Weyward(52)

The prosecutor smoothed his robes before he began the questioning. I wondered if this was the last witness. His last chance to prove my guilt.

‘Master Metcalfe,’ he said. ‘Could you tell the court who first made this charge of witchcraft against the accused?’

‘I did.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she killed my son-in-law, sir.’

‘Were you a witness to your son-in-law’s death, Master Metcalfe?’

‘No.’

‘Then how can you be so sure of the accused’s guilt?’

‘Because of what happened before.’

‘What happened before?’

‘She killed my wife.’

I looked for Grace in the gallery. I wished the white cap would turn so that I could see her face. So that I could see some small sign that she didn’t still believe her father, after all these years. After everything.

‘Master Metcalfe, are you able to tell the court about your wife’s death, and the accused’s involvement in it?’

When Metcalfe spoke again, his voice had changed. The fire had gone out of it, the words cracking with pain.

‘My wife – Anna – she fell ill with scarlatina. It were eight years ago. Grace were only thirteen. Doctor Smythson came out and applied some leeches. But my Anna didn’t get better. I would have sent for the doctor again, but one night Grace slipped away. She returned with the accused and her mother. She was … friendly with the accused, at that age.’

He stopped. I didn’t want to look at him. I looked about the courtroom for something else to focus on. Nothing remained of the spider’s web in the dock. I wondered if someone had brushed it away.

A fly hovered above the gallery. I kept my eyes on it as William Metcalfe continued.

‘Altha’s mother – Jennet – she was known around Crows Beck for her healing skills, at that time. And seeing as the girls were close … well, you can see why Grace saw fit to fetch them. She were only trying to save her mother. The first thing Jennet did when she arrived was pull the leeches off my Anna. Then she promised me she could save her. But she gave her something, some noxious draught, and then my Anna …’

Metcalfe paused, shuddering. His hand went to his throat, and I recalled the string of beads I had seen clutched in his fist the night his wife died. Only later had I realised they were rosary beads; that Grace’s family were papists.

I remembered the fear in his eyes when we came upon him at prayer. Perhaps he had worried that we would expose him. Or perhaps I was searching for another reason for his hatred of my mother and me, when the truth was simple: he believed us murderers.

‘My Anna shook all over,’ he continued. ‘It were … unspeakable. And then she was gone. Jennet had killed her.’

‘And where was the accused, in all of this? Was she near your wife when she passed?’

‘No. She were standing with my daughter. But … I know she helped her mother. And even if she didn’t, you just have to look at her to see she’s the spit of Jennet.’ The fire returned to his voice as he continued, growing louder and louder. ‘The spit of her. In image and in manner too – it has been passed down, this rot, like a contagion, from mother to daughter … They’re not like other women. Living without a man – it’s unnatural. I wager that the mother took the devil for a lover, to beget a child … and now that child has done his will. You must cut her out, like bad flesh from meat! You must hang her!’

The gallery had been shocked into silence by Metcalfe’s claims. A child born of the devil. I wished to scrub myself all over, to scrub away time with my skin and return to a place where I had never heard those words spoken about my mother and myself.

Metcalfe had stopped yelling. He was slumped forward in the stand, shoulders heaving with keening sobs, the likes of which I have never heard from a man before.

A guard came to lead him away. Just as he reached the doors, he turned back towards me.

‘Damn you! I hope you rot in Hell like your whore of a mother!’

The heavy doors closed and he was gone.

I had striven to show no emotion through the trial, but to hear my mother spoken of thus was too much. My eyes burned with the salt of the tears that ran down my face. Whispers rose in the courtroom. From the corner of my eye I saw that they were pointing at me, at my tears.

I put my face in my hands and cried. I kept my face hidden as the prosecutor spoke. It was clear from the testimony of Grace Milburn, Daniel Kirkby and William Metcalfe that I was the devil’s whore, he said, who had used my evil influence to goad innocent animals into trampling their master to death. I must be cut from society like a canker, he said, scoured from the earth like rot from wood. I had robbed my community of a good and honest man. I had robbed a woman of her loving husband. Her protector.

At this I raised my head and looked at him, staring until my eyes burned. I did not hide my face in my hands again.





26


VIOLET


‘So,’ said Frederick. ‘Where are you taking me? Somewhere with shade, I hope – I’m absolutely roasting.’

They were walking in the meadow at the very edge of the grounds. It was hilly, and at its crest they could see the green landscape below. Violet felt strangely light, as though her bones had filled with air. The sun was hot on the back of her neck. She should have brought a hat. Nanny Metcalfe would give her a telling-off if she got sunburnt.