Chapter Two
Newbury’s jail occupied one side of the town common, directly opposite the meetinghouse and diagonally across from Minister Davis’s parsonage. The jail was no more than a crude building in the form of a small house divided between a living area for Matthew Drake, the jailor, and two rooms in which prisoners were locked up. Drake, a man in his fifties, his face blanketed with gray stubble that grew in patches, here thick and there sporting only a hair or two, stood blinking in the sun. He had slept past meeting, as he often did, and his red eyes and rich breath suggested that he had found more comfort in a pitcher of beer than in Master Davis’ sermon.
The town of Newbury had been enjoying a period of civility and observances of its various ordinances for several months, and as a consequence Drake’s jail had been empty of prisoners. This circumstance caused the scowl that always lurked beneath the false servility of his yellow toothed smile to emerge with growing intensity as each law abiding day passed. It was not, of course, that he sought the company of those who fell afoul of the law, but that he regretted the opportunity to skim a few pence from the money paid by friends or relatives for food or other comforts of the incarcerated. For Newbury jail’s inmates, as was common at that time, could not expect much more than the barest subsistence, if that, from the townspeople who had no stomach to feed sinners. Drake lived rent free in his portion of the jail, and in addition he was paid a salary that allowed him to eat about as well as his prisoners. The good people of Newbury were no more generous towards their jailor than his charges.
So, it is not surprising that on this afternoon, as he stood scratching his empty belly, in which sloshed only the beer he had been drinking, that his face brightened at the sight of the constable leading a well dressed young man toward the jail. Judging by the young man’s appearance, some friend or relative with deep pockets would likely come forward and press a few shiny coins into Drake’s hand with the abjuration that the money be used to supplement the prisoner’s diet. Drake could only lick his lips at such a prospect.
Catherine’s nature was to make allowances for all people, believing that only God knew the workings of a person’s heart. Drake, though, was the specific instance that sorely tested the general tolerance. She had had numerous dealings with the jailor since he assumed his position, now more than ten years ago, and in all of these interactions she had found him to be without scruples in promoting his own self interest. Now, as she walked behind Roger and Jane toward the ramshackle prison, she stared hard at Drake’s bloodshot eyes squinting in the sun, at the coarse stubble on his cheeks, and at the saliva dribbling out from between the rotted stumps of his lower front teeth. She noted, as well, Drake’s nervous habit of rubbing his palms together and then extending first one hand and then the other as though he expected any moment to be offered a gift. And this bottomless greed was the one element in his disreputable character that she had long ago realized she could turn to her advantage whenever the need arose, as it most certainly did at the present moment. She had come prepared for this encounter. She put her hand into the pouch she wore about her waist and moved her fingers about until she felt the smooth metal of the shilling coins. She pulled out two and held them between her thumb and forefinger for just an instant, but long enough for Drake’s red eyes to focus on the sun glinting off the coins. He nodded. Her intention was to gain entrance to the jail, once the prisoners were ensconced inside and there to counsel them about the dangers they faced if they continued to provoke Governor Peters and Master Davis, the heads respectively secular and spiritual of the colony, who had developed in the short history of the colony a formidable reputation for severity and intolerance.
To this end, she hurried to reach the jailor so that her coins could vouchsafe her intentions, but as she stepped forward her path was blocked from the side by an entourage of four fully armed soldiers, pikes at their shoulders, leading the governor, the minister and Magistrate Woolsey to the jail on a path that cut across the common from the parsonage. Catherine could only marvel at the speed with which this pageant had been organized, and more to the point, she, as a woman with money in her purse and social position as a widow of a respected member of the town, must step aside while the magistrate and minister interposed themselves between her and the jailor.
At their arrival, Roger and Jane turned toward them. Governor Peters began to speak, but hesitated. Catherine knew why he waited, and chastised herself for her slowness in preventing what she now saw as the inevitable confrontation. The constable, who had removed his own hat, a shabby affair of coarsely woven flax, nudged Roger and waved the hat in front of Roger’s eyes. Roger nodded, but made no effort to imitate this gesture of subservience to a social superior. A look of disgust darkened the constable’s face. He grabbed the broad brim of Roger’s hat and pulled it off.
“Show proper respect for your betters,” he said.
Roger looked about him as though searching for such a person.
“We are all one in Christ, are we not?” he asked.
Minister Davis stepped forward, his expression warm with condescension as though ready to instruct a child in his sums.
“Verily,” he said, “our Lord’s spirit touches all His chosen equally. But God has so ordained matters in this corrupt world that there are those who rule and those who are ruled. That is God’s order. To deny it is to deny God His judgment.”
“My head might be bared by this man’s arm,” Roger said, indicating the constable, “but even were thou to force my knee to bend, my heart would not, for thou cannot touch it. Only my God can do that.”
Catherine’s ears processed this ill-advised speech from Roger, but out of the corner of her eyes she detected the potential for a more explosive action. Jane, who had been standing a few feet to the side of her brother, was now agitated. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, she clenched the fist of her right hand into the palm of the left, and the muscles of her face contracted into a frown so intense that it seemed that the skin might lift from her bones. Her eyes moved from the governor and magistrate to the hat at their feet in a furious squint and then they snapped wide open, bright and laden with an idea that Catherine, although she did not know what it was specifically, recognized would be like a match to powder. She stepped to the young woman and took her arm. When Jane did not respond, Catherine tightened her grip. Jane turned to her, her mouth open, a defiant phrase at her lips, but she stopped herself when she saw who it was holding her arm. Without a word, she pulled her arm free. Catherine relented, resigned to what was about to happen. She could only watch as Jane stepped forward and with great deliberation lifted her foot, revealing her buckled shoe, and brought it down on the flat crown of her brother’s hat.
“Thou would have my brother doff his hat for thy honor,” she said. A bright smile now flashed, and for a moment Catherine believed the young woman was about to burst into laughter. She stomped on the crown of the hat several times, with increasing energy until the crown lay flat against the brim. “Now see how thy honor is beneath my foot,” she said, not with a laugh as Catherine had anticipated but with a giggle that rose from her throat and out of her half opened mouth with a restrained hilarity more insulting than any outright laugh. She stepped one foot off and away from the hat, and raised her hand in front of her mouth as though to silence herself. She kept her other foot on the hat. Nobody, not the minister, the governor, the constable, nor Catherine, could find voice to respond to her action. In this stunned silence, she waited, and when it persisted, she again raised her foot to stomp down once more. She was like a performer waiting for an audience to clap, or boo, or hiss, and she would not stop until she received some reaction.
However, before she could bring her foot down again, the constable grabbed her by the shoulders while she was balanced on one leg. He spun her around as though she were a child’s top. She did not resist. Instead, she seemed to enjoy the motion and when her momentum no longer carried her, she permitted herself to fall onto a
heap on the offending hat. She lay on the ground for a few moments and then pulled herself up to a sitting position her legs akimbo, one on each side of the hat.
Governor Peters’ face raged purple; Minister Davis’s expression seemed more red with embarrassment, while Magistrate Woolsey contracted his brows in puzzlement.
“On your feet, you impudent hussy!” the governor demanded. When she did not move, he turned to the constable. “Seize her,” he said, “and throw both of them in there. He gestured to the prison door, in front of which Jailor Drake stood, his mouth agape, and his eyes now wide open, clear and focused on the young woman on the ground in front of his jailhouse.
The constable, a burly middle aged man, bent down, seized Jane’s arms, and with one quick motion raised from the ground and onto her feet. She, though, let her body go limp, so that when the constable let go of her and stepped back, she started to fall to the ground. He caught her, held her for a moment, until with a nod she indicated she would stand. He again released her and she stood still for or second or two. Then, she swooped down, picked up the hat and placed it on her brother’s head.
“Inside with the both of them,” sputtered the governor. This time, the constable grabbed each by an arm and propelled them toward the door. They did not resist being thrust into the jail as Drake opened the door. Drake followed, and closed the door behind him. .
Catherine watched, helpless. Any chance she had to intervene on their behalf had been taken from her by Jane’s wild and provocative behavior. The governor was overwrought, and one glance at Minister Davis’s furrowed brows, and she knew she could expect no forgiveness for youthful folly from that stern guardian of the communal morality. Woolsey, she knew, would do what he could when he could, but the brother and sister had crossed way too far over the line. At a word from the governor, the soldiers reorganized themselves around him and the minister. Peters looked toward Woolsey, but the magistrate indicated he was not yet ready to leave. Peters and Minister Davis walked off between the soldiers who again held their pikes on their shoulders
Catherine held Woolsey’s gaze for a moment, and in their exchange of glances she confirmed her sense that he remained on her side, and therefore supportive of Roger and Jane. He would intervene when he might succeed in softening the governor’s anger. She nodded to let him know she understood his position, and then watched as he shuffled off, his shoulders bent beneath the weight not only of his age but his impotence to remedy the immediate situation, for nothing pleased him more than to aid Catherine, not only the daughter of his oldest friend, but his companion on his journey over the ocean from England to Newbury two decades before.
After a few moments, the door to the jail opened and Drake stood there. He rubbed his palms together, but then shook his head.
“Aye, mistress, truly would I accommodate your generosity, but now is not the time. The young man and woman are on their knees in prayers and will speak to nobody.”
“Do you have them locked up together, then?” Catherine asked. She did not know why that question jumped to her lips, but when it did, she gave it expression.
If the question surprised Drake, he did not so indicate. Instead, he shrugged.
“That I did, and they are together talking to God in their own peculiar way with no help from clergy or a poor jailer such as myself.”
“I will return,” Catherine said, “at a more convenient time.” She turned toward home. After a few steps, she was joined by her servant woman, Phyllis, who had been watching from a respectful distance. Phyllis had been with Catherine for more than fifteen years now. As a girl of thirteen, she had come to Newbury as the indentured servant of a man who took more pleasure in beating her than in providing her employment, and when that man ran into financial difficulties, Catherine had bought the remaining time of the indenture. Over the years, the relationship between the two had evolved from mistress and servant to something a little closer to mother and daughter. In quiet moments, Catherine conceded that Phyllis now occupied a place in her heart left vacant by the death of Abigail, her youngest daughter.
“Are we to leave them here, then?” Phyllis demanded.
“Hush,” Catherine replied. “Just walk with me.”
“But...” Phyllis insisted, her faced flushed. She looked back over her shoulder every step or two toward the jail.
Instead of offering a response, Catherine accelerated her pace, and Phyllis struggled to keep up. About a hundred yards from the town center the road narrowed as it reached the summit of the slope and then turned abruptly to the west before resuming its northward direction down the far side of the hill. As Catherine and Phyllis rounded the curve and thus were out of sight of anybody still in front of the jail, Catherine stopped, her faced aglow with perspiration, and her chest heaving from her effort. Phyllis, though, had so energized herself to the faster pace that her inertia carried her a few steps beyond Catherine. She planted her right foot as a brake and spun half around, breathing hard, confusion written large on her face. To their left was a fallen log beneath a towering, old pine while to their right was a field of coneflowers. Catherine motioned toward a log at the side of the path.
“We can rest ourselves here,” she said.
A question began to form on Phyllis’s lips, but she was so overheated from her walk in the hot sun, and attracted to the cool shadows blanketing the log that such a question seemed less relevant than her desire to seek shade. She followed Catherine to the log and sat down next to her. After a few moments, Catherine glanced at Phyllis and saw the question beginning to reform itself on her face.
“We are to return to the jail,” she said, before Phyllis could give the question voice. “You surely did not think I would leave Roger and Jane to the tender mercies of Jailor Drake, did you?”
“Not for a moment,” blustered Phyllis although that was exactly the form her question was about to take.
Catherine gazed out over the field. The coneflowers were in full bloom, sitting on stalks three to four feet high in the open where the sun poured down on them. The daisy like petals around a deep purple disc remained motionless in the still air.
“They are pretty flowers,” Phyllis said.
Catherine walked across the path, knelt down and snapped off one of the blossoms.
“They will be feeling the lash soon enough,” she said. “That puts me in mind of these flowers. And I wondered if we should not haste us home.”
Even though Phyllis had long ago grown accustomed to her mistress’ sudden jumps of thought and utterance, she had not been able to train herself sufficiently well to prevent her own confusion from blooming on her wide and honest face.
“But home...” she began.
“Indeed,” Catherine replied, “My mind reached home before us, and searched my cupboard only to find it bare of what we need, that is why I thought to stop in front of this field.”
“A poultice,” Phyllis said as her color return to normal, “for the skin of those two that will open beneath the lash.”
* * * *
Massaquoit, as was his custom when the English were behaving in ways that he found amusing or curious, even after his fifteen years residence among them, had followed the crowd out of the meetinghouse as Roger and Jane were being led away. He noted that they were being taken directly to the jail, and so he trotted in an arc that took him first away from the knot of people trailing the constable and his prisoners, and then to a convenient pair of maples twenty yards to the side of the jail. The two trees, like competitive siblings, grew with roots tangled in common soil and branches jostling each other all the way up their trunks. At their base, however, they stood six or eight feet separate, and Massaquoit knelt between them there enjoying the cool of their shade as he watched Jane stomp on her brother’s hat. A tug on his shoulder told him that Wequashcook, too, was enjoying the spectacle. The older man’s bald pate glistened with perspiration, which he swept with the palm of his hand toward the fringe of white hair. A jagged scar bisected the ba
ld spot.
“Do you think that is a new dance?” Wequashcook asked. “And if it is what think you is the significance of stomping down on a hat?”
Massaquoit ran his fingers over the scar.
“I do not know what the English intend with such violence toward a simple hat. When I had anger, as well you know, I sought your flesh.”
“Yes, and I wear a beaver hat to hide my shame.” He looked at the hat in his hands, and then shook his head as though to dismiss both the thought and the remnants of the shame that clung to him ever since he led the English troops to the village where in the ensuing massacre Massaquoit’s wife and son were killed. “I understand that you cannot forget.”
“No, I cannot,” Massaquoit replied, “but we have our terms, as you well know.”
“Those young English are rich,” Wequashcook said. “There might be profit in helping them.”
“That is your way,” Massaquoit replied.
“As it should be yours.”
The jailhouse door creaked open. Its hinges were loose and the heavy oaken door scraped the ground as it was pushed outwards. A burly figure emerged. The man paused at the doorway and looked back inside. He gestured with his hand, and then waved a farewell. He turned to face the common and his eyes scanned the trees on its perimeter, pausing when he saw the two Indians. He strode to them and when he was a few feet away he stopped with his hard, alert eyes on Massaquoit.
“I think we have had business before in front of that very place,” he said, pointing his arm back toward the jail.
“I think I was drunk,” Massaquoit replied.
“Or so you would have me think so you could gain entrance and free that girl.”
“It was even so,” Massaquoit said, his voice calm.
The Sea Hath Spoken Page 3