The Witch of Blackbird Pond (17 page)

"We will ask you some questions, Prudence," said the magistrate quietly. "You will answer them as truthfully as you possibly can. Do you understand?"

"Yes sir," whispered Prudence.

"Do you know this young woman?"

"Oh yes, sir. She is my teacher. She taught me to read."

"You mean at the dame school?"

"No, I never went to the dame school."

"Then where did she teach you?"

"At Hannah's house in the meadow."

A loud scream from Goodwife Cruff tore across the room.

"You mean Mistress Tyler took you to Hannah Tupper's house?"

"The first time she took me there. After that I went by myself."

"The little weasel!" cried Goodwife Cruff. "That's where she was all those days. I'll see that girl hung!"

It is all over, thought Kit, with a wave of faintness.

Gershom Bulkeley still held the little copybook. He spoke now, under his breath, and passed the book to Captain Talcott.

"Have you ever seen this book before?" the magistrate questioned.

"Oh yes, sir. Kit gave it to me. I wrote my name in it."

"That's a lie!" cried Goodwife Cruff. "The child is bewitched!"

Captain Talcott turned to Kit. "Is it true," he asked her, "that the child wrote her own name in this book?"

Kit dragged herself to her feet. "'Tis true," she answered dully. "I wrote it for her once and then she copied it."

"You can't take her word for anything, sir," protested Goodman Cruff timidly. "The child don't know what she's saying. I might as well tell it. Prudence has never been what you'd call bright. She never could learn much."

The magistrate paid no attention. "Could you write your name again, do you think?"

"I—I think so, sir."

He dipped the quill pen carefully in the ink and handed it to the child. Leaning over the table. Prudence set the pen on the copybook. For a moment there was not a single sound in the room but the hesitant scratching.

Goodman Cruff was on his feet. Propelled by a curiosity greater than any awe for the magistrate, he came slowly across the room and peered over his child's shoulder.

"Is that proper writing?" he demanded in unbelief. "Prudence Cruff, does it say, right out as it should?"

The magistrate glanced at the writing and handed the copybook to Gershom Bulkeley.

"Very proper writing, I should say," Dr. Bulkeley commented, "for a child with no learning."

The magistrate leaned to take the pen out of the small fingers. Goodman Cruff tiptoed back to the bench. The bluster was gone from him. He looked dazed.

"Now Prudence," the magistrate continued. "You say that Mistress Tyler taught you to read?"

"What sort of reading?" Goodwife Cruff rose in a frenzy. "Magic signs and spells I tell you! The child would never know the difference."

Gershom Bulkeley also rose to his feet. "That at least will be easy to prove," he suggested reasonably. "What can you read, child?"

"I can read the Bible."

Dr. Bulkeley picked up the Great Bible from the table and turned the pages thoughtfully. Then, moving to hand the Book to Prudence, he realized that it was too heavy for her to hold and laid it carefully on the table beside her. "Read that for us, child, beginning right there."

Kit held her breath. Was it the tick of the great clock that sounded so frightening, or her own heart? Then across the silence came a whisper.

"
Buy the truth, and sell it not;
also wis-wisdom, and in-in-instruction, and
understanding.
"

The childish voice slowly gained strength and clarity till it reached every corner of the room.

"
The father of the right-righteous shall greatly
rejoice; and he that begetteth a wish child shall
have joy of him. Thy father and thy mother
shall be glad, and she that bare thee shall rejoice.
"

In the warm rush of pride that welled up in her, Kit forgot her fear. For the first time she dared to look back at Nat Eaton where he stood near the door. Across the room their eyes met, and suddenly it was as though he had thrown a line straight into her reaching hands. She could feel the pull of it, and over its taut span strength flowed into her, warm and sustaining.

When finally she looked away she realized that everyone in the room was staring at the two parents. They had both leaned forward, their mouths open in shock and unbelief. As she listened, Goodwife Cruff's face darkened and her eyes narrowed. She saw now that she had been tricked. The fresh anger that was gathering would be vented on her child.

On the father's face a new emotion seemed to be struggling. As the thin voice ended, Goodwife Cruff drew in her breath through her teeth in a venemous hiss. But before she could release it her husband sprang forward.

"Did you hear that?" he demanded widely, of everyone present. All at once his shoulders straightened. "That was real good reading. I'd like to see any boy in this town do better!"

"It's a trick!" denied his wife. "That child could never read a word in her life! She's bewitched, I tell you!"

"Hold your tongue, woman," shouted her husband unexpectedly. "I'm sick and tired of hearing about Prudence being bewitched. All these years you been telling me our child was half-witted. Why, she's smart as a whip. I bet it warn't much of a trick to teach her to read."

Goodwife Cruff's jaw dropped. For one moment she was struck utterly dumb, and in that moment her husband stepped into his rightful place. There was a new authority in his voice.

"All my life I've wished I could read. If I'd had a son, I'd of seen to it he learned his letters. Well, this is a new country over here, and who says it may not be just as needful for a woman to read as a man? Might give her summat to think about besides witches and foolishness. Any rate, I got someone now to read the Good Book to me of an evening, and if that's the work of the devil, then I say 'tis a mighty queer thing for the devil to go working against himself!"

The magistrate had not interrupted this speech. There was a glint of amusement in his eye as he asked, "I take it then, Goodman Cruff, that you withdraw your charges against this young woman?"

"Yes," he answered loudly. "Yes. I'll withdraw the charges."

"Adam Cruff!" His wife had found her voice. "Have ye lost your senses? The girl has bewitched you too!"

In the back of the room someone tittered. A man's laugh rang out—was it Nat's? All at once, like a clap of thunder, the tension of the room broke into laughter that shook the timbers and rattled the windows. Every man in the room was secretly applauding Adam Cruff's declaration of independence. Even the magistrate's stern lips twisted slightly.

"There seems to be no evidence of witchcraft," he announced, when order had been restored. "The girl has admitted her wrong in encouraging a child to willful disobedience. Beyond that I cannot see that there is any reasonable charge against her. I pronounce that Mistress Katherine Tyler is free and innocent."

But suddenly Goodwife Cruff's anger found a new outlet. "That man!" she shrilled. "Isn't he the seaman? The one who was banished for setting fire to houses? Thirty lashes they promised him if he showed his face here again!"

There was renewed uproar. The constable looked to the magistrate for orders. Captain Talcott hesitated, then shrugged his shoulders. "Arrest him," he snapped. "The sentence still stands."

"Oh no!" Kit pleaded in alarm. "You can't arrest him, when he only came back to help me."

With a shrewd look at his niece, Matthew Wood interceded for her. "'Tis the truth, Sam," he observed. "The lad risked the penalty to see justice done. I suggest you remit the sentence."

"A good suggestion," agreed the magistrate, relieved to have an end to the matter. But Nat had slipped out of the room and his halfhearted pursuers reported not a single trace of him.

"They won't find him," a voice whispered in Kit's ear. A small hand crept into hers. "He's got a fast little pinnace hidden on the riverbank. He told me to say goodbye to you if he had to hurry away."

"Prudence!" Kit's knees had suddenly turned to water. "How—how did it all happen?"

"He came and found me this morning. He said he got worrying about you and came back and sort of spied around till he heard about the meeting. He said I was the only one could save you, and he promised he would stay right here and help as long as we needed him."

"Oh I'm so grateful to both of you!" Kit's tears started again. "And I'm so proud of you. Prudence! Will you be all right, do you think?"

"She'll be all right." Goodman Cruff, coming to claim his daughter, had overheard. "Time somebody looked after her so's she won't need to run off any more. Next summer she'll go to your school, like I always wanted."

"Goodwife Cruff," the magistrate called back the departing woman. "I remind you that the penalty for slander is heavy. A fine of thirty pounds or three hours in the stocks. Mistress Tyler would be within her rights to press her own charges."

"Oh no!" gasped Kit.

Matthew Wood stood beside her. "Let us make an end of this," he said. "We have no desire to press charges. With your permission. Captain, I shall take Katherine home."

CHAPTER 20

T
HE DAY
of the first snowfall Mercy got out of bed. Judith, venturing outside as far as the well, came back, her cheeks glowing, with bits of feathery white clinging to her cloak and to her dark curls.

"'Tis snowing!" she announced.

"Snowing!" Mercy struggled up on one elbow, her voice eager. "Come, let me touch it, Judith!" Judith drew near the bed, and held out her sleeve. The flecks of white vanished under Mercy's reverent fingertip.

"I must see it!" Mercy insisted. "Just for a moment, Mother. I can't miss the first snowfall."

It took much preparation, as though for a long journey. Two pairs of knitted wool stockings between her feet and the cold boards, the blue shawl wrapped securely about her ears, and a heavy quilt swaddled around her from head to foot. They formed a little procession, Rachel and Judith supporting the invalid at each elbow, and Kit following behind to hold up the trailing ends of the quilt from the sanded floor. Very slowly they crossed the room to the front window, and Mercy sank weakly into a chair and rested her chin against the window frame.

Outside, the gray afternoon was speckled with drifting white. Already a thin powdery dusting had gathered in the wagon ruts of the road. The flakes fell softly, vanishing in the heaps of brown leaves, swirling in little smoky coils.

"I love the first snowfall better than anything in the world," sighed Mercy, her eyes worshipful.

"I can't imagine why," said Judith practically. "It means you can scarcely step foot out the door again till spring."

"I know. But 'tis so beautiful. And it makes the house seem so warm and safe. To think that Kit has never seen snow before! Go to the door, Kit, and feel it for me."

Kit went obediently to the door and stepped outside. The white flakes made a queer sort of confusion before her eyes; they brushed her cheeks like tiny flower petals and caught on her eyelashes. For a moment her heart lifted with a trace of Mercy's excitement. Then the cold dampness soaked through her thin slippers and she shivered.

I'm not sure I like it, she thought. It's curious and lovely in a way, but it makes everything so dark, and somehow it makes me feel shut off. Somewhere, far beyond this endless curtain of white, green leaves and flowers were growing under a bright warm sun. Would she ever see them again?

Next morning her dark fears were swept away in a rush of wonder. Under a cloudless blue sky stretched a breath-taking glittering universe, carved of dazzling white coral, unreal and silent. Every familiar sign was altered. There was no trace of life or motion. It was as though no eye but hers had ever looked out upon this purity and perfection.

Then as she looked, a living thing dared to intrude upon this untouched wilderness. Through the white carven carpet that had been High Street pushed four oxen, buried up to their middles, dragging behind them a heavy plow. Snow fell away from the great blade in a gigantic wave. "They are breaking out the road," explained Judith. "Now we will be able to get to the Lecture."

That evening, for the first time since Kit's arrest, William came to call. He had stayed away, he explained, out of consideration for the illness in the house. He inquired courteously after Mercy's health, and she smiled at him from the bed where she sat propped against the feather pillows. Rachel fluttered to draw a chair for him. On the opposite side of the hearth Kit was intent on her spinning. She had taken over Mercy's flax wheel and was slowly mastering the art of winding a fine uniform thread. It took concentration and a steady hand. Now the humming of the wheel barely slackened as she raised her eyes for one grave cool look. William's eyes flickered away toward the leaping flames. It was Judith who kept the conversation going. She had fiercely resented her enforced absence from church and lectures. Now she demanded to know everything that had happened, which of her friends were up and about, when there might be a sleighing party.

"I hope John gets back soon," she sighed. "Thankful Peabody's wedding is to be in December, and I can't bear it if he isn't here for that."

"They say in the town that there's been no word from the detachment since they stopped at Hadley There's been new Indian raids up Deerfield way."

Judith dropped her knitting and stared at William. Mercy leaned her head back against the pillows and closed her eyes. Aunt Rachel sprang to her feet in alarm.

"I'm surprised at you for spreading rumors, William," she reproved him. "They say no news is good news. Now, 'tis way past Mercy's bedtime. She looks white as a ghost." She hesitated. "Kit, you and William can lay a fire in the company room if you like."

Kit did not look up from her spinning. "'Twould take a monstrous lot of wood to heat the room before midnight," she observed. William took the hint and pulled on his heavy beaver-fur coat and cap. Kit would not have risen from her place at all, but Rachel, with a meaningful nudge, handed her a candle, and she had perforce to see her suitor to the door.

In the hallway William did not seem disposed to hurry. He lingered so long that Kit was forced to shut the door behind them to keep the chilling draft from the kitchen.

"I've missed you, Kit," said William finally. "I had to come back."

Kit said nothing.

"You don't seem very pleased to see me."

How could a girl say that there had been a time when she had longed with all her heart to see him? Besides, there was something more on William's mind.

"I don't want you to think that I hold anything against you, Kit," he said awkwardly. "Everyone knows that you meant well. They are all saying in the town what a help you have been to your aunt these past weeks. You'll find, when you come back, I promise you, Kit, that everyone is willing to let bygones be bygones, and that you can make a fresh start."

Kit looked down at the tip of William's great boot. "What do you mean by a fresh start?" she asked quietly.

"I mean that it is well over. The Widow Tupper is gone, and it won't be necessary to see much of the Cruff child. Don't you agree, Kit, that from now on it would be wise to use a little more judgment about people?

"Mind you, I'm not speaking against charity," he went on, seeing her mouth opening to protest. "We're supposed to care for the poor. But you overdo it, Kit."

"But it wasn't charity!" Kit burst out. "Hannah and Prudence—they are my friends!"

"That's just what I mean. We're judged by the company we keep. And in our position people look to us for an example of what is right and proper."

"And I'm to set an example by turning my back on my friends?" Kit's eyes glittered.

"Oh, Kit," pleaded William miserably. "I didn't want to quarrel with you tonight. But try to see it from my side. It would make a man uneasy never knowing what his wife would do next."

"'Twould make a wife uneasy never knowing whether she could depend on her husband," Kit answered levelly. William had the grace to flush, but he held stubbornly to his position.

A month ago Kit's temper would have flared. But all at once she realized that William could not really anger her. She had had a long time to think, that night on the riverbank, and the longer night in the constable's shed. She had never consciously made any decision, but suddenly there it was waiting and unmistakable.

"'Tis no use, William," she said now. "You and I would always be uneasy, all of our lives. We would always be hoping for the other one to be different, and always being disappointed when it didn't happen. No matter how hard I tried, I know I could never care about the things that seem so important to you."

"The house isn't important to you?" he asked slowly.

"Yes, in a way it is," she admitted. "I'd like to live in a fine house. But not if it means I have to be an example. Not if it means I can't choose my own friends."

William too had been doing some thinking. He did not seem surprised, only gravely regretful.

"Perhaps you're right, Kit," he conceded. "I've hoped all this year that you would forget your odd ways and learn to fit in here. If I thought you would just try—"

She shook her head.

"Then I won't be coming again?"

"'Tis no use, William," she repeated.

At the door he turned and looked back, his face baffled and unhappy. There was in his eyes just the merest flicker of the look she had seen there on that first morning outside the Meeting House. In that instant Kit knew that she had only to speak one word or to stretch out her hand. But she did not speak, and presently William opened the door and was gone.

Now the long evenings about the hearth were seldom relieved by any visitor. For hours on end the whir of the spinning wheel and the twang of the loom were the only sounds. Except for a formal bow of greeting on Sabbath morning and on Lecture Day, Kit did not see William again till the day of Thankful Peabody's wedding.

Thankful's wedding was the first festivity Wethersfield had enjoyed since the sickness. Through drifts of snow waist-high, by sleigh and sled and snowshoe, young people and old folks and children gathered in the spacious Peabody house, relieved to shake off the labor and anxiety of the past weeks and to rejoice with the happy couple. The feast spread out on the board would be talked of for weeks to come. There were apple and mince and dried-berry pies, little spicecakes with maple sugar frosting, candied fruits and nuts, pitchers of sweet apple cider, and great mugs of steaming flip for the men.

"Seven different kinds of cake," Judith counted surreptitiously. "I'll never be able to have anything half so grand at my wedding."

Kit scarcely heard her. She was remembering the last wedding she had attended, could it be only a year ago? in Barbados. She could shut her eyes and see the long damask-covered table, set with gold and silver plate. The banquet had lasted for four hours. Light from crystal chandeliers had twinkled back from gold braid and jewels. Deep windows had opened out on curving formal gardens, and the sea breezes had filled the room with the scent of flowers.

An almost intolerable loneliness wrapped Kit away from the joyous crowd. She was filled with a restlessness she could not understand. What was it that plagued her with this longing to turn back? Was it that far-off memory of elegance and beauty, or was it just the look in Thankful's eyes as she stood, radiant in her rose-colored lutestring wedding dress, and listened to the toasts to her future?

Kit and Judith, each lost in her own thoughts, stood together near the wall, unable to join in the merrymaking. From across the room William watched them gravely, making no move.

When the bride and groom had driven off in their sleigh toward the snug new house that awaited them, the guests turned back to the laden tables. Two fiddlers in the corner scraped a lively tune, and some of the more daring young people began to dance. No one paid attention to the two tardy guests who appeared at the door, letting in a gust of wind, till suddenly a woman screamed and threw her arms about a snow-covered figure. Then abruptly the music stopped and the laughter was checked, and everyone crowded about the newcomers.

They were two Wethersfield men returned from Massachusetts with the detachment of militia. The story they had to tell put a somber end to the happy evening. Of the detachment of twenty, only eight had come back to Hartford. Just south of Hadley, before they could reach Deerfield, they had been ambushed by Indians who attacked savagely with both arrows and French rifles. Four men had been killed outright and two others had died of wounds on the trail home. The rest had been surrounded and taken captive. For a few days the survivors had attempted to follow the Indians, till a heavy snow had made it impossible to go on. They had found the scalped body of one of the captives lying by the trail, and they had little hope that in that weather any of the prisoners would have been spared. They had turned back and made their way on snowshoes, barely reaching Hadley before another blizzard set in.

The sobered guests crowded close, waiting for one answer. No, none of the Wethersfield men had been killed, but one of the captives was that young fellow who had been studying with the doctor, John Holbrook.

In the mingled relief and horror, few of them noticed the faint wail that came from Judith, or saw her waver and fall. Kit and Rachel sprang forward, but it was William who reached her first, and carried her gently to the settle by the fire, and it was William who later tucked her carefully into his sleigh and drove her home.

In the weeks that followed, watching Judith, Kit began to understand how the gray shadow that was her Aunt Rachel could once have been the toast of an army. Hopelessness had erased the color and animation from Judith's face, and set her lovely features into a still mask. Kit ached for her. But even more she was torn with pity for Mercy, whose grief could not find an outlet in a tear or word. Would Mercy's scant strength be equal to this burden? Rachel worried that her daughter did not gain, and fussed over the fire concocting nourishing stews which Mercy obediently tried to swallow. In some contradictory way grief seemed to have etched on Mercy's thin face a beauty it had never possessed. Behind the clear gray eyes the light still burned steadily.

Should I tell her? Kit wondered. Surely now Mercy has a right to know that John loved her. But watching Mercy's stillness she found a new patience to resist her own impulse. Someday the time would come when Mercy could know.

The Christmas season passed, unmarked by any rejoicing. There was no holiday in this Puritan town, no feasting, no gifts. The day went by like any other, filled with work, and Kit said nothing, ashamed that in this somber household she should even remember a happy English yuletide.

January dragged by, and February. It was the hardest winter most of the townspeople could remember. Old people shook their heads, recalling blizzards of their childhood, but it was impossible for Kit to visualize anything more bleak than this first winter of her experience. She no longer saw any beauty in a world muffled in white. She hated the long days of imprisonment, when there was nothing to see through the window but shifting curtains of pale gray, when drifts stood waist high on the doorstep, and it took hours of backbreaking labor to carve a passage to the well. She hated the drafty floors and frigid corners, and the perpetual animal reek of heavy clothes hung about the fireplace to dry. Every night she shrank from the moment when she and Judith must make the dread ascent to the upstairs chamber with only the meager comfort of a warming pan. But impatient as she was with the long days indoors, the outdoors promised only aching misery. She resented the arduous preparation for the journey to Meeting, the heavy leather boots, the knit socks drawn over them, the clumsy little footstove they had to lug all the way, that cooled off long before the sermon was finished and left one to sit with stinging fingers and toes, while the breath of the whole congregation rose like the smoke from so many pipes.