The Witchfinder's Sister Read online

  Manningtree is on the Essex side, where the Stour divides that county from Suffolk, then spreads itself to the sea. You smell the place before you reach it: rank tidal mud, and people, the muck that comes with people. It is a scant seven miles from Wenham, where Matthew and I were born, but it feels leagues distant. Where Wenham is only a church, a vicarage, some scattered farms, Manningtree is a town. It has a square and a market to occupy it; it has docks, from which sailors come and go, speaking their own saltier version of English. There are hovels and low dwellings out along the road before the town proper, and there were more of these than I remembered, the day I came back. Folk stooped out of them to regard the cart as we went by, their stares hungry, and the carter clicked his tongue that the horses should quicken their pace.

  When we reached the docks, he did not move to help me down: I was grubby from the road, and not yet showing. I shifted for myself and paid him carefully, counting the coins into his hand, with one more for him to leave my box where I could send someone to collect it. As the cart moved off behind the warehouses, I put away my empty purse. My tongue felt dry. I stayed a minute, across the road from the Thorn, and tried to be calm, brushing myself down, picking off the lint that had coated my dress. Underfoot the paving was slick with wet, and the docks quiet. I pulled my cloak tighter and paused.

  When Matthew had written to me of Mother’s death, he had told me that he had taken the lease on the Thorn, and was living there for a time. I had wondered what my brother could want with an inn, but now I saw the place through his eyes: the small windows and the riveted door, the great height of the gate that led into the stableyard. How it would be warm inside; how you could defend it, with four men, or five.

  It was a solid building, just as I remembered; a staid and respectable building, though a decade past its glory. The sign wanted retouching, where the dark tree and the letters were flaking into the air. I had thought it might be easier, reacquainting ourselves somewhere less familiar than the house we had lived in with Mother. Now, though, something about the place felt wrong. Yet it might have been only the quiet that discomforted me, for while the inn was well lit, it had what seemed a purposeful quiet, like a child’s when you have told it to fasten its lips.

  I was aware of my dirty face and neck, as if the yellow light in the Thorn’s windows could reach across the road to expose them. I stood still a minute, and spoke severely to myself. He’s your little brother. You got married, it’s not a crime: and what if you did dismay him? It has been years. Looking at the lit windows of the public room, I thought, Well, I can at least avoid greeting him in front of strangers.

  I crossed the road, and went through the yard at the side of the inn. A man leaned in the stable entry and stared at me, but offered no greeting. I walked straight past him, avoiding his gaze, and knocked at the back door. The light inside made a bright straight gap underneath. I felt sick and jolted; all I wanted was to rest, but I prepared a smile. I heard no feet approaching, so I knocked again, and had scarce lowered my arm when the door was yanked open.

  It was a servant, plain-faced. She was broad, and when she placed her hand on the doorframe I saw that her nails were bitten down to nothing. She had dark brows, and she looked at me from under them. I watched her take me in: my dress, my lack of baggage, the state of my gloveless hands before I could draw them out of sight. Her mouth tightened.

  ‘We’ve no jobs,’ she said.

  ‘I’m looking for Master Hopkins.’

  ‘He’s out.’ The woman made to shut the door, but I placed my foot discreetly in its path.

  ‘I am his sister,’ I said. I looked the woman in the eye. ‘You may show me a room, if you please, and send a boy for my box over the road.’ I took in her hard eyes, the cap crammed on her head. I knew she would think politeness weak. ‘I’ll have hot water in half an hour,’ I said, and stepped forward. ‘Did you not expect me?’

  Grudging, she stood back to let me pass. I did not know what it meant, that Matthew was not there; I had braced myself to face him. The servant was making a business of fastening the latch behind us, mumbling something about expecting me at the front door, which I permitted myself not to hear.

  I glanced about me. To my right was what I guessed, from the steam and heat, to be the kitchens; then two more doors before the stairs turned up left into darkness, away from the uncertain rush light. I could hear no voices within, until the woman finished with the door, and called out, not taking her eyes from me. I wondered what portion she had heard of the gossip that must have got about when I had gone away.

  ‘You are not much like your brother, mistress,’ she said, ‘he being so dark.’

  I smiled, the even smile with which Father had always met any rudeness. ‘People remark upon it,’ I said.

  A girl came out from the kitchen, wiping her hands, which were plump like a child’s and red from hot water. Her name was Grace, she told me, climbing ahead up the stairs. I took them slowly, found myself swaying, suddenly, with tiredness. She showed me the upper floor, leading me along the passage; these were for guests, this the room the servants shared, that way the attic. At last she led me back towards the stairs, and into another chamber, but not before she had pointed to the door beside my own and said, ‘That one is the master’s.’

  The room Grace showed me had a bed with blue hangings, a chest, a cupboard and a chair. A fire was laid ready in the cold grate. Grace went downstairs to fetch a taper, and I sat on the bed, just as I was. I felt unsteady, from facing the woman below, from the ordeals of the journey, and from the meeting with my brother, for which I had readied myself but been spared. I could hear no voices, only a distant clanking that might have been from the kitchen, and the wind, sighing in the chimney.

  I dug with my fingers into the soft blue quilt. How long had I been wanting a quilt like that, a quilt to lie under, and not think, a bed with the right balance of firmness and give?

  Money had been spent, I saw, on the heavy fabric of the bed drapes, which hung straight down to brush the floor; the glazing in the windows, unfoxed and clear; the quantity of logs on the fire, and the gleam of the pitcher and bowl on the corner washing stand. Everything had been thought of; the room contained all that a guest could need. But nothing in the room was familiar – there was nothing from Mother’s house that I could recognize, and that was a relief, too.

  It was odd to think that all this was my brother’s; if he allowed me to stay, it would be mine. You must understand that, after my years in London, it felt appealing, the possibility of comfort, and someone to provide it. The mere thought of not needing to worry about eating, about rent.

  I barely heard the sound of feet on the stairs, and then Grace was back in the room. She knelt to touch her taper to the kindling, and began to add small coals with her fingers. The rustlings and scrapings she made were comforting. Then there was noise on the stairs, and a little lad dragged my box into the room. After he had laid it down he stared a moment, so that Grace had cause to give him a look, ask him if there were anything else. When he had gone, she shut the door behind him and came nearer. ‘Shall I, mistress?’ she said, pointing to my boots.

  I thanked her, and she knelt to pick at the lacings, which were swollen with wet. I saw she had pretty hair, the light red that was almost gold. I guessed, from the simple way she took each boot into her lap, that she seldom helped ladies. That the last time she had done this task it had been for someone old, or else for a little brother or sister, some child too young to learn their knots. It touched me, the rough way about her.

  ‘I’m afraid the room will take some warming through, mistress,’ Grace said. Though her accent made me smile, her deference perturbed me. I was not used to servants any more; we had never had more than a scullery maid since moving to Manningtree after Father’s death, and I had done most of the work of the house. In London, the training turned useful, for once I married Joseph, I had not been able to afford a servant. So it felt peculiar, sitting still to let Grace unlace
my boots. Despite my weariness, a portion of my mind was occupied in how I could prevent her from looking through my box, seeing the state of my clothes.

  I wondered if she knew who I was, like the one downstairs. Whether she knew that I was a minister’s daughter who had married a servant’s son. I swallowed, and tried to think that it did not matter now. That the gossip would be stale, though in truth I knew that the child I was carrying would refresh it. I was not yet used to the thought of the child, growing in the dark: it had been only a few weeks that I had been certain.

  I watched Grace, as she worked at my laces. Thick with weariness, I could think of nothing to ask her, but I felt the need to say something; to make an ally, after the coldness of the woman downstairs. The first knot finally gave to Grace’s picking, and I felt the right boot loosen. I said, ‘My husband’s mother told us in her letter how at Christmas the river froze.’

  Grace nodded, tugging at the boot. ‘Not here, but as far down as Flatford. And it didn’t thaw for a good fortnight. Not until the frost broke in January.’ She looked at me, but then dipped her head, as though she would bite her tongue.

  I knew how Matthew had been forced to wait for that same frost’s breaking to be able to bury Mother: she must have lain at least a week before the ground had softened itself to receive her. Now Grace was thinking she had misspoken, had grieved me.

  I cleared my throat, casting for another subject. ‘And do you know when my brother is coming home?’

  ‘He said tomorrow night, mistress. He’s only gone to Ipswich. But he does come back early, in the night sometimes. Mary Phillips, who let you in, she says he does it to catch us idling,’ she finished, her little face solemn.

  I smiled. ‘Does she?’ I said.

  Grace stood up, the paired boots in her hand. ‘Mary says therefore we should never be idle,’ she added, and then she turned to settling the fire.

  It was too strange to think of my brother managing servants, managing women servants; this peculiar small girl. What could she be? Seventeen? I wondered what her history was.

  Adding the larger coals, Grace seemed to grow less wary. She talked about my brother’s trips to see the man who weighed the grain onto his boats; how he did all manner of writing and reading, but only for folk of the good sort, and she named some, names I knew as the men who ran the town. She said how they came to the Thorn to wait on him while he scribed for them. Her voice turned so reverent when she spoke of Matthew’s reading and writing that I interrupted her. ‘You make it sound as though folk have set up worshipping my brother, Grace, since I have been away. The men you mention, they can read and write well enough themselves.’

  She stood up, dusting her hands. ‘Mary says the master has greater learning than any round here. She says he has as much knowledge of religion as the minister and of the Bible also. He has a book as well that has the names of all the witches written down in it. Mary says.’

  Seeing my face, she faltered. I was thinking that the older servant had been amusing herself at the girl’s expense. In the silence, a log moved as it burned.

  ‘Indeed,’ I said lightly. ‘I wonder where he acquired it?’ I smiled, and cleared my throat, tried to make my voice brisk. ‘I should get washed,’ I said, and began to shed layers of clothing – cloak, and a shawl underneath, onto the bed. Grace stepped nearer to pick them up, and then she halted.

  ‘He has talked of you more often, mistress. The master. Since your mother died,’ she said.

  ‘Has he?’ I wondered if it showed, how hungry I was to hear of his goodwill.

  Dropping her eyes, she carefully folded my damp and dirty cloak. ‘It seems fitting,’ she said, ‘that there should be a woman in the house again. For men do not manage well, do they? Alone.’

  It almost made me smile again, to hear that pronouncement from her, at her young age. I made my voice jesting: ‘Well, but he has Mary Phillips,’ I said. ‘He has you.’

  Before Grace turned away for the door, I caught her blush. As I continued undressing myself, I thought, surely she cannot be soft for him – for my brother, who had always looked at a girl as at some strange item brought in by the tide. Like poor Thomas Witham’s daughter. But then I wondered if I had been mistaken, for a minute later, when Grace came back in with a bath sheet, she was more formal with me again, her face betraying no sign of the colour it had shown before.

  When she had gone, I slipped off my gown, longing for the steaming water. As I laid it aside, I saw a dark mark on my belly. At first I thought it was dirt, but when I licked my thumb and rubbed it lightly, it hurt, and I remembered how I had fallen in the cart. It was a bruise. As I stepped into the bath I tried not to think that it boded badly. For certain, it would not help to worry.

  Later, as I rubbed my hair dry, I noticed there was no mirror in the room. But, of course, there would not be: Matthew had always disliked them, and had even learned to shave himself with only his dark reflection swimming in a bowl of water. I knew then that I was even more afraid to see him than I had been before my arrival, and not only because of our bad parting. Growing up, I had ceased to notice how he looked different from other people. I was afraid that, with our long separation, I would notice his scars afresh, and that he would see it in my face, and be angry, and ashamed.

  After the lights were put out I lay dry-eyed, staring at the ceiling. I could not help but listen for the hoofs that might mean my brother; could not help but wonder whether Grace was in her own bed, somewhere nearby, her ears trained towards the same sound. I fell asleep thinking how peculiar it was, to hear my brother called ‘master’.

  4

  When Matthew was an infant he was burned in the kitchen fire. He must have gone in hands and head first, for even once it had healed all it ever would the scars still extended up the delicate flesh of his left forearm to his neck, and from his neck the red puckered rawness crept up about his chin to touch the left side of his face.

  Being less than two years older than him, I do not remember the burns when they were fresh. Though I do remember, as a girl standing thoughtful by the kitchen hearth, watching the blaze, wondering whether there was a moment when the warmth, the licking, felt almost pleasant, before the pain. But my brother could not enlighten me: he had no memory either of what had passed, the day he was burned. Yet I often suspected that his flesh remembered, for he would flinch almost before touching anything hot, and when we all sat together in the evening he always kept well back from the fire, in the colder and darker portions of the room.

  My brother had other peculiarities, apart from his scars. His heart, for instance, did never beat steadily as yours or mine, but with an odd beat that was heavier, like a limp. The physician put it down to a shock received so early in life: the shock of the fire, he meant. Matthew would let me lay my head on his chest, when we were little, to hear the strange ticking. That wounded beat marked him from the beginning, for he was not able to run as fast as the other children.

  Matthew had dreams that made him shout out, and he was sensitive to all smells, could not go near the privy without retching. Mother indulged him, let him use his chamber pot day as well as night, until Father stopped her. After that my brother had to govern himself and go outside, but I still knew Matthew to hold it in for hours together, when we went with Father on some rare visit to another house, rather than relieve himself where it might not be clean.

  His strangenesses made other children laugh and stare. But if his scars were bad, I hardly saw them, and I never made fun of him, or pitied him either: that would have been like making fun of my own right hand, or pitying my left. It is no more than the truth to say that I was my brother’s only friend.

  Yet still I was aware that Matthew was different, especially when I had cause to see him through the eyes of any new person, such as that acquaintance from Father’s Cambridge days who came to dine, the one indelicate enough to ask about the burns. I was perhaps eight, and Matthew six – those ages when childless men think you scarce understand four
words strung together. The man was on his way south, to take up his ministry somewhere, and Father had invited him to dine with us in the vicarage at Wenham.

  They talked for a while about a vicious mousing cat from their old college, before the man said, ‘What happened to your boy, Hopkins?’

  Father put down his napkin. ‘He got into the fire,’ he said. ‘When he was still away with his wet nurse. The woman and her servant between them were supposed to have an eye on him, but they were not watching. If you want the truth, I have never trusted a servant since.’

  Mother cleared her throat. ‘But, husband,’ she said, ‘do you remember also that Matthew, he was always a great crawler?’ She smiled at the visitor, but as she did her voice trembled. ‘Believe me, sir, at that age, show him some bookshelves, and he would climb them. Show him something bright, and he would try to touch it.’ I looked at Mother: I had never heard her say so much in company.

  ‘Hm,’ said the man, chewing. ‘And this your only boy, is it?’

  ‘No, I have three older. And Alice here, my daughter. All from my late wife.’

  ‘The Lord rest her soul,’ the man replied.

  Mother had stopped eating. I still remember my confusion at hearing her speak thus of Matthew. For he always kept his hands to himself, never fidgeted as I did. I had never seen him climb anything in his life.

  If he had done, I would have known of it, for we were always together. Our physician once gave us something to rub into his scarred skin, that it might not itch or peel, and it was only me he would suffer to do it; that is the kind of thing folk want to hear about, when they find out who I am. They take it as a measure of how close we were.

  We used to say, the two of us, that, though he was so dark and I was fair, inside we were just alike. We grew together, twined like young trees, our plight the same; for from very early on, Matthew and I knew that we were spare children. Father had his heirs, three strong ones, already out in the world; what remained were Matthew with his strangenesses, and myself, the only girl.