Free The Girl Green as Elderflower by Randolph Stow

said Mark, ‘do demons and ghosts—and sprites—necessarily tell the truth?’
    ‘No, mate, we don’t,’ said the sprite. ‘But I’m telling you history, if you’d wash out your brains and listen.’
    The young man walked on, until the trees were behind him, and the farm, dim but distinct, spread out below. ‘Good night, Malkin,’ he said, though he sensed that she was gone. When he arrived at the cottage, his friend stared at the daisy-chain with which Malkin had crowned his hair.
    *
    The narrow timbered house in a Lavenham street was leaning at all sorts of impossible angles, but looked sound and lovingly cared for. Knocking at the heavy door, the priest noticed clean white curtains beside him, and between them a proudly blooming hyacinth.
    At his second knock the door opened. He thought at first that he had made a mistake, and asked uncertainly: ‘Mrs Burrows?’
    ‘Yes,’ said the young woman. She was not more than twenty-one, neat in her dress, her black hair carefully arranged.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ the priest said, ‘to turn up like this on your doorstep without warning. But I’d be grateful if you would spare me a few minutes to discuss something, out of the street.’
    ‘I’m not—’ the young woman began to say. But reflecting, she stepped back and led him into the tiny hall which had been contrived in the old cottage. From there she led the way into her front room, which the priest found solidly furnished, not quite according to his own taste, but showing a modest prosperity.
    He took the chair she offered, and said: ‘This visit must be something of a surprise.’
    The woman sat down opposite him, not curious, her face rather bland. ‘I should think it would be on account of some girl,’ she said, ‘and one of my brothers.’
    ‘There is a girl involved,’ said the priest. ‘A very young girl. Mrs Burrows, I learn from my inquiries that seven years ago you became the mother of a daughter called Mary, or Malkin.’
    The woman immediately became sullen, which brought out a childishness in her face. ‘I don’t see how that come to be a concern of yours.’
    ‘You were extremely young,’ suggested the priest.
    ‘I was fourteen,’ said Mrs Burrows. ‘Are you going to ask if I was married?’
    ‘No, Mrs Burrows, I know the answer to that. I also know that the child mysteriously vanished.’
    ‘No one can’t blame that on me,’ the young woman said, a shrillness in her voice. ‘I know there’s plenty would like to believe I dropped her in a pond or something. But I was in the middle of a field with three other women when that happen. They all live here, they all will vouch for me.’
    ‘I know,’ said the priest, ‘that in such cases the mother’s distress is often made all the more cruel by gossip, suspicion. Unfortunately, on some occasions the suspicion has been justified. But I believe, Mrs Burrows—I
know
—that no blame of that kind attaches to you. The baby was sleeping under a tree at the edge of the field you mention. Did you see anybody go near it?’
    ‘No,’ said the woman, firmly. ‘There warnt nobody there but us four women, all working together.’
    The priest opened out on his black knees a book which he had been carrying, and ran an eye over the neat lines of his handwriting.
    ‘Mrs Burrows,’ he said, ‘I’d like to tell you, in my own words, another mother’s story.’
    ‘If that’s short,’ the woman said indifferently. ‘My husband come home at noon.’
    ‘This story is from a source we consider reliable,’ said the priest. ‘The reporter is Roger of Howden. It concerns a young unmarried mother-to-be who ran away from her parents’ house just as her condition was about to reveal itself.’
    ‘Your story int all that uncommon,’ remarked Mrs Burrows.
    ‘On the road,’ continued the priest, ‘she was overtaken by a violent storm of wind and rain. And as she was wandering lost among the fields, she cried out to God to give her help and