Hour of the Witch(55)

“Thou heard the physician yesterday afternoon. She fell on the spout of a teapot.”

“No! Dr. Pickering never said that!” Mary cried out, a reflex. “He said only—”

“That’s quite enough!” snapped Adams. “Thou wilt hold thy tongue. We are hearing now the testimony of Thomas Deerfield.”

Daniel Winslow gently touched the other magistrate’s forearm through his robe. “The woman is correct, Caleb. Dr. Pickering said he could not say how Mary broke her hand.”

“Or, perhaps, how it was broken by someone else,” added Richard Wilder.

Adams sighed. “To clarify: Thomas, thou sayest that thou never struck Mary with the Devil’s tines. Is that correct?”

“Yes. That’s right. I have never struck her with anything. She broke her hand when she fell on the teapot in the night.”

    Mary shook her head at his audacity, but remained silent.

Wilder steepled his fingers and then said, “And thou didst what?”

Thomas seemed confused. “I told thee: I did not hurt her. She hurt herself.”

Wilder shook his head. “No. Prithee: let us suppose, as thou hast said, that she fell on the teapot. It’s nighttime. What happened next?”

He had to think about this. He cleared his throat. Eventually he answered. “I helped stop the bleeding,” Thomas said. “I expected in the morning we would summon the physician.”

“In the morning, according to testimonies presented by Mary’s scrivener, thou went to thy mill. Thou didst not summon Dr. Pickering. Didst thou have a change of heart?”

“The bleeding had ceased. The wound seemed much improved.”

“So, thou went to work?” pressed Wilder.

“Yes. We prayed and had breakfast and I went to the mill.”

“Thy servant girl was gone. What did thee think of that? Where didst thou suppose she was?”

He shrugged. “Catherine had run off the night before. I know she is a fine girl. I supposed she had gone to the Howlands’ and she would come to her senses and be back to assist Mary with dinner. I fretted only for Mary and her wounded hand.”

“But instead, Mary left, too. That very morning. To what dost thou attribute her leaving?”

“I can think of no reason.”

“Didst thou squabble? Men and their wives do squabble, Thomas,” Wilder said. “That is not a crime.”

“Nor is it a reason for divorce,” Philip Bristol chimed in, but the magistrates as one looked askance at the lawyer. Even Thomas seemed surprised that his attorney had felt the need to say something. It was precisely the sort of behavior that gave lawyers such ignoble reputations.

“Thomas seems fully capable of answering for himself,” said Wilder.

The lawyer nodded but did not appear chastened.

“No,” said Thomas, “we did not squabble. I was worried about her. She was in pain. It would not have been a moment to argue. Besides, there was nothing about which we might have disagreed.”

    “Forgive me, prithee, but had thou been tippling the previous evening to the point of drunkenness?” Wilder asked.

Again, his lawyer chimed in: “Sir, were Thomas to confess to that, it would be confessing to a crime for which he has not been accused. This is not a hearing about whether he drinks to excess.”

Wilder looked at the lawyer, his irritation apparent. He seemed about to say something, but then Thomas began to speak.

“I know the taverns and ordinaries,” he began. “That is no secret and nothing for which I need either this court’s or the Lord’s forgiveness. But have I ever been fined for too much drink? No. Hast thou ever lashed me publicly for such offense? Of course not. This court knows me, it knows my mill. And, yes, though there is evil within me and my heart is inclined to sin; though I have reason often to be ashamed before God; the truth is that I have tried always to glorify God in all things. Though I will have many failures to answer for in the end, my comportment toward my wife, Mary Deerfield, will not be among them.”

There was a pause as most of the magistrates and the small crowd seemed genuinely moved by his speech. Unlike them, Mary was outraged. She wondered if he had rehearsed it or been taught the remarks by his lawyer, and had been waiting for the right moment to share his faux confession and well-acted prostration. In the end, it was Richard Wilder who responded. His response was short but focused, and Mary could see that perhaps he alone on the bench had seen through the facade.

“So, thou canst offer absolutely no motivation for Mary’s decision to return to her parents that morning?”

“None. Have I not told thee that? Have I not made that clear? My attorney says that the remedy for slander is a public retraction. Perhaps I should be filing a petition of my own demanding that Mary retract her charges that even once I have behaved with such low regard that would I strike her. Perhaps—”

“Thomas has no plans to do any such thing and take up the valuable time of the Court of Assistants,” said the lawyer, cutting off his own client. But it was clear, instantly, that much of the goodwill that Thomas had planted had been washed away like seeds in a storm. Mary shook her head. She told herself that if it came down to her word against his, they very well might take her word, even though she was a woman, because there was so much he could not account for and because his behavior—and his lawyer’s—was so distasteful.