Witch Hunt

Chapter Fourteen




Despite Janet’s pessimism my uncle was in fine form on Saturday. In fact, seated in a sturdy wooden chair in the shade of the gazebo holding court, he looked like he’d last long enough to see a telegram from the Queen. The weather was exceptionally warm that October weekend and the party had, in Great British fashion, transferred itself to the garden, in order that its pasty-faced revellers might soak up every last ray of autumn sunshine.

Lucy, my stepsister, who I had last glimpsed gallivanting naked in the tree house, was playing the violin whilst the assorted friends and family listened on in a semi-circle of picnic blankets and deck chairs. She had obviously got a little more self-conscious in the intervening three months and was dressed in a lemon skirt and matching blouse. Her rendition of Happy Birthday to You was slightly squeaky but very well received by the indulgent audience. Once the clapping had ceased I stepped into the garden and coughed to alert the company to my presence.

‘Mercedes!’ Dad creaked to his feet from a blanket just in front of Uncle Roger’s chair. There was about eight years between them but whilst my dad looked sprightly for his age, Uncle Roger had an old-fashioned granddad-type look to him. Dad’s hair was greying but still kept some of his youthful deep brown curl, and today he had on a cricket jumper and linen slacks. They were very last season but kind of right for the day it was turning out to be.

‘At last!’ Dad’s mouth tucked up into the corners, suggesting a suppression of his usual characteristic irritation. ‘We thought you would never come.’

I looked at my watch. 1.45 p.m. ‘I’m only forty-five minutes late.’

Dad kissed me on the cheek. ‘I did say one o’clock.’

‘Oh, right. Sorry.’

‘Never mind. How are you, dear? Are you coping? Have you managed to do the house yet?’ He reached out and put his arm around my shoulders and gave me a quick squeeze. I wasn’t used to his physical embrace. We never had that kind of relationship. Nonetheless I knew he was trying and smiled.

I shook my head. ‘I haven’t got round to it yet. Maybe next week. You got something you want me to look out for?’

Dad gave me another squeeze. ‘Not at all. I thought you might want me to come with you? Help you go through your mother’s things. It won’t be a particularly pleasant experience.’

I was grateful for his concern but told him I’d be fine on my own.

‘Righty ho. Well you know where I am if you need me. You do understand that don’t you?’

‘Of course,’ I said and settled a play punch on his belly to mask my awkwardness.

‘You all right?’ he asked before releasing me.

‘I’m getting on,’ I told him. And I was. Since I had loaded the new firewall onto my laptop the Hackerman had ceased his mischief.

The nightmares hadn’t stopped. But this was neither the time nor the place.

‘Good. Glad to hear it. Now you go and say happy birthday to Uncle Roger. What can I get you to drink? We’re all on champagne.’

‘Thanks but I’m driving.’

‘What?’ His face fell. ‘We’ve made you up a bed in the spare room. Your cousins aren’t getting here till five. Come on, stay over. What have you got to run back for?’

I glanced at Janet who had come up to greet me. She had a ‘please’ look on her face.

Bugger. I would appear churlish now. ‘I’ll see how it goes,’ I said, kissing Janet on the cheek.

‘Hello love,’ she greeted me. ‘One glass of fizz won’t hurt will it?’ They were an ebullient couple and enjoyed life to the full. Though if you hung out with them for more than a day or so you did get the impression that alcohol was an integral component of ‘fun’. But it was a good-natured thing.

‘You two are terrible. All right, just one.’

They both smiled and Dad went off to fix me a drink while Janet guided me through the legs and glasses and plates to Roger’s square of shade. ‘We’ve been so lucky with the weather,’ she said. ‘I think this will be the last of it though. We thought we’d enjoy it before it disappears completely. Ah, here’s the birthday boy.’

Uncle Roger was talking to a plump middle-aged woman with dyed frizzy burgundy hair. They looked an odd couple, sat there against the backdrop of purple agapanthus and Michaelmas daisies; she, in her tasselled hippy skirt and bejewelled flats, he, with his neatly trimmed Captain Birdseye beard and dark tweed suit. He always looked immaculate did Uncle Roger.

Janet waited for a pause in their conversation before introducing me. ‘This is Mercedes,’ she said to the woman. ‘Ted’s eldest.’

The red-haired woman tried to stand up to greet me, but she was wedged into a rather small metal deck chair and it was causing a few problems. ‘Oh,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Please don’t get up. You’re comfortable there.’

She gave up and sent me a look of gratitude. She had pretty eyes highlighted with a matching dab of blue eye-shadow and a cheerful round face. ‘It’s lovely to meet you, Mercedes.’ She held out her hand. Her cheeks looked like rosy Pippins. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you. I’m a friend of Janet’s, Amelia Whitting.’

I grasped her palm and shook it heartily. ‘Please call me Sadie,’ then turning to Uncle Roger said, ‘Happy birthday,’ and handed over my present. He took it and reached up crookedly to kiss me. I bent down quickly to offer my cheek so he didn’t have to rise.

He smacked his lips on my chin and plopped back down, screwing his eyes up. ‘Mercedes, that’s a very short skirt you’ve got on.’ There was more than a smidgen of disapproval in his eyes as he surveyed my ensemble. Both Dad and he had this superior than thou thing going on. But where Dad tried to hide it, Roger let his disregard run free. I’d chosen the dark linen dress because I knew it would be cool on the leather driving seat. Of course, I should have known Uncle Roger would have found something to censure. He always did.

Janet beat a hasty retreat, while Amelia cooed out something about me looking smart.

There were no free seats nearby so I squatted down by his feet.

‘How are you then, Mercedes?’ He was easing himself back into the comfy padding of the chair now, putting my package on the coffee table at his side. But I wasn’t having any of that; I’d spent weeks researching his gift. Uncle Roger used to be a shop steward and, like Dad, a thoroughly committed trade union man – the socialist movement ran through their blood. Their father had taken part in the Jarrow March. Neither of them ever stopped banging on about it. I’d managed to track down a very mouldy reprint of the crusaders reaching the outskirts of London, had it restored and framed. It had cost a pretty penny and I didn’t want it left on the table without him commenting on it. ‘Aren’t you going to open the present?’

Uncle Roger fingered the gift then withdrew. ‘No, we’re opening them when your cousins get here.’

‘Oh,’ I said, not trying to hide my disappointment. My uncle gave a familiar sigh.

Amelia took the cue and piped up. ‘So Sadie, Janet and Ted tell me you’re a journalist. What are you working on at the minute?’

I took a long gulp of my champagne and eyed my uncle, then I told them both about my meeting with the publisher.

At the end of it Amelia was practically jumping out of her seat. ‘Oh that’s fantastic.’

‘Yes,’ I said to Uncle Roger. ‘Can you imagine? A publishing deal?’

Even he nodded at that, acknowledging it was a massive coup although he’d never had any interest in writing. ‘That sounds interesting, Mercedes. The witch hunts. It’s a sad truth that we know more about the Witchfinder General than his victims. Obviously as a Suffolk man I’d like to point out that our county lost more souls to that nasty gentleman …’

‘But,’ Amelia interjected. ‘Overall during the witch hysteria Essex lost far far more.’ She eyed Uncle Roger for a response.

I was hoping we weren’t getting into a ‘we came off worse than you’ standoff. The truth of the matter was that that argument camouflaged the real nature of the conflict – the rich and powerful versus the poor and beleaguered. Same as it ever was …

Thankfully Roger agreed. ‘Yes, fair enough. What a horrid barbaric time. Mercedes, are you sure you want to go into all of this?’

I nodded my head vigorously. ‘I’m Essex through and through. And I’m female. Why would I not want to delve into it? There was a great wrong done to our ancestors, and I’d like to have a go at bringing it into contemporary consciousness to make people think about it.’

Roger rubbed his beard. ‘Do you not think, Mercedes, some things are better left undisturbed?’

Amelia glanced at me, sensing a clash coming on. Her look was a hush; I didn’t obey it. I said ‘No way. This is part of my heritage. It’s part of who I am.’

‘But what about what’s going on now?’ Roger fixed me with a determined stare. ‘Surely there’s more to be made from scout fetes and council corruption than digging up the past?’

I glared at him, thinking right, that’s just what you’d like me to do isn’t it? Just then Janet appeared with a bottle of champagne. ‘Oh, empty here are we? Do let me top you up.’

In spite of my earlier decision re: the car, I let her refill my glass and within seconds more guests had appeared. Roger got up to greet them and moved further down the garden.

Amelia however was still back in the dark days. ‘Sadie, I’m intrigued. I have an interest in this.’

I glanced at her skirt. I wanted to steer clear of any airy-fairyness. ‘Are you into that New Age stuff? That’s not the angle I’m taking.’

Amelia laughed. ‘No, not at all. I may wear the uniform but I’m not in the club, so to speak. I live in Manningtree, that’s all. Well, just outside. The local history is fascinating. No one really speaks of Hopkins. Not any more – they’ve been there and done that. But I’m not a native so I’ve found all that side of the town history very interesting. I’m from Launceston originally, in Cornwall. It’s near Boscastle. Do you know it?’

I shook my head. ‘I recognise the name but I haven’t been.’

Amelia grimaced. ‘Got hit awfully badly by those floods eight years back. You probably saw them on the news.’ She tutted. ‘Terrible. But,’ she clasped her hands over her knee, ‘they’ve also got a Museum of Witchcraft. Wonderful.’

‘That’s interesting.’ I was being genuine.

‘I went back a couple of years ago and gave a lecture on what I found out about the dastardly Master Hopkins. Did the Women’s Institute too.’

She caught me arching my eyebrows. ‘The W.I.’s not all jam and fairy cakes these days, you know. We’re quite progressive. Anyway, it went down well. All quite amateur sleuthing though, I’m afraid.’ She raised her own eyebrow now to imply faux modesty.

‘Really?’ I asked. Now I was seeing Amelia with different eyes – as a possible source. ‘So do you know much about Hopkins?’

She leant her shoulders into me. ‘I know he wasn’t born in Manningtree. Suffolk more likely. There’s a will of a James Hopkins who was a minister of the parish of Wenham. Most people agree that was his father. Personally I’m not that interested in his birth. No, it’s his end that interests me. There are stories that tell of him being lynched by a mob when he returned to Manningtree. Some think he went overseas.’

I could hear the West Country twang in her voice now.

‘I’ve heard some of that before,’ I said, thinking back to what Flick had said about my ‘ghost in the machine’, the unknown hand that had sent that missive to me – ‘He wasn’t he wasn’t he wasn’t’. Thing was, most people thought Hopkins was buried in Mistley and I said as much. ‘I’m sure most of that’s conjecture. Isn’t the consensus that he died of tuberculosis? That’s what his sidekick Stearne wrote, I believe.’

‘Yes. All true,’ she said with an enthusiastic nod. ‘But you have to agree that it was a rather sudden disappearance. Tuberculosis is slow and creeping. And perhaps Stearne had thrown the towel in with Hopkins. The Witchfinder was involved somehow with Lady Jane Whorwood. Some thought that association was the end of him. She was a Royalist. Absolutely pro-Charles I; visited him in prison. They may have possibly even had an affair. She certainly helped him escape. Perhaps the Parliamentary Puritans who backed the witch hunts grew weary or suspicious of Hopkins’ motives. Or perhaps, as you say, he just wasted away …’

I could tell she was saving the best for last so I asked, ‘You don’t reckon that happened then?’

Amelia beckoned me closer. ‘I always wondered if he wasn’t murdered,’ she said, throwing her hands up in the air.

‘Really? By whom?’

‘I don’t know exactly. But I have a half-formed theory.’ She sat back and took a large swig of her champers. ‘Who gains from Hopkins’ sudden disappearance?’

I had a think but came up with too many suggestions to mention them all.

Jumping in quickly she answered herself and said, ‘Men. That’s who.’ And gave me this hybrid look that married satisfaction and smugness with a sort of leer.

Then she leant forwards and touched my knee.

Crap, I thought. That’s all I need – a predatory radical lesbian on my case. Just when I was loosening up and starting to enjoy myself. ‘How so?’ I countered in a tone that suggested scepticism.

‘Well,’ she leant back into her chair and cradled her

champagne flute in both hands. I could see a lecture coming on.

‘It was in the middle of the Civil War. And you know this was quite a time for women. A lot of them took advantage of the breakdown in law and order to come out of traditional female roles. A few women were involved in a peace movement, which tried to persuade men not to participate in the war. Women of all classes battered on doors pleading with people, attacked soldiers … Also, with half the male population off fighting, women had to take a practical and physical part in society. But then people got edgy. Firstly witches, whether real or not, challenged authority. So people were quite pleased to see them smacked down and neutered. But later the country realised that it was mostly women getting hanged, and mostly because women couldn’t speak for themselves, attitudes started to change. Popular opinion turned.’

‘Funny,’ I said, listening to what she was saying and making parallels. ‘When you put it like that – I know the whole Essex Girl stereotype started when women were really beginning to infiltrate the work place during the eighties; banking, engineering, the financial sector. The Essex Girl stereotype slapped them back down again by suggesting they were thick, lustful, passive sluts. Which is kind of what they’d rather they were.’

Amelia tossed back her hair. ‘Wouldn’t be surprised.’

‘Hopkins sexed up the “witches” too. Before he came to the stage, it was just finger pointing and local feuds, but once he got his mitts into it the whole thing took on a vastly more lascivious aspect. It was all about women, and some men, letting imps suck them. Women would copulate with the Devil too. Lots of mentions of “carnal relations”.’

Amelia’s hair wobbled atop her head as she nodded. ‘That’s the thing. It was all spiralling out of control. If you believed that Hopkins was right then you had to concede that half of South England was in the orgiastic grip of Satan. People knew this wasn’t so. Ergo, seventeenth-century rationalists finally speak out and the debate surrounding women’s status kicks off. Only on the fringes but it’s there. For the first time in history,’ Amelia said cheerily and sat up in her seat, ‘men could see that the women involved weren’t witches. And also that they couldn’t speak out for themselves. They had to have a brother, or cousin, or father or son to speak for them. Most of the women accused lived on their own. There was this huge discrimination. If you recognised this unfairness then you started to see the lack of gender balance: any sane-minded individual had to concede that things weren’t right. Then, to prevent this spread of hysteria, the solution was perhaps that women should be granted some kind of status …’

‘Okay? So?’

‘The idea is growing. Something has got to change to stop the witch hunts. And then all at once Matthew Hopkins disappears. Overnight, everything goes cold.’

I reflected upon this for a moment. ‘So what are you saying? That the momentum to give women more rights fell away because of the decrease in witch hunts?’

Amelia nodded. ‘Yes. That took the wind out of the “feminists’” sails.’ She threw me a meaningful glance. ‘In lots of ways Hopkins stirred up a hornets’ nest. Let’s face it – we were only forty or fifty years off of The Enlightenment, when rationalism took to the fore.’

‘So you’re saying that he was eliminated? Murdered because he was indirectly challenging the status quo?’

She raised her glass to me. ‘I’m giving you a steer.’

‘Well, I haven’t heard that conspiracy theory before.’

‘Is it a conspiracy theory? He’d outlived his usefulness. He wouldn’t be the first person to be silenced in the Civil War.’ She raised her glass. ‘The W.I. loved that angle, I can tell you. Anyway, take my number and visit me when you go to Manningtree. And you’ve got to stay at the Thorn Inn in Mistley. He’s meant to haunt it, you know?’

‘Hopkins?’

Amelia winked at me. ‘Oh yes. Apparently he’s been seen sitting on a chair in the attic and another one of the rooms. They like to play it down but people talk. And we all love a good ghost story don’t we?’

In the context of the previous few days it was the last thing I loved right now. But I was courteous in my response. ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘That’s all very interesting.’

‘Here,’ she said, reaching into a bag at her feet. ‘Call me if you decide to pop over.’

We exchanged numbers and were depositing phones back into handbags when Janet came over and the conversation dwindled to more domestic subjects.

At some point I was dragged off to play cricket with Lettice and Lucy who were in fine spirits and ran circles round me in my semi-inebriated state.

‘Why is Aunty Mercedes wobbling?’ I heard Lucy ask as I was getting a good innings in.

‘Because she needs another drink,’ said an older male voice. It was cousin Ian, grinning from the sidelines, a champagne flute in either hand. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Refreshments.’

Somehow it had got to five o’clock and almost immediately we were called into the living room to watch Uncle Roger open his presents. As it turned out he loved the photo. Bloody good job too, I thought. I would have done my nut if it had been passed over without comment.

There were a couple of speeches and numerous toasts and before I knew it I was going way way way over the legal limit and agreeing to stay.

When that had all settled down Ian and I went outside and sat on the swing chair. It was good to see him.

‘Roger seems well,’ I commented after we’d caught up on romantic attachments (his), careers (mine) and Mum’s funeral. ‘The way Janet was talking I thought he’d be at death’s door.’

Ian shook his head. ‘No, he’s looking all right now, but his kidney is on the way out.’

‘Really?’ I kicked my feet up and pushed the swing back. ‘So what’s the prognosis?’

‘Well, he’s only got one left so I guess, traditionally, it would be a transplant …’

‘So why doesn’t he get one?’

Ian’s face had a very solid look to it. He was always the very essence of calm benevolence. ‘You can’t buy them at the supermarket,’ he said gently, as if breaking bad news to a child.

I was going to protest that people like Roger went on forever, but Dad was marching over the lawn towards us.

‘Come on you two. Roger’s leaving. Come and say goodbye.’

The swinging had made me feel a little sick anyway. So we got up and staggered into the house, through to the hallway where there was a queue of well-wishers bidding farewell. Roger was halfway out the front door, his face flushed, his eyes bright and watery. He was having a great day.

I was quite pissed by now and an unexpected wave of compassion flooded through me.

Ian and I pushed through to Uncle Roger. Ian shook his hand and I, filled to the brim with bonhomie and bubbles, threw my arms around him and slopped a kiss on his cheek. ‘Uncle Roger, it’s been great to see you. Happy birthday. And listen, I know you’re poorly and I’ve thought about it and I would be happy to give you my kidney if you want it. No really. Yes.’

Roger took a little gasp of air. Then he broke into a broad smile. ‘Oh Mercedes, that is kind of you. But the photograph will do just fine.’

He leant forwards and stroked my cheek. It was an affectionate gesture but at the time I was full of drunken passion and determined to donate a vital organ.

‘No,’ I said tersely. ‘I mean it.’

Roger sighed. Then he said rather quickly, ‘You keep it. It wouldn’t do any good.’

I smiled and said, ‘Go on. You don’t know till you’ve tried. Have it. It can be your Christmas present.’

He reached down and grabbed my hand. ‘You don’t know how much that means to me, Mercedes. Thank you. But we wouldn’t be a match, my dear. Take it from me, I know.’

Dad had come up from behind, clearly embarrassed by the turn the conversation had taken.

He patted my shoulder and prised my arm from his brother’s. ‘Mercedes, your uncle is very tired. Stop bothering him. Ian, will you take her back into the party? She’s had a bit too much –’

Ian gave my dad a wink and took my elbow.

As I was pulled away I told Uncle Roger, ‘I mean it, Rog. I’d do it for you.’

Then I hiccupped.

Inebriation so detracts from serious intent.

But I meant it.

And so, I realise now, did he.