The Witchfinder's Sister

by Beth Underdown

  ‘Found them,’ I said.

  Matthew was putting on his gloves. ‘Straight back to the Thorn, when you’ve locked up here,’ he said blandly.

  The keys when I passed them to him were warm from my grip, though my hand itself was frozen. I tried to clutch some warmth back into it, as I watched him walk away.

  I made Grace sit in the parlour while I searched the house. I could not know what she had overheard of my talk with Matthew, but she seemed uneasy; no doubt she had gathered enough. I was fearful as I searched, half angrily, determined to prove that there was nothing there at all. I looked carefully around the kitchen, under the table, the space beneath the stairs. I searched the guest chamber, the bed tucked neat away; on the landing I tried again each of the locked doors, and even listened at them, but I could hear no movement through the wood.

  In truth, I do not know what I could sensibly have been looking for: perhaps my brother’s dog, secreted somewhere to be collected later. But Matthew had not left my sight the night before, and the thought of him arranging it all to frighten me made little sense; he had not known where I would be. I tried to govern myself to be calm. Matthew would be with Grimston that day, and I was already out of the Thorn. I made up my mind. I came back downstairs, and sent Grace home, telling her I had some further errands in town. She looked weary and perturbed, and it did not take much encouragement to make her gather her things and leave.

  As I locked the door, hearing her crunch away over the gravel, I turned to the strawberry bed again: it looked back at me, smooth, giving nothing away. I almost wished that I had not raked over those marks, for now would have been my chance to examine them more closely, whether they contained anything that could have been the print of a boot. I tried to dismiss the feeling of whatever had brushed against my legs: tried to think that it could have been Matthew’s hand, or his coat, or nothing at all.

  11

  I nearly turned away from Bridget’s front door, when I had knocked on the post the third time and still she didn’t come. I was loath to call out or hammer louder on the wood, not wishing to draw the notice of her neighbours. But when I tried the door, it opened.

  Inside, the room was dim, the shutters still closed, and it took me a moment to see the humped shape in the chair by the hearth. Bridget got up, dragging on her shawl. ‘Alice.’

  On the table lay the same round of bread, half gone now and slowly drying in the air, my letter beside it. The same few bits of washing hung from the line rigged up over the fire. The fire itself was mostly ash. She had neglected to change her linen.

  Suddenly I was not sure how to begin. ‘I missed you in church on Sunday.’ She did not answer. ‘I’ll speak to the minister. You won’t get fined, I’m sure you will not. Not for just once.’

  She looked at me. ‘So now you have seen him, what do you think?’ I thought she meant the minister, until she said, ‘Matthew.’

  I licked my lips, and put down my bag. ‘He met a woman in Ipswich said she was his wet nurse. And she told him that he came to her a few days old, and already burned, already marked. He reminded me of how you left our mother’s service not long after he was born.’ Her eyes had not left my face, and I said, ‘Bridget, you need to tell me the truth, now. If there was an accident, you must tell me. You must tell me what you know.’

  I expected anger from her, but she only turned away, back to the fire. She sat down in her chair heavily. ‘I am sorry he has found out. It does explain some things.’ She shook her head. ‘She was a good woman, that wet nurse. It was a shame, how her reputation suffered.’

  I stayed standing. ‘She spoke the truth, then?’

  ‘Alice, there was no accident.’ She nodded at the chair across from her. ‘Your brother was burned the day he was born.’ Shakily, I let myself down into the seat. Suddenly I thought I knew what it was she had to tell me.

  ‘Your mother’s labour started well enough, in the morning,’ Bridget said. ‘I had made her up a bed in the kitchen, for it got warmer in there, you could build up the fire larger. I judged she would have a baby before it was dark again, so your father went off for the doctor, for she would not have a midwife, none being to her liking. Then two o’clock passed, and three, and she was tiring. Your father was not back. The country was deep in snow.’ She stopped, looked at me. ‘You know as well as I that your mother was not right in her mind. Well, I never saw her as she was that day. I remember her pleading for a minister, pleading for your father to take out what was inhabiting her: I tried to keep her calm, told her that a minister would be neither use nor ornament, but if she would only do what I told her she would come through it. Then, your father still gone, the pains quickened, and Matthew was born.’ She hesitated, choosing her words. ‘He did not cry on the instant, I think he had been somewhat squashed, and his not crying, I think it troubled your mother. She said, “Why won’t it cry?” And I said, “Look, it’s a boy.” I remember she said, “It’s not a good baby, is it?” and she was asking had it all its fingers. And I said, “Hush, he’s a perfect baby,” and then he set up with a bit of crying, and that seemed to quiet her.’

  Bridget shook her head. ‘I sometimes think, if there had been someone else there, a midwife … if it had not snowed … In any case, I sat with her for some minutes, after he was out and the cord cut and the afterbirth come away. She seemed clearer in her mind than she had been as she laboured, but she would not lie quiet on the bed. She would be up and walking. At length, I persuaded her to sit in the rocking chair by the hearth. It was drawn up close to the blaze. I had put all the mess on the fire, and the baby was feeding a little, so I thought it would be all right to go out to the privy, I had not been since the morning – God forgive me, I was gone three minutes at the most. And when I came back –’ She stopped.

  ‘What?’

  Bridget spoke her next words quietly. ‘I came in from the yard, and I saw she was not supporting the child up to the breast, but holding him in her lap, staring at him. Like something unpleasant on a tray.’ She gestured. ‘She had her feet up on the hearthstone, like this. And then she looked up at me, she looked me clear in the eye, and then she just stood up. And he fell.’ She joined her hands. ‘He fell limp, as a child that age will, and of course did not fall full into the fire but struck the grate – his face struck the grate and his hands were in the fire. It cannot have been for more than a moment or two, but I could scarce believe – And then I was pushing your mother away, and I snatched him out. He was wailing by then, and the sound of that seemed to bring her back, and I had knocked her down when I pushed her.’ She glanced away. ‘But it was that moment your father came in the door. He had ridden ahead of the doctor. He stood in the kitchen doorway and stared at us, your mother weeping on the floor, myself crouching by the hearth. And he took Matthew from me, and I still think now that if I had been able to get some snow on those burns, they might have done better. The doctor was an hour behind. Your father pushed me out of the room. I heard voices raised, your mother weeping, making no sense. I hammered at the door, asked if he would not let me help her, help the baby. But no one answered. When he came out a few minutes later, I had to watch him throwing my things out into the snow around the back doorstep. And so I went.’ There was a silence.

  ‘But why – but why did she not tell him the truth?’

  ‘She did, I think, later. But I was gone by then, settled in Manningtree.’

  ‘But then Father – how did they lie about it, for all this time?’

  ‘For shame, Alice. What mother wants her children to know that her mind is so poorly? What parents would wish to explain that? I think they wanted to distance that sad event from your mother entirely. And I loved her enough not to gainsay it, not even when I heard how they blamed the wet nurse. I think perhaps your mother insisted on that, so evil rumours would not follow me. Though I feel sorry for her – the wet nurse, how she suffered.’ She fixed her eyes on me. ‘After Matthew met her, did he never speak to your mother of it?’

&n
bsp; ‘He said not. So you must tell him the truth of it, now. We must.’

  There was the smallest pause. ‘But would he believe it?’ Bridget said. ‘Folk look for someone to blame, and Matthew is no different. Perhaps it is better, if he blames me. He loved your mother well.’ She looked distant. ‘All those years he had the physician coming, when there was nothing he could do for her, poor lady. I do not think we can change your brother’s mind now, about the nature of her illness. Though I am certain that it is no shame, but a sickness like any other sent from God. Only that you cannot put a poultice on a mind. You cannot so easily draw the poison out.’ She shook her head. ‘No. Even if he could be made to believe it, it would break him, send him worse. I don’t mind if he hates me. It is enough that I made my peace with your mother. We were friends again, by the end.’

  As she spoke, my mind was working, trying to understand. Now, carefully, I said, ‘So I hear.’

  Bridget frowned. ‘He told you about the will.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’

  ‘I knew how it would hurt you. She left you her gowns?’

  I nodded.

  ‘But she left you nothing else?’

  I was surprised that she would push, when she knew that the little Mother owned of value had gone to her. ‘No, Bridget, nothing else,’ I said, sharply.

  She frowned, and reached into her pocket, brought out the gold ring, and placed it on the table with a click. ‘She left me this, with her Bible,’ she said.

  ‘Matthew thought you might have sold it.’

  ‘I don’t want it,’ she said, and pushed it across the table to me.

  But I pushed it back. ‘No, Bridget. She meant it for you, clearly.’ It made all the more sense, now, how Mother had seemed bound to Bridget; that she might have been grateful enough to leave her something of worth when she died.

  Bridget studied her hands. ‘You must believe me, I did not wish for this. When your mother took me in, I had nothing. She was so merry and content when I first knew her … She was the first soul I ever loved. I have tried always to do right by her family.’

  ‘Then respect her wishes now. It seems clear enough she was displeased with me.’

  She looked up at me. ‘I do not think it was that. The day before she died, she spoke of you. She prayed for your coming.’

  I bit my lip. ‘That is not why I am here, Bridget. I did not come for the ring. I came to learn what is in my brother’s heart.’ I stood up, and paced to the table. After a moment, I said, ‘You were right about Bess Clarke. My brother was at her house last night. And I heard the Wests named, at church.’ I watched her face.

  She was quiet, and then she said, ‘Not just Anne West?’

  ‘Rebecca, too.’ It felt peculiar to say her name, after all this long time.

  Bridget’s face was fearful. She had always been as fond of Rebecca as I disliked her. ‘I didn’t know. Since you came I’ve not been out.’

  ‘No,’ I said, trying not to look at the uncovered bread on the table.

  ‘So, then, who else?’ said Bridget. I looked at her. ‘I hoped they would leave off at Bess Clarke. But if he’s named the Wests, it won’t stop there.’

  ‘I don’t know, Bridget. The Wests are not well liked. Other times, it’s been one woman or two, then matters die down. Perhaps this time, it will be three.’

  ‘Grimston sent four to Colchester seven years ago.’

  ‘And they were all acquitted.’

  She shook her head. ‘Things have changed since then, God knows. You weren’t here when there were riots, when they sacked the Countess Rivers’s house, the priory at St Osyth.’

  I sat down again. ‘I remember. You wrote to Joseph of it.’

  ‘But you didn’t see it. Bands of the young men going from village to village, smashing things, setting fires wherever Catholics were whispered to live. And then there was Dowsing, smashing things with a bit of paper to sanction it, smashing things on commission.’

  I frowned. ‘You think this is about piety? Bess Clarke might say the old prayers. But Anne West is no Papist.’

  Bridget dropped her head. ‘I don’t know. If it is about piety, it’s as much about what there is to go around. For men like Edwards, like Cutler –’ She broke off, thinking, and then went on more firmly, ‘Listen, men like that, as much as they are Bible men they are rich men. They have good businesses, they have warm households and families. They try to make themselves perfect before their God.’ She stopped again, struggling to say what she meant. ‘Right, but think of a misfortune. Say – say a child dies. Now, a poor man of small learning, when his child dies, he is like enough to stack up the death with all his other misfortunes, and throw up his hands. But a rich man, the misfortunes that befall him are dwarfed by the ones he fears. He feels guilty at having so much, yet defiant. A certain kind of poor woman, she is at once a reproach to his good fortune and a threat. Even if he does not know it, such a man lives in expectation of a levelling, and rather than wait for one, he strikes first.’

  I was quiet for a moment. ‘You have given it some thought,’ I said.

  Her face was grim. ‘It gets you thinking, when folk start stealing your thatch.’

  When I was young, we had spoken often, but Bridget had never talked to me like that. As an adult, confiding her fears. I leaned forward. ‘But what you describe, it seems so – thought out.’

  ‘Don’t misunderstand me. Edwards, Grimston and the rest, I doubt they consider it thus. They know only that they are angry. Afraid.’ She bit her lip. ‘Matthew is angry and afraid. But you know him best. He’ll listen to you.’ She leaned back. ‘Your brother’s never taken to me. But it isn’t me on my way to Colchester gaol. Leave all the rest of it aside. Let us not risk vexing him, with talk of his birth. But you must bring him to his senses about this sad business in Manningtree.’

  Suddenly she seemed weary. I had been going to talk to her further, about the marks in the strawberry bed, but I put away the thought. Though she was feigning bravery, she looked frail. She did not need frightening. ‘I am sure all will be well,’ I said. I got up, and put on my shawl. ‘So, promise me you will eat something?’ I pointed. ‘Not that bread? You’ve lost weight, Bridget. You must eat.’

  We went to the door. ‘It is hard to make myself cook, just for one,’ she said.

  I made my way back over the heath. My hands were numb: I had not even noticed the cold at Bridget’s. I wondered whether she had been saving fuel, or whether she was too taken up with grief to mend the fire.

  I wondered, too, whether anyone would have noticed me gone, whether Matthew would be back. Perhaps, it being Lady Day, he would have stayed for a glass of something. Grimston must be in high spirits after the sight of his long line of tenants waiting to pay their rent and make their mark in the rolls. I hoped he had detained my brother, and I could slip back in at the Thorn unnoticed.

  If Bridget were telling the truth, it made sense of how Mother had always behaved with Matthew, how she could scarcely bear for him to be far from her; how she was too careful with him – and too rough with me, as a consequence. It was hard to imagine Father lying, but perhaps to spare Mother shame he would have done so. But that Matthew hated Bridget now and suspected her of having had a hand in his accident was clear enough. I felt scared for her: I knew that Matthew would rather believe anything than that Mother’s problems had had their origin in her mind. It cut too near for him to his own childhood strangenesses; the superstitions and fears that I had thought, till the night before, he had left behind.

  When I came to the Thorn, it was as I hoped, and taking off my cloak, I was able to get inside unobserved. There were no servants in the kitchen, only Matthew’s dog. Standing quite still, I watched it limp over to its water bowl. There was a good fire in the room, but I felt no warmth from it. Instead I felt again what I had felt the night before: the solid push of something against my skirts as I had held open the door for Matthew; the thing I knew I had felt and, try as I might, I could not d
ismiss.

  The testimony of Prudence Hart, wife of Thomas Hart of Lawford, given against the Wests before Sir Harbottle Grimston in April, this year of our Lord 1645.

  This informant saith, that about eight week since, being at her parish church, on the Sabbath day, and being about twenty weeks gone with child, and to her thinking, very well and healthful, upon the sudden she was taken with great pains, and miscarried before she could be got home; and this examinant saith, that about two months since, being in her bed, in the night, something fell down upon her right side, but being dark, she cannot tell in what shape it was: And that presently she was taken lame on that side, with extraordinary pains and burning, but recovered again within a few days after: And this informant further saith, that she verily believeth, that Rebecca West, and Anne West her mother, were the cause of her pains.

  12

  I scarcely saw my brother over the next days. Each morning I rose and washed, though I waited an hour at times for Grace to bring me hot water. With how Matthew was occupied, I took to breaking my fast in my chamber, to keep clear of the folk he was inviting each day now into the downstairs parlour. Grace did not say, at first, who they were or why they came, and I did not press her, for I did not wish to bring trouble on her from my brother. I knew I should be trying to speak to him, but he scarce stood still, and it had shaken me, the business that night at Mother’s house.

  And there was another reason I let matters drift. That was the week when I first felt the child inside me flutter. I was standing over a basin washing my hair, when I felt it. I stood up straight, thinking I had imagined it; kept still, water streaming over my shoulders. I did not believe it until I felt it flutter once more, then lurch into life. Joy made me cover my mouth with my hand. At once I felt different: afraid. It seemed doubly important, after that, to retain my brother’s favour.

  So for a while I kept to my chamber at the Thorn, or walked out gently along the river path towards the town. But one day, coming in from my walk, the passage being oddly quiet, I lingered near the parlour door, and heard Prudence Hart’s voice, saying Rebecca West’s name. How she could not get a husband herself but must lure the husbands of her betters. How she was a harlot, and everyone knew it, and though she had a pure face, for certain she had a rotten heart.