It was almost dark by the time Francis returned home, riding their new horse, Uriel. He had been named for the archangel of healing, one of only four archangels who could stand in the presence of God. Beatrice came out with a lantern to help him see his way round to the paddock.
‘There, he’s going to be a fine strong driver,’ said Francis, patting Uriel on his glossy reddish-brown flank. ‘It was very generous of Henry to let us have him for such a reasonable price. It proves that there are still good people in this world.’
‘How are Henry’s cattle?’ asked Beatrice as they walked back into the house.
‘Well – they’re all recovered, he says. Even the worst of them, he says, that were very close to death.’
‘So your prayers did work, after all. So much for those who would say that you have lost your connection to God.’
Beatrice blew out the lantern and then they went through to the parlour, which was lit by four sconces on the walls. ‘Are you hungry?’ she asked. ‘I have had no appetite at all after what I saw today, but you should eat.’
Francis shook his head. ‘I couldn’t, Bea. I keep thinking of what agony those poor men must have suffered. George is so devout and yet it doesn’t seem to enter his mind that slaves can feel pain as keenly as the rest of us. He seems to worry more about their value than their souls.’
He hesitated, and then he said, ‘Besides, there is something else that has greatly disturbed me.’
Beatrice took hold of his hand, but he turned his head away as if he were ashamed of himself.
‘What is it, Francis? Tell me.’
‘Henry Mendum. He told me that his Devons had recovered, but only after a visit from Jonathan Shooks. Apparently, Shooks dosed the cattle with some elixir, and spoke some incantation over them, and only a few hours afterwards they began to revive. Yet you and I saw for ourselves, didn’t we, how desperately sick they were? I know little of animal husbandry, Bea, but I would have given them very little chance at all.’
‘Francis, you must not allow Jonathan Shooks to unsettle you so much! You don’t get upset when Dr Merrydew relieves somebody’s fever, do you? Or if Rodney Bartlett cures a horse of the staggers?’
‘Of course not, because they don’t make me feel that my prayers are completely ineffectual, in the way that Jonathan Shooks does. They regard my prayers as a spiritual supplement to the practical work that they do, not as some Old World irrelevance.’
‘Francis, God is not an Old World irrelevance. God is relevant the whole world over!’
‘You know that and I know that. But now that Jonathan Shooks has healed the Buckley children, and Henry’s cattle, I suspect that more and more people in the village are beginning to doubt my ability to protect them, and are turning to him. “The Reverend Scarlet knows nothing of the demons that plague us here in the colonies.” “The Reverend Scarlet couldn’t even stop them from slaughtering his own pigs, or causing his own horse to drop dead in its tracks, right in front of his nose!”’
‘Oh, Francis, the people of Sutton know you and love you too well. They wouldn’t speak like that about you.’
Francis gave a quick, bitter shake of his head. ‘When their own families and their own livelihoods are threatened, Bea, people will turn on anybody.’
*
The next morning, very early, Mary came bursting into the house when Francis and Beatrice were still in bed and called up the staircase, ‘Goody Scarlet! Goody Scarlet! Are you awake yet?’
Beatrice threw back the sheet and climbed out of bed. Francis lifted his head from his pillow, blinking, his hair sticking up at the back like a cock’s comb.
‘What is it?’ he blurted. ‘What’s wrong?’
Beatrice ran downstairs in her nightgown and bare feet. Mary was standing in the hallway, biting her lip with anxiety.
‘What’s happened, Mary?’ She prayed that it wasn’t another dreadful atrocity like the Gilmans’ slaves.
‘Little Tristram Buckley, Goody Scarlet... he looks as if Jesus is just about to take him!’
‘We’ll come directly. Give us a few moments to dress and harness the shay. The Reverend Scarlet brought home a new horse yesterday evening.’
‘I saw it in the paddock. I can harness him for you while you get yourselves ready.’
‘How is Apphia? Is she bad, too?’
‘No, no. It’s only Tristram who’s so sick. Goody Buckley is beside herself.’
‘You’ll take care of Noah, won’t you, while we’re gone?’
‘Of course I will, Goody Scarlet. I’ll guard him with my life.’
Francis was almost dressed by the time she came back upstairs and she quickly stepped into her petticoats. She had to ask Francis to lace her corset for her because Noah had woken up and started crying and Mary had gone to attend to him.
‘Not tight enough!’ she told him as he fumbled with the laces.
‘Dear God, Bea, I don’t want to squeeze the very life out of you!’
They hurried outside. Mary had harnessed Uriel and tethered him to the split-rail fence beside the driveway. Uriel was restless. Although it was warm this morning, the sky was slate-grey and thundery, and serpents’ tongues of lightning were flickering on the horizon towards Bedford.
Francis clicked his tongue and Uriel set off along the driveway at a trot, his head held high. Even if Henry Mendum had upset Francis by appealing to Jonathan Shooks for help in curing his cattle, he had sold him a very handsome young bay.
When they arrived at the village green there were only three or four women gathered by the front door of the Buckley house. It was nearly six o’clock now and every woman in the village had her morning duties – baking and washing and scouring the rooms and preparing the family breakfast. Francis and Beatrice went into the house and the second they stepped into the hallway they heard a terrible, heart-tearing cry of anguish.
The cry was so shrill and so agonized that at first Beatrice thought it was Judith, but when she entered the children’s bedchamber she saw that it was Nicholas, who was standing next to Tristram’s crib holding the little boy pressed to his chest. His face was a mask of anguish, his mouth dragged downwards and tears sliding down his cheeks. When he opened his eyes and saw Beatrice and Francis he could only choke out, ‘Why, Lord, why? Why have You taken this poor innocent child, who has done no harm to anyone?’
Beatrice went over to Judith, who was holding Apphia close to her. Apphia was sobbing, too, although she was still wheezy and struggling for breath. Judith’s eyes were almost blind with tears and her mouth was puckered tightly, but she was silent.
‘You gave them the lungwort?’ asked Beatrice in a gentle voice.
Judith nodded. ‘They both took it, and at first they both seemed better.’
She had to pause for a moment to swallow her emotion, but then she said, ‘At midnight I gave them more, and still they both appeared well. But when I came in to see them this morning Tristram was gasping for air.
‘Several times he stopped breathing altogether, but then he would start again. I tried to give him some more lungwort, but he couldn’t swallow it. It was then that I saw Mary passing the house and I asked her to send for you.’
Nicholas laid Tristram gently back on his horsehair mattress. It was damp with sweat and stained with urine. Beatrice leaned over him and felt for his pulse, but there was none. She lifted his eyelids, one after the other, but his pale blue eyes were staring only at heaven. Last of all, just to make sure, she asked Judith for a hand-mirror. She held it close to Tristram’s face, but there was no clouding of breath on it.
Nicholas stood close beside her with his fists clenched, looking both miserable and angry.
‘That witch!’ he said, with his nostrils flaring. ‘I shall have that witch burned at the stake, I swear to God!’
‘Nicholas,’ said Francis, ‘this is a case for the court, not for revenge. Besides, what proof do you have that the Widow Belknap was responsible for this?’
‘Who else could it be? Who else has the ability to make children sick unto death without even entering their bedchamber? Who else is always so vindictive and constantly makes such threats against us?’
‘Nicholas, if you have any accusation to make against the Widow Belknap you should send for Constable Jewkes.’
‘That tosspot? He’s more than likely still in bed, or under the table, or in a ditch, or wherever he fell asleep last night. No – I will speak to her myself. I want to hear from her own lips why she harboured such hatred for us that she took away the life of our beloved boy.’
Beatrice said, ‘Nicholas, you should be careful. I have no reason to suppose that you are right and that it was indeed the Widow Belknap who put a curse on Tristram, but at the same time you should beware of making an enemy of her.’
‘I’m not afraid of her witchery,’ said Nicholas. ‘I’m going to go and confront her now, this minute!’
Francis caught at his sleeve, but he twisted it away and pushed through the goodwives crowding in the hallway. There were many more women gathered in the house now, and outside on the village green, too. Beatrice followed Nicholas through the front door and as she did so she saw that Jonathan Shooks had arrived and was just stepping down from his calash. Today he was wearing a coat of a much darker grey, as if it had been cut from the thunderous clouds above their heads. When he saw Beatrice he gave her his usual smile of acknowledgement, part appreciative and part mocking.
Nicholas stalked to the far corner of the village green, to the Widow Belknap’s house. By the time he reached it, rain had started falling, fat heavy drops that rustled into the weeds and flowers of the Widow Belknap’s front garden.
Beatrice came close behind him as he marched up to the porch, and both Francis and Goody Rust came close behind her, as well as Jonathan Shooks and William Rolfe, the shoemaker, who had happened to be walking past and was obviously keen to find out what the fracas was all about.
A large brass knocker hung on the Widow Belknap’s green-painted front door, in the shape of a snarling wolf’s head. Nicholas took hold of it and banged it hard, three times. Almost immediately, the door opened and the Widow Belknap appeared, wearing the same brick-red gown that Beatrice had seen her in yesterday. Her black parrot, Magic, came strutting out, too.
‘What’s this?’ she asked, looking from one of their faces to the next. ‘Have you all come to pay me a social call? If so, I regret that I am freshly out of cake.’
‘I am come about my baby son, Tristram, you witch!’ said Nicholas. His voice was wobbling with anger. ‘I am come to ask why you took his life. If you had wanted to take your revenge on us, for whatever reason, why could you not have asked for money, or some other recompense in kind, or even taken my life – but not the life of a child who had so many years to look forward to?’
There was a very long silence, during which the Widow Belknap stared at Nicholas unblinkingly. He started to repeat his accusation, but she interrupted him and said, ‘I can hear what you are accusing me of, Mr Buckley. However, I had no involvement in it whatever. How could I have taken your baby’s life when I was here in my own house all of yesterday and all of last night? And why would I want to? I would have thought you had enough trouble with your own wife without accusing me of any misconduct!’
‘You can’t deceive me, you witch!’ Nicholas retorted. ‘Everybody in the village knows that you have no need to leave your lair to spread your mischief! You can send that infernal black bird of yours, or one of your cats, or simply a wraith that flies invisible through the darkness, with breath that can suffocate anybody who happens to have displeased you!’
The Widow Belknap looked him up and down with her intense green eyes, as if she were trying to decide what size of coffin he would need.
‘How dare you come to my door and slander me so?’ she replied, although her voice was much quieter and more controlled than his. ‘How dare you?’
‘Because there is only one person in this village who could have wanted to inflict such harm on our family, and there is only one person in this village who is capable of it!’
‘You nocky!’ spat the Widow Belknap. ‘Do you really think that I could ever be so exercised by the empty-headed gossip of your wife and her knotting-circle that I would go to the extent of murdering one of your infants? Why would I risk my life for such petty vindictiveness? Do you think I want to be hanged, or burned, or floated in a pond?’
‘Then who else made my children so sick?’ Nicholas lashed back at her. ‘Who else would have painted a cross upside down on their bedchamber wall, in brimstone and treacle? My son was murdered by a procurator of the Devil, and there is only one procurator of the Devil in Sutton, and that is you, Widow Belknap!’
The Widow Belknap’s eyes narrowed and she pointed a long finger directly at his face. ‘If you ever call me such a name again, Nicholas Buckley, the flesh will be boiled from your bones and you will be reduced to broth! So go away and think about that while you’re burying your baby boy!’
‘Widow Belknap—’ said Francis, stepping forward. ‘I am sure this has been nothing more than a simple misunderstanding. Mr Buckley has just lost his youngest son and it is natural that he is very overwrought. Let us please make peace with one another. You remember what Peter said? “Be ye all of one mind, having compassion, one of another. Love each other as brethren, pitiful and courteous.”’
‘This witch killed my son!’ said Nicholas. ‘I shall see her burned, I promise you!’
‘Not before you have been turned into a mess of pottage, Nicholas Buckley!’ said the Widow Belknap. ‘Now, get off my property, all of you, before I call the constable and have you arrested for trespass!’
Jonathan Shooks came up and laid a hand on Nicholas’s shoulder. ‘Come away, my dear fellow. You’re playing with fire with this woman, believe me.’
Nicholas pushed his hand away. ‘And what about you, Mr Shooks? Was I not playing with fire when I invited you to treat my children? On the one hand I have this murdersome witch, and on the other I have you and your Chinese fire-sticks and your deals with demons. I don’t know which is the worser!’
‘I made it clear to you that I could protect your children,’ Jonathan Shooks persisted, his voice dropping even lower and steadier. ‘Only, however, at a price.’
‘Yes – twenty acres, more than half my land! That land is my life, Mr Shooks, as much as my family!’
‘Well, yes,’ said Jonathan Shooks with an understanding nod. ‘And now I realize that it was more than you were prepared to sacrifice. Unfortunately, you can see what your refusal has led to. If you had deeded that land over to me, I could have come to an arrangement with Satan’s proxies and your infant son would still be alive today.’
‘Don’t you have any idea what you were asking me to do?’ demanded Nicholas. ‘You were asking me to strike a bargain with the Devil! The Devil – the embodiment of everything evil! It flew in the face of everything that I have ever believed in! You were asking me to choose between my family and my God!’
‘My dear sir, we all have to come to a deal with the Devil sooner or later in our lifetimes. In a world full of moral ambiguity, it is the only certain way in which we can guarantee our survival.’
Nicholas was confused and breathing hard, as if somebody had been chasing him. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Supposing I were now to change my mind, and say yes, I will come to such an agreement? Supposing I do deed over those twenty acres? What would prevent this proxy of Satan from coming back later and demanding even more land, until I had no property left to my name at all?’
Jonathan Shooks folded his arms and looked at him with another of those expressions that Beatrice found impossible to read. It was like a tolerant adult looking at a child who persisted in being awkward – but at the same time it was very highly charged, as if his tolerance had limits and those limits were very close to being reached.
‘You would have to trust me, Mr Buckley,’ he said. ‘The only guarantee that I can give you is my word.’
‘But what about Satan? I don’t doubt that I can trust your word, but if you are striking a bargain with a proxy of Satan, how far can I trust his word? Satan is a liar by nature!’
‘Mr Buckley – I warned you what would happen if you didn’t agree to the terms of my arrangement, and very sadly it has. You still have a chance to save Apphia, and your wife, and the remainder of your family and servants. Time, however, is running very short. The hourglass is rapidly emptying even as we speak.’
‘Mr Shooks,’ put in Francis. ‘Was it the Widow Belknap who caused the Buckley children to fall ill? If so, we should simply have her arrested and tried for her crime.’
Jonathan Shooks looked down at the stony brown roadway for a moment, as if he were trying to summon up all his reserves of patience.
‘My dear reverend, you have to understand that what is happening here in Sutton is very much more complex than that. This is not simply a case of a vengeful woman who has the ability to cast malevolent spells.’
‘Then what is she? And what is her place in this, if any?’
‘I suppose you could best describe her as a facilitator for the underworld – a go-between, what the Spanish call an intermediaro. Proving such a thing to the satisfaction of a court, however, even to the most superstitious of juries – no, that would be well nigh impossible. The days of Salem are long gone.’
When Jonathan Shooks said that, Nicholas turned on his heel without a word and started to walk back down to his house. Jonathan Shooks made no attempt to follow him. Instead, he let out an exaggerated sigh and said, ‘Such a pity. Such a great, great pity! That fellow is a fool to himself.’
Beatrice didn’t know what to say to him. She didn’t trust his motives in demanding twenty acres from Nicholas Buckley, but at the same time she didn’t trust the Widow Belknap, either. While Nicholas had been confronting the Widow Belknap in her porch, and accusing her of murdering Tristram, Beatrice had been carefully studying the various plants and bushes in her flowering weed garden. She had seen several medicinal herbs, such as Solomon’s seal, which was used to take away bruises ‘caused by women’s wilfulness in stumbling upon their hasty husbands’ fists’.
There was eyebright, too, and costmary and marigold, all of which could be used to treat a variety of ailments, from colic to worms. Almost in the centre of the garden, however, a yew bush was growing, dark and even more pungent now that it had started to rain – one of the thickest yew bushes that Beatrice had ever seen.