“Do you not think the governor will be satisfied?” Massaquoit asked.
Catherine looked at the smoldering building, the soldiers now preparing a litter to take back their dead comrade, and the angry expressions on the faces of Rawandag and his braves.
“I will make him see the wisdom of leaving Niantic to recover itself,” Catherine replied. “But still Ninigret may have to come forward with his tale. What the Quaker boy told me will offer him some security.”
“Still, I do not know if I can allow that,” Massaquoit said.
“He will be hunted down, else,” Catherine replied. She looked at the ruined meetinghouse, the shabby wigwams, the angry people, and the pack of thin ribbed dogs. “There are those who will help the soldiers find him,” she added.
Massaquoit followed her gaze and in his mind he had to agree.
“We will set the terms to protect him, then,” he said.
“And my friend Magistrate Woolsey will convince the governor to honor them.”
Wequashcook took off his beaver hat, and waved it in front of him so that the odor of its burnt edges lifted from it.
“I will need another hat,” he said. He put it back on his head. “I must go where I have left them. They will not wait much for me much longer, and the smoke from the building might have sent them further into the woods.”
“What did you tell them to make them wait for you?” Catherine asked.
Wequashcook offered the quickest smile.
“Only that if they fled, the next time they saw me I would be at the head of a company of English soldiers after their blood. Ninigret swelled up in pride for a moment, but the woman did not look as though she had any appetite for running. There was a weariness in her eyes, and she just sat down to wait.”
“Go ahead, then,” Massaquoit said. “I will follow soon.” He had seen Willeweenaw out of the corner of his eye, and he now walked toward her.
“I have one son back,” she said. “Will I have the other?”
“I think so,” Massaquoit replied.
“Then I have you to thank,” she said, and took both his hands in hers and pressed them hard.
Chapter Twelve
Catherine paused in the doorway of the jail as Jane was led out between two soldiers. Jailor Drake scratched at his stubble and opened his mouth in a crooked grin.
“She was not much trouble, no trouble at all,” Drake said.
Jane looked back at Drake and spat. The jailor shrugged, and then stepped aside as Henry Jenkins walked out behind Minister Davis. The boy was moving his lips, perhaps in an inaudible prayer. Another pair of soldiers followed the minister and the prisoner.
“I have seen many a jailhouse conversion,” Drake said to Catherine.
“Do you not believe he found God?” Catherine asked.
“He might have,” Drake said, “what with the help of the minister. But if he thinks it will keep him from the end of a rope, I believe he is mistaken.”
Catherine handed a coin to the jailor.
“Make sure she is well attended to when she comes back.”
“If she comes back,” Drake replied.
“If not, keep the coin as a token of good faith,” Catherine said. She looked out at her village, which under the agreement negotiated by Massaquoit and Wequashcook on one side, and Waters, and Magistrate Woolsey on the other, aided by her own efforts, had been transformed for the day from a quiet seaport village to an armed camp. On one side of the village common was Ninigret, well guarded by a phalanx of a dozen soldiers, under the command of Lieutenant Waters. On the other was Jonathan, surrounded by an equal number of Indians, headed by Rawandag. Both groups were heavily armed and tense. Between them and in front of the meetinghouse stood the governor, towering above Magistrate Woolsey. A few feet away, each with arms crossed across their chests were Massaquoit, and Wequashcook. All watched in silence as Jane and Henry were led past them and into the meetinghouse. On the sides of the common, the citizens of Newbury had gathered, but they kept their distance, their eyes warily on the armed soldiers and Indians.
Catherine approached, and the four men stepped closer together and faced her.
“I must say, Mistress Williams,” the governor declared, “that I am not at ease with this arrangement.”
Catherine glanced back at Jonathan.
“There is your nephew.”
“Yes, mistress,” the governor replied, and then pointed toward Ninigret, “and there is a savage murderer.”
“That is not yet proved,” Catherine replied.
“It was not easy to restrain Rawandag,” Wequashcook said, “and so preserve your nephew’s life.”
“Or take Ninigret,” Massaquoit replied, “else he and the woman Jane would have fled where only I and Wequashcook could have found them.”
“A murderer, still,” the governor insisted.
“That is not yet proven, “ Woolsey said.
Governor Peters frowned, but then relaxed his face into an expression of resignation.
“Then, as we agreed,” he said. “They wait on the verdict.” He turned and walked into the meetinghouse followed by Woolsey. As they entered the building, the citizens, who had been watching, edged along the common and followed them inside.
“We will wait here,” Massaquoit said to Catherine, his eyes on the crowd entering the meetinghouse. “I do not think we will be welcome .”
“No,” Catherine replied, “I think not.”
Massaquoit looked in the direction of Ninigret.
“He will be ready,” he said.
* * * *
Inside the meetinghouse, she saw Jane and Henry on two stools before a long table, which had been placed in front of the pulpit in the meetinghouse. Behind the table sat the governor, Woolsey, young Magistrate Pendleton, and Will Best. Catherine walked to the edge of the table. In her hands were two letters, the one she had been given by Roger and Jane when they arrived, and the one recovered from Jane by Massaquoit. Two pieces of the puzzle, and the rest were lined up in front of her. She studied the impassive face of the sailor, and the energized expression of the woman she had come to know more fully not an hour before in the jail. Her mind since then had been processing Jane’s confessions, revelations, and defenses. Now, she would have to decide how to present her case, for as Jane’s putative guardian it fell to her to present the evidence to the magistrates. She moved her eyes to the first bench, and there sat Abigail King and her mother. Abigail held her sleeping babe at her shoulder. Across the row from them, but still at the front sat Minister Davis and his niece Grace. The young woman, recently recovered from her miscarriage looked pale she kept her eyes steadfastly on the empty pulpit. Ninigret waited outside, for his turn to add one more, perhaps decisive, perspective on the narrative that would explain how Billy Lockhart and Roger Whitcomb came to Newbury to die.
There had been a steady stream of people coming through the front door and taking seats, with eyes fixed on the two defendants and creating an atmosphere of expectation. The door, however, which had remained shut for the last ten minutes now opened slowly. At first, nobody appeared, and Catherine wondered for a moment if a sudden gust had blown it open, although she knew very well that outside the summer air hung hot and still. Then a teenaged boy entered, and she recognized him as Jethro Martin. He was holding a wide brimmed hat in his hands. He twisted the brim as he walked, and he kept his eyes on the floor in front of him. He retreated to the rearmost bench in the meetinghouse and he sat down. He looked as though he would gladly turn himself invisible if he could only find the potion that would perform that miracle. After a few moments, Rachel and Susan Martin, mother and sister, hurried in. Each glanced at Catherine and then took their place next to Jethro. The door stood open until Israel walked in, his injured arm still in the splint that Catherine had fashioned. He stepped with careful tread and held his arm stiffly at his side so as not to jar it or brush against anything. Still, at each step he grimaced in pain. He, too, made his way to the re
ar of the building and sat down next to his son, so the boy was flanked by his parents.
Catherine did not know whether she should be happy that the Martins had joined the proceedings or not. She did not doubt Jethro’s veracity, but in light of what Jane had told her she feared the damaging effect his words would surely have. She took a seat in the front row next to Abigail. The governor cleared his throat and looked out over the now filled meetinghouse, and then toward Will.
“I would have Henry Jenkins’ confession read into the record of our proceedings.” He motioned to Will, who stood up and placed a piece of paper in front of him on the table. At his full height, Will’s chest was almost even with the top of the table.
“Though I cannot read it, I can say it again,” Henry said.
Governor Peters cast a stern expression at Henry.
“That will not do,” he said. “You have made your mark on the statement that has been properly recorded and witnessed. Will Best, if you please.”
The little man began reading, and Catherine waited as he recited the formalities of name and place, and circumstances of confession, and how it had not been coerced, although Catherine still felt that Minister Davis’s heavy hand was pressing on the young sailor as he offered his story.
“She, meaning the woman now called Jane, came to me and Billy Lockhart at the Sign of the Lion, a tavern on King’s Street in Southampton, just before we shipped out on The Good Hope. She said she had no money but she must get aboard the ship and leave England. I thought it very bad luck to do such a thing, but I could see Billy was more than passing interested, and truth is she was a comely woman, and that it is I think that caught Billy’s eye, and I must confess I felt the devil stirring lust in me own blood.
“We took her aboard past midnight when nobody was on deck, and led her downstairs where we found her a place in the hold. There she stayed when the ship left the harbor and for a week or so until Master Whitcomb starts to come down to visit her. He did so because of Billy, you see, because Billy was serving meals to him and his sister in their cabin, and he seen how the young lady was unwell from the beginning, and then she got a fever and died before we was more than a week out to sea.
“While she was sick, Billy started bringing the master down to the hold to have conversation with our stowaway. I don’t know how that started, but I guess that Billy must have had something to do with it. Then there was a lot of talking down in that cargo hold, and Billy he was always lurking about, and there was something about writing a letter. I heard that much myself.
“Then the sister dies. She never got out of her bunk in the cabin. And one night, me and Billy, at the bidding of Master Whitcomb, why we slid her into the water, I shudder to say so, now, but may the Lord forgive me my part in this and all that I relate. And then the woman down in the hold comes up to the cabin and there she stays until the ship reaches Newbury Harbor.
“But things was not going so smooth with Billy and them two. He, that is Billy, confided in me that he knew what they were about when they got ashore, how Master Whitcomb and the woman was going to say that she was his sister, and say nothing at all about the one we dumped into the water. And Billy says he did not care if Master Whitcomb called himself the King of England, and the woman his queen, but he would have some money to hold his tongue. Then one day, when Billy was otherwise tending to his duties, I was summoned to their cabin, and the woman seduced me, she did, like Eve giving Adam that fruit so as to damn my soul to hell, and I hope the Lord can forgive me, but she says Billy has been a very bad boy and must be gotten rid of. She offered me her body if I would help her, and my flesh overwhelmed my head, and so I agreed. I got Billy to drinking his rum. That was an easy thing to do. And then she and Master Whitcomb come at him, we was on the aft deck. They got him to talking about the money he wanted from them, and while they was at it, I hit. He fell down, unconscious, and then we lifted him over the rail and into the water. As you know well.
“May the Lord forgive my part in this sordid affair.
“Signed Henry Jenkins.”
Will looked at the governor and then took his seat.
Catherine had kept her eyes steadily on Henry and Jane as Will read. Henry’s face showed his concentration as if he wanted very much to make sure that his words had been recorded correctly. At the more striking revelations, he cast his eyes up in supplication. However, she noted that at no time did a hint of a blush color his cheek, nor did any tremor or muscle twitch change the smooth surface of his complexion.
Jane, on the other hand, seemed disinterested in the account, perhaps regarding it as a description of events relevant to somebody else. Catherine now understood that this impenetrable surface masked a psyche riven and scarred by years of emotional trauma. Although she did not credit everything Jane had told her earlier in the day, she had seen into the woman’s soul, and there found a deeply trouble past, which explained, if it did not exonerate, her subsequent actions. Still, she wished that she could counsel the young woman to show a more repentant attitude as she sat before the stern faces of the magistrates and the equally unforgiving countenances of the citizens of Newbury looking at her with harsh censure from the benches of the meetinghouse.
“If it please you,” Magistrate Woolsey said to the governor.
“By all means,” the governor replied.
Woolsey waited a moment while he took Henry’s measure.
“There is the matter of Master Roger Whitcomb,” he said.
“I know little of that,” Henry replied, and his tone now had the saucy quality that Catherine remembered.
“Then what little you know,” Woolsey urged.
“I was given a job to do by the savage what calls himself William, the one with the hat.”
“And did you do this job?” Woosey asked.
Henry shook his head.
“Not for want of effort, mind you, because I take it as a personal point of honor to do what I say I am going to do. But that other savage,” he looked now at Jane, “her savage got there first, and when I seen that, I decided better against it.”
“And your honor?” the governor now offered.
“My honor is one thing,” Henry replied, “but my skin is another.” He paused as a scholar remembering his lesson. “My skin, that is, which I now have given over to my Lord, asking Him for His forgiveness.”
“Yes,” Woolsey said in dry tones.
Henry now pointed at Jane.
“She would have you think I killed that man, but I did not, one killing is enough for my conscience. And I can only hang once, so what do I have to hide? I tell you I did not touch Master Whitcomb.”
Governor Peters now looked toward Jane.
“How say you to this confession?” he asked.
Jane shrugged, her whole body seeming to shrink into its exhaustion.
“It is as he says.”
“All of it?” Woolsey asked.
Jane seemed to stir herself.
“Except who killed Roger. I saw him running away. I found Roger lying on the ground. I thought...” she paused with a wave of her hand, and bowed her head as though to weary to continue.
“And the one they call Ninigret, although Nathaniel would be a better name?” Woolsey now inquired.
“You must question him yourself,” Jane said. “You know well enough where to find him.”
“That we do and will,” Governor Peters replied. He looked at Catherine. “Mistress Williams, can you shed further light.”
Catherine stood and glanced at the letters in her hand.
“As you well know, this woman and Roger Whitcomb came to stay with me, presenting themselves as brother and sister.” She walked to the table and put a letter in front of the governor. “That letter is the one Roger gave me. It is signed by his father.” She waited while the governor read over the paper and then passed it to Woolsey, who then slid it to Pendleton. After Pendleton signified that he too had read its contents, Catherine continued. “Do you gentlemen see anythin
g amiss in that letter as regards the prisoner Jane?” she asked, and the three men shook their heads after again skimming the contents and then staring at Jane.
“The bit about her red hair seems odd,” Pendleton said in a soft voice, and then he cast a watchful eye at the governor and Woolsey. The governor looked again at the letter.
“It does,” he said, and Pendleton relaxed, permitting himself a quick smile of relief.
“Magistrate Pendleton is observant, indeed,” Catherine said, and she now placed the second letter on the table. Again she waited while it was read by the governor and the magistrates. She watched as each changed his expression when his eyes reached the end of the letter.
“Why, I see,” the governor said.
“Extraordinary,” Woolsey affirmed, and both now looked with stunned contempt at Jane.
“As I thought,” added Pendleton, his voice now confident.
“Yes,” Catherine replied. She retrieved the second letter.
“The loving father of Jane Whitcomb closes his letter by asking my especial solicitude in caring for his,” she looked down at the letter and read, “‘little daughter, frail from birth, having attained in adulthood a body no bigger than a child.’ Not long ago, a crate arrived from Jane’s mother, containing clothes for her daughter.” Catherine looked toward the door, and on cue Phyllis and Edward came in carrying the crate. They set it down before the table, and Catherine lifted the lid. She removed the bodice and gown and held them up.
“A fine sight I would be in that,” Jane now said. “The poor little bird could not take the sea air and flew to heaven, I trow, leaving her brother for me to tend to.”
“Oh!”
The exclamation came from the front bench where Grace sat with her uncle. The minister looked at his niece with a harsh expression, but then as she began to sob, he held her to him.
“That one,” Jane said. “She is the cause of much of this sadness, for she lured him to her bed, and he swore he would renounce me and return to his faith for her sake.”
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