For a half moment, Ingersoll couldn’t look Jeremy in the eye, but then he glared. “Look, Mr. Wakely, Governor Phipps himself sent Stoughton, Saltonstall and the others to help us out here, and so far as I’m concerned, the King can go to hell with Andros! No sir, I’ll put money on Sir William Phipps’ power in these colonies.”
This sent up a cheer among Putnam and his faction. Putnam then glared at Jeremy and added, “You come in on your white horse and in your minister’s garb a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a walking lie, Mr. Wakely, pretending to be a minister. For all anyone knows, you’re one of them.”
“One of them?”
“A cunning man, a wizard like Andover’s Wardwell.”
“I don’t know anyone named Wardwell, but I assure you, I am no wizard, for if I were—”
“Don’t come into our village and suppose you can tell us what is right and what is wrong.” Putnam stood with fists clenched.
Each man stared down the other.
Ingersoll retook the final ale he’d poured for Jeremy, and he poured it onto his wood floor behind the bar.
The gesture was clear. He was not wanted here.
Another man at the bar, Bray Wilkins, began telling the story of how his maidservant, Susana Sheldon, had been attacked in the night without provocation or warning. “She was chased about the kitchen and the whole house by a carving knife floatin’ in the air—invisible to me.”
“What happened next?” asked another man nearby.
“Why, when it finally was over, the girl fell faint, and I went to her, keeping my wife back, and Susana, she had bloody cuts on her arms, hands, and rents and tears in her clothes—and yet the me wife and me, we never saw no knife.”
The others let out a series of gasps. “Same thing at our house,” said Samuel Fiske, but our girl claimed she’d jammed a knitting needle into the armpit of the witch that gave her torment, and the next day we visited at the jail with authorities to search for the wound to the witch. Made the prisoners strip to display their armpits, and low’n’behold, one screamed out and she had a bloody wound there.”
“How old is magic tricks, man?” asked Jeremy to the man, but before anyone could answer, suddenly and noisily, the handsome John Proctor leapt to his feet, knocking over the chair where he’d been sitting with relatives.
All eyes were on Proctor now, ears pricked.
Proctor, a tall, handsome and imposing fellow came to Jeremiah’s side and defense, and the defense of his wife sitting in Gatter’s jail. “Are you all gone daft? Are you blind men? Do you see any ounce of reason in what you’re doing?” He whirled from man to man as he spoke, as if checking his back for a knife. “Mr. Wakely knows who’s behind this setting neighbor after neighbor like wolves hungry for flesh.”
Proctor settled on an eye-to-eye with Jeremy and said, “You sent dispatches back to Boston—to Mather, correct?” He then suddenly wheeled on Putnam. “When Mather himself comes to this place, and when he deals with the swine here, the fools following Parris’ track, you will find your heads on a stick!”
“Watch what you threaten here, Proctor!” warned Putnam.
Proctor went threateningly to Thomas Putnam. “When my Elizabeth and Francis’ Rebecca Nurse are vindicated, it will be you who will be pointed out for attempted murder.”
“None of the arrested have been cleared by the courts, John,” countered Putnam, glaring at Proctor.
“But you kind neighbors’ve already excommunicated my wife who is pregnant and going through this, and Rebecca, who is ill, and yet you put this madness on her!”
Jeremy saw Deputy Herrick standing now at the other end of the Inn, looking threateningly at Proctor.
Proctor held up a long sheath of paper with names not a third of the way down. “Who among you is man enough to stand with right?” he asked. “If you are, sign my petition for release of Mary Elizabeth Proctor and Rebecca Towne Nurse—to be remanded into the arms of their families now!”
Herrick looked around the room, and the room watched him, and no one signed Proctor’s petition. Jeremiah stepped up, took the pen and petition that Proctor held out and made a slow, exaggerated job of it by asking for Proctor’s back. Proctor turned and Jeremy signed the petition he laid between the other man’s shoulders. “It is the only thing for an enlightened man to do. If there be heretics among us, it is not Rebecca Nurse nor Mary Elizabeth Proctor.”
The noisy, busy place had gone silent. No one followed Jeremiah’s example. Herrick called out, “I will have a copy of that list, Mr. Proctor.”
“When it is filled, Herrick, you and Williard can act as buzzards over it.” Proctor stood his ground.
Herrick came close and said firmly in a near whisper, “I’d tread lightly if I were you.”
“Why don’t you try striking me with the butt of a gun as you did Francis?” This news sent up a gasp among many in the room. “Francis Nurse, one of your elders in the church, and they drag his wife from her home.”
“And they make secret plans behind closed doors with the Boston magistrates,” added Jeremy, “and yet we are called freemen and made unwelcome.”
“That’s enough, Wakely, Proctor,” countered Herrick, a bull-shouldered man with a full beard. “Showing disrespect to my office can earn you an arrest.”
“Disrespect? Your office?” began Proctor, his fists clenched.
Jeremy stepped between them. “Mr. Proctor’s only speaking the truth.”
“You keep out of this, outlander.” Herrick, a man with a tick in one eye and yellowed teeth from tobacco, held a finger in Jeremy’s face.
Jeremy calmly replied, “The Boston authorities are this minute working to rob Francis Nurse and Rebecca of their lands.”
“No one here believes your lies, Wakely!” shouted Putnam.
“Shut up! All of you,” ordered Herrick.
“They’re at Higginson’s moving his hand for him so he can sign the order before he’s dead.”
Jeremiah didn’t see the blow coming as, while he spoke, he’d turned to send his message to the four corners of the large open Inn and Apothecary. Herrick’s gun butt had sent Jeremy into darkness and unconsciousness.
John Proctor swung out in reflex, knocking Deputy Herrick senseless. Proctor then helped a dazed Jeremy to his feet. Jeremy came to just in time to see that Sheriff Williard stood over the scene of his deputy bleeding and sputtering at his feet. Then Williard did the unexpected. He snatched off his Sheriff’s patch and threw the insignia at Herrick’s prone body, shouting, “I’m done with this business and this place. Moving off, maybe to Connecticut . . . anywhere I can find peace, and an end to the guilt.”
“You’re abandoning your post at a time like this?” shouted Ingersoll.
Williard, gun in hand, stopped at the door and turned on Ingersoll. “I’m finished with this ugly matter! I haven’t the stomach to arrest one more of my neighbors.” He marched back toward Herrick, still trying to gain his feet, and he snatched out a warrant for arrest. He held out a new warrant that the judges had hammered out to the dazed Herrick and shoved it into his chest. Herrick took the paper to Williard’s saying, “You’ve a liking for this business, Herrick. Take it and be damned!”
When Herrick, still unsteady on his feet, did not readily take the warrant but let it slip. Mercy Lewis grabbed it up, about to read it, when Williard ripped it from her, balled it up and threw it at Herrick. He the stormed out and past Francis Nurse, giving Nurse a sad look of apology as he did so.
Francis Nurse stood now in the doorway; he’d been watching the final moments of the series of incidents here, and his eye fell on Jeremy’s bruised cheek. He rushed in to help Jeremy, while Proctor’s relatives huddled about the three of them and rushed Francis, Jeremy, and John Proctor from Ingersoll’s.
The fat Nathaniel Ingersoll stood behind the bar with a scattergun raised, his hand shaking so that the wide muzzle imitated a gulping fish, but this fish might explode.
As they exited Ingersoll’s, Jerem
y saw Mary Wolcott, and Anne Putnam Jr. had joined Mercy along with several other young girls who were among the crowd—as if just appearing out of thin air, yet they must have been moving among the crowd the entire time. Jeremy saw the anger in their eyes and the glances darting among them as if cueing one another. It said they’d be keeping their eye on him and Proctor and Proctor’s kith and kin as well as old Francis Nurse.
Chapter Nine
Jeremiah was surprised to find so many travelers today along the Ipswich Road; while a main thoroughfare wrapping around Salem Harbor in a wide arch, taking people between Village and Town, it’d never seen so much traffic in all its days. People flocking to the area for a glimpse of the excitement—to sit through excommunications by night, trials by day. The heavy traffic made for an already rutted road becoming near impassable when, after a hard rain and an even harder dry spell, the gutted avenue turned into a series of craters instead of the ribbon it was meant to be.
The condition of the road struck Jeremy as a metaphor for the condition of the population and the spirit prevailing in Salem. With Parris handling the church court, dealing with the ‘moral’ issues surrounding witchcraft, the denouncing of anyone’s lying down with the Devil, the man could call anyone in his parish into question to a public defense of banishment. Before the witchcraft pandemic, Parris had handled charges of misconduct of character, lewd behavior, and the occasional drunken brawl. He leveled fines and warnings, and he had the power to subpoena witnesses to his church court. It’s what kept him busy during a normal week, and it brought in money—a split of the fines taken in for the church—and presumably his pocket.
If a parishioner refused to answer Parris’s summons, the charges went to Mr. Corwin, presiding over the civil court in Salem Village. Higginson had the same arrangement with Hathorne in Salem Town, and now it was back to Salem Town for Jeremiah, although the time had grown late, and soon darkness would overtake him.
But he felt a strong urge to get to Reverend Higginson, and he knew that Williard was not guarding the house for the time being, and perhaps with the Boston men gone from Higginson’s bedside, Jeremy’s way would not be barred.
Jeremy entered from the western edge of town, and as before, he was astounded at the sight Salem Town presented. Ever busy, even at this hour, ever growing and prosperous. Salem deserved its reputation as a great seaport, perhaps the best in all the colonies, even over Boston for more whaling ships called it home than any other.
Jeremy managed a smile as he stepped along the boardwalk of Townhouse Lane, passing the Customs House, Judge Hathorne’s main avenue of wealth. Tall mastheads created a skyline filled with upraised spears blending with the freshly built seaport homes and the towering steeple of the First Church of Salem.
Although darkness neared, Jeremy passed open doors and windows, people shouting from each, blocking doorways, talking, bargaining, disputing weights and measures, haggling over prices. “All’s normal here,” he said to himself, comparing this routine array of life with what was going on at Ingersoll’s and the village.
Jeremy tipped his hat as he passed others, his cheek red and blue yet. He passed shops and windows filled with bakery goods, a shoemaker’s, a dyer’s, a tannery, and smoke houses large as warehouses where fresh meat was dried and salted for outgoing ships. The cooking aromas surrounded him, reminding him of nights in his father’s house when all they had to share had dwindled to a fresh loaf of hot bread. And here too was a stonemason’s shop, and a dish turner’s shop. His father had been a simple dish turner.
Jeremy stopped to stare in at yet another bakery window but was shaken from his thoughts when, in the window, he saw the see-through shadow of a dark and sinister form coalesce. It moved across the window, a reflection that made him turn and stare across the street. Samuel Parris had gone by, Nicholas Noyes on his arm. They’d come down the First Church steps. The two conspirators—for this is what they appeared to be— proceeded on to Higginson’s home ahead of Jeremiah.
Jeremy cursed the luck and himself for having dallied.
He pulled up his courage and made for Higginson’s anyway. On arriving, he heard sobbing as it flowed from the door, which stood ajar. He called out, “Hello! May I come in?”
But no one answered. From inside, he heard only the sounds of grief.
He entered. Everyone had gathered in the front room at the big bay window, and surrounding what Jeremy guessed to be Mr. Higginson’s remains. Higginson’s successor, Noyes, Paris, the manservant who’d doubled as coachman, a maid in her midlife years, and some of the Boston ministers surrounded the bed. Despite the well-lit room, despite the crowd, it was cold and empty tomb—this sight, this knowledge. Salem had lost not just a man but her moral compass, her rudder.
Another door closed to me, Jeremy thought as he backed out of the house, realizing that Noyes had sent for Parris on the occasion of his taking charge now of Salem Town’s spiritual needs, and so far as Jeremy believed, no man was less worthy or capable of filling the old man’s shoes. Even a counterfeit minister like me could do a better job of it. Just another blow to Salem; another nail in the coffin.
All this occurring and the colonies still without a legal charter to exist; in essence, without the rule of law. There’d been an overthrow in England and the colonies almost simultaneously in 1689, nearly three years ago. King Charles was reportedly dead, and King William the Conqueror, as rumor coming off seagoing ships had it, had taken the Crown of England. During the same period, the colonials had risen up against King Charles’s overseers and tax collectors here in Massachusetts, and they’d audaciously hung Governor Andros. They’d followed up by voting in Sir William Phipps as acting governor, but now Phipps had rather fight Indians than phantasmagorias. So the new head of state under a charterless colony had rushed off to conquer the ‘heathen and pagan’ threat. The kind of threat that presented a solid target.
In cold fact, Phipps had posted a public dispatch in Boston and Salem, making clear his point: “I’d rather fight the red devils than the invisible ones. These I can see and wield a weapon against. I have no knowledge of how to fight spirits and demons.”
Like Increase Mather, Phipps was no longer home.
Phipps had made it clear that he placed the Salem problem in the hands of Stoughton, Saltonstall, Addington, Sewell, and the local magistrates and ministers of Salem. He simply wanted the contagion contained, and he didn’t like the idea of housing witches in the cells in Boston. Furthermore, general knowledge had it that he’d forbidden his wife to visit the jails for fear of ‘catching’ the disease of the afflicted children of Salem.
When Jeremiah and Serena had been in Boston, and he’d exhausted every avenue, legal or otherwise to get help for Salem, he’d attempted to get word to the Governor as his last resort; it was then he’d learned that, like Increase Mather, William Phipps had abandoned them.
The most powerful man in the colony, and the brightest man in the colony gone. One to ostensibly fight Indians but clearly to wash his hands of Salem, while the Senior most powerful clergyman, Mather was off to fight for a charter—a constitution agreed upon by the brightest minds in the colonies and written up and taken to King William for ratification.
Wishing to avoid any confrontation with Parris and making his way back to the Nurse home and Serena, Jeremy thought 1692 a cursed year. So much was in flux commingling with so much fear—fear of Indian uprising, fear of the new King of England’s sending troops to hang those who’d dared hang the former king’s man and perhaps worse, failing to pay taxes. Not to mention fear of crop failures, and fear of witches, wizards, demons, and the Antichrist himself and all his minions.
During his night ride home, Jeremy recalled the last time he’d seen Increase Mather, whose son had proved such a disappointment to Jeremy. The elder Mather had assured Jeremy that Cotton, his son, was of the same mind as he on the matter of Reverend Parris and the troubles in Salem Village Parish. Obviously, the man misjudged his son or simply didn’t know t
he other Mather as well as he’d thought, for it seemed the younger Mather, too, had disappeared so as to wash his hands of the Salem matter.
With the night wind rustling through the trees, Jeremy thought of his original mission to Salem, the deal he’d struck with Increase Mather. He recalled the late afternoon sun in his eyes there on the dock where he’d last spoken to the man before he’d boarded the Undaunted for England. His last words to Jeremy had been about the absolute necessity of his gaining favor with “King Willy” and his court for the continued prosperity if not existence of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the rule of law. “Without a charter, Jeremy, we are still just a colony of rebels, subject to the whims of whomever might be King of England at any given time.”
With the death of Higginson and Increase Mather’s firm hand to guide the colony, with the temptation to replace the Andros issues for the dread of a witch hunt, Jeremy Wakely felt that things were as out of control as a log skidding down a mountainside.
Glumly, fearfully Jeremy arrived at the gate that Serena had enjoyed swinging on, and he saw her rushing out to meet him. She threw her arms around him, and they held one another for some time. “What new trouble is it, Jeremy.”
“Your father is wise; he warned me that you’d be reading my mind!” He kissed her and held onto her. She felt like the only port in a storm.
She pulled free and with hands on his face, she said, “I see trouble in your eyes.”
“Reverend Higginson is gone from us and to his Maker.”
“Oh, my . . . such a good soul.” She hugged Jeremy to her. “Mother will be saddened to learn it, and Father and Proctor were counting on his good counsel.”
“If I were a suspicious man, I’d say they drove the old man into his grave, the vultures. Wonder if he wasn’t poisoned by Noyes.”
“That’s a terrible accusation! Have you any proof of it?”
Children of Salem Page 36
