The Witchfinder's Sister

by Beth Underdown

  Taylor picked up his glass again. ‘I should hope it does. For while it no doubt resides in families – a taint in the blood, if you will, and I am certain you do right to look into daughters, mothers, and so on – I do wonder if we should think also of neighbours. Familiar friends. For I dined once on the road with a surgeon who served the lunatics at Bedlam, and it was his opinion that madness could be passed on not only through kinship but also by frequent companionship. If madness can be passed on, could not weakness? Could not vice? And you know these women, they are always in and out of each other’s houses …’

  As Taylor rattled on, I felt my face redden, and saw Richard Edwards’s head turn to Matthew. Edwards, the only one among the guests who had conversed with Mother. Who knew something of her trouble.

  My brother wouldn’t meet his eye. He simply said to me, ‘You must be tired, sister.’ He spoke up to the company. ‘We should have a care for my sister’s health.’

  I put down my napkin, and stood up. ‘Indeed. Gentlemen, you must excuse me. I am for my bed.’

  They got up with me, and said pleasantries as I backed out of the door. With it shut behind me, the passage was dark: Mary and Grace must have been having their own dinner. It was cool there, and I lingered, my hand on the doorframe, my face hot from wine and shame.

  On the other side of the wood I heard the low hum of conversation start up again, and I was about to move away when one or two of the voices grew louder as more than one man began speaking at once. I heard Matthew say, ‘confession’, and then, ‘proper method of interrogation’. I heard someone mention St Osyth, and Great Bentley; I heard John Stearne say, ‘Six or seven in Great Holland alone.’

  It was clear that they intended my brother’s business to expand through the Tendring Hundred; it struck me that what was in train was a process, organized and methodical, not merely a piece of random spite. And more: though he had described it as Grimston’s business, it was my brother’s voice I heard most frequently, coming through the shut door. It was clear that Matthew was not at the edge of the matter: he was at its centre. As I listened, I could hear my own heart thumping, as in the parlour the men who ran Manningtree discussed their next steps. A heavy tread from down the passage drove me away up the dark stairs; Mary Phillips, come to see if anything was wanted.

  In my chamber later, the shouted farewells of the men broke the evening’s stillness. Lying in bed, I listened to them, and I wonder now where in truth the real power rested that night: whether in the hands of men like Grimston, men like Edwards. Whether it slept with the King at Oxford in an ordinary bed, dormant, like a taint in the blood. Whether it rested on the waiting benches of the Commons, or whether it went home with their plain occupants, like a shilling in each of their pockets.

  I think the truth is that, rather than resting in any one or several places, all real power had gone loose by that night through the realm; and the land might have belonged to any man. Any man with the will to impose on others his own strange mission. Any man with the will to say, ‘This is what we shall do.’

  17

  I walked quietly beside Matthew to church the next day, and though he spoke little, I felt as though he was watching me more carefully than usual. I wondered whether he was angry at how I had spoken out the night before. I wondered about Father’s daily book, whether Matthew had noticed it gone, but he said nothing to make me think he had. Still, I was relieved to get to church that we might leave off our stilted conversation, and that I might rest myself, for the baby weighed on me.

  But the brief solace I felt as I sat down in the pew was soon dispelled, when I overheard the talk of those behind us. One man telling his neighbour he had heard that Elizabeth Gooding had killed five head of someone’s cattle; the neighbour replying that it was a shame someone so rotten could appear so good. Hearing that made me listen to the talk of those in front of us and to either side; I heard Bess Clarke mentioned, and the Leeches. When the minister stepped up to the pulpit, everyone broke off their talk and settled fervently to prayer, but in the gaps between prayers, the name I heard whispered around me was that of Rebecca West. Rebecca Wessst, echoing, hissing through the church.

  The spring I was twenty-one, Rebecca West was fifteen, but she looked older. Her mother Anne was in the gaol, awaiting her trial. Bridget had moved Rebecca into the little alcove bed behind the kitchen hearth, and that spring, in between cooking and washing, the girl began her campaign of looking through her hair at Joseph, of touching his hand under pretence of taking his empty dish.

  Once, I had come to see Joseph, late – Matthew was in Ipswich, and by then Mother went early to her bed. Joseph slept downstairs, and I could tap at his window; we had never done more than kiss, and every time I felt the thrill of being out alone in the twilight to see him. I came into Bridget’s back garden, checking behind me to be sure I was not seen, and then, as I rounded the wall, I saw him standing by the bench, peering up at the sky. I was about to whisper, when the dark shape of him moved, divided from itself: it was not one figure, I saw, but two. In the moonlight I caught the flash of Rebecca’s pale hair, her face as she murmured something, then hurried away up the steps, shutting the door softly behind her.

  I should have asked him then whether he was fond of her. But I did not: I let it fester. Even when I had a ring on my finger and we were miles away from Manningtree, I still could not dismiss the sight of that single dark shape in the yard. I could not quash the thought that if there had been any money between them she would have been his choice. And as our marriage wore on, wore down, in the manner I have described, as I lost one child and then another, somehow as the years went by Rebecca West did not disappear. She lay under every disagreement: the choice my husband had not made, the phantom wife he had not taken. She lay between us, I felt, even in our bed. So it was mired in the worst mixed feelings that I heard her name whispered in Manningtree church that day.

  †

  After the prayers, you could feel folk waiting to discover what sermon the new minister would preach: half expecting, perhaps, something from Exodus; something with warnings, something with punishments. But instead, the minister took Job as his text, from the fourth chapter: how They that plough iniquity, and sow wickedness, do reap the same. I was heartened by his brave choice, and waited for him to speak out more explicitly against the fever of accusation that had gripped the town. But he said nothing overt, spoke only in a careful, general way, and I found myself disappointed.

  After the sermon, I stood by while Matthew conversed with Richard Edwards a little. I was at a loss for what to do – for how to speak to my brother, having failed so badly the last time. I was glad, for once, that Bridget was absent from church: it felt suddenly delicate, what I had to accomplish. Before long, Ruth Edwards drifted over to me, and I prepared a smile. ‘I hear I am to congratulate you,’ I said.

  ‘The end of September, we have settled upon,’ Ruth replied. It sounded blessedly far off, and yet the uttering of any date at all made it seem grossly real. She looked at Matthew, where he was deep in talk with her brother. ‘I never thought I would marry,’ she said.

  I thought, She thinks of marriage like a promotion overdue, like a clerk who has hankered after a higher stool, a larger pen. I felt my baby move, the almost-pain of it, and tried to refrain from rubbing my back.

  Ruth Edwards was telling me how she would simply wear her best tawny gown for the wedding. That she had decided against any flowers in her hair. ‘I don’t want to seem girlish,’ she explained. I tried to imagine Ruth Edwards looking girlish. I tried to imagine them lying together, but it was like thinking of two wooden boards, two playing cards. I knew I must make an effort with her, for I would soon depend on her goodwill as surely as on Matthew’s, and my child would, too. I watched her talk, wondering what had led Matthew to match with her. For certain he would profit from having the Edwards family as kin. It was hard to think he wanted Ruth for love, or even lust. As she talked on about her wedding plans, I thought how
at her age she would have had little choice, when Matthew proposed himself: and for a moment, I pitied her.

  Richard Edwards joined us, took his sister’s arm and tucked it into his own. ‘I do not know how we will manage,’ he said, smiling. For his Ruth had always made sure, he told me, that all the lights were out last thing. She rotated the linen and taught his little girls their lessons. She was even up first in the morning, making their butter and cheese in the cold room they had at the back of the house. I wondered if he was in some fashion saying what would be expected of me, the unwed sister; I thought of myself, churning in the before-dawn light, my hands as chilled as milk, waiting patiently for the butter to come.

  Ruth smiled, then lowered her head in compulsory modesty. ‘But, brother, Alice is quite as useful as I am. She is trained as a midwife, and Matthew tells me she quite took care of herself and her husband when they lived in London.’

  I felt my face grow hot: I had forgotten my lie. Richard was nodding, and not fully listening: he had been hailed from the entry by his wife’s brother, and excused himself to make his farewells. I wished that Ruth would go away as well, but I made myself turn to her, and smile. ‘Shall we?’ I said, gesturing after him. Together, Ruth Edwards and I wandered out into the fresh air. The day was mild, and it was pleasant to stand in the breeze beside the great holly tree. I said, ‘I confess I was surprised, when I heard of it. I was not aware that you and my brother knew each other so well.’

  ‘It is true, we have not been much together,’ she said. She seemed glad at my softening.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘you will be able to remedy it, this summer.’

  I felt her look at me. ‘Perhaps I will see more of him,’ she said, ‘though I do think he will be well enough occupied, and I must encourage him, must I not, to do his duty? For you know there have been more accusations, at Thorpe-le-Soken, and all thereabouts.’ This I had heard the night before, and I knew Matthew’s warrant included that place. But then she added, ‘I did ask him whether he wanted to be married sooner, so that I could go with him and see after his comfort. But he said we would never get the banns read in time. He seemed to think you would not be able to accompany him. But he said there is a girl in your household who will do well enough to go and help. Grace, is it?’

  I tried to keep my face even. ‘Yes,’ I said: thinking, But help with what?

  Just then Matthew came out of the church porch and towards us. He stopped beside Ruth Edwards and took her arm, holding it awkwardly, as you would a stick. His eye had been caught by something at the lych gate. I turned my head and saw what he was looking at. It was Bridget.

  I asked Ruth to excuse me, felt Matthew’s eyes upon me as I hurried down the path. As I got nearer, it was clear that Bridget had slept in her clothes. When I was close enough, I said, ‘What are you doing? Why did you not come in to the service?’

  For a moment, Bridget searched my face. Then she said, ‘What I think is, you are still jealous. After all this time. You were his wife, Alice. You’ve got his child in your belly. What has Rebecca got?’

  ‘Quiet,’ I said, and thought, Surely she is drunk. Glancing back, I saw Matthew watching us, smiled at him and raised one finger. ‘Get here,’ I said, between my teeth, hauling Bridget with me through the gate and around the corner. She pulled away from me. I was stronger, but only just. Finally, out of sight behind the hedge, she slipped my grasp, and we stood, regarding each other, panting.

  ‘I have been waiting for you to do something,’ she said. ‘But now I hear he is going all through Essex, and still you’ve done nothing.’

  Folk were starting to drift out through the gate. I had to make her hush, come away. I tried to speak calmly. ‘And you think this will help, do you?’ I said. I governed myself. ‘It is a bigger matter than we first thought, I grant you. But they will be held for a time and let go. I am certain nothing has been done that is unseemly.’

  ‘Not unseemly? What – apart from bruises like that on Rebecca West’s thigh?’ She showed three inches with finger and thumb.

  I stopped. ‘You didn’t go and see them?’

  She smiled. ‘I took a quantity of beer for Stephen Hoy, who keeps the gaol at Colchester. I said that Matthew sent me to check on the women.’

  I watched her, disbelieving. ‘Have you been knocked simple?’ I whispered, but her face stayed mutinous, cold.

  ‘Have you even tried to talk to him?’ she said.

  ‘Of course I tried,’ I said.

  Folk emerging from the gate turned curiously towards us: I tilted my head, and Bridget followed me a few yards up the road. Then I turned to her again. Her eyes were swollen from weeping or lack of sleep. I had to find a way to calm her, but at the same time, I wanted to tell her how confused I was.

  I said, ‘Bridget, Grace told me a thing. She said that the day before Mother died, before you came to see her, she saw something in her bed. Some manner of poppet or doll. But when she went back in later, she could not find it.’

  Instantly I saw something pass over Bridget’s face; I saw her breath pause, and then she looked back towards the gate. ‘What is that to do with anything? I cannot think your mother would have been bothered with any such frippery. It will have been nothing. It might have been a bundle of herbs – she did sometimes tie up rosemary in little parcels, about the size of your hand –’

  ‘Bridget,’ I said. ‘What is it?’

  ‘What is what? Whatever she had, it was nothing I gave her.’

  ‘I can’t help you if you do not tell me the truth.’

  Her face turned hard again. ‘I’m not asking you to help me. I’m asking you to help the Wests. I’m asking you to help Elizabeth Gooding.’

  My eyes flicked over her shoulder to Matthew standing by the lych gate, watching us. His face was a pale smudge, and I could not tell what was written there, whether rage or fear, or something else. He was too far away, just, for her to need to greet him, for him to hear what was being said. Bridget followed my gaze, and for a moment I was afraid she would go to him, and I thought that if she did, I could not prevent her.

  But Bridget only hunched her cloak more tightly about her, and she met my eyes again. ‘Call him off, Alice,’ she said. ‘You call him off.’

  And with that she turned, and began to walk away slowly up the hill. I settled my face, and tucked my hands into my sleeves, weak with relief. But by the time I looked back towards the church gate, the road was empty, and Matthew had gone.

  18

  When I got back to the Thorn my brother was out, as I had expected he would be. Later that afternoon, I happened to hear Mary Phillips go in for his chamber pot, and I readied myself to slip back in and replace the daily book. But when she came out onto the landing, I heard her put the pot down and lock the door behind her before she went down the stairs to empty it.

  I scarcely knew what to think. I could not forget Bridget’s manner when I had asked her about the item Grace had described. She had seemed pale, jumpy; she had seemed guilty, but I did not wish to think of that. Of what it might mean, for one woman to have given another a strange trinket, and the recipient then to die.

  But there were a few plain things of which I was certain. Though they were not saints, I did not think any of the women taken were guilty as they had been charged. And Elizabeth Gooding, Bridget was right about her: I knew that while Elizabeth Gooding breathed she had never done any harm to anyone.

  That evening, when Grace brought me my dinner, I nearly asked her there and then about what Ruth Edwards had said, about the Tendring Hundred and helping my brother. But then I heard Mary calling for her, and I decided to speak of it another time. The meal was lamb, and though during the dark days of Lent I had craved meat, now I could not accustom myself to it. The lamb tasted sickening, like metal. As I put my plate aside, I wished Grace might be spared what Ruth Edwards seemed to think my brother had in store for her.

  I got up to check my reflection in the darkened window, and thought how, with my brot
her sated and sleepy, it must be as good a time as any to plead for leniency. I knew that to do it I would have to be brazen, would have to forget my own interests and those of the child I was carrying, and risk making Matthew angry. I tried to remember how we had sparred and argued as children that I might face him with the same confidence. But much had changed since then: the sight of the legal books in his chamber had not been lost on me, and I felt at a disadvantage for not having read them, not having absorbed the latest thinking as I knew Matthew would have done.

  I went to him in the parlour. I averted my eyes from the surprise on his face, and closed the door behind me: then, without invitation, I crossed to the other chair beside the hearth and stood behind it.

  ‘There was a man I used to see,’ I said, ‘near our rooms, near where we lived in London. He would sit on the mounting block by the inn over the road, and if they turned him off it he would sit on the boot-scraper by the door. He used to make a sound like a fire spitting. He did it when ladies walked by him, to give them a start. And he could not only make sounds but he could speak, too, clear words without ever moving his lips. He said he was inhabited by an angel, and he would use its voice to tell people when they were going to die, any person who walked past.’

  Matthew’s face opened with interest. ‘And? Did he reckon it truly?’

  ‘Who knows? The date he gave was never too soon.’

  Matthew cleared his throat. ‘Angels never speak thus. It was a devil that was in him.’

  ‘So I always thought. And in letting the devil come into the world in such ways, God seeks to make us a lesson.’ I came around the chair, and sat down.

  He sat up straighter. ‘You have the sense of it.’

  ‘Then – if you could set me right on this, brother – if God may do that, send the devil to us direct, if you will, what need has He of witches?’