Phoebe's Light

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  He walked to the small window and saw the masts of the Fortuna slant in the water to round the bend of the small harbor. A heavy feeling descended over him. He turned to look at Phoebe, limp as a rag doll. He turned back to the window to see the Fortuna’s mast sail out of sight. Was he still a friend of God?

  “What in the world have I done?” he whispered. “What have I just done?”

  Mary Coffin

  20 June 1661

  I went to the commons today to bring the sheep down to prepare for Washing Day. ’Tis finally warm enough to shear the poor woolies! The sheep were milling all about, the herds all mixed up. Along came Peter Foulger and his son Eleazer. Peter cupped his mouth with his hands and let out a long, solemn call. Dozens of sheep lifted their heads at the sound of his voice, and as he called them gently to him, they made their way through the clumps of grazing sheep. ’Twasn’t long until they were all crowded near him. His entire herd! I knew it to be true because Eleazer counted them. Thirty-five sheep, all accounted for. There was no need to check earmarks. As Peter walked by me, he said, “Does it not remind you of the Holy Scriptures?”

  “How so?” I asked him.

  “‘My sheep will know my voice,’ sayeth the Lord.”

  After Peter and Eleazer left the commons with their sheep trailing behind them, Peter up front, calling and calling, Eleazer coming from behind, I pondered his remark. I am none too fond of sheep, for they are fearful of everything yet have not the sense to avoid trouble. I do like baby lambs, so sweet and soft.

  I tried to call my father’s sheep with a similar call as Peter’s, but no sheep lifted its head at the sound. Not a single one. They did not know me. I did not know them.

  Peter Foulger knew his sheep, knew them intimately. And the sheep loved him, if it was possible for a dumb beast to love a master.

  “My sheep will know my voice,” sayeth the Lord. The intimacy of that bond was what struck my heart. This is not the kind of Lord that the Puritan clergy speak of (gloomy Reverend Rodgers comes to mind!), a Lord full of wrath and rules and displeasure.

  Could it be . . . that this Lord, this loving Good Shepherd, is calling me to follow him? And I have not ever heard his voice, for it had been drowned out by the clanging sounds of scolding clergy.

  The thought makes me shudder.

  22 June 1661

  A few days ago Peter Foulger asked if I might be interested in getting baptized. He is planning to baptize some Indians in the Waqutaquaib Pond in a fortnight. The pond is one of the boundary markers in the original Indian deed. “But I already was baptized,” I told him. “When I was just a few weeks old. Why should I be baptized again?”

  “But Mary,” he said in that particular voice where I knew I was about to learn a lesson. “You did not make that decision. Your parents made it for you. Each adult must come to a point in his or her own life in which he professes his, or her, own faith. That is the example our Lord Jesus Christ made for us, when he was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River.”

  24 June 1661

  I cannot stop thinking about this notion of getting baptized again. Peter says it comes from the Holy Spirit, stirring my heart.

  In the afternoon, I walked along the shore, pondering Peter’s words. I stopped to listen to the sound of the waves pounding on the beach, the eternal sound of them.

  Something strange and wonderful happened to me at that moment. I heard a deep and beautiful voice in those waves, and this was what it said: “I am with you. I am with you. I am with you.”

  26 June 1661

  I have decided to be baptized. My father thinks it utter nonsense. My mother has remained silent, but I think that is because she has sensitivity to spiritual matters. My father, less so.

  Nathaniel Starbuck came to me in the carrot patch in the garden behind the house. I was sweaty, my bonnet was askew, and my hands were deep in the mud. “I hear you are getting baptized.” It was not a question he posed. It sounded like an accusation.

  “You heard correctly.”

  “Is Eleazer also getting baptized?”

  “Nay, not that I know of.” I leaned back on my heels. “Why would you ask such a thing?”

  “Because those Foulgers seem to have a strong influence over you.”

  “I seek baptism for my own spiritual need, Nathaniel.”

  He frowned. “I don’t understand you, Mary. I never have.” And then he turned and left through the garden gate.

  I sat back on my knees and watched him through the fence posts. He does not say much, but when he does speak, he says the truth. He does not understand me. I fear he never will.

  26 June 1661

  After supper, Mother found me out with the sheep. Each day, I have been calling and calling to them, so that they will know me. So far, it has not been effective.

  “Nathaniel came looking for you today,” Mother said.

  I told her what he had said to me in the garden. “He seemed quite distressed that I want to get baptized.”

  “You’re independent, Mary. Most men find a woman who has her own thoughts to be threatening to them. They don’t know how to manage such a woman.”

  Ah, yes. “Their dreadful affliction.”

  Mother smiled. “Aye, so true. ’Tis their pride.”

  “I want to get baptized, Mother. I’ve thought it all through and I truly want to do this.”

  “I’m not discouraging you. But you might have told Nathaniel your plans, rather than let him find out from others.”

  “Why should that matter?”

  Mother sighed. “Did you not hear the jealousy in his question to you, Mary? He is troubled by the time you spend with Eleazer Foulger.”

  I had not considered such an insight. Eleazer and I are great friends, but Nathaniel has no cause to be jealous of him. My feelings for Eleazer are friendly. My feelings for Nathaniel are mixed-up and uncertain and cause my stomach to spin in circles.

  “Mary, are you truly not aware that Eleazer has grown exceedingly fond of you?”

  “We are but friends.”

  “I sense his feelings for you are more than friendship. If you don’t share his feelings, perhaps you should be cautious about spending time with him. ’Tis not fair to mislead him.”

  Mislead him? I have never given Eleazer reason to believe that we were anything but friends. Yet I am fond of him, and growing fonder all the time. It is hard to separate Eleazer from his father; they are similar in so many ways.

  Now I am thoroughly confused.

  17

  9th day of the eleventh month in the year 1767

  During the night, Phoebe suffered cramps in her arms and legs that created excruciating pain. The following day, she grew worse. She shivered and sweat and felt pain in her bones. Under the blankets, chills racked her body till her teeth chattered. She twitched, jerked, kicked involuntarily.

  She had no fear of dying, nor of death, only a disappointment that she had not done much with the life God had given her. Was it not meant more for others? She had made such a mess of things, dashing headlong toward her goals instead of letting God set the pace. She’d forgotten God’s sovereignty.

  Give up. Rest.

  As promised, Matthew stayed by her side. He wiped Phoebe’s hot face with a wrung-out cloth, changed her soaked bedding, piled blankets on her, fed her tiny sips of sugared tea. She closed her lips, turned her head away from the liquid he offered.

  “You must eat and drink some.”

  But why? She had not the strength to survive. Malaise poured through her, wave after wave.

  Let it come. Surrender.

  She felt her life-force ebbing.

  Matthew sat utterly still, resigned, watching life seep out of Phoebe. Her face was pinched from dehydration, her lips a husky blue, her eyes dull in color—when had Phoebe’s eyes done anything but sparkle? He felt a great distress, an agony at her suffering.

  Out of the blue, she opened her eyes and spoke clearly. “Matthew, I have one more thing to
ask of thee. Nay, two.”

  He studied her face. It frightened him to see her so suddenly lucid. He’d heard of such moments coming right before death. “Anything.”

  “First, would thee say a prayer?”

  “I don’t know any.”

  “Thee spent thy childhood in Meeting.”

  “Aye, but not listening.”

  “Think, and it will come.”

  A prayer. What prayer? “Hold on . . . something is coming to me.” So Matthew recited the Lord’s Prayer, which he knew but did not know how he knew.

  Phoebe gave a nod when he finished, as if she had expected it all along. “Matthew, one more thing I ask of thee. Walk in the Light of God.”

  Bewildered, he blurted out, “How do I walk in the Light when I only see darkness?”

  She gave him a soft smile before her eyes fluttered shut. “Then trust God in the dark.”

  When the midwife came in, she nudged him and he did not resist. “I sit. I watch. You go,” she said. So he wandered outside, blinking against the bright tropical sun, and headed toward the cove. Above his head came the honking of geese. He looked up and watched their graceful, determined flight, arranged in a V formation—whether by instinct or wisdom, they knew their destination.

  He’d had glimpses into Phoebe’s confident faith. It had been during those moments when he wanted to be reunited with something from which he’d severed himself long ago.

  All his life he’d been driven by a nagging discontent—even before his father’s death—a sense that there was something missing. He felt a void. He rubbed his chest, the hollow emptiness beginning to ache. How odd that the pain of separation from God, from the community of Friends, had never bothered him until now.

  He struggled to find the words to offer a prayer, but they came straight from his heart. “Lord, let her live and I will make my peace with you, whatever the cost.” He sighed and corrected himself. “With thee.”

  What else was one supposed to say in a prayer? His was clumsy and short, nothing like the long-winded ministers at the Friends’ Meeting. But then, he was a hard, unforgiving, sinful man who didn’t deserve an answered prayer. Would a prayer like his even work? Probably not.

  Later that evening, Phoebe’s fever broke. The midwife walked straight into the room and bent over to peer intently at her. After a long while she straightened her back and turned to Matthew, clutching her elbows. “She not die,” she announced, as if the decision were hers to make. “Not her time.”

  Phoebe woke in the night from a dream she couldn’t remember, but the dream’s feeling remained—a sweet, sweet relief. She listened to a night bird sing and thought it was the loveliest sound she’d ever heard.

  Her eyes flickered open. Was it possible that she was over the worst of it?

  She pulled herself up to lean on one elbow and saw Matthew asleep in the chair in the corner. Her heart went out to him. She leaned back down, looking out the window at the bright stars. She’d been given another chance. She was going to live. She could feel it, and sense it. Oh, sweet, sweet relief!

  She thought of waking Matthew, but then decided against it. Let him rest. He deserved it.

  She felt strength return to her, ever so slightly, and she saw her life differently, with new eyes. She’d had everything upside down. The captain, for example. He was the most selfish man God ever made; he loved only himself.

  And then there was God. Phoebe was every bit as proud as the captain, thinking she could manage her life by her own wits, her strength. How foolish she was!

  And then there was Matthew. How often had she woken to find him looking at her with his dark brows creased with worry. She choked up with grief over the hard things she had thought and said about Matthew. She had wounded him so needlessly—convinced he was cynical and faithless. Wrong again! There was no man more faithful. She had told him she could not love him. The truth was, she had never stopped.

  She squeezed her eyes shut as a memory flooded her mind, the day she had told Matthew she could not marry him . . .

  The bells tolled and she knew a ship had come into Nantucket Harbor. As she had hurried down to the wharf to join the excitement, she quickly realized something was amiss. She expected to see the typical throng of runners rushing to the wharf—wives, children, mothers, and fathers. There was not the usual joy that accompanied the return of a ship. And then she saw the reason. ’Twas not a ship returning, but a schooner, filled with a crew whose heads hung low.

  “What’s happened?” she asked an old fisherman, as word trickled through the crowd. “What’s wrong?”

  “The crew of the Pearl has come in. Who’s left, that is.”

  Phoebe’s heart started racing. She ran to the wharf, breathing hard, searching the outlines of the crew for the familiar shape of Matthew. She waited near the wharf for Matthew, and when he finally alighted to climb on the dock, she saw him scan the crowd to find faces he recognized. She quietly moved toward him and stopped when he spotted her.

  He took the first step, slow at first, then another and another, coming toward her deliberately through the crowd, eyes never wavering from her. Matthew had filled out to manhood, thicker of face and waist, with long L-shaped side-whiskers framing his cheekbones. His thick dark hair was sun-streaked, his tanned skin the color of copper. And he seemed . . . what was it? Weary. Sad. He looked cheerless.

  When he stood close, so close she could smell the damp wool of his pea jacket, he drank in her face for a long, silent moment, gazing down into her eyes as if she were a precious treasure he had hunted for.

  Unsmiling, she touched his cheek, studying his beloved face—long, lean, handsome. But then her eyes dropped down, and Matthew was astute enough to surmise something was amiss. He tipped her chin to make her look at him, but she avoided his questioning glance. She felt the blood leap to her cheeks and opened her mouth to tell him the truth, then closed it again. She had dreaded this moment.

  “Something has changed.”

  From low in her throat came a single, strained word. “Aye.”

  “Out with it,” he said.

  “We were but children when thee left. Time has changed us both.”

  His shoulders stiffened. “There’s someone else?”

  The image of Captain Foulger had popped into her mind, of the fireside chats they’d had at his house while she sewed for Sarah. Of the way he’d speak in Meeting, so confident and full of faith. Of how sorrowful she felt when his ship set sail, as if the sun had dimmed. Aye, there was someone else who had begun to steal her heart, but Captain Foulger was not the main reason she needed to end the understanding she’d had with Matthew. She shook her head. “No. But I cannot be with thee.”

  “Can’t be with me,” he repeated flatly.

  She remembered watching a single white cloud drift along in the sky as she pulled her courage together to tell him the reason. She was a Quaker. He was disowned.

  She had put a hand on his arm and felt the muscles tense beneath her touch. He shook off her touch and passed around her to head toward his home. She had hurt him deeply.

  Matthew stirred in the chair and she lifted her head to look at him. If only one could live life backward.

  16th day of the eleventh month in the year 1767

  Little by little, Matthew could see Phoebe’s health being restored. Five days after the Fortuna had set sail on high tide, she felt well enough to sit outdoors, three days after that she was able to walk to the road and back without stopping to rest.

  Matthew brought her soup and biscuits and she drank and ate all. It pleased him to see her appetite return.

  “Matthew, I thank thee. ’Twas just the thing. Delicious.”

  “I have some news.”

  She pointed to the chair. “Come in for a moment. Please.” When he sat down, he stretched his long legs in front of him and crossed one ankle over the other.

  “I found a ship that sails for Boston on the morrow.” He had heard of a ship that was on its way to Boston
, and spent most of the morning tracking down the captain. “He’ll carry us to Boston and it’s nothing to hitch a ride home from there. If we miss this, it might be a long wait for the next ship.”

  “Will not this captain be loathe to take a woman aboard?”

  “’Tis a merchant ship, not a whaler. The whalers are the skittish ones.”

  “I don’t know if I’m saddened or relieved by the news. Would be a nice life here on this little island.”

  Indeed. One fellow stopped him this morning and asked if he might be willing to show his men how to hunt whales. In return, he would give him land. Servants. Whatever he wanted.

  Truth be told, Matthew had rolled the notion around in his mind, more than a little tempted. But he was no hunter of whales, nor did he want to be. He’d had enough of the whaling life. He wanted to return to the island he loved. He wanted to make barrels and get rich on other men’s risks and dangers. “Then, I’ll make the arrangements with the merchant ship?”

  She nodded. “I thank thee, Matthew.”

  “For what?”

  “For remaining with me. I’m sure I would have died otherwise. Thee had faith in me.”

  “I doubt that. You’re much stronger than you think, Phoebe.”

  “I have no doubt that thee gave me strength.”

  That was the wonder of Phoebe Starbuck. She had no doubts.

  Mary Coffin

  30 June 1661

  I was baptized yesterday in a pond on the eastern side of the island, by Peter Foulger, along with two Indian men and one squaw. I waded into the pond as one person, I emerged as another.

  It was a holy moment.

  1 July 1661

  Elizabeth Macy is visiting her aunt Sarah and uncle Thomas, and it seems she is here to visit Nathaniel too. I have seen them together walking down by Capaum Harbour, and another time, I saw Nathaniel head toward the Macys’ house at suppertime.

  Elizabeth came to the house yesterday to share a basket of berries she had picked. “Did you pick these last evening with Nathaniel?” I asked, out of pure spite.

  “Why, in fact, yes,” she said, a surprised look on her tiny mouse-like face. And then she hurried home.