by Hilda Lewis
Margaret said, straight and hard, ‘It is not all. I have taken my pleasure here in your house, mother, with Peate and with others; and you knew it well.’
‘Life is short,’ I told her, ‘and we must take our pleasures as we may; that is no sin. But to be found out—there is your sin; and you cannot expect our virtuous lady to be pleased.’
‘For my lady’s pleasure I care not—that!’ She snapped her fingers and there was a wicked look in her pale eyes. It made me think that here, after all, might be substance for a witch. ‘But I have lost my sweetheart—and better than him I could not hope to find. For he is one of the upper servants—my lord’s own man—and he is a gentleman, almost, and they call him Master Vavasour. He had his will of me; but he thought he was the only one. And, indeed, he was the only one I fancied. But lying with a man—it is a thing like eating bread. Had he been always at hand I would have taken no bread save him. But he is often away—in London or elsewhere with my lord; and now he complains because being hungry I ate.’
‘So it is with men,’ I told her. ‘If they go hungry, why then they must eat. But if we go hungry—we must starve. As for you—have you not wit to lie to your sweetheart? This almost-gentleman has had his will of you and who is to say different?’
‘Peate’s wife. She has been up to tell her tale; and she has told it not only in the kitchens but to my lady herself. And they are at Master Vavasour day and night—the women who would have him for themselves; and the dirty louts that would have had me, but I would not suffer them to touch me. One may be hungry, mother; but no bread is better than foul bread.’
‘You have made yourself many enemies,’ I said. ‘I have known it this long while; I have felt ill-will blow upon us three like a cold wind. But for all that I will go to my lady. Maybe I can coax her again.’
Margaret’s heavy face did not lighten. ‘Were she to ask me to go back—which she never would—I could not show my face up there again.’
‘Let us jump that hurdle when we get to it,’ I told her. But I was not cheerful; in my lady kindness is strong, but virtue stronger. ‘What did she say when she sent you packing?’
‘Little. But it was enough. Oh she was quiet! You would have sworn it broke her heart to put me out. For all her softness she’s hard as stone. These virtuous women!’
‘With the virtuous you must pretend to virtue; you must take your pleasures in secret. You have not done either. Well, it is useless weeping when the milk is spilt. Did my lady send you away emptyhanded?’
‘I had forty shilling of her.’
‘Your twelvemonth wage! She has not behaved so ill after all. You may live well enough till you have time to look about.’
‘Wherever I look,’ Meg said, her head hanging, ‘I see nothing but disgrace.’ And that was true enough so I held my peace.
Presently Meg said, ‘She gave me a gift, also; she sent it with me in the cart. The mattress and pillows from her own bed.’
‘From her own bed?’ It was a thing I could not believe. But even the most nimble thief cannot carry away a mattress unseen. I turned the matter in my mind but could make no sense of it. ‘At least you will lie soft,’ I said at last.
‘Lie soft!’ Meg’s mouth was bitter. ‘Much my fine lady cares about that! Her virtue—or her pride I know not which—cannot endure to use what my body has touched, not though the mattress be cleansed with soap and water and by wind and sun.’
Here was new matter. I looked at her. I could not believe what I saw in her eyes. A fool she was; but surely not such a fool.
She nodded. ‘They caught us in my lady’s bed.’
‘Were you stark crazy?’ I asked when I could speak. ‘If you were in such haste, you and your friend, were not the fields soft enough for such as you?’
‘I was minded to lie softer for once,’ she said sullen. And then she said, ‘I was minded to fancy myself in my lady’s place. What is my lady that she should lie by my lord night after night?’ she said sudden and spiteful and yet heartbroken, too.
‘My lady is his wife,’ I said very sharp. ‘Have you forgot it? As for my lord, he is chaste.’ Meg’s hands fell open and she fetched a deep sigh. ‘Come,’ I told her, ‘you are not so ill-favoured that any fine lord might not take his pleasure of you; but not this one, never this one, my girl.’
Meg said—and it was as though she spoke out of some dream, ‘He is finer and cleaner and handsomer than any man. When I lay in my lady’s place . . .’
‘My lady’s bed!’ I said again and even now I could scarce believe it. ‘There is an old saying about angels and fools; and, truly, only a fool would dare that much!’
‘Safe enough,’ Meg said, listless. ‘Or should have been. My lady was away—over to Haddon, I think. No-one should enter the chamber once it was swept and garnished. But, as ill-luck would have it, a sewing maid came to take away a sheet. And so’—she shrugged. ‘And now they have scratched up every tale about me. They talk—and there is no end to their talking. Up at the Castle, down in the village, tongues wagging; wagging . . . and I with no place to hide my shame.’
I looked at her close; and now I must believe the thing I had doubted before.
‘When?’ I asked.
‘Three months or four.’
‘Who fathers it?’
She shrugged. ‘Vavasour or Peate. Or some other—who knows?’
‘Be easy,’ I told her, ‘for come what may, it is a shame you could not hide much longer. And it is a shame that may bring us good profit.’
‘How?’ she asked.
‘You shall know in good time,’ I said.”
Samuel Fleming lifted his head from his hands and groaned aloud.
Chapter Six
He groaned aloud. Why was she permitted to come and torment him with her hateful tale? He knew the answer well enough. Because in that tale he had played his part. And because the Devil had shut her out; and God had not yet taken her in. And, in the end, to one or other she must go. And so she came back to him now in the form of the girl she had once been, with her sweet shape and her dark hair and her scarlet ribands; a girl any man might love . . . even a priest.
He knew the moment’s panic.
How if she lied about God’s part in this? How if her coming was yet another Devil’s wile to catch his simple soul?
“A ghost,” she said softly, “cannot lie. There is a compulsion upon the dead to speak the truth. But whether you believe me or not, it is a battle between us two—my soul for God or for the Devil.”
He started. He had not spoken; yet she had known his thought.
“The eyes of a ghost pierce through flesh and bone to the mind beneath. And so I have the advantage of you.”
“My advantage is greater,” he answered quickly. “And must always be greater, seeing God is on my side.”
“What advantage that is we have yet to see!” She smiled. “But you hinder my tale with your doubts and your questions.
Now I had Meg back on my hands. If I knew her she would be spying here and there, putting two and two together in her slow way. If she should discover I was a witch—what then? Would she run to betray me in fear? Or would that same fear keep her mouth shut?
I did not know the answer. But this I did know. I must keep her with me until her child was born. And I must take heed what I said and what I did. For three months and more I must deny myself the sweet joys of our meetings and the sight of the Master’s face. And after that? I had one other hope—to make her peace with my lady. I had to be free of the girl. It was not that I did not love my daughter; it was that I loved the Master more.
I told Meg I was for the Castle to speak with my lady. Let her take heart and all would be well. And surely, I thought, the Master will help me!
It was mid-January and the road rutted and slippery as glass. I slipped and slid, cursing my lady and her virtue whic
h was as wintry as the weather.
As soon as I set foot within the gate I knew it was all useless. The steward jumped from his office like a spider from its web and ordered me away. There was nothing for it but to obey, seeing he followed me—every step. But as I went, my eyes looking this way and that, I spied my lady. She was on her way to the stables, well wrapped about with furs, and carrying a basket of apples. I did not love her the better for her furs, nor that her dumb beasts fed upon dainties poor folk could not afford. I ran forward before the steward could stop me. She would have refused all speech with me but I had taken her by surprise.
She returned my greeting, very civil; but she would hear no word of Meg. She could not, she said, allow my girl in the house, an infection to the innocent. It was clear to me, for all her civility, that henceforth—surprised or not—she would not speak with me ever again.
I curtseyed my Goodbye, all burnt with my anger.”
“You had no cause,” Samuel Fleming said. “She was more than just. Margaret—her sins being proven—was sent away. But Philippa—since there was nothing against her but the clatter of tongues—Philippa she kept.”
“And for that she paid dear!” Joan Flower said soft and spiteful. “When I reached home again, Meg met me all hope. Now at the sight of my face she fell aweeping.
‘Courage, girl,’ I said. ‘My lady’s is not the only door. If she slam hers another will open.’ Meg shook her mournful head and would not be comforted.
And so the days passed. If they were long to Meg heavy with her child and cut off from the Castle, they were longer still for me. Since her coming I had been obliged to miss the esbats. I had no friend in Bottesford and nothing to do but stare at my four walls. But now in two weeks or so Candlemas would fall and I must miss the Sabbath; and, unless I could rid myself of Meg, the following Sabbath also. For the sweet delights of our worship and the sight of the Master’s face I must wait at least until May Eve . . . and perhaps longer.”
“Your esbats and your sabbaths,” he interrupted with an old man’s fretfulness. “You confuse me. I had thought they were one and the same.”
“Oh,” she cried, “how shall you judge of witches that are so ignorant in our ways? The Sabbaths are our high festivals and we hold them four times a year. And to them come witches from covens both near and far to practise with us our holy rites and to adore the Master in his very presence. But the esbat is for the coven only and we hold it when and how we will—every week or more if it please us. We eat and we drink and we take our fill of love, not with any spirit as at the Sabbath, but every man with his woman. And, since we hold no worship, the Master is not with us; but the Captain is there and he is masked; and he wears both horn and tail that we may remember the Master from Whom all good comes. And though I longed unspeakably for the Sabbath, without the esbats I should fall into a melancholy and die.
So as the days dragged on it was clear that there were but two ways out. Margaret must come to the Master; or she must die. Longer than Mayday I would not wait.
I had no wish to kill my girl. So, I began to talk to her, leading her step by step to the heart of my matter. I spoke to her of my new God that is the oldest of all the gods but she did not understand; yet the word witch she understood well enough and fell atrembling and would hear none of it. I was not surprised; she had a poor spirit. But how soon the thing that has shocked us shocks us no more! And so when I talked of the feasting and the dancing she brightened; and when I spoke of how we lay in the moonlight and gave ourselves to the joys of the flesh, then her pale eyes glowed and she took in her breath short and sharp.
And so it went on, I talking, and she listening and not being able to close her ears for all her misgivings. Candlemas came and went and I wept within myself for the Sabbath lost. February and March; and the earth fertile and the beasts great with young—and Margaret also. In mid-April her child was born.”
“So Margaret Flower had a child after all,” Samuel Fleming said slowly. “And I did not know it; I did not baptize it.”
He looked at her very stern. “What became of the child?”
“Priest, it died.”
“The truth, the whole truth, witch, for the love of God.”
“For the love of the Master, priest! I delivered the child and it breathed; an easy birth and a lusty boy. I would not let it suckle lest she hanker after it. I tied up her breasts and I dipped a rag in milk and it throve.”
“I did not baptize it,” he said again in a heartbroken way.
“No, priest. We offered it—a sacrifice to the Master.”
He leaned his head upon his hand and could not speak.
She said, “If your god takes a child unto himself, you say Thy Will be done. So we say, also, to our Master.”
Still he said nothing; he went on staring before him.
She said, coaxing, “You make too much of the matter. A new-born babe—what does it know, what does it feel? A long, sharp pin and the thing is done.”
And when still he wore his dark, sad look, she said, sharp, “You are a great one for mercy, priest. Yet you helped me to my death and my daughters, also; yes, and others too. And what mercy would you have shown this child? Born of the witch’s brood—that alone would have brought him to the rope.”
“We talk of a little child,” he said.
“And have not little ones swung from the rope’s end; yes, and poor dumb brutes that have no soul to know right from wrong?”
She was right on both counts and he could say nothing.
“But why,” he asked when he had enough recovered from the sickness in his soul to speak again, “why did you murder the new-born child?”
“It was not murder; it was sacrifice. A priest should know the difference.”
He spread hopeless hands. “What use a dead child to your Master? What did you hope to gain?”
“A dead child is more use than a living one. And, what did I hope to gain? What you good Christians pray for—the love of my God.”
“A god who catches you in a snare to take your soul?”
“Does not your god do likewise? And, once caught, to be his servant is all your glory.”
“I cannot understand.” He groaned and hid his face in his hands.
“Then, priest, you should try. For us it is easy. Our own eyes see the God; we talk with Him face-to-face; we salute his body with the Kiss. Priest, priest, if you could see it! The dark night; and in our hands the blue lights burning. We make our own heaven; our stars flame together. And our Lord is in the midst of us.”
“Blasphemy.” His voice came out voiceless; he looked with horror upon her face lifted and blind with ecstasy.
She made a little movement of impatience.
“How should you understand?” she said. “You with your stale wafers and your thin wine . . . and your old man’s blood running slow in your veins? It took Meg many a weary week—and she a young woman full of the lust of living.
And even then she was not won. She longed for the joys of the Sabbath; but she was afraid. At last she agreed to offer the child. For, she said, speaking my own words, a child offered to the Master is happier than a child reared in shame and poverty. Offer, she kept saying. Offer. She never once said sacrifice, though she knew well what was meant. But that was like Meg—a poor creature that could not look facts in the face.
And so it drew on to Mayday. The wind still blew cold but spring was in the air. Meg took all day about her preparations—she who these last weeks had crouched by the fire scarce troubling to draw a comb through her hair. Now, combed and clean—white skin, pale gold hair—she looked comely enough. We took up the child and I wrapped it in Meg’s gown and I put my own shawl about it as a shelter against the night.”
“Were you not over-careful of the child you were to murder?” he asked heavy with anger.
“Sacrifice, priest; not murder. We
wished to offer it alive and the night was cold. Besides we had no grudge against it and why should it suffer without need? And it was well we wrapped it, as you shall see. Then I anointed Meg with the ointment and I put the child in her arms as she lay upon the bed. When she felt herself first falling, she cried out so loud that I clapped my hand upon her to quiet her. And when we began to rise she screamed again and I took the child from her lest it fall.
And so for the first time she set foot on the place of the Sabbath. When the Master stood amongst us, she trembled like an aspen and dared not look. And when we moved in procession to do homage with the Kiss, she hid behind a tree—for though she might feast with us, she must not join our holy rites; she had neither offered herself nor been accepted. I saw her eyes all dark and staring, but whether with joy or with fear, I did not know.”
“With tears, maybe,” Samuel Fleming said. “Or . . . disgust.”
She laughed at that. “Because we salute Him beneath the tail? Every part of the Master is sweet and desirable. Did not Moses see the hinderparts of God, and was there not a light all about him when he came down from the mount?”
“I see I do not preach in vain,” he said, very drily.
“When we had paid our homage and were seated again, the Captain cried out, ‘Now to the business of this night. Who has been zealous for the Master? Who speaks?’
And I rose up and I cried out, ‘I speak. Here is a sacrifice to my Lord!’ And I thrust Margaret forward holding her child.
Then the Master bent towards me. ‘It is well done,’ he said. ‘To you, faithful servant, shall fall the honour of the sacrifice.’ So I killed the child. I killed it quick and clean with a long pin of silver; and it made no cry. But still Margaret trembled like a poplar tree that forever shakes. Then the Captain drew his knife and we offered the blood.
When this was done, the Master said to me, ‘What gift would you have in return?’ And I said, ‘Vengeance, Lord.’ Then He said, ‘What vengeance?’ And I said, ‘Vengeance upon my lady Countess that brought this girl to shame.’ ”