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4 The cure for a curse
Six years went past, and Mr and Mrs Lodge's married life was not happy.
The farmer said little, and did not often smile.
His wife had a withered arm, and there were no children to call him ‘father’, and to run laughing around the farmhouse.
He thought of Rhoda Brook and her son. His son.
But that was the past, and he could not change it now.
Gertrude Lodge was a different woman too.
She was only twenty-five, but she looked older.
Once a happy, smiling woman, she was now sad and worried all the time.
She loved her husband, but he no longer loved her, and she knew it.
‘Six years of married life, and only a few months of love,’ she sometimes whispered.
Her left arm was no better.
She tried one thing after another, but nothing helped it.
Some of the things were a little strange, and her husband did not like them.
‘You think too much about your arm,’ he said.
‘You need somebody to talk to- somebody to be around the house.
‘At one time there was a boy... I wanted him to come and live with us,
‘but he is too old now. And he went away. I don't know where.’
Gertrude knew about this boy now, and all of Rhoda Brook's story,
but she and her husband never spoke about it.
And she never said anything to him about her visit to the Wise Man of Egdon Heath, or about the face in the glass.
She wanted so much to find a cure for her arm.
‘My husband cannot love me because of this arm,’ she thought.
‘So I must find a cure for it, I must.
‘The Wise Man helped me before. Perhaps he can help me again.’
So one day she walked to Egdon Heath.
She did not know the way, but at last she found the house.
‘You can send away other things, I know,’ she said to Trendle.
‘Hair on women's faces, and things like that. Why can't you send this away?’
She uncovered her poor, withered arm.
‘No, I'm sorry, but I can't help you,’ said Trendle.
‘Your arm is withered because of a curse. It's not easy to find a cure for that.’
‘Is there no cure, anywhere?’ asked Gertrude sadly.
‘There is one thing...’ Trendle began slowly. ‘But it's not easy for a woman to do.’
‘Oh, tell me!’ said Gertrude. ‘Please!’
‘You must put the withered arm on the neck of a hanged man.
‘You must do it before he's cold- just after they take his body down.’
Gertrude's face was pale. ‘How can that do good?’
‘It can turn the blood, and that changes many things in the body.
‘You must go to the jail when they hang someone, and wait for the body when they bring it in.
‘In the old days lots of people did it; these days, not so many do it.
‘But it is still the best cure for a curse.’
Back at home Gertrude thought about this for a long time.
She tried to forget it, but she couldn't.
She wanted to be pretty again, she wanted her husband to love her again.
Yes, she must try this cure, she must.
‘But how do I do it?’ she thought. ‘Where is the nearest jail?
‘How can I get there? How often do they hang people?
‘And when there is a hanging, how can I learn about it before it happens?’
So many questions. There was no one to help her, but slowly she began to find the answers.
She asked careful questions in the village, because country people always know everything.
One old man was very helpful.
‘The nearest jail is at Cas- terbridge, fifteen miles away,’ he told Gertrude.
‘They have trials there every three months, and there's usually a hanging after the trials.
‘Some poor man or boy takes a cow or a sheep, or just some bread, and they hang him for it.
‘Lots of people go to watch the hangings. I don't know why.’
The next trials were in July, Gertrude learnt.
She asked her husband about them, but Lodge said very little.
He was colder to her than usual, and she did not ask him again.
He was often away these days, so she did not see much of him.
July came, and Gertrude went to see the helpful old man in the village again.
‘Just one hanging this time,’ he told her. ‘It's for arson, I think. They're going to hang him next Saturday.’
Gertrude walked slowly home.
‘I cannot tell my husband about this... this cure,’ she thought.
‘And how can I be away from home for two nights? What can I say to him?’
But in the end it was easy.
On the Thursday before the hanging. Lodge came to her.
‘I'm going away for three nights,’ he said.
‘It's about farm work, so you can't come with me.’
‘That's all right,’ Gertrude said quietly. ‘I'm happy to stay at home.’
They said nothing more, and on Thursday Lodge drove away in the carriage.
