Eighteen
A small parade of witnesses spoke briefly after Thomas had left. Mary’s friend Rebeckah Cooper informed the magistrates that she had noticed bruises on the side of Mary’s face three times that she could recall, reiterating what she had told the scrivener.
“And did Mary tell thee that Thomas had hit her?” asked Caleb Adams.
“No.”
“Did thee ask?”
“No. But I—”
“But clearly thou were not alarmed,” observed the magistrate.
It was painfully reminiscent of Jonathan’s testimony, and when Rebeckah was leaving the Town House, Mary tried to imagine what she and Peregrine discussed when they were together. Was it their children? Their chores? Recipes for boiled apples and raisins? Or was there more to their friendship than Mary had ever conceived?
The tavern keeper, Ward Hollingsworth, followed, and said there were nights when Thomas Deerfield drank more alcohol than was needed to quench his thirst, but he never behaved badly. His voice might grow loud and boisterous, but Hollingsworth insisted that he had worse customers.
“And so thou managed him,” said Wilder, and Mary viewed it as an innocuous statement from the magistrate until she heard Hollingsworth’s response. Only then did she understand Wilder’s cleverness.
“Oh, there were nights when I chose not to refill his mug,” said Hollingsworth, and he said it proudly, and the damage he had inadvertently inflicted on Thomas Deerfield was evident on the faces of some of the men on the bench.
Next came her neighbor Isaac Willard, and Mary had no idea why he had been summoned. Her scrivener had not approached him. But when Caleb Adams initiated the questioning, she understood: this was yet more character assassination. Adams wanted details about that afternoon when she had stopped Goody Howland’s children from adding to the misery of an old man as he was lashed behind a wagon.
“And so thou made a decision to intervene?” asked Adams.
“I did. I saw Mary Deerfield showing sympathy for a Quaker, and I was disappointed and appalled,” Willard answered.
“Hast thou ever seen her behave in such a strange fashion?”
“Women who are barren often act strangely. It would be like an owl that couldn’t fly: it would be antithetical to our Lord’s purpose, and the animal would, by necessity, go mad,” he pontificated, and Mary wanted to throw up her arms in aggravation that the old man was allowed to make such pronouncements. The magistrates seemed to be absorbing the statement as if it were gospel wisdom, when Wilder finally spoke.
“Thou art speaking opinion only,” he said. “Thou art not speaking as a reverend.”
“I read the Bible faithfully.”
“I am sure thou dost,” Wilder said, and the governor thanked Willard and told him he could leave.
“May it be possible, governor, for Thomas to add another witness?” asked Philip Bristol as Willard was exiting the Town House.
John Endicott waved the back of his hand dismissively, but said, “Fine, Philip. Fine. But, prithee, let us proceed with haste.”
“Yes. Of course,” said the lawyer. He looked over his shoulder and motioned for a woman to come forward, and Mary saw that it was Peregrine Cooke. She had seemed tired to Mary the night before, but she looked beautiful this morning, and Mary attributed her loveliness both to daylight and to the grace that came with carrying a child. It was as if even her face had grown rounder in the last few days, as her body had started to accommodate the baby inside her. The sight of the woman caused Mary a pang of envy, and she lamented the state of her soul that she could begrudge Peregrine this happiness.
But the woman’s presence also caused her mother to whisper something into her father’s ear, and when Mary raised an eyebrow inquiringly, her father just shook his head. “Tell me,” she whispered.
“How dare Caleb Adams—or anyone—suggest that my daughter would ever consort with the Devil, while that one knowingly tried to poison us,” Priscilla replied softly.
“We don’t know that,” her father said. “And, by the light of day and with the evidence that only Hannah was sickened, I tend to think she tried to poison no one.”
“I disagree,” Priscilla muttered.
“Thou art Thomas’s daughter, correct?” Daniel Winslow was asking.
“I am. My name is Peregrine Cooke,” she said, tucking a loose strand of her almost apple-red hair back beneath her coif.
“And what dost thou wish to say?”
“I don’t wish to say anything, sir. I am here because my father’s lawyer urged me to be present.”
“Well, then, prithee, tell us why thy father’s”—and here Winslow sighed before saying the word with unhidden scorn—“lawyer has prodded thee onto this stage.”
“He asked me to answer thy questions.”
Winslow looked at the magistrates. “Do we have any?”
There was an awkward pause before Caleb Adams took the initiative. “Didst thy father ever strike thy mother?” he asked.
She looked out the eastern window before replying, “I never saw my father strike my mother.”
“And thy father raised thee well?”
“He read the Psalter every morning to my mother, my brother, and me, and then to my mother and me after my brother passed.”
Mary noted that these were not likely the categorical responses that either Bristol or the magistrate had expected.
“Peregrine,” Adams pressed, “thou sayest that thou never saw thy father hit thy mother.”
She nodded.
“Didst thou ever see him diminish her with words that were cruel or in a fashion that was profane?”
“Not in a fashion that was profane.”
“But cruel?” asked Wilder.
“Cruel is a relative term, Richard,” Adams said. “We might have different interpretations of the word. But profanity is an absolute, and Peregrine has made clear that Thomas never diminished his first wife in a manner that was profane.”
“Fair,” observed the governor, and Peregrine did not dispute this. Her gaze was blank.
“When thou were fourteen years old, thy father shot his horse because it kicked and killed thy mother. That seems to me an indication of the breadth of his affection for Anne,” said Adams.
“Dost thou have a question hiding in that recollection, Caleb?” Wilder asked, his tone almost good-natured.
“No,” Adams admitted. “I was young then. I still remember how moved I was.”
By a man shooting his horse, Mary thought.
Wilder leaned forward. “Peregrine, since thy father married a second time, hast thou ever seen bruises about Mary Deerfield’s face?”
Peregrine’s hands were clasped before her, almost as if in prayer. Mary waited. The court waited. Finally, she replied, “Yes.”
“Go on.”
“On the side of her face.”
“Dost thou know the cause?”
“My father or Mary explained them as thou hast heard. One time in the night she walked into a clothes peg. Another time there was a bruise from the spider.”
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.”
Adams stabbed a finger at him, smirking. “And vengeance? We know to whom that belongs.”
“I would not be so glib,” said Wilder.
“The question is relevant because of the potency of Mary’s allegations and the magnitude of her petition. Do we not have a right to know more about the woman’s character?”
The governor looked back and forth between Adams and Wilder and weighed in. “The question is allowed. Abigail, thou mayest answer the magistrate’s question.”
Abigail seemed to think about this. Then: “I like her much. She is very kind.”
“I thank thee,” said Wilder, but Adams again raised his index finger.
“Is she a sinner?” Adams asked.
“Aren’t we all?”
“Hast thou ever seen her sin?” he asked, and Mary feared that somehow, some way, he knew something.
“I do not know what dwells in her heart,” she replied.
“But thou knowest the meaning of adultery, yes, Abigail?”
The girl nodded.
“And thou knowest an unclean thought when one is brought forth in body and action?”
“I hope so. I listen attentively to the Psalter readings of my master, James Burden, and to the sermons of Reverend Norton.”
“Very good, Abigail. So, prithee, hast thou ever seen Mary Deerfield behave in a manner that is unclean?”
“He is but fishing,” Hull whispered into Mary’s ear. “He is merely trying to build upon what Goody Howland said.”
But Mary could see that Abigail was stalling, when she asked, “Unclean?”
“A fashion that suggests her willingness to allow her defiled soul to roam free.”
“I am but a small bird and my sight is clouded by youth. Besides…”
“Yes?”
Abigail glanced at James and Priscilla Burden. Mary realized how meticulously her scrivener or her parents had coached the girl. “Besides,” she continued, turning back to the bench, though her eyes were lowered, “who am I to cast a stone?”
Adams folded his arms across his chest. He cleared his throat and asked, his exasperation evident, “Hast thou ever seen her sin, Abigail? And answer knowing that thy Lord and Savior are watching thee as intently as I.”
She nodded her head ever so slightly, and her voice cracked when she responded. “Once. Perhaps.”
“Tell us, child.”
“Once—just the one time—I saw her and Henry Simmons holding hands and kissing. No, perhaps, they were only about to kiss. It all happened so quickly.”
“About to kiss?” asked Adams, wanting more. He sounded lustful himself.
“I am not sure I saw them, in fact, kiss.”
“Art thou suggesting they stopped because they saw thee?”
“Or they stopped because they came to themselves. They knew it was wrong what they were contemplating. Mary Deerfield is kind, sir. She is good.” Still, the girl looked forlorn.
“Why do I have a feeling there may be more to it than that?” Adams pressed.
“I know not what else there could be,” she said, her voice timorous. Mary thought the girl might cry at what she had to view as her betrayal of her master and his family.
“Speak, child!” roared Adams, his voice all frustration and pique.
And so the girl did, though her voice was halting and broken: “Perhaps they stopped because I dropped my bowl of eggs.”
“Elaborate.”
“I surprised them and I was surprised, in turn, by what I saw: Mary’s hand in his and their faces so close. I dropped my eggs.”
“And they heard thee?”
Abigail nodded.
“This is a grave accusation,” Wilder told the girl. “Art thou convinced of the rightness of thy memory?”
When she responded now, she was in tears, her shoulders heaving with every syllable. “I was shocked deeply by what I saw. I speak as a witness, not a gossip,” she mewled. And she was saying more, but her words were garbled by her crying, and Mary felt her skin tightening and thought: This is the price of my sin. I have earned this because I am craven and low, and I have brought this danger upon myself. I earned every bruise and broken bone, and I merited the wrath of my husband and having him dump a boiled salad upon me as if I, too, were but rubbish and ruin. I am…damned. I am a wastrel and a whore, and I have taken my Lord God’s love and treated it like sewage. She wanted to disappear, to vanish, to shrink into nothingness.
She might have gone on that way until, like Abigail, she, too, was wrecked before the magistrates, but then the crowd was parting and there—and she saw his shadow first, the darkness on the floor cast by the sun pouring in through the eastern windows—was Henry Simmons, striding up toward the magistrates. Confused, she looked toward her scrivener and her parents. Were they as shocked as she? She couldn’t decide. The constable, roused either by Abigail’s bleating sobs or the outrage of the crowd that this seeming interloper had appeared out of nowhere, rushed with his pike and stood between Simmons and the magistrates as if he expected the young man to attack one of the important men behind the great wooden balustrade. He held his wrought-iron spike as if it were a piece of horizontal field fencing, a barricade of sorts.
“I would like to speak, governor, if I may,” Henry said, his voice firm.
Endicott looked at the magistrates on either side of him, fixating first on Richard Wilder and then on Caleb Adams. Adams ruffled his hair and told the governor, “This is Valentine Hill’s nephew. Henry Simmons.”
Endicott said, “The one Mary Deerfield is accused of—”
“Yes,” said Wilder, and Mary had the sense that he was interrupting the magistrate so Endicott would not give voice to the crime. “Good day to thee, Henry,” he continued. Then he said to the constable, “Valentine Hill’s nephew poses no threat. We are not under attack. Thou canst stand down.” The constable rocked back and forth on his heels and toes, glowering at Henry, but retreated.
“Sir,” Henry continued, “I am grateful for thy time. I have come here to give account of my behavior and atone for my sins.” He looked at Abigail, who was wiping at her eyes with her sleeve, trying to gather herself.
The governor nodded. “Abigail”—and the girl visibly flinched at the sound of her name—“we thank thee for thy candor. Thou art finished and can return home.”
The girl bowed and then withdrew, choosing a path to the stairs that kept her as far from Mary and the Burdens as possible. If Mary were not fixated on Henry, she thought she might have gone to the girl and told her that she had said nothing untrue and to think well of herself. But there wasn’t time and, besides, Henry was about to speak.
“Henry, what hast thou to add?” asked Wilder.
Henry spoke without hesitation. “I am but a crumb of dust and unworthy of thy attention. I cast myself on the mercy of the court though I deserve none. Yes, I tried to kiss Mary Deerfield, just as that honest and fine young servant told thee. But we did not kiss, and the reason is that Mary resisted my advances. She said, and she said so without hesitation, that she was married and would not be seduced into an adulterous moment that would shame her before this community and before her Lord and Savior.”
Wilder crinkled his eyes almost good-naturedly. “So, thou art saying that we do not need to add adultery to her ledger?”
“That is correct.”
“But only to thine?”
“Yes.”
Wilder whispered something Mary couldn’t hear to the governor and then spoke softly to Caleb Adams. She felt a roaring inside her ears, a blacksmith’s flame, and thought she should rise up and admit that she, too, was a sinner, every bit as culpable and as rich with blame as Henry Simmons. She should tell them that Henry was lying, and though he was lying to protect her, it was still an outrage to the Lord. She started forward but felt her father’s grip on her upper arm, his fingers long and firm, the tentacles of the sea monsters sometimes drawn to great effect on the maps. He was squeezing her arm hard: she understood that she was to remain where she was. And so she did, hating herself even more for what she defined in her mind as a stomach-churning concoction of cowardice and obedience.
“Was this the only time that thou tempted Mary?” the governor asked.
“Yes. The only time.”
“And she resisted?”
“She did. Most capably and most determinedly.”
Adams turned to the other men: “Should we ask the servant girl to return? See if she will corroborate what this man is saying?”
“No, Caleb,” said the governor. “We needn’t do that. This is Valentine Hill’s nephew. I believe we can view his narrative without skepticism.” Endicott then leaned over the balustrade and said, “There was clearly no fornication. I think a lashing will suffice. Tomorrow at ten a.m., Henry Simmons, thou art ordered to appear in the square where thou wilt be whipped”—and he paused ever so briefly—“fifteen times on thy bare back.”
He nodded, and Mary thought of the Quaker she’d seen flogged, though his lashing was far more severe and he was paraded down the streets. But she’d seen other men and women whipped, their backs reddened and ravaged and scored until they looked more like butchered meat than a human’s torso. Mary glanced one last time at her father, and he shook his head slightly. She was quite sure that she alone had seen the gesture and knew what it meant. And though she was awash in grief and self-loathing, and though she knew that if she hadn’t been damned before she probably was now, she stood silent and still and waited to see what would happen next.
But there wasn’t anything next; there wasn’t anything more. There were no more witnesses to hear, no more testimonies to examine.
The governor said, referencing the small room where Mary and her parents had first met with Richard Wilder, “We will retire to the quills and discuss the petition. Has Thomas Deerfield returned?”
The constable reported that he hadn’t.
“Retrieve him, prithee.” Then he said to Mary, “This deliberation shouldn’t take long.”
“Wouldst thou suggest we retire for dinner?” her father asked.
Endicott rubbed at his fingers, which Mary could see were badly swollen at the joints. “No,” he said. “My hope is that we can render a decision quickly.” She glanced at her scrivener, worried that a decision that seemed obvious to the governor boded ill for her, but hoping in her heart she was mistaken. The scrivener, however, did not return her gaze, and his countenance was inscrutable.