Scarlet Widow

by Graham Masterton

  ‘Because there is only one person in this village who could have wanted to inflict such harm on our family, and there is only one person in this village who is capable of it!’

  ‘You nocky!’ spat the Widow Belknap. ‘Do you really think that I could ever be so exercised by the empty-headed gossip of your wife and her knotting-circle that I would go to the extent of murdering one of your infants? Why would I risk my life for such petty vindictiveness? Do you think I want to be hanged, or burned, or floated in a pond?’

  ‘Then who else made my children so sick?’ Nicholas lashed back at her. ‘Who else would have painted a cross upside down on their bedchamber wall, in brimstone and treacle? My son was murdered by a procurator of the Devil, and there is only one procurator of the Devil in Sutton, and that is you, Widow Belknap!’

  The Widow Belknap’s eyes narrowed and she pointed a long finger directly at his face. ‘If you ever call me such a name again, Nicholas Buckley, the flesh will be boiled from your bones and you will be reduced to broth! So go away and think about that while you’re burying your baby boy!’

  ‘Widow Belknap—’ said Francis, stepping forward. ‘I am sure this has been nothing more than a simple misunderstanding. Mr Buckley has just lost his youngest son and it is natural that he is very overwrought. Let us please make peace with one another. You remember what Peter said? “Be ye all of one mind, having compassion, one of another. Love each other as brethren, pitiful and courteous.”’

  ‘This witch killed my son!’ said Nicholas. ‘I shall see her burned, I promise you!’

  ‘Not before you have been turned into a mess of pottage, Nicholas Buckley!’ said the Widow Belknap. ‘Now, get off my property, all of you, before I call the constable and have you arrested for trespass!’

  Jonathan Shooks came up and laid a hand on Nicholas’s shoulder. ‘Come away, my dear fellow. You’re playing with fire with this woman, believe me.’

  Nicholas pushed his hand away. ‘And what about you, Mr Shooks? Was I not playing with fire when I invited you to treat my children? On the one hand I have this murdersome witch, and on the other I have you and your Chinese fire-sticks and your deals with demons. I don’t know which is the worser!’

  ‘I made it clear to you that I could protect your children,’ Jonathan Shooks persisted, his voice dropping even lower and steadier. ‘Only, however, at a price.’

  ‘Yes – twenty acres, more than half my land! That land is my life, Mr Shooks, as much as my family!’

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Jonathan Shooks with an understanding nod. ‘And now I realize that it was more than you were prepared to sacrifice. Unfortunately, you can see what your refusal has led to. If you had deeded that land over to me, I could have come to an arrangement with Satan’s proxies and your infant son would still be alive today.’

  ‘Don’t you have any idea what you were asking me to do?’ demanded Nicholas. ‘You were asking me to strike a bargain with the Devil! The Devil – the embodiment of everything evil! It flew in the face of everything that I have ever believed in! You were asking me to choose between my family and my God!’

  ‘My dear sir, we all have to come to a deal with the Devil sooner or later in our lifetimes. In a world full of moral ambiguity, it is the only certain way in which we can guarantee our survival.’

  Nicholas was confused and breathing hard, as if somebody had been chasing him. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Supposing I were now to change my mind, and say yes, I will come to such an agreement? Supposing I do deed over those twenty acres? What would prevent this proxy of Satan from coming back later and demanding even more land, until I had no property left to my name at all?’

  Jonathan Shooks folded his arms and looked at him with another of those expressions that Beatrice found impossible to read. It was like a tolerant adult looking at a child who persisted in being awkward – but at the same time it was very highly charged, as if his tolerance had limits and those limits were very close to being reached.

  ‘You would have to trust me, Mr Buckley,’ he said. ‘The only guarantee that I can give you is my word.’

  ‘But what about Satan? I don’t doubt that I can trust your word, but if you are striking a bargain with a proxy of Satan, how far can I trust his word? Satan is a liar by nature!’

  ‘Mr Buckley – I warned you what would happen if you didn’t agree to the terms of my arrangement, and very sadly it has. You still have a chance to save Apphia, and your wife, and the remainder of your family and servants. Time, however, is running very short. The hourglass is rapidly emptying even as we speak.’

  ‘Mr Shooks,’ put in Francis. ‘Was it the Widow Belknap who caused the Buckley children to fall ill? If so, we should simply have her arrested and tried for her crime.’

  Jonathan Shooks looked down at the stony brown roadway for a moment, as if he were trying to summon up all his reserves of patience.

  ‘My dear reverend, you have to understand that what is happening here in Sutton is very much more complex than that. This is not simply a case of a vengeful woman who has the ability to cast malevolent spells.’

  ‘Then what is she? And what is her place in this, if any?’

  ‘I suppose you could best describe her as a facilitator for the underworld – a go-between, what the Spanish call an intermediaro. Proving such a thing to the satisfaction of a court, however, even to the most superstitious of juries – no, that would be well nigh impossible. The days of Salem are long gone.’

  When Jonathan Shooks said that, Nicholas turned on his heel without a word and started to walk back down to his house. Jonathan Shooks made no attempt to follow him. Instead, he let out an exaggerated sigh and said, ‘Such a pity. Such a great, great pity! That fellow is a fool to himself.’

  Beatrice didn’t know what to say to him. She didn’t trust his motives in demanding twenty acres from Nicholas Buckley, but at the same time she didn’t trust the Widow Belknap, either. While Nicholas had been confronting the Widow Belknap in her porch, and accusing her of murdering Tristram, Beatrice had been carefully studying the various plants and bushes in her flowering weed garden. She had seen several medicinal herbs, such as Solomon’s seal, which was used to take away bruises ‘caused by women’s wilfulness in stumbling upon their hasty husbands’ fists’.

  There was eyebright, too, and costmary and marigold, all of which could be used to treat a variety of ailments, from colic to worms. Almost in the centre of the garden, however, a yew bush was growing, dark and even more pungent now that it had started to rain – one of the thickest yew bushes that Beatrice had ever seen.

  Twenty-two

  They were only halfway home when there was a deafening detonation of thunder directly above their heads and the trees all around them began to thrash and sway, as if they were trying to uproot themselves and run away. Uriel snorted a few times, but Francis managed to calm him down and keep him trotting straight ahead. Whenever it had thundered, Kingdom used to slew violently to one side of the road, or sometimes he would stop altogether, shivering with terror.

  ‘What do you think?’ asked Beatrice, as she and Francis sought shelter in the porch. The rain was lashing down much harder now and Caleb came hurrying around to the front of the house to unharness Uriel and lead him to his paddock.

  ‘Don’t seem to frighten him, this thunder,’ said Caleb, tugging affectionately at Uriel’s mane. Caleb himself was soaked but he didn’t seem to mind. At least the rain was warm.

  ‘Maybe that’s because I named him for an archangel,’ said Francis. ‘There must be plenty of thunder in heaven, especially when the Lord is angry.’

  ‘And what about you, Francis?’ asked Beatrice, as she went in through the front door and took off her bonnet. ‘Are you angry?’

  ‘Of course I’m angry! But it’s righteous anger, not pique! An innocent child has died and I don’t know how, or why!’

  ‘We must try to think about it calmly and with logic,’ said Beatrice.

  ‘How can we, when
there is nothing logical about it at all? Jonathan Shooks seems to be suggesting that Satan was responsible, or at least some proxy of his, but I can’t work out if Tristram’s death was natural or supernatural, or something of both. I have no way of telling if those children had simply picked up some common childhood sickness, like weaning brash, or if somebody poisoned them on purpose or deliberately gave them an infection – or if indeed a deal really was done with some demon or other, which is what Jonathan Shooks would have us believe. Then again, Jonathan Shooks stands to profit handsomely from this, whatever the cause. Twenty acres, to say the least.’

  Beatrice went through to the kitchen where Mary was slowly stirring a kettle filled with cream and milk and water to make cheese.

  ‘Did I hear the Reverend Scarlet say that Tristram had passed away?’ Mary asked.

  Beatrice nodded. ‘Very sadly, yes. Apphia is a little better, but I am still afraid that we might lose her, too.’

  ‘Is it true that the Widow Belknap put a spell on them? That’s what everybody’s been saying.’

  ‘No, Mary, I don’t think it was witchcraft, although it’s possible that the Widow Belknap was party to what happened. We should keep our tongues still, though, until we have proof.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Mary. She went back to stirring the thickening curds in her cheese-kettle, but then she stopped and said, ‘Is it all right to make cheese in a thunderstorm? It won’t turn sour, will it?’

  ‘No, Mary. It won’t turn sour.’

  Beatrice wondered if now was the time to tell Francis about the tests she had carried out on Kingdom’s vomit and diarrhoea, and on the tarry hoof prints from Henry Mendum’s field. She didn’t yet have enough evidence to prove beyond doubt who might be responsible for all the disturbing events that had been taking place in Sutton over the past few days. In spite of that, she might be able to reassure Francis that it was not his faith that was lacking. All the prayers in heaven and on earth would not have deterred the kind of person who was capable of painting four naked slaves with pine resin and quicklime and saltpetre and setting them alight, or of killing a small child like Tristram, however that had been done, or of poisoning Kingdom with yew leaves.

  She was almost sure that this was the work of man – or of woman – and not of demons.

  She was tying on her apron when Francis called out, ‘Bea! Beatrice! Come here, my dearest, if you would!’

  She went through to the hallway and Francis beckoned her out to the porch.

  ‘There,’ he said, grasping her arm, and pointing towards the end of the driveway. ‘Is that the person you saw before? A brown cloak, you said, didn’t you – with a hood, and carrying a staff? I didn’t notice him at first but then a grouse broke out from the trees, as if something had startled it, and it was then that I saw him. Him or her, whoever it is. He’s been standing there ever since, quite still. Is he looking in our direction or not? It’s hard to say.’

  Beatrice looked where Francis was pointing and through the rain she could just make out the brown hooded figure she had seen before.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I believe it’s the same.’

  ‘Then I shall challenge him,’ said Francis. ‘If it’s some maunder, then I shall give him a few pence and something to eat. But if it’s some rogue, I shall chase him away on pain of calling the constable. Perhaps you were right, though. Perhaps it’s the Angel of Death, looking this time for the soul of little Tristram.’

  ‘Francis, don’t. Leave him be. He could well be armed.’

  ‘I’m not frightened of death, Bea, no matter how death might manifest itself. Robber, beggar or angel.’

  ‘Francis – please – don’t,’ said Beatrice, but Francis gently but firmly pulled himself away from her. He marched off down the driveway, his coat collar turned up against the rain. Beatrice was deafened by a rumble of thunder like somebody rolling a hundred empty barrels down a cobbled street, and the rain began to beat down even harder.

  ‘Hoi!’ Francis shouted out, waving his arm. ‘You there! Who are you? What do you want?’

  He wasn’t even halfway along the driveway, however, when the figure stepped back into the shadows beneath the trees and disappeared. Francis hurried up to the place where it had been standing and looked around, but even from a distance Beatrice could see that he had lost sight of the figure altogether.

  Who in the world could he be? she thought, as Francis came trudging back. If he was somebody who wished them harm, then surely he would have attacked them by now. If he simply wanted alms, all he had to do was approach them and ask. But who had given her that bottle of expensive perfume? Was it him? Or had the perfume been left by some unknown admirer who was either too shy to give it to her directly, or somebody she knew only too well? She fleetingly thought of the looks that Jonathan Shooks was always giving her – sceptical and knowing, but also seductive, as if he were thinking, I could have you, pretty goodwife, if I were so minded.

  ‘Well – whoever it was, they’ve made themselves scarce for now,’ said Francis, wiping the rain from his face with his cravat. ‘I have the feeling, though, that you might be very close to the truth when you called him the Angel of Death.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I think he is not a real person but an apparition – a shade, a phantom, a spirit, call it what you will. He has come as an omen, or a warning, like a stopped clock or a picture that falls off the wall for no apparent reason, or a sudden flock of crows. Perhaps that is what all these terrible incidents have been – warnings that the people of this community should act more devoutly and not to be so concerned with wealth and creature comforts.’

  ‘I still think you should tell Constable Jewkes about it,’ said Beatrice. ‘And you could put word around the parish for people to keep their eyes open. It might be an omen, but it could equally be a budger, or a footpad.’

  Francis took hold of her hands and kissed her on the forehead. ‘You are such a down-to-earth person, Bea, and I am so head-in-the-air! That very first morning I saw you, when I was coming out of Sunday prayers, I could almost hear a voice inside my head saying, “This is the one, this is the woman you will marry, this is the woman who will anchor your beliefs and make your life complete. This is the woman who will help you to fulfil the purpose for which God has put you here on this earth.”’

  Beatrice kissed him back. He looked so lean and handsome and saintly with his long dark hair all wet. The smell of warm rain blew in through the open front door, but the sun was beginning to break through the clouds. Yes, Francis could be unworldly, but she loved him for that. His faith always made her feel protected, as if it was enfolding them both, and Noah, too, in an iridescent cloak of light.

  Francis had convinced her that there was a heaven. Sometimes she thought back to the frozen girl that she and her father had found that Christmas morning in the alley off Giltspur Street. Francis had made her confident that her soul was being cared for after all.

  *

  Beatrice drove back into the village on her own the following morning. She wanted to see if Apphia was any better, and Francis had also asked her to talk to the Buckleys about the funeral arrangements for Tristram. When she entered the Buckley house, however, she found that Judith was lying on her bed in the front parlour, with three or four of her neighbours around her. She looked as white as wax, and one of the women was vigorously fanning her.

  ‘Judith? What’s happened?’ asked Beatrice. ‘Are you unwell?’

  ‘She’s fainted from exhaustion,’ said Goody Rust. ‘Nicholas went out last night, saying that he had urgent business to attend to, and he has not returned since. Judith fears that he went back to see the Widow Belknap.’

  ‘Has anybody been to the Widow Belknap’s house this morning to ask her if she has seen him?’

  ‘No, but do you think she would tell us, even if she had? Especially if she had!’

  ‘How is Apphia? Is she any better?’

  ‘A little. She has taken a feed of p
ap and she has kept it down so far, fingers crossed. I think the lungwort is helping to clear her chest.’

  Beatrice went along the hallway to the children’s bedchamber. Apphia was asleep, breathing through her mouth, but her cheeks were flushed a healthier pink than yesterday and she was wearing a clean white flannel pilch over her belly-band, which showed that she hadn’t soiled herself for a while.

  Back in the parlour, Beatrice asked Judith where she thought that Nicholas might have gone last night, on what kind of urgent business.

  Judith’s dark brown pupils darted from side to side, almost as if she were dreaming with her eyes open. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know. All he said was that he had to settle it once and for all. That’s what he had to do. Settle it.’

  ‘Do you think he might have gone to see the Widow Belknap?’

  ‘He swore to me that he would see her brought to justice. He was certain that it was she who made the twins so sick.’

  ‘Well, let’s wait upon him a little longer. If he doesn’t return by the middle of the afternoon, we can arrange for a party to go out looking for him.’

  Judith reached out and took hold of Beatrice’s hand. Her own hands were surprisingly cold, considering how warm it was inside the house.

  ‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’ she said. ‘I know it. I can feel it my water. I felt a chill last night when I was lying in bed, as if the Angel of Death had passed my window, and I haven’t felt warm since.’

  Beatrice sat down on the bed beside her. ‘You’re worn to a rag, Judith, that’s all. You’ve had days of dreadful anxiety and hardly any sleep. Poor Tristram died only yesterday. It’s not surprising that you’re thinking the worst. But Nicholas will be back soon, you’ll see. He cares for you too much to let you worry.’

  ‘But where has he gone and why is he taking so long?’

  ‘Judith – our husbands don’t always tell us all of their business, do they? – and we can’t expect them to.’