I, Coriander (16 page)

I implored my mother to leave well alone, and she punched me in the face so that I fell to the ground. I got up again as Arise took to beating the woman round the head with the hand of wrath and a stick until she fell. My mother then in a passion of rage took to kicking her. It was a shameful sight. She was thrown in the icy water and sank like a stone. That showed she must be innocent, for if she had risen to the surface they would have known that she was a witch. I think that be right. Either way I know that you do not come out of the water alive.

After that the villagers went into their houses and barred their doors against us. They took no notice of Arise when he threatened them with damnation. No one asked us in and we were forced to leave.

It was a cold night with a powerful icy wind that found its way to your bones. My mother and Arise were both now quiet, having used their strength to kill a frail old woman.

I walked behind with tears rolling down my face, thinking of my kind sweet father and my loving brother Ned. I wished then that I had been a boy so that I could have fallen and died honourably in battle.

We went on in this manner until we came to Bristol. None of us having the energy to go further, we took rooms at a coach house near the main thoroughfare.

21

The Strange Lady

I
was much pleased with our lodgings, for they were clean, but alas, they were not to my mother’s or Arise’s liking, for too many travellers stayed there, bringing with them tales of witch hunts. Then came the news of the murder of a sick, old, defenceless woman who had been kicked and beaten, then left to drown on Christmas Day. On hearing this Arise became as jumpy as a fox’s tail full of fleas, sure that the hangman was following him. So we left those lodgings before anyone remembered it be a green-eyed twisted preacher who had dragged the old woman out of her house, and we went further into town and rented rooms above a tavern. It was a noisy, dirty place full of vermin, and it was a struggle to keep clean.

It was not long before the money Arise had got from witch hunting was gone, for my mother had a great hunger on her, and Arise a great thirst, and between them they spent what there was. Each blamed the other for their woes, and my mother fair shouted at him that he best think of a way of earning some money and be smart about it, for she had not come all this way to starve.

Arise went every evening not to the meeting house but to the tavern downstairs, coming back to our room with the liquor upon him, ranting and raving about the reign of Jesus Christ. ‘He is on his way. Do you hear that, woman, on his way!’

Shortly after that, when our very last coin was gone, Arise brought Tarbett Purman back to our room.

Tarbett Purman reminded me of an eel, at any rate something slippery that lived a lot in dark places.

‘This is Hester,’ said Arise, all preacher-like, putting the hand of salvation and the hand of wrath together like a church steeple.

Master Purman told me to stand before him. Then he asked me to turn around slowly, which I did.

‘I like them bigger on the rump, bigger in the stomach, bigger in the breast - in short, a buxom wench,’ he said, grabbing my mother’s waist. ‘I like a proper woman.’

This pleased my mother, who took to laughing. It also pleased Arise, for Master Purman put a coin on the table.

Tarbett Purman became a regular visitor. When he was away on business, Arise would come home with some other godly gentleman who had sworn to the cause of ridding England of sinners, and he too would put a coin on the table.

Most evenings that cold winter I spent huddled out of sight on the steps of our lodgings.

My mother spent her days in bed, eating and sleeping, while I tried to keep the room clean. It was the only time that the wrath quietened in her.

I begged often that we might go home.

‘To what?’ she said. ‘A hovel where the earth be full of my dead children? I think not. Thanks to Arise, here we have food and good coin.’

I thought that this was the way my world was set to turn and there was naught I could do about it.

Then one day a lady asked to see my mother. I thought it might be Tarbett Purman’s wife for I doubted not that he had one. She wore a cloak cut of the finest wool and stood out amongst the vagabonds, travellers and masterless men who had rooms there.

‘Go and tell your mother to dress, girl,’ she said, and I wondered how she knew that my mother would still be in bed, it being the middle of the day.

I rushed up the stairs and told my mother that I thought Tarbett Purman’s wife be wanting to see her. She heaved herself out of bed saying she would give the woman a piece of her mind, so she would. It was hard getting my mother dressed, she complaining that I must have shrunk the bodice and the skirt, for they hardly met in the middle. I did my best to straighten out the bed, but the lady came up before I could finish.

There was something about this lady that made me fearful, though what it was I could not say.

I asked if I should take her cloak and dry it for her. She said no and sat down by the fire, so that steam rose off her clothes. My mother for once looked at a loss as to what to say, for this was without doubt a grand lady.

‘You are to be married,’ she said to my mother.

My mother was dumbstruck and had no words sitting on her tongue.

‘Me?’ she said when she found her voice. ‘I think I still be married.’

‘That is a mortal detail. It seems not to bother you, so why should it bother me?’

‘But - but -’ said my mother.

‘Silence, Maud Jarret,’ said the lady, ‘and listen.’

‘How do you know my name?’ said my mother.

‘I know your name and I know your nature. You and that preacher have been making much trouble,’ said the lady, laughing.

‘He be nothing to do with me,’ said my mother, backing away from the lady. ‘I be a good God-fearing -’

‘You are a trollop,’ said the visitor, ‘a slut. I know all about you. I know what you and Arise Fell have done. I understand all too well how things lie between you.’

Here my mother took to babbling. The lady in the cloak never once raised her voice. She said, as if saying no more than it be Tuesday, ‘You are a murderer.’

‘No I am not! I am not!’ pleaded my mother, falling to her knees. ‘I was led astray.’

‘Get up and stop your whimpering,’ said the visitor curtly. ‘Who you kill concerns me not. So long as you do as you are told no one else will ever know what you have done. Do you understand me, Maud Jarret?’

My mother nodded. ‘Whatever you say.’

‘You are to bathe and make yourself presentable.’

‘Nay, mistress. I never bathe,’ said my mother. ‘Water brings on the distemper.’

‘You will do as you are told, so that you smell less of stale fish.’

‘That be the smell of witches,’ said my mother, crossing her arms.

The lady in the chair laughed. ‘Then that nose of yours has smelt nothing more or less than yourself.’

Instead of shouting and screaming my mother just stood there looking frightened.

‘He is a rich merchant, a widower with one daughter,’ the lady said.

My mother came nearer, the word ‘rich’ drawing her on.

‘Why would he be bothered with me?’ she asked.

‘In other times nothing in this world would make him bother with you, but Oliver Cromwell has seen fit to take away the lands and possessions of those Royalists who supported the King, and this gentleman has a very desirable residence on the River Thames. To keep it, he must be seen to be a good Republican. To this end he needs an honest Puritan wife.’ She laughed once more. ‘You are exactly what I have been looking for: you will be no threat to the memory of his beloved. Just do your duty and keep quiet. That is all that is asked of you.’

‘I have an itching desire to see London,’ said my mother, ‘but I cannot leave Arise.’

‘Neither would I want you to,’ said the lady. ‘Arise will join you later.’

My mother still looked uncertain, but when the lady took a bag of gold coins from her cloak and threw them on the floor, she fell upon them like a pig at the trough.

‘Clean yourself up,’ said the lady, standing tall over my mother. ‘Have clothes made to fit. Go to church. For the time being, see little of Arise and his friends. Leave the rest to me. Remember, you are a widow, an upstanding widow with an only daughter. Do you understand?’

Her cloak now seemed to have green vapours coming from it, though it may just have been the way the light from the door played upon it. My mother did not even look up. She was still grabbing at the gold coins as the lady left.

That night the lady came back again and told me I was to stay outside while she talked to Maud and Arise. I was pleased, having no desire to listen to the tricks and foolery Arise would come up with. I sat on the steps and watched a large black raven hop about, leaving its tracks in the snow.

The next morning a finely dressed servant came to take us to our new lodgings. Oh, you should have seen them! Never had I lived anywhere so grand until I came to London. There were two maids and a cook. New gowns were ordered and my mother with much shouting and screeching was bathed and her hair washed to rid her of lice and fleas. It was the same for me, which I liked a lot for now my skin itched no more and my bites at last began to heal.

My mother caught a chill and needed victuals brought to her in bed, and sweetmeats to keep the distemper away. Then we went once more to church and I did a lot of praying that we might never see Arise again. We fasted too, for the lady with the cloak wanted there to be less of my mother when she met your father.

My mother did not take well to fasting and the servants had to lock her in her chamber, where she would shout until too weak to go on. The servants took no notice. They were not interested in her fire and brimstone. They said nothing.

So we lived, seeing no one, going about our ways quietly together, and taking to washing and being clean in both body and mind.

Then your father came to visit us. I think he was fair surprised to see the size of my mother and the thinness of her hair. She told him it was all due to the losing of her dear husband. He said that he understood the power of grief, his love being only three months dead. His eyes filled up with tears when he said this.

I am not good at counting, but I believe that we lived in that house for six months. If that be true, it means that the lady in the cloak could see into the future, for your mother must still have been alive on the day of her visit to our lodgings.

I only saw your father that once before the wedding. He seemed pleased to see it was a clean house and that my mother did not smell, even though her teeth were black. That is how we came to London.

I was sure that you would not like me for coming into your house so soon after your mother’s death. I told myself not to worry if that be so. Then when you were so kind and sweet I could not believe that the Good Lord had seen fit to give me such a sister as you. I knew that I would love you always.

If I could have wished for one thing that day we first met, it would have been that my mother had never entered your house. I knew the damage her wrath would cause and I prayed every night for the Lord to keep us safe and not let Arise Fell come here. The Good Lord did not answer my prayers.

Y
ou know what followed, until that dreadful day when your hair was scissored from your head. Well, after Arise had dragged you upstairs into the study and all the banging had died down, Joan and I set to cleaning the kitchen and putting the meat upon the spit, both quietly praying that Arise would see fit to let you down to the kitchen that evening. It was not to be. Nor the next day, and I knew not what to make of it. I asked both Arise and my mother to let you go before any more harm befell you, but I was beaten soundly for my trouble and told to mind my own business.

I took to making a mark under the beam in the attic for every day you were gone. I did the marks in rows of seven and crossed the mark every time it was a Sunday. All I know is that there were too many Sundays, which made me think you must be dead.

Joan was never the same after you were gone. She took to crying and bemoaning her fate, saying that she was not paid nor fed nor housed as she should be. Arise took her few things and threw them into the river. He told her she was so vexatious that there was no salvation for her.

Shortly after this, poor Joan missed her footing on the cellar steps and was badly hurt. Arise would not go to the expense of calling Doctor Turnbull. Instead, he told her to pray that the Good Lord would see fit to mend her. I helped her up to bed and she lay there groaning in pain. My mother came puffing and panting up the attic stairs and shouted at her to stop her noise.

Joan saw her only chance of escape and took it. She died the next morning. Arise and my mother seemed fair pleased to see her body taken away on a cart. I watched her go, sure that I would be next.

After that there was only me to keep the big house going and I did my best, but there were too many chambers and too many fires and too many stairs so that I lost all sense of time. There was to be no rest or peace in the house and I felt fair terrified at what was to befall me.

Then my mother and Arise told me, as if it were the same as a Sunday, that you and Mistress Danes had been found in the river, and that was the end of the matter. In my heart I did not believe them, but I bit my tongue and kept my silence.

Our lives went on. The furniture was taken away bit by bit, and the house was silent and cold. Arise took to locking rooms up and going off to the alehouse leaving my mother to grumble about her fate, saying that it was not fair after all she had done to be left so. Late at night, we would hear creakings and groanings coming from the house. My mother, never one bothered with imagination, would look frightened and ask who I thought it might be. I had no answer but my fear became all the greater.

My mother was made merrier when Tarbett Purman came up to London. For the first time I was sent to market on my own to buy what was needed to feed our guest. Arise struck me before I left, saying that the hand of wrath would be waiting for me if I should dawdle.