Congratulations to the winners:
- Anne Creston
- Ginnie V.
- Greta A.
- Mark Hinton
- Jo S.
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To celebrate the release of all four books of the Loving Husband Series for the first time as a box set I’m giving away five paperback copies of Down Salem Way. All you need to do is fill out the simple form below. The giveaway is open internationally. Winners will be announced on Monday, February 3, 2020.
And here is an excerpt from Down Salem Way where Lizzie encounters Reverend Parris and the ailing Betty Parris and Abigail Williams. Enjoy.
* * * * *
These are the events of the day as related by Lizzie, which she repeated to me as soon as she arrived home. Lizzie is a keen observer and not much escapes notice of her attentive eyes.
The rains have stopped and the floods have dried enough to make the roads passable so Lizzie decided to bring firewood to the Parrises. I helped Lizzie and Patience load the smaller of our two wagons with the chopped wood. Since she was headed to the Village anyway, Lizzie thought to bring some firewood and candles to her father and Mary. Patience hitched Bethuda to the wagon, and together they drove along the Ipswich Road, past the chandler, the wheelwright, the cobbler, and the inn.
When they arrived near the Farms, Lizzie stopped at the parsonage since twas first on her way. Lizzie settled Bethuda near some wet grass outside. The horse doesn’t seem to mind the cold, used as she is to frigid winds, and the bay mare munched to her heart’s content. Patience gathered some firewood in her arms and followed Lizzie to the parsonage door. I have seen the Village parsonage and tis a respectable two-story dwelling about fifty feet long by twenty feet wide.
Lizzie knocked at the door but no one came. She stood, listening, and since she heard voices inside she peered through the window. Twas smaller inside than Lizzie expected, smaller than our house, certainly. The front room was dark with the lack of firelight but there, in the corner farthest from the window, was one small bed containing one small girl, and there, in another corner, was another small bed containing a slightly larger girl. Lizzie saw Reverend Parris standing between the two beds, his head turned upward, whilst his wife sat near the bed of the smaller girl, wiping the girl’s brow with a cloth. Nine-year-old Betty Parris’ head flopped to the side, her arms still, so much so that Lizzie was afeared she was too late. In the other bed was 11-year-old Abigail Williams, Parris’ niece. Parris turned toward the window, saw Lizzie’s concerned face, and he nodded at a dark-skinned woman to open the door.
As soon as Lizzie stepped inside she shivered, but not from cold, she thought. “Good day, Reverend Parris,” she said.
Parris condescended a nod in her direction. “Mistress Wentworth.” As he turned he noticed the chopped blocks of wood in Patience’s arms. “The Lord has blessed us with firewood this day.”
Lizzie knows Reverend Parris to be a determined man, powerful in his beliefs and firm in his actions. But something in him is changed. Perhaps tis his arguments with the Villagers. Knaves and cheaters, Parris calls them, and they call him worse. Lizzie remained near the door, searching for some understanding of the scowling man. His strong features are etched into a permanent mask of cantankerous impatience, his brow pressing down and his chin pressing up as though his face means to disappear altogether. He turned a smirk onto Lizzie, but his gaze softened when Patience shifted the weight of the wood from one hip to the other.
I have not taken much notice of the Reverend’s wife, but Lizzie describes her as frail. Twas an interesting scene, Lizzie said. Both Reverend and Mistress Parris hovered over their nine-year-old daughter’s bed so that Lizzie could see only strands of sweat-soaked hair near the top of the quilts and a hand as translucent as ice. The dark-skinned woman swept between the beds, stopping now and again to peer anxiously at Betty.
Across the room, also covered by several quilts but with no worried faces hovering over her, was Abigail Williams. Whether the Parrises had already given Abigail their attentions and were turned now to their daughter, or whether they did not care as much how Abigail fared, Lizzie did not know. She saw the sand-brown hair, also sweat-soaked, and the translucent skin, and Lizzie felt a motherly urge to tend the girl. Mistress Parris approached Lizzie with a bowed head and prayerful hands.
“Blessings on you, Mistress Wentworth,” Elizabeth Parris said. She looked toward her daughter.
Parris’ hair fluttered as he shook his head. “Christ hath placed His church in this world, as in a sea, and suffereth many storms and tempests to threaten its shipwreck whilst in the meantime He Himself seems to be fast asleep.” In that moment, Lizzie sympathized with the man Father calls the opposite of King Midas since everything Parris touches turns to shite. Parris is not an accomplished man. He did not finish his studies at Harvard College. He did not make a success of the family sugar plantation in Barbados. He did not succeed as a merchant. When he returned to the clergy the only parish that would have him was Salem Village, a hamlet of farmers, cantankerous farmers at that. Other reverends had been run out of the Village parish before him, so Parris must have known what he was taking on. In that moment, with his daughter and niece laying ill, perhaps even dying, Lizzie understood why Parris might think God had turned His back on his family.
In two long strides, Parris stood near his niece’s bed as though deciding what to do with the girl. A quick movement near the cauldron brought Parris’ attention to the dark-skinned woman.
“Tituba!” Parris’ voice boomed. “Take the wood! Light a fire so we can have some warmth in this house. Have you such thick hide you cannot feel the cold?”
Tituba did as she was bid. After she set the firewood aside, she lit the fire in the usual way, sweeping the cold ashes into the center of the hearth, laying the kindling and a triangle of logs over the ashes, then touching the flame of a lit reed round the kindling. With some encouragement, the flames blossomed and Lizzie stepped toward the warmth. Parris took two more long strides, this time toward the fire where he stared into the licking blaze.
Mistress Parris gestured toward the growing heat. “Look, Betty. Mistress Wentworth has brought us wood. Would you like to sit by the fire?” Betty showed no sign of understanding.
Lizzie stood near Abigail, still alone, her body limp and her eyes dark against her pale complexion. At first, the girl stared at the white winter sunlight streaking through the window. Then she gazed through Lizzie as though Lizzie was not there. Lizzie’s urge to tend Abigail dissipated under the strength of the girl’s glare. Whilst the Parrises tried to spark some life in their daughter, Lizzie backed toward the door.
“I’m sorry to see your girls so ill,” Lizzie said. “Please let us know if there’s anything else we can do.”
“You’re very kind, Mistress Wentworth,” said Mistress Parris. “We do miss seeing you about the Village. How is your husband?”
Parris scoffed. “The merchant? He is busy working for Profit, not the Promised Land. He is worried about Gold, not God.”
Lizzie thinks Parris is strict with his flock since he hands out public punishments for minor infractions and noncomformists are beaten into submission. But Lizzie says Mistress Parris has always been kind to her. From the day the Joneses arrived in Massachusetts, Mistress Parris offered Lizzie what helpful tips she could about how to make a life on the Farms. The Parrises have been here but two years themselves.
Mistress Parris’ lips pulled thin as she turned her eyes to the floor. “Tis good to see you, Mistress Wentworth. We appreciate the firewood more than you know.”
Tituba opened the door. As Lizzie walked past the threshold the ailing girls barked like dogs. Lizzie stepped back inside, unsure what to do. Mistress Parris wiped tears from her cheeks with an unsteady hand, but a glare from her husband dried her eyes.
“I’ll return with more firewood soon,” Lizzie said. “I hope to find the girls well when I return.” She looked again at Abigail. The girl’s eyes were closed now, her body prostrate once again. Then, as if pulled upright by a puppet master’s string, she jerked into a sitting position and began mumbling. What the girl said, Lizzie could not tell, but the straight back of Reverend Parris, and the worried mouths of Mistress Parris and Tituba, said enough. When Betty sat up in the same puppet-like manner, also mumbling, Parris stood stone-still between the two beds, looking from his daughter to his niece to his daughter again, his face blank.