by Lisa Tuttle
“Hello? Who is there?”
I walked toward Miss Bulstrode’s voice, and there she was, a canvas apron covering her dress, and her hands deep in soil as she repotted a plant. “Why, Miss Lane; I did not expect to see you again so soon.”
“Forgive me; I must apologize for disturbing you,” I said, already breathless in the clinging heat.
“Not at all. Perhaps you’d like to take off your coat? If you will give me a few moments to bed this little darling down, I shall be happy to give you a guided tour. My sisters will tell you, I love any chance to show off my beauties.”
“That is very kind, but I really cannot stop for long—I am on my way to Cromer—but I wanted to ask you—that is, I mean, I wanted to tell you that I am no longer resident at the Vicarage. In case you wanted to get in touch with me. I seem to have managed to offend Mrs. Ringer, and she has thrown me out.”
Her mouth dropped open a little. “You do not mean it?”
“I am afraid so. She was kind enough to lend me her carriage as far as Cromer Station, so eager is she to be rid of me.”
“So you are going home to London?”
I took a deep breath—it was a struggle to fill my lungs—and wiped the moisture from my brow. “Not yet. I thought I might find a room to rent in Cromer—perhaps you could suggest a suitable inn, respectable, but not too expensive?” I hoped she would attribute the blush in my cheeks to the heat.
“Suggest? Oh, Miss Lane, you must stay here, of course.”
“Oh, I could not possibly impose.”
“It is no imposition—believe me. Rather, it would be my great pleasure to have you stay as our guest. We have a very comfortable guest bedroom—it is yours for as long as you like.”
“Are you sure? That is most kind. I never expected . . . I would hate to be a bother. Believe me, it would only be for a few days . . . Perhaps you would let me pay you something toward my board?”
“Do not even think of it,” she said firmly. “It is no hardship, and I am certain my sisters, especially, will enjoy hearing some news from London. I never care to travel, but they have not been anywhere in months, and they find life in this small village rather dull sometimes.”
“Thank you,” I said again, feeling very mixed emotions. I was pleased to have achieved my aim so easily, mortified at the necessity of deceiving—and suspecting—such a friendly lady. “If there is any way I can repay your kindness . . .”
“You will have to tell us what you did to offend the vicar’s wife.” She smiled, and a malicious sparkle lit her eyes.
“Perhaps later,” I said uneasily.
“Oh, yes, at supper tonight, when we’re all together. Or will you stay for dinner? I had better ask Elsie what she has planned, but there should be enough for one more—”
“No, no I have a meeting in Cromer at one o’clock,” I said, cutting her off a bit desperately. “The carriage is waiting for me outside.”
“Of course. Please, consider our house your home. You may come and go as you please—if you will be out late, let me know and I shall lend you my key. I hope you will be able to join us this evening; we usually have a light repast at sometime between seven and eight, but if that does not suit—”
“That will suit me very well; thank you.” I began edging toward the door.
“But what about your bags?” She looked at my empty hands.
“Only one—it is outside, in the carriage.”
“Well, bring it in—Nancy will show you to your room, and you can freshen up before you go, if you like. You are looking quite flushed. It is the heat, of course, that you are not used to.”
I fetched my bag from the carriage and asked Billy if he minded waiting another half an hour for me. I was glad when he said he did not, for there seemed to me no benefit in arriving to meet Mr. Jesperson much before his stipulated one o’clock. It was agreeable to be able to take the opportunity Miss Bulstrode had suggested, to “freshen up,” before I left.
“Do you mind if I ride beside you?” I asked Billy when I returned.
He looked a bit taken aback. “You will be warmer inside, miss.”
“I do not mind the cold,” I lied, hoping I would not give myself away by shivering too obviously. I did not wish to pass up what might be my last opportunity to chat with the stableboy.
“What do you know about the ladies at Wayside Cross?” I asked as we started off.
“I know that Mr. Manning meant to marry one of ’em.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Because he told me.” He grinned at the memory. “It was when I dropped him off in Cromer. He said he expected to be married and living at Wayside Cross by Christmas, with any luck, and then he gave me a nice tip.” The smile dropped off his face. “That was the last time I ever saw him. How sad, for such a kind young gentleman to die so sudden.”
“Do you remember his exact words?”
“Near enough what I just said.”
I looked at the woods, pushing my chin down into the warmth of my scarf. “Where did you let him off? At the station, I suppose. Did he say where he was going?”
“No, miss. At first, he said he wanted the station—but when we arrived, he remembered something else he needed to do, and told me to drive on. But then, we met a wagon unloading kegs of beer—the streets are so narrow, farther in, that I had to stop; there was no way around it; and he got impatient, and hopped out, said he’d make his own way. He wasn’t cross, though; he was always nice and friendly to me; he laughed and made a joke of it; said that when people said something was worth waiting for, he reckoned it was even more worth not waiting, if you could find a way of getting there quicker.”
I rubbed my cold nose. “Apart from Mr. Manning’s engagement, do you know anything more about the ladies at Wayside Cross?”
“I don’t know anything about them, miss.”
“But have you heard people talk about them? Do people say they are witches?”
Looking uncomfortable, Billy avoided my eye and fiddled unnecessarily with the reins. “People say all sorts of foolish things.” He sighed. “Their mother was a wisewoman, and so is Miss Bulstrode, that is well known. But it is women’s business, that, and not for me.”
There was something so final in that remark that I knew I should get nothing more from him on this subject. Out of idle curiosity, then, I asked, “And what about men’s business? If men can’t ask a wisewoman for help, what do they do?”
He perked up a little. “Men have different sorts of problems; stands to reason we would need to see another man, don’t it? There is a cunning man in Cromer, I have heard. He can take spells off of people, and tell you what’s to come in the future. Once he even found some buried treasure, or so they say.”
By the time he had finished elaborating on the abilities of this unnamed wonder, we had reached Cromer, and all Billy’s attention was required to navigate amid the traffic.
“There, that’s Chapman’s Inn, just down there,” he said, pointing. “Oh, and look—is that not Mr. Jesperson? Why, there’s luck for you!”
“Luck, indeed,” I said, and quickly scrambled down. “Thank you, Billy. You’d best be off home now.”
I met Mr. Jesperson in front of the inn. He looked past me at the departing carriage. “Well, you have come in style! How did you manage to get the use of the Ringers’ carriage, when I was not even offered a second chance at the reverend’s bicycle?”
I sniffed. “Mrs. Ringer told me to pack my things and get out; Billy was supposed to get me to Cromer Station in good time to make the last connection to London.”
He began to laugh. “What have you done to offend that good lady?”
“I questioned Maria, against her express orders.”
He pressed a hand to his breast. “On my instructions. So it was my fault.”
I protested. “I should have wished to speak to her again in any case. No one tells me there are questions that should not be asked.”
Biting his
lip to repress more laughter, he said, “Come along inside. We may continue our conversation over dinner. And I suppose you will wish to take a room here . . .” He frowned. “But where is your bag? Not held hostage by Mrs. Ringer, I trust.”
I smiled sweetly. “I left it in the guest room at Wayside Cross.”
“Oh, well done!” He clapped my shoulder briefly. “The Vicarage is about exhausted as a source of information, I am sure you agree; and you will learn much more about Manning—and Cooke, too—from the Misses Bulstrode.”
We went inside. The waiter spotted us instantly, was effusive in his welcome, and hurried to find us a table with a good seaside view, his delight easily explained by the sparsely populated dining room. November is not a very profitable month for businesses in English seaside resorts.
“What do you recommend?” Mr. Jesperson asked the waiter when we were seated.
“The fish is always good, and today—”
“Then we shall have fish. I am sure we may leave the manner of its preparation to your chef. Bring us a good meal, and a decent bottle of white wine, and do not disturb our conversation any more than necessary, there’s a good fellow.”
“Very good, sir.”
Mr. Jesperson turned his alert, inquisitive gaze on me. “You know the color of the blanket?”
“Blue—sky blue. Not a blanket, but Maria’s own shawl.”
“Of course,” he said softly. “No blanket, no garments for her little stranger. She had to make do.”
“Why did you wish to know the color?”
“I found something this morning—it may have been nothing, but I thought otherwise. What you report encourages me in that belief.” He reached into a pocket and brought out a folded handkerchief, inside of which was a tiny scrap of sky-blue wool.
I gasped. “Where did you find it?”
“In the field opposite the Vicarage—in the shrieking pit—caught on a briar.”
A young girl brought a basket of bread to our table and marched away.
“In the shrieking pit,” I repeated blankly. “But last night you looked—”
“I missed it last night,” he said, sounding cross with himself.
“Such a small thing—it is not surprising. I am sure most people would not have noticed it even in daylight. But why did you go back?”
Before he could reply, the wine waiter appeared, and the bottle must be opened, wine poured, tasted, and approved of by Mr. Jesperson. When at last the waiter withdrew, my friend held up his glass and gazed at it, saying, “I found that the stone had been replaced.”
“What stone?”
He set down his glass, frowning. “Surely you recall the slab that I removed from the ground yesterday?”
I recalled it, and remembered turning back to see the uncovered hole gaping like a mouth, before we left the field. “This was last night?”
“No. Last night I could still see the opening—I shone my light into it. But when I went to look this morning, it was covered again.”
“Then most likely it was replaced by the landowner. After all, it must have been covered for a reason.”
“Oh, undoubtedly there was a reason.”
Our first course arrived: bowls of beef consommé. Looking down at the circle of murky brown liquid, I thought of the hole in the field, imagining the threatening darkness of it under the moon. It was big enough to take the body of a baby. But if anyone had put it there last night, Mr. Jesperson could not have failed to find it. I imagined a cloaked, hooded figure with a baby in its arms, scuttling down the sloped side of the shrieking pit to hide there for a few minutes, alerted by the sound of Maria’s screams. Once the coast was clear, it could have scrambled out again and crossed the field, staying away from the road, and never noticing that a tiny scrap of wool had been snagged on a briar in passing.
“Aren’t you hungry?” asked Mr. Jesperson.
With a little start, I returned to the present and picked up my spoon. Alas, the consommé tasted more of pepper, salt, and flour than of beef. “Not up to the standards of the Vicarage,” I said. “Which reminds me—what of your interview with Cook?”
“Disappointing. She said she thought Maria had been putting on weight, but ascribed it to her ‘washing the plates with her tongue’ every time she cleared the table. She was surprised to learn Maria ever had a baby, but her best suggestion regarding its disappearance was that it was carried off by a stray dog, or possibly a fox.”
The thought made me feel rather ill—or perhaps it was the pepper in the soup. I put my spoon down. “Would a fox—could a fox or a dog—do such a thing?”
“It seems unlikely. Especially since it was carried off in the shawl, leaving no trace behind. Unfortunately, I cannot think of any answer to this peculiar affair that could be described as a reasonable suggestion. Perhaps we should move on to discuss the case of Charles Manning, which is, after all, why we came to Norfolk.”
I pushed my soup bowl to one side. “My reason for wanting to stay at Wayside Cross has more to do with Maria—she suspects someone in that house of taking her child.”
He frowned. “Why?”
“There was no time for her to explain, and she was too frightened to say their names aloud, but it was clear who she meant. Of course, it may be nothing, but once you begin to ask why anyone would steal a baby—”
“Then the old calumnies are recalled,” he said briskly. “Babies sacrificed to the devil, or boiled up to make magical ointments. That Felix Ott, of all people, should resurrect those lies—and yet it appears that Miss Flowerdew was correct in her assertions.
“I have spoken to two others, both followers of Mr. Ott’s, who confirmed that in his late-September lecture in Cromer—but at no other time or place—he warned against ‘satanic witches’—making a distinction from the ‘wisewomen’ who were good witches—and darkly intimated that there were some people alive in England today who did the very things that the Church accused witches of in the past.”
“How did you find these witnesses?” I asked.
“Surely you remember the names in Manning’s address book? Miss V. Goodall and Mr. Simon Crisp, local residents.”
The girl arrived to take our soup bowls away, but hesitated over mine, which indeed I had scarcely touched. “Shall I leave it, miss?”
“No, take it away,” I said emphatically.
When she had gone, Mr. Jesperson continued his tale.
“Miss Goodall is unquestioningly devoted to Mr. Ott and could not entertain the thought that he could ever be mistaken in anything. Since his warning against the wrong sort of witches, she has been on her guard. I had the impression that, with only a little more encouragement, she could have given me the names and addresses of suspicious, witch-like characters in the area.
“Mr. Crisp, on the other hand, found those remarks quite out of character. He felt there was something vindictive in them, that they were not to be taken at face value, but were aimed at someone in particular—possibly Manning.”
I furrowed my brow. “Manning? Why?”
“I only repeat his impression. He said that afterward, when time was allowed for questions, Manning tried to argue that the Church had invented the notion of satanic witches, and that they had not existed in the past, and certainly not now, but Ott cut him off. Later, Crisp says, he saw the two men in heated argument—the only time he had ever seen them disagree. But they must have made up their quarrel, for by the following week the two were again as thick as thieves, and witchcraft was never again represented in anything but an entirely benign and positive way, as part of the ancient British wisdom promoted by the School. Crisp wondered if Ott’s slanders against witches were never meant to be taken seriously; if they had been a tease, or possibly some sort of test, aimed at Manning.”
The waiter arrived at that moment bearing two plates of beautifully golden, crisp, steaming hot fried fish and potatoes, and for the next few minutes everything else was forgotten. It tasted even more delicious than it looked
. This was food on another level entirely from the so-called beef consommé; the fish was perfectly cooked, the batter light and crispy, a glorious mixture of soft and crunchy, smooth and salty. Mr. Jesperson topped up our glasses with the mellow wine, and we sipped and munched away in contented silence.
At last, he inquired about my conversations at Wayside Cross.
“The two maids there are acquainted with Maria, but had no notion of her situation. Miss Bulstrode said she had never met her.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Is that a note of suspicion I hear?”
I thought I had spoken neutrally, and said only, “I reserve judgment.”
“So you do not think the sisters are in reality a coven of demonic, baby-stealing cannibals?”
It sounded quite absurd, and yet . . . “Of course not. But Miss Bulstrode admits she is known as a witch, there is a baby missing, and of course there is a long tradition connecting witches to such vile activities.”
“There is a long tradition of ascribing the worst imaginable atrocities to one’s enemies in order to justify one’s own dreadful deeds. Thus, the Church justified torture and violence against women and men they claimed were guilty of performing even more hideous and depraved acts. Strange, is it not, that the accused witches were never able to call upon their supposed powers to save themselves.” He stabbed a piece of fried potato with his fork. “Ott was playing with fire when he suggested there might be baby-murdering satanists at large in the countryside. Rousing old fears is far easier than putting them to rest; it would not be difficult to resurrect the age of the witch hunt.”
I said, “I do not know which would be worse—if Ott truly believes in those evil creatures, or if he only said it out of mischief. And why should Manning have taken it so personally?”
“I wondered that myself. Could it be Ott was driven by jealousy? If both men were courting Miss Bulstrode—and if Manning had managed to become engaged to marry her—”
I hastened to correct this idea. “It was not Miss Bulstrode he meant to marry.”
“No? You seemed certain of it before.”
“Perhaps his first interest was in Miss Bulstrode, but when she made it clear she had no intention of ever abandoning her single state, he became engaged to Miss Ann—the youngest of the three. At least, if it was not a formally acknowledged engagement, it was understood between the two of them. Miss Bulstrode said they must wait until Ann was older and Mr. Manning could afford to support a family. It is possible, of course, that her objections to their marriage were tinged with jealousy, for she told me she had recently turned down a proposal. And I must say, I sensed she may regret it—certainly, she still has strong feelings for her suitor.”
