Shakespeare's Witch

by Samantha Grosser

  She smiled, revisiting the moments. The memory flickered bright and delicious in her thoughts as she framed the words in her mind to recount it all to Tom. Finding the phrases she needed, she laid down her sewing and took her brother’s hand in hers, giving him all the light of her attention and her gratitude.

  She had done just as they practised it, she told him, and he smiled and squeezed her fingers.

  She had stood close beside him, looking out across the theatre for a moment before she spoke. Then she had asked, ‘What will happen now? With the play?’

  Nick turned his head toward her. She had never been so near to him, never so conscious of the smell of him, his warmth. It was hard to resist the desire to reach out and touch him. He tilted his head in a half-shrug. ‘Someone else will play the part.’

  ‘Who, do you think?’ she said, meeting his eyes for a moment and registering the change she saw in his look as he reappraised her. She shifted her position slightly, touching fingers to her hair, and the consciousness of his full attention brushed her cheeks with pink. She wondered if he would notice.

  ‘Perhaps it will be me,’ he said, and smiled.

  ‘I hope so,’ she answered.

  ‘D’you think I can? It is a weighty role.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she breathed. ‘You would be a fine Macbeth.’

  He waited so she filled the pause, hoping she would not spoil things by saying too much. ‘But I think you will play him very differently from Master Burbage. Quieter, more intense, less regal perhaps and more of the soldier?’

  He nodded, sliding his eyes away to consider her words and then back again to regard her once more. ‘I have thought so,’ he agreed, ‘that I would play it as you say.’

  ‘Then let us pray you get the part.’ She smiled again.

  The slam of the outside door and Will’s reappearance as he strode across the yard brought the moment to a close, acknowledged between them with a nod. The players stirred from their apathy and made their way towards the foot of the stage, forming a loose circle round Will. Sarah kept her place at Nick’s right hand, assuming a new position for herself in the Company. Before today she would have hung back, afraid to overstep in this world of men. But no one paid her any mind, too intent on Will’s decisions to be concerned about her.

  ‘How is he?’ Nick asked.

  ‘In pain,’ Will answered. ‘But he’ll recover. He just needs to rest.’ He took a deep breath and looked around at them all as she waited, breathless to know who would take the part, her hopes bound up with Nick’s. Then he said, ‘Rehearsals will commence again tomorrow morning. Nick will take the part of Macbeth. Henry, you must be Banquo. I’ll rearrange the other roles tonight and tell you your parts in the morning.’

  ‘And Lear tomorrow?’ Nick asked.

  ‘I will play it,’ Will said.

  The players drifted out of the circle and Sarah risked a glance at Nick, who raised his eyebrows with a quick smile of complicity. She returned the smile, and on an impulse, touched her fingers briefly to his arm. To her surprise, he placed his own hand over hers and squeezed. ‘Thank you,’ he murmured, so that only she would hear him. ‘Your prayers seem to have worked.’ Then he let go her hand. ‘Till tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow.’ She backed away a couple of steps and dipped into the briefest of curtseys, which was met with an answering bow. Then she turned on her heel and paced across the yard toward the door before anyone could speak to her and notice the redness of her cheeks or her breathlessness.

  Now, in her chamber with Tom, the recollection brought the flush to her cheeks once again and quickened her heartbeat. She looked up at her brother in the light of the candle and smiled, waiting for his praise.

  ‘Good girl.’ He gave her shoulder an affectionate squeeze. ‘He’s as good as won. I’m proud of you.’

  ‘And tomorrow?’ she asked. ‘How should I be with him tomorrow?’

  ‘Let him come to you tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Be friendly but not too much so, and a wee bit coy. Now he needs to work a little to win you.’

  She nodded, fixing his advice in her mind, already thinking how she might behave.

  ‘Now get some sleep,’ Tom said.

  ‘I need to finish the dress first,’ she replied. ‘Or I shall have nothing to wear.’

  ‘And that would never do.’ Pushing himself off the table, he stood up. ‘Don’t stay up too late – you need your beauty sleep. Good night, gentle sister,’ he said, and bent to kiss her cheek. She held her face up for his kiss and the light stubble was rough against her skin.

  ‘Good night, Tom.’

  She watched him leave and, aware of her attention, he turned back at the door and blew her a theatrical kiss before he bowed and made his exit. She laughed and turned back to her sewing and worked for another hour until the dress was done.

  She was woken in the night by the light of a candle in her face and her mother’s hand shaking one shoulder.

  ‘Wake up, Sarah,’ her mother’s voice was urging.

  She struggled to rouse herself from deepest sleep, her mind groggy and confused. In her dreams she had been elsewhere, and the abrupt drag back to reality was a disappointment. Reluctantly she let the images trail into the darkness.

  ‘What is it?’ she mumbled.

  ‘A birth. We must go. Now.’

  She nodded and swung herself out of bed. The cold air stung against her skin and she regretted the warm blankets she had left. Dressing hurriedly as her mother helped to tie her skirts, she was ready within a few minutes and following her mother silently down the wooden stairs in the shifting light and shadow from her mother’s candle.

  At the front door Elizabeth took up a torch and lit it with the flame of the candle. Then, stepping outside, Sarah turned to lock the door behind her as her mother hurried away along the street, a dark shape against the torchlight. With a sigh, Sarah took off after her, holding her cloak close against the night air. The street was deserted – the small quiet hours between the late-night revellers and the labour of the early morning. The peace was disturbing, and instinctively she raised her eyes to see the sky. The moon peeped through the shifting clouds, waning just past the full and gibbous, and one or two stars tried bravely to shine their light on the mortals below, but the gathering clouds muffled their glow, threatening more rain. She lowered her gaze to her feet and ran a few steps to catch up with her mother.

  They left the High Street and cut through the silent market toward the poorer, rougher streets of Bankside, where the theatre and the bear-baiting ring rubbed shoulders with the taverns and the bawdy houses that faced upon the river. They passed the Globe and the still-empty land that held the ghost of the Rose, closed now these last two years or more, the Admiral’s Men settled in their new home north of the city. Around them nestled a host of tenement buildings – rooms to rent to suit all purses. A rat scurried out of her way down an alleyway and she thought she saw a glimpse of a figure in the dark. The streets at this hour were unsafe for women out alone, though she had never known her mother to be afraid. She wished she had the same confidence.

  ‘We should have brought Tom,’ she said, drawing level. ‘It would have been safer.’

  Her mother turned her head briefly towards her daughter. ‘He was not in his bed when I looked,’ she replied. ‘So we are alone.’

  ‘And Father?’

  ‘I’ve never asked for your father’s help in this and I never shall.’

  ‘Why doesn’t he approve?’ She had asked this many times: his disapproval of her mother’s midwifery was hard to understand – it was a respected profession after all, and a godly calling. But her mother always refused to answer, thin lips sealing closed in a line, jaw hardening in response. Still Sarah kept asking, hoping in the end she would know.

  ‘Now, we are almost there,’ her mother said, by way of answer.

  It was a poor room in a tenement block set hard by the river beyond the strip of brothels. The wooden beams were dank and rotting and a smel
l of mould hung in the air. The child who had sent for them waited in the doorway as they went through to find a pale young girl sweating on a threadbare pallet. A solitary tallow candle threw an uneven light across the chamber, and though an attempt at a fire had been made in what passed for a fireplace, the wood was damp and the room had filled with smoke. Sarah’s eyes began to water. The girl was about the same age as herself, she judged, perhaps fifteen or sixteen, and she felt a sudden rush of gratitude for the life she had been given – a good family and a full belly. Squatting down, she set about fixing the fire to give some warmth to the room, and placed some water to heat in the battered kettle that had been left on the hearth.

  Elizabeth sat on the edge of the bed and took the girl’s hand in hers, observing, assessing. ‘What’s your name?’ she asked.

  ‘Joan,’ the girl said.

  ‘And you are alone?’

  Joan nodded. Elizabeth slid a glance to her daughter. ‘This is your first?’

  ‘Third. But none still alive,’ the girl answered.

  ‘How long have you had the pains?’

  ‘Since not long after dark … Can you help me? I’ve nothing to give you.’

  ‘I’ll help you. Someone must.’

  Joan gave them a grateful and unbelieving smile and they settled down to business.

  The baby was born with the dawn, light creeping over the city behind the hanging clouds, barely noticed. Sarah held Joan’s hand and stroked her brow as the girl screamed and wailed and pushed her new child into the world, Elizabeth helping to ease its way.

  Sarah knew something was wrong as soon as the baby was out. Her mother’s face remained closed, no instinctive smile of the joy of new life, no shared excitement. She gave her mother a questioning glance as Joan slid back into the pillows, too exhausted and sad to even ask for her baby. Wordlessly, Elizabeth cut the cord and wrapped the child, who took her first reluctant breaths with a muted cry, as if unsure whether or not she should make an effort at this life. Then, handing the baby to Sarah, Elizabeth bent once more to take care of the afterbirth.

  Sarah held the child and examined her, lifting the corners of the swaddling cloth to see better the little body that she held. The child blinked silently once or twice, then gave up the effort and lay still, eyes closed. Sarah touched her fingers to the little hands, and saw what her mother had seen: six full fingers on the baby’s left hand. She took a deep breath and swallowed, then wrapped the cloth tightly once more and handed the child to her mother.

  Joan took the bundle without a word or apparent interest as Sarah tried to show her how to feed, but the baby seemed indifferent to her efforts and lay against her mother’s breast without stirring. They remained so for what seemed like a long time as Elizabeth finished her work and Sarah was silent, wondering what she should say to the new mother, if she should simply let the girl find it out on her own. It was tempting, but it seemed cruel when she so obviously had no one to turn to, and she wondered what had happened in Joan’s short life to render her so completely alone.

  ‘What do you think of her?’ she began.

  Joan shrugged. ‘She’s a baby. Same as any other.’

  ‘Not quite,’ Sarah said. ‘Have a look at her.’

  Elizabeth, standing up to stretch out her back after so long bent over, gave a subtle shake of her head. Sarah ignored it.

  Reluctantly, Joan struggled to push herself up in the bed a little, Sarah helping to move the pillow. Then the girl looked down at her child for the first time. The daylight had crept in, the morning fully born, and though it would never be bright in such a room, there was light enough to see by. The candle had guttered to a finish long ago. Joan observed the baby she held, this mouth she would now need the means to feed, and touched her gently, acquainting herself with the little puckered mouth, the wisp of hair, the hands waving lightly in the air. Then the girl saw the extra finger and recoiled with a gasp, shoving the child away from her, turning her face to the side.

  ‘’Tis only a finger,’ Sarah said, lifting the baby, attempting to return her to her mother.

  ‘I don’t want her. She’s cursed,’ Joan hissed. ‘All my babies are cursed. It’s better that she dies.’

  Sarah looked to her mother, who lifted an eyebrow as if to say I told you so. But how could she have left them? This child-mother and child. And if the mother’s life was already beyond redemption, perhaps they could at least save the baby. But who would take in a six-fingered orphan?

  Her mother stood before the fire, which had all but died, damp ashes and a trail of smoke all that remained. Then she turned once more towards Joan, holding the baby in her own arms now. ‘Why do you say your children are cursed?’

  The girl shook her head. ‘It makes no difference why,’ she said. ‘Take her away. Do what you want with her. Her father was a devil and the Devil takes his own.’

  ‘Where is the father?’

  Joan gave a sharp bark of laughter and derision. ‘Long gone on a ship. To a heathen land far away for all I know. And good riddance.’

  Sarah nodded. They had no choice but to take the baby – if they left her with her mother she would die.

  Elizabeth swung from the fire with a sudden movement and stood over them both. ‘We will take the child to the orphanage and I will give you herbs to help you repair. But you’d do well to keep your legs together next time you’re with a sailor, because, God help me, I will not help you if you breed again.’

  Sarah dropped her gaze. Her mother’s anger was harsh and complete and stubborn. She was glad it was not directed at her, but the girl was not cowed.

  ‘I open my legs to eat, Goodwife Stone. So judge me if you will.’

  Girl and woman locked eyes for a moment, one insolent, one judging, but it was the girl who looked away first. Sarah stood up with the baby and made towards the door. She was glad to be leaving such a dismal place, and in the street she breathed deeply, though the air was still dank and foetid even outside. She glanced along the lane. In the daylight she saw the meanness of the houses, rotting tenements and shacks set in filth, and children in rags running wild. A woman in a tattered shawl stood in a doorway, a thin and whining toddler at her feet, watching them go with despair in her eyes. Sarah dropped her own gaze to the ground at her feet and they hurried away, picking their footsteps carefully through the rutted earth. She was glad she hadn’t fully realised the poorness of the place in the darkness.

  They made their way along the river toward St Saviour’s, which towered over the surrounding low buildings, an ancient godly bulwark against the sprawl of decadent humanity that lay all around it. The churchyard was overgrown but the solid stone of the walls and the dark wood door gave a sense of permanence. Inside, the air was sweet, and the floor had been scrupulously swept and mopped, the walls fresh white and clean. The curate came out at the scraping of the door on the stones and greeted them.

  ‘Mistress Stone.’ He bowed. He was a young man with a doughy complexion and earnest eyes still clouded with sleep. His faith must be strong to minister here, she thought.

  ‘Curate.’

  ‘Another for the orphanage?’ He held out his arms to take the baby from Sarah, pity and resignation in his eyes as he smiled his thanks.

  ‘Just born this night,’ her mother said. ‘A girl with no name yet. She has six fingers and her mother thought her cursed.’

  ‘Poor little mite. We shall call her …’ He looked to Sarah for inspiration.

  ‘Elizabeth,’ Sarah said. ‘After the woman who delivered her.’

  Her mother rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t be so sentimental.’

  ‘Mary then,’ Sarah offered. It was her own middle name. She turned to the curate. ‘Call her Mary.’

  Elizabeth nodded her satisfaction with the choice, and the curate flicked a glance to Sarah that was somewhere between humour and embarrassment. ‘We shall call her Mary,’ he said. Then he looked again to Elizabeth. ‘God thanks you for the work you do here. He has surely sent you to us on
His behalf.’

  ‘He’s very welcome,’ Elizabeth answered. Then she dropped her head in a nod of farewell, turned and walked away.

  In the churchyard she stopped and looked to her daughter. ‘Perhaps now you understand why your father wants no part of it. But I …’ She stopped and corrected herself. ‘But we have been gifted with skills and it goes against nature to use them only for those who can pay us.’

  Sarah nodded. She had attended births before, learning her mother’s way with herbs and healing, but only at the confinement chambers of more well-to-do women – merchants’ wives, shopkeepers, women with husbands and able to pay. She understood her mother had been protecting her, waiting until she was old enough and skilled enough to understand the responsibility the part of a midwife involved.

  ‘Ours is not a path to tread lightly,’ her mother warned. ‘But the cycle of life needs attendance, and those poor children born to drabs and whores, unsought and unwanted, deserve the same chance at life as any other.’ She turned and began to walk briskly away. Sarah followed, jogging the first couple of paces to catch up. Walking with her mother had always been so, mother striding on ahead and daughter struggling to keep up. She could remember getting lost at markets when she was little, letting go of her mother’s hand when she was tired or distracted and her mother’s form disappearing into the crowd in moments. She recalled the excitement of those moments of freedom, and the fear until her mother came striding back to find her. Only once did she get properly lost, hours of lonely separation that had lasted long after the first flush of excitement, and it had been Tom that found her and took her home. She could still remember the joy at seeing him, the hug he gave her, the sense of safety when she was wrapped up in his arms. He had said to her then that he would always find her: no matter where she went, whatever she did, he would always be there to keep her safe, and he had never yet given her cause to doubt him.