Mum, I forgive you!
Margaret Whitfield lay in her lowceilinged cottage. One evening she whispered to her daughter.
Evelyn, love, Im dying. The time has come to tell you everything. Im afraid I have little left. Forgive me, my child.
Mum, dont say that! Ill call an ambulance straight away!
No ambulance, Evelyn. Listen to me!
The ailing woman began her tale. Long ago, my dear, there was a friend named Clara. We grew up together in the same orphanage, then both went to a teachertraining college. After we finished, the county sent us to a tiny rural school.
We were posted to different homes: they put me in a vacant cottage behind the school, and Clara with an elderly couple on the hill. All our spare time we spent together, sneaking into the village hall for dances while a fiddler played. The fiddler was a striking young man. The moment I saw him I knew he was the one Id waited for all my life. His name was William, darkeyed and handsome.
Every weekend Clara and I ran to the hall. I could not take my eyes off William, drinking in his warm voice. My heart fluttered whenever his glance fell on me. Then I noticed he kept looking at Clara, smiling at her, and she seemed to blossom under his gaze. I realised William preferred the plain, modest Clara.
I tried again and again to catch his attention, but he never noticed me. I was furious with jealousy. I came to hate Clara with a hatred that scorched my bones. Clara glowed with happiness, oblivious to the storm inside me. One day she burst into my room, eyes bright, and whispered:
Margaret, William and I will be married soon.
I felt the world crumble. Despair squeezed me until I stopped eating and sleeping, a single thought looping: William must be mine! I would do anything for that. I heard from the villagers that a crone named Agatha lived in the next hamlet. I went to her for help.
I know why youve come, the old woman said.
Fear gripped me at first, but recalling William gave me courage for a dark deed. Agatha brewed a lovepotion, poured it into a bottle and handed it to me.
Slip it into his drink, she whispered.
I tried to give her money, but she laughed cruelly:
Your cash means nothing to me. Youll learn what I need. Go now.
That evening Clara and William came to my cottage. It was the perfect moment. I set the table quickly, slipped the potion into Williams glass. He drank, and his eyes seemed to shift. Clara, sensing something amiss, whisked him away home. At dawn William stood on my doorstep, insisting that I was the only one he wanted. The crones words had not been false I had my William. We married soon after and lived in a bliss that felt like a dream. William clung to me as if I were his air, and I could not breathe without him. You may wonder about Clara.
She avoided us, yet we still crossed paths. I still see her sorrowful face and the tears that never stopped. The old couple who had housed Clara spat at me, branding me a witch. Rumours spread through the village that Clara was pregnant with Williams child and had almost taken her own life. I felt pity for her, but I loved my husband more than anything.
One cold evening an old man named Tom, who had once cared for Clara, knocked on our door.
Come with me, he said.
What for? I asked.
Your friend is dying. She calls for you, he replied.
He looked at me, and I, silent, followed him. Inside the cottage of the elderly, a child wailed. On the bed lay Clara, pale and barely breathing. My heart clenched painfully; I wanted to turn away. Then Clara flung open her eyes and whispered:
Margaret, Im dying. Take my daughter with you. Let Evelyn have a father she can love she reached for me, but her hand fell limp.
Shes gone, dear the old couple muttered, crossing themselves.
Grandma Hattie broke into sobs and thrust a swaddled bundle into my arms. It was you, my child. I did not want to take you, but Tom growled:
I would never have trusted you with this child! Yet the will of the departed must be honoured. She was a good soul; may heaven welcome her. Take the girl and go home! And pray you never hurt her again!
Thus you appeared in my life. Your father was angry that I had taken you. Your endless crying irritated him and me alike. William changed; he drank heavily and stopped staying the night. My happy life crumbled before my eyes, and I could do nothing. My dear child, you cannot imagine how much I came to loathe you!
I dreamed of having my own baby, and then you fell into my lap. Soon I discovered I was pregnant. When William learned this, he gave up the bottle, dreaming of a son. It seemed happiness had returned to our house. A few weeks before the birth, a nightmare seized me. I stood in a dark forest clearing; a hideous creature stared at me, its paws thick with black fur.
Recognise me? Im here to claim whats mine, the thing rasped in Agathas voice.
I awoke screaming in agony, and by evening I delivered a lifeless boy. Your father, broken by grief, took to the bottle again and soon died, frozen in the snow, a drunk in a drifts. Tom and Hattie followed shortly after. I was left alone with you on a world washed white. Evelyn, you became the meaning of my sinful life, without which I could not exist.
You grew tall, a spitting image of your mother. I tried constantly to tell you the truth, to beg forgiveness, but never succeeded. You married, bore me a wonderful grandson. Now I have no time to postpone this heavy confession, and I fear leaving this world with such a burden upon my soul, the woman paused, breath trembling.
I am responsible for my parents deaths. Will you forgive me, my child? The sin I bear is great before God and before you.
A tremor ran through Evelyns nerves. Tears streamed down the womans cheeks like a river. Summoning her last strength, she embraced the pleading figure and whispered:
Mum, I forgive you.
Margaret Whitfield slipped away that night in her sleep, a faint smile frozen upon her lips.
