by Hilda Lewis
“God forgive us,” Samuel Fleming said.
“Then Joan Willimott tried. She sent her spirit—the little lady all in green and a face fair enough to win a little child.”
“But not this child.”
“Not this child,” she agreed. “And so time wore on and it was spring.”
“And still within doors the child lay sick.”
“Yes, sick to death. But he did not die; for we could not win his soul. And then it was summer; but still we could not win him. And so it came to September; and the corn standing thick and heavy and yellow; apples ripening; and the plums purple on children’s lips and hands. September, sixteen hundred and thirteen, I remember it well.”
“We all remember it,” he said. “In that late summer the child died.” He was silent for a while; then he said, “He died patiently, putting his trust in God.”
“But God—your god—did not listen.”
“He listened. He saved that most precious soul. For eternal happiness the child endured a little while of pain.”
“Spoken like a priest. A Christian priest! A little while of pain! There was torment enough to break a strong man. But the child endured it. Not with patience, perhaps, as you would like to think—this was a mortal child and no saint. But, true it is, he never cried out against his god . . . though he cried often for God’s help. Philip told me that; Philip stealing by his door to listen; Philip sending out her own shadow to stand by his bed while the nurse slept.”
“A true witch to watch over her victim’s pain!” Samuel Fleming could hardly speak for anger and for grief.
Joan Flower laughed. “It was her pleasure and her duty. A little more and a little more—and maybe he would blaspheme against his god.”
“You do not know God,” Samuel Fleming said, “Whose nature is all merciful even to such as you. Let any man cry out against Him, being ignorant and tormented and He will understand. But when a child cries out in pain then there are tears on the face of God.”
“If your god is so tender, why did he not wipe away the child’s tears, and his own, at the same time?”
“The battle of good and evil is always joined. God gives free choice even to a child.”
“Priest, you are a fool! What choice to a suffering child?”
“Yet there was a choice,” he reminded her. “And the child chose.”
“Yes,” she said, and sighed. “You are in the right of it there! The Master was wrathful when the child died and his soul safe from us for ever. I remember the funeral . . . the early leaves drifting as we followed the coffin . . . the funeral coach all hung with black; and behind it, all in black, men and women walking, a long, long line. And we walked too, my girls and I. Already the wind was blowing chill; and I remember thinking, Soon it will be winter; and then comes spring again; but the child lies locked for ever in the black earth. He will never be free to run again. And then I thought, But he is free for ever of the wide fields of heaven; and I was sad that we had not taken his soul.
It was a great burying for so little a child, priest. Gentlefolk from great houses both near and far; and servants from the Castle; and all of us in Bottesford and from other villages besides. Your church could not hold us all. Those that could not come within, stood without.”
“But not you, witch, not you,” Samuel Fleming said, bitter. “There you stood, a decent woman in your black gown . . .”
“My lord earl sent black gowns to all who had served in the Castle, yes, even to Meg, though they had turned her away.”
“He made no distinction, more’s the pity,” Samuel Fleming said. “And I looked about, seeing women, yes, and men, too, all noisy with their tears; and then I saw you, standing there very quiet and your face pale. I thought, They turned her from the Castle not for her own shame but for that of her daughters. Yet she bears no malice, grieving for the death of the child. And this is the one they call witch! So I thought to show you some kindness; and I said, ‘Joan Flower, there is room for you.’ ”
“And so I came inside . . .” She smiled.
“. . . while good women stood outside and wept.”
Joan Flower nodded brightly. “I could not take my eyes off my lady where she sat all hung with black. I could not see her face beneath the veil but I knew it was soiled and spoiled with tears. And I thought, The Devil shall wipe away your tears. But He never did. She was obstinate in her faith. I could not take my eyes from her, nor from the little one she carried in her lap. She had tied a black riband about his arm; and I thought, Soon you shall weep for this one, too.”
Samuel Fleming held out a hand as though beseeching her to stop. He could not endure, in his weakness, that the dark tale be unfolded step by step.
“But the thing happened!” She nodded brightly. “And we know it happened. It cannot be altered by a hairsbreadth. All your silence cannot undo it.
When I could tear my eyes from the lady I looked upon the lord. There were lines down his face as though you had taken a sharp stone and scored soft clay. But he gave no other sign; his eyes stared straight before him. And the girl, the little lady, sat by him in her black gown and her head very high. For all I saw of tears, or their marks, she might have been a witch. A proud girl; she could have served the Master well.
When you prayed, priest, and when the choir sang, then tears fell like silent rain. Only the lady sat unweeping, and the lord and the girl; and the little one chuckled, not knowing what it was all about. As for myself, I would have wept too, had I been able—for here was a soul lost to my Master and bound instead for your cold heaven. Oh priest, for all you talk of love, your faith is loveless.”
“As you understand it.” And he looked at her with compassion.
“I see no joy in it; nor music nor dancing nor drinking nor feasting. And there is no marriage nor any delight of the flesh. Can you wonder, priest, that the God men worshipped before your Christ was born wins yet—day by day more souls and still more?”
“The Devil goes about the world seeking whom he may destroy; but it is God that wins in the end. He will win you too—though what He will make of you, He alone knows.”
“No, priest. My Master will win; he will win me back again. And, take care, priest. He may win you, also. He is stronger than God. And what he will make of you I know very well. You are learned and you are steadfast; He will make you his Captain and his priest in Hell.”
“I have no desire for such honours,” he said, drily.
“We shall see! Well, the child was buried—that noble piece of flesh rotting like humbler folk; for death treats all alike and life goes its way and nothing can hold it back. Winter—snow and rain and mud; frost and cold winds cutting like a knife. And then the sun again; green buds on trees, primroses in the copses. Philip up at the Castle; Meg in the cottage with me.
It was a fine life we had, we two; though to others it looked poor enough. I would not have changed it, not even to lie in my lady’s bed. No . . .” she smiled, wicked and sly, “certainly not to lie in my lady’s bed, not with what we had planned for her! They hated us now in the village. I did not care though once I had wept. Now I welcomed it; I was filled with pride that folk feared me and crossed themselves when I went by. As for friends—I had them and to spare! Witches from far and near, from this coven and from that, would come to us to eat and to drink and to take their fill of love.”
“You made the night unclean. Your drunken songs, your filthy games! It was then you began to change; and your face showed it, showed it clear. I think the death of the child had left its mark.”
“Which child?” she asked, quick and impudent.
“The child at the Castle; the child you had known, perhaps had loved a little. Joan Flower, you began to grow old.”
She sent him a wicked look but he went on. “Yes, old. Lines. Not lines that come for a good life, but ugly lines . . . lines of an ugly life.
Could you not see, even then, that your Master was a liar? Had he not promised you youth; had he not promised you beauty as long as you lived?”
“Priest, you are told in heaven you shall wear a halo about your head and upon your shoulders great wings. And though you have never seen any man wearing his halo like a hat, nor spreading his wings like a bird, still you believe it is true. Your faith tells you that in heaven it is so.
So with us. My hair was streaked with grey; the lines were in my face; my eyes sunk deep within the bone. That was how you, the unbelievers, saw me. But, priest, what was it the Master saw and those others at the Sabbath? They saw the round cheek, the fresh colour, the sweet shape; they saw the dark curls, the bright eyes, the red mouth. As for this life of ours, what is it but a dream, as you have often said? A dream, a dream, merely. Priest, the Master fulfilled his word.”
Samuel Fleming shook his head. “You were taken in the net of his deceit. You were old; and ugly with wickedness. Good people hated you everywhere.”
“I desired the hatred of the good.”
“It brought you to your death. And now that you wander unhouselled, still you are obstinate not to be saved . . . and I am a frail and foolish old man.” He lay back, eyes closed, lips moving in prayer. “Yet,” he said and opened his eyes full upon her, “God is strong and He is merciful. And in the end He will see to it that you are saved.”
“Say you so, priest?” There came to him the distant sound of light and mocking laughter. The wind had freshened so that he shivered and rose and went within from the emptiness of the summer garden.
Chapter Eleven
“Oh, you are not well again!” she cried with sweet compunction, seeing him sunk again in the pillows of his chair; and, though it was high summer, logs crackled in the hearth and firelight shone through his fingers as he held them to the blaze.
“I lingered overlong in the garden yesterday,” he said. “But, indeed,” and he sighed, “I cannot be well until you are won for God.”
“Then you will never be well!” Her face shone white and wicked between the tossed waves of her hair.
He let the taunt go by.
“So many things they said of you,” he told her, sadly. “And how to tell false from true I did not know . . . and do not know.”
“Yet you judged me,” she said as she had said before. “Well, priest, what is it you desire to know?”
“They said you blighted the standing corn; one day golden and thick in the ear, and the next——” he spread empty hands.
“I remember it.” Her smile was mocking. “That was the year the little lord died—the first little lord. I had seen the corn as I walked in the funeral.”
“Mildewed, useless. We went hungry that winter.”
“Priest, did you go hungry?”
The red came up into his pale cheeks; the hands spread upon his knees trembled a little. He had eaten less, certainly; but for all that he had not starved.
She said, with that sudden sweetness of hers, “There was many a one fed from your kitchens. Though you did not go hungry, yet you shared.”
“I could have shared more.” He beat upon his breast. “A hard, hard winter. That was the year the Simpsons were ruined. They had to leave the farm. Tom hired himself out at the Castle . . .”
“Yes,” she said, all soft spite, “the lord gave him a house—not so good as mine; a hovel. But they were glad enough to get it, he and that fine mother of his!”
He looked at her. “Did you bewitch their crops and their orchards and their beasts?”
“Do you think I could?”
He spread his hand. “I know not what to think.”
“He had cast off my daughter. I paid him for that. But had his harvests failed and his beasts died and I done nothing, still I should have borne the blame.”
“Your will was bad towards them; it is hard to judge the power of a wicked will.”
They were silent both of them. He lifted his head at last. “They say you ran about the countryside in the shape of an animal—a hare or a dog or a cat.”
“Do you believe I could?”
“I have read in books . . . such things, it seems, can happen. Yet reason rejects it.” He lifted a troubled face. “But who am I to pit my poor reason against the wisdom of learned men, both old and new? God forgive me, but I do believe it.”
“Then you are right. A small creature has its ear close to the ground. It hears more than the one that stands upright. And, what is more, so little a creature may do much damage—and no-one the wiser. But, make no mistake, priest. It is no easy thing to go inside the skin of a small creature, a creature that is hunted. You are weak then; for you take upon yourself every danger that besets it. You never know if you will come home again.”
In the quiet room she began to sing in a low voice, very sweet and thin.
And I shall go into a hare,
With sorrow and grief and muckle care.
And I shall go in the Devil’s name
But . . . when shall I come home again?
There was so haunting a sadness about her, it sent tears pricking in the old man’s eyes.
“Priest, priest, never weep for me,” she said. “There is always the spell to return us again . . . if we have time to cast it. But there is not always time. There was the winter they pelted me with stones; that was the winter the second child lay sick at the Castle.”
“Yes,” Samuel Fleming said. “Yes . . .” and was silent remembering the grief and the horror when the sickness that had killed Henry struck at Francis. No comfort now in thinking Soon he will mend. The end of this sickness they knew too well. Their hearts had been broken with pity for the child lying there, not knowing anyone, and crying out wild with his fears. All the prescriptions written by the learned Master Atkins had not helped; the three-year old had trembled so that the truckle-bed shook with him; there was no warming him. And he had cried out until his voice cracked and there was no hushing him . . . a baby lying there in mortal terror and crying out that a white beast lay upon his heart.
“The tale was all over the countryside,” Samuel Fleming said, “every man, woman and child watching for the white beast.”
She nodded. “Cat or hare or so small a thing as a mouse. Black, brown or grey, it was all one. For once the hunt is up any quarry will serve and many an innocent creature comes to its death. Well, they could have spared their pains! There was no white beast . . . then. It was all a sick child’s fancy—a picture seen, an old tale heard. I was never in his chamber in my life, though it was not for want of trying. We needed something that was his to cast the spell—a riband, a plaything, a lock of hair—something warm from his own breath, his own life-blood. We were not able to put our hands on such a thing. Philip had done her best; but she was not let out of the kitchens. The others mistrusted her; did she but move to go to the privy, there was always one that followed. From spring to autumn we had tried. How we had tried! The Master had long grown impatient; Philip found him a hard lover. When the first snow came I knew I must go into a hare. . . .”
“The child sickened before the snow.”
She nodded. “But it was not our doing. It was fear working upon him and within him—fear in the heart of his father, of his mother, in all those that stood about him; and, most of all, fear in his own heart. He might have got well again; he might have died without our help. We could risk neither. And, over and above his dying, there was the winning of his soul. The first child had slipped from the hand of the Master; this soul we must win. And that was why I went into a hare. . . .”
“Why did you choose a hare; and a white one, seeing that up at the Castle and down in the village, every eye watched for a white beast?”
“I did not know it. Philip had not been down from the Castle and no-one spoke to us. But though I knew nothing, still I did not want to be a hare. I was afraid. Lif
e is a black burden to a small weak creature, blacker still when it feels and thinks like a woman.
I waited for the first snow—white against white is hard to see. I went carefully at first; but when I got beyond the village and there was no-one about, I began to lillip and then to run. And then, because I was in part a hare, the thing I was about to do, seemed, after all, not so very important. That, priest, is part of the risk one takes when one becomes a beast. The risk is not all from outside; some of it comes from within oneself. You lose for the time, some human part; you think, you act in the nature of the beast.
So there I was free of the world; and the snow all about me crisp and clean. There is a smell to the snow wild creatures know. I began to circle for the joy of it, throwing up the snow with strong, hind legs.
But I was only half a hare. I had not the safety of being all animal. And so it was that I forgot the smell of man; and I did not remember it again until the rank odour came strong to my nose.
It was Tom Simpson, all crazy with his wrongs. I froze. It was too late. Already his hands were on a stone. I turned and ran; and he came after, flinging his stones. A clumsy fool. By the Master’s grace he missed each time.
I lost what wits I had. I should have made for the woods; instead I doubled back to the village—the hunted creature makes for home. And as we ran, he pressing me hard, he cried out Witch, witch! And men and women came running from their houses. And, even then, I had gone free, but his mother, a pox upon her, ran out carrying a knife and she flung it as I ran. It caught me upon the left hind leg so that I limped as I went and there was blood upon the white ground.
A small wound; not much to see, but steady-bleeding. So, twisting and dodging and bleeding, I ran into the thicket behind my house and, as I went, I put together with sorrow and pain and muckle care the spell to borrow me. So when they came to my house there was a little blood upon the snow and no hare; only myself with a stocking about my leg to hide my hurt, busy about my bread. And though they called Witch, witch, come out! And though they threw stones against my door, it was fast-shut. There was nothing they could do and they were forced to go home again.