Tom Brown's Body

23. Aroint Thee, Witch

*

I was always very curious in my Liquors.

IBID. (Act 3, Scene 6)

'SO we part,' said old Mrs Harries, motioning Mrs Bradley to a seat by the fire. 'But before you go –'

'Before I go, I would like to know why you told me that lie about the beautiful woman with the golden voice,' said Mrs Bradley.

The crone chuckled.

'That was no lie,' she averred. 'I was wrong to let you think she had come with him to this house, but I was not wrong in coupling them. They had enjoyed themselves together. I knew that when you brought her here.'

Mrs Poundbury's connexion with Lecky Harries having been disposed of, the two old women sat still, each intent upon her thoughts.

'You are putting ideas into my head,' complained Mrs Harries at last. 'You want your book. I see that you mean to have it before you go.'

'No, no,' Mrs Bradley replied. 'I have spent time enough on the book. I would like to make you a present, that is all. You may perhaps remember me by it when I am gone.'

She put into the earthy old palm which came, gipsy-fashion, towards her, a witch-ball. The witch studied it gravely, as though she could see. She then looked at it more closely. Her lips drew back from her gums and her mouth opened with a long dribble of saliva. This dropped on to the witch-ball. Mrs Bradley leaned forward, half-anticipating what was to follow.

There in the witch-ball was Mr Pearson's garden with the pool and the rockery, and there was Mr Pearson himself crouching at the edge of the pool and holding under the water the head of an unconscious man.

With an effort Mrs Bradley dragged her eyes from the ball. When she looked at it again, the horrid scene had vanished and the dribble of spittle was trickling on to the edge of the crone's brown hand.

'And now,' said Mrs Bradley, 'it's my turn.' She leaned forward and spat accurately and neatly on to the crystal ball.

The witch started up, and put her free hand before her sightless eyes.

'No! No!' she cried, in the trembling tones of an old and frightened woman. 'Not that! Not that! Take it away! Take the water away! Oh, I drown! I drown!'

Mrs Bradley took out a spotless handkerchief and wiped the crystal clean. She tossed the handkerchief into the fire.

'There you are, then,' she said. 'But I want you to make a contract with me. I am a student of mental phenomena, and your mind interests me. I want to experiment with it. What do you say?'

To her delight, the witch agreed. It was with regret that she rose to leave Mrs Harries, but their future, she thought, held possibilities and had considerable interest.

'And now,' said Mrs Harries, when her guest reached the door, 'you will do as I told you before. In my front parlour you must put your hand well up the chimney, but beware lest you get burnt – I wish you no particular harm.'

Mrs Bradley, half-sure of what was in store for her, did as she was requested. She stretched as far up the old chimney as she could, and her fingers touched sacking. At the same instant she felt as though she was touching red-hot iron. She was sufficiently prepared for this to grasp the sacking firmly without withdrawing her hand or flinching from the pain of the burn.

She drew out the book of which she had been in search. She knew what it was the moment she saw it. Her hand, of course, was not burnt, and nor were the precious volume or its sacking cover. She went back into the kitchen. Mrs Harries's old face was wrinkled with the mirth of Satan.

'It is yours. You have won it fairly,' she said. 'These eyes will never read another word of it. I always meant you to have it. It would bring me no luck to sell it to you, either. You shall inherit it from me, for, saving yourself, I have neither kith nor kin upon the earth.'

'I will come again to-morrow,' said Mrs Bradley. She went out, bearing the magic book of her ancestress, Mary Toadflax. She stepped carefully aside to avoid Paddock, her hostess's familiar, as he squatted in the very centre of the narrow garden path. As she opened the garden gate, a small hedgehog remained motionless. Then it lifted its tiny snout and whined three times.