The Blind in Darkness

by Stephen Lewis

  Massaquoit felt his stomach tighten at the name he had tried so mightily to erase from his memory. She reached her hand toward him, as though to touch the sorrow in his eyes, but then she let it drop and her expression hardened.

  “My husband came back from Mystic, and he did not speak. I pleaded with him. Then another man, who was also at Mystic, told me how the English set the village afire, how some of the Mohegans like my husband tried to stop them, but how others were happy to join the English. My husband sat silent for two days, and then he wrapped a few of his things together in a bundle and he walked off into the woods. I have not seen him again.”

  “Did you not follow him?”

  She looked at her two sons.

  “He left me with these two, and no food. Their hearts are filled with anger. At their father. At me. At the people in our village. At the English. He knows where we are if he chooses to return.”

  “Perhaps you should not blame him. What happened there . . .”

  “I do not fault him. I do not forgive him. We live here at Niantic. I have accepted the English god, but my sons’ hearts are still too hardened.”

  “That is not a bad thing,” Massaquoit said, “if it permits them to be proud.”

  She walked to her younger son and knelt down to pick up the two halves of the squirrel that he had dropped. They were coated with a mixture of snow and wet mud. She held them toward Massaquoit.

  “Pride does not fill an empty belly.” She gave the good half to Massaquoit. “Here, you are on your way somewhere. Leave us.” She glanced down the path that led to Niantic. “I do not think you are welcome there.”

  He felt the sting of her words while he recognized their truth, that there was no place where he could feel welcomed, except, perhaps, in the house of Catherine, the woman who had saved his life when he desired most to die.

  “Thank you,” he said. He had little appetite for the meat of the squirrel, but he felt he could not refuse it. “I have a question.”

  “The ones you seek,” the younger brother began, and then stopped, his eyes on his mother.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “If you don’t tell him, he might feel that he must enter our village to ask others.”

  “The ones you seek,” the boy continued, “left the trail a little ways further on. We saw them get on board an English boat that was waiting for them in a cove. If you hurry, you might catch them. The wind and current are against them. They will not be making much speed.”

  “Then I will not tarry,” Massaquoit said. He looked at Willeweenaw. “Perhaps I will visit you in Niantic.”

  She shook her head firmly, but he noted that her eyes softened just a little.

  “Go on your way,” she said.

  He began to retrace his steps down the village path to rejoin the trail heading north by the river. He heard steps running hard after him, and he turned prepared to defend himself. The younger brother, breathing hard, stopped in front of him.

  “If the wind changes and blows upstream, you will not be able to catch up with them on foot,” he said.

  “Then I must hope it does not.”

  “If you take me with you, I can help you.”

  Massaquoit studied the face of the boy. Anger still flashed from the dark eyes, and he realized that the boy’s rage sought a target, and any target would do, Indian, English, it didn’t matter.

  “Your mother . . .” Massaquoit began.

  The anger flowed from his eyes in a dark wave that turned his face into a hard scowl.

  “Why do you think you found me alone in the woods. I do not ask my mother’s permission.”

  “I see,” Massaquoit said, and as he did his eye caught movement coming at him from the village path. In a moment, Willeweenaw and the older boy appeared. They stopped a short distance away.

  “I see that Ninigret has found you,” she said.

  “He wants to help me,” Massaquoit said.

  Willeweenaw shrugged.

  “He does what he wants. Try to bring him back safely. If you do not, I will not have lost him, for he has already left me.”

  She did not wait for an answer, but put her arm around her older son and turned back toward the village.

  “Do you not want to join your mother and brother?” Massaquoit asked.

  “No. It is as she says.”

  Massaquoit looked at the boy, and he saw his own son who would never reach this one’s age. Massaquoit took the boy’s arm.

  “Keep your anger in your heart,” he said, “but do not let it burn you. If you can do that, you can come with me.”

  Ninigret nodded and almost smiled, but then he formed his face into the hard lines that Massaquoit knew were the boy’s way of hiding his uncertainty, if not his fear. They started walking, the boy taking two quick steps for each of Massaquoit’s long strides.

  “In that same cove,” the boy said after they had rejoined the trail that paralleled the river,, “where the English got on board their boat, there is a canoe we use. It is in some tall grass at water’s edge. It is not hard to find, but the English did not see it. They looked only for their own boat. In the canoe are furs. I can offer to trade with them when we overtake them.”

  Massaquoit admired the boy’s quick mind, for he saw where he was going.

  “I will darken my clothes with river mud,” he said. “They will see a dirty old man with a boy in a canoe. By the time we get close enough for them to see who I am, we will have the advantage of surprise.”

  “And then what will you do with them?”

  “One I want to bring back. The other I believe wants to kill me.”

  “Can you tell me why this is?” the boy asked.

  “As we walk,” Massaquoit said, and quickened his pace.

  Chapter Ten

  Edward stood in front of Catherine, a shovel on his shoulder.

  “It is time to prepare the garden,” he said.

  Catherine looked past him to the area where the garden would be planted. The snow had completely melted, leaving behind scattered pools of water..

  “It is Sunday,” she said.

  “You know well I do not often go to meeting,” he replied, with his eyes on the ground at his feet.

  “It is probably still frozen below the surface,” she said.

  “Nonetheless, it is time,” Edward insisted.

  “Go ahead, then,” she said. “May the Lord forgive you. I think your heart is pure, even if you seem not to have felt His grace.”

  A smile strove to establish itself on Edward’s wrinkled face. He was nearing sixty, and had worked for Catherine for twenty years, and during that time she could remember no more than half a dozen full smiles on his face. On this occasion, the smile quit half way to full expression and fell back on an open mouthed grin. He drove the shovel several inches into the earth where it was stopped by the frozen layer Catherine had predicted. Edward, undeterred, stepped down hard on the shovel, working it back and forth until it was into the ground to the top of its blade. Catherine stepped back as he heaved up the first shovel full, spraying himself with water as he did so. His face, now splattered with a thin veneer of mud, still wore its grin.

  Catherine looked past Edward as he drove the shovel into the ground again to the path leading from town to her house. She saw a small knot of figures approaching. One person, a woman with babe in arms, detached herself from the others and walked ahead. She turned back, after a few steps, as though to beckon the others to wait for her, and they stopped walking. As soon as Catherine could trust her eyes in identifying her visitor, she hastened down the hill to greet her.

  “It is surely a welcome sight to see you,” she said.

  Felicity shifted the babe in her arms.

  “It is such a fine spring day, and I was feeling so renewed, that I could not but stop to call.” She glanced at her mother, father, and husband who waited a respectful distance. Samuel Worthington nodded, but his expression was grave. Alice flashed a quick smile and a nod, while Daniel lif
ted his hand tentatively in a wave and then dropped it. Felicity followed Catherine’s glance and then focused instead on Edward. “He seems happy to be working the soil.”

  “I long ago despaired of using the word ‘happy’ in connection with Edward,” Catherine said, “ but insofar as he can be pleased by something, you are right.” She placed her hand on the black sleeve of Felicity’s gown. “And, truly, how is it with you and your family?”

  Felicity drew in her breath, causing her cheeks to collapse, giving her face a pained expression. She shook her head slowly from side to side. Catherine extended her arms, and Felicity handed the babe to her.

  “Minister Davis will baptize him Nathaniel today,” Felicity murmured. “I asked Daniel if he minded, and he said he did not, but now I do not know if it is a good thing. I say the name, and I think only of my brother.”

  The babe, who had been sleeping, opened his eyes, a startling blue like his grandmother’s. He stretched his arms out of his blanket and yawned. Catherine rocked him in his arms.

  “He looks fine,” she said. “And I think it right and proper that the memory of your brother in your hearts should find living expression in your son.” She handed the babe back to Felicity.

  “I trust you are right. Mother seems to think so, but father remains unreconciled to Nathaniel’s death.”

  As if on cue at the mention of his name, Samuel walked to them.

  “Come, Felicity,” he said, “it is time. Join your mother and husband.”

  Felicity took Catherine’s hand for a moment, pressed her fingers around it, and then strode to Alice and Daniel. Samuel pointed toward Newbury Center, and they began to stroll in that direction while he remained standing in front of Catherine. He cast a disapproving glance at Edward, and then at Massaquoit’s wigwam.

  “Where is Matthew?” he asked.

  “Do you not know?” Catherine asked.

  Worthington seemed taken aback.

  “What mean you?”

  “I believe he seeks your servant.”

  “I know nothing of that.”

  “Do you not indeed.”

  “No, Mistress Williams I do not. Look to your own servants. One working on the Lord’s Day, and the other, supposed to be learning about our Lord, out on some other business.”

  “I look into their hearts and like what I there see,” Catherine replied.

  “Wondrous vision you have,” the merchant said. He waved a good-bye and hastened after his family.

  * * * *

  The meetinghouse was filled for the first time since before the winter. Catherine took her seat on the first bench, next to Magistrate Woolsey. Across the aisle from Woolsey sat the Worthingtons, first Felicity holding her babe, then her husband, father and mother. Phyllis made her way to the rear where she found Elizabeth sitting alone. Behind Elizabeth and the other servants was the hindermost bench on which sat the Indians. On this day, that group nearly stretched from one side of the meetinghouse to the other, but a conspicuous space, wide enough to accommodate two, had been left in the middle. Woolsey, who was unsuccessfully trying to position himself against the hard wooden back of his bench right next to Catherine followed her eyes to the rear of the building.

  “What do you make of that space left by the savages?” he asked.

  Catherine knew where he was leading, but decided to let him get there by himself.

  “Think you not,” he continued, “that they hold places for Matthew and William.”

  “Perhaps,” she said, “or it may be they signify their absence.”

  “Approvingly think you?”

  “That I do not know,” she said.

  The magistrate shook his head and again leaned back hard against the bench.

  “Do not take me amiss, Catherine,” he said in a hoarse whisper, “but I do more and more believe those savages back there would be happier in their own church in Niantic, and so would we.”

  “It is a long journey for them to come,” she said in a natural voice, although she recognized this was not her friend’s major reason. Still, her remark elicited a knowing nod as though Woolsey accepted her ironic concession as agreement.

  “There, you see as well as I do. Better for them and for us.”

  “Yes,” she said dryly, “now all we needs must do is raise the money for such a building, and salary for a minister, for it is clear the savages have money for neither.”

  “If it is only a question of coin . . .” Woolsey began, but he interrupted himself as Minister Davis opened his huge Bible with a resounding thump, and cleared his throat. Next to his pulpit was an ornately carved wooden stand, which held a basin. The minister glanced at the basin and then he beckoned Felicity and Daniel. They got up, their faces both a little red but aglow, and walked to stand in front of the minister.

  “We begin today with the baptism of Felicity and Daniel Rowlands’ babe,” Minister Davis said. “Master Worthington has begged my acquiescence in so ordering our service in view of his daughter’s frail health, that she might be permitted to leave after the baptism if her strength fails her. A small murmur arose from the congregation, containing threads of approval and dismay at the irregularity of the procedure. Worthington looked around, and the murmur ceased except for one stubborn source in a row just before the servants where artisans and small property owners sat. The merchant continued looking in that direction until the meetinghouse was silent, then he turned his gaze to the minister.

  Davis dipped his hand into the basin, as though to test the temperature of the water.

  “Baptism among us is not as it is among the papist, who view it as a magical cleansing of Original Sin, for we know well that sin is inevitably and inextricably woven into our very natures.” His voice rose as he warmed to his subject. “Yea, no water of baptism can correct our affections so that we are drawn to the good and repelled from evil. Only God’s free grace can grant us that favor.

  “Rather than the papist’s superstitious ritual, which better befits a witch meeting than a proper church rite, we baptize our babes to place them under the proper governance of the church, so that the application of water to the babe’s forehead is a kind of seal of the covenant between God’s chosen community and the infant. It is no more nor less than that.”

  He again placed his hand in the water.

  “Daniel and Felicity Rowlands, do you offer this babe to the governance of God’s church?”

  In turn, the couple intoned their assent.

  “What Christian name have you chosen for the babe?” he asked.

  “Nathaniel,” Daniel replied, and Felicity bowed her head.

  “Felicity?” the minister asked.

  “Yes, Nathaniel,” she replied.

  He removed his hand from the basin and ran his wet fingers over the babe’s forehead. The infant had been sleeping, but it now stirred, offering a small cry.

  “I baptize you Nathaniel Rowlands,” Minster Davis said, keeping his fingers on the babe’s forehead, “and I accept you into our community, with the full hope and prayer that you will grow under our tutelage to an understanding of your Christian identity, and that in due time you will feel God’s grace working within you, and make your conversion known to us at that season so that we may welcome you in full fellowship and communion.”

  The babe, now fully awake, scrunched his face, balled his tiny fists, and emptied his lungs in a loud cry. Minister Davis permitted just a flicker of disapproval to darken his expression, and then with a wan smile he lifted his hand from Nathaniel’s forehead. Felicity looked at the minister, and Davis nodded. She and her husband returned to their seats, Felicity rocking her son as she walked, and he quieted.

  Catherine experienced a mixture of feelings in witnessing this scene. She was pleased to see the babe and mother doing so well, for she had remained nervous that one or the other might still be in fatal danger. But Felicity had a little bounce to her step, and color in her cheeks, and the babe seemed to be getting enough nourishment. And although
she could not find it in her heart to object to the babe’s innocence being introduced to the church’s governance, part of her could not rest comfortably with the prospect of the babe growing up in a religious environment presided over by Minister Davis, a pastor who seemed more fit for the law then shepherding his flock to Christ. The minister was a learned man, Catherine knew, but he was also more than he would ever admit, a political creature attracted to the powerful congregants such as Master Worthington, and likely to give only passing notice to the lesser members of his church. And more, for all his learned words he seemed unable to touch her heart. And so, as he began his sermon, she permitted his language to swirl about her head, while she chose from it those morsels that would lead her into a private meditation on her Lord’s ineffable mercy in saving Felicity and her child.

  * * * *

  The dugout canoe was where Ninigret said it would be, sitting in mud in a marsh at water’s edge, covered with dried reeds. It was not hard to find if one were looking for it, but not visible if one were not. Ninigret tossed off the reeds and pointed to a small pile of fox and beaver pelts. They had been covered with ice and snow that had now melted, and so they were now moist and pungent in the warming air. Ninigret lifted the top one, a red fox, and held it for Massaquoit’s inspection.

  “Do you think I can trade this for an English gun?” he asked.

  “I do not know. I have been shot at by English guns but I have never bargained for one.”

  Ninigret tossed the pelt on top of the pile.

  “Maybe I will ask these English.”

  “Do not forget why we are pursuing them.”

  “I do not forget.” He leaned into the canoe and brought up a wide brimmed English hat. He tossed it to Massaquoit.

  “I got that in trade,” he said.

  Massaquoit put on the hat. It felt odd, and he did not like the way it blocked the sun’s rays. Still, he concluded it was wise for him to wear it. He knelt down and gathered handfuls of cold mud with which he splattered his clothing.

  “You no longer look like a sachem,” the boy said.