The Captive Bride (30 page)

“Matthew—” Howland said quietly. When the tall man turned from the window, he looked ten years older than he had a month before. His hair was unkempt and he had lost weight. He had lines on his face that hadn't been there before, but his eyes brightened as he saw his friend.

“Robert—you've come back!”

His voice awakened Lydia, and he stooped to help her to her feet. She, too, looked exhausted and ill. She tried to smile, but her voice was not strong. “Have you seen Rachel?”

“No, I came straight here.”

Seeing him hesitate, Matthew tried to smile. “I know you have no good news, Robert. From your letters we really didn't hope too much.”

Howland said wearily, “Mather was gone, and it took me three weeks to catch up with him. Then when I did find him, he refused to interfere.”

“I never thought he would,” Matthew shook his head. “They all hang together, don't they?” Then he tried to laugh, adding, “I shouldn't have used that figure—
hang together
— it's a forbidden word.”

“How many—?”

“Have they executed?” Matthew finished when Howland could not complete his statement. “Why, it's difficult to keep count. There were five in July and six in August—that makes eleven, doesn't it?”

“Robert,” Lydia said quickly, “you must talk to Rachel and Miles—at once! They are denouncing the court in public, by name. It's just a matter of time until they are arrested if they don't stop. I wish they'd go away until—”

“You know they won't do that, Lydia!”

Gilbert was stirring, and he was so stiff from the hard floor that Matthew and Lydia had to help him to his feet. He started to speak, but a spasm of coughing cut off his words. It frightened Howland to see how thin the old man had grown. His face was sallow, unhealthy, and filled with pain.

Howland looked at Matthew with a question in his face, and received a warning shake of the head. It was obvious that Gilbert was very ill. Howland said, “I failed, but I'm not giving up.”

Gilbert Winslow stood up carefully as if he were afraid his brittle bones would snap with the strain. Though Gilbert had little strength in his body, he held his head high and his gaze steady. His spirit was strong and unchanged. “Well, Robert, we're still here, you see.” A grin touched his tough old lips, and he coughed hard; then he went on, “They haven't killed me yet—and even if they do, they won't kill me but once!”

Matthew smiled, then turned to Howland. “See if you can get better quarters for Father, will you, Robert?”

“I'll try,” Howland promised. “Maybe Sewall will help.”

“Go to Rachel first,” Lydia pleaded. “Try to talk to her, Robert!”

“Yes, I'll do my best—but this stubborn Winslow blood
is a hard force to oppose, you know!” He smiled at them, then left at once.

Rachel was at the house when Robert stopped by. Surprised, her eyes opened wide when she saw him. Without a word, he took her in his arms and held her. She clung to him for the first time with complete abandonment, and finally she pulled his head down and kissed him.

He stared at her in amazement, then said, “Well! You know how to welcome a man back!”

She flushed, and then laughed shortly. She had lost weight, as had he, and there was the same strain in her face that he'd seen in her parents. “Did you talk to Reverend Mather?” she asked, looking up into his face.

“Yes—and he refuses to do a thing.” Howland answered slowly. “I begged and threatened, but nothing would move him. We'll have to find another way.”

Rachel turned and walked to the window. She stood there for a long time and he came to stand beside her. A pair of bluebirds were building a home in a knothole of the oak tree, and they made a vivid patch of blue as they streaked back and forth carrying straws and small twigs.

“Robert—maybe there
is
no other way,” she said, continuing to look out the window. “This may be one of those times we have to stand and die. There are times like that, aren't there?”

He put his hand on her shoulder, and the smell of her hair was sweet as he stood there. “I suppose so—but we can't
know
if it is. We have to fight as though it were not. Then, when we've done all the arm of flesh can do, we leave it to God.”

She turned and looked up to him, and there was such a trust in her face that his heart was overwhelmed. He could not fail her! “No matter what happens, Robert, at least I found you!” she murmured.

He started to reply, but even as she spoke, her eyes flew open wide, and she gave a short cry, her hand flying to her
lips. She whirled and leaned against the wall, her shoulders shaking with grief.

“Rachel! What is it?”

She would not answer nor turn at first, but finally he pulled her around. “I—I said the same thing to Jude Alden—and that same day—he died!”

He put his arms around her and let her cry; then finally, when she stopped, he said, “I have something to say to you, Rachel. Something you may not understand.”

“I'll believe you, Robert Howland, even if I can't understand you!”

“Will you now?”

“Truly!”

He smiled down at her, and then grew sober. “We must pray—pray as we've never prayed before. But there are things that can be
done,
Rachel. And I have to try
something
—I must! Now, in the days to come, you may see me do some things that will seem—unusual. Right now, I can't say what they will be, but I believe that God has put me in this place, at this time, for a purpose. And that purpose may be to help your family. I intend to do it, but it won't be easy, and it won't be—respectable, I fear.”

She stared at him in bewilderment, then whispered, “I—I don't understand you, Robert.”

“You will understand less in the days to come—but I want you to try to remember this—” He took her in his arms and kissed her with almost a finality in his manner. “Can you remember that I love you, and will love you until the day they put a stone over my head?”

“Yes, if you say so, Robert!”

He stroked her hair, then stepped back. “Try to talk to Miles. See if you can keep him out of this. Now, I must go.”

He left the house, and she stood there waiting for him to turn and wave as he often did, but he walked straight on. The set of his strong shoulders looked like someone squaring off to do battle. What the battle would be, she did not know.
She did know, however, and smiled to herself as she thought of it, that he loved her—and that was enough!

August passed away, and as September rolled over the village, the executions continued—twenty-one in all. Still the jail remained crowded, for no matter how many died, there were always more accused and arrested.

The steamy heat inside the jail, together with the constant dust from the floor and the straw used for bedding, irritated the lungs of all the prisoners. Coughing was so constant that they ceased to notice it. Sickness swept through the cells, and by the first of September, six had died of illness; others were past help, even if they had been freed.

The trials went on slowly, and as prisoners were condemned to die, they were taken from the larger cell and placed in the smaller one. Here there was no overcrowding, for the gallows continued to snuff out the lives as soon as they were transferred to the smaller unit.

Rachel and Miles worked steadily, not only to keep their own family from suffering, but to provide as much as they could for those in prison who had nobody to help. Rachel functioned as both nurse and cook from sunup to long past dark until she was worn almost to a razor's edge.

“Daughter, you must rest,” Matthew pleaded with her one night. She had helped wash some of the sick women, and afterward when she came as usual to sit with her parents and grandfather, she fell asleep leaning against him.

She straightened up at once, laughed shortly, and said, “Oh, I'm fine. Just a little tired.”

Giles Cory, another prisoner, had attached himself to the Winslows. He was a hearty man of eighty, or had been until the prison had eaten away at his strength. He feared for his wife, who also was charged, and he spent much time discussing the problem of his property with Matthew. “If they convict me, Mr. Winslow, they'll take my property, and my children and grandchildren will starve,” he had said. Indeed,
Matthew could give him little comfort, for such might well be the case not just with Giles but with all of them.

Gilbert was growing much worse, his cough by this time becoming chronic. Had he subsisted on jail food, he would have been dead. He was sitting with his back propped against the wall when he looked up at Rachel and asked, “Where has your young man been, Rachel? He's been gone—what, a week or more?”

Rachel looked slightly confused, then said, “I—I think he's been very busy with his church, Grandfather.”

“The big minister?” Giles asked. “He be in court most of the time, so they say. John Proctor say he do sit there with his book out, writing down what the judges say.”

“I didn't know Robert was doing that,” Matthew muttered.

“Aye, and it make Judge Hawthorn cry out in open court at him, so John said.” He laughed and added, “The judge asked the minister what he wrote, and the minister said he knew that God was keeping a record for judgment day—but
he
was keeping one fer when the world found out about these trials!”

Lydia looked at Rachel and asked quietly, “Did Robert tell you what he was doing?”

“No.” Rachel got up and said, “I haven't seen him for a week.” Then she left and Matthew stared after her.

“Something is wrong there,” he mused quietly.

“Yes. She's been hurt.” Lydia looked out the window and watched her daughter walk past the gallows with shoulders slumped and defeated. Her own heart was heavy, for although she had little hope for herself or Matthew, she spent most of her time praying that Rachel and Miles would survive. She was shocked to suddenly realize how much she had depended on Howland to help.

Abigail Williams left the courtroom, and as was always true, the tension had built up in her. She was there every day, and many times over the past months she had been called back to testify. She was a beautiful girl with a sense of drama
in her blood. Since childhood she had made up scenes and acted them out when she was alone; now the action was real, and she was intoxicated with it.

She lived with an elderly woman named Mistress Taylor, who paid absolutely no attention to her activities. Until the trials had begun, Abigail had worked out, cleaning houses for people. Now she did nothing but sit in court and afterward talk about the trials to Susanna and one or two other girls.

She turned down the street, unaware of the tall man coming from across the way. Suddenly she ran into him and would have fallen if he had not caught her and held her up.

“Careful!” a deep voice cautioned. Startled, she looked up into the face of Robert Howland. “Sorry to be so clumsy, Miss Abigail.”

She was very conscious of his hand on her arm and countered with a smile, “Why, it's my own fault, Reverend Howland. I'm always running into things and stepping into holes.”

“Are you going this way? So am I.” He fell into step beside her, saying, “I've been wanting to speak to you, Miss Abigail.”

She had expected anything but that, for she had kept up with his attachment to the Winslow family as closely as the rest of the small village. She said suspiciously, “To me? I think your friends, the Winslows, would not like that, sir!”

“No.” He sighed and remarked, “They are to be pitied, don't you think?”

She thought about that, then answered, “I thought you held that they weren't witches at all!”

“Oh, that was my position
at first,
as it was with most of the poor wretches,” Howland said.

Abigail listened to him talk, and something about the big minister excited her. He was, she had always felt, the most attractive man she'd seen, and now to be walking with him triggered her active imagination. She began to see him calling on her, taking her to the courtroom, while everyone gawked at the two of them.

By the time they got to her house, she knew at least one
thing about Howland—he was a man who appreciated a
woman.
She was a beautiful girl and had been aware of male attention since she was fifteen years old. She knew admiration when she saw it—as she did in Howland's glances at her.

“Why don't you come in and have a cup of tea,” she smiled up into his face boldly.

“Why, that would be very nice,” he said in surprise. “Perhaps you could tell me a little more about your experiences with these frightful witches,” he added. “I've really no experience, and to hear the
real
thing would be most helpful—though I can't expect an attractive young woman such as yourself to dwell much on these things.”

“I don't mind,” Abigail smiled, as he led him into her house.

From that day Howland no longer sat on the front seat taking notes, but seated himself farther to the back. It did not escape the attention of the village that he walked Abigail to and from the court each day, and as often as not had tea with her. It was all respectable, for old Mistress Taylor was always present. But if they had considered that the old woman went to bed at seven, and Howland rarely left until ten or later, there might have been even more talk than there was.

There was little said in the common jail, at least by the Winslows, though the other prisoners picked up the gossip from their relatives and friends.

Howland did visit his friends from time to time, but there was a constraint between them that made his visits very painful, so he came no more after the first of October.

Matthew said only one brief word to Lydia, and spoke to no other: “I have never been so deceived in a human being.” Lydia only pressed his arm and said nothing.