The door opened, and his slave, Tituba entered, frightened and in a flurry.
“My Betty be hearty soon?”
Parris rose to his feet. “Out of here!”
Tituba started to back towards the door. “My Betty not goin’ die…”
“Out of my sight! Out of my—“ Tituba vanished, and he collapsed. “Oh, my God! God help me!”
Recovering himself, he took Betty’s hand. “Betty. Child. Dear child. Will you wake, will you open your eyes! Betty, little one…”
He knelt down again, and Lily entered, somewhat frightened, worried, and apprehended.
“Uncle? Susanna Walcott’s here from Doctor Griggs.”
“Oh?” He looked up. “Let her come, let her come.”
Lily leaned out of the door, calling. “Come in, Susannah.”
Susannah told Parris that the doctor couldn’t find a remedy for Betty’s still stiffness, and that they might look to witchcraft for the cause. Parris emphatically denied witchcraft, and sent her away. Parris turned on Abigail.
“Abigail, I cannot go before the congregation when I know you have not opened with me. What did you do with her in the forest?”
Lily tossed her head, though she was obviously unnerved. “We did dance, uncle, and when you leaped out of the bush so suddenly, Betty was frightened and then she fainted. And there’s the whole of it.”
He didn’t believe her. “Child. Sit you down.”
He lectured her on telling him the truth, for if he was proven to have associated himself with witchcraft, he would be driven from his pulpit. Several other village women entered, declaring that Betty had been ‘witched’. The news came out that Ruth Putnam, another daughter in the village, was sick, too, and that Ruth had been sent to Tituba to find out why her seven brothers died at childbirth. Parris still refused to believe in witchcraft in his house, and then he left Abigail, Betty, and two other girls in the attic; Mercy Lewis and Mary Warren.
Mercy, in a cold cruelty, walked over to Betty. “Have you tried beatin’ her? I gave Ruth a good one and it waked her for a minute. Here, let me have her.”
Oddly protective, Lily held Mercy back. “No; he’ll be comin’ up. Listen now—if they be questioning us, tell them we danced—I told his as much already.”
Mercy was uneasy. “Aye. And what more?”
“He knows Tituba conjured Ruth’s sisters to come out of the grave.”
“And what more?”
Ruthlessly, Lily continued. “He say you naked.”
Mercy clapped her hands together in front of her mouth, terrified. “Oh, Jesus!”
Mary Warren started to cry. “What’ll we do? The village is out! I just come from the farm; the whole country’s talkin’ witchcraft! They’ll be calling us witches, Abby!”
She meant to tell, the other girls knew it, and then Mary told them they had to—“Witchery’s a hangion’ error, a hangin’ like they done in Boston two year ago! We must tell the truth, Abby!”
Abigail scorned the threat from Mary, and she quickly went over to Betty’s bed, Upon shaking, Betty woke up, and she turned on Abigail.
“You didn’t tell him everything! You drank blood, Abby! You didn’t tell him that!”
“Betty! You never say that again! You will never!"
“You did, you did!” Betty was crying hysterically. “You drank a charm to kill John Proctor’s wife! You drank a charm to kill Goody Proctor!”
Rage came over Abigail’s face, and she smashed Betty across hers. “Shut it! Now shut it!”
Betty collapsed, weeping, onto the bed, and Abigail turned to the other girls with her threatening speech about stabbing them in their sleep if they told anything but that they danced. When she finished, James entered, frowning, radiating an air of ‘making the fool feel his foolishness’, and letting his cloak fall from his shoulders carelessly. Obviously frightened, Mercy and Mary left the attic with various excuses, and James, Lily, and the girl playing the once again inert Betty were left alone.
Lily had been absorbing his presence wide-eyed since he entered, and now she tiptoed forward. “Gah! I’d almost forgot how strong you are, John Proctor!”
With the same knowing smile on his face, James looked up at her. “What’s this mischief here?”
Lily told him what had gone on last night, with a shy, winning smile on her face.
“Ah, you’re wicked yet, are you?” James laughed heartily. “You’ll be clapped in the stocks before you’re twenty.”
He turned to go, but Lily took his hand and turned him around, softer than she had been with anyone that day. “Give me a word, John. A soft word.”
He frowned at her. “No, no, Abby. That’s done with.” He pulled his hand away, but she took his other one.
“You come five mile to see a silly girl fly? I know you better.” Her jeering, taunting tone again set him at ease, and, almost overcome with the spell of the Puritan time, her lies and her love, he pushed her aside again.
“I come to see what mischief you uncle’s brewin’ now. Put it out of mind, Abby.”
Lily laid her hand on his shoulder, so light he hardly felt it. “John—I am waiting’ for you every night.”
“Abby, I never gave you hope to wait for me.”
Starting to anger, her sweet tone turned harsh. “I have something better than hope, I think!”
“Abby!” His unsympathetic tone made her draw back. “You’ll put it out of mind. I’ll not be comin’ for you more.”
She couldn’t believe it. “You’re surely sporting with me!”
James, determined to go through with his resolution, clenched his teeth. “You know me better.”
Outraged, Lily took his collar in one hand, making him look her in the eyes, the glaring orbs that were impassioned with furious indignation.
“I know how you clutched my back behind your house and sweated like a stallion whenever I came near! Or did I dream that? It’s she put me out, you cannot pretend it were you. I saw your face when she put me out, and you loved me then and you do now!”
“Abby!” James pushed her away from him, telling her that was done with, and that he didn’t care for her. Lily refused to believe his words, and she made one last appeal, with tears in her eyes.
“I look for John Proctor that put knowledge into my heart! I never knew what pretense Salem was, I never knew the lying lessons I was taught by all these Christian women and their covenanted men! And now you bid me tear the light out of my eyes? I will not, I cannot! You loved me, John Proctor, and whatever sin it is, you love me yet!” The tears were spilling down her face now as James turned to go; she rushed to him.
“Oh, John, pity me, pity me!”
James stared. He had never heard her say anything with that much emotion in it—no exclamations of fear or anger or anything she had ever said had seemed to mean as much to her as her plea just had. Quite frankly, he couldn’t move; he couldn’t force himself to say anything; he was awestruck. Thankfully, it made a good effect, and just then, from offstage, someone started singing a psalm, and the words ‘going up to Jesus’ were heard. Betty sat straight up in bed at that, clapping her hands to her ears and whining loudly, screaming bloody murder.
The noise snapped James out of his trance; he followed Lily over to Betty’s bed as Lily tried to pull Betty’s hands off of her ears. Pandemonium ensued; the crowd of neighbors crowded into the room, and several women almost went hysterical at the words of witchcraft flung back and forth. In the middle of it, Reverend John Hale entered, an expert on the subject of witchcraft; he had signed death warrants for several people in Boston, and Parris had asked him to come down.
Several people came up to him, asking what the meaning was of their wife’s reading of books in secret, and things of the sort, and finally Hale called Abigail to him, to question her on the happenings of the other night. Almost petrified, she answered his question of what kind of dancing they had been doing.
“Why—common dancing is all.”
Parris interrupted. “I think I ought to say that I—I saw a kettle in the grass where they were dancing.”
Lily, frightened anew, leaned on the bedpost. “That were only soup!”
Hale frowned. “What kind of soup were in this kettle, Abigail?”
“Why, it were beans, and—“ She stopped to think wildly. “And lentils, I think. And—“
Hale turned to Parris. “Mr. Parris, you did not notice, did you, any living thing in the kettle? A mouse, perhaps, a spider, a frog--?”
Fearfully, Parris admitted to seeing movement in the kettle, and Abigail jumped in again. “That leaped in, we never put it in!”
Quickly, Hale questioned her. “What jumped in?”
She realized her mistake. “Why, a very little frog jumped—“
“A frog, Abby!” Parris was outraged.
Hale grasped Abigail’s arm so forcefully that she cried out. “Abigail, it may be your cousin is dying! Did you call the Devil last night?”
“I never called him,” she protested frantically. “Tituba—Tituba—“
Parris blanched. “She called the Devil?”
“I should like to speak with Tituba,” Hale stated firmly.
Mrs. Putnam, a neighbor, exited to bring the slave, and Hale turned to Abigail again. “How did she call him?”
Thrashing about for an answer, Lily landed on the first she could think of. “I know not—she spoke Barbados. I didn’t see no Devil!” She started shaking Betty. “Betty, wake up. Betty! Betty!”
“You cannot evade me, Abigail.” Hale’s voice was firm. “Did your cousin drink some of the brew in that kettle?”
“She never drank it!”
Something was radiating from Lily; a sense of frightened hysteria that made some of the onlookers feel as if they themselves were being questioned for murder; it made them want to scream, to run somewhere.
“Did you drink it?”
”No, sir!”
“Did Tituba ask you to drink it?”
She immediately resumed an innocent, angelic look. “She tried, but I refused.”
Hale stemmed his fists in his sides. “Why are you concealing? Have you sold yourself to Lucifer?”
She couldn’t keep the terror out of her eyes or her voice. “I never sold myself! I’m a good girl! I’m a proper girl!”
Her eyes fell on Tituba, who had just entered. Pointing a finger accusingly at the slave, she retreated to the other side of the bed.
“She made me do it! She made Betty do it!”
Tituba was shocked. “Abby!”
Lily didn’t falter. “She makes me drink blood!”
Hale let out an exclamation. They started questioning Tituba closely, refusing to believe her protestations of innocence, and finally urging her to confess all, after they had led her to say that she had seen people from Salem with the Devil.
“Take courage, child,” Hale told her, “you must give us all their names. How can you bear to see this child suffering?” He gestured towards Betty. “Look at her, Tituba. Look at her God-given innocence; her soul is so tender, we must protect her, Tituba; the Devil is out and preying on her like a beast upon the flesh of the pure lamb. God will bless you for your help!”
Lily had drawn back against the wall at the maniacal interviewing of the blubbering lady, and, a gleam of inspiration shining on her face, she stepped forward, her hands clasped, and her eyes uplifted.
“I want to open myself!” The occupants of the attic whirled around to face her, but she sank to her knees, hands still clasped.
“I want to open myself!” The occupants of the attic whirled around to face her, but she sank to her knees, hands still clasped. “I want the light of God; I want the sweet love of Jesus! I danced for the Devil; I saw him; I wrote in his book; I go back to Jesus, I kiss his hand.” The angelic look faded from her face, and desperately, almost frantically, she started crying out her lines. “I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!”
Betty awoke, and, sitting up in bed, with a fever in her eyes, picked up where Lily had left off. “I saw George Jacobs with the Devil! I saw Goody Howe with the Devil!”
With an exclamation of relief, Parris rushed over to Betty, embracing her. “She speaks!”
Hale lifted his hands in prayer. “Glory to God! It is broken, they are free!”
With great relief, Betty was still crying out her list of names. “I saw Martha Bellows with the Devil!”
Almost gleefully, Lily joined her again. “I saw Goody Sibbers with the Devil!”
A rich landowner, Thomas Putnam, went for the door. “The marshal, I’ll call the marshal!”
Betty rose onto her knees. “I saw Alice Barrow with the Devil!”
Hale called out after Putnam, “Let the marshal bring irons!”
The curtain started to fall on Lily’s and Betty’s ecstatic cries.
“I saw Goody Hawkins with the Devil!”
“I saw Goody Bibber with the Devil!”
“I saw Goody Booth with the Devil!”
Breathless, the girls almost collapsed as the curtain fell and the resounding applause came to their ears.
Smiling and grinning with glee, they made their way offstage, helping quickly with the rearranging of the sets.
Lily had no part in the next act; it was mostly James and the Ravenclaw girl; John and Elizabeth Proctor. She had made her way to the balcony for the casts, and she quietly fastened her eyes on the stage.
The act took place in the Proctor farmhouse, and Elizabeth was urging John to tell the court that Abigail was a fraud, for soon Abigail would cry out against Elizabeth, seeking to take her place as John’s wife. Mary Warren, their servant girl, confirmed Elizabeth’s suspicions by coming in from testifying in court and telling them that Abigail had accused Elizabeth. In the middle of their scene, Mr. Hale entered.
“Good evening.”
James looked up. “Why, Mr. Hale! Good evening to you, sir. Come in, come in.” He pulled a chair out from underneath the table.”
Hale nodded to Elizabeth. “I hope I do not startle you.”
Several polite nothings were murmered, and then Mr. Hale started to question them as to their faith. They had been in church only twenty-six times in seventeen months; Hale put great weight upon that. Three of his children were not baptized, and Hale remonstrated James dearly for that. Then he asked them as to their knowledge of the Bible.
“Do you know your Commandments, Elizabeth?”
Eagerly, she nodded, with an open face. “I surely do. There be no mark of blame upon my life, Mr. Hale. I an a covenanted Christian woman.”
“And you, Mister?” He pointed to James, who started to sweat a trifle.
“I—I am sure I do, sir.”
Hale glanced at Elizabeth’s eager face, then at James’, and he pointed to him. “Let you repeat them, then.”
“The Commandments.” James was stalling.”
“Aye.” Hale rested a hand upon his knee and waited.
James looked away; he wiped the sweat from his brow. “Thou shalt not kill.”
“Aye.”
He was counting on his fingers. “Thou shalt not steal Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods, nor make onto thee any graven image. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain; thou shalt not have no other gods before me.” He started to hesitate. “Thou shalt remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy.” He paused. “Thou shalt honor thy father and mother. Thou shalt not bear false witness.”
He was stuck. Silently, he kept counting over and over on his fingers, flailing for the missing Commandment. “Thou shalt not make onto thee any graven image.”
Hale frowned. “You have said that twice, sir.”
”Aye.” He wiped his forehead again.
Delicately, Elizabeth interposed. “Adultery, John.”
James winced. “Aye.” He tried to grin at Mr. Hale. “You see, sir, between the two of us we do know them all.”
Hale only looked at James, clearly thinking hard; while James became more uneasy. “I think it be a small fault.”
With an impeccable air of righteousness, Hale rose. “Theology, sir, is a fortress; no crack in a fortress may be accounted small.” In deep thought, he started to pace the room.
Elizabeth urged John to tell him what Abigail had told him, in the attic, that they had merely been dancing, and it was all posh; there was no witchcraft about it. Hale listened eagerly; then they were interrupted. Giles Corey and Francis Nurse, both husbands of two exceedingly upright and faithful women, entered the room, distraught with fear.
Giles, an old man, hobbled over to James, pleading with his eyes, as if he could make everything come right again. “They take my wife.”
Francis made an indistinct sound in the corner, and Giles gestured to him. “And his Rebecca!”
James was astounded. “Rebecca’s in the jail?”
Rebecca Nurse was arrested for the ‘supernatural murder of Goody Putnam’s babies’, Martha Corey for bewitching a neighbor with her books. Then the court clerk, Ezekiel Cheever, entered, with a warrant for Elizabeth Proctor.
James demanded proof fiercely, and, in answer, Cheever caught up a doll, what he called a ‘poppet’, that Mary had made in court that day and given to Elizabeth Proctor. Elizabeth smiled wryly as she handed it to him.
“Has the court discovered a text in poppets now?”
Cheever turned it over, avoiding her eyes. “Do you keep any others in this house?”
James interrupted. “No, nor this one either till tonight. What signifies a poppet?” He was nervous and apprehensive, jumping at the squeak of the chair that Elizabeth pulled out.
“Why, a poppet—“ Cheever was gingerly handling it—“a poppet may signify—Now, woman, will you please to come with me?”
James knew what ground he was standing on, and he reached for Elizabeth, pulling her behind him. “She will not!” Turning to his wife, he gave her an order. “Fetch Mary here.”
“No!” Cheever reached for Elizabeth’s arm. “I am forbidden to let her out of sight.”
James pushed the clerk away, almost sneering. “You’ll leave her out of sight and out of mind, Mister. Fetch Mary, Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth obeyed and left the room, and Mr. Hale turned to Cheever. “What signifies a poppet, Mr. Cheever?”
The man turned the small doll over in his hands again, almost stuttering. “Why, they say it may signify that she—“ He had turned the doll’s skirt over, and drew a long, sharp, gleaming needle from its belly.
“Why, this—this! It’s a needle, Hale, a needle!” His whole face had changed; it was disgusted and wide-eyed; and somewhat terrified as he glanced towards James, who was striding towards him.
“And what signifies a needle?”
Cheever’s hands were doing a rather good job of shaking as he gave his answer. “why, this go hard with her, Proctor—this—I had my doubts, Proctor, I had my doubts, but here’s calamity.” He showed the needle to Hale. “You see, sir, it is a needle?”
“Why?” Hale was confused. “What meanin’ has it?”
Cheever was trembling. “The girl, the Williams girl, Abigail Williams, sir. She sat to dinner in the Reverend Parris’ house tonight, and without word nor warning’ she falls to the floor. Like a struck beast, he says, and screamed a scream that a bull would weep to hear. And he goes to save her, and, stuck two inches in the flesh of her belly, he drew a needle out. And demandin’ of her how she come to be so stabbed, she—“ he gestured to James—“testify it were your wife’s familiar spirit pushed it in.”
James was outraged. “Why, she done it herself!” He swung on Hale. “I hope you’re not takin’ this for proof, Mister!”
Hale was silent, and then Mary Warren and Elizabeth emerged again.
Cheever and James interrogated her, and it came to light that she had made the doll in the court, and that she had put the needle in the stomach of it for safekeeping, on Abigail’s bidding. Nevertheless, Cheever insisted on taking Elizabeth to the jail.
Elizabeth laid a hand on his arm. “I’ll go, John.”
He swung fiercely towards the clerk. “You will not go!”
Herrick, another judge, frowned at him. “I have nine men outside. You cannot keep her. The law binds me, John, I cannot budge.”
Desperately, James turned to Hale, putting a forceful hand on his shoulder, so that the weaker man almost crumpled. “Will you see her taken?”
“Proctor, the court is just—“
“Pontius Pilate!” James was raging now, and something about him struck everyone around him as though they were watching a rabid dog free of kennel and chain. “God will not let you wash your hands of this!”
Elizabeth’s quiet tone calmed him, wiping away some of his anger. “John—I think I must go with them.”
He turned his face away; he could not look at her, but she continued. “Mary, there is bread enough for the morning; you will bake in the afternoon. Help Mr. Proctor as though you were his daughter—you owe me that, and much more.” She was fighting back tears. “When the children wake, speak nothing of witchcraft—it will frighten them.” She turned away; she could not speak.
James took her in his arms. “I will bring you home. I will bring you home soon.”
She let go of her self-control and clutched at his shirt. “Oh, John, bring me soon!”
He clenched his teeth. “I will fall like an ocean on that court! Fear nothing, Elizabeth.”
She smiled slightly, through tears. “I will fear nothing.” She turned away, then looked back. “Tell the children I have gone to visit someone sick.” She let Herrick lead her out, and James followed her; the clank of chain reached the audience’s ears.
That simple sound almost drove James mad. He rushed outside. “Herrick! Herrick, don’t chain her! Damn you, man, you will not chain her! Off with them! I’ll not have it! I will not have her chained!”
He finally gave in, unwillingly, and Herrick and Cheever bore him, struggling, back inside. Herrick was gasping out an apology.
“In God’s name, John, I cannot help myself. I must chain them all. Now let you keep inside the house till I am gone!” He left the room, and, one by one the others left him, till only he and Mary Warren, who was weeping in a corner, were still there. Frightened, she lifted up her head.
“Mr. Proctor, very likely they’ll let her come home once they’re given proper evidence.”
James let his gaze fall on her. In a voice that could freeze beer, he said: “You’re coming to the court with me, Mary. You will tell it in the court.”
Mary cringed. “I cannot charge murder on Abigail!”
He moved menacingly towards her. “You will tell the court how that poppet come here and who stuck the needle in.”
Mary flattened herself against the wall as he approached, with a fiery gleam in his eyes. “She’ll kill me for sayin’ that!”
James took no notice that she had said anything; he was about to grasp her arm.
“Abby’ll charge lechery on you, Mr. Proctor!” she shrieked, at the end of her wits.
That simple sentence stopped James dead in his tracks. With a dry, cold voice, he gasped out, “She’s told you!”
“I have known it, sir. She’ll ruin you with it, I know she will.”
Hesitating, and with a hatred of himself, James finally spoke. “Good. Then her saintliness is done with.”
Mary backed away from him. “We will slide together into our pit; you will tell the court what you know.”
She was terrified. “I cannot; they’ll turn on me—“
He strode quickly over to her, grasping her by the shoulders and shaking her wildly, clenching his teeth, while she was repeating “I cannot! I cannot!”
“My wife will never die for me! I will bring your guts into your mouth but that goodness will not die for me!”
Mary struggled to escape him. “I cannot do it, I cannot!”
Almost beyond sanity, James grasped her by the throat. “Make your peace with it! Now Hell and Heaven grapple on our backs, and all our old pretense is ripped away—make your peace!” He threw her to the floor; she remained there, sobbing into her palms.
“Peace. It is a providence, and no great change; we are only what we always were, but naked now.” Turning towards the audience, he leaned on the table for support. “Aye, naked! And the wind, God’s icy wind, will blow!”
The curtain fell with him standing upright, facing everyone, and Mary crying out “I cannot, I cannot!” as she lay kneeling on the floor.
They had taken the next scene from the back of the script; it was not usually used, but they had decided to. It was in a wood, at night; the only actors were James and Lily; John Proctor and Abigail.
James entered with his lantern glowing; then he halted. Lily appeared with a dark cloak over her head and her loose red hair falling over her shoulders, unbound; she was in a nightgown, smiling faintly triumphantly. There was a moment of silence.
James, searching, nodded curtly. “I must speak with you, Abigail.”
She didn’t move; she was still staring at him.
“Will you sit?”
Lily let the wrap fall from her head. “How do you come?”
“Friendly,” he answered.
She glanced about, drawing the cloak back over her head. “I don’t like the woods at night. Pray you, stand closer.” Her eyes lit up as he moved to stand beside her. “I knew it must be you. When I heard the pebbles on the window, before I opened up my eyes I knew.” She sat down on a log. “I thought you would come a good time sooner.”
He faintly smiled. “I had thought to come many times.”
“Why didn’t you?” She shook her hair free of the wrap. “I am so alone in the world now.”
Not bitterly, James frowned. “Are you! I’ve heard that people ride a hundred mile to see your face these days.”
“Aye,” she agreed, “my face. Can you see my face?”
He held the lantern to her face. “Then you’re troubled?”
Her eyes flashed. “Have you come to mock me?”
“No, no.” He set the lantern on the ground. “But I hear only that you go to the tavern every night, and play shovelboard with the Deputy Governor, and they give you cider.”
She shrugged. “I have once or twice played the shovelboard. But I have no joy in it.”
James was honestly astounded. “This is a surprise, Abby. I’d thought to find you gayer than this. I’m told a troop of boys go step for step with you wherever you walk these days.”
“Aye,” her voice confirmed bitterly. “they do. But I have only lewd looks from the boys.”
“And you like that not?”
Helplessly, but with a grasping aura around her that James could not see, she leaned against his shoulder.
“I cannot bear lewd looks no more, John. My spirit’s changed entirely. I ought to be given Godly looks when I suffer for them as I do.”
“Oh? How do you suffer, Abby?”
She gave a short laugh, and the audience was suddenly aware of the grasping, avaricious nature of the girl, driven mad by passion. Lily pulled up the skirt of her dress; visible marks were there. “Why, look at my leg. I’m holes all over from their damned needles and pins.” Gently, she touched her stomach. “That jab your wife gave me’s not yet healed, y’know.”
He saw her madness, and steeled himself against it. “Oh, it isn’t.”
“I think sometimes she pric ks it open again while I sleep.”
“Ah?” His incredulous tone held jarring sarcasm in it.
“And George Jacobs—“ here she leaned closer to him and slid up her sleeve—“he comes again and again and raps me with his stick—the same spot every night all this week. Look at the lump I have!” Her eyes appealed to him.
“Abby—“ James shook his head—“George Jacobs is in the jail all this month.
“Thank God he is,” she exclaimed, “and bless the day he hangs and lets me sleep in peace again! Oh, John, the world’s so full of hypocrites!” Her tone changed to astonishment; she was outraged. “They pray in jail. I’m told they all pray in jail!”
He acted confused. “They may not pray?”
She stood, indignant. “And torture me in my bed while sacred words are comin’ from their mouths! Oh, it will need God Himself to cleanse this town properly!”
James, amazed, caught her by the sleeve. “Abby—you mean to cry out still others?”
With a sacred air about her, she answered, head thrown back in determination. “If I live, if I am not murdered, I surely will, until the last hypocrite is dead.”
He sighed. “Then there is no good?”
Her tone softened. “Aye, there is one.” She turned toward him, a strange light shining in her eyes, and her face inches from his. “You are good.”
“Am I! How am I good?”
“Why,” she gasped, as if it were self-evident, “you taught me goodness, therefore you are good. It were a fire you walked me through, and all my ignorance was burned away. It were a fire, John, we lay in fire. And from that night no woman dare call me wicked any more but I knew my answer. I used to weep for my sins when the wind lifted up my skirts; and blushed for shame when some old Rebecca called me loose. And then you burned my ignorance away.” She lifted her eyes close to his, and her tone changed, accusing, threatening, helpless, and strengthened. “As bare as some December tree I saw them all—walking like saints to church, running to feed the sick, and hypocrites in their hearts! And God gave me the strength to call them liars, and God made men to listen to me, and by God I will scrub the world clean for the love of Him! Oh, John, I will make you such a wife when the world is white again!” She bent and kissed his hand. “You will be amazed to see me every day, a light of heaven in your house, a—“
He rose, and backed away, amazed.
Lily frowned, with a childlike puzzlement on her face. “Why are you cold?”
“My wife goes to trial in the morning, Abigail.”
Distantly, she asked, “Your wife?”
He started to grow furious. “Surely you knew of it?”
She smiled, almost relieved. “I do remember it now. How—how—Is she well?”
He turned his back on her. “As well as she may be, thirty-six days in that place.”
Lily gave something close to a whimper. “You said you came friendly!”
“She will not be condemned, Abby.” He spoke so firmly that she was shaken.
“You—you—“ Lily was faintly outraged. “You brought me from my bed to speak of her?”
“I come to tell you, Abby,” he intoned, “what I will do tomorrow in the court. I would not take you by surprise, but give you all good time to think on what to do to save yourself.”
Speechless, she managed to gasp out, “Save myself!”
Grimly, he nodded. “If you do not free my wife tomorrow, I am set and bound to ruin you, Abby.”
Her voice was small and astonished as she drew back. “How—ruin me?”
Stony and irremovable, he stood before her. “I have rocky proof in documents that you knew that poppet were none of my wife’s; and that you yourself bade Mary Warren stab that needle into it.”
A clear wildness was stirring in Lily; the wildness of a frustrated child denied its wish; but she was still grasping for her wits. “I bade Mary Warren?”
He could have sniffed. “You know what you do, you are not so mad!”
“Oh, hypocrites!” The tone of her voice was heart-rending. “Have you won him, too? John, whoy do you let them send you?”
”I warn, you, Abby!”
“They send you!” she cried. “They steal your honesty and—“
“I have found my honesty!” His voice came down on her like thunder rolling down a hill.
“No,” she said with such certainty that he was forced to pay attention to her words. “No. This is your wife pleading, your sniveling, envious wife! This is Rebecca’s voice, Martha Corey’s voice. You were no hypocrite!”
He was raging. “I will prove you for the fraud you are!”
She tossed her head triumphantly; she was sure she would win; she was convincing everyone she was in control. “And if they ask you why Abigail would ever do so murderous a deed, what will you tell them?”
James looked her full in the face. “I will tell them why.”
Lily laughed, a short, bitter, disbelieving laugh. “What will you tell? You will confess to fornication? In the court?”
He grasped her by both arms, tightly. “If you will have it so, so I will tell it!”
She uttered a laugh more grating and jeering, more tormenting and sure of herself than she had ever done before that night, and the audience felt their faith in John Proctor shake.
“I say I will!”
Lily laughed louder now, with more certainty added to it; he never would give her in to the court. He shook her roughly.
“If you can still hear, hear this! Can you hear?” She was trembling, staring at him as though he were out of his mind. “You will tell the court you are blind to spirits; you cannot see them any more, and you will never cry witchery again, or I will make you famous for the who re you are!”
She grabbed him, put both palms on his shoulders, her fingers touching behind his neck. “Never in this world! I know you, John—you are at this moment singing secret hallelujahs that your wife will hang!”
James threw her down onto the ground, disgusted. “You mad, you murderous witch!”
“Oh!” she gasped, picking herself up, “how hard it is when pretense falls! But it falls, it falls!” Wrapping herself up, ready to depart, she smiled victoriously again, the audience was repulsed by her cruelty. “You have done your duty by her. I hope it is your last hypocrisy. I pray you will come again with sweeter news for me. I know you will—now your duty’s done. Good night, John.” Like an angel in the mist, she was retreating out of sight, raising her hand in farewell, the white night-gown glimmering in the dawn of the forest’s gloom. “Fear naught. I will save you tomorrow.” She turned to go, then swerved lightly back. “From yourself I will save you.”
She was gone. Dazed, James shook his head, amazed, terrified. He picked up the lantern, and, jerkily, left the stage in the opposite direction, slowly.
Everyone was grinning vigorously and whispering out heartfelt congratulations, especially to Lily—there was no denying that she was the one that had put the dramatic flair, the hurt, the evil, the malicious unfulfilled desire into the scene. They were all hugging each other insanely in the middle of setting up for the third act; the courtroom.
