by Hilda Lewis
You may well say, priest, that innocent or guilty, their punishment had begun.
There came up to them at last the sound of a cart being made ready—the crunch of wheels in the snow, and jingle of trappings.
Philip stood up and stretched herself and went over to the window; she turned again, and in the gloom, her pale face swung towards that other pale face. ‘Sister,’ she said and there was kindness in her voice, ‘soon they will come for us. Listen to me—it may be the last time we shall be alone together. I shall speak the truth because I glory in the truth; and because the Master will save me both in this world and in the world hereafter. As for you, it will be useless to lie; and that is a thing you must plainly understand. For those things we did—and especially the spells we cast—we did together. And when I speak I must tell your part also; it cannot be otherwise. If you deny what I shall say they will not let you rest till they have got the truth out of you also. Their ways are many and not one of them is pleasant. You will be forced to confess. But mark me well. There is more than one way to confess. If you speak out freely, not at all penitent but glorying in what you have done, then all will be well for you—both in this world and the next. But if you confess only because truth has been wrung from you by torment, and if you admit to sorrow for what you have done, then you betray the Master with the truth as surely as with lies. And you will come to the rope. Do not think their god will save you. Be very sure he will not; for you have denied him and all his works. Denying both Devil and God, how shall you fare?’
Margaret said nothing; she stared into the darkness with her vacant eyes. Presently her shoulders began to twitch and her whole body to shake. Philip said, and now there was no more kindness in her, ‘Deny as you may, you will suffer both here and hereafter; my testimony will betray you. Be warned.’
And now there were steps along the passage. The door opened and two men came in carrying a rough coffin. The horror deepened in Margaret’s face; she had not truly understood, as yet, that I was dying. She made a step forward as though to thrust them away but Philip held her back; and they lifted my still-living body and thrust it into the coffin . . . and the loathing in their faces was something one should never see.
My soul all gentle in its new condition, hardened again. The body pulled strongly upon the cord and brought it near again. With this last flaming of earthly fire I desired more passionately than I had desired anything ever before, that I might this once have the use of my body, or of my mouth, only, that I might spit into their cruel faces, hurl my last curse.”
“God forgive you such a dying!” Samuel Fleming said.
“We die as we live, priest.” And when he would have spoken said, “Do not talk to me of death-bed repentings. There is an old saw about the Devil being sick. It is an insult to the Master; but there is truth in it all the same.
The cold air of the stableyard blew upon my dying body but I did not feel it. They lifted me into the cart and Meg and Philip were thrust in after me. Philip tried not to shiver in the cold night air; but she and Meg shook as with an ague. Above us the evening star stared down like the eye of God . . . a cold and heartless eye.
And so we were all set for our journey, the journey from which not one of us would return. The driver climbed into his seat, and, as he took up the reins, a voice called out, Halt!
It was you, priest. You climbed up into the cart. You said nothing; but you knelt down and you prayed for me; and though my soul knew it was all useless, yet it thanked you.”
“You are very sure it was useless?” he asked her gently.
“I thought so, priest.”
“And now?”
“Now I am not so sure. You catch the new-born body with your prayers, you might well work that same trick with the new-born soul. But, if because you prayed, I wander unhouselled, I do not thank you, now, priest.”
“You will in the end,” he said.
“The cart jingled out of the stable and into the street. There were lights in every house though at this hour folk were usually abed. But now they were in the street; and some carried torches and some carried . . . other things. By the pillory yet more were waiting; not only Bottesford folk, but folk from Frisby and from Goodby and from Stathorne. All waiting to let fly their filthy rubbish, their ugly stones.
But before any man could lift an arm, you stood up in the cart and you held your arms before us like a cross; and you called out, ‘These women are not yet judged; neither are you their judges.’ And their arms dropped; and though still they cried out their filthy words, their hands they kept at their sides.
I lay there at the bottom of the cart. Why did you permit them to thrust me, still living, in my coffin, priest?”
“It was all the coffin you were likely to have. I was not minded to have them thrust you naked in the earth. But I did not know what they had done until I saw for myself, there in the cart . . . and then it was too late.”
“You take some of my bitterness away,” she said.
“I lay there in my coffin and I felt the pull upon the cord grow heavier and with each pull I felt it must snap. I prepared myself for the last agony. My body that had lain still began to twitch and to shake; it shook as though it were made of one piece. The rattle began in my throat. Terror fell upon me at this last abandonment of the body.
Then, priest, you knelt in the cart and the quiet night was broken by the sound of your praying and by Meg’s sobbing and by the death-rattle in my throat. And, rising above it all, the clip-clop of the horses carrying us upon our dark journey.
And then, still upon your knees, you signed to the cart to stop. There was a last agonized pull; my body arched and twisted. Strange the strength in an old dying body. The rattle stopped; the body jerked forward and lay still. The soul was free.
You put out a hand and closed the eyes.”
He was silent, remembering that he had not gone without censure because he had prayed at the passing of a witch. Francis, even, had been displeased. Had she made her peace with God, Francis would have tried to forgive her. But she had died unconfessed and no good man should pity her.
“Because of those prayers, maybe, I am lost between two worlds,” she said, sighing.
“Because of those prayers you will yet find your way to God.”
She gave her mocking shrug. “Who knows?” she said; and after that nothing, but moved back into the shadow, and so stood swaying like a translucent flower.
Presently she said, very low, “They speak much of your cleverness but of your wisdom they do not speak enough; no, nor yet of your goodness. But I think God will say it all one day.”
He looked up surprised. God, she had said; not your god; but God, simply; and she had said it without mockery. And even while he looked she was gone, leaving within his soul a light brighter than that of his lamp. It shone through the thinness of the flesh, so that Hester coming in, the cat at her heels, to see whether he had put out the lamp—since the night had passed and the sun shone—bit back the cry that he was not long for this world.
Chapter Twenty
In the springtime garden Samuel Fleming walked slowly leaning upon his stick. He had been ailing since Harvest, speaking little and eating less. For, turn where he would, do what he would, it went forever with him—the memory of the witches and their death; and especially the memory of Joan Flower and her strange dying.
Disquieted and weary, self-questioning and old, he had thought, through the long winter, never to see the spring again. Now, as he walked, drawing the arrowy scents into his nostrils, a pale primrose nodded at him. It was an invitation he could not resist. He bent, rose again a little clumsy, and slipped it within the lapel of his coat and so stood, dizzy from stooping.
“Priest, have a care!” It was the light and mocking voice he had not heard for some time. “Or you will go out as I did. God’s servant and the Devil’s, departing this life the same
way. That would be odd, indeed!”
“Not so odd,” he said. “There are not many ways for old folk to die; and a stroke is one of them.”
“It is not so bad a death—it looks worse than it is. There is no pain; and, it is strange, priest, no fear.”
“God was merciful to you. When my time comes may He be as merciful.”
She shrugged. “It happened . . . as it happened. No-one was ever merciful to me. Not your god. And certainly not mine.”
“And did you expect mercy from the Devil?” he asked. “God shows mercy always; human creatures, sometimes; the Devil, never.”
“If one might believe that . . . about your god, I mean!” She took a step towards him so that he saw the primroses clear through the transparency of her feet.
“It is true,” he told her. “And I think you know it is true.”
“How should I know? I was a witch and I escaped the rope—that much is true; but the greater anguish I did not escape. I saw my daughters fastbound in the filth of your prison and the pains that were put upon them. I besought the Master that He would put out a hand to save them; yet my naked soul knew that Margaret, at least, must come to the gallows. From my place between heaven and hell I cried out to the Master to let me, of his mercy, take upon me some of their suffering.”
“I think, perhaps, God was beginning to work in you.”
“How, priest?” She was all amazed.
“You desired to take the suffering of others upon yourself.”
“They were not . . . others. They were the children I had borne; that I had set upon the path that led to their end.”
“Every path leads to its end,” he said; “but we forget that, often enough, when first we set foot upon it.”
“That sounds a simple thing when it is said; but it is the hard truth.” She sighed. “Though I was free to come and go; to seek my way to heaven or to hell as I might, still I could not depart from that place. I dwelt within the cell with those two; I went with them before the judge. I could no more leave the place than they. It was as though the chains hung upon my feet also.”
“Compassion is no light weight,” Samuel Fleming said. “And however it is felt—for whom and by whom—it is of the nature of God. Woman, I shall win you yet.”
“There will not be time . . .” She looked into his thin face with something of the compassion of which he spoke, “unless you go within doors and sit by the warm fire and drink wine.”
“Go within doors!” he said. “And this . . .” he held out his hands as though to clasp all spring to his sober jacket.
“There is no heat to the sun as yet,” she said, gentle still, “and the wind cuts like a knife . . . and you have been ill. Certainly you must go within.” She bent and plucked some violets he had smelt but not seen, for his eyes were growing dim; she bound them about with a blade of grass and put them into his hand. “Come!” she said and went before him. And, as they went, he saw that the white cat had sprung from nowhere and went with her.
Hester, inspecting the young shoots of the new sparrowgrass bed, came from the kitchen garden, softly calling. “Puss,” she cried, “puss!” He saw how the little cat stood undecided between the woman and the ghost of the woman. The ghost bent downward. “Go,” she whispered. “And no wickedness. Be a good little cat, I command you.”
Hester cast a puzzled look about the lawn empty except for her brother and herself. “I thought,” she said, “I thought . . . Never mind what I thought!” She laughed. “Come, Master Puss.” She picked him up though he struggled and scratched and drew blood. “Naughty little thing,” Hester said. The cat put out a little red tongue towards the scratch—and fell to the ground as though someone had struck it from the living woman’s arms.
“Those games are over!” the ghost of Joan Flower said and again Hester lifted a puzzled face.
“Let the creature go!” Samuel told his sister. “It is a little wild thing and may do you a mischief.”
“It is wild,” Hester said, “but still it is a good little cat. I could not drive it away since I have coaxed it to stay. Come, puss.” She spoke as to a child. “Be good and you shall have your warm, sweet milk.”
He said, smiling, seeing her coax the creature, “Have a care, or they may take you for a witch!” And when he saw offence in her gentle eyes, said quickly, “Forgive an old man his foolish joke.”
She smiled back at him; but for all that she was not best pleased. She left the cat there upon the ground and walked into the house.
They stared at each other, he and the cat; then he said, and he was not smiling now, “Perhaps it was no more than this with a many a one they call witch. A lonely old woman and a little cat she loved; or a little dog, or a bird maybe . . . some small, soft creature . . .”
He looked at the cat as though asking an answer; but the creature lifted a disdainful head and arched itself. Quite deliberately it turned its back and minced into the house.
He smiled ruefully, his eyes following the cat.
And they took the old woman, the thought nagged and nattered and would not let him be, the harmless old woman . . .
“. . . and they hanged her.” Joan Flower finished the thought for him. “So it was with some. But not with us, priest; not with us. When you dealt with me and my daughters, you judged rightly.”
“Then I thank God.” He saw her clear outline blur; and when he lifted a hand to his eyes it came away wet.
“It is the wind,” he said, “the sharp wind.”
“Yes,” she said, “it is the wind. Come within doors.”
Her hand lay transparent upon his black sleeve so that the neat darn Hester had made showed through. They went together into the study and stood by that table where once she had called God to be her witness, and still calling, had fallen stricken to the floor. When he had seated himself in his own chair she took the one that stood opposite and made a gesture towards the jar that held his pipes.
“Here we sit like man and wife.” She smiled a little sadly. “And so it might have been had I been a lady and good . . . with a little learning perhaps. I was quick to learn; but the things I learned were the wrong things.”
He looked at her then; and it was the face of a girl untouched, wilful, a rose thrust through the dark of her curls. So she must have looked before she had wed John Flower.
“My heart is all for God’s service,” he told her gently. “It was never large enough to hold a woman, too. But you were comely; and, priest though I was, my blood stirred as you passed.”
“Passed,” she said and it was as though she wept upon the word. “All, all is past.”
He shook his head. “You have still a choice to make. That is not yet past.”
His voice dropped at the sound of Hester’s heels tapping along the stone passage; she came in carrying a tray.
“It is cold in here,” she said and the tray rattled in her hands. “But it is a good fire!” she said surprised. “I cannot, it seems, warm this room.”
“What have you here?” he asked, sniffing with pleasure.
“Guess! But here’s a clue. It comes all the way from the great Amazon River; a package from Francis. Cecilia sent it down this morning.”
He sniffed again, puzzled. “It is chocolate . . . and yet, not chocolate.”
She laughed. “Yes, it is chocolate. But Francis wrote to serve it a new way; hot and very sweet,” and she set down a dish of sugar chips.
He watched her pour the rich, frothy liquid from the silver jug. “How goodly are His gifts!” he said. “This same chocolate that makes a cold and savoury soup for hot days, now makes a hot, sweet drink for cold days.” He picked up some sugar chips and dropped them into the aromatic brew. “How fortunate I am to taste so rare a drink! When Columbus took the first chocolate home to Spain, they threw it away. Useless, they thought. Useless—this! How good of Fran
cis to tell me about the sugar.” He sipped. “How good everyone is to an old man,” he said softly. “You, my dear. And Cecilia; and Francis. And, most of all . . . God.”
It is not hard to be good to you, Hester thought and smiled down into his face; she brought over a rug and tucked him about as though he were a baby, telling herself that John Atkins must come down from Belvoir again. Surely he could prescribe some strengthening physic. Yes, she would send up a message at once.
She shut the door gently behind her and he sat back, a tired old man wrapped in a shawl and stirring the rich chocolate in a fine Delft bowl.
“We long for heaven,” he said, “but there are times when this world is very good.” And he sipped contented, his fingers caressing the gay tulip border of his dish.
“Have a care, priest,” Joan Flower warned him, her eye on the picture beneath the flowered edge. “See how Eve lusts for the apple! And if you turn your dish about, there she is—and her spouse with her—driven from the garden. Through the senses the Master will catch you yet!”
“God likes us to enjoy his good things . . . if we do not enjoy them too much. I am a weak and sinful old man; but my Master is not like your master. God does not betray the heart that loves Him.”
“Do you know,” she said with one of her sudden changes, “I never in my life tasted that!” And her eyes were on the sparkling whiteness of the sugar-cone chips. “Honey is for common folk—and not too much of it. My girls were light-fingered but they never brought me sugar, maybe they ate it themselves—and who can blame them? Here I am, lost between heaven and hell; and, had I tears, I would weep because I have never tasted sugar.”
“It is a pity.” He looked at her over the blue and flowered edge of his cup, “but . . . there are worse pities.”
“Yes, there are worse pities,” she agreed and for a while was silent. Then she said, very grave, “Did you ever see the inside of a prison, priest?”
“It did not come within my duties.”