Familiar Spirits

by Leonard Tourney

  Matthew took these pieties in without comment, sitting upon a stool while the two women occupied a short, straight-backed bench against the wall. He wondered if Thomas Crispin was taking his wife’s imminent conviction as calmly. Things looked very bad for the women. The afternoon promised worse. The jury had been affected by the fit into which the baker’s wife had fallen at the termination of her account. Matthew had seen it in their horrified faces. The physical evidence—the witch’s teat on Margaret Waite’s left buttock (or had it been the right? And did it make a difference which side it was?) and the supernatural smoothness of Jane

  Crispin’s flesh—had also been telling. That Satan was at work in Chelmsford seemed no longer in question—at least to the townspeople.

  A knock came at the door and one of the deputies looked in to say that Mr. Crispin was outside and wanted to know if he could speak with his wife. “Let him come in,” Matthew said.

  The tanner entered and his wife rushed to embrace him; then he turned on Matthew angrily. “I will be revenged on every one of them,” he stormed, speaking, Matthew supposed, of the witnesses against his wife. “Shameless lying hypocrites the lot of them!”

  “Peace, husband, do not speak so,” said Jane Crispin in her soft, cultured voice. She put her hand on his mouth to still his ranting. He grasped the hand with his own and kissed it, tears running down his cheeks into the neatly trimmed beard.

  “Preach me no sermons of forgiveness,” Crispin said to his wife. “I have a bitterness within me that must vent itself or I’ll explode. Let me have my words, then, I beg of you.”

  “Vent your wrath, husband,” she said, “and then forgive your enemies as our Lord counsels.”

  Matthew left the room and waited outside the door while husband, wife, and sister conversed further. Presently, Crispin left and the parson came. He had taken his midday meal with certain London gentlemen of his acquaintance, and now said he felt obliged to give spiritual solace to the accused women. Matthew went into the office with him and listened while he spent the better part of an hour speaking of heavenly matters designed to lift the women’s spirits. The parson seemed puzzled by the fact that their spirits were already lifted, although they explained to him how they had prayed and fasted too. “Satan has power to give us a false sense of security,” the parson said. “We must remember our salvation does not proceed from our strength but from God’s grace.”

  Jane Crispin assured him her faith was from God. “Before, in my pride, my faith was lukewarm,” she admitted. “In my

  ordeal I have found Him without whom all human endeavor is vanity.”

  She said this with such fervor that even the parson looked schooled by her. He presently took his leave of them and returned to the courtroom, where the trial was ready to resume and the benches were quickly being filled.

  Matthew took his prisoners to their places, and soon afterward the judges returned.

  Matthew had earlier been given to understand that the afternoon would be devoted to an examination of the accused women and that it was in this examination the prosecutor was to show his skills. To this end, Margaret Waite was first called to the witness stand. She was sworn upon the Bible, but, unlike the witnesses who had testified against her, she was first asked if she professed the book to be the Word of God. She said she knew it to be the Word of God and was allowed, because of her frail condition, a stool to sit on. Malvern then asked her if she could recite the Lord’s Prayer and the Ten Commandments. She rendered the prayer word-perfect but confused the sixth commandment with the eighth, whereupon a murmur of dismay ran through the court. Malvern cast a significant look at the jury as if to say, “Good-men, did you notice that?”

  They had noticed it; Matthew saw them nodding and whispering to each other.

  Then Malvern asked her about her church attendance, and she said she had rarely missed a Sunday. Malvern laughed and said so did many a whore and linen snatcher, and put a good face on it too. “What do you say to these worthy women who searched your body for the Devil’s mark—yea, and found it on your nether parts? Are they liars or are they good Christian women?”

  Margaret was flustered by the question, caught as she was in the dilemma of having to choose between defending herself and condemning her neighbors. For a moment she gave no answer, and the prosecutor had to repeat his question, a grim smile of triumph forming at his mouth.

  “It was a birthmark ... a mere imperfection, which I had

  since childhood,” Margaret said tearfully. “It was in a privy place, but my husband knew of it and thought nothing amiss.”

  “Vile creature!” stormed Malvern in such a voice that more than one spectator in the court jumped in his seat. “Your husband is the Devil! That is the husband you speak of. Tell us, did he come to you at night, whispering in your ear. What did he whisper?”

  “Nothing, sir . . . nothing . . . I—”

  “Nothing? Then you do admit he came to you but said nothing?”

  “He never came. I have no husband.”

  “You had a husband of whom you wearied! You conjured a spirit to frighten him and deprive him of his life. Admit that this is true!”

  “It is not true!” Margaret shrieked, rising. “My husband died a natural death. His heart failed him. He had been long sick.”

  “Long wasted, you mean,” returned Malvern with heavy sarcasm. “Long wasted with a mysterious ailment. This once hale and hearty man. I know. I have talked with his physician. The man was at a loss to explain the disease. A natural death, you say? Very natural. Yes, very natural indeed, when a man looks out his window and sees a girl six weeks dead glaring in at him. That’s most natural, most wondrous natural.”

  “I did not cause my husband’s sickness. I did not conjure Ursula’s spirit,” Margaret said quietly.

  “And yet the spirit came. And how could it come, save it were called forth? Answer me that, woman.”

  “I cannot answer,” Margaret said.

  “Indeed, you cannot answer, Mrs. Waite,” said the prosecutor. Malvern turned and gave a long look at the jurymen, who leaned forward intently. “Goodmen of the jury, you have heard this woman’s words. I had to wrench the facts from her. Wherefore her reluctance, I ask you, but a vicious desire to conceal the truth? She would have had us believe her husband died betwixt sleep and awake, as they say righteous

  men do. But I can summon witnesses who viewed Malcolm Waite’s corpse and it was no pleasant sight, I can tell you that.” Malvern paused, then turned to Margaret again. “Are you not ashamed to have conjured such an apparition?”

  “Why, no, sir, I am not ashamed,” Margaret said indignantly.

  “Oh, then you are not ashamed you say?” Malvern swung around to face the jury again. “What an infamous witch is this not even to show shame when she sups with the Devil and compacts with the Evil One to kill her husband.”

  The magistrate intervened, perhaps out of compassion for the stricken woman on the witness stand or perhaps simply because he was weary of the prosecutor’s ranting and posturing. “Mrs. Waite, when you said no to Mr. Malvern’s question, did you mean to deny you were ashamed or to deny you conjured?”

  Margaret looked up gratefully at the magistrate and said, “The latter, sir. I never conjured, never in my life. I wouldn’t know how to do it. I would not want to do it, even if I could.”

  The magistrate sat back satisfied and motioned to the prosecutor to proceed. Malvern went over to the little table behind which he had been sitting and shuffled through some papers. Matthew waited, as he had waited ever since the interrogation of Margaret had begun, for Malvern to bring up the matter of Philip Goodin, Margaret’s brother. But when Malvern resumed his questions they dealt with Margaret’s relationship with her husband. Matthew wondered if Malvern knew about Philip Goodin at all.

  “Now, Mrs. Waite, it is well known in the town that you were a shrewish wife, a domineering woman who kept her husband in his place,” said Malvern.

  “I confess t
hat was my wicked humor,” Margaret replied after a few moments of hesitation. “I much regret it now that he is dead.”

  “I am sure you do,” replied Malvern caustically. “Did you not wish your husband to die?”

  “I did not.”

  “Speak the truth!”

  “I speak it, if you will hear it.”

  Malvern tried another tack: “It was your barn in which Ursula Tusser practiced her witchcraft.”

  “Such witchcraft as she was said to practice occurred in my barn,” Margaret replied.

  “I'm surprised more was not made of that at her trial, for how could she do such wickedness under the nose of the barn’s owner save that person knew of it? You did know of it, didn’t you?”

  “I knew of her meetings, but thought it not all of the Devil,” Margaret answered weakly.

  “Not all?”

  Margaret repeated what she had said. She spoke very softly now. The courtroom was dead quiet, listening.

  “Either Ursula practiced the black art or she did not. If some were evil, then all were. It follows, doesn’t it?”

  Margaret, obviously wearied now with the prosecutor’s questions, looked confused. Thus far she had held up well under the grilling, but her pallor indicated how much the interrogation had taken from her.

  The prosecutor went on, his voice growing louder and more insistent: “The fact is, Mrs. Waite, that you are as guilty now, and were then, as Ursula Tusser. As much in communion with the Devil as was she. It was only your so-called respectability as a merchant’s wife that saved you from the gallows. Had you been poor, deformed, ignorant, a person without name or property—”

  “I think you’ve made your point, Mr. Malvern,” interrupted the magistrate, who undoubtedly felt that the implication of these remarks touched upon his own execution of justice as much as it did on the alleged guilt of Mrs. Waite.

  “I only wished to demonstrate, sir,” said Malvern in a conciliatory voice, “that this woman’s practice was of very long standing. In admitting her involvement with Ursula Tusser she ipso facto—that is to say, admits to being a witch herself. ”

  “I’ll hold my judgment on your logic, sir, and the jury

  will in due time render its verdict. Please proceed, but calmly.”

  Malvern made a stiff little bow of respect to the magistrate and glanced through his notes, which he now held in his hand. During his exchange of words with the magistrate, Margaret had sat down on the stool. Malvern was about to address another question to her when she slumped forward and would have fallen to the floor had not Malvern caught her in his arms. This sudden collapse aroused some consternation in the court, for it was immediately assumed a supernatural agency had been the cause of it. However, when a damp cloth was provided by the clerk and administered by Jane Crispin, Margaret revived. Malvern said he would put no more questions at present to Margaret, and she was helped by the clerk and her sister to the prisoners’ bench.

  Throughout Margaret Waite’s questioning, Jane Crispin’s expressions had been the mirror of her sister’s suffering. She had wept when Margaret wept, cringed before Malvern’s accusations, and cried out for mercy’s sake when Margaret had fainted. Now Jane was called to the stand. She rose, her face suffused with revitalized conviction. She walked directly to the witness stand. Refusing the offer of the stool, she stood looking at the prosecutor with an expression of curious interest. She had dressed neatly and well for her trial and looked calm and dignified. She seemed conscious of a social advantage—and certainly a moral superiority—over her accusers. Malvern asked her first to recite the Paternoster. She recited it perfectly, rendering it with such passion that one would have thought her the author of it and that He to whom the words were addressed was seated in the court. The spectators, hanging on every word, were obviously impressed; when Jane said “amen,” more than one voice echoed it. She also recited the Ten Commandments—in their proper order and without failing to include the negatives, the omission of which had sealed the doom of more than one poor woman accused of witchcraft.

  When these tests were completed, Malvern stood regarding Jane Crispin for some time, as though she were some

  kind of freak that he might not have the opportunity of seeing again. She stared back at him. Without speaking, the two of them seemed engaged in a contest of wills. This went on until Matthew began to feel hot and nervous from sheer anticipation. A restlessness in the court indicated he was not the only one feeling this way.

  “You have heard, Mrs. Crispin, the evidence against you?” Malvern asked.

  Jane said she had heard it and thought very little of it too.

  “You deny having conjured, then?”

  “I do deny it most forcefully,” she said. She turned her gaze on the judges, then on the jurymen, and finally on the spectators. Her gaze was bold and steady and caused unfavorable comment in the court. But Matthew admired her pluck. She reminded him of his wife—steady, no puling wench with only tears for her defense. He leaned forward, not wanting to miss a word of the exchange between them.

  “Inasmuch as their testimonies,” Jane continued, “given here or elsewhere label me as anything but a woman of unblemished reputation and a Christian, I do deny their charges most vehemently. My conscience is settled.”

  “Your neighbors are liars, then,” said Malvern in a loud voice. “Isn’t that the inescapable conclusion your words force upon us?”

  “If they say I am a witch, they are mistaken and misled. The same is true of their testimony against my sister. I know nothing of witchcraft. I care to know nothing. I know only the Scriptures, the prayer book, and the verities I learned upon my good mother’s knee. All these I have practiced since my youth. My heart is free from offense to God and my neighbor. Only God can know the human heart, and therefore if in their hearts my neighbors think ill of me, then my neighbors must answer to God for it.”

  “The name of Deity comes readily to your lips, Mrs. Crispin, by which stratagem you hope to convince us that you are not of Satan’s party. But such words are cheap, are hawked at every street corner. They are easily had by rote memory, lisped on the tongue when the occasion requires—

  to create a semblance of virtue when indeed there is no virtue at all.”

  “That’s true, sir,” answered Jane. “Words are cheap. But if my words are cheap, then so are yours. If words can gloss a lie and make it shine like a verity, then a slander may daub a truth and make it appear a falsehood. But there are facts too, sir, and they are at times more substantial than words. I was dipped in the baptismal font of our church when eight days old, and have lived a Christian all my life. Who judges me may well remember the words of our Saviour: ‘Let him without sin cast the first stone.’”

  These remarks of Jane’s caused a murmur in the court and the clerk had to call for silence. In his heavy lawyer’s gown Malvern was sweating profusely, and it was obvious he was growing vexed at Jane Crispin’s responses.

  “Very well spoken, Mrs. Crispin,” he said. “I’m sure the court appreciates being preached to by a woman. But let that pass. Tell us now, your sister has made her accompliceship plain by confessing that she knew of Ursula’s meetings, of her craft. In so doing, she has practically confessed to being a witch—”

  Jane started to protest, but Malvern hushed her with a wave of his hand and continued forcefully: “It comes to that by order of logic, Mrs. Crispin. Your sister is a confessed witch! Now you, Mistress Eloquence, were that famous witch’s employer. I mean Ursula’s, of most detested memory in this town. Even she whose spirit has come to be called the Chelmsford Horror, to the dismay of honest Christians. What can be said of the mistress who allows her servant such liberties to the detriment of her soul and those of others?”

  “I know not your logic, sir, having not been in school,” Jane replied, “but the Scriptures I know, for I have studied them from my youth. Did Jesus not have one follower who betrayed him? If, then, the master is answerable for all that the disciple does,
how is it our Lord escapes the blame for Judas’s treachery?”

  “What!” exclaimed Malvern, throwing back his hands in mock amazement and laughing hoarsely. “First you preach at

  us. Now you would liken yourself to the Son of God! Has the court ever heard such blasphemy as this? This is mere chop logic. Yet the woman claims no learning.”

  “Mrs. Crispin,” interrupted the magistrate. “We will have no blasphemous similitudes in this court. Please answer Mr. Malvern’s questions simply and without further resort to sacred writ.”

  “Your honor, may a woman not defend herself, then?” Jane asked calmly, turning in the direction of the three judges.

  “She may defend herself,” said the magistrate, “but as a woman, not as a man.”

  “As a woman,” she said. “I understand, or at least I think I do. Very well, sirs.” She turned to the jury. “Goodmen and neighbors, you have every one known me for a long time as a decent honest woman—as no shrew or backbiter, gossip or railing wife. My tongue I have kept disciplined and, I pray, clean of filth. How can you believe these lies and calumnies inspired by ignorance and malice of my husband’s enemies? Curses against cattle and sheep! Strange characters scrawled upon paper! The Holy Sacrament administered to dogs! Why these are foolish fictions, every one, the fruits of idle—no, addled—brains!”

  Several of those who had witnessed against the sisters rose up to protest these characterizations, and for a moment there was a great deal of shouting and name-calling, mostly from the baker’s wife, whose enmity toward the Waites and Crispins was now painfully obvious. “Liar and whore! Devil’s slut!” Mrs. Roundy raged. Over this din, the clerk shouted for order and the magistrate banged his gavel until the handle broke and he was forced to use his fist. Finally, Mrs. Roundy’s husband silenced her and the other irate witnesses resumed their seats. Jane Crispin stared at the hostile faces in the court as though their rage and vile expletives meant nothing at all to her.

  ‘ Another such outburst and I will have the court cleared of spectators,” growled the magistrate. “Mrs. Crispin, you will answer the questions put to you and say no more to the