A Break With Charity: A Story About the Salem Witch Trials (26 page)

Her voice is weak. I can barely hear her.

"I can truly and uprightly say, before God and man, that I did it not out of anger, malice, or ill will to any person, for I had no such thing against one of them; but what I did was ignorantly done, being deluded by Satan."

Her voice rings out, gaining in strength.

"I desire to lie in the dust and earnestly beg forgiveness of God, and from all those unto whom I have given just cause of sorrow and offense."

She goes on, but I do not hear her. My mind closes against the hearing.

What of Tituba, I think, who languished in prison long after others were pardoned because she could not pay her room and board? Only to be given, again as a slave, to a man who paid her fees.

What of Abigail Hobbs, once free of spirit and brave of heart, who confessed to witchcraft so as not to be left out and who, like many of the girls in the circle, now leads the life of a disreputable woman?

What of John Dorich, who one day simply boarded a ship at the wharf in Salem and disappeared? And what of little Dorcas Good, who went to prison at five and still roams our town homeless, her mind gone, muttering to herself and dressed in tatters?

I can never forget any of them, those poor souls who were hanged or whose lives were broken by the madness.

Reverend Green speaks now. His voice is strong and clear, and the words he uses are plain.

"None of us is wholly innocent in this tragedy. We seem to have forgotten what our fathers came into this wilderness to seek. The sealing ordinances of the covenant of grace and church communion have been much slighted and neglected by all that has happened. And all that lies upon our community still. Yea, the fury of the storm raised by Satan during that tragic year hath fallen very heavily upon many that lived here. Some say the Lord sent evil angels to awaken and punish our negligence."

Everyone's eyes are upon him.

"Let us now diminish the power of those evil angels. Let us send them back, for all time, from whence they came. Will ye not do this with me here today? Will ye not soften your hearts now to this young woman who has thrown herself upon your mercy? Will ye not heal the wounds of this community for all time, for yourselves and for your children, by forgiving her sin?"

He comes down from the pulpit. "Stand now in your pews as she passes and reach out to her in forgiveness."

And so Ann approaches each pew. The people stand and reach their hands out to her, of course. But I sense they do it for Reverend Green—who has taken off his doublet and helped many to build new barns or till their fields—and not for Ann Putnam.

She comes toward me now. I stand. Would that I were not alone in the pew with the children. Everyone's eyes are upon me.

The look on her face is so stricken. She has dark circles under her eyes. It is as if death itself has a grip on her. I feel so strong, so robust, next to her. I feel my babe in my arms. I am mindful of baby Johnathan's sturdy little body beside me. And I know that Ann has no husband or child. God has been good to me, after all. With my free hand I reach out to her. She takes it in her own fragile one. Her hand is so cold!

"Susanna English," she whispers as if to an old friend, "how good of you to come this day."

She is surprised that I am here. And why would I not be?

"What lovely children. You are blessed. How is your Johnathan?"

"He is well."

"You forgive me, then? I am near death's door. The Devil has already picked my bones. I'll never have husband and children to hold close to me."

I feel something give inside me, like a great wall collapsing. And it comes to me that the hate I bore her all these years was more fearful than the person I was supposed to be hating. I can barely say the words. My heart is so full. "Yes, Ann, I forgive you."

We leave the church now. I walk with the children out into the golden August twilight. Curiously, I am light of heart. It is as if a protective mantle has been thrown about me, and yet, at the same time, as if the weight an old wet cloak has been removed from my shoulders. I feel a sense of well-being I have not felt in years.

Johnathan and Elizabeth and Joseph, William and Juliette await us. Mary, who is fourteen now, is begging her father to allow her to go to sea the next time Johnathan and I take a coastal journey to Virginia or Maine with William. Elizabeth and Joseph have had four girls and one boy since 1692. They both want another boy.

"It is over." One of the kinsmen of Rebecca Nurse comes to shake Joseph by the hand and kiss Elizabeth. "We must allow it to be over. But we will never forget, Joseph, how hard you worked to stop the hangings."

"Others worked hard, too," Joseph says. And he looks at me. But to this day no one but Joseph, Elizabeth, and Johnathan knows of my part in the Brattle letter. I would keep it secret. And Joseph and the others honor my wishes.

We walk through the sweet August dusk to our carriages for the three-mile ride to Joseph and Elizabeth Putnam's for supper.

"Do you feel better for having gone?" Johnathan asks me as he helps me and the children into our carriage.

"Yes, Johnathan." I smile up at him. "You were right. It was good that we went."

We drive in silence for a while. But something in my heart needs saying. "Johnathan, I would speak of a matter we promised each other we would never speak of."

"What is that, Susanna?"

"Do you recollect that day we stood on the wharf in Salem Harbor when William came home?"

He scowls at me. Then he smiles. "You mean the name on the schooner?"

"Yes. Remember how we both stared, spellbound, at it?"

"The
Amiable Tiger.
Aye," Johnathan says. And he shakes his head and laughs. "Just as Sam Endicott said it would be. But we did promise we'd never speak of it, Susanna. Why give it mention now, after all these years?"

"You never told me what you thought of William coming home on the
Amiable Tiger,
Johnathan."

"No," he admits. "But I've pondered on it often."

"Can you tell me now what you think of it?"

"What think you, Susanna? That Mary Bradbury was a witch, after all? Or that Sam Endicott, being a seaman, knew what ship William was bound home on?"

I stare at him. Our eyes meet. And he smiles in that way he has, which still makes me weak in the bones. "I think that Sam Endicott knew because he was a seaman," I say.

"Are you sure, Susanna? Is your heart at rest, then?"

"No," I say. "I'm not sure. But I'll worry the matter no more, Johnathan. Nor should you. And we must never tell anyone that Sam Endicott knew what ship William would be on, lest this witch business start over again."

" 'Twill never start again," he says.

"Are you sure of
that,
Johnathan?"

He looks at me. "No, my love. For we've seen how easily neighbor can mistrust neighbor, and how a crowd can eagerly attend the hanging of one they've known all their lives. And how doubts can gnaw away at all solid thought, like a mouse at cheese."

I nod. "And how fear can take shape," I say, "and become more real than things one can see and touch. And plunge the heart down a dark road from whence one may never return."

He takes my hand. "We'll speak naught of the
Amiable Tiger,
" he says. "Promise?"

I promise. For I know better than any that the line is thin between what is fanciful and what is real, and human nature being what it is, a witch hunt can easily start up again if we are not careful.

In the beginning of our country's history, young people shared in the daily chores and burdens of survival. Ofttimes they were not allowed a childhood. And many times they had a hand, in the background, in influencing history itself.

Research into the Puritan era shows that people went right from childhood into adulthood, with no benefit of an awkward age in between. An orphaned child was allowed to choose his or her own guardians at the age of fourteen; the laws applied to all persons of the age of sixteen, which was also the age at which boys were liable to serve in the military. On the other hand, the average age for marriage was twenty-two for women and twenty-seven for men.

Herein, as I see it, was laid the groundwork for the mischief that led to the Salem witch hunts of 1692.

History tells us the girls in the circle—from little Betty Parris, who was nine, to Sarah Churchill, twenty—were living in that social limbo that the Puritans assigned to their teenagers.

They had no amusements or entertainment. Music, dancing, and even the traditional holiday of Christmas were forbidden. Toys were nonexistent. Anyone caught with a doll or "poppet" was suspected of practicing forbidden arts. Meeting on Sunday lasted several hours. Reading consisted of studying the Bible.

Moreover, winters were long and unrelenting. Is it any wonder, then, when the winds moaned around their houses in the winter of 1691—1692 and the dark came early and the wolves howled on the edge of town, that the girls of Salem formed their circle in the Reverend Parris's house, where his black slave Tituba lulled them with stories?

History tells us that to those stories Tituba added little sorceries, which probably included tea-leaf and palm reading—in other words, she indulged in the black arts.

There are many theories about the witch hysteria of 1692 and the trials that followed, not the least of which is that there was a virus in the rye that caused the afflicted girls to go into their fits.

That may account for their physical sufferings, but it has never been proven. And it only shows the extent to which Puritans were attuned to mystical powers: they considered these fits the work of the Devil himself.

The town fathers, magistrates, and ministers truly believed that the Devil was roaming the countryside looking for ways to undermine the kingdom of God on earth. The elders in Salem needed a scapegoat for their troubles in 1692. There had recently been an outbreak of smallpox, Indian raids on the fringes of town, and much bad feeling between neighbors who would not lay old quarrels to rest. And they all felt insecure because Massachusetts Bay Colony had lost its charter, which had assured them of their land grants.

So, then, there was the town, brooding under this social environment of suspicion and fear that hearkened back to the old days and the Old World, where putting witches to death was a tradition. All the ingredients for chaos were present.

When I decided to do this novel, I needed a protagonist, and I did not want one of the girls from the circle—for who could sympathize with one of them? I went to the Essex Institute in Salem, where I found the story of Philip English (I spell his name
Phillip
) as written by one of his descendants.

He had two teenage daughters. What intrigued me about the English family is that they were "outsiders" at the start, simply by virtue of being considered gentry. But more than that, Phillip English was enlightened enough to see the failures of Puritan society and to want his children to think for themselves.

It would follow, then, that Susanna English would not have been welcomed into any gathering of girls from the village.

I was further induced to make Susanna my protagonist because her brother, William, was lost at sea, and because history tells us that in later years she married the son of Magistrate John Hathorne. Hathorne prosecuted her parents, yet she married his son.

Why? No one knows why. I invented my own reason: because young Johnathan disagreed with his father over the witch trials and took the side of Susanna, for one.

But history also tells us that the descendants of Susanna and Johnathan Hathorne added a
w
to their name, making it
Hawthorne.
And that their foremost descendant was Nathaniel Hawthorne, who roamed the streets of Salem in his time, haunted by the part his ancestor had played in the witch trials. As a result, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote
The House of the Seven Gables
, one of the classics of American literature.

I took liberties in my plot by having brother William return—when actually he was lost at sea—thereby building in a perfect reason why Susanna would want to meet Tituba, who told fortunes.

I wanted my protagonist to be someone who would know from the outset the cause of the witch hysteria, and Susanna English could do this for me. She would also not speak out for most of the story, having been threatened that her family would be named witches.

Almost everything about the English family in this book, except Susanna's role in the witchcraft business, is true. Mary English did own a shop. The children did refer to Phillip as "honored Father English." Their father did row across the bay to St. Michael's in Marblehead because he was Church of England. His history, as a man of principle who stood for what he believed in, is authentic. Mary English did befriend Sarah Cloyce in church when Sarah was shunned.

Phillip and Mary English were arrested. They fled from Boston to New York with their daughters at the behest of Reverend Joshua Moody of Boston, who convinced Phillip English that justice did not await them in Salem. The undocumented story is that Sir William Phips himself gave them letters of introduction to Governor Benjamin Fletcher of New York.