‘She lies.’
The words were out before I could stop them. My father, crippled and beloved, could not speak for himself, could not defend himself against these accusations, and before I was truly aware of it, I was pacing the kitchen, reddening and furious.
Rutherford was not disturbed by my discomfort in the slightest. He looked like he revelled in it, his eyes gleaming with excitement. ‘Well, naturally, it is as yet to be ascertained whether—’
‘She lies,’ I insisted, my voice rising. I didn’t stop to think whether Esther could hear. ‘My father would never…’ I trod upon the memory of Esther’s tremulous words, and of the image they evoked: a woman, her face in shadow, her form unclothed in the moonlight.
Rutherford’s answer carried the smoothness of false reassurance. ‘Of course. Her testimony must be judged in the light of what we know: she is a corrupt woman, given to falsehoods, and Justice Manyon is sceptical of her claim, as, of course, am I.’ He paused. ‘And yet…’ I looked at him sharply. ‘Yet, we cannot know,’ he said, his volume increasing to counter my automatic contradiction. ‘Women, as Genesis so clearly illustrates, will naturally deceive men, but, as your sister was the only gentlewoman in the house, we will take her testimony at her word, and she, unfortunately, insists that there was indecorous contact between your father and the girl. If this has resulted in a child – not that she would deserve such a blessing – then the situation will be bad for the Treadwater name, as well as for the chances of bringing the witch to justice.’
I looked towards the parlour. The side of my body nearest the door felt chilled, as if the fire in the other room couldn’t reach me. But the memory of Esther’s stricken face as she told me of her fears about Father could. I was certain her words had come forth in honesty. Whether or not they were supported by a true knowledge of the facts was another question.
‘I must see the girl, then,’ I said, in the end. ‘I must judge for myself the truth of her claim.’ I took a deep breath. ‘And – should her accusation against my father not be revealed immediately for the lie it is – I must assume responsibility for her, until the position becomes clearer with time.’
Rutherford shook his head. ‘The girl is held in a cell. And she is dangerous. She is not to be seen.’
‘I will see her,’ I repeated. ‘I insist upon it. Justice Manyon is a very old friend of my family and I am certain if I appeal to him…’ I trailed off. Let him think about it, see that his interests aligned with my plan.
After a few moments’ visible calculation, Rutherford shook his head again, but this time in reluctant admittance. ‘I see no need to trouble a busy man. I am sure we can arrange it. For a few minutes, at least.’
‘I must see Goodwife Gedge, also,’ I said. ‘As her daughter’s employer, I must undertake for her fair treatment.’
‘Very well,’ Rutherford agreed, but did not look pleased.
I advanced. ‘And there is no reason for my sister to know anything about this. She is distressed enough as it is.’
‘She must accompany us to swear her statement.’
‘Of course.’
‘And one or other of you will be needed to identify the Gedge girl, if she has been apprehended by that point.’
I opened my mouth to object, but there was a hardness in his jaw, a truculence underlying all that politeness. I held back words of denial, knowing argument would merely serve as grist to the witchfinder’s mill. Manyon was the more reasonable man. I felt sure that if I could see the magistrate and explain the strain Esther had been under, I would be listened to, and perhaps Joan and her mother could be kept out of this messy business.
Rutherford and I made an appointment to meet Manyon that afternoon in the foyer of the small courthouse in Walsham. Esther would be coming too. I walked with him to the bottom of the path, then watched as he retreated the way he had come.
Looking back on that first conversation with the witchfinder, I try not to analyse every decision I made, not to criticise every question I asked, or regret each I left out. But however I frame my choices, although I did not know it then, the damage had been done.
When I returned, Esther was kneeling on the hearthrug facing the low flames. She appeared deep in thought. I wanted to challenge her, ask her why she had not told me before Rutherford’s arrival that Joan was implicated in this matter, but I feared to alienate her. We only had each other in the whole world, at least until Father recovered. How I hoped that would be soon.
‘Esther,’ I said. She did not turn. ‘Esther.’ She looked about her as if in surprise. I stopped by the fire. ‘We have a journey we must undertake today.’ I thought about how to break the news that she was to be questioned, but she spoke before I could continue.
‘Of course. I understand that my statement will be required by the magistrate.’ She sounded quite calm. ‘I am ready to travel, once Father has been seen by the doctor.’
I couldn’t promise this. I said, ‘If Joan knows of your accusation against her mother, let alone herself, she will not return here, and perhaps she has not had opportunity to find a medic before being taken up.’ Esther looked even paler, as if this consequence of her finger-pointing had not occurred to her. ‘I think we will need to secure the services of a physician ourselves, in Walsham, or even Norwich. We’ll leave at once, and take the cart. Do you know whether Father had ready money in the house?’
She didn’t.
‘I’ll see what I can find.’
I remembered my father kept a strongbox under the bed, with the key usually kept in the study. Retrieving it, I went upstairs. I winced in pain as I knelt and rummaged below the bedframe, shrinking with shame. This felt like robbing him, as though he might wake, hear me, and cry out, ‘Thief!’ Few things had ever felt less natural than withdrawing the small stash of coin while Father lay above, helpless as a child. Along with the silver, I drew out an unwieldy bunch of keys of various sizes and ages, and noted, frowning, that I had not seen it before. We were missing no keys. But I had no time to think about it now, and replaced them in the strongbox with the remaining coin.
Before leaving, I stopped to drip some water into my father’s mouth. I took one unresponsive hand in mine, willing him to understand. ‘A day, no more, and we will return with help for you. My oath upon it.’
His eyes were like a room abandoned. I could not bear to look upon them, and turned away.
Father had named the mare Temperance, but as I fought to encourage her into the trap, I thought to rename her Obstinacy, or Petulance. It was unlike her; she was usually an amiable beast.
Esther stood by as I calmed the horse. She showed no impatience, but neither did she help. Ever fearful of large animals, she had never learnt to ride or to drive the cart. It was another area in which I now felt I’d been remiss.
In the years I had been down-country, first as a scholar, then a soldier, I had imagined Esther would move into womanhood in the manner of other girls, but, even before the war began, I had returned to Norfolk from beneath my tutor’s watchful eye to the impression that my sister had stalled somehow. Her childhood anxieties – the dark, our father’s health, the condition of her little herb garden – had shown no signs of receding. She seemed to be growing further away from me, and from the world. Then when I had joined the army, I had again harboured hopes of returning to find her, if not betrothed, at least flowering into the beauty her small, even features had always implied she would be. But she seemed more of a child than ever.
Once we were ready, I grabbed the handle on the side of the cart and pivoted into the driver’s seat. As I twisted, pain streaked through my inner thigh. For a moment I was afraid my wound had reopened. I froze, glancing down at the injury. Esther noticed.
‘Brother, you’re hurt,’ she said, and came quickly to my side. ‘Why did you not say so? I would have prepared a poultice.’
‘It’s nothing,’ I said, settling into the seat and pulling the rug about my back. ‘Just a strained muscle from my ride.’
Esther accepted this explanation with a relieved smile. As she climbed up beside me and I flicked the reins, setting off, I thought about how to deliver my advice. We drove half a mile down the road before I came to the right words.
I began. ‘Manyon is an astute man. He will brook no half-truths, or embellishments. You must listen with care and then be moderate in your speech. And pause before you answer.’
‘For how long?’
I didn’t allow any exasperation at this question to come to the surface. ‘Merely for as long as you need,’ I said, gently, flinching as the cartwheels ran over a pronounced dip in the track and the pain radiated again through my groin and thigh. ‘What you say will be written down, and might be revisited in your testimony in court, should it come to that.’
Esther drew her blanket close about her knees. She looked fragile in the seat beside me, despite her heavy travelling cloak, with something delicate and breakable about her. Even in the daylight she was still pale, and I wondered whether she had been eating properly. I knew Manyon, if sufficiently spurred on by Rutherford, would press her closely, and feared she would not bear up under that scrutiny. Whilst that might mean relief for Joan and Goodwife Gedge, who, I had no doubt, had been taken up out of foolish superstition, it might have the unintended effect of leading Esther herself into trouble; what if they decided her complaint was malicious?
As we rumbled uphill, I turned my thoughts to the problem of Chrissa Moore. Her name stood in my mind for enigma, and for danger. I knew what most thought of unmarried women who found themselves with child. It was not that I agreed. More often than not, in my experience, whatever sin was involved was paid for in generous measure by the woman herself. I had seen them many times, thrown on the charity of the parish, pressured to hand their child over to a more ‘godly’ family. When very young, I had listened to men like Hale, to their preaching and condemnations, and I confess I thought the women wantons. But that was then. I had not understood how such things came to pass. As I grew, I noticed how many served in the houses of rich men, and left with swelling bellies. I pitied them.
But, in these particular circumstances, an illegitimate pregnancy could only mean shame and ridicule heaped on our name. Father’s reputation would be trampled, and at exactly a time when he could not defend himself. And I would be responsible for an infant, a child whose mother might hang before it was weaned. There was not for one moment any question in my mind of turning my own half-brother or half-sister over to Hale to be raised by the parish.
But the mother herself… In truth, I imagined her as a venal creature. Perhaps she had passed by and seen a widower, a man of means, whose son was absent. She might even have pictured herself in my mother’s seat.
I thought again of Esther’s letter and its frequent errors. ‘When Father is recovered and all this is behind us, I will help you with your writing,’ I said, dipping my head to avoid a low branch and yanking on the reins to slow Temperance before she could pull us into another hole. ‘There is much profit in reading, over and above the Good Book.’ Even as I said this, knowing how I had rejected opportunities I had been given to study more deeply, I felt like a hypocrite. I did not wish to examine that feeling too closely. Neither did I add that I thought Esther’s life too bare, without friends of her own age, or real interest in anything other than her catechism and our home. A proper facility with the printed word might help occupy her mind, and give her some escape from mundanity.
‘Thank you, brother,’ Esther said, primly. Then she fell silent as the cart continued its bumpy progress towards Walsham.
It was market day.
Having passed through many towns with the army and on my way back to Norfolk, I was familiar with the ways in which the war was changing them. Narrow, dirty streets that had once teemed with men seemed emptier wherever I went. Walsham was no different. The men had all gone to war. Many of the missing would never return. Their bodies would litter battlefields, rot in copses and bloat in reed beds. And those that did return might not be whole. I thought again of my injury, how lucky I had been that it had not been a leg, or a hand. I thought of poor Jack. How easily it could have been me.
We were delayed by a short queue of other carts. My mind was only half on Manyon and Rutherford. I was trying to remember where in the town a proper physician – not an unlicensed quack applying the same impotent powder to every open wound – might be found. But I had been too long away. On my last visit here I’d been a boy, my eyes more open to the passing of a ripe maid than a short-sighted, grey-haired man of the universities. Any one of the townhouses built around the courthouse might belong to a country doctor; there was no signage. I would have to enquire, either in the marketplace or in the court itself, and hope to receive a recommendation.
‘Let us alight here,’ I said to Esther, worrying about the cost of the physician.
We reached the small courtroom, and I spotted a free horse ring. I secured Temperance, then chained the cartwheels to the ring as well, ignoring the protests of a fat merchant also trying to manoeuvre his packhorse into the space. I could not help but notice the low, barred windows of the gaol. These told those outside the fate of those within and, indeed, what awaited any person who threatened the peace and order of their community.
Esther was checking her appearance, straightening her skirt, which was wrinkled from the ride. I began to stop her, feeling she should not have to improve her looks for anyone, then thought it might be no bad thing if she looked like the respectable, godly girl she was. I reached out to smooth a curl of hair away, then rubbed her cheekbone with my knuckle, as I had done when she was younger. ‘Don’t concern yourself,’ I said. ‘The only thing needed here is the truth.’ She smiled wanly.
In the courtroom foyer congregated the usual people living off, and under, the law: two attorneys, clad in black robes and avaricious expressions; a clerk, sharp-eyed, as thin as a cord; three shackled men, one picking his nose and looking nothing more than bored, one muttering prayers to the roof, the third with the watery eyes of a drunk. Two chubby goodwives in the corner, deep in gossip, looked with curiosity as we entered.
There was one further occupant of the big room. Rutherford was early. Indeed, I suspected he had come directly from our farmhouse. He wasted no time with pleasantries, saying only, ‘Let’s go straight up to the office. I want to get this business under way immediately.’ Only then, as if realising his want of manners, did he turn to Esther and bow slightly, saying, ‘Miss Treadwater.’
‘Manyon is expecting us?’ I asked.
‘Yes, yes; he has cancelled several other appointments in order to see you.’
‘Then we should go up,’ I said.
But there was no need. A door opened on the other side of the entrance chamber and a tall, greying man in an expensive cloak and high Cordoban boots swept towards us with a warm energy. ‘Thomas! Good to see you, boy!’
I went to shake Manyon’s outstretched hand, and was surprised to find both my own enveloped in a firm, welcoming hold. I had not seen the older man for several years, and now judged him to be one of those who never seem to age a day, the beneficiary of a strong body, a generous diet and a naturally austere temper that had not allowed him to run to fat or drink, like many other men of means. He stood half a head taller than I did, or Rutherford, and made Esther look like a doll.
‘It’s good to see you too, sir,’ I said. And it was. There was something comforting about a face from the time before the war, a friend of my father’s, and, if I were honest, about an older man of my own sort; it made me feel someone else might take charge, remove the heavy yoke from my shoulders. I knew deep down that this was nonsense, a boy’s wishful thinking, but felt it anyway.
Manyon’s face was set in sympathy. ‘I heard the news about your father this morning, from John here,’ he said. ‘A very great shame. We are old friends, Richard and I. In spite of some of his more enthusiastic interpretations of God’s word, I always knew I could rely on him. Whatever I can do, just make it known to me.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ I said. ‘We must seek the aid of a physician in the town, as well as helping in whatever way we can with this inquiry.’
‘No need, my boy,’ said Manyon. ‘I will dispatch my own physician to Worstead this morning – I have already called him here for instruction. Your father will have the very best of attention.’
The desire to fall to my knees in gratitude embarrassed me, and I settled for extending my hand again, which Manyon shook. ‘My thanks, sir. Ours,’ I clarified, nodding to Esther, whose lower lip trembled.
‘Do not speak of it,’ said Manyon, with the ready urbanity of a man possessed of a full purse. He turned his eyes to Esther. ‘So, this is the young mistress of the Treadwater household?’ His manner, which had so far been that of a kindly uncle, long absent, became more appraising. I did not miss the slight hardening of his eyes as he looked upon Esther, searching, I assumed, for signs of hysteria, or deception.
‘This is my sister, Esther,’ I said.
‘Of course. And you are ready for your statement to be transcribed?’ Manyon asked her, his thick brows lowering.
‘I am, sir,’ Esther said. The squeak of a passing mouse might have been detected over her voice.
‘Then let us retire to my office. I will have refreshments served and you can tell me all you know. You too, Thomas.’
‘It’s not much, I must warn you, sir,’ I said, as Manyon guided us to the stairs, his hand on my right shoulder.
‘I’m certain you will be able to cast some light on things,’ he answered, confidently.
Not much, I said to him. As it turned out, I knew almost nothing at all.