A Measure of Light

by Beth Powning

  Shivering, she lifted her chamber pot and carried it down the stairs.

  In the great hall, the stink of unwashed bodies lay sharp and sour beneath the smell of Indian bannock, browning on a sloping board. Firelight quivered on the floor’s red tiles. Three African slave women worked at a vast fireplace hung with hams and bacon. They spoke to one another in Creole, and the soft rhythm swept her to Barbados and the hilltop plantation owned by Quakers where she and Anne Burden had stayed. Whistling frogs, in the hot nights, and wood-smoke from the sugar factory. Rattle of palmetto leaves. A slave who had dug an insect from beneath her toenail, where it had laid eggs. Drums from the slave quarters. Barbados—the “nursery of the truth,” Friends called it, for so many had been convinced there.

  And become wealthy, as had the Sylvesters, from sugar.

  She set down her chamber pot to thaw by the others.

  Grizzell put a hand to her spinning wheel, stopping its roll. She stepped light-footed across the crowded room, skirting chairs, baskets, chests. She was Mary’s height, her eyes serene. Motherly, Mary thought, taking Grizzell’s strong hands.

  As if she is amazed and delighted at the very sight of me. Ah, that Littlemary could look at me so.

  “Didst sleep well?”

  “I did, thank thee. Though I fear I did oversleep.”

  Two children played on the bedstead—Giles gnawed the coral stem of a teething toy; Little Grizzell played with a wooden doll.

  “Aye, we ate long ago. Thee must be hungry. Hannah?”

  Mary sat at the table. Hannah set a bowl of porridge before her. Her arms were thick, purple-black. She smelled of ginger, smiled wryly at Mary’s murmured thanks.

  Grizzell returned to her spinning wheel. She gave it an absent stroke, setting it in motion, still gazing at Mary as if reluctant to return to her work.

  “Where are you …?” She broke off, looked down as if distracted by a larger tuft of wool that she must coax onto her spindle.

  Where am I going to go next, she doth wonder. What shall I say?

  For the moment, she was content to be here, in the home of Friends, waiting for news brought by travellers. She blew on her spoonful of steaming samp.

  Grizzell spoke quickly. “It is our hope that thee will stay as long as thee wishes, Mary. ’Tis a joy to me to have thee here. Someone who remembers London!”

  Yes, Mary thought, looking at the young woman, whose belly showed the slight swelling of another pregnancy. Grizzell would be happy to have another Englishwoman here, for it was clear that Nathaniel Sylvester was busy; and when there were no visiting Friends, this young woman who had grown up in the court of Charles I would have no like-minded companion: only the children, and the slave families sleeping in corners, and the Shinnecock, Manhansets and Montauks arriving in canoes, through veils of snow.

  Every day, Mary dressed in many layers—long wool stockings secured around her thighs, neck cloth, mittens, hooded cape. She stepped out into snow-refracted light.

  Wolves had been exterminated on the island, and cattle, horses and pigs wandered unfenced; the land was riddled with their trails, crisscrossing meadows, ribboning down to the shore. She followed a trail into the woods where branches stirred with dry creaks, shifting the prisms within ice-coated twigs. She walked slowly, dazed by the brilliance and by her own tenuous presence within it.

  Sometimes she could not bear the sound of voice or tool. Crying, laughter, the creak of spinning wheel; raw, excruciating, it was the sound of time—slow, so slow.

  All of life’s minutes …

  At the edge of the cove, she stood watching the sea birds. She remembered the scaffold’s threshold, the moment when her foot had lifted to step forward. Still she could feel that brush of tissuey sweetness, like a poppy’s heart. And the joy she had glimpsed of which earthly happiness was but a remnant.

  An elderly couple arrived from Salem—Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick, recently released from prison and driven from Massachusetts under pain of death.

  They were given chairs close to the fire. Cassandra’s lips were blue; Lawrence bore yellowing bruises beneath his eyes.

  “Mary Dyer!” Cassandra exclaimed. Mary took the mouse-boned hand. The cruelty, the savagery. Cassandra was small, soft, her cheeks pouched like pudding-bags within a square face whose eyes bore the wrinkles of kindness. Men had stripped her to the waist and whipped her for carrying Quaker pamphlets.

  Lawrence bent forward, face in hands.

  “’Tis Provided and Daniel we fear for,” he said into his hands. “Our youngest children. We heard that they have been imprisoned for not attending church.”

  His woollen mittens were unravelling at the cuffs. Melting ice dripped from his beard.

  Nathaniel and Grizzell stood together, the children half-hidden within Grizzell’s skirts. Low afternoon light rubied bunches of seed corn dangling from the beams.

  An African girl came with a bowl of soup. She handed it to Cassandra; returned with another bowl for Lawrence. He sat upright to take the bowl and held it so loosely that it tipped forward, slopped onto his boots. He looked around the room, his face clearing.

  “The Lord is here,” he said.

  “He is wherever a heart welcomes him,” said Cassandra.

  More Friends arrived on a ship, seven weeks out from England, men or women who had been called to leave home and family.

  They wore plain clothing and were spare of language. Out-of-doors they walked in silence, engaged in sober reflection.

  Sometimes Mary accompanied them as they travelled through the forests on foot, guided by Indians, crossing streams and coves in dugouts, seeking those who might be glad to receive the “blessed truth.” In villages, they stayed at the homes of those who would receive them kindly. They held their meetings in houses whose unpainted lintels oozed sap, whose walls smelled of plaster, whose windows framed the stumps of cleared fields. The air in such rooms was as the air of forest or sea, unpeopled by history. Into such clarity, the Friends’ message crept—kindled, blazed.

  After one such expedition, Mary returned to Sylvester Manor to find Lawrence Southwick lying in the hall bedstead where the children played. The curtains were drawn back so that firelight would touch his face. He had died on the previous night.

  Three days later, Cassandra lay in the same bed.

  Mary, at her side, slit open a letter from William. It had been delivered to the Manor by an Indian runner.

  … I must tell you that the Court hath published this statement in the Bay and sent another copy for publishing in England. It hath been published both here and abroad. It reads thus: “The sparing of Mary Dyer upon an inconsiderable intercession will manifestly evince that we desire their lives absent, rather than their deaths present.”

  Inconsiderable. Her heart raced. However manipulated, was the request of a son to spare the life of his mother inconsiderable?

  She could hear distant shouting as men ferried lighters filled with barrels of salted meat out to a Barbados-bound ship lying at anchor in the deep water.

  We desire their lives absent.

  Again, they used her. Mary Dyer, mother of a monster. Read by mariners, at sea. By purveyors of meat, in Southwick Market. Mary Dyer, cursed by the devil. By milliners, cobblers, and powdered London ladies. Mary Dyer, irresponsible mother, heretic. Read by innkeepers, farmers, wheelwrights, teachers. And now: See our graciousness. We have been so kind as to spare her.

  She felt violent energy lift her scalp. Her thoughts honed.

  He says—this is thy path, walk it and thee shall find me.

  She laid the letter on her lap. Rather than Cassandra’s pouched, pale cheeks, she saw the Massachusetts General Court, with its magistrates and elders, its pine walls and dusty air. Court met twice yearly, once in autumn and once in spring.

  They had promised to hang her if she returned.

  She would offer Governor Endicott two choices.

  Repeal the bloody laws, or hang me.

  If they
repealed the laws, she would live and the prisoners would go free. But Endicott and his government would appear to have lost their war against the Quakers.

  If they hanged her. Already, people were sickened by the brutality. If they executed an innocent woman—fifty years old, wife of a prominent Rhode Island merchant, mother of six children—the news would be taken to London, would spread to the continent. It was rumoured that soon, within months, Charles II would ascend to the throne. He would take note of the brutality, carried out by the same Puritans who had murdered his father.

  She smoothed her hand over Cassandra’s forehead, bony and box-like as a turtle’s shell, thinking of the dream that came night after night. The bluebell meadow. Where they sat; Mother, Father—

  Cassandra Southwick jolted from sleep. She sat with sudden strength, arms reaching. She cried out, full-throated.

  “Lawrence? Josiah? Provided! My Daniel!”

  Grizzell dropped her spindle; toys startled from the children’s hands. Hurrying footsteps sounded from the stairwell.

  Mary ran her hand up Cassandra’s back, her fingers rising and falling over the scars of the jailor’s whip. Cassandra fell back on the pillow. Her face cleared as breath left her body and did not return.

  In April, a group of Friends sat in the Sylvesters’ parlour. A woman read out the names of thirteen people now held in the Boston jail.

  Mary Trask. Margaret and John Smith. Edward Wharton. Robert and Deborah Harper. Wenlock Christison. William King. Martha Standley. Mary Wright. William Leddra. Joseph and Jane Nicholson.

  One need, only. It was less need than impetus. One step forward into the heart of time.

  —

  Sinnie was in the great hall, stirring laundry in a wooden tub. William stood rigid in the front door, silhouetted against the spring sunshine, reading a letter.

  She laid the stick against the side of the bucket, carefully, so as not to make a sound. She heard the tick-tock of hoofs as the messenger rode back down the lane.

  He came into the room.

  “Mary hath been sighted riding to Boston.”

  Littlemary came up the path carrying a basket filled with chives and dandelion greens. She stepped into a patch of light.

  “Father?”

  “Do you tell her, Sinnie,” he said. His voice was hoarse. “I am going to the parlour to write a letter. Tell Jurden to be ready to ride for Boston within the hour.”

  He sat at his desk, quill poised.

  The last time, he had appealed to their consciences. They had struck a deal—they would take her to the gallows, with no intention of hanging her. It would frighten her so terribly that she would change her ways. They had insisted that it be son, not husband, who begged for her life.

  He tossed down his quill and went to the window. He did not see the orchard’s pink-blossomed rows but watched his life unreeling, all his decisions reversed until he arrived at his pew in St. Martin-in-the-Fields and saw a young woman sitting across the stone-flagged aisle.

  And lost his heart to her grave, luminous eyes.

  His throat tightened.

  This time, I will appeal to their hearts.

  He resumed his seat, began to write rapidly, with shaking hand.

  … I only say this, yourselves have been and are or may be husbands to wife or wives, so am I: yea to one most dearly beloved, oh do not you deprive me of her, but I pray give her me once again and I shall be so much obliged forever, that I shall endeavour continually to utter my thanks and render your love and honour most renowned: pity me, I beg it with tears, and rest your

  most humbly suppliant

  W Dyer

  Sinnie saw dried tears on William’s face. She stood in the lane before the house. Jurden was running from the barn, dragging an alarmed gelding by the reins.

  “Ride with all haste, Jurden, and if you do sight someone who can get there faster, send word that this letter is on its way.”

  “Aye.”

  “And deliver it straight into Endicott’s hands. See that you do so, Jurden, I pray you.”

  The grey’s restrained energy exploded. Pebbles cracked against the house. Horse and rider dwindled down the lane and turned northwards at the gate, Jurden’s whip a streak of silver.

  William and Sinnie stood by the hitching post. Hens bustled around the corner of the house, stopping to scratch beneath a catnip plant.

  “I can only think that she is mad, Sinnie.”

  Sinnie looked down. Her shoes had been wet from the washing and had attracted a layer of dust. She glanced at the house, where Littlemary stood in the door holding a forked stick, her sleeves rolled.

  So much work to do. Sunshine, a good day for drying. And the garden to plant.

  “If only I had not allowed her to go to England. If I had …”

  Sinnie put a hand to William’s sleeve and he collected himself. He laid his hand over hers, his eyes reddened by tears.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Blowing Grasses - 1660

  EVERYTHING WAS THE SAME in shape and substance, yet seemed profoundly changed. The same four-poster bedstead at Fairbanks, in the same room. The same view overlooking the harbour. She sat on a chair.

  She stared.

  Out the window at the swaying mastheads.

  At a shoe, held in her hand.

  She remembered Anne’s voice. Only God’s grace can bring salvation.

  Listened. The watchman, calling out the all’s well. Gulls.

  At night, she could not sleep but lay watching the dim square of the window, feeling as if she were a fish swimming through waters in whose shafts of light she drifted and lingered, fluid and free.

  Although she had been sighted, she remained in Boston, undetained, for a few days.

  They hope I will lose my nerve. They do not wish to hang me.

  Then they came for her.

  She was put in a cell with other Quaker women. They said little to one another. They had no energy for one another’s earthly needs. They did not hug, weep or speak of their fears.

  Mary did not tell them how she looked forward rather than back. How she felt steady in her faith, certain of the glory to come. How she pictured the fear on Endicott’s face rather than her own. How she was grim, eager for her day.

  Darkness. Silence. Five days, six.

  The General Court sat. The following day, the marshal came for Mary. He escorted her through the streets of Boston, up the staircase over the market and into the courtroom. He seated her on the same bench where she had sat before with William and Marmaduke. She imagined them at her side. Pictured their faces when she saw them next.

  Soon.

  The same Court, smelling of resin and grain dust.

  The same men, only with different expressions. Uneasy, solemn. Luminous with terror, as if the presence of death curtailed each of their breaths.

  Endicott seemed diminished—thinner, distraught.

  “Are you the same Mary Dyer who was here before?” He pretended to be in doubt and she saw that he hoped she would say “no” in order to release him from the conundrum of her arrest.

  “I am the same Mary Dyer who was here at the last General Court.” She spoke robustly, remembering William Robinson’s voice—how, at his sentence, he had spoken with such firmness.

  “You will own yourself a Quaker?”

  “I own myself to be reproachfully so called.” She smiled, her chin crept forward, and she narrowed her eyes at Endicott.

  Look at me, man. Remember your deeds.

  Endicott rose, agitated. He motioned for the magistrates to follow him into the consulting chamber.

  Mary watched the sunshine on the wall. No leaf or wing interrupted the light’s passage and yet it quivered. The men’s voices were a rumble behind the door. A fly landed on the back of her hand and she made no move to flick it away but felt the padded tickle of its feet, observed the purple-green sheen of its wings.

  “… he who loses his life for my sake will find it …”

  The
door opened.

  The men filed back to their seats, not looking at her.

  Endicott remained standing. His face was whey-coloured. Shadows lay in the deep lines running from his nose to the corners of his mouth. She saw that his neck trembled, shivering the tassels at the corners of his white bib collar.

  “You must return to the prison and there remain till tomorrow at nine o’clock; then from there you must go to the gallows and there be hanged until you are dead.”

  “This is no more than thee said before.” She allowed her contempt its full voice.

  “Aye, aye,” he said. He made a dismissing gesture, looked away from her eyes. “But now it is to be executed. Therefore, prepare yourself for nine o’clock tomorrow.”

  No one spoke.

  Suddenly, Endicott leaned forward and put both hands on the table.

  “Why do you think this sentence should not be executed?” he asked. He peered at her, squinting, as if he could not quite make her out, though she sat so close.

  “I came in obedience to the will of God to the last General Court, praying thee to repeal thy laws; and that is my same work now, and earnest request, although I told thee that if thee refused to repeal them, the Lord would send others of his servants to witness against them.”

  “Are you a prophetess, then?” Endicott mocked.

  “I spoke the words which the Lord spoke to me,” she said, evenly. Her eyes did not leave his, and he looked down. She felt them in the room—all the brutalized Friends, robust and warm-hearted—and imagined it was their presence that caused the men to shrink back in their seats and made Endicott look sideways. “And now the thing has come to pass.”

  She paused and took a breath to speak again, but Endicott had begun gathering his papers, fumbling, sending some across the table, others flying to the floor.

  “Away with her,” he snapped to the marshal. “Away with her.”

  —

  This time, she was placed in a solitary cell. She watched as the familiar lines of light in the window’s pine planks slowly passed from yellow to grey, and then vanished.