The mad dog kill, and kill again
Until he is killed in his turn.’
Remember that, Mary. It is the way of things.”
“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.