Familiar Spirits (6 page)

John Waite now begged to be excused to go to bed, leaving Matthew and Thomas Crispin to wait the return of the tanner’s wife.

When they were alone, Matthew asked Crispin his opinion of Margaret’s story. The tanner stroked his beard thoughtfully. “It’s a very strange story, I’ll say that for it. That something was observed at yonder window I make no doubt— Margaret Waite is an honest woman, for all her faults. But that it was Ursula Tusser come for revenge I wonder at, allowing of course that ghosts
are
and have as much ground in true religion as do angels and other heavenly spirits. Sometimes, however, the conscience works upon the imagination in curious ways and—”

Matthew interrupted to ask whether the tanner’s wonder was at the reality of the apparition or its motive for appearing in the window. Crispin pondered this, rubbing his hands together as though in a moment he would separate the palms and from between them the answer to the constable’s question would appear. “If Ursula’s spirit has risen from the grave, I suppose it could be with cause. Malcolm and Margaret testified against her at the trial, but then so did others in the town.”

“I understand from what I have heard that you spoke well of her at her trial.”

“Spoke justly of her, you mean,” replied Crispin somewhat uneasily. “I extenuated in no way her mischief, nor did I

magnify it by falsehood or exaggeration. Do not misunderstand, sir, I imply no criticism of Malcolm or Margaret. Their testimony was theirs. I said what I knew. Ursula was a good servant but given to silly fancies as young girls often are. I don’t believe there was any malice in her. Stories about her consorting with demons in the shape of cats and toads were just that—stories. We never saw her with any creature more terrible than a homeless cat or stray dog she would feed kitchen scraps to. I tell you, Mr. Stock, she was unjustly hanged, and if her spirit has visited this house it will not be the last house in Chelmsford she visits.”

This ominous prediction caused Matthew a certain uneasiness. He looked toward the window where the ghost’s form had been seen. For a moment he thought something moved there, but to his relief he saw no pale, vengeful face, only his own reflection.

Jane Crispin now returned from upstairs. The signs of strain were beginning to show in her smooth features. “She’s asleep, poor dear,” Jane said, speaking of her sister. She cast an eye on the empty chair at the window and seemed relieved to find the body gone. Then she went over to stand by her husband, who was staring moodily into the fire.

“How will my brother-in-law’s death be interpreted—officially, I mean?” she asked, regarding Matthew intently.

“I found no marks upon him to indicate the death was anything other than a natural one. For death by specter the law makes no provision, nor could it do much to bring such ghostly forms to justice if it did.”

“I have advised my sister to say nothing more of the apparition—at least outside the house,” Jane said. “It will only cause more alarm in the town and a deal of new gossip as well. Cousin John believes the ghost is a figment of my sister’s imagination. I am inclined to agree. The less she says about it, the better.”

Crispin nodded his head in agreement. Matthew considered Jane’s advice and then said, “As far as I am concerned, the death, though strange, was God’s will. I don’t know what Malcolm Waite saw in the window—flesh, spirit,

or image of the mind—but his heart must have been overtaxed by his long illness. The power of suggestion is strong. Hearing her husband’s cry, the wife may have
thought
—”

“Yes, that’s very likely it,” interrupted Crispin impatiently, as though he had something else on his mind now and needed desperately to get to it.

“My sister’s sons must be notified of this,” said Jane.

“I’ll send someone at first light,” said Crispin.

“Once again, my condolences to the family,” said Matthew, preparing to leave.

“I have a lantern. If you do not, Mr. Stock, I’ll see you home,” said the tanner. “You will keep Margaret’s story to yourself, won’t you? We would consider it a point of friendship.”

Matthew promised he would. He agreed it would only cause alarm if Margaret’s tale were noised around. Surely it would mean more suffering for the widow.

He went home, Thomas Crispin guiding his way. Later, cracking his shin on the bedpost in an effort to undress himself in the dark, he uttered a mild oath and woke Joan. She wanted to hear the news, she said, every bit of it, and would not be content to wait the light of day.

•
FOUR
•

Matthew
kept his promise to the Crispins and—except for Joan, from whom he could keep very little—told no one about the strange circumstances of Malcolm Waite’s death. But his discretion was to no avail. Someone else told and must have told again. By eight o’clock he noticed a crowd gathered outside the Waite house. It was a small crowd and orderly—he thought little of it. Deaths always attracted some attention, questions, sympathy. When at midmorning he took the time to look down the street again, he saw the crowd had become a great one and he went to investigate. It was then he discovered that the appearance of Ursula’s ghost was common knowledge. Most of the crowd were neighbors of the dead man, drawn by curiosity and not a little fear of this new supernatural manifestation. Others were strangers, who, informed of the reason for the gathering, acted as concerned as the neighbors. The crowd remained orderly; they stood in the street in little clusters whispering, watching, and pointing. But the sentiments Matthew overheard as he moved among them were not kindly disposed toward the house or its occupants. The consensus was that if Ursula Tusser had chosen the Waite house to haunt, then that was hardly an endorsement of the godliness of the Waites.

“Good day, Mr. Parker,” Matthew said to the prosperous corn-chandler, who stood with the others gazing at the house. “Your business has moved into the street, I see.”

The corn-chandler scowled in response to Matthew’s at-

tempt at wit. He was a thickset, burly man of about fifty with a broad, flat face, a liverish complexion, and very thick brows. He had been one of the jurymen at Ursula Tusser’s trial and was obviously unsettled by this strange news of her reappearance.

“I would fain know what you intend to do about this, Mr. Stock,” Parker grumbled, knitting his thick brows threateningly.

“Is it some disorder you fear?” Matthew asked, looking up at the house, which seemed unusually quiet and deserted for this time of the day. Of course the glover’s shop was closed. A long piece of black crepe had been hung upon the doorframe as a sign of mourning. The upper windows of the house were shuttered, and no smoke curled from the chimney.

“No,” said Parker. “No riot in the streets, but disorder within the house. We thought we had cleansed the town with the death of the witch. Now it appears she has left behind a nest in which to breed more of the Devil’s vermin. You’ve heard the news?”

“I have heard that Malcolm Waite is dead,” Matthew replied, pretending ignorance of more in order to determine just what version of the incident had spread abroad.

“Why, that she-devil herself, Ursula Tusser or her shape, appeared yesternight. With her was a legion of spirits in monstrous shapes that entered at every window and door, came down the chimney, and hovered above the house an hour or more, screeching and threatening as if all hell broke loose.”

“A mighty tumult,” said Matthew dryly. “I wonder it did not raise the town.”

“It was observed by many,” Parker said.

“Who, pray?”

“A great multitude,” said Parker.

“You saw it yourself, then? At what hour did it happen?”

The corn-chandler scowled at the question and made a gesture of impatience. “No, not I. Samuel Jenkins and Jeremy

Barnes saw it. Two or three other townsmen as well. It was about midnight.”

“I wonder they were abroad at so late an hour.”

“Well, sir, they had been at a tavern and were on their way home.”

“I see,” said Matthew. “And these men brought the news to you?”

“No, I had it of my wife, who got it from her neighbor Mrs. Miller.”

“I see,” said Matthew again, well aware of this particular chain of communication.

“Now it is clear Ursula was not the only witch in Chelmsford,” Parker said, stroking the loose flesh of his neck thoughtfully.

“How’s that, sir?”

“Why, it must take a witch to raise one from the dead, for surely the spirit of Ursula Tusser would not have returned save she were beckoned by some secret incantation. Thus do witches work in summoning spirits to have intelligence of them regarding the future and to work their curses upon their enemies. You must find Ursula’s confederate, Mr. Stock, and soon, or else we are undone.”

At that moment the corn-chandler was drawn away and the necessity of Matthew’s responding to his charge went with him. Matthew continued to circulate among the watchers. He entered into casual conversation with others of his acquaintance, especially those who lived nearby and might have seen the new manifestation of which the corn-chandler had spoken. By several of the wives he was informed that Ursula Tusser’s spirit had visited elsewhere. She had been seen just before dawn in the form of a large blinking owl atop the church tower calling out strange words in Hebrew.

“Hebrew!” exclaimed Matthew to the wide-eyed matron who had conveyed this news to him. Knowing the woman to be no scholar, he asked, “Hew were you able to discern it was Hebrew and not some other tongue—say, Latin or Greek or Dutch?”

The woman pondered this. “Hebrew is the Devil's

tongue,” she asserted vigorously. “What else therefore could it have been she spoke but that?”

The woman made a face to suggest her logic was irrefutable, and Matthew walked on. Her eyes had been full of fear and conviction, and he realized it would be futile to argue with her.

He was about to go up to the house to see how the family had spent the night when he, and everyone else in the street, was startled by a sudden cry of alarm.

“There she is, there she is! It is the witch’s shape, her very shape!”

A few feet away from him, a gaunt woman with a pack on her back was pointing up at the house and trembling. All eyes turned in the direction she was pointing. A tiny window under the eaves had opened and the face of a young woman could be seen peering down to the street. Though the face was visible for only a moment, Matthew recognized it as that of Brigit Able.

But by now, the damage had been done. The gaunt woman’s alarm had triggered a general panic. Others were pointing at the now closed window and screaming. A woman next to Matthew fell to the ground in a faint, and there was a rush away from the house and a great commotion. People tripped over each other as they fled. In vain, Matthew called out after them that it was no ghost they had seen but only one the Waites’ servants. His explanation did little good. Soon he found himself before the house with only a handful of companions, mostly close neighbors who had seen Brigit’s face and knew it was Brigit and not Ursula. The neighbors were not easy in their knowledge and they immediately began to complain.

“It must be burned. It must be sanctified of the evil within,” cried a small fellow, an unemployed carpenter named Hodge, who spent muck of his time in the alehouses of the town and had been suspected more than once of setting fires to hayricks and barns.

Another suggested the widow be arrested for witchcraft

•
4 5
•

without further ado, for she had given the evil eye to her neighbors and thereby caused the aborting of many a calf.

“Yes, Constable Stock, arrest her,” demanded a third, a grocer who usually was mild-mannered and had a good word for everyone he met. “And that knavish nephew as well,” added the grocer, making an obscene gesture with his fist.

Matthew was unsure how to respond to this animosity toward the Waites, but he told them he would look into the matter, mumbling something about writs and warrants. These words, charged with the authority of the law, seemed to pacify them. They wandered off, not without a final glance of scorn and fear at the offending house.

But the rest of the crowd, those who had scrambled for fear, were now venturing forth from their hiding places. Slowly they moved toward the house, whispering ad pointing, their faces fixed with concern. Some looked only curious, and among these Matthew spotted two men who had on earlier occasions served him well as deputies. He beckoned to one of these, a young man named Arthur Wilts, and charged him to stand guard outside the house while he went inside to speak to Mrs. Waite and her nephew. He then repeated in a loud voice that it was Brigit Abie’s face that had been seen at the window and no spirit’s. But his announcement did little good. The crowd, grown considerably larger and more hostile now, continued to murmur and cast dark looks at him as though he and his deputy were confederates of the Waites and his explanation of the facts a strategy to subvert their quite reasonable terror. Arthur Wilts eyed the crowd nervously.

“I don’t like this, Mr. Stock,” he whispered. “There’s only the two of us and a great many more of
them
.”

“I’ll send for the magistrate,” Matthew replied. “He’ll bring help.”