"But why....." It seemed almost cruel to ask, but she had to. "Why the
charade of my being Anne's child? Why couldn't you and I have had each
other, at least?"
"Aye, that. Well." And for the first time that night, through all the
gruesome details, the woman found herself at a loss, as if this alone
still caused in her something akin to remorse. "At first it was the
family honor. It was as easy to cloister the two of us, as one. And
then.
"I tried to poison myself a short time after you were born, as only
your life inside me had prevented my doing before. As much as I wanted
to love and care for you, as the innocent babe you were.....
"It all became too much for me, Mary, and my brother's death was the
final blow. I just wanted it to end. They say I went quite mad for a
time, if endless loss, and a death-like sense of oppression be
madness.
"The surviving family, the Talberts, then considered me an unfit
guardian. And with the coming of dark times it was difficult to blame
them, or disagree..... And so I gave you up---"
She had to stop, because the girl had risen beside her in the bed, and
this time in deepest earnest, wrapped her arms about the withered
neck, weeping as if there were nothing left in all the world. The old
woman (old and haggard at fifty) felt a moment of weakness. She wanted
to cry herself, to give, and receive comfort in return. But the tears
would not come.
Then she remembered the man, and was silent.
And more than anything else Mary had heard or experienced that night,
this simple non-action, and the three words the witch finally uttered.
. . brought home to her the full brutality, and continuing tragedy of
her mother's life.
"He will pay."
As the rain beat relentlessly, and the wind howled through the barren
pass.