Mist Over Pendle (12 page)

Margery turned to look about her, and found Richard Baldwin, in the next chair, viewing her gravely. She suffered it without embarrassment, well knowing that he could not condemn her appearance this day. The black saye was impeccably puritan, as Margery knew; Prudence had seen to that. Evidently it had its effect, for Baldwin looked almost benign as he considered her.

“Next,” said Roger suddenly,, and the white-haired man sitting beyond Baldwin came quickly to his feet. From the back of the room a sturdy middle-aged yeoman stood out.

“Thomas Shaw, yeoman, of Higham,” called Tom Peyton loudly. “Presented by Christopher Swyer of Barley, Overseer of the Poor, for that he did refuse to have bound unto him as apprentice, and to live within his house, one Ellen Hay, being a poor child of eleven years or thereabouts and without known parents.”

Evidently this was not a criminal case, and it soon became a not unfriendly argument. It quickly emerged that Thomas Shaw was not seriously refusing to take the girl. He was merely standing out for better terms; and the white-haired Swyer, acting on behalf of the Overseers who would have to pay for it, was trying to get the indenture accepted cheaply.

The argument, speeded by some comments and suggestions from Roger, was soon at an end, and the details began to be agreed. As each point was settled, Roger had to set it down on paper, and seemingly he found this no light labour. The watchful Margery saw his trouble. Roger had plainly no facile hand with a pen, and Margery remembered with a new understanding the brevity of his letters to her brothers. Now, with these details to set down, and the argument to heed, guide and judge, he was obviously labouring. A sudden impulse of sympathy brought Margery to her feet, and she tip-toed to the end of the table. She took the empty chair at his right hand, and spoke quietly as he stared in surprise.

“I’ll be your clerk, sir,” she said.

Roger’s surprise became evident, and Nick Banister stirred in his chair. Richard Baldwin sat up sharply, and the argument stopped abruptly. Here, it seemed, was a new and astonishing notion, and for a moment Roger held silence. Then he nodded.

“I’ll be in your debt if you can,” he said. And without more ado he pushed to her the papers, the sandshaker, the jar of quills and the ink-horn. Then he left her to it while he gave his attention to Thomas Shaw again.

“You agree, then, to furnish the girl with good and sufficient clothing, of sort proper to her station?”

It was not very difficult. Margery had been well-schooled in writing and she kept pace without undue labour. In half the time that had once seemed likely, Ellen Hay was bound apprentice for the term of seven years, and her indenture, signed by her master, and by Christopher Swyer for the Overseers, had been duly witness by the Justices as the law required.

“Next,” said Roger cheerfully, and Tom Peyton sang it out as before.

“James Hunt, labourer, of Wheathead. Presented by Richard Baldwin of the mill, churchwarden, for that he did fail to present a female child of him and his wife to the Minister of the New-church for lawful Baptism within one month of the birth of the said child according to law.”

This gave no trouble, and within two minutes Margery had it in writing that James Hunt was fined twelvepence for his neglect, and a frown from Richard Baldwin was hinting that he thought this insufficient.

“John Dodgson, labourer, of Fence,” called Peyton. “Presented by Richard Baldwin of the mill, churchwarden, for that he did tipple in an alehouse during the time of Divine Service on the Sunday last agone....”

Again it was easy, and soon Margery had recorded fines of twelvepence against John Dodgson and twenty shillings against the keeper of the alehouse. Then Tom Peyton was calling out again.

“Anne Redfern, widow of Thomas Redfern of the Rough Lee. Presented by Richard Baldwin of the mill, churchwarden, for that she came not to the Newchurch for Divine Service the Sunday last agone, namely the eighth day of September.”

Margery looked up quickly at this mention of the Rough Lee, wondering what manner of woman this might be, and whether she was perhaps a servant in the Nutter household. One glance disposed of that notion. The woman now before the table was clearly no indoor servant. She was too browned, too slovenly, and altogether too dirty for that. She was a woman of between thirty and forty, in the poorest of clothes; and there was that about her which roused Margery’s keenest scrutiny--something which set her suddenly in mind of the Demdike women of the Malkin Tower. It was not physical likeness. This Anne Redfern with her fair hair and blue eyes must at one time have had pretensions to being a beauty. She was broadening now, and she had evidently taken no care of herself, but there were still signs of what she had been. But for all the physical disparity, there was enough in her slouching stance and drooping head, in the sullen twist of her mouth and the hard glitter of her eyes, to recall to Margery the shifty dark-haired Alizon. And when Roger spoke it seemed that he was of the same mind, for the impersonal tone in which he had dealt with others had changed now to something colder and harder.

“If you were not in the church, where were you?” he demanded.

“At home.” The answer came sullenly.

“Doing what?”

“A-seeing to my mother.”

Roger’s frosty stare indicated his disbelief.

“What ailed her?”

Anne Redfern fidgeted and kept her eyes on the floor.

“You’d best tell what’s asked.” Roger’s voice came sharply now. “What ailed her?”

The woman looked mutinous, and for a moment Margery thought she might spit as Elizabeth Device had done. But she controlled her temper and made shift to answer.

“Her age, like enough,” she said. “She’d a rheum of the eyes, and great warch in her bones.”

Roger nodded slightly as though he accepted this. But his next question seemed to surprise the woman.

“What age has your daughter?”

“My . . .” She stopped, confused and suspicious.

“Your daughter, I said. What’s her age?”

“Fourteen last St. Peter’s day.”

“Where was she, the time of Divine Service?”

Anne Redfern flung her head back and scowled viciously. Evidently she had seen the trap. Roger’s voice came with an edge.

“I wait an answer. Where was she? She was not in the church, I’m told.”

The woman’s lips twisted in malice, but no answer came. Roger ignored her and turned to Margery.

“I find it plain,” he said. “Either she or the girl could have done what was needed. It did not need both. Set it down at the full fine of twelvepence, to be paid by next Wednesday’s noon.”

Anne Redfern found her voice as Margery’s pen began to scratch.

“Twelvepence!” she spluttered. “And me without one!” But Roger was not impressed.

“Tell that to another,” was his curt answer. “You’re a known lingerer and a liar too, for which I’ll call your churchwarden to witness. What says he?”

Richard Baldwin spoke decisively.

“She’s the one and she’s the other, and much that’s worse besides.”

“Even so. Twelvepence let it stay. And if it be not paid as required you’re for the Preston Sessions, and I doubt not gaol thereafter.”

He ended on that. Nick Banister came to his feet and the two men went out together. Margery stayed to collect her writings, and as she moved slowly to the door Richard Baldwin intercepted her.

“You’re schooled in more than the Scriptures, mistress,” he told her. “I would as much might be said of my own daughter. Grace can write her name and a few words more, but she’ll not make a clerk. You’ll be a pride to them that reared you.”

Margery, with a quick thought of Prudence and Alexander, was by no means sure of that sentiment; but she offered no contradiction.

“You’re very gracious, Master Baldwin,” she said. “I do my poor best.”

“None so poor, mistress, none so poor. You’ll remember that there’s a welcome if you’ll ride so far as Wheathead?”

“That I’ll surely do.”

She smiled very graciously and went demurely out. But the smile had broadened into a grin before she reached the parlour. Richard Baldwin, after all, had not been so very difficult.

But in the parlour some more compliments awaited her. Roger said he had not known what a talented cousin he had, and Nick Banister went further.

“If I’d a son not wed,” he told her, “I’d be in talk with Roger about you.”

She coloured at that; and groping for an answer she could find no proper one. Perhaps Roger saw her difficulty, for he changed the topic abruptly.

“This Redfern woman,” he said. “Did I deal too hardly with her?”

Nick Banister pursed his lips.

“No,” he said at length. “It’s not the first time she’s been presented.”

“Nor the last, if I know her. But you remember her, do you?”

“Tolerably. She’s of the infernal sisterhood you keep in Pendle, is she not?”

“The infernal---“ Roger laughed. “Our witch brood, hey? I think she is--she and her chattering dam.”

“Roger, you talk in riddles. Who chatters?”

“This Redfern’s mother. The crone mutters to herself without ending, though there’s scarce a word to be made out. For which cause she’s called the Chattox, though I’ve heard her true name’s Whittle.”

“Whittle? That’s a name could have come from the same cause.”

Roger nodded.

“It may have done. But Nick, there’s trouble again with the other brood--the Demdikes. Have you heard that Mitton’s dead?”

“I have not. Who is Mitton?”

Roger told the tale briefly and added some details of the doings at the Malkin Tower. Nick Banister listened attentively, quietly sipping his ale while his eyes seldom left Roger’s face.

“So?” he said slowly when Roger had at last ended. “It’s you and Baldwin at odds again, is it?”

“That’s not to be shirked. He’d have had me tear confession from them--which is not my way.”

“Nor mine. Yet have a care of that man, Roger. He could be dangerous. What of the witches?”

“You call them so?”

“At the least, it’s what they’d call themselves. But of this Mitton, Roger. What killed him?”

“I’d say his heart burst. He was over-fat for running in the heat. I’ve seen the like before.”

“As have I. But this whelp, as you called her. What did she think?”

“Alizon?” Roger spoke carefully. “I think Alizon supposed the Demdike’s arts had struck the man.”

“Why say you that?”

“Nick, you press me like an attorney. It’s no wonder you’re of the Quorum. I say it because she was very sorely scared.”

“Of more than seeing the man fall?”

“Aye. From what I’m told, she hared it up the hill as though the Devil were nosing her back parts. But what of it?”

Nick Banister answered him very gravely, and Margery suddenly saw how very bright and shrewd his eyes had grown.

“These women, Roger, are what I’ve called them--a sisterhood. If they have not the powers that Baldwin supposes, at least they think they have. In that they’re at one with Baldwin. I don’t doubt that this Alizon truly supposes that the Demdike struck Mitton down--and I don’t doubt that the Demdike supposes it, aye and willed it too. They’re an evil sisterhood Roger, and a dangerous. They think they can kill, and, believing that, they sometimes do kill. Killing’s none so hard when your victim’s crazed with fear. They’re evil, they’re murderous, and they’re dangerous. Look to it Roger, and be not at too great odds with Baldwin. He could be a stout friend and a willing, when there’s such villainy abroad.”

Roger’s slow smile betrayed nothing.

“You have the right of it Nick,” he answered quietly. “I don’t doubt that. And yet---“

“Yet what?”

But Roger did not answer that directly. He drained his ale-mug thoughtfully, and then he seemed to answer a question that had not been asked.

“I ask myself,” he said, “who’ll pay the Redfern’s fine.”

Roger’s question was answered within two days. On the Wednesday morning he made ready to ride to Altham, as his custom was, and he was just about to mount when a horseman rode up to the house. Roger had brief speech with him and then presented him to Margery as Miles, son of Richard Nutter of the Rough Lee.

“He has moneys to pay on behalf of one Anne Redfern,” said Roger. “Be pleased, therefore, to give him quittance for that. Give him also some proper entertainment. Fare you well.”

And on that, without any more words, Roger was away. Tom Peyton went clattering behind him, and Margery was left standing on the gravel wondering whether she should infer displeasure from his abrupt departure, or amusement from a suspicious crinkling she had seen in his forehead. But that, she reminded herself, she might ponder later. At the moment she had a social duty to perform, and she was by no means sure how to perform it.

She turned to Miles Nutter, and for a moment they stood considering each other. He was a young man of perhaps eighteen or twenty years, and Margery’s first note was that he was uncommonly good-looking. He was slim, slight, and of a medium stature, trim and almost dapper, and holding himself briskly erect. His face, neat and delicate in its lines, was pleasant and vivacious, and it was bronzed enough to blend pleasantly with black hair that had a natural curl. His doublet, breeches, and cloak were of murrey serge, his hat of black beaver, his boots of soft yellow leather; and Margery, observing these things, was thankful that she had been minded to go riding, and was therefore already in her orange-tawny. Master Nutter held himself well. He stood with an easy smile, hat in hand, at the side of his horse; and Margery was pleased with him. As far as looks went she approved of Master Nutter, and she gave him a very friendly smile.

He bowed with less clumsiness than most men showed. Then he passed his horse to the waiting groom.

“I’ll regret it,” he said politely, “if my coming intrudes upon your affairs, madam.”

“It does not,” she told him promptly. She liked his airy voice, and nobody had ever called her madam before. She was disposed to favour Master Nutter. “I’ve no affairs of note this morning, sir. Pray come within, and I’ll give you the quittance my cousin ordered.”