Daughter of Satan

by Jean Plaidy

  ‘Well, you do know the rest. I raised the alarm, but ’twas too late. No sign of him . . . and the ship travelling fast before a strong wind.’

  Humility Brown . . . lost! The news spread through the ship. A terrible and most shocking accident. There was sincere mourning among the Puritans for one whom many considered their leader. But there was none who mourned him so deeply as did his wife.

  Her guilt lay heavily upon her.

  She blamed herself. I sent him to his death as surely as if I pushed him over the side. There will never be happiness for me, since, when I stretch out to take it, he will be there to remind me of my sin. I cannot escape my guilt, because I wanted him out of the way. I believe I knew that he would do this thing if I offered him a temptation which he would be unable to resist.

  But even the tragic loss of Humility Brown was forgotten when land was sighted. At last, before these sea-weary people lay the promised land. But Humility, like Moses, was denied the sight of the land for which he had longed.

  For ever this sense of guilt will lie on my conscience! thought Tamar.

  SEVEN

  TO LOOK ON a strange land which might become home should be a wonderful experience. Tamar stood on deck with Richard and Bartle beside her, and gazed at the coastline which, as they grew nearer, became more and more distinct.

  The Liberty was anchored now, and galleys and shallops were coming out to meet and greet her. The sailors were lowering the ship’s own boats. A group of people was assembling on the shore, eager and excited, for the coming of friends from home was a great occasion indeed.

  It was impossible not to experience a feeling of pride to be one of this band of adventurers; but it seemed to Tamar, as she stood there, that a shadowy figure was beside her – a thin man in wet garments and with a look of bewildered horror in his eyes.

  She turned at once to look at Bartle. His eyes gleamed. He was the true adventurer, eager for new sights. From Bartle her eyes went to Richard, and she saw in his face the hope that he might play a useful part in this founding of a new community.

  How wonderful it was to set foot on terra firma after all those months at sea, to be free from the stale smell from below decks which seemed for ever in the nostrils in spite of the fresh sea air! How pleasant to smell the air which had blown across meadow and forest!

  Eagerly they were taken to the settlement, where the Elders of the Church and the Governor himself came to welcome them. The settlement consisted of one street which stretched for just over a thousand feet up the slope of a hill from the sandy beach. The houses were roughly made of hewn planks, but each had its garden reminding all the newcomers suddenly and poignantly of home. And even as they looked along that street – the result of much loving toil, hopes and hardship – they noticed the square enclosure in which cannons were mounted, so placed that they could, at a moment’s notice, defend the street against attack from any direction. They had not done with danger; they knew that. There would be perils ashore to vie with those of the sea.

  But now was the time for rejoicing. Friends from home were in the settlement, and although most of the newcomers were strangers to those who had already made their home in this spot, this was like a family reunion. Tamar herself remembered some of these men, for she had met them before the sailing of the Mayflower. Prominent among these were Captain Standish, Edward Winslow and Governor Bradford.

  They asked after Humility, and she found she was too overcome by emotion to speak of him to them. Richard spoke for her.

  ‘It was a terrible accident. A great shock to us all. And such a tragedy that it should have happened the night before land was sighted. For years he had thought and worked for this.’

  ‘Doubtless,’ said Governor Bradford, ‘it was the will of God.’

  And then, before food was prepared to welcome the newcomers, thanks must be given to God for their safe arrival.

  It was an impressive scene – the ship’s company and the settlers gathered there together on the beach at the bottom of Leyden Street, while the Elders gave thanks and all the population joined in the hymns of praise and glory to God.

  After the service of thanksgiving, there was bustle and activity throughout the little township. The newcomers should see what Puritan hospitality meant. There was great delight when it was learned what the ship carried. Poultry! Pigs! Gold could not have pleased them more.

  This was indeed a special occasion. Each housewife was busy in a little house, preparing her contribution to the feast of welcome. The newcomers were divided up among the households, and each woman vied with the others in providing a feast of feasts. No mere hasty pudding for the guests! No maize cake or codfish! Nothing would suit the occasion but the great festivity dish of beans baked with pork and succotash.

  There were so many wonderful things to be seen while the feast was in preparation. The children were running wild about the place, lifting handfuls of sand and letting it trickle through their fingers, gazing with longing eyes towards the forest, aching to explore after months of confinement at sea. The settlers’ children watched gravely, and some joined in; those who remembered home asked many questions.

  The grown-ups talked; they could not stop talking; they talked of the first terrible winter, when more than half their number had died; they talked of the fire which had almost been a final disaster. Mr Carver and Mr Bradford, who had been sick in bed at the time, had all but lost their lives as well as their homes. Ah! That had been a terrible time – and all because of a spark that lighted the thatch of a cottage. But the Lord had looked after them; terrible tribulations had been theirs, but they had come through with His help and His grace.

  Talk went on and on; and it was talk that raised laughter and tears – laughter for the tragedies which had brought sorrow at the time, but, in retrospect, could amuse; sorrow for the loss of so many who now lay buried in the New England soil. They told of the making of the plantation; of how they trapped fish in the shallow, rapid river which could be seen from where they stood, emptying itself into the sea; they told how they had discovered that the maize, which they needed so badly, would not grow in the sandy, stony soil until they had planted fish from the sea in the land; then did the maize grow in abundance.

  Fish! The newcomers would soon realize that there never was such fish as that which abounded in the neighbourhood of Cape James. There was the Cape itself, clearly to be seen on such a bright day as this. It was shaped like an arm crooked about a corner of the sea. They would see that the cod found in these parts were twice as large as those found elsewhere. What labour that saved in hooking and splitting! Oh, the Lord was looking after them. In the summer, besides the cod, came mullet and sturgeon. And what caviare and puttargo could be made from the roes! The savages said that the fish in these waters could be compared in numbers with the hairs on men’s heads.

  Fruit there was in plenty – mulberries, gooseberries, plums, strawberries, pumpkins and gourds; walnut and chestnut trees abounded in the forests; flax grew freely, and from it they were able to make the strongest of ropes and nets. Then there were beavers and otters, foxes and martens – and in the Old Country good money was paid for the skins of such animals.

  It was indeed a ‘land flowing with milk and honey’.

  Oh, but those first months! Not then had the fruits of this land been discovered. Meat and meal had been sadly missed; there were too few clothes and bedding; no yarn for lamps; no oiled paper for the windows of the houses which must be built. The cruel cold had overtaken them, had found them unready; but their determination had been stronger than the harsh winds and bitter snows. They would never, they vowed, return to England or Holland; they had vowed to make this country their own, to build a new freedom in a new land; and this, with the help of God, they were doing.

  The first settlers had discovered during their second winter that the first winter had been a mild one; then, in spite of the winds and snow they had had to endure, they knew that God was with them, for if they had been obl
iged to face a normal winter during their first months in the new land, not merely half of the new colony would have perished, but the whole of it.

  There was much to tell, so much to listen to. They must tell of the great day of Thanksgiving when Governor Bradford had decided there should be a feast. It should be a sober feast – a solemn rejoicing, a means of showing gratitude to the Almighty for having brought them through great trials.

  So Governor Bradford sent men into the forest to kill wild fowl, and there was rejoicing for three whole days.

  The Puritans smiled in delighted reminiscence.

  ‘My friends, what think you? Massasoit came to the feast. Massasoit was an Indian chief who had become our friend through the Grace of God and the diplomacy of our Governor and Captain Standish – and mayhap by the sight of our cannon. There was dancing and singing, and we were much put out, as you can guess, for this was a solemn feast, a tribute to Almighty God; and here in our midst were savages worshipping their own heathen gods . . . barbarians and pagans, showing us their dancing, their faces painted, their bodies all but naked. But we trust the Lord understood that they were our guests and that we must humour them. And their dancing and their nakedness was apart from the thankfulness which was in our hearts.’

  Now to the feast. The pork and beans and fowls cooked together tasted delicious. There was ale and gin to drink; and when they had eaten and drunk they got into little groups and talk broke out once more; and now most of this talk was of home – not the new home, but the home across the sea to which most of them had said farewell for ever.

  Yes, it was a wonderful country to which they had come, but they thought of home continually. Here there was fish in abundance – lobsters, clams and oysters besides cod and mullet – but how often did they think of the rich red beef of England and good English ale! Nostalgia was like a disease; it attacked some more than others. Some had died, it was believed, of melancholy, because they missed the richly green fields of England.

  Tamar, watching it all, was fired with enthusiasm. She wanted to live here among these brave men and women; she visualized a town which was not merely a street with its plantation and its little houses; she visualized a town – a great town where there was friendship for all, and no cruelty, no brutality . . . but freedom. Yes, freedom was the most important thing – freedom to live one’s own life, to think one’s own thoughts.

  They went back to the Liberty to sleep, as there was not sufficient accommodation in the settlement.

  Bartle talked to her when they were back on the ship.

  ‘A noble venture that!’ he said. ‘But not for us.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Pagans cannot make their homes with Puritans.’

  ‘Anyone can hope for freedom,’ she said. ‘Why should we not become Puritans?’

  ‘You know that we never could be.’

  ‘They are a wonderful people. When I think of their arriving and seeing it, not as we see it now, but just a waste land, a sandy bank about which the water breaks . . . a gentle hill on which to build a town, and the forests in the distance in which the savages abound! What had they but their courage and a sea full of fish! I wish I had been one of them in the beginning.’

  ‘What has come over you?’ he asked. ‘You change from one day to another. Have you forgotten that night when we thought the Spaniard was upon us? Then you promised that we should be together. You would leave your husband and come back with me. Now that he is gone, that surely makes everything easier for us. We need not consider him now.’

  ‘We have to consider him,’ she said dully.

  ‘You talk in riddles.’

  ‘No. He is dead and I killed him.’

  ‘You . . . killed him!’

  She blurted out an account of what had happened in the cabin on the night before Humility’s death.

  He was scornful. She was fanciful, he said.

  ‘He killed himself. What nonsense is this! He killed himself because he lacked the courage to live.’

  ‘I killed him,’ she said stonily. ‘Almost in sight of the land he had longed for.’

  ‘You deceive yourself. As usual, your emotions cloud your vision. You think with the heart . . . not with the mind. How could you know that he would kill himself? Why did he kill himself? Because he lacked the courage to live. He brooded so continually on sin, that he saw it where it was not. Think no more of him. He was a weak man. If God decided he should not come to this land, then it was because he was unworthy. This is a land for brave men and women.’

  ‘I feel that there is a great weight about my neck. I killed him, and I must pay for my sin. I can find no happiness until I do. I knew that today, when I listened to what these people had to tell. If I stay here, if I try to do Humility’s work, then I shall in some measure atone for my sin.’

  He turned on her angrily. ‘I do not know you. What of us? What of our life together . . . the life you promised me if we should escape the Spaniard to enjoy it? Why is it that when the road is clear for us you must build up these obstacles?’

  ‘I am not young and foolish any more . . . not the woman to be excited by a lover.’

  He took her into his arms. ‘I will soon alter that!’ he said grimly.

  But she was determined. ‘Leave me alone for a while. I wish to think of this. I do not understand my feelings. Just now I can see nothing but his poor white face, his eyes so sorrowful, looking into mine. I can hear only my own voice saying cruel, brutal things to him; they cut into his heart like a knife; and they were the instruments that killed him.’

  Bartle turned from her in a passion. He was speechless with anger. He strode away from her.

  She went back to her cabin and looked about her with fearful eyes, and it seemed to her that the spirit of Humility Brown was in that cabin. She lay sleepless, turning from one side to another in a vain effort to reach sleep.

  It was dawn before she dozed; and then she dreamed that Humility was in the cabin, the water dripping from his sombre garments, while his hair hung dank about his death-pale face.

  ‘Only by a life of piety,’ said the spirit of Humility, ‘can you atone for your sin.’

  Early next morning Richard came to her cabin.

  ‘Do I disturb you, Tamar?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you look tired. You have scarcely slept. I have slept little myself. Yesterday was a day I shall remember all my life.’

  ‘And I,’ she said.

  ‘Tamar, you are going to be happy here.’

  She shook her head, but he did not notice; he seemed to be looking beyond her into a future which pleased him.

  ‘When I saw the town they had made,’ he went on, as though speaking to himself, ‘I was filled with emotion. Their simple houses . . . small, bare and only just adequate. But think! They must first have cut the trees before they could begin to build. Winslow was telling me that in those days they worked from sunrise to sunset, felling, sawing and carrying timber. He told me that, before the building could begin, many of the men fell sick, and some died. Those who were well enough worked when the weather would allow them. They worked with a will. I would I had been one of them. These men will be remembered as long as men are remembered. And what impresses me most is that on the first Sabbath day, although the need to get those houses built was great, greater still was their faith and their belief that the Sabbath day should be kept holy. There was no work on the first Sunday. I picture them; they had no meeting house – no house at all. I can see them giving thanks in the open air. Tamar, there is a greatness in these men which I have never seen before. Often I have thought I could worship the Carpenter’s Son. It was not His own simple doctrines which I could not accept; it was the various complicated versions laid down by different Churches which I rejected one by one. But surely this simple life – this life of goodness and restraint – is the true life. The religion these men brought with them is the true religion.’

  ‘I feel you may be right,’ said Tamar.
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  ‘These first settlers were bolder than the Puritans we have known. The large majority of them spent years of exile in Holland. They did not wish merely to simplify the ritual of the existing Church, but to form a new one. That was why it was first of all necessary to fly the country; then to form a new community of their own.’

  ‘You wish to become one of them, Richard. I think that is what I wish. To work with them, to watch a great town grow here, a town where there is kindness instead of brutality, freedom to take the place of persecution. I wish to live here simply, as these people do. I must do that, because Humility did not live to do it.’

  Now Richard was watching her closely.

  ‘I have been thinking of you . . . and Bartle,’ he said.

  ‘What of us?’

  ‘That you would now doubtless marry. He loves you and I believe you love him.’

  ‘I do not know,’ she said.

  ‘You must be happy here, Tamar. It is necessary that you should be. You must make Bartle happy here. You need him, for I do not believe you can be happy without him. I think too that, although it is difficult for us to imagine him in this place, living the life of a Puritan, he may attempt it . . . for your sake. He could go back to England; he could resume the life which would naturally be his, the country squire, the lord of the manor. But, Tamar, you dare not go back. They would have taken you some time or other had you stayed. I always knew it. I was never at peace thinking of it. It might not have been for years . . . but do it they would. One day they would have hanged you. They would never have forgotten that you had the reputation of being a witch. That was why I agreed to come here. I knew you would never be safe at home.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I felt that too. They looked at me slyly. They were awaiting their opportunity, waiting to find me defenceless. I often pictured them, coming to take me, as they came to the house that day, Simon Carter leading the way. And not myself only. There is poor Jane Swann. They would have had her. Perhaps even Mistress Alton and you, Richard. None of us was safe. And John Tyler and Annis, and Annis’ children . . . they might have been taken for their religion.’