Hour of the Witch(58)
Wilder said, “And then there was the time when—supposedly—she hurt her shoulder when she fell.”
Peregrine said nothing.
“And most recently she—again, supposedly—fell upon a teapot.”
When Peregrine once more remained silent, Wilder asked, “To what dost thou attribute her string of…accidents?”
“We all have accidents,” she answered. “One time I stumbled on cobblestones and most severely twisted my ankle.”
But Wilder had made his point.
The governor looked at the men on either side of him and asked if they had any more questions. When they did not, he thanked Peregrine and asked that the next witness be brought to the front of the room.
As Peregrine started toward the stairs, Mary noted the way her father had a secure hold on her mother’s elbow, and how her mother glared at the pregnant woman with undisguised venom.
* * *
Mary listened as Goody Howland smeared her character, calling her “naught but a sinner whose heart is all lust and who has no acquaintance with shame or remorse,” and thought darkly to herself, Well, at least she is not accusing me of murdering her indentured servant. At least she is not accusing me of witchcraft.
“And so,” Caleb Adams was confirming, “thou saw her with Henry Simmons—Valentine Hill’s nephew—near the wharf.”
“Yes.”
Mary wanted to tell everyone that Henry had been helping her when she had nearly been run over by an oxcart, but she had learned her lesson: interrupting a witness curried no favor with the magistrates.
“She was behaving abominably,” said Beth. “It was as if we were back in London among the damned and she was but a wench awaiting the sailors.”
“Didst thou see her debase herself with other men?” Adams asked.
“When William Stileman first grew sickly and bedridden—before he was mostly sleeping and incapable of speech—Mary would visit, and the two of them would chat and chat. It was most unseemly. I grew much alarmed.”
“Alarmed?” asked Richard Wilder. “I can understand experiencing a great many emotions if what thou sayest is true. But, prithee: why in the world wouldst thou have been alarmed?”
And here Goody Howland began to shake her head energetically and said, pointing her finger at Mary, “She is a shameless, impious, and lustful woman. By her sins, she will not only pull down judgment from the Lord upon herself, but also upon the place where she lives.”
Some of the crowd nodded, as did Caleb Adams. And so Mary turned away and watched a servant throw two great logs onto the fire in the nearby hearth, and the sparks rise up into the chimney like fireflies. Her mind began to wander from the Town House and the testimony. She knew she should be listening; she should focus because this was her future, but she couldn’t. Not anymore. This was madness. Catherine had suggested that she had been trying to kill her brother; Goody Howland was suggesting that she wanted to seduce him. It couldn’t be both; the fact was, it was neither. Still, her mind roamed to the mysteries of the Devil’s tines and her barrenness. She thought of her needs in the night. She knew who she was; she knew what she was. Yes, Goody Howland was exaggerating either by delusion or by design. But did it matter? The woman had seen clearly into her soul.
Maybe she would have been better off if she had finished her portion of Peregrine’s or Rebeckah’s poisoned apples and died—or, like Hannah, been too sick to come here this morning. After all, she wouldn’t have had to listen to her character so roundly diminished. The truth was, she wanted nothing more right now than to leave. To turn from the magistrates, descend the stairs, and go…
Go where? There was nowhere to go. Here was her destiny.
She felt her father’s hand on her shoulder, and he was scrutinizing her with a look that was rich with love, but also with intensity. He was trying to draw her back. She stared up at him, unsure whether she was smiling or frowning or her mouth was a cipher.
Her left hand, cosseted by her glove, began to throb, and she massaged it with two of the fingers on her right hand. She told herself it was just the cold, but in her heart she feared it was something more: it was a sign.
Because, if one looked around carefully, wasn’t everything?
* * *
Caleb Adams asked Abigail Gathers whether she had ever seen Thomas Deerfield strike Mary, and no one was surprised in the slightest when she said no. After all, she was indentured to Mary’s mother and father and lived with them. She didn’t live with Thomas and Mary; she was never going to be present in the night when he did his worst. Adams asked the question for no other reason than that it would result in the magistrates hearing yet again that Thomas had never hit his second wife.
Was this really why Philip Bristol had taken her testimony the other day and, as Thomas’s lawyer, summoned her here this morning? Neither Mary nor her parents knew precisely what the girl had said to the attorney, and whether she might have revealed anything that was incriminating.
“What sort of person is Mary Deerfield?” Adams was asking her now.
Before Abigail could respond, Wilder turned to his colleague and said, “Caleb, that question has no relevance. Even if she is a sinner of the most reprehensible sort, a man has no right to strike his wife. Punishment is meted out here.”