Lois the Witch

by Elizabeth Gaskell

  I was now apparently close on the discovery which I had striven so many months to attain. But success had lost its zest. I put my letters down, and seemed to forget them all in thinking of the morning I had passed that very day. Nothing was real but the unreal presence, which had come like an evil blast across my bodily eyes, and burnt itself down upon my brain. Dinner came, and went away untouched. Early in the afternoon I walked to the farm-house. I found Mistress Clarke alone, and I was glad and relieved. She was evidently prepared to tell me all I might wish to hear.

  ‘You asked me for Mistress Lucy’s true name; it is Gisborne,’ she began.

  ‘Not Gisborne of Skipford?’ I exclaimed, breathless with anticipation.

  ‘The same,’ said she, quietly, not regarding my manner. ‘Her father is a man of note; although, being a Roman Catholic, he cannot take that rank in this country to which his station entitles him. The consequence is that he lives much abroad – has been a soldier, I am told.’

  ‘And Lucy’s mother?’ I asked.

  She shook her head. ‘I never knew her,’ said she. ‘Lucy was about three years old when I was engaged to take charge of her. Her mother was dead.’

  ‘But you know her name? —you can tell if it was Mary Fitzgerald?’

  She looked astonished. ‘That was her name. But, sir, how came you to be so well acquainted with it? It was a mystery to the whole household at Skipford Court. She was some beautiful young woman whom he lured away from her protectors while he was abroad. I have heard said he practised some terrible deceit upon her, and when she came to know it, she was neither to have nor to hold, but rushed off from his very arms, and threw herself into a rapid stream and was drowned. It stung him deep with remorse, but I used to think the remembrance of the mother’s cruel death made him love the child yet dearer.’

  I told her, as briefly as might be, of my researches after the descendant and heir of the Fitzgeralds of Kildoon, and added – something of my old lawyer spirit returning into me for the moment – that I had no doubt but that we should prove Lucy to be by right possessed of large estates in Ireland.

  No flush came over her grey face; no light into her eyes. ‘And what is all the wealth in the whole world to that poor girl?’ she said. ‘It will not free her from the ghastly bewitchment which persecutes her. As for money, what a pitiful thing it is! it cannot touch her.’

  ‘No more can the Evil Creature harm her,’ I said. ‘Her holy nature dwells apart, and cannot be defiled or stained by all the devilish arts in the whole world.’

  ‘True! but it is a cruel fate to know that all shrink from her, sooner or later, as from one possessed – accursed.’

  ‘How came it to pass?’ I asked.

  ‘Nay, I know not. Old rumours there are, that were bruited through the household at Skipford.’

  ‘Tell me,’ I demanded.

  ‘They came from servants, who would fain account for everything. They say that, many years ago, Mr Gisborne killed a dog belonging to an old witch at Coldholme; that she cursed, with a dreadful and mysterious curse, the creature, whatever it might be, that he should love best; and that it struck so deeply into his heart that for years he kept himself aloof from any temptation to love aught. But who could help loving Lucy?’

  ‘You never heard the witch’s name?’ I gasped.

  ‘Yes – they called her Bridget: they said he would never go near the spot again for terror. Yet he was a brave man!’

  ‘Listen,’ said I, taking hold of her arm, the better to arrest her full attention; ‘if what I suspect holds true, that man stole Bridget’s only child – the very Mary Fitzgerald who was Lucy’s mother; if so, Bridget cursed him in ignorance of the deeper wrong he had done her. To this hour she yearns after her lost child, and questions the saints whether she be living or not. The roots of that curse lie deeper than she knows: she unwittingly banned him for a deeper guilt than that of killing a dumb beast. The sins of the fathers are indeed visited upon the children.’

  ‘But,’ said Mistress Clarke, eagerly, ‘she would never let evil rest on her own grandchild? Surely, sir, if what you say be true, there are hopes for Lucy. Let us go – go at once, and tell this fearful woman all that you suspect, and beseech her to take off the spell she has put upon her innocent grandchild.’

  It seemed to me, indeed, that something like this was the best course we could pursue. But first it was necessary to ascertain more than what mere rumour or careless hearsay could tell. My thoughts turned to my uncle – he could advise me wisely – he ought to know all. I resolved to go to him without delay; but I did not choose to tell Mistress Clarke of all the visionary plans that flitted through my mind. I simply declared my intention of proceeding straight to London on Lucy’s affairs. I bade her believe that my interest on the young lady’s behalf was greater than ever, and that my whole time should be given up to her cause. I saw that Mistress Clarke distrusted me, because my mind was too full of thoughts for my words to flow freely. She sighed and shook her head, and said, ‘Well, it is all right!’ in such a tone that it was an implied reproach. But I was firm and constant in my heart, and I took confidence from that.

  I rode to London. I rode long days drawn out into the lovely summer nights: I could not rest. I reached London. I told my uncle all, though in the stir of the great city the horror had faded away, and I could hardly imagine that he would believe the account I gave him of the fearful double of Lucy which I had seen on the lonely moor-side. But my uncle had lived many years, and learnt many things; and, in the deep secrets of family history that had been confided to him, he had heard of cases of innocent people bewitched and taken possession of by evil spirits yet more fearful than Lucy’s. For, as he said, to judge from all I told him, that resemblance had no power over her – she was too pure and good to be tainted by its evil, haunting presence. It had, in all probability, so my uncle conceived, tried to suggest wicked thoughts and to tempt to wicked actions; but she, in her saintly maidenhood, had passed on undefiled by evil thought or deed. It could not touch her soul: but true, it set her apart from all sweet love or common human intercourse. My uncle threw himself with an energy more like six-and-twenty than sixty into the consideration of the whole case. He undertook the proving Lucy’s descent, and volunteered to go and find out Mr Gisborne, and obtain, firstly, the legal proofs of her descent from the Fitzgeralds of Kildoon, and, secondly, to try and hear all that he could respecting the working of the curse, and whether any and what means had been taken to exorcise that terrible appearance. For he told me of instances where, by prayers and long fasting, the evil possessor had been driven forth with howling and many cries from the body which it had come to inhabit; he spoke of those strange New England cases which had happened not so long before; of Mr Defoe, who had written a book, wherein he had named many modes of subduing apparitions, and sending them back whence they came; and, lastly, he spoke low of dreadful ways of compelling witches to undo their witchcraft. But I could not endure to hear of those tortures and burnings. I said that Bridget was rather a wild and savage woman than a malignant witch; and, above all, that Lucy was of her kith and kin; and that, in putting her to the trial, by water or by fire, we should be torturing – it might be to the death – the ancestress of her we sought to redeem.

  My uncle thought awhile, and then said, that in this last matter I was right – at any rate, it should not be tried, with his consent, till all other modes of remedy had failed; and he assented to my proposal that I should go myself and see Bridget, and tell her all.

  In accordance with this, I went down once more to the wayside inn near Coldholme. It was late at night when I arrived there; and, while I supped, I inquired of the landlord more particulars as to Bridget’s ways. Solitary and savage had been her life for many years. Wild and despotic were her words and manner to those few people who came across her path. The country-folk did her imperious bidding, because they feared to disobey. If they pleased her, they prospered; if, on the contrary, they neglected or traversed her
behests, misfortune, small or great, fell on them and theirs. It was not detestation so much as an indefinable terror that she excited.

  In the morning I went to see her. She was standing on the green outside her cottage, and received me with the sullen grandeur of a throneless queen. I read in her face that she recognized me, and that I was not unwelcome; but she stood silent till I had opened my errand.

  ‘I have news of your daughter,’ said I, resolved to speak straight to all that I knew she felt of love, and not to spare her. ‘She is dead!’

  The stern figure scarcely trembled, but her hand sought the support of the door-post.

  ‘I knew that she was dead,’ said she, deep and low, and then was silent for an instant. ‘My tears that should have flowed for her were burnt up long years ago. Young man, tell me about her.’

  ‘Not yet,’ said I, having a strange power given me of confronting one, whom, nevertheless, in my secret soul I dreaded.

  ‘You had once a little dog,’ I continued. The words called out in her more show of emotion than the intelligence of her daughter’s death. She broke in upon my speech: —

  ‘I had! It was hers – the last thing I had of hers – and it was shot for wantonness! It died in my arms. The man who killed that dog rues it to this day. For that dumb beast’s blood, his best-beloved stands accursed.’

  Her eyes distended, as if she were in a trance and saw the working of her curse. Again I spoke: —

  ‘O, woman!’ I said, ‘that best-beloved, standing accursed before men, is your dead daughter’s child.’

  The life, the energy, the passion, came back to the eyes with which she pierced through me, to see if I spoke truth; then, without another question or word, she threw herself on the ground with fearful vehemence, and clutched at the innocent daisies with convulsed hands.

  ‘Bone of my bone! flesh of my flesh! have I cursed thee – and art thou accursed?’

  So she moaned, as she lay prostrate in her great agony. I stood aghast at my own work. She did not hear my broken sentences; she asked no more, but the dumb confirmation which my sad looks had given that one fact, that her curse rested on her own daughter’s child. The fear grew on me lest she should die in her strife of body and soul; and then might not Lucy remain under the spell as long as she lived?

  Even at this moment, I saw Lucy coming through the woodland path that led to Bridget’s cottage; Mistress Clarke was with her: I felt at my heart that it was she, by the balmy peace which the look of her sent over me, as she slowly advanced, a glad surprise shining out of her soft quiet eyes. That was as her gaze met mine. As her looks fell on the woman lying stiff, convulsed on the earth, they became full of tender pity; and she came forward to try and lift her up. Seating herself on the turf, she took Bridget’s head into her lap; and, with gentle touches, she arranged the dishevelled grey hair streaming thick and wild from beneath her mutch.

  ‘God help her!’ murmured Lucy. ‘How she suffers!’

  At her desire we sought for water; but when we returned, Bridget had recovered her wandering senses, and was kneeling with clasped hands before Lucy, gazing at that sweet sad face as though her troubled nature drank in health and peace from every moment’s contemplation. A faint tinge on Lucy’s pale cheeks showed me that she was aware of our return; otherwise it appeared as if she was conscious of her influence for good over the passionate and troubled woman kneeling before her, and would not willingly avert her grave and loving eyes from that wrinkled and careworn countenance.

  Suddenly – in the twinkling of an eye – the creature appeared, there, behind Lucy; fearfully the same as to outward semblance, but kneeling exactly as Bridget knelt, and clasping her hands in jesting mimicry as Bridget clasped hers in her ecstasy that was deepening into a prayer. Mistress Clarke cried out – Bridget arose slowly, her gaze fixed on the creature beyond: drawing her breath with a hissing sound, never moving her terrible eyes, that were steady as stone, she made a dart at the phantom, and caught, as I had done, a mere handful of empty air. We saw no more of the creature – it vanished as suddenly as it came, but Bridget looked slowly on, as if watching some receding form. Lucy sat still, white, trembling, drooping – I think she would have swooned if I had not been there to uphold her. While I was attending to her, Bridget passed us, without a word to any one, and, entering her cottage, she barred herself in, and left us without.

  All our endeavours were now directed to get Lucy back to the house where she had tarried the night before. Mistress Clarke told me that, not hearing from me (some letter must have miscarried), she had grown impatient and despairing, and had urged Lucy to the enterprise of coming to seek her grandmother; not telling her, indeed, of the dread reputation she possessed, or how we suspected her of having so fearfully blighted that innocent girl; but, at the same time, hoping much from the mysterious stirring of blood, which Mistress Clarke trusted in for the removal of the curse. They had come, by a different route from that which I had taken, to a village inn not far from Coldholme, only the night before. This was the first interview between ancestress and descendant.

  All through the sultry noon I wandered along the tangled wood-paths of the old neglected forest, thinking where to turn for remedy in a matter so complicated and mysterious. Meeting a countryman, I asked my way to the nearest clergyman, and went, hoping to obtain some counsel from him. But he proved to be a coarse and common-minded man, giving no time or attention to the intricacies of a case, but dashing out a strong opinion involving immediate action. For instance, as soon as I named Bridget Fitzgerald, he exclaimed: —

  ‘The Coldholme witch! the Irish papist! I’d have had her ducked long since but for that other papist, Sir Philip Tempest. He has had to threaten honest folk about here over and over again, or they’d have had her up before the justices for her black doings. And it’s the law of the land that witches should be burnt! Ay, and of Scripture, too, sir! Yet you see a papist, if he’s a rich squire, can overrule both law and Scripture. I’d carry a faggot myself to rid the country of her!’

  Such a one could give me no help. I rather drew back what I had already said; and tried to make the parson forget it, by treating him to several pots of beer, in the village inn, to which we had adjourned for our conference at his suggestion. I left him as soon as I could, and returned to Coldholme, shaping my way past deserted Starkey Manor-house, and coming upon it by the back. At that side were the oblong remains of the old moat, the waters of which lay placid and motionless under the crimson rays of the setting sun; with the forest-trees lying straight along each side, and their deep-green foliage mirrored to blackness in the burnished surface of the moat below – and the broken sun-dial at the end nearest the hall – and the heron, standing on one leg at the water’s edge, lazily looking down for fish – the lonely and desolate house scarce needed the broken windows, the weeds on the door-sill, the broken shutter softly flapping to and fro in the twilight breeze, to fill up the picture of desertion and decay. I lingered about the place until the growing darkness warned me on. And then I passed along the path, cut by the orders of the last lady of Starkey Manor-house, that led me to Bridget’s cottage. I resolved at once to see her; and, in spite of closed doors – it might be of resolved will – she should see me. So I knocked at her door, gently, loudly, fiercely. I shook it so vehemently that at length the old hinges gave way, and with a crash it fell inwards, leaving me suddenly face to face with Bridget – I, red, heated, agitated with my so long baffled efforts – she, stiff as any stone, standing right facing me, her eyes dilated with terror, her ashen lips trembling, but her body motionless. In her hands she held her crucifix, as if by that holy symbol she sought to oppose my entrance. At sight of me, her whole frame relaxed, and she sank back upon a chair. Some mighty tension had given way. Still her eyes looked fearfully into the gloom of the outer air, made more opaque by the glimmer of the lamp inside, which she had placed before the picture of the Virgin.

  ‘Is she there?’ asked Bridget, hoarsely.

 
‘No! Who? I am alone. You remember me.’

  ‘Yes,’ replied she, still terror stricken. ‘But she – that creature – has been looking in upon me through that window all day long. I closed it up with my shawl; and then I saw her feet below the door, as long as it was light, and I knew she heard my very breathing – nay, worse, my very prayers; and I could not pray, for her listening choked the words ere they rose to my lips. Tell me, who is she? —what means that double girl I saw this morning? One had a look of my dead Mary; but the other curdled my blood, and yet it was the same!’

  She had taken hold of my arm, as if to secure herself some human companionship. She shook all over with the slight, never-ceasing tremor of intense terror. I told her my tale as I have told it you, sparing none of the details.

  How Mistress Clarke had informed me that the resemblance had driven Lucy forth from her father’s house – how I had disbelieved, until, with mine own eyes, I had seen another Lucy standing behind my Lucy, the same in form and feature, but with the demon-soul looking out of the eyes. I told her all, I say, believing that she – whose curse was working so upon the life of her innocent grandchild – was the only person who could find the remedy and the redemption. When I had done, she sat silent for many minutes.

  ‘You love Mary’s child?’ she asked.

  ‘I do, in spite of the fearful working of the curse – I love her. Yet I shrink from her ever since that day on the moor-side. And men must shrink from one so accompanied; friends and lovers must stand afar off. Oh, Bridget Fitzgerald! loosen the curse! Set her free!’

  ‘Where is she?’

  I eagerly caught at the idea that her presence was needed, in order that, by some strange prayer or exorcism, the spell might be reversed.

  ‘I will go and bring her to you,’ I exclaimed. But Bridget tightened her hold upon my arm.

  ‘Not so,’ said she, in a low, hoarse voice. ‘It would kill me to see her again as I saw her this morning. And I must live till I have worked my work. Leave me!’ said she, suddenly, and again taking up the cross. ‘I defy the demon I have called up. Leave me to wrestle with it!’