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T
he king’s attorney first brought the midwife Granny Hall to the bar, her age alone enough to cause the room to settle into grave silence. She lifted her chin in all confidence as the king’s attorney addressed her.

“You know the defendant, Alice Cole?”

“I know the face. When I first met her she was called by the name of Alice Baker.”

“And when did you first meet her?”

“When she came to me for pennyroyal.”

The bees hummed again.

“And when did she come to you for pennyroyal?”

“In August of last year.”

“And why did she say she wanted pennyroyal?”

“She said she wanted it for worm.”

“Pennyroyal expels worm?”

“It does.”

“And what else might pennyroyal do?”

“It brings on a woman’s courses.”

“It brings on a woman’s courses. Do you mean to say, that if a woman had begun a conception, a dose of pennyroyal would remove it?”

“It could. I’d have to say this time it didn’t.”

Laughter.

“And you say Alice Cole came to you in August?”

“Yes. August.”

“And when did you next see Alice Cole?”

“She was still Alice Baker, or so the widow told me.”

“This widow would be—?”

Granny Hall pointed. “The Widow Berry. She came to me on the twenty-seventh of February to ask me to attend the girl’s childbed.”

“And you went with her?”

“I went with her. Through deep snow. Ice. Hard walking. By the time we got there it was over.”

“Tell us, please, what you found once you got there.”

“I found that girl, whoever she is, lying on her side in the bed, and a dead babe lying at the foot of the bed on its face, wrapped up in a blanket.”

“Did you examine the infant?”

“I did.”

“And what did you find when you examined it?”

“Nothing, ’cept its being dead.”

More laughter.

“And what did you consider the likeliest cause of the infant’s demise?”

“I considered that the girl smothered it.”

“Smothered it!”

“Well, seeing I knew the girl to be unmarried, and seeing the widow told me on the way over how she’d tried to conceal her condition, and seeing how she’d come to me for the pennyroyal, and seeing how the blanket covered its face and its face had been pushed down into the bed tick, I considered that the girl smothered it.”

“Very well. And what did you do then?”

“I cleaned the babe and wrapped it and left, and on the way home I stopped and told the constable, and once the road cleared the constable sent for the sheriff.”

“Thank you, Widow Hall.”

The king’s attorney returned to his table, and Freeman rose.

“When you examined the infant, Widow Hall, did you think it to term?”

“I did.”

“So that when you saw Alice in August, when she came to you for the treatment for worm, she would have moved into her pregnancy only two months or so?”

“Thereabouts.”

“Are you familiar with the laws of our colony regarding the removal of a conception, Widow Hall?”

“I am.”

“And you understand that it is not a crime before quickening?”

“I do.”

“And when does that first sign of life usually appear?”

“The fourth month would be the earliest.”

“So that if Alice Cole had come to you for pennyroyal to remove a two-month conception, you would have violated no law in selling her the medicament, nor would Alice Cole have violated any law in seeking it?”

“Nobody said she broke any law.”

“I beg your pardon, Widow Hall, but certainly this is why we’re here today—because
you
said that Alice Cole violated the law. Not that day, but on a later day, in February, when she lay alone and afraid in the midst of a difficult travail. Which next leads me to ask you, Widow Hall—you say you examined the dead infant on February the twenty-seventh and found ‘nothing, ’cept its being dead.’ No mark on it?”

“No marks, no.”

“For example, no bruises around its neck, or bleeding from its nose or mouth, anything at all to indicate some violence done to it?”

“Like that, no.”

“Like what, then, Widow Hall?”

“Like I said before. Like it was suffocated in a blanket.”

“Suffocated? And what mark on its body proved to you it had suffocated?”

“No mark on its body. ’Twas all wrapped inside a blanket and pushed facedown on the tick. Suffocated.”

“
Pushed?
You saw the babe’s face being
pushed
into the bed tick?”

“Put, then. The face put right down into the tick and smothered all over in a blanket.”

“Was it cold in the room, Widow Hall?”

“Cold?”

“Cold. This is February. The room in question had no fire. Could it have been cold enough that a newborn babe fresh ripped from its mother would need to be covered in a blanket?”

“Well, covered, but not its face covered. Not its face pushed down into a bed tick.
Put
down in the bed tick.”

“Have you attended many births, Widow Hall?”

“I’ve attended near two thousand, sir.”

“Any of them young girls of Alice Cole’s age?”

“A fair number. I don’t know it exact.”

“And would you say this birth was a difficult one, from what you saw of it?”

“No, I wouldn’t. She did it all without aid and in no great time.”

“She did it all without aid. A young girl, fifteen years old. And you say it was done with no great difficulty. I presume, then, that when you came upon this young girl after this trouble-free birth she was sitting up in all her strength and able to talk to you with sensibility?”

“She wasn’t sitting up, no, but she answered my questions as I put them to her.”

“Tell me about some of these other young girls whose birthings you assisted, Widow Hall. Were any of these girls awkward in their first ministrations or did they all take up their babes with the ease of long practice?”

“If they had apt instruction—”

“Apt instruction! But you say that you and the Widow Berry arrived at Alice Cole’s travail after it was all over and the babe was already dead. Who then might have instructed her?”

“Not then, perhaps, but at some time before—”

“By whom, Widow Hall? The girl denied the pregnancy, even to the woman closest to her. Why, then, might anyone attempt to instruct her?”

The Widow Hall fell silent.

“Thank you, Widow Hall,” Freeman said.

The king’s attorney next called Mrs. Sears to come forth and asked, “Do you know the defendant, Alice Cole?”

“I knew her as Alice Baker, yes.”

“And when did you see her last?”

“At my husband’s store, in February.”

“And what thought you of her appearance?”

“I thought her to be with child, and well advanced in it.”

“And did you speak of this to anyone?”

“I spoke of it to the Widow Berry.”

“And why to her?”

“Well, she kept the girl in her home.”

“And what did the widow tell you?”

“That the girl had been eating way too much for her size ever since she’d arrived in Satucket.”

“And you took this statement to mean—?”

“I took it to mean it was either the story the girl chose to tell the widow or the one the widow chose to tell me.”

“And why do you think either the girl or the widow would tell such a story?”

“To conceal the girl’s condition.”

“And why might they wish to conceal the girl’s condition?”

“So no one would know her sin.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Sears.”

Freeman asked Mrs. Sears no questions.

The king’s attorney next called Mrs. Winslow forward, who told a similar story. She had last seen Alice Baker, or Cole as she now was, in February, walking to the fulling mill. The wind had pushed her cloak back and pressed her skirt against her belly and she’d looked well gone with child.

Freeman had no questions for Mrs. Winslow, either.

The king’s attorney next called the Widow Berry. She rose and walked up to the bar with a lively step, as if eager to say her piece; just before she reached it she turned around and jerked her head in one quick nod at Alice.

“Widow Berry, will you please tell the court the events as you remember them of the morning of February the twenty-seventh.”

“I went upstairs to find Alice Cole in what appeared to be travail.”

“This was a surprise to you?”

“It wasn’t.”

“It wasn’t! She’d informed you of her condition?”

“She hadn’t. But it could easily be observed by anyone living in the household.”

“And to some outside it. And yet you took no steps to expose her condition. Why not?”

“’Twasn’t my condition to expose.”

“Very well, then. You found her in travail. And how advanced was she in it?”

“I falsely determined she’d a time to go yet, so I set out for the midwife.”

“And how long did it take you to fetch the Widow Hall?”

“A long time. The roads were in poor condition from the snows.”

“And what did you tell the Widow Hall when you reached her?”

“I told her that my servant girl was in travail, that she’d denied her condition to me but now there was no doubt of it, and that she was so small a girl that I feared for her safety.”

“And the Widow Hall accompanied you to your home?”

“She did.”

“And what did you find on your return there?”

“The girl already delivered and lying in a stupor, with much blood around her, and the babe dead, lying on the bed beside her.”

“How was the babe lying?”

“Under a blanket.”

“All of it or part of it covered?”

“All of it.”

“On its face or on its back?”

“On its face.”

“Thank you, Widow Berry.”

Freeman leaped up. “Widow Berry. You say you found the babe ‘under a blanket.’ Do you mean ‘wrapped in a blanket’?”

“I do not. ’Twas a loose-thrown cover, as if by a weak hand.”

“A weak hand wishing to extinguish the infant’s breath?”

“A weak hand wishing to cover it over.”

“Was the room cold?”

“Very cold. I’d not had time to properly feed the fire below. I was distressed when I returned to feel the temperature.”

“And Alice Cole. Was she covered?”

“She lay half under the bed rug, as if she’d managed to pull it up so far and no farther in her weakness.”

“And what did she say to you when you told her that her babe was dead?”

“She said nothing. She was too worn out to speak.”

“Have you been party to many such travails, Widow Berry?”

“I’ve been party to enough. I’ve seen dead babes come of it, and I’ve seen dead mothers.”

“And what did the evidence before your eyes tell you in this case? Was this a difficult travail? Was this mother in danger?”

“By the blood let and by her weak condition I should say it was difficult indeed, and for such a small girl and the size of the babe I should say she was in every kind of danger.”

Freeman said, “Thank you, Widow Berry.”

The king’s attorney called one last witness, the coroner who had examined the dead infant; he declared that the babe was of full term and had been born alive and had died soon after.

Freeman asked the coroner if there was any evidence whatever of any violence done to the infant, and the coroner answered, “None, sir.”

The king’s attorney then rose and began his summation reviewing the charge and the evidence at hand in a light most unfavorable to Alice. He concluded by saying, “Does it not seem clear to you, gentlemen of the jury, that in Alice Cole’s desperation she saw hope for her future only in the death of her bastard? Does it not seem clear to you that once she saw that hope, she went toward it like a hawk after a field mouse? Does it not seem clear to you that Alice Cole did with her own hands maliciously, willfully, and with malice aforethought smother her infant in a heavy cloth and press it into the bed tick? I warn you, gentlemen, do not let beauty or youth cloud your eyes; do not forget that a smooth, green husk can conceal a worm-riddled ear of corn. Likewise do not let the syrup of the defendant’s attorney stop your ears. Do your duty as men and fathers obedient to the will of God and declare the defendant guilty of this most heinous crime of murdering her newborn child.”

T
hey returned Alice to the gaol to eat her dinner, a fine stew thick with salt beef like she’d not seen at her gaoler’s hand since she’d been brought there. She pondered the significance of it and could make only one conclusion: someone had taken pity on her. She could think of only one reason to deserve such pity at that point in her trial. She pushed the stew aside.

When they returned to court after the adjournment the air had grown hot and stale; as Alice stepped inside she wished nothing in life but to step backward into the air, but instead of stepping backward she was edged forward. She looked at the men in the jury ahead of her and found only two now looking at her, one a rough-cut young man with a crooked nose and the other an old man who fingered his waistcoat buttons as he stared. What did it mean if ten men could no longer meet her eye? Oh, she knew what it meant! She knew! For a minute Alice didn’t believe her legs would carry her to her place; the pudding knees wouldn’t stiffen; she wavered, thinking who would collect her if she fell, and thought of Freeman, and her old daydream of being carried to safety. She removed her eyes from the jury and let them float without focus, but as she passed the crowd she thought she saw Nate Clarke, his usually pink cheeks gone pale as his hair.

Freeman stood and began to speak, his wigged head and robed form turning him into someone as much a stranger as the king’s attorney and the jurors.

“May it please Your Honors and the gentlemen of the jury, I’m here today to ask you to believe, not what I tell you to believe, but what your own eyes and ears and rational minds will tell you to believe, as you listen to the story of Alice Cole, a young girl just fifteen years of age at that time of her life which is the focus of this trial. But Alice’s story begins long before that time of her life; Alice’s story begins at the tender age of seven, when her father bound her into indentured servitude off the very deck of the ship that carried her here from London, her mother and brothers freshly dead and buried at sea. I ask you to think of that young girl as you look at this one standing in the prisoner’s box, gentlemen, standing today as she once stood on that dock at Boston—alone. I will ask you to remember that aloneness, for it is the key to much of Alice’s story. That aloneness allowed her to be preyed upon by an evil man; that aloneness forced her to run away to a strange land full of strangers; that aloneness suffered her to experience a time of panic and fear and confusion without a mother’s supporting arm or guiding voice; and that very aloneness was the only thing Alice Cole had beside her during a single moment of pain and swooning, her own untaught, untrained, unskilled hands the only hands to aid her. Perhaps those hands did not lift to tend her babe as they should, but certainly,
certainly
, gentlemen, they did not lift
feloniously
,
willfully
, or with the least degree of
malice aforethought
, toward the only creature on earth that might have put her less alone—her own cherished infant.

Now let us consider how Alice Cole came to be in this position in the first place. You’ve heard the king’s attorney’s fabrication; now you may hear the truth of it.”

And so Alice’s story was told. The ’tween decks of the London ship became a room in hell, Mr. Morton’s household became a dark, motherless, loveless place, the Verley home a filthy cage. Freeman described other things Alice had never spoken of at all: the fear, the panic, the pain, and yes, the ignorance. He might have said something of her foolishness as well, but he left that off. Alice heard the audience murmur and gasp as he told of the rapes, the burning, the blow from the poker, but when he asserted her right to leave such a scene of horror, no assenting rumble touched her ear. They would have their servants keep to their laws.

“Gentlemen of the jury,” Freeman concluded. “I ask but one more thing of you now: as you listen to the evidence presented to you I ask that you look at the young girl who stands before you and you remember the long, tortuous road that brought her here, a road she did not choose of her own free will, a road that was roughly thrust upon her by the evil deeds of others, and, yes, thrust upon her by her own innocence. And as you listen to this evidence I want you to think of Alice Cole as you would think of your own wives or daughters or sisters, upright, moral women, as Alice Cole is moral. The king’s attorney has told you that she is devoid in this particular, but how then, could he next talk of her shame? How might one feel shame if one were devoid of all morals? Isn’t Alice’s shame the best proof of her morality? Isn’t her attempt at concealment of a condition brought on against her will by the evil deeds of others only another proof of her godliness? Look at her, gentlemen of the jury! She sits before you not draped in concealing cloth or false paint to trick you as the king’s attorney would have you believe, she sits before you as who she is, a courageous young girl, a faithful and obedient child of God, an innocent, misused victim of a most heinous crime. This is all I ask of you, gentlemen: that you do as English legal tradition requires you to do and allow her her innocence until her trial is completed.”

How odd, Alice thought, that she should not know the girl Freeman talked of either.

FREEMAN BEGAN BY
calling to the bar a midwife of his own, a Mrs. Crowe from Barnstable, a raw-cheeked, cheerful-looking woman who might have been Granny Hall’s daughter. Mrs. Crowe testified to the necessities required of newborn infants, of pinching off and cutting the cord, of clearing the air passage, of chafing it into its first breath, of keeping it warm. She testified to all the mistakes that an untaught young girl giving birth alone might make.

The king’s attorney asked Mrs. Crowe how many births she had attended; when she answered “just under one thousand, sir,” he looked at the jury to make sure they noted the great difference in the two midwives’ numbers, and dismissed her.

Freeman next called the shipmaster Hopkins and began by asking him to describe the condition of Alice Cole when she’d been discovered in his ship’s locker. The shipmaster fumbled about with a vague description of dirty clothes and mussed hair; Freeman prompted him about cuts and bruises and he said, “Oh! Yes. She looked to be banged up some.”

Freeman moved it along. “You might have charged this girl with stealing passage from you. You might have turned her over to the constable. Why didn’t you do this, sir?”

“Well, she was just a girl.”

“You weren’t concerned that if you let her loose on your village she might cause trouble? Do harm?”

The shipmaster looked at Freeman. “Alice? Harm?”

“I’m speaking of what you thought of the girl at the time.”

“Well, at the time, I’d say she was looking for a good supper more than she was looking to do any harm.”

“And later, once you got to know something of the girl, once you saw her at work in the widow’s home, what was your opinion of her then?”

“Why, I thought she was a fine little thing. Fine.”

Freeman waited.

The shipmaster added, “Oh! Yes! She seemed in every way a good sort of girl.”

“Thank you,” Freeman said in something of a rush, and sat down.

The king’s attorney rose. “Mr. Hopkins. You say that Alice Cole looked in need of a good supper. Didn’t it occur to you that a penniless, hungry stranger might have wandered about the village, found an open door, and pilfered someone else’s supper?”

The shipmaster said, “No.”

“It didn’t occur to you that an unknown girl from unknown circumstances and of unknown character might, in desperate circumstances, indeed do harm?”

“No.”

“And if your ship had a hole in it, would it occur to you to plug it up?”

Freeman shouted, “Object!”

The shipmaster said, “My ship’s got no hole, sir!”

The chief justice said, “Sustained.”

The king’s attorney sat down.

Freeman next called on the Widow Berry, to speak for the defense this time; she looked much the worse for the day’s efforts. Freeman began as he’d begun with the shipmaster, asking the widow to describe Alice Cole’s condition when she first arrived, and the widow did a better job.

“She could barely walk. Her arm hung limp. She carried a bloody wound on her cheek, and a festering burn on her hand. In addition, she was starved and exhausted.”

“Did she tell how she came to this condition?”

“Not at first. At first the subject was far too painful for her; she couldn’t speak of it without shaking all over. But later she told me, at great cost to herself, and I might add, at great cost to me when I heard it. This Verley used her against her will in as rough and offensive a manner as a man can. Why, he tortured her. He—”

The king’s attorney rose. “I object! This is naught but hearsay!”

The chief justice said, “Sustained.”

Freeman said, “You decided to hire Alice Cole to do some spinning for you. What prompted this decision?”

“I could see by the look of her she was an honest girl. And she proved to spin like the wind.”

“Were you ever made uneasy in any way about her character?”

“Never. She was a fine, hard worker, faithful in her attendance at meeting, and devoted to her prayers.”

Freeman thanked her solemnly a second time, and the king’s attorney stood up.

“Did you witness Alice Cole receiving her alleged burns and bruises, Widow Berry?”

“I did not.”

“So as far as you know she could have received them in a tavern brawl. Now you said a moment ago that you ‘could see by the look of her that she was an honest girl.’ What specifically about her looks proclaimed her honesty?”

“She was in no tavern brawl, sir!”

“I ask you to address my question, Widow Berry. What revealed Alice Cole’s supposed honesty to you?”

There the widow faltered. She flung an arm wide at Alice. “Well, look at her.”

The courtroom looked at Alice. The king’s attorney did not. He said, “Of course, when you discovered the girl to have lied to you about her condition you then changed your opinion about her honesty.”

“I did not.”

“You did not! You did not consider a lie to be dishonest?”

“I considered the cause of the lie. I considered what had been done to her. I considered the courage it took for her to come as far as she’d come and how afraid she must have been. I took the lie as nothing but her belief that not a single soul on all God’s earth would wish to help her if her condition were known.”

“And so you attempted to help her.”

“Yes.”

“As you attempt to help her now.”

“I
attempt
nothing but telling the truth about the girl.”

“Truth or lie being one to you.”

Freeman leaped up. “Object! Object! Object!”

The chief justice said, “Sustained.”

The king’s attorney said, “Very well. I have every confidence that I might leave the question of the girl’s honesty to the gentlemen of the jury. Thank you, madam.” He sat down.

FREEMAN ROSE TO
begin his closing argument. First he reviewed the evidence, marking the glaring lack of it. He further reviewed the charge and then said, “Gentlemen of the jury, if you believe Alice Cole
willfully
and
maliciously
and with
aforethought
caused the death of her infant, than you must find her guilty as charged. If, however, you have any doubt regarding any single one of those three things, if you think it entirely possible that a young, innocent, brutalized girl, alone, uninstructed, and frightened, having survived a most difficult birth, did what she could to protect her infant from the cold, thinking only secondly of attempting to cover herself, and in her innocence and ignorance, not knowing what other things might need to be done to secure her infant’s life, if after exhausting her last reserve in the act of protecting her child, she then dropped off into a swoon, not waking until the women arrived to inform her of the most unfortunate death of her child, if you think any of that possible or, indeed, probable, if you are honest, moral, godly men, perhaps fathers or grandfathers of your own young girls, perhaps brothers of the same, you must in all conscience declare Alice Cole innocent of this charge.”

Freeman sat down.

The chief justice said, “Gentlemen of the jury, you will need no further instruction, since your good sense and understanding will direct you. Go now and do your duty.”

The jury departed. Alice peered at each face as it passed, but she seemed to have lost whatever skill she had gained over the past long year; each face looked as opaque and colorless as a stone wall.