Hour of the Witch(54)
“Goody Howland, hello,” said Priscilla Burden, smiling. Even now—the morning when Beth was going to suggest that Mary was an unregenerate sinner—Priscilla was civil, either because her heart really was that filled with Christ’s love or because she believed that Beth’s testimony might be swayed at the last moment with a small act of courtesy. “I pray thy family is well.”
Goody Howland’s face grew flushed. She looked at Mary’s parents and at Hull and must have felt cornered. Ambushed. In the end, she nodded, and continued ahead of the Burdens up the steps to the second floor. Mary wished she understood, if only an inkling, why the woman despised her so.
* * *
It was colder in the Town House in the morning than in the afternoon, both because the sun hadn’t had a chance to warm the building after the first truly frigid night of the season, and because the fires in the great hearths weren’t lit until breakfast. Mary was aware of the way that her whole body wanted to curl up inside her cloak, her shoulders hunching, but she stood tall, hoping to project a confidence that she did not in fact feel.
Once more she stared up at the magistrates behind their high bench and waited with her parents and her scrivener, who stood like a phalanx around her. The constable rapped his iron pike on the wooden floor, the crowd—smaller than yesterday because the other petitioners had been alerted that the day would begin with the continuation of the divorce proceedings—grew quiet, and John Endicott swiveled his head and gazed at the men on either side of him.
“No jury again today?” he asked Richard Wilder.
“Not this morning. We have impaneled one for the petitions we will hear this afternoon.”
The governor nodded. He seemed even older than yesterday.
Across the room, she saw Thomas and their eyes met. He smiled at her and she looked away. He seemed to be suffering no ill effects from the apples. Abigail was beside her mother, and still Mary was unsure precisely what the girl would say. It crossed her mind that the idea Peregrine may have tried to poison them might make a difference. The notion gave her hope.
Philip Bristol, Thomas’s lawyer, took a step forward and said, “If it pleases the court, might Thomas Deerfield speak next? I know thou were planning on hearing Goody Howland and Abigail Gathers first, but Thomas has a farmer traveling here from Salem this morning. Thomas expected we would have finished yesterday afternoon, and so, one can suppose, the gentleman will arrive as planned with his very last delivery.”
“And why must the miller be present?”
“There is still some negotiation to be done.”
“Does he propose to speak and to leave? To not remain for our decision on the petition?” asked the governor.
“He plans to return. He hopes to meet with the good fellow from Salem and then immediately ride back here,” Bristol said, pointing a finger toward the floorboards as if planting a stake in the ground.
The governor didn’t seem to mind when he understood the plan, but Mary thought her principal ally among the magistrates, Richard Wilder, looked exasperated. “Then we shall begin with the husband,” said Endicott. “Prithee, step forward, Thomas.”
She watched Thomas stand before the bench, rising a little in his boots as he was sworn in. “What hast thou to say in response to Mary Deerfield’s request to divorce thee?” asked the governor. She studied her husband’s profile and was struck by the veiny redness of his nose, and how from this angle it looked too big for his face. She had assumed when they married that she would come to love the man. A thought crossed her mind, and it frightened her: Did he know on some level that she had never loved him and that was why he mistreated her so cruelly? Was this all her fault? She shook her head and banished the idea. She had done nothing to be hurled into a hearth or beaten about the face or have her hand speared by a silver fork. Still, the reality gave her pause. The truth that she did not love the man did not justify his cruelty, but it could possibly explain it.
“I view Mary as a good helpmeet,” Thomas replied. “I love her as a man should love his wife.”
“Thou dost not wish to be divorced from her,” said Caleb Adams. It was a statement, not a question.
“I do not.”
Adams looked down at a paper before him and then said, “She has accused thee of beating her. Dost thou deny it?”
“Yes.” The magistrate waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. The room was silent but for the sound of the wood crackling as it burned in the two great fireplaces.
Finally, Adams continued, “Thou hast never hit her?”
“Never,” said Thomas, and Mary had to take a deep, slow breath to contain her frustration at his lies. If he lied a third time, would she hear a cock crow? Then she felt guilty at the very idea that she—so meek and lowly—would liken her plight to her Lord’s. Still, the lies galled her. Moreover, it seemed as if Thomas had understood the cue from Caleb Adams: the magistrates were desirous that he offer a more embellished response. And so he went on, “As I said: I love her. I am a sinner, yes, but I understand my role as a husband.”
“How dost thou correct her failings?”
“As our Lord would wish to correct us: with love and with kindness.”
“Mary wrote in her petition and testified here yesterday that a few weeks ago thou plunged the Devil’s tines into her left hand, breaking the bone. Dost thou deny it?”