Hour of the Witch(21)

“Dames such as those wound, too; it is with a slower poison, but one equally as hurtful in the end.”

“So be it. I can bear their malice. I cannot bear his.”

Her mother dried the wound with a towel. Her voice grew soft when she said, “I never thought thy marriage to Thomas Deerfield was a perfect arrangement. Thou wouldst have found a more suitable spouse had we remained in England. But I never thought him a brute. He wasn’t known for striking Anne.”

“Well,” Mary said, “he is about to be known for striking me.”



* * *





James Burden’s warehouse was adjacent to the customhouse, and he was just leaving as Mary and her mother arrived. Mary could see the alarm on her father’s face; it wasn’t that he was surprised by their visit, because Mary and her mother were frequent visitors. It was the wrap on her hand and the anxiety on her mother’s face.

“Well, this is a joy,” he began carefully as they stood outside the entrance, “but I can see there is more to this visit than most days. What has happened to thy hand, Mary?”

“My husband pretended it was a piece of meat he was planning to carve,” she said. “We have just come from the physician.” And then, as her father began to digest this remark, she provided the details there on the wide wooden planks of the wharf, as the men unloaded yet another ship that had just docked and three Indians arrived to trade the furs that filled their sled. By the time she had finished, his face had grown grave.

“We will see to this. I should beat the man myself.”

“But thou wilt not,” her mother said, her tone almost scolding.

“No, of course not. But this won’t stand. I’m appalled. Let us go see Richard Wilder. He’s both a friend and a magistrate.”

    Her mother looked wary. “Art thou sure this is the right course? I worry about the church. I think of the beadle and the elders and the reverend—”

“And I think of our daughter,” her father said, snapping at her mother in a fashion that Mary could not recall from all of her years living with them in England or here in Massachusetts. “This is a civil issue. Marriage here is but a civil contract. Mary and Thomas were married by a magistrate, and I will see to it that they are divorced by a magistrate.”

“Is that truly thy desire, Mary?” her mother asked. “Art thou certain?”

Mary knew that she was, but the magnitude of what she was proposing began to grow real. She thought of the reverend with his fierce eyes and his high forehead, his small, sharp beard. She thought of the congregation. She thought of what petty and cruel women such as Goody Howland would say. And she thought of the Lord. What would He say? Her resolve was starting to waver, but then farther down the pier she saw Henry Simmons—that fellow employed by Valentine Hill who had assisted her after she had nearly been run over by an oxcart—his hair the creosote-black she recalled and his eyes the color of sky berries in the first weeks of August. He was in a common jacket today and holding a ledger. She had presumed he was indentured to Hill, but perhaps he was something more: an employee or an apprentice. He noticed her just that moment and tipped his cap, smiling. And something about seeing him now struck her as a sign.

Her back stiffened and she said to her parents, “I haven’t a doubt. I am firm in my resolve. My heart needs healing, too. The sooner we begin, the sooner it, along with my hand, can begin to mend.”





No. Never….I never saw my master hit or hurt Mary Deerfield. Not even once.

    —The Testimony of Catherine Stileman, from the Records and Files of the Court of Assistants, Boston, Massachusetts, 1662, Volume III





Eight



Mary Deerfield and her parents met with Richard Wilder at midday, before he left for dinner. They met the magistrate at the new building they called the Town House, the hulking wooden edifice only two years old that the community had constructed at the head of State Street. It was three stories tall with twin cupolas, great chimneys, and wide, gabled windows off the third floor. Around the cupolas was a railed walkway from which a person could appreciate the way the city, barely three decades old, was expanding in all directions from the sea. (A year earlier, Mary recalled, she and Thomas had stood on its new balcony, and she had observed that the Boston construction was like the tide coming in and never leaving. He had corrected her, saying that the tide brought only seaweed, dead lobsters, and the wood from swamped ships.) Outside in the square, the stocks were empty today, and the whipping platform was quiet. The sun was moving amidst drifting puffs of white fleece, the clouds’ shadows spotting the cobblestones like puddles.

The Court of Assistants met on the second floor, where there were two large chambers. The court was not in session today and the governor was gone, and so the building was quiet but for a few selectmen and a lone scrivener leaving off a written pleading for Richard Wilder. There were smaller rooms on that second floor, too, including one that was usually locked, where the magistrates kept paper, quills, ink, and penknives. Wilder had a key and brought them to that room so they could chat in private. There were shelves and pegs on the walls and a table in the center, but neither a bench nor a chair. On one shelf were three copies of The Book of the General Lawes and Liberties Concerning the Inhabitants of the Massachusetts.