The Familiars

by Halls, Stacey

  He was barely aware of the ripple of astonishment from the gallery, or Roger’s thunderous expression from his seat by the judges, or the grand, high ceiling and rows of gleaming benches, or the jury. All he knew was the papers in his hand, and his heart hammering in his chest, and Alice’s wretched face where she stood with the other prisoners, with chains around her wrists and ankles.

  Lord Bromley granted his request, and Roger almost exploded with anger, rising up to protest, but the law prevailed, and Richard faced Alice at the bar and read my words, though his hand was shaking and his voice trembled. And after that he read the words of John Foulds, though he struggled even more with them, because the man’s writing was so poor.

  When the jury went out, Richard had to wait in the gallery, soaking wet and exhausted from riding almost eighty miles in less than a day. On their return he searched their faces, every last one of them, and when a few of the gentlemen looked him in the eye – for by now he had realised he had played cards with a couple of them – he did not know what that meant, and thought he would die with the agony of waiting. When the foreman said the words ‘not guilty’, he watched Alice drop like a stone a few yards away.

  ‘And then what happened? Tell me again.’

  ‘A great gasp went up from the crowd. I thanked the jury, and then I fainted.’

  I laughed and clapped my hands together. I was sitting up in bed, in a clean white nightgown, beneath fresh bedding – the previous had to be burnt, along with yet another mattress. Little Richard was in my arms, and although he was small, he was perfect in my eyes. He had threads of black hair, fine as silk, and rosebud lips, and cheeks round as apples. The first time I fed him, when I had time enough to look over every lovely bit of him at length, I noticed something on his arm, and was about to call the nursemaid when I realised what it was.

  In the crook of his tiny elbow was a brown birthmark, no bigger than his little fingernail, in the shape of a crescent moon. It matched the scar I had in the same place, where Alice had drawn blood from me. I checked the next morning to see if it was there, and it was, as much a part of him as his fingers and toes, and I folded his neat little sleeve down again and smiled to myself.

  ‘And then?’

  I sipped my warm milk, spicy with healing herbs.

  ‘Well, then we had to wait for the rest of the verdicts,’ Richard said.

  Half-heartedly, he jangled the rattle he had bought all those months ago. It was not all happy news.

  Richard had been unable to read John Foulds’ final sentence, scrawled in a drunk’s shaky hand in that pitiful candlelight, absolving Katherine Hewitt of any blame. The poor woman, a friend to Alice and her mother, had been found guilty, and hanged. Richard told me how after he had spoken for Alice, Katherine’s arraignment came next, and Roger had become hell-bent on seeing his own agenda served. He bullied the jury, he shook his fists, and spittle fell from his lips as he drove the point home again, again, again how that woman, alias Mould-heels, who had delivered so many babies and made so many women mothers, killed a child for no reason other than the Devil told her to.

  It was too much for Alice, and Richard said she cried out with more anguish than if the verdict was her own. After her chains were removed, she left the castle without looking back, weeping all the way to Gawthorpe, clinging to Richard so tightly she ripped his jacket. She was free, but her freedom had come at a terrible price.

  The Pendle witches who were hanged that day included Elizabeth Device, her daughter Alizon and her son James, leaving Jennet alone in this life. Seven more went with them. All were present at Malkin Tower. Alice was the only one of the group to be set free. One woman was found guilty and given four days in the stocks and a year in gaol as punishment. Her name was Margaret Pearson, whose servant had seen a toad climb out of the fire. She was not present at Malkin Tower, so Roger was only half-interested in her fate, and was not prepared to go to great efforts to see her swing.

  Richard told me that in Bromley’s parting words to Alice, he urged her to forsake the Devil. That would have been easy, because as soon as she left the room, she was free of him.

  ‘Someone is here to see you,’ Richard said to me a few days later. ‘Shall I send them up?’

  ‘Who is it?’ Hope bloomed in my chest.

  Richard smiled. ‘You shall have to wait and see.’

  Fatherhood suited him; he was besotted with his son. Somewhere he might have another one, or a daughter, but I pushed the thought from my mind.

  ‘I will come down,’ I said. ‘I haven’t been downstairs yet and am forgetting what it looks like. Richard?’ I said before I lost my nerve. He paused in the doorway, one hand resting on the handle. ‘I’m sorry, but I shall have to buy you a new gun.’ He looked puzzled. ‘I took yours the night I … The night I came back here. I lost it in the forest.’

  ‘You took my musket?’

  He seemed more astonished than annoyed.

  ‘Yes. I didn’t intend on using it – I didn’t know how. It doesn’t matter. It got soaked, besides, so I ruined it anyway.’

  He smiled. ‘You surprise me every day, Mistress Shuttleworth.’

  ‘Richard … One more thing. There is something I want to ask you.’

  I handed the sleeping baby to his father and climbed carefully out of bed, going to my cupboard in the corner of the room.

  I pulled out the doctor’s letter, which was torn and flimsy as an old rag by now. I held it in my fist and looked out of the window at Pendle Hill. Then I handed it to Richard.

  ‘Why did you not tell me about this?’

  He frowned and took it with the hand not holding the baby. I watched his eyes move over it, then understanding cleared his face, and he frowned.

  ‘Where did you get this?’

  ‘James gave it to me months ago.’

  ‘You were not meant to see this.’

  ‘Did you not think I would wish to know that my own life—’

  ‘You were not meant to see this because it is not about you.’

  I fell silent. ‘What do you mean?’

  Richard sighed. ‘This letter is about Judith.’

  ‘Judith?’

  He patted the bed next to him and I went to sit. Months of turmoil were ringing in my head, and it took all my effort to listen.

  ‘You were not visited by this doctor; he is from Preston. I had him visit Judith at Barton when she lost … She lost the first child. I tried to stay away after that, but … I went to her one more time, and she was pregnant again.’

  I closed my eyes to let his words sink in.

  ‘But it says your wife.’

  Richard bent his head, and said very quietly, ‘I had to tell him she was.’

  Black ink from the ledger swam to the front of my mind: Mr William Anderton to bring marriage licence from York.

  ‘Why did you have a marriage licence brought?’

  Richard frowned. ‘That was for James’ niece. She married last month. There is nothing now you do not know, I promise you.’

  I sat quietly, letting his words sink in.

  ‘Why do you go to her?’ I whispered.

  He seemed to consider his answer for some time, and covered my hand with his. His rings glittered, and his voice was almost a whisper.

  ‘I saw how you were when the babies died. I saw how ill it made you. I was afraid of hurting you again.’

  Even then, after all I had been through, I could not hate him.

  ‘And now I could not be happier that we have a son.’

  Holding the baby in one arm, he took up the rattle again, and smiled down at him. I watched them sadly, and happily, and wretchedly. It was too much to take in.

  ‘Remember your guest downstairs. I will leave you to dress.’

  He planted a kiss on the baby’s head and left soundlessly.

  I stood and twisted my hair into a cap. It had stopped falling out, and was now strong and thick as a rope. I put a sleeveless gown over the top of my smock, and picked the
baby up again to show him the rest of his house. I paused briefly on the stairs beneath my portrait and remembered how Alice had said I reminded her of someone. I realised she must have meant Ann. My son might never know the woman who saved our lives, but perhaps it was better that way, because while she stayed disappeared, she was safe.

  Alice had left when I was asleep, and the blood washed away and the baby wrapped, slipping out of my chamber without anyone noticing. Richard said it was a full day and night after our son was born, and the house was so busy with people coming up and down the stairs, bringing bowls of hot water and fresh linen, nobody noticed. She was there, and then she was gone. She had not said goodbye, though she had kissed me with a mother’s tenderness I’d never known.

  Though I knew it was nigh on impossible, a tiny, glinting part of me hoped it would be her sitting in the parlour now. As though to put off being disappointed, I made my way very slowly down the stairs, rocking and murmuring to the baby. The servants were enamoured with the new addition to the household, and could not stop beaming at me. They assembled in a little group in the entrance hall to smile and watch me carry him down the last of the stairs, and I smiled back.

  The parlour was empty.

  ‘Mistress?’ one of the kitchen girls said at my back. ‘She is in the dining chamber; she is hungry from her journey so asked for food.’

  My mother rose from her seat the moment I entered, with her face serene and arms outstretched.

  ‘My grandson,’ she cooed, and came to take him.

  I hesitated, then passed him over. My mother’s eyes raked over my skin, my hair, my body.

  ‘You look well, Fleetwood. Your pregnancy was not a kind one.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You are recovered?’

  ‘I think so. I lost a lot of blood, so cook has me eating meat almost every hour. This is my first time downstairs.’

  She smiled and put her face to little Richard’s. He blinked slowly and flailed his tiny fists, and she placed her finger inside his palm.

  ‘A little boy,’ she said happily.

  But there was something she was hiding; I knew it in her voice.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, and she turned to me, and smiled bravely.

  ‘Richard is a father twice over.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  The feather in her hat trembled.

  ‘Because I wanted you to hear it from me, and not some newsmonger in the village, or in someone else’s dining chamber.’ She sighed. ‘I know you might never forgive me for keeping what I did a secret, but I thought it was the right thing to do, and knowing would only bring you unhappiness. Who would want that for their child, if they could help it?’

  She looked down at the baby, and I noticed the lines around her eyes and mouth as she spoke.

  ‘When your father died, I was … adrift. I was alone with an infant daughter, and …’

  ‘You could not wait to be rid of me,’ I said dully. ‘You married me off straight away.’

  She shook her head. ‘That was a decision your father and I made together. Your father was ill and we needed a man to take responsibility for us. What would have happened to us? When Mr Molyneux came to your father with an offer, he had little choice but to take it.’

  ‘I did not know Father arranged it.’

  We sat in silence for a minute or two, looking at the fine black hair on Richard’s head, and his pink ears like little seashells. Already I missed his weight in my arms, which hung uselessly in my lap.

  ‘I was so unhappy in that house,’ I said. ‘I spent every day of my childhood worrying that the next day you would send me to him.’

  ‘I would not have done that.’

  ‘You threatened it when I misbehaved.’

  ‘For that I am sorry. I would never have done it. It’s difficult, raising a child without a father. You will say anything for a moment’s peace.’

  ‘You know he … When he came for the first time, he …’ My voice shook. ‘You left the room.’

  My mother looked away. Her eyes grew darker than ever, and her mouth turned down at the corners, though her hand went on automatically patting the baby, who she was rocking very gently. I had never seen her with an infant before, and he seemed to slot into some ancient maternal part of her that I had never known.

  ‘That is why I had the marriage annulled.’

  I stared at her. ‘You knew?’

  ‘When I came back, I could tell what had happened. He looked guilty as sin, and your little face …’ For the first time in my life, I watched my mother’s eyes fill with tears. ‘It was all my fault,’ she said, her voice thick with emotion. ‘I didn’t know what to do, how to get out of it without your father there to tell me. I knew, though, I could never, ever hand you over to that man.’

  ‘I thought it was annulled because Richard was a better match.’

  My mother composed herself, and smiled weakly.

  ‘And wasn’t he?’

  Slowly, I sat back in the chair. Sunlight streamed in through the windows – it was a beautiful late summer day.

  ‘I am glad Richard put his woman in there because now I never have to go back.’

  ‘I hated it too,’ said my mother, surprising me. ‘I never settled there. I hoped that when you married you would put me somewhere else, and you did.’

  Richard did. I had nothing to do with it, had no interest in my mother’s desires then.

  ‘Well, now it has a new mistress. Judith Thorpe of Barton. She is welcome to it.’

  My mother leant in.

  ‘I took all the best silver before I left.’

  We smiled at one another. I was about to ask if Judith had had a son, or a daughter, then decided I did not want to know. The servants began bringing in dinner, and Richard joined us, and we sat down to a joint of roast beef and a huge wood pigeon dripping in sauce. My appetite was unrecognisable from five months ago – I could have eaten the whole pigeon myself.

  ‘I saw on my way through Padiham a woman in the stocks with a bag over her head that had “witch” on it,’ my mother said as we ate.

  ‘Margaret Pearson,’ said Richard.

  Since attending the trials he’d taken a keen interest in the events of that summer. He even had a theory about our old friend Thomas Lister: that Jennet Preston was his father’s mistress, and with his mother still living and frail, he wanted her out of sight and out of mind. Either that, or she knew something about him, and he would rather have her dead than have it known. As for Roger, our paths would certainly cross again, but the magistrate had disgraced himself slightly on his voyage for power. He had shown himself as a man who traded lives for a comfortable retirement: souls for new furnishings afforded by the king, all for the sake of adding a final few glory days to a golden career in justice. Among the gentry of the north, such ruthless ambition was considered rather desperate, and many dining chambers had closed to him.

  ‘She will do four market days in the stocks and then go to gaol, where she will probably die, because she will not be able to pay her bail once her sentence ends,’ Richard was saying.

  ‘Why was she not hanged?’ my mother asked.

  Richard shrugged.

  ‘A shred of sense prevailed? I know not.’

  My mother shuddered.

  ‘I heard there were thousands in Lancaster on hanging day.’

  ‘Nothing excites the living more than death,’ I said.

  ‘What happened to that girl Jill? Or was it Alice? Was she not arrested?’

  Richard and I shared a glance.

  ‘She was found not guilty.’

  ‘Well, that’s remarkable, is it not? I certainly thought they’d find them all guilty if they found one. Weren’t they conspiring to kill Thomas Lister?’

  ‘Who knows?’ I said. ‘There were no witnesses, apart from a child. Besides, Alice was innocent.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  My hand went to the scar at my elbow and traced it over my sleeve
.

  ‘All she wanted to do was help people,’ I said.

  ‘Where is she now?’

  ‘I wish I knew.’

  ‘She didn’t tell you?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Has she family?’

  I thought of Joseph Gray, drinking himself to death in his house made from mud.

  ‘No.’

  At that moment the baby began crying from his bed in front of the fireplace. The nursemaid was eating with the servants, and my breasts were full and threatening to spill, so I got up and went to lift him from the oak cradle my mother had given me all those years ago. I stood up slowly and came face to face with the set of engraved panels on the mantelpiece.

  I blinked, and looked all along them, then stared again. I could not believe what I was seeing. Next to Richard’s initials, in the space that had been left blank since the house was built, was the letter A.

  I would recognise it anywhere, had seen it scrawled dozens of times in the shaky hand of someone learning to write. But there it was, whole and clear. I stood frozen in astonishment, and then I began to laugh.

  ‘Fleetwood? Whatever is the matter?’

  I spun around, lifting Richard up above my head and dancing with happiness as my husband and mother looked at one another in baffled amusement.

  ‘She is well!’ I cried. ‘She is well.’

  Alice Gray was the only friend I ever had. I saved her life. And she saved mine.

  CHAPTER 26

  Five years later

  Richard was dressed to hunt. He put his head into the great hall, where I was sitting mending Nicholas’ silk stocking. With two sons, I had grown much better at embroidery because of the rate at which they poked holes in things, or skidded on the floor and tore their cloaks, or ripped their collars climbing through branches. At one elbow was the mending, and at the other was an ever-growing list of things I wanted James to fetch from London. Whenever something came to me I would take up the quill and scribble it down. I had just remembered I needed ambergris for my perfumes when the boys, who were clashing wooden swords together in an attempt at a duel, dropped them to the floor with a clatter.