by Anya Seton
She carried some of it to Lady Arbella on one of her daily visits. There was now no need to knock. Molly, the impudent maid servant, was herself ill and lay groaning in the loft. The manservant and the other maid gave only grudging and frightened service, held from actual escape by the knowledge that there was no safe place to go.
Phebe’s daily arrival was heartily welcomed for she did much of the nursing.
Today Mr. Gager, the physician, was there, bleeding Arbella. He acknowledged Phebe’s quiet entrance by a curt nod, and went on with his task. Phebe took off her muddy shoes and placing them in a corner of the room, came to the foot of the bed. Arbella started to smile a greeting as she always did, but at once her gaze slid past Phebe, and into the staring blue eyes came a distant intent look. “Think you, madam, ’twill be a fine day for the chase?” she said. “I hear the huntsmen winding their horns. Will Charles ride the gray stallion?”
Phebe’s breath caught, and her eyes met the physician’s. His mouth set, and he nodded his gray head. “She wanders.” He sighed heavily. “It’s enteric, I believe. There are the rose spots.” He drew the coverlet down a little. The delicate white skin of the swelling abdomen and slender waist was sprinkled with pinkish dots.
“I must find someone to help you and the servants,” he said, rising, “but so many are sick. Each day a new case. Would that her husband were back—” he added half to himself.
“I’ll not leave her,” said Phebe.
William Gager picked up his leech bag and threw in the lancet. “You’re a good girl, mistress. I’ll come back later—I—I must rest. Give her nothing but wine and this oil of fennel.” He indicated a flask on the rough stool by the bedside. He put his hand to his head, and swayed a little as he stood up. Phebe saw his Ups twitch, and fear pull at his face. “This thrice cursed country,” he said under his breath, and went out.
Phebe went to the kitchen for a pewter basin. The little maid sat on a stool, listlessly turning two spitted rabbits above the flames. The manservant had gone to the forest for firewood. Above in the loft the sick maid, Molly, whimpered incessantly. Phebe climbed the ladder, and did what she could to bring comfort, changing the fouled linen, holding the mug of claret while the girl drank. Then she hurried back to the other patient with a basin of rain water, washed Arbella’s thin fair body, then rubbed it with the pennyroyal. Despite the tight-shut windows mosquitoes whined in the dark little room, and the rain beat without ceasing on the roof.
Arbella was still wandering. Sometimes she thought herself a child in Tattershall Castle, or riding through Sherwood Forest. Sometimes she relived her bridal day and spoke to Isaac, her husband, with such poignancy and passion that Phebe flushed and murmured, “Oh, hush my dear lady. Hush!”
Worst of all as the long gray day wore on, Arbella began to talk of her child, thinking that it had been born, and demanding of Phebe that she bring it in to her. “I wish my son,” she said imperiously. “All in this new land rejoice that he is born. Why don’t you rejoice? How dare you look so sad, wench! Bring me my son.”
Phebe soothed her, replacing the cool cloths on the burning forehead, stroking the restless hands that plucked at the coverlet.
At dusk Arbella became quieter; it seemed the fever eased. She lay still a long time, her eyes closed, her hand clinging to Phebe’s. Then the blue eyes opened and gazed at the girl with full recognition. “You must rest, dear,” she whispered. “You do too much for me. You must think of your babe.”
Phebe shook her head, smiling. “No, I’m strong. Nursing is nothing for me. I’ve done it often at home.”
Her last unconsidered word seemed to crash through the room, like the first toll of a passing bell. A spasm twisted Arbella’s face, while the word went echoing and swelling around them.
Blundering fool, cried Phebe to herself, and she spoke again with cheerful resolution. “Here now is home, my lady, and soon ’twill feel so.” She rose to smooth the bedding.
Arbella stopped her. “Do you remember, Phebe, Mr. Higginson’s sermon on the Sabbath? ‘What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind?’ We must not hark back. Promise me, Phebe—” she rose painfully on her elbow, her eyes beseeching. “Promise me, you’ll not give up—no matter what may happen.”
Phebe tried to speak, to give easy assurance, but she could not. Mr. Higginson had died the day before. Arbella did not know that. There was death in every dwelling—and hunger and despair. When Mark came, tired perhaps of the new adventure, restless again, and wishing to go home,—home—home—home—The forbidden, the exquisite music.
Arbella sank onto the pillow, the light faded from her eyes. “I had no right to ask you that, child. Your future is in God’s hands—as is mine.” She drew a shaking sigh, that ended in a sudden cry of pain. The brief interval of peace was ended. The pain and noises in her head returned, and the cruel gripings in her distended belly. Phebe almost welcomed the mounting fever, for it gave surcease from the pain as Arbella’s mind escaped again, back—now always back, into the tranquil, the sheltered days of her childhood.
All the interminable night, Phebe watched beside Arbella, refusing the little maid’s reluctant offer of help. “You look after Molly,” she told the girl, “and keep the fire up for hot water. I’ll look to her ladyship.”
Once in the evening, a neighbor, Mistress Horne, hurried in, saying that Mr. Gager the physician had told her how very ill the Lady Arbella was. Mr. Gager himself was suffering with headache and vomiting so that he could not rise from bed.
Phebe thanked her but said that she could manage alone. Mistress Horne’s kind, worried face showed relief. “I’m glad to hear it, my dear, for I’ve heavy duties at home, my little girl puking blood, and my youngest most feverish. You’ve none but yourself to consider, have you, mistress?”
Phebe shook her head. The two women stood by Arbella’s bedside together. Mrs. Horne made a sound in her throat, and whispered—“Dear—she do look bad. Such a sweet woman. I was watching from my window the day she landed and come walking down the street with her fine young husband. She looked so kindly and so fair. But I feared then ’twould take rougher clay than she is to stand the roughness here—”
“She’ll get well,” said Phebe sharply. “Many do have the burning fever and get well.”
Mrs. Horne sighed and turned from the bed. “We can hope so. But many do not.” She walked to the wall and peered into Arbella’s looking glass. “What a frump I’ve grown,” she said pushing distractedly at the lank hair around her perspiring face, then seeing Phebe’s expression, she said, “I’m not unfeeling, my dear, but one gets used to death here. Needs must or go mad.” She straightened her linen cap, gave a tug to her collar. “They say there’s a ship sighted way off down the bay. If it’s another from England, I hope they bring us provisions as well as more mouths to eat ’em.”
“But maybe—” cried Phebe, “it’s from Charlestown—from the Governor—maybe it’s her husband at last—” she looked toward the bed, “and mine,” she added very low.
“Mayhap it is,” said the woman kindly, and without the slightest conviction. “Pray on’t,” she advised, opening the door. “Miracles are wrought by prayer.”
Through the night Phebe thought of this. They did live by prayer, here, and they did seem to have special understanding and closeness to God. At home God stayed in church. He lived in the candles and the incense and the golden cross, in the voices of the choir boys, in the slow solemn movements of the lace-frocked priest. But she had never thought to find Him elsewhere.
She tried to pray, but no words came, nor could she remember the words of the prayer book. Neither could she believe that any prayer might change the identity of that ship in the bay. The prayer, therefore, which came to her heart but could find no utterance was for Lady Arbella. And she made a foolish covenant. If the lady recovered it would be easy to join in her Church, for had they not in a dozen conversations agreed to stay near each other, and Phebe to follow he
r in all things.
In the first rose light of the new summer day, she heard the sound of running feet on the road outside. She darted to the door and flung it open. She saw five men crowding upon the threshold, and gave a cry to the man in front. “Oh, Mr. Johnson, thank God.” The blond young man gave her a frightened look and pushed past her as she clung to the door frame. She saw a curly head behind and higher than the others, she tried to speak again, but a rocking giddiness swept through her head. The sunlit road billowed and darkened. She felt strong arms seize her, as she slipped down to the ground.
She opened her eyes to the familiar ragged thatching of the wigwam. Her bemused gaze wandered from a chink between the reeds and the slit of blue sky it revealed, to Mark’s frightened face bending close to her own. He knelt beside her on their mattress and his arms still supported her. She gave a little sigh of content, and turning her head, nuzzled for her accustomed place on his shoulder.
“Sweetheart!” he cried sharply, feeling her body relax against him, and seeing her lids droop. “Don’t swoon again. Phebe, are you ill?”
He almost shook her in his anxiety. She raised her head and kissed him on the mouth. “Not ill,” she said drowsily. “Hungry, and so glad you’re safe back.”
His frown cleared. Always and so easily she could reassure him. He smiled and kissed her, hard and long. She submitted, willing enough to drift with him to that moment which ensured forgetfulness of all else.
But Mark had been alarmed when she slid off Lady Arbella’s stone step into his arms, and he saw now how pale and thin she was. He shook his head and put her from him. “Food first, poppet,” he said standing up. “I’ve no wish to bed a wraith. You lie there, I’ll do all.”
He had brought a venison steak, gift as he explained of a Mr. Isaac Allerton of whom he had seen much, and in whom he had great interest. She watched him with some surprise, as he hacked off slices with his hunting knife and broiled them over the fire. He had learned much, apparently, in those weeks he had been away. Never before had he had anything to do with cookery.
He fed her the rich gamy meat, and brought her mugs of beer until she could hold no more, and she sighed deeply and loosened her belt to enjoy the delicious fullness.
Mark chuckled, glad to see the color come back to her cheeks, and amused that she who was always so fastidious should loosen her clothing. But as he gazed at her a new look crossed his face.
“Phebe—” he said half teasing, half startled, “did the venison fill you so much, or can it be—aren’t you more full-bellied?”
Phebe looked down at her gown. “You have sharp eyes, love,” she said quietly. “I had not thought to show yet.” She spoke so quietly because, still, the old fear leaped at her, and now the new fear too, the fear for Arbella which her exhaustion had put aside for this past hour.
Mark, puzzled by her voice, and uncertain as all young husbands, persisted, “You mean I’ve got you with child—?”
At this, despite her fears, she could not help laughing. “Oh, Mark, you great goose. Who else? Nor should it surprise you, you’re lusty enough, the Lord knows.”
She saw him adjusting himself to this new idea. He bent and kissed her cheek, carefully, as though she were of a sudden turned to crystal. Then his natural exuberance returned and he gave a great roar of mirth. “You had better not let any of those mewling Separatists hear you call on the Lord to witness lustiness! They’d sew a letter “L” to your bodice for lewd, and very like add a “B” for blasphemy—Pah—” he cried scowling, “they’re a narrow canting lot. I’ve no stomach for all this Godly talk and conscience-searching. Nor was it what we were led to expect when we came. Why else did Master White get ’em to sign ‘The Humble Request’ on the Arbella back at Yarmouth except to show we would not separate. Promised we were we’d be let alone in our own beliefs. Now Winthrop’s getting sour as the rest of them.”
“They’re not all so bad, Mark,” Phebe said softly, but he scowled even harder, staring at the earthen floor.
“You’ve no say in running a town unless you’re a freeman, you can’t be a freeman unless you join the Church, you can’t join the Church without the minister permits. I’ll never make Churchman, and I’ve seen no minister I like here yet. Tis cramping in its own way as the Old Country.”
Phebe drew in her breath. “Then what will you do, Mark,” she asked, watching him very close, “if you’ve found no place to your liking for our settlement?”
He raised his head and looked at her. “Aye, but I think I have.”
Her heart slowed, and her mouth grew dry. “Tell me then—no tell me first about your journey, from the beginning.”
For she dreaded to hear of any decision, and well knew how much harder it would be to change his mind after he had voiced one.
He nodded, for he was himself unsure as yet, and glad to clear his mind by talking. “Well, as you know, we set off from here with fair winds—”
He described the two-day voyage in somewhat more nautical detail than she could understand. They had passed a place called Nahant, threaded their way amongst a great many little islands, entered the mouth of the Charles, and landed passengers at the ramshackle collection of tents and wigwams called Charlestown. The place appealed to nobody; it was cramped and barren but it was necessary to stop somewhere while the leaders searched further.
The minister, Mr. Phillips, set off to explore with Saltonstall up the Charles in search of a new site, the Governor went up the Mystic for the same purpose. Mark, however, had no intention of settling inland, and crossing the Charles by canoe, he had been amongst the first to explore the peninsula known as Shawmut with its three rounded hills. They found a settler there, a taciturn well-lettered man called Blackstone. He had lived there quite alone five years, and made himself snug in a two-room cabin filled with books and surrounded by a small garden and three apple trees.
He was a man, said Mark, who liked solitude, and had been watching the activities across the river with considerable dismay. But he was also a gentleman, and his greeting was not uncordial.
The Lady Arbella’s husband, Isaac Johnson, was much taken with the site, and when Governor Winthrop returned from the Mystic River, both men held long conferences with Mr. Blackstone, who unselfishly agreed that they might settle at Shawmut if they wished. He would stay a while and help them, since he knew the secrets of the country, the best springs, the most fertile soil, and was also well-liked by the Indians. “But,” said he gravely—all his speech was slow and grave, but in this instance his eyes twinkled a bit—“I’ll soon be off to the wilderness, for I doubt not I’ll grow as weary of the ‘lord brethren' here as I did of the ‘lord bishops’ in the old England.”
Mark had heard this speech and applauded it.
The town planning began at once, Shawmut was rechristened Boston, land was allotted, Master John Wilson was appointed minister, settlers poured in as the ships from England docked almost daily, and Mark found it not at all to his liking.
It was then that he met Isaac Allerton. There was a makeshift ordinary in a hut on the beach at Charlestown, and Mark had gone in one evening for a tankard of metheglin from a cask just arrived by the Success.
He had been tired and discouraged, but the strong fermented honey liquor put new life in him. Perhaps it also had something to do with his immediate interest in a man who entered the smoky little room, and also called for drink.
He was a man in his middle forties, rather short, and comfortably plump. His round face was clean-shaven, his full cheeks a healthy red, doubtless from the seafaring life, but Mark found it pleasant to see again a man who appeared well fed and sanguine, the type of beef-eating country squire who seemed seldom to emigrate. He had grown so accustomed to the half-starved gauntness of his fellows, that the newcomer’s appearance and smile was an agreeable shock. Then he was well-dressed too in a slashed doublet of green serge lined with leather, glossy calamanco breeches, and a silver filigree buckle on his beaver hat.
They fell into conversation, and Mark was astonished to find that this Mr. Isaac Allerton was a Separatist from Plymouth, of importance to that colony, having been Assistant Governor for many years, negotiator of Colony business in London, and having recently taken as a second wife Fear Brewster, daughter of the Elder.
Mr. Allerton had been trading in Maine in his ship the White Angel. He had been twice to England in her, he had just stopped at Salem, but was returning to Plymouth with a cargo of stockings, tape, pins, and rugs, on which, though he did not say so, he expected to make handsome profit. Nor did he say that he was becoming extremely unpopular at Plymouth, where a growing disquiet at the sharp increase in the colony’s floating debt began to focus attention on the vague activities of their agent, Mr. Allerton. True, he always had satisfactory explanations, and there was about him an ingenuousness that disarmed criticism, but even his father-in-law, Elder Brewster, was becoming aware that Isaac’s successful trading expeditions always seemed to impoverish the colony.
Mark did, however, gather that Mr. Allerton, being somewhat wearied of life in Plymouth, intended to settle elsewhere. And that having investigated many lines of commerce, he had decided on a new one which would certainly make his fortune. Fishing.
“Here—” said Mark, smiling at Phebe, “you may be sure I pricked my ears, and questioned him narrowly.” He paused, and she knew that now would come something of importance, by the off-hand tone in his voice. “You know the point of land across the little harbor here?”
“You mean that they call Derby Head?”
Often she had stood on the Salem wharf and gazed at the low headland across the water. For her as for the earlier Dorset people it aroused a poignant memory, being by some trick of nature shaped exactly like the headland at the mouth of the River Wey.