Hour of the Witch(35)

    Monday, the day after the Sabbath, Mary’s parents brought her to see him. It was neither her choice nor her parents’. The reverend had summoned them. James and Priscilla Burden were well acquainted with the leader of the First Church. James reassured his daughter that Thomas would not be present; the minister had made it clear that this might be a prequel to mediation, but at this point he wanted merely to understand the specifics of the marital crisis.

“I am tired of explaining to everyone why I am doing this,” Mary had seethed when her father had told her that the reverend insisted on seeing them. “By the time I address the Court of Assistants, the tale will be but stale pottage, even to me.” Nevertheless, she knew the power of the minister and so she had acquiesced.

Now, after she told the minister of the times that Thomas had struck her and the story of the fork, after she had told him that he often abused her cruelly with words, she sat back in the upholstered chair in the study in the man’s house. It was among the most sumptuous and comfortable chairs she had ever seen here in Boston, the fabric a French paragon and the pattern blue irises. Her parents were seated in the cane-back chairs her father and the minister had brought into the study from the dining room. John Norton leaned across the desk and said, “I am sorry for all thou hast endured, Mary.”

“I thank thee.”

“No need. I do not begrudge thee for considering such an extreme step.”

Mary watched her father’s reaction. Was he relieved? Did it seem to him, too, that this most powerful reverend was going to support her petition for divorce? But then John Norton continued, “Thomas denies ever hitting thee.”

“So, he adds a lie to his ledger,” she said.

“Perhaps. But he speaks highly of thee. He speaks with appropriate reverence. He claims not to understand thy womanly venom.”

“I have no venom, womanly or otherwise. I am no serpent and have not sought association with serpents—neither real ones nor ones clad in linsey-woolsey.”

    The reverend’s gaze grew a little cold. She had not been impudent, but she wasn’t acquiescing, either. “If we are to be role models, we must exhibit our justification,” he said. “The Lord scowls at impertinence. Let us not forget the price of rebellion.”

“I am not rebelling against the Lord. I am seeking only to divorce myself from my husband.” From the corner of her eye she saw that her mother appeared anxious.

“The scrivener Benjamin Hull has come to me and requested I appear at the hearing,” said the reverend.

“What has he asked of thee?” her father inquired.

“He believes it would be beneficial to thy daughter if I shared the Church’s opinion on whether a husband may strike his wife.”

“I am grateful,” James said.

“I have not yet decided whether I will appear in person. I may merely give testimony he can write down and present to the magistrates.” Then the reverend turned his attention back upon Mary. “I have heard tell of this three-tined fork. There has been much discussion of thine opinions of its use.”

“?’Tis just a utensil, John,” her father said, before she could respond.

“It seems needless to use a three-tined utensil when a two-tined one has always been sufficient,” the reverend observed.

“For carving, yes,” James said.

Mary closed her eyes, frustrated at the turn this conversation was taking. But she opened them when she heard the reverend saying, “I’ve always found a knife and a spoon sufficient, but my sense is that if the Devil tries to seduce one, He will find better means than a fork.”

“I agree,” said her father. “If thou wouldst like to try one—”

“No. But I thank thee, James.”

“For Thomas, it was but a weapon,” Mary reminded them. She felt it was important to reiterate that the issue was how her husband had attacked her with the fork—how that had been the last and final blow she would endure. Could they not feel her longing, as palpable as the sun on one’s face in July, to be free of him? “It was just a few minutes ago that I recounted for thee how he stabbed me with it.”

    “I understand, Mary. I do,” insisted Norton. “Now, it is not common knowledge, but I am sure thy father knows this: I opposed the execution of Ann Hibbens six years ago.”

“I do recall that,” her father agreed. Her mother’s face had grown ashen. Ann Hibbens had been hanged as a witch in Boston in 1656, and neither her wealth nor the fact that she was the sister-in-law of a former governor of the colony had spared her. John Endicott himself had handed down the sentence. The idea that Ann Hibbens was even a specter in their conversation was chilling: Mary’s petition was about divorce, and yet somehow it kept blowing like a dead leaf back toward Satan.

“I would have preferred excommunication,” he continued. “But I am sure thou hast heard the news from Hartford, of the handmaidens the Devil has mustered this year.”

“Yes, we have heard,” James told the minister.

“If thou dost insist on this appearance before the Court of Assistants, Mary, there will be aspersions upon thy character. There may even be accusations,” the reverend said.

“There will also be justice,” she added.

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. We are mortals, and try as we might, we see through a glass darkly. Among the people I expect will be summoned to speak against thee are thine indentured girl, Catherine; Goody Howland; and Dr. Pickering. There may be others.”