The Witch

by Mary Johnston

  CHAPTER XIV

  NIGHT

  THE storm that had broken in the early afternoon regathered. The cloudshung low and black, the wind whistled, the rain came in gusts, nowand again there was lightning and thunder. It was so dark in Heron’scottage, behind the deep, dripping eaves, that Joan moving to and froseemed a shadow among shadows. The hearth glowed, but she held her handfrom making a bright light with fresh faggots. Her mood was not for thedancing flame.

  What it was for she knew not. She only knew that she was suited bythe rain that dashed, by the bending fruit trees, striking the thatchwith mossed boughs, the solemn roll of the thunder, the darkness andsolitude. She paced the room, her arms lifted and crossed behind herhead. At last a bit of unburned wood caught and sent up forked flames.Light and shadow danced about the walls. The grey and white cat cameand walked with Joan, rubbing against her skirt.

  The thunder rolled. Outside, the murk of the day thickened towardevening. A hand fell across the door, then pressed the latch. Thedoor swung inward; there was a vision of a muffled figure, behind itwind-tossed trees and up-towering clouds lit by lightning.

  “Who is it?” Joan cried sharply; then, as the man let drop the cloak hehad been holding across his face, “Master Carthew!...”

  The firelight, sinking, left only the smouldering coals and the roomalmost dark. Joan, moving swiftly across the room, seized fresh brandsand threw them upon the old. A flame leaped up; the place was fairlylight again. She turned upon him. “To come here—to come here—”

  “Aye,” he answered, “to come here.” He unclasped his great cloak andlet it drop on the settle, took off his steeple-crowned hat and setit on the cloak. He stood out, dark-clothed, plain as Master Clementhimself in what he wore, with short-cut hair, with handsome features,haggard, flushed, and working. “Do you know whence I have come? I havecome from leading men to the Oak Grange where they took and bound thatatheist there and carried him away to gaol. You’ll walk no more withhim in Hawthorn Forest.”

  Joan drew a heavy, painful breath. “I walked little with him inHawthorn Forest. But when my father took the plague he came to him. Heis a good man! Aye, I was in church and heard Master Clement—”

  “Nay, I think that you walked much. But now you will walk no more.” Hecame nearer to her. “Joan, put that Satan’s servant from out your mind!Turn instead to one who sinneth truly and puts oftentimes in peril hisimmortal soul, but is at least no misbeliever and denier of God’sWord. Joan—Joan!”

  He tried to take her in his arms. She was strong and broke from him.Behind her was a shelf with some pewter jugs and dishes and smallarticles of use. She put up her arm and snatched from it a good andkeen hunting-knife; then stood, breathing quickly, the firelightreddening the blade in her hand.

  He gave a harsh and forced laugh. “Put it down, Joan! I did not mean tofright thee. I came to persuade—”

  “Nay, I’ll keep it by me,” said Joan. “Persuade me to what? To feellove for you? That, Master Carthew, you cannot do! But you could makeme feel gratitude—”

  “If I took hat and cloak and went from out your door?”

  “Aye, just.”

  “I cannot.... No man ever loved as I love you.... Here, this dusk, thisSabbath.—Think if I am in earnest.... Joan, Joan! If I lose for theemy immortal soul—”

  She made a sound of anger and contempt. “Oh, thy little immortal soul!Be but mortal—and just!” The tears rose in her grey eyes. “See whatyou will do to me! Say that you were seen coming here—say that anyof the times you have waited for me, waylaid me, met me against mywill, you were watched—we were seen together.... You are a man anda gentleman and a great man in this country. It will not harm you.But Joan Heron—but Joan Heron—it will harm her! It will provide hermisery for all her days!”

  Carthew struck his hand against the settle. “Is not all my name andfuture risked? I am not of the old England, nor of to-day’s carelessand idolatrous England. My world is the world of the new England, ofthe forces of the Lord mustering upon the straight and narrow pathwhere there is no room for Satan’s toys! And if I turn aside to Babylonand the flesh and its madness, and if my turning becomes known—Joan,Joan, you know not how great is my risk—even my worldly risk! As forthe other—as for my risk of God’s hatred and damnation—but I willnot speak of that.... Enough that I am here, and that to hold youconsenting in my arms would even all out and make my lead gold and mytorment bliss! Joan—if you would but love me and feel how the risk isoutweighed! As for security, we can manage that. Many another pair hasmanaged that. To-day—here—with the wind and rain keeping all withindoors.... I rode with the men some way toward the town, and then Ileft them, saying there were matters at home that needed. When theywere out of sight, I turned through the fields and went up the streamthat was all solitary, until I was over against the Oak Grange and theforest all around me. Then I turned and rode here through the forest,and fastened my horse in a hollow out there where none may see him....Joan, it is like a desert all about us—or like Paradise garden. Joan,Joan, I love you! Joan, have pity!”

  There came an access of lightning with thunder and a prolongedwhistling of the wind. In the warring light and darkness of the room,Carthew, as though the final spring of restraint had snapped, cameclose to her, put his arms about her. The lightning blazed again, andby it both saw with distinctness a man and woman standing without,their faces close to the window. In the darkness after the flash,they left it and came on to the cottage door, but as yet did notknock. Within the room, Carthew, sobered, the colour ebbing fromhis face, only one consideration pouring in upon his mind, releasedJoan and caught from the settle hat and cloak. There was a secondoutward-opening door, giving upon the bit of garden behind the cottage,leading in its turn to the forest. He looked toward it. She nodded,“Yes, yes, go!” He came close to her, moving noiselessly and speakinglow, “Do you think they saw—saw at all?”

  She shook her head. “I do not know.”

  “It was too dusk within. I do not think they saw. Keep counsel, Joan,for thy own sake if not for mine.”

  The two without knocked. Carthew crossed the floor without sound,opened the forest-facing door, and with a gesture of farewell vanished.There was a continuous noise of wind and rain; what daylight was leftand the lightning were all without; it might truly be doubted if oneglancing through the window could either see or hear, the interior wasso dusky, the voice of wind and wet so continuing. Joan, with a long,shuddering sigh, put down the hunting-knife, and going to the dooropened it. The two who stood there were Will the smith’s son and hismother. They had, it seemed, the weather clearing, walked to see theforester’s people; then, the clouds returning, they had taken theirleave to hurry home. But the storm had overtaken them—and they hadthought to take refuge until the rain lessened in Heron’s cottage. Butthey did not know—they thought they had better go on.

  “Come in and warm and dry yourselves,” said Joan.

  They came in hesitatingly. They looked around them, confused anddoubtful. They sat on the settle by the fire and stared at the grey andwhite cat. Will was trembling, and it could not be from the wet andchill, for he was used to that.

  His mother was of stouter mental make. “Were you alone, Joan? It seemedto us there was somebody else—”

  “Why, who else,” asked Joan, “could there have been?” She looked aroundher. “The shadows moving along the walls do look like people.”

  “It looked,” said Will, in a strange voice, “as though you and a shadowwere locked and moving together. It looked like a tall black man.” Hestared at the fire and at the grey and white cat. A fine, bead-likemoisture that was not rain clung to his brow, beneath his yellow elflocks.

  “No, no black man,” said Joan. “I myself fancy all kinds of things in astorm.”

  Her woman guest was silent. She sat with bead-like blue eyes now onJoan, now upon the kitchen from wall to wall. But Will’s perturbationremained. The events of the day, North-End Farm talk and the tinker’stalk, the atmos
phere of heat and storm, church and the denunciation ofhis old master’s kinsman, the physician with whom at the Oak Grange hehad himself been in daily contact, the talk at the forester’s whichhad been of the marvellous, indeed, and the evident power of Satan;afterwards the dark wood, the lightning, rain, and thunder, and thenthe momentary spectral vision through the window, which now, it seemed,was naught—all wrought powerfully upon his unstable imagination. Thereflowed into his mind his long-ago adventure with the wolf that ranacross the snow-field, and was trapped that night but never found ...but old Marget Primrose was found with her ankle cut. The remembrancedragged with it another—he was again with that same physician sittinghis horse before the portal of the great church in the town—thecarvings in the stone struck with almost material force back into hismind that was edged already with panic. _Witches and devils...._ Andthe tinker’s talk of how Scotland was beset, and Satan buying women,old and young.... He had always thought of witches being old likeMarget Primrose or like Mother Spuraway—but, of course, they could beyoung.... The forester’s wife, that afternoon, had said something—ithummed back through his head. Her beehives were bewitched by JoanHeron’s beehives....

  His mind was tinder to every superstitious spark. With a whistlingbreath and a shuffling of the feet, he rose from the settle. “We’re dryand warm now, mother.—Let’s be getting home.”

  His mother, it seemed, was ready. Her parting with Joan was somewhattight-lipped and stony. “Seeing that you are alone now in the world’tis a pity you ever had to leave living by the town and the castle!There were fine strange doings there that you miss, no doubt—”

  The two went out into the declining day. The rain had ceased, but thewind blew hard, driving vast iron-grey clouds across the sky. However,since the thunder had rolled away, one could talk. As soon as the twowere out of the cottage gate and upon the serpentine green path, wetbeneath the wet trees, they began to talk.

  “It was something,” said Will; “and then when we got within, it wasnothing.... Mother!”

  “Aye, aye,” said his mother. “It wasn’t to be seen plain. But she wasnot by herself.”

  “Mother ... the tinker saith that the Scotch witches all havefamiliars. A man or a woman or sometimes children see such and suchan one walking or talking with a tall black man, but when they getclose there is only, maybe, a dog, or a cat, or sometimes a frog or amouse.... But the witch-prickers always find the witch’s mark where theDevil that is her familiar sucks.... And then the witch confesses andtells how the Devil is now tall and black like himself and now shrinksinto the small beast, and how by his power she can herself change hershape.”—Will shivered and his eyes glanced fearfully about. “Mother,do you think that there was something evil there?”

  His mother looked steadily before her with beady blue eyes. “I don’tknow what I think. I think there was somebody or something there thatshe didn’t want seen or known about—but where it went, or he went....Don’t you think any more that you might marry her.”

  Back in Heron’s cottage Joan sat crouched before the fire. She fedit now constantly with wood so as to make the whole room light. Adetermination was taking form in her mind. To-morrow she would walk tothe town, and climb the castle hill, and ask for Mistress Borrow at thecastle. The old housekeeper had called her a pagan, but natheless shehad been fond of Joan and Joan of her.... Now to go to the castle, andfind her in the cheerful housekeeper’s room and to sit on the floorbeside her with head, maybe, in her lap, and free a burdened heart andmind and ask counsel.... She would do it. She would start early—atsunrise. The vigour of her purpose lightened her heart; she rose toher feet, and going to the window, looked out. It was quite dark. Thestorm had died away, but the sky was filled with torn and hurryingclouds. Now hidden, now silvering cloud and earth, a half-moon hurriedtoo. Joan stood gazing, her face lifted. She thought of her father. Atlast she raised her arm, closed the casement, and drew across it itslinen curtain. From the cupboard she took a candlestick and candle andlighted the latter with a splinter from the hearth. She set it upon thetable, and going to the main door turned the large key in the lock.This done, she moved across the kitchen floor to the small door givingupon the back. The key was lost of this, but there was a heavy bar. Shehad lifted this to slip it into place when the door, pushing againsther, opened from without. Carthew reëntered the room.

  Joan uttered a cry less of fright than of sudden and great anger.“Beware,” she cried, “that I do not kill you yet! Begone from thisplace!”

  He shook his head. “No. I have watched all away. Who comes, aftercurfew, of a wet and wild night, to your cottage? No good folk of thisregion, I am sure. So we’re alone now, Joan, at last!”

  He made a movement past her. She saw what he was after, and, lithe andquick herself, she was there first. She had the knife again.... Theystood facing each other in the lit room, and Joan spoke.

  “Thou hypocrite!” she said; “thou pillar of Hawthorn Church anddependence of God on high and Master Clement! Thou hope of England!Thou searcher-out of iniquity and punisher of wrong-doing! Thouperceiver of high things and the meaning of the world! Thou judge andmaster in thy own conceit!—Thou plain and beast-like man, who wantestbut one thing and knows not love, but lust—”

  He caught her in his arms. He was strong, but so was she. Theystruggled, swaying, their shadows, in firelight and candlelight,towering above them. They breathed hard—they uttered broken words,ejaculations. He was in the grasp of the brute past; she struggled withthe energy of despair and hatred. She felt that he gained. Need taughther cunning. She seemed to give in his clasp, then, in the moment whenhe was deceived, she gathered all her strength, tore her arm free, andstruck with the hunting-knife.

  The blade entered his side. She drew it out, encrimsoned. They fellapart, Carthew reeling against the wall. The colour ebbed from hisface. He felt the bleeding, and thrusting a scarf within his doublet,strove to stanch it. As he leaned there, he kept his eyes upon her.But with the suddenness of the lightning their expression had changed.Wrath and defeat and shame were written in them; desire still, butmixed now with something baleful, with something not unlike hate. Thebleeding continued. He felt a singing in his ears and a mist before hiseyes.

  With the ice of the new mood came a sense of the peril of his position.Did he swoon here from loss of blood—grow so weak that he could notget away—be found here when day came—. The scandal flared out inletters of fire before him. He saw the face of Master Clement, andthe faces of other and more powerful men of the faction, religiousand political, with which he was becoming strongly identified.... Hemust get away—get home—framing some story as he went. His horse wasnear—the streaming blood seemed less.

  Joan stood like a dart, in her face blended relief and horror. Theystared each at the other.

  “Do you remember,” said Carthew in a hollow voice, “in the forestthere, I said that love might turn to hate? Beware lest it has turned!”

  “You may hate me,” said Joan. “You never loved me.”

  He took his eyes from her and moving haltingly to the door opened it.His horse was close outside, fastened within the small enclosure.Through the dark oblong, by the light of the half-moon, she saw himmount. He gathered up the reins, he held also by the horse’s mane. Hisface looked back at her for a moment, a ghastly, an enemy’s face. Thenthere was only the mournful night and Heron’s cottage, thatch-roofed,sunk among blossoming fruit trees from which the raindrops dripped,dripped.