The Witchfinder's Sister

by Beth Underdown

  Superstitions like that one were common among village folk. Father used to frown over those among his congregation who would indulge them, probably the more because he knew that Mother believed such things, too, as readily and fearfully as she believed the gospel. She had got worse with it after we moved to Manningtree; it grew trying when she would not stir out of doors because the woman over the road had hung a certain blue petticoat to dry again from an upper window. Or when I did persuade her to take the air, and she would grow agitated if we saw a magpie, and would not come in until she had seen another, even if it took an hour of cold waiting.

  Matthew did not witness much of her sickness, having gone to Ipswich by then to learn his trade in a grain-merchant’s house, but that last Christmas before my marriage, when he was at home, Mother had taken a particularly bad turn. She had gone to bed early, and Matthew and I had stayed up, talking quietly for a time; but we had been reading in silence more than an hour when I heard movement in the room above. I looked at Matthew, got ready to mark my place, but before I could move there were feet on the stairs, and then Mother was in the room.

  ‘Will you be quiet?’ she said loudly. Her hair was round her ears.

  ‘Mother,’ I said, but she seemed not to hear me.

  ‘Will you just please be quiet?’ She was talking too loudly, almost shouting. Her eyes were strange: I wondered if she could be dreaming, walking and speaking in her sleep.

  ‘Mother!’ Matthew said, louder. ‘What is it?’

  ‘You two. Talking and talking. How can I sleep when you’re talking so loud?’ she said.

  Matthew had gone to her, but he turned to me then, stricken. I laid my book aside, went nearer, and then I saw what he saw: that she had plugged her ears with wadded cloth, as she often did to ensure a good night’s rest.

  I took her arm, put my own around her shoulders. Swiftly and gently I pulled out the plugs of cloth, and threw the pieces on the fire. ‘Come, Mother,’ I said. ‘I’ll sit with you while you go to sleep. Then you won’t be troubled by us talking at all.’

  Things had been different from that day. Soon after, Matthew took over the household accounts. He found Mother a new physician, with a new regime of purging and bleeding to balance her humours, and he would not listen when I asked him what we would do if it did not work, if what was wrong with her could not be cured in that way. It was then that he began to come back from Ipswich more often and unannounced. It was then that I had decided to fall in love.

  My hair brushed smooth, I threw the final clump on the fire, and watched it disappear, thinking. If Mother had always been impressionable, then Bridget had always been steady, and it gave me pause that a piece of nonsense, like that about the thatch, could have frightened her. I could not know that it was more than nonsense. That it was a beginning. I see now how Bridget was right to tell me no names. Names were how it had begun. One woman accuses another in a fit of grief or rage. And once you have said a name, there is no unsaying.

  6

  I was still holding the comb, still standing in the window, when I heard the horses come round into the yard. Moving back from the glass, I saw my brother’s greyhound nosing the ground by the stables, where a groom held the head of a bay horse. Matthew was wearing a hat, but I knew him by his manner of dismounting, the lurch that made the horse skip sideways before it settled again. I smoothed my skirt, wishing afresh that I had a mirror to check myself in. When I had last seen my brother I had been untidily dressed, my face red, my hair falling out of its pins; I would sooner not remind him of that day.

  As I stepped further back from the window, Matthew’s voice came below. Then a tread I knew on the stair, but at the top, my brother halted. I thought he would pass on into his own room, for a change of linen or to wash the smell of horse-leather from his hands, but there he still paused, on the other side of the door. So I breathed out, and opened it.

  He had a beard, slightly redder in hue than the rest of his hair, as Father’s had been. It did not quite cover the scars, where they spread over his neck and cheek – they could still be seen, the small patches of pink web, pulling minutely against each other. But the beard rendered them less stark. There was grey now, incredibly, at his temples. Suddenly I saw why perhaps he might have caught Grace’s fancy. His breeches, his coat, were of fine black wool, and his broad collar very clean, despite his journey. His boots were of the tall riding style he had always worn, not for vanity but to keep his legs from chafing, yet they fitted him now; suited him, even. He clutched a large, stiff hat, the kind that keeps the rain off, but his free hand as he held it out was steady: likewise his gaze. He had become a man, my brother, and I had missed the moment of it.

  ‘Alice,’ he said. My name in his mouth sounded awkward after all this time; his holding out his hand to me seemed oddly formal, and it felt cold as I took it. I noticed how smooth it was in my own, and I could not stop myself turning it over and touching the palm.

  ‘Your skin!’ I exclaimed. The scarring was so much improved. Matthew drew the hand out of my grasp, and gave a quick smile. ‘Forgive me,’ I said, but he shook his head.

  ‘I have a different physician, now, the same one Grimston uses. He gave me something different to apply. The left is still bad, though.’ He seemed unsure whether to embrace me, so I saved him by stepping away. He said, ‘It is good to see you looking so well.’

  We gazed at each other again, and in meeting his eyes I felt washed with relief. For all his faults, I had missed him. He gestured with his hat back down the stairs. ‘I gather I must beg pardon for my housekeeper.’

  I smiled. ‘Nonsense. Why would she know my face?’ I meant it lightly, but we both looked away.

  ‘Indeed. It has been some time,’ Matthew said. In the quiet, our last meeting grew large between us. ‘How was your journey?’

  I thought back to the woman at the inn, how she had failed to see me holding my child. I tried to smile. ‘Cold,’ I said.

  ‘Well.’ He shifted a little, and his boots squeaked on the boards. ‘Will you come down and dine with me? It’s early, I know.’ His greyhound was standing beside him.

  ‘Of course,’ I said. I murmured to the dog and put out my hand, but it backed away: it had forgotten my scent.

  Matthew stepped towards his chamber. ‘First I must –’

  ‘I’ll give you a few minutes,’ I said.

  I closed my door, and heard him shout down the stairs for hot water. I sat by the hearth. My hair was neat and tucked away, and I could not think how to fill the minutes, so I sat, pressing the teeth of the comb lightly into my palm. A comb, I thought. If you came across it and did not know its purpose, it looks like a thing for hurting.

  At length, I heard Matthew go down, and a moment later I followed him. Smoothing my hand over my bodice, tight-laced to hide the small roundness there, I thought, It will be better to tell him straight away.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Mary Phillips gestured to the last door in the passage, and as I went into the large chamber, Matthew stood up to greet me.

  There was a table with twelve wooden chairs, but also two softer ones drawn up close to a good fire, and it was to one of these that Matthew pointed me as he settled in the other. This room was smaller than the public room at the front of the inn; still, it was clear that this was where Matthew did his entertaining. The rich plainness of my chamber was repeated throughout the Thorn, and this room was governed by the same solid panelling, which still smelt fresh, like sawdust. On the table were good candles, waiting in their brackets to be lit; the kind that when we were children would have been brought out only for guests.

  ‘Well,’ Matthew said, but then Grace came in. I smiled at her, but as she set her tray down, she did not meet my eyes. Drawing a small side table nearer, she put a jug and two cups on it, as well as a platter of cut bread and cheese, glancing large-eyed at Matthew as she placed each item to be certain he did not disapprove. I wondered again whether she had a liking for him, or whether it was just
diligence, fear even. I studied my brother’s face as she poured the ale, but he was calm under her scrutiny.

  When she had wiped the mouth of the jug, I thanked her, but she did not go until Matthew nodded. As the door closed behind her, he cleared his throat. He had crossed his legs at the ankle, and he was joggling one foot, which was ever a habit of his.

  ‘You have come alone,’ he said.

  I had almost forgotten that he did not know about Joseph. It was strange to be aware that, until I spoke out, for Matthew, my husband was still alive.

  ‘Joseph,’ I said. ‘Joseph, just after Christmas – he died.’ At the edge of my sight I saw Matthew’s eyes shoot to my face, but I did not meet them, in case they showed something other than sorrow. He put down the piece of bread he had chosen.

  At length, he said, ‘How did he – I mean, how?’

  ‘A fellow from his church set up gunsmithing.’

  Matthew frowned, waiting, but I knew he would have noticed the slip – his church. I pressed my lips together.

  ‘There are plenty of contracts to fill, with how things have been,’ I said. ‘They were taking folk on, at a piece rate. You remember Joseph helped the smith in Manningtree for a time? He knew about metal. They thought he would have a feel for it. Apparently.’ I swallowed, looked down. I did not want to describe it. ‘He was testing one of the new guns, and it blew itself apart,’ I went on quickly. ‘His face, they said, and part of his chest.’

  Matthew did not shake his head, or call on God, as my landlady had done. He was silent for so long that I looked up.

  ‘They said it was no man’s fault. So that’s something,’ I said, but I could not keep the tightness from my voice, for suddenly I knew that I was furious with Joseph, after all those weeks of feeling numb. I was furious with him for leaving me, and at how ridiculous the tale sounded, how clumsy, a man blown up with a gun that he himself had made. I thought that in his silence Matthew must be concealing gladness, or at least derision.

  But my brother surprised me, for his eyes were sad; he brought out his handkerchief, tucked it into my hand. I held it up to my face. It smelt of rosemary, and of the smoke and soap and ink that could come only from a man’s pocket. It smelt of Father, and that made me weep. After a while my breaths began to slow.

  Matthew was watching me, leaning back in his chair. ‘I am so sorry, Alice,’ he said.

  ‘But you didn’t like him,’ I said, into the handkerchief.

  My brother leaned forward and touched the back of my hand. ‘Alice. Look, it’s done, now.’ He paused. ‘It’s past. But listen. Mary Phillips told me you came here with only one box.’ He dropped his voice. ‘If there are debts, you should tell me now. We can settle them.’

  I felt my face crumple again at the mention of money, the dull and crippling worry that had weighed on me for months. But I shook my head, tried to smile. ‘There are no debts, brother. Our landlady was kind, and – I brought in a little money myself, so.’

  ‘Oh?’

  I saw that I could not speak of the scrubbing I had done. If I ever knew fifteen tricks for getting blood out of a sheet, I must forget them, now. ‘I was a midwife,’ I said. ‘The woman who let us our rooms took a liking to me, trained me to it.’ It surprised me, how easily the lie came to my tongue.

  ‘I see,’ he said, raising his eyebrows in approval. He cleared his throat, and pushed the plate of bread towards me. ‘Now, please. Eat something,’ he said.

  While I ate, I asked him about his business. He had been another two years in Ipswich, after I had gone to London, learning his trade in the merchant’s household. When he felt he had got what there was to know, including something of conveyancing as well as of trade, he had come home to set up on his own and, as he said, to be nearer to Mother. He was earning still on his interest in the mill at Flatford, and a tenancy or two that he had inherited from Father. He had taken on the Thorn to provide him with better stabling and some modest income. As he talked, I could see him growing open and easy.

  ‘And do you hear often from our brothers?’ I said. James had died, not long after Father, but Thomas and John were both in America still. They would be prosperous men, having divided James’s part of Father’s wealth between them.

  ‘I write often to them,’ Matthew replied. ‘Most recently about the last piece of Wenham land. I thought it right to ask them if they might wish to buy me out, before I sell it.’ I knew the piece he meant, with the apple trees, beside the church. It surprised me that he could speak of disposing of Father’s orchard so composedly. He must have seen my face. ‘It saddens me, of course, to do it. But I have made certain improvements here.’ He wiped his mouth on his napkin. ‘And then I have plans for work on our mother’s house. I wish it all cleared out and cleaned, painted. Everything from my old chamber thrown away, and the front bedroom needs a new bed.’ He stopped, and pushed his plate away. I knew at once why the new bed must be needed. Mother’s had not been a pleasant end, then.

  I knew already that it would not have been her unsettled mind that had taken her, but her other illness, which had to do with her monthly terms. She never spoke of it, but I dealt with her napkins, and I had to burn them as often as wash them. It was not only the quantity of blood in them that was troubling, but the thin high scarlet of it, more like the blood that would flow if someone opened your vein.

  I swallowed. ‘I am sorry I did not come back,’ I said. ‘When she died.’

  ‘I did not expect you to.’ He looked up. ‘What I mean is, it is a long way.’ Though he swiftly averted them, I had seen his eyes were full.

  We were quiet a minute. Then he said, ‘She was gentled by it, you know. Her illness. There was nothing of sharpness by the end, nothing of discontent.’ He looked down, an admission that what sharpness, what discontent there had been was most often saved for me.

  She was always more tractable on Matthew’s visits; she would quietly drink for him any powders the physician prescribed. After purging, she would be calmer, and calmer still after she had been bled, and that made Matthew glad. But it made me guilty, knowing that her calm would never be more than temporary; knowing, though Matthew would not admit it, that it was not only her body that was unwell but her mind.

  Watching me bite my lip, Matthew shuffled in his chair. ‘Did she ever write to you? Or send you anything?’

  I smiled sadly. ‘A note or two in the first years.’

  ‘Her fingers, I suppose,’ he said vaguely, examining his own large knuckles.

  Mother’s joints, by the time of my marriage, had been too bad for much writing. She could just about sew still, having devised her own crabbed way of holding a needle, but a pen was almost beyond her.

  Mary Phillips came in, then, with a pair of apples, and set them down by Matthew. I topped up our cups, reaching for something else to speak of. ‘You said there is work wants doing at our old house?’ I said. He nodded. ‘So you mean to live there again?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, choosing an apple. ‘And you with me, Alice. It would be a weight off my mind, if you would oversee what is to be done. That is, if you wanted something, sister. To occupy your time.’ He was watching my face, to see if I was pleased, and I could not help but smile.

  ‘I did not know if you would ask me to stay,’ I said.

  ‘I feared you wouldn’t want to.’

  We sat in silence for a minute, Matthew concentrating on the peeling of his apple. I knew that it was dangerous to give in to my relief, but it was such a simple luxury, after all that time, to sit in silence. I see now how that winter had left an empty space at the middle of me, which was was the size and shape of a man.

  And yet, our last meeting had not simply disappeared for not speaking of it; and neither had the secret in my belly. I had not forgotten what Bridget had said, about the fine new friends my brother had made among the men of the town; about the piece of witch nonsense. I knew I would have to tread carefully with him: though as a child Matthew had been as superstitious as
Mother, I knew he would not wish to think of himself thus.

  I had not forgotten, either, Grace’s awkwardness over my visit to Bridget. So as I took a piece of the peeled apple, I sat back and lightly said, ‘Bridget told me she got over to see Mother the day before she died.’ I felt Matthew look at me. Then I added, ‘I was there, this afternoon. I was pleased to hear her say so. Mother must have been comforted by it.’

  A moment passed, Matthew flicking his knife out of the slit in its wooden handle and then in again; out, then in. ‘I did not think you would have been to see her yet,’ he said.

  ‘I had to tell her about Joseph,’ I said, and when he did not reply at once, I added, ‘She’s moved – did you know? She said that it was because Sir Harbottle raised her rent. She called him your friend. If it is true that you have his ear, then it’s a shame you could not speak to him about it.’

  Matthew cleared his throat, and when he spoke, his voice was brisk. ‘Did she mention the will?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did Bridget mention Mother’s will?’

  ‘No. What do you mean?’

  ‘Ah.’ He put the knife down, blade out. ‘I had intended to write to you about it. But then you said you were coming, and so – What it is, Mother amended things, the day she died. She had me call in Richard Edwards to witness it,’ he said. ‘Her ring, her Bible, things of that nature, she has left to Bridget.’

  I looked at my hands. Why had Bridget not said anything?

  ‘I’m not sure how to put it,’ Matthew went on carefully. ‘Well, if you remember, it is a gold ring. I heard from Grimston that Bridget couldn’t keep up with the rent. I thought she might try to sell it.’ He spoke as if it was a purely legal matter.

  ‘I see,’ I said. I had to swallow, hard, for I felt a tightness in my throat. That Mother should have done this, in anger at my abandoning her. For though she had been difficult with me, I had spent near every waking moment with her during my time in Manningtree. And she would often say that when she died, her good gold ring would come to me, though whenever she spoke in that manner I would always take her hand, and tell her to hush.