The Witch of Eye Read Free Page A

waiting until he grunted his satisfaction then heaved himself off her and began snoring like a bull. Did she really want a child as a result of these bestial couplings? Her mother’s assertion that a baby would be the answer to her problems was of no comfort to her and in any case, although she didn’t want to admit it to Betsy, she had already been to see Old Mother Morwenna to ask her advice. And to pay for it.
    The wise woman of the village had been unexpectedly sympathetic. They talked companionably over a glass of small beer, sitting at the table where the toothless old crone concocted her herbal remedies for everyday ailments, coughs and colds, aches and pains, making medicines to cure constipation or aid conception. Amid much sighing and tut-tutting, Old Mother Morwenna pointed out that failure to conceive did not always mean the woman was barren.
    ‘Look at the Dynhams, up at the Manor,’ she said in her cracked, high-pitched voice. ‘Those men couldn’t beget a son to save their lives, not for all their money and their fancy ways. That’s why the house and the land kept reverting to the King. Yes, for want of an heir. I’m old enough to remember it. Can you believe that? Eh? Can you? Do you know how old I am? Eh? Well, in truth, I’m not sure myself. But I do remember my own mother saying that one or two of the Dynhams’ widows went on to have fine broods after their husbands died.’
    She patted Jenna’s arm with her bony hand. ‘So it could easily be your man’s fault that you have no little ones, my dove. Mind you,’ she added with a cackle, ‘you’d be a fool to tell him so!’
    Before she left Morwenna’s cottage, Jenna had parted with half a groat in payment for a phial of something viscous and brown which the old wise woman assured her would resolve the situation if she drank a third of it exactly mid-way between her menses on three consecutive months. But the phial had remained hidden under the eaves, unopened, while Jenna looked for some sign that things were going to change between her and Jake before she swallowed its vile-looking contents.
    Nothing did change and she was forced to the conclusion that nothing ever would. Sooner or later, she would have to overcome her squeamishness and drink the thick, sticky brown liquid in the hope of conceiving a child. Yet in her heart she knew a child wasn’t the answer: she couldn’t bring a little one into the world to have its bones broken by a drunken father.
    Besides, she had no absolute guarantee that Old Mother Morwenna’s brown liquid would have any effect because, wise woman or not, her potions were not infallible. She had not been able to cure whatever had ailed Alice, Jenna’s best friend since childhood. Jenna and Alice. They had been a pair of mischievous little rascals with a deep affection for each other, as close as sisters. Jenna and Alice did everything together, playing games, laughing, singing or running errands for their mothers. They loved nothing better than their weekly visit to the parsonage where Parson Middleton, then an enthusiastic, forward-thinking young clergyman, did his best to teach a group of the village children the rudiments of reading and reckoning.
    But tonight, as Jenna lay sleepless beside her snoring lout of a husband, Alice lay silent in six feet of cold earth from whence, a year ago, a stony-faced Parson Middleton had committed her immortal soul to God’s keeping. Gripped by an agony of belly cramps and vomiting, Alice had derived no benefit from Old Mother Morwenna’s decoction of seeds of quince. Undeterred, the old wise woman had intoned some incantations above the bed where Alice writhed in agony, but to no avail. In desperation, her anxious parents had summoned the leech doctor from Newton Abbot, scraping together enough money to pay his extortionate fee. He took the money willingly enough before shaking his head and muttering that ‘right side sickness’ was beyond his help because it was the