“Well now, that is good business, sir.”
“But for my trouble, I’d like words with the prisoner.”
“Ahhh . . . I’m not supposed to allow it, sir.”
“I see . . . well then I’ve no reason to make a payment against her debt if I can’t speak to her.”
“When you say speak to her, can it happen through the bars, sir?”
“With you looking on?”
“Nay, with me the other side of the wall, sir. It’s just that I’m told no one goes inside, Mr. Wakely. No one but the authorities, you see.”
“But I’m a barrister myself.”
“Aye, perhaps so, but you’re not on me list.”
“I’ll take the barred window then, Mr. Ahhh . . . ” Jeremy held out two Massachusetts Bay silver dollars. “On account.”
The toothless old sailor smiled wide, accepting the silver with eyes lit. “It’s Abraham, and you’re a true patron, sir, a true humanitarian.”
“Find her and send her to the window, then, Abraham.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jeremy waited at the window in question, the bars like rusted iron pipes well salted and blasted by the sea air, as it looked out on the ocean—no doubt causing many inside to long for that horizon. Jeremy peered in, and the odor—wafting out to him—caused a coughing jag. Covering his mouth with a handkerchief and nearly doubling over with the stench, the barrister not on the list straightened to come face to face with Tituba. Her features were cut in half by the darkness and fractured by the bars. In the weak light, her features thus sliced presented an appearance of multiple mirrors at work, any one of which might be called skewed.
“Mr. Reverend Wakely? Is it really you?”
“Yes, Tituba. I’ve questions for you.”
“I am no evil witch.” She began crying. “I didn’t hurt the baby.”
“The baby?”
“Betty, Betty Paris. I never hurt the child. It was Goode.”
“But you didn’t stand in Goode’s way; you knew of Goode’s plans for Betty.”
“I didn’t know.”
Jeremy saw that fear had for these many months ruled the woman. The truth was no longer an option. She feared it could get her hung. And why shouldn’t she fear him and his questions? “Do you know that Goode is dead? Hanged?”
“Dey tell us when Bishop be hanged. Dey tell us when Goode, Nurse, and three others be hanged, yes. Dey tell us one day we all be hanged but not burned.”
Jeremy recalled the only case in New England when a so-called witch was burned at the stake. It was some years before right here in Boston, but the woman was not burned to death because of her suspected witchcraft but rather due to the age-old belief in religion and law—may the punishment fit the crime. The Boston servant, a good deal like Tituba as she was a Barbados slave, had set fire to her master’s house. The fire had claimed the entire family—mother and children included. The judges, Saltonstall and Stoughton among them at the time, ruled the woman deserved the fate of her master and his family. Thus the single known burning of a witch on these shores.
“Tituba, tell me about the other baby.”
“Other baby?”
“Yes, your child.”
“My child?”
Jeremy handed her a clean kerchief, which lit up her eyes. She took the prize and wiped at her tears before hiding it in her bosom. “Your child, yes, the one you once hinted at—the one you said your master took from you the way he’d taken Dorcas away from Goode.”
Her features changed visibly. A dark anger painted her brow, and the fulcrum of her anger came glaring out at Jeremy from her black eyes. She squeezed the bars, her mouth frothing from illness and disease. “I die in dis place, wid him out there—” she pointed past his shoulder—“big man who kill witches and Satan men. Him who kill my baby.”
“You hinted as much, but have you any proof of it, Tituba? That Sam Parris murdered your infant?”
“Only my word, worth how much?” She snorted a short burst of nervous giggles. How much before? How much now?”
“Tell me everything you remember—every second, every mother’s instinct and emotion when you asked him about the infant that very first time.”
“I had hard time wid de birthing; hours wid de pain. So much, I faint.”
“Faint?”
“He give me opium.”
“Opium?”
“Like he use all de time in Barbados—and a strange drink.”
“Opium and a strange drink?”
“From de doctor he pay. Doctor make drink.”
“Were you at all aware of your surroundings when the baby was delivered?”
“No, no! I not never see de child.”
“Not even afterward?”
“No, not once.”
“Your child was delivered while you unconscious?”
“Un-con-see-us?”
“While you were asleep?”
“Asleep, yes.”
Jeremy imagined it an abortion. You don’t knock out a pregnant woman with opium and other concoctions if you want to deliver a baby. “Were you sore? Did the doctor cut you?”
“Cuts, yes. Plenty blood. Sore and sick. Long time.”
“You saw no evidence of the child at all?”
“I wake up and doctor gone! And my baby gone! Mr. Parris, he tell me baby dead.”
“Do you recall the doctor’s name?”
“Cabbage. No Cobb. No Cable. Yes, a man named Caball.”
“Had you ever seen this doctor before there in Barbados before?”
“No not never. Mr. Parris say Caball is from de ship.”
Jeremy shook his head. “What ship?”
“It from England, he say, and he say Dr, Caball knows best.”
“I see. Don’t suppose you recall the name of that ship?”
“Elizabeth—like Mrs. Parris.”
“Good, good! Ships’ records could be consulted, but finding this particular ship and doctor could take months if not a year. Still if Parris were confronted with the ship and the doctor’s name, he might just give himself away. The irony of Parris’ having aborted a child hadn’t escaped Jeremy, as the accused had been charged with murdering infants.
“I beg massa,” Tituba went on, “beg him to let me see my baby—dead even—to hold it, but he tell me, ‘No’, and he show me de ugly face like you see he make.”
“Yes, I’ve seen it.”
“He-He tell me it not best thing for me to see de baby. Say it be bent here—” she indicated her head, “and it buckled here—“she indicated her body. Tell me he axe de doctor to take it away. Say it for my sake.”
“I see. And it was his child, Tituba?”
“His child, a son.”
“A boy. He told you it was a boy?”
“No, doctor say.”
“When did this doctor tell you this?”
“I hear him first time I wake. I see dem talking.”
“Who?”
“Massa and doctor. Doctor say, ‘It a boy’. But massa yell at him to get rid of it.”
“Don’t make it up as you go, Tituba. I only want the truth.”
“Dis be de truth! I saw and heard like in dream.”
Or a drugged state, Jeremy thought. It has the ring of truth, and Tituba seemed to have no guile about this story. All the same, Jeremy felt paralyzed. It amounted to hearsay. Hearsay from a black woman and a prisoner no less, herself accused of aiding and abetting Goode to attack the minister’s daughter through machinations of witchcraft, one who may or may not soon face the gallows—if she did not die of jail fever first. She looked awful in her unbathed state, and her tattered clothes reflected a shredded will and all her former fiery soul seemed lost.
The story of Anne Carr Putnam’s having a decades-old grudge between her and Susannah Martin had not moved the court or anyone in authority. What good would this information provided by Tituba Indian do?
Jeremy looked again into the bottomless black eyes of the Ba
rbados native. The woman perspired, retched, and grew more tired before his eyes.
“I’d’ve thought Parris would have had you released and placed onboard an outgoing ship for Barbados or anywhere by now.”
“He try but no ship will take a witch on board.”
Sailors were more superstitious than the inhabitants of Salem Village, Jeremy realized, and he pictured Parris attempting to bribe a ship’s captain to stow her away in a hole someplace but unable to come up with the certainly high price that would have been exacted.”
Tituba laughed. “Master forgot another promise.” Jeremy assumed she meant precisely what he was kicking over in his head. “Tituba, if we could find this doctor in Barbados . . . Are you sure of his name?”
“Only one white doctor in Barbados—Noah. Dr. Noah. Dis other man go away.”
“Noah—sounds like a first name. Do you know his full name?”
“I only know name on sign—Dr. North.”
“Noah North?”
“Yes, Noah North.”
“That could be of great help, Tituba. Thank you for speaking with me.” Perhaps North knew something of Parris’ dealings with the mysterious doctor or murderer, who came ashore from the Elizabeth that night.
“Can you help me?” Tituba now asked, her right hand wrapping around Jeremy’s. It pulled a thread of pity from Jeremy. So far as he could see, she was a victim several times over, and likely to die of consumption in this place.
“If I can get the Governor to listen to your story, perhaps you’ve helped yourself. Have faith in God, and hold firm to your innocence.”
“Then I will die here.”
“I’ll do whatever I can to keep that from happening, Tituba.”
She grasped his hand tighter with what little strength she had left. “Thank you, Mr. Wakely. You are good man.”
The entire time she had her hand on him, Jeremy worried he’d catch some awful death-dealing disease from her, and one reason he’d given her the handkerchief was so she’d cover her mouth before coughing on him. He pulled away and kept his hand at his side. Mrs. Fahey had plenty of lye soap back at the barn along with a pale of water. But even as his mind filled with the fear of being ravaged by some nasty disease, his heart went out to the once proud little woman.
Abraham, the jailor, retuned from his smoking and pissing the other end of the jail and said, “I can give ye no more time, ‘’less you have more coin for a crippled old salt, Mr. Wakely.”
“We’re done here, but I have a question for you.”
Abraham instantly presented his palm. “If I can be of service, sure it is.”
Jeremy handed him a half crown that he bit into and pocketed. “What question is it, sir?”
“Has any minister come to you to ask that you seek a berth on an outgoing ship for this black prisoner, Tituba? Perhaps to take her off to Barbados?”
“Well ahh . . . I think that’s two questions.” He again held out his hand like a cup held by a beggar.
Jeremy frowned and slapped a sixpence into the hand this time, making Abraham wince. “So there has been someone here for her, correct?”
“Yes as you seem to already know.”
“A minister who came in the night?”
“Much like yourself, yes.”
“What do you mean like me?”
“Young fella come in the night.”
This didn’t sound like Parris. “Did you catch the man’s name?”
“Said he was from Salem. Let’s see. Overheard the woman insultin’ the reverend before it was over.”
“Insutlting him how?”
“Kept saying it was noise, all noise or something like that.”
“Noyes! Of course. Doing Parris’ dirty work these days.”
“Sir?” Abraham watched Jeremy march off, his steps heavy. Now all he need do is ask around the docks at ships that had made any contact with Barbados to determine if any captain might have any information about a Dr. Noah North in Barbados or a so-called Dr. Caball—a possible ships’ doctor. Most ship doctors were little more than butchers and most hadn’t proper training as medical professionals, and the seagoing men who came and went in such seaports as this talked a good deal about their experiences at sea, and they were a surprisingly tight-knit group. It was not altogether farfetched that someone in Boston, possibly at the nearest pub, might have some knowledge of Caball or North or both.
It wouldn’t prove all elements of her story to determine this fact, that Drs. North and Caball existed and that this Caball fellow would have access to opium and perhaps laudanum—the strange drink. If he could prove enough facts, provide elements of doubt about Parris’ past and present motives, his immorality with respect to his own child, the question of aborting a child in order to hide it from public notice, then who knows, perhaps Governor Phipps might take heed at last to the level of conspiracy and mendacity let loose in Salem.
Jeremy rather doubted that taking Tituba’s story to the judges and magistrates— now so afire with witch-hunt fever—would do a whit of good.
He rushed back to Dancer and the barn and his bed for the night; rushed to the lye soap and water. He concentrated mostly on the hand that Tituba had touched and held onto between the bars. He scrubbed until the skin felt raw. He scrubbed until he felt comfortably sure that he’d stopped any possible spread of her sickness to him. The idea that disease could be stopped or slowed in its tracks by soap and water was as old as the Ten Commandments, precepts ordering cleanliness alongside those that ordered men to consume no uncooked meat.
Dancer watched him, seeming to understand his fear.
When Jeremy’s head hit his cushioned saddle, sleep came quickly to his exhausted mind, sleep orchestrated to the sounds and the odors of the barn, far easier to take than those emanating from the jail. Still, even in his sleep, he missed Serena and hated being away from her, and still he worried first about her safety, then how he could learn more about this mysterious Drs. North and Caball, and thirdly, how he could get an audience with Phipps. Then he recalled how the governor’s wife had gone about the windows of the jailhouse with biscuits and rolls for the prisoners. She’d been banned from doing any further good for the accused, or so he was given to understand.
It might take weeks, possibly months to gain an audience with the governor, but what of the governor’s wife? Just how sympathetic to the cause of the imprisoned on these charges of witchcraft was Mrs. Phipps?
His thoughts and troubled sleep led him from the governor’s mansion back to the jail across the street, where Tituba Indian might die at any time. She had been a chief accuser, pointing at others, and having given herself anew to God by ‘confessing’ her witchcraft and her association with the Black One, Satan, she had been spared the fate that Goode Bishop, Nurse, and the others had found at the end of a rope. Any accused person who did as Tituba had—turned on other prisoners, naming names—was, so far, spared the death sentence, unless the accused publicly recanted the confession and assistance to he court, which had occurred many times over now as well.
Jeremy’s last thought before dozing completely off was of an imaginary Samuel Parris arranging to rush Tituba from her cell to a waiting outbound ship for Barbados. But this swiftly changed to his rushing her off to a waiting grave he’d dug in the woods.
She could go the way of her child, he told himself. A secret, improper burial bought and paid for—no psalms read, no songs sung, no sanctified ground, and no questions asked.
Jeremiah’s sleep settled into a dream about a man who had an unwanted child by his slave, a struggling businessman in a seaport town far from any civilized world, yet the unwanted pregnancy and child would be an embarrassment—even here. The child in the dream was drowned off the end of a dock like an unwanted kitten inside a gurney sack, the body thrown to the kelp bed and the ever-hungry fish.
That was murder even in Barbados.
Chapter Five
In Jeremy’s absence from Salem, from all accounts that he he
ard—both verbal and written—the lunacy continued at full gallop. More accusations, more warrants sworn out, more arrests, more trials, more hangings in the offing. Including that of Sarah Cloyse, Serena’s aunt and Rebecca’s sister.
Jeremy had a letter posted from Serena, and this news was corroborated by her pained questions: “What did Mother die for? Was it for nothing? Where is God, Jeremy? Where is justice?”
Sarah Towne Cloyse’s name had come up on what had come to be called The Black List, the list of arrest warrants—as did untold numbers of people, men and women, who’d signed one or both petitions that’d circulated on behalf of Rebecca Nurse and Elizabeth Proctor. Those who dared stand up and affix their names to petitions for mercy and attesting to good character were now being systematically accused and arrested.
More jails were being built. The officially sanctioned madness continued without an end in sight.
Serena had signed both those petitions, as had her father and brothers—as had Jeremy. It felt as if the walls of the world, the colonial boundaries, were closing in on them all. It felt as if no one was safe. Serena had been right about that.
I should have thrown Serena across a horse and made her go with me to Connecticut, he told himself on finishing her letter.
As a result, Jeremy stepped up his efforts to gain an audience with the First Lady of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Mrs. Phipps. It was proving difficult. It’d been Governor Phipps who’d signed off on the Court of Oyer & Terminer; it’d been by his edict that Sir William Stoughton, Major Saltonstall and the other Boston judges of the General Court go to Salem to fight the witches, demons, warlocks, and Satan on that ground. He’d been quoted as saying, “Let us take the fight to the monsters in their lair.” And it felt as if Mrs. Phipps had not only been sanctioned by her husband and banned from any show of mercy to the accused and arrested, but that she’d been informed about Jeremiah Wakely—just who he was and how he had called the court sitting at Salem unlawful, and that any attempt on Jeremy’s part to see her must be rebuked. In fact, Wakely was characterized as a crackpot, an imposter, and a larcenous miscreant.
Jeremy imagined all of this maligning of his character had kept Mrs. Phipps from seeing him. Days and nights went by without an answer, and Jeremy feared he’d again fail.
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