Scarlet Widow (13 page)

She glanced at Francis and gave him a smile. Francis smiled back, but without much conviction.

Henry Mendum rode ahead of them between the avenue of hickory trees that led up to his farm. The sprawling white farmhouse stood on top of a hill, surrounded by milking-sheds and feed stores and barns. Like many prospering farmers around Sutton, Henry Mendum had enlarged his house again and again with lean-to extensions, especially on the northern side, where the store rooms were cooler for keeping cheese and salted beef.

The farmyard overlooked three hundred and fifty acres of grazing and alfalfa and orchards. Beyond, Beatrice could see for miles over woods and rocky outcroppings, all magnified by the heat, as if she were looking at them through a shiny window. She could even see the granite promontory eight miles to the north called the Devil’s Pulpit, but she thought it more sensitive not to point it out to Francis as he helped her down from the shay.

A lanky slave in stripy pants and a fraying straw hat came loping out from the stables. He took Henry Mendum’s mare from him and patted her nose.

‘Sheesh, Mr Mendum, sir, this poor crticher look like she ackshly meltin’.’

‘Give her a good rub-down, Joshua,’ said Henry Mendum. ‘I took a bath myself only last week, but in this heat I am quite minded to take another. Come on now, follow me.’

He drew out the silver-topped walking stick that was tucked under his saddle girth and waddled ahead of Francis and Beatrice down a long tussocky slope, grunting with every step he took and occasionally stumbling. At the foot of the slope they reached a fenced-off pasture. It was speckled with daisies and so green that it appeared almost unreal. Henry Mendum opened the gate and they all went through. On the left-hand side of the pasture two herdsmen and a snub-nosed young girl in a mob cap were standing together. At first the scene looked idyllic, but as they approached they could see the brown Devon cows lying in depressions in the long grass all around them, each beneath its own cloud of flies.

‘How are they faring, Matthew?’ Henry Mendum called out.

Matthew was grey-haired and sunburned, with crinkled eyes and a face like a dried-out wash leather. ‘No worse, I’d say, sir. But no better, neither.’

‘I’ve asked the Reverend Scarlet and his wife to take a look at them.’

The two herdsmen respectfully bowed their heads and the snub-nosed young girl picked up the hem of her skirt and curtseyed.

Francis looked around at all the cattle lying on their sides, panting. ‘Merciful heaven,’ he said. ‘This is like one of the plagues of Egypt.’ One or two cows tried to raise their heads, their eyes rolling, but they soon dropped back down again.

‘The plagues of Egypt, reverend, were sent by God,’ said Henry Mendum. ‘You wait until you see what I have to show you now. Then you will have to ask yourself who sent
this
plague.’

Beatrice knelt down in the grass beside the nearest cow and held its jaw in her hand, squeezing open its mouth so that its tongue slid out. As Henry Mendum had said, there was no sign of any fragments of broken mirror, nor any indication that its tongue had been cut to make it swallow its own blood. But it had not been vomiting, either, and there was no foam around its lips which would have shown at once that it was suffering from one of the common cattle diseases.

‘God bless you, you poor creature,’ said Beatrice, laying her hand gently on its shoulder. ‘God bless you and make you well.’

‘Come with me, if you really want proof that the Devil has been here,’ said Henry Mendum.

They climbed to the far corner of the meadow, where the grass was much shorter and patches of rough grey granite protruded through the turf. Five cows were lying on their sides in a circle here, nose to tail. Three of them were shuddering and groaning like sick old women and trying to lift up their heads, but two of them looked very close to death, with their eyes misted over.

‘There,’ said Henry Mendum, pointing with his stick to the ground beside them. Beatrice looked down and saw a complicated pattern of hoof prints, as if the cows had been dancing. But these hoof prints had not been pressed into the grass, they had been
burned
, scorching the grass black and brown, as if not only had the cows been dancing but their hooves had been on fire while they did so.

Francis crouched down and cautiously touched one of the prints with his fingertips. Immediately he said, ‘
Ouch
!’ and furiously wiped his fingers on the grass. He held up his hand and Beatrice saw that his fingertips were red and blistered.

‘Are you all right, reverend?’ Henry Mendum asked him.

‘Yes, yes. It’s nothing,’ said Francis, flapping his hand. ‘But how could your cows have left prints like these? I see no charring on their hooves, nor anything caustic they might have stepped in.’

‘That’s because these prints were not made by my cows,’ said Henry Mendum, emphatically. ‘They
look
like cow hooves, I grant you, but they are not as large as these cows would have made and they are far wider splayed.’

Beatrice bent over and picked a dandelion that had been burned by one of the hoof prints, and sniffed it. It had a sickly, rotten odour, but it also produced a burning sensation in her nostrils and the back of her throat, like essence of cloves. It reminded her of something, but for the moment she couldn’t think what.

‘What does it smell of?’ asked Henry Mendum. ‘Does it smell of hell?’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Beatrice. ‘But it does smell strangely familiar.’

‘It
should
smell of hell, because these hoof prints are those of a goat, and a very large goat at that. More than that, this is a goat that walks on two legs instead of four. See how close together the impressions are, and there is no variation between the front and back hooves.’

He turned to Francis. ‘As I said, reverend, I would not care to be accused of having an imagination, but these are the hoof prints that a man would make if that man did not have feet but hooves like a goat.’

‘You mean Satan,’ said Francis.

Henry Mendum waved with his stick at the hoof prints, as if to say, what else could they be?

Francis looked around the field. ‘Could it not have been a goat? Goats can pass on sicknesses to cattle, can they not?’

‘Not with such suddenness,’ said Henry Mendum. ‘This happened within only a few hours. And if it was a goat, and if it was sick enough to infect my cattle, where is it? Surely it would be lying here along with the rest of the herd.’

Beatrice walked slowly around the circle of five cows. It looked to her as if they had been dragged into this arrangement on purpose, although the grass was too short for her to be sure. Perhaps the circle had some mystical significance. Five cows to represent the four elements plus the power of the human spirit? Or the five wounds of Christ? Or the five sides of a satanic pentacle?

Francis came up to her and laid his hand on her shoulder. ‘This is very grave, Bea,’ he told her. ‘Our pigs could have been killed by some human agency, I’ll grant you. It could have been some witch directly commissioned by Satan, or some ill-intentioned person trying to summon Satan by doing his work. But look at the sorry condition of these cows, and these hoof prints...’

‘You really think that the Devil was here, in person?’

‘What other explanation can there be?’

‘I don’t know, Francis. I can’t think of one. But we need to be cautious before we start blaming witches. You said yourself that what happened in Salem came about from hysteria and that all those poor women were hanged even though they were innocent. We don’t want to become infected with such a madness here in Sutton.’

Henry Mendum came over to join them, dabbing his sweaty face with his balled-up handkerchief. ‘Well?’ he demanded. ‘What can be done? If these poor beasts fail to recover, it will cost me hundreds of pounds. And what if Satan returns and spreads this sickness to all of my other cattle?’

‘I will pray for you, Henry,’ said Francis. ‘I will pray for you and I will ask God to show us mercy. I don’t know what we could have done to deserve the Devil walking among us, but on Sunday when we all pray together we must ask Him for forgiveness.’

‘Is that all? Is there no way we can sprinkle the fields with holy water or some such, so that Satan can’t trespass on our property?’

Francis shook his head.

‘What if we weave rowan twigs into our fences?’ Henry Mendum persisted. ‘That might deter him. Or boil up some witch-bottles?’

‘Let us begin with prayer first, Henry, and see if that will protect us. I am not really in favour of using witchcraft against witchcraft, no matter how benign its intention. To do that is an admission that we believe in it, and if we show that we believe in it we will give Satan and his minions even more power to harm us.’

‘How can we
not
believe in it when all of your pigs are stone dead and my Devons are dying all around us?’

Beatrice left them talking and walked slowly over to the fence at the very edge of the field, where there was a wide flat outcropping of bare granite. The goat-like hoof prints crossed the rock diagonally, from right to left, and then disappeared into the longer grass and weeds on the other side of the fence. What puzzled her was that the fence was far too high for a goat to leap over. No goat that she had ever seen, anyhow. She wasn’t tall, but when she stood on tiptoes the upper rail was on the same level as her up-tilted chin.

She turned round to see if Francis or Henry was watching her. When she saw that they both had their backs to her, she reached into her dress and pulled out her pocket. She took out a white linen handkerchief, unfolded it, and laid it flat on the rock on top of one of the hoof prints. Then she stepped on it, pressing her shoe down hard so that as much as possible of the black tarry substance was imprinted into the linen.

Making sure that Francis didn’t see what she was doing, she picked up the handkerchief and folded it up again so that none of the mark was visible. Then she tucked it back into her pocket, along with her keys and the button-thread and the ribbon she kept in it, and the small red-bound book of prayerful thoughts.

She rejoined Francis and Henry Mendum and together they climbed the slope back up to the farmhouse.

‘Can I offer you refreshment?’ asked Henry Mendum.

Beatrice would have loved a cool glass of spring water, but Francis said, ‘No, thank you, Henry. We both have much to do and as soon as I have seen to Goody Jenkins I will go to the meeting house and say prayers for you.’

‘Thank you, reverend. I’ll need them. Who can guess what Satan is scheming to do to us next.’

*

As they approached their house Francis and Beatrice were surprised to see a black four-wheeled calash standing outside. Its black folding top was raised, like a giant widow’s bonnet, so that it was impossible to see who was inside, but it was harnessed with two horses, one black and one grey, which were being held by a young man wearing a faded grey hunting shirt and black britches and a black three-cornered hat.

As they circled around in front of their carriage-house this young man raised his hat and bowed his head.

‘Were you expecting a visitor?’ asked Beatrice as Francis helped her down from the shay.

‘Of course not, my dear. I have far too many appointments to keep today.’

Francis walked across to the young man holding the horses. As he did so, little Noah came running out of the front door, closely followed by Mary, who called out, ‘Noah! Noah! Come back and let me wipe your mouth!’

‘Mama!’ cried Noah, holding up both hands. He was only seventeen months old and still not steady on his feet, and as he ran up to Beatrice he pitched forward and bumped his head on the ground. He started to cry, even though he was wearing his pudding cap, so Beatrice picked him up and cuddled him and gave him a kiss.

‘There, silly!’ she said. ‘You didn’t really hurt yourself, did you?’

Noah had curly brown hair and a heart-shaped face and anybody could see that he was Beatrice’s son, but his eyes were dark and soulful like his father’s. Sometimes when he was lying in his crib she caught him looking up at her and the expression on his face was so deep and knowing that she could hardly believe he was only a toddler.

Francis was saying to the young man, ‘Good morning! Who has come to call on us, if I may ask?’

The young man didn’t answer, but gesticulated wildly with both hands, as if he were being attacked by a wasp. His face was spattered with cinnamon-coloured freckles and his lips were very red. His lips were
wet
, too, because he licked them, and then licked them again, but still he didn’t say a word.

‘Can you not speak?’ Francis asked him.

The young man nodded furiously, almost shaking off his three-cornered hat. Then he turned to the calash and let out a loud screeching sound, more like a barred owl than a human being. Francis took a step back and raised his hand to Beatrice, warning her to keep well away.

Then, however, with a sharp creak, the black collapsible top of the calash was folded down and a man stood up from his seat in the back. He was wearing a grey linen tailcoat and a vest and britches to match, and although he looked no more than thirty-five years old his wig was grey, too. He climbed down to the ground and came up to Francis with both hands held out, as if he were greeting a long-lost friend.

‘The Reverend Francis Scarlet, I assume?’ clear and resonant, like an actor, and with a cultured English accent.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Francis. ‘But you have me at a disadvantage.’

The man came closer and clasped Francis’s hands. ‘I have heard much about you, reverend. Your reputation has spread far wider than Sutton. And this is your lovely wife, Beatrice? And your infant son?’

He released his grip on Francis’s hands and walked over to Beatrice. He smiled at her, warmly and indulgently, and then at Noah. ‘You have been crying, my little soldier! That will never do!’ He produced a bunch of keys from his vest pocket and shook them in front of Noah, saying ‘Here! What do you think of these?’