Anne spoke softly to Mary.
‘Have you tried turning it from inside the girl?’
‘I have’—Mary nodded—‘but she is a lissome lass. There is no room for my crooked hands.’
The two women looked at her bent, arthritic fingers, and then at Anne’s own straight but broad palms. Anne turned to Bess.
‘Show me your hands.’
‘What?’
‘Quickly, Bess, show me.’
Bess did as her mother bade her. Anne and Mary examined her hands closely. They looked at each other and then back at Bess. Anne lifted her daughter’s hands up and squeezed them as she spoke.
‘Bess, you must attend to my words. Do precisely what I tell you, no more nor less. Move with care but firmly.’
‘You mean … but, I can’t, Mother. I cannot!’
‘You must! Only you can do it. If you do not, both mother and babe will die this night. Do you hear me?’
Bess opened her mouth to protest further but could not find the words. She had delivered calves for her father, who had also seen the value of her small hands. She had assisted at lambing time. She had even been present in the room when Margaret was born, though she remembered little past her mother’s determined face. She saw that same fixed expression now and knew it was not in her power to change it. Before she could think further, her mother called for a bowl of hot water and had Bess wash her hands. Anne dried them on clean linen, then rubbed them with lavender oil. All the while Mistress Prosser and the attendant women looked on with disdain at such unfamiliar practices. Anne led Bess to the bed before positioning herself at Sarah’s side, placing her hands on her belly once more. She nodded at Bess.
Bess looked at the young girl who was lying before her. Her chest heaved with the effort of labor and of pain. Her cheeks had taken on an alarming pallor. She looked up at Bess, her eyes pleading. Bess leaned forward and slowly eased the fingers of her right hand into the girl.
‘What do you feel, Bess?’ Anne asked.
‘I cannot be certain … not the head, nor any limbs.’ She looked at her mother, brows creased, trying to picture in her mind how the baby could be arranged in its mother’s womb. ‘I think … yes, I feel the child’s back, and here, its shoulder.’
Old Mary cursed quietly, ‘ ’Tis as I feared—the babe lies crossways.’
Mistress Prosser began to weep.
Anne held Bess in her gaze. ‘Feel for the top of the shoulder. Work your fingers over the bone. I will aid you from outside, but you must turn that baby so that his head is drawn downward.’
‘There is no room. I cannot take a hold…’
‘You must!’
Bess searched with her fingertips, finding her way to the nape of the unborn child’s neck and then over its tiny shoulder. She pulled, gently at first, then with more force. ‘It will not move.’
Old Mary stepped forward to whisper in Anne’s ear, but her words were audible to all.
‘Anne, I have the hooks…’
‘No!’ Anne was adamant. ‘Not while the infant still lives.’ She turned to Bess again. ‘Keep trying,’ she said.
Bess did as she was told but feared her efforts would prove fruitless. The slippery baby seemed stuck fast in its impossible position. A terrifying image came into Bess’s mind. She recalled with frightening clarity the time her father had failed to deliver a particularly large calf. After battling for hours, he had thrown up his hands and sent Bess to the dairy to fetch the cheese wire. He had used it, with slow and deliberate movements, to slice the calf into pieces so that they might take it out and save the cow. No one could be certain the creature had been dead before he started dissecting it. Bess could see now the pathetic limbs and hooves lying in a gory mess beside its mother. The cow herself had died the following day. Bess blinked the picture from her mind. She must stay calm. She must be steadfast. If she was not, Sarah would pay the price with her life. Bess redoubled her efforts, shutting from her thoughts the notion that she might harm the child—it had to come out. At last she began to detect some shifting in its position. Anne noticed it too.
‘Do not let it slip back,’ she said.
Bess prized the shoulder to one side and felt the head moving downward toward the birth canal. At that moment, a powerful contraction swept through Sarah’s body. The girl was now too weak to scream and instead emitted an eerie wail.
Old Mary stepped forward.
‘Bear down, child! Do not falter now. Push!’
Now she screamed. With one last, gargantuan effort, with strength summoned from an unknowable place that exists hidden within every mother, Sarah screamed and pushed.
Bess gasped as her hand and the baby were driven out. Everything happened with such speed she barely had time to grab the infant as it slithered onto the blood-soaked linen.
‘Look!’ Bess cried. ‘He’s out! A boy!’
Anne examined the child who protested loudly, much to the relief of everyone in the room.
‘The Lord be praised!’ whispered Mistress Prosser, raising her daughter’s hand to her lips.
Old Mary smiled a toothless grin, ‘The Lord and young Bess here,’ she said. ‘She surely be her mother’s daughter.’
Bess watched the baby wrapped in warm swaddling and handed to his mother. Sarah kissed the top of her newborn’s head, her face transformed, the cloud of death removed and replaced by the warm joy of life. She looked up at Bess.
‘Thank you, Bess,’ she said.
‘I need no thanks beyond seeing you and the babe safe and well, Sarah.’
‘I will never forget what you have done for us,’ Sarah said, before closing her eyes.
Bess felt her mother’s hand on her arm.
‘Come, Bess. Let us leave her to rest.’
‘I feared I might fail,’ she confessed.
Her mother smiled. It was a smile that from anyone else might have been said to betray pride. She shook her head. ‘You did well, child,’ she told her daughter. ‘You did well.’
2
A week later, at the start of the day, with dawn barely progressed sufficiently to light her way, Bess took a basket and headed into the woods to gather moss and lichen for her mother’s pharmacopoeia. The early daylight cast not a shadow and gave soft edges to tree and stone so that the world appeared somehow gentler and more yielding. As Bess reached the limit of the pasture, she hesitated. She loved the woodland and yet had always the sense that in stepping into its leafy embrace she was entering another realm. Here things were hidden and secret. All manner of possibilities dwelled in the tangled roots and verdant undergrowth. The trees provided a place unknowable and mysterious for shy and mythical creatures to abide in. It was a place of fairies and sprites and wood nymphs. A place of magic.
Bess found herself treading thoughtfully as she threaded her way deeper and deeper into the forest. She was not afraid, nor even nervous; rather she felt she should show a certain respect, a reverence even, to those woodland deities whose stores she now plundered. She stooped to peel moss as thick as wolf fur from a shady rock. She laid it carefully in the bottom of her basket and continued. On a blackthorn she found an abundance of silvery lichen. She plucked the brittle antlers from the lower boughs until she had sufficient. A narrow brook provided perfect conditions for more moisture-loving mosses, all good for speeding the mending of open wounds. She was picking her way over stepping-stones when she heard, or rather sensed, a disturbance. It was not as if a sound had reached her ears, more that she noticed a change in the air about her. A subtle shift in the energy. She cocked her head and listened, then pushed slowly into the woods in the direction of whatever it was that she detected. A few paces farther and she could indeed discern sounds. There were grunts and groans, animalistic and gruff. Now she could plainly hear gasps and moans. A movement up ahead made her stop. She brushed aside a curtain of ivy that was obscuring her view. What she saw made her start. Two figures, one darkly dressed, tall, and powerful, the other a woman—no, a girl—all but
naked save a few dove-white strips of her torn slip. They were standing, the girl pressed up against an ash tree, the man with his back to Bess. She dared not move, afraid they would discover they were being watched, but at the same time she realized they were far too involved in their energetic lovemaking to be so easily distracted. She was about to turn and slip silently back into the trees when something caught her attention. A frayed piece of rope. The girl was bound to the tree. Now she looked again, Bess could see that the girl’s moans and wails were not of ecstasy but of anguish. She was not enjoying the attentions of an ardent lover but was being raped. Bess opened her mouth to shout out but checked herself. She must do something to rescue the poor young woman, but a man capable of such a thing would not give up his prize easily. She had no weapon with which to protect herself or to threaten him. She cast around for a strong stick or heavy stone. At that moment she heard shouts coming from a way off to the west, deeper into the forest. The man heard them too and turned to look over his shoulder. Turned so that Bess could clearly see his face, and there was no mistaking the stern features of Gideon Masters. Features distorted by a bestial lust and eyes inhumanly red with anger. The girl heard the voices of her would-be rescuers and called out to them. Gideon stepped back. He placed a finger under the girl’s chin and raised her face. He stared into her eyes, his lips moving quickly as if uttering some prayer or incantation. The girl’s lids grew heavy and she slumped forward, her weight taken by the rope that tied her. Gideon took a pace onto the eastward path but then hesitated. Swinging round, he narrowed his eyes in Bess’s direction, scanning the undergrowth. But Bess had already dropped to the cover of the forest floor. She heard him turn again and make off through the forest. She stayed where she was but peered through the foliage in time to see the searchers find the girl. She recognized them as the family of gypsies who had passed through the village some days before. The mother flung herself at her daughter and clung to her, weeping loudly. The father stormed about, cursing in a tongue unknown to Bess and shaking his fist at the sky, before untying his daughter and carrying her away in his arms. Bess abandoned her basket and slunk back the way she had come, not daring to stand and run until she was sure she was out of sight, clear of the terrible scene, one which would stay imprinted on her mind forever. She was in reach of the sunshine at the edge of the woodland when Gideon sprang out in front of her, blocking her escape. Instinctively she recoiled from him, but then anger gave her courage. She would not let him see her fear.
‘Why, it is young Bess Hawksmith. I was certain it was you I saw.’
‘Let me pass.’
‘How long had you been hiding, I wonder? How long were you watching, hmmm?’
‘I was out gathering moss and lichen.’
‘Really? I do not see any.’
Bess cursed herself for abandoning her basket like a frightened child. Gideon stepped closer. The warmth of his body was clearly discernible and gave off an earthy odor. Bess turned her head away from him. When he spoke again, she could feel his breath against her ear.
‘The girl was not so unwilling as you think,’ he said.
Bess swung back to face him.
‘She did not bind herself to that tree, I think.’
‘Mibben she asked me to do it.’
‘Mibben you forced her.’
‘What manner of force would that be? Did you see a single mark on her ripe young body? A single bruise or sign of brutal treatment?’
‘I know what I saw. I know what you did.’
Gideon smiled.
‘Have a care, Bess. That tongue of yours will talk you into trouble one day. Do you plan to run home and speak of what you have seen? Do you think you will be believed?’
‘I will speak for the gypsy lass if she asks me.’
‘Ah, then the matter is closed. For she will remember nothing of her … experience. I have seen to that.’
He placed his finger beneath Bess’s chin just as he had done to the girl. Bess wanted to look away but found her gaze locked to his. She set her jaw, resisting the curious swirling that had begun to stir her thoughts. Gideon’s voice reached her as if through a November fog.
‘Most yield without a struggle. Some minds are easily influenced, easily bent to a stronger will. Others, like your own, not so.’ He dropped his hand.
Bess pushed past him, head down.
‘Oh, Bess,’ he called after her softly, ‘do not leave without what is yours.’
Despite herself, she turned, then started. Gideon held out her basket, filled to overflowing with the greenest of mosses and the most delicate of lichens.
‘My basket! But how…?’ She could not bring herself to form the question, for she knew that there was no sensible answer. Instead, she snatched the wicker handle and strode for home, fleeing Gideon’s gentle singing of “Greensleeves,” the melody too lovely to bear from such a dark and disturbing soul.
* * *
The village of Batchcombe was, in truth, sufficiently large to be called a town, but the memories of the families who inhabited the place were long and slow to change, and so it was still referred to as the village. As such, it was well supplied with stores and facilities. There were more than enough ale houses to slake even a harvest thirst. There were two butchers, a well-patronized baker, a blacksmith’s forge, and a tailor’s shop. These emporia were arranged along both sides of the broad main street, which itself hosted the weekly market, where all and sundry came to sell their produce. In the center of the street stood the courthouse, an imposing stone building. The ground floor served as magistrates’ court and council meeting place, the top provided rooms for local records and government matters, and beneath the whole was a subterranean jail. The growth of Batchcombe had allowed for the inclusion of fads and fashions where buildings were concerned, so that a lack of continuity or conformity of style existed, giving a wide-ranging variety to the façades that lined the streets. There were stone cottages, some whitened, some bare brown sandstone. There were houses of warm brick, and others of timber with wattle and daub. Next to these stood a terrace constructed painfully out of flint. Thatch of straw or reeds covered some, while others sheltered from the wet winters beneath tiles of stone. Every taste had been accommodated, every innovation tried. Yet the overall impression was one of slight decay and disintegration. It was as if each building was a separate dwelling placed close to another merely by chance, rather than a matter of cohesion and community.
It was fair to say that Batchcombe stood as a portrait of the preceding century of flux. The winds of political change had buffeted it this way and that, and throughout it all, the village and its people had seen survival in acceptance and flexibility. And the monument to their malleable nature was the raw ruin of the monastery to the west of the village boundary. It was as though the centuries of existing side by side for the Church and the godly people of the area had never happened. As if they had never worked in the monastery gardens, or gained employment assisting the monks with the harvest, or apprenticed a clutch of boys every year as stone masons to work on the glorious home of God’s servants, or held out their hands for alms in times of poverty and disaster. When Henry VIII had broken from Rome, and the monasteries were sacked, Batchcombe turned its face away, and not a pitchfork was raised in protest. The monks’ place of worship and home for centuries was raped, plundered, and defiled, left a craggy heap of stone.
By contrast, the modest church at the southern end of the high street had flourished. It was simply built of stone, with most of its windows plain. Only one had the indulgence of stained glass, depicting Christ’s raising of Lazarus from his tomb. The church had become the focal point for most social gatherings and, of course, worship in the area. A succession of canny church wardens had spirited away any signs of popery or undisguised wealth, leaving a spare, understated interior, in keeping with the wishes of first one monarch, then the next, and portentously interpreting the spartan tastes of the years that were to come. The parishioners had slipped q
uietly into the cushionless pews and counted themselves lucky not to have been delivered into the dubious care of one of the more radical itinerant preachers who roamed Wessex in search of receptive ears for their puritanical beliefs. The parson, who had by this time established himself firmly at the heart of matters both religious and secular in Batchcombe, was the Reverend Edmund Burdock, a thin strip of a man whose flimsy frame and soft voice belied a steely will.
Bess enjoyed attending the Sunday service at the church. After tending the livestock and finishing their household chores, the Hawksmith women, in keeping with all other women in the area, put on their least-worn gown if they had one, or fresh collars, cuffs, and apron if they did not, fastened their bonnets, and set out for the church. If the weather was kind, they would walk; otherwise, John would persuade the mare between the shafts of the wagon and they would ride to the village.
On this occasion, the sun was arcing upward into a cloudless sky and the happy group trod the dry path to Batchcombe, enjoying the prospect of a little socializing. For Bess, this was the one opportunity the week afforded to watch the people of the village and to listen to their gossip. Her mother had spoken to her about the perils of eavesdropping, but there was something irresistible in those snatches of conversation, those glimpses into lives other than her own. Lives that seemed to offer so much more variety and excitement. Even loving her family as she did, Bess harbored a secret yearning for something more. Quite what that might be, she had no idea, but she was certain it was out there, if only she knew how to set about finding it. In the meantime she made do with learning what she could of her mother’s skills and nourished her desire for adventure with tidbits of other people’s lives. The act of worship itself did not interest her. She had a distant memory of a time when musicians had accompanied the hymns and dazzling hangings and tapestries had glowed from the walls of the church. Now, however, the whole event was a somber affair. The interior was unadorned, except for the color added by the congregation—though even the dresses of the women had subtly altered to keep in step with the trend for modesty and simplicity. Disappointingly so, to Bess’s mind. From the pulpit, the parson, the very embodiment of restraint and humility, called on his flock to live godly lives in an ungodly world. Bess was willing to accept God’s presence in her life and did her best to behave in a way she had been taught to understand would please Him. She envied those with a true faith. She saw their radiant faces when they prayed or sang in the pews. She watched them nod and smile as the preacher reminded them of God’s benevolence and His love. Although she would not dare voice such thoughts to a living soul, Bess herself could not see evidence of all this love. Where was it to be found? Not in the poverty and hunger that afflicted everyone if the crops failed and the harvest was bad. Not in the cruel stamp of disease as it strode through families, crushing the weak and the old beneath its feet. Not in the agonies suffered in childbirth nor the grief of losing children.
The Witch’s Daughter Page 5