The Grove of Eagles

  At the end of the first week the dairy maid died, and soon afterwards a saddler. By now there were twelve sick, but so far it was all among the servants. There was great divergence in the degree of the illness. Ida was still out of her senses, but Dick Stable was up again and helping to wait on the others. Some broke out in a rash. Some were troubled with shivering and fever for a day or two and then mended. One man died in wild delirium; two or three lay for days having lost their senses but with eyes wide open as if awake. Maud Vance muttered about the putrid fever while Henry Knyvett even mentioned the dreaded word ‘plague’. But Mary Killigrew, my aunt, who was so shaken by the illness about her that she quite forgot her hawks, said it was not either. She had been through the London plague of ’63, when twenty thousand had died, and this complaint bore no resemblance; she ought to know. To her it was, she said, more like the spotted death; those noisy drunken pirates; no good ever came of giving evil loose men house room. It would not surprise her at all if this were a judgment.

  At the end of October twenty-one people in the household were sick with the disease, including Thomas Rosewarne, our steward, and three had died. Twelve were mending. Then, at last, one of the children took it. It was Paul Knyvett, my cousin, who was near sixteen. Then Maud Vance took it. Then Mrs Killigrew.

  Maud Vance had it very bad and lingered for days between life and death; Mrs Killigrew had it just as light, though it pulled her down and caused her to look more frail than ever. Paul Knyvett had fearful pains in the head and could not pass water. His tongue was covered with sores, and on the second of November in great pain he died.

  So another long walk, this time in showers of hail, and this time behind a coffin of polished pine made by Timothy Carpenter, the house handyman and furniture maker, who had to use up wood for it he had been saving for new cupboards in the still-room. Death I had always conceived of as something which could happen to other people, not to me; but Paul’s dying so suddenly, while I still had his metal pencil case, and while we had been carrying on a make-believe feud, came too close home.

  In the middle of November, when many were at last recovering and there had been but two new cases in the last six days my stepmother was brought to bed of her ninth child. As Aunt Mary said, it was an inconvenient season. Mr Knyvett, since the death of his son, was never out of a drunken stupor—he wanted to return to Rosemerryn but his wife would not have him for fear of the infection, barring the windows and doors against him; Maud Vance our midwife was still too weak to walk; and with Rosewarne in the same condition the last discipline had fallen out of the house.

  Belemus told me about Mrs Killigrew, whispering it behind his hand when we were supposed to be listening to Elizabeth reciting a passage from Cicero. Mrs Killigrew had been taken with the first pains during the afternoon and Jane Job and Kate Penruddock were with her. “Trembling in their shoes, I’ll lay a crown, and not knowing what to do next.”

  “And would you?” I asked.

  “When I grow up I shall be a surgeon. It’s a useful trade. And the first belly I shall open will be yours.”

  “They’ve families of their own,” I said after a minute.

  “Who?”

  “Mrs Job, Mrs Penrudduck.”

  “Oh, yes, that’s true. I’ve no doubt we shall soon have another little cousin. Ink-horn will come around and tell us in the morning as if he’d done it all himself.”

  But in the morning Parson Merther had nothing to say. Outside it was blowing a half gale and the wide river mouth frothed with white. The house, as usual when the weather turned wild, was full of draughts and creaking windows. As we went along the passage to break our fast we could hear Mrs Killigrew moaning, and Odelia burst into tears and wanted to run in to her.

  After lessons and just before dinner I wandered into the kitchen. Instead of preparing dinner they were baking bread, which should have been done early in the morning.

  The great bread oven into which the huge faggots of wood had been put hours ago was just open, and the ashes were being raked over before the loaves were thrust in. I hung about not speaking, not getting in anyone’s way. The heat from the oven quickly spread all about the kitchen, and it was a relief when the last batch went in and the oven door could be shut. Sarah Keast, who was making the bread because Simon Cook was ill, went across and thrust her bare feet into old felt slippers and took a long drink of buttermilk.

  “Rose back yet?” she asked of Stevens, who came in carrying a cauldron for the soup.

  “Aye. Ten minutes gone. Pendavey won’t come.”

  “Why not?”

  “Afraid of the fever, he say.”

  “What an’ him a leech. Shame on ’im. What then?”

  “Rose went all around Penryn. Clapthorne he d’ ask next. Clapthorne say he’ve no skill wi’ lyings in. He say to send to Truro.”

  “They’m all scared. That’s what’s trouble wi’ they. Mrs’ll have to manage as best she may.”

  Another woman in the kitchen said: “ Reckon she’ll be as well wi’out any of ’em. I was twenty hours wi’ my third. They leeched me twice, but twas no help. Twas the rowan berries Sam hanged over the bed that give me the strength to bring the child forth.”

  “But Jane d’ say tis all the wrong way round. If the child be the wrong way round there’s no ’elp for it. I tell ’ee tis they men comning ’ere, as Mistress Mary d’ say. Tis they coming as put the evil eye on we. Four dead already, and gracious knows where it will stop. Two more afore nightfall, like as not!”

  “Well, if tis so, I shouldn’t wish to be in Jane’s shoes. If Mrs and child was to die, God knows what Master would say; fault or no fault, it isn’t in him to take it kindly.”

  “Reckon he should be’ere to look after his own, stead of whoring after others. Like as not none of this would’ve happened else.”

  They stopped and one of them glanced warningly at me. I went out into the larder which was lined with flour barrels and salting tins and earthenware preserving jars and deep wooden tubs of meal. No one was there so I made my way back by another route into the house. Then I saw Meg, but she was carrying a posset of colewort up for Mrs Killigrew and would not stop except to shake a scared head at me. Upstairs I heard Mrs Killigrew screaming.

  I did not like the sound. Dinner was late and we were nearly forgot. I wandered into my father’s private study. Mr Knyvett had used it of late. It smelt cold and stale, and it had not been cleaned for days; a dozen glasses were littered about the room, some still stained with the remnants of wine. The rain was beating on the lattice window like a birchen broom.

  On the desk was an open book in which Mr Knyvett had been writing. I did not think he had touched it since the day when Bewse, the head falconer, had come to him with the news that Paul was dead.

  I looked at the writing.

  “21st Oct rec. John Michell sale of 200 yds fine velvet cloth at 18/- per yd. £180. Paid Capt Elliot one fifth = £36. Paid J. Michell one fifth = £36. Divers other payments £18. Nett £90.

  “29th Oct rec. T. Roscarrock 80 yds purple silk cloth at £2. 10. 0 per yd. = £200. Pd. J. Roscarrock one fifth = £40. Divers other payments = £12. Aside for Captain Elliot one fifth = £40. Nett £108.”

  I shut the book. I did not know who else was in and out of this room; in any event few could read; but it seemed a matter best kept private.

  On the desk was a smaller book bound in black leather, and I opened it where a straw was stuck in to mark the place. Entries this time in my father’s hand.

  “Paid John Harris, Lamrest, £15. Owe him £235. Owe John Heale £1000, Mr Challenor £250, Hugh Jones £550. Paid Mr Coswarth and his uncle £50. Owe Wm Gilbert of London, haberdasher, £26. Mr Siprian of London, farrier, £100. Paid Mrs Arscott £15. Owe Her Majesty by the report of Mr Reynolds of the exchequer, £1, 700. Borrowed of Mr Stanes £200, owe him now £1400. Owe Anthony Honey, £150.”

  There was a long list of smaller entries, some of them household items of expenditure, some debts, some re
nts received.

  I wandered through the dark passage into the hall, where the servants were now laying the cloths for dinner. Parson Merther was passing down it with his thin ferret face a-tremble.

  I said: “ How is Mrs Killigrew, sir? Is the baby born yet?” He gave me a distraught glance in which he scarcely seemed to recognise me and said:“Musculorum convulsio cum sopore.”

  I turned and looked after his hurrying form. For the second time since he had gone I wished Mr Killigrew home.

  At dinner that day Rosewarne reappeared. He looked thin and still sweaty as if the ague had not yet left him. Mistress Wolverstone had also come down; I heard Aunt Mary say in an undertone to Miss Wolverstone:

  “She will not live long unless something be done. The child’s head has descended but these convulsions will kill them both. She is quite out of her mind between the fits, and nothing we can do brings her aidance. I think tis more a spell than a disease. We have rubbed her face with my topaz and given her saxifrage root and motherwort. What John will say when be returns I know not.”

  “There is a young woman lives near Penryn,” said Mistress Wolverstone, pulling up her fur collar against the draught. “ Has she been asked?”

  “None of them will come. They have no fancy for our household while the fever is among us.”

  “I am of the opinion Maud should get up, even if it is only to sit in a chair and give her counsel.”

  “Have you seen Maud? She can as yet no more put foot to floor than fly.”

  I had to go then to my seat because Parson Merther was about to say grace. But after the meal I pretended not to see his beckoning hand and slid away towards where my aunt and my great-aunt and Mr Knyvett and Rosewarne and Jael Job were standing talking together. I knew what they were talking about, whom they were talking about, and I had to hear.

  “… I’ve heard tell she is very skilful with medicines and herbs, and if it’s a spell been put on my sister, then this woman is as like as anyone to know the cure. If she would come.”

  “Oh, Katherine Footmarker is afeared of nothing.”

  “Well might she be afeared of nothing,” said Rosewarne, “seein’ who she serves. To bring her in the ’ouse would call down worse misfortune than we now suffer.”

  “There’s some as do good as well as harm,” Mistress Wolverstone said, folding her gouty hands. “ I was once cured of the stone by a girl witch in Suffolk. It was magic the way she did it. Did Rose ask this woman?”

  Mr Knyveft took the toothpick from his mouth. “You may be assured if Rose was sent he went no nearer than to throw a stone. Rose would take fright at the first flap of a black cloak.”

  “Twould be true of any of we, sir,” Rosewarne said doggedly. “There’s bad tales of Katherine Footmarker. They say she dance naked in the full moon and if once she touch a youth he be lost for ever.”

  “I’ll go for her,” said Jael Job. “If so be as you’ve the mind to send for her. I’m not afeared. I’ll go and ask her if she’ll come.”

  Everyone looked at him. Perhaps it was in their minds that he was ready to go because as yet his wife bore the weight of responsibility for what happened in the upstairs chamber, and he would rid her of it. John Killigrew’s return hung over them all.

  “I think she should be asked,” said Aunt Mary. “ It is the least we can do, and what worse can a witch bring than what those men brought? Foulness and liquor, lechery and gluttony, poison and pestilence. A child dies every time they come to this house. Take someone with you, Job, if you want company.”

  “I think, ma’am, Rose would come if I done the talking. Maybe if I go straight away she can be here and gone again afore nightfall.”

  Katherine Footmarker came.

  I saw her from a window striding up the long approach, a black caul over her hair against the rain. She carried a cloth bag drawn together at the top by a red string. Behind her, at a distance, followed Job and Rose. When she came into the house she must have been watched from all points by eyes as curious and as frightened as mine. All work came to a stop.

  What happened I learned later. It seemed that my poor stepmother was still having fits, and the child was as yet unborn. In the fits Mrs Killigrew was becoming violent, and between them she lay like one dead except now and then for a long shuddering sigh. Katherine Footmarker looked over the sick woman thoroughly and in silence. Then she opened her bag and sent Mrs Job for a cauldron of hot water. All this while Mrs Killigrew lay quiet, but at this stage she began to shake with her next convulsion. Footmarker thereupon caused a crystal of salt or nitre or some other unknown element to be inserted in the sick woman’s rectum, and at the same time, rags were soaked in the water, a strange yellow flower powdered over them, and wrapped around, and the steaming hot bandage put about her head.

  Kate Penruddock said that when this was applied a strange draught came into the room and caused all the candle flames to flutter and darken. At the same moment Mrs Killigrew gave a piercing scream and her struggles began to subside. Afterwards there were strong faecal evacuations before the birth pangs began again. For an hour this continued, then Footmarker sent for a needle and with this pierced the jugular vein, drawing off a little poisoned blood. At about four o’clock Mrs Killigrew came to her senses and asked for a drink of wine. This Katherine Footmarker refused her, but instead she mixed her a posset in which were dissolved some fennel and poppy seed and terrible things out of two bottles that Mrs Penruddock could not bring herself to describe. At five o’clock Mrs Killigrew was delivered of a strong male child, perfect in every part.

  A little later, just as darkness was falling, the child went into convulsions of its own and died. They said it wore such an expression on its face as if it was a damned soul.

  Much against our wishes we had been herded in by Parson Merther to wash ourselves and tidy for supper, so I knew nothing for a time except that Katherine Footmarker had triumphed. I was full of a strange exaltation as if I had been a party to the magic. After all my fears, this proved that the woman I had been to was good and not evil. I had done no wrong by going to her. I was delighted for Mrs Killigrew that she was through her ordeal. Perhaps if Katherine Footmarker had been summoned earlier she might even have been able to. save Paul Knyvett’s life and those others who had died from the fever.

  We trooped into the hall a half hour later man then the appointed time of six, knowing the meal would not be ready yet; fifteen or so of the servants were standing about in groups whispering, and Mr Knyvett was already seated at the top table waving his toothpick and talking to Rosewarne who was standing behind him.

  Belemus had slipped away on the walk downstairs and he rejoined us now and moved into place beside me.

  “The child’s dead,” he said.

  Then I had a strange and terrible feeling in my vitals as if the fever had struck.

  “How? When?”

  “Of fits. Of the foulest most fiendish fits ever you saw. They say that as it died its body contorted and changed into the shape of a black dog.”

  “… How could that be?”

  He looked at me with his craggy face twisted wryly. “I don’t know how it could be, cousin. I only know that that is how it is being spoken about the house. It may be—as Rosewarne and others swear—that the Footmarker woman is as she is because she’s kissed the naked buttocks of the devil bent over the altar at black mass. Anyway, if she can grow wings and fly, now is the time for her to do it.”

  “How long is it since she left?”

  “She hasn’t left. She was leaving when the change took place. She was stopped. They was to have taken her and locked her in one of the dungeons of the castle, but Foster would not have her—said it would ill-wish him in any fight with the Spanish—so she is in the cellar under the Gate Tower. It was the farthest away they could put her overnight for safety.”

  We all stood. “ Oh, Lord Jesus Christ,” began Parson Merther, “almighty and most merciful Saviour, we the most sinful, the most errant of Thy creat
ures, do humbly beseech Thee …”

  When all were seated I said: “Why overnight? What will they do with her?”

  Belemus shrugged. “That will depend, on your father, no doubt. He’s not likely to be kindly disposed.”

  “But when is he back? Perhaps not for—”

  “Tomorrow. I thought you knew, witless. John Michell has had word that he lay last night with George Grenville at Penheale and should be home by this time tomorrow.”

  Supper was customarily noisy but the hall was quiet that night, more so than at the height of the fever. Miss Mary Killigrew did not appear at all and Mr Knyvett was drunk. Afterwards, while Parson Merther waited impatiently for me to follow the others, I spoke to Mistress Wolverstone.

  “What?” she said. “ What? Well, your stepmother is asleep now. She breathes peaceably, pray God when she wakes she will be in her right mind and not overlooked. What? Well, I know not what evil came from her, but evil came from somewhere, did it not? She is best shut up, poor creature. All such creatures are best shut up, lest they do more harm than good.”

  “Come, Maugan,” Parson Merther said. “ The knowledge of good and evil comes late to some people. You are such a one. With prayer and due humility towards your elders—of which, alas, I see few signs as yet—you may come to a full understanding. You must thank God that you are not alone to judge for yourself.”

  For an hour I sat with the other children translating Virgil’s Georgics. When at last I got into bed beside John I lay for a long time with my head propped up so that through the undrawn bed curtains I could see the narrow oblong of the window, greyer than the rest of the room. It was still raining and blowing hard, but from the south-west, so that in this room you could only hear the rumble of the wind in the distance as it leaned on the house over the shoulder of the bill.

  Presently John, whom I had thought asleep, said: “ Do you think Mama will die?”

  “Not now,” I said.

  “Do you think the witch will be burnt?”