"Beauty is a witch--"
--MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
I will tear the core out of many yellow pages of diffuse writing spiced
with smug moral reflections.
Desire Michell had been no traditional old hag, hideous and malevolent;
no pallid, raving epileptic to accuse herself in shrieking tales of
Black Men, and Sabbats, and harm done to neighbors' cattle or crops. Her
father was a clergyman who brought his goods and his motherless daughter
from England to the Colonies, and settled in "ye Pequot Marsh country."
There he found a congregation, and they lived much respected. Their
culture appeared to be far beyond that of their few, hard-working
neighbors. Young Mistress Michell was reputed learned in the use of
simples, among other arts, and to have been "of a beauty exceeding the
custom among godly women, to so great degree that sorcery should have
been suspected of her."
However, sorcery was not suspected; not even when her fame spread among
near-dwelling Indian tribes who gave her a name signifying _Water on
which the Sun is Shining_. Admiration was her portion, then, with all
the suitors the vicinity held. But from fastidiousness or ambition she
refused every proposal made to her father for her. She walked aloof and
alone, until another sort of wooer came to the gate of the minister's
house.
This man's full name was not given, apparently through the writer's
cautious respect for place and influence. He was vaguely described as
goodly in appearance, of high family, but not abundantly supplied with
riches. However he chanced to come to the obscure settlement was not
stated. He did come, saw Desire Michell, and fell as abjectly prostrate
before her as any youth who never had left the village.
He pressed his courtship hard and eagerly. At first he was welcome at
the minister's house. But a day came when Master Michell forbade him to
cross that door and rumor whispered, scandalized, that Sir Austin's suit
had not been honorable to the maid.
Sir Austin sulked a week at the village inn. Then he broke under the
torment of not seeing Desire Michell. Their betrothal was made public,
and he rode away to prepare his home for their marriage in the spring.
Travel was slow in the winter, news trickled slowly across snowbound
distances. With spring came no bridegroom; instead word arrived of his
affair with an heiress recently come to New York from England. She was
rich in gold and grants of land from the Crown. Her husband would be a
man of weight and influence, it seemed.
Sir Austin had married her.
Desire Michell shut herself in her father's house. The clergyman did not
live many months after the humiliation. Alone, the girl lived.
"Student," wrote Abimelech Fetherstone, "of black and bitter arts. Or as
some say, having, like Bombastus de Hohenheim, a devil's bird enchained
to do her will."
In his distant home, Sir Austin sickened. He burned with fever, anguish
consumed him. Physicians were called to the bedside of the rich man.
They could not diagnose his ailment or help him. He screamed for water.
When it was brought, his throat locked and he could not swallow. He
raved of Desire Michell, beseeching her mercy. In his times of sanity,
he begged and commanded his wife and servants to send for the girl. In
her pardon he saw his sole hope of life.
Finally, he was obeyed. Messengers were sent to the village. They were
not even admitted to the house they sought, or to sight of Mistress
Michell.
"Your master came himself to woo; let him come himself to plead."
That was the answer they received to carry back to the sick man.
Sir Austin heard, and submitted with trembling hope. Writhing in the
anguish wasting him by day and night, he made the journey by coach and
litter to Desire Michell's house. At her door-sill he implored entrance
and pity. The door did not open.
It never opened for him. For three days in succession he was borne to
her threshold, calling on her in his pain and fear. His servants and
physician clustered about staring at the house which stood locked and
blank of response. At night fire-shine was seen from an upper room; some
declared they heard wild, melodious laughter.
On the third day Sir Austin died. A stern-faced deputation of men went
to the house of the late clergymen. They found the door unlatched and
open to their entrance. In the upper room they found Mistress Michell
seated before her hearth where a dying fire fell to embers, her hair
"flowing down in grate bewty."
"What have I to do with Sir Austin, or he with me?" she calmly asked the
men who gaped upon her. "How should I have harmed him, who came not near
him, as ye know? Bury him, and leave me in peace."
If she had been aged and ugly, she might have been hung. Gossip ran rife
through the countryside. But indignation was strong against the man who
had jilted the local beauty, there existed no proof of harm done, and
the matter slept for a time.
New matters came. A horror grew up around the house. The girl was seen
flitting across the fields at dawn, a monstrous shadow following. Her
voice was heard from the room where she locked herself alone, raised in
unknown speech. Strange lights moved in her windows in the deep night.
The old woman who had served in the house for years was stricken with a
palsy and was taken away mumbling unintelligible things that iced the
blood of superstitious hearers.
There was a young man of the neighborhood whose love for Mistress
Michell had been long and constant. One morning he was found dead on her
doorstep, his face fixed in drawn terror. Under his hand four words were
scrawled in the snow: "_Sara daughter of Ruel----_"
There were those who could finish that quotation. Next Sabbath the new
minister took as his text: "Ye shall not suffer a witch to live." And he
spoke of Sara the daughter of Ruel, who was wed to ten bridegrooms, each
of whom was dead on the wedding eve; for she was beloved by an evil
spirit that suffered none to come to her. Authority moved at last
against Desire Michell. But when the officers came to arrest her, she
was found dead in her favorite seat before the hearth.
"Fair and upright in her place, scented with a perfume she herself
distilled of her learning in such matters; which was said to contain a
rare herb of Jerusalem called Lady's Rose, resembling spikenard, with
vervain and cedar and secret simples; in which she steeped her hair so
that wherever she abode were sweet odours. So did she escape Justice,
but shall not escape Hell's Damnation and Heaven's casting out."
I closed the book and laid it down.
Reading those dim, closely printed pages had taken time. I was
astonished to find the window spaces gray with dawn, when I glanced that
way. The night was past. Neither from Desire nor from the Thing without
a name which had sent me to this book could I find out what I was
expected to glean from the narration.
My enemy had made no conditions on directing me to the book. It had
asked no price, uttered no menace. Why, then, had I so solemn a
certainty that a crisis in our affair had been reached. I had come to an
end; a corner had been turned. I had opened a door that could not be
closed. How did I know this? Why?
Why was the fog against the windows this morning so like the fog that
shrouded the unearthly sea opposite the Barrier?
By and by Cristina came downstairs and busied herself in the kitchen.
Bagheera, who had slept beside my chair all night, rose and padded out
to the region of breakfast and saucers of milk. Next, the voices of
Phillida and Vere drifted from above.
To have Phillida find me there in her sewing-room, finishing an
all-night vigil, involved too many explanations. I did an unwise thing.
From the lowest shelf of the bookcase I gathered such books as were
readable by my knowledge, and carried the armful up to my room. After a
hot bath and breakfast I would look over these companions of the New
England witch book.