The Winthrop Woman

by Anya Seton

  Elizabeth was often puzzled by her elders' remarks and she now lifted her head from the sampler and addressed her grandfather. "Why are Papists so wicked, sir? Our King's mother was a Papist, was she not? The 'fair and feckless Marie—Queen o' Scots,'" said Elizabeth, quoting a phrase she had heard used in London.

  "Damme, if little pitchers haven't big ears!" Adam chuckled, and tapped the warm bowl of his clay pipe against his knee. "The Papists are wicked, my dear, because our good Queen, for whom ye're named, said they were, 'tis not to be questioned ... forbye I can remember how it was when I was a wee lad in the time o' Bloody Mary—the screams and the agonies, and the burnings of us Protestants. 'Twas dreadful!"

  Elizabeth considered this with interest. Uncle John owned a Foxe's Book of Martyrs and she with all the other children had pored over the shivery woodcuts of tortures and burnings. So there were Papists who were bad, and Protestants like her family who were good, only, thought Elizabeth frowning, there seemed to be two kinds of Protestants. There was a kind who had candles and a cross like in the Boxford church and who bowed at the name of Jesus and who kept Saint's Days and Christmas, as Grandfather did and Mother too. But then there was another kind who hated all those things. Uncle John and Grandmother and Aunt Lucy seemed to be that kind. They had a name that also began with P. "Puh, Puh, Puh—" chanted Elizabeth experimentally under her breath, "Puh, Puh, Papist, Puh, Puh, Protestant, Puh, Puh, Puritan...."

  "What's that you're saying, you naughty child!" cried Lucy, scowling at the culprit. "Anne, did you hear what she said?"

  Anne sighed, and eased to the other arm the heavy baby who had finished suckling. "Bess is forever making up little songs, it does no harm."

  '"That word she used, 'Puritan,'" snapped Lucy. "What do you mean by it, Elizabeth?"

  The child stared at her aunt, startled at this vehemence. "Old Giles, the Thetford tinker, last week when he was here at the Manor, he was laughing with the maids, and I heard him say..." Elizabeth paused, then went on in a deep voice that passably imitated a thick Norfolk accent, "'The Winthrops has altered o' late, that they have! Turned Puritan I hear, leastwise young squire has, there's a mort o' them canting, psalm-whining Puritans about these parts nowadays!'"

  "Bess!" cried Anne shocked. "You mustn't listen to or repeat things you don't understand!" She bit her lips, wondering suddenly if she herself quite understood. "Puritan" was an insulting epithet, never used kindly, and yet was that not precisely what John and so many others in the eastern counties were trying to do? "Purify" their beloved church of its more venal bishops and of the Roman idolatries, so as to rely only on the Word of God for all their worship—as put forth in the Bible, and in no other place.

  Lucy twitched her shoulders and returned to her spinning. "You see," she said, "what comes of letting children roam about un-hindered, to learn foul words ... and if you will permit me, Father," she glanced at Adam who was watching his two daughters quizzically, "my conscience bids me say that all this winebibbing, and talk of dancing and romping much disturbs my mother on her bed of pain, and will certainly displease my brother when he returns home."

  "Indeed," said Adam, puffing Virginia tobacco smoke through his nostrils. He crossed his plump black velvet thighs. "Well, my conscience bids ME say, miss—that I am still master here at Groton, that I understand my son quite as well as you do, and that no chit of sixteen has leave to censure her elders!"

  Lucy flushed crimson, Elizabeth's eyes sparkled, but Martha, frightened as always by any sort of adult anger, let fall the piles of wool and ran to hide her face on her mother's lap.

  Anne smoothed the silky brown head. What a fuss about nothing, she thought; surely it is the Will of God that we should all be happy, and knew at once what a foolish spineless thought that was. John, and Mr. Nicholson, the Groton rector, said that was not the Will of God at all. He wanted them to mortify the flesh, and earn salvation. If I were not so weary, Anne thought, I could worry more about my own and the babies' souls. And the new one ... dear God, don't let it die—or me—when it is born...

  Adam held his revelry that night in honor of the King and it was to be—by reason of a guest who came to Groton—an occasion which affected all their lives. The old squire had sent his undergroom with invitations to several of the neighboring big houses, and was particularly gratified by the unexpected acceptance of Lord and Lady deVere who were temporarily in residence at their country seat near Hadleigh and were kin to the Earl of Oxford. No one so exalted had ever honored Groton Manor before. Even Mistress Winthrop was pleased when she heard of this, and made arrangements to have herself carried downstairs. Although Lord deVere was a worldly peer, and spent much time at court where it was well known that matters of strict decorum and religious reform were not as important as they should be, still he was a Baron, and it was impossible not to feel flattered by his graciousness. True, Adam was a generation removed from the Suffolk clothier who had become first squire of Groton Manor, yet Mistress Winthrop herself could claim no aristocratic tinge at all. She had been plain Anne Browne of Edwardstone, a yeoman's daughter. She ordered her best dress of black brocaded velvet to be brought from its chest and pressed, and by six o'clock she was downstairs and installed in the Great Hall with her injured ankle propped on a footstool. She wore her four gold rings, and even carried a small painted fan that had some French writing on it, "L'amour se trouve aux fleurs, dans la beauté de ses coeurs."

  Anne, waiting as they all were for the first guests to arrive, watched her mother with amusement, knowing that when the deVeres came, the old lady would find opportunity to read out the motto on the fan. She was proud of her French, which she had learned from a Belgian lacemaker who had settled in the village of Edwardstone.

  "Now ye look like yourself again, daughter," said Adam, coming up to Anne and pinching her cheek. "Like my pretty lass that was the fairest bride in Suffolk when she wed..." He lowered his voice. "I didn't give ye to a bad husband, did I, darling?" he said anxiously. "Thomas Fones is good to you?"

  "Oh yes, Father ... He's a fine man..."

  Adam nodded, satisfied at once, unwilling to have any disquiet spoil the satisfaction of his party. His family, dressed as richly as any gentry in the land, affirmed his prosperity, as did this great room glowing with tapestries, lit by a hundred candles, and the carved oak table with its bulbous legs, its beeswaxed board loaded already with punch bowls and cold pasties and flagons of nut-brown ale, while the servants scurried back and forth to the kitchen for fresh supplies. Four musicians were waiting too by the screen that led to the parlor—the fiddler, a gittern player, a piper and a little drummer. Lucy was even prepared to play on the virginals, if the deVeres were inclined for singing. Nobody could deem the entertainment niggardly.

  "That's a fair little wench you've got there, Anne," said the old man, his complacent eye suddenly caught by Elizabeth, who was sitting sedately as near the fascinating drummer as she could get, and whispering to Jack. The younger children had been put to bed, and Elizabeth was very conscious of privilege and of her rustling green taffeta dress, edged with silver lace exactly like her mother's. "'Tis a pity she has the Winthrop nose," the grandfather added, "a mite long for a girl—my old grandame always used to say the devil tweaked the first Winthrop's nose in passing one black night—but wi' that mass o' hair and those big eyes and cheeks like a blaze o' poppies, she'll win many a lad's heart someday."

  Anne smiled. "Bess loves Jack, child though she is." She broke off. "Look at Harry!"

  Young Henry had been taking copious samples from the punch bowl, and was quite tipsy. He was also intoxicated by the occasion, and by a desire to impress Bess who was being dignified and as priggish as Aunt Lucy Acting on wild impulse Harry had seized a handful of walnuts from the table, and swarming up the fireplace like a monkey, perched on the mantel, six feet above the hearth. There he crouched, teetering on the narrow ledge, his long bright curls too near the candles, and began to pelt his brother and Elizabeth with the nuts.
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  "Come down, sir—" shouted Adam, striding down the Hall. "Come down at once!" Harry, whose hair was beginning to singe, and who had begun to feel giddy, would have obeyed but the drop looked formidable from the top, and he swayed uncertainly.

  "He'll fall...!" Lucy shrilled. But he did not. Jack acted with the speed and instant comprehension which were to be his all his life, and before their grandfather got there, he had pulled a stool to the hearth, got up on it and scooped his younger brother down. "You dunce," he said good-humoredly, yet with an exasperation which was nearly adult. "Why do you always have to play the fool!"

  Harry flushed, muttered something and glared at Elizabeth whom he obscurely blamed for all this. Adam strode up and dealt his grandson a resounding box on the ear, and there would have been other punishment except for the pounding of the great bronze door knocker. The Waldegraves had arrived. Adam immediately forgot his grandson, who vanished to spend the next hour in the pantry sulkily filching comfits from the pastry table whenever the cook's back was turned.

  Fortunately—since the food and wine could not be touched nor the musicians play until they came—Lord and Lady deVere were not tardy. They arrived in one of the new German coaches drawn by four horses, and their entrance into Groton park was announced by a bugle strain from the outrider.

  The noble couple swept into the hall on a wave of musk and magnificence, dispensing gracious smiles and nods. Mistress Winthrop murmured apology for her condition while Anne and Lucy curtseyed low. Elizabeth, though nobody saw her, curtseyed too, and stared in admiration. She had seen fine folk pass on the London streets, but never near like this. The deVeres were a blaze of lace and gold and jewels. Tire Baron's doublet was brocaded with roses, his hose were blue, there were red rosettes on his silver shoes, his long curled hair and pointed beard glistened above the wired Valenciennes collar. The Baroness wore one of the enormous new-style farthingales Queen Anne had introduced; it stood out around her hips like a silk tent. Her greased hair was swept up high over pads and studded with sham jewels. The neck of her pointed bodice was cut so low you could see a little bit of her stomach between her breasts. Elizabeth thought that interesting, and she noted too that the lady did not seem very clean. There were shadows in the creases of her neck, a large stain of what looked like wine on the embroidered skirt; a strong smell of sweat mingled with the musk, and the heavily beringed hand had black fingernails. It must be that she was so rich and grand she did not have to wash, thought Elizabeth enviously.

  So entranced was Elizabeth by the deVeres that for a while she did not notice they had brought people with them, two ladies and a gentleman. These weren't nearly as impressive. The younger lady wore red silk edged with gold lace, and had some little pearls around her neck, yet she was somewhat dowdy. She was dark and plump and had a motherly air, like the Winthrops' little spaniel bitch, Trudy.

  Jack, as the elder grandson and eventual heir to Groton Manor, had been taken around and introduced to all these people, but being now dismissed, he came back to Elizabeth, who greeted him eagerly. "Who's them?" she whispered, "that came with the lord ... I like the red one, she looks like Trudy."

  Jack's brown eyes crinkled. "Mayhap she does! 'Tis a Mistress Margaret Tyndal, and her brother, Arthur, and their mother. Lady Tyndal. They've come with the deVeres from Essex near Castle Hedingham where the Earl of Oxford lives."

  "Are these Tyndals noble too?" asked Elizabeth, thinking how gloriously she could boast to her friend the goldsmith's daughter when she got back to London.

  "No," said Jack. "Lady Tyndal's husband was a knight, a Master of Chancery ... He was murdered last year by a madman."

  "Oh," breathed Elizabeth, staring with all her eyes at Margaret Tyndal, who didn't look at all like someone whose father had been murdered.

  Healths were drunk to King James and his Queen, and to their children: Charles, the Prince of Wales, and Elizabeth, the Queen of Bohemia. The Baron praised the Winthrop malmsey, and after several cupfuls proceded to tell an exceedingly coarse story. It was about his sovereign, and two pretty Scottish lads. Mistress Winthrop did not hear the anecdote; Lucy, the children and most of the neighbors did not understand it, but Anne who lived in London, blushed, while Adam roared out between dismay and laughter, "Damme, my lord—d'ye mean our King must have his catamites?... I'd thought him a roystering full-blooded wencher!"

  "Ah, that's as may be," answered the Baron smiling, but with a shade of reserve to indicate that this country squire could scarcely be supposed to know what occurred at Court. "What of the dancing now?" went on deVere. "Let's see how Groton music sounds..." His pale eyes roved over the assembled women and lit on Anne. "Mistress Fones shall dance with me. I'll teach her the latest galliard."

  Anne's heart sank. The wine she had drunk no longer sustained her, an aching tiredness flowed through her bones, but there could be no refusal. She accepted the Baron's moist hand, followed his high prancing steps as best she could and tried to avoid both his foul breath and the amorous looks he bestowed on her. Adam danced with the Baroness, the rest of the company paired off; the fiddler squeaked, the gittern plinked, the piper tootled, and the village drummer, much awed by the grandeur of the occasion, timidly thumped his tabour when he thought of it.

  Nobody noticed the great door open, nor saw the tall man in black who stopped in astonishment to stare at the gyrating couples. He watched them for a moment, then walked across the end of the room to Mistress Winthrop's chair. "For the love of heaven, my mother—what is the meaning of this?" he said in her ear as he kissed her cheek.

  The old lady had been dozing. "Mercy, what a startle! Why, John, son, your letter said—we didn't look for you till Thursday ... 'tis the King's birthday we celebrate, your father did wish it ... and imagine, the deVeres have actually honored us!"

  "So I see," said John Winthrop. "And I have a very good notion as to why." He had been hearing of deVere in London. The Baron was out of favor at court, had run up huge gambling debts, there was talk of bankruptcy. The favor and indeed more tangible help of a prosperous neighbor might well be useful. Still it was agreeable to be on equal footing with a nobleman. John withdrew behind his mother's big chair and gazed thoughtfully at the dancers.

  On all this trip to London John had been wrestling with his soul, endeavoring to follow the rigid course of discipline he had laid out for himself. He had avoided all drink but water, he had eschewed smoking of which he had been overly fond. He had read nothing but the Scriptures, spoken no ungodly word. He had kept the Sabbaths with careful piety and found a nonconformist church where the minister bravely ignored the ceremonies ordained by the bishops. Above all John had resisted the lewdness of the flesh which had bedeviled him since his wife's death, and there had been a moment of hideous temptation one night on the Chepe—a beautiful Spanish whore. God had rewarded him. Every business matter had been decided in his favor, the final settlement of his first wife's estate had been made. He had returned home with his moneybag far heavier than when he started. But his mood was lighter. A month ago this frivolous scene would have disgusted him, he would have felt it his duty to remonstrate with his father. But now as he watched the bright couples change from the galliard to a livelier hay and listened to the cheerful music he began to wonder if extreme asceticism were not another of the Devil's guises for Pride, for somewhere on the journey home the certainty of righteousness had vanished. And it is true, he thought, that David saw no harm in dancing, and that Our Blessed Lord smiled on the feast at Cana. "Who is that young gentlewoman in red?" he suddenly asked his mother. "The one dancing with Edward Waldegrave."

  Mrs. Winthrop squinted towards a group near the door, and said, "Oh, 'tis Margaret Tyndal, a spinster. Her brother, Arthur, is yonder by the stairs, and there is her mother, Lady Tyndal, dancing—and at her age I find it unbecoming—with your father."

  "Indeed," said John, "not the family of Sir John Tyndal who was cut off in London by the mad assasin last year?"

  "The very one," said h
is mother. "They have large property at Much Maplested in Essex. I hear that the young gentlewoman is well dowered."

  John said nothing for a moment, as he watched Margaret. He thought her somewhat short and dumpy and saw that she was unskilled at dancing, but the round face between the bobbing brown ringlets was comely enough, and as she answered something said to her by young Waldegrave she showed a singularly sweet smile. "She seems not far from thirty," he remarked. "Strange that she has not married ... perhaps some physical weakness we see not..."

  His mother shot him a shrewd look. "I believe it's nothing of the kind. I had some converse earlier with Lady Tyndal. Mistress Margaret has been betrothed but the man died, and then this tragedy to her father, and besides I believe the brother is most proud, wishes a great match for his sister."

  John listened with the grave attention which was characteristic of him but said no more except, "She has rather a sensible air, though I cannot say as much for her scarlet and gold dress, uncommon garish for a God-fearing maiden." The music and dancing stopped suddenly. John walked to the center of the Hall and greeted his father, who let out a roar of delight and embraced him heartily. "Welcome, welcome, my son! A splendid surprise! We have company, you see, to honor the King's birthday. My Lord and Lady deVere are here, and with them the Tyndals. Let me present you at once."

  "It will give me much pleasure," said John and he smiled.

  His sisters watched him with astonishment. Lucy, whom John had often urged to beware of the world, had been ready to deny all pleasure in this festivity, and point out that she was but obeying their father's regrettable orders, but she saw that this denial would not be necessary. John showed no signs of disapproval and was chatting easily with the deVeres and Tyndals. He fetched a cup of wine and presented it to Mistress Margaret, and he even drank some himself, which further amazed Lucy since he had been for some months denouncing wine as the devil's spittle. Anne saw deeper into her brother. From childhood he had been prone to sudden variations of mood, but it was the time he had spent at Trinity College in Cambridge and met many gentleman under Puritan influence which had given these moods so strong a religious tinge. That and the deaths of his two wives, of course, thought Anne sighing. Suddenly she looked at her brother and Mistress Tyndal with sharp attention.