Flight of the Sparrow
Page 1
PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF AMY BELDING BROWN
FLIGHT OF THE SPARROW
“Brown’s voice transforms a remote period into a fresh and immediate world and, in Mary, gives us a heroine who is broken by sorrow but determined to survive. This is a novel about the true meaning of faith and freedom.”
—Kelly O’Connor McNees, author of The Island of Doves and The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott
“The story of Mary Rowlandson is the story of one of the darkest episodes in our nation’s history, and yet Amy Belding Brown manages to turn it into a soaring tale of light and hope. In telling her story of a courageous woman’s search for freedom, independence, identity, and love, Amy Belding Brown never strikes a false note, never lets us down by snatching us out of time and place. While keeping faith with existing historical fact, she fills in the gaps with the delicate strokes of her art, transforming historical figures into living beings, vividly resurrecting long-lost ways of native and Colonial life. The Flight of the Sparrow reminds us of the promise of America and that the fulfillment of that promise relies on every human heart.”
—Sally Cabot Gunning, author of Benjamin Franklin’s Bastard, The Widow’s War, Bound, and The Rebellion of Jane Clarke
“A fresh, engaging chronicle of the human heart that breathes life into a vital but oft-neglected chapter of our history. Amy Belding Brown has turned an authentic drama of Indian captivity into a compelling, emotionally gripping tale that is at once wrenching and soulful.”
—Eliot Pattison, author of the Mystery of Colonial America series
“A mesmerizing tale of survival and awakening. Flight of the Sparrow breathes life into Mary Rowlandson’s captivity narrative. The deftly depicted cross-cultural friendship reminded me of Caleb’s Crossing and the fast-paced story kept me up turning pages. Belding Brown has crafted a fine-limned portrait of a remarkable and resourceful woman.”
—Donna Thorland, author of The Turncoat and The Rebel Pirate
MR. EMERSON’S WIFE
“This is the book I longed to read. It is the story of Lidian, the fascinating woman who was loved insufficiently by Emerson and perhaps too much by Thoreau. Amy Belding Brown has brought her back to life in a novel that glitters with intelligence and authenticity.”
—Geraldine Brooks, author of March
“In this extraordinary book, Amy Belding Brown has brought the nineteenth century to life. We may think of Ralph Waldo Emerson and his family and friends as static daguerreotypes, but in this story they lightly spring off the page with all the inconvenient desires and ambitions that are the texture of our own lives. A soaring imaginative leap, this book combines detailed history with a page-turning illicit love story. It’s a look at a rich moment in American history and a great read, a rare combination.”
—Susan Cheever, author of My Name Is Bill and Note Found in a Bottle
“Amy Belding Brown’s novel is a beautiful work that renders effortlessly the sentiments and sensuousness of a woman who is, to use Ms. Brown’s own terms, ‘at war with herself, a woman of opposites who yearns to reconcile her mental acuity with her emotional sensitivity.’ The spiritual, emotional, and intellectual lives she is after illuminating for us are wonderfully ambitious, and it is quite refreshing to see that ambition backed up with a quality of writing that bears up to the weight of its subject matter.”
—Bret Lott, author of Jewel and A Song I Knew by Heart
“Mr. Emerson’s Wife explores the complex relationship of the famous philosopher and his less well-known partner in a novel that has a sturdy fabric of fact, embroidered with imagined events and emotions. . . . Brown’s writing is graceful, at times giving Lidian a poetic voice. . . . In an age when scholarly biographers meticulously document every detail in the actions and settings of their subjects, Brown has escaped to the freedom of fiction to suppose ‘what might have been.’”
—Ruth Johnstone Wales, The Christian Science Monitor
“In Mr. Emerson’s Wife, Amy Belding Brown creates a fascinating view of one of America’s greatest minds, the brilliant Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson, and, more specifically, his wife, Lidian. This is a story of just how restrained women were only two centuries ago and how choices can affect one’s life.”
—The Copperfield Review
Other Novels by Amy Belding Brown
Mr. Emerson’s Wife
New American Library
Published by the Penguin Group
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First published by New American Library,
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First Printing, July 2014
Copyright © Amy Belding Brown, 2014
Readers Guide copyright © Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 2014
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REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:
Brown, Amy Belding.
Flight of the sparrow: a novel of early America/Amy Belding Brown.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-698-13753-0
1. Rowlandson, Mary White, approximately 1635–1711—Fiction. 2. Indian captivities—Massachusetts—Fiction. 3. Indians of North America—Massachusetts—History—Colonial period, ca. 1600–1775. 4. Massachusetts—History—Colonial period, ca. 1600–1775—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3552.R6839F58 2014
813'.54—dc23 2013035277
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Version_1
Dedicated to the memory of my mother,
Eleanor Kellogg Belding,
1922–2012
In the face of adversity
she chose hope, curiosity, and grit:
the thirsty leaf reaching for the rain,
the night moth questing at the window,
the bloom that does not fold at twilight.
GRATEFUL APPRECIATION TO
my dear friend and first reader, Margarite Landry, for her insightful comments, her companionship over countless lunches, and her encouragement through many revisions and other hard times;
my aunt, Patricia W. Belding, for her meticulous reading of my manuscript, her contagious passion for reading and poetry, and her unflagging intellectual curiosity;
my friend and fellow contrarian, Wallace Kaufman, for his critical eye and straightforward advice on the early versions of this novel;
my agent, Susan Ramer, for her assistance, reassurance, support, and patience over the many years of our association;
my editor, Ellen Edwards, for her warm enthusiasm, generous guidance, and good humor;
my children, Daryl, Nathan, Samara, and Matthew, for their affectionate toleration of my eccentricities, and their compassion in providing me with
so few reasons to worry about them;
and especially my husband, Duane, for his steadfast devotion, which has been a daily miracle for more than forty years.
Contents
Praise for the Novels of Amy Belding Brown
Other Novels by Amy Belding Brown
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Grateful Appreciation To
Epigraph
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Author’s Note
About The Author
Readers Guide
Our soul, as bird, escapéd is
out of the fowler’s snare:
the snare asunder broken is;
and we delivered are.
—Psalm 124, Verse 7
The Bay Psalm Book,* 1640
CHAPTER ONE
Later, Mary will trace the first signs of the Lord’s displeasure back to a hot July morning in 1672 when she pauses on her way to the barn to watch the sun rise burnt orange over the meetinghouse. She feels a momentary sinking in her bowels as it flashes like fire through a damp haze, putting her in mind of the terrors of hell. She has never been adept at reading omens. That is the gift and duty of her husband, Joseph, and other Bay Colony ministers. Mary sees the world matter-of-factly, as a practical, intelligible creation fashioned by God for the convenience of His people. As she plucks a paltry three eggs from under her anxious hens and slips them into her pocket, her chief thought is that by noon the heat will be suffocating. Yet, when she comes out of the barn, the ginger-colored hairs on the nape of her neck rise and she thinks she hears the Devil’s footsteps rounding the corner of the lane.
A moment later, she sees it is not the Devil, but Edmund Parker, in nightshirt and breeches, pounding toward her in his bare feet, hair flying about his head like tufts of white flame. His eyes bulge and the mottled birthmark on his left cheek burns dark red. Mary hurries to steady him when she sees his legs sway. They look as rickety as a babe’s.
“Mistress Rowlandson!” His fingers dig cruelly into her arm, yet she does not shrink from his distress. “I beg you, help me!” he cries. “’Tis my Bess. Her time has come.”
Bess. The daughter who has shamed him by conceiving a child during her indenture to Deacon Park in Roxbury. Bess, who has refused to name the man who got the child on her and so was cast out with no place to go except back to her father’s failing farm. The girl of whom the goodwives speak only in whispers, for fear the Lord will punish all of Lancaster for her sin.
“Where is Goody Turner?” Mary asks, wondering why he has come to her instead of the midwife.
His beard winks amber in the ominous light as he shakes his head. “Her daughter says she lies abed with the summer flux. But I think she refuses out of malice.”
“Malice? I cannot credit that.” Mary frowns, though she suspects what he says may be true. Every pious, God-fearing woman in this frontier town has kept her distance from Bess. They all believe that evil is contagious, that proximity to sin provides a foothold for the Devil, who can easily pass from one person to the next. “I’m sure she must be ill, if her daughter says so. The sweating fever has been abroad for a fortnight.”
“Fever or no, she will not help. Nor will any other.” His fingers dig yet deeper. “I’ve knocked on every door. There is no one else. I beg you, as a Christian, help us!”
Mary sees plainly enough where her duty lies. Indeed, how can she refuse? Did not Jesus command his disciples to help the poor and lowly? Did he not mingle with sinners? Edmund is beside himself with worry and she is the wife of the town’s minister. She has no choice but to assent.
Mary has been present at a dozen births, though never in place of a midwife, and never alone. The prospect frightens her, not only because of the risk to her soul, but because the girl is young and may not be well formed enough to safely deliver a child. Mary has no birthing stool or linens with which to practice a proper midwife’s art. Yet Edmund is in such a state that she cannot delay any longer with talk of flux and fevers.
She hurries into the house, empties the eggs from her pocket and stuffs it with scissors and thread and what rags she can quickly find. She briefly considers taking her eldest daughter with her. Marie is dutiful and steadfast and could provide an extra pair of hands. Yet she is so young—only a few months past her sixth birthday—Mary does not want her badly affected if things do not go well. Even in the best circumstance, childbirth is a perilous business, and if Bess should die—or the child be born a monster—it could set Marie’s mind against childbearing for life. She instructs Rebekah, the servant girl, to keep a close eye on Marie and little Sarah, who is still so young she could easily toddle into the fire or drown in a puddle. She knows her son, Joss, will be tending the flax field with Joseph this morning. Her glance falls on the eggs she placed on the shelf and, at the last moment, she ties them up in a napkin to carry with her.
She and Edmund say little as they hasten over the hill to his farm. Neither has much breath to speak. Though it is just past dawn, the sun already pours down so fiercely that Mary has to wipe her face with her apron many times. There is no breeze; the heavy air reeks with the stink of pig offal and swamp water. The branches of the great chestnut tree by the meetinghouse droop while its leaves curl and wilt. They look gray in the light. Even the birds are still, as if they, too, sense the evils of the day.
As they approach, Mary can hear Bess moaning. It is not a house, but a hovel, so rudely built that few men in Lancaster would see fit to house their oxen there. She sees rot along the sill and cracks between the clapboards. There is only one room, for Edmund’s farm never prospered. Who can tell why some fields flourish and others do not? Some people question Edmund’s skills as a yeoman. Others insist he once committed a dark and unspeakable act that now prevents his success.
The door stands open, sagging on its hinges. Mary steps inside. There is no fire in the hearth, no bedstead, no boards under her feet, only hard-packed earth for a floor. The single window is covered with a torn flap of parchment, heavily oiled with hog fat. Bess is hunched on a pallet of blankets, her skirts hiked up and her fists jammed into her thighs. With every moan she tosses her head and rocks back on her heels.
Mary hesitates, shocked at how young the girl looks. Her bones have only recently knit into the shape of a woman. Beneath the grime-streaked face, her features are soft—almost delicate. How old is she? Fourteen? Fifteen?
Her brother, John, sits beside her on a low stool but he offers her no comfort, merely sits with his hands dangling between his legs. He deliberately avoids looking at her, but gazes up at the smoke-blackened rafters. Mary takes in the slump of his
thin shoulders, the restless tapping of his feet, and is reminded of her favorite brother. Josiah had the same awkwardness and coltish looks at that age. Mary was six when he was born, old enough to be responsible for watching over him, yet still young enough to enjoy his company. They had fashioned their own secret language as she showed him how to do the children’s chores: feeding the chickens, gathering eggs, weeding the kitchen garden. It saddens her that she cannot remember a word of it now. She wipes her face with her apron. The morning’s heat has already penetrated the hut’s thin walls. Buzzing flies crisscross the room and swarm over the parchment window.
Bess makes a sudden sound—a combination of grunt and groan. Mary collects her wits and puts her hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“John, you must lay a fire and fetch water. We will need a tub of it before we’re done.” He scrambles to do her bidding, clearly glad that he has been asked to do something that will free him from the stool.
Edmund comes in and stands just inside the open door. He looks stricken, and is plainly waiting for a sign from Mary as to what he should do; men are usually banned from witnessing a birth. She asks him to close the door, and then thinks better of it, for she will need all the light and air available. Unlike Goody Turner, she cannot gauge the progress of a labor by her hands alone.
“Nay, leave it open,” she says, and begins giving orders. “Bring in as much straw as you can. We must cover the floor to soak up”—she hesitates—“the fluids. Find something clean to wrap the child in when it comes. And collect whatever strengthening food you have.”
He shakes his head. “We have naught but scraps of bread.”
“Then you must beg some from a neighbor. Broth. Stew. A pottage. Go to Goody Kerley’s house; she is my sister. Tell her I have sent you and she will provide. Your daughter must have food and drink or she will faint with her pangs.” Mary turns from him and kneels beside the girl.
“Bess!” She puts her mouth near the girl’s ear. “Bess, I’ve come to your aid.” To her own surprise, she adds, “All will be well.” She’s not sure what possesses her to say this, since she has no assurance at all that it is true.