A Break with Charity: A Story about the Salem Witch Trials (Great Episodes)

by Ann Rinaldi

  I felt a sense of dread overwhelm me. "Where," I asked, "is this Sam Endicott now?"

  "In Boston," Johnathan said.

  "Can you take me to see him this day?"

  He and Joseph exchanged looks again. "No," Joseph said. He got to his feet and handed the baby back to Elizabeth. "We have much to do, and you should not give credence to such gossip, Susanna. I am also making arrangements to bring your parents to Alden's after the prayer meeting. You won't have time to run around looking for Endicott."

  "But, Joseph—" I started to protest.

  He scowled down at me. His face was flushed with some of the anger I had borne witness to earlier this morning. "Don't you want to see your parents? And would you give me argument, when I have much to concern me?"

  I did not know whether to answer yes or no. So I said nothing.

  "Finish your breakfast if you would come with us," he said gruffly. "I must gather my things."

  I ate. Elizabeth jostled Mary on her shoulder. "Don't pay heed to Joseph," she said. "Lack of sleep has made him boorish."

  "I pay no heed," I said. But to myself I made a promise. I would see Endicott this day. I would prevail upon Johnathan to take me to him.

  We made the trip to Boston in good time. Joseph kept his twin bays at a swift pace to make the ten o'clock ferry. As we rode around the Lynn marshes, the skies, already overcast and brooding, threatened to open upon us at any moment. But the rain held off, and we were able to get out of our carriage on the ferry to get benefit of the breezes in Boston Harbor.

  Johnathan and Joseph were deep in conversation as they stood near the horses' heads on the ferry. I could scarcely get two words in with Johnathan.

  It was hot in Boston, but the town's rhythms seemed different from Salem's. There was a gaiety everywhere, whereas in Salem people avoided each other on the streets, ducking their heads and going about their business like frightened crows, intent upon not attracting attention.

  It was hot, too, in John Alden's frame house, which was filled with people. They were assembled in the company room for prayers. I had never met Alden, but like every young girl in Massachusetts Bay Colony, I had heard much of his exploits as a sea captain and a famed Indian fighter. I looked forward to meeting him. Wouldn't my sister, Mary, love to meet him, too, I decided. Perhaps she would have the opportunity later.

  The room was filled with all manner of persons, lowly and distinguished. Joseph moved through the crowd slowly, greeting them in soft tones. All about the walls and on the chests were curios from Alden's adventures—Indian artifacts and other treasures from around the world.

  A sudden hush came over the room as Alden entered. He stood by the hearth to welcome everyone. He was a tall man—very tall—and lean. His eyes were deep set and his movements cautious, like a cat's. He was well muscled, and his strong-jawed face was browned. He wore a soldier's rough clothing: leather breeches and doublet, rough shirt, and woolen stockings.

  "Good and gentle people," he said in a voice that was at once kind and strong, "the tall man from Boston welcomes you and thanks you for coming to pray with him."

  There was a murmur of appreciation that this man could have any humor left in him. For his accusers had identified him as "the tall man from Boston," echoing Tituba's words for the Devil.

  "Where is your black hat, John?" someone asked.

  "I have sold it to the Indians along with some powder and shot."

  Soft laughter. But Reverend Cotton Mather scowled. Not yet thirty, the younger Mather, whom my father had called a dunderhead, was dressed all in black. He wore a wig and looked like the very incarnation of evil, rather than a man of God. I heard him whisper to Judge Sam Sewall that Alden was irreverent and in need of prayers. Then Mather began to pray in a great and thundering voice.

  The praying lasted nearly an hour. Halfway through, a rumbling of thunder sounded, lightning flashed in a most fearful manner, and the room grew dark. Then the downpour came. Rain! After weeks of drought. Mather paused and acknowledged the rain, acting as if his prayers had brought it on. Alden's maidservant went about lighting candles. As I watched her move through the kneeling figures, Joseph came over to whisper something in Johnathan's ear, then slipped out a side door.

  In the kitchen, after prayers, cakes and cold cider and ale were laid out. As the others moved back into the company room with food and drink in hand to hear Judge Sewall read a sermon, I put a hand on Johnathan's arm.

  "Stay a moment."

  "Gladly. I have no desire to hear Sewall preach. We've scarce had time to ourselves. Joseph means well, but he often keeps us apart."

  "You're one to complain. You spend all your time talking with him."

  He smiled, but I saw the hurt in his eyes. His smile, the even white teeth, made him seem so innocent, and I was reminded how attracted I was to him. "Where has Joseph gone?" I asked.

  He shrugged. "He doesn't tell me everything. Nor do you, Susanna. Sometimes I think you have more secrets with him than I have conversations."

  "What secrets could I have with Joseph?"

  "I don't know. But there are times I feel you are keeping something from me. And you look up to him so and are so anxious to do his bidding."

  "I am living under the man's roof. I must show respect."

  "You worship him, Susanna. Anyone can see that."

  "Are you accusing me of being his jade? Like Mary Warren was John Proctor's?"

  "No, Susanna, I know you too well. And I know Joseph."

  "You worship him no less."

  "Aye. He's been part father and part adviser to me since my father removed himself from that responsibility. He has those qualities of leadership that attract loyalty.... Let's not quarrel, Susanna. Our time together is scarce."

  "I don't do Joseph's every bidding, Johnathan," I insisted.

  "Nor do I."

  "Prove it to me, then."

  "How?"

  "Take me to see Sam Endicott. I would see him today. You know where he is to be found. You know everything to do with the trials, and he's a witness."

  He shook his head in wonderment. "You mean to go now?"

  "This very minute," I said.

  "It's raining. We have no transportation. And Joseph told me, before he went on his strange mission, that later on today he's having your parents and sister brought here."

  "At what hour?"

  "Five this afternoon."

  "We can rent a carriage. And be back by then."

  "Susanna, why must you see this man? Joseph won't like it."

  I sipped my cider and set down the mug. "Now who's following Joseph's every command?" I moved toward the company room. He grabbed my wrist and looked down at me with those blue eyes of his. A lock of his curly hair fell over his forehead, and I went weak. "I'll take you, Susanna. Though I indulge you and will get into trouble for it."

  ***

  Johnathan hailed a carriage, and we drove down to the wharves, through winding streets, past the marketplace, past the Town House, where the General Court sat, past elegant brick houses, silversmith shops, taverns, countinghouses, and, finally at the wharves, shops sporting the wares brought in by ships from all over the world.

  That street was crowded with carts and carriages, rowdy young boys, sailors from distant shores, and women of ill repute.

  "Joseph will have me hanged if he finds I took you here," Johnathan mumbled. We got out of the carriage. The rain had stopped, and the cobblestones glistened. As I turned to the waterfront, I saw rows of ships at anchor and men unloading goods, hawking wares in carts, and just loitering about. Gulls cried overhead. My eyes filled with the sights, my nose with the rich sea smells.

  Overhead, a sign that said Endicott Shipping creaked in the breeze. Johnathan guided me with a firm hand under my elbow as we skirted some sailors and went through the door.

  A blackamoor fetched Mr. Endicott from a back room. The shipowner was my father's age, well dressed, but limping and using a cane.

  "How can I
help you two young people?" he asked.

  Johnathan explained who we were. Sam Endicott knew my father, of course, and shook his head in bewilderment to hear my parents had been accused of witchcraft. "All of the Bay Colony seems to be in the Devil's grip these days," he said. "Everywhere you look, you see the Devil's minions."

  "My parents are no minions of the Devil, sir," I said.

  "There is no doubt, child, that some are innocent. But they have the chance to clear their names at the trials. Sit, both of you."

  We sat. His blackamoor brought a tray of tea and cakes.

  "What do you wish to know, Susanna English?" he said.

  "They say you are accusing Mary Bradbury of being a witch."

  "Aye. She's every inch a witch, child."

  "Do you have proof?"

  He sipped his mug of ale and regarded me with eyes so old, eyes that had seen so much, that his words were as afterthoughts to what I saw in them.

  "I lost two firkins of butter because of her on one occasion. On another, I lost a ship. She has the powers. She made restitution on the butter when I demanded it but muttered curses at me as I left. Then, when I was in the Caribbean on my next voyage, those curses worked her evil. My ship was ripped apart during a storm."

  "How can you blame her?"

  "I saw her likeness with my own eyes, child. Right in the middle of that storm. First I saw a cat on board. We had no cat, yet there it sat on the windlass. Then, before my eyes, it became the shape of Mary Bradbury, cackling at me while my ship ripped apart."

  Outside, sheets of rain came again, tearing against the windows. Mr. Endicott leaned forward.

  "We were just out of Barbados, and the sea was calm. The storm came up at dusk, from out of nowhere. My ship, the Good Intent, was sturdy, but it was a vengeful storm. I lost the mainmast. Waves swept over us, throwing the Good intent on her side and my crew into the sea. Most swam back to the wreck, myself included, though my right leg was smashed. All night the storm wreaked havoc with the Good Intent while we clung to her. And in the midst of it I looked up and saw Mary Bradbury, her clothing as dry and spotless as if she sat at Meeting."

  "Could not the ravages of the storm have made you delirious?"

  He set down his mug and picked up his pipe and began to fill it, but he never took those old and weary eyes from me. "Lass, when you've been at sea as long as I, you see all manner of strange things. Pirates, sea monsters, boiling waters in the middle of the ocean, drownings, murders, duels on board, haunted galleons that sail by with no crew on moonless nights, floating bodies that appear out of nowhere on the calmest of waters. And, yes, witches on the windlass. For a sea captain not to believe what he sees, invites trouble. Ask your brother when he returns."

  "You say Mary Bradbury boasted to you of leading pirates to the William and Susanna," I pressed.

  "Aye, lass, she did."

  "When?"

  "When I spoke with her a fortnight ago. She's in Arnold's Jail here in Boston, awaiting trial. She said mine wasn't the only vessel she destroyed. And indeed, her demonic activities are well known amongst Massachusetts Bay Colony seamen."

  "Then why do they have dealings with her?"

  "They fear buying their butter from anyone else, as do I. With her own tongue she told me..." Here he broke off and looked at Johnathan. " 'Tis not a seemly matter to let fall on a young girl's ears," he said.

  "Tell me," I insisted. "If it's about my brother, I must know."

  "Aye, lass. She said she would avenge herself on William English by causing harm to the Amiable Tiger on its voyage home."

  "The Amiable Tiger?"

  "Aye, lass. It's the forty-five-ton schooner recently out of Guadeloupe, bound for Massachusetts Bay Colony. Your brother is on it."

  I felt a surge of joy, quickly benumbed by fear. "How come you to know William is on this ship?"

  "Mary Bradbury told me."

  "How does she come by such knowledge?"

  He shrugged and puffed his pipe. He did not answer, but his eyes said all he would not put into words.

  "Why does she wish to avenge my brother?"

  "That is the unseemly part, but you would have me say it. Many a witch visits a man in his chamber at night. Witches are seducers of men. She told me young William English would not have her when she visited him in his cabin on the William and Susanna."

  I looked at Johnathan. He was shaking his head. "We should take our leave, Susanna. It is late."

  "Yes." Numbly I got to my feet and thanked Mr. Endicott.

  " 'Twas a pleasure, lass. We'll have that witch condemned, never you worry. She'll visit your brother no more on his ship. Or sit on anyone else's windlass."

  "You don't believe his tale, do you, Susanna?" Johnathan asked me in the carriage on the ride back to John Alden's.

  "He believes it," I said.

  "He's a seaman. He fears tempting fate. If you believe it, you'll be like so many others in Salem, believing in witches."

  I sank back in the seat as we raced through Boston's winding streets in the rain. My head was spinning. Johnathan was right, I decided, there are no witches. And for me to believe Sam Endicott would mean I, too, would be swallowed up in the witch madness.

  But it was so easy to be drawn into it when one of your own was threatened! And hadn't Mary Bradbury threatened William's return voyage? How did she, living in Salisbury, know the name of the schooner he was returning on unless she was a witch?

  My feelings were betraying me. Were there, indeed, witches? I knew by now that certain people had powers. Tituba had them. Hadn't she predicted that I would see the ship of clouds?

  Did some people have special powers for good and other people have them for evil? Did such special powers make people witches? Had the actions of the girls in the circle, innocent enough in the beginning, simply opened a door through which witches had entered?

  Oh, I did not know, I did not know! I knew nothing anymore, it seemed. All reason had fled. But through my confusion, one thought pushed its way, like a haunted galleon through a wall of fog.

  I could not tell the truth about the girls in the circle until William safely returned. I must let the witch trials continue. Mary Bradbury must go to trial. Certainly, she would be condemned. I could not take the chance and let her live. Or William might be destroyed.

  And then, just as I had made my decision, as if struck by some unseen hand, our carriage seemed to drop to the ground and come to a grinding halt. Johnathan and I were tossed about inside. I hit my head on something and I heard the driver yell in an attempt to halt the horse.

  For a moment, I went unconscious. When I became sensible again, Johnathan was patting my hand and calling my name.

  "Susanna, are you all right?"

  "What happened?" I was on the floor, looking up at him.

  He helped me onto the seat. "I think we broke a wheel."

  "Oh, Johnathan!"

  "Stay here. I'll get out and confer with the driver."

  21. A Promise in Moonlight

  THE NIGHT watch was crying the hour when we arrived back at Alden's. Eight o'clock. It had taken us three hours to repair the carriage. The driver had had to send to a wheelwright on the other side of town for a new wheel. We arrived at Alden's wet and hungry, and my head hurt. Joseph awaited us in the empty company room.

  I was in a fevered pitch of anxiety, hoping my parents and sister had waited for us. But they were nowhere in sight.

  Joseph stood, grim and white of face, his arms folded across his chest. "It is good of you to make an appearance this evening," he said coldly. His blue eyes were frosty and veiled over with a mist of anger.

  "Our carriage wheel broke," Johnathan explained. "Or we would have been here three hours ago."

  "And where did you go in this carriage? Or need I not ask?"

  I spoke up. "It isn't Johnathan's fault, Joseph. Don't blame him. I prevailed upon him to take me to see Sam Endicott."

  "Don't tell me where to direct my anger, please.
I will direct it at whomever I wish."

  We stood like naughty children before him. I searched the rooms beyond us, hoping against all hope that my parents and sister would appear any moment, that he had them hidden in the kitchen, perhaps. He saw me casting my gaze about.

  "Your family was here and gone," he said coldly. "Your parents had to be back in Arnold's Jail by dusk. But first they had to take Mary back to her lodgings."

  I choked back a sob but to no avail. The burden of the whole afternoon had been too much for me. I had missed my family. And they had waited for me. Oh, I could not bear it. I began to weep openly. Johnathan took my hand.

  "I went through great pains to transport your family here," Joseph said. "On an afternoon when I had much else to do."

  "I'm sorry, Joseph," I said. Johnathan murmured his apology, also, but Joseph dismissed our words and brushed past us to the door.

  "You owe such words to your family," he said. "They dearly wished to see you. Come along, we must catch the ferry."

  John Alden came into the room then. "There is food in the kitchen. Don't you want some before your journey?"

  But I had lost all appetite. I said no and thanked him. He smiled at me kindly. "I met your family. They are good people. My house is open to all of you if you wish to stay the night. Then you could see them tomorrow."

  "Oh, could we, Joseph, please?" I begged.

  "Thank you," he said to Alden, "but I must get home to Elizabeth and the babe. We never know, hour to hour, if we will be the next accused. I have been gone too long already. I say come now, you two. The ferry does not dally."

  We arrived home near midnight. Joseph had not spoken to us all the way. I fell into bed, exhausted. Johnathan stayed the night but was gone in the morning. I woke to a blue sky, clear air, and an earth washed by rain. But Joseph's silence was still oppressive. And after breakfast, he summoned me to his library and closed the door.

  I prepared myself for another scolding, praying I would have the mettle to stand up to him. But he spoke with sadness and kindness instead.