The Pariah (22 page)

Old man Evelith was sipping his sherry all this time; but when Edward had finished, he set down his glass on the table beside him and gave a dry, thin sniff.

‘Why, exactly, do you
want
to find the wreck of the
David Dark!’
he asked us. ‘What is so desperately urgent about it?’

I looked at him carefully. ‘You know what’s in it, don’t you?’ I asked him. ‘You know what’s down there, and why they tried to get rid of it?’

Duglass Evelith looked back at me, just as shrewdly, and smiled. ‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘I know what’s in it. And if you can convince me that you have a strong enough reason for salvaging it; and that you know what dangers you may be up against, I’ll tell you what it is.’

TWENTY-ONE

I had been guessing, of course, when I suggested to Duglass Evelith that he knew what secret was concealed in the wreck of the
David Dark;
but not guessing too wildly.

It was obvious from the books that lined the library shelves around us that he was interested in history and magic, and if he knew so much about the early settlers and the way in which they had conjured up Indian spirits to help them in the wilderness, then the chances that he was acquainted with the sinking of the
David Dark
were high.

Besides that, if Duglass Evelith didn’t know where the wreck was located, or how it had sunk, then nobody would. This monkey-shrivelled old man was our only possible hope.

‘My wife was killed in a road accident just over a month ago,’ I told him, in a quiet voice.

‘Recently, she’s been visiting me. I mean that her
spirit
has been visiting me. Her ghost, if you like. And talking to other people in Granitehead who have recently lost their relatives, I’ve discovered that what I’ve been experiencing is not exactly an uncommon phenomenon in this part of the world.’

That’s all?’ asked old man Evelith.

‘Isn’t it enough?’ Edward demanded.

‘There is more,’ I said. ‘An elderly woman who lived out on West Shore Road was killed two days ago by the spirit of her dead husband, and I understand that several other people have died in very gruesome and peculiar ways. It seems as if the ghosts are not benign; but are culling the living, in order to join them in the region of the dead.’

Duglass Evelith raised a white wiry eyebrow. ‘The region of the dead?’ he inquired.

‘Who mentioned the region of the dead?’

‘My wife,’ I said. ‘As a matter of fact, I saw her again last night. I saw lots of spirits last night, every dead damned soul in Waterside Cemetery.’

Edward looked across at me, and gave me a nod to show that he understood now why my behaviour had been so fractured this morning. Duglass Evelith sat back in his armchair, his elbows perched on the arms, his mittened hands hanging like the talons of a dead rook. Forrest cleared his throat, and shifted his backside on the leather-covered sofa so that it squeaked rudely.

‘You’re telling me the truth,’ said Duglass Evelith, after a while.

‘Of course we’re telling you the truth,’ Forrest protested. ‘You don’t think we would have driven all the way out here and given you a valuable antique writing-case for nothing, do you?’

‘I am regarded by the local populace with grave suspicion,’ said Duglass Evelith. ‘I am thought to be a sorcerer, or a madman, or an incarnation of Satan. That is why the gates are locked, and that is why I keep my guard-dogs, and that is why I treat any attempted incursion into my house with the deepest caution. The last time I allowed a party of gentlemen to come into my house, four years ago, they attempted to beat me up and burn my library.

It was only because Quamus was so prompt in intervening that my library and I both survived.’

‘How do you
know
we’re telling you the truth?’ I asked him.

‘Well , there are indications. What you say about Granitehead is quite correct; and for some years now I have associated what has been happening there with the wreck of the
David Dark.
But, certainly, the visitations you describe are far more vivid and far more threatening than they, have ever been before. You also mentioned “the region of the dead”, and unless you have been undertaking some extremely detailed research in order to perpetrate an elaborate and apparently pointless hoax, you would not have known that “the region of the dead” is
exactly
the phrase which is appropriate to the history of the
David Dark.’

 Edward said, ‘Have you any idea why the ghosts should be more threatening now than they ever have been before?’

 Duglass Evelith thoughtfully rubbed his white-stubbled chin. ‘There are many possible explanations. One really won’t be able to tell until the contents of the
David Dark’s
hold are raised and inspected. But you are right: the influence which is affecting the dead of Granitehead has been emanating from the large copper vessel which on that voyage was the
David Dark’s
only cargo. Perhaps that vessel has at last corroded to the point where the influence has been able to escape.’

‘What influence?’ asked Forrest.

Old man Evelith raised himself out of his chair, and beckoned us. ‘What happened at the time was known only to a few; and all of those few were sworn to utter secrecy.

After it was all over, as you know, Esau Hasket ordered that every mention of the
David
Dark
should be excised from every company logbook, every news-sheet, every poster.

The only way that we know today of the
David Dark’s
existence is through shipping records that were kept in Boston and also in Mexico City. There are several drawings and mezzotints of the ship, although all of them appear to be copies of one particular sketch that was made of her in 1689. I believe I sold a rather inferior watercolour of her not too long ago; again, a copy of the one known rendition.’

‘I bought that watercolour myself, at Endicott’s,’ I put in.

‘You did? Ah, well, that’s fortunate. How much did you pay for it?’

‘Fifty dollars.’

‘Wasn’t worth five. It probably wasn’t even contemporary.’

‘So much for your professional judgement,’ Forrest ribbed me, and I gave him a look of mock annoyance.

Duglass Evelith shuffled along one of the shelves, and picked out a thin, black-bound book, which he laid flat on the library table. This isn’t an original,’ he said. The original was probably lost or burned years ago. But somebody had the foresight to copy the original exactly, complete with drawings, and so here it is. This copy was made in 1825, but we don’t know who made it, or why. My great-grandfather Joseph Evelith bought it from a widow out at Dean’s Corners, and there’s a piece of paper inside it in his own handwriting saying “This explains at
last;
I have told Sewall.” Here, here it is. The piece of paper itself. See the date on it? Eighteen thirty-one.’

‘Does it say who wrote the original?’ asked Edward.

‘Oh, yes. This was the private diary of Major Nathaniel Saltonstall, of Haverhill, who was one of the presiding judges at the Salem Witch Trials. You may remember that it was Judge Saltonstall who first began to have doubts about the testimony at the trials, and resigned rather than continue to sit. In fact, he was so mortified and angered by the trials that he undertook his own investigation into the “Great Delusion” as the witch-hunt came to be known; and this diary of his contains the only full and reasonably accurate account of what went on.’

Duglass Evelith turned the diary’s pages, and ran his chalky finger-nails along the sloping lines of 19th-century writing. ‘Saltonstall had only settled in Salem during the winter of 1691. Before that, he had lived with his wife and family in Acushnet, New Bedford, and so he knew nothing of the events which had
preceded
the Salem witch-scare.’

While we listened, Duglass Evelith read through the diary’s account of the Salem Witch Trials. The ‘Great Delusion’, as Judge Saltonstall constantly referred to it, was said in most history books to have begun in 1689, when a trader called Samuel Parris arrived in Salem Village with the intention of changing his livelihood to that of holy minister. On November 19, 1689, he was installed as Salem’s first pastor.

With him, Parris had brought two slaves from the West Indies, a man called John Indian and his wife Tituba. Both slaves were adept at fortune-telling, card-tricks, and palmistry, and they liked to amuse the local children by telling them tales of witchcraft. The children, however, either began to pretend that they were possessed by witches, or else were gripped by a spasm of childish hysteria. Whatever it was, they would throw terrible fits and spasms, and thrash around on the floor and scream. Dr Griggs, the local physician, examined the ‘afflicted’ children and pronounced at once that they were bewitched.

Horrified, the Rev. Parris invited neighbouring ministers to come to his house for a day of fasting and prayer, and to witness the tortures of the ‘afflicted’ children. When they saw the children writhing and shrieking, the ministers confirmed the doctor’s diagnosis: the children were unquestionably possessed.

Now the question was: who had bewitched them? And under intensive questioning, the children said ‘Good’, ‘Osburn’, and Tituba.’

So it was that on March 1, in front of John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin, the two leading magistrates in Salem, Sarah Good, Sarah Osburn, and Tituba were al accused of witchcraft. Sarah Good, an unfortunate woman with very few friends, earnestly denied everything; but the children shrieked and writhed when they saw her, and she was promptly declared guilty. Sarah Osburn was dragged into court despite being bedridden, and the children threw themselves into spasms when she appeared, so that none of her denials were believed. Tituba, frightened and superstitious, admitted that she had agreed to serve Satan, and that she and the other accused women had al ridden through the air on a stick. This evidence was enough: all three women were chained and manacled and sent to jail.

The ‘afflicted’ children continued their accusations. Eighty-two-year-old George Jacobs, a white-haired dignified old man, answered charges that he was a wizard by saying,

‘You tax me for a wizard; you may as well tax me for a buzzard. I have done no harm.’

He was found guilty, and imprisoned.

The trials went on during the summer of 1692, becoming increasingly heated and hysterical. The whole of Salem Village seemed to be possessed by ‘witch fever’, and over and over again, when the villagers looked back on that summer in future years, they referred to it as ‘a dream’ or ‘a nightmare’, as if they had somehow been asleep.

Thirteen women and six men were hanged on Gallows Hill - the first, Bridget Bishop, on June 10; the last, Mary Parker, on September 22. In fact on September 22, eight witches and wizards were hung and as they swung in the air, the Rev. Mr. Noyes remarked, ‘What a sad thing it is to see eight firebrands from hell hanging there.’

Two days earlier, however, an execution had taken place which was so horrible that it had begun to awaken the people of Salem from their ‘Great Delusion’. Old Giles Corey, of Salem Farm, had denounced the work of the ‘afflicted’ children, and had been brought to stand trial; but he had refused to speak. Three times he had been brought before the judge and three times he had remained dumb. He had been taken to an open field between Brown Street and Howard Street burial ground, stripped naked, and made to lie flat, while heavy weights were placed on to his body. As more weights were added, Giles Corey’s tongue was squeezed out of his mouth, and the sheriff with his cane had pushed it back in again. Corey was the first New-Englander to suffer the old English punishment of pressing to death.

Judge Saltonstall had written, ‘The storme now seem’d to have spent itselfe, and the people awaken’d. There is in Historie no record of so sudden, so rapid, so complete a revulsione of feeling.’ There were no more executions, and in May of the following year, all those accused and awaiting trial were released.

But Judge Saltonstall’s account did not end here. He said that ‘I remain’d curious as to how the Delusion had begunne; and why it should have died so quicklie. Had the children trulie been afflicted, or had they beene nothing more than eville pranksters? I sette about discoveringe for myself the truthe of these sorry events; and particularlie with the assistance of Micah Burrough, who had work’d for Esau Hasket as a Clerke, I piec’d together an Account as frightening as it is remarkable; yette for whose accuracie and truthe I can solemnlie Vouchsafe.’

Duglass Evelith rang a small silver bell, and his Indian manservant Quamus appeared.

Quamus regarded us impassively, but from what Evelith had told us, he was probably quite capable of throwing all three of us out of there, or tearing us limb from limb. Evelith said, ‘Quamus, these gentlemen are to be our guests for luncheon. The cold pie will do.

And bring up a bottle of the Pouilly Fume; no, two bottles; and put them on ice.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Oh, and Quamus - ‘

‘Yes, sir?’

‘These gentlemen are here to discuss the
David Dark.
Their visit may prove to be of considerable importance to us.’

‘Yes, sir. I understand, sir.’

Quamus left us, and old man Evelith dragged over one of the upright chairs, and sat himself down. ‘Please, sit,’ he asked us. ‘The rest of Judge Saltonstal‘s diary is fascinating, but disorganized, and it would better if I told you the story of what happened myself. You are welcome to make copies of any pages that particularly interest you; but if you tried to work out for yourselves what Judge Saltonstall was actually saying, I’m afraid that it would take you some considerable time, as it did me.’

We all drew up chairs, and Duglass Evelith leaned on the table before us, looking from one to the other as he spoke. I shall never forget that hour in the Evelith library, listening to the secret history of the
David Dark.
I felt as if I was closed off from the real world altogether, as if I was back in the 17th century, when witches and demons and goblins were all considered to be credible realities. Outside, the rain began to die away, and a kind of strangled sunlight came through the stained-glass window and illuminated our discussions in a radiance that looked as old as the story itself.

‘What occurred in Salem in the summer of 1692 began not with Mr Parris, as the modern history-books suggest, but much earlier, with David Ittai Dark, who was a fire-and-brimstone preacher who lived first at New Dunwich, and then nearer Salem Village at Mill Pond.

‘By all accounts, David Dark was a tall, saturnine man, with long black hair which reached down to his shoulders. He was so convinced that every man, woman and child had to live a life completely beyond reproach before they would even be
considered
for a place in heaven that he taught his congregation to prepare themselves for the almost certain prospect of spending all eternity in hell. In March of 1682, David Dark announced to his flock that in a field outside of Dean’s Corners he had actually met with Satan, and that Satan had given him a scroll on which were scorched the names of all those Salem Villagers who were already condemned to burn. This, of course, had a remarkable effect on the behaviour of all those listed, and Judge Saltonstall records that 1682 and 1683 were “highly moral years” in Salem and its surrounding communities.’