Hour of the Witch(114)
“The Reverend John Norton,” Mary told him, and the minister came forward. As he was sworn in, Mary watched how the men behind the bench greeted him so much more warmly than they had just received the midwife or, before her, such women as Goody Howland or Constance Winston or even their prize witness, Catherine Stileman.
The reverend testified how Mary never missed a Sunday service and was a devoted churchgoer. It was all she could have hoped for.
“Tell me something,” said Caleb Adams. “If Mary Deerfield is devout, then how dost thou explain the presence of the Devil’s tines in her apron or the fact that she was seen with another pair in the night this past autumn?”
The reverend looked at his hands, contemplating his response. Then: “Thou viewest them with more malevolence than I do, Caleb. I do not use them and I do not approve of them, but I am not inclined to see them as instruments of evil.”
“But did Mary?”
“I cannot speak to that. I rather doubt it since it was her father who imported them.”
“Canst thou speak to the Devil’s coin? And what of the mark on the doorframe? I find that most disturbing.”
“I think thou art right to be discomfited by it. By both,” said the reverend. “Satan is insidious, and He is relentless. He is especially angered by our efforts here in Boston. He will do what He can to destroy our work.”
“Dost thou believe this incriminates Mary Deerfield?”
“If she carved the mark in the doorframe—”
Adams slammed his hand on the bench and said, “There was a coin with the mark in her apron! John, I mean no disrespect, but consider that one incriminating fact! The coin was in Mary Deerfield’s apron.”
“So the girl says.”
“Art thou calling Catherine Stileman a liar?”
“No. I am simply saying we have a story with two sides. I know the Mary Deerfield I see on the Sabbath and the Mary Deerfield who has chosen to view her barrenness as a blessing and to help minister to the Hawkes. That is the young woman I know,” he said.
Daniel Winslow sat forward and asked, “Dost thou believe that every parishioner thou seest in church is saved?”
“Of course not. We cannot begin to know who is among the elect and who is among the damned.”
“But we do know that a covenant of works is mistaken.”
“We know this with certainty.”
“And so, it seems to me,” said Winslow, “that the fact Mary attends church and helps minister to the Hawke children may be but a ruse to conceal her base relationship with the Devil.”
“Anything is possible. But Daniel? I believe also that some eventualities are more likely than others.”
* * *
The questioning of Reverend John Eliot proceeded in much the same way: he spoke highly of Mary’s work with the Hawkes and said he hoped that she would have the chance to continue. He added that he had higher ambitions for her yet: someday soon he wanted her to join him to tutor the children of the praying Indians in the way of the Lord.
“The Lord or Satan?” Adams asked dismissively.
“Only the Lord,” Eliot replied, not lowering himself to the magistrate’s level by snapping back.
“Unless her saintly behavior is but a disguise to mask her covenant with the Devil,” Adams said, and Mary felt her stomach turn at the nearness of the magistrate’s supposition to the truth. “For all we know,” he continued, “the woman taught the Hawke children for reasons that have nothing to do with returning the family to the Lord. For all we know, her motives were nefarious.”
“A fair point,” agreed Daniel Winslow.
And it may have been how close Adams was to the truth that led her to surprise her scrivener and her parents after Eliot was dismissed by announcing the name of the person she wanted brought next to the Town House for questioning: “For this trial to be fair and just, before I speak what may be my final remarks, I would like the captain of the guard to bring before thee my husband, Thomas Deerfield.”
Behind her, Benjamin Hull reflexively murmured, “No,” but it was so soft that only she and her parents heard him.
“What for?” asked Adams.
“Everyone seems to suppose that I carved the Devil’s mark into the doorframe and that I was walking around with the cutlery in my apron. No one is considering the possibility that Thomas might have been commandeered by Lucifer. Perhaps he took a knife and gouged a star into the wood to welcome the Dark One; perhaps he shifted the blame to me by planting the forks in my clothing.”
“Thou canst not mean that,” said Adams.
“I can. I do.”
“First, thou accused him falsely of plunging the Devil’s tines into thy hand, and now thou hast the temerity—when the very instruments are found on thy body—”
“No,” she said, cutting him off, “not on my body. In my apron when I was not even home.”
“Fine,” Adams said. “Fine. Thou still hast no basis for such an accusation. None! Thou tried to sully his name with thy failed divorce petition. Now thou dost seem to want to see him take the rope for thy crime. I won’t have it.”
She looked at Wilder, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes. Nor would the governor. It was just so much easier to bully her than her husband. And in her heart she knew that Thomas wasn’t in league with the Devil. Perhaps her willingness to accuse him was further proof that she herself was. But if it wasn’t she herself who had carved the mark or dropped the forks in that apron pocket, it seemed it could only be Thomas or Catherine. Goody Howland hated her, but enough to see her hanged? Not likely.