The Blind in Darkness

by Stephen Lewis

  “Good morning, Mistress,” he said. “It seems good fortune has attended you today.”

  “The ship approaches,” Catherine said, “but well you know its success depends on what is in its hold.”

  “For that, Captain Gregory is as shrewd and able a seaman as any merchant could favor,” Worthington said.

  “He is that,” Catherine replied, “and very happy I am to have in my employ.”

  “Should you retire from commerce, I myself would be pleased to have his service.”

  “I am sure he would be pleased so to hear,” Catherine said, and to terminate a conversation whose superficial courtesy she was finding increasingly irksome, she walked past the merchant, and joined Phyllis at the dock. The ship was now close enough for her to see Captain Gregory himself standing on the quarter deck. The captain doffed his large brimmed hat to her, and she waved her hand in greeting. He replaced his hat, and then pointed to the fore of the ship. Catherine followed his eyes and saw what he was indicating.

  Standing on the forecastle deck, and leaning over a rail that separated it from the bowsprit was what appeared to be a woman. From this distance, all Catherine could be sure of was color, the blonde of the hair and the bright red, verging on scarlet, of her bodice. Several sailors lounged near her, and seemed, by the gestures of their arms, to be engaged in an animated conversation with her. The woman was holding a bright green hat with which she pointed at the crowned lion figurehead and then threw back her head. As the ship slowly approached the deck. she leaned even further over and threw her arms about the bowsprit, as though she would clamber onto it. A sailor grabbed the hem of her gown and pulled her back. The woman’s voice rose into a high pitched giggle, which was joined by the deeper laughs of the sailor. She straightened herself up, put her hat on, and walked across the forecastle deck, past the capstan, and stood next to Captain Gregory. Catherine could not see the ship master’s face from this distance, but she was certain that if she could it would have been reddening beneath its deep tan.

  So that, Catherine said to herself, must be Thomasine.

  The onlookers had apparently been looking at the woman’s performance, just as she had done, for she noted now how many of them were pointing either at the quarterdeck or the figurehead, and there was much shaking of heads and murmurings.

  “That one,” Phyllis said, “you don’t suppose she’s . . .”

  “Thomasine, I should say,” Catherine said. “Thomas’s sister.”

  “She does seem to be enjoying herself. And the way she is dressed I do not think is proper for Newbury.”

  “I wonder where it might be proper, indeed,” Catherine replied.

  As the ship slid and bobbed next to the dock, sailors fore and aft tossed down cables to the waiting hands on the dock who hitched them around the pilings. A gangplank was lowered, and standing on deck there, ready to disembark, was Thomasine. As she stepped forward, another figure became visible. Wequashcook lifted his beaver hat for a moment to wipe his brow. He did not move as Thomasine posed for a moment at the top of the gangplank, as though she were an actress about to say her lines, and then started down. As she approached, the murmurings of the crowd first rose to a rumble, and then as though at the command of an offstage director controlling the scene, all voices stopped and she proceeded down in silence. Master Worthington, accompanied by Governor Peters came abreast of Catherine and Phyllis. Wequashcook remained on board, but his eyes were on the merchant.

  “Know you who she is?” Worthington asked Catherine.

  “I do not know,” Catherine replied, “but I can guess that she is your son’s intended.”

  Catherine watched the frown form itself on the merchant’s face as the memory of his son’s death brought pain to his eyes while the appearance of Thomasine curved his lips into a sneer of disapproval and wrinkled his nose as though retreating from a disagreeable odor. The frown set hard on his face for a few moments, and then seemed to almost relax into resigned relief at the recognition that the woman now coming down the gangplank and obviously heading toward him would not be his daughter by marriage. Still, he inhaled deeply as though to steel himself for an encounter he anticipated would be difficult.

  Thomasine paused at the end of the gangplank, again in a mock theatrical gesture as though to provide the onlookers with a full opportunity to see her. She had her brother’s blonde hair and thin body. Her hat was of green velvet, with a silver buckle, such as a young man might wear if he were somewhere other than Newbury where such ostentation was frowned upon unless, and then with grudging tolerance, displayed by somebody of wealth and position. Her bright red bodice was laced together with a matching silver thread that seemed to catch and play with the sunbeams. A lace falling collar revealed her pale flesh. Her gown was of vibrant green that matched the color of her hat, and it was tucked up at the hem to reveal just a flash of her underskirt. She studied the ground in front of her for a moment, as though to find a place suitable for her feet, and then walked toward Worthington and Catherine. She limped a little on her right leg, and she held a rolled document in her hands.

  “I am Thomasine Hall,” she said with an exaggerated curtsy. “You must be Master Worthington.” She kept her intense blue eyes on Worthington, offering not even a moment’s glance at Catherine.

  “I am Samuel Worthington,” the merchant said. “But my son . . .”

  “Is dead, sadly,” Thomasine continued for him. “My brother, whom I think you knew, met me at Shelter Island, where he sought passage on a ship south. He told me.” She lowered her head for a moment as though the grief of her loss weighed it down, but when she again lifted her eyes, they were bright with determination. “That makes me his widow, then, don’t you see, dear father.”

  Worthington’s color blanched and then reddened, and his lip quivered.

  “How, now,” he said. “The memory of putting my son in the ground is still an open wound. How presume you to offer such a jest.”

  Thomasine made a clucking sound with her tongue.

  “Father, you do me dishonor, for your son and I indeed were married in Barbados before he abandoned me to come north with my brother. I followed soon after as I could, but he left me without the means, which I have only recently secured.”

  “Married, you say,” Worthington said. “I do not think it.”

  She held out the document.

  “We had a lawful contract, witnessed by my brother, and,” she hesitated, “in it, he settles a piece of property on me.”

  “Yes?” Worthington insisted.

  “The Powell farm. Which he said you were to give him on his marriage.”

  “But I never consented,” the merchant said. “And you cannot have married without my agreement.” He pushed down the document which she continued to hold in front of his face as though demanding that he read it. “Even if you say truly, and that I do doubt.”

  The hardness faded from Thomasine’s eyes, which now rimmed with tears.

  “This is a hard thing to find such a welcome, so soon after finding out that my fine young husband is dead.”

  Worthington turned on his heel, took a step away from the dock, and then looked back over his shoulder.

  “We will hear more of this, in a more proper time and place, before the magistrate. Then perchance we can see what merit there is in that piece of paper you flaunt as though it were Scripture itself.”

  “And where am I to stay? ” Thomasine called after him, but the merchant continued walking. She raised her voice to the onlookers. “Can nobody guide my to this Powell farm, to my house?” Catherine took her arm.

  “I am Catherine Williams.” She pointed at the Good Hope. “It is my ship you have arrived on, so I ask you to abide with me until better arrangements can be made,” she said. “It is not fit for you to go to the farm now.”

  Thomasine looked at her, as though seeing her for the first time, but something in her glance told Catherine that the young woman had been perfectly aware of her presence ev
en while she had focused her absolute attention on the merchant.

  “Why that is most generous of you, Mistress Williams.”

  Phyllis leaned down to whisper in Catherine’s ear.

  “Do you think it wise? What room do we have?”

  “Yes and ample,” Catherine replied, and she began to walk back up the road toward her house. “Phyllis, please have a word with Master Gregory and have him send Thomasine’s things after us, and then join us at the house.”

  * * * *

  Thomasine sat on a straight backed chair next to Catherine’s carved writing table, on which lay the document. Catherine moved the candle a little closer to the paper and bent over it. The hand was bold, the letters well formed, but still she had to squint to make out the words. Once she did, however, she looked up with a bemused smile on her face.

  “So Nathaniel promised you that you could live at the Powell farm he was to receive from his father.”

  Thomasine hesitated.

  Catherine held up the paper.

  “Have you read what is contained herein?”

  Thomasine began to nod her head, but then shook it sadly.

  “So is that the way of it,” Catherine said. “You cannot read, can you?”

  “I can, a little,” Thomasine replied, “but he told me right enough, and I know he would not lie to me.”

  “I do not see why he would, either,” Catherine replied, “but I cannot say I understand what he did. Why were you not to live together? I cannot imagine Nathaniel wanting to occupy Isaac Powell’s house.”

  Thomasine’s face darkened for a moment in either confusion or anger, but then she smiled.

  “Nathaniel was not sure of the welcome I might receive from his father. He was right so to conjecture, as I now know from having met Master Worthington.”

  “And . . .” Catherine prompted.

  “And he wanted to be assured I would have a roof over my head while he made his peace with his father.”

  “I see. How prescient he was,” Catherine said.

  Catherine looked down at the paper again, not trusting her memory, even after so short a time, to recall accurately the most startling statement contained in the agreement.

  “And if he was to die, you were to have the farm?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was he ill that he envisioned dying?”

  Thomasine shook her head.

  “No more than a husband’s loving concern for his wife, and a recognition of the sudden dangers of this world.”

  Catherine pointed to a signature at the bottom of the paper.

  “And this is the signature of your brother Thomas as witness?”

  “It is. I can read names, some names, like mine and my brother’s.”

  Catherine handed the paper back to Thomasine.

  “I am no lawyer. But I do know your father Worthington is going to deny the legitimacy of the terms in that paper. He was not fond of your brother. He separated him from Nathaniel. But it is a strange co-incidence that he sent Thomas to the very farm promised you in this paper. Still, I am certain Master Worthington will assert this paper is a fraud.”

  Catherine studied the young woman’s face, now half cast in shadow as the light from the candle did not fully illuminate it. She expected a reaction, some sign of being nonplused, or indignant, but Thomasine offered only a cool smile.

  “Nathaniel did not like to talk to me of his father. But Thomas spoke full well. I know what I must contend with.”

  She stood up.

  “I am weary from my journey. It has been overlong.”

  “Phyllis will take you to your room.”

  Catherine heard the voices of the two women, Thomasine’s tone lighter than her expression of weariness would have suggested, while Phyllis’s voice was barely civil. Then they steps climbed the stairs, and a door shut on the second floor. A few moments later, steps came down, and Phyllis appeared in the front room where Catherine still sat her table.

  “I am ashamed,” she said, “that we have taken that woman under our roof. It is not polite to use the word that is most apt to say what she is.”

  “Would you have her sleep on the dock?” Catherine asked.

  Phyllis shrugged.

  “It would be no concern of mine. But I warrant had we left her standing there, she would not have long wanted for a bed, or someone to share it with.”

  “Perhaps so,” Catherine replied, “and thus all the more reason to have her here.”

  “Why that is not my meaning not at all,” Phyllis said.

  “But it is mine.”

  * * * *

  If anything, Dorothy seemed to have grown thinner, and her face more tense as though the warming temperatures of the arriving spring, which had softened the earth and smoothed people’s dispositions, had served only to harder her, accentuating the angles of both her body and the edges of her taciturn nature. She offered Catherine and Thomasine an almost imperceptible nod of her head as she opened the front door and with an only marginally more noticeable movement indicated that Master Woolsey was in the front room.

  He was sitting in a rocking chair with a heavy woolen rug over his knees and a thick shawl about his shoulders. The windows were shut although the day was more than comfortably warm, and the magistrate shivered beneath his covers. He looked up as they entered the room, and Catherine saw that his eyes were bloodshot. She walked to him and pressed her cool palm to his forehead.

  “I did tell him that I could go to fetch you, Mistress.”

  Catherine turned back to the doorway where Dorothy stood, her narrow face pinched into a scowl.

  “But he would not hear of it,” she continued. “So it is a very good thing that you have come on some business this morning.”

  “Joseph, what means this stubbornness?” Catherine asked.

  “I was in the very act of sending Dorothy for you when she saw you coming up the walk. And that is the truth.”

  “I will bring you something for your fever,” she said. Thomasine cleared her throat and then coughed into her hands. Catherine cast a disapproving look at her. “This is Thomasine Hall. She is Thomas’s sister who was to marry poor Nathaniel. She arrived yesterday on the Good Hope.”

  Thomasine was wearing an outfit only a little more sedate than the one she had on when she walked down the gangplank. Her bodice was a dark green, instead of the scarlet, and a linen collar had replaced the lace. The gown was the same, but she had left her hat at home. The effect of these changes was to bring her dress more into conformity with prevailing Newbury custom, although it was still just beyond being entirely respectable.

  “I saw the crowd going past my door to the harbor,” Woolsey said. “I asked Dorothy to go there to be my ears, and she did indeed tell me of this young woman.”

  “She has a document that she says is a marriage contract signed by Nathaniel.” Catherine glanced at Thomasine who handed the rolled paper to her. “We did hope you could offer your opinion, but you are unwell and it can wait your better health.”

  Woolsey shook his head.

  “I am afraid not, as Samuel Worthington outpaced you to my door this morning, before I was even out of my bed. He did not inquire as to my well being, nor did he listen when Dorothy told him my condition, other than to say he would return once I was awake and dressed. I do not think he cared whether I had time to break my fast. That is why I am now dressed as you see me. Else I would have kept to my bed.”

  “I told him I would send Master Worthington away,” Dorothy offered from the doorway where she still stood.

  “Let me see the paper,” Woolsey said. “Samuel comes any moment. Dorothy, prepare to welcome him.”

  Dorothy did not move.

  “Go to child,” Catherine insisted. “Obey your master.”

  Dorothy stepped back from the doorway. Catherine handed the document to Woolsey, and he unrolled it, holding it on his lap and peering at the writing.

  “A most strange document,” Woolsey said after pe
rusing it. “It says here that Nathaniel gave to this young woman Isaac Powell’s farm as fee simple determinable, to revert to the Worthington family in the absence of heirs. Most strange that Nathaniel who stood to inherit considerable lands besides that poor farm should see fit to make such an arrangement.”

  “Strange it is Joseph,” Catherine said.

  “And am I not a remarkable bearer of such a document?” Thomasine asked.

  Before Catherine could answer, there was a sharp rap at the door, followed by Dorothy’s quick step to it. In a moment, she appeared in the room followed by Worthington, and behind him, Wequashcook. The merchant strode over to Woolsey without acknowledging the presence in the room of the magistrate’s other visitors. He grasped the paper, which after a moment’s hesitation, Woolsey released, although his face reddened in displeasure at the rudeness of the gesture. Worthington read over the document, his lips moving slightly at each word while his face darkened.

  “He did not have the farm to give,” he said as he folded the paper and handed it back to Woolsey. He turned his hard eyes on Thomasine. “I tell you young woman, I know what spell you cast on my son, if you did not write that paper yourself, although the hand appears to be his, but Nathaniel did not have my permission to marry.”