“Could be the Puritans saw through your masquerade, Winslow,” Lord Roth remarked carelessly. He picked a piece of lint off his tunic and gave a thin smile. “Such things frequently happen to informers, I’m told.”
Gilbert nodded slowly, locking eyes with Lord Roth, and finally he said, “Anything is possible, my Lord.”
“Once again, Winslow, I must pay tribute to your blade,” Roth said smoothly. “We must have another match soon.”
“At your leisure, Lord Roth.”
“Gilbert, you’d best get back to Leyden,” North interrupted. If he caught the tension between Roth and his young friend, nothing of it showed in his smooth face. “The King’s eye will be on you—and a success in this matter will open many doors for you.”
“Yes, my Lord, I’ll return at once.”
Lord North said a hearty “Godspeed,” and clapped Gilbert across the shoulders with a rare show of affection. Roth did not even glance at him as the two left the room.
“I’ll go with ye to the ship, my boy,” Tiddle said at once. “Get your things and I’ll engage a carriage.”
They left shortly, Tiddle going over detailed aspects of business that Gilbert would need to attend to in Holland.
“Your mind isn’t on business, is it, Gilbert?” Tiddle asked suddenly. “I see you’re still not easy in your mind—on this business of turning Brewster in.”
“It’s different from the duel in Dead Man’s Lane,” Gilbert said vehemently. “I’ll lose no sleep over that one! But if William Brewster is like the others I’ve met, he’s no criminal!”
“He is in the eyes of the King.”
“Then the King is wrong!”
“Hush, man!” Tiddle said with a glance upward toward the driver. “D’ye not know men have gone to the Tower for saying less!”
Gilbert shrugged, then forced a smile. “I know you’re a lawyer, Lucas, and accustomed to putting moral questions in neat little boxes. Well, I can’t do that! To me Brewster is a human being—from what I hear, a fine one! I can’t hand him over to torture and death because he printed a sermon that offended the King!”
Sadly Tiddle shook his head. “I fear it’s like that. The world’s a bad place for romantics and idealists, Gilbert. As I once told you, you must pack your sense of honor away, retaining only the name and join the rest of us who are busily selling our souls to the devil.”
“This world or the next, eh, Lucas!” Gilbert sighed. Then he turned to face the lawyer. “Let me ask you, are you a Christian?”
“I am a member of the Established Church, Gilbert,” Tiddle said evenly. “I pay my tithes, take communion when I am obliged to by the bishop, and do not give aid to dissenters. That is my religion. Having done those things, it is up to the Church of England to keep me out of hell!”
The coach rattled along, and Gilbert watched a high-flying falcon stoop to take a field sparrow in an explosion of feathers. Finally he said heavily, “The world would be a much simpler place—if it weren’t for God and all that.”
“No doubt—but it’s the only world we have, lad!” Tiddle echoed sadly.
CHAPTER TEN
HUMILITY FINDS A MAN
Humility made her way along the canal, and if the water below was calm and glassy, her thoughts were not. Since the moment she had confessed her love for Gilbert Winslow, fierce restlessness had distracted her during the days and kept her tossing for hours after she went to bed.
“Daydreaming, are you, lass?”
She glanced up to see the burly form of Sam Fuller, and greeted him with a wan smile. “I suppose so.”
His sharp black eyes took in her pale face and the fatigue that marred the wide-set green eyes. He picked up a pebble, tossed it in the water, and smiled at her, “I do a bit of daydreaming myself. Brain gets all messed about with cobwebs, eh?” He gestured at the widening gyre of the wave below, and said, “Now you take that bit of a circle there—perfect! Nothing out of line in it.” He smiled sadly, saying, “But us human beings, why, we ain’t so simple as that, I reckon.”
“I—suppose not, Sam,” Humility said slowly. She stared at the circle below, then tossed in another stone. It made a plop and a second circle radiated outward, crossing the line of the first. “Look—Sam!” she exclaimed. “If you throw one pebble in the water, you only have one circle—but if you throw two, the circles interrupt each other.”
“I take it you’re making some sort of comment on life,” Fuller stated. “You seem to be saying, ‘Just let me alone, and things will be smooth; don’t let my life get all complicated with other people.’ But you can’t live like that, Humility.”
“I thought I could, Sam,” she murmured uncertainly. Biting her lower lip, she said, “I had my life all planned out. Since I was a little girl, Sam, I’ve thought never to marry, just serve God.”
“But along comes young Gilbert Winslow, eh, lass?”
“Why—”
“Tut, Humility, no shame in it!” Fuller answered warmly, seeing the guilt in Humility’s face. “The Apostle said that not everyone is fitted for a single life. And if I ever saw a young woman made for love, I’m looking at her now!”
“Oh, Sam—I’m so unhappy!”
Fuller had held her in his arms when she was barely able to walk, and now he put a fatherly arm around her and she grabbed at him blindly. He held her close for a long time, and when her tremors finally ceased he reached down and picked up a handful of pebbles. He threw one in, then another. “See how the two circles cross? I guess if those circles could talk, they’d complain about how they’d been confused. And look here—” He tossed a small handful of loose gravel into the water, and the concentric circles began to intersect and fragment. “Now that is confusing, eh, lass? But that’s the way life is. We have our own little circles, all nice and neat. But there are other lives, too, and if we live with people we’ll sooner or later have our little circles all interrupted—over and over by all kinds of relations—friends, lovers, husbands, wives, enemies—but there’s this one thing, Humility. We serve a God who knows every little circle, and when our little lives get rocked and the pattern goes by the board, why, He’s not at all confused!”
Humility watched the water until it cleared, then looked up and smiled at Fuller. “Thank you, Sam.”
They turned and began to walk along the canal. “How does your young man feel about this, Humility?” Sam asked.
“Oh, I think he cares for me—but we’ve not talked about such things as marriage.”
“Well, he seems like a fine young fellow,” Fuller nodded, then added stridently, “I’ll break the pup’s neck if he tampers with your affection, I will!”
She laughed and squeezed his thick arm, saying, “I’ll threaten him with that, Sam! Maybe a little push wouldn’t be unscriptural!”
They said little as they wound their way through the crooked streets, but when they came to the intersection where Fuller left her, he patted her arm and said, “D’ye know the verse that says, ‘He that findeth a wife, findeth a good thing, and obtains favor from the Lord’?”
“Yes.”
“Well, lass, that could as well read, ‘She that findeth a man—a husband, that is—findeth a good thing!’ You take my meaning?”
“How could I help it?” Humility smiled at the burly man. “You’re about as subtle as a broadaxe, Samuel Fuller!”
He gave her a wide smile, then said with a sudden sadness that darkened his cheerful face, “Marry a man that will make you smile, lass!”
Then he left her with a lurching walk down the cobblestones.
Slowly she turned, and as she walked home she knew that until she had made up her mind about Gilbert Winslow, nothing in the world about her would have any significance.
* * *
When Gilbert returned two days later, Humility found his presence did nothing to settle the restless spirit she could not shake.
He caught her off guard, coming up behind her as she was hanging clothes to dry on the line.
She was totally unaware of his presence when suddenly two strong arms reached around her waist and she was plucked up and whirled around like a child.
When he set her down, breathless and flaming with indignation, he laughed at her, embraced her and gave her a resounding kiss, daring her to be angry.
“You—you mustn’t do that!” she protested, her smile threatening to break through the sternness she tried to assume.
“I promise not to,” he said with his lopsided grin that made her feel strangely happy. “Not until the next time!”
She broke into laughter, put her hand on his cheek in a rare gesture of affection, and said, “You are a fool, Gilbert Winslow! The elders will have you up for discipline for this sort of thing!”
“If they try to clap every fellow in love with a beautiful girl in the stocks, they’ll have to cut down the forest for new stocks!”
She looked up at him, her face almost translucent, and with a husky quality in her voice, she whispered, “Are you, Gilbert? In love with me?”
A dusky flush swept across Gilbert’s high cheekbones; there was a slight hesitation, then he smiled warmly, put his hand on her cheek and said, “Can you doubt it? A man would have to be dead not to love a woman like you!”
She took a sudden deep breath, then nodded. It was hard for this girl who had kept her emotions under strict control to let them slip, to let the warmth and pure love she felt so deeply rise to her lips. Twice she tried to speak and failed; then she swallowed and said in a whisper, “Do you know what I’m thinking?”
“What, Sweet?”
“Of the scripture—The Song of Solomon.” She looked full in his face and quoted the ancient script with a passion that leaped out at him like a living thing:
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.
My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand.
His mouth is most sweet, yea, he is altogether lovely.
He brought me to the banquet house, and his banner over me was love.
My beloved is mine, and I am his.
Winslow stood there like a man in a trance. There was something so sensual in the words—yet something so pure in Humility’s uplifted face and in her whole attitude that he could not speak.
“That’s—that’s very beautiful, Humility,” he said finally. He dropped his hands, and she saw that the playful spirit had left his face.
“Gilbert—I embarrassed you!”
“No! It’s just that—well, I’ll have to get accustomed to a woman who makes love out of the Bible!”
“God made love,” she said simply. “Male and female, created He them.”
“And does He have one particular woman in mind for every man?”
“Of course!” she exclaimed, surprised that he asked. “Have you not ever read in the Scripture how God chose Rebekah as a wife for Isaac?”
“I see.” Gilbert gazed into Humility’s green eyes, flecked now with fragments of gold around the iris, and mused, “What if a man takes a notion for the wrong woman—one that God didn’t intend for him?”
“Then—then it’s terrible and very sad!” She glanced at him, and could not but think of how much he looked like his brother—who had, she felt, married the wrong woman.
“Gilbert, did you ever hear the old Persian myth about how marriage began?”
“I’m not really up on my Persian myths, to be truthful.”
“Well, according to the story, God made a creature in the very beginning. But the creature did a very wicked thing, so God cut His creation right in two pieces and scattered the fragments out into the wide world.”
“Pretty lonesome, I’d say,” Gilbert mused. He was fascinated with the piquant animation that stirred her face as she spoke.
“Oh, yes! There were lots of the creatures in the world, all torn in two. One part of the creature—according to the story—was man, and the other part was woman, so you see what happened!”
“Well, not quite.”
“Why, one of the man pieces had to search all over the world to find the piece that fit him—the woman who had been his other half. And none of the others would do—it had to be the very one!”
Gilbert stared at her, then said soberly, “That’s pretty hard doctrine! One man—one woman. No substitutes.”
“You don’t think love is that way?”
He hesitated, then smiled, saying, “I hope so, Humility. It’s a nice thought.”
For the next few days they spent most of their waking moments together. Except for short visits on business to neighboring towns, Gilbert could be found either at Pastor Robinson’s studying the Scripture or walking the countryside with Humility.
The closeness of community made for talk, some feeling that the affair was progressing much too rapidly. The silver-haired elder, John Carver, however, expressed what most felt about the couple when he said, “If we’re going to make a new world, we’ll need new blood—and Winslow blood is better than most.”
Humility was happy, but from time to time grew restive—almost worried. Gilbert had spoken of love—and for her that meant marriage. But on that subject, Gilbert had said nothing.
Once when he had fallen into one of his moods—not angry but withdrawn—she said half joking, “You’re so quiet, Gilbert! I believe you must be thinking about some girl you have in England.”
“No!” Gilbert stated, then his face reddened and he forced a smile. “No, I’m just concerned about the future. Humility, are you going to the New World?”
“Why, of course!”
She waited, expecting him to state his declaration, but he said nothing. Finally she asked in a small voice, “Are—are you going?”
He hesitated, then stated, “It’s such a big decision, Humility!”
“I’ll be there,” she said, then waited for his response. When it came she was disappointed.
“I haven’t much time, have I?” was all he said.
On the next Sunday morning, Elder William Bradford’s face was slightly pale as he preached the sermon. He was distinctly more subdued than usual, and after the last amen was spoken, he held his hand up and said, “I have something to say to you.” The congregation, sensing the tension in his face, grew absolutely still. “The time is now here for us to leave this place. We will leave on the 22nd of July in the Speedwell.”
There was a tumult in the room, and for the next hour Bradford and the other elders answered questions on the venture.
There was nothing but the voyage on the lips of everyone the next day, but for Humility there was something else.
Getting word that a certain ship had docked during the night, she quietly slipped away and picked up a letter from a sailor, taking it directly to Pastor Robinson.
He broke the seal, scanned it quickly, then said, “Humility, can you find Mr. Bradford and ask him to come here? Then come back with him?”
She left, and was fortunate in finding Elder Bradford at home. When she told him her errand, he asked at once, “A letter from Brewster?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll come with you.”
Bradford and Pastor Robinson secluded themselves at once, and Humility waited until after nearly an hour, the pastor called her.
She went into the study, and Robinson said without preamble, “We have a problem, Humility, and it may be that you can help us.”
“I’ll do anything. Is it about Mr. Brewster?”
“Yes, we must see to it that he makes his way to the dock at Southampton and gets aboard one of our vessels before we sail.”
Bradford said heavily, his brow creased, “That would be difficult under any conditions—but we have word that the search for Elder Brewster has been stepped up. It will be very difficult to get through the lines to the coast.”
“We think you might be the one to make the attempt, Humility.”
“Me!” She was amazed and began to make excuse, but the pastor interrupted her.
“Not alone
. That would be too dangerous. You don’t know England well enough for such a mission. But if you had someone to help you, someone who does know England, and who has legitimate business—that would be different, would it not, Humility?”
“Why, yes, but whom would you mean?”
“Gilbert Winslow,” Pastor Robinson said.
“Gilbert!”
“I’ve already sent for him,” Robinson said. “Most of us are known to the searchers in England, but Gilbert is a businessman—in the service of Lord North—perhaps the most powerful man in England next to the King himself. No one would question him!”
“Just one word.” Bradford faced Humility with a stern look on his gaunt face and stated, “I am against this move, but Pastor Robinson has convinced me that it is our best—nay, perhaps our only hope of getting our brother on the ship and to the New World.”
There was a knock at the door, and he said, “That will be Gilbert now, I should think.”
He opened the door and Gilbert entered with a wary look on his face.
“I must be direct, Mr. Winslow,” William Bradford stated flatly, not taking his eyes from those of Winslow. “You are an alert young man; you must know pretty well what is happening in our community.”
“The move to the New World? Certainly, sir, I am aware—”
“I ask if you are familiar with the name of William Brewster?”
Gilbert could not conceal the shock that ran along his nerves. Hesitating for an instant, he said with a slow nod, “I will not deceive you, Elder Bradford. I have been aware for some time—even before I came to Holland—of Mr. Brewster. It’s common talk in England, I believe.”
“Mr. Winslow, we have observed your conduct well, and Pastor Robinson indicates that you have a respect for the Word of God which does you credit. We feel that you have some intention—honorable, of course—for this young lady.”
“Thank you, sir,” Gilbert nodded. “If I may boast, I would say that any task you might care to set, I will undertake.”
The Honorable Imposter (House of Winslow Book #1) Page 10