FRIDAY, JANUARY 29
The Court of Common Pleas has come to Hallowell to determine whether charges will be brought against Joseph North. It is a special session, called by Judge Wood last month in Vassalboro, and marks the first time these men have held court in our town. Once again, we have gathered at Pollard’s Tavern, but this time North wears neither robe nor wig.
Obadiah Wood is here, along with fellow Sessions judges James Parker and John Hubbard. As the officer assigned to their court, Barnabas Lambard has accompanied them as well. The tavern is packed, every seat taken, filled with friends and neighbors who’ve come to see one of their own face this serious charge. And that has made it worse for Rebecca, of course. The familiar faces. The whispers and judgment. It is one thing to give testimony in Vassalboro, before strangers, but something else entirely to do so before the people with whom you trade milk and eggs.
The way the air crackles with tension, the way I feel the glances of our neighbors, makes me think that they are hoping for another spectacle. Another outburst on my part. Half of them weren’t here the first time, didn’t see me held in contempt of court. It makes me angry, this voyeurism.
When we arrived at the tavern an hour ago, Ephraim had looked to the sky and frowned.
“A storm is moving in,” he’d said.
I followed his gaze and saw the dark, angry clouds in the east, rolling in from the Atlantic. “Worse than usual?”
“Yes.” He flexed the fingers of his left hand. “I feel it. In my bones.” “How long?”
“A couple of hours, if we’re lucky.”
In truth, the blizzard came in even quicker than Ephraim predicted, the winds picking up and the sky opening just as the judges arrived. Jagged bits of snow now whip through the air, scratching at the windows. A draft creeps under the door and swirls around our feet. I pull my skirt tighter around my ankles. Amos Pollard has built the fires to a roaring blaze, but they do little to beat back the creeping cold pushed forward by this storm. Ephraim drops his arm over my shoulder.
Jonathan and Cyrus chose seats at the back of the room, away from prying eyes. Whether they are here in support of us, or out of curiosity, I cannot say. But both insisted on coming.
North sits off to the side. But Henry Sewell is at the front as usual, performing his duties as clerk. He and Joseph North avoid eye contact.
Rebecca and I are at the front, flanked by our husbands, and when Obadiah Wood bangs his gavel, she nearly jumps out of her skin. These court appearances are wearing on her, I think. She had hoped that charges would be declared in Vassalboro, that the case would move to trial in Pownalboro. She had hoped that she would not have to repeat the details of her ordeal to the greedy ears of our neighbors. But Obadiah Wood had dashed those hopes, and collectively the judges chose to move this hearing to our community. Though I suspect that decision has as much to do with Joshua Burgess as it does Joseph North.
“This special session of the court has convened on two matters and will not take other issues into consideration,” Obadiah Wood declares. “If you are awaiting judgment on a pending case, your last issued court date remains in effect.”
Neither Judge Parker nor Judge Hubbard look pleased to be in the Hook, I think, and the latter keeps glancing at the windows and the storm
clouds barreling closer. No doubt they will have to secure rooms at the tavern tonight. They cannot ride back to Vassalboro in this weather.
“The two issues before the court today are the accusation of rape against Colonel North, and an inquiry into the death of Joshua Burgess— also an accused in the first matter. As these issues are connected, we have chosen to deal with them together.”
I can see Isaac Foster stiffen in my peripheral vision, and Ephraim squeezes my hand.
“I would like to request an extension,” North says, stepping forward, “as I did not have time to secure an appropriate legal representative.”
Judge James Parker, an older man with speckled brown hair and hooded eyes, leans across the table. “Denied. You have had a month. But no matter. This is only a hearing, not a trial. No guilt or innocence will be determined today. We are here on the advice of the lower court”—he glares at Judge Wood—“to determine whether charges will be filed.”
John Hubbard clears his throat. Adjusts his collar. He looks like an owl in an ivy bush, wig frizzled and slightly off-center. “Now, to the first matter, that of Joshua Burgess,” he says. “It came to our attention some weeks past that the body of the deceased is stored in this town as it is impossible to bury him until the thaw. We examined the body upon our arrival but would like to question those who first inspected the corpse, one Martha Ballard, midwife, and one Dr. Benjamin Page. Please come forward.”
I do as asked, my chin lifted, hands folded at my waist, but I don’t look at Dr. Page when he comes to stand beside me.
“Who examined the body first?” Hubbard asks. I lift my hand. “I did, Your Honor.”
He peers at his notes. “And you declared the cause of death to be murder by hanging?”
“I did.”
“And how did you reach that conclusion?”
I am careful to present facts, not feelings. “All of the injuries to Captain Burgess’s neck were consistent with hanging. A clean break and substantial
rope burns. But the injuries to the rest of his body were those of a man who has been beaten. Numerous cuts and bruises and broken bones.”
“And have you ever seen a hanging before?” he asks, and I dislike the tone of condescension I hear.
“Yes.” A single word, no explanation, but I hope the certainty in that one syllable makes it clear that I do know of what I speak.
“I see. And did you find a rope on his person?” “I did not.”
“And did you not think it odd?”
“No. It only reinforced my belief that he had been murdered. If Burgess had hung himself, he would have been found dangling from a tree—rope intact—and not lodged in the river.”
Hubbard scratches notes in his ledger. “Thank you, Mistress Ballard.” He looks up. “Dr. Page?”
“Yes?”
“Please explain your original assessment.”
“In my studies at Harvard Medical School I performed dissections on more than one man found dead in the harbor. Water can do tremendous damage to the human body. And given that there was no rope present on the deceased, it seemed likely that the injuries could have been made in a postmortem state.”
“And were you able to determine how long the body had been dead before entering the river?”
“I postulated death by drowning, sir.” “Was there water in his lungs?”
“I did not perform a dissection on this man so—”
“It is possible that he was deceased when he entered the river?” “I did not think so at the time.”
Hubbard looks at me. “Mistress Ballard?” “Yes?”
“How long do you think he was dead before entering the water?” “I doubt more than a few moments,” I say.
“Why?”
“The bruises. He had dozens of them, and they were fresh. Most were pink and swollen. Some were bright purple. But none the green and brown of a fading bruise,” I tell the court, then add carefully, “In my three decades of tending patients, I have never seen a dead man bruise. Blood pools after death, Your Honor. It doesn’t rush to the skin’s surface.”
He looks at Page. Lifts an eyebrow. “Is that correct, Doctor?” “It is, but—”
“Have you ever seen a hanging, Doctor Page?”
“I have performed more than one dissection on such—”
“I did not ask you if you had ever seen a hanged man, but a man hanged. Have you?”
“No.”
“Thank you. You may both be seated.”
“If I may, Your Honor?” Page takes a step forward. “Yes?”
“You asked me to explain my original assessment. But I would like the court to know that it has since changed.”
“Pray tell why that might be?” Hubbard asks.
“Pertinent information was kept from me during my initial examination.”
“Do explain.”
“It has come to my attention that the victim was in a violent confrontation just hours before his body was found. Had I known that, it would have factored into my assessment.”
I am sometimes astonished at how still I can be while my heart is racing. How dare Page?
James Parker takes over the questioning now. “Do you know whom Burgess fought that night?”
Page lifts his chin. Dares one sideways look at me. “Indeed, I do. He fought with Mistress Ballard’s oldest son, Cyrus.”
It is as though someone has taken a boot to a beehive, the way the room begins to buzz. These judges are not so quick to lose control of a courtroom
as North was, however, and Wood brings it back to attention immediately with three hard whacks of his gavel.
Taking his cue, Dr. Page returns to his seat. I watch him wind through the room and deposit himself at a long table beside a pretty young woman. She’s the kind of girl who will always look childlike no matter how old she grows. Small. Narrow. Fine boned. All of this even though she is—as Samuel Coleman told me not long ago—quite far along in a pregnancy. She rests her hand on her swollen belly and looks at her husband as though he has descended from Mount Olympus just for this occasion.
“Mistress Ballard?”
I lift my chin. Turn back to the judges.
“Did you know of this confrontation earlier?”
“Not when I inspected the body, Your Honor. I found out later that same day.”
“From whom?”
I clear my throat. “Members of my household.”
“And was this information delivered in the form of a confession?” he asks.
“No. Absolutely not. My daughters attended a Frolic the evening before with their brothers. Burgess was also there. And when he tried to force my eldest girl to dance, Cyrus stopped him. There are at least ten people in this room who saw the altercation and can attest to those facts. They all saw Burgess leave the dance in good health, and that Cyrus did not follow. But I do not think it has any bearing on this investigation.”
“Is that your professional opinion? Or your personal one?” he asks. “Both.”
“And after the dance? Where did your son go?” “He escorted his sisters home, then went to bed.”
“Can anyone account for where he was in the middle of the night?”
What a poisonous bunch-backed toad, I think.
“He was in bed when I was called to a birth. At two o’clock that morning,” I say, and it takes a great effort to keep the venom from my voice.
Obadiah Wood looks at his copy of Henry Sewell’s court record. He asks, “When you first gave your testimony on cause of death did you include that information?”
“I did not.”
“Why? Your son beat the man.”
“There’s no law against it,” I say. “Not when he was protecting his sister from unwanted advances against a man who had already been accused of rape. And besides, Burgess walked away from that altercation. As witnessed by many people. Whereas the man I inspected in this tavern would not have been able to walk at all. Whatever happened to him occurred after he left the Frolic.”
“Is your son in the courtroom today?”
I feel Cyrus’s presence before I see him. He’s come to stand behind me now.
“He is.”
“State your full name for the court, please,” Obadiah Wood says.
There is a long, painful stretch of time in which Cyrus says nothing. “He has no speech, Your Honor,” I explain.
The judges look at one another, mystified. “He cannot speak at all?”
“Cyrus is mute.”
I cannot bear the wave of embarrassment that washes over his face. The way he clenches his teeth then straightens his jaw.
“Is he deaf as well? Can he understand our questions?”
Acid laces each syllable of my reply. “He. Is. Not. Deaf. He can understand all your questions, and he can reply with the language of his body or in writing. Cyrus is fully literate.”
Of all the men on the bench, Judge Parker seems most fascinated by this turn of events. He leans forward, resting his elbows on the table. “Did you get into a physical altercation with Joshua Burgess the night before he died?” he asks.
Cyrus nods.
“Did you kill the man?”
He shakes his head. Plainly denying the accusation. “Is it true that you can read and write?”
He nods.
“We will require a written deposition in your own hand—preferably by the end of the day—stating your version of events as they relate to the altercation with Joshua Burgess. Are you willing to provide that?”
Again, the nod.
The judges huddle together at their table, heads bent, voices low, and fingers tapping their notes. After several moments, Hubbard straightens and says, “Mistress Ballard?”
I take a step closer to the table.
“You are hereby recused as witness in any capacity with regards to the investigation of the murder of Joshua Burgess. Please take your seat.” Once I have situated myself on the bench beside Ephraim, Hubbard continues. “However, the court has determined that further investigation is needed. No official cause of death will be declared at this time. But we will address the accusation that has been made against Mr. Isaac Foster, husband of the defendant.” He looks at his docket. “A Sally Pierce has previously stated before this court that she heard Mrs. Foster confess that her husband murdered Joshua Burgess. We will hear from her first.”
I hadn’t realized that Sally was present. She comes forward as asked, her father at her side, looking everywhere but at me. Sally still wears her riding cloak and has it pulled tight across her chest. It’s as though she’s consoling herself with its weight and warmth.
“Miss Pierce?” “Yes.”
Even though Sally looks at Hubbard, her eyes are unfocused. “Please tell us what you heard Mrs. Foster say.”
Sally clears her throat, but her voice shakes regardless. “She was in the middle of a conversation with Mistress Ballard who had come to tell her that Joshua Burgess was dead. And I heard her say, ‘Isaac did kill him.’ Plain as day she said it. And I never meant to get anyone in trouble, but I
must tell the truth. That is what my father says.” She looks at her feet then, and I can barely hear her next words. “He says I have to.”
“Mistress Ballard?” I stand again.
“Were you there that day? And is that what you heard?”
“I was there. And I did give Rebecca the news. I thought it should come from a friend. But because Sally was listening at the door, to a conversation that was none of her concern, she only heard half of what Rebecca told me.”
“And what was the other half?”
“She said, ‘I hope that Isaac did kill him.’ And can you blame her?” I look to Ephraim, offer the ghost of a smile. “I would hope no less of my own husband in that situation.”
“Miss Pierce?”
Her hands begin to shake. “Sir?”
“Is it possible that you heard only part of what Mrs. Foster said?”
William Pierce sets his hand on Sally’s shoulders and, like he did the first time they came to court, I see his thumb and forefinger pinch the muscle between neck and shoulder.
“I have told the court exactly what I heard.” A wince. “Sir.”
Sally can feel the weight of my gaze, and her eyes shift to the side when I speak again. “Though I’m certain Miss Pierce is a paragon of virtue, and that she would never purposefully deceive anyone, I remain firm in my certainty that she misheard the conversation.”
I reach over and grab Rebecca’s trembling hand, give it a reassuring squeeze.
The judges confer quietly for a moment, then Hubbard says, “We will move on to the next matter.”
Isaac Foster jumps to his feet. Takes a big step toward the table where the judges are sitting. “Are you not going to ask my wife what she said? Or let me speak in my own defense?”
Obadiah Wood clears his throat. “The record already states that you denied the accusation. We did not feel it needed to be clarified as you
were…ah…so adamant in Vassalboro.”
Isaac’s rage slackens, but only slightly. “Then I expect you will also give my wife the same chance to defend herself.”
“Very well, Mrs. Foster,” Wood said. “Please clarify for the court exactly what you said to Mistress Ballard that day.”
Rebecca stands. “It is exactly as Martha said. I told her that I hoped my husband killed Joshua Burgess. That I wasn’t sad to hear he’d died. And I do not regret a word of it”—and then she gives Sally a withering look
—“because it is true.”
Judge James Parker leans forward, his great hawk nose jutting out. “Thank you, Mrs. Foster. Your testimony will be recorded by the clerk, and we will now move on to the other matter at hand. Will you please tell the court what occurred on the evening of August tenth?”
I can tell that Rebecca is frightened in a way that she had not been in Vassalboro. Her body seems to curl in on itself, making her look smaller than she really is. She steps into the open area before the table.
“My husband was in Boston, and I was at home, alone, with our two sons. It was close to midnight, but I was awake, reading, when someone began pounding on the door.”
“And did you open it willingly?” Parker asks. “No, I did not.”
“Had you bothered to turn the lock before retiring for the evening?”
“Yes,” she says, and I hear a note of acid in her voice. “Though most people in this village don’t bother doing so. The Hook is known to be safe. Or so I am told. But I was not raised in these parts, and I have long been in the habit of locking my doors at night, even when my husband is home. I happened to be standing in front of it when they kicked it in.”
“Did you sustain any injuries?”
“A bruised cheek and a split lip. The door hit me here.” She lays a palm against her cheek where the ghastly bruises had marred her skin. It is a wonder the impact didn’t shatter half the bones in her face. “That’s how I ended up on the floor.”
Obadiah Wood asks, “Are you saying that it was Joseph North who entered your house that evening?”
“Yes. And also Joshua Burgess. I have not forgotten him simply because he is dead.”
He nods. “Continue, please.”
The entire tavern listens, breathless, as she goes on with her account. The two of them had disagreed at that point about the noise and whether she was, in fact, to be harmed. In the end, Burgess helped her to her feet since she couldn’t manage that herself. Black spots floated in front of her eyes, and she couldn’t carry her own weight. They were happy to do the carrying. Straight to the bedroom.
Halfway blind, nauseous, dizzy from the impact, Rebecca hadn’t made much sense of the questions they threw at her.
When will your husband be home?
Stop that noise. You don’t want to wake the children, do you? Where’s the lantern?
Rebecca had explained to them, as well as she could, that Isaac wasn’t home. Wouldn’t be home for weeks most likely. They needed to go away. They needed to come back later. She didn’t understand what was happening. She didn’t understand why they were pulling her slippers off. Why they were pulling her stockings off. Of course she didn’t want the children to wake. Why would she? It had taken nearly two hours to get them to sleep in the first place. The lantern? Did she own a lantern? She couldn’t remember. Her head throbbed. Her vision spun.
It is gut-wrenching to listen to her. The way her voice catches in her throat. To see her wipe snot on the sleeve of her blouse. I hate every one of these judges for making her do this. But she doesn’t back down. She withholds nothing as she continues her story.
Rebecca began to fight when they tossed her to the bed. Lying down made everything hurt worse. Only when they’d gotten her stripped to her shift did she begin to understand what was happening. And by that time, it was far, far too late.
Rebecca’s voice grows calmer the closer she gets to the end of her horrible tale. “It was Joshua Burgess who went first,” she says.
Burgess had been reserved up to that point. Keeping a few steps behind as North dragged her to the bedroom, quietly watching from the shadows as North stripped off her clothing. He was the one who’d forced her legs open. And North had pinned her there, spread-eagle and trembling while Burgess slowly, methodically peeled away his own clothing. Boots. Woolen socks. Then he ripped off the lace hem of her shift so that he could tie his hair back. What had happened to her shift after that she didn’t remember, but it was gone when he climbed on top of her.
I have never seen a courtroom so quiet in my entire life. The testimony is horrifying. Rebecca spares no detail. She doesn’t bother with modest speech or her own reputation. She has decided to shock and scandalize the neighbors who have insisted on being present to witness this public humiliation. She means to punish their curiosity. And I wonder if this isn’t the first time that Isaac has fully heard her account, for he alternately seizes with rage and weeps openly beside her.
“It hurt.” Rebecca’s voice finally breaks.
I want to reach for Rebecca, to scoop her up and hold her the way I hold my own daughters when they are sick or hurt. I want to shield her from this awful exposure.
Rebecca’s eyes find a safe spot on the wall behind Obadiah Wood, and she stares at it. Her voice slips into a monotone, devoid of all shock, all pain. She sounds like she is in another room, in another country, as she continues.
While Burgess made relatively quick work of his assault, grunting into the pillow beside her head, then rolling off her body, North meant to punish her. He was not content with resignation. After the blinding pain in her head subsided, after she stopped thrashing on the bed, after she stopped begging for them to leave, and grew quiet, he went to work. And he systematically dismantled her composure. Left her trying to escape the confines of her own skin.
Traitor. Whore. Indian lover. Jezebel. Temptress. Wanton. He accused her of being all these things and more.
Rebecca lifts a trembling hand and sets it over her left breast. “He flicked it,” she says. “Over and over until Burgess had to hold me down with his knees so I’d lie still. After a while I couldn’t feel anything else but that flicking. But it was the ‘Indian lover’ he kept repeating as he flicked. I couldn’t scream,” she gasped, the tears coming. “What if I’d woken the boys? What if they had come in crying? What would I have said to them? What would those men have done to my babies?”
North had taken her then, with Burgess holding her arms against the bed so she could not scratch or hit. It was well into the deepest hours of the night by the time he exhausted himself.
You’ll not say a word of this to your husband. Or to anyone else. Do you understand? North said, pulling on his trousers with the drowsy movements of a man satisfied with his work. She had deserved it, he said, for bringing those Indians into their town after the militia had worked so hard to beat them back into the wilderness. They’d had no choice but to teach her this lesson. North told her this even as he wiped the beads of sweat from his brow.
They left her alone and naked and weeping in the soiled sheets. And she lay there, unable to move her limbs, listening to them tromp through the hallway toward the door, laughing, jesting about the way she’d begged them to stop. For one excruciating moment they paused at the bottom of the stairs and her heart pounded in her chest with the terror that they might go in search of her children. But they didn’t.
The three judges sit there and stare at her for several long moments, unsure what to make of her accusations.
Finally, John Hubbard speaks. “And did you tell anyone? That day or the next?”
Rebecca’s eyes are deep pools of grief when she finally opens them. “Who could I tell? Judge North was the one who would hear my complaint.”
“And yet you have a witness?”
“Yes. Martha Ballard.”
Hubbard calls me forward again. “It seems you are a busy woman, Mistress Ballard. How came you to be a witness in all of these matters?”
“They fall under the duties of my profession. I do not seek out such experiences, Your Honor.”
“Go on then, tell us what you know of Mistress Foster’s claims.”
Once again, I tell the court exactly how I found Rebecca, the same as I had in Vassalboro last month. I tell them of her injuries. I show them my diary and the entries I’ve made, along with the interactions I’ve had with Judge North since.
“Thank you, Mistress Ballard, for your testimony,” Parker says. “We will hear from the defendant now. Mr. North?”
He steps forward.
“How do you plead in this cause?”
“Not guilty. I have done nothing to this woman. She has no proof. No witnesses to the act she claims happened. Nothing but a friend who saw her much later. I ask that you dismiss these charges. They should have never been brought in the first place!”
“It is worth noting,” Judge Parker says, “that there was a witness to the purported crime, but he is now dead. And that is a fact that this court finds both curious and rather convenient for you.”
“Am I being accused of murder now?” North asks, hissing the words through his teeth.
“I am simply stating an observation, Mr. North. And reminding you that we will pursue all avenues of investigation as it relates to both Mr. Burgess and this case—seeing as how they are intertwined.” Parker looks to Henry Sewell. “Please enter Mr. North’s not guilty plea in the court records.”
“My wife can testify that I was home, with her, on the night these events allegedly took place,” North continues.
Lidia has gone from looking gaunt in Vassalboro to positively ill now. Pale. Lips thin and pressed together. Two fingers constantly massage her left temple. “He was home,” she says.
“I would ask you to consider my own reputation in this town,” North tells the judges, “versus that of Mistress Foster and her husband. These accusations are nothing more than a bit of petty revenge, a way of getting back at me for dismissing him as minister. He is suing the town for unpaid wages! Need you any more proof of their duplicity than that?”
I watch Lidia sink back into her seat and wonder how often she is awake these days past eight o’clock. How easy it would be for North to slip from bed with his wife unaware.
And so it goes, back and forth, becoming less about what happened to Rebecca and more about her husband versus the man accused of raping her. As if Isaac had any bearing whatsoever upon what happened to Rebecca in August. As if his insistence on being paid the full amount agreed to in his contract has any relevance on the situation.
“Have you anything else to add regarding the actual charges, Mr.
North?” Wood finally interrupts. “No.”
“Then please take your seat. The court will now recess for a short time so that we might deliberate.”
He bangs the gavel, then he, Parker, and Hubbard retreat to the storeroom to converse amongst themselves.
I sit with Rebecca. Hold her hand. We wait as the onlookers mill around the tavern and refill their mugs. Some go out to use the privy, sending a blast of cold air into the room every time they open the door. Others stretch their legs.
After some time—ten or fifteen minutes perhaps—the judges return to the tavern and lift their faces to Rebecca Foster. John Hubbard bangs his gavel.
“The Court of Common Pleas has decided that charges will be brought against Joseph North,” he announces.
James Parker adds, “However, it remains the duty of the court to point out that there are no witnesses who actually saw Mrs. Foster being accosted. And without such a witness it would not be lawful to try this man
in a capital case that could result in his death. It is therefore the decision of the court to declare charges of attempted rape.”
The tavern erupts. People leap to their feet. Some clap their relief. Others shout their outrage. But I cannot bear to look at Rebecca, cannot bear to witness her heartbreak a second time. So I look to Ephraim instead and see everything I feel reflected in his eyes. Regardless of what might happen in the coming trial, Joseph North will not hang for what he did to Rebecca.
Obadiah Wood bangs his gavel to settle the outburst caused by this news. “We are not finished. It is our decision that this case go to trial before the Supreme Judicial Court three months hence. The defendant shall be remanded to the jail yard at Fort Western until that time. Colonel North, please step forward and acknowledge that you understand the charges, the parameters of your constraints at Fort Western, and that you will be present for trial.”
Wood looks around the room. “Colonel?”
Lidia North remains in her seat, but her husband is not with her. He is not in the tavern at all.
*
I sit in my workroom, journal spread open on the desk, and write as the storm barrels in from the east, across the Atlantic, a monster building out in the ocean and pushing all that wind and snow across the coast and inland. Building, building until it is a wall of white that swallows everything in its path.
We are home now, and the household bustles around me. Hannah and Dolly make dinner while the men—Barnabas included—stomp in and out, with armloads of wood to prepare for what is coming. They close the shutters and build the fires, piling in warming stones that can be wrapped and taken to bed later. Ephraim insisted that Barnabas stay the night with us instead of riding the four hours back to Vassalboro. Apparently, I am not the only one who has grown fond of the boy.
Beside the hearth is a chessboard and—between chores—Cyrus and Barnabas take their turns. They’ve been at it for hours, quietly battling each other. I’ve never seen Cyrus lose the game, but something tells me that I should not discount Barnabas Lambard. Hannah and Dolly ignore them, of course. They’ve seen pissing contests before.
I finish the entry by stabbing my quill into the paper.
Colonel North fled from judgment and could not be found.
