The Winthrop Woman

by Anya Seton

  "Toby is rowing in," said Anneke.

  "But, Bess," Will cried. "What good to send Toby on a wild-goose chase! No Winthrop could condone us. Dear Lord, don't you see our position, hinnie?"

  "Aye," she said. "I see it and 'tis desperate, nor do I know for sure what Jack may do. But I think he will not break a vow. There was much love between us once."

  Will flinched, and turned away.

  "I have no solution to offer," he said walking to the window, where he looked out at the soldiers standing at attention around the yard. "I must abide by whatever you decide."

  Six days later the unhappy couple were in Stamford under the dubious protection of the New Haven Colony. The Dutch soldiers had marched with Will, Elizabeth, the four children and the two cows. They marched to the boundary bridge on Totomack Creek. The Greenwich neighbors followed, angry and muttering. Goodman Crab indeed had tried to foment an insurrection, but Will had stopped him, wearily. "Even if you could best these soldiers, my good friend," he said, "you can't fight the whole Dutch government."

  Robert Husted had made a practical offer of the little cabin he still owned down the Rippowam River in Stamford. "Ye can stay there till your affairs straighten out," he cried heartily, with an optimism none of them felt. They had all bought their land from Elizabeth, at one time or another, and it was impossible not to see in these developments a threat to their own titles.

  Anneke and Rebecca Husted also came to the boundary with the banished family—the other goodwives stayed at home, uncertain and distressed. Nobody knew precisely what the charges were, Anneke would say nothing, and nobody would speak to the Sergeant, but the rumors flew all the same. There had been adultery, there had not been a marriage, there was disgrace. And the Hallets explained nothing.

  They crossed the creek into English territory. They crowded into Robert Husted's cabin on the Hippowam and waited, praying that some answer would soon come from Jack. Toby had sailed three days ago, bearing Elizabeth's canvas bag with the glove and the note.

  Now Stamford hummed with excitement. And its court took immediate provisional action—on "behalf of Mr. Feake and the children." A party of armed Stamford men came to the cabin and searched it. They impounded all the money which Elizabeth and Will had managed to bring with them—a few pounds of his own, and the ten pounds remaining of her jointure. Cock had prevented them from touching the lean-to chest. Mr. Lawe took charge of the money.

  Thomas did not go near the cabin. Joan was in a nervous weakly state, terrified of her husband, for she dimly knew what he had done, longing for her mother and yet not daring to let Elizabeth into the house, the once she came.

  Thomas was dismayed at the way matters had worked out. He had not foreseen precisely how Stuyvesant would act, and it was all very well to strip Elizabeth and Hallet of everything they owned, but the Greenwich property, now confiscated, was benefiting no one at all except the West India Company. Nor had Thomas profited by Stamford's action either.

  The angry and baffled Thomas decided that another letter to Winthrop was expedient. He therefore wrote on April 14—

  Loving Grandfather, my Humble Duty remembered unto you. This is to acquaint you that I have received your kind Token you sent to my wife ... which I humbly Thank you for ... but my trust is in the Lord ... Although I am base in degree to you, and poor yet, that you should look upon me to help me the goodness of god is great.

  Thomas continued in this sanctimonious vein for some time, then he proceeded to franker speech and filled pages with his explanation.

  Concerning my wife's Mother, she has dealt very harsh with me, witholding my right from me in several cases, the reason as I conceive and no other I shall tell you. When I married first I lived in the house with her, because my Father being distracted I might be a help to her, whereupon seeing several carriages between the fellow she hath to be her husband and the ... which was to her disgrace which grieved me very much, and I can say the Lord knows her fall hath been the greatest grief and trouble to me ... and I desire myself and others may take notice of her fall and be warned..."

  Thomas wrote on far into the night, repeating the sad charges about "My mother and William the fellow," until he at last finished and reached the pith of his intention in the postscript.

  The occasion of my writing is to inform you of the truth lest you might be Informed otherwise ... I entreat you to write to the Dutch Governor who has taken the Land Away that so I may not lose my right, If you please. Thus not to be over-tedious I leave you to the Protection of the All mighty.

  Your dutiful and Obedient Grandson.

  THOMAS LION.

  He dispatched his letter by Goodman Lockwood, who had business in Boston, and settled down to await developments as anxiously as did Elizabeth and Will, whose discomforts and privations went from bad to worse. After a few further days of hesitation the Stamford Court issued an injunction distraining Elizabeth and Will from making any disposition whatsoever of the household goods, the scanty store of provisions and the two cows, and threatening them with trial before the General Court in New Haven.

  Whereupon, there being no sign of Toby and no word of hope from any place, they went to New Haven themselves and had a thoroughly unsatisfactory interview with Governor Theophilus Eaton. Eaton who had already had letters from Bishop and Lawe at Stamford was at a loss. These two were undesirable members of the colony according to Stamford report, they were almost certainly not married, though on this there was confusion and their own replies were evasive. The disposition of their property appeared to be entangled in such an international muddle that Eaton could not make head or tail of it. He demanded time to consider, ordered Hallet to appear before the next Magistrate's Court, reaffirmed the seizure of what estate they had with them in Stamford, and decreed that Elizabeth's two middle children, Hannah and Johnny, should be taken from her at once and boarded at some godly house in Stamford, nor must she try to see them again. This he did to protect the children's morals from contamination, humanely leaving Elizabeth the baby Robert, and Lisbet who presumably was already corrupted, and too set in vice for continuance in the dissolute household to matter.

  Will and Elizabeth came back to Stamford, both haggard and silent. They barricaded the door and sat down to eat the dried com pone and watered cider to which they were reduced. And they owed the cider to the secret kindness of Mrs. Andrew Ward, who slipped out at night and ran down the river to the isolated cabin with donations. The rest of Stamford shunned them, at the behest of the minister who preached several telling sermons on God's punishment for lewd wickedness.

  "Well—" said Will on the night of their return from New Haven. "What do we do now, Bess? I should think they'd take the children from you by tomorrow or next day at latest!"

  "They can't!" she cried. "I won't let them! Even they can't be so cruel!" But she looked with fear at the flock mattress where Hannah slept with her little brothers in the corner of the cabin.

  "Mama," said Lisbet, earnestly. "Why haven't you heard from Uncle Jack? I hate this place. I haven't anything nice to wear, and this morning when I walked along the riverbank some girls threw mud at me and cried 'There goes the strumpet's daughter!' Is our life going on and on like this?"

  "No—" said Will. "There is a way in which you'd all have considerably more comfort." He got up and began to throw into his saddlebag his knife and spoon, a mug, a shirt, an extra pair of breeches. They had not been allowed to bring the horse. It had remained in Greenwich.

  "What are you doing, Will?" cried Elizabeth sharply.

  "What do you think?" he answered with anger. "Fool that I was not to do it earlier. Fool that I was ever to come near you in the first place!"

  Lisbet stared at them both. She had never seen anger between them.

  "Go then!" Elizabeth cried. "Leave me to bear all this alone. Leave me to bear your child alone!"

  He flung the saddlebag on the floor and stalked out of the house.

  "Oh God..." she whispered. "Oh God." She
crouched down beside the saddlebag. She flung her arms out and buried her face on them.

  Lisbet stared at her mother's shaking shoulders, and tried to go on eating but she could not swallow. She pushed the plate away.

  Hannah woke up, and ran to Elizabeth who gathered the child against her breast, and sat on, there on the floor, leaning against the saddlebag.

  Their meager fire went out. The spring night grew chill. An owl hooted in a nearby tree. Hannah went to sleep again in Elizabeth's lap. Lisbet lay down on the flock mattress with the boys. Elizabeth did not move.

  At midnight she heard a footstep on the path outside and raised her heavy head. The door opened. Will came in, and stood by the door in the darkness. He had been pacing the river path for hours, cursing a malign fate, bludgeoning it or a possible deity for a solution to their miseries.

  "Bess!" he whispered in sharp fear. "Darling, aren't you here?"

  She moved a little without answering, but he heard and groped his way towards her. "He's come, Bess—" Will whispered. "Toby's come. Your cousin John has sent for you. Toby's bringing the sloop up as far as he can. We'll go down the riverbank, rouse the children. I'll lead the cows. You can get your stuff aboard."

  He lit a candle, and they both silently and swiftly gathered together their few belongings. The children were very quiet.

  The tide was high and Toby had come quite near the house. It took them very little time to get their goods and the children on board. The cows were pushed and hauled along the little gangplank.

  "Farewell, hinnie-love," said Will, as Toby began to hoist sail. "You're safe now. Your cousin John didn't forget his vow. And forgive me for all I've done to you. I didn't mean it so." His voice broke, and he turned from her.

  She had put her foot on the gangplank and now she drew it back. "Will Hallet!" she said. "Have you forgot your vow? Does the promise you made me, in the sight of God, mean as little to you as these people here all think?"

  "It is for you—" he said roughly. "You know I love you, but you're shamed and disgraced enough. Do you forget I am an adulterer? I cannot come with you to your family."

  "And I cannot live without you," she said. "Don't you know that, Will?"

  "God-damn it!" Toby called out from the deck, but cautiously. "What's the matter with you two? You want to chatter there until all Stamford comes to help you flee?"

  Will made a long harsh sound in his throat. He took Elizabeth's hand. "We're ready, Toby," he said. They walked silently up the gangplank onto the sloop.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  A MONTH after the Hallets' frantic midnight flight from Stamford, John Winthrop, Jr., sat in his large study at Pequot, frowning at a lump of graphite which had been sent him from his Tantiusque lead mine in Western Massachusetts. He was not thinking of the graphite, he was thinking of Elizabeth—thinking of her with perplexity, dismay and a yearning tenderness not unmixed with anger, because his usual self-discipline and detachment seemed to have deserted him. But he again forced their return by picking up his magnifying glass and making a dogged examination of the graphite. There were also ranged before him on his table some samples of ore, possibly gold-bearing, which Roger Williams had sent from Providence for assay. And on a stone slab at the back of the room, a retort bubbled slowly. Jack was brewing his all-purpose remedy, the "Rubila" with which he successfully dosed his family, half his town, and a great many acquaintances throughout the colonies who wrote to him for medical advice.

  The soft June air blew through the open window, and brought a faint musical sound. It was Bess's voice, she must be out in the courtyard. Jack went to the window and saw her dark bent head. She was sitting on a bench packing rose petals into a pomander and singing a sad little tune. "If my complaints could passions move, or make love see wherein I suffer wrong—"

  It was a song that Bess used to sing, accompanied by her lute, at Groton. One summer night that he especially remembered, she had sat under the mulberry tree, Martha bad been there too. The sisters had sung in harmony. And behind them had towered the great cream and brick sheltering walls of the Great Manor House. What summer was that? Anyway, long before he had ever thought to leave the beautiful home behind forever.

  Jack shut the window with a bang, latched it and sat down again at the table. What ails me? he thought with disgust. Regrets, nostalgia—futile morbidities—And right here at Pequot he had now built for himself as fine a clapboarded and gabled mansion as any in the New England. Why hark back to old outworn places ... and feelings? He shoved his minerals aside, and picking up his quill pen began the determined writing of a business letter.

  After a disappointing winter at nearby Fishers Island, Jack was at last really established at Pequot, or "Nameag" as the Indians called this lovely hillside on the west bank of the deep blue river harbor.

  Convinced of his little settlement's eventual pre-eminence, Jack had asked the Hartford authorities for permission to christen the place New London. The Governor of Connecticut—Edward Hopkins—was sympathetic, the Deputy Governor John Haynes was not, and had conveyed a message of reproof, saying that other settlements throughout New England had considered this grandiose name for themselves and eschewed it as being too presumptuous.

  Jack, whose enthusiasms were not easily daunted, and who had a concealed antipathy towards Haynes, determined to persist, and in fact already called Pequot's river The Thames. Though he had small hope of official sanction, since Hopkins and Haynes alternated the governorship each year, and Haynes would soon be in again. It was John Haynes who back in 1634 had ousted Jack's father from the Bay control, it was Haynes who had accused the elder Winthrop of "too much lenity" and who had pronounced the actual banishment on Roger Williams. A narrow, rigorous man was John Haynes, the type of Puritan, Jack well knew, who was responsible for some of the odium the colonies had incurred in England.

  It was unfortunate that Massachusetts had relinquished Jack's huge Pequot domain, and he had been forced to put it under Connecticut Colony, but geography and common sense made the move inevitable.

  Jack had need of his large mansion, and the almost manorial outbuildings he had erected at Pequot. He was one of the most influential men in the four—now confederated—colonies, of the Bay, Plymouth, New Haven and Connecticut. Some thought him the most important settler between Boston and New Amsterdam. At any rate he was the most popular, and he received many visitors.

  Also his family was large. He and Betty Winthrop had six children, and she was expecting another in August; moreover, her widowed sister, Mrs. Lake, lived with them, and there were five servants to be housed.

  Mrs. Winthrop, an accustomed hostess, usually took chance-comers in her stride, but it was on a question of hospitality that she had decided to invade her husband's private sanctum this Saturday morning in June. She had been a large, handsome, fair-haired girl, with the assured manner of one who was well born and well dowered. At thirty-three she was unchanged. She had no whims, no melancholies, and no humor. She made John an excellent wife, and had punctually produced all the children he had so desired with Martha. Jack was fond of her, and his manifold projects and frequent travels prevented an occasional hint of boredom from growing to uncomfortable proportions.

  He had built himself this study, which was semi-detached from the main house with its constant bustle of shrieking children and barking dogs. The room—a combination office, library and surgery—reflected his interests, the interests on which of late he found it so hard to concentrate.

  "Come in, my dear," said Jack looking up from the table in answer to his wife's firm knock. "And good morning sister Peggy," he greeted Mrs. Lake, a small, fluffy-headed woman who followed her sister about, rather like a spaniel after a large setter. Both ladies were elegantly dressed in striped dimities.

  "I regret to disturb you, John," Betty said, seating herself in the armchair across from her husband, "but there are several matters to take up. First, the servants. Kaboonder has got into the rum again, and I think he should b
e thoroughly flogged."

  Jack inclined his head. "Very well." He knew that he was too lax with his big black slave, who was an engaging rascal, reputed to have been a king in Angola before he had been captured and sold at Boston by a West Indian trader.

  "Also," said Betty, "Do you think it wise to trust Robino as you do? I don't pretend to understand all this new turmoil between the Narragansetts, and the Pequots, and that Mohican sachem—Uncas—and I don't wish to interfere, husband, but I doubt if Robino always delivers your messages aright."

  Jack frowned, for he had some doubts himself. Robino was a Pequot; he lived with the scattered remnants of the tribe, only a few miles from here. Robino spoke English and was an excellent runner. Jack constantly used him to carry letters to Hartford, or Providence, or even Boston.

  "What makes you suddenly distrust my Indian?" asked Jack anxiously, knowing that Betty always had sound reasons.

  "Something my sister heard," she said nodding towards Mrs. Lake.

  Peggy Lake fluttered and blushed at the sudden notice. "'Twas while I was in the dairy, helping Nannie skim the cream," she said. "Robino was boasting to Kaboonder directly outside the window; he said he knew how to get wampum out of Ninnigret with one hand while he took it from Uncas with the other. He said the white men were such fools."

  Jack sighed and shook his head. "I see. I think these are vain boasts designed only to amaze poor Kaboonder, but the Pequots are certainly subtle, and I'll endeavor to investigate this." He glanced at letters he had recently received from Roger Williams, and from Captain Mason at Hartford. They both treated uneasily of Indian affairs. Williams, the peace-maker, as usual favored his Narragansetts, but was aware of Pequot and Mohican unrest which must be soothed. Captain Mason was keeping an eye on Uncas, the great Mohican chief, who professed undying devotion for the English, but also seemed to be toying with a Mohawk alliance, one moreover that Governor Stuyvesant was rumored to be promoting for his own wicked anti-English ends. But there were always rumors. Jack had seen too many of them flare up and die to be upset.