‘Please,’ she said. ‘Wait for me. I’m on my way to you. I just need a little time.’
She left and he turned to the desk, where a puddle of purple juice dripped on to the carpet.
That night, the dream returned.
Tribulation Smith stood outside his bedroom door, turning a key in a lock. Inside the room, he heard the weeping of Evangeline.
‘You cannot keep me prisoner here. Let me go.’
‘You are my wife. You cannot leave me.’
‘I bear you no love. There is nothing I can give you.’
‘You will give me yourself.’
A pause.
‘Is there nothing I can do or say to sway you?’
Tribulation shook his head, although she couldn’t see him.
‘You are mine, and will ever be.’
‘Then I cannot fight the will of God. Come in. Come to bed.’
Was it then so easy to gain her capitulation? Surely she sought to sweeten him for some further assault. Yet her voice, so seductive and low, beguiled him beyond reason.
He opened the door.
Evangeline sat on the bed in her nightgown, holding the taper that had lit her way to the chamber. As soon as she saw him, she smiled and dropped the lit candle on to the bed, where it quickly set fire to the cover.
‘Evangeline!’ He dashed forward in alarm, taking the pitcher from the bedside and emptying it on to the smouldering linens. In the time it took him to do this, Evangeline had gone.
Out of the house he ran, seeking her shadow, listening for the tread of her foot. Where had she run to?
Not to the old crooked house she had shared with her kinswomen, nor to the church, nor to any of the darkened, shuttered cottages huddled around the village green. She must have taken one of the footpaths though the fields.
He bellowed her name, hearing it echo around the timber frames of the village. From behind a cloud, the moon appeared and with it a flood of silver light. In that light, he caught sight of something, no more than a movement, but he followed it, along the footpath that led from the northern end of the village.
It was a lonely, little frequented path, for the southern road led to many more destinations. The grass grew high, almost obscuring the little dirt track. His legs swished through the vegetation, gaining on the figure ahead.
Past an old well, she ran to a shack, a tumbledown, hastily constructed affair that could not have been there long. He watched her enter and slowed his pace. She had not realised he followed her. He would retrieve her with ease. But was she alone, or did this shack house someone? The lover who had taken his bride’s maidenhead?
He stole up, as quietly as he could, keeping low out of the moonlight.
Soon he heard voices, Evangeline’s shrill and weepy, blending with a male voice that rose in anger.
By the time he reached the shack, the voices had stilled. The place had no windows to peer into; all he could do was creep around to the entrance and try to fit his eye to the many gaps.
Inside, there was low light from a candle. A bed of rags in the corner was occupied by Evangeline, who lay in the arms of a man.
‘We shall leave for Taunton as soon as you are ready,’ he said. ‘Now that you have come to me, nothing holds me in Saxonhurst. Besides, the witchfinder will be back, and this time he will take you too.’
‘What of my husband?’
‘Call him not your husband.’ The man spat on the floor. ‘The preacher, you mean? What can he do? He is already a laughing stock for marrying a witch. He will be too proud to pursue you.’
‘I do not know that you are right. He is close to madness, John.’