The Wheelwright's Daughter

by Eleanor Porter

  ‘Your father’s safe in hell, Martha Dynely. Why, if he tried to, he’d never find his way home, with all the drink that’s in him. The only spirit he ever had came from a barrel. You say what you ought to say and promise to let my boy be and we’ll let you alone.’

  There were nods and murmurs, but no one spoke. All clutched their candles and stared at me, faces I had known all my life, but just then more horrid and contorted than the gargoyles that had sneered at us from the chapel roof. They’d smashed the faces of the angels and the saints, but the monsters survived, too high to reach.

  I heard my voice rise high and shrill: ‘The seed will rot in the earth and your milk will turn.’ I took out the hasp knife, pulled it open and the blade flashed in the candlelight. Then I snicked my thumb. ‘Lay hands on me and you’ll be dead within a twelvemonth, I swear it.’

  There was a pause, and I felt if someone moved I might be ripped to pieces, but the pause held and just then the fire coughed. A great belch of smoke tumbled into the room. Goody Reynolds screamed. God or the devil had saved me. I shuffled to the door and everyone drew back to let me pass.

  I dared not go back home. It may be that was wrong, I don’t know. It may be they would have thought better of it all if I had emerged from my father’s house to go to church in the morning, but once out of the Widow’s house all the fear in my heart seized me and I crumpled to my knees and fell to vomiting. Then I drew my cloak about me and crept into the fields. As soon as folk set off for the service, I thought, I would venture to the Hall and seek shelter there. That would be safer than trusting to Tom.

  I was lucky, it was a warm night and a dry one. I found a hollow between two beech trees in the coppice above the warrens. I would try to send word to Tom to gather my things for me. Miss Elizabeth would be white with rage to hear how I’d been treated. She might well go directly to the village and call out all those who threatened me. I fell asleep picturing Goody Reynolds, the Widow, Richard Simons, all of them, on their knees, wringing their hands with shame.

  The birds were loud and lightsome with the morning when I woke. I hung about in the trees for a while, for I could not venture out till folks had set off for church. I told myself I was only waiting, but I kept an eye, too, on the warrens in case Jacob should appear. I had no idea how things stood between us. I had given him leave to hate me – hadn’t I as good as told him I had worked on him to lie with me? It was not true, or I did not think it could be true. Yet I had asked the hills to fall and they had fallen, I had yearned for Jacob and he had come. Enough of that, I would not think that. I cast no spells. I suckled no familiar in my sleep. Still my heart misgave me.

  All at the Hall seemed quiet. I passed the stables without a single soul spying me. And there seemed indeed no one to notice. Perhaps the hands were gone to Putley to worship and only the family was left. After the Wonder they had fitted out a chapel within the house and had scarcely been seen in church. I had not thought of that: how they would be sequestered within the house. It would not do for the likes of me to knock at the main door as though I were a person of quality come calling, but if I should be shown off from the servants’ door, Miss Elizabeth would not know of it, nor even hear me if I shouted.

  I hovered around the kitchen, willing the door to the scullery to open and the kitchen boy, Roger, or some other I knew to come issuing forth, but the door was barred and I feared knocking. The morning was wearing on, but I knew I could not go back – with each breath I seemed to smell last night’s reeking fire. I took courage and banged at the servants’ door. I glanced at myself as I waited, and did what I could to smooth my gown and pluck leaves and grasses from my cloak.

  The door opened barely a crack. I recognised the man who opened it: Peter, a weaselly manservant of Sir William.

  ‘Yes, what can you want here?’ he said. ‘Is it begging you’re after? I tell you, his lordship is not in a giving mood. You’d best be gone.’

  ‘Please,’ I said, ‘I must speak with Miss Elizabeth. She will not refuse me. Tell her Martha, Martha Dynely is come.’

  ‘I know well enough who you are. I tell you, and this is for your own good because you were ever civil to me: you better make yourself scarce. Every house this side of Ledbury is talking of the cripple witch who sucked the soul out of the Simons boy and threw over God’s own house.’

  His words made me gasp. I knew the talk in the village, but somehow I had not thought the Hall contaminated, let alone the world beyond. To be published a monster through the lanes and roads!

  ‘Look at your eyes,’ he said, ‘round as beakers! What, is it news to you? Look, I don’t say everyone believes it – you know how people love a tale, and the dolt that stole a peck of grain is Springheeled Jack, who leaps over barns, by the time the teller’s done, though he’s a poor dolt still and you may be nothing more than a cuckoo – but trouble sticks to you like burrs.’

  I did not know what to say. I was like the hare, standing fixed in the grass because it has heard the dogs.

  ‘Between you and me,’ he said, leaning a little towards me, ‘all is not well at the Hall today. Nicholas Craddock the Jesuit has been taken at Little Malvern Court. There’s a great many papish plots to be unearthed. Bishop John scents blood and is on the hunt. We expect his men at any moment. Sir William has suddenly a great many things he does not wish to be on view and he’s not quite sure which of us are the bishop’s men. Miss Elizabeth follows him like a shadow, rubbing her pearls.’ He smiled. ‘Let them at it, I say. There’s always money to be made when great men quarrel.’

  ‘But Miss Elizabeth, she will not refuse me. Please let her know I am here. As a friend, please tell her,’ I said, as soon as he paused. He started as though he’d forgotten I was there, that he was talking to another person. He put his airs back on.

  ‘As a friend,’ he said frowning, ‘I tell you, get you gone.’ He closed the door. I banged on it with both my fists and the noise rang out across the courtyard and set the dogs barking. At last it opened narrowly. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘I will ask, and then you must leave. It will not do for you to be here when the bishop’s men come.’

  I sank down on the step, and looked up at the empty sky. High, high above me two crows mobbed a kite. Not long now and I would be safe. The bell in the tower rang the hour. It was a thin sound, nothing like the deep clamour of the chapel bell that lay buried somewhere in the fields, with the dead tumbled around it. Maybe it would not be found for years. Maybe a hundred years hence some plough would snag it and they’d dig it up and place it in the new chapel that would be built. And even after that, for years after, the earth would turn over a hipbone or a skull, the jaw hanging open as if it would speak, but for the soil that stopped its mouth.

  When the door opened I sprang up, as quick as my leg would let me, and a rush of joy set me grinning, till Peter’s grim face knocked me back. ‘She is not at home,’ he said.

  ‘But she is. You said yourself she was.’

  He sighed. ‘She is not at home to you,’ he said, emphasising each word. ‘For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.’ He smiled, showing his brown teeth. ‘Go to the city or follow the mustered men. You’ve a kind of dark prettiness, you’ll earn on your back well enough for a few years yet. Here,’ he fumbled in his purse, and tossed me a coin, ‘you can owe me a tumble.’ And he shut the door.

  It was not true. It could not be true. She would not abandon me like that. She would hold out her arms as she sat on her velvet chair and I would lay my head on her lap and weep as she stroked my hair. He had lied, it was surely that.

  I went around to the front of the house and hovered at the far end of the bridge that led directly to the great oak doors. It would not have seemed marvellous if the bridge itself had crumbled at the liberty of my crossing it. As I dithered, a horse came clattering up, panting and spittle flecked. The rider flung himself down and knocked sharply. He was evidently expected, for he had barely finished knocking before he was ushered in and a man issued out to take the
gelding. A messenger. Some trouble for Sir William afoot. It was not a good time to intrude with my troubles, but what choice had I?

  The door was answered directly and a maid I well recognised stood there. ‘Mary,’ I said, ‘may I come in? I must speak with Miss Elizabeth. They would not take my message from the servants’ door.’

  ‘You,’ she said. ‘My, you’re a brazen hussy. How dare you come to this door? She got your message all right. She’ll have none of you, you hear? Be gone. An’ if I were you,’ she added, ‘I wouldn’t hang about, neither,’ and she pointed down the approach to a rabble at the other end of it. They looked odd next to the little hedges, a flurry of rags and tags and washed-out browns against the clipped yews and the grass, as though they had no right to be among such colour. But they were advancing steadily enough.

  38

  Torn: Tied

  They paused the other side of the moat, their boldness not quite up to crossing the bridge, though there was no gate. Mary smiled. She did not close the door, but placed herself to bar me from the house. A couple of other servants gathered behind her. This was worth a watch.

  They had come for me. It was almost a relief to face them. Almost. As long as I could keep the knot of panic in my guts from rising. Last night’s faces and more, with the Widow and Richard Simons at their head, Goody Reynolds jittering behind them, chewing on her tongue.

  ‘You’d best hand her over,’ Richard Simons called. ‘We’re Sir William’s men, but there’s my boy lying in his bed an idiot, aye, and others too,’ he glanced at the Widow, ‘taken from their right minds because of her. Good God, the dead with their bones scattered underneath the sheep are crying out! We won’t stand for it. Hand her to us and we’ll pass her over to the constables.’

  ‘What’s left of her!’ someone shouted.

  ‘Take her and good riddance,’ Mary said, poking my back with a finger. ‘Only don’t start anything here. You let her get the other side of the gatehouse and conduct your business there. John here will walk her out and you can keep your distance.’

  ‘Very well,’ Master Simons said.

  ‘I mean it, mind,’ Mary went on. ‘Any funny business in sight of the Hall and you’ll be out of your houses come Lady Day.’ She poked me again, but I would not move to please her. I clutched ahold of the doorway and screamed for Miss Elizabeth with all my might. Then I felt myself shoved forwards. They had got a broom and were prodding me out like a pig in the corn. A great shout went up as I was pushed out over the bridge to where they stood. I stared at the gravel, and did not bother to wipe off the spittle that hit my cheek as I was goaded out in front.

  ‘What’ll you do to her?’ John said, over his shoulder as he poked me forward.

  ‘Don’t you worry,’ the Widow said, ‘we’re God-fearing folk. We want to see her hang, not swing for her ourselves. But we’ve not time to wait for the gallows tree to help our loved ones find the sense she’s scattered to the winds. We’ve given her one chance already to undo what’s done, and now we’re going to scratch her. We’ll let a bit of bleeding put an end to her mischief. Then the law can put a stop to her for good.’

  As if to underscore her words a small stone stung my ear. I felt blood trickle down my neck. ‘Not so quick with your curses in the morning, are you?’ someone shouted.

  I glanced back to the house. There on the first floor, through the mullion, I glimpsed a figure, a lady, peering through the casement. A red-gloved hand rested on the glass. I looked at her as long as I could, till the handle poked me forwards again.

  The journey to the gatehouse seemed a mile long. I bent my head down and let tears fall in the dust. Insults buzzed around my ears like flies, like stones. I had been at the cockfight once, looking for my father, and seen how the men jostled and shouted, rousing themselves to a need for blood.

  ‘Bessie Dynely was a witch,’ one half-sang, half-shouted.

  ‘And they hanged the filthy bitch,’ another answered, laughing. They kicked the lines, one to the other like a football.

  Now her daughter is the devil’s little slut.

  The Good Lord marked her as a cripple

  For a pulling down His chapel

  But we’ll see how she can charm when she is cut.

  ‘That’s enough!’ John said, rounding on them. ‘I don’t like this. I’ll have no part in it. You, there, Robert Tanner, you put that blade away. You wait till I’m back through. I know your names, mind, every one of you. If there’s murder, you’ll answer for it.’

  I had hardly noticed passing under the gatehouse. He prodded me now onto the track that ran around the outside of the gardens. ‘I’m sorry, child,’ he said, leaning me against a tree, ‘I would help you if I could.’ I clung to him and wailed. He had to pull my fingers from his arm and push me to my knees before he could get himself free of me.

  A bright spring sun smiled on the snarling faces. There was a soft breeze. I buried my head into my knees and pressed my hands over my ears and rocked. Somewhere a bell rang. Was I going to die? My breath snagged in my chest. It was horrible, this waiting. Then I felt my hair grabbed and my head was snatched back so that I had to face them all. The twisted faces wobbled and ran. There were not so many, I saw. Maybe only eight or nine.

  ‘Here’s for your curses,’ Goody Reynolds said. Her sister wrenched my head back and the old woman pushed a handful of foul dirt into my open mouth.

  I doubled over, retching, choking.

  ‘What, did the devil’s arse taste sweeter?’ someone shouted. ‘You were ready enough to swallow then.’

  And then there were hands about me, ripping off my cloak, tearing my gown while I puked and gasped, and then a thousand nails clawed at my skin, all across my open back.

  ‘Her blood must flow,’ Goody Reynolds was screaming. ‘Let out the witch’s blood. Do it for your boy, Richard.’

  ‘Set yourself up like a grammar school boy. We can write, too.’

  ‘Pute.’

  ‘Daggle-tailed slut.’

  ‘Drassock.’

  ‘Piss-breathing harlot.’

  Nails scratched me, scraped and tore at me. I heaved and my gorge rose into my mouth. Then all at once another voice: Ruth Tranter’s.

  ‘Shame on you all, and her poor father not yet cold in his grave. Judith Spicer, how can you act so? And you, Jane Reynolds, are you after the devil’s work? Who are you to take on God’s justice? This is a child.’ I dared not raise my head, but I saw her familiar skirts beside me and she was bending down over my back, tutting and cooing.

  ‘Leave her to us, old woman,’ Robert Tanner cried, hoarse with excitement. ‘We’ve no grudge with you, but I swear we’ll take a hand to you if you get in our way.’

  ‘Hark at you,’ she said. ‘Lift a hand against a grandmother? Fine Christian man you are. There’s Ben, my husband, on his way, and Bert I doubt you’ll be so fiery before them.’

  I raised my head; they were clustered before her. Goody and the Widow pursed their thin lips, but others laughed outright. ‘Go to, Mistress. Do you think we’re afeard of two old hands who’ve never swung more than a rake since they were two foot tall?’

  Behind them a horse appeared; unnoticed, quietly, it advanced. It was the messenger I had seen admitted as I stood waiting by the moat. A gentleman by the looks of him, on a fine black with a sword by his side. He coughed and they turned, astonished.

  ‘So, you’re spending the Lord’s day attacking a girl and a grandmother? Honourable work, fellows. I think you better go home now, or better still, get back to chapel, or I might have you all whipped.’

  Richard Simons squared up to him. ‘Begging your pardon, sir, but this is parish business. The girl is arrested for a witch and we’re holding her till the constables come.’

  ‘Meaning I should let well alone?’

  ‘Begging your pardon, sir, yes.’

  The rider laughed and leaned down from his saddle. ‘Why, you ignorant superstitious curs. I will not have you whipped. I will whip you
myself.’ And he took his crop and began to lay about with it willy-nilly, man and woman, till they had all scurried off.

  Ruth Tranter fell to her knees before him but he pulled her up.

  ‘Go,’ he said. ‘Don’t linger here. The bishop is on his way and he’d like nothing better than a little witch to hang.’ And with that he cantered off, whistling.

  Ruth found what was left of my cloak and laid it around my naked shoulders, for decency’s sake, though the rough wool scoured my wounds. Now the retching had stopped, I found I was juddering with sobs. I think if the moat had been by, I would have sought out the cool oblivion of the mud.

  ‘Why you’re all laid open,’ she said. ‘You poor, poor thing, can you walk? It was a lie about my Ben, I’m afraid. He’s in bed with the toothache. I was taking this way home so that I could beg clove oil from the kitchens.’

  I felt stronger with her arms about me, though the pain in my back was a constant screaming. ‘I think they would have killed me. Oh, Ruth, they hate me. If it wasn’t for you, I would be dead.’

  ‘Nonsense, dear, I couldn’t let another of my children die. I think of you as my child, you know, after tending to your poor father. They don’t hate you so much, you know, or only the idea of you. They are afraid… all these goings-on. Who’s to know what’s behind it all? It’s easier for them to decide it must be you. You have a bit of elsewhere about you.’

  ‘Miss Elizabeth…’ I said. ‘Ruth, I saw her watching. She gave me to them.’

  ‘Did she so? You set store by her, didn’t you? Well, she’s not bad as they go. It’s not a good idea, all told, to depend on the likes of them. They only care for their own kind, in the end, and there’s a deal of trouble her father is in. He has been named, you know. They say Nicholas Craddock has given a list of names. The last thing they want is to be found harbouring a witch. She’ll be thinking of her own skin. She had you writing all kinds of things. Wouldn’t take much to draw her under suspicion.’