The Witch’s Daughter

by Paula Brackston

  ‘I think the prognosis is good, and the treatment should be repeated at frequent intervals.’

  Café Henri was located down a side street off the small square that constituted the center of the little town. We slipped beneath the awning and pushed open the door onto a scene of welcoming warmth, light, and gaiety. It was clear Archie had been here before, for Monsieur Henri greeted him like a favorite son and showed us to a cozy corner table. The café was already close to full, and we had to squeeze our way past the other drinkers and diners. Monsieur Henri pulled out my chair for me and handed us our menus with a flourish.

  ‘What’s good tonight, Albert?’ Archie asked.

  Monsieur whipped out his notepad and licked his pencil. When he spoke, his accent growled and he swallowed his words, ‘Ah, Lieutenant Carmichael, ce soir I can highly recommend the cassoulet. Madame Henri prepared it by herself and it is’—he gave an expression of ecstasy—‘magnifique!’

  ‘Cassoulet it is, then.’

  Monsieur Henri snatched the menus from us and was gone, shouting urgent instructions to the elderly waiter to bring us wine tout de suite.

  Archie leaned forward. ‘I hope you don’t mind my choosing for you,’ he said, lowering his voice. ‘Fact is, everything else on the menu has been “off” since the war began. It’s cassoulet or nothing, I’m afraid. But you won’t be disappointed. It’s always excellent.’

  ‘Magnifique, even.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  The waiter brought glasses and a bottle of wine, which he opened with some effort and then placed next to Archie.

  ‘How ever did you find this place?’ I asked.

  ‘A fellow officer brought me here, first week I came out. If I have to be away from home, there is nowhere else I’d rather be. Do you like it?’

  I took in my surroundings. The walls were painted deep red but were almost entirely obscured by a Victorian hang of paintings, mostly oils. Some were landscapes of the area; others appeared to be portraits of regulars, with a particularly grand one of Monsieur and Madame Henri above the door to the kitchen. The bar was polished and worn by a thousand sleeves as their wearers clamored for wine or absinthe or coffee. From the high ceiling, three impressive chandeliers of black glass were suspended over the center of the room, with matching wall lights illuminating the corners. To the left of the bar was a small piano. The window had two tables in it, which were occupied by a party of inebriated soldiers. I judged from their uniforms and accents that they were Australian. Most of the diners were soldiers, in fact, apart from an elderly couple in the far corner and a small group of fresh-faced young French girls sitting in the center of the room pretending not to notice the blatant admiring gazes of the men. The entire space was filled with the buzz of people enjoying themselves; with the excitement of flirtation; with the smell of coffee and wine and cologne; and with a determined sense of joie de vivre. This was France as it always had been, as it would always be. This was a million miles from the brutality that was taking place only a short train ride away. I understood then what Strap had meant: it would be sinful not to enjoy oneself in such a place. The opportunity to revel in normal, friendly human interaction should indeed be celebrated and savored to the very last drop.

  ‘I like it very much,’ I told Archie as he handed me my wine. I looked at him as I raised the glass to my lips. ‘I can’t imagine anywhere I would rather be.’

  ‘Nor I.’

  ‘Not even Glencarrick?’

  ‘At this moment, no. This moment is already perfect. Let’s drink to it. Let’s hold it in our memories forever, how ever long that might be.’

  We drank our toast, our eyes lost in each other’s gaze. I felt that Archie had the ability to look at me and to know me, to see deep into my being. There was something wonderfully comforting in that realization. It was as if all the loneliness of the slow years I had lived was lifted from me as long as his eyes fell upon me in that way. As if he had read my thoughts, his expression became more serious. He put down his glass.

  ‘I think I should explain something,’ he said. ‘I was an only child and very close to my father, but it is my mother I most resemble. My father is gone now, sadly. I miss him dreadfully, as does my mother. She will never leave Glencarrick. I suppose it is part of the reason the place means so much to us both—it is where he was. Where he is. Anyway, my mother is a very singular person. She was brought up in Edinburgh but moved out to the highlands, where she was introduced to my father. They loved each other from the moment they met.’ He paused and smiled at me, then continued. ‘I think my father knew at once that there was something different about her. He didn’t care. He accepted her absolutely as she was. Though there were some in the family who thought her a little … odd. But she soon settled into Glencarrick, and the local people adored her. They were more accepting of her … unusual talents.’ He took another swig of his wine. ‘Fact is, my mother is a medium. She makes no secret of it, gives no excuses or explanations. She simply has an ability to communicate with spirits who have passed over into the otherworld, as she calls it. I was never frightened by it, not even as a child. I grew up with séances and with strangers appearing at the door asking for my mother’s help in contacting their lost loved ones. She never turns anyone away. When I was still quite small, about eight or nine I suppose, my mother spotted something in me too. I had the gift. She noticed it first when I spoke of the little boy who visited me each night. My father passed it off as dreams or an imaginary friend. I don’t think he was keen to admit that he had another “odd” member of the family, not at first. But my mother knew straightaway that my visitor was a spirit. A ghost, if you like. He was the first of many. After that, I regularly met up with all sorts of people in the hours of darkness. Most of them had lived at Glencarrick at one time or another. Sometimes I would help my mother contact people’s relatives and friends. As I say, it never frightened me. It was just how we were.’

  He stopped talking as Monsieur Henri arrived with steaming platefuls of cassoulet.

  ‘Madame, here you are. I hope that you will enjoy your meal.’

  ‘It smells delicious,’ I said.

  ‘Lieutenant Carmichael, bon appétit.’

  ‘Thank you, Albert.’

  As he left the table, we both stared at our food in wonder. After weeks of rations and the ghastly fare we had been surviving on, the meal in front of us was indeed magnificent. I could detect marjoram and rosemary and garlic and sweet onions amidst the tomatoes and beans and chunky pieces of rabbit and sausage. Never had I anticipated a plateful of food with such relish. But I dearly wanted Archie to continue. I didn’t want the moment of confidence to be lost.

  ‘Go on,’ I said, ‘you were telling me about your mother. About you. Please don’t stop.’

  ‘Do you know I’ve never told anybody else out here about this? None of the men. Nobody. But I wanted to tell you. I want you to understand. I want you to see that I’—he hesitated—‘that I understand you.’

  At that moment it was as if the rest of the room ceased to exist. I was no longer aware of anything except the very special man who sat in front of me. And of the true meaning of what he was saying. He knew me. He knew what I was! I did not have to hide or pretend. I did not have to try to explain or excuse. His ability to see what others could not, to connect with the otherworldly, meant that I was laid bare before him. I was not Nurse Elise or even Bess. Well, I was them but not only them. I was everything I had ever been. Elizabeth Anne Hawksmith. Born when the world was so much younger. Changed from simple healer to immortal. Once and for always, for good or bad, a witch. My heart began to sing with the joy of it. Before I could stop them, tears dripped from my chin. Tears of pure happiness.

  ‘Careful now.’ Archie handed me his handkerchief. ‘Albert will be offended if you add more salt to his already perfect cassoulet.’

  ‘You don’t … despise me?’

  ‘Despise you!’ He shook his head and reached across the table to take my ha
nd. ‘My love, my dear sweet Bess. I adore you. You have my heart completely and utterly. For all time.’

  I let him squeeze my hand. He smiled at me.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s eat.’

  We had just begun to tuck in to our heavenly food when I saw Archie’s attention taken by someone entering the café. His face darkened a little, and I turned to see Lieutenant Maidstone stepping into the room, accompanied by two other officers. He saw us and approached our table smiling.

  ‘Carmichael, you are a dark horse.’ He slapped Archie on the back and beamed at me. ‘Well, well, Nurse Hawksmith, I recall. How delightful to see you again.’

  ‘Lieutenant Maidstone, I hope you are keeping well.’

  ‘Tip-top, my dear. Tip-top. I say, that looks good. I’d heard about this place, but this is the first time I’ve been here. Think I might get a bowlful of that for myself.’

  ‘Reg, old man!’ A shout came from one of his companions now standing at the bar. ‘Don’t be shy with that money of yours, come and pay for the drinks.’

  Lieutenant Maidstone smiled and gave a little bow. ‘Enjoy yourselves, children,’ he said to us, before turning and threading his way between the tables to the bar. Archie seemed strangely bothered by his friend’s appearance.

  ‘How far does a person have to go to find some privacy in this wretched war?’ he wondered aloud.

  ‘He’s very jolly,’ I said. ‘I suppose you make good friends, thrown together in those dugouts.’ I scooped up a forkful of beans.

  ‘Lieutenant Maidstone is no friend of mine,’ he said quietly.

  I was surprised. I glanced over my shoulder. The lieutenant was engaged in animated conversation with Monsieur Henri, who seemed happy enough to talk to him. There was something overbearing about him, it was true. And I recalled the way he and Captain Tremain had both stared at me in the dugout. I remembered how unnerved I had felt. I had assumed it was the captain who had made me uneasy, but clearly Archie saw something in Lieutenant Maidstone. I stopped eating and started to focus on him, to tune in my witch’s intuition, but Archie drew my attention back to him.

  ‘I don’t want to hurry you,’ he said, his mood distinctly altered, ‘but can we eat up and go from this place now? I have found us somewhere where we can be together. Just the two of us.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ I said. ‘I would like that. I really would.’

  We finished our supper in a silence filled with a curious tension not altogether born of the anticipation of the night ahead.

  7

  Archie summoned Monsieur Henri, and after much conspiratorial whispering we were led out via the kitchens and through a back door. In the small yard at the rear of the café, the portly restaurateur tugged back a canvas sheet to reveal a gleaming motorcycle. He handed the keys to Archie and took pleasure in explaining the bike’s finer points to him. Archie strapped my bag onto the back and helped me climb aboard the pillion seat. With three determined kicks, the vehicle roared to life. I clung to Archie, snuggling up to his strong, warm back. As we left Gironde and took the country road south, I could not have felt happier. I had no idea where we were going or how long our journey would take. I trusted Archie completely. We were together, we were away from the war, we had precious time ahead of us, and for now we could be utterly selfish. Nothing else mattered. We traveled along increasingly narrow roads through shadowy countryside. It must have been half an hour later that Archie turned the motorbike down a bumpy farm track. We passed the farmhouse itself, rattling across the cobbled yard. An arthritic dog raised the alarm, but the front door remained closed. We negotiated the ruts and potholes of the increasingly uneven path until we came to a tiny cottage sitting among a small group of silver birch trees. It was a single-story stone dwelling with a steeply sloping roof and a stout chimney out of which ghostly smoke drifted up through the still night air. Archie stopped the motorbike and switched off the engine. The quiet of the place was glorious and punctuated by nothing more than a hooting owl here and a barking fox there. Archie took my bag and led the way to the low wooden door, which was not locked. I stepped across the threshold and breathed in woodsmoke and cut flowers. Archie lifted an oil lamp from the mantelpiece and put a match to the wick. The room flickered into focus. A fire had been lit some hours ago and burned bright and hot in the large hearth. A scrubbed-pine table in the middle of the little room boasted a bowl of roses and a box of groceries. There were two wooden chairs by the table, as well as a rocking chair and a faded leather armchair by the fire. In the far corner was a washstand with pitcher and bowl. A mirror hung on the wall. Beside these stood an iron bedstead with a deep feather mattress and a patchwork quilt.

  ‘It’s not the Ritz, I’m afraid,’ said Archie, lighting a candle in a brass holder and placing it on the table, ‘but it’s ours for the remainder of the weekend. No one will disturb us. The farmer is a cousin of Albert’s.’

  ‘It’s wonderful,’ I said, ‘quite wonderful.’ A thought occurred to me and I was unable to stop myself asking him. ‘Have you … have you been here before? With anyone?’

  ‘Not with anyone.’ He shook his head and then stepped close to me and took both my hands in his. ‘I promise you, I’m not given to whisking beautiful young nurses off to remote cottages in the dead of night. I have been here only once before, on my own. I badly needed a little time away from the front, but I had only a few days leave. I wanted somewhere quiet. Somewhere I could let my mind rest, if just for a short time. I mentioned my wish to Albert. He is a good man. He offered me this place. When I said I wanted to visit the cottage again, this time with a friend, well, he saw to everything for me. It is heartening, isn’t it, to find such small acts of kindness in the midst of all this misery?’

  I smiled at him, nodding. ‘I can’t believe it’s for us.’ I circled the room, touching the rough lintel above the fireplace, pausing to sniff the showy roses, wrapping myself in the warmth and tranquillity of the place. ‘Just us.’

  ‘Just us. Now.’ He rubbed his hands together and peered into the box of provisions. ‘Let’s see what treats Monsieur Henri has found for us.’

  The box yielded fresh bread, a truckle of hard cheese, some waxy tomatoes, brown eggs, apples, a pot of honey, and even a few precious grains of coffee. Besides these wondrous delights were a corkscrew and two bottles of red wine. Archie beamed, holding one up to the light.

  ‘I’ll find glasses,’ he said, and proceeded to dig about in the one and only cupboard in the room.

  I unbuttoned my coat, slipped it from my shoulders, and draped it over one of the kitchen chairs. I knew exactly where I wanted to sit, but something made me hesitate. I approached the rocking chair slowly, as if it might spring into movement without warning. I became aware of Archie watching me. He must have thought my behavior strange. To him, it was just a chair. To me, it was such a powerful reminder of my mother that here, in this cottage which was so very like my childhood home, long-stifled emotions threatened to overwhelm me. Tentatively, I touched the smooth wood. The rockers shifted and creaked minutely; the faintest tilt, the lightest whisper of a sound. I sat down and leaned against the rounded wooden bars of the backrest. Slowly I let the chair move. It gathered momentum smoothly. The light from the flames beside me blurred slightly as I rocked forward and back, forward and back. I looked across at Archie, who stood, glasses in hand, waiting for my reaction.

  He knows, I thought, he knows so much about me.

  I smiled again, aware that I had not done so with such frequency or with such genuine happiness for a very, very long time. Instantly, I felt guilty for enjoying myself when so many were suffering only a few empty miles away. I could only guess at what conflicting emotions Archie must have been struggling with.

  ‘It’s difficult, isn’t it,’ I said, ‘to forget the others? To put all the ghastliness of the war out of one’s mind and just … be here.’

  He nodded, contemplating the inky wine in his glass and lowering himself heavily into the old
leather chair. ‘I was fortunate,’ he said, ‘during my first weeks out here I had a terrific CO. Brunswick, his name was. He noticed I wasn’t taking my leave and spoke to me. “Get away from here every chance you have,” he told me. “Get away and don’t give the place another thought. It’s the only way to remain sane.” He was right. Dead now, of course, but that doesn’t make him any less right. I’ve learned to do what he said.’

  ‘I think it’s an excellent plan. No more war until we leave. Agreed?’

  ‘No more war. I’ll drink to that.’

  That evening we sipped our wine and talked long into the night. We talked of our childhoods and our lives before ever we had heard of Passchendaele. I longed to hear more of his family, of his origins, of him. What he had said in the café came back to me and I wanted, needed, to know more.

  ‘You say you used to help your mother, assist her in her work as a medium. That you had the gift. Do you have it still?’

  Archie allowed a rueful smile to alter his features. ‘I think now it would be not so much a gift as a curse. Out here, in this Bedlam, what tortured souls would come to me if I were able to see them, I wonder. What would they say to me?’ He shook his head. ‘I am very sure I could not stand it.’ He paused to pour more wine into my glass and to refill his own. When he continued, his voice was hoarse with emotion. ‘I was fifteen when my communications with spirits who have passed over ceased. Just like that. It was as if a light inside me had been snuffed out. I felt bereft, as though I had lost my family. Can you understand that?’

  ‘I can, yes. To lose that connection … how could you not feel a tremendous loneliness? But why? Why did things change? And why then, do you know?’

  He shook his head. ‘My mother told me it had something to do with my transition into manhood, that’s the only way she could explain it.’

  ‘I have heard that children are more naturally susceptible. More sensitive to vibrations on planes other than those in our own, normal, waking world. By becoming an adult, you stepped beyond their reach. And yet your mother…’