by Anya Seton
"Because, Bess—there's much perplexity. The other goldsmiths on Lombard Street, when questioned, said that a Ralph Barton had some years ago gone off to York to set up for goldsmith on his own. That they were nearly sure it was the same as had been 'prenticed once to Robert Feake. Still all England is at war, and inquiries most difficult. They put Robert in the Fleet for safekeeping until some trace of this Ralph Barton could be found. Edward had a hand in this, and arranged that Robert be imprisoned under an assumed name. It's also by Edward's humane efforts that Robert was not sent to Bedlam. At the Fleet he has his own apartment and a servant to care for him. He is much distraught again, and nobody believes his story, though they can't free him until they're sure." He put his hand gently on her shoulder. "Did you ever guess what it was Robert wished to go to England for?"
She was silent a long time. At last she answered very low, "It may be. At least now I see many things I wouldn't look at before." She stopped because an eerie memory displaced the memories of Robert's "strangeness." Against the sultry blue New England sky she saw herself and Edward Howes pausing on Fleet Bridge in the snow, and she saw again the prisoner's hand clenched on the bar of a window in the Fleet. Only a vague pathos had she felt then, and some recognition of the loss of freedom foisted on herself as she reluctantly became Edward's betrothed. Now it might be Robert's hand that clenched at that same bar. She turned and spoke with conviction. "Jack, I believe he did not do it. 'Twas one of his hideous fancies sent, I verily believe, by the Devil. Robert has always had a demon fighting in him. He was at times possessed as truly by an unclean spirit as ever was the Gadarene whom Christ delivered."
"Aye," said Jack solemnly after a moment. "And may Christ deliver Robert. Do you pray for him, Bess?"
"I can't pray," she said. "My prayers were never answered when I did. There's naught to be done with a God of Wrath but creep away and hide from His notice. I will not seek afflictions, and deem them joyous marks of Divine Favor. I don't think pain and cruelty ennobling."
Jack was troubled, and her speech dismayed him. He had never questioned such things, but accepted the teaching he had been reared with, and he thought it needful to say reprovingly, "You speak like a heathen, Bess. I grieve to hear it. You must think of your immortal soul, and bear your cross for His sake and for your own salvation."
She looked at him with a sad smile. "'Tis no use, Jack. I'm in the darkness, and there is but one thing I desire of life."
His grave brown eyes looked their question.
"To hold my William's love, and to be his true wife," she said.
"Poor Bess," he murmured. "Poor little coz. It would be much, but I'm sure—not enough." He sighed and walked over to his children.
Later that week, Betty Winthrop was delivered of a daughter who was named Martha in a compliment to Governor Winthrop's new wife, and with apparently no recollection on Betty's part that the name might commemorate a different Martha. Elizabeth's skilled midwifery was not requested, nor for some time were there any but most formal relations between the great mansion and the little Hallet cottage.
When Elizabeth's own delivery took place in October, her neighbor Goody Langdon did what was needful, but the birth was as easy as the last had been hard.
It was a boy, as Elizabeth had prophesied, and when she saw Will bend over the red-faced mite, and saw the leap of excited pride in his eyes, she knew a moment of rapture.
"Your son, my dear love," she whispered. "Isn't he big and strong and lusty—like his father?"
"In truth—" said Will gazing down with wonder as the baby's fist closed around his finger, "f think he does look like me, has the same great ape jaw."
"For shame!" she said. "Little William Hallet's a beautiful baby!" She raised her arms and pulled Will's face down to hers. "Does he make you happier? Aren't you glad now, darling?"
"Of course, hinnie," he said kissing her and trying to keep all hesitation from his voice. "I am well content. I love thee and this little poppet." He smoothed her hair back and kissed her again. But she knew that he was thinking of all that he had meant to do for this son, and that in strict legal terms it did not even bear his name.
"Can't you forget that?" she cried as though he had spoken. "Must you keep fretting over what we can't help? Jack understands, and nobody else here suspects."
For how long? he thought. And does she think I can be happy when I am here on sufferance and she under the protection of another man? But he said nothing. He went out to hammer on the shed where the roof was not yet finished, noting grimly that the cow whose leg had been injured upon landing from the boat seemed no better. The other cow had died, soon they would have to borrow milk.
The winter dragged by. A hard winter of ice and blizzards. The Hallets would have suffered without Jack's watchful kindness, also Betty Winthrop who had a perfect sense of what was fitting stifled her disinclination and extended hospitality. Will and Elizabeth accepted it for the children's sake. And their visits to the mansion provided each of them with distraction. Elizabeth often worked on Jack's medical formulas for him; she learned to mix—as well as he could himself—the secret ingredients of his "Rubila" which were antimony, niter and salts of tin, colored red.
Will, glad of providing some return, helped Jack with his voluminous correspondence, and particularly by classifying notes on his development projects; the ironworks at Saugus which were at last turning out eight tons a week, the contemplated saltworks at Pequot, though so far no saltworks had prospered; the Pequot gristmill; and continual mining ventures. Will utilized his clerical training under the Digbys, and Jack was pleased by the results.
During the winter Jack also wrote two letters to Governor Stuyvesant on the Hallets' behalf. The first one, to have gone by a ship's captain, Thomas Alcott, was not delivered, and when Jack discovered this, he wrote another.
Noble Sir, I wrote to you in the winter ... to know your pleasure concerning the estate of mrs. Feake...
I am bold ... to request your favour concerning her ... that whereas there was an agreement made with William Hallet for the managing of the estate (which Mr. Feake before his going into England told me at Boston that he fully consented to, knowing Hallet to be industrious and careful, which I find since his being here to be very true) that you will be pleased to let the estate be again returned into his hands, not knowing any other way how it can be improved to the comfortable maintenance of her and the children, who ... for want of it are in a necessitous condition:
...as also that you will be pleased to grant him liberty to return again within your jurisdiction ... which license under your hand I beseech you to send by this bearer...
Your Humble servant
JOHN WINTHROP.
Will and Elizabeth read the letters before they were sent, and were hopeful, being sure that this time Stuyvesant must answer, at least enough to clarify his own position. But still no answer came. And meanwhile two deaths occurred which powerfully affected their future.
On the twenty-sixth of March, Elizabeth and the girls were at the Winthrop mansion. They had spent the day there to help with the annual soapmaking, an operation requiring the labor of as many women as possible, so that the confusion might be finished off quickly. The household tallow and drippings had been hoarded for months, and stank abominably when they were thrown into the great kettles full of lye and boiled outdoors in the barnyard. There were always anxious moments while waiting for the soap to come, and recriminations if the lye had not been strong enough. Betty Winthrop walked amongst the kettles, adjudging the condition of the boiling noisome messes, reproving firmly, sometimes administering praise; an efficient commander of her forces.
And when two dozen barrels had been successfully filled with the soft clear jelly, she presented Elizabeth with one as recompense, and invited her to stay for supper.
Elizabeth was reluctant, being anxious to get back to Will and the boys who were corn-planting, but Lisbet and Hannah looked so disappointed that she agreed. She nursed the
baby, put him at Betty's direction in the cradle with the infant Martha, and gathered with the others in the Great Hall, where Jack joined them.
Jack had a visitor with him. This was Captain John Mason, the commanding officer of the Pequot war in 1637, and the present military leader of Connecticut. He was a small, serious man, with bright darting lizard eyes; a strict Puritan and fervent church member; a magistrate at Hartford and much approved by Haynes and Hopkins. He was utterly unlike the other two captains Elizabeth had known so well—Underhill and Patrick.
Mason had arrived at Pequot to investigate at first hand the behavior of certain Indians who lived on Jack's lands, particularly Robino. He had spent the afternoon rehearsing complaints which had been brought to him, of canoe-stealing, of depradations made by swine, and a graver one that the troublesome Ninnigret, chief of the Niantics, claimed he had received permission from Jack to hunt "all over Pequot Country." Which seemed to have been an invention of Robino's.
Jack appreciated the Captain's meticulous attention to possibly threatening Indian affairs, and gave Mason his usual courteous attention, but he found the exacting little man dull company, and was relieved when they joined the ladies for supper in the Great Hall. The unexpected sight of Elizabeth dismayed Jack. He had so far kept her out of sight whenever there were Hartford visitors or any visitors who might be inclined to pry or know more than he wished them to.
But there was no help for it, and he introduced her rapidly as "Mrs. Hallet," then went on to a topic he hoped would fix Mason's attention.
"The phantom ship!" he said. "Have you heard the latest news of that weird phenomenon, Captain Mason?"
"Aye," said Mason, "since I've recently been to New Haven. They talk of nothing else. Some gaffer's seen it again, afloat in the air, and all the doomed passengers wailing ghostly on the decks." He spoke somewhat absently, for he was looking at Elizabeth, and wondering if it were possible that she was the woman he had heard of in New Haven. Governor Eaton had said little, and that little with constraint, but there had been a hint of scandal. It had passed from Mason's mind, but now on seeing this handsome woman, who had a warm challenging quality, the Captain felt his interest piqued. He glanced at her wedding band—startled at seeing so non-Puritan a symbol in this household—and having a neat mind averse to puzzles, determined to solve this one.
He waited until Mrs. Winthrop and Mrs. Lake had stopped exclaiming on the phantom ship, then said to Elizabeth, "You've recently come to Pequot, Madam? You have some interest in our Connecticut country?"
"Why, to be sure!" said Peggy Lake brightly, breaking the small ensuing silence. "Mrs. Hallet's a cousin of my brother John's and was a Winthrop once herself!"
"Indeed?" said Captain Mason bowing. "Ah, to be sure, I remember from our Boston days. You were then Mistress Feake?"
Jack and Elizabeth both stiffened, but she smiled briefly and said, "Aye." Betty Winthrop, who was not interested in these inquiries, nor ever anxious to notice Elizabeth any more than courtesy demanded, said incisively, "I hope the phantom ship will not come here. They say it's been seen along the coast and always betides evil."
"Oh, I think not, my dear," said Jack. "I've made some study of these things, and believe 'tis only an optical trick joined to superstitious fancy, I've not yet in all my travels seen a chimera which couldn't be explained away and—" He would have continued because he hoped to thoroughly divert Mason's attention from Elizabeth, but they were interrupted.
The slave Kaboonder came lumbering in, his eyes rolling, his black features twisted with alarm. "Master!" he cried kneeling by Jack's chair. "Master! Messenger come. Terrible news!"
Jack stood up and looked towards the door where a Massachusetts Indian stood panting, a small scroll of paper in his hand. Jack beckoned to the Indian who came forward and held out the scroll.
Jack broke the seal, unrolled the paper and looked down. He lifted his head and gazed blindly at the window shutter.
"What is it, John?" whispered Betty.
He moistened his lips, still staring at the shutter.
"My father's dead," he said.
His mouth contorted in a grimace. lie turned and hurried out of the room.
Betty Winthrop gave a cry and rushed after him. The others made pitying murmurs. Mrs. Lake grabbed the uncomprehending little Fitz-John and burst into tears.
Elizabeth felt the blood drain from her head, she saw the walls begin to spin and darken. The sickening emptiness in her head surged down and engulfed her whole body. She slipped sideways off the chair and onto the floor so quietly that it was a moment before the others saw, and ran to help. She lay for many minutes in the only swoon of her mature life.
Jack left that night for Boston on his fastest mount. He covered the hundred miles of trail by the morning of March 31 and reached Boston with a foundered horse.
Adam and Deane were alone in the parlor by the closed coffin when Jack came. The widow, and her six-months-old Joshua, lay in the bedchamber, prostrated with shock and grief. Stephen was in England fighting for Cromwell, Samuel was in the West Indies at Antigua.
Boston had been waiting for Jack to come, had postponed the funeral so that he might have ample time.
Before the official condolences began—the visits of the ministers, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Cotton, and of Thomas Dudley, the Deputy Governor; of old John Endecott, Richard Bellingham; all the elite of Boston—Jack had an hour with his half-brothers.
"Oh, brother John, why didn't you come earlier?" Adam cried. "I wrote you how ill he was, and sorely longing to see you. His last words were of you."
Jack stared at the coffin, so small and mute beneath its black velvet pall. "I didn't get the letter, Adam," he said hoarsely. "When did you send it?"
"A fortnight ago, by Clark's pinnace, when Father's cough and fever had brought him very low."
"I had no news of him," said Jack turning away; he slumped in his father's great high-backed chair, his shoulders shaking.
"He asked, as though it were his last request, that you 'strive no more about the Pequot Indians,'" said Adam, "that you 'leave them to the Commissioners' order.' He shrank from all thoughts of conflict, and grew mild."
"Aye..." said Deane sighing. "He changed much at the end. Seemed to regret many harshnesses. He refused to sign a court order of banishment saying that he had 'done too much of that work already.' He blessed each of us and asked our forgiveness for any wrong he might have done us.—And every day he looked for you."
Jack made a violent motion with his hand, and Deane went on quickly, "Oh, he knew 'twas not lack of love that caused your delay, and he drew great comfort from Mr. Cotton's prayers ... Brother John, the day before he died he spoke about Harry's drowning—and of our cousin Bess. We thought him wandering because he said a strange thing about her."
Jack raised his head to look at Deane. "What strange thing?"
"He said, 'I should not have made her kiss the rod, there mercy should have tempered justice.' He said it several times, as though the thought tormented him, though we didn't understand."
Nor did Jack for a moment, then to his grief-dulled mind there came a memory—the Hall at Groton, a terrified swooning little girl, a bloodstained hazel switch. "Ave," he said. "I think I know. 'Twas long before you were born." I Ie looked at the coffin. "Leave me alone with him, brothers, I would be alone."
They buried Governor John Winthrop on the third of April of that year 1649. The funeral procession wound throughout all the Boston streets, and the mourners were all its citizens and many from the other towns. Prolonged salutes were fired by the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, Mr. Cotton preached the funeral sermon, and the new meetinghouse bell tolled at intervals all day long—sixty-one times for the years of his life.
They entombed him next to Margaret in the burying ground on Trimount Street, they read elegies at his graveside. And even his enemies wept, acknowledging the courage and single-minded purpose which had led the Great Migration, and established in the wilde
rness a new nation which would endure.
Some days later Jack thankfully left the Bay which now held little to interest him. Aside from his sorrow, he had an added depression in that he saw clearly that Endecott was to be the next governor, thus making some futile sort of full circle, since it was Endecott who had been Governor at Salem nineteen years ago, when John Winthrop came sailing into its harbor on the Arbella with the new charter and his own appointment.
Endecott—the narrowest bigot of them all! And notorious in England for his ill judgments, as when he had publicly cut the Cross of St. George from the English flag, averring that he could not bear to see that Papist symbol. Jack's appreciation of the Bay had been waning for years, and now the last strong tie was cut. From now on his home and affections should be engaged by Connecticut.
On his way back Jack briefly visited Roger Williams at Providence, and there heard an extraordinary rumor which was confirmed some days after the return to Pequot.
Elizabeth learned this news from Will, who had gone up to the mansion to see Jack on an errand he had not discussed with her.
Since the night when the message arrived announcing John Winthrop's death, and Elizabeth had fainted, she had been ailing. She had no pain, but slept badly, her breath was short, and she could not hurry up the hill to their home as she used to. Her usual brisk vigor seemed to have drained out of her, and Will watched her anxiously. She was not pregnant. There was no reason for her sudden debility except prolonged strain, and the news of Winthrop's death. She seemed not to realize herself how deeply this news had affected her, but to Will it seemed that some mainspring of her life had broken. She was for the first time in his knowledge of her lost and groping, unable to think for herself.
He had several uneasy conferences with Jack which he did not mention to Elizabeth, since their upshot was uniformly worrisome.