No birdsong could be heard in the village square, for the birds had forsaken Coffin’s Bishop and fluttered off to more attractive, verdant climes. There were no trees in the village, save the gnarled dead tree in the middle of the square that was used for hangings. By the side of this ugly tree there stood two stocks, useful in many towns and villages throughout the country to publicly humiliate offenders. On the opposite side of the square was the village gaol, which boasted a small network of underground chambers ideal for torture and interrogation. None of these were used regularly, and no one had been incarcerated in the gaol since 1645.
From the highest point in the town, the tower of the local church, the turreted towers of Sanguinem Castle could be seen. Its decrepit turrets struck fear into their simple hearts, and it was forbidden for all in the village to go there. Rumours abounded that there were ferocious monsters there that held dominion. Anyone who entered that demonic building was never to be seen again, or so they said.
They were a supremely superstitious people, and anything remotely different was regarded with fierce suspicion. Disturbing ogling and coldness greeted the few outsiders who happened to lose their way and rode into Coffin’s Bishop. No one offered shelter to visitors, nor was there so much as an inn in which to rest their weary bones. Traders were not welcome. In time, the village sign had been obfuscated by overgrowth and travellers altogether forgot about its existence. And so much the better, for an evil grew within it.
Indeed, it was this inherent mistrust of other people that contributed to the rampant inbreeding in the village. Uncle and niece, brother and sister, formed unnatural unions which soon resulted in terrible deformities. Their faces, the product of over a century of this close breeding, were strikingly misshapen, and many of them had the same pig-like, abnormal look about them. Their egg-shaped eyes bulged out from their sockets, and most villagers had abnormally large jaws, from which boar-like tusks jutted. This rendered their speech unintelligible and caused them to drool often. Their mental faculties had diminished profoundly, and few knew how to plant and cultivate crops, leading to a scarcity of food. Few could read, even fewer were capable of learning even. Their fertility had been impacted as well, for their genetic makeup had been so closely linked, that few villagers were able to have viable offspring. This was only the beginning of their ailments, for many suffered from scoliosis and renal troubles as well. In such lamentable circumstances, the village would be expected to die away completely.
The puritan influence, so dominant during the first half of the seventeenth-century was still as harsh now in Coffin’s Bishop as ever it was. The villagers wore very plain clothes, usually black or brown, and bosoms were carefully hidden away (lest the sight of them arouse some hapless man). Their clothing, old and moth-eaten, was almost as sombre as their faces, for it was thought unbecoming to smile. It was a truly soulless village, though they were strict attendees of the local church. It was neither Catholic nor Protestant, but of a unique local variety that was all the more aggressive and repressive. Music, dancing, Christmas, and all holidays were banned in Coffin’s Bishop, and there was little, if any, mirth. Even the church bell was forbidden from being rung.
Into this bizarre world of self-induced complications entered the ill-fated Edmonds family. The father, Thomas, was a capable farmer expert in the propagation of a variety of vegetable crops. His wife, Mary, was a comely woman with long red-gold hair and a nicely proportioned face and figure. She had already given birth to her oldest son, Samuel, who was then ten years old, and three other children, who had since died. Originally from Kent, their town had been razed to the ground during the early part of the English Civil War, and so they had been forced to roam about, their young family in tow, in search of a new life. As fate would have it, the young family missed a turn on the way to Northampton and entered Coffin’s Bishop.
Thomas, a warm-hearted man, was taken aback by the state of the village. The impoverished villagers of this sad place obviously needed his expertise in order to survive — for they were on the brink of starvation. Thomas and Mary were both extraordinarily compassionate, and decided to stay in Coffin’s Bishop and help. And so, the wary villagers begrudgingly allowed the Edmonds to settle there. They set up their new home in one of the abandoned cottages by Sanguinem Wood. Instead of a quiet life, of hard work and contemplation, they found only misery.
Shortly after settling into their new home, Mary’s belly blossomed again from the passionate love she had with her husband. In the winter of 1645, she gave birth to a daughter, whom they named Susanna. Their familial felicity was short-lived, and evil soon came to their door. The lust that Mary had inadvertently conjured up in the loins of the village men folk soon turned against her, and many spread rumours about the newly-arrived temptress. They all believed her natural beauty was the product of witchcraft, for no other woman in the village possessed it. From the first, their appearances caused resentment from the local populace, who had rarely, if ever, seen healthy humans before. Instead of understanding that they themselves were odd, they believed the Edmonds were the true oddities, the true deformed. In April of that same year, Coffin’s Bishop had sent word to Matthew Hopkins, the self-proclaimed Witchfinder-General, to come and root out the witchcraft newly-arrived in the village.
Hopkins came as he was bid, and he was shocked by the pig-heads on all the villagers, save the Edmonds family. To his warped mind, this was proof enough of her witchcraft. Nevertheless, Mistress Mary Edmonds, then but twenty-eight years old, was hauled in front of the Witchfinder-General’s court and publicly accused by several male village elders of witchcraft. They claimed that she had been tempting village men into congress with her in order to bring them into the service of the Devil. She pleaded her innocence, but this fell upon deaf ears. Seven other townspeople, six women and one man, were also charged as accomplices when they defended Mary.
Hopkins interrogated her mercilessly, employing his many underhand tactics to prove her guilt. Mary’s beauty was striking in comparison with the rest of the village, and the Witchfinder soon declared that she must have put a curse on Coffin’s Bishop, making everyone hideous, whilst she and her family were blessed with beauty.
Mary had then been bound to a chair and pushed into the pond that lay by the church of Coffin’s Bishop. She could never have survived, for the Swimming Test was as follows: if she was a witch as accused, she would float, and then they would have to kill her, but if she were innocent, why then she would simply drown. Poor Mary drowned in Bishop’s Pond, and her husband, Thomas, was overcome with intense grief at the loss of so beloved a wife. Hopkins assured the villagers they would all soon be released from Mary’s curse, and with these words he left.
Susanna was just a few months old when her mother died, and her older brother Samuel was laden down with responsibilities too great for an eleven-year-old to bear. For fifteen years he had no choice but to run the farm; for their father had turned to drink and, as Thomas had become a severe alcoholic, he was rendered incapable of doing much of anything. It was a sort of mercy when Thomas died from a combination of cirrhosis of the liver and fever in 1660. By then, however, Samuel was no longer a boy, but a grown man of twenty-five years. He was a dependable, hard-working fellow, and he capably worked the farm and had brought up his little sister as well. Together, they had toiled upon the fields, cared for the livestock, and sold their goods to the villagers.
Fifteen winters had passed, and Susanna had grown up into a quiet, gentle young woman. She was, in terms of both personality and appearance, so very different from the few other village girls her age. Though by no means a great beauty in comparison with the ladies at Charles II’s court, she was decidedly the most attractive woman in Coffin’s Bishop. With her red hair, tinged with coppery gold, her sweet round face with its little snub nose and her soft hazel eyes, she also possessed a fine, buxom figure.
Most of the villagers feared her, for everyone suspected her to be a witch. Her mother was, by then, reput
ed to have been a powerful sorceress, regardless of the fact that she had been found innocent in the Swimming Trial. The wary looks and whispers from those in the village, whenever Susanna passed by, never for a moment let her forget that she was considered a freak, an outsider. And in this strange circumstance, Susanna eventually came to believe that she and her family were truly unfortunate, and that the villagers were normal. So ingrained was this in her head, that whenever she came upon her own reflection in water, she would swish the liquid with her hands to avoid seeing her distorted form.
Susanna had neither memory nor a portrait of her mother, and she often wished she could have seen her face, if only once. She had simply been told that her mother had fallen into the pond and drowned, for her brother did not wish for her to know of their mother’s horrific end. But the villagers of Coffin’s Bishop would never forget that Susanna was Mary’s daughter, for she was the spitting image of her mother. Some even whispered that she had become a witch as soon as her mother died, for the evil witchery then passed like lightning from mother to daughter.
Samuel wanted to keep his family’s dark past where it belonged: in the past. He didn’t like to dwell on things that were beyond his control. He thought about practical things: getting the sheep sheared and making sure they didn’t wander off into the clover field beyond the ridge. He thought about having enough to pay the tax collector, and fixing the thatch where rain had started to come through the roof. The farm was everything to him, and he was up before dawn every morning, ready to plough the fields with his ox. Every few days, Samuel would grind his father’s old axe on the wheel behind the house, by the barn. He enjoyed seeing the little sparks fly off as he turned the grindstone. He enjoyed even more striking wood into smaller pieces for Susanna to use in the kitchen. Susanna was just as practically minded, and she taught herself how to plant and cultivate crops, and even how to make lace.
Adolescence long since having passed, Samuel, a man with a man’s appetite, found himself in want of a wife. When their financial situation had improved, he set about the task of finding a lady with whom to share his life. He found it difficult to find any girl in the village suitable, for there were so few, and those that were available were not to his liking. Nevertheless, he eventually chose the fifteen-year-old Belinda, the daughter of Coffin Bishop’s magistrate, George Winthrop. She was a ruddy-cheeked lass with mousy brown hair; and reckoned to be one of the prettiest girls in the whole village. Her parents were first cousins and from their union, they had two children: Belinda and her younger brother, Peter. Belinda had buckteeth and a boar-like face, wan skin covered in freckles, and a nose that was too big for her face. None of these things would have mattered, however, had she been a good person.
At first, Susanna thought she was as good a match for Samuel as any, but soon after the wedding, Belinda’s true nature revealed itself fully. She loathed the fact that there were two mistresses of the house, and she wanted desperately to kick Susanna out. She was also envious of the close bond between brother and sister, Belinda soon began to fabricate stories designed to make Samuel distrust his sister. It never worked, and Samuel always maintained a constant filial affection for his little sister. One spring day in 1665, Samuel returned home from Northampton market with a gift of a canary for his sister, for he knew how much she loved birdsong, and silk fabric for his wife to make a new frock; Belinda was angry that Susanna was given what she deemed a better present than the costly fabric.
A weak, spiteful woman, Belinda began to make Susanna look undependable, and on more than one occasion, Susanna caught her deliberately ruining her work around the farm and house. She left the stables open, which made the animals run loose, clogged the spigot in the washing tub, and broke her spinning wheel, among other things. When Susanna told her brother what his wife had done, Belinda feigned innocence, but then retaliated by breaking the little yellow bird’s neck.
Susanna wept as she held the dead little bird in her hands and cried, “How could you have hurt so innocent a creature?”
“Why don’t you just use a spell, witch, and bring it back to life?” snorted Belinda, forgetting the promise she had made to Samuel never to utter the word witch in his sister’s presence. That was the first time anyone had called Susanna a witch to her face, and it would not be the last. Samuel harshly reprimanded Belinda, reminding her again of that promise. And for a time, Belinda was chastened, though Susanna’s presence was a source of constant irritation.
And whilst Samuel was fit and well, Belinda never raised a hand to Susanna. But tragedy again struck the Edmonds family, and Samuel had a terrible accident. He had been near the border of the farm, just up by the beginning of Sanguinem Wood, when his horse suddenly became spooked and rose up upon her hind legs, sending Samuel flying off and onto an old tree stump. He broke his back instantly. Though he survived, he would never walk again.
Belinda, at first, was in a state of shock, unable to comprehend what had happened to her husband. As the months passed, however, she became more dominant around the household; and Susanna became not only the farmhand, but also the scullery maid. Belinda had the poor wretch move out of her bedchamber and into a large cupboard, her makeshift bed upon the floor. Belinda did nought but what most idle hands and minds do — gossip. One could almost pity her, for she lacked both talent and interest to learn a new skill. She also lacked the mental capacity to occupy her mind and time with better things. Her brother, Peter Winthrop, then began to visit her in Edmonds Farm with more regularity, but his true aim was to see Susanna. He had never been on good terms with Samuel, and now that he was conveniently indisposed, there was no reason for him to stay away.
Peter was a young, spot-riddled, strawberry-blond-haired thug who enjoyed picking on the vulnerable. He was even uglier than his sister, with green goo always sliding down from his nostrils and into his perpetually dribbling mouth. He was the type who found amusement in tearing off cricket’s legs, and pouring hot candle wax on the turnspit dogs. He basked in his power when he made others suffer. On his many visits to Edmonds Farm since his sister became mistress, he often found a way to get Susanna on her own. She loathed him, and tried to find a way to avoid him when he called. Peter, unwashed and perpetually expelling some vile bodily fluid or another, always stank; and Susanna often wondered which was worse, his breath or his body. Women’s clothing at the time allowed for easy access, and Peter had no trouble in sticking his grubby hand up Susanna’s skirts, or thrusting his fingers down her front to viciously pinch her breasts. She hated the sight of him, and the more she pushed him off, the more he wanted her.
His father, George Winthrop, had always publicly maintained that Susanna’s mother had been a witch, and naturally it followed that the daughter was one as well. Witches were known to copulate with the Devil, for they were both immoral and wanton. One balmy night in May of 1665, Peter decided that he would have her, whether she wanted him or no. For this foul deed, he enlisted two other pig-faced young men: Mark Thomas and Geoffrey Smith — to lure Susanna over to Farmer Smith’s farm.
The Smith farm was the neighbouring farm to the Edmonds farm and Farmer Smith had only been able to plant and harvest barley after having had instruction on how to do so by Thomas Edmonds twenty years before. Preying upon Susanna’s good nature, Geoffrey was given the task of luring Susanna to his father’s land. He claimed he needed help because some ewes had eaten the clover at the far end of the pasture. She walked quickly down the hill, over the long grass towards the bleating sheep. She made her way through the barley, and too late did she see Peter. She saw there were no sick sheep, and knew immediately that it had been merely a ruse to get her to come over. Terror rose in her throat like bile, and as she turned on her heel to run back home, Mark and Geoffrey took her roughly by her upper arms and dragged her into the barley field.
No one could hear her screams as Peter punched her in the face and wrenched her legs apart as the two others pinned her down. He threw himself on top of her, violating the
tenderest parts of her being. He grunted repeatedly like a pig throughout his cruel exertions, and after what seemed like an eternity, he suddenly jerked wildly and withdrew. Then the other boys were forced to do the same. By the end of it all, Susanna had stopped crying and just willed her mind away to another place. She had to forget about the horrible pain in the private area between her legs, and her arms where the brutes had pinioned her.
“Say anything, witch, and I’ll cut yer throat!” Peter had whispered in her ear before leaving her curled up in the barley.
Mark came back briefly and held out his hand to her. “I’m sorry,” he said, though it brought little comfort to her. “You’ll feel alright to-morrow, I daresay.”
“What are you doin’?” bellowed Peter from down the field. “Leave that bitch there!”
As soon as they had gone, she fell down and sobbed. She wrapped her arms around her stinging body in a hug, the tears chasing each other down her face. There were half-moon cuts from where the boys’ fingernails had dug into the soft flesh of her upper arms. There were bruises across her cheekbone from where Peter had hit her when she had shrieked and wailed. She took a deep breath and staggered to her feet. She blinked the tears from her eyes, took one step… and then the next.
She hobbled, slowly, painfully, to the Edmonds farm and fainted as soon as she had entered the threshold. Belinda hauled her up off the floor. It was clear that she had been ravished, but Belinda ranted and raved that Susanna had brought shame upon them; that she must leave for she only had herself to blame. When Belinda stormed up to Samuel’s room and demanded Susanna leave their house, he firmly refused. He had been shocked to see his sister in such a state, and wept at which she had suffered when she finally went in to see him in his room that night. If he had had full capacity of his legs, he swore to Susanna that he would find the villain and cut his heart out. But, unbeknownst to him, the main villain continued to be welcomed into their home with open arms; and Susanna was forced to serve both him and his wretched sister. Whilst Belinda went upstairs with a tray of food for Samuel, Peter would make lewd comments to Susanna, referring to her secret parts that he had so violated, and sometimes he would press her against the wall as he fondled both her and his prick. She wanted to kill him, she wanted to hurt him for hurting her, and she wanted his head on a spike.
The Stuart Vampire Page 9