Mist Over Pendle (22 page)

“It’s in my mind,” said Roger thoughtfully, as they went cautiously down the long curving hill, “that these papists may know more of witches than we do. That Seminary, now. Set him against such a one as Ormerod, or for that matter against our Baldwin. The Seminary spoke to the point, and his point was salted. But what’s in Ormerod or Baldwin but rant, and a deal of wind? Moreover---Hell and the Devil!”

Margery saw it at once. Fifty yards in front of them a squalid tumble-down cottage stood by the roadside in an unkempt garden, and walking out of that garden to a fine horse tethered by the road was a woman Margery knew at once. Beyond all doubt it was Alice Nutter.

There was no avoiding the encounter, and Margery, glancing sideways, saw Roger brace himself for it. He swept off his hat with a courteous flourish.

“Good day to you, ma’am!”

“Good day, sir! And to you, mistress.”

Mistress Nutter had already mounted, and her way seemed to lie with theirs. The three horses went down the hill together.

“You find me busy, Master Nowell.” Mistress Nutter’s voice was bright and cheerful. “You’ll guess the cause of it.”

“Not so, ma’am. Pray enlighten me?”

She drew attention to a basket made fast to her saddle, and Margery saw from a quick glance that it was empty save for a white cloth.

“We have duties of charity, all of us,” said Mistress Nutter vigorously. She was very assured this morning. “We must look to the needy, sir, as our duty is. A cake or two and a little cheese. These things may help in days of grief.”

But Roger was not impressed.

“Whose grief?” he asked dryly.

“Master Nowell!” She was almost arch about it. “You surely know that Eliza Howgate was lately brought to bed? A sin, no doubt, and to be deplored. It’s a backsliding too common in these days. But women are sometimes weak.”

“Meaning that she’s a mother and should not be?”

“In a sense, yes.”

“In what sense, if you please?”

Roger’s dry tone seemed to rankle, and the dark head reared as she answered:

“The gift of life, sir, was not vouchsafed to that poor child.”

“Was it not?” Roger’s change of tone was barely perceptible, but Margery’s keen senses had it. “Do you say, ma’am, that there’s a child dead?”

“Alas, sir! Yes.”

The horses ambled on, the iron shoes scraping in the grit, while Roger stared silently at Alice Nutter.

“Was it born dead, or has it--become dead?”

“Sir!” The voice quivered, but her eyes were as steady as his. “Is it needful, sir, to put that on a woman in her time of trouble?”

“Put what, if you please, ma’am?” His voice was
bland now, and Margery caught a hint of mockery in it. “Of two misfortunes, I do but ask which.”

“Your pardon, sir. I had mistaken you.” It came quickly, but there was a pause before Mistress Nutter explained herself. “The child, if you please, was born dead and was of need buried directly. That was three days agone, and Eliza Howgate is still abed.”

“Poor soul!” The sardonic note in Roger’s voice belied his words. “But I’m obliged to you, ma’am. You give me news.”

“Because you pressed me to it, sir.” She paused again, and then seemed to hurry on. “A stillborn child is not matter to be blazed abroad. Nor is its burial. But we women hear such tales where men do not. You’ll be secret, sir, I trust?”

“As the grave, ma’am.”

The dark eyes flickered suddenly, and for a moment a cold shiver struck through Margery. But it was gone in an instant, and then Alice Nutter was turning to her with the most friendly of smiles.

“We’ve been waiting for you at the Rough Lee, mistress, and you surely know you’ll be welcome. Are we not to be thus honoured?”

The smile was lighting her face now, and her eyes were almost merry. Margaret sat stiffly and sought desperately for a way of escape.

“I’ve been so busied, ma’am. I’ve found so much to see and learn in Pendle----”

“Aye, to be sure. Yet do not be too agog to learn of Pendle, mistress---“

The dark eyes had lost their merriment. They were inscrutable as she changed her tone again.

“We’ll hope to see you then at our poor house--Miles and I?”

“I’m honoured, ma’am.” There seemed nothing else to say.

“Then Miles shall wait upon you and fix a day.” Mistress Nutter nodded as though all that was settled. Then she turned again to Roger as they came at last to the bottom of the hill and the Pendle Water flowing from its clough.

“Do our roads part, sir?”

“We’re for Wheathead, ma’am.”

“And I for the Rough Lee. Then you’ll give me leave, sir. I’ve much to do this day.”

“Your servant, ma’am.”

Roger’s beaver swept again, and she left him with a gracious smile as she crossed the Water and went trotting down its tree-fringed road. But Roger made no move towards Wheathead. The hoof-beats died away in the trees, and still he did not move. He sat his horse stiffly by the rippling stream, and the sunlight came from the water to throw a quivering pattern on his grave impassive face: The silence lengthened, and Margery heard the splashing of the stream and the sigh of the wind in the leafless trees behind her. Above her there were white clouds sailing in a pale blue sky, and the sun had warmth enough to tempt her to untie her cloak.

“Can your wits cut through that?” asked Roger suddenly, and she came out of her reverie and gave him full attention; his tone demanded it.

“Of the child, sir--at that house yonder?”

He nodded.

“Aye. Of this child she called stillborn.”

Margery collected her thoughts and spoke carefully.

“It would be an odd chance if it were not the same child.”

“Odd indeed, at that house. Know you of these Howgates?”

“Not a whit.”

“The woman’s a reputed witch. And the man’s Kit Howgate, a bastard of our Demdike, and left-hand brother to that swivel-eyed Elizabeth.”

Margery whistled softly. She had not suspected this.

“And Alice Nutter--she visits
there?”

“So we saw--as the Lady Bountiful! That’s her favoured pastime, and it disposes some to speak well of her. I’m asking now if it covers some other things.”

Roger paused, and his sombre eyes gazed steadily at Margery.

“She railed at me that I put something on Eliza Howgate. What was it that she supposed me to have put upon the woman?”

Margery met his gaze squarely. She had expected this, and her eyes were as steady as his.

“Your words should have meant what you pretended, sir--which, of two misfortunes? They could also have meant the truth.”

“Meaning the child on the stones?”

“Aye, sir. Just that.”

“As you say--just that. And Alice was so hot on it, and in such haste to deny---“

The rippling stream filled the silence as he ended. It was Margery who found words first.

“If it’s
that
she was in haste to deny---“

“She must know something of it.” Roger’s eyes had never left Margery’s. “And will you tell me how she knew--if she did know?”

“This Howgate, perhaps?”

“Not so.” He shook his head decisively. “For if she was in haste to deny, she must have supposed me to know something of the matter too. She would not have denied what she supposed I did not know. And how could the Howgates have told of our last night’s doings?”

Again there was silence as Margery followed his thought.

“There’s Tony Nutter,” she said slowly. “He surely knows, and she’s his sister-in-law---“

“Whom he loves like the sweating sickness. He’d spill no papist secrets there, even if she’d had time to seek him out.”

Margery nodded.

“I thought of that also.”

“Yet she knew. Call it guessing if you wish, but I say she knew. I’ve a whim about it, as Nick Banister might say. And again I ask, who told her?”

“There’s one thing possible---“ Margery spoke doubtfully.

“But continue. In charity, continue.”

“It’s been in my mind that whoever laid that child upon the stones might have stayed hid--to watch what befell.”

“God’s Grace, lass!” He tapped his saddle thoughtfully. “You see it always. Which should mean that whoever laid the child has contact with our Alice. One asks why.”

“Aye sir. It’s a thing ... a thing not to be expected.”

“There’s much in Pendle not to be expected. Now there’s one thing more, and this the most ill scented.” He gazed, hard-eyed, at Margery, and his nostrils were quivering with disgust. “Your poison herb, and baby’s fat, and raving death--Anne Nutter may have died so?”

“It ... it has that look.”

“Mark it then.” His words came slowly. “This Alice is ambitious for her son. She’d have him an Esquire---“

“So it’s said.”

“Tony Nutter dropped it this morning that the boy’s his heir. Now why did that come about?”

Margery felt her eyes widen; and a chill she had known before came gnawing at her spine as she took his meaning. She stared at him speechless.

His voice came again, quietly and remorselessly.

“Why did that come about?”

“Because Anne died,” she answered, and hardly heard her voice.

“And that’s not all,” said Roger slowly.

He broke an unhappy silence. Margery stayed quiet and waited.

“It comes back to me now,” he went on, “that there was another Nutter who died oddly and to the profit of the Rough Lee.”

“And . . . and in that manner?”

“That I know not. It was twenty years agone, and memories grow dim. Yet Tony and his Margaret should know something of it if their minds be but jogged a little.” He nodded thoughtfully. “That shall be my work. I’ll go visiting again. And you--get you to Wheathead and deal with Baldwin for me in the matter of this burial.”

“Telling him what?”

“That’s with you. You know my mind and you’ve wit enough to judge what’s safe. Now get you gone. We’ll talk at supper.”

He wheeled his horse and cantered off. Margery watched him go. Then she rode quietly across the stream and through Barley village, her eyes unseeing and her thoughts in turmoil. For what was suggested was as plain as it was foul: that these witch women, ignorant and evil, danced to another’s tune and for another’s profit; and as she thought of it, there came back to her the memory of Nick Banister, sitting at ease by Roger’s fire and asking who had learning enough to order that lonely coppice.

She passed through the village and came to the higher upland, where the stream splashed on the stones and the wind had a keener edge. She rounded the bend and came to the pool and the mill and the wheel in the seething froth. And then her head reared. For there was Grace, sitting in the sunlight by a spinning-wheel that clicked and chattered; and at her side, lounging on the low stone wall and very much at his ease, was Miles Nutter..

They came to their feet as they saw who it was, and Miles was plainly out of countenance; Grace stood quiet and composed, and Margery scanned her keenly, suspecting that a shade of embarrassment hid behind that friendly smile. If it was so, it had Margery’s sympathy. This was a meeting she could well have done without; she thought she had enough in her mind this day without having to deal with Miles Nutter too.

“This is pleasure,” said Grace. “And not one we had expected.”

“I’d not expected it myself, but I’ve messages for your father, and of some urgency.”

“I’ll take you to him. It’s a month and more since we saw you.”

“Blame weather and witches, if you please.”

“And brewing. I know how it is. Miles here has missed you too.”

“I didn’t know he’d sought me.”

Margery turned to Miles for the first time, thinking she could not continue to ignore him. He reddened under her gaze and twisted awkwardly. But before he had found words the door of the millhouse opened and Richard Baldwin came out, his brown face aglow. Margery turned to him with relief.

“This is a kindness,” he said heartily. “It will please us all.”

Margery took a quick glance at Miles and doubted that sentiment ; then she came quickly to the point.

“Truly sir,” she said, “it’s not kindness. It’s need. I have messages from my cousin.”

“Is it so?” His face grew graver. “I doubt that bodes no good at this season. But come within. I’ll have a lad care for your horse.”

But Miles Nutter interposed. He came forward and took her bridle.

“At least let me serve, you in this,” he said, and Margery hastened to give him a gracious answer.

“I’ll be grateful,” she told him smilingly. Anything, she thought, that might ease this moment, if only for Grace’s sake.

She followed Richard into the big kitchen and from there into a small parlour which she judged must be private to himself. It had only a table, a pair of chairs and a bookshelf; and she swept an expert glance over this as she took the proffered chair. There were manuscript books which she thought must be the mill accounts; there was the heavy quarto Geneva Bible, Calvin’s
Institutio,
and a dozen or so of lesser works of the sort that had graced her brothers’ shelves. And open on the table, clearly in present use, was her own copy of the
Homily On The Justice Of God.

“Now mistress. What of these messages?”

She turned to the tiny hearth and warmed her hands thoughtfully while she considered what words she should use. Then suppressing what she thought dangerous, she told him all she thought safe of the doings of the night. He listened quietly, but she saw plainly from his hardening face that he was stirred by her relation.

“They hold all together and keep themselves close,” he quoted as she ended. “Shall they escape for their wickedness? Thou, 0 God, in Thy displeasure shalt cast them down.”

He sat in silence after that, and only his smouldering eyes showed how deeply he was moved. Margery ran over her memory of the Psalms.

“The pestilence that walketh in darkness,” she said. “The sickness that destroyeth in the noonday.”

He was nodding approval of that before she had realized that her thought had been with Anne Nutter, rather than with a dead child.

“It’s even so,” he said. “But I feared there would be some vileness yesternight. I’ll be right glad to be done with all these Saints’ Days, and not with some only. They’re occasions ever for lewdness by the vulgar and worse by the wicked.”