TWENTY-THREE

Alice marked time by the increase in her strength, the decrease in pain in her breasts and loins. The widow remained in a constant state of great excitement, her voice rising from below at frequent intervals. At first Alice thought she argued with Freeman, but after a time she came to understand that Freeman wasn’t there, and that the widow argued with the guard they had assigned to Alice until she could travel to the gaol. Alice’s strength had returned enough so that she might have rekindled her old habit of creeping to the stairs at any time to listen to the on-again-off-again struggles below, but she could think of no reason to take the trouble.

The widow too seemed to wish to keep her where she was. She fed her, washed her, and helped her to the night jar as she was able but asked her nothing, and Alice made no offer. The hours and days since the first pain had struck seemed to weave together and fall apart, reconnecting themselves in no kind of pattern. She recalled great pain, and one moment of such bliss she wished she might have died at that minute to keep hold of it as it was, but the next thing she recalled with any great certainty was the sheriff. She drifted in and out of sleep, ate, sat up, and walked the length of the room as the widow directed, but sleep was the thing she craved, although it was never peaceful.

She dreamed of the babe, a great bloody babe, lifting bloody hands to strangle her; she dreamed of the widow raising scarred hands to strangle her; she dreamed of Verley come after her, and Freeman accosting him, not to rescue Alice but to demand his five pounds reward for her capture. She dreamed of her mother, finned and swimming across the floor toward her, tears puddling around her, and her father, kicking the trunk, which had a dead, bloody babe inside it. If she dreamed of Nate she didn’t remember it.

She woke to more shouting below: men, at least two, neither voice recognizable, and a woman she thought a stranger also until she realized it was the widow, in as hot a fury as Alice had ever heard her. At length the widow appeared with a bowl and a plate, her face raw red, her jaw a ridge of locked, jumping muscles. She sat down on the bed and fed Alice a salty broth along with some soft, sweet bread; it tasted very fine, and Alice felt very warm under her coverlet; it occurred to her that if she could have erased the commotion around her she would have said that her life had come around to a good spot. She was out of pain, she had been shed of the babe, she had kept her bed at the widow’s.

The widow put the dishes on the floor and went to the pegs to collect Alice’s quilted petticoat and wool flannel gown. She set them on the bed. She said, “I’ve held them off as long as possible. They say you must come down now, or they’ll come up and get you.”

Alice didn’t move. The widow fetched a thick pair of worsted stockings from the chest, then another. She returned to the bed, and as Alice still hadn’t moved, drew down the covers and began to push on her stockings.

“All right, now, Alice, you must get up.”

But Alice couldn’t move. It was as if her legs understood that if she once gave up her bed under the widow’s eaves she would never return to it. The widow said, “Do you want them to carry you out like a trussed hog, Alice?”

Alice didn’t. She jerked her legs to the side of the bed and stepped into the skirt as the widow held it, but it had been made loose for an expanded girth, and the widow had to cross the tapes to fasten it. She held out Alice’s boots, and Alice pushed her feet into them. She stood up, the widow helping her. She walked to the stairs and worked her way down, holding on to the rope rail.

The two men waiting for her in the keeping room were built in similar blocky shapes like a pair of matched oxen. They stared and shuffled back and forth, looking at each other in between, until one of them stepped forward and captured Alice’s elbow. The widow came up and brushed him aside to fix Alice’s cloak around her, tie on a muffler, hand her a pair of mittens. The men, both of them together this time, stepped in and took hold of Alice’s arms. They led her outside to a heavy wooden cart filled with straw and lifted her in. One of the men—Alice made no effort to distinguish them—reached into the wagon, grabbed Alice’s ankle, and clamped it in an iron band fixed by a chain to a heavy metal ring in the wagon floor.

The widow reappeared with a bundle, which she thrust into Alice’s arms; she tossed two bed rugs over her. One of the men climbed up onto the seat and the other mounted an already saddled horse that had been tied to the wagon; they each clicked to their beasts, and the cart wheeled off into the road. The widow called something after her, but Alice couldn’t make it out against the wind off the water.

The wind followed the cart, and Alice pulled up the hood of her cloak; after a time she lay down in the straw and pulled the bed rugs closer. The wagon jolted over the ice-crusted road; the light turned from dull gray to bright gray to dull purple. The wagon took a sharp turn up a hill and wobbled to a stop. The driver jumped down, the rider jumped down, and they came at Alice, urging her to do this or that or say this or that, or perhaps that was later. She remembered being taken into a room that had a fire and being allowed to stand close to it but not long enough to warm her through; she remembered a third man speaking to her and perhaps she spoke to him; she had some trouble remembering anything but the cold, and the heat, and the cold again when they took her to the gaol.

 

A WOOD BOX, a tiny, barred window, a pallet to sleep on, a bucket. Alice dropped onto the pallet and pulled her rugs over her; she slept, but the bad dreams still found her, the old dream, of Verley coming at her, Verley reaching for her throat. She clawed at his hands, but he caught hers up and said, “Whoa, Alice! Whoa, Alice! Whoa!” But the voice wasn’t as Verley’s was at all. It began to say things like, “Look at me, Alice, settle now, Alice, look at me. Look at me.”

Alice wrenched her eyes open and saw it was Freeman who had hold of her. She lay back, panting.

“I’ve frightened you, Alice, and I’m most sorry for it. I shouldn’t have waked you if we had more time, but we’ve none of it; I only just received the widow’s letter. Are you well? Dear God, look at you. Tell me you’re well.”

“I’m well.”

“Very good. Very good. Now, then, you must collect yourself and talk to me. First, do you understand the charge against you? That you murdered your infant?”

“I do not understand. I did nothing to it.”

The lines that divided Freeman’s forehead softened. He got up off his knees and walked the box in the tight square allowed him, once around, twice, three times. He stopped.

“All right, Alice. The thing now is for you to tell me everything as it happened. Everything, do you understand? We’ve no time for you to blush or demur or speak in roundabout terms. Can you do that, Alice?”

Alice nodded.

“Very good. Very good, Alice. Now let us begin with your entering your travail. Were you alone?”

Alice nodded again. “Until the widow came.”

“Had you delivered of your child when she came?”

“No. She went for the midwife.”

“She left you alone?”

“She thought I’d some time remaining. I made her think it.”

“Why? Why would you make her think that?”

“I didn’t want her to know of the babe.”

Freeman closed his eyes. “Alice. Child. Surely…all right, now. You entered your travail. The widow found you. She set off for the midwife, thinking she had time to fetch her. Now, then. What happened next?”

“’Twas great pain. A very great pain. I wanted it gone.”

“You wanted what gone?”

“I wanted the pain gone.”

“Very good. You wanted the pain gone. And what of the babe?”

“I wanted it out of me so it would stop hurting. I tried to push it out of me. I pushed it out of me.”

“Very good. You pushed it out. And then what did you do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Think, Alice. The babe is out. What did you do with the babe?”

“I don’t know. They took it downstairs. The widow wanted me to have it back and I didn’t want it.”

“You didn’t want the babe?”

“It was nothing of mine.”

“What do you mean, it was nothing of yours?”

Alice made no answer.

Freeman studied her. “All right, Alice, perhaps now is the time for us to go backward. Perhaps now is the time for you to tell me how you came into this circumstance.”

Alice turned her face away.

“Alice, understand me. I wish this information only so that I may help you. You do believe I wish to help you?”

She didn’t. She couldn’t. Why should he wish to help her, after she had caused him such great trouble? Why not see her hanged, and then he and the widow could keep in one bed all the night long?

He said, “Alice, I would ask you to look at me and tell me if you see anything in my face that might cause you to think I mean you harm.”

Alice looked at him and couldn’t say she saw any such thing. And yet she couldn’t give him Verley’s name. She couldn’t risk going back there.

“All right, then,” Freeman said. “Tell me this. The midwife Granny Hall thought the child had been brought near to term. Do you think this true or false?”

Alice thought. “What was the date it came?”

“The twenty-seventh of last month. The twenty-seventh of February.”

“It was near to term.”

“All right. Now tell me again what you did with the babe. After you pushed it out, what did you do with it?”

“Nothing.”

“Did you pick it up?”

“No.”

“Did you touch it in any way?”

“No.”

“The widow in her letter says they found it wrapped in a blanket. Did you wrap it in a blanket, Alice?”

“No.”

“It was found wrapped in a blanket. Who might have done that if not you?”

Alice remembered the bloody lump between her legs; she remembered the pulpy thing that came after it. She said, “I didn’t want to see it. I covered it in the blanket.”

“It was cold in the room?”

She remembered shaking, shaking so hard she thought the bed tick might slide off its frame. She nodded.

“So you covered the babe to keep it warm. And then what?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did it cry?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did it breathe?”

“I don’t know! I don’t know! I didn’t look at it! It was naught to do with me; I had naught to do with it!”

“Alice. Please.” Freeman took a step toward the pallet; Alice crabbed backward. Freeman stepped back, folded his arms, and peered down at his boots for some time. At length he said, “I wonder if you understand how a lawyer works in a court of law, Alice. As defendant you are not allowed to testify in your own defense, so your lawyer must do it for you. Your lawyer must tell your story. The king’s attorney will speak too, and he will tell his own story. The one this king’s attorney will tell is of a wanton young girl with no moral fiber who got herself into some trouble and wished to rid herself of the evidence with the murder of her bastard. I don’t believe this is the true story, but I need another to tell them. Can’t you help me with that story, Alice?”

Alice couldn’t. She couldn’t.

After a time Freeman said, “Perhaps you could tell me something of your young life, your parents.”

Her parents! What could her parents have to do with it? Alice looked for the trick but could find none. So she told him of the ship, and her mother and brothers, and of Mr. Morton taking her away in his carriage, but she didn’t tell him Mr. Morton’s name, or where he took her, or anything of the Verleys. Freeman then launched a long series of odd questions, such as did she ever have any younger brothers and sisters, and did her first master have any more children after she came to live with him, and had she ever stood watch at a woman’s travail. He asked her many more, and came near to the place where she didn’t wish him to be, but he didn’t push into it.

After a long time he ran out of questions. He said, “All right, Alice, do you have any questions for me?” And she asked him what date it was, and he said it was the sixth of April.

April.

The word sounded new and strange, because for so long Alice hadn’t allowed of its existence. If she had she might have imagined it anything other than what it was, and yet here it was, perhaps not as bad as it might have been, for here was the gaoler come for Freeman, and here was Freeman paying him for her food and asking her if she needed more of it, asking if she needed more clothes or blankets, when she might have been out in the cold with a newborn babe in her arms, looking for a night’s shelter.

But April also meant that somewhere in the confusion of days at the widow’s the twenty-first of March had swum by and Alice was sixteen now. Which made Alice think of a second question. “How long will they keep me here?”

“They’ll keep you here until your trial. A capital crime allows for no bail. The circuit returns to Barnstable in July.”

And so the line Alice couldn’t think beyond moved from March to July.