by Syd Moore
This was a great disappointment to us; for now we were at a loss what to do. It was ill fate. We had no remedy but to tell Rebecca her gentleman had depart’d and taken the secret of the child’s whereabouts with him. The pitiable woman was full of horror at those words and turned as pale as death and, sinking into the chair, she fell down into a swoon. It was a good while before she fully recover’d her senses and she was not able to speak for severale minutes. Then she gave a start, “It cannot be.” And begged me to take her to Manningtree with a conviction that no one could resist.
After consultation with Mr Drakers our plan was set out to go there on the morrow.’
The next entry was dated two days later – August 18th, 1647.
Despite the comfort of the twenty-first century what I read next shocked me to the quick. Even Alexander Phelps’s handwriting wobbled and looped towards the end.
‘It is with a full and heavy heart I write these words. The conclusion of the matter was not what was hop’d for.
Rebecca was deep laden with grief as we travell’d to Manningtree. Drakers and I did much to give her hope that we would find her little daughter.
Our thoughts were to first settle at the coaching Inn and then ride out to where Master Hopkins once liv’d. We would then find to where the child was sent and take her to Rebecca.
Alas, it was not to be.
We came into Manningtree after noon. The innkeeper was much taken aback by Rebecca and it took a small sack of guineas to persuade him of our good character. We dined and then left Rebecca at the Inn. She did not wish to accompany us and was much troubled, pacing to and fro.
We made out for Mistley and found the house with ease. We were announced by the servant and were met by the occupant, a Mr Witham, preacher. We did introduce ourselves and with much caution and speaking around did suggest our story and explain at length our aim. Presently we did ask if Master Hopkins had there resided.
The preacher was much amazed by our tale and confessed much puzzlement.
“Master Hopkins, a wise and pious son,” said he, “lies in the ground of Mistley Church these six days pass’d.”
Drakers and I were astonished.
“This cannot be,” says I. “We have report he has left for the New World.”
The preacher answer’d he would scarce believe that, lest it give his wife hope for she was much aggriev’d by the loss of her good son. At this Drakers did stand up and said with great fury, “Not so good as to leave my cousin with child. And to send said child away to be nursed. Where is she? My heart trembles for fear of what you have seen and heard. Where is she? I will go to the magistrate of the town.”
At this Witham, very grave, did take my arm to solicit a private interview. Seeing the fear Drakers had put on him I agreed and he led me to a smaller room.
Here he told me his knowledge of Rebecca. And most grim did say her mother was a wicked unchristian woman who fell in with a coven of witches. They were discover’d by Matthew and henceforth tried and hanged. Rebecca too was tried but repented and was so freed. Her senses, he said, had been touched never to recover. Her story was but fantasy. She was enraged by the passions of madness and a secret burning lust for revenge. Hopkins was dead and they knew nothing of any child. He importuned me to leave the “witch” and to cast her out at once.
I thanked him for his counsel and much shaken did call Drakers to my side and we left the house. I gave him Witham’s account and did watch his face as he received it. I was as much taken with the virtue of the soldier as with his cousin’s torment and hearkened to his words. Drakers did admit they had been attacked as witches but did swear he had never known witchcraft. That Rebecca and her mother had been godly still to the day that he left to fight. And were it they had no other but he to speake for them then they would not have been taken so low. But he concurr’d Rebecca was made much distress’d by the trial and, some said, had lost her wits.
“Witham says Hopkins is dead,” said I. “Rebecca is mistaken.”
“There is the ship’s ledger,” says he.
“Another man,” says I. “Your clerk has made a wage of our misfortune.”
We returned and found her and did sober and calm convey the preacher’s words. She did listen with tears and entreaties. And though she was much reduced to me, her form did quiver and seem most pitiful. Then she withdrew and Drakers and I agreed we should return Rebecca to his house in Boxted. He pressed me earnestly to join him on the morrow one last time so we may ask in the town for the child. If nothing was to come of it, he would take Rebecca and treat her there as his sister.
I was not so hasty in my agreement as I was in my first heat of hearing Rebecca’s story.
I said to him with a sigh, “God has led me so far. After the morrow I must continue on my way.”
Though his eyes did not meet mine I saw in his face that he took my meaning.
Without more talk we both retired.
Dear God send your humble servant guidance, I prithee.
Lord, I have surely carried through my task. The Levite is healed. Her woes like Job have been of great endurance. But I cannot know if she has abandoned you, Oh Lord. I pray not.
I am in a state of confusion as to the mercy I have bestowed. I give thanks unto the Lord for he is good. God of Gods have mercy on me for I know not what course to take.’
August 19th, 1647
In my prayers last night I did ask the Almighty for guidance. When I awoke I did think of Rebecca’s tears. They were real I swear. And Drakers too is a good and noble soldier. I must not be overtaken by the judgement of others.
So with renewed vigour this morning I did accompany Drakers to the village. We left word for Rebecca that we would return soon, perchance with some news.
Many with whom we spoke did tell of another woman come by, asking of the Same – Rebecca had already been about in the village.
After noon we return’d to the Inn but found her not to be in her quarters so went out once more to seek her.
Our search took long and was not fruitful. Yea though afore night fell we did hear she was found and we did hasten to the place, down by the river, where we did find her lifeless form wrapped in the leaves of the weeping willow. If she had come to seek or come to drown we would never know. Nor of the child that griev’d her so.
Drakers stays on to bury the girl. And I must away home.
May God have mercy on her soul. May piteous Rebecca now find her peace.
As I pulled my head up from the page I could feel myself beginning to whirl, as if someone was spinning me round in the chair, and then I was there in the brook with violent pains in my head. The cold wetness, yielding, took me in and took me down.
‘Oh child of mine forgive me. Sweetling babe I will watch o’er you now. Through the tides of time and fortune I will follow you even now.’
The water came above me and I breathed its cold hard kiss; falling down into the darkness that led me on to the abyss.
Chapter Forty
I was staring at the wall. My face was wet. A pounding melancholy had me in its grip. The words of The Weeping Willow echoed round my head: pale and wild, pale and wild. It was about her – I saw that now. Rebecca’s story was so very moving: she was a victim time and time again, utterly without power, abused and betrayed by those around her, reviled as deviant. Even after she and her mother had long passed away, her reputation remained tarnished – the witch, the child-killer. So wrong on both counts. But none denied it. The Essex folk who survived the Civil War and the witch hunts merely turned their faces away from the episode. What was the point of crying over spilt milk? Best to let sleeping dogs lie, I could almost hear them say. The clichés that allowed everyone to forget what had happened and turn it into a myth, a simple story about good and bad.
Perhaps the reason why Essex hadn’t yet managed to confess its guilt, when other places had owned up to theirs, was simply because it was just too great. All those women. All that death. Too much. Too awful to con
ceive that they were innocent after all. The victims of bullying.
And so the unfair lives, endured by those they had shunned, their consequently terrible deaths, were put aside and excluded from living memory. Not mentioned. Hushed into nothingness by the Essex folk’s willing collusion. If you maintained the witches’ guilt then you could justify the suffering imposed on them: the weak, the old and the poor, the disabled.
That was what Essex had inherited. Complicity.
The notion physically repulsed me.
The whole thing did. And for a good long minute, after I had finished reading, I sat at the desk, covering my mouth as I dry retched. The salty trickles of sweat that crawled down my face could have easily been tears of shame.
Poor, poor Rebecca. To lose not only her mother by her own hand, but her daughter too. No wonder she was trapped in some dark place, seeking forgiveness that no one could give.
Though now I knew what she needed, perhaps I could supply it. Perhaps, and this was a long shot, something had created a short-cut across time, that let her hear my voice, as I heard hers. I could assume her daughter’s place and give her the clemency she so desired.
And could I clear her name too? And nail that bastard Hopkins? My spirit girl was right all along – he wasn’t buried in Mistley. The only problem was, I cursed as I mopped up my face, these were only transcripts. If the originals had gone up in smoke then there was no real proof at all. It was gutting. I guessed at least it pointed to him arriving in New England; I could start searching for evidence of Hopkins on the other side of the globe. But it would be just as hit and miss. And if he had changed his name, as the clerk stated, could I ever work out who he was?
I sighed. I’d be stabbing in the dark.
As I left the seventeenth century and allowed the twenty-first to reassert itself over my senses, I realised I had been staring at one of the pictures set on the wall, a small one positioned just above the desk.
There it is. A voice spoke inside my head. Take it.
This time I didn’t deny the fragile voice. Be strong, I thought, for her.
‘Where?’ I said aloud.
There, beneath your gaze.
There.
She was more commanding now.
I craned forwards to take a better look at the picture. It was a yellowing parchment, edged in dark green velour. Spidery writing skittered across three columns. At the top I saw a date ‘1647’.
No. It couldn’t be. There. It came again.
I wasn’t frightened. I reached out and took it off the wall. Sandwiched between a piece of wooden board and a clip frame was the page of a passenger list, the like of which I had seen at the Archives.
My eyes raced over the names and occupations.
For a moment the world stopped as the letters formed themselves into words and then kicked my senses about: ‘Preacher, 27 years’. Heart rate increasing, I sucked in the air and drew my finger across the line. And there I saw it – in the margin, in a faded blue ink, there were two initials: an ‘M’ and an ‘H’.
Then I read the name.
A flurry of excitement raced through me.
I recognised it.
From where, I couldn’t remember, but I had seen it somewhere before.
I took out my notebook and with a shaking hand, wrote it down.
Chapter Forty-One
I desperately wanted to phone Maggie, but I had no signal out here and my battery was low. I’d do it when I got back to the pub. I knew she’d be electrified by what I had to say.
I gathered up my stuff and went downstairs. It was gone nine. Anne and Harry were seated in the snug, the dogs at their feet stretched out in front of a hearty fire. The whole place smelled of weed.
Harry was staring glumly into the fire, a glass of wine in his hand.
They looked up as I marched in and threw myself into the armchair. Anne asked me if I was all right.
I nodded, though I was buzzing. ‘Have you read those journals?’ I asked them breathily. I hoped they had. I wanted to talk about it, to share it.
Harry shook his head. ‘Some of them. Bit dry for me.’
I felt like I was stoned. My thoughts were leaping around, following each other quickly but illogically. ‘I know they’re not the real thing but they are still very important, in my view. Especially when they can be supported by this. It’s going to be of major significance to my writing.’
I stretched forwards and put the frame in Harry’s hands. He rubbed away some of the dust and held it out to read.
Anne leant forwards to see and put her glasses on. ‘What is it?’ she asked.
I blew out my cheeks. ‘I think it’s a page from a ship’s ledger. Can you see the date?’
Anne read it. ‘August 1647.’
It was definitely enough time for Hopkins to get over to New England, settle himself down and then start on Margaret Jones in Boston. Evidence against her was presented in spring and she was watched in May.
‘Look at the name.’ Both sets of eyes obeyed me. ‘Jediah Curwen-Dunmow. See the initials next to it. I think they relate to Matthew Hopkins. It’s borne out by the Braybrook diaries.’
Harry shrugged. ‘The Witchfinder General. Nasty chap.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But this makes it look like he went abroad, to New England. It’s possible it was he who started the witch hunts over there. This is an important document. You must take it to the university with the journals. I think they’d be able to authenticate it.’
‘Fascinating,’ Harry said. He seemed genuinely delighted to have facilitated the discovery.
I would have thanked them but my mind was on other things: where had I seen that name? Why would I have seen it before?
I fed it into my mental filing system. When had I come across it?
Recently, I felt sure.
In my research?
Had I covered it in a story?
I jerked my head up at Harry. He was saying something about his Uncle Alexander and how proud the family would be but I interrupted. I was over-animated now. ‘Do you have the internet here?’
‘The computer is in the study but the connection out here is very slow.’ Anne was apologetic. ‘We don’t use it often. A round robin at Christmas, that sort of thing. We’ll use it more often when they upgrade the area …’
‘But you have got a connection here?’
She nodded.
‘I know the name – Curwen. I’ve seen it somewhere before. Does it sound familiar to you? No. Okay well, I’ll log on with my laptop. Do you mind?’
They didn’t.
I ran through the hallway and outside. In the front garden the air had grown stiffer, the rain harder. The moon had dropped out of the billowing clouds, replaced by a flowing seascape of turbulent streams and speeding, spreading dark masses.
I retrieved my laptop from the boot and turned around quickly, catching for a second a movement behind the top window. I stopped and looked again. Nothing there. It was dark inside the house. Perhaps it had been the shadow of the trees in the wind.
My heels crunched over the gravel of the drive. I shut the thick wooden door on the squall outside, feeling the resistance of the streaming air trying with all its might to get in. The house was as solid as a mountain, built to withstand the elements, though there were obviously cracks. A scream of wind forced through a small opening somewhere on the first floor and whipped down the stairwell.
Within seconds I was back in the snug, logging on with the Phelps’s password.
‘Curwen-Dunmow,’ I told them as I put it into a search engine. ‘Have you never looked it up before?’
They shook their heads dumbly. ‘Not got that far,’ said Harry.
‘Right,’ I said. The connection was slow. I could see why the Phelps didn’t use it much.
At last the engine brought up its searches. The purpling of the top entry indicated that I had been here before. Almost automatically I clicked on the link without seeing what the site was.
> I wish I had. It might have prepared me.
Forty-five seconds passed then the engine chugged onto a page that I recognised.
‘Fucking hell,’ I gasped and didn’t apologise.
‘What is it?’ Harry snapped.
I was speechless for a moment and then I said to him, ‘Jediah Curwen-Dunmow. He’s the ancestor of Robert Cutt.’
Chapter Forty-Two
For a second we sat motionless. Then Anne came over and looked at the screen, reading up and down the family tree. I was staring at Harry with my mouth open. My brain wasn’t steady: a thousand different voices clamoured within.
This changed everything.
Everything.
Time seemed to pause.
I started to feel very hot.
I had no idea what the other two were thinking. But it seemed like the name had made an impact. They were adding things up too.
Finally Harry swallowed. ‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ he said at length.
Anne breathed out a long sigh. ‘The American. The one who came to see the diaries. Think about it. Robert Cutt – he’s American too isn’t he?’
‘We were reading about him in the papers at the weekend,’ Harry added. ‘Political ambitions scuppered by scandal or some such.’
‘Mmm,’ I said, agreeing.
‘Good lord,’ said Anne and perched her rear on the arm of the chair. ‘Do you think he knows?’
I wasn’t sure. ‘The American connection could be a coincidence. Cutt might not have a clue at all. Although when that article was published it must have registered on several radars. It’s pretty easy to monitor the press. There are agencies that do just that. You just have to let them know what to look for and they’ll send you any relevant cuttings. There’s nothing cloak and dagger about it. We use one at Mercurial.’