When she arrived home she found Peter Duston’s wagon in the driveway. As she drew up her shay beside it, she couldn’t stop herself letting out a single loud sob. Jonathan Shooks had shaken her badly and the very last thing she needed now was to have Peter Duston explaining to her how he was going to fit Francis’s rigid body into a coffin.
Jubal must have heard her coming because he came round the side of the house and helped her down. Under his wide floppy hat his whiskery face was very grave, and his grey eyes were full of sorrow. His hands were so callused that they felt like leather gloves that had been soaked in the rain and then dried in the sun.
‘The finish carpenter is here, Goody Scarlet.’
‘Yes, Jubal. I know.’
‘I am very grieved for you, ma’am. The Reverend Scarlet was never a fingerpost. He lived the way he asked others to live. He was always the best of men who gave you his heart.’
‘Yes, Jubal.’
She went inside the house just as Peter Duston was coming out of the parlour. He was about to close the door behind him but Beatrice said, ‘It’s all right, Mr Duston. You can leave it open. Have you completed your measurements?’
‘Yes, Goody Scarlet. And I have some real fine basswood to make the coffin out of. You could have some fancy carvings on it if you’d care to.’
‘No, thank you, Mr Duston. I think the Reverend Scarlet would have preferred plain.’
‘Yes, ma’am. Whatever you say.’
Beatrice went into the parlour. Basswood for your coffin, my love. How sadly appropriate. Francis used to suffer from headaches, especially when he had been working on a sermon for too long by candlelight, and she used to make him an infusion of linden flowers to relieve them, linden flowers from the basswood tree.
‘His arms, ma’am,’ said Peter Duston, who was still standing close behind her. ‘I’ve tried to think of another way, believe me, like steeping him in a mixture of water and maple syrup, maybe. To be honest with you, though, I don’t believe we have much of a choice except to – you know.’
Beatrice turned around and Peter Duston was making a sawing gesture in the air.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘Do it when you bring the finished coffin. How long will it take for you to make?’
‘I’ll start work on it today, Goody Scarlet. You will have it by Friday morning.’
‘Thank you.’
She left the parlour without lifting the sheet to look at Francis’s body. She had seen so many bodies in her lifetime, either bloated on the riverbank, or crouched in a doorway stinking of gin, or lying in their coffins in people’s front parlours, their skin waxy and their lips pursed. She had never thought when she had seen those bodies that the people they had once been were still within them. Those people had gone – quietly closing the door behind them, as she was doing now.
*
She spent nearly two hours in the kitchen, writing letters to Francis’s family and friends in England, and also to his fellow ministers in neighbouring parishes. Each letter began ‘It is with a heavy heart...’ and told them briefly that he had lost his life to a person or persons unknown.
She asked none of them for help. She was sure in her own mind that she was more than capable of discovering how Francis had been murdered, and who had murdered him. It might take some time, but she had more knowledge of potions and plants than anybody else she knew, with the possible exception of the Widow Belknap, and for all she knew the Widow Belknap was somehow involved in Francis’s death. Perhaps she was the demon that Jonathan Shooks claimed was responsible for so much havoc, or perhaps she was possessed by a demon, or even by Satan himself.
In spite of her firm belief that there was a logical explanation for everything that had happened, she thought it would be unscientific to rule out altogether the possibility that there had been some supernatural influence involved.
Beatrice had just finished writing to Geoffrey and Lavinia Scarlet, Francis’s parents, when she heard Noah crying in his crib upstairs. Mary was outside, pegging up the wash, so she put down her quill and went to see what was wrong with him. Mary had put him down less than a half-hour before and usually he slept for at least two hours.
When she went into his bedchamber she found him standing in his crib, hot and sobbing. His cheeks were bright red, so she could see that he had started teething again. She opened the drawer of the chest beside his crib and took out his amber teething-necklace. When he sucked it, it would gently soothe his gums with spirit of amber.
She picked him up and cuddled him for a while, but when she tried to lay him down he started crying again.
‘Come on, then,’ she said. ‘Come downstairs and help mama to finish writing her letters. How would you like some apple sauce? Apple sauce always makes those nasty teeth feel better, doesn’t it?’
She carried him downstairs, but as she did so she saw that the front door was wide open. Mary must have come into the house for something and forgotten to close it. She went along the hallway, but when she reached the open door she stopped in shock. The brown-cloaked figure was standing outside, only about thirty or forty yards away. He was right in the middle of the driveway, his face concealed by his hood, holding up his staff, not moving.
Beatrice was tempted to call out to him and demand to know what he was doing there, but Noah was still grizzling and she didn’t want to upset him by shouting. She stood in the doorway for a few moments staring at the figure, and the figure was presumably staring back at her. With Francis lying rigid on the parlour floor, she thought that the figure looked more like the Angel of Death than ever.
She closed the front door very slowly and deliberately to show the figure that she wasn’t frightened of him, even though her heart was fluttering like a songbird trapped in a cage. She went back into the kitchen and sat Noah in his high-chair. Dear Lord, she thought, please help me through this. Please give me strength. Is there no way that You can turn back the days, like a prayer-wheel, so that none of this ever happened?
She went to the cupboard and took out a jar of apple sauce. She placed a bowl on the table in order to spoon some out, but as she did so she saw there was a fresh sheet of paper lying across the letters that she had been writing and that her quill was lying beside it. A drop of ink had fallen from the nib and stained the pine wood beneath it.
Written on the sheet of paper were the words: Your sorrow gives me sorrow but also hope. But be warie of those who seem to be freinds. There is ever a price to be paid.
Beatrice picked up the sheet of paper. The ink was still wet and it smudged the ball of her thumb. She looked towards the front door and realized that the brown-cloaked figure must have quickly and quietly entered the house while she was upstairs seeing to Noah and written these words.
But what did they mean? Why did her sorrow give him sorrow, too, ‘but also hope’. Hope of what? And who were those ‘freinds’ of whom he had warned her to be ‘warie’? And what was the price that had to be paid?
She put down the letter and stood staring at it as if more writing might magically appear to explain what it meant. Perhaps she ought to seek help, after all. Perhaps Major General Holyoke might understand it. It appeared to be a friendly warning, and yet she wasn’t so sure. There was something threatening about it, too. There is ever a price to be paid. In other words, pay up or else.
More than anything else, Beatrice wanted to know who he was and why he was lurking in the woods around the parsonage. She didn’t have any more time to think about it, though, because Noah had dropped his amber teething-necklace out of his mouth and was crying for some apple sauce.
*
Four more days passed. On the fifth day, Francis was buried in the graveyard outside the meeting house. It rained steadily and quietly all day and it was unseasonably chilly. There was a feeling in the air of time passing and of the summer being almost over. Some of the trees were already beginning to turn rust-coloured or red.
After the funeral the wake was held in the meeting house because there were too many guests to be accommodated in the parsonage. Some of the church dignitaries had come all the way from Salem, and some from Essex and Ipswich.
Beatrice stood by the door as the guests began to file out into the rain, thanking them for coming. Little Noah stood patiently beside her in a long black linen shirt that she had made for him, with a black ribbon pinned to his pudding cap. He kept nodding his head from side to side like a pendulum and singing his favourite nursery song under his breath, ‘Hickory Dickory Dock’.
George Gilman came over to her, noisily clearing his throat. ‘I shall miss your late husband very much, Goody Scarlet. He was a gentle man, wasn’t he? Gentlest man I ever met. But very courageous, too. I believe he could have driven the Devil out of Sutton, had he only survived. Then none of us would have had to sacrifice so much.’
‘I know that Ebenezer Rowlandson deeded over thirty-six acres to Jonathan Shooks, and you yourself almost as many.’
George Gilman looked surprised.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Beatrice. ‘We were told in confidence by Thomas Norton. He was gravely concerned about what was going on.’
‘Well, he had no right to breach our confidence, but I think he was justified in his concern – especially since Ebenezer Rowlandson and I have not been the only victims. I’m not sure exactly how much Robert Axtell has given him, but I know that it includes two thirds of his pine forest. Then there’s James Moody out at Fiddler’s Lake and William Tucker at Billingshurst, and probably others.’
‘I can scarcely believe it.’
‘Oh, yes, By the time Satan is satisfied, we shall have lost between us nigh on five hundred acres to Mr Shooks, maybe even more.’
‘Could you not have refused him?’
‘Are you serious, Goody Scarlet? Look what happened to Nicholas Buckley when he refused him his twenty acres! Melted! Turned into soup! And as I understand it, Shooks went to visit Judith Buckley the day after her husband’s funeral and made the same demand of her that he had made of Nicholas. She showed him the door, and what was the consequence of that?’
He shook his head and then he said, ‘I have no idea to whom the Buckleys’ property will have been bequeathed, that’s if they made a will at all, but if I were that person I would be very compliant indeed if Mr Shooks were to come a-calling on me!’
Beatrice said, ‘Thank you, Mr Gilman. I had no idea how many farmers were involved. You’ve been exceedingly helpful.’
‘None of us had any choice,’ said George Gilman. A muscle in his cheek was twitching. ‘Either we sign over some of our land, or we face the prospect of our cattle dying on their feet, or our crops being blighted – or, worst of all, our wives and children being burned alive and hung up in front of us like – like—’
He was so angry and ashamed of himself that he couldn’t find the words, but all Beatrice could think of was those three charred slaves, slowly rotating on the ends of their ropes.
George Gilman went to join his wife and left the meeting house, leaving Beatrice so agitated that she could barely speak when Henry Mendum came up to her.
‘My deepest condolences, Goody Scarlet,’ he told her, taking her hand between his. She thought his face looked redder than ever, and more congested, as if it were about to burst at any moment. His wife stood behind him in the same black silk bonnet she had worn for the Buckleys’ funerals, trying her best not to look supercilious.
‘Thank you, Mr Mendum,’ said Beatrice, taking a deep breath. ‘You are indeed very kind.’
‘Harriet and I would like you to know that if there is anything we can do for you, you have only to ask.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Um, it may be premature of me to say so, but a new minister will obviously have to be appointed in due course, and at that time the church will have to ask you to vacate the parsonage and find new accommodation.’
‘I take no offence, Mr Mendum. I realize that.’
‘Um, I understand that you have title to some of the land beyond the parsonage, and I presume you may be thinking of building yourself a new home on it, in due course. In the meanwhile if you have any difficulty in finding yourself a place to, um, rest your head, as it were, then you and your young boy are more than welcome to come stay with us, for as long as is necessary.’
‘That’s very considerate of you both, thank you.’
‘A great evil has come among us,’ said Henry Mendum, his jowls wobbling dramatically. ‘A great, great evil! However, I believe, as indeed your dear husband believed, that our faith is strong enough to carry us through these times of tribulation and everything will soon be settled again. One we have given Satan all he demands, I am sure that he will leave us be and we will all prosper as before.’
‘I hope so, Mr Mendum. I sincerely hope so.’
*
When they returned home Mary suggested that Beatrice should rest for the remainder of the day. If she wanted to sit in the parlour and think about her life with Francis, and pray for his soul, Mary would bring her a cup of tea and look after Noah for her.
Beatrice said no. She didn’t want to sit alone in the gloom of this rainy afternoon and grieve. She wanted to get on with all the chores she had to finish, and while she was doing them she could churn over in her mind everything that she had learned today about Jonathan Shooks and his land-hungry demon. She was deeply disturbed that he had taken so much acreage. For the people of Sutton, the land that they owned was everything. It not only fed them, it also represented their status in the community and the heritage they would pass on to their children and grandchildren. Even more fundamentally, it was having settled here in New Hampshire and having been able to buy their own land that had made it possible for them to live according to their strict and simple religious beliefs. They had made this into God’s country. Yet now they had been terrified by Jonathan Shooks into surrendering acres of it to Satan.
She changed into a simple grey cotton bed-gown and apron and went outside into the vegetable garden. It was still drizzling, although the sky was beginning to clear, and now and then an anaemic sun showed its face behind the clouds, like an elderly relative peering hopefully through the curtains. She began to dig up parsnips with a trowel and drop them into a trug.
She had only dug up eight or nine when she stood up straight and closed her eyes and felt the drizzle prickling against her face. She couldn’t believe that if she called out ‘Francis!’ he wouldn’t answer her now, or ever again. She slowly sank to her knees in the mud and opened and closed her mouth in a silent howl of anguish, the tears streaming down her face to mingle with the rain.
*
The next day was warm and sunny and she baked bread in the morning and fed the pigs and scoured all her cooking pots. Goody Rust and Goody Mayhew came to call on her during the afternoon and they had tea together in the parlour. They talked about Jonathan Shooks for a while, and the tragic deaths of the Buckleys, and then about Francis, but Beatrice found it impossible to speak when they started talking about Francis, her throat simply closed up. They changed the subject to young Goody Woodward, who had been encouraged by her parents to marry a prosperous fisherman eleven years older than herself, but who had been seen in the company of a much younger man when her husband was away at sea. It could well be a matter for the courts.
That night she lay alone again in bed and found it difficult to sleep. She whispered ‘Francis’ and reached across the quilt, but there was nobody there.
*
‘Noah!’ she called. She knew where he was hiding, behind the pantry door, but she pretended that she couldn’t find him. ‘Noah! Where are you! I shall go to the village without you!’
He burst out of the pantry, giggling. Beatrice hoisted him up and carried him through to the parlour to put on his smock. She was going to take him to play with Goody Willowby’s two little boys, so that she could have some time to do some shopping. She was fastening his laces when she heard horses’ hooves and the grinding of carriage wheels on the driveway. She knew who it was even before she looked out of the window.
She opened the front door and Jonathan Shooks was already standing in the porch with his hat under his arm. There were dark crescent-shaped sweat stains under the arms of his pale grey coat.
‘Good day to you, Widow Scarlet,’ he said and gave her a bow.
She didn’t answer, so he cocked his head to one side as if to say, Why aren’t you speaking to me? Have I done something to offend you?
‘I must apologize for visiting unannounced,’ he told her. ‘Usually, well, I would leave my card. But this is a matter of some urgency, I’m afraid.’
‘I have nothing to say to you, Mr Shooks.’
‘Then you are placing yourself in considerable jeopardy, Widow Scarlet, as I said to you before. The demon with whom I am dealing will stop at absolutely nothing to get what he desires. And as you have already witnessed, he is horribly inventive in his means of persuasion.’
‘You can leave this property now, sir, and I do not wish you to set foot on it again.’
‘Of course, I quite understand your animosity towards me. But please don’t blame the messenger for the message. I need to know for certain that you are prepared to make over that acreage of yours that we discussed at the Penacook Inn. That is all. As soon as you have agreed to that, I will depart instanter and leave you in peace and you need never set eyes on me again.’
‘No,’ said Beatrice. ‘I will not make over so much as a single square inch. Now, if you would kindly go?’
Jonathan Shooks sighed and shook his head. ‘You do understand that you are making a very grave mistake? Ask yourself, which is more important, life or land?’
‘So, if I don’t agree to deed you my land, you will kill me? Is that what you’re saying?’
‘My dear Widow Scarlet, I would not touch one hair of your very becoming head.’
‘But your demon will?’
‘Your late-lamented husband was a man of the church. You should know better than most what demons are capable of doing.’
‘I also know what men disguised as demons are capable of doing. I have come across more than a few of those in my time as a pastor’s wife. Drunks, thieves, wife-beaters.’
‘Oh, now then. Every wife needs a thrashing now and again. Otherwise, think how disobedient they might become! You know what they say about women and asses and walnut trees.’
‘Go,’ said Beatrice.
Jonathan Shooks had been smiling at her, but now his smile dropped from his face as if he were never going to smile again.
‘Widow Scarlet, I myself would never dream of harming you, and I have not harmed a single soul in Sutton since I have been here. You have witnessed me swear to that on the Holy Bible. But I caution you now that if you refuse to deed me those acres that I have requested, then you will suffer for it as surely as the night follows the day.’
‘Go,’ Beatrice repeated.
‘Are you sure you mean that? I am giving you a last chance here.’
Beatrice said nothing this time, but folded her arms across her breasts and waited.
‘Very well,’ said Jonathan Shooks. ‘But I am very saddened that you are so obstinate.’
He walked back to his calash and said something to Samuel, who nodded and made an odd whooping sound. Beatrice closed the front door, but after she had done so she stood with her back to it, hyperventilating.
Noah appeared in the kitchen doorway and frowned at her. ‘Mama?’ he asked her. ‘Mama?’