Other Fan Fiction ❯ Broken Vows ❯ One-Shot

The cell was squalid, bad smelling and I, unfortunately, through no fault of my own, was in it. That whore Abigail had branded me a witch so she could dance on my grave and have John to herself.

I had kept my vows, played the role of a dutiful wife but I would not stay any longer with a man I can neither trust nor love. I despise him enough to wish him dead. I am safe for the moment as they will not harm my unborn child, but he isn't. If I am lucky, his guilt over the affair will push him into saying or doing something that will cause him to be accused. I wonder if he will mention the affair in an attempt to discredit Abigail? I hope I am there to see the faces of the townspeople when they realise he is not as good as they think he is. I stand up as the door to my cell rattles open and Marshal Herrick and Reverend Parris are revealed.

“Goody Proctor,” he says “You are needed in the court, come with me.”

I follow him and the Marshal through the jail and into the court. As I enter I see my husband and Abigail, standing with their backs to me as still and silent as statues.

As I am led into the courtroom, Deputy Governor Danforth asks me to come forward and tells me to look only at him and not at my husband. Then he begins to question me about my dismissal of Abigail Williams. A plan begins to form in my mind, one that will free me from John. The Deputy Governor asks me to tell him why I dismissed Abigail, I respond that she dissatisfied me and my husband and claim that in my sickness, I thought I saw John turning away from me and that one night I lost my wits and put her on the highroad. He asks me if my husband turned from me and I hesitatingly tell him,

“My husband is a goodly man, sir.”

The deputy Governor grabs my face and harshly asks me if my husband has ever committed the crime of lechery. In my mind I smirk, so he did tell them and they want me to verify it, I won't.

“No, sir,” I deny quietly.

John yells at me to tell the truth and the deputy governor orders the Marshal to remove me from the court. John then cries out that he confessed it.

`See how you get out of this husband dearest,' I think vindictively as I am led from the room back to my cell.

Three months later

Marshal Herrick takes me from my cell and to the Deputy Governor, saying that he wishes to speak with me. The Deputy Governor inquires after my health and I warn him that I am still six months before my time. Reverend Hale tells me that my husband is to hang this morning,

`Good riddance,' I think. He goes on to say that he would save my husband and if John dies he will consider himself his murderer. He asks me to make my husband confess. I will not beg my husband to confess, that would make my plans and all that I have suffered these past months for naught. The Deputy Governor exclaims that my husband will die with the sunrise and asks if I am stone and that if he had no other proof of my un-natural life, my dry eyes now would be sufficient evidence that I had sold my soul to hell.

Damn. If I don't go and try to make him confess there will be more evidence against me and I will hang after my child is born. But if I do go and make him confess I am stuck with my husband.

I tell them to let me speak with him. I doubt he will confess, John is too proud a man to lie to save his life. He will not sully his name by confessing to being with the devil.

I am led into John's cell and left alone with him. The first words out of John's mouth are about my unborn child. I answer the questions he asks and feel a stab of sorrow as I mention Giles death. John says he would confess and asks what I think. I do not want him to confess but I value my life more so I respond the way I am expected to. I watch numbly as the Deputy Governor, Reverend Hale, Reverend Parris, Judge Hawthorne and Cheever enter and write John's confession.

Through the haze I hear that he refuses to sign it and my mind clears as he rips it up. I quickly rush to John's side and cling to his hand weeping, not tears of sorrow as they think, but tears of joy. As I play the part of the grief-stricken wife, John lifts me up, kisses me and puts me down before letting the Marshal take him away.

As I close my eyes in satisfaction and move to the window, Reverend Hale drops to his knees and protests that John's death is vanity and pride and tells me to go to him. I cry out that `He have his goodness now. God forbid I take it from him!'