The Witchfinder's Sister

by Beth Underdown

  I did not care about the ring itself, but what it meant – her leaving it to someone else. That was a blow; and a blow, too, that Bridget would conceal it from me.

  Matthew stood up. I thought I had made him awkward, for though he had earlier given me his handkerchief, in the past he had never liked a crying woman, and I knew my eyes were full. But as he moved from his chair his dog set up whining, pacing back and forth towards the door. Rather than look at me, Matthew stooped to sweep the crumbs carefully from the side table into a cupped palm, and cast them into the fire. Then, as though it was an afterthought, he said, ‘Our mother did leave you her clothes.’

  ‘I see,’ I said. A tear escaped down my face.

  Matthew turned away to the hearth, the door opened, and Grace came in with a tray.

  ‘Forgive me, master,’ she said. The dog made a sound, and began to nose around Grace’s feet. Perhaps it was the sight of my red eyes, but loading the tray she fumbled the plates and dropped a crust, which fell to the floor. Bending to fetch it, she knocked the table.

  ‘For God’s sake, Grace, careful,’ Matthew said, and the dog, going for the crust, got under his feet. He seized it quick, gripping the loose flesh behind the ears hard enough that the dog’s eyes stood out white from its pulled skin; then he half threw the animal towards the door. ‘Out,’ he shouted, and it yelped and retreated, disappearing ahead of Grace as she crept out with her loaded tray.

  I tried not to meet Matthew’s eyes, tried not to breathe. The thought came to me that from now on every morsel in my mouth, every stitch on my back, would come from him.

  Matthew stood quite silent, and then, ‘Forgive me,’ he said, in an ordinary voice. ‘I was going to speak of the will another day.’ He turned towards the fire and stood there for a moment, looking into the flames. ‘I have papers to get on with,’ he said.

  I got up, hastily dabbing at my eyes. ‘I could go and sit by the kitchen hearth, if I’d disturb you in here,’ I said. I wanted to be near someone. Even Mary Phillips’s hard face would have been a comfort.

  But Matthew replied, ‘Why not go to your chamber, Alice?’ He crouched to put another log on the fire. ‘I’m sure you need to rest.’

  Climbing the stairs, I put out my hand to the rail, and noticed it shaking. In my chamber, my own fire had burned low. I thought of Father, how often he would tell Mother to rest. Tell her she was tired, as though she were a child. But she would always agree: ‘I am tired, James,’ she would say, and pass a hand over her eyes. I shut my chamber door behind me, and leaned against it, thinking over what had passed.

  It was mention of Bridget, I thought, that had made Matthew angry. He had changed when I had spoken of her new house. That was when he had grown brisk and talked about the will. But it was strange. Though he had never loved Bridget, it was my marriage to Joseph that had truly displeased him. Yet tonight, he had tolerated talk of Joseph as sweetly as anything. But when I had spoken of Bridget?

  I thought of the look in Matthew’s eyes, as he had restrainedly swept up the crumbs from the table. It had not been one of dislike. It had been one of hate, concealed under only the thinnest of veils.

  Here a minister speaks of the best method of watching; see further notes on the same, in the Tendring file.

  Having taken the suspected witch, she is placed in the middle of a room upon a stool, or table, cross-legged, or in some other uneasy posture, to which if she submits not, she is then bound with cords, there is she watched and kept without meat or sleep for the space of 24 hours. For within that time they shall see her imp come and suck; a little hole is likewise made in the door for the imp to come in at: and lest it might come in some less discernible shape, they that watch are taught to be ever and anon sweeping the room, and if they see any spiders or flies, to kill them. And if they cannot kill them, then they may be sure they are her imps.

  7

  I made sure to be up early the next morning, ready for church. Washing my hands, I thought of the woman from the inn at Chelmsford, who had looked at my palm and then turned so pale. The memory did nothing to help me feel calm, but as I scrubbed my face and neck, I was already making my excuses for Matthew: surely he had been tired, frayed. Perhaps it was the fifth time the dog had acted up that day. Perhaps Grace was habitually clumsy, and deserved some admonishment.

  I dressed with care, noticing how difficult it was becoming to lace myself tightly. Brushing my hair, I tried not to brood on Mother’s will, on the mute way she had found to punish me for my neglect. As my night’s sleep had drained me of alarm over Matthew, what had filled me in its place was aggrievedness, that Bridget should have inherited what ought to have been mine, and not had even the good grace to tell me so to my face.

  I thought of how she had hurried to tidy things away when I came to her house the day before. What if it had been Mother’s Bible she had whisked from the table? What if she had been working Mother’s gold ring off her finger and into her pocket, out of sight? The thought, once planted, was hard to dismiss. Then there was the knowledge that she had been to see Mother the day before she died: the day before she amended her will. But though I was hurting, I was certain that it would be explained, just as I was certain that my brother could not be involved in anything unpleasant.

  When Matthew came down, he greeted me cheerfully without quite looking me in the eye. He had a brown leather case with him, which seemed more fitted for business than for worship. As we stepped out into the passage, he said he hoped that I was well rested, and I replied that I was. Grace brought me my hood, then stood back to let us out of the front door.

  There was a hill to climb up the lane to the church. It was not the one we had attended when we were young, the newer one nearer the docks in Manningtree; this was the other church, the one I had been married in. From Bridget’s letters, I knew that there was a different minister now. The day was fine, almost warm, with small high clouds; in the sunlight, I found my eye could pretend it saw a first show of green in the fields and hedges.

  As we walked, Matthew did not speak of the night before. Rather, he said, ‘I should think that many folk will remember you.’ Then he glanced at the houses we were passing, and began to tell me who had been born in them since I had been gone, and who had died. We passed a short row of cottages, and Matthew said, ‘I did the papers for Sir Harbottle Grimston, when he bought these last year. These are his tenants now.’

  Thinking to speak while I had my courage, I said, ‘Brother, I hear that you have been helping him – Grimston. Scribing, for certain proceedings that are to be taken in the town.’

  We had reached the church gate. Matthew stopped. ‘He is my client, Alice. I cannot discuss his business in the street.’ His voice was gentle, no more than reproving. He held open the gate for me, then squeezed my arm and tucked it into his own as we set off up the path. ‘Come and meet everyone again,’ he said, and then we were at the church door, and he was returning the greeting of Richard Edwards, who had hailed him, and I saw Matthew grasp his hand, his smile never faltering.

  Once we were inside the church, more people wished Matthew good day. He introduced me to several, and I did remember them, after Matthew reminded me of their names. Those who had been parents when I left were some of them now grandparents; most of the girls of my own age keeping eagle eyes on their own little children. Likewise most, I could tell, remembered me. Some took my hands, and told me how good it was to see me looking so well and how much they had loved Mother, but none asked after Joseph. I do not think they had forgotten I had been married; I think they were too polite to mention it, and though they must have suspected that my mourning was for my husband as well as for Mother, it was easier to give their condolences only for her. I saw it might have had a certain weight, their tact, their politeness, which since my marriage to Joseph my brother would have had to withstand.

  I waited behind Matthew while he talked, glancing around for Bridget. I could not see her, but as we at last filed into a pew near the front, I n
oticed the new minister making his way forward to the pulpit. In my experience of those who had come to dine with us in the vicarage at Wenham, there were two kinds of men who were ministers: those, like my father, who looked as though after preaching their sermon they might find it agreeable to spend an hour digging over their vegetable gardens – solid men, with outdoor complexions – and then the thin, earnest kind, who looked as though they most often did forget to eat. This new minister, I noticed, was thin, but more as though whatever he ate he would burn up too quickly. He was young, with the kind of curly brown hair that will never look tidy, however closely it is cropped.

  I turned away from him, as the rustle of the congregation sitting down faded. I looked around again for Bridget, among the servants and labourers gathered at the back, but she was still not there.

  The new minister preached simply but well. I found I could follow what he said without watching his lips, so I used the time to look about me. The church had changed since Dowsing had visited. While I had been in London, Bridget had written to us of him, William Dowsing: a little, wiry man, who held a piece of paper from the Earl of Manchester and had travelled the length of the county breaking church statues, beating the Latin prayers off bells, and getting paid to do so. I knew there was hardly a church round about that had escaped his loving attention.

  There was a plain light, now, there in the church, with the coloured glazing gone. The hands had been knocked off the praying saints that stood guard over each pillar, making the figures appear more, not less, beseeching; surely not what the great man had intended. As I listened to the sermon, the saints met my eyes piteously, holding out their martyred stumps. I tried to remember the warm day I had been married there, when the building had felt blessedly cool, smelling gently of stone. Now, even with the bodies packed into it, the place was chill.

  My mind went back to the day in London when I had given in, and gone to Joseph’s so-called church. I did it to try to bring him back to me, to mend the distance our losses had made, but before we were even inside I knew that I should not have come there. The place was too near the shambles, and you could smell the beasts and the mixture of blood and shit that is like no other smell. I thought that Joseph could not have had the right street, but then he stepped up to a door and tapped on it. When it opened I saw a crowd of faces turned towards us, whitened by the daylight. On the threshold, I hesitated.

  ‘Shut the door,’ someone said.

  The room was a poor ground-floor workshop, the tools and tables pushed aside, and tallow candles for light. Someone was speaking, his text taken from Romans, and the fellow blundered his way through it. I was struck by his rough voice, his certain manner, how quick he was and how sure to expound the meaning of what trained minds have fretted over for generations. But his voice, though rough, had a depth and a note and an urgency that was compelling and bound his congregation together in their rapt attention. He was a gunmaker, Joseph admitted to me later, and among the crowd were leather-sellers and cow-keepers and journeymen, apprentices from the surrounding district.

  As I listened to the man preach, I thought how his star must be rising, with the times disordered, the sky so red with war. Today a poor workshop, but tomorrow where might he not go? A man who has taught himself to read. Who, though his voice is rough, when he speaks somebody listens; and more like him, in a hundred cellars across London.

  In a pause between speakers, Joseph steered me to the side of the room, where there was a large tub, of the kind great laundries use. I thought it was empty, until a drip from the ceiling landed in the water below. Joseph saw me looking. ‘That is where folk are baptized,’ he said. ‘They must crouch, and put their heads under.’ He saw my face. ‘They are full-clothed, when it happens,’ he said, but I dare say I did not seem comforted. Indeed I brooded on it, as we walked home: you could be arrested, hauled before a magistrate, for dipping folk. God knew I was no Papist, but it seemed my husband had gone the other way, had fallen in with those who do not care about the law or the old ways of doing things, those who think they can make the Bible mean whatever they say it means.

  It was a month or so later that Joseph came home wet through from his collar to his hose. He was elated, and though the weather was cold it was all I could do to make him sit near the fire. His smooth head with his hair plastered down looked as round as a child’s when I put a blanket about him; even in the act of wrapping him warmly, I could feel my husband slipping away from me. Later, as I lay next to him in bed, he felt entirely cold, like corpse-flesh.

  †

  After the service I stood waiting, hands folded, for Matthew to finish speaking with his friends. I was aware of the minister shaking someone’s hand near the front of the church, before he made his way up the aisle towards the doors. I expected him to pass me by, but instead he stopped and smiled. He had nice hands; no wedding ring. ‘A new face,’ he said.

  ‘Sir, I am Master Hopkins’s sister.’ He waited. ‘Alice. My husband lately died. We lived in London, sir.’

  He bowed slightly. ‘Yes,’ he said. His eyes rested on my black dress, before raising themselves to my face again. ‘What did you think of the sermon? If you’ve been living in London, you must be used to subtler preaching than mine.’

  ‘I liked the simplicity of it, sir,’ I said. I caught his merry look, felt myself reddening. ‘That is – I knew what it was that you meant. Believe me, that is an advance on many of your London preachers.’ I met his eyes again; my face felt hot.

  He nodded, and smiled. ‘Well salvaged, mistress,’ he said. He glanced at the door, where several faces were turned towards us: they were waiting on him, to make their farewells. ‘Well,’ he said, gesturing towards them, ‘I ought to –’

  I stepped aside. ‘Of course.’

  As he moved away, Matthew took my arm. ‘Alice. You remember Master Edwards’s sister?’

  There was a woman beside him, slight with brown hair, the look of a small hedge bird, a single wary eye between leaves. ‘Indeed,’ I said. As Matthew turned away, the woman offered her hand. I tried to dredge up what I knew of her: five years older than I, or ten. She lived with her brother, Richard, and his wife – Ruth, that was her name.

  ‘I’m sorry about your husband,’ she said. ‘The Lord rest his soul,’ she added, with a pious look.

  ‘I thank you,’ I replied. ‘Amen.’ The hum of sober conversation was rising up around us, each murmured exchange confusing the others. I was no longer used to crowds. Close by us, I was distracted by a pair of women, who were trying to decide whether the winter’s last frost had come down.

  ‘You don’t have children?’ Ruth Edwards said.

  I smiled, shaking my head. ‘No.’

  ‘Well, I suppose that will make it easier.’ She must have seen my expression. ‘To start again,’ she added. I could have been mistaken, but I thought she then flicked her eyes to the church door, where the minister stood. I felt myself colouring again, not knowing how to answer. I could not tell whether she had meant it unkindly, but as I tried to think whether I had stood or laughed in a way that was improper, I heard one of the women beside us say, ‘For certain, Rebecca West is accused for a witch as well.’

  In shock I turned full towards the women, catching their attention as I did so. I did not know either of them. One frowned, for it was clear I had been listening. She touched her friend’s arm, and together they turned away.

  ‘Ruth,’ someone else said then, ‘we’re going,’ and I turned back to Ruth Edwards. She was staring at me, and her face was thoughtful.

  But suddenly Matthew was there and I had to take my leave of four people or five, then stand still and avoid the minister’s eye while Matthew shook his hand at the door, all the time thinking, Rebecca West. Remembering Bridget saying how others had been accused. Rebecca West was a name I had once thought never to hear again, and it turned me cold to hear it so soon after I had been thinking of Joseph. It turned me cold, to hear it spoken of in the same breath as witchcraft.


  And yet it made a grim sense, I thought, as I walked behind Matthew out of the church. For Rebecca West’s mother, Anne, had been accused of it once before, I remembered, in one of those infrequent suits so clearly a product of small local dispute that the judge would throw them out almost before he had drawn breath. For unlike Bess Clarke, Anne West had clean fingernails, and most of her own teeth, and she had never been a burden on the parish. She was not from Manningtree, but had moved there from further south, three years after us; a widow, and before that a sailor’s wife.

  Instead of going to church, Anne West would wait at the lych gate afterwards, selling an infusion that the women found good for their cramps, the ointment they liked for their babies’ scalps. Doubtless it was no harm, a bit of grease and scent. She could easily have gone around the houses with the stuff, passed the jars close-handed in warm kitchens, as most women would. But she liked to taunt the Lawford minister, John Edes, a red-faced man even without provocation. When his pigs got rotten mouths, he had found it easy to know who to blame; but Anne West had eventually been acquitted, and that had been the end of it. I had never spoken two words to Anne West, could hardly remember her face. But of her daughter Rebecca’s face, I could still picture every detail.

  ‘Come and see our mother’s grave,’ my brother said, interrupting my thoughts, and he led me around the side of the church. The grave was at the southern end, in the dry shadow of a large yew. It was dim, under the tree; above, the sky was lowering, and suddenly it felt as if it would rain. No stone had gone up yet, but Matthew described the one he had sketched out for the mason. I hardly heard him.

  I had thought coming back would be simple, but I saw now that it was not; that I had walked back into a thicket of something. Suddenly I felt the low simmer of threat. And though it was not aimed at me, still it made me want to hold my breath, say nothing. I knew I must try to force myself to be easy with Matthew. To be direct.