Daughters of the Witching Hill Page 8

  Betty was looking bitter as bile, keeping her distance and not deigning to look my way. But her mother, much to Liza's consternation, sidled up to me. Anne was well gaunt—probably gave what little food she had to her daughters and took nothing for herself. At least young Annie appeared much improved since I saw her last. Over on the men's side of the church, Tom Redfearn stared at her, his face blazing with devotion, whilst she lowered her eyes and blushed. Liza, meanwhile, winked at John Device.

  Anne and I traded smiles to witness our daughters in the grip of new love, the only light in this time of hardship. I ached to take Anne's hand, tell her I'd only interfered out of sore concern for her. Whilst the sermon dragged on, Anne began to murmur beneath her breath, the way she sometimes did, but this time, she had her eyes locked with mine. Beside me, Liza bristled. Others looked our way, too, their faces pale and strained. My spine prickled at the memory of how Alice Nutter's noisy cow of a mother had suspected my Anne of muttering incantations. But soon enough my memory unlocked the mystery behind Anne's words. An old song, she was singing, so soft that only I could hear it—the song I used to sing to her when I teased her.

  Will you go to the rolling of the stone,

  The tossing of the ball?

  Or will you go and see pretty Annie

  And dance amongst them all?

  Once upon a time the song was about her, when she and the boys round her had first awakened to her youthful beauty. Now she sang it in honour of her daughter's awakening. Even if our future seemed bleak as bone-dust, the threads of our past bound Anne and me as one.

  When the service had ended, Anne didn't tear out the door as though her bum were on fire as was her habit, but stayed close by my side.

  Upon the shelf in the back of the church, our Alice Nutter had left out bread for the poor. Betty grabbed a loaf on her way out as did my Liza, whilst Anne and I followed in their wake, walking side by side.

  In my anxiousness I couldn't wait till we were alone, but blurted out my words. "Please don't think less of me, our Anne. I never meant to trouble you."

  "Bess," she said, her voice breaking. "You're my dearest friend in all the world. But don't go behind my back again."

  "Mam?" Liza swung round. "Is she worrying you?" She glared at Anne.

  Stood behind her, John looked full bewildered and not a little frightened of Anne, who laughed under her breath even now.

  "This is a private matter," I told Liza.

  Anne and I strode off together, neither of us uttering a word till we'd left the crowd behind.

  "I'm not your foe," I told her when we'd reached the birch wood near Pendle Water. "I acted out of friendship."

  No doubt needing to rest her bones after the hours of standing in church, my friend sank to the cold, mossy ground.

  "Betty's not a bad girl." Anne looked so thin and frail that I almost feared the stinging wind could blow her away. "We were down to eating acorns and grass, and Annie too fevered to leave her bed. I begged Betty to stay out of mischief, but there's no stopping that girl when she has her mind set. In truth, she did about the only thing she could do. And Mouldheels is fretting about her plate?" Anne let out a ragged laugh. "Dear me! Remember them Robin Hood plays they used to put on before the Magistrate outlawed them? Stealing from the rich and giving to the poor?"

  "Why didn't you come to me?" I sat down beside her. "I would have given you anything."

  "I did, love. I called by Malkin Tower. You were out and your Liza was entertaining that young man of hers. They didn't see me, but I got a good look at them, at how the two of them are half-starved as it is, so how could I ask any food off you and yours?"

  It didn't used to be like this, I wanted to cry out, having to steal just to stay alive. But Anne knew as much, her memories reaching back as far as mine.

  "Our Anne," I said, my heart breaking. "How did we get to be so old?"

  "I'm so worried about that girl. She could hang." My friend touched my face. "As could you, love, for the spell you performed for Mouldheels."

  In the eyes of the Constable and the Magistrate, I knew I was damned as Betty. If thieving was a hanging crime, then so was sorcery. But, like Betty, I'd put my need to feed my family and do for my friends above the law.

  "I never meant to betray," I swore to her. "I'd no clue it was Betty. Never even suspected."

  For a long while we were sat there, too shattered to say anything, our heads bowed under the weight of our burdens, our hands knit together.

  "Anne," I said when I could bear the silence no longer. "Promise you'll come to me next time you're in any sort of fix."

  Heading home, I reached a bend in the road to find Liza and John sat upon a stone. John's face was white as chalk. His boot, polished for Sunday, was flung upon the ground whilst his bare foot rested in Liza's lap. I caught my breath at the sight of his ankle, swollen to the size of a cabbage.

  "Dear God, lad," I said. "That looks a nasty sprain."

  He flinched as I touched his puffy skin.

  "Twisted it coming down the track," he said between grit teeth, but I could tell straight off that something graver than the pain was eating him.

  Liza, being her practical self, ripped strips of cloth from the hem of her smock. "I'll bind it tight for you, love. You'll soon be right again."

  "Aye, if I can stay away from those who mutter bewitchments within the very walls of our church," he said, his voice full of cold anger.

  "Bewitchments?" Unable to understand his meaning, I looked to my daughter.

  Liza cupped her hands round her beloved's ankle as though to charm away the soreness. "Our John is of the mind that this is Anne Whittle's handiwork."

  An icy gust blasting down Stang Top Moor robbed my body of its last warmth. So my friend had stood beside me during the service and sung a song just for my ears—to think that her goodwill could be so misunderstood. Bewitchments, indeed.

  I laid what I hoped was a motherly but firm hand on the young man's shoulder. "Anne Whittle is my dearest friend, and I'll not hear any speak ill of her, even you, our John. She's no witch."

  "I'm not daft," he said. "Anybody can see how her lips move. But no sound comes out. You never know what she could be saying."

  "Perhaps it's none of your concern," I told him.

  "You should have a care round her, Mother Demdike." John's solemn eyes met mine. "She was right vexed with you. God forbid you should come to harm."

  I struggled to keep my patience with the lad. "Why would Anne want to harm me? She and I have been friends longer than you've been alive."

  He answered without a moment's hesitation. "Because you gave her cause for offence. You begged her pardon, didn't you?"

  "It was well daft of you, making such a scene in the churchyard for the whole parish to hear," Liza pointed out. "There will be all kinds of talk now."

  "I should have held my tongue till I was alone with her," I said, giving her and John their due. "But there's no bad blood between Anne and me, so put that out of your head, both of you. And she's nowt to do with your twisted ankle, our John."

  "Anne Whittle has no powers to speak of," Liza said, easing John's boot over his foot and ankle, now bound with the linen torn from her smock. "But I have them. And everyone in these parts knows that my mam is the mightiest charmer in Pendle. You're not afraid of us, love, are you?"

  "Cunning craft is well different from witchcraft," he said. "Every fool knows that."

  The year had turned. April, it was, the eve before Liza and John's wedding. Out of Malkin Tower I stole. Our luck was changing, so I prayed, from woe to weal. Everything I passed on my way seemed to promise a good season ahead. Twilight washed the blooming blackthorn, broom flowered brilliant gold, and primroses sprang from the moist earth. Ducking through a gap in the hedge, I headed out across the green meadows. Mare's tail clouds whipped across the fading sky where the new crescent moon sailed high. As I neared the beck, the sun sank behind Blacko Hill.

  Daylight gate was that sp
ace betwixt and between, neither day nor yet night, when I could see the invisible. As the music of the running beck filled my ears, I called out to Tibb and then he was stood before me, his one foot in the beck and the other upon the clay shore. In the gloaming his eyes shone like two stars.

  "I've a boon to ask of you," I told him when he took my hand. "Let there be no strife at Liza's wedding."

  John Device, despite my every attempt to reason with him, harboured an unholy dread of Anne, and Liza would rather keep the peace than see him ill at ease. If it had been up to the two of them, Anne and her daughters would have been banished from the celebration. But what a stir that would have caused—shunning an old family friend on such an occasion! If you want good luck on your wedding day, I'd told Liza and John, you must show hospitality to everybody and let none be turned away. So at last they'd agreed that there was no neighbourly way to exclude her, but Liza had taken me aside and begged me to at least keep Anne away from John tomorrow. Her request had left me feeling like Judas.

  There was no need to explain this to Tibb, who gazed at me steady, already divining my thoughts.

  "Sometimes there's no easy way," he said. "Torn between the one thing and the other. You must know in your own heart where truth and justice lie."

  Though I'd warned Anne that some were surmising the worst when they saw her talking to herself, I'd never dredged up the nerve to tell her that my daughter's own bridegroom thought she might be a witch.

  "Can you not turn John's mind to others things?" I asked Tibb. "Just for a while at least. Once he's married, he'll have more important concerns, so I hope."

  "John's a good man," said Tibb. "I can't make him a different man from the one he is."

  White moths flitted round my head. The beck flowed, a fox barked, and nightbirds sang a lullaby to creation. Such a lovely night, brimming with good omens. I allowed my heart to fill with hope. My daughter would wed a loving husband. My friendship with Anne would endure. In time, even John could make his peace with that.

  "Give us your blessing then," I asked Tibb. "Your blessing on us all: Liza and John, Anne and me."

  "Your wish is my gift," he promised.

  At the next day's dawning, Liza donned her best kirtle and the new lace-trimmed coif and collar Alice Nutter had given her. Singing, we made our way over the flowering fields to the New Church where our guests gathered. Kit was there with his Elsie, her waist already thickening with her second child. Mistress Alice, also pregnant, wore a fine new ruff. The Holdens of Bull Hole Farm had turned out with young Matty, now a robust boy of ten years, and with John's fellow farmhands, who took the place of brothers since our John was an orphan. Mouldheels and her good man were taking great pains to hold themselves aloof from Betty Whittle, who was flirting with everything in breeches whilst her mam and sister looked on and laughed. Kit's boyhood friend, Henry Bulcock, had come with his new bride, Jane, whilst Liza's old friend Jennet Preston had walked over the hills from Gisburn.

  When Liza and John recited their vows, I sensed Tibb's blessing inside the very walls of the New Church. Nothing could mar my daughter's happiness. Crowned in white dog-tooth violets, her smile was so wide that it fair masked her squint. Anybody could see how her love for John had transformed her. As for the bridegroom, he looked right pleased with himself, grinning and proud.

  After the ceremony, when the couple stepped out of the church, Anne shot forward before I could stop her and planted a noisy kiss on our John's mouth, then pinched Liza's cheek.

  "If you're your mother's daughter," she told the bride, "you'll make such sport on your wedding night, you'll keep half of Pendle awake!"

  Liza recoiled as though from a snake and threw me such a look, whilst John was stood there, his face drawn in horror, his hand raised to his mouth as though to wipe away the stain of Anne's kiss.

  My friend seemed flummoxed. "I was only wishing you well," she told John. "I mean no harm."

  Taking her arm, I drew her away. "Peace, the lad's a bit shy," I said.

  Happily, my son-in-law's mood soon appeared to lift when the other Bull Hole farmhands pounded his back and teased him that Liza's kirtle was already beginning to swell with their first-born.

  Our merry procession wound its way to Malkin Tower. Anthony Holden made room in his ivy-bedecked wagon for the bridal pair and me whilst our friends on foot raced in the wagon's wake, shouting out jibes to make the couple laugh. But Liza twisted round in her seat and put her mouth to my ear, begging me to keep Anne from coming near John again.

  "She'll not pester him, I promise," I whispered back. "Now think of happy things. Your wedding day is no time to pick quarrels."

  As the breeze stirred the circlet of violets upon my Liza's head, she leaned over to kiss John as though to banish darkness from her mind.

  So much joy after those bleak months. At Malkin Tower we gathered for such a feast as we poor souls had not imagined after our winter of hunger. The Holdens had slaughtered a lame calf, which we roasted upon a spit. Alice Nutter brought spiced cakes, a cask of good ale, and another of wine. We toasted the newlyweds and stuffed ourselves till our stomachs were near to bursting. We ate and drank till our laughter made the very stones of the tower tremble.

  "Just like old times this," Anne said as she filled my cup.

  "You said the old ways were lost," I teased her.

  We raised our cups to John and Liza as they danced to the music of Kit's fiddle.

  "The next wedding will be Annie's," I said, smiling to see the girl twirling in Tom Redfearn's arms.

  "It will be a while yet before Tom earns enough to take a wife," Anne said. "As for Betty, she has no takers, bless her. Think she scares the lads off, she's so eager. In truth, she might stay a spinster."

  "Peace, Anne. There are worse fates." I thought of my own unhappy marriage.

  Betty danced with one farmhand after another. For her mother's sake, I was pleased to see that she seemed to have lived down the shame of nearly being called out as a thief. She still acted stiff round me though, as if she couldn't quite trust me to mind my own business.

  "Listen to that music!" I cried. "Some would say we're too old to dance." I grinned at Anne, daring her.

  "Well, you may be a grandmother, but I'm not." With a flourish, Anne drained her cup and leapt to her feet. "Let's see what these old legs can do."

  Shameless as she'd been forty years ago, my Anne hitched up her skirts to show off her ankles, neat and slender as a girl's. Before I knew it, I'd joined her. Round and round we jigged, pounding our bare feet into the new grass. Two fifty-six-year-old women dancing as though we'd never stop.

  When the heavens darkened and the crescent moon rode the sky, the bride and groom retired to their bed strewn in sweet violets. By then many of our guests had wandered home, but Anne and I kept dancing round the bonfire. Laughing and dizzy, we spun, free as the girls we once were. We danced to banish want and unkindness, gossip and ill fortune. We danced to kindle hope. It was April and the world was new. The night swam with stars, and off in the fields lambs bleated to their mothers. Throwing back our heads in glee, we danced till sunrise filled the sky, and then we fell gasping upon the dewy earth.

  After the wedding Liza and John did not move away to Bull Hole Farm as I'd feared, but stayed on with me. Since the fields near his farm were overgrazed, Anthony Holden decided to rent the meadows near Malkin Tower. Switch in hand, our John Device drove the cattle to their new home, rich with grass. Each morning at dawn he rose for the first milking. With Liza helping him, he set up a dairy in the shippon over in the next field. The Holdens didn't pay John much in the way of brass, but they let us keep a goodly portion of the milk, cream, curds, butter, and cheese. Every month Anthony Holden sent our John a peck of oats besides. If we would not get rich, we might at least grow stout off this plenty.

  The weeks of May and June passed in happiness: John and I watching our Liza bloom as the child inside her ripened. Her hair shone with a rare lustre and her skin glowed he
althy and fresh from the good milk and cream. Of a Sunday the newlyweds strolled back from church arm in arm, cooing to each other, whilst I pressed on ahead to give them their privacy. Sometimes I helped in the dairy, and if ever a cow or calf sickened, John called for me at once. The Holdens were well pleased that I was so close on hand to see to their animals. When I wasn't needed in the shippon or dairy, I set off on my rounds through Pendle Forest, same as before, working what charms and blessings as I could.

  Our John was a kindly soul. If he'd a fault to his name, it was only his conviction that Anne Whittle possessed some secret sway over me and that if ever I chanced to get on her bad side, she would wreak her revenge by cursing the lot of us. The kiss Anne had given him upon his wedding day never ceased to haunt him.

  It wasn't magic itself that he feared. On the contrary, he believed that lawful folk had need of blessers such as Liza and me to shield them from baleful forces. Though he was no cunning man himself, he wasted no time in drawing upon his own charms of protection, clambering upon a ladder to hang a horseshoe and a rowan cross over our door at Malkin Tower. To safeguard his master's cattle, he nailed three horseshoes over the shippon door, and behind that door he hung a sickle and a rowan switch, and behind each beam a bit of cold iron. When he drove the cattle out to graze, he tied holed stones round their necks to guard them from black magic and lightning besides. Fearful for Liza's condition, he had her wear a twisted iron nail on a string hidden down her smock to keep her and the baby safe. Of an evening he threw salt in the fire to banish the evil eye.

  It was witchcraft John feared: the teeming and foul powers ever threatening to undo our hard-won good fortune. He knew better than anyone how quick and merciless woe could strike. When he was only seven, he'd lost both parents, neither of them older than twenty-five. When the young and healthy died so sudden, the first thing folk suspected was witchcraft. My son-in-law never spoke of such things in the open, but sometimes I wondered if his unfortunate parents had ever quarrelled with Anne and whether John laid this burden of grief on her head. Then there was the matter of Anne's two buried husbands, especially the first one, that cheating scoundrel, who had died of a wasting disease within the year after Anne had uncovered his infidelity. Of course, I could never believe such things of my friend, but this was how suspicions took root, how they grew and grew with a force of their own.