Hour of the Witch(61)

Whenever we ponder a petition of this magnitude, I am obliged to ask myself this question. If now I were dying, how would I wish I had behaved during my life? For what would I crave remembrance, and for what will I have to answer to our Lord God and Savior?

—The Remarks of Magistrate Richard Wilder, from the Records and Files of the Court of Assistants, Boston, Massachusetts, 1662, Volume III





Nineteen



Mary needed desperately to sit and she could see that her mother did, too, and so Benjamin Hull suggested that they return to his office, where he had the chair behind his desk and the bench before it. It wasn’t a long walk, but Mary noticed how unsteady her mother was on her feet and the tenacity with which she clung to her husband’s elbow. Meanwhile, Mary kept her eyes peeled for Henry. She knew she didn’t dare speak with him if she spotted him, but her desire to see him after what he had done was almost unbearable. He was taking a lashing for her. He had preserved whatever remained of her reputation. She wondered what her sullen and big-shouldered husband would have said had he been present at the Town House when Henry had appeared and spoken with such cavalier self-disregard. Thomas was physically bigger than Henry Simmons, but was he a match for the younger man? Yes, Mary decided, he was. He was also a mean drunk and had the spine of a brawler. Regardless of how the magistrates ruled on her petition, regardless of whether tonight she was a free woman or imprisoned once more as the wife of Thomas Deerfield, Henry Simmons would need to be wary and alert, as attentive as the city’s sentinels.

When they arrived at the scrivener’s office, Hull insisted that Priscilla take his chair and Mary sit on the bench. He hadn’t any beer for them to drink, but he opened a bottle of Madeira because they all were desperately thirsty. He had but one tankard, and so the Burdens and Mary shared it and Hull drank from the bottle. He leaned against an inside wall, and her father stood beside the window, his gaze moving back and forth between the street and the rather ornate lantern clock—its bronze face had tulips—Hull kept on a side table across from his desk.

    “I think we have a little time,” he said to the family. “The Court of Assistants renders their verdicts quickly, but the men on that bench today have many opinions and they will all want to be heard.”

Mary considered asking him what he thought they would decide but was too afraid. She had the distinct sense that her mother felt the same way. And so she tried to push aside the anxiety that was gathering inside her like thunderclouds the color of burnt wood by half listening to her father and Hull’s small talk, but mostly by creating in her mind a ledger of the witnesses who had helped her cause and those who had hurt it. Some, she understood, belonged on both sides. She thought it revealing of the meanness of her spirit that she felt more anger at the moment toward Goody Howland than she did toward Thomas. Her father offered her mother another sip from the tankard, but her arms were wrapped tightly around her chest and she was sitting perfectly still. She shook her head, her eyes riveted on the clock.

“Peregrine Cooke may have tried to poison us last night,” Priscilla said when the two men grew quiet.

“Priscilla,” her father began, but her mother cut him off.

“Our scrivener needs to know this,” she said.

Hull waited, and so James Burden explained, “Peregrine brought us an apple dessert last night, and one of our servant girls got sick. It may have had nothing to do with the apples, and if it did, it may have been an accident. She made some for Thomas, too, and he felt no ill effect.”

“It most assuredly had to do with the apples. All of us tasted something rancid and foul and ate but a bite or two—except the girl, who, apparently, rather likes tart apples. And she is the one who collapsed.”

“Why would Peregrine do such a thing?” Hull asked.

“To prevent Mary from speaking today,” Priscilla replied.

“Did she?”

“Did she speak? Thou knowest the answer to that. No, but Peregrine could not have foreseen that. And certainly Mary’s presence made it more difficult and unpleasant for Abigail to share what she saw.”

    “Priscilla,” James said, “Abigail was going to do all that she could to protect our daughter, regardless of whether Mary was present.”

“It could have been Goody Cooper,” Mary murmured.

“Rebeckah?” her mother asked. “She is thy friend.”

“I only mention her name because Peregrine and Rebeckah were cooking the boiled dessert together. If we are going to pursue all possibilities—”

“Mary, that is enough,” her father said.

She looked at him and then at her mother, but Priscilla was glaring out the window. Her father was correct. She needed to stop worrying that thread. And the scrivener was right, too: Peregrine probably hadn’t been thinking about the trial when—if—she had mixed something fetid and evil in with the apples. Mary recalled her suspicions when she had been alone in her bedroom last night: perhaps her daughter-in-law wanted to sicken her—or, perhaps, murder her. She wanted to keep her away from Jonathan. Hadn’t the other woman made that clear when she brought the dessert to the Burdens’ house? But even this seemed absurd when she thought it through: how could Peregrine expect to sicken only Mary?

Oh, but maybe she didn’t care. Let the others grow ill, too.