by Hilda Lewis
“You purposed evil. You were at the unholy Sabbath; you adored the Devil blaspheming the sacred rites of our religion.”
“They were the sacred rites of my religion.”
“You drank human blood, ate human flesh.”
“You should not believe all you hear! We drank good wine—Malmsey as I remember. Good beef and mutton, too; and pork besides,—such as you eat, but better. For we stole it and took our choice. But—” she sent him a sly, sidelong look, “it is not of those small sins you wish to hear. It is about my lord earl and his lady; and about the children, how they came by their death. But that is a story you have heard. Was not the confession made, the punishment given? And is not that enough . . . enough?”
“No,” he said. “You have made no confession. As for me I need that understanding which is the beginning of charity. I looked from the outside and it was all wickedness. But, if you will help me to look within the heart . . .”
“. . . then the black thing may not be so black after all? We talk of murder—two young children.”
She sat down on the stool at his feet and settled her skirts; the room, seen clear through her transparency, made the homely movement strange.
“We begin then with the earl and his lady,” she said. “Good Christian souls.”
“Surely you should have spared them for that.”
“Priest, use your wits. The better the soul the more merit to destroy it. And yet I think I should never have done what I did, had it not been for Margaret. It is a strange thing. Meg had a mean soul, good neither to God nor Devil, one might think. Yet in the end God chose her for pardon.”
“The stone that the builders rejected has become the headstone of the corner,” he reminded her.
“If such as Meg be the cornerstone, then your heaven is likely to fall about your ears. Surely it is folk like my lord earl and his lady that are the cornerstones of God. Fine folk; serviceable to rich and poor alike; to all the same gentleness, to all the same kindness. Such goodness is hard for a witch to stomach. And yet there were times when I forgot my witch’s heart . . .”
“And yet you murdered her children; and yet . . .”
“My witch’s heart remembered again; remembered that though she was great yet I was greater; for she served the new, pale god, but I served the dark God, the old God. And, if when I asked she gave freely—or without asking, gave—I did not count it to her for righteousness seeing that all she had was mine if I chose to take it.
Sometimes I would go to the Castle only to be near my lady; for goodness draws the wicked with a thread, and we cannot keep away. I would pretend that I went only to work; I would polish a little, or scrub, or I would give a hand in the washhouse. But, indoors or out, I did not work overmuch. And if there was a thing I fancied I would slip it in my pocket; and, if I did not fancy it, I would take it also. For one must do one’s evil where one can.
But whatever was lost in the Castle, there was no complaint made—that was my lady’s will; and all was quiet and pleasant, which did not suit me at all. Sometimes I would say to my lady, It is such a one has stolen your riband, or your fan. But always she would blame her own carelessness or say one of the children had taken it in play.
But it is easy, maybe, to be kind in such a house with its high rooms and its great hearths that send out warmth in winter—and no soot to choke up your breath, and its wide kitchens and its full larders; and its rich hangings and its soft beds and the presses full of fine clothes . . . and its pictures.
I would stand, if I were let, cloth in hand, staring at them as though I could never be done looking. For that was always a marvel to me and a mystery how, with a few strokes upon a piece of linen, a man may bring forth angels and devils and men and women; yes, and trees and flowers and rivers, too and whatever the eye sees. You have but to stretch out your hand, so it seems, to touch flesh or leaves or clear water. St. Peter weeps. Once, indeed, I did put out a hand and brought it back again and was surprised to find it still dry.
And there was a great picture; it was, as you might say, a patchwork, seeing it was made of many little ones; and with a little saying for each. I would stand and I would look at it, one little bit at a time. That picture was like a great book in which one might learn.”
He nodded. “I like it, too. It is from Holland and we call it the proverb picture. A proverb, you know, is a wise saying.”
“It is strange, priest. I am a ghost and all the sorrows of this world and the next upon me; yet I cannot forget that picture. For it taught in a merry way.” And she laughed now, thinking of it. “And one could remember its sayings—if one were wise enough.” And she stopped laughing.
“There is one,” he told her, gentle, “and it is called Labour in vain. Did you never look at it?”
She nodded. “My lady told me the words. Two old women try to wind flax from the same spindle; but they pull in opposite directions. Such a piece of nonsense.”
“Or a piece of wisdom,” he said, grave. “Are you not, perhaps, that flax?”
“Then neither God nor Devil pulled hard enough.” He heard her sigh. “There is another picture, and underneath it says—I remember my lady’s words—If you’re born to be hanged then you’ll never be drowned. There is a man struggling in the deep river yet he need not struggle so hard; he will not drown—the gallows await him on the other side. That is not a merry picture; it cuts too near the bone. For so it is with witches. You swim us but you cannot drown us; and we hang instead. I did not think then that Meg and Philip would come to the gallows.”
“It is a warning picture,” he said, “but you would not be warned. There is another that might have warned you, too. It is called Holding a Candle to the Devil?”
She nodded. “That I would look at often. Holding a candle to the Devil—that is a thing we witches do; though not in the way the picture shows. I could never pass the picture but I would remember our own candles burning blue in the black night; and the Master standing before us, the flame between his horns. And I would remember the feasting and the dancing and the singing . . . and the way we made love under the bushes until, for longing, I could barely contain myself beneath the noontide sun.”
Again she saw distaste in his face. She said urgent but not ungentle, “Until you can understand that, priest—the joy and the laughter—you can understand nothing. For our lives here are hard and narrow; and there is little laughter. But how should such as you understand—you who live well in a warm house with good clothes upon your back and fine food within your belly? All the wood we gather cannot keep us warm within our houses, for there is no place to store nor to dry it; and the little heat there is runs away through the holes in our roof and the room is bitter with smoke . . . if rain does not put the fire out altogether; and our backs go bare and our bellies empty. But at the Sabbath . . . at the Sabbath we are kings and queens.
You are not a poor man, priest, you live well enough; but neither we at our feasts nor you here in this house, eat as they eat up at the Castle. Were you in the kitchens you would stare until your eyes grew upon stalks.”
“I have dined there,” he reminded her.
“That is not at all the same thing as seeing it all laid out in the pantries and in the kitchens—shelf upon shelf, table upon table. The pork, the beef, the lamb, the mutton; the capon, the duckling, the teal, the bittern. But poor folk must make do with an ancient hen—if they are lucky—or a piece of pickled mutton. And up there you will see also barbel and bream, and porpoise, oysters and trout. But for us there are herrings and maybe now and again a handful of sprat. And you will find fruits there, and spices—dates and figs and cinnamon and ginger; and in the gardens there are peaches and apricots and melons and sparrowgrass. But what have poor folk save sour apples and turnips maybe?”
“You did not satisfy yourself with herrings nor with pickled mutton, no, nor with hard apples and turnips, neither,
” he reminded her.
“I was lucky. I had the Master’s nod. But there are poor folk who do not serve the Master and they must go hungry.”
“Not a sparrow falls to the ground——” he began.
“But still they fall,” she said quickly. “And still they lie frozen upon the ground. And, if the eye of your god is upon them, does that make the bitter dying easier? And is it not a shame to him and a disgrace?”
“These matters are beyond your wits.”
“And maybe beyond yours also, priest. Well, I was no sparrow to fall to the ground. I would look into the kitchens and I would whisper to Meg or to Philip, Bring me this or that hidden beneath your petticoat. And wine. Bring me wine. And so they would do.”
“The other servants did not like your daughters,” he said. “Well, it was no wonder!”
“They did not like my girls before ever they suspected light fingers. For my girls were not easy to like. Margaret was sullen and sly; and though she kept her eyes cast down, men knew that she followed them with lewd thoughts. And those that had sweethearts or wives kept their distance; and those that had none kept their distance, too; for she was one of these still women that drain away a man’s strength. And so, for the most part, they shunned her; all except one—and that one we shall come to later. For he was the spark that touched the whole thing and sent it up in flames.
And Philip. Her eyes, too, sought out men. But with her it was different; not downcast nor secret. A bold look that cried Come take me. And she, too, as you know, had her man and kept him faithful; a man other women desired, a fine, upstanding man . . . until she was done with him.
If Meg was disliked, Philip was feared. That she, ugly as a rat, should have her man—and keep him—was the top and bottom of the trouble. There were comely girls both at the Castle and down in the village who wanted Tom Simpson and his fine farm; but he would not look at them. The thing reeked of witchcraft they said, not understanding that some women, ugly though they be, have yet the wit to win a man and keep him.
And so the servants would go with their tales to the housekeeper or to the steward or even to my lady herself. But, since nothing could be proved, my lady would not listen. Margaret is a good girl, she would say. And, if you mislike Philippa then you are unchristian; there is nothing against her but her looks and those she cannot help. Pray for a better heart. And she would make it up to my girls with a gift so they should not feel slighted.
So there they were snug at the Castle. Meg in the poultry house would bring me many a fat bird; Philip in the laundry would bring me a fine shift or a sheet; and both were nimble-fingered in the kitchen! And there was my lady, of her Christian charity, allowing no word against either of them. It is well said that the Devil helps his own! Without lifting a finger there was nothing I desired but I might have it.
And so it went on—my girls snug at the Castle and I welcome to lend a hand—all three of us living like fighting-cocks.
How sweet it was up at Belvoir. In the summer I would go trudging the dusty road until it began to mount and I felt the fresh wind upon my face. For, though down in the village, we might stifle with the heat, there was always, even on the sultriest day, a wind stirring up there on the hill. And though the cabbages in my plot might wilt and my onions straggle, thin and dry, the gardens at Belvoir were fit for the Master Himself—so green, so soft; the flowers blooming and the great trees in full, dark leaf.
Sometimes I would catch sight of my lady trailing her silks across the grass. She would beckon, perhaps, and pluck me a rose; a rose I might have but never an apricot—that did not befit my station. Or she would tell me to ask in the kitchen for a mug of ale; ale I might have or cider but never wine—that also did not befit my station. And, Thank you, I would say, dropping my curtsey; and Bless you my lady. But my thanks were grudging, fitting, as I thought, her gifts.
And sometimes the children would come running . . .”
“The little boys?” he asked, his face all drawn with pain.
“One little boy,” she corrected him, brightly. “The other was a babe in the nurse’s arms. And there was the girl, the girl, too.”
She paused; she said softly, “The little boys. I could never look at them without thinking, If I could offer them to the Master! And I would picture it—the five-year-old on his knees, acknowledging the Master. But even then I knew it could not be. That child, reared in a Christian home, would make no willing convert. And unless a convert be willing—big or little—the Master will have none of him. And so I would look on the child with longing and I would look on the child with hate. But I would have worked him no harm had not the occasion risen to drive me.
And the baby. I would look at the child at his mother’s breast and I would think, Here is one for the sacrifice. Here is the child to offer that our harvests be heavy and our women fertile. And this child, too, I looked upon with longing and I looked upon with hate. But him, too, I would not have harmed had not occasion risen and driven me.
But most of all I hated the mother; I hated her sitting there and suckling the child. She was not one of those too fine to suckle, being simple in her way as any woman. And I would think, Fool to suckle a human child when you might suckle a child of Satan. But that was envy and I knew it even then. For to any woman, witch or saint, it is joy to suckle her child; but to suckle a familiar is bitter pain—and it is a pain that, in the end, brings you to your death.
And so it came about that I hated the mother and the pretty boys; but I did not hate the girl. And that is a strange thing; for the little boys liked me well, the elder running to shew me his ball or with a flower in his hand; and the younger crowing and jumping to come at me. But the little lady could not abide me and kept her distance though my lady chided her, which did not make her any sweeter. And yet I would not have harmed her . . . then; not by so much as a hair of the dark curls that flowered at her waist. Because she spurned me I admired her the more. Because she was wilful I read in her a willing convert.”
“You were wrong there, witch.”
She shrugged. “Wilful, finding the lusts of the flesh sweet—as she proved and not in so few years neither—why should she not have made a witch?”
“The principles of good were stronger.”
“And so we lost her.”
“Praise be to God,” Samuel Fleming said. And then, “You say you wished the child no harm; yet when you bewitched the little boys you bewitched her also.”
“No, priest, not then, or ever.”
“Witch, you lie!” And for the first time he called her that name for which she had died.
“Ghosts cannot lie—must I tell you again? The boys we bewitched to their death. But the girl—for all our trying—we could not do it. We could not do it; she was free of us.”
“But—” and still he was not convinced, “the same fits that killed her brothers, the same convulsions!”
“Priest, there are those—and especially it is so with children—who must draw upon themselves all eyes. So it was with her. The eyes of all, high and low, must turn upon her. And so at one time they had—the only child and her mother dead.
But then my lord married again and the little boys were born. He loved his girl; but he loved his boys better—and especially he loved his heir. It was natural and the little lady knew it. Do you think she enjoyed that, the proud and pretty child? She was the eldest; child of the first wife. She could never forget that.
And when her brothers fell sick, why then the matter was worse. She would play second fiddle to none, well or sick—hence the convulsions, hence the fits. So much poppycock! Like all children she played her part well; and, in the end—who knows?—she may have come to believe in them herself.
You can easily understand that, priest, you who are wise in the ways of men!” And was she, he wondered, mocking at him? But her face was grave enough. “And have you not heard of a chi
ld here and there who has played just such tricks and brought more than one poor soul to the gallows; and afterwards they have confessed their lies? Of course you have heard! Had the little lady been some common child to be brought before the judge, she must have confessed. That her fits were feigned you may believe.
I have told you we bewitched the little boys; but I have not said why. Yet the cause was good; or so it seemed.
Margaret. Margaret once more. She came down from the Castle all white with her anger and her spite. She looked wild that day and bitter with her shame.
At last my lady had heeded the tales, and my lady had sent her away. Shut the gates of paradise against my girl! Never look at me like that, priest. Is it so hard to understand what the fleshpots of Belvoir are to us poor folk? And there is more to it than that. Those that work up at the Castle are well thought of; to be turned away means disgrace.
That day my girl was shut out from heaven more ways than one. For, certain it is, had my lady not driven her away, Meg would never have become a witch. It was not her true nature. She would have married—her sweetheart maybe or another—and lived out the full span of her days.
‘But why?’ I asked the girl. ‘What have you done?’
‘Nothing but what you bade me. And what that is,’ she said, ‘you know well enough! I brought you the food and the clothing as you told me.’
‘And is that all?’ ” I asked.
“And was that not enough?” Samuel Fleming said.
“My lady has plenty!” Joan Flower tossed a careless head.
“Your girl was a thief—and you had made her one!” He was angered by her lightness. “It is not only for a witchcraft a man may hang!”
“Then she hanged for the sheep and not for the tail, which is some comfort,” Joan Flower said. “But I knew well that the lady would not send a poor girl away for helping herself to a pretty thing here and there. That is why I asked if that were all.