The Winthrop Woman

by Anya Seton

  Robert did not look at her, he looked at Hannah, who said, "I don't know, Papa. Shall I run over to his house and ask him?"

  "Aye," said Robert with relief. "He'll know." He walked into his lean-to room, came back with his Bible and pulling a stool near the window began to read.

  It was a strange thing, thought Elizabeth, stirring the everlasting cornmeal mush. Some of the dependence, the blind trust Robert had used to have for Daniel, seemed to have transferred itself to Will.

  Oh, what are we going to do after the babe is born? she thought. How can it go on and on like this? Yet she shrank from trying to look ahead. Will and she had been in a state of tacit abeyance since the afternoon on Monakewaygo. They had never dared meet alone, a few snatched private words were all they had, but her love had grown a thousandfold, nourished by the quiet, sensitive protection that he gave her.

  She heard his step at the door, and his voice saying something to Hannah. Her heart quivered and paused when she heard him. She bent over the stew pot as he came in scraping snow off his boots on the threshold. She turned her head a little, and their eyes met for that precious instant of private signal. In his look there was a steady reassurance, in hers she hoped there was no pleading or pain.

  "Good day, Feake—" Will said. "Hannah tells me you're thinking of sugaring-off. I don't know much about it, but seems a good idea. Why don't we go out and test the trees?"

  Robert looked up. Something like a smile lightened his face, which had subtly coarsened as it had grown plump. He put his long finger on the open Bible page. "I was just reading that," he said in a tone of triumph. "'And Jonathan said unto David, Come and let us go out into the field. And they went out both of them into the field.' 'Tis a sign! The woman would not understand that, would she?" He glanced sideways at Elizabeth. "She that is filled with sinful fruit."

  Will felt a shock, though he showed nothing. I must watch over her more carefully, he thought. Watch this man, who is not perhaps as harmless as Bess and the others through custom have always thought, nor do I think he is truly better.

  They started the sugaring-off that afternoon and continued by the brilliant moonlight. The next night the fires burned red across the snow patches, while the delectable fragrance of the syrup intoxicated the happy children who candied driblets on the snow.

  Elizabeth too knew a moment of happiness. Both she and Will, freed from Thomas's vigilant eye, felt greater freedom to talk with each other. As she ran the sap from a filled bucket into a kettle it was natural that he should help her. His hand closed over hers, and he whispered, "Hinnie-sweet, we will think of a way. Be staunch and have faith. I love thee."

  "Still...?" she whispered. "And I grown so ugly and so mopish."

  "I see thee always as on the day at Monakewaygo, and as you will soon be again, God willing." He said the latter below his breath, for he was afraid of the childbirth, and afraid for her with Robert, who had now gone off by himself to a hillock and was staring up at the moon.

  "Hallet! Hallet!" called Richard Crab. "Gi' me a hand wi' this kettle, I vow ye're the only man here can lift it!"

  "Tom Lyon could," called Angell Husted, laughing. "We must set a wrassling match atween those two bully boys come spring. A bit o' sport. Are ye for it, Hallet?"

  "Aye, forsooth," agreed Will amiably. "I can beat Tom with one hand tied."

  There was a chorus of good-natured jeers. John Coe cried, "Hark at the braggart!"

  They don't know, Elizabeth thought. They knew nothing of the strains in the Feake home, nor guessed how true a battle they were jestingly urging. They knew nothing of the turmoils of her inner life. She lived amongst her neighbors in a spiritual isolation. And yet these were good neighbors, not basically censorious like those of Watertown or Stamford.

  She leaned against a tree trunk and watched with sad detachment the good-fellowship of the sugaring. Rebecca Husted laughing at some clumsiness of her young husband, Angell; Goody Crab stout and quick-tempered giving the rough side of her tongue to one of her young; the Coes and the Sherwoods working together on a clump of maples nearer the cove, and everywhere running and shouting were the children, her own and a dozen others. Scarlet hooded they were, most of them, little redheaded woodpeckers, tapping at the trees, flitting across the snow in the light of fire and moon. But always her eyes went back to the tallest male figure in the leather jerkin, as he helped stoke the fires and handle the great kettles.

  While she leaned against the tree, a violent pain knifed up her flanks. It can't be, she thought, frightened. 'Tis too soon by a month. And Anneke ill! Anneke had recently suffered a violent attack of sciatica, for which Elizabeth had given her a decoction of minced bay-leaves, but she was not yet able to move about.

  Elizabeth's pain came again, so agonizing that she fell to her knees, and called out in a muffled voice to the nearest woman, "Goody Crab!"

  The goodwife dropped her ladle and hurried over. "What is't, Mistress? Oh, I see—Lord, Lord—poor wight, an' so far from home. Can ye walk?"

  Elizabeth shook her head, clinging to the tree trunk. "No—" she gasped. "'Tis worse than I ever remember it." She clamped her mouth against a shriek.

  "Here, Angell," said Will's quiet voice. "Take her legs, I'll take the shoulders, mind now, don't double her up! Steady, Bess!"

  She felt Will's arms around her, and the support of his hands. Through the fear, pain and humiliation she knew a flash of joy. But the next pain was worse, though she tried with all her force to hold it back. As she screamed, she felt a gushing of water and blood.

  "We'll take her back by the fire, Angell—" said Will, his voice unsteady. "She can't go on."

  They laid their cloaks on the snow and put her down. Rebecca Husted and Goody Crab bent over her holding her hands. Goodwife Coe shooed the children off to a safe distance and kept them there. The men drew away behind the trees frowning and sheepishly uncomfortable.

  "It don't look good—" said Crab, shaking his head. "I lost me first wife like that. Birthing should be easy after so many, but 'tisn't allus. Matters go amiss."

  "Hold your tongue, Goodman!" Will cried, sweat breaking out on his forehead. "There's naught amiss."

  Crab stared at him in mild surprise, which was checked by Robert's sudden appearance. Robert clutched at Will's arm.

  "Why does the woman cry out like that?" he asked in a high excited voice. "For what is she being punished?"

  "'Tis your wife Elizabeth, you crazed fool!" Will shouted in anguished fury, as he heard her give another gasping scream. "And she is being punished for your foul lust!"

  Robert staggered back as though Hallet had hit him. He made an odd bubbling sound in his throat. He turned from the group of silent men. He covered his face with his hands, walked a little way, stopped on a patch of snow and stood there, his shoulders shaking.

  Will did not watch Robert. He strode to the frightened murmuring women. "Why can't you help her?" he cried to Goody Crab who was kneeling by the heaving body on the cloaks.

  "I don't know what else to do," snapped the goodwife. "I might if she could be still a moment, poor lass, she thrashes so."

  Will knelt down on Elizabeth's other side and took her hands in his. "Quiet, Bess," he said sternly. "You must keep quiet, hinnie. Do you hear me?"

  She gave a low animal moan, clutching at his hands until his knuckles cracked, but she tried to obey. Goody Crab profited at once by the lull. "Hold the lantern nigh—" she said to Rebecca. "I'll see what I can do."

  With the next pain Elizabeth was delivered, and she swooned. Will bent down and kissed her clammy forehead. The women did not notice. "I'faith," whispered Rebecca. "'Tis a puny mite to cause such trouble. Does it live?"

  The goodwife did not answer; she cut the cord with the scissors which hung from her girdle and slapped vigorously. There was a thin mew like a kitten's. They examined the baby quickly and wrapped it in a corner of the cloaks. "It looks horrid," whispered Rebecca. "What's wrong wi' its face?"

  "Sh-h—" said Go
ody Crab with a glance at Elizabeth.

  "What is it?" Will asked in a tone of authority, to which the goodwife responded, never thinking it strange until later.

  "'Tis a girl," she said very low. "But has been cursed somehow by an evil goblin. 'T has a hare lip."

  Will shook his head. "Don't let Mrs. Feake know until you have to. We must get her to the house."

  He put Elizabeth's inert hands softly on her breast, and went towards the men. "'Tis born," he said. "We'll make a litter from poles and cloaks for her."

  The men sprang to work. But Angell said, "You spoke dreadful harsh to poor Mr. Feake, Will. I hope ye've not sent him daft again."

  Will looked around and saw Robert wandering slowly towards the place where Elizabeth lay. Will grabbed a pole and lan back, ready for trouble.

  But Robert did nothing. He stood staring down at the blood on the snow. He bent closer and examined the baby's face. "Aye," he said to Will. "You were right. I see now it is mine, since the Devil has put the mark of his cloven hoof here. I'm going, Hallet. I cannot stay. I mustn't stay near her. She that was my wife."

  "Where are you going?" said Will, amazed that there seemed to be a thread of reason in this, and even a sane kind of sorrow.

  "Tonight I go to Stamford," said Robert. "To Mr. Bishop. I have need of a minister, you see, a man of God to help me in my thinking. I cannot think here—with her whom I have blasted."

  "Why, you mustn't go tonight, Mr. Feake," said Goody Crab. "'Tis no time to be journeying," she added soothingly.

  "I must," said Robert. "I hear God's voice, it tells me what to do." He walked rapidly away through the trees towards the trail to Stamford.

  "Let him go," said Will. "We can look for him later. We must get Mrs. Feake to shelter."

  For five days Elizabeth was desperately ill, nor conscious of what went on around her. Anneke limped over from her home to help Goody Crab and Rebecca Husted who took turns at the constant nursing of both mother and baby. They relegated the frightened girls, Lisbet and Hannah, to the kitchen and its now strenuous duties. The Coes took the little boys home with them. Nobody sent for Joan and Thomas. "Ve manage better vithout them," said Anneke curtly.

  Elizabeth had a raging childbed fever, her breasts caked, and she had no milk, but the baby could not suck in any case. Its upper lip was cleft in two, as was the palate inside its mouth. Rebecca brought her nanny-goat from her home to the Feakes', and the women trickled goat's milk down the infant's throat but it could hardly swallow. They used what medical lore they had on Elizabeth but as Anneke constantly wailed, "she vould know vat to do, my beveling Bess. Alvays she has been the vun to go to in sickness! God allemachtig, I pray for her, and pray."

  Will also prayed with a vehemence he had never before known the need of. Words came in the simple little prayers his mother had taught him, and which he had thought forgotten. He searched for faith in a benevolent God who would not let her die, nor could find that faith for more than an instant. He tried then by force of willing to keep her here, and cursed aloud that he could not stay with her, holding her in his arms, giving her of his strength. He did the heavy chores mechanically, he lay down on Robert's bed in the lean-to at night but could not sleep. He paced the Feakes' kitchen floor, listening always for sounds from upstairs and awaiting Anneke's appearance with bulletins, which for days were nothing but a sad shake of the head.

  Lisbet's volatile nature soon adjusted to the crisis, and she enjoyed being in charge of the kitchen. The nine-year-old Hannah was Will's only solace. They did not speak of the love they shared, but Hannah understood, and would sometimes slip her hand into his and look up to him for comfort.

  The women wondered, of course. One day Goody Crab said crossly to Anneke, "What ails that man? Why doesn't he go home? You'd think lie was the father, though I vow my goodman ne'er took on so when I near died birthing Jemmie."

  "Can you begrudge her anyvun's concern?" asked Anneke quietly. "And her husband is gone too." She piled more blankets over Elizabeth who from burning heat had plunged into a chill, and her shivering shook the bed.

  "Aye," said the goodwife grimly. "Her husband's gone, if that's an affliction, but I'll keep my thoughts to m'self." She bent over and examined the baby. "This miserable worm's not long for this world. We'd best christen it."

  Anneke nodded, averting her eyes from the baby's face.

  "I've got the old prayer book at home," said Goody Crab. "But no time to fetch it. I think I remember the words. What'll we use for holy water, and what name?"

  "Use snow," said Anneke. "'Tis pure enough. And the name—" she glanced at Elizabeth's closed eyes, her fever-red cheeks, her chattering teeth. "Ve can't ask her—so any name, Sarah vill do."

  Between them the two women baptized the baby, said the Lord's Prayer over it—Goody Crab in English, Anneke in Dutch, and were relieved when it was done. Especially as the baby died that night. While she led her nanny-goat home again, Rebecca Husted wept bitterly, for she was young and frightened, and with child herself; but the older women thought the baby's death a blessing, as did Will Hallet. He set at once to making a pine box for the tiny body, grateful that this last repugnant link with hideous memories should be broken for Elizabeth.

  And the next day she was much better. Tire fever had gone; she lay spent, too weak to move, but conscious.

  Anneke waited until the other women went home for a bit, then called Will upstairs. "You may see her," she said, "but don't speak."

  Anneke remained in the corner of the room, as Will went to the bed. She saw him gather Elizabeth very gently into his arms, and that she turned her head against his chest with a long sigh, and the pale lips curved in a faint, happy smile.

  Tears came into Anneke's delft-blue eyes as she nodded to herself. It was then as she had guessed. But others must not guess. She shook her head while her practical mind outlined all the difficulties and could see no solution. Hallet must go away, she thought, as soon as Bess was strong enough to bear it, nor did she doubt that Elizabeth would agree. After so many years of friendship, Anneke well knew the Winthrop pride and sense of duty which underlay Elizabeth's rebellions. Now too there were the children to consider, and Thomas Lyon, and Elizabeth's standing in the community. Greenwich folk were tolerant in most ways, but they were not libertines. And there was Robert, still in Stamford, staying with the Reverend Mr. Bishop. Angell Husted had seen Robert at a distance on market day, and said that Thomas Lyon and Joan had been talking to him. Robert would be back and need his wife as always, poor man, when his present aberration was over.

  Anneke determined to bid Will Hallet begone—it was hard, dreary hard, but it must be. There was no other way.

  Anneke's common sense did not, however, reckon either with Robert's unpredictable behavior or with the strength of William and Elizabeth's love.

  Elizabeth improved with amazing rapidity, and Anneke delayed her serious talk with Hallet, because she saw that his visits were contributing to Elizabeth's recovery. Once the danger was passed he returned to his home, but he came each day at dusk to sit by Elizabeth's bed for a while.

  She was still in the peaceful detachment of convalescence, while her healthy body poured all its forces into recuperation, and Anneke with the girls protected her from any worrisome intrusion. She accepted the baby's death without comment, and asked no questions either about it, or Robert. During this period—alone in the big bed while she savored privacy she had never known before—Elizabeth was able to believe that life was as she wanted it to be, and would continue so.

  Also Will brought her books, the four that he had with him. These books were to her a revelation. Her father had owned a few volumes of sermons, but his reading, except for the Bible, had consisted of Gerard's Herbal. The Winthrops had a library at Groton which had never attracted her, for the books were in Latin and had unappealing titles. Mary Winthrop, to be sure, had been a great reader of religious works and occasional histories, but Elizabeth's active mind and body had never been subdu
ed to the state of contemplation necessary for the enjoyment of these. Nor had she guessed that there might be reading which would yield pure enjoyment.

  Will Hallet's four books represented the crystallization of his own taste insensibly formed by the Digbys, but now entirely individual. He brought Elizabeth therefore Florio's translation of Montaigne's Essais, which he appreciated for their cool sensible astringencies. His humor was gratified by the Reverend Thomas Fuller's Holy and Profane State, a collection of "Characters" wittily presented, and unlike anything Elizabeth had ever imagined.

  "Can this author be a clergyman?" she asked in amazement one day after reading in the "Good Schoolmaster" that "the schoolmaster deserves to be beaten himself, who beats nature in a boy for a fault,—And I question whether all the whipping in the world can make their parts which are naturally sluggish, rise one minute before the hour nature has appointed."

  "Aye," said Will smiling. "Fuller was rector of Broadwindsor in Dorset, when I got home this time. I met him often at Sherborne Castle, and admired the man. He is like John Donne who said, 'Religion is not a melancholy, the spirit of God is not a dampe!'"

  "Did he?" said Elizabeth wondering. She lay back on her pillows, remembering what she knew of St. Paul's famous Dean, whom even John Winthrop had not—in those days—disapproved of. Yet how incredible a concept, confusing, topsy-turvy. Neither by precept nor example had she ever found reason to believe that religion was not a melancholy, that the Spirit of God was not a damp. Except with Anne Hutchinson, who had perhaps believed something like this, and yet in that tragic life there had been no touch of levity.

  Elizabeth sighed, and then smiled at Will. "My wits are woolly," she said. "I can't seem to think. I can't quite follow your Montaigne either, though he and this—" she touched the Fuller, "are precious to me for your markings. And when you're away from me, they bring me close to you."

  "You like this better?" he said, picking a small vellum-bound book from beside her pillow, "and The Temple?"