Hour of the Witch(115)
“So, he will not be asked to address my accusation?” she asked.
Adams glanced at the governor, and the lead magistrate shook his head. “He will not,” said John Endicott. And that was that.
Thou believest the worst of me, but seem not to consider other possibilities.
—The Testimony of Mary Deerfield, from the Records and Files of the Court of Assistants, Boston, Massachusetts, 1663, Volume I
Thirty-Eight
And so it came down to her final summation. She was tired and hungry and cold; she felt poorly from her days in the damp jail. And she was scared. Most of the men on the bench were oblivious to the reasoning of the midwife and two esteemed ministers. Nevertheless, she was not going to confess to a crime that she had not committed. Yes, perhaps, the Devil had almost recruited her; He had almost gotten her to commit murder. But, in the end, she had resisted. Besides, it was clear that the magistrates were not inclined to be charitable toward a woman as difficult as she was proving to be.
She went to the center of the great room and stood before Governor Endicott.
“Sir, I can summarize quickly because I know how busy thou art,” she began. She and her scrivener had outlined her points, and she held in her hand a piece of paper with her notes. She saw her fingers were trembling. “I have been examined by a jury of women, including a midwife most respected by the church, and there is upon my body no sign of the Devil. No mark at all. Likewise, even the women who have spoken with great passion against me have seen no sign of possession. Again, none.”
Behind her, someone had murmured, “Here, here!” and she took comfort in the knowledge that at least one stranger in the Town House was on her side. She continued, “Reverend Norton has spoken well of my attendance on the Sabbath. Reverend Eliot has told thee of my efforts to return the Hawke children to our Lord and Savior. I have sat in the cold in their cottage and read to them from The New England Primer and told them of John Rogers’s sacrifice. I have shown them Milk for Babies. Here in Boston, I have tended to the sick, including Catherine Stileman’s own brother, William.
“My accusers have suggested as a motive that I wished to kill my husband and trade him for Henry Simmons. Prithee, recall Henry’s testimony when I petitioned for divorce. He said that he tried to kiss me and I resisted. Is there other evidence that I have committed adultery? I have heard none. I went to the wharves—”
“Mary, while there, thou didst ask Valentine Hill where his nephew was,” Adams reminded her, interrupting.
“I did. But as Valentine told thee: I wanted but to ensure Henry that he knew he was forgiven.”
“That does not seem likely to me,” said Adams.
“Believest what thou like,” she told him, but then she paused. She and her scrivener had agreed that she would deny Henry, which was what Henry wanted. He had sent that exact message to the jail through Benjamin Hull, urging her under no circumstances to acknowledge their relationship because it would increase dramatically the chances of a conviction. She had to protect herself; he could take care of himself, he told Hull to assure her. But now, when the word deny passed through her mind, she recalled Matthew, chapter 26, verse 34: Jesus informing Peter that the disciple will deny Him. Jesus had meant His prophecy, she believed, as a simple acknowledgment of human failing. Of weakness. But it was—and this was clear, too—an act of cowardice on the part of the apostle. One was supposed to die for his God. She thought again of John Rogers and his family and those agonizing flames. Henry Simmons was not a god, but he was a good man.
She took a breath: she would not die a coward. No. She would not add that sin to her ledger, as well. They were going to hang her; she would face the noose with her conscience clear.
“In fact, here is the truth,” she said when she resumed, standing tall. “While I would have liked very much to have been granted my divorce in the fall and would have liked very much to have married Henry Simmons—if he would have me, and I will not be so presumptuous as to assume he would—I never made a compact with Lucifer. Never.”
It took a beat for the crowd to digest what she was saying—that she had just confessed to an illicit desire. But after that beat, the disapprobation rained down upon her like a gale, women and men alike calling her an adulteress and a sinner, and shouting to the magistrates to hang her. The constable had to slam his pike onto the floor three times before they settled down. Only then could Mary continue: “I know not why everyone assumes that I made the mark in the doorframe. I suppose it is because of what Catherine Stileman says she found in my apron: the coin and the forks.”
“The Devil’s tines,” Adams corrected her.
“No. Forks,” she said firmly. “And I did not put them there. Nor, in the fall, did I bury a pair in the dooryard with a pestle.”
“The evidence suggests otherwise, Mary,” said Winslow.
“It was not me. Not in either case. And while thou hast ignored my suppositions, the fact remains that Catherine Stileman and Thomas Deerfield were as likely as me to have been responsible for the crimes for which I am wrongly accused.”
“So, thou art going to compound thy sins by unjustly accusing others of witchcraft?” Adams asked, shaking his head in disgust.
“No,” she replied. “But is it not the duty of this court to at least ponder long on those possibilities? For instance, I do not know whether it is because Catherine has feelings for my husband—and if she does, God help her—or because she blames me for her brother’s death. But I know as well as I know my Psalter that she could have buried those forks. Likewise, the forks she claims were in my apron? It is but my word against hers, and—”