The Witch and the Priest (epub)

by Hilda Lewis

  It was at him again, the question that had haunted him this twelvemonth; and, again he answered it.

  They had been witches if ever witches existed. And that witches did exist was beyond doubt. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. The Scriptures had it plain.

  But he could not comfort himself that way.

  These were the ancient scriptures of the Jews. Men had learnt mercy since then . . . or had they?

  He turned from the altar and paced the stone flags of the aisle; empty pews stretched to left and right.

  If there were no witches, how was it that cattle had been curiously slain; and men, women and children died unnaturally and horribly? If these things had not been brought about by witchcraft, then they had happened through human wicked­ness. Witchcraft or poison—the evil-doer deserved to die. Murder was still murder.

  And what of those who willed evil; who employed no means but an evil spirit—not the familiar spirit, but their own wicked will? The will to slay. Then such a man deserved to die also whether he had actually brought his wickedness about or not. Surely he who has murdered in his heart is as guilty as he who has done the deed!

  He turned again to face the altar.

  Spite and evil; these things are never harmless. They are essences set free to work destruction. And yet, if for ill-wishing alone, a man deserved to die, there wouldn’t be enough gallows in England to hold them all! Besides, though the will to slay is evil, it is still not so evil as the deed. For before the deed is done a man may be drawn to repent; but the victim dead, God Himself cannot undo it.

  The deed is done. A little child goes down in fear and pain into the grave. . . . Henry would be eleven now; a comely boy; a steady eye; his father’s noble spirit. That had been clear in him, young as he was. And the other child, an infant; scarce more than a babe at the breast when the trouble began. Six years old when he had died. He would be eight now or there­abouts.

  So much beauty, so much promise lost! If the children had died by human wickedness—whether by witchcraft or any other means—then one need not lament unduly upon what charge the murderers had died.

  He shook his head at that piece of sophistry. When the law takes away a man’s life, then everyone must be clear about the reason.

  Yet he went on arguing with himself.

  If the witches had not died when they did, maybe Francis and Cecilia, yes and Catharine, too, would be lying here beside this child.

  But even that could not quiet his conscience.

  The only ones that could speak as to their innocence were the women themselves. And they had spoken—the mother denying; the daughters confessing. What had led Margaret and Philippa to embrace a shameful death? Had it been the Devil betraying his own? Or God in his infinite mercy con­demning the flesh that the soul might live?

  But . . . suppose they had been innocent?

  His heart began to race again so that he was forced to lean more heavily upon the altar rail.

  Had their tongues been loosed by the cruelty of man to man? Had they said anything—anything at all—for a little sleep, a little respite from the continual questions? He had heard of such things . . .

  . . . In other places, perhaps. But not here; not here in Bottesford where he sat on the Bench with Eresby and Manners and Pelham—good Christians all.

  Not that, oh God, not that!

  He went carefully upon his knees. A year ago he had been certain of the justice they had received; now he was no longer sure. Innocent people had been hanged before! Dear Christ, show him the truth; the truth about the women in whose death he had played his part.

  He rose stiffly and, on his way out, paused for a moment at the place where his brother lay buried—Abraham, scholar and wit dying unexpectedly, dying peacefully here, before all the trouble began. Would to God he himself had died then! God grant, at least, that he also lay his tired bones in this dear place! He shut the heavy door behind him. His feet took him without his knowing through the churchyard and over the little stone bridge he himself had built—a nearer way for people to come into church—and through the marketplace and along the lane where, the track disappearing into a copse, the witches’ cottage still stood.

  Its windows were broken now, where the villagers had thrust their billhooks, and weeds were growing high as the low chimney; there was grass springing in the thatch. No-one came near it now, not even in broad daylight. Evil clung about it, they said. You would never know when you mightn’t turn to face a wicked ghost. That was all nonsense of course. And yet, even in this bright spring morning there was something forbidding about the place.

  His feet went stumbling upon the trailing bushes and he put out a hand to steady himself. He found himself staring into the red eyes of a cat—a white and spiteful cat that seemed in two minds whether it should fly at his throat or run back into the bushes.

  He all-but crossed himself.

  Chapter Two

  He all-but crossed himself; then, remembering the King’s changing views on the subject of witches and that a priest must lead his flock against superstition, in secret as well as in public, his arm fell. But all the same, Rutterkin, he challenged, with the name of Joan Flower’s familiar. The cat was no longer there. Had it slunk away so quickly that his old eyes had not been good enough to follow it? Or had it disappeared—by magic?

  And, suddenly, he found himself calling Joan Flower’s name in the deserted place. And now the question that had tormented him this twelvemonth burst forth. Did we wrong you bitterly, you and your two daughters? Or were you rightly judged? Tell me. Tell me, Joan Flower.

  There was no answer. He called again, more urgently. Were you a witch, Joan Flower? Were you a witch?

  And now he heard a sound like the sighing of a long-dead voice . . . or perhaps it was the sighing of his own heart.

  You judged me.

  And suddenly she was there—Joan Flower as he had seen her last—dark hair streaked with grey, falling ragged about her face; and that face twisted to one side in a dreadful grin as she lay dying of the fit that had stricken her down.

  And now he remembered the first time he had seen her—thirty years ago; and how he had stared to find so exotic a creature in his remote village. A tall young woman with a high bosom and a fine carriage. Sixteen—though she’d looked older—when she came limping into Bottesford on her blistered feet. Come from beyond Derby; and before that from London. Brought up in a gentleman’s house she’d said when he ques­tioned her fine speech. Her father? She didn’t know—never set eyes on him. A foreign gentleman her mother said; Italian or Spanish or Scots. Her mother? A servant; a good servant; clever with her needle. So they’d kept the child; spoiled her above a little. She’d been let to play, at times, with the little lady of the house—an only child and lonely. When she was old enough, the young lady had taken her to be her maid—that was where she’d picked up her fine speech. They’d turned her away at the last and she not yet fifteen. Why? Her mother was dead and the young visiting gentlemen too free with their glances. . . .

  That was her tale, the Bottesford gossips said, resenting from the first that foreigner with her fine looks and her fine ways and her fine speech.

  John Flower, honest fellow, had seen her and fancied her; married her, too. Paid for what he might have had for nothing—so the gossip went. A bad woman, a bad wife, a foreigner.

  Well, as to the truth of all that he didn’t know. Gossip had held its tongue while her husband lived; John Flower had a strong arm—and knew how to use it. But certainly she’d looked foreign enough with her great dark eyes, and the proud shoulders, and the black hair that streamed backwards beneath its scarlet riband. What decent married woman of Bottesford would go about capless and all tied about with scarlet ribands? As for John Flower, maybe he had made a bad bargain. A silent sad man—when the drink was not in him—he’d said nothing. But for all her brave looks there’d b
een no sweetness in her face, not even when she’d sent him, the rector, one of her sidling, sidelong glances. Yes, she’d tried that game upon him, too, taking him for one of those lustful parsons, of which God knew, there were enough and to spare; not shepherds but wolves, ready to destroy the lambs entrusted to their care. She’d been all invitation and no kindness; men should beware of her he had thought, his own heart-beat a little quickened. For others had found a sweetness in her; even in little Bottesford she’d had her fill of lovers.

  And now again she was fixing him with those same eyes; but they were mournful eyes, holding all the sorrow of the world. But even as he looked, they were beginning to change; the look he knew was coming back to them; the wanton look. And . . . yes, she was growing younger; but for all that not so very young; a gap where a tooth was missing.

  So she had looked when she went up to Belvoir more than ten years ago, to ask work for her daughters. How old had she been? Thirtytwo? Thirtyfive? Her elder daughter Margaret was close on fifteen.

  “That day,” he said, “was the beginning of everything.”

  “It began before that,” she said and put a finger to her forehead as though to smooth, still further, time’s marks. “It began the day I understood my daughters were growing up . . . and I growing old. But,” she said, and there was a sweet­ness in her now, so that he began to understand, a little, why men had loved her, “you are not so young yourself, priest; and it blows cold. Come within doors.”

  The door gave at her touch and he followed her in.

  There was a fire in the deserted cottage, the hearth swept. He had not expected that. The white cat lay stretched along the warm hearth. Now it sprang up and spat; she quieted it in an unknown tongue.

  It was not uncomfortable in the dark little room. For all its musty smell, it was clean enough, with fresh rushes strewn upon the earth floor. Some rogue or beggar not knowing the tale, he thought, had sheltered for the night.

  “No,” she said, “such gentry would not leave all clean, let alone make it so. It is the wandering spirit returning to its earthly home.” She smiled into his startled eyes. “The eyes of a ghost see clear through flesh and blood to the thoughts within.” She stooped to the hearth, holding her fingers to the blaze; he could see clean through them to the glowing wood. “The old and the young may see us sometimes; with them the veil between this world and the next is thin.” And again he glimpsed the sweetness in her.

  There was a stool each side of the hearth; she took one and motioned him to the other. Between them the white cat stretched and stared at him with spiteful eyes.

  “It is strange,” she said. “A priest of God and the ghost of a witch. Yet here we sit together like old friends—we that were never friends in the flesh. But why should we not be friends?” Her hand went out as though to touch him, but stayed short. Yet for all that his flesh crept with the cold. “Though you helped to hang me, who shall say you were wrong? But oh priest, priest, the cruelty of men!”

  “And women?” he asked remembering the bitter evil she had done. “What of women?”

  She sighed; on the breath of her sighing he felt again the coldness of her presence and drew a little nearer to the fire.

  “The cruelty of men and the vanity of women. Between those points, priest, the sun spins. The vanity of women—” she said again, “it brought me to the Master. Growing old—it was a thing I could not endure.”

  “There is nothing to fear in age.”

  “Not for you, priest. But for me.”

  “It could bring its own beauty.”

  “To you,” she said, gently. “But not to me; not to my sort of woman.”

  He sighed, knowing it to be true. And yet, that day she had gone up to the castle she had looked young enough; younger than most women of her class that toiled in the fields and in the kitchen. “Yet you were comely,” he said. “And what is a wrinkle here and there?”

  “That is a man’s question; and his own eyes answer him. As for me—the day I saw those wrinkles, it was the begin­ning of the end. I had to keep my looks, priest; they were my livelihood; my only livelihood when John Flower died.”

  “And before he died?” Samuel Fleming asked.

  “Honest John had a heavy hand and I walked carefully though not always righteously, for I was sick of supping always at the one dish; and that dish lacking salt or savour. And then he died, good John, honest John and left me without a penny piece and my two girls to fend for. So I was glad enough to take to my trade. And why not? I loved men and they loved me.”

  He made a little movement of recoil and she laughed.

  “We are in duty bound to love all men,” she said and there was a look of mischief about her; he could easily believe her to be of the Devil.

  “I loved men—but not women. Nor did any woman love me. They could not forgive me my face—such as it was.”

  That was true; it was her looks that had started all the trouble. Women would come to him with their tales; and every tale ending with complaints about her looks . . . A man’s woman and foreign with it, her good looks a gift from the Devil—how else did she keep them? A woman’s a hag at thirtyfive; but she? Certainly her look of youth came from the Devil!

  “And yet,” she said, “I did love women, too . . . once. I’d nurse them. I was good at simples; it was a knowledge I had of my mother. But I’d get no thanks. They’d drink my possets and all the time they’d watch me out of the corners of their eyes. Or while I’d sweep the room, the good wife in her bed would stare as though any minute I’d fly away on her broomstick. Oh yes! They’d enjoy the fruits of my labour—and call me witch for my pains. But I was no witch then; no more than you, yourself!

  I’d never so much as thought of a pact with the Master, why should I? I had all I wanted—men; and food; and wine; a new kerchief or buckles for my shoes. Not much perhaps by a lady’s reckoning, but enough.

  And then, one day, quite suddenly, I understood these good things must come to an end—and the time not far-distant.” Her rueful smile showed the gap where she had lost a tooth. “Soon no man would want me. That was the day I took the Devil for my Master.

  “A hot summer day it was; and I in this very room. There was a hollyhock tapping against the window and a thrush singing Be quick, be quick. Or maybe it was my own heart singing because I was waiting for my lover. No, priest, never look at me like that! I’ve had men; but when I say I loved them, I meant in the way of trade. I’ve never had but one love.”

  “Peate!” he said, remembering the scandal. Peate’s wife had stirred up the trouble, poor, stupid Ann Peate, pitting herself against this quick, bright creature. Yet—as in the old fable—the quick, bright thing had lost; the slow stupid creature had won.

  She nodded. “He was my true love. At least I was true. A woman needs the comfort of a man’s body and Flower had been dead above five year. And what was he at the best of times? A clod, scarce warmer living than dead! Often I’d thought of helping him where he belonged—clod among clods. But I never harmed him.”

  “To wish him dead—was that no harm? I think he knew. I think he was glad not to get well again.”

  She shrugged. “You think it was wicked of me to take Peate; to take all the men who’d come—and there were plenty, I’ll own. But what harm? I’d give them happiness, adventure, excitement . . . all the things their wives couldn’t give.”

  “And what did you take from their wives?” he asked, grave.

  “Nothing. Or their men wouldn’t have come to me. Those women! They had their homes; they had their men and the work of their hands. They had a safety I hadn’t got . . . a safety I hadn’t got.” She laughed a little. At least he could not be sure whether she laughed or cried—there was a wailing note to the sound.

  “Well!” and she was brisk again. “There I was waiting for Peate. And then I heard his feet come along the path.

  Th
e steps went round the house. And then I heard a voice; a woman’s voice; Margaret’s voice. A child I’d thought her. I should have known better. No woman’s a child at fifteen. Her voice was high as a fiddlestring; a woman’s voice when the flesh is stirred. No! she cried out. No! But it was clear that she meant Yes.

  Peate laughed. I knew that laugh. Tender; enough to melt the marrow in your bones. I was listening, all soft and silly with love. I don’t know how long it was before I understood that he was playing me false with another woman; and that woman my daughter. Perhaps it was a minute; perhaps an hour. The bitter heart has no truck with time.

  I started up then; I went to the door. But I didn’t open it. No need to look through any door to know where those two were going; no need to guess, neither, what they were going to do together in the darkness of the wood.

  I came back to my place and I sat there among the ashes and I held my head in my two hands. And my heart was broken. And I never once thought of Margaret—not as Margaret my daughter, my child to be protected. I thought only of the woman who’d taken my lover.

  I’d lost my lover to a younger woman.

  I sat there rocking myself backwards and forwards trying to think my way out of it. But nothing would come into my head save that I was growing old and she was young; and she must go away. But where, and how? I hadn’t any money and I hadn’t any friends. But go she must. She must go.

  And then there was Philippa—Philip we called her. If I’d thought of her as a child who could blame me? Going on for thirteen and thin as a rat. If I hadn’t been so taken up with Peate I’d have known before this, it was Philip would be the danger. Quick where Meg was slow; dark and a high colour where Meg was pale; warm where Meg was cold. Meg took after her father—a true-bred Flower. They used to joke about it. A real flower they’d say. Remember? And it was true in a way. She was a pretty thing—if you like them pale and slow; but her face, to my mind, was a little stupid.