The Witch of Willow Hall

by Hester Fox

  “Mr. Pierce,” she says, a bit coyly. “What a pleasant surprise.”

  “The pleasure is all mine.” He presses his smiling lips to her hand, and then gives me a cursory nod.

  “A surprise indeed,” I say with thinly veneered scorn. “Tell me, Mr. Pierce, are you still a guest of Mr. Barrett’s?”

  He raises a brow, glancing at Catherine before answering. “I am,” he says, humoring me.

  “Ah,” I say. “You must be quite the expert on milling by now. I wonder that you’re still in New Oldbury if you’ve learned so much that you don’t even need to accompany Mr. Barrett to Clarke farm today. Tell me again, what is your position in Mr. Barrett’s employ?”

  “Lydia!” Even Catherine is blushing scarlet now.

  Color rises to Mr. Pierce’s face. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

  “It’s only that you seem to come and go as you please. I thought perhaps you have been acting in a traveling supervisor role. What does bring you back to town?” I ask with an innocent furrow of my brow.

  “You’re mistaken, Miss Montrose,” he says. “John doesn’t employ me, you’ll remember that he’s merely been showing me the ins and outs of the milling business.”

  “Ah! Of course. So kind of you to remind me of the particulars. Mr. Barrett is lucky in any case to have a friend that he can count on to take his mentorship so seriously.”

  Mr. Pierce’s perennial smile fades. He narrows his eyes, giving me an appraising look, as if really seeing me for the first time and realizing just how little he cares for what he sees. Catherine pinches my waist.

  “John is the best sort of friend a fellow could ask for,” Mr. Pierce says briskly. “I’m sure I’m the lucky one.” He clears his throat and holds out his arm to Catherine, careful not to meet my eye again. “Shall we?”

  Catherine thrusts the bolt of silk into my arms with a hiss. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

  They head off, arm in arm, Catherine leaning in close to him and laughing loudly in response to something whispered in her ear. Some jab at me, no doubt.

  With a huff, I turn to carry the silk back to the carriage. But the bundle is heavier than it looks, and as I shift the weight into my other arm it becomes tangled, slipping from my grasp and cascading to the ground.

  I consider leaving it on the wet ground and letting it soak up the brown puddle water. That would serve Catherine right.

  “Let me get that for you, miss,” Joe says coming up behind me.

  I stand there stupidly, staring as he whisks the bolt away into the carriage before it can stain.

  How can Catherine be so careless with her reputation after all that we’ve been through? A fresh wave of anger washes through me and I give the wooden hitching post a good kick, and then another and another.

  “Miss Montrose? I thought that was you! Heavens, what are you doing to that post?”

  I take a deep breath before turning around, sending up a silent prayer for strength.

  “Mrs. Tidewell,” I say, mustering a polite smile. “How lovely to see you.”

  She gives me a lingering glance of concern. The daughter—whose name I can’t remember—is hanging shyly behind her, looking, if I’m not mistaken, a little relieved not to be the object of her mother’s attention for once.

  “Well, Abigail and I were just taking some air and I thought I saw you and your sister, but I wasn’t sure because a young man was blocking my view. I said to Abigail, ‘Why, that must be the Montrose girls,’ and then of course she said that it was and I knew that we must come over and say hello and thank you for the lovely dance at Willow Hall last month. And of course to pass along our deepest condolences on your family’s loss. Didn’t I say that, Abigail?”

  Abigail opens her mouth to reply, but Mrs. Tidewell is already turning back to me and giving me a detailed account of all the minutiae of her daily existence from the past few weeks.

  The last time I saw her in our ballroom I had the general impression that she was a woman of means, but in the daylight the jewels jammed onto her stubby fingers and hanging from her ears are a dull, cloudy paste, and some of the gold plate has worn off, exposing the metal underneath. Her cheek rouge is applied too heavily, giving the appearance of two red apples bobbing up and down every time she laughs. The lace at the cuffs of her emerald green dress is yellowing, and even as she goes on about how accomplished her Abby is with a needle and thread, I can’t help but feel a little sorry for her.

  She catches my eyes taking in these details and quickly says, “The weather took such a sharp change the last few days, didn’t it? It’s all I can do to pull out last winter’s clothes until I can have something new made up.”

  This must remind her of why they’re here in the first place, because she acknowledges her daughter again by saying, “Abby, go in and ask Mr. Anderson about a wool delivery.”

  Abigail hesitates, darting her glance between Mrs. Tidewell and me before saying, “But Mamma, remember last time we were here Mr. Anderson said we had to pay the last sugar bill before we placed any more orders.”

  I feel rather than see Mrs. Tidewell stiffening, heat rising to her cheeks. She turns back to me, forcing a light laugh. “Tradesmen are always so eager to shake you down for one more penny, when they know quite well that all the best sort of people live off credit.” She gives a disdainful sniff. “It’s vulgar really. When my husband was alive Mr. Anderson wouldn’t dream of harassing me for money, but I suppose a widow makes for easy pickings.”

  I can’t help but feel bad for her, and give her an encouraging smile. “What was it that your husband did?”

  Her eyes briefly flash with gratitude before resuming their usual haughty squint, and she settles into her favorite subject of herself again.

  “Mr. Tidewell? He was a cooper by trade, but made a fair bit of money on cattle.” She gives a little sigh as if to say that if Mr. Tidewell were considerate he might have done a good deal better before dying. “I might not be so grand as some of the ladies in Boston, but I can hold my head high knowing that my daughters have immaculate reputations and will make good matches.”

  I let her meaning go by without fight, and Mrs. Tidewell for her part seems content to ramble on about the shortcomings of all the other citizens of New Oldbury.

  My head snaps up and I stop her midsentence. “What did you say?”

  She looks a little taken aback. “Mrs. Barrett. I said she was the only other lady in New Oldbury that was really of any quality.”

  I take a dry swallow. “Mrs. Barrett? John Barrett is a...widower?”

  She laughs, an unpleasant sort of gurgling sound. “Mercy! Mr. Barrett a widower! No, his mother, God rest her soul. Very kind lady, she was, though with such a cold air about her. She often would send a basket round to our house when I was nursing the girls. Of course, these days I would never accept that kind of charity,” she hastily adds. “We keep our own cook now, though of course her mutton is so dry that Abby has too—”

  “I’m sorry,” I interrupt. “But...Mrs. Barrett. When did she die? Was Mr. Barrett very young?”

  I suppose it’s all the same to Mrs. Tidewell whether she talks of the personal lives of her neighbors or her cook’s shortcomings. She transitions easily back to the former, positively glowing that someone has recognized in her the mark of an expert.

  “Well now, let’s see. The fire was in what, ’02? ’03? No, that can’t be right. Ginny was colicky that winter, which means that it couldn’t have been more than—”

  “Mrs. Tidewell,” I say trying not to let my irritation creep into my voice. “What fire?”

  She looks at me as if I just asked in what country we’re standing. “Why, the old house. Surely you knew that your property used to belong to the Barretts?”

  “Well, yes.” That day at the pond Mr. Barrett said something about that. “But what do you mean
, the old house?”

  Linking her arm in mine like we’re old friends, she begins walking toward the green where stone benches are arranged around a plaque commemorating the town’s first settlers.

  “The first Barrett house used to stand right where yours does now,” she says, vaguely gesturing to the road that leads to our house. “But after the fire Mr. Barrett—that is, the senior Mr. Barrett—had a new house constructed on the other side of their property. That’s the house that stands there today. Just as well, if you ask me. The old thing was a shabby little affair. Not nearly as grand as Willow Hall,” she reluctantly concedes with a sniff.

  “But what about the fire? Is that how Mr. Barrett’s mother died?”

  “It was a terrible thing,” she says with a look of genuine remorse. “Mrs. Barrett was such a queer sort of woman. Very kind as I said, and yet so cold. She was like a phantom almost with her pearly white skin and faraway blue eyes. You would be speaking to her and after a time realize that she wasn’t there.”

  This is something I hardly think would be singular to Mrs. Barrett when listening to the long-winded Mrs. Tidewell, but I let her continue.

  “The only time you felt she was really present was when she was with her little boy. Oh, how she doted on him! There was nothing too good for him, no suit of clothes too fine, no little pet too exotic. Apple of her eye, he was.”

  I try to imagine Mr. Barrett growing up coddled, in suits of crushed blue velvet with a little squirrel on a chain. “He must have been heartbroken when she died.”

  Mrs. Tidewell’s brow furrows quizzically. “I’m sure he would have been, only he died alongside of her.”

  We’ve just about reached the benches when I stop suddenly. My stomach drops and cold spreads over me. “But John...you can’t mean...?”

  “Oh!” She lets out her wet laugh again. “Oh dear, you didn’t think Mr. Barrett was a ghost all this time!”

  Her face grows serious and I let out my breath not sure what I had thought she was talking about. “No, it was his little brother, Moses, the poor mite. Moses was the favored son, and it was he who died alongside his poor mother in that fire.”

  I lower myself slowly to the cold, slightly damp bench and Mrs. Tidewell settles beside me with a grunt and heavy rustle of silk.

  Poor, poor John. What was it like to grow up in the shadow of his mother’s favorite, and then for them to both die? How heavy the guilt must weigh on him. Is that why he always has such a look of sadness about him? He may be a grown man now, but I wish I could sweep him up into my arms and hold him, stroking away the bad memories.

  “For all her beauty, Theodosia Barrett was not a happy woman.” Mrs. Tidewell beckons me to move closer and looks around as if the grass itself is listening. I humor her and lean in, trying not to inhale her cloying perfume.

  “I saw the marks on her myself. Such white skin as that and there’d be a terrible angry bruise at her wrist or near her neck. She tried to hide them, but not well enough, poor thing. Such a cruel man, was her husband.”

  My mind races and breathless, I ask, “And what of the fire?”

  “Well, there was—Why, is that Mrs. Wheeler?” Mrs. Tidewell half sits up from the bench, squinting across the green and then waving her handkerchief frantically at a pair of strolling women. “Oh, Mrs. Wheeler! Mrs. Hopkins!”

  The women pause, and I can only imagine that there’s a tense dialogue taking place in hurried whispers debating whether or not they should acknowledge her. Please, please keep walking, I silently beg them.

  But I’m to have no such luck, and I have to wait to hear more about the fire while the three women engage in a conversation devoid of anything of importance save pleasantries about the weather.

  When they’ve exhausted all the different ways to comment on the recent rain, the women take their leave. With a bit of a tipsy smile still lingering on her lips, Mrs. Tidewell whispers to me, “You would never know it from looking at her now, but that Mrs. Hopkins once worked as a tavern girl in Manchester. Can you imagine? Ever since she married that lawyer she acts like she’s some sort of society woman through and through. Shameful, really.”

  “Yes,” I hastily agree. “Very shameful. But you were saying something about a fire?”

  “A fire? Oh, right. Mrs. Barrett had some great row with her husband. I never knew the particulars of it, but they were easy enough to guess. He tried to turn his hand to the boy—Moses, that is—and she barricaded herself with him in the house. Made Mr. Barrett mad with rage. Took a match and put the whole house aflame, her and the boy in it. I don’t think it was ever his intention to kill them, nor to make a ruin of his house. Just wanted to put a fright into her, get her to come out. But the fire took over faster than he thought, and there it is.”

  I can hardly breathe. “And John?”

  She looks surprised. “He was only a little thing at the time. He must have been off with his nurse somewhere.” She pauses, thinking. “I do remember him at the burial though, so solemn in his little mourning suit. Didn’t shed a tear the whole time, brave little fellow that he was.”

  I can envision him perfectly, his jaw set, golden hair falling across his eyes as he watched his mother’s and brother’s coffins lowered into the ground. His father, an equally solemn man but with a vein of anger running through him as hot as lava, gripping his son’s shoulder. He would have leaned down and whispered in his son’s ear with breath full of brandy, “Now don’t you make a sound, boy, lest you want a taste of my belt on your back later.” And young Mr. Barrett would have been silent as the tomb.

  “Oh, that burial.” She puts a hand to her heart in a gesture of being overcome, rolling her eyes up toward the heavens. “They never recovered Moses’s body, so they buried an empty coffin for him. Horrid, horrid business.”

  “Horrid,” I echo back in a whisper. Willow Hall stands where the old house burned down, and they never found Moses’s body. My mouth turns to cotton as realization dawns. My God, his remains must still be under our house.

  “The whole town turned against Mr. Barrett after that, wouldn’t do business with him. It took John Barrett years to pay off his father’s debts.”

  I remember the dinner we had what now feels like years ago where I spoke out of turn, forcing Mr. Barrett to confess that his father died bankrupt. I feel even more terrible now that I know the story of what led to that bankruptcy.

  “Miss Montrose?”

  I start. “Yes?”

  “I asked if you knew anything of an engagement between Mr. Barrett and a young lady of the town.”

  I barely register her words, thoughts of fire, of Moses, of Mr. Barrett, racing like clouds through my mind. “No, I don’t think so,” I say, trying to make my tone light and inconsequential and, to my ears at least, failing miserably.

  Mrs. Tidewell lets out a sigh of relief. “I figured it was nonsense when I heard as much. Still hope for Abby then.”

  I get the sense that whatever little friendship we just shared on the bench is already slipping away, and I’m once again an object of contempt. That’s more than fine with me. I need to get away from this gossipy woman and her insincerity. I stand quickly, the blood rushing from my head.

  “Yes,” I say faintly. “Mrs. Tidewell, you must excuse me. I’m afraid I’ve just had a terrible headache come on. I think I must go home at once.”

  19

  I CAN’T GO home right away though, because Catherine isn’t back yet. With my mind faraway and my legs shaking, I nearly miss the step as I climb in the carriage, and Joe has to catch me by the elbow to help me inside. I sit there, frozen, wrapped in thoughts as constricting and tangled as a spider’s web.

  Why didn’t Mr. Barrett tell me? That night when he pulled me from the pond, he saw the trembling, smoldering wick of my soul, the truest, most vulnerable part of me. And whether I shared it willingly or not, it doesn’t matte
r, because I am at a disadvantage for being so transparent while he remains opaque and unknowable. Sometimes I feel as if we are standing on opposites sides of a great chasm, and I must watch helplessly as the gaping space between us widens.

  I don’t know how long I sit like that biting my lips and letting my thoughts run away from me. I nearly jump out of my skin when the door opens again and Catherine appears, plopping herself unceremoniously across from me without a word. I take a deep breath.

  As Joe closes the door behind her I catch his eye, silently trying to convey just how important it is that he doesn’t say anything to Mother. Good, dependable Joe who has been with us so long and must himself understand the importance of keeping Catherine out of trouble. He holds my gaze and gives me a short nod before gently latching the door and climbing up to the driver’s seat.

  Catherine doesn’t say anything, just slowly peels off her gloves and folds her hands in her lap as she gazes out the window.

  “Well,” I say crossly, “should I be congratulating you?” If she was going to act so brazenly and put our family’s reputation at risk again then she better at least have gotten a proposal out of him.

  Catherine’s cool gaze slides away from the window and lands on me. She shifts a little in her seat, the faintest pink rising along her neck and at the tip of her ears. “He didn’t propose.”

  I swallow back my disappointment and my urge to take her by the shoulders and shake the details out of her. Keeping my voice as level as I can, I ask, “Do you think he will soon?”

  She heaves a sigh as if I had her chained up in a dungeon and was interrogating her for a crime she didn’t commit. “If you must know, he was rather detached. After I made it clear that we wouldn’t be doing anything besides talking he became disagreeable and left. If only I weren’t starting to show already,” she adds, more to herself than me. As if in chorus to this lament, the carriage jostles over a rut in the road, the wheels groaning and her hand instinctively flies to her stomach.

  Catherine ignores my silence, though she must feel the angry charge in the air. Instead she takes up the bolt of fabric and runs her hand over it, frowning as if she had completely forgotten about the original purpose of the trip. “Was that Mrs. Tidewell I saw talking to you? What did she want?”