A Measure of Light

by Beth Powning

  She bundled her knitting, leaned to put it into a basket at her feet.

  “They will destroy her. They will cast her out.”

  It neared the hour. Soon the watchmen would pass by the open door.

  “Aye,” William said. His hands clenched. Outside, the gulls carried the light’s last dusting on their wings as they dove and wheeled. “There is no freedom here. Not that I would name as such. They say that we attain freedom by doing God’s will. Then they tell me what I may charge for my goods. They make laws that would not stand in England.”

  “If they banish her, I will follow.”

  They considered the view framed by their door. The marshes with their bayberry bushes. Fiery clouds over the sea.

  He lowered his voice, leaned towards her. The watchmen approached. “We should leave before that comes to pass.”

  He pointed southeast, beyond the dark hunch of Fort Hill.

  “Providence. If you agree, I will go seek counsel of Roger Williams. I would go on my own volition rather than—”

  “I do agree,” she said. “Go. See if it be better over there, where a man doth govern who speaks of soul liberty.”

  September 1637

  My dear Aunt Urith,

  Terrible deeds have occurred. I must unburden myself of them and trust you may bear my abhorrence. Our English hath marched to a place in Connecticut named Mystic where they found a fort of the Pequot. Oh, my aunt, how could the Lord countenance the murder of 150 men, women, and children? Our governor Winthrop hath reported this to us with great satisfaction and we have sat in the meeting house with bowed heads, thanking the Lord for our victory. All this summer such things have continued. On one occasion forty-eight Pequot women and children were marched into Boston. They were branded and given to various for servants. I would not have one and was hard put to say why, but did so. On another occasion the Pequot men did hide in a swamp and sent away their women and children to be saved. After a battle wherein the Pequot men were killed, wounded or escaped, the English did find the women and children. They divided them as we do cattle or sheep, sending them hither and thither, to Bermuda, Massachusetts and Connecticut. Now they say that the Devil hath been defeated, eight or nine hundred of his army being killed dead and the rest dispersed. I came upon a child in the street following after her English mistress. Oh, my aunt, had we been home you and I would have taken her and searched high and low for the mother for whom she wept. Yet I dare not speak my mind for there is for the smallest offence the lash, the stocks and the gallows. ’Tis a dark place despite the sun which blazeth upon us and doth reflect off the sea like butterflies. What would I do without my Sinnie, who hath taught our Samuel to play the cat’s cradle and hath made for him a doll of stockings. Who laughs and feels not the horror …

  She woke from a dream of grief. William slept beside her; he would leave for the Narragansett Country next month on some pretext. She stared up at the bed’s canopy. She could not understand this pregnancy. The child within did not stretch, urgent as a swelling seed. Rather she felt jolts of change, a jagged momentum accompanied by dread. And although Sinnie was thrilled by the pregnancy, and perceived her mistress to feel the same, Mary did not tell her how her physical distress, oddly, had no commensurate and anticipatory joy. Her morning sickness lasted far longer than normal. She was continuously dizzy, rising from the washtub and reeling, snatching at chair backs or walls, standing with eyes closed against the world’s doubling. Her legs were seized by cramps that woke her, shouting with agony, so that William would waken and knead at her calves with his thumbs. Her belly was but a slight bulge and the movements within her womb were furtive ripplings rather than the bold shoves she remembered from Samuel’s tenancy.

  Her lips moved. She whispered into the cold darkness.

  To thee, O Lord, I call; my rock, be not deaf to me …

  EIGHT

  Signs and Wonders — 1637

  ALL DAY THEY HEARD THE screaming of pigs.

  Slaughter season. William had killed theirs before sailing for Providence two weeks ago. Mary had received no word from him since.

  She went to the garden to pick parsley. Samuel followed, carrying a basket. Mary saw how the pouched skin on his hands was sun-browned. He trotted ahead of her between the sunflower stalks. The carrot tops were feathery, turning pale, and the air bore the regretful spice of decay.

  “Parsley,” Samuel called, squatting. Milkweed seeds pinwheeled, landed on the child’s head.

  She stood stock-still, gazing at him. Love came as if from the drifting seeds, the sun-warmed tufts of goldenrod, the scent of mint. She wondered why it came pouring upon her just now. Perhaps because Samuel had himself chosen to leave Sinnie’s side. Perhaps it was the way his deer-hide slippers had patted so confidently over the path. Or because he was a boy now, not a baby. His lips would not turn white.

  She came up beside him, knelt. The green lacy leaves were crisp to the touch, as if already dried.

  “Parsley,” she agreed. She took a breath to tell him a story from her childhood—how once she had found a robin’s egg in the midst of a parsley plant—and was struck with pain so intense that she fell forward, her face in the leaves.

  Samuel screamed. “Sinnie! Sinnie! Sinnie!”

  A crash, pan to floor. Sinnie came running, her voice jouncing with the thud of her shoes.

  “Mistress! I’m coming.”

  Mary felt Sinnie’s small body pressed close, arms circling her.

  “Stand, you must stand.”

  Mary cried out as she came to her feet. The pain augered her belly, her back. “I am only seven months,” she panted. “’Tis too soon. Too soon. William is away …”

  Mary bent forward over Sinnie’s arms, face in her hands. Everything rushed up and dwindled away into specks. Anne Hutchinson and her meetings. The Puritan ministers, pontificating. Pigs. Children picking bayberries in the autumn marshes. While she went down into a dark slippery place with translucent walls. Fire. Black flicker. The cadence of her heart pounding, blood so thick in her veins that hearing reduced, swooped away, became only a rushing. Now her feet were moving over the path, Sinnie was talking, a stream of words.

  She was on her knees again, clasping the pain with both arms.

  Ah. Hold it, appease it.

  Swimming towards mahogany light.

  Mary opened her eyes. Afternoon had faded into dusk. The familiar bedchamber—her bedchamber—was made strange by the presence of several bustling women; and by Sinnie at the doorway, peering in, Samuel at her skirts; by a kettle set over the coals; by Anne, at the hearth within a cloud of basil-scented steam.

  Pain seized her womb, a spiralling craze. Despair swept over her. She squeezed the hand of the young woman at her side. Mercy Talford, mother of three. Nutmeg freckles on her nose, widely spaced brown eyes. She held a Bible in her lap.

  “Read,” said Anne, glancing up from the infusion. “Read to her, Mercy.”

  Pain.

  “ ‘Praise the name of the Lord … whatever the Lord pleases he does, in heaven and on earth …’ ”

  Pain.

  “ ‘Sent signs and wonders / against Pharaoh and all his …’ ”

  Pain.

  “ ‘Will vindicate his people … have compassion …’ ”

  They had slid her from the bed, held her sitting upright. She felt sudden humiliation that she should be so reduced, she who often worked at Anne’s side—swift, competent. Anne put an arm around her waist.

  “Take her other arm, Mercy,” Anne said.

  She was standing.

  “Walk, Mary,” Anne said. “You must walk.”

  The pain came again and she crumpled forward. Anne’s voice was like a rope, pulling.

  “Walk, even in the pain, Mary. Walk.”

  “Will I die?”

  “Nay, Mary, you will not die.”

  “But ’tis too soon. And if the baby comes, Anne, and should die, and should take me, too, I have not prepared. I have not prepared my
soul.”

  “If it comes to such a pass, we will see that you are prepared. But you are young and strong, do not think that you shall die. I will not let you die, Mary.”

  Mary paced.

  Back and forth between bedstead and wall, chest and hearth, her eyes on the pine floor that she and Sinnie had scrubbed yesterday. Sand prickled her bare feet. The wind rose, a white mutter. Wind, Mary thought, with sudden anger. Always wind, fretting the Shawmut Peninsula.

  In the next room, Samuel began to cry.

  Anne went to the door.

  “Sinnie, take the child to my house for the night.”

  “Yes, Mistress.”

  “Do not return till I send for you.”

  “Yes, Mistress.”

  Mary arched backwards, hands to belly. Screamed.

  The waters broke.

  They tipped her onto the bed, soothed her until she could roll onto her back. Anne pressed Mary’s knees apart, slid a lard-greased hand inside.

  Mary heard a sharp intake of breath. She lifted her head, opened her eyes. She saw Anne’s gaze become fixed as her fingers probed, her lips compressing into a grim line.

  “What …” Mary began, but fell back, panting.

  Anne withdrew her hand and gently pressed Mary’s knees together as if closing a book upon learning its ending.

  The women rubbed her belly with warm oil, held a mug of caudle to her lips. They spoke in low voices edged with panic.

  “Hold her shoulders.”

  Aunt Urith, Aunt Urith. Dust spinning from red wheels. Mother.

  “Mother!”

  Her cries rose like flames, consuming walls, ceiling, house.

  “Feet.”

  A hand inside her, working. Mary fought. Fought to rise from the bed, to leave her body, to tear herself from the women’s hands. She twisted her spine, bit, panted, screamed. Her body was shaken with spasms. Froth at her mouth. Convulsions.

  The neighbour women covered their faces. One ran from the room.

  “Go then,” Anne panted. Her voice rose to a shout. “Go. All of you. There is nothing you can do. Jane, stay by me.”

  Mary’s last scream rose, split.

  Darkness came upon her.

  Anne stood in the centre of the room, fingers against ears, mouth pressed into the heels of her hands. Jane Hawkins knelt in a dark corner lifting a blanket with one hand. Down, the fabric. Around, up, down. Twisting. Swaddling.

  Anne removed hands from face, drew a long breath. “We must wrap Mary against the child-bed fever.”

  “Aye,” Jane said. She was an older woman, Cornish. Her coif had slipped over her forehead, drew a black slash above shrewd eyes. Finished, she pushed herself to her feet, hands to knees, crossed the room to a pile of linens.

  “I should wash her,” she said, glancing at Mary, who lay sleeping, blood-soaked shift tangled round her.

  “Goody Hawkins. You saw.”

  “Aye.”

  Experienced midwives, they held one another’s eyes. The fire had died to ashes and the pine splints flickered, at the point of extinction.

  “What was it?” Anne whispered. Her hands rose, she gripped Jane’s shoulders.

  “The sex. I could see the sex. ’Twas a girl’s.”

  “But. The rest. Have you ever …”

  “Never. Never in all my days, Mistress Hutchinson.”

  “You know how … ’twill …”

  “Aye.”

  “You must never tell. Never, never, Jane Hawkins. For her sake, as well as ours. Mine. And yours.”

  “Aye.”

  Mary stirred, her head rolled on the pillow. Even sleeping, her face was distressed.

  They heard a scream, so distant they could not tell if it were wolf or wildcat.

  “Jane, I must go … out. Do not let anyone come into this room.”

  Exhaustion, and what had come to pass, settled in Jane Hawkins’ hips, face, hands. She turned towards the pile of linens, wavered, and then sank onto a chair. She glanced at the wrapped bundle. Then she looked at wine in a pipkin, steaming over the coals.

  “I do not fancy being left alone with it,” she whispered.

  “Mary is here,” Anne said. Her own voice had dropped and she stepped forward, shook Jane’s shoulder, briskly. “Verily, Goody Hawkins. ’Tis dead.”

  Mary felt warmth on her face, knubbled cotton beneath her cheek.

  Awake. Where am I.

  There was no sound. No screaming. No pain.

  Baby.

  She opened her eyes. October light sleeked the ceiling joists, the oak mantel. She felt the low cramp in her womb, tried to bring knees to belly and found herself swaddled from the waist down, legs and belly wrapped tight.

  Where is Sinnie? My dear …

  Sinnie appeared in the doorway, began to speak and then disappeared. A murmur, in the next room. Anne came, her steps swift and sure. She carried a bowl of cornmeal mush, set it on the table, added a log to the fire, poked with the tongs until flames rose against the granite’s blackened crust. She drew a chair close to the bed, took up the bowl.

  “Where is my baby?” Mary said.

  “Quiet,” Anne said. Her voice was uneasy beneath its calm. “Eat and I will tell you.”

  The spoon pressed into the fine, moist meal, causing a pool of maple syrup. Anne lifted the mush to Mary’s mouth.

  “Girl or boy?” Mary whispered, frightened.

  “Shhh, you must eat.” She slipped the spoon into Mary’s mouth, watched as she chewed and swallowed. “Mary.” She whispered, laid a hand on Mary’s cheek. “’Twas dead.”

  Mary’s eyes stilled, as if life had left them, too. She stared at Anne, the question unspoken.

  Anne raised her hand like a shield. “Nay, do not ask me, Mary.” The skin of her forehead pulled back, tightened.

  “Do not ask you … what? Where is my baby?”

  Cold air came over the windowsill, stirred bunched herbs hanging from the summer beam. Sunlight revealed the room’s plainness: wainscot, mud-daubed walls. Anne’s hand shook, suddenly, violently. She put down the bowl.

  “Mary. ’Twas a blessing the child was born lifeless. Truly, you must believe this. Only Jane Hawkins and I saw it—her. She was … disfigured.”

  “How so?”

  They heard the slapping of Samuel’s bare feet in the next room. Sinnie’s shushing.

  “Disfigured, you say,” Mary repeated. “How so? Where is she?”

  Anne looked away, and Mary saw her assurance falter, as if sapped by self-doubt, or, oddly, shame.

  “There was …” Anne paused, looking at the counterpane. “Mary, the child had no … head. Barely a face. The eyes were oddly …”

  She sighed and fell silent.

  Mary lay back on the bolster, looked down at her hands. Curled and empty, like all the beautiful, finished vessels that rattled in the autumn wind: pods, husks. She looked through a blur of tears at the front window, saw waves upon the bay lifting the morning light as if no great change had come in the world; equally oblivious, the hillsides burned in the rising glow of morning, filtering sunshine through the red grasses.

  William, in Providence. He had begun his day not knowing.

  “The women could not bear your screams and I bade them leave,” Anne said, her voice strengthening. “Only Jane Hawkins saw the poor thing come into my hands. When I saw it, I knew, then, that …”

  Mary could barely speak for the thickening in her throat. Her words came in rushes, separated by struggles for breath. “Should the truth of my birth be spread about, the people will say that I have been punished by God. Or that you have been punished by God.”

  Anne seized Mary’s hand, stroked it as she would stroke a child’s head. Grey hair escaped from the confines of her coif. She laid Mary’s hand back on the counterpane and clasped her own hands in her lap.

  “I went to Mr. Cotton,” she said. “I told him what had come to pass and asked his counsel. I begged his confidence. He thought upon it.”


  “But—”

  Anne’s eyes snapped to Mary’s, shifty with repressed doubt. “Who else was I to ask?”

  He avoids her, Anne told me. He is no longer welcoming, she said.

  They listened to milling gulls, a confusion of sound.

  “I will tell you what he said,” Anne said, finally, drawing a breath. “He said God intended only the instruction of the parents.”

  Mary started up from the bolster. “No. No. Not William.”

  “Nay, listen. He spoke kindly, Mary. He said if it were his, he would bury it in secret. I protested. I reminded him that in England, midwives may bury a baby in private, but here the council hath forbidden it so that they may ascertain if the child was illegitimate, or murdered, or bore signs of witchcraft. He said: ‘You shall register the birth and say that you came to me and that I gave you dispensation.’ We are safe, then, as long as Jane Hawkins does not speak. And she will not, for as I reminded her, she hath been called a cunning woman, even a witch, more than once.”

  She leaned close to whisper in Mary’s ear.

  “I returned and bade Jane Hawkins fetch Sinnie to watch over you. Then she and I took the child. The child is buried where she shall not be found.”

  A daughter, Mary thought. Buried. Alone in the wind and the black night. Where the wolves might find her.

  “So what should I … what does Mr. Cotton wish us to say?”

  “Your labour came early, Mary, ’twill be seen as a simple miscarriage. You must tell no one. For it will …”

  Give the men cause for triumph. Vilify both of us. Even Reverend Cotton wishes to hide the truth, for it will damage him, since Anne, still, is his acolyte.

  “Oh, Anne,” she said. She began to weep, a simpler weeping, a mother’s grief. “Oh, Anne. The wolves will dig …”

  “Nay,” Anne said, quickly, positive. “She is buried deep.” She leaned over Mary, busy with covers and bolster. “She is buried deep.”

  NINE

  Sedition 1637–1638

  IN EARLY NOVEMBER, snowflakes fell, large as shillings, drifting from a white sky. Sinnie stopped to watch them.