by Hilda Lewis
But Philip. The Devil knows who fathered her. Not Flower. Her eyes were narrow and dark, slanting a little, with a squint to them. She could do more with that squint than another woman with eyes like stars. There was a man going with her then. It was Tom Simpson took her maidenhead. Twelve years and no virgin . . . and I didn’t know; didn’t even think about it. That day it was Meg troubled me. And sitting there all hopeless, I thought, Let her stay, let her go—it’s all one. Lose your looks—lose your man.
Old. I was growing old. An old woman. What would there be for me in the long days to come—the longer nights?
I remember sitting there and fighting myself not to look at my face in the fine mirror Peate had brought me from Lincoln Fair; I did not dare to look. But all the time my fingers kept straying . . . a wrinkle or two; not many. But enough, enough. My hand went creeping alongside my mouth. And then—it’s strange—I haven’t a body any longer; and I know the vanity of vanity. But still it’s hard to tell you what I found . . .”
She paused, he could see she was driving herself to speak.
“. . . In the corner of my mouth, the left corner—a hair. So soft, so small, my finger couldn’t be sure. I tried it with my tongue. My tongue could feel it; my tongue was sure. A hair, so soft, so small. Innocent. But it wouldn’t stop that way. I would pull it out; but it would grow again. And more of them; more.
I forgot about Margaret! I forgot about Peate. I forgot everything but that little soft hair. It was stupid of me. One hair; one little hair. But I remembered women I’d seen . . . old women . . . beards. And witch the children would call after them. Witch.
I’d been handsome enough; still was. But I’d lost my first tooth, seen my first wrinkle; and now, my first hair. Soon the children would be calling after me; after me, too.
I went on sitting there. The room got dark; and then more dark. Margaret hadn’t come in yet and I didn’t know where Philip was. Up to the same tricks as her sister if I’d only known. I was glad they were both away. I didn’t want to see either of them. And especially I didn’t want to see Meg.
It got very dark in the room; and still I went on sitting there with my poor face hidden in my hands; as though I wanted to shield it even from the dark. And then, suddenly, I was shivering; bitterly cold for all it was midsummer.
A man was in the room with me. I knew it without looking up. He must have slipped in quiet and forgotten to latch the door. I looked up to scold him for his carelessness but the words froze on my lips.
I could just see him, a shadow in the red of the fire. He was all in black and his head higher than this ceiling; he was forced to carry it bent a little to one side. And I knew it wasn’t a man at all. Not a human man. I knew it by the terrible cold that came from him; I knew it by the fear in my heart.
He began to speak. A deep voice he had. He said he knew my troubles; and, if I chose, there’d be no more sorrow for me ever. I’d live like a queen, doing as I pleased and no man nor woman to say me nay.
I wouldn’t listen at first. Live like a queen—I shouldn’t know how. I’d been poor all my life and I’d got along pretty well. I’d done much as I pleased; and, if there was little in my pocket, there was always a hare for my pot or a piece of fat bacon. I had my men!
He told me there was nothing in this world I couldn’t have. I’d never grow old, he said. And that’s how he caught me—by a hair, a little, little hair. And so for the sake of keeping my looks and taking my pleasure, I sold my soul.”
Samuel Fleming’s voice came out on a sigh. “So you did sell your soul?”
She nodded. “But you know that very well. You judged me, priest. But I did not sell it then; not that first time. For though he promised everything heart could desire, the payment was heavy. I should have to vow to serve him alone; forswearing God and his Son; my baptism and all part in Him. And this pact I must seal with my blood, the pact there’s no undoing. For, priest, what they say is true. When you seal that pact with your blood the place will never heal. See!” She held out her arm and showed him the angry place scarring its smoothness. “When the Master puts his mark upon you, you carry it to your death. And to your death, indeed! How many of his servants has the mark not brought to the grave! And how many innocents, too! For between the Master’s mark and the marks of nature, it is not always easy to tell, such is his cunning. And so they swing alike—the witch and the innocent.”
“Not alike.” Samuel Fleming shook his head. “The innocent fly straight to the bosom of God.”
“And does that comfort them as they dangle, the breath choking in their lungs and the eyeballs starting from their head? If your god is all-powerful, priest, and if he hates wickedness, why then does he allow it? It seems to me a very great nonsense.”
“God wills us to choose. God has no delight in the bird that is snared but in the bird that is free. He wills us to be free that we may choose.”
“How are poor souls to judge, all ignorant as we are? But I stray from my tale. The Master said he would send a spirit to serve me though I had signed no pact. It should serve me for a little while that I might see how well he cared for those upon whom he had set his love . . . even though they had not, as yet, set their love upon him.
We stood there facing each other, and I saw the man that was no man begin to melt upon the darkness; you could see the firelight through him before he vanished altogether. A little warmth began to creep back into the room; and while I knelt by the hearth to warm my starved fingers, a cat jumped upon my shoulder. A white cat. It put down its head, weaving from side to side. Suddenly it leaped and there was a sharp pain beneath my breast.
Darkness came up at me and into the darkness I went down. When I came to myself the fire was out and the room bitter-cold. My first thought was that I’d been dreaming. I rubbed my eyes and looked about me.
There on the hearth a white cat glared at me with red eyes. There was blood about its mouth; there was blood above my heart.”
Samuel Fleming bowed his head in sorrow though it was an old tale, finished and done with. How could he help but grieve, he that had helped her to her death? And his grief was the greater that he had failed to bring her to the loving kindness of God.
“Priest,” she said, “it grows chill and you are old. You should be gone from this place. But come again. It is not given to every man to see into a woman’s heart—and that woman a witch.”
He said, very grave, “I shall not come here again.”
“Should you not try to understand why it all happened, and how it happened . . . to the end, the end in which you played your part?”
“I shall not come here,” he said again. “It is forbidden to consort with spirits.”
“But spirits are not forbidden to consort with men; nor is it forbidden to men to dream. And, indeed, they cannot escape their dreams.”
There was something sly about her.
“Why do you haunt me?” he asked sharply.
“Because you call me back, you with your unceasing thought of me and your everlasting questioning. Since I died denying my Master, the gates of Hell are shut against me; since I died unshriven, the gates of Heaven are shut against me also. I come because you will not let me rest. While I was yet alive you did not with a full heart wrestle for my soul. But because you grieve for my sake, one more chance is given you to win my soul for your god. If you fail, your soul is in peril also, because you failed to do that which your god set you to do. But it is all in vain, the toil and the anguish. I am not to be won. Are you not afraid, priest?”
“Yes. I am an old man and I am afraid. I will not meddle with ghosts.” He crossed himself.
He shivered violently and put his hands to his eyes.
It was twilight in the copse and he had fallen asleep. There was a light wind blowing, rustling the leaves and rustling the grass. And in the rustle he thought a voice whispered, Men cannot escape their dr
eams.
He rose stiff and, with his old man’s walk, moved slowly towards home. And he did not notice that the white cat followed him all the way.
Chapter Three
Hester Davenport cried aloud when she saw the cat and tried to drive it away; but it would not be driven. “A witch’s cat if ever I saw one!” she said.
“Think no ill of it because it is white,” he said, remembering with shame how he himself had challenged the little creature. “This is nothing but a starveling kitten.” And then, as still she stared with dislike, added gently, “We are told to be circumspect when we talk of witches.”
“Who tells us?” she asked sharper than one should speak to a priest, even though that priest be one’s brother.
“Our sovereign lord King James. Have you forgotten?”
“That man!” she cried. “A foreigner that does not know his mind from one year’s end to the next. First we are told to hunt out witches; then we are told to walk delicately in the matter; and soon, God help us, we shall hear there’s no such thing as witches at all! But it is the Scriptures that have the last word; not the King.”
“But . . . if there are no witches?” he asked, speaking his own fear.
“Holy Script makes no mistakes nor does it lie. And, if there are no witches why does Christendom frame laws against them; yes and burn them, too?”
“You are too wise for me,” Samuel said and she could not know whether he jested or not. He had always a dry way with him; yet he was a humble man, too.
The cat would not be driven away; and because Hester was a kindly woman, and because it seemed little and harmless, against her better judgment she set out a dish of milk and so ended her hope of being rid of it.
. . . . .
The Reverend Samuel Fleming wore a frail look. He was slow and quiet as he went about the house. He tired when he went the little distance to his church which was no more than the length of his own garden. He did not walk save when he must; and he never went near the deserted cottage.
Hester, he could not but think, was right. Men chopped and changed but the word of God stood firm. As for this dream of his, it was of no account—born of his own distress. He could do nothing for Joan Flower now. He was a shepherd of souls while they could yet be saved. She was dead and damned.
Dead and damned, priest? If your god is all-merciful as you say, do we not come at last into his hands, good and bad alike?
He looked up sharply. Who had echoed the voice of his own heart?
She was standing there as she had stood that time he had sent for her; the first time she had set foot in his house.
There had been fresh complaints about her behaviour. Not only did they say she was in league with the Devil, they gave chapter and verse. Let anyone vex her, though it be but a babe in arms, and her curse would surely fall.
He had not believed it. About her scandalous living he was prepared to rebuke her afresh, warn her that it gave rise to darker tales, threaten her with the stocks if she did not mend her ways, or with the pillory. That she had sold herself to the Devil, that she worked unholy spells, was a thing he could not believe. A witch might be anyone—he’d known that very well. It might be the foreign and the feared; it might be a man’s mother or his sister or his wife or his child. But still he had not believed Joan Flower to be a witch . . . not then.
He had begun on the old, safe ground, rebuking her dissolute living—her idleness, her drinking, her men. She had stood there, not quite smiling beneath dropped lids. He had told her how such conduct must give rise to rumours; he mentioned some of the ugly things she was said to have done. She had overlooked Peate’s child so that it had sickened and all-but died; she had blighted the corn in Simpson’s field. She was able to do these things, they said, because she had sold herself to the Devil.
She had stood there, dark head thrown back denying, denying everything. He had not believed the tales—he saw now—because he had not wanted to believe them. He had been glad of her passionate denials.
“But of course,” she said, scornful and smiling, her ghost’s head high as that of the living woman, “did you expect me to put my head into the noose? Yes, it was true by then, all the things they said against me. But it was not true at first when they began to whisper. I was no witch. I had signed no pact, accepted no Master. Yet, in spite of that, from the day Rutterkin came to dwell with me, everything went as I wanted it to go. I had not to speak; I had to think, to think only, and the wish was granted.”
“You had not yet signed yourself in your blood; but you had already accepted the Devil in your soul. Were you not afraid of the danger to your soul?”
“I was too happy to think of my soul.”
“So it is with all men,” he said and bowed his head. “When all goes well with the belly, then they forget the belly; when all goes according to their desire, they forget the soul. But let belly ache or desire go awry—then they remember.”
“It is the way of all men, as you have said,” she told him, “and you cannot quarrel with me for that! When the Master helps you, it all happens so simply, that, at first, you do not understand it is brought about by his will. So it was when I rid myself of Margaret, and of Philip, too; by that time I knew of Philip’s tricks, the Master had sharpened my wits.
It all came about so homely, so natural, no-one would have thought the Devil had a finger in it. I did not think so myself . . . until afterwards. That is the cleverness of the Master.
I went up to the Castle, to ask the steward if he would take Meg on in the kitchens. I did not think he would; he was a proud fellow. Servants are prouder than their master; have you found that?”
He nodded. “Men are God’s servants, but there’s many a man thinks he knows better than God.”
She made a little gesture of impatience at this excursion into philosophy. “I meant to coax him if I could—the steward, not God. I’d always got pretty much what I wanted out of men though I’d never much luck with God—your god.
As I walked, I gathered, idly, as one does a posy—cow-parsley and meadowsweet and daisies; and sorrel for colour with my white blossoms. It was a lovely day, the sun yellow and hot as I liked it. It could never be too hot for my foreign blood. The trees were dark with full leaf and the grass each side of the road all white with dust. And I was singing as I went because the world was lovely; and, if I chose, I need never grow old.
I pushed open a gate—the gates were always open then.”
He nodded. In those days, no-one had ever found the gates locked, more’s the pity!
“I was making for the steward’s office when suddenly—there was my lady herself, coming out of the walled garden. There was a basket of apricots on her arm; and her gown was the colour of the fruit, all gold and glowing and very rich. Now that was the Devil’s own luck. How else did it come about I should meet the lady alone and no-one to hinder me?
She was a pretty creature, I had to own—though it angered me to have to admit it. She hadn’t a wrinkle . . . that was to come.
We stood there, she with her eyes on my country bunch, me forgetting my curtsey all agoggle as I was at her apricots.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘how pretty!’ And she put out a hand to my wild posy. And, as she took my flowers, I noticed her hand, how white and soft, how long and fine. That hand of hers said all the difference between us. . . . She was fine and I was common; dirt.”
“I doubt she thinks in such a way, or ever did,” Samuel Fleming said. “She has a humble soul.”
“Humble?” she laughed. “Oh priest, you are simple! So grand she is, so sure, she can afford to play humble—a pretty game. But scratch her in her high humility and she’ll scratch back.”
“You must pardon a countess for being human, too,” he said, drily.
Joan Flower laughed again. “That day, at least, she was sweetness itself—a honeypot. There she stood
, holding my wild posy and nodding and smiling. Oh, she took my posy but she gave me nothing in return—she with her basket full of apricots.”
“She didn’t think of it,” he said. “That’s all.”
“That’s all!” she echoed, mocking. “She never thought of it because I wasn’t the sort of creature to eat apricots. Oh, she’d send down a blanket or a pillow if you needed it, or a gown or shawl, maybe; but if she’d given me never a thing but just one apricot when we stood face to face that day, maybe the whole story would be different. I don’t know.
Well there she stood, sniffing at my flowers, and she asked my name—she’d forgotten, if she ever knew. So I told her; but I was not best pleased. And I told her how my girls were growing up ignorant and wild and how they needed the training only a great house could give.
‘Why then,’ she said, ‘they shall come here, if you are willing!’
If I were willing! ‘Bless your ladyship,’ I said; but I did not take the name of God upon my tongue, though afterwards I was more bold; and died for it.
‘Go now,’ she said and made no bones about getting rid of me. ‘And I will tell Master Screvens what I have arranged.’ And she smiled at me over the posy. ‘And you can tell your girls to come.’
‘But my lady,’ I said, ‘he will want to see my girls—he or your housekeeper; whether they be fair spoken and clean in their habits and know the difference between mine and thine!’
‘If they are like their mother they will pass,’ she said. ‘And if they are not—well, they can learn I suppose.’
‘The rector will speak as to their character,’ I said.
‘No need. I remember your husband,’ she told me. ‘A good man in the garden, diligent and honest, too. Let your girls come when they are ready. If they are good and work well, then they shall stay. If not, why then they must go. Now that’s a bargain!’
She lifted the skirts of her satin gown and smiling she walked across the grass. And still she held my posy. And it was only afterwards I remembered I had plucked parsley and cinquefoil—devil’s plants both. I stood there and I watched her go; she was like a creature from another world with her lovely gown and the lovely walk she had; and head and shoulders enough to melt your heart . . .”