The Witch and the Priest (epub)

by Hilda Lewis

  “In the end,” she said with her ghost’s trick of reading his thoughts, “the safety of high places is no safety at all. Neither earthly honours nor great possessions can stay your evil-doer; nor is bitter poverty an excuse. For we are what we are; some of us born to evil—and so it was with me. Why else did my love for the lady—and truly I loved her once—turn to hatred? That she had sent Meg away was just; and that she kept Philip by her still was more than just—as you have said; and I knew it well. But still I could not sleep for thinking, She lies snug beneath fine linen and soft wool; she fills her belly with fine fat foods . . . and I lie here and eat what scraps I may.”

  “Yet you ate well; you ate what the lady ate—you have told me so.”

  “True. But it was hers by right; I got only what I stole. Besides, when we are angered we are unjust. I was angered against my lady. I knew that of her free will she would never see me again; but see me she must! Summer was drawing on and we were near to Lammas Day and the Beltane Sabbath. Very soon Meg must choose. She must join us or die . . . unless the third way opened. If my lady forgave her and took her back, then, with Meg at the Castle, I should be safe enough.”

  “How could that be a way out?” He lifted puzzled eyes.

  “Priest, you are not very subtle. The Castle was her paradise—she might coax her almost-gentleman again. Once back she would keep silent about what we had done to her child; she was not one to court a hanging. And for that same reason she would never name me witch. Like mother, like daughter, so they say. If they hanged me for a witch it could be a hanging matter for her also. Once back at the Castle she would keep her distance; and her mouth shut.

  But to live alone with me—that was another matter. If she did not join us, then, left to her loneliness and her fears, she might run mad and tell all she knew. No, if my lady would not take her back, Meg must join us or die.

  I took my way up to the Castle and, as luck would have it, I came upon my lord himself. He was not glad to see me. Oh, he was quiet enough; never so much as the raising of his voice. But for all that he would not suffer me near his lady and he made it plain. ‘If you will tell me your business,’ he said, ‘I will enquire into it for you.’

  So there I stood twisting my hands and hating him because I was thought not fit to stand in the presence of the lady. My spleen rose and bitterness came up in my throat. Yet I answered gentle as he. ‘My lord, it is my daughter. It is Margaret.’

  ‘I will hear no more of her,’ he said. ‘She is a liar and a thief.’

  ‘Sir,’ I told him, ‘you wrong my girl—and one day you will be sorry for it.’

  ‘Do you threaten?’ he asked.

  ‘Lord,’ I said, ‘how could I? I meant only you will be sorry if you think her a thief because of the mattress and the pillows. They were a gift; and my lady will tell you so herself.’

  His face darkened at that. ‘My lady will tell you—could she bring her tongue to the words—that your girl is all itching flesh; she is a stumbling-block to any clean man.’

  ‘She is no different from any other woman—whoever it might be. She had her sweetheart; and through this slander she has lost him.’

  ‘Slander?’ he said and his brows went up. ‘The girl was with child.’

  ‘She is not the only one to suffer great wrong, walking alone and no help at hand. What is a girl’s strength against a man?’

  ‘I have no liking for riddles,’ he said. ‘If you have an accusation to bring, then bring it; and bring it now.’

  ‘It is the man Peate,’ I said, ‘and your lordship knows him well.’

  ‘I do know him well,’ he said. ‘A decent man and lives well with his wife. Yet I will enquire into the matter and if what you say is true you shall have justice. Go now and do not come again. If I want you I will send for you.’

  So away I went all bitter with my anger. For who might be the father of Meg’s child no man knew—not even the girl herself. If it were not Peate, that was hardly his fault; but all the same he would deny that he had ever come at my girl. And surely Meg needed no further punishment. She had paid the price of her slip, seeing she had lost this Master Vavasour that was a gentleman’s servant and above us in the world’s reckon­ing. Such a chance would not come her way again.

  Meg came to meet me sad and sullen and all bedewed with tears. When I told her what had passed and how I had named Peate as the one who, against her will, had done her wrong, she said, all pale and spiteful, ‘Then you were a fool! Peate is clever enough to play virtuous and no-one will believe you. You had done better to have named another though you lied.’ And she turned and left me without a word . . . Margaret was not easy to love.

  My lord sent down a message that he would see me. I found him waiting in the courtyard; he would not suffer me further. He would not allow me, so it seemed, to pollute the innocence of his chaste lady. Had he consulted his own wish he would have sent Philip packing also; but the girl had done no harm that any man could prove; and there was always justice in him.

  He was an angry man that day, though, as always, quiet with it. He had made diligent enquiries and there was no truth in my tale. ‘So,’ I said, ‘you put your trust in this bad man; and my girl is lost and abandoned.’

  ‘Lost and abandoned, yes!’ he said. ‘But by her own desire and her own lewdness. See that she learns to repent or she will be a shame and a charge to you all the days of your life.’

  I dropped my curtsey but I was muttering beneath my breath A black pox upon you! That is a witch’s curse; but it was anger merely; even then I meant him no harm.

  I found Margaret still in the same black mood—and who could blame her? She had lost her good match; indeed, any match at all. She had rid herself of her child and was enough of a woman to weep for it. She had been humiliated by the Master because she had shamed the Sabbath with her tears; and its joys were refused her because of her own refusal. Poor Meg with her pretty face and her slow brain and her cold heart!

  It was a mistake to have brought her to the Sabbath, to have let her spy out our secrets, to have put into her frightened hands the lives of the whole coven. I saw that when it was too late. Philip now. There was your true witch—by nature; by nature only . . . as yet. But already Goody Simpson was naming her witch. How did the girl manage to keep Tom Simpson by her as though he were her shadow? It was a question his mother would ask time and time again. And, who could blame her? Never a man so changed! From an upstanding lad to a thin and fretful loon. She would have moved heaven and earth to break off the match—and that was a good match, too; better even than Vavasour; for Tom owned his farm. Yes, both my girls had lost a match beyond their station, seeing my husband had been nothing . . .”

  “He was a good man,” Samuel Fleming said, leaning back upon his pillow.

  “He was a fool!” Joan Flower answered quick and fierce. “And Meg was his true daughter. But Philip—Philip was mine. Yet if Tom was bewitched by her, it was not by witchcraft—she had as yet no knowledge to bring it about.

  ‘Where is my sister?’ Meg asked cold and spiteful. It had vexed her this long while that Philip had not shared her disgrace.

  ‘In her proper place, I hope; I have not set eyes on her,’ I said.

  ‘I had thought you would bring her home,’ Meg said.

  ‘Why should I? Is not one wench at home enough?’

  ‘It is better to come of her own will; otherwise they will put her out as they put me.’ And she began to cry again, remembering the comforts of the Castle—the piled platters and the great fires and the making of love in dark corners. ‘Certainly they will send my sister away,’ she said and there was satisfaction in her voice. ‘She and I were one in everything and they will soon find it out.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Our Philip is sharp as a needle; she stands in good odour.’

  ‘So did you!’ she reminded me soft and spiteful. ‘They had not
hing against you; but for all that they put you out and my lady will not look upon your face again. And so it must go with Philip! She deserves disgrace as much as I do.’

  Her pleasure in the thought did not last long.

  ‘And how shall we live then?’ she asked. ‘Save for Philip and what she lays hands on, there’s naught but a bare cupboard and miserable scraps.’ For, priest, I had kept her short that I might the sooner bring her to her senses. As for myself, I ate in secret since Rutterkin brought me all I desired. ‘How shall we live?’ Meg asked again. ‘Who will bring us a fat hen or a piece of roast pig?’ And she shut her eyes and drew in her breath as though sniffing the savoury smell.

  ‘Girl,’ I said, ‘I serve a good Master. If we lack from one source, be sure He will provide from another.’

  ‘And meanwhile,’ she said jeering, ‘my belly is empty.’

  ‘If you are hungry,’ I said, ‘I know of a place where you may eat and drink your fill.’

  She looked at me, half-famished, and I said, softly, ‘Tonight is the Sabbath.’

  She cried out at that. She was in mortal fear of being left alone—she had never been one of your brave ones; and now, since the death of her child, she would start at a shadow. Nor had I, for my part, dared to leave her lest she run mad and cry our secrets aloud. To take part in the Sabbath was not only my deep desire—it was my duty. I must be present; and, present or absent, I feared the Master’s anger. I had brought my girl to the last Sabbath and she had profaned it with her tears. For that full amends must be made—both by her and by me. If I did not bring her all willing, tonight, they might well kill me with stones. Win her this time I must.

  I said no more but left her to her hunger and to sweet thoughts of a dead child in an empty house. And, as I pulled my onions and my radishes, I would come, very quiet, and look in at the window. There she sat and she had not moved. And so she sat the long day through.

  It was going on towards twilight when I set the stew-pot on the fire. A fine fat hen; Philip had brought it already cooked and the broth of it in the basin. The smell came up full of savour and Meg had eaten nothing all day. I dipped a mug into the broth and I cut off a leg and I sat down supping my soup and eating my meat. Meg looked up and her nose twitched but she said nothing. She wanted the food; but she sulked still. I took the pot off the fire and set it on a shelf and I could see how the water came up into her mouth. I smiled to myself. Hunger is as good a way as any other to break a stubborn will.

  I set a pan of water upon the fire to wash my body all over; I combed my hair, and I anointed myself for the flight.

  Her sullenness could stand against hunger but never against fear. Her pale eyes were dark with it.

  ‘The Beltane Sabbath is fine,’ I told her. ‘For the Master Himself provides the feast. You have but to say I will have sturgeon or I will have trout; I will have duckling or teal or partridge; I will have blue figs and apricots and almonds. And there they are before you, as much as you can eat. And there is white wine and red; and green wine, also—green as poison. But it is not poison, no, indeed! It runs through your blood like fire so that dancing you leap high, high, high! And after the dancing comes the making of love. . . .’

  ‘I have had enough from the making of love,’ she said slow and surly but I could see how her blood stirred.

  ‘You would get nothing from this save your pleasure,’ I said. ‘It is man that breeds upon us whether we would or no. But the Master has more kindness for poor women. You will get no child out of him nor out of his spirits, save by your own wish.’

  The red came up into her pale face but she said nothing; only her eyes followed wherever I moved. At last she said, ‘I would come with you . . . but I am afraid.’

  I made as though I did not hear. I went over to the bed.

  ‘I am afraid to go,’ she said again. ‘And I am afraid to stay. I am afraid of the dark; and I am afraid of the light—for in the rushlight everything moves and I have strange fancies. I am afraid everywhere in the night because of what we did to my poor child.’ And she began to weep.

  ‘You are afraid of many things,’ I said and stretched myself upon the bed. ‘You are no use to man nor beast; not even to yourself!’ And she looked so poor a thing, all white and shaking, I could have struck her. I made myself gentle. I said, ‘You have heard the priest in church! More than once he has spoken of obedience to God.’ I stopped; I said, very slow, ‘He told us of a father once—it is in the Scriptures—prepared to slay his child at his god’s command.’ She nodded. ‘There,’ I said, ‘is your answer.’ ”

  “Oh,” Samuel Fleming cried out, “I see again how the Devil cites the Scriptures for his own purpose. You did not think fit to remind her that at the last moment, God stayed the hand of his servant Abraham and the child went free?”

  “I am not such a fool, priest. ‘Now you must let me be,’ I said, and I still watched her beneath my lids. ‘I must rest a little.’ And she, all undone with her fear and her hunger, cried out, ‘Let me come with you.’

  ‘No!’ I said. ‘You will weep again; and maybe this time the Master will not be patient.’

  ‘Take me,’ she wept and stretched out her hands. ‘I will not weep.’

  ‘Once you are a witch, sworn and accepted, you will not weep again,’ I said; and I cursed myself for the warning but I could not stop myself. ‘Though your heart swell and your eyelids burst, still you can never weep.’

  ‘I know it,’ she said. ‘And I accept it. My heart is broken. If the Devil can mend it, why then it is his. I will take him for Master.’

  I wasted no more words. I whistled up Rutterkin and commanded him to carry the girl; and I cut my finger and let him lick the blood that she might see how the familiar takes his payment. But I did not let him suck in his secret place lest it make her afraid—she was always a timid thing.

  Though now I would have fed her with choice bits from the pot she could no longer eat, so I combed the tangles of her hair and washed the stain of weeping from her eyes and we set forth. And, once more, when she felt the wind above and below and all about her, she clung to Rutterkin and pressed upon him so that it seemed they must fall together and break on the earth below.

  Margaret lay back upon my cat and her yellow hair streamed downwards till I thought it must become entangled in the treetops. I called out to warn her but she gave no sign. I saw then she had swooned; she was all her father’s child; it was hard to believe she was also my own.

  It was late when we came at last to the place of the Sabbath. Margaret slid off Rutterkin’s back; her eyes were wide and dark with fear and she was deathly pale. I wished, then, with all my heart I had not prevailed upon her. I had hoped to wipe out the shame of that last Sabbath; but now I feared, I feared greatly that at this last moment . . .”

  “God would save her?” Samuel Fleming asked.

  “I did not think of that. I did not think even your god could use so poor a soul.”

  “He makes use of us all.”

  “A pity then he did not make up his mind sooner. Why did he have to bring her to the gallows first?”

  “His ways are not our ways.”

  “Just as well!” she shrugged. “We arrived late, as I have said; and they had come to the end of the business; and the Captain, according to our custom, cried out, Is there further matter? I stood up and I cried out, ‘I bring a servant to my Lord.’

  ‘Let her stand forward!’ the Captain cried.

  I touched Margaret on the arm and she rose up beneath my hand and we took three paces forward. Then the Master came down from his high place. ‘This is the girl that wept,’ He said. And I answered, ‘Yes, Lord.’ Then He said to Margaret, ‘Lift your head.’ And she lifted her head and He said, ‘Are you a willing servant?’ And she said, ‘Yes, Lord.’ Then He said, ‘Speak that all may hear.’ So she lifted her voice and said again, ‘Yes, Lord.’ Then He s
aid, ‘In the presence of this my congregation, I seal you mine.’ And he leant forward and nipped her in the left shoulder so that the blood came. She cried out at that; she was ever a soft thing and the pain is sharp. I saw her eyes blink . . . but no tear fell.

  ‘Now I baptize you in my own name,’ the Master said. Then the Captain brought wine he had stolen from the church—your church, priest—and he hallowed it to our rites. And he signed her upon the forehead with the Devil’s sign, which is your cross standing upon its head. And the Master gave her the name of her new baptism; the name that must not be spoken save at the Sabbath.

  ‘Now you are truly mine,’ He said. ‘Speak your wish and we shall grant it.’

  ‘Vengeance!’ she cried out, and I scarce knew her voice that was always quiet and low, so shrill and clear it was.

  ‘It is granted,’ He said. ‘And we shall consider the manner of it. But first we must hear mass; and you shall be our altar.’ Then I was glad beyond any word. She had been accepted; and she had been given the honour all witches covet. She lay down upon the great stone, so white she was, so shapely and without blemish, that for this one time I had my pride in her.

  Then the Captain, who is also our priest, came to the altar and said the prayers. It is the mass you say in your churches but we say it backward. He knew it well, for he is a priest of your god, also, and if I said his name you would know it.”

  Samuel Fleming groaned and covered his eyes. “Oh that I could die and hear no more.”

  “My Master could grant you death,” Joan Flower said, quick and sly. “A sweet death . . . a falling asleep.”

  “And when I awake?”

  “Eternal peace.”

  “You are clever, witch,” he said, eyes closed. “But you are not clever enough. For there is no peace for me, not even at my Saviour’s feet, without I first save your soul.”