied Susan Goodyear among the servants, but not Brigit Able. He wondered where she was.

  The funeral service itself was brief and overtly professional. The parson preached a sermon on the resurrection of the just and prayed earnestly before the mortal remains of the glover were carried into the churchyard and lowered into the ground, but it was evident that he did so without enthusiasm and with a certain amount of personal distaste. The great multitude of spectators and the subdued hostility they showed for the Waite family unnerved him, and he appeared relieved when his duties were done. The rain beginning to fall, the crowd fled for cover.