Daughter of Satan

by Jean Plaidy

  He stopped, for she had buried her face in her hands and was sobbing bitterly.

  ‘Oh, Tamar, my dearest . . .’

  ‘It was just that I could not bear to hear you say it was my fault he is dead.’

  ‘Of course it was not your fault. If you did not want to marry him, you were right not to. What has happened to you, Tamar? You have changed so.’

  ‘I don’t know what has happened to me,’ she said.

  ‘I beg of you, my dear, consider this marriage and what it will mean. Consider that seriously. Let us go away for a sea trip. We’ll hug the coast and sail up the Thames to London. Or shall we take our horses and ride?’

  She shook her head. ‘My mind is made up. We want children . . . Humility and I. And, Richard, when we go to Virginia, you must come with us. I could not bear it if you stayed behind.’ Her eyes shone suddenly. ‘You are rich. You could finance such an expedition. Richard, could you not tear yourself away from this life – which is not, I believe, very satisfactory to you – and start a new one?’

  He answered: ‘You spring such questions on a man at a minute’s notice.’

  ‘It would be wonderful!’ she cried. ‘We would all sail out of the Sound together . . . with our stores and all that we should need for our new life. There could not be a more exciting and wonderful adventure than sailing away into the unknown.’

  Richard let her talk, but he remained uneasy. It seemed to him that a girl should be thinking of her life with her husband rather than a life in new surroundings. Something had happened to change Tamar. Could it be that she had loved Bartle? She was like a person trying to get intoxicated in order to drown a sorrow. Was the hope of children and the new life in Virginia, the wine to make her forget?

  As the day fixed for her wedding grew nearer, her mood changed. She rode out to the moors, her hair flying, and it seemed to Richard, watching her, that the old Tamar was not far away. It would not have surprised him if she had decided against the marriage after all. She almost did, when Humility wished them to set up house together in the outhouses, which he suggested could be made into a cottage home for them. Then how her eyes flashed! That was folly, she insisted. They should go on living in the house. If he were to save every penny he could, those pennies should not be spent in the vanity of setting up a home. It would seem that he had forgotten the Virginia project.

  ‘Tamar,’ said Humility, hurt by the change in her, ‘it is good that a man and his wife should set up home together . . . however humble that home may be. I do not wish that you should continue to live under your father’s roof.’

  ‘And there,’ she answered, ‘you show your pride. You will have to accept these conditions. You must remember that our plan is to leave this country as soon as it is possible to do so. Did we not plan to marry that we might have children to populate the new country?’

  ‘That was so.’

  She gave a sudden spurt of laughter. ‘It is as easy to get children in a comfortable house as in a draughty cottage, I do assure you.’

  Humility grew pale with alarm. He saw that the Devil was very close to her, and he realized that Tamar was not completely saved. Moreover, he guessed that it would take a lifetime for him to achieve that desired result.

  He had to agree. No new arrangements, then. Her room was big enough for both of them. He would share her bed, which was large and comfortable, until they were sure of a child, and when that had happened he could go back to his attic.

  He could not understand what was going on in her mind. He did not know that she was most defiant when her fear was greatest. Her frank way of discussing what he felt should not be discussed by unmarried couples worried him. Yet, he assured himself, it was his duty to humour her until he could control her, which, he doubted not, he would be able to do with the Lord’s help when they married.

  So he must agree to this unnatural arrangement. Well, to some extent she was right. Soon they would be sailing for Virginia.

  As the wedding day grew nearer, so did Tamar’s fear grow greater. At the back of her mind was a belief that Bartle would reappear; he would explain that some miraculous and incredible thing had happened – the sort of thing which could only happen to Bartle – and he had come back. His blue eyes would flash, and he would have a blackmailing scheme to lay before her which would involve her breaking this incongruous betrothal and marrying him. She would no doubt be forced to do it for the sake of someone other than herself.

  But the wedding day came, and she married Humility Brown; and now the house was still and she lay in the bed with the curtains drawn about it, just as she had lain and waited for Bartle.

  She could hear the sound of a man’s breathing beyond the bed-curtains – but it was not Bartle; it was her husband, Humility Brown.

  He had parted the curtains as they had been parted on those other nights and she could see him as only a shape beside the bed – not the big broad shape which she had seen before, but the thin figure of her husband.

  How different was this night from those others! Humility did not come eagerly to her; he did not whisper in that passionate voice; he did not caress her with urgent hands. He knelt by the bed and prayed.

  ‘O Heavenly Father, it is because I believe it to be Thy will that I kneel at this bedside tonight. I pray Thee bless this woman, make her fertile, for, O Lord, it is for that reason I am here this night . . . not for carnal lust . . . but for the procreation of children as is laid down in Thy law. Thou knowest how I have grappled with myself . . .’

  Tamar could listen to no more. How dare he call her ‘this woman’! He was not here for love of her, but in the hope of begetting children that they might do their share in populating the new land.

  But her anger was lost in the numbness of regret, of a longing for another man, as Humility rose from his knees, and came to her.

  A month after her marriage to Humility Brown, Tamar knew that she was pregnant. Now her depression had lifted; she was glad she had married; this new adventure was going to be worth the step she had taken to achieve it.

  She lost no time in imparting the news to Humility, and the first thing he did was to go down on his knees and thank God, but when he arose she imagined that he was not so thankful as it had first appeared.

  She understood why, for although to Humility, who believed himself to be wise, she was a mysterious creature of odd and unaccountable moods, she was able to read him as easily as a printed sheet.

  She was to have a child; the purpose of their nightly embraces was achieved; therefore until after the child was born these must be suspended. How could it be otherwise as, he had so often declared to God in her hearing, they took place for only one reason? That was in the nightly prayer he said at her bedside.

  ‘God has answered our prayer!’ he said.

  ‘Now,’ she told him with a trace of malice, ‘you may with good conscience go back to your attic.’

  He was taken aback, but she went on quickly: ‘That would be wisest. It would be unfortunate if, after all your protestations, you were to give way to carnal lust – which you might well do if you continued to share my bed.’

  He despaired of her, she knew. She had no modesty, he told her. He pointed out that she said, without thinking, whatever came into her mind. He hoped that one day she would learn from Puritan women to veil her thoughts – even from herself.

  She smiled. The last month had brought her soul no nearer to salvation, she teared. It had been very close, she knew, when she had promised to marry him, but alas! it grew farther away.

  He went back to his attic and she was relieved; she was mistress of her own domain once more; she had the child safe within her, and that was all she wanted of him.

  She would have Annis sent to her room, or go herself to the cottage. They would bend over their sewing and talk incessantly of the baby. Tamar even learned to take a pride in her work, which astonished her, for she had never before been attracted to the needle. She sat and dreamed of the baby, and she believed th
at she was happier now than she had ever been; she ceased to think of the journey to Virginia, for her only thought was of the child.

  How slowly the months passed! Springtime, and it would be December before her baby was born!

  Annis said one summer’s day as they sat in the garden with their sewing: ‘It does seem a miracle to me that you and Mr Brown should be joined together. We did always think ’twould be a grand marriage for thee. One of the gentlemen from hereabouts as was mad for ’ee. And then you marry the Puritan! Of course, a finer and more noble gentleman never did live, I do know; and I said to John, I said: “Happy should a woman be in such a union, but . . .”’

  ‘But?’ demanded Tamar sharply; and Annis flushed and became intent upon her work. Tamar burst out: ‘A woman should be happy in such a union, but I am no ordinary woman, am I, Annis? No, I am not! Do not look alarmed. We know – you and I. Oh, Annis, sometimes I think I am bound to the darkness by silken threads which are so light that no one can see them, and only I am aware of them.’

  ‘Ain’t you saved, then, mistress?’

  ‘No, Annis.’

  ‘Oh, ’tis a terrible hard job to save ’ee. The Devil holds fast to his own. But you ain’t bad. That’s what I say to John: “There’s witchcraft in her, but all witchcraft ain’t bad.” If it do help people, how can it be bad?’

  ‘You are a dear creature, Annis.’

  ‘I have no wish but to serve you all the days of my life, mistress.’

  ‘You are my friend too, Annis.’

  Annis moved nearer to Tamar. ‘I did think at one time it would have been Master Bartle Cavill as you would have took. My dear soul! Think of it! If he’d lived and you’d have married him you’d have been Lady Cavill now. You’d have been the Lady of the Manor. I can picture ’ee, sitting there at the head of the table like . . . in your gowns of silk and velvet.’

  ‘Yes, Annis.’

  Annis faltered, remembering that it was sinful to talk of worldly pleasure. ‘I fear I be a sinful woman,’ she said. ‘I’ll never learn to be a good Puritan. I be vain and overfond of this world’s glories. It’ll be a terrible hard struggle for me to climb the golden stairs.’

  ‘You’ll climb the stairs, I promise you,’ said Tamar. ‘As for your sins, no questions will be asked.’

  Annis opened her eyes very wide. ‘You couldn’t fix that, mistress, for the Devil wouldn’t carry no weight up there.’

  Tamar laughed. ‘All this talk of Heaven wearies me. I want to be happy here. Oh Annis, I wonder what my baby will be like. A boy or a girl? A girl, I hope, for if it is a boy he might be like Humility . . . and if a girl like me. How wonderful to see yourself in miniature . . . another Tamar . . . but with a Puritan instead of a Devil for her father!’

  She laughed so loudly that Annis was frightened, for, as she said to John afterwards: ‘Women can be awful strange in the waiting months.’

  The child was born on a snowy December day. Annis was with Tamar, for she had acquired in the last years some competence as a midwife. Richard had engaged the best physician in Plymouth; but it was Annis whom Tamar wanted with her.

  The child was a boy, and Tamar, as she lay in what seemed like the best of all worlds, since there was no pain in it and her baby was in her arms, believed that this was the answer to her problem. She had found happiness at last.

  He was dark-eyed, that boy; and already there was a good thick down on his head. She laughed with joy to look at him.

  Annis said: ‘Why, mistress, you can’t be disappointed in such a bonny boy, for all that you did want a girl.’

  ‘I . . . want a girl! Nonsense! I wanted nothing but this one!’

  She was absorbed in the child. She had his basket beside her bed, and none but herself must attend to his wants. She would not swaddle him, for she remembered that she herself had not been swaddled, and she did not wish to shut his beautiful limbs away from her sight.

  Annis shook her head. That was wrong. He would catch his death.

  ‘He will not catch his death. I will keep him warm. I want him to grow up beautiful like his mother.’

  ‘But, mistress . . .’ cried Annis, distressed.

  ‘I know what is good for my child.’ Her eyes flashed and it seemed to Annis, as she told John afterwards, as though the Devil looked out of them. John said: ‘Annis, I do know she be the wife of Mr Brown. I do know she have been good to ’ee. But she can work spells. Didn’t she give you one to work on me? And spells ain’t Christian, Annis. I would wish to see thee clear of her.’ At which Annis’ eyes flashed almost as fiercely as those of her mistress, and she answered: ‘I’d cut off me right hand rather than leave her, John Tyler.’ And John was afraid to say more, for he knew that Annis did not mean she would only give up her right hand for her mistress. And when you have the true faith and you have been saved, you do not want to hear your wife utter blasphemy.

  So Tamar brought up her child in her own way, and he thrived; but when the time came for naming him, there was conflict between his parents.

  ‘We will call him Humility,’ said his father. ‘Such a name will be to him, as my thoughtful parents knew it would be to me, a constant reminder that he must live up to that quality.’

  ‘I will not have him called Humility!’ declared Tamar.

  ‘Why not, wife?’

  ‘I have planned to call him Richard, after my father.’

  ‘Perhaps I may allow you to call our next boy by that name. Although I would, suggest something more appropriate to accompany it.’

  ‘What?’ she cried. ‘Restraint? Charity? Virtue? I do not love your Puritan names.’

  ‘Do you not then love these qualities in a human being?’

  ‘I do not like them attached as a name is attached. There is something smug about the thing. As though to say, “I am humble” or “I am full of restraint”. “I am charitable and virtuous!” Actions, not words, should proclaim these qualities.’

  She saw by the flush under his skin that he was trying hard to control himself.

  ‘We will call him Humility,’ he said. ‘My dear, the first duty of a wife towards her husband is obedience.’

  ‘I am no ordinary wife and I would thank you not to speak of me in such terms. This child is mine and I alone will choose his name.’

  ‘I regret I must be firm in this,’ he said. ‘Had you asked me in humility, I might have allowed him a second name, and, as you wished to name him after your father and that is a pleasant and agreeable thought, I might have given my consent. But in view of your rebellion, your careless words, I can only forbid the use of the name, and I must . . .’

  ‘Pray, do not preach to me!’ she cried. ‘If you attempt to, you will stay in your attic altogether and there will be no more children. That would be a pity, as I wished for more.’

  ‘I do not understand you, Tamar.’

  ‘No, you do not understand me. But understand this: The child will be named Richard.’

  ‘I cannot countenance such unwifely behaviour,’ he said; but he stopped short, looking at her.

  She was very beautiful with her long black hair upon the pillows, her big luminous eyes flashing, her breast bare in the low-cut bedgown.

  Little Dick was three years old and Rowan just born when the Indian princess came to Plymouth.

  Tamar had left Rowan in the care of Annis and had taken Dick down to Barbican Causeway to see the ships come in.

  The little boy, dark-eyed, and vivacious, was entirely Tamar’s child. She rejoiced to watch him; so must she have been when she was his age. She was determined that none of those hardships which she had had to face should fall to his lot. There seemed hardly anything of Humility in him; indeed, the boy avoided his father whenever possible. He was afraid of the pale, stern-faced man whose every sentence seemed to begin with ‘Thou shalt not . . .’

  He loved the sea, and was never tired of watching it and listening to the tales his mother told him of the Spaniards.

  She had taken him down on t
his occasion, little guessing that such a romantic figure would be on board. There she was – a lovely, dark-eyed girl, a princess from the promised land itself, with straight black hair and strange clothes. Nor was she the only visitor from that distant land, for she, as a princess, had brought her train with her – Indians in brightly coloured clothes that accentuated the darkness of their hair and eyes.

  The princess was Pocahontas, now called Rebecca, since she had embraced the Christian faith and had married an Englishman. When the spectators had recovered from their surprise, they welcomed her warmly, for they knew something of her romantic story. Captain John Smith had been in Plymouth a year or so ago, talking to the people. He had, he explained, been travelling through the West Country; his plan was to get people to accompany him to the New World. He scorned those who went in search of gold, for did not many of them return disappointed? There were, he assured them, greater prizes to be taken: trade for England; the development of uncultivated land; an empire. He had been treated badly in Virginia and was anxious to explore new territory. He talked of the place he had chistened New England. There was fish in those seas as good – nay, better – than anywhere else in the world. There was one cape which had been called Cape Cod because never before had so many fish been seen as were swimming in the water surrounding it. Corn could be grown there; cattle raised. He explained that he was eager to take out a band of men, and was recruiting for his ships.

  Richard had entertained him at Pennicomquick, where Captain Smith had told many a story of the New World; and although Humility had dreamed of going to Virginia, he did not see why New England should not be equally suitable.

  Those had been exciting months while Smith made his preparations.

  But Richard was against their going. He pointed out again and again that they would be leaving a life of comfort for one of hardship. There might be famine. Had Tamar considered that? Had she imagined her little Dick crying for food? Let those go who found life here intolerable – for they had little to lose. But for those who enjoyed the comfortable life, there should be much consideration before lightly giving it up.