The Brampton Witch Murders: A gripping 17th-century cozy historical mystery by Ellis Blackwood

Author:Ellis Blackwood [Blackwood, Ellis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Vintage Mystery Press
Published: 2024-08-30T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter fifteen

Pitchforks at Dawn

Ashort while after sunrise on Wednesday 5 th September, 1666, Abby rapped urgently on Jacob’s chamber door at The Bull. Before he was even fully conscious, she entered.

“We must leave quickly,” she told him, opening the shutters on his window. “My master’s sister is in grave peril.”

Jacob swung out of bed and sat up, rubbing his eyes against the pale daylight. He was fully dressed.

“Mr Standish,” she said. “You sleep in full clothing?”

“Mmm. The nights are cold,” he mumbled blearily, wishing he was still asleep. In his dream, he had been chasing fleeing figures through a forest of infinitely tall trees, always a few paces behind, and now he would never know the ending.

When he arrived in the tap-room, Abby was polishing off a plate of bread and cheese. At previous breakfasts, the inn’s dog, Rusty, had been sitting there, waiting for scraps - shooed away by Hatty when she spotted it - but this morning the animal was absent.

“At last!” Abby exclaimed while chewing, though he had taken barely any time to compose himself. She gulped down the last mouthful. “We must hurry to Paulina’s. According to Hatty, she was set upon by villagers last night.”

Thrusting Jacob’s cloth-wrapped breakfast into his hand, she was gone.

As the inquisitors approached the Pepys family’s home, they were surprised to find it quiet, as if nothing untoward had occurred. Paulina did not rush from the front door; not a soul was around. The vista was a warmly lit pastoral idyll, to which they were becoming pleasantly accustomed.

When Jacob rapped on the door, no one answered. He looked through the window and saw Paulina hunched over the dining table, her shoulders juddering in time with her sobs.

Finding the door unlocked, he hastened inside, followed by Abby.

“Mistress Pepys!” he said, his voice choking with concern. “What has occurred here?”

Paulina lifted her head. Her red eyes were swollen and her flushed cheeks were damp. She was wearing a long linen chemise, but no nightgown, and was shivering - due to the cold or through fear, they could not tell. It was a pitiful sight.

“Oh, Mr Standish!” Paulina wailed, throwing herself at him.

This time she registered no social faux pas, such was her distress. Jacob stood there woodenly, arms hanging at his sides, wincing. When Abby gently peeled her off, she did not protest.

Returned to her chair, Paulina gradually recovered her spirits sufficiently to relate the night’s events.

A good while after the household had retired to bed, Paulina told the inquisitors, she had been awakened by shouting and a commotion outside. When she opened her shutters to see what was happening, the scene she beheld turned her insides.

Lit by dancing torchlight were two dozen or so villagers, gathered beneath her window, some waving pitchforks, others bearing torches. “Their faces were distorted with rage,” she recalled. “They looked like monsters.”

“What did they proclaim?” Jacob asked.

Paulina began to weep again, her voice breaking as she spoke. “They called me a witch,” she sobbed. “They declared that I had cursed Goody Grimston and that his death was on my hands.

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