Charis in the World of Wonders

by Marly Youmans

  Goodman Abbot put the bundle of Samuel in my arms, and I carried him to the fireside. Before long the babe began to wail again. The cold afflicted him in its wearing-off, as it did me. The men talked softly together, arguing about witches. I did not listen. When they shut my door and retreated to the front room, the chamber was nearly dark, save for the light shed by the hearth. The chimbley smoked and pulled but weakly at the logs. I wished that I had thought to hide some tallow candles in Samuel’s wrappings. But there was no use regretting what I had failed to do in my shock at being accused. I nursed Samuel—his face chill against my breast—and laid him down in the cradle when he fell asleep, worn out by his adventure and the harsh weather.

  That was good; I wanted to search the room after setting my shoes and pattens by the fire to dry. The job of scouring was done quickly, for the place was nigh barren, and I found only some strips of linen, an assortment of sleeve ribbons, and a crushed tin lantern with a window that was half Muscovy “glass” and half oiled linen, evidently replaced when part of the thin stone was lost. I spent some minutes attempting to press the metal into shape with nothing but a stick of tinder, and thought how easily I could do the same work at the shop with Jotham Herrick’s tools. But the lantern would do; now I only wanted a candle.

  I also wanted to consider how to act, and sat down to do so in the ashes close to the fire. Was this the hand of Providence, moving slowly in God’s own time? My brother John’s voice came to mind, saying, There are no coincidences. I had not been in Andover so long or become so loyal that I could not imagine and dream of safety and a life in some other township. What did I possess here but husband Jotham Herrick and my babe, Samuel, and the friendship of some of the Danes? If I had my chance, I would flee. It had happened before. Prisoners evaded trial more than might be expected, particularly in the period of time before they were locked in jail. That was when it would be easiest, surely. And in the solitary villages set in wilderness, jails could be small, rickety affairs. Those accused by some local justice of the peace might break free and bolt for another region instead of standing trial.

  Was it my duty to bear the questioning and the inspection of my body for witch-marks? Would our Andover justice of the peace, Captain Dudley Bradstreet, son of the governor of the colony and the poet, serve a writ against me? Was it my appointed path to be indicted and, if wrongly charged, dangle by the neck until I was dead? Or to decline in prison from sickness, damp, and cold, as transpired often? To make a widower of Mr. Herrick and half an orphan of Samuel? Anne Bradstreet wrote, “If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant.” But in this case, spring might never come without striving, struggle, and perhaps escape.

  Jotham Herrick was a selectman, sealer of weights and measures, and soon to be lieutenant in the militia, a highly regarded voice. Would he give up those posts and flee to where he was unknown? It was much to ask.

  When I knelt by the fire to warm myself and pray, the tunnel came insistently into my mind.

  “But thou, Lord, art a buckler for me, my glory, and the lifter up of mine head,” I whispered.

  The words of David, driven from his kingdom, warmed me; I stood up, sensing that I was not alone with Samuel. Closing my eyes, I knew what I had known only a few times before, the tilt and spill of some wondrous cascade in the heavens and a wash of spirit that I can compare only to innumerable tiny gold pins, a brightness falling down on me from beyond the region of stars. For some ungrasped length of time that waterfall of light flooded me, the rays of gold passing through my skin and emerging and raining away through the world. The fountaining-forth was more beautiful than a night when stars fall, flicking from the heavens to earth, for it pierced and passed through every vein and inch of me, its moving lights washing me away until I was nothing but pouring dawn.

  I heard a voice close to my ear say, “He brings those who sit in darkness out of the prison house.” And I cannot forget those twelve words, as loud as if someone called out by my ear, so that I was surprised the men did not come pell-mell to my door.

  The daybreak cataract ebbed and left me. I opened my eyes and saw the fire struggling on the stone and barely shedding its flush onto the floor.

  Who is the father of the rain? Words as mysterious as an otherworldly falls of light came to mind.

  Tears pricked at my eyes for the loss of that spate of gold and sweet energy. For some time, I crouched by the fire, remembering the strangely spoken words and the vital stream of spirit, letting them curl and eddy through my mind again. Out of the prison house. Those who sit in darkness. I could have been glad to be caught in gold forever—to be made of such material that could bear and vessel what is unearthly and rained down as spirit. But such gold cannot remain with us for long.

  When I tiptoed from the room, determined to explore, I avoided the door that led immediately to the front, but chose the side door leading to the remains of a burned room—now merely a narrow passageway. I had taken off my stockings by the fire, and now carefully felt the floor with my bare feet, hunting for the fingerhold to the trapdoor. Somehow I feared that the spot might have vanished, or that I would be unable to find it. But the short, slight groove between boards was there. I knelt and ran my finger along its length and stood once more, keeping one hand on the wall of the passage as I walked forward. The dividing wall soon ended, and when I stepped into the front room, I saw Goodman Peeters seated bolt upright on a stool before the door, fowling-piece leaning next to him. He grasped it when I appeared. I glanced toward the fire; Goodman Barker lay pitched at full length before the brick hearth, and Goodman Abbot was perched close by on a wooden box.

  “Might I have a candle? I can hardly see to tend to my babe,” I said. “It would be a help to me when he is restless and unhappy. With no windows, there are no chinks of light to see by.”

  “The dark will be coming on soon,” Goodman Abbot said. “Surely it is reasonable to give the young woman a candle.”

  Goodman Peeters stood up and bade the others to requisition “a mere stub for the accused witch. And fetch it to me and let me make certain that the candle is not too generous.”

  The response was only snores from Goodman Barker, but Goodman Abbot got up and began searching a heavy chest that still waited for Thomas Wardwell to bring an ox and cart. I stepped farther into the room, turning to stare back into the darkness. Would candlelight near the trapdoor cast a halo into the front room? Surely it would be hard to tell whether light shone from the room or from the passage.

  “Go back to the bedchamber and wait,” Goodman Peeters ordered, and I hurried away.

  Some time later, Goodman Abbot tapped on the door jamb to signal his presence and then came in the room. I was seated by the fire with a hand on Samuel’s cradle. My babe was awake and staring at me, and he wore a look of wisdom as if he knew my sorrow and my thoughts.

  Goodman Abbot bent to look in the cradle. “A likely-looking child. I had a bit of candle on me all the time. It is but tallow so will not last more than a wink.”

  “Thank you,” I said, wondering why he had not offered it sooner. He set the tallow stub and something else down beside me.

  I picked it up—heavy—and lifted it to my face. By feel and fragrance, it was beeswax. “Oh, thank you! Where could you find such a thing?”

  “In a basket of cast-offs, among broken clay bottles and a stove-in kettle. There is a paper tied on. I suppose Goodman Wardwell did not want to keep it because of the words.”

  I held the candle with its little strip of paper toward the firelight and read. For my dear and loving daughter, this candle made by my hands to mark divine deliverance from trouble and the birth of your son, for I know that you will be a godly and tender parent. I believe it will burn for perhaps seven hours. Please treasure it for some special day when a fine light is desired. Your most affectionate friend and Mother.

  “That day will never come,” I said.

  “No, but you have the need, and I have plucked it from the tossed-away
rubbish. No husband in such a plight would ever wish to see the candle again or to read those words. And now, having taken it into my possession, I give it to you. Mine be the blame, if there is blame. You and the child should have light.”

  “Thank you, Goodman Abbot. I will not forget this sweet kindness.” I touched him glancingly on the sleeve. “You are a great help to me. Truly.”

  “What wastes your time? Why do you tarry on a simple task?” Goodman Peeters stood at the door, the firelight dimly showing that he stood with hands on hips.

  I swaddled the candle in a fold of my gown.

  “Just wishing the poor young woman to be stout of heart, for my mind is now at peace about her—I do not find that she is of the witch-kind. That is all.” First caressing Samuel on the cheek with a finger so that the babe cocked his head and stared, Goodman Abbot turned and slipped out the door past Goodman Peeters.

  “A witch is a diabolic creature. She can make you dream that she is as white as the cream on milk.” Goodman Peeters spoke harshly, but his voice quivered. He glared at me, his face lurid by the light of a tallow candle mounted on a shard of crockery, and fled into the hall.

  My thoughts surprised me. He is daunted by me! Goodman Peeters is afraid that I have powers that he will find irresistible. When I have nothing but a secret candle, and he has a gun.

  His voice wafted to my room. “Witches are sly and conniving and can persuade others to do their bad will.”

  Goodman Abbot’s words were faint. “Aye, witches can, but Mistress Herrick is not a witch.”

  I heard the footsteps of Goodman Peeters growing slighter, and at last they were lost to hearing.

  Samuel, tired of his long staring and worn to silence, closed his eyes. For a long time, I sat feeding wood to the fire, attempting to remember every detail of the tunnel and considering how I would get the babe down through the trapdoor. Every time I thought of guiding the lit candle and the child through the hole, I imagined plunging and being unable to catch myself by the slats of the crude ladder. I imagined the light going out in a blink and Samuel wailing in the darkness. I dreamed up every possibility, even absurd ones like Goodman Barker colliding with Goodman Abbot and the two dropping through the opening. More woefully, I pictured Goodman Peeters tripping and diving, the gun firing and killing the child in my arms. Surely I would have to make several journeys, one to set the candle down on the dirt floor, and one to fetch the babe. And walking through the heavy snow near the house on pattens had not proved easy.

  About the dusk hour, after I nursed Samuel again and put him back into the cradle to nap, there was a commotion at the house front, with Goodman Peeters blocking the way and bellowing back and forth with those who desired entrance. When he at last dragged away his stool and opened the door, I was pleased to recognize the voice of Mr. Francis Dane, quite loud and indignant in tone, and I stepped from the room to listen.

  “What do you mean by refusing entrance, man? You have but a makeshift post as officer of the peace for a single night, and you would deny the authority of your minister?”

  Goodman Peeters rivaled the pastor in volume and intensity. “I had my orders. I know my duty,” he said, “praying your worshipful pardon, sir.”

  A third voice rose over his. “Could we not settle this matter later? I desire to see my wife.”

  “Well, I do not know,” Goodman Peeters said.

  “She has not been formally charged; she is only being held for future questioning,” Mr. Dane said. “Naturally we may see and visit with her.”

  “Visit with her? I have no orders whatever about holiday calls and tarriance of husbands with witch-wives and ministers wishing to confer with and hearten and perhaps pray with accursed young witches. A visitation of suffering upon the prisoner I could understand. Or the sojourn of some Egypt-plague. But merry, how-now, what-cheer house calls? No orders! No orders!”

  “What fiddle and flummery! We will see her, and you will like it or hie yourself elsewhere,” Mr. Dane exclaimed.

  “One at the time,” Goodman Peeters bargained.

  “Whyever so? But if it lets you do your proper duty, man, fine,” Mr. Dane said. “While Mr. Herrick goes in to his wife, I will halt here and tell you exactly how you mistake the prerogatives of your temporary office.”

  “That would be a regular feast of entertainment to the rest of us,” Goodman Abbot said.

  “Only a few minutes,” Goodman Peeters continued, still caught up in the dream of his own power to order events.

  “What? What is the matter?” Goodman Barker seemed to be reproaching his friend for waking him.

  “You do not want to miss out,” Goodman Abbot said.

  I met Jotham Herrick in the narrow passage and embraced him, the disquiets of the day lost in his arms. Pulling him inside the dark chamber, I held him close. After moments in which we each seemed to be doing our best to merge into one being, we drew back, and I led him to the fire.

  “You must be freezing,” I said.

  “It is no matter, nothing at all,” he said, though his cheek had been cold against mine, and his clothes were chilly and flecked with half-melted snowflakes. He glanced down at our babe, asleep in the cradle.

  “Jotham,” I said, “my dear Jotham.”

  “My sweet,” he said. “Charis, I explained about the drop of blood on the doll to Mr. Barnard, but he finds the sum of complaints too great to dismiss. I am afraid, madam, that these vile, miserable Holts will be our undoing. They bombard the people with words of stone. I fear the truth will not come out.” His fingers sought mine, and we stood latched together beside the flames.

  “A clay pot cannot contend with a wall,” I whispered. It was something my mother used to say, and now I feared to be the pot contending with a wall of flinty justices, or a wall of tale-bearing Holts.

  “Yes, we smash ourselves to dust against their stories.”

  “So I fear.”

  “Justice may be the highest virtue, but in this case, chaos rules. All goes arselins. All is tyranny and untruth against our family,” he said.

  I looked down at the bed of coals, the rich, glimmering slope under the flames, and thought of how, across the sea, witches were bound to the stake and burned like candles. And the least little scorch-mark was so painful: to have tinder flaming underfoot until boughs and wood caught, and skin and hair and bones were transformed from solid flesh to tallowy dew, would be hell before death.

  “You do not believe them? Not even a little?”

  “How can you ask, wife? I know who and what you are, and you are no witch, though you have been forced to be braver than is the usual lot of our kind. You are my queen of truth and heroism.” He gathered me close, and I clung to him. “Surely your feet were guided to mine through the wilderness.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “And what is this trial but anarchy and chaos toppling goodness and order?”

  “Jotham Herrick, if I were to come to you in the deep part of the night, would you go with me to some other realm? Could you endure to leave this place, where you are regarded and have a fine reputation as goldsmith? Where you are a selectman in the town and busy with the militia? Could you bear to walk as a pilgrim up and down the earth for my sake? Would you be willing to find a separate joy with me?”

  He pulled back from me and gazed into my face.

  “What do you mean? How?”

  Goodman Peeters rapped on the doorframe and called to us that we had three minutes only. Mr. Dane caught up with him and the two began arguing.

  “Never mind how,” I said, lowering my voice. “But I have a new thought. Take Samuel with you and say, dear sir, that he needs fresh clouts and wrappers. And that you will bring him back before they take me away, so that he can be in my cell and live there and be fed until my trial.”

  “Yes,” he said, “I will do that.”

  “Trust me, husband. But bring him in the morning if I do not find you in the night,” I said. “Or he will be hungered. And give him a
taste of sugar if he cries.”

  “You know a way? Your words are dark. I cannot think what you mean.”

  “Goodman Peeters sits against the only door, and my room is without window. But yet, I do know—now, listen to me. Go to the house and pack up everything we can carry on Hortus and no more. It will be a dreadful load for him, with we three and some of our belongings. But the journey will not be so long, at least the first stage. We can walk sometimes. Take clothes. Oh, and the pillion-pad in the chest by the door. As much of the best-wrought tools as can be carried. Gold. Silver. Beat the vessels flat. Tie up the valuables in gowns or bedding or—”

  “That is enough, Mr. Herrick,” Goodman Peeters called.

  “Hush, man,” Mr. Dane said. “But let me have a word with his spouse.”

  Quickly I wrapped our babe in his rabbit skin, and cauled the whole in my mother’s blanket. I pressed my cheek against Samuel’s but he did not stir, being stupefied by the heat and smoke of the fire. In the gloom, I handed the bundle to my husband, who raised Samuel and laid him against his shoulder.

  Then Jotham Herrick and I held each other, parted, and hoped for better.

  “Godspeed, my dearest wife,” he said. “Heaven guide your steps.”

  Mr. Dane came in afterward with a “How now?” that sent tears to my eyes. The old minister held my hands in his and briefly prayed for my safety and good care, and spoke to me about the evidence, and how it was, for him, naught that signified, but how it was, for others, a sheaf of deadly arrows.

  “Old friends become bitter enemies on a sudden for toys and small offenses,” he said, quoting Robert Burton, as he had done many times before.

  “I never thought to be betrayed with lies.”

  “All may yet be well,” he said. “I pray so.”

  He would fight for my good name, Mr. Dane promised, as he had fought long ago for one of his people. But he had forebodings of ill times to come, fearing this year’s fierce winter as a judgment, though he was not so firm in his opinion as Mr. Barnard. He also dreaded that talk of specters and devils and the use of counter-magics and fortune-telling now bulked so high that we were all in some danger. Some spoke of me as having signed Satan’s book, yet he more feared the devilish intent behind the charge, and the bad actions of mortal men and women.