Peter Petford slipped a long wooden spoon into the
simmering iron pot of lentils hanging over the fire and
tried to push the worry from his stomach. He edged
his low stool nearer to the hearth and leaned forward,
one elbow propped on his knee, breathing in the aroma
of stewed split peas mixed with burning apple wood.
The smell comforted him a little, persuading him that
this night was a normal night, and his belly released an
impatient gurgle as he withdrew the spoon to see if the
peas were soft enough to eat. Not a reflective man, Peter
assured himself that nothing was amiss with his stomach
that a bowlful of peas would not cure. Yon woman comes
enow, too, he thought, face grim. He had never had use
for cunning folk, but Goody Oliver had insisted. Said
this woman’s tinctures cured most anything. Heard she’d
conjured to find a lost child once. Peter grunted to himself.
He would try her. Just the once.
From the corner of the narrow, dark room issued a
tiny whimper, and Peter looked up from the steaming
pot, furrows of anxiety deepening between his eyes. He
nudged one of the fire logs with a poker, loosing a
crackling flutter of sparks and a grey column of fresh
smoke, then drew himself up from the stool.
‘Martha?’ he whispered. ‘Ye awake?’
No further sound issued from the shadows, and
Peter moved softly towards the bed where his daughter
had lain for the better part of a week. He pulled aside
the heavy woollen curtain that hung from the bedposts,
and lowered himself on to the edge of the lumpy feather
mattress, careful not to jostle it. The lapping light of the
fire brushed over the woollen blankets, illuminating a
wan little face framed by tangles of flax-coloured hair.
The eyes in the face were half open, but glassy and unseeing.
Peter smoothed the hair where it lay scattered
across the hard bolster. The tiny girl exhaled a faint sigh.
‘Stew’s nearly done,’ he said. ‘I’ll fetch ye some.’
As he ladled the hot food into a shallow earthenware
trencher, Peter felt a flame of impotent anger rise in his
chest. He gritted his teeth against the feeling, but it
lingered behind his breastbone, making his breathing
fast and shallow. What knew he of ministering to the girl, he
thought. Every tincture he tried only made her poorly. The last
word she had spoken was some three days earlier, when
she had cried out in the night for Sarah.
He settled again on the side of the bed and spooned
a little of the warm beans into the child’s mouth. She
slurped it weakly, a thin brown stream slipping down the
corner of her mouth to her chin. Peter wiped it away with
his thumb, still blackened from the soot of the kitchen
fire. Thinking about Sarah always made his chest tight in
this way.
He gazed down at the little girl in his bed, watching
closely as her eyelids closed. Since she fell ill, he had been
sleeping on the wide-planked pine floor, on mildewed
straw pallets. The bed was warmer, nearer the hearth,
and draped in woollen hangings that had been carried all
the way over from East Anglia by his father. A dark
frown crossed Peter’s face. Illness, he knew, was a sign of
the Lord’s ill favour. Whatsoever happen to the girl is God’s
will, he reasoned. So to be angry at her suffering must be
sinful, for that is to be angry at God. Sarah would have
urged him to pray for the salvation of Martha’s soul, that
she might be redeemed. But Peter was more accustomed
to putting his mind to farming problems than godly ones.
Perhaps he was not as good as Sarah had been. He could
not fathom what sin Martha could have committed in
her five years to bring this fit upon her, and in his prayers
he caught himself demanding an explanation. He did not
ask for his daughter’s redemption. He just begged for her
to be well.
Confronting this spectacle of his own selfishness filled
Peter with anger and shame.
He worked his fingers together, watching her sleeping
face.
‘There are certain sins that make us devils,’ the minister
had said at meeting that week. Peter pinched the bridge
of his nose, squinting his eyes together as he tried to
remember what they were.
To be a liar or murderer, that was one. Martha had
once been caught hiding a filthy kitten in the family’s
cupboard, and when questioned by Sarah had claimed no
knowledge of any kittens. But that could hardly be a lie
the way the minister meant it.
To be a slanderer or accuser of the godly was another.
To be a tempter to sin. To be an opposer of godliness. To
feel envy. To be a drunkard. To be proud.
Peter gazed down on the fragile, almost transparent
skin of his daughter’s cheeks. He clenched one of his
hands into a tight fist, pressing its knuckles into the palm
of his other hand. How could God visit such torments
upon an innocent? Why had He turned away His face
from him?
Perhaps it was not Martha’s soul that was in danger.
Perhaps the child was being punished for Peter’s own
prideful lack of faith.
As this unwelcome fear bloomed in his chest, Peter
heard muddy hoofbeats approach down the lane and
come to a stop outside his house. Muffled voices, a man’s
and a young woman’s, exchanged words, saddle leather
creaked, and then a dull splash. That’ll be Jonas Oliver with
yon woman, thought Peter. He rose from the bedside just
as a light knuckle rapped on his door.
On his stoop, draped in a hooded woollen cloak
glistening from the evening’s fog, stood a young woman
with a soft, open face. She carried a small leather bag in
her hands, and her face was framed by a crisp white coif
that belied the miles-long journey she had had. Behind
her in the shadows stood the familiar bulk of Jonas
Oliver, fellow yeoman and Peter’s neighbour.
‘Goodman Petford?’ announced the young woman,
looking quickly up into Peter’s face. He nodded. She
flashed him an encouraging smile as she briskly flapped
the water droplets off her cloak and pulled it over her
head. She hung the cloak on a peg by the door hinge,
smoothed her rumpled skirts with both hands, and then
hurried across the stark little room and knelt by the girl in
the bed. Peter watched her for a moment, then turned to
Jonas, who stood in the doorway similarly wet, blowing
his nose mightily into a handkerchief.
‘Dismal night,’ said Peter by way of welcome. Jonas
grunted in reply. He tucked the handkerchief back up his
sleeve and stamped his feet to loosen the mud from his
boots, but he did not venture into the house.
‘Some victual before ye go?’ Peter offered, rubbing
a hand absentmindedly across the back of his head. He
was not sure if he wanted Jonas to accept his offer. The
company would distract him, but his neighbour was even
less inclined to idle chatter than he was. Sarah had always
allowed that a wagon could crush Jonas Oliver’s foot and
he would not so much as grimace.
‘Goody Oliver’ll be waiting.’ Jonas declined with a
shrug. He glanced across the room to where the young
woman perched, whispering to the girl in the bed. At
her knees sat an attentive, dishevelled-looking little dog,
some dingy colour between brown and tan, surrounded
by muddy paw marks on the floor planking. Vaguely
Jonas wondered where she might have carried the animal
on their long ride; he had not noticed it, and her leather
bag seemed hardly big enough. Mangy cur, he thought.
It must belong to little Marther.
‘Come by upon the morn then,’ said Peter. Jonas
nodded, touched the brim of his heavy felt hat, and withdrew
into the night.
Peter settled again on the low stool near the dying
hearth fire, the cooling trencher of stew on the table at his
elbow. Propping his chin on his fist, he watched the
strange young woman stroke his daughter’s forehead with
a white hand and heard the soft, indistinct murmur of her
voice. He knew that he should feel relieved that she was
there. She was widely spoken of in the village. He grasped
at these thoughts, wringing what little assurance he could
from them. Still, as his eyes started to blur with fatigue
and worry, and his head grew heavy on his arm, the vision
of his tiny daughter huddled in the bed, darkness pressing
in around her, filled him with dread.