Familiar Spirits (30 page)

“Finally my friends and I prevailed upon him to leave. He did. After that a sullen melancholy settled upon us all. We stayed awhile, conversing among ourselves, until the host came to tell us it was his closing hour and we must say good night. We did, and I and one other who lived in the same neighborhood commenced our journey homeward. The moon, which was full, would have guided our steps had it not been for clouds which passed before it in fits. We had gone no more than fifty paces along the road when suddenly, 
the great moon being obscured, from without a thicket came this raving figure, cursing and roaring like a bedlamite.

“I confess I thought it more devil than man, and in my surprise and natural desire to defend myself being thus attacked, I threw a mighty blow at it. My fist caught the attacker full upon the face. I heard the crush of bone. He fell down and just then the moon showed her face bright and clear, casting on all the scene a lurid light, by which I saw the battered bloody countenance of my wife’s brother, flat upon his back upon the ground.

“Too stunned to speak to my friend, I knelt beside the body to see how Philip was. Would to God he had been as Andrew Tusser years afterward—asleep only, although he seemed dead.”

Crispin’s voice broke; he stifled an anguished sob and hid his face in his hands. After a few moments, during which not a word was spoken and hardly a breath heard in the room, the tanner continued. “He was stone-cold dead. My ill-considered blow had killed him.”

“Why did you not make these facts known then?” Matthew asked, much moved himself by the tanner’s narrative.

“My first thought was to do so. The blow was self-defense. I meant no harm. I had given him my hand in friendship and was prepared to offer him a brother’s love. His intemperate nature was his fault, no worse than that. Yet it brought about his death. A sad tragedy. But then I thought of how my wife-to-be might think of me. The slayer of her own dear brother. Even though she were to understand the cause, would she ever forget that I was the
means
, that Philip Goodin’s blood was on my hands? No, it was awful to think of. Awful for both of us. We were to be married the next day, you understand. Was ever a bridegroom so cursed as this?”

“Cursed indeed,” murmured the magistrate. “But what has this sad tale to do with Andrew Tusser and the present case?”

“The companion and witness of my self-defense was Malcolm Waite,” said Crispin after a moment’s pause. “Standing 
over the body of Philip Goodin, we laid a plan whereby we would conceal the nature of his death. He understood my fears, you see, Malcolm Waite. We wanted to make it seem Philip was robbed and beaten by highwaymen. We stripped him naked and took his purse, the coins in which we later put in the church poor box for conscience’ sake. Malcolm Waite gave me his word then that he would never tell a living soul what had transpired. We went home. The next day, my wife and I were married. Philip Goodin’s body was not discovered until later.”

“Was he not missed at the wedding?” asked the magistrate.

“He was, sir, but it was only thought he stayed away because of his objections to our marriage. It caused my wife and her father some sadness, but no considerable grief.”

“And did Malcolm Waite keep his promise?” Matthew asked.

“For years he did so,” said Crispin, “and I suppose it may be said he kept the promise until the end of his life. Yet I feared it might be otherwise. It fell out this way. When his fortune changed, as everyone knows it did, his health failed him. His business went from bad to worse. In his desperation he came to me for assistance, which I gladly gave according to my means, for I was in a prosperous way and my generous nature is well allowed. But his requests, first uttered with modesty, became as insistent as they were frequent. They grew into demands. I shoveled money after money into the great hole of his misfortune.

“Soon it became evident that I was now to pay the price for his long discretion. My wife’s grief had been deep when Philip’s body had been discovered, and was made worse by the fact that his murderers were never known or punished. I feared the truth now would be more bitter than before and my wife’s love would turn to deadly hate should she discover it was I who killed her brother. I had no choice but to give Malcolm whatever he wished. But he was a poor husbandman of my goods. They did him little good.”

“You could have explained the circumstances,” Matthew interjected. “It was not your fault.”

“Yes,” continued Crispin. “I could have explained. But would she have believed it? She would have said, surely, ‘Self-defense
you
call it. Wherefore did you conceal this so-called truth from me all these years if it be truth indeed and not some lately concocted lie? You lied for years, by your own admission. Why should I believe you now?’ Such a response I expected from her. Feared it worse than death. But then a new danger appeared to make matters worse.” “Which was?”

“Ursula. That wretched girl. She was no witch, you know, only a silly child with a handful of conjurer’s tricks to catch attention and make herself more than she was. But that was just my opinion. Others regarded her talents more highly. My sister and brother-in-law, for instance. They were of a credulous disposition, and when I discovered it was Margaret’s desire to communicate with Philip’s spirit, I knew there was a single motive to her wish: to know the perpetrators of his death. I feared no busy spirit coming at Ursula’s command, but I knew that Malcolm
knew
the truth. Every day his confused mind, the victim of his wasting body, gave him less control over his actions and thoughts. My fate was in his hands, and trembling uncertain hands they were. I feared that somehow the truth of Philip Goodin’s death would be disclosed.”

“There were also his increasing demands upon your purse,” Matthew said. “Which brings us to Andrew Tusser.”

Crispin nodded affirmatively and cast down his head. “Andrew much resembled his sister in face, and once in their childish play I saw him don that wig that she had made of her own hair. They pretended each to be the other. He was a simple lad indeed, whose constant mischief proceeded more from his lack of wit than from guile. The deception was my idea. When he awoke from his trance, 1 told him what had happened, gave him something to eat, and told him the whole town thought he was dead. He laughed. He thought it 
was a good jest. He wanted to walk down High Street at noon and give the burghers a fright. I told him I had a better plan. I knew his bitterness at his sister’s death. They were very close, you know. I agreed that she had been grossly wronged and said I shared his desire for revenge. I reminded him of how Malcolm and Margaret Waite had testified against Ursula at her trial, concealing their own participation in her mysteries. ‘What should I do, then?’ he asked, hearing this. I told him to conceal himself in the Waites’ barn. He knew of the old cellar long unused. So did I. My father had helped Malcolm’s father to dig it. I told him what a pleasant revenge it would be to give Malcolm a good fright if he would put on his sister’s wig and gown he had of hers and haunt the house for a week or more.”

“And he agreed to this scheme?” asked Matthew.

“Readily,” said Crispin. “He had no love for Malcolm. Malcolm had once threatened to whip him for some abusive language he had used, and that, compounded by Malcolm’s testimony against Ursula, made Andrew’s loathing all the more intense. His simplicity, you see, had not lessened his capacity for vengeance.”

“So he disguised himself as his sister, as you instructed,” said Matthew.

“He did. I knew Malcolm’s condition. I knew his health was failing more each day and that he would never stand the strain. The wish was father to the event itself. What more is there to tell? The foolish boy enjoyed the little trick he played, unmindful of my plan to make him the instrument of murder. He kept it up, appearing first to one and then the other. He came and went as he pleased, hiding out in the barn. I suppose he told someone—probably the girl who died with him.”

“You suspected he had died in the fire,” said Matthew. “It was you who was prowling around the ruins of nights.”

“I believed that during the riot he would find refuge in the hiding place and therefore must have been trapped there when the barn was set afire. I needed to be certain. I was afraid if someone else found the body first, he would conclude

as you did, Mr. Stock, that I had concealed the boy’s revival for my own ends.”

“And what of your wife and her sister—these poor women who stand in jeopardy because of your stratagems?”

“That was never in the reckoning. God knows I love my wife,” said Crispin, with moist eyes. “I had no way of knowing that first her sister and then she would be accused of witchcraft. After the charges were made, I could see how my own device for sealing Malcolm’s lips had made my burden worse. But what could I do? I couldn’t reveal the identity of the ghost for fear of revealing my own murderous intent and what I most dreaded, that my wife should discover it was my hand that killed her brother.”

Crispin turned to look where his wife was sitting. She was returning his gaze, her eyes also filled with tears. But whether in her gaze there were compassion and forgiveness as well as grief and shock would remain to be seen.

Then the magistrate ordered Matthew to take custody of his new prisoner and said the charge against him was to be murder—murder of such a strange and perverse sort as never to have been heard of before in England and certainly to rival the devilish practice of the Italians and the French, who were the most famous murderers in Europe. The magistrate had to speak loudly to make himself heard over the excited talk that now reigned in the courtroom and had broken forth at the end of the tanner’s confession.

The clerk called out for order, and cried out again and again. The uproar continued. It was not clear whether the spectators were more amazed by the tanner’s confession or disappointed that there might not be witches to hang, after all. Although the truth of Malcolm Waite’s death now seemed determined beyond reasonable doubt, still the debate continued throughout the room, especially among the citizens of the town who knew all the parties in the case. Mrs. Roundy could be heard above the din screaming that it was Ursula Tusser she had seen despite what Crispin had said, and Alderman Trent had come forward from his place to argue with Roger Malvern about his conduct of the prosecu
tion. Finally the uproar subsided and the magistrate was able to address the jury, who had all this while been in a great state of consternation about what they were to do now.

“I have conferred with my fellow judges,” said the magistrate in his deep authoritative voice, “and we are of one mind. The jury, if it wishes, may have opportunity to reconsider its verdict, now that new evidence has been heard. If that is your wish, you may retire now. Otherwise, deliver your verdict.”

At this the poor foreman, whose bladder had been swollen and aching for the past hour and was beside himself with agony over it, cast a hurried eye over the faces of his fellows. Then he said the jury would like to reconsider. He thought, however, with a sheepish grin, that the verdict might be quickly arrived at, and that this could be done well enough where they sat.

“So be it,” said the magistrate, pleased himself at the prospect of a quick finish to the proceedings, which had now gone on well beyond the usual hour of his supper.

There was an air of excitement in the chamber while the jury deliberated. They did so within a few minutes of whispers and nods, gestures and signs. Then the foreman rose and announced, “Sir, we find the accused women, Margaret Waite and Jane Crispin, not guilty of the charges made against them.”

The magistrate thanked the jury for their pains, but no one could hear beyond the uproar that now resumed and that no clerk’s commands would quell. Since the magistrate and his colleagues departed hastily through the side door, the turmoil of recrimination and congratulation that followed, the cheers and cries of shame mixed oddly together, went unchecked.

Matthew led Thomas Crispin away. Jane hung upon her husband’s neck, weeping copiously. It had been forgiveness Matthew had read in her face, after all, and the thought of it gave him the only joy he had had that long miserable day.

Early
next morning, Matthew and Arthur took Thomas Crispin up the road to Colchester. Colchester had a gaol, which Chelmsford did not, and the tanner was to be tried at the next assizes, in April.

The journey turned out to be a memorable one.

All the way it drizzled; in places the road became a virtual quagmire. In time Matthew and his prisoner were forced to forsake the cart for Arthur’s spare horse, and the constable and his prisoner ended up riding double into Colchester, with anyone’s guess which of the two men was the more drenched and begrimed. But strangest had been Tom Crispin’s cheerfulness along the way. Despite his heavy manacles and the prospect of months of imprisonment and heaven knew what beyond, he acted more like a man just born to a new life than one on the verge of losing the old. He spoke generously of his wife, whom he praised for her gentle, loving, forgiving nature, and quoted many pleasing proverbs the gist of which was that the man who had not lost God had lost little besides. “It’s a wonderful woman J married, Mr. Stock,” Crispin said more than once as they rode, the rain streaming down their faces, the horse clomping down in the ooze, the fields bleak and soggy.

When Matthew returned to Chelmsford the day after, he found much changed in the town. Although Tom Crispin was a confessed murderer—the law making little distinction between the doer of an act and the procurer thereof—he was 
also the object of much sympathy, now that his story had been told, and it was thought that his long record of honest dealings and his well-allowed charities would hold him in good stead when his case was finally heard by a jury. As for the animosities inspired by the trial of the sisters, these were mostly forgotten, at least by those who were not among the principals in the case. The prosecutor Malvern left town at once, it was said, to go to York where there was another outbreak of cursed necromancy and witchcraft. He took young Michael Fletcher with him. Those who witnessed the departure of the two said that Malvern was much dejected by the outcome of the Chelmsford trial, but that the boy was apparently indifferent to the fact that the accused women had been exonerated. Malvern was asked to explain how the young prodigy could have so erred, but declined to answer. It wasn’t clear if Michael Fletcher remembered anything that happened to him when he was seized with one of his fits, but the outcome did not seem to have shaken his confidence in his own powers.