Susannah Morrow

by Megan Chance

  “Still, I—”

  “What a prig you are, Charity. As if you’ve a right to be. Why, the whole village knows what you were doing with Samuel Trask.”

  “Mary—”

  “What was she doing with Sammy?” Mercy looked at me with her avaricious eyes, as if she could swallow me whole. “What? So it’s true, then? Is it true?”

  “Don’t be a widgeon,” I replied hotly. I stared at Mary and begged her silently not to say anything more. “Tell them, Mary. ’Twas only that I fancied myself in love with him. Tell them.”

  Our gazes met for a moment—it seemed an eternity—and then she sighed and said in a stiff voice, “I was only teasing.”

  I heard only insincerity, but it seemed the others didn’t notice. They said nothing more. I breathed a sigh of relief that lasted only until Mary said, “Well, I’d best be gone. If I don’t get to the Proctors’ before Robert leaves, I may have to keep this bodice a few more days—maybe even a week, until he comes back.”

  “You can’t,” I said in a panic.

  Betty laughed. “Poor Charity’s in a fit, Mary. You shouldn’t tease so. You go off. I’m for home. ’Tis nearly time for dinner.”

  “Aye. You don’t want to miss that,” Mercy teased.

  Betty flushed, crossing her arms over her heavy breasts as if she could disguise them. “If I don’t get back to cook it, the doctor will whip me for sure.”

  “Very well,” Mary said. “Here I go. Wish me luck.”

  She was leaving already. She was leaving without my having a chance to talk to her, and I could not go another day without her advice, without her help. I lurched forward and grabbed her arm, and she looked at me in startled surprise. “No, you can’t go already. I…Remember, I—”

  “Oh, yes, you need to talk to me. Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

  “No.”

  “Talk to her about what?” Mercy asked. “Why can’t we all hear?”

  “’Tis nothing,” I said. “I need her advice about…about a…a skirt. She’s the only one who’s seen it.”

  Mary looked at me oddly. “A skirt? Really, Charity, I haven’t time to waste.”

  I held her gaze and spoke as quietly and intently as I could. “You owe me this. Without me, you’d have nothing to impress your Robert with tonight.”

  Mary hesitated. “Very well, then. Come along.”

  “Come along?”

  “If you want to talk to me, come with me to Ipswich Road.”

  “I can’t. It’s so far.”

  “You said you sneaked out anyway. If your father doesn’t know you’ve gone, how will he know how long?”

  I thought of Jude and wondered how long she could keep silent. How long would it be before they checked the bedroom or she confessed that she’d seen me run out? After dinner? Before? No doubt they knew already that I was gone. I had to go back.

  But I needed to talk to Mary now. I could not afford to think of how angry my father would be, or how he would punish me. Instead, I thought of the delusion I’d seen in his eyes. Your aunt is not an actress.

  “Very well,” I said to Mary.

  The others went home; for a moment, I worried that Mary Warren would walk with us. After all, she was a maidservant in the Proctors’ house, and ’twas where she would be returning. But she had another errand to do first, and so Mary and I started out to Ipswich Road.

  “Oh, Charity, I cannot believe it!” Mary said. “I am sure that Robert will notice me at last.”

  “The red becomes you,” I told her.

  “Aye, it does.”

  “Just don’t soil it.”

  Mary made a face. “Ah, poor Charity. Will your aunt punish you much for this, do you think?”

  My aunt. I was so relieved that she’d mentioned Susannah. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “I won’t soil it, Charity, I promise. I would hardly ruin my chances to ever borrow it again.”

  “No, no, that doesn’t matter. It’s…Mary…I’m afraid. I don’t know what to do about her.”

  Mary smiled. “Don’t worry. Together we should be able to think of what to tell her. If she finds you with the bodice—”

  “Listen to me,” I hissed. “That’s not what I’m talking about at all. She’s an actress. It’s as you said. Everything you said…is true.”

  “So you told me. Why, it’s scandalous, don’t you think? What will those old gossips think when your father throws her out?” She fingered the edge of the bodice longingly. “’Twould almost be a pity—”

  “I don’t think he’s going to throw her out.”

  There was a little frown between Mary’s eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “I told him that she was an actress, and he doesn’t believe it. You…You should have seen his face, Mary. I could tell…He won’t listen to a word against her. She’s deluded him somehow, I know it. ’Tis what the Devil does. He can tempt even the best of us—”

  “Are you sure she’s so wicked, Charity? She seems too…well, beautiful. ’Tis obvious God has favored her.”

  “She’s an actress,” I said. “Can you doubt her debauchery? And it’s as Master Parris is always telling us: The Devil wears many pleasing faces.”

  Mary hesitated. “Aye, but…but…Perhaps it’s not what it seems, Charity. She does not seem bad. Would it hurt to…I mean, think of the stories she has to tell. An actress, here in Salem Village! How interesting it would be to hear about the world instead of this little mud-filled village.”

  I should have turned around then. We weren’t far, only just past the village. ’Twould have been an easy matter for me to leave Mary to herself and go home. It was clear she didn’t understand. We thought so differently—I should have remembered that. But I did not want to go back home and face my father’s wrath. I would have taken punishment gladly had I achieved what I meant to, but now the thought of bearing a daylong sermon in addition to my disappointment…I could not bear it. The thought of looking at Susannah in the face and knowing that she had beaten me…I could not do that, either. So I kept walking with Mary; I listened to her speculation that my aunt must know a great deal about satisfying a man—“Perhaps you should ask her about that, Charity”—and watched as the storm clouds rolled in and thought, Perhaps it will rain and I’ll get soaking wet and die of a fever. It seemed a better fate than the one that wended ahead of me now.

  But the weather held, and Mary was shivering with excitement by the time we reached the ordinary. It was just off the Ipswich Road, and there were horses hitched out front and two carts. I recognized none of them, but I would have been surprised if I had. ’Twould only be strangers here, and worse than that—strangers from Salem Town and Ipswich. Both Mary’s stepfather and her uncle would have been horrified to find her here, and as for my father?…well, that was a matter best not thought about.

  None of this seemed to bother Mary. As we walked up to the door, and I heard talk from within, the shadow of the house seemed to block out the sky, and I shivered, feeling even more strongly that ’twas a bad idea to be here. But Mary was already inside. There was nothing left for me to do but follow.

  The smell of beer and sweat filled my nostrils, heavy and thick after the cool air of outdoors. There was a long table in the middle of the room, and when we walked in, the men sitting there turned to look at us. At the far end of the room, Elizabeth Proctor was pouring a tankard of beer. She was John Proctor’s third wife, only thirty or so to his sixty, and pretty in a worn sort of way. She was usually pleasant, but today she frowned when she saw us. She brought the tankard to one of the men at the table and wiped her hands on her apron as she came over to us.

  “I had not thought to see you here,” she said. “Is there—has someone sent you for something?”

  “No,” Mary said. “We’ve come for beer.” She tossed her head and unbuttoned her cape to show the bright red of the bodice.

  I saw the startlement in Elizabeth Proctor’s eyes, and then the speculation
. “Does your uncle know you’re here, Mary?”

  To her credit, Mary flushed. “He cares little for what I do,” she said, and there was challenge there, in her words and her voice; she stared right into Goody Proctor’s face as if daring the woman to throw us out.

  It did not seem to faze the goodwife. She looked at me. “And what of you, Miss Charity? Does your papa know you’re out here on the Ipswich Road?”

  I hardly knew how to answer her. It turned out I did not have to. One of the men from the table stood up and came sauntering over. I did not recognize him at first, but when I saw his eyes, and the angle of his jaw, I knew him for his father’s son. Robert Proctor.

  “Is there a problem, Elizabeth?” he asked quietly.

  His stepmother’s mouth tightened. She gave a quick little shake of her head.

  Beside me, Mary smiled. “Why, Goodman Proctor,” she said. “’Tis a long time since you’ve entertained us with your presence. What brings you from Ipswich today?”

  He glanced at her, and his glance stayed. His eyes were full of that red bodice—he could not look away from it…or her. It was like a charm holding him hostage. “Forgive me. Do I…?”

  “Mary Walcott,” she said with a bob. “And ’tis us you must forgive. ’Twas a long walk, and my friend and I only meant to appease our thirst. Had I known there would be so many important men here, we would have walked on without disturbing you.”

  “And they’ll be walking on again, as soon as the beer is drunk,” Elizabeth Proctor said.

  Mary gave her a truly venomous glare.

  “’Tis a pity,” Robert Proctor said. “A pity.”

  He went back to his table then, but slowly, and once he sat down, he kept looking at Mary, who preened in that red bodice like a robin in the springtime. Together we sat on a bench against the wall, and Elizabeth Proctor served us the beer and leaned close to whisper, “Quickly now. I won’t be flayed alive by your parents for keeping you here. Drink up and be gone.”

  I was ready to do as she said. In spite of the long walk and my dry throat, I was not thirsty at all. I could barely swallow. But I forced myself to gulp that beer until it was half gone, and I was dizzy and warm from it. When I looked over at Mary, she was sipping slow and easy, and when a bit of the thin, bitter foam caught on her lip, she licked it off with that pointed, delicate cat’s tongue of hers. Her eyes never left Robert Proctor’s. When I glanced over at him, I saw he was staring at her with that hungry look I knew too well—I’d seen it in Sammy’s eyes, and I knew what it meant. In spite of the fact that it was not directed at me, my belly warmed, and heat came into my cheeks.

  “Let’s go, Mary,” I whispered to her. “We should not have come here.”

  Mary did not even look at me. “Goody Proctor will have to throw me out herself before I go. Do you see how he’s looking at me?”

  I looked down into my beer. Outside, I heard the low and not so distant rumble of thunder. “It’s going to storm. If we don’t leave now—”

  “Go then, if you want. But I’m staying.” Mary rose abruptly. I stared after her as she walked to the table where Robert Proctor sat with men I did not know. She leaned down to whisper something to him. He laughed, and told the other men to move down on the benches, and they did, making room for her to sit there beside the man she wanted. From the hearth, Elizabeth Proctor scowled.

  I felt the storm coming closer; I heard the thunder in my head. All I wanted was to disappear into the wall, to quietly leave and turn back the hours so I had never set foot into this place where I should not be. I prayed that Goody Proctor would not see fit to tell my father.

  I heard Mary laugh, and then another man, a younger one, rose from the table. I thought he was leaving, because he was moving toward the door, but then I realized I was sitting on the bench near the door and he was coming over to me. I froze, my tankard halfway to my mouth, and stared up at him while he smiled down at me.

  “Your friend doesn’t want you to be alone,” he said. “Come, sit with us.”

  I swallowed hard. They were men sitting at that table, not the village boys we were used to, all of them older than Sammy had been, and at twenty he’d moved far too fast for me. Each step of the way with him, I’d been drowning, and I did not want to think of what Mary was doing now, of the danger she was in. Robert Proctor was thirty years old—the things he must know that Mary did not. How afraid Mary should have been. As afraid as I was when I looked at this man standing before me.

  “I don’t think so,” I said, ashamed at how weak my voice was, just a whisper with no force to it.

  “Come along now, girl, of course you shall.” He reached for my arm. I felt his fingers close around it, warm, strong fingers, and I had a flash of Sammy’s hand closing around me just that way, pushing me to my knees—

  I jerked away so hard the beer splashed from my tankard and onto his breeches. His smile went thin. “Now, look what you’ve done,” he said. “I’ve a mind to—”

  I saw his mouth move, but a rumble of close thunder filled the room, taking over his voice. I felt a rush of wind that chilled me to the bone, but I was inside—there was no wind here—and in confusion, I turned to see the door opening, and someone coming in, a woman—

  My aunt Susannah.

  Chapter 10

  THE ORDINARY WAS EERILY SILENT; THE ONLY SOUND WAS THE WHIPping howl of the wind. Susannah shut the door, and the moment she did, I heard the rain come crashing down, almost as if it had waited only for her to find her way to shelter. It seemed the clouds had been too heavy to contain it another moment and had let it all fall at once.

  My aunt seemed not to notice—not the rain nor the silence. Her face was serene and calm, not a single hair out of place as she lifted the hood of that startlingly blue cape. She smiled, and that smile released me. I drew back into the shadows of the corner and prayed she would not find me there. If she went to Goody Proctor, I could be out the door before she saw me.

  The man who had been standing before me moved. For a moment, I thought I was doomed to disaster. Susannah began to turn toward him. I held my breath as if it would somehow make me invisible, but then Robert Proctor rose. She glanced at him, and ’twas all I could do to keep from crying in sheer relief. She hadn’t seen me. Not yet. If I had my way, she never would. If she would just turn her back completely to me for a single moment, I could make the door.…

  Then I saw her stiffen. I saw what I had forgotten, and why there would be no escape, not today. Susannah was staring at Mary, at that glowing red bodice.

  Robert Proctor grinned at my aunt. “It seems you just missed the rain. Would you care to sit with us? We’ve a spare seat at our table.”

  Susannah’s eyes flickered from Mary; she smiled at Robert Proctor as if she hadn’t a care, and shook her head. “Thank you, no. I won’t be staying.”

  Goodman Proctor pressed his hand to his heart. “Ah. I am disappointed. Is there nothing I can say to convince you not to hurry away?”

  “I’m afraid not.” She nodded toward Mary. “But it seems you’ve someone there already to ease your disappointment.”

  Robert Proctor glanced at Mary and said, “You misunderstand. She’s only sharing a tankard with us.”

  “Why, I’m glad to hear it. ’Tis good to know a man of your experience is not dallying with someone of such tender years.” The words were delivered with a honeyed tone, but Robert Proctor flushed. At the table, I heard Mary gasp, and when I looked over at her, she was nearly as red as that bodice.

  Slowly Susannah walked over to the table. She looked right at Mary. “I shall be home tomorrow afternoon. Will I see you then?”

  I had never seen Mary so ill at ease. My aunt only smiled and said again, “Tomorrow?”

  “Aye,” Mary said sullenly. It had been many years since I’d seen her so angry, not since, as children, her stepmother had chastised her in front of a young and handsome Joseph Putnam for spilling a bucket of berries. She had paid her stepmother back the next da
y by setting the cow loose to trample through the garden, and I wondered now how she would take revenge for this—whether it would be my aunt Susannah or me who would have to pay.

  Susannah straightened. She said, “Charity, ’tis time to come home,” without turning around, and again I was not surprised. ’Twould have taken a miracle for her not to have seen me, and I suspected now that she had known I was here even before she opened the door. I had the uneasy sense that somehow the bodice had given us away, that it had led her here, though I could not explain how. God made miracles all the time, and as for Satan—what powers could he give those who had joined in covenant with him?

  I put down my beer and rose to follow her, not daring to look at Mary as I left. Susannah did not even turn to see if I was behind her as she put up her hood again and went to the door.

  She pulled it open, and the rain stopped, just that sudden. A ray of sun burst through the gray clouds overhead to cast its weak light on the sodden ground, and then was gone again, leaving only the dark sky and the wicked wind that billowed her cloak—the only spot of color in the whole horizon. Outside waited Jack, saddled and pillioned, and I stared at the mule in shock—it was so seldom we rode, if ever. We walked everywhere because the mule and the horse were needed for work. The sight of him now told me that my father knew I had disappeared, and though I’d never doubted otherwise, I could not keep the tears from coming to my eyes.

  “Is Father very angry with me, then?” I asked.

  Susannah shut the door behind us and looked at me. “He thinks I’ve gone to pull flax, and that’s what I intend to let him believe.”

  I stared at her in stunned surprise. “What?”

  She mounted Jack and held out her hand to help me onto the pillion. “Come. We’ve not much time.”

  I looked at her outstretched hand, and I was afraid. I did not understand why my father did not know I was gone, why she had not told him. My suspicion that it had somehow been the bodice that led her grew so strong I could not make myself disbelieve it.

  Susannah sighed impatiently. “Come, Charity. Unless you’d prefer your father discover you’ve gone missing.”