by Norah Lofts
But the Watson sow lay down in the Edgarsacre sty and died in the same mysterious manner as the others had done.
Three blows, coming as fast and furious as those Bert dealt out to his wife and the unwanted children.
‘Somebody put the evil eye on me, no doubt about that,’ Bert said.
But who? But why? The only person with an obvious grudge against him was his wife and even she, senseless as she was, must know that his ruin was hers.
Father Matthew was present at many of these fireside talks and suddenly, one evening, inside his mind, something flared, like a dry old log on a dying fire. Mistress Captoft!
He remembered exactly what she had said, after dealing him the wound that never healed. Who started this scurrilous talk about me? And he had mentioned Edgarsacre.
Apart from a bit of desultory schooling, aimed at a single end, he was exactly like the Intake people which was why he had become part of the village so easily. He was just as superstitious and with a smear of learning to prop up beliefs not openly accepted by educated men nowadays; but lurking in the background. Our Lord had admitted the existence of evil during His forty days in the wilderness. He had actually talked to the Devil: Get thee hence, Satan. He had also said: Go, to two evil spirits which possessed two men and so banished them into a herd of swine. The Gadarene swine.
And he, humble parish priest, had recognised evil; in the picture, in the woman, in the word she had used.
Just about a year ago.
Yes; October had come round again and last year’s October ale was ripe for drinking. The brown jug went round and tongues loosened. Bert Edgar’s mention of the evil eye seemed to have unlatched a door. Somebody recalled and recounted the spell Granny Robinson had put upon that poor man. Somebody else raked up an older tale. But that had happened at Nettleton.
The October wind rattled the shutters, howled at the door. Make up the fire, draw closer, pass the jug…
Well, there was this old woman at Nettleton who was a witch and could turn herself into a wolf. As a wolf, at night, she went round robbing hen roosts and lambing pens. Everybody knew but nothing could be proved until a man, three times robbed, set a trap. It didn’t go off quite as it should and in the morning all he found was a bit of a paw and some hair, all bloody. But that was enough; taking some neighbours with him he’d gone to the old woman’s cottage and there she was, with her left hand wrapped in a cloth. The top joint of her first finger chopped off. She said she’d done it chopping wood, meaning to spit a fowl. Ah, but what fowl?
One of her own, she said; but hers were all speckled and the feathers of the one she was about to cook were white—Just like the ones which the man had set the trap to protect.
Old Sawyer, father to the coffin maker and Old Hodgson’s senior by just eighteen months, could vouch for the truth of this story.
‘She went afore the Justices, all fair and square, and she was burnt for a witch on Baildon Market Place. My grandfather journeyed in to see it done. And he towd me hisself; Time she roasted, he said, the smell wasn’t like meat cooking. More like burnt hair, same’s you’d get burning a wolf.’
Except as the eldest of the Elders, Old Sawyer no longer counted for much; his son had taken over his trade and his holding and his memory for anything recent was so faulty that, as his daughter-in-law complained, you couldn’t even trust him with a message, send him to borrow a little salt and as like as not he’d come back with a spoon. But for bygone things his memory was as good as ever. Most of his tales—including this one—had been told and re-told so many times that nobody listened any more. Tonight they did and he enjoyed being the centre of attention for a change.
‘She confessed, in the end. It was done by brews.’
Father Matthew thought; Mistress Captoft wouldn’t turn herself into a wolf; no, it’d be a snake. The snake in the picture was marked green and red; and he now remembered that the woman had worn a gown which in some way combined those two colours.
The October ale was potent and he could see, in his mind, a snake slithering through the night, striking a bull with impotence, bringing disease to the pigs. And leaving no trace.
They were talking about brews now; about Granny Robinson who had carried the secret of hers to the grave with her, so that nobody in Intake could make such things nowadays.
‘Except Mistress Captoft,’ Ethel said. Still relentless.
Well, suppose then, just suppose that Mistress Captoft could cast a spell, as well as make brews, why Bert Edgar? What had he ever done to offend her?
‘I never even spoke to the woman. Never even seen her, except across the church, two-three times.’
‘I may be to blame,’ Father Matthew said, hatred and ale combining to make him incautious. ‘I went,’ he gave a loud hiccup ‘to speak to her about her way of life. She insulted me. And she asked who started the gossip. I couldn’t say who. I did tell her where.’
‘My place?’
‘Yes. I’m sorry. Very sorry, if I brought all this on you.’ (So you should be, damn you! I’ll get even with you, you blabber-mouthed bastard!)
When Bert Edgar was angry with Jill or the younger children, he struck them with his belt or anything that was handy. On men he used his fists and his feet. But he couldn’t very well set about a priest, especially one so popular. And at this moment Father Matthew, by proving how thoroughly he was one with them, sharing their belief in magic, was very popular indeed. But just let him wait! This year the men of Intake were actually on the verge of ploughing up his glebe. It wouldn’t be done if Bert Edgar had any say in the matter. He wasn’t an Elder; he was no longer even one of the prosperous but he still had his fists and most men were a bit scared of him.
This was the time of year, middays still warm, chill coming with sunset, when foggy nights were known at Intake. The people believed that it came in from the sea, blowing up along the river and trapped by the encircling woods. Carrying his lantern—almost worse than useless on such a night—Father Matthew blundered his way home.
So far as he could tell no snake crossed his path but in the morning he woke with no voice. A croaking, a hoarseness would follow, he knew, upon an ordinary cold—but he had had no cold; he’d simply lost his voice. And that confirmed—had confirmation been needed—that Mistress Captoft could cast spells. Because he had joined in the talk against her, she’d struck him dumb. And what good was a dumb priest? Intake was a poor living but it sufficed; once his glebe was under cultivation—and some of the Intake men had practically promised that this year, their own ploughing done, they’d spare a little time for his—things would be better. But dumbstruck, what future awaited him? He hadn’t learning enough to be a clerk or a professional scribe. He had no powerful friends, no family. And the shocking fact was that if you couldn’t speak, you were regarded as idiotic.
He faced this dismal prospect for three days and then as suddenly as it had gone, his voice came back and he was able to tell Timmy that he had been a good boy. As indeed he had. Timmy knew all about bodily afflictions; his face for a start and, as though that weren’t bad enough, a fit now and then, everything lost, a whirling darkness and then the long, slow climb back to life. Timmy owed Father Matthew more than any amount of faithful service could ever repay.
Speech restored, conviction hardened, Father Matthew borrowed Johnson’s horse again and this time rode down to Bywater and with peasant patience, under which lay peasant doggedness, waited, this room, another room, men who had done better in life, flitting in and out, telling him that His Grace was busy but would see him presently. And presently he was admitted to the presence, knelt, kissed the amethyst ring, sat when invited to do so, on the very edge of the chair. Ungainly, as Mistress Captoft had judged; knees apart, coarse hands planted on the knees. But His Grace was a realist and knew that it was upon just such men as this one that the Church depended. The complicated, glittering structure had, like all others, to have foundations, roots. St. Peter, the humble fisherman—‘Upon this rock I
will build my church.’ He was prepared to listen patiently to what he sensed would be a rambling, trivial story, to advise if he could, reprimand if he must. What he was not prepared to do, and that appeared to be what Father Matthew was asking of him, was to take action against a so-called witch.
Enlightened men no longer believed in such things. That French girl, Joan of Arc, had been burned as a witch and by the very manner of her death—she had asked for a cross and an English soldier had hastily made one, two sticks tied together—she had brought the whole business of witchcraft and magic-making under fresh examination in which intelligence over-rode prejudice. Most reasonable, modern minded men—and the Bishop of Bywater was one—were now of the opinion that she had been the victim of political strife, condemned by judges who were biased—or bribed. Simply by dying as she did she had brought witch-hunting into disrepute. So although His Grace listened with some semblance of patience, he listened sceptically to this tale of bulls rendered impotent, pigs dead of swine fever that was no swine fever, pictures of nude people and snakes that struck men dumb, the whole thing protracted, in true rustic style, by what he said, what she said, what I said. At the end of the jumbled tale, Father Matthew said, ‘So I thought, Your Grace, I’d best come and ask your advice. What should I do?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing? But Your Grace… What I have been saying… ’
‘A hotchpotch of out-worn superstition, some coincidence and, I suspect, even more spite. I think that you will find, Father Matthew, that when you look into the matter more dispassionately, you will find that somebody—possibly more than one person—has a real or an imagined grievance against this poor woman and, failing other means of redress, concocted this charge against her. Such an easy charge to bring; so difficult to refute.’ He saw it all, he thought. Intake, that remote place, backward, and Father Matthew, lonely, consorting with peasants, his own kind, except for a little, a very little education. But even so, a priest was an ordained man; he should maintain a certain dignity and not get himself so entangled with bulls and pigs and gossip.
He gave Father Matthew a little homily on the subject; gentle, because he was not an ill-natured man and because he could, in a vague way, see the man’s predicament. At the end of it, sensing something stubborn and resentful in the man to whom he had—look at the measured glass where the sand, dropping, marked the hours and their halves and quarters—already devoted more time than he could really spare, he said, ‘You came for advice and I have given it. Do nothing. Above all do not go running to the secular authority. Take this tale to the Sheriff and you will bring not only yourself but the Church into ridicule.’
Father Matthew rode home in a curious state of mind. Angered, yes. He was furiously angered; he’d gone to seek support which had not been forthcoming. He’d been given a lecture; told to be friendly but not familiar, to lead rather than follow. All very well but hadn’t he, by being familiar as well as friendly, got far more people to Mass? However, there was another side to it. Spite had been mentioned and in all honesty he was bound to admit that he had not only felt spite against Mistress Captoft himself but encouraged it in others.
Johnson, at Johnsacre, was waiting for his horse. There were a few men; waiting. No women, they were busy with the last meal of the day.
So, what had the Bishop to say?
Do nothing.
Just the sort of bloody silly thing somebody sitting down there in Bywater would say! But they’d always been independent, acting on their own, sticking together when the occasion demanded it. This was a job for the Elders.
Now Old Hodgson faced a predicament. To speak up for Mistress Captoft, as gratitude demanded he should do, would be useless. It’d do her no good; one voice carried no weight against six; and it would do him harm. Sticking up for a witch. Who wanted that to be said about him? Especially just at a time like this when Old Sawyer was failing, mumbling about, making no sense of what was happening around him. Any day now he’d be asked to stand down and Old Hodgson would be eldest of the Elders. So he sat quietly, making no suggestions of his own but with nods and sounds of agreement going along with it all.
Having dismissed Father Matthew, the Bishop turned to correspondence, writing two letters in his own hand. One to Lady Grey, expressing his hearty approval of the proposed match and conveying his congratulations on the splendid management which had produced such a satisfactory result. The second letter was to Lord Shefton, slightly sycophantic and deftly calling to his Lordship’s attention the fact that to some degree he had himself been instrumental… The Earl was not only very rich but very powerful, too.
‘He’s off to market tomorrow,’ Jem reported.
‘You sure?’
‘Certain. He was altering the waggon this afternoon.’
Most fattened bullocks walked to market, spending two days on the journey if necessary and being beaten all the way, not only by their drover but by any casual person who cared to take a whack—the blows were supposed to make the meat more tender. Henry, though not unduly sentimental about animals—no farmer could afford to be—thought it a barbarous custom as well as quite useless. So he conveyed his in the waggon and, since a well-fed beast was too much of a load for one horse, he had made a contraption consisting of one shaft, so that the two horses could pull side by side. Even so, with one horse getting old it was a slow journey and he left home early and disregarded Godfrey’s pleas to be taken, too. ‘You’d add to the weight. You shall come next time.’ It didn’t do to let boys have their own way all the time.
‘Perhaps even on my mule,’ Mistress Captoft said. ‘That is if you try really hard with your sums.’
The lesson was going on in the hall, on the side of the table nearest the fire, for it was a cold day; Katharine was making bread and David busy in the dairy when the iron ring on the main door—serving both as handle and knocker—banged. Mistress Captoft went to the door herself. Opening it upon two Intake men in their working clothes, she thought it insolent of them to have come to this door and was about to send them round to the back when she became aware of a kind of urgency in their manner.
‘What is it?’
‘Can you come, Mistress?’
‘What is wrong?’ Her thoughts went at once to her store of curatives. The people of Intake had done nothing to endear themselves to her, had indeed grossly offended her, but she was not the woman to deny help to an individual in order to punish a whole community. Also, she half recognised one of the men—he had come for the priest and been sent off with a dose which had worked and the father, restored to health, had actually thanked her.
‘Thass what we don’t know. Thass why we come for you.’
Possibly an accident, requiring prompt attention.
‘I’ll just get my cloak,’ she said. She left the door open and in the half minute that it took her to run upstairs and down again, Ted Hodgson and Bert Edgar made the most of their chance to study the picture stretched across the wall over the blazing hearth. The only other pictures they had ever seen were those painted on the walls of the church, once so faded and peeling from damp as to be almost meaningless then restored by Sir Godfrey. And those pictures had been painted in the then contemporary fashion so that Mary, and the other Mary at the foot of the Cross, wore nun’s garb; and even the figure on the Cross wore a decent breech clout. The almost life-size nude figures were quite shocking and the snake was horrible.
‘Can I come, Mamma-Captoft?’ Godfrey asked as she ran down the stairs. Anything to avoid sums, which he could do but hated.
Expecting blood, or somebody in a fit, choking on his own tongue, or a breech-birth, Mistress Captoft said, ‘No,’ in a voice sharper than that she usually used to him.
They took the shortest way to the village. Sir Godfrey, remembered only as a grabber and a tyrant, had had a sharp eye for terrain and had realised that unless he planned well the people of Intake would have to trudge around the perimeter of an irregular oblong in order to get to church; so
he had left them, in addition to a good part of the common, a path which skirted his sheep-fold on its shorter side, emerged practically in front of his house and so to the church.
It was not a wide path. People used it when they came to church; Jem Watson used it every day, coming and going to work; it was well trodden but not very wide. Was there, however, the need to jostle? As they were doing, almost as though… as though she were a wrong-doer being hustled along to the lock-up.
Put them into place, she thought. After all, they had sought her aid, they could at least be respectful.
‘What is it? An accident?’
The man she did not recognise—Bert Edgar had said himself that he had never spoken to her, only seen her across the church a few times… he was not much of church-goer, just Christmas and Easter; he’d never ailed, himself, and nor had his first boy; for Jill and the other unwanted children he would certainly never have gone plodding along asking for aid—said, ‘You’ll see when you get there.’
And then she sensed something wrong. Sinister.
She was not a timid woman; she said, in the face of something wrong, wrong in a way she could not account for, ‘I refuse to take another step until you have explained your errand.’
‘You’ll see,’ Bert Edgar said, speaking as roughly as he did to his down-trodden wife. The most tricky part of the business was over now. He put out a big, work-hardened hand and took Mistress Captoft by the upper arm.