The Sea Hath Spoken

by Stephen Lewis

  “Thank you, for the soup, and the information.” He stood up and ran his hand over the sore spot on his head.

  “Unfortunate,” Wequashcook said, but only in the way of business. Only business,” Wequashcook repeated, as Massaquoit made his way to the stairs.

  He walked up the stairs and took a deep breath of the fresh air that greeted him as he emerged onto the deck. He blinked against the sunlight that struck his eyes. Henry was leaning against the railing where the rope was suspended. Massaquoit looked past the dock to where it met the harbor road. He saw the unmistakable glint of sun against steel.

  “I think I have had more than my belly full of your friend,” Henry said, “and of this ship for that matter. And there’s this woman I knows at this tavern.” He took hold of the rope and began to swing himself over the railing. Massaquoit considered warning him, but for once decided to operate on Wequashcook’s well established principle of not interfering where he had no genuine interest. Let the English have one of their own, he thought, and he chuckled to himself at Wequashcook’s duplicity.

  “Well, I am sure she is better company than an old Indian, living among the rats in the hold of a ship.”

  “He has the special accommodation, he does,” Henry replied, “for all the good it can do him.” He swung himself over the railing. Massaquoit heard his feet striking against the hull as the sunlight flashed off the pikes of the approaching soldiers.

  * * * *

  Catherine and Abigail had walked in silence from the King hovel to Newbury Center where they now approached the governor’s mansion. Catherine recalled the grim poverty that reeked up from the dirt floor beneath Abigail’s feet, so strong and that it seemed to permeate her spirit and burden her with an implacable despair. Catherine saw in Abigail a spirit like a candle flickering in a black wind, threatened at any moment with extinction, and yet flaring from time to time in defiance. The young woman’s expression had remained fixed during their walk, but now she hung back as she faced the grandeur of the governor’s house, as though, Catherine thought, wondering what business she might have with such majesty. Catherine took her arm and gently urged her forward.

  “It is because he has so much that we are here,” she said. Abigail nodded, although her eyes betrayed her fear. Still, she permitted Catherine to lead her to the grand double doors of carved oak at the front of Peters’ mansion. At her knock, the doors swung open as though they had been expected. Francine stood in the doorway, her face set in a civil but cool expression.

  “I expect you are here to see the governor,” she said.

  Catherine put her arm about Abigail.

  “Yes,” she said.

  Francine stared hard at the young woman.

  “She has no business in my house, and the governor is sick in his bed.”

  “Perhaps I can minister to him, then,” Catherine replied.

  “I fear not,” Francine said.

  “You seem not yourself,” Catherine suggested.

  Francine looked back over her shoulder as though she thought she would be overheard.

  “My tongue feels wondrously heavy,” she replied.

  “So I see,” Catherine said.

  “Is he not here, then?” Abigail asked. She stepped forward, and her eyes were now bright with determination.

  “Did you not hear me, girl?” Francine demanded.

  “Not your husband, mistress,” Abigail said, “but his nephew, the father of my baby.”

  Francine leaned forward her hand cupped to her ear.

  “I am afraid my ear is clogged as my tongue is heavy.”

  “Try a little, for me,” Catherine said.

  “For you, then,” Francine replied. “Jonathan is not here, and the governor forbids me to tell his whereabouts, but truth be known, I could not tell you if I wanted. He left early this morning, with his fowling piece on his shoulder.”

  “And yet I will have him own his babe,” Abigail said.

  “As for that,” Francine began, and then paused. Behind her a figure appeared. Francine turned. “What is it Ruth?” she asked.

  “The governor,” Ruth said, “calls for you.”

  Francine shrugged and began to close the door. Abigail seized the handle and held the door ajar.

  “Mother,” she said.

  Ruth looked at her and shook her head. “He was most insistent,” she said to Francine. Francine nodded and let go of the door.

  “I will go to him directly,” she said.

  She left, and Ruth advanced. She started to push the door shut while Abigail still held the handle on her side. For a moment, mother pushed against daughter, and then both dropped their hands.

  “You should not have brought her here,” Ruth said to Catherine, and then she put her shoulder into the door and closed it.

  “Do not despair,” Catherine said as they turned their backs on the governor’s mansion. “Francine will report our visit, and Governor Peters knows I am not easily discouraged.”

  “But my mother, how could she be so cold?” Abigail asked.

  “Do not blame her,” Catherine replied. “She only does what she thinks she must, even if she is mistaken.”

  Somebody with a hobbling gait hurried toward them.

  “Mistress Williams,” the woman said. “I needs must talk to you.”

  Abigail looked at Charity with the contempt one downtrodden person can sometimes feel toward another even a half step lower.

  “I cannot imagine what she might want with you,” Abigail said.

  “No doubt she does not speak for herself,” Catherine replied. She saw that Abigail was still very much agitated.

  “Go on ahead to my house, if you please, and ask Phyllis to give you some chamomile tea. It will soothe you.”

  “Do you think I need soothing, then?” Abigail snapped.

  “You have had a difficult day,” Catherine replied.

  Charity was now standing a few feet away, and Abigail leaned her head to whisper to Catherine.

  “Do you not want to know where Jonathan might be?”

  “Indeed, I do,” Catherine replied.

  “He told me once that he likes to hunt near where the savages live, for the adventure, he said. I did not know whether to believe him at the time, he is so fond of a good jape.” Her eyes brightened as though with a pleasant recollection, but then narrowed into a frown that creased the otherwise smooth skin at the corners of her eyes. “That was then, and this is now. I will think about your tea.” She looked once more at Charity, who returned her glance without expression, and then Abigail hurried up the road toward Catherine’s house. Charity waited until she was out of hearing, and then she took the one step that still separated her from Catherine. Charity opened her mouth to begin talking, but first she ran the stump of her tongue over her lips as though to orient it so as to form the words she wanted to speak.

  “There are two things I must tell you.” She glanced back over her shoulder toward Minister Davis’s house. “And I can only tell you beyond his hearing.”

  “And what are they?”

  “The first is what the minister say when he find that young man under the covers with his niece. He say that this Roger Whitcomb be a devil come to test his faith and that of his niece, and the Bible tell him to fight that devil as hard as he can. And once, why I see them together with mine own eyes, and I tell you what I think. The minister is a wise man, but he does not see this affair the right way, for if he did, he would know that these Quakers are witches, and that is why that girl lose her baby and a just God has struck down that young man for casting a spell on her and her babe.”

  “I see,” Catherine said. “Is that what you wanted to tell me?”

  Charity shook her head in a slow determined motion.

  “That is only the first thing. The second is this. Just this morning that man Timothy...”

  “The one hurt attacking Roger?”

  “He is that one, the very devil, only this devil have the minister’s coin in
his pocket, and he come to the house. I overheard them talk while I was cooking the morning meal. They pay me no mind like I was not there, so I listen to what they say. They have their heads together, and I do not hear everything, but then Timothy stands up and says in a clear voice that he will tell the governor that he saw who killed that Quaker, and it was the sailor from your ship. And then the minister say that very good, and he hands him a little leather pouch, and I hear the coins jangle in it.” Charity stopped as though suddenly aware that she had been saying too much. “I must get back to my work,” she said.

  “But why do you tell me all these things?” Catherine asked.

  “Don’t you see,” Charity said. “That man he take me in, and he is a man of god, but he forget what he teaches.”

  “And what is that?”

  “That vengeance is the Lord’s,” she said, and then turned and hobbled back across the town common to the minister’s house.

  Chapter Nine

  Abigail was already gone by the time Catherine reached her house. Phyllis stood in the kitchen, examining a piece of clothing that she had draped over her arm.

  “Did you give her the tea?” Catherine asked.

  Phyllis looked up with a confused expression on her face.

  “Tea?” she asked.

  “Yes, for Abigail, to soothe her nerves,” Catherine prompted.

  Recognition lit Phyllis’s eyes.

  “Surely, I did, just as you bid me do.”

  “Seemed she grateful?”

  “I do not think so. She was in a temper.”

  Catherine waited and watched while her servant turned her attention back to the garment on her arm. Phyllis looked up to see if she had Catherine’s attention.

  “Well?” Catherine asked. “What is it?”

  Phyllis’s face brightened.

  “Something that will make us forget Abigail and her foul mood.” She held the garment out in front of her. It was in two pieces, a bodice and a gown of rich blue velvet. The bodice was edged with fine linen lace. Phyllis ran her fingers over the lace.

  “It is the gown of a rich woman,” she said.

  “So it is,” Catherine replied.

  “I would never be able to wear such a thing,” Phyllis continued.

  “But that is surely not your revelation,” Catherine said.

  “Indeed not, it was just holding it this way put me in mind of that thought.” She clasped the bodice to her chest with one hand, and pressed the gown to her waist with the other. Both pieces were far too small to serve Phyllis’s ample frame.

  “Do you not see?” she asked Catherine. “It is not only the lace that would make this an improper garment for such as myself.”

  “I see that indeed. Came these garments from that crate I bid you open?”

  Phyllis nodded.

  “As usual you do see right through me like the sun through a window. So you know that these were indeed in that very crate you asked me to examine.”

  “I do see, now,” Catherine said, as the realization began to settle in her mind. “Those clothes were sent by Jane’s mother, intended for her so she would have some variety in her dress,” Catherine said, giving voice to her thoughts. “And Jane, of course...”

  “Could no more fit in these, than I could,” Phyllis completed the idea. “Why, these are of a size more like for a child. I do not think a mother could be so mistaken about her own daughter.”

  “Nor do I,” Catherine replied.

  “There can only be one answer to this misfitting,” Phyllis said. “The person what this gown and bodice was supposed to be for, is not the person who has been living in this house.” Phyllis’s face was alive with the excitement of her discovery.

  “And if she is not...” Catherine began.

  The excitement drained from Phyllis’s countenance, replaced by a blank stare of confusion.

  “I can go no further,” she admitted.

  “Well, then, you need not,” Catherine said, taking the garments from her, and holding them up against her own much shorter frame. She noted that they would be a little small even for her if she were as thin as she had been as a girl, and Jane was a good four or five inches taller than she was. “You have gone quite far enough, indeed.”

  “Do you see, then?” Phyllis asked.

  “I begin to,” Catherine replied. “And what I do see is not very pretty. For our Jane must be an imposter.”

  “Then, what of the Jane who these clothes were for? Perhaps we can inquire of her brother, if he was not dead.” Phyllis sat down with a sigh at the bench next to the table.

  “Dead or not, he was not her brother,” Catherine said with a frown.

  * * * *

  Massaquoit found Catherine sitting at the table in the kitchen while Phyllis rinsed the pewter plates in a large wooden tub. Phyllis looked up.

  “If you are hungry, you are too late,” she said.

  Massaquoit smiled.

  “I dined earlier with a friend.”

  “Did you indeed?” Catherine said. “Would that have been Wequashcook?”

  “He is a generous host,” Massaquoit replied.

  “Did he offer you more than food?”

  “He did, but I do not know how helpful he has been.”

  Phyllis had been leaning over her wash tub, and now she stood up with such energy that her leg pushed against the tub almost causing it to tip. Water sloshed onto the plank floor. Phyllis bent over the wet spot, daubed at it with her rag, and then strode toward Massaquoit.

  “Did he tell you how it is that Jane is not Jane?” she asked.

  “He did not.”

  “Well, that is the mystery,” Phyllis declared. “If you can tell us that, we can figure the rest.”

  “I cannot tell you that,” Massaquoit replied, “but I believe I know where I can find this Jane who is not Jane.”

  “And so think I,” Catherine added.

  Phyllis looked from Catherine to Massaquoit.

  “She does not credit my idea,” Phyllis said.

  “And what is that?” Massaquoit asked.

  “Why that it all has something to do with Roger climbing in the low window into Grace’s bed. Her uncle found him there, you know. And he set that villain to attack Roger.”

  “I thought we were talking about Jane,” Massaquoit said.

  “Men,” Phyllis said to Catherine. “They do not see what is in front of their nose. Because, don’t you see, it is at that time when Roger is sneaking to see Grace, that Jane, who is not Jane, starts behaving most strange, and then this crate arrives just when he is killed.”

  Catherine stood up and put her arm about Phyllis.

  “Now that you have explained your theory better, I begin to see its merit.”

  Phyllis looked stunned.

  “But I do not understand it quite.”

  “Nor do I,” Catherine said, “but I believe you are right, in any case.”

  Massaquoit studied the two women, who seemed to now understand each other thoroughly.

  “I believe,” he said, “that I need more instruction.”

  “Phyllis is pointing out,” Catherine said, “that several circumstances converge, and at the root is Roger’s relationship with Grace.”

  “She was jealous?” Massaquoit asked.

  “Yes, but only...” Catherine started.

  “If they were not brother and sister...”

  “As they were not, surely...” Phyllis continued.

  “Because Jane is not Jane,” Massaquoit finished the thought. “From one root grows a tangle of weeds.”

  “Weeds, indeed,” Catherine added, “for no flower grows in this garden.”

  “Only corpses,” Phyllis concluded. She looked at Massaquoit, as though he had just arrived. “But can you not tell us anything.”

  “Only this,” Massaquoit replied. “Whether part of the root, or another weed, I do not know. But I believe Roger was killed because of a letter he had in his possession.”

  “Jealo
usy, I say,” Phyllis insisted. “He did die for love.”

  “If so, the letter must be the key. Wequashcook told me how he sold it to Roger, after he took it from the English priest. Although why the priest should want it, I do not know.”

  “Perhaps for Jane,” Catherine said.

  “My head begins to whirl,” Phyllis murmured, and as though to emphasize the point she sat down at the table cradling her chin in her hands.

  “In time, “ Catherine said, “all will come clear.”

  “I do not think so,” Phyllis replied.

  Edward came in his hands covered in dirt from hoeing. Narrow bands of perspiration gathered in his wrinkles. He ran his hand across his eyes to clear the sweat from them, and left a streak of moist dirt across his forehead and cheek. He looked back over his shoulder toward the front door.

  “There is a soldier or two coming up the path,” he said.

  “I know their errand,” Massaquoit replied.

  “Indeed,” Catherine interjected.

  “They come to seek your help for the sailor,” Massaquoit said.

  Phyllis, her face red, rose from the table.

  “How would you know that?” she demanded.

  “Never you mind,” Catherine replied at the same time as a loud knock on the front door.

  “I can explain,” Massaquoit suggested.

  “In time,” Catherine said. “Phyllis get me my bag, if you please, and see that there is clean cloth in it for bandages.”

  Edward had gone to the door, and now he returned.

  “The soldiers,” he said. “There is a boy at the jail who is about to die. The governor himself desires that you keep him alive long enough to get a confession.”

  * * * *

  Jailor Drake sat on a joint stool in front of his prison house, picking his teeth with a twig. He got up as Catherine and Phyllis followed the two soldiers who had summoned her. As was his custom, he offered Catherine a half-hearted bow, which demonstrated that he recognized her superior social status, but did not in his heart believe that she warranted it, perhaps because he did not believe a man should ever feel subordinate to a woman. Still, he was a man who always looked out for his own interests, and in this case that mean showing a degree of obeisance toward Catherine.

  “Ah, Mistress Williams, your arrival is timely.” He turned to the door, which was half open. “I have but the one guest at the moment, and he is not of condition to leave. In fact, I would not swear that he still breathes.”