The Wheelwright's Daughter

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by Eleanor Porter


  ‘Who would have thought that the boy should recover so,’ Tom said, trotting up alongside me. ‘If ever heaven sent a sign! They cannot hang you now, girl. Don’t fret for Owen. Miss Elizabeth promised to set him up at school, aye, and Oxford too. Likely she didn’t dream she’d be called upon to pay, but pay she will. This is Master Reginald Scot, Martha.’ He gestured to the gentleman beside him. ‘He’s a scholar; he’s going to speak for you in the trial at Ludlow.’

  I must have looked from one to the other wildly enough, for Pugh took me by the arm. ‘Do you understand, Martha’, he said, very gently, ‘you are being taken to Hereford and from thence to the Court of the Marches – to be tried as a witch?’

  We had almost climbed the Cockshoot where the mangled earth lay in sticky heaps about the road. Below me the crowd was as still as a painting. In a moment we would crest the ridge and the valley would be gone.

  I nodded. ‘To be tried,’ I said.

  Epilogue

  When a partner takes your hands and swings you in the dance there is only his own face keen and clear. All else around you is a blear; be it barn or field, it swirls like pictures in water, although in truth it does not move. In those days and weeks after leaving the village I felt myself spinning. Everything further than my hand was like the streak of a bird in flight. I could not grasp it, so I let it go, until there was only the moment and the spaces where the moment happened.

  Before I fell and was buried I had loved to dance; or to run so fast it was like letting go of the earth, tumbling through air as a swallow does – but now I had had too much of giddiness. I needed to hold close to what pieces of a self were left.

  It was not that I was in any kind of dream. No, I was acutely aware of each moment. I felt the high kee-kee-kee of a kestrel at Marden on the journey from Hereford to Ludlow and the newly warm sun on my neck; I saw how the light picked out each luminous leaf of a linden tree. Yet I did not understand Pugh’s talk of law and the Court of the Marches. I noted he thought it good to be gone from Hereford, and let his explanations skitter off.

  At first they put me in a hole with a dozen other women who one by one were taken out as their cases were heard. There were always more. None took kindly to sharing with a witch. Pugh had me moved to another cell with a woman who stank of death and rambled for two days and nights, with her voice going up and down as though scaling a ladder; the same phrases over and over.

  ‘A groat, he said, and I’ll bed you. Can’t hang you if you’re bagged, can they? And so I said, here’s your money and he took it and spat. Go to, you rank middencunt, he says. I en’t about to mell with you…’

  When I tried to approach she scuttled into a corner, but didn’t pause in her mumblings. – ‘I won’t let you down, Nell. A promise is a promise. A good strong pull, that’s all. Three farthings and he’ll let me do it straight. A good strong pull, clean and quick. It en’t a sin, seeing as you’re on your way already. Clean and quick, that’s the way.’

  At last she fell silent and soon after they took her away, whether to be hanged or not I didn’t dare ask. Her words lingered through the dark. Had my father done that for my mother? Had he walked forwards and grasped her legs and pulled until she dangled limp and white like a throttled bird?

  ‘When they hang me,’ I said to Pugh as he sat one morning, quill in hand, to finish clerking my testimony. ‘When they hang me, would you pull at my legs so I go off cleanly? I have a strong neck. I’m so afraid of the time it will take.’

  He shook his head. ‘I am a clerk of the court, Martha. I can’t do that. But if it should come to it, I promise I’ll pay for another to do it.’

  ‘I shouldn’t want a stranger. I’ve no kin and have no friends to ask, unless Tom might come. Could you ask Tom?’

  He put his quill down then and smiled. ‘He’ll not need to do it, Martha. Owen is growing stronger by the day. I have seen him. Richard Simons’ anger abates. Owen’s mother hopes to speak for you herself in court. You will be acquitted of malfeasance against the family, I’m sure of it.’

  They seemed so far off; out somewhere in the world of fields and clouds, it was as though I could hardly remember their faces. All I could see, all I could bear to see, was the stone of my cell and Pugh’s writing room. Beyond that was too much pain.

  ‘Jacob?’ I had not said his name for days. Not to Pugh, barely to myself.

  ‘He is too ill to attend. That charge persists, but have hope. Do you remember the gentleman accompanying Tom when you were set upon? You are very fortunate – he is taking a special interest in your case. Such a remarkable man, highly talked of. Witchcraft, superstition, it is all delusion – it seeks to usurp the rightful place of God. Even if Goody Reynolds and the Widow testify…’

  ‘He is too ill, then?’

  ‘Yes, I am afraid so. I won’t lie to you, Martha. I tried to speak to him but I was prevented. He – he did not wish to, they told me – they could not risk strangers. His word, even just a paper would make all the difference. The case would fall, I’m sure of it. His illness is against you. But don’t despair. As it is, even if the charge against him is upheld, you will be released in a year or two. Perhaps then…’

  So he was dying quickly; my death would be more slow. I thought of the mad woman in the cell, the sores on her face, the stink of her rotting body and all the ill usage that awaited me. I had heard what girls were made to do in the gaol and how it made them fester like flyblown fruit.

  ‘He loved me.’ I had not meant it to sound so much like a challenge, nor so hopeless.

  Pugh looked a little flustered and bent his head down to the papers on his desk. ‘We must put our trust in God,’ he said. ‘It will not be long now. The hearing begins tomorrow.’

  I nodded vaguely. What cot did he lie in, I wondered. Perhaps they had moved already into my father’s house and he lay dying in my bed. They would draw the shutters against the summer. I caught at his image to bury my thoughts in the feel and smell of him, but it hurt too much and my mind let go. There was only the stone and the high slit windows in the walls where the flies buzzed in.

  ‘Martha, listen to me,’ Pugh said. I tried to focus. ‘You must cease giving the rats crumbs or you’ll find they are cited as familiars. You are watched, you know.’

  And so the trial began. Speechifying and outrage streamed round me. A great many people discovered me a witch. Some I had known and lived with since a child; some I had never met. Their faces, their voices, their angry pointing fingers were a noisy smear. I stood and looked at the floor or my hands; I thought of the walk from the gaol and the roses I’d glimpsed through a garden door, and, little by little, thinking slantwise, so I could stand it, I tried to picture Jacob.

  Tom’s gentleman strode up and down, cutting witnesses to pieces with his university talk. Then Ann came, and pleaded for me and wept, looking into my eyes with such affection I would have howled if I had let myself look back; if I hadn’t willed myself as dried up as the polished wooden floor.

  Tom’s gentleman asked them to dismiss the case, then, but the justice said no, there was one more day allotted, to hear the other charge. Or perhaps a morning. It should only take a morning.

  Pugh came himself early, long before I was needed. I had been awake most of the night, listening to the rain gutter down. I liked the sound, the loosening it seemed to speak of.

  He carried a package, a bundle tied up in sacking under one arm. Behind him stood the guard with a pail of water.

  ‘Tom sent this,’ he said, thrusting the bundle towards me. ‘It’s a gown of his sister’s. It might go better for you if you look a little less ragged. Clean yourself up as best you can, Martha, for the sentencing. All rests on how you are believed. You know they are to be called first thing.’

  ‘The Widow is come too, then?’

  ‘Yes, they arrived last night. She says he remains at the gates of death, that only her desire to serve the Lord Jesus and defeat the Devil could have brought her from his side. I warrant t
here’ll be much weeping and wailing, can you bear it?’

  ‘I think I can withstand any amount of railing. Her words are not so sharp as her nails.’

  ‘I fear they may be. She is his mother, after all. She will paint his suffering and her own plight as bold as a pageant. The court can – or rather, it will – do nothing to gainsay her. It has refused to wait on his recovery. There is too much other business to be got through. The sentencing must be today. I’m sorry. I’ll stand a little way off while you dress. Call me when you are done.’

  My gaoler undid the shackles but he did not have Master Pugh’s delicacy. I turned my back on him and untied the parcel. They were finer clothes than any I had ever worn. A white petticoat and a modest kirtle of bright blue. There was a comb, too, and I did what I could with it, after I had scrubbed myself, and used it to pin up my hair. They could call me a slut, but I would not look like one. The dress was a fair fit. I patted the skirts as though I were a lady and I felt the rumple of paper. Tom’s sister had been careless not to check the pocket, but it was not my business, so I let it be and turned and called for Pugh.

  There was no answer and so the gaoler, having nothing further to watch, shuffled off to find him. I waited. Outside the rain was giving way to a faltering brightness. Gently, a finger of light reached into my cell, making the dust motes dance. Perhaps, I thought, I should read the paper. It could be a prayer, perhaps. Even a list of goods or accounts would be welcome – it had been long enough since I’d read anything at all.

  I drew it out. It was not a prayer, nor a list. The outside of the paper bore my name; it was a letter.

  Martha, I write this by a friend. I was bedridden, then too weak to force the lock. I heard the man Pugh come but they held me down and gave out I could not speak. Enough of that, I must be quick. Take courage. My mother sets out tomorrow and I a heartbeat after. Whither thou goest I will go. You are my only kin now, I will swear it.

  Footsteps approached and the door of the cell jerked open.

  ‘Why,’ said Pugh, ‘you look well. The blue becomes you. If you look down prettily before the bench you may not get above a year.’

  ‘Master Pugh’, I asked, ‘if Jacob were to come— ’

  ‘He could have saved you with a word. I’m sorry. Don’t dwell on that. It’s time.’

  Sounds of the morning filtered from the street outside. I gripped the letter in my palm and stepped out of the cell.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you first to people: to Chris Xia for letting Martha live with us so long; to Joe and Lily my next best readers; to Tilda for pulling me back to the present; to wonderful Peter Buckman my agent, for championing my work; to Amanda Ridout for falling for Martha and, with the fabulous team at Boldwood, looking after her and me so well; to fellow Scribblers Olivia Levez, Mike Woods, Cathy Knights, Tim Reeves and Mel Dufty, for so much patient critiquing; to all my lovely friends for their support, particularly Kathleen Cattle and Clare Mockridge for their careful reading of an early draft and Jane Greenwood, Louise Collinge and Miriam Farbey for their generous advice; to John Porter and Sarah Eisner for their enthusiasm and help; to Sarah Porter for ideas and weekends; to my parents who took me on the hills and showed me the Wonder and who have given and continue to give me so much.

  Next a thank you to books (and maps): OS Map 189 was my constant companion (the Wonder is still marked on it); I’m indebted to Keith Thomas’s seminal Religion and the Decline of Magic; to Eamon Duffy’s The Voices of Morebath and The Stripping of the Altars; to Witchcraft in Europe ed. Alan Kors and Edward Peters, particularly for the Malleus Malleficarum; to Robert MacFarlane’s wordhoard Landmarks; to William Camden’s Britannia, Ella Leather’s The Folklore of Herefordshire. All my many mistakes, of course, are my own.

  More from Eleanor Porter

  We hope you enjoyed reading The Wheelwright’s Daughter. If you did, please leave a review.

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  About the Author

  Eleanor Porter has lectured at Universities in England and Hong Kong and her poetry and short fiction has been published in magazines. The Wheelwright’s Daughter is her first novel.

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  First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Boldwood Books Ltd.

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  Copyright © Eleanor Porter, 2020

  Cover Design by Becky Glibbery

  Cover Photography: Shutterstock and iStock

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  The moral right of Eleanor Porter to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologise for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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  Paperback ISBN 978-1-83889-523-5

  Ebook ISBN 978-1-83889-517-4

  Kindle ISBN 978-1-83889-518-1

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