“Ach, maybes he is and maybes he is’n. It could be an accident.”
“Oh aye, Ellen Hill. An’ I’m a currant bun.”
“I’m just sayin’, is all.”
“This is no accident. Not in the kirk. Not the-day above all days.”
When it was just the two of us in the cart, I asked Noah, “What do you make of the fire?”
“It’s a warning, that’s what it is. The Hunter cuddy is right. Thon’s no accident. God suffers the Devil to do as he likes in Islandmangee.”
* * *
The following day the Vicar of Belfast, William Tisdall, came to Knowehead to meet Mary Dunbar, and was disappointed to miss her because she had stayed the night with her parents in an inn in Carrickfergus. There would have been space for all of them in the house, but the Dunbars seemed to prefer to keep their daughter to themselves, though they promised to call soon. So the vicar had a wasted journey. He had taken notes in court, and said he was going to write up her case in a journal.
My master was far from pleased, and asked him to do no such thing. “Islandmagee is being turned into a laughing stock, Doctor Tisdall. We want to forget this. How can that happen if Mistress Dunbar becomes a figure to be pointed at on the street?”
“Can she put it behind her? I spoke to her while the jury were out. She disclosed that she was afflicted the entire time she was in court by a man’s voice whispering in her ear. She said he was suggesting vile, unrepeatable things of a lewd nature. Surely she told you?”
“Mistress Dunbar did say something about it, but we naturally put it down to the strain. She was dreading the ordeal of the trial.”
“She said the man was the notorious Hamilton Lock. The ghost of him, that is. I believe he has a close connection with this area. In all conscience, I ought to bring it to the attention of the Mayor.”
“You can leave me to do that, if you see fit, doctor. I have an appointment with Mayor Davies tomorrow.”
“Very well. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”
The Belfast vicar accepted some sherry wine and biscuits. As I was serving him, he asked whether I attended the Assizes in Carrickfergus.
“I did, sir.”
“Did the case serve as a lesson to you about what comes of meddling where it’s forbidden?”
“I’d never meddle where I should’n, sir.”
“So you took nothing from the spectacle of the witch trial?”
“I thought ’twas a pity to see so many auld women in the dock. I was taught to honour grey hairs. Though a-coorse if they did wrong, they have to be punished. Except – gaol could finish some of them off.”
“The old make way for the new. ’Tis the cycle of life.”
“Aye. What’s auld is oftentimes swept away. But what if it bain’t willing to go? Say it resists – what then?”
Maybes I spoke out of turn, or was more kindled than was seemly, because he set down his glass and studied me. He looked ready to quiz me further, but the mistress sent me off with a flea in my ear.
While I was redding up after the visitor, I observed the mistress give my master a tap on the arm. “You know my aunt and uncle are due to call tomorrow to collect Mary’s trunk. Will you miss them, if you have an appointment with the Lord Mayor?”
“I’m not meeting Mayor Davies. It’s just a story I told that interfering vicar. Enough is enough. Mary must go home, and we must put all this behind us.”
* * *
When another day passed, the Dunbars arrived by carriage with their daughter, to pay their respects to the Haltridges before carrying her back to Armagh. They had tarried in Carrickfergus till they judged her able for the journey. As soon as Mary Dunbar was back in the house, the childer trotted up to hang off my skirts and get under my feet, though I didn’t mind – the young lady’s company affected their spirits. Wee Sarah was keen to be useful, bless her, and helped me fold the laundry that was being sent out for washing and pressing. But when the mistress told me to go to Mary’s chamber and help the young lady pack her trunk, both wee’ans made a lip and stayed put in the kitchen, keeping their heads down.
Everybody agreed it was high time Mary Dunbar quit Knowehead House. Everybody but Mary Dunbar, that is. While I gathered up her belongings, she spent her last hours with us wandering through rooms, stroking walls, her forehead lined.
Horse hooves clattered up to the door, and I skipped downstairs to open it, expecting Frazer Bell to pay his final compliments. Instead it was Mister Sinclair, complaining about his kirk nearly burning down. In the parlour, he looked for the young lady at once.
“But where is Mistress Dunbar? She must have some insights into this fire, and the imps who connived at it.”
I was sent to find her, and discovered her in her bedchamber on the window seat. But Lord above, such a sight met me. The japanned sewing box was sitting there, wide open, though I packed it myself. She had taken the shears from it – they lay on her lap still – and had used them to cut off her hair. Hunks of it were streeling in balls at her feet. The little that remained spiked round her head. Patches of her baldy scalp showed through, like a half-plucked chicken.
“Mistress, what have you done to yourself? What possessed you?” She shrugged.
I took the scissors away in case she did more harm with them – though the damage was done already, as far as her lovely curls were concerned. I tried to smooth down the hair, but up it spiked again, so I dipped the corner of my apron in her pitcher of water and dampened it flat. “Let’s get your cap on, to cover the worst.” When I tied her bonnet under her chin, she didn’t look so strange. She sat there like Sarah’s rag doll, letting me do as I liked. But when I tried to pull her to her feet, she held tight.
“Your mother and father are waiting, mistress.”
“Go away. I can hear nothing with your chatter.”
“But what is it you’re tryin’ to hear?”
“The voice.”
“Whose voice?”
She didn’t answer.
“Do you mean a witch’s voice?”
She chewed on her thumb. “It’s just a voice. It whispers.”
“Is it a man or a woman’s?”
“Hush, let me listen, I tell you.”
I had no choice but to go back and let the mistress know the young lady was not yet ready to leave. “I’ll handle this, Isabel,” said her mother, seizing her skirts and marching towards the stairs. A good space of time passed before she brought her daughter down, while Mister Sinclair pulled at his stockings, bagging at the ankles, and droned on about how the dark shadow hanging over Islandmagee was not yet dissolved. Still more repentance was needed.
“Those fiends need not think burning the meeting-house can silence our prayers. Whether we raise our voices to heaven in a barn or a kirk makes no differ. Ah, Mistress Dunbar, I presume you heard about the mischief done to our kirk?”
“I did, Mister Sinclair,” said Mary. “It does not surprise me.”
“But the coven has been broken up. The witches are behind bars.”
“Hamilton Lock is still here.”
The minister paled. “Lock! Does he trouble you yet?”
“I hear his voice. At times, it feels as if my head might burst asunder listening to it.”
“Had he a hand in the fire?”
“Of course. He told me about it in court. He sniggered to think of the upset it would cause.’
“Why did you not say anything?”
“I was forbidden to tell of it. His voice cannot be disobeyed.”
The Dunbars exchanged alarmed looks.
“Now, Mary, remember what we discussed,” said her mother. “You need rest and quiet.”
“Yes, Mama.”
“No more talk of a voice inside your head.”
“Yes, Mama.”
“But if the young lady has information about the fire in my meeting-house, she must be questioned,” said Mister Sinclair.
“I regret that’s impossible, Mister Si
nclair. My daughter is far from well – her health has been under attack.”
“As has my meeting-house.”
“Mister Sinclair, my daughter has come through a shocking ordeal. She needs to recuperate. I am sure you would not want to risk her health any further. Come, Mister Dunbar, we must bring our chick home. Mary, kiss your cousin.”
Mary Dunbar went to the mistress.
“Where are your curls, Mary? Your bonnet’s all loose on your head. What have you done to yourself? Or has someone else been interfering with you?”
“Never mind that now, Isabel,” said her mother. “Say your farewells, Mary.”
“My head hurts, Cousin Isabel.”
“Poor sweetheart. You’ll feel better when you’re back in your own bed.”
“But I can come again for a visit, can’t I? When I’m feeling stronger?”
The mistress stroked her cheek. “Of course, Mary. Or I’ll visit you in Armagh.”
“No, I must come to Islandmagee. My work here isn’t finished.”
“What work is that?”
“I – I’m not sure. To do as I’m bid.”
Her parents hustled her outside, to where the carriage was waiting. I recalled her sewing box on the window seat, and raced upstairs for it. When I carried it out to the carriage, Mary Dunbar was standing on the top step, shielding her eyes as she gazed back at the house.
“I’m not supposed to leave Knowehead House, you know. I promised to stay. I keep thinking the house must be angry with me. But I can’t tell how it feels. It seems – empty. Maybe it’s resting. Everyone needs a rest sometimes.”
“Who did you make a promise to, about staying?” asked my master.
“Why, the house, of course. Surely you talk to it too, Cousin James?”
Her father spared my master the need to frame an answer. “Get into the carriage, Mary. It’s high time we were on the road.”
I cast an eye across the fields. Still no sign of Frazer Bell. We had neither sight nor sound of him since the trial. Mary Dunbar must have thought he would call too, because she raised herself up on tiptoe, gazing in the direction of his land. The young lady sighed, dipped her head and entered the carriage, settling her skirts. But when her father went to shut the carriage door, she cried, “Wait, I haven’t said all my goodbyes.” She beckoned to me and put something wrapped in paper into my hand, saying I was to pass it on to Mister Bell. “Tell him I embroidered it myself.”
The door was slammed, the driver flicked the reins, and the last I saw of the young lady was her totie wee face at the window. It was papery compared with her morning freshness on the day she arrived among us.
* * *
The day after Mary Dunbar left Knowehead, Frazer Bell came galloping over on Lordship. He burst into the house, unshaven, in as thran a mood as ever I saw him. The mistress was lying down, and my master was glad of the company at first. But not when he heard what was on Frazer Bell’s mind.
“James, we have to go to the Mayor together and convince him Mary Dunbar ought to see a physician. It’s scurrilous there was no medical evidence given at the trial.”
“That ship has sailed, Frazer. You should have raised it in court if you felt so strongly about it.”
“I’ve been wrestling with my conscience, and I cannot stay silent. I ran into Mister Dunbar in Carrickfergus, the day after the court case. The lass is prone to imagining things – her own father let it slip. This past winter, before she came to Islandmagee, she fell into fits whenever anything crossed her humour. She accused a maid of turning herself into a black cat and prowling the streets at night. The Dunbars paid the girl off, thinking there had been some falling out between the two.”
“Are you saying she made everything up?”
“James, whether she is designing or deluded, I cannot judge. But she has caused untold damage. People point to witchcraft when they can find no other explanation.”
“What other explanation is possible, Frazer?”
“Not everything has an easy answer. Some things are inexplicable.” Frazer Bell put his hand on my master’s shoulder. “Come with me to the Mayor, my friend. There is no evidence Mary Dunbar acted out of spite, though she has caused suffering and hardship. We could say she was confused.”
“Confused by Satan?”
“Possibly.”
“In which case she must be the witch. Come, come, my friend, you’re not thinking straight. Do you want Mistress Dunbar to take the place of those eight wretches?”
“Of course not. But perhaps they could be pardoned if we explain that Mistress Dunbar has made accusations before.”
“Let it go, Frazer.”
“I can’t stand by and see an injustice carried out. And yet . . .” He dragged his hand down one side of his face. “And yet something happened in this house, James. Something that defies rational explanation. I’ve turned it over and over, and I can’t make head or tail of it.”
“What’s done is done, man. Let sleeping dogs lie.” My master patted him on the back.
Frazer Bell’s broad shoulders were hunched with worry as he took his leave. He had the weight of the world on them, like that fellow Atlas my master told me about once. I waited by the door to give him his parting gift from Mary Dunbar, and he opened it in front of me. It was a handkerchief with a legend stitched on: “The bright day is done, and we are for the dark.” He would not accept it: “Throw it in Larne Lough or keep it, as you see fit.” But he couldn’t help himself – he had to ask about Mary Dunbar. “How did Mistress Dunbar look the last time you saw her? Was she cured?”
“No, sir. I would’n say so.” I thought of her cropped head, and the tufts of hair standing up on it. How did she look, he wanted to know. Very well, I’d tell him. “She looked like them eight women tried as witches in Carrickfergus. That’s how she looked.”
Frazer Bell groaned, jumped on his horse and set off like an army of demons was in pursuit.
My master passed me in the hall. “Even if Frazer goes to him, Mayor Davies won’t pay him a blind bit of notice. This is a knot that cannot be unpicked.”
That gave me a jolt. It was knots being unpicked that started the whole caper off. I was reminded of those nine knots in the apron strings: eight on one side and one on the other. And there were eight women condemned as witches on one side of the court room, on the word of one woman on the other. Truly, a pattern was at work here. And for all we knowed, it was being woven still.
A heavy cloud continued to hang over Knowehead, blocking the sunlight. Mary Dunbar was gone, but there was something here still.
I walked on eggshells going about my work.
Chapter 16
The peace we hoped for at Knowehead after Mary Dunbar went away did not come. The air in the house was all stirred up, just the same as during the witching – sometimes, it felt as if I was wading through porridge while I went about the day’s jobs. When a calf with two heads was born to Parsley, it looked powerful bad for the Haltridges. The creature drew breath for a matter of minutes only, and I never saw it, but Noah Spears helped birth it and he told me how unnatural and hideous it was. My master tried to hush it up, but word got out and folk kept their distance from us.
I had another reason to fret, during the weeks after the trial. Try though I might, I could not forget all those women in gaol. In particular, I was bothered by Lizzie Cellar being hauled into the crowd and beaten, until the soldiers saved her. She took some sore blows, and I wondered if anybody would treat her injuries. The sight of her face streaming blood plagued me. In the morning, when I splashed water on my cheeks, she looked back at me from the basin. At night, when I lay sleepless under the roof, listening to the rain drumming down, I wondered was she hearing the same sound in her cell. In the end, I asked my master for a day’s freedom.
“You had a day off for the witch trial, Ellen.”
“I did, master.”
“Your mistress won’t like you gadding about again so soon. Why do you want a holiday?�
��
“To go to Carrickfergus to visit Lizzie Cellar. One of them named as witches.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Is she a friend of yours?”
“I knowed her when we were childer. But I’ve been no friend to her. I can do her a good turn now, though. She caught a stone in the face the day of the court case. Some ointment Peggy left behind might mend the blow.”
He tapped a thumbnail against his teeth, considering. “How would you get there?”
“I’ll start walkin’, master, and hope someone might pity me on the road.”
He took his time answering, making me wonder if honesty was the best policy. Maybes I ought to have told him my mother was ill and calling for me. But I didn’t like to tempt fate.
The House Where It Happened Page 32
