by Anya Seton
She brought her thoughts back for Mark had gone on. “He told me he had land and a fishing stage at the other side of Darby Fort. He calls the place Marblehead, and says it is the best harbor for fishing on the coast. He will remove there himself soon, and he says I may share in the venture with him.”
“Is it there you mean to settle, then?” asked Phebe slowly. “But are there others there, Mark?”
“Oh, a fisherman or two, I believe—They do say a Guernsey wight named Dolliber wintered there last year in a hogshead.” He chuckled as he saw her expression. “But when Mr. Allerton comes it’ll make all the difference. I go there with him tomorrow to look at the place.”
“Is it far from here—?” she asked presently, because Mark seemed waiting for her to speak.
“Not by water, an hour’s sail with a fair breeze. Come, poppet—don’t look so dismal. I vow it’ll be the very place for us. I’ll decide when I’ve seen it.”
He got up, stretching his long legs and yawning. His black curls grazed the thatching, and under the worn red leather doublet she saw the strength of his shoulders, the bulge of his arms. Yes, he was a proper man, and it was right that he should rule. But there was another love for which she felt allegiance, small indeed, beside her love for Mark, but still an insistent claim, and she would have no peace until she spoke of it.
She watched him shamble about the wigwam, then pick up his fowling piece. He settled on the stool, scooped up a handful of tinder, and whistling through his teeth fell to cleaning his gun.
Her heart beat fast as she rinsed the pewter beer mugs in a cask of rain water outside the wigwam, burnished them to silver with a fair linen cloth as her mother had taught her, and placed them on top of her bride chest. She tended the fire and the hearth, sweeping the ashes neatly behind the great andirons with a twig besom she had made.
“Mark—”
He nodded, intent on the hammer of his fowling piece.
“While you were gone, I’ve come close to the Lady Arbella....”
He clicked the hammer again, and his lips tightened. “So I suppose since you swooned on her doorstep; it angers me to see you headstrong. You knew my wishes.”
Phebe sighed and attacked obliquely. “But didn’t you like Mr. Johnson? You saw much of him at the Bay.”
Mark shrugged. “He’s well enough for one of the canting East County folk. He talks overmuch about the state of Grace.”
“If we should settle in Boston near them, I’m sure he’d find you preferment, you might be freeman at once—nay wait, dear—” for he had shaken off her hand and his lower lip jutted out, “I ask only that you open your mind to the thought. True, they can help us advance but you can also help them, they’ve need of a great strong man like you in the new plantation.”
He made a derisive sound, “What cozzening is this, Phebe! You think I don’t smell some womanish plot. You and your meddlesome peeress!”
Anger struck through her, and she took a step back. But she looked at his stubborn side-turned face, at the fall of his hair which covered the sickening mutilation of his ear, and her anger died.
She came close again and spoke very soft. “Our babes will be born near the same time, Mark. Their interest would mean much. It’s not us I think of, but of our child.”
His hand fell from the fowling piece, and he turned his head. “God blast it. I’d forgot the child.” He reached out and pinched her cheek in unwilling contrition. “Poor lass—small wonder you seem so dithering.”
He rose and walked to the doorway of the wigwam. The coming of a child was a problem he had not anticipated in his enthusiasm for Allerton’s proposal. Nor had he till now thought of the danger for Phebe. It crossed his mind that he should have left her home. Safe she would have been, comfortable—and no encumbrance, until he had made permanent settlement. But he thought too of her softness and warmth. The full, curving mouth that always spoke gently, and yet parted in sharp desire to his kiss.
“It may be the Marble Harbor’ll not suit me at all,” he said. “Let’s forget the matter for now.”
He set sail with Isaac Allerton the next morning in the White Angel for Marblehead, and while he was gone one problem was settled.
For the Lady Arbella died that evening in her husband’s arms. There were many crowded into the small room, and Phebe huddled into the far corner by the door. Mr. Johnson himself had sent for her earlier, saying that the Lady called for her. Arbella had had one excruciating sharp pain, and then all pain had stopped. The fever red had left her thin cheeks, and they became yellow-white as the sheet on which she lay. Master Gager, the physician, himself very ill, had been carried to her bedside and carried away again. He had recognized the symptom which he hourly expected in himself. The intestine had been perforated and there was no hope.
Almost at once the delirium left Arbella, and she knew what was going to happen. Before she sank into a stupor she greeted Phebe with the old sweet smile. “So we cannot plan for our babes together since God has other plans for me and mine. Nay, don’t weep, Phebe, I am content to obey His will, there is no other happiness, child.”
This, Phebe filled with grief and rebellion could not believe. She tried to pray when the others did. Isaac Johnson, though himself distracted with sorrow, could pray, and Master Skelton the minister and Master Endicott, and the hushed neighbors who stood by the entry and on the steps. But Phebe could not. She envied them their certainty o£ being able to pierce the iron wall of death, but Phebe helping to shroud the body of her dearly loved friend could find no comfort.
The Lady Arbella was laid near Master Higginson on the burying point that jutted close to the South River. And atop the grave they placed a heavy flat field stone—for fear of wolves. Phebe standing apart from the others, watched the hasty ceremony with a misery so bitter that it was near to disgust. Everywhere on the point there were new mounds; even now before the final words had sealed the lady’s last rest, two servants waited with shovels for the digging of another grave. Doctor Gager had died, and Mrs. Phillips. Arbella’s maid, Molly, had outlived her mistress but an hour. Goodman Bennett, Good wives James and Turner, and Mr. Shepley, and some indentured servants, all had died this week.
And to what purpose—thought Phebe. What had they accomplished here? Where were Arbella’s beauty and courage now, and where her babe that might have been born to gentleness and happy childhood in the castle of its ancestors? Buried in the wilderness beneath a stone for fear of wolves.
She turned and started up the path across the fields. I’m going home, she thought. I’ll make Mark see reason, and if he won’t—I’ll go alone, until he’s ready to come back to me. Nothing can make me bring forth my poor child in this enemy land. She stopped and leaned against a tree, seeing against the coarse dry stubble at her feet a shimmering vision. She saw her mother and father holding out their arms to her from the doorway, and smiling welcome. She saw the great hall behind them garlanded with roses and ivy as it had been last Saint John’s Day, and heard the blithe singing of her sisters at their spinning.
She felt the smoothness of the lavender-scented sheets on her own carved oaken bed, and she saw herself and the babe lying there together, safe and tended by her mother’s knowing hands, while the mellow sunshine—not fierce and scorching like here, flickered through the mulberry leaves and the diamond-paned windows. She had not cried before, but now a sob burst through her throat, and she stumbled blindly on the path, until a hand touched her shoulder.
She raised her bowed head to see Mr. Johnson beside her. His cheeks, no longer pink, had fallen into sharp grooves. His thin blond hair was uncombed, and from his black habit he had cut away every button and shred of lace.
“Mistress Honeywood—” he said, speaking through stiff lips—“will you come back with me, I’ve something to give you.”
She nodded a little, and they walked silently together along the Highway past the green to Arbella’s house. Phebe cast one look at the plank bedstead on which the Lady had die
d, and turned away, standing by the door.
Isaac Johnson opened a drawer of the little oak table. “She loved you much,” he said, his voice so hoarse that Phebe had to lean forward to hear.
“And I her, sir—”
He fumbled among several letters which he brought from the drawer. “I go straight back to Boston. There’s so much to do—I doubt that I’ve much time before I join her. The sickness gripes at my bowels. It is the Lord’s will. Here are letters she left—one that treats of you. You shall have it.”
He held out to her a folded sheet of paper. Phebe took it, and opened it, stared at the lines of clear, delicate writing.
“I cannot read it—sir,” she said, very low.
“Aye—to be sure.” He snatched it back from her, and she saw that he was impatient to be alone with his sorrow.
“'Twas meant for her sister, Lady Susan Humphrey, but never finished.” He steadied his voice and began to read.
‘“No word yet from home, so I write thee again, dear sister, perchance to send this by the Master of the Lion. I try to keep my thoughts from harking back, but ofttimes I cannot, this to my shame for there be many here who are braver.
“ ‘There is great sickness, and I do pray for the babe I carry. I am much alone and endeavor to strengthen my spirit in the Lord God who led us here. He gives me solace, and in especial hath vouchsafed to me a friend. This, one Phebe Honeywood, wedded to one of the adventurers, and naught but a simple yeoman’s daughter, but a most brave and gentle lass. She is not as illumined by Grace as I could wish....’”
Isaac paused, started to say something, but sighed instead, and went on. “‘Yet she is of fine and delicate spirit, and God is closer to her than she knows. She hath, I confess, been inspiration to me—having a most sturdy courage to surmount any disaster and follow her man anywhere, and found a lasting home.
“ ‘O, my dear sister, it is such as she who will endure in my stead, to fulfill our dream of the new free land, such as she whose babes will be brought forth here to found a new nation—while I ... too feeble and faint-hearted....”’
Isaac’s voice cracked. “That’s all.” He held the letter out again. “Keep it in remembrance of her.”
Phebe could not raise her eyes, red had flooded up her cheeks beneath the slow tears, “Our dear lady misjudged me—” she whispered. “I have no courage—indeed she did not know—”
Isaac was stirred from his own grief by her face. “God will strengthen you, mistress,” he said. “Trust in Him.”
He rose, putting out his hand. She took it and curtsying, turned and left him alone. She went back to the wigwam, and throwing herself down on the pallet lay staring up at the ragged rush thatching.
Arbella’s letter rested beneath her bodice on her heart, and seemed to whisper its words. “It is such as she who will endure—to fulfill our dream....”
She thought of the promise Arbella had asked of her in the first days of her sickness. “Promise me you’ll not give up, no matter what may happen.” She had not promised.
It’s not fair—cried Phebe to the gentle yearning voice, and lying there alone on the pallet, she vanquished the voice with a dozen hot refutations. This founding a new land, this search for a purer religion, was not her dream. To her, God had made no special revelation. And as for Mark—would it not be wiser to free him for a while from her hampering presence—hers and the babe’s, until he either tired of the venture or had made a really suitable place for them. It was no disgrace to go home, every home-bound ship was crammed with those who had seen the pointless folly of the venture. The Lady Arbella, herself too weak for survival, had no right to appoint Phebe her surrogate.
The August afternoon flattened under a blistering sun. Beneath the wigwam’s thatching the heat gathered stifling, and fetid with the smell of the swamps. Once, slow footsteps plodded down the path outside toward the Burial Point. Phebe heard the sound of sobbing and one low cry of anguish that faded into nothing. Then again there was no sound but the rasp of locusts, and the rustle of the close-pressing forest.
I shall find the Master of the Lion—she thought, starting up at last. The Lion would sail as soon as there were fair winds.
Phebe washed her face and hands and smoothed her hair. She took the letter from her bodice and flung it in her bride chest, slamming the lid. She threw open the batten door, and on the earthen threshold stopped dead.
“Oh dear God—” she whispered. “I cannot,” and she sank to her knees between the oak door frames. She kneeled there, facing the eastern horizon, while behind Salem the sun sank slowly into the untracked forests of the New World.
God did not seem to speak to her. She felt no exaltation or comfort. But there was certainty.
When Mark returned from his expedition to Marblehead he found Phebe changed, very silent and with a grim set to her mouth. She listened acquiescently but without comments to his enthusiasm for his new plan, and his satisfaction that through Mr. Allerton’s influence he had obtained a grant of five acres in Marblehead from the Salem authorities, who had little interest in that remote section of their plantation.
She remarked only that it did seem wise to move from Salem Town, and the sooner they could move the better, but otherwise she submitted to the remaining weeks in Salem and to Mark’s frequent preparatory absences in Marblehead with an unquestioning fortitude. Since the day when she had received Arbella’s letter, and finally put all thoughts of going home behind her, she had passed beyond personal fear. Yet the stench of fear hung over the whole colony. Daily disasters battered all the settlements, and no day passed without a death.
In Charlestown it was no better. Governor Winthrop sent word that they were starving, rotted with disease and lacking medicine. He proclaimed a Fast Day throughout the colony with a view to softening the Divine Chastisement. But Providence still scourged them.
Four weeks after Arbella’s death a home-bound ship touched at Salem and brought news from Boston, that Isaac Johnson too had died and had been buried in the lot by his unfinished house.
When Phebe heard this news she went to her bride’s chest, and drawing out Arbella’s letter gazed at it long and earnestly. What else besides this piece of paper was there left now of the Lady Arbella? Phebe raised the letter to her cheek, then wrapped it in her wedding handkerchief and put it back at the bottom of the bride chest. Nor did she ever mention the letter to Mark.
The Honeywoods were fortunate in escaping illness, but as September went by, they did not also escape malice and envy from their fellow townsmen. Their last days in Salem there were murmurs against them and slanting dark looks. They had not tried to join the congregation, they were virtually, by their own admission, no better than Papists. And why, in this case, should the Lord allow them immunity from the general sickness ? Unless indeed it was not the Lord, but some Satanic power in league with them.
Phebe, openly goaded one day at the town spring, by an old crone called Goody Ellis, answered that perhaps the milk from her cow and the abundance of fish caught by Mark filled their bellies and made them better able to withstand sickness. Goody Ellis brushed this aside as nonsense, and made vicious allusions to witchcraft. Phebe was glad enough to be leaving.
There were no women at Marblehead yet, Mark told her, except the squaws in the Indian Village over Derby Fort side. And he worried about this for the time when her pains should come upon her. “But I’ll get you a midwife from Salem, if I must give her all my silver,” he promised and she agreed indifferently.
On the eighth of October the Honeywoods left the wigwam and descending the path to the landing place, set out at last for their new home.
Mark had hired a shallop and boatman from the fishing settlement on Salem Neck, and this also conveyed all their goods, except Betsey. The cow must wait in Salem until Mark could lead her around by land. Six miles of rough Indian trail through the forests.
It was a fair sparkling day of a kind new to them, for autumn in England held no such vibrance. Th
ere was freshness of blue and gold on the water, freshness of red and gold on the trees. This buoyancy in the air seemed to bathe one in a tingling expectation, it smelled of salt and sunshine and hope, and Phebe knew a faint return of youthful zest for the first time since Arbella had died.
Scudding before the wind they swished by Derby Fort Point, and Phebe was pleased to see that from this offshore angle it no longer resembled the headland at home. At Marblehead all would be new, and there would be no memories.
They rounded another heavily wooded point where Mark said there lived a fisherman called John Peach. They veered southwest between two small islands and lost the wind. The boatman and Mark took to their oars, and presently, the tide being high, their prow grated far up on the shingle of a little harbor.
Phebe jumped out, careless that she wet her feet or the hem of her blue serge skirt. While the men unloaded the boat she stood on the beach, staring. The sunlight fell warm on her back, matching a warmth in her heart. For in that first moment she felt a liking for the place. It was snug here in this little harbor with its two guardian points and tiny sheltering islands, and just beyond them there was grandeur; the whole blue sweep of the Atlantic stretching to the white horizon. Her senses seemed sharpened to a new delight. The sucking of the wavelets on the shingle, the water-borne cry of a seagull gave her pleasure, and in her nostrils there was the smell of pine trees and salt, mingled with faint pungency of drying fish. She looked for its source and saw on the northern curve of the little cove two spindly wooden frames, and a shabby hulking figure crouching over them.
“The fish flakes,” said Mark, seeing her puzzled gaze. He laughed. “That’ll be Thomas Gray turning the splits. He’s a bit of a knave and generally in liquor, but I’ve cause to be grateful to him.”
Phebe nodded. Mark had told her of the help given by Thomas Gray and John Peach in the building of a shelter. Phebe had resigned herself to making do with another wigwam, but seeing Mark’s air of mystery and excitement now her hopes rose.