The Printer's Devil (25 page)

How soever I said to Catherine, -Lets have us a Christmas-feast and pox take the Puritans; for I desired to give her a treat as she is big by now with child, it is passing strange to embrace her; she likes not occupation so well as she had used to, in truth she is for the most part uncommon dry i’the placket.

-Well we must go to church said she, I’ll not have the time for dressing the meats.

-Twill not be so much for us two, I said, and after all, feastings not confined to meats. Let us simply make merry and forget these drear times, merry by the fireside.

-In truth there’s but little opportunity to do that, she replied. For they do frown upon bear-baiting not because it doth hurt the bears and dogs, but because people enjoy the watching on it. And I did find that a fine metaphor for all the Puritans acts.

Accordingly we did go to do our duty on Christmas-day to hear a preacher ranting, I took no note on it save that he did take an uncommon long time about it and the day was woundy cold and the chapel likewise.

I took a-hold of Catherine’s hands, they were like unto ice; the words of the song came into my mind,
Starves my heart and very soul with cold;
I played the air in my head in hopes of countering the demon, an that were the cause of the ice; and thought that her poor chilled hands did warm a little.

At last the sermon did end, and then there came a sudden commotion: a band of soldiers broke in and carried us all away, for why I knew not, doubting they in some wise had found out my intent and meant to chastise me for my thoughts of revelry. But no, in the afternoon came some officers from White-hall to examine us one by one, I believe some folk were took to prison; the reason was for taking of a sacrament that day contrary to some ordnance or another. I was close to laughing at the irony on it but decided ’twas wiser to keep mine own counsel.

These common prayers, they did say, were but the papist mass in English, the which was palpable nonsense; further they accused us of praying for Charles stuart the king they had slain.

-Who’d be so great a fool, quoth I, and they looked like to assault me. What’s a man to do, I said, an he keep apart from the church you do prosecute him for heresy, an he attend you accuse him of being a papist; at this one of the soldiers did strike me in the back with his musket where a coward hits a man.

In spite of all this I was let return home with Catherine. Thus was my plan to revel at Christmas-tide sent all awry; but we made passing merry the following day, and again at the anniversary of the year. Catherine did discover a little verse that did make us to smile,
videlicet,

To Banbury came I, O profane one,

Where I saw a Puritane-one Hanging of his cat on Monday

For killing of a mouse on Sunday.

’Tis yet bitter cold, severe and frosty; the demon hath us in a grip of a winter none on us have seen the like of. Today’s the eve of saint Agnes, when green girls dream of those they’ll marry, so men say. I asked Catherine an if she’d ever looked in a mirror on this night, or divined with pins; she laughed and said nay.

The river’s frozen, fish and fowl in blocks of ice, and entire boats too, an you believe the tales; they also say the carrion-crows’ feet do freeze fast to their prey. Did any one doubt that ’tis the demon’s work there is that in the air to give the proof on it: a foul and evil fear so big with threat as is Catherine with child; you can nigh smell the rotten stink on it.

Catherine says the child is restless in her belly and doth kick her intemperately; she hath aches in her back and is constantly tired; the herbal remedies give little relief. In truth I sleep but poorly myself, being visited by formless horrors and imaginings. I went to a whore the first time since I was wed; had no pleasure of it, and later dreamed of the succubus so that I awoke in a muck of sweat.

They say this hath been the severest winter, that man alive hath known in England; I can well credit it; in the shop even the urine that is for cleaning the forms did freeze ere it could be used. I remembered well this stinkerd’s task and let the prentices go hence; most like they went a-skating on the Thames, being over young to go a-drabbing, though it may be I do them an injustice in saying thus.

What a long time a child doth take in growing; I’d liefer have an homunculus, that grows in a bottle. Catherine hath grown so great I did ask an she’d be birthing a calf; she said she did trust not. Her dugs are swelled so big also I’d scarcely know her for the maid she was; is it therefore perverse to be yet, as I am,
maris appetens
for her, I do wonder.

This day the fourth day of March is Catherine delivered of twin babes, a boy and a girl; she fell in pieces at four a clock in the morning and I did run to fetch the mid-wife, being in great terror that the blood would call to the demon, for there was a great deal on it; Catherine did drink down her draft of one of the herbal potions and for good measure I did cast into the air a handful of Nicholas Griffin’s powder, the first time I’d done such, for I was nigh breathless with the oppression of the night, cold and choking as ’twas.

The poor little boy-twin died soon after his first breath; so sad to see, a tiny mite blue like a bruise and all perfectly formed. The little girl is a lusty child; we shall name her
Elizabeth;
poor Catherine is grievous sick in a great fever and I grow afeard; this night I can write no more.

The river being frozen I took horse to Richmond to speak with Nicholas Griffin, and a plague of a time it did take me to get thither, the nag an old spavined beast that I do swear trotted slower nor I could walk. The man came to the door in his night-gown; hearing my tale he hied straight to his work-shop and rummaged in drawers a space for to discover the herbs he desired.

Back home by noon for I’d risen in the night, Catherine sore distressed and very weak. The physician hath let her blood, such a foolish fumbler, can he not see she’s nigh drained on it already? An there were a way I’d give her a quart or so of mine own blood; would such a thing could be done. Yet I believe she’s gained colour since she took the new draught. The midwife saith, give her rich food to eat, I bought her meats and pies and tanzeys full with eggs and cream; had to feed her by mine own hand else she’d not have taken it.

The air grows thicker than ever, worse nor thunder ever was; the demon hath taken one child, is it not content with that?

The physician says Catherine will live; I do doubt her fever, she burns like a fire. Mercifully Elizabeth appears strong and suckles the wet-nurse mightily. There are tempests in the skies this night, but no relief in the air; they are like unto flying omens.

In the night Catherine awoke crying with pain, the horridest sound I ever did hear, and her life’s-blood soaking the bed; she fell into a fit so extreme I gave her all the herbs I had off Nicholas. Griffin, though much spilled on the floor she was shaking so. I called for the physician but he came not until that it was all too late.

My sweet Catherine died at dawn, this day, the seventh day of March, and with her died also my soul and the joy of my life; for her I shall go mourning to my grave, never cease to curse the name of Roger Southwell whose demon did take her from me.
Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus tam cari capitis?
⁷

⁷
How can there be any shame or stint in mourning for one so dear?
(Odyssey)

‘...almost every spot of it was covered with great black flies, that never changed their place or moved...

‘And very soon he came back, and the old man that was sexton with him, with a shovel and the earth in a hand-barrow: and they set it down at the first of the places and made ready to cast the earth upon it; and as soon as ever they did that, what do you think? the flies that were on it rose up in the air in a kind of a solid cloud and moved off up the lane towards the house, and the sexton (he was parish clerk as well) stopped and looked at them and said to my father, “Lord of flies, sir,” and no more would he say.’

M R James,
An Evening’s Entertainment

His thoughts tossed as by a tempest, Alan Bellman sprinkled the dust of dried herbs into the paste forming in his stone mortar; a sense of approval hung in the air. He held out his left hand and watched it quake like the hand of a drunk, unable to still it by effort of will. In their proper seasons he had mixed the powders, preparing the ground for his next move.

Third time is the charm,
part of his mind thought. First was the destruction of John Simpson, which proved the power.
Then I snared the girl, all she awaits is her knight
(Some day my prints will come, as the woman said in the photo shop, his mind insisted)...
which now I become.

Third time, third time.

Cold,
he thought as he stuck two fingers into the mixture. Chill and slick and disgusting in ways he could hardly put into words. It numbed his finger-ends, as though they slid over ice. He lifted the small viscous lump out of the pot and stared at it. It was quite unlike anything which came out of a tube from the chemist’s, being somewhere between cloudy and translucent, somewhere between the colour of blood and the colour of pus: more like the discharge from an infected boil than anything else, but thicker.

Grimacing a little, he smeared the unpleasant stuff on his face: forehead, cheeks, lips; then a dab on his throat, just where the Adam’s apple made its sharp protrusion. An instant later he gasped, as a hot effervescence fizzed through him from these several points. Cool air hissed into his throat, and he staggered across the room to watch his reflection in the glass of his dark old cabinet.

Steeped in the culture of the movies, Alan had seen transformations galore flickering on cinema screens: Jekyll to Hyde in many variations, man into were-beast, Dracula into skeleton and thence to dust; and had, perhaps, subconsciously expected something similar. But he could not detect any alteration of his features, no sliding of flesh like malleable wax, no sudden palimpsest of one face onto another.

Then a stab of pain closed his eyes for a crucial second, and when he opened them again, he was changed.

‘Christ,’ he whispered, seeing a nineteen-year-old’s reflection in the glass. ‘God,’ he said. ‘Oh, my lord.’ He ran his fingers over the strange and youthful features. His chin felt smooth as a boy’s, and a flap of hair blacker than Alan’s had ever been tumbled over his forehead. He shuddered with knowledge. Then he grinned at his new guise, and began, quietly, to laugh.

Kim was enclosed in her office with that strange old file she had brought back the previous day, and had responded, earlier, with an absent-minded ‘Not this time,’ when Alan had called out ‘Want to go for a ding?’

Nevertheless, Alan took great care to be silent now, as he slipped cautiously down the stairs, avoiding the creaky treads.

He drove a little over a mile, hoping no-one would see him, and put the Beetle in a shady car-park before joining a pair of elderly ladies at the nearby bus-stop.

When the bus appeared the driver peered at him suspiciously and said, ‘Full fare?’

‘Yes,’ replied Alan indignantly.

Someone was raising a lone bell in the tall white tower of St Michael when he got off the bus at Westerbridge. It clanged into silence and came to rest, then four more began to go up.

Usual vast Sunday attendance,
thought Alan, recalling his last visit with a jolt almost of panic. He touched his strange new face, reassuring himself that it was still there, and combed the dark hair with his fingers. His heart thudding fiercely, he drew a deep breath and started up the stairs.

The Griffiths family and Ted and Zoe turned to stare at the stranger who came into the ringing-chamber, smiling the pleasant smiles of ringers welcoming a potential ally to their band.

‘Hallo,’ said Alec Griffiths. ‘Are you a ringer?’

‘Yes,’ squeaked Alan, his voice - to his alarm - cracking. ‘Not an expert, though,’ he added in a startling bass.

‘What do you ring?’

Alan caught Debbie’s eye, and smiled; she smiled back.

‘Oh, Plain Bob, Grandsire, Stedman if I’m feeling intelligent,’ he said.

‘Well, catch hold for some Bob Doubles, then,’ said Josie. ‘Would you like the fourth?’

Formulae rushed through Alan’s mind as he tried to remember what the fourth did to start, and he turned to the dangling ropes with what he hoped was a nonchalant air.

‘Sure,’ he said carelessly, his mind working furiously.
Odd bells out, even bells in. In, then, and four blows behind next. Unaffected if there’s a call: good. I can cope with that.

‘That’s the four,’ said Debbie, pointing. ‘I’m Debbie Griffiths. What’s your name?’

‘Steve,’ said Alan quickly, his mind a sudden blank. ‘Steve Green,’ he added, catching sight of the lone grass-coloured sally on the treble rope which Debbie was holding. ‘I’m a student.’ She smiled at him again.

‘Look to, then,’ she said.

Kim sat shaken by a storm of unexpected grief and anger, the memoir closed in on itself in her lap.
You fool,
she raged at the shade of Roger Southwell,
how many more lives must you wreck with your wretched magery?
She clenched her fist, wanting to slam it against the wall or the desk. Instead she found herself thumping her own thigh, wincing at the force of the blow. Surprising, the strength of her fury. These days, until recently, nothing had seemed worth expending passion on, in the way she had felt when she was younger. Not that she had ever been a great embracer of causes.