“We — we know a bit about her, the witch,” I called after him. “She was Aphra Rushes. She was burned. Mr. Hillyard was there.”
“Have some seedcake.” Mr. Thorston returned with the fresh lemonade and a large round tin. “My own recipe.”
He put the tin on the table and lifted the lid. The smell was wonderful.
“I ain’t never heard of a man baking before,” I said.
“Would you like a piece of the seedcake, Gracie?” Mr. Thorston called.
There was no reply.
“The thing is,” he said while he cut three slices and placed them carefully on side plates from the dresser, “most people think witches were burned at the stake. In Scotland it was relatively common, but in England, for the most part they were hanged. Sometimes iron rivets were driven into the knees and elbows after execution to prevent the witch rising from the grave. People were very frightened of the dead.”
“Pin him to the ground,” I said, “that’s what the villagers wanted to do to Cain Lankin, Hillyard said — bury him at a crossroads and pin him to the ground.”
“To stop him rising up and causing mischief,” said Roger. He swallowed down some cake before he spoke again. “Why was this Aphra Rushes burned then?”
“Well, in this country, only a very small number died by the flame. It was an extremely expensive method of execution, for a start. Wood was precious, and it took time and expertise to construct the bonfire. Witches who died in that way must have been mortally feared. Fire was considered to cleanse and purify, you see. Often, even after the body was burned, anything that was left of it was carefully collected up and burned again, so that any spells lingering in the corpse could not remain behind to pollute and taint the living.”
“So why were the people more frightened of Aphra Rushes than of other witches?” Roger asked.
“Well, most poor souls hanged for witchcraft were accused by a terrified or vindictive neighbour whose cow or child had died or was sick with some unknown disease. It was a dangerous time for people who were different, or who happened to say the wrong thing in earshot of the wrong person, but what happened at Guerdon Hall was not like that.”
“She really did do something bad, then.”
“Aphra Rushes was convicted of a pair of brutal, wicked murders. The victims were the wife of Sir Edmund Guerdon, Lady Ygurne, and the son and heir, their baby, John. It was particularly horrific because Aphra Rushes was the baby’s wet nurse.”
“Eh?”
“Well, either because Lady Ygurne couldn’t feed her own baby or because it was considered unseemly for such a high-born lady to do so, Aphra Rushes was the baby’s wet nurse. She was employed to feed him, having just lost an infant of her own.
“There was one crime on the statute for which a witch could be executed by burning, a crime called petty treason. The woman could be accused of petty treason if she was thought to have used her powers against her master or her husband.”
“And her master was Sir Edmund,” said Roger.
“Yes,” said Mr. Thorston, “and what’s more, as lord of the manor, he had the authority to decide her punishment. It is believed that Sir Edmund and Lord Myldmaye, the judge at Aphra Rushes’s trial, were great friends. To condemn a woman to die in this way, you would have to be determined to make her suffer.”
Mr. Thorston looked tired. He rested his elbows on the table and rubbed his eyes. “I sometimes think,” he added quietly, “that if I had lived then, I might have been condemned as a witch.”
“You? But you’re a man!” cried Roger.
“No difference. Men, women, children, even animals — they all ended up on a rope.”
“Animals!”
Suddenly the back door burst open and, banging and clattering, Pete staggered in with the basket crammed full of vegetables and fruit. For a second, I thought someone had shot him, but it was raspberry juice smeared all down his shirt. A huge marrow rolled off the top of the basket and landed on the floor with a thud. I could have picked it up and flattened him with it for coming in just then, just at the wrong time, just when we were getting somewhere.
“How the hell are we going to get that lot back?” I said, irritated at his silly face, mottled with dried bicarb paste and bright red juice. I felt like sticking two carrots up his nose.
“Don’t worry,” said Mr. Thorston. If he was annoyed with Pete, he was good at hiding it. “We’ll divide it up amongst you. I’ve some nice strong bags.”
“Ta very much,” said Pete. “Smashing peas!”
“Don’t think anything of it,” said Mr. Thorston. “We can’t possibly eat all that fruit and veg ourselves. I make jam and chutney, but it’s never as good as Gracie’s used to be. You all right there, Gracie?”
“I’m all right, Hal.”
He rummaged around in the bottom of the dresser and brought out just one bag made of old canvas, like the postman’s.
“Oh, dear, this is all I can find,” he said, getting up off his knees. “I don’t suppose you can come back tomorrow? It’ll give me time to get some more bags from the shed.” He winked sideways at me and Cora.
I wake and sit straight up. My face is filmy with sweat. I am all alone. Auntie has taken Mimi into her own bed with her. I can hear a ripping noise, scratching, tearing, the sound of something slipping and sliding.
How on earth am I going to put Pete off coming back to Mr. Thorston’s with us? My head aches with trying to think of something that isn’t cruel or dangerous. Short of nailing his feet to the veranda, I’m stuck.
I slop into the bathroom to find an Aspro.
Mum saves the day, without even realizing it. “Grandma’s having you all over for dinner,” she says wearily, “so I can put my feet up.” I can’t wipe the grin off my face. “Why are you so cheerful about it?” she adds. “The only reason you ever go there at all is for the Smarties.”
True. Going to Grandma’s is really trying. Behaving oneself for hours on end can be a terrible strain on the nerves. The one good thing about going there today, though, is that Pete loves Grandma’s thousand-piece jigsaws. The picture is always of something to do with the royal family. They’ve done the crown jewels, the coronation, and even the corgis. Personally, I haven’t the patience, but once Pete and Grandma get stuck in, you pretty much have to look after yourself, getting your own Ribena and thumbing through Grandma’s knitting patterns looking for pretty girls in cardigans. With a bit of luck, there’s every chance I might be able to slip away back to the Patches without him.
I wouldn’t have to keep an eye on Dennis and Terry, either, because Grandma keeps two donkeys, Flora and Heather, at the end of her garden. Dennis and Terry can spend hours down there, jumping out of the bushes and poking them with sticks.
“By the way, Grandma says it’s fine for Cora and Mimi to come to dinner, too. She’s doing stew. But I don’t think we’ll be seeing Mimi. She’s really poorly.’
Even better.
Grandma lives in a big house called York Lodge, which is in Hobb’s Lane. Pete and I call it the Dead End because it’s all old people down there.
Roger’s grandma had permed hair and wore a string of pearls and shiny brown shoes with little tassels on the front.
She wasn’t very nice to me.
When she answered the door, I said hello and told her that I was staying at Mrs. Eastfield’s, with my sister, and that she was my great-aunt. I also made sure before we started that I thanked her for having me over for dinner in case I forgot afterwards. She looked at me in a queer way and said something quietly to Roger that I couldn’t quite hear, and he never told me what it was, even when I asked.
While we were having the stew, she kept glancing at me across the table and making a clicking noise with her teeth. I felt I must be doing something wrong with the potatoes. It ruined my appetite, but I dared not leave the dinner. In the end, I forced it down without chewing.
Afterwards I tried to help clear away by piling up the china, but she said,
“Leave those, please!”
I wouldn’t mind, but Dennis mucked about with his glass of water, spilling some onto his plate, yet his grandma didn’t scold him, and Terry, turning his nose up at the stew, only ate bread and jam, but she still let him have jelly.
When the table had been cleared, she brought out a brand-new jigsaw. The picture was of a military band. Pete ripped off the cellophane, then the lid, tipped all the pieces out onto the table, and started making a little heap of edges.
“Grandma, is it all right if Cora and me go out to play for a couple of hours?” said Roger. “Er — are we having tea here as well?”
“No, not tea. I told your mother you would be back at about half past four, so you can come and pick your brothers up at a quarter past. Do you have your Christmas watch on, Roger? I don’t suppose you have a watch, Cora.”
“Don’t worry, Grandma, I’ve got it here,” said Roger. “Thanks for dinner.”
“Thanks for dinner,” I mumbled, looking down at the carpet.
“Cheerio!” Roger shouted back as we shot out of the door and down the driveway to Hobb’s Lane.
“Whoopee! Wasn’t it lucky we went to Grandma’s today?”
I didn’t say anything.
Mrs. Thorston was sitting in the same chair as before, her head down, the big ginger cat on her lap. Mr. Thorston led us into the other room. On top of the table were two pieces of paper. The first looked very old and fragile, the curly script so difficult to read it might as well have been Chinese. The second sheet was freshly torn out of an exercise book, the handwriting sloping evenly to the right with perfect capital letters. If Mr. Thorston had written it in Sister Aquinas’s class, she would have given him a gold star and put it up on the wall. He spread his hands over the pieces of paper very gently and asked us to sit down.
“Way back in my family, on my mother’s side, there was a man called Thomas Sumner,” Mr. Thorston began. “He was a servant in the old rectory when Piers Hillyard was the rector. When the fire broke out, it seems that Hillyard and Sumner were together in the same room. Hillyard ordered Sumner to escape and take some documents with him — documents that Hillyard thought extremely important. Although Sumner seems to have been reluctant to leave without his master, Hillyard forced him to take the papers and he managed to get out of the house, but not without great injury to himself.
“Those papers have remained in that chest in the next room ever since, and from what you say, you have already read the transcriptions that Jasper Scaplehorn made, including that shocking account of the burning of Aphra Rushes written by Hillyard himself.
“Jasper researched many other documents in the Public Record Office in London, in the county and diocesan archives, and in all kinds of other places. The history of Long Lankin, you see, became his obsession — and his undoing.
“It would probably take all afternoon for you two to work out what this paper says. Old handwriting and spelling like this can take some getting used to. Jasper’s transcription must still be in the old tin box with Mrs. Eastfield, so I spent this morning making this copy of my own for you.”
17 August 26 Eliz. Examination made by Neville Harper, surgeon, upon Thomas Sumner, aged 23 years, servant to the late Reverend Piers Hillyard of Glebe House, Bryers Guerdon, may God have mercy upon his soul. The above named Thomas Sumner, languishing vehemently, being close to death of burns and injuries suffered in dyvers parts of his body at Glebe House on 15 August, most gravely wishes to make it known that at about eleven of the clock in the night time, upon the Solemnity of the Assumption of our Most Blessed Ladye, a great spirit in the likeness of one Cain Lankin, late of Bryers Guerdon, came unto Glebe House with intent to do mischief unto Margery Skynner, infant daughter of Miles Skynner, servant.
The said examinate saith that he did witness the Reverend Piers Hillyard exhort the spirit to depart in the name of our Most Soveryn Lord Jesus Christ, but that the said spirit would not so, whereupon the above named Piers Hillyard did take up a lighted candle and did throw the candle with great force upon the spirit. The spirit was not consumed, but roared and danced and caused the fire to take upon dyvers furniture and hangings in the chamber.
The above named Piers Hillyard commanded the said Thomas Sumner to depart forthwith and remove dyvers papers, but Thomas Sumner would not so unless Piers Hillyard did come forth also and save his person that he might prolong his life. Thomas Sumner affirmeth that he being badly burned and Piers Hillyard gravely burned also, he agreed to depart with him together, but before they quitted the chamber, Piers Hillyard fell down upon the floor and died, and the spirit of the said Cain Lankin took the life of the above named Piers Hillyard unto himself, whereupon Thomas Sumner removed himself in haste from Glebe House with sundry articles as Piers Hillyard had commanded him so to do.
By the grace of God no servants, maidservants, groomsmen, or their children perished, nor any animal, save Piers Hillyard, and the said Thomas Sumner who is like to die this day of his injuries. May God have mercy on their souls.
Hereunto I put my hand, this day 17 August 26 Elizabeth (AD 1584),
Neville Harper, surgeon
Crawden, Daneflete
We sat staring down at the paper, even when we’d finished reading it. All I could hear now was the slow tick tick tick of a clock somewhere in the cottage. It was like the ticking of the whole world, on and on and on, through all the years that have ever been.
“So he pricked him, he pricked him all over with a pin,
And the nurse held the basin for the blood to flow in.”
I nearly jumped out of my skin.
“Flippin’ hell!” cried Cora, shooting to her feet.
It was Mrs. Thorston, singing in a voice like a little girl’s. We rushed into the other room. She was still in the chair but staring straight ahead with her mouth wide open, her eyes a strange milky blue.
“Gracie! Gracie! That’s enough!” said Mr. Thorston, kneeling down in front of her and taking hold of her shoulders. The cat jumped down, spitting.
“My lady came down then, all fearful of harm.
Long Lankin stood ready, she fell in his arm.”
“She’s scaring the living daylights out of me!” Cora shouted. “Make her be quiet!”
“Stop it, Gracie, do you hear?” said Mr. Thorston.
Mrs. Thorston’s head slumped down.
“I shouldn’t have mentioned Long Lankin,” said Mr. Thorston. “You all right, Gracie?”
“I’m all right, Hal.”
Cora was white. “That’s Kittie’s song,” she said, “Kittie Wicken’s. I’ve seen her, Mr. Thorston. How is Mrs. Thorston singing it? What’s going on?”
“Sit down, Cora, sit down,” he urged gently, guiding her into the cane-bottomed chair.
“Everyone in Bryers Guerdon knows that song — all the old people anyway. Kittie was a laundress at Guerdon Hall when — when the murders happened.”
“I know. She had a baby — a boy,” Cora said. “It was born at the rectory, then Kittie had to go back to Guerdon Hall, but she didn’t want to. She was frightened. What happened to the baby?”
“There’s no record,” said Mr. Thorston. He studied his rough old hands. “At least, not of the baby, but we know what happened to Kittie. She — she was found dead in the creek.”
“The creek at Guerdon Hall?” said Cora.
“Jasper — Jasper Scaplehorn thought she might have been trying to save her baby from Long Lankin.”
“Was the tide in or out?”
“When they found her, the tide was in — she was floating — but it didn’t mean there was water in the creek when she died. She might have been trying to cross the mud after Lankin and somehow he killed her. Or poor Kittie could have taken her own life, drowned herself.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Piers Hillyard says she was bearing the burden of some terrible secret she wouldn’t even confide to him. Whatever it was, she was a very, very frightened girl.”
> Somebody knocked firmly on the door.
“It’s only me, Mr. Thorston! Can I come in?”
I recognized Nurse Smallbone’s voice.
“I’ll go,” said Roger, heading for the door.
“And how’s Mrs. Thorston today?” Nurse Smallbone called over, entering like a breeze. “Oh, hello, you two, fancy meeting you here. Nice to see you on your feet again, dear. How’s Mum, Roger?”
“Still a bit tired.”
“Only to be expected. I’ll pop in and see her on my way home. Good afternoon, Grace. Lovely day, isn’t it? I’ve got your new tablets here. I’m going to have to give Grace the once-over, Mr. Thorston. Do you mind — the children —?”
“Yes, yes, of course. Come along, you two, best be going.”
“Oh, all right,” said Roger. “Bye-bye, Nurse Smallbone. Bye, Mrs. Thorston.”
“Bye,” I said.
Just then, Mrs. Thorston sat bolt upright. She turned her head and looked straight at me with her cloudy eyes. “He ate my brother,” she said.
“Really, Grace, what nonsense you do talk,” muttered Nurse Smallbone, opening her black bag. “Have you been making her that tea with plants again, Mr. Thorston? I’ve told you before, it won’t do her a bit of good.”
“He didn’t have any toys,” said Mrs. Thorston, holding my gaze. “I took the little rag he carried about and tied it on the gypsy tree.”
“Come on, Cora, come on,” said Mr. Thorston. “I — I’ll walk you both down the lane for a bit. Don’t forget the rest of the vegetables, Roger. I’ll be back soon, Nurse.”
In a daze, I picked up one of the bulging shopping bags that were resting on the floor by the front door, and left the cottage, relieved to feel the sunshine on my face.
“Mr. Thorston,” I asked, “what did she mean —‘He ate my brother’?”
“Could we sit down for a moment?” said Mr. Thorston as we passed a wooden bench. We stretched out our legs and watched a cat washing itself as it lay in a sunny patch of grass beside the path.
“You know,” Mr. Thorston went on, “Mrs. Thorston — if you could have seen her when she was young, you wouldn’t have laughed then.”
Long Lankin Page 23
