Salem's Daughter

by Maggie Osborne

  Her spoon clattered and dropped to the floor. Caleb! Bristol had given Caleb to Charity! Was that it? What had resulted from those few minutes of foolish conversation?

  Troubled green eyes stared at Hannah. “Mama... when Caleb visited here, what did he do?”

  Hannah shrugged and watched Bristol retrieve her spoon. “I don’t recall. Talk mostly. Crops, livestock, rain. The usual things.”

  Bristol leaned forward. “Mama, did Charity talk with Caleb? Alone?”

  “Well, of course. Charity was a great help—this was before she went hard to handle. She’d sit for hours with Caleb and make conversation until Noah came. Caleb always seemed to arrive when Noah was busy.”

  Bristol stared at her trencher. Aye. It could be. She peered into Hannah’s puzzled frown. “Mama, think carefully. Could there be... an affection between Caleb and Charity?”

  “Aye, I’m sure they like...” Hannah’s squint widened as she understood. “No! Absolutely not.” She stared at Bristol. “No,” she repeated more slowly. “I believe I’d have noticed if there were. No.”

  Bristol wasn’t convinced. Later, when she crawled into bed next to Charity, her mind continued to worry disturbing possibilities. Charity’s erratic behavior would be explained if...

  “Charity?” Bristol looked sadly at the carroty curls spread across the pillow next to her own. “Charity, are you asleep?”

  “I’m not now,” Charity’s muffled voice sighed.

  Bristol lifted on an elbow and gently touched her sister’s shoulder. “Charity, could we have a talk? A real talk?” Charity didn’t respond. “We used to share things. Can’t we be friends again?” Bristol heard the bewilderment in her own voice.

  Charity hesitated, then rolled to face Bristol. “What do you want to talk about?” she asked cautiously. The timidity once marking Charity’s speech was gone, replaced by a new sullen tone as alien to Charity as a second nose would have been.

  But this was a beginning. Bristol snuggled beneath the quilt and peered into Charity’s face, so pinched and miserable. “I want to talk to you about Caleb.” Charity’s face tightened, and she started to roll away. “Wait! Charity, listen! Please listen!” Bristol found Charity’s hand under the quilts and hung on, “I think maybe there’s something between you and Caleb. And if that’s true, then I won’t marry him!” Charity froze, her face blank, her pale eyes staring. “Charity, I know what it’s like to love and be frustrated in that love. I...” Bristol pleaded, “Charity, please! Talk to me!”

  A variety of emotions flicked across Charity’s face. Surprise, hope, suspicion, elation, disbelief. And finally despair. An angry despair. “Are you giving Caleb to me again, Bristol?” she spit. “‘Here, Charity, you can have him until I’m ready to take him back.’ Is that it, Bristol? You want more time? Do you want to make him suffer before you settle for him?”

  Appalled, Bristol drew back. It was like watching a lovable kitten turn into a snarling tiger. “You don’t understand. I only want what’s right for—”

  “Oh, I understand, all right. Caleb makes do with me until he learns you’re coming home. Then he vanishes. Vanishes! And I...” Her voice broke on a sob.

  “Charity, please listen! Something happened long ago, and because of it Caleb believes he has to marry me. He has to! His honor won’t let him tell you the reason, but we can work this out, if...” Bristol saw Charity wasn’t accepting what she said. “If you want him,” she finished lamely.

  “The reason? Oh, aye, I know the reason.” Charity’s voice rose on an ugly sound. “Can you ‘work out’ Papa’s death wish? Can you ‘work out’ the expression in Caleb’s eyes when he heard you were coming home? Can you?” She sat up in bed, her thin body shaking.

  Bristol wrung her hands. “Charity, I’m sure you misinterpreted Caleb’s expression.”

  “Now you’re telling me what I saw!” Charity sneered. “Well, I don’t want any more of your generosity, and I don’t want Caleb Wainwright!” Bristol gasped at the expression in Charity’s eyes. “All my life I’ve taken your castoffs! I got the clothes you’d outgrown, the shoes that no longer fit you. I took the caps and collars and aprons and vests you grew tired of! And I even took Caleb when you cast him off!”

  Bristol stared in shock. She’d had no idea Charity felt like this.

  “Well, dear sister, you can’t cast off Caleb this time!” Charity’s taunting voice rose between a sob and a shout. “Even if you wanted it and I wanted it and... The fact is, you cannot!”

  “Charity, I—”

  “By now every person in Salem Village knows what was in our letters. Do you think any of them would look at us again if we ignored Papa’s death wish? We’d be silenced! No one would talk to us! And could I live with myself or you with yourself if Papa’s last wish was ignored? No! So don’t tell me it can be worked out. It can’t, and you know it!”

  “Charity, please...”

  Charity’s reedy voice broke. “And Caleb!” she whispered, her glassy green eyes staring from hollows. “Caleb is willing.”

  Bristol’s tone was desperate. “Charity, Caleb thinks he has to many me! That’s why he’s willing. He doesn’t understand there’s a choice! Before I left, he and I—”

  “Stop!” Charity hissed. “Just stop! Caleb is willing!” Her pale eyes swam with hurt and betrayal. “Don’t you see what that means?” Her teeth bared and she trembled with emotion. “Just leave me alone!”

  “Charity...”

  “Alone!”

  . Bristol stared at the betrayed passion in her sister’s eyes, and her heart felt as if someone had wrung it. Had she once imagined Charity lacked spirit? How wrong she’d been! Bristol slid from the quilts and quietly moved her things into Hannah’s room. Hannah blinked up from her pillow in surprise, then shifted to make room, and her faded eyes filled with gratitude. It was lonely in Hannah’s bed. She patted Bristol’s hand and rolled over, sleeping better than she had in weeks.

  Bristol, however, could not sleep. She lay for hours listening to the silent house. And thought of the tangled emotions in these small rooms. She’d been wrong to think her problems would end if only she came home. Coming home had opened new problems. And she foresaw more along the path providence had decreed for her.

  Bristol Ellen Adams and Caleb Jonathan Wainwright were married November 1, 1691.

  Caleb drove them over the snow-rutted roads to Salem Town, where a self-important magistrate pronounced the words making them man and wife. No rings were exchanged, no kiss shared. Silently they rode back to the Adams house, where Hannah had prepared a wedding feast for a small knot of well-wishers.

  “There would have been a larger group,” Hannah assured Bristol anxiously, “but so many are fighting...” She ran a hand over her graying chestnut hair. “We were lucky to find this many willing to share the same house with each other.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Mama. I don’t care,” Bristol answered truthfully. She smiled and nodded automatically, walking through best wishes and political discussions and gossip like a person sleepwalking. Nothing seemed real. Any minute she’d wake in the pink bed at Hathaway House and discover this was all a dream. Her green eyes settled on Caleb, standing across the kitchen frowning at Reverend Parris. He was a stranger. Fighting a sense of panic, Bristol realized she’d married a stranger.

  Caleb Wainwright had never danced or held cards in his large hands. He’d never read anything but the Bible and Baxter’s Call to the Unconverted. Caleb had never stood on the rolling deck of a sailing ship or traveled farther than Boston. He saw no reason to do either. He didn’t hunt for sport or waste time on picnics, parties, or idle pleasure. The concept of pleasure for its own sake baffled him. He’d never attended a theater performance and would have been appalled to realize he knew someone who had. Work was Caleb’s life.

  Everything Bristol had learned to enjoy would have shocked her new husband. His grim confidence would have evaporated in a flash had he suspected how unappealing his world was
to his new bride.

  Neither displayed any urgency to begin their new life together. They lingered until the guests covered yawns and wondered aloud how late it was. Until Hannah’s rum punch dwindled to levels no hostess liked to see. Until Reverend Parris tactfully drew the bridegroom aside and whispered in his ear.

  Only then did the newlyweds reluctantly move toward the door.

  “Mama...” Bristol clung to Hannah, not wanting to leave the home where she’d grown up. Not wanting to be alone with Caleb.

  Hannah absently patted Bristol’s shoulder, watching a scramble for cloaks and hoods from the corner of her eyes. She looked tired. “Can you manage for Caleb and the hired hands until Charity and I arrive?” she asked, returning to Bristol with practical matters.

  Bristol remembered cooking for a roomful of pub regulars. “Aye, Mama, I can manage.”

  Already Hannah had an offer for Noah’s farm, and she and Charity would join the Wainwrights as soon as the Adams house was packed. They were all beginning a new life.

  A life Bristol felt distinctly uneasy about. Sitting beside Caleb on the high wagon seat, she pictured the rooms she’d just left, the rooms she’d loved from her birth. Bristol blinked and sat a little straighter. She suddenly realized Charity hadn’t offered best wishes. As small as the Adams house was, Charity had managed to keep a group of people between the newlyweds and herself. The irony of the situation struck Bristol like a blow. Once she too had hidden in corners putting space between herself and the man she loved.

  Looking up at the night sky, Bristol watched flakes of quiet snow dance out of the darkness. Somewhere up there, she imagined an indifferent God yawning. The older she got, the more difficult it became to believe God really cared for individual destiny. Heresy crept through Bristol’s mind. What if God did not plot each person’s life in advance? What if the providences pointing lives along certain roads... what if they were but figments of vivid human imaginings? What if the tangles of the human heart were not God’s plan, but simply the result of frail humanity struggling alone? Staying doggedly on an imagined pathway long after reason demanded differently.

  It would be a colossal jest on mankind. Bristol’s lips curved in a near-hysterical smile. What an enormous joke if she, Goodwife Wainwright, sat here as a result of Noah misinterpreting a providence that didn’t exist. Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears. What a gigantic mockery. All the lives, all the...

  “Are you warm enough?” Caleb’s low voice startled her. “We’re almost there.”

  “Aye.” Bristol shivered beneath the lap robe, but she didn’t complain. She’d never again complain about cold.

  Caleb drew a frosty breath and began speaking. “We’re passing Wainwright fields now.” He waved toward the flat darkness on both sides of the wagon ruts. “I guess you know Pa died while you were away, so there’s more land than you know about. All this is... ours.” Caleb continued to speak, his tone warming with enthusiasm, as he talked of his fields, his barns, the house he’d built, the plans he held for expansion. As he talked, Bristol began to realize the full extent of his holdings. And to understand why he would have been foolish to relinquish his inheritance as she’d asked of him that long-ago day. Her face flamed with ancient embarrassment. She’d been selfish and unreasonable and so young. Tonight she felt a million years older than that girl.

  Caleb guided the horses past a split-rail fence and down a narrow lane to a large house surrounded by numerous outbuildings.

  He carried her trunk into the kitchen and adjusted an oil lamp. After a brief tour he asked, “Do you like it?” and Bristol heard his pride and the hesitant appeal for her approval.

  “Aye,” she answered sincerely. The house was three times the size of the Adams house. The parlor, though not yet furnished, was large and heated by a coal stove. The kitchen wasn’t as organized as it would be, but it was of generous size and had two large windows. The buttery was well-stocked and large. More than enough space had been provided in a wing off the kitchen for spinning wheel and loom and churns and storage bins and worktable and all the sundry items needed to run a house smoothly and self-sufficiently.

  Three bedrooms lay behind the kitchen, drawing heat from the chimney housing. Hannah and Charity could each have their own room until the children started to come. Bristol’s mind jerked from that thought with a spasm of pain.

  Slowly she followed Caleb into a bedroom slightly larger than the others. He pushed her trunk against a long blank wall and straightened. Their eyes met and slid away.

  Nervously Bristol toyed with the string of her hood. She’d dreaded this moment from the instant she finished reading Noah’s letter.

  Caleb drew a breath, and she noticed he was slightly drunk. His words slurred. Staring at her with a moody expression, he whispered hoarsely, “Dammit, Bristol, this is our wedding night.”

  “Aye.” Her mouth worked, but no sound emerged. She cleared her throat.

  He waited, but when Bristol didn’t move, he pulled off his clothes and dropped them in a pile. When she lifted her pink face, Caleb was in the bed, his smooth naked chest showing above the quilts in the light of an oil lamp. His brooding eyes almost accused, watching her from an expressionless face. Haltingly, moving with wooden steps, Bristol turned her back and quickly undressed, feeling his eyes on her, feeling shame heat her cheeks. If God was merciful, the ground would open up and swallow her. If Bristol Adams’ peace of mind counted for anything in the scheme of things, God wouldn’t let this happen. So strongly was she wedded to Jean Pierre in her mind, that crawling into that bed was a sin of greatest magnitude, an adultery, a hideous betrayal.

  “Turn around,” Caleb whispered in a husky, blurred voice.

  Heart aching, she did as he demanded. Her hands moved to cover her nakedness and failed.

  Caleb stared and wet his lips. “I never saw a naked woman,” he said, his breath coming faster. “You... you’re beautiful!” His whisper turned to a croak. Wide blue eyes swept over her body, hungering at the pale-rose-and-cream breasts, pausing to wonder at the red wedge between her shivering legs. Desire colored his eyes opaque.

  Bristol saw, and she shuddered. Caleb didn’t see Bristol Adams Wainwright; he saw woman. A naked stranger. A vessel to relieve a man’s urges. Suddenly Cutter Rumm leaped into her thoughts, and Bristol’s mouth twisted in revulsion.

  Caleb tossed back the quilts and reached for Bristol’s hand, pulling her into the bed. She looked down at him, jolted by the smooth hairless body that was not Jean Pierre. Repelled by rough exploring hands that belonged to a man she didn’t know. She turned her face aside, away from the rum-scented lips that moved over her mouth with blind passion.

  She stared into Caleb’s face as he lifted over her, searching for something familiar. There was nothing. Groans exploded in her ear; then he pushed hard into her unresponsive flesh. Once, twice, then large hands clamped on her shoulders and he cried out.

  In less than three minutes it was over.

  When Bristol heard the even rise and fall of his breath, she crept into the icy room and found her nightgown. She couldn’t bear to wake naked beside him. Then she eased onto the bed and rolled to the edge. Eyes stinging, Bristol stared into the darkness.

  If only she’d never known the touch of a man skilled in love... if only she could somehow bury her memories. If only she could endure the emptiness she suspected was in store. If only.

  This was a terrible mistake. Lying rigid in the cold night beside her new husband, Bristol understood she should never have returned to Salem Village. Half a life was a thousand times better than no life at all. She’d thrown away a great love, and married a man she could never love.

  Never again would she run to a door with joy shining in her eyes. Never again would her heart pound at the sound of a man’s thickening whisper. Never again would she experience a woman’s ecstasy.

  She’d been a blind fool.

  “Oh, Jean Pierre.” Her mournful whisper cracked with the agony of a broken h
eart.

  27

  New Year’s Day dawned cold and clear. An ideal day for sleigh rides and rosy cheeks and laughter. A day to sled in the lanes, listening to iron runners squeak across the fresh snow pack. A day for visiting and wishing friends and neighbors a prosperous 1692.

  But few Salem Villagers left their houses.

  Martha and Giles Cory would have welcomed visitors to break the tedium of each other’s company. Giles repaired harness and Martha read most of the long day. Occasionally Martha lectured Giles on how he might improve himself and strive toward the perfection she herself had achieved. Giles ignored her. He was too old to mend his ways. He didn’t bother telling Martha to shut up; he knew she wouldn’t. Martha believed it her purpose in life to reform all who came within reach of her tongue. Giles considered this damned annoying. The rest of the village considered it meddlesome and outrageous. Few visitors called at the Cory house in the best of times.

  In Ipswich Road, John Proctor hung a “Closed” sign on his tavern door and sat in the pub room before a small fire. He thought about his wife. Elizabeth displayed every sign of being infected with the village madness. She’d nailed a horseshoe over the tavern door, and John wouldn’t be surprised if she’d buried an iron knife in front of the steps. She’d allowed Reverend Parris’ sermons to frighten her out of her wits. John went over the bitter argument he and Elizabeth had had last night. John Proctor did not believe in horseshoes or iron knives or garlic in the windows or the Lord’s Prayer written in one’s shoe. He didn’t believe any of these precautions would deter Reverend Parris’ witches and demons, because John Proctor did not believe in the existence of such things. Evil existed, aye, but it wasn’t anything supernatural. Generations to come would look back at the New England colonies and smile at the quaint superstitions their ancestors had lived by. John believed this implicitly. Witches tearing a community to fragments? Witches blasting fields and souring milk? Murdering babies and leveling curses? Ha! John Proctor stared into the fire. He thought his was a lone voice. He recalled the witch conversations he’d overheard in his tavern. John Proctor was a worried man.