Susannah Morrow (26 page)

“I did not need to. She was a good mother and a godly woman.”

“And she was lying to you. She knew about Charity and Samuel. ’Tis the only explanation for the money. She gave him five pounds
to run away.”

“Quiet!”

“Your daughter is not a child. She’s nearly a woman grown—”

“I won’t hear it.”

“You had better hear it. Twill be disaster if you do not.” She was against the wall now, unable to back any farther away.
“She needs guidance, Lucas, not—”

“Enough!” I raised my fist, meaning to hit the wall, and she jerked away, closing her eyes and turning her head so violently
I heard the thud of her skull against the wall.

I realized in a moment what she’d thought: I was about to hit her. That knowledge stole my anger in shock and sick dismay;
of its own accord, my fist opened, my palm slapped uselessly against the planks just above her head.

Her eyes opened. She glanced at me, and then looked at my hand, my fingers curling against the wall.

We stood so close her hair caught on my sleeve, fanning like a spiderweb between us.

“My God,” I whispered, my own voice, yet not my own. It seemed to come from a dream. “My God, do not tempt me this way.”

She looked up at me, a look so candid it caught my breath—and I knew: She felt what I did. I did not mistake it. Perhaps it
was that frankness that cut through the binds of feeling. I only know that when I saw her expression, I thought of Geoffrey
and Robert. I thought of the yeoman’s son. They stood between us, a queue of men who had trod this land before me, and each
smiled and mocked:
Go ahead. She wants you to take her. Go ahead,
and I was suddenly sickened. At her. At myself.

“You have me trapped, Brother,” she said quietly, moving her head so her hair loosened from its catch on my sleeve.

I let my arm fall; I backed away. When she eased quickly past me, I bowed my head. “Forgive me,” I murmured, words for myself
more than her, low enough that I did not think she could hear.

But I heard her stop. When I looked up, it was into her pitied expression. “’Tis your daughter who needs it, not I.”

The next morning, I waited at the table until Charity came downstairs.

She stopped when she saw me, and she had the strangest look on her face, as if she were relieved to see me, yet horrified
as well. She looked ill; there were red chilblains on her chin that I had not noticed yesterday, bright against her pale,
gray skin. It seemed her hands must always be cold, because she wrapped them convulsively in her skirt.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” I told her. “Come and sit.”

She hesitated, then sat silently across from me at the board.

“Susannah tells me you’ve been often to the parsonage.”

She said something, a bare sound I could not understand.

“You must know how I would feel about such a thing,” I said. “What is there that you have such need of? If’tis spiritual guidance,
then ’tis better found in town. Let me take you there. Nicholas Noyes is a far better pastor—”

“No,” she said.

“Why?”

“’Tis not…’tis not that. I…I have been…seeing to…She’s ill.…” Charity let the words sink into silence. Her shoulders shook
from the movements of her hands in her skirt. Her brow was wrinkled in worry; her thin upper lip disappeared into the fullness
of the lower; her chin was set.

She was not telling me the truth, I realized with a shock. She was dissembling. There was something more here. But then she
looked up at me, and more startling even than her lie was the expression in her pale eyes. I saw fear there—if not fear of
me, fear of something.

I frowned at her, trying to understand the mysteries of her face, and in that moment, it seemed to coalesce before me. Every
separate feature was pressed with the faint likeness of her mother, though finer—it put me in recollection of my own mother,
and I realized in surprise that I had never seen that in her before. More than that, I realized ’twas a woman’s face I was
looking at. A woman’s face.
She’s not a child. She’s a woman grown.

Ridiculous. It could not be. She was still a little girl, with plump hands and fine hair.…No, her hands were slender; her
fingers were long and tapered. Her hair was thick and straight.…No, no. There had not been enough years, not nearly enough—
Sammy and Charity…She gave him five pounds to go.
…The thoughts jangled in my head, hard to set straight, incongruous—

There was a knock on the door.

I leaped to my feet. Charity started to rise.

“Stay there,” I ordered. “We have not finished.” I went to the door and swung it open. When I saw ’twas Samuel Nurse standing
there—in the midst of heavily falling snow—holding his fowling piece tight in his fist instead of slinging it over his shoulder
as was usual, I felt a quick and sudden dread. His nine-year-old son, George, stood behind him, holding at the ready a gun
too large for his childish hands, scanning the woods and fields beyond the house as if he expected someone to appear at any
moment.

“Sam?” I asked, frowning in bewilderment.

“A word with you, Lucas,” he said.

“Of course.” I stood back to let him in, and George too, who came quickly, glancing over his shoulder. I closed the door and
motioned to the table, where Charity sat. I saw Jude and Susannah coming down the stairs. “Have you supped? Can I get you
something?”

“No, no,” Sam said. “We can stay but a moment.” He nodded a greeting to Susannah.

She stepped forward, a worried look on her face. “What brings you out on a morning like this, Sam? It cannot be good news.”

“I’m afraid ’tis not.” Then Sam said to me, “There was an Indian attack on Wells a few days ago. One on York too. ’Twas bad,
Lucas, from what we’ve heard. Over a hundred captured. ’Tis said that York…” He paused and glanced at my listening family.
“’Tis bad.”

Wells was less than eighty miles away; York was only a little farther. Already we lived in constant terror of Indian attacks
or of raiding parties made up of the French woodsmen called
Coureurs de Bois.
Retaliations, counterretaliations…One attack often led to another, to another, to another. Salem Village was scattered over
fields and hills that were undefendable—we were vulnerable to any attack. I thought of the stories I’d heard over the years:
the torture of young men, children taken captive and left orphaned. There was not a person in the village who had not been
touched in some way. Many villagers had come here from Maine and New Hampshire, where the war was at its worst, and memories
of a two-year-old attack on Lancaster—forty miles from here—still retained their power. Seventy of Salem’s best men had been
lost there.

I was suddenly light-headed. “Is there to be a training day?”

“We’re prepared enough,” Sam said. “Captain Putnam has assigned a double watch for the time being. You and I have been given
the evening hours.”

“We’re to leave our own families unprotected?”

“They can gather together at my father’s house. They’ll be safe enough there—”

“Look at the snow,” Susannah broke in. “Surely no Indian will attack today. We’ll be safe enough here—”

“You’ll go to Francis’s,” I said tersely. “I’ll fetch you from there on my return.”

“But, Lucas—”

I gave her a quick glance, meant to silence her, but still it surprised me when she quieted, when she nodded her allegiance.

“Every man in the village is to bring what extra powder he has to the parsonage. We’ll take it from there to the watchhouse,
as it seems the parson has his hands full.”

“With what?” I asked meanly, unable to help myself. “Cutting his own firewood?”

“One of his children has suddenly taken ill—”

“She’s barking, sir,” George cut in. The boy was obviously unable to keep silent; the news was so remarkable.

“Barking?”

Sam shrugged. “’Tis what I’ve heard. Or mewing. When Father went over there to tell the parson the news about Wells, the child
began climbing under chairs and galloping about on her hands and knees.”

“Like a dog,” George said. “Mam says they can’t understand her. She’s talking gibberish and such.”

“Son,” Sam warned. Then he looked at me. “It’s been going on a few days, I hear. Some little fit. The child’s always seemed
delicate to me; no doubt she’s overtaxed.”

“Which one?” The words were low, hardly spoken. It was Charity. She was standing now at the table, her fingers clenching the
edge as if she might fall without its support. All color had gone from her face. When we all turned to look at her, she said,
“You said ‘she.’ Master Parris has two daughters. Which one do you mean?”

Sam looked confused, but George said, “’Tis Betsey. Betsey’s barking like a dog.”

Charity sank hard onto the bench. She went so pale I feared she would swoon. “What is it?” I asked. “Charity?”

She did not answer me. Instead, she put her hands to her face, and her thin shoulders shook as if she were crying. I glanced
at Susannah, who looked distressed as she went hurrying over. She put her hands on Charity’s shoulders. “Charity, perhaps
you—”

My daughter wrenched away. “Don’t touch me,” she said. The words came in a low, furious sound. “I know what you are—I know!”
She seemed transformed—not my quiet, sweet daughter, but someone else entirely, her face so contorted with anger and fear
it did not seem to be her own. She was shaking visibly as she rushed past Susannah to the stairs. We heard her footsteps,
the slam of the door.

Susannah looked as shaken as I felt. “She’s been troubled of late,” she said, and I realized with a start that she was talking
to Sam. What must he think of that display, when I myself did not understand it? “And she has been spending much time at the
parsonage.”

“Aye. Well, I wish you luck with her, then,” Sam said. “We’ll come by here this afternoon and walk up to my father’s together.
Then, Lucas, you and I can go on to the watchhouse.”

I nodded my agreement, and Sam and George left, back into the cold, into the snow that had not stopped but only seemed to
grow heavier in the time they’d been here. I shut the door behind them; thoughts of Indian attacks faded quickly in my worry
for my daughter.

Susannah sat near Jude, whose eyes were wide and watchful, and put her arm around the child’s shoulders. “You look afraid,
Jude,” she said. “What frightens you?”

“Indians,” Jude said in a whisper. “Charity.”

Susannah glanced up at me. “Your father and the other men will protect us from the Indians,” she said to Jude in a reassuring
tone. “You’ve nothing to fear from them now.”

“Are you sure?”

“As sure as I can be. But…what of Charity? What is it that frightens you about your sister?”

Jude shook her head. She had her mother’s eyes, wide and blue, with the same expressiveness that Judith had possessed—’twas
possible to read her every emotion in her eyes. Now, with her cap covering her light brown hair, tied neatly beneath her chin,
accenting the soft oval of her face, she seemed so small, so fragile. Such a little thing in such a dangerous world. I found
myself offering up a prayer to God—
Protect her, Lord. Keep her safe
—before I asked, “Is Charity ill, Jude? Has she confided in you?”

Jude dropped her gaze. “She…She would be angry if I said.”

“Charity is not your master. ’Tis only me you must answer to, and God. Your sister cannot command you.”

“Not so loud, Brother,” Susannah said. “You’ll frighten her.”

“I want an answer.”

She gave me a look that silenced me. “And you shall have it.” Then she turned again to Jude. “If Charity is in trouble, you
cannot help her by remaining silent.”

Tears welled in Jude’s eyes. With a swift glance at me, she brushed them quickly away. “She’s…scared.”

“Why?”

“I don’t…know. ’Tis Mary Walcott.…”

“Mary Walcott?” I asked. “What has she to do with Charity now?”

“Charity sees her most every week.”

I glanced at Susannah. I saw the guilt in her eyes. “Did you know this?” I demanded.

“I have told her she should stay away from those girls,” she said.

“Aye, she should. I have forbidden her to see them. Weeks ago, I forbade it.” I could not keep the anger from my voice.

Susannah’s arm tightened around Jude’s shoulders. “Quiet,” she said to me; then she turned again to Jude. “How does she meet
these girls, Jude?”

“At the Parris house,” Jude said in her meek little voice, and suddenly I understood the lie I’d seen earlier in Charity’s
eyes. I knew what she had been keeping from me.

I saw the warning in Susannahs expression, and I reined in my temper before asking, “At the parsonage? What mischief can they
do there?”

I did not expect an answer. But Jude’s tears began to fall in earnest. “I think…I don’t know. But Charity is afraid, and so
am I. Please…Will you please make her stop?”

Susannah gathered Jude to her breast, stroking my daughter’s back, and my anger died away. Charity was in trouble; Susannah
had been right. And I…I had been blind too long.