Scarlet Widow (14 page)

Noah buried his face in Beatrice’s neck. Beatrice said, ‘He is a little shy of strangers, sir. I’m sorry.’

She couldn’t help thinking that whoever this stranger was, he was extremely handsome. Although he wasn’t as tall as Francis, he stood very upright and he had a deep, strong chest. His forehead was broad, his nose was straight, and he had a firm, determined jaw. There was something in his eyes, too, that she found appealing – a hint of mischief, which was rare among the pious, hard-working men of Sutton and its surrounding farms.

The man turned back to Francis and again held out his hand. ‘Jonathan Shooks, reverend. I think you might describe me as a doctor of sorts. This is my loyal assistant, Samuel. As you have already discovered, poor Samuel is incapable of speech. What he lacks in loquacity, however, he makes up for with willingness and wit. Don’t you, Samuel?’

Samuel nodded again and uttered another bird-like noise.

‘So how can I be of service to you – Mr
Shooks
, is it?’ asked Francis. ‘You appear already to know who I am. I can only assume that you have come here for something specific.’

‘Well, as I said, I am a doctor of sorts.’

‘We have a physician already in Sutton, Doctor Merrydrew. All our medical needs are well catered for.’

Jonathan Shooks continued to smile, as if he found the conversation amusing. ‘In a manner of speaking, Reverend Scarlet, I
am
a physician, and in the course of my career I have treated both men and women and what you would no doubt call the beasts of the field. But more than that, I am a doctor of natural medicines, of herbal and ritual remedies, and most importantly, of
spiritual
cures.’

‘I still fail to see what I can do to assist you, Mr Shooks,’ said Francis. ‘What is it you want of me?’

‘I want nothing of you, reverend. Quite the opposite. It is what I can offer to you and your community.’

Francis said nothing. Mary wiped Noah’s mouth with a muslin cloth and then took him from Beatrice and brushed his frock straight. He had stopped crying now and he stared at Jonathan Shooks with tears clinging brightly to his eyelashes.

‘Come along, reverend,’ coaxed Jonathan Shooks. ‘I have heard that a shadow is falling across this village and some of the farms hereabouts. The same noxious shadow has fallen over several settlements in Massachusetts and Maine, and caused a great deal of suffering. Animals dying, crops blighted. Children taken sick.’

‘Well, yes, I’m aware of that,’ said Francis. ‘But Sutton is a prayerful community and I’m sure that we can see to our own salvation. The Lord has never abandoned us before and He will not do so now.’

Jonathan Shooks shrugged and kept on smiling. ‘I am sure that He won’t. In fact, what do you think has brought me here this morning? I can purge Sutton of all of the malign influences that threaten it, be they Devil, or demons, or disease. It is what I do, Reverend Scarlet. It is my profession. To put it simply, I can exorcize your village and make it whole again.’

Francis invited them into the parlour. Before he sat down Jonathan Shooks circled slowly around the room, peering at the samplers on the walls and the engraving of Jesus casting the moneylenders out of the temple, and then at himself in the looking-glass over the fireplace. The glass was slightly flawed, so that it twisted one side of his face.

‘Would you care for tea, Mr Shooks?’ asked Beatrice. ‘Or perhaps a cup of cider?’

Jonathan Shooks brushed his shoulders and straightened his cravat and then he turned to Beatrice and gave her a disarming smile. ‘Tea, please, if it’s not too much trouble. And if your girl would be kind enough to take some water out for Samuel.’

‘He’s more than welcome to join us,’ said Beatrice.

‘Samuel is not very comfortable in company, I regret. He will be happy enough outside, thank you, taking care of the horses.’

Beatrice ushered Mary into the kitchen. While Mary filled the kettle and put it on the hob, Beatrice set out a tray with cups and plates and took snickerdoodles and bishop’s bread out of the larder. Noah climbed on to a chair to watch and she snapped a snickerdoodle in half and gave it to him. He wasn’t usually allowed to have treats in between meals but for some reason Beatrice felt particularly protective towards him today. Something about Jonathan Shooks unsettled her, even more than his talk of a ‘noxious shadow’.

Mary warmed the porcelain teapot and spooned out tea. While Mary’s back was turned, Beatrice lifted out her pocket and pulled out the folded handkerchief with the hoof mark imprinted on it. She tucked it into the left-hand drawer of the pinewood hutch, behind the cutlery tray. She would have time to examine it more closely after Noah had been put down to sleep this evening, before Francis had returned from his parish meeting. She had never hidden anything from Francis before, but she didn’t want him to think that she was questioning his beliefs. If you believed without question in the existence of God, then you believed equally in the existence of the Devil.

When she returned to the parlour Jonathan Shooks was saying, ‘Yes, reverend, I was in the shipping business originally, for a company in London, and on their behalf I travelled the world very widely. I visited India and Arabia first, and then I crossed the Atlantic to New Granada and Guatemala and Puerto Rico. On each of my journeys I spoke out of natural curiosity with the priests and shamans of many different religions and cultures, and gradually I came to realize what my true calling was.’

Beatrice set the tray down on the side table. As she was pouring out the tea she became aware that Jonathan Shooks was talking to Francis but was staring all the time at her. She passed him a cup and then offered him a plate.

‘I have snickerdoodles or bishop’s bread, Mr Shooks. Or plain pound cake, if you would prefer it.’

‘I am happy with a slice of bishop’s bread, Goody Scarlet.’

Why is he smiling at me like that?
she asked herself.
What is so diverting about tea and cake? Or has he seen something in me that amuses him?

‘Of course, there are many beliefs,’ said Francis. ‘There is, however, only one true God, and it is that God who will be our salvation.’

‘There is only one true Devil, too,’ replied Jonathan Shooks. ‘Our difficulty here in New England is that he does not always appear in his familiar guise, so it is much more difficult for us to recognize him.’

‘I’m not sure that I understand what you mean.’

‘This is the New World, reverend, where the Devil does not necessarily answer to the name of Satan and can manifest himself in ways that are unfamiliar to pastors such as yourself. Here, Satan has countless different faces and countless different names, and it can take very different procedures to identify him, and very different incantations to send him back where he came from.’

‘I can’t see that it matters what he calls himself or what form he takes. Evil is evil, by any name. God will know him, even if I don’t.’

Jonathan Shooks took a sip of his tea and then put down his cup. ‘My dear reverend, why does the church have such a variety of prayers and collects? Each is specific to our needs on any given day, because the Lord cannot tell what perils we face unless we tell him. But what if we ourselves don’t know what those perils are?’

‘I still don’t follow you,’ said Francis. ‘If pigs mysteriously die and cattle collapse, if apples rot on the trees and children unaccountably fall ill, that seems to me like the work of Satan, no matter what he calls himself.’

‘But how can you tell for sure?’ Jonathan Shooks persisted. ‘What if Satan appears in the shape of a screeching bird of prey, whose every screech brings death to those who hear it? Or a headless woodsman with doors in his chest that open and shut with a sound like the chopping down of a tree? Or a figure made out of broken mirrors – mirrors that glitter in the forests in the dead of night? Are these all manifestations of Satan? Or are they some other demonic spirits quite unallied to Satan – spirits from some other hell of which you may know nothing at all?’

Francis glanced at Beatrice uncomfortably. She could see how much he disliked Jonathan Shooks and everything that he was saying. Francis hated his faith to be challenged, and although he believed in the Devil he had no time for folk stories about goblins or banshees or men who turned into wolves. But Jonathan Shooks had mentioned broken mirrors and because of that alone she could tell that Francis was going to hear him out.

Francis said, ‘God created everything on this earth, Mr Shooks, even those spirits that have chosen the path of evil. No matter how ignorant I may be of the different forms in which the Devil may come to us, I am confident that God will protect us.’

Jonathan Shooks sipped some more tea. ‘If that is how you feel, reverend, then I admire your faith. May I say, though, that should you encounter anything that you find both menacing and inexplicable I would like you to feel free to contact me, if only for help in identifying what it might be. In my experience, the Lord can help us far more expeditiously if He knows exactly what threats we face.’

Beatrice knew that, for Francis, this came very close to blasphemy. As far as Francis was concerned, God was all-seeing and all-knowing and if He chose not to save us from disease or death or any other misfortune, He must consider that we deserved it.

Jonathan Shooks had taken a bite of his bishop’s bread now and was chewing it slowly and methodically, and she could see by the light in his eyes that he understood just how much he had discomfited Francis, and with how much pleasure he was waiting for him to answer back.

Francis cleared his throat and tried a variety of expressions before he said, ‘Thank you for your offer, Mr Shooks. I expect to have no need to call on you, but all the same I appreciate your concern.’

*

Francis and Beatrice stood in the doorway to watch Jonathan Shooks climb back into his calash. Samuel let out a high screeching noise to start the horses, and shook the reins, and as the calash wheeled around in a semicircle Jonathan Shooks picked up his grey tricorn hat from the seat beside him and lifted it into the air in farewell. Like every other gesture he had made since his arrival, there seemed to Beatrice to be a hint of mockery about it.
Goodbye, you innocents, you have no idea what storms are on their way
.

‘Well,’ she said, as they went back into the parlour. ‘What did you make of him?’

‘I’m not at all sure,’ said Francis. ‘Either he is a self-deluded fanatic or else he is a very devious man indeed. It may be uncharitable, but I have to say that I didn’t care for him at all.’

‘Well, I think that he told us only half of the story,’ said Beatrice. ‘There is much more to Mr Shooks than meets the eye. And I have the feeling that this is not the last we will see of him, by any means.’

Francis laid one hand on her shoulder and kissed her forehead. ‘You have unusual perception for a woman, my dearest. Sometimes I must confess that it disturbs me.’

‘I’m your
wife
, Francis,’ she insisted, looking up at him. ‘I never want to cause you any unease. Your happiness and your comfort are all that I care for, yours and Noah’s. I’m here to serve you, like any good wife.’

Francis took out his pocket watch. ‘Heavens! I must go at once! I have so much to do! Goody Jenkins could well be at her Saviour’s breast by now! And I have to meet Richard Moffatt about the accounts!’

As Francis put on his coat Beatrice went into the kitchen and picked up Noah. ‘Give your father a kiss and say “bye-bye”.’

Francis gave Noah the quickest of kisses and then hurried outside, calling out, ‘Caleb! Caleb! Fetch round the shay for me, if you will! As quick as you like!’

Beatrice carried Noah into the parlour and across to the looking-glass over the fireplace. ‘Who’s
that
?’ she asked him, pointing to his reflection. ‘Is that Noah’s little friend? Why don’t you wave to him?’

Noah rested his head shyly against Beatrice’s shoulder, but watched himself out of the corner of his eye. Beatrice found herself staring at her own image and for a few long moments she felt as if she were staring at a stranger – a stranger much younger than herself. While the men of Sutton usually appeared to be much older than they really were, in their powdered wigs and high-buttoned waistcoats, the women all contrived to stay as youthful as possible, even the older matrons in their forties. Beatrice didn’t have to try. She looked no more than twenty, although she was seven years older than that. She was slight and narrow-waisted, but very full-breasted, which was emphasized by the tightness of her corset. She had dark brunette ringlets and her eyes had intensely blue irises, as blue and speckled as lapis lazuli. Her nose was short and up-tilted, and her lips always looked as if she were pouting. When she was a young girl her father had teased her by telling her that she looked like a cherub – a pretty cherub, but a cherub who was sulking because God had given her brown hair instead of gold.

Staring at herself, she found it hard to believe that she was now the wife of a minister, and a mother, and the mistress of her own house. But she couldn’t help feeling a flush of guilt that she was so proud of what she had achieved and so vain about her looks. She hoped that her vanity hadn’t somehow contributed to the death of their pigs and the sickness of Henry Mendum’s cattle. The Lord was very quick to punish those who thought too much of themselves.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Francis rattling off down the driveway. She needed to stop daydreaming and return to her duties. As she carried Noah back through the doorway, however, she glanced back at her reflection, almost furtively, and she couldn’t stop herself wondering what Jonathan Shooks had thought of her. He had stirred some feeling inside her that she had never experienced before. Was it apprehension, or was it attraction, or was it some curious mixture of both?

She turned away, but when she did so the slight distortion in the mirror made her look as if she were secretly smiling to herself.

*

Early in the afternoon Beatrice and Mary walked into the village. A soft, warm breeze had sprung up and the trees were rustling and dipping all around them, as if they were curtseying. It was less than half a mile, but they made very slow progress because little Noah insisted on walking on his leading-strings most of the way, and every now and then he would stop and pick up something that caught his attention, like a twig, or a pebble, and either Beatrice or Mary would have to take it away from him before he put it into his mouth.