She senses a motion from the corner of the room, just beyond the firelight—an elusive deepening of shadows that reminds her of the stealthy, slinking walk of Indians in their night encampments. They always seemed just beyond her sight, like spirits or demons. At first she assumes it is the serving girl, but when she comes into the room bearing another platter of cakes, Mary realizes it was not her. She notes the shift once more, to her left, and this time she turns toward it. The movement again—not furtive and threatening as she first imagined—but humble, unassuming. She fancies she catches a glimpse of a dark brown arm as the fire flares up. She is suddenly aware that Joseph has stopped speaking and that Mr. Gookin is looking at her.
“Mistress Rowlandson?” He leans toward her. “Is something amiss?”
“No.” She tries to order her thoughts. “I fancied I saw something—someone.”
He smiles. “I assure you, there is no danger here. You are quite safe.”
“I fear my wife’s time in the wilderness has attuned her to shadows,” Joseph says quickly. “She startles easily.”
Yet even as he speaks in her defense, Mary turns again to look into the room’s corner.
“Ah.” Mr. Gookin has followed her glance this time and now he smiles. “’Tis but Silvanus—”
He continues to speak, but Mary is no longer hearing his words, for the name Silvanus has turned her cold.
“Silvanus?” she says aloud, breaking into Mr. Gookin’s narration.
“Aye.” Mr. Gookin smiles at her. “Pretentious, I know. But slaves are often strangely named. ’Tis not to be held against the man.”
Her heart begins to beat fiercely against her ribs. She is surprised that Joseph does not hear it. “I would speak with him,” she says, in such earnestness and excitement that she nearly rises from the bench. “Please.”
Joseph puts a warning hand on her arm. “Please,” she says again. “I would know if he has any knowledge of Bess Parker, lately of Lancaster. She is someone I once befriended.”
“Once gave aid to,” Joseph corrects her. “You showed her mercy. She was not your friend.”
She wishes she could wave him away, like a pestering fly. “May I speak with him?” she asks again.
“Of course, of course.” As Mr. Gookin rises and gestures, Mary turns to watch a tall black man come forward into the light.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Silvanus is as dark as the shadows he steps from. Yet he exudes such a liveliness about his person that Mary instantly understands why Bess Parker was drawn to him. He listens closely to her questions, and answers directly, with no hesitation, no hint of awkwardness. He admits he and Bess sinned, that he is the father of her child. He says that the child has been sold, he knows not where.
“And Bess?” Mary asks. “Can you tell me where she might be found? I would speak with her.”
Silvanus gives no answer.
Mr. Gookin shifts in his chair. “I fear she is dead, Mistress Rowlandson. By her own hand.”
“No!” Mary puts her hand to her mouth. “Pray, tell me what happened?”
“I am told she drowned herself not long after she returned to service in Salem.” Mr. Gookin glances at Silvanus. “I did not know the girl. But perhaps it was a mercy.”
Mary cannot tell if the sag in Silvanus’s shoulders is from grief or anger.
“I am sorry,” she whispers, and it is to Silvanus, not Mr. Gookin, she speaks. “So very sorry.” She swallows tears. Joseph presses his handkerchief into her hand.
Mr. Gookin looks distressed, and Silvanus still will not meet Mary’s eyes.
“I fear my wife is not well,” Joseph says, rising. “We must take our leave.”
Mary stands beside him. She is, indeed, ill, but it is not a sickness that can be cured by leaving, or by any physic. “God go with you, Silvanus,” she says, knowing at once from Joseph’s frown that he believes she should not have spoken this blessing to a slave. Yet she cannot bring herself to regret it. She turns to Silvanus again. “Have you searched for your child?” she asks. “Have you any hope of finding him?”
He stares at her. “I am not a free man, Mistress. Mr. Gookin is my former master, but now I am the property of Mr. Jonathan Wade of Medford. ’Tis by his benevolence that I am here today to repair Mr. Gookin’s roof.”
She sees that Mr. Gookin is not looking at Silvanus and wonders if he is ashamed. But it is not something she can courteously ask. Besides, Joseph is already saying good-bye and guiding her to the door.
• • •
After the encounter with Silvanus, Mary takes to her bed. She lies feverish and spent, dreaming of Indians and black slaves, and meditating on Bess Parker and her child. She cannot stop imagining the poor woman’s body as it is pulled, blue and bloated, from a river. She relives her own despair at the deaths of Mari and Sarah. She revisits her belief that all meaning in life has fled. Bess’s son did not die in her arms, yet he was sold into slavery. Was that any better? Mary has been sold herself, has witnessed the arbitrary brutality of master against slave, has known the fear of being struck or slain at any moment. How can any mother bear the knowledge that her child is daily subjected to such cruelty, alone and unprotected?
Anna Shepard makes healing broths and possets, and Marie patiently feeds Mary. Joseph prays with her each morning and evening. He reads her long, cautionary passages of Scripture. Slowly she recovers her strength. She becomes more certain that God has allowed these terrible trials to fall on New England because they have embraced slavery. Instead of examining themselves, the English falsely and foolishly believe that whatever they do is approved by God.
As soon as Mary is well again, Thomas Shepard makes it plain that they have neither sufficient food nor room to give over to the entire Rowlandson family. When Mary suggests that they return to Lancaster and rebuild, Joseph dismisses her idea. “Has not the Lord harried us out of that country?” he asks and then pauses a moment to look closely at her. His eyes are narrow. Like a snake’s eyes, she thinks, and feels a pang of guilt for her wicked thought. “Why would you want to return to a frontier town, Mary? Has not your contact with heathens been sufficient?” There is something hard and sharp in his tone, as if he delights in wounding her.
She turns quickly away, before he can question her further. Or detect the hot flush on her skin.
A week later, Joseph tells her that Increase Mather has come to their aid once more. He has persuaded Mr. Whitcomb, a member of his congregation, to allow them to live in one of his properties—a vacant house in Boston, not far from the meetinghouse. Joseph goes into paroxysms of thanksgiving. Mary packs their few possessions.
• • •
When she steps through the doorway and looks at the bare walls and floors of the rented Boston house, Mary’s spirit plummets. How can she set up housekeeping when they have neither goods nor furnishings? Even though she will no longer have to share another woman’s kitchen, they must still live largely on the charity of friends. Joseph finds her weeping before the empty hearth and scolds her for lack of faith. Does she not trust that God will provide? The truth is she does not, but within two days people come forward and by week’s end they have a bed, linens, a table, a bench to sit on, and pots and kettles for cooking. Mary makes do with what is given, reminding herself daily that she recently had nothing at all. She finds herself reflecting, as the house slowly fills with goods, how few of them she would require if she still lived in the wilderness.
She spends many hours reacquainting herself with the tasks of an English wife. Yet she feels oddly cramped inside the house, and observes that her children do as well. Marie frequently opens the door and stands on the stoop, looking up at the sky. Whenever Mary permits, Marie takes her work outside into the yard and Mary often follows her. They sit on a bench and talk of their captivities. Joss is constantly restless, and whenever Mary is not watching, he leaves the house t
o roam. She does not know where he goes, and worries that he might get a notion to return to the Indians, for he has admitted that he sorely misses his life among them.
Mary’s own gaze often flies to the door or a window. She sometimes follows it, stepping into the street in her apron. Several times, while sewing, or kneading bread, or making a broth, she thinks she hears a distant drum or the drone of an Indian chant. She stops and closes her eyes. She suspects her husband believes she’s at prayer.
But she is not praying. She is listening.
• • •
Slowly Mary begins to understand that captivity has changed her son, and not for the better. Where he was once a lively and honest boy, he is now devious and sly. He often abandons his chores and runs off, she knows not where. Sometimes he is gone all day, not returning until well after dark. He offers Mary little help and none at all to his father. Mary can no longer depend on him to fetch wood and water, or tend the garden behind the shed. He acts as if he has no duties except to roam unfettered. He is often absent from family prayers and disappears on the Sabbath so frequently that the church elders have begun suggesting he be publicly reprimanded.
Joseph permits this freedom for as long as he can bear, then confronts Joss with his sins. “I fear the savages have corrupted you,” he says, as the boy stands before him in the nearly empty parlor. “There is only one way to subdue a rebellious spirit. I must whip you, else you shall end up at the pillory or in the stocks.”
Joss says nothing.
“Go and fetch the rod, boy,” Joseph says.
Mary, listening from the kitchen, feels her heart clench. She thinks of the cruel wooden machines that stand in the town square. Of how often she has seen men and women fastened into them for hours or even days while their excrement runs down their legs and passing men and women spit on them. She cannot bear the thought of her son pinioned there. She also knows she can no longer stand by while one of her children is whipped in her own house, though for years she raised no protest against it.
Mary goes into the parlor and stands between her husband and her son. “You’ll not whip him,” she says to Joseph. “Not while I live.”
Marie, who is spinning flax in the corner of the room, drops her distaff.
“Mary—” Joseph’s voice rises in warning.
“No,” she says, before he can continue. “I’ll not have my son beaten—by you or by anyone. No more. The whipping of children is a cruel and unnecessary practice. The Lord commands us not to punish, but to love.” Her voice trembles, for she knows that openly defying her husband is a grave sin, that she is risking severe punishment of her own. Yet she cannot remain silent.
Joseph stares as if she has gone mad. “You disobey me?” She knows he is angry—furious—and that he will not forgive this offense. Before her captivity, though she abhorred such punishments, she had always surrendered to what she believed was his greater wisdom. This time she is determined not to yield.
“You would risk his soul?” her husband asks in a voice that is barely a whisper.
“I would risk my own,” she replies. And instead of dropping her gaze, she looks straight into his eyes.
To her surprise, Joseph dismisses the boy with only a reprimand.
• • •
Joseph does not—cannot—let the matter rest. It is his duty, as the head of his family, to bring all of them under God’s order. Since she was a child, Mary has known by heart the Apostle Paul’s words from First Corinthians: Christ is the head of every man: and the man is the woman’s head: and God is Christ’s head. She has always believed this is true—that there is no hope for her salvation outside of obedience to her husband and to Christ. When they retire behind the curtains of their bed that night and Joseph begins his long rebuke of her, she bows her head and listens in a spirit of submission.
She says nothing. Nor does she weep. She lets his angry words wash over her as if they are rain. When he is satisfied he has chastised her enough, he blows out the candle, draws the blankets over him and stretches out to sleep. Mary lies beside him as his long breaths turn to snores. Though she knows she is supposed to feel contrite, neither tears nor repentance come. Instead, she feels as if she has won a victory in a long battle. She wishes she could dance around a campfire to the music of drums. She silently pledges that she will never again allow any child to suffer a whipping in her presence. The Indians have raised kind, respectful children without using the rod. If she can endure captivity and make a life for herself in the wilderness, she can secure mercy in her own household.
Her mind turns to the many nights she slept in a wetu under a warm deerskin. To the power of her legs as she walked the Indian trails. To the startling beauty of wilderness vistas. She thinks of her time in the wilderness not as an ordeal, but as an adventure. She sees herself as a sojourner in a strange land who has returned richer than before.
In the darkness she finds herself thinking, once again, of James.
• • •
Still, her husband does not touch her. Though they sleep beside each other night after night in the same bed, he does not take her in his arms, or explore her body. At first, she thought that he was repulsed by her emaciated look, the way her sallow skin sagged across her bones. But as the weeks pass, and her body begins to fill her bodice once again, she suspects some other reason. For she has noticed that he watches her when he thinks she is not looking. She sees his gaze run up and down her naked body in the warm spring mornings as she bathes herself with water and a cloth before slipping her shift over her head. She sees the glint in his eye when she bends over the grinding bowl and her breasts spill forward into her bodice and she knows that he still desires her. Why then does he not join with her?
She expected the consolation of his body on her return. They both know it is his duty as her husband, that he is sinning by denying her conjugal pleasure. But she is reluctant to press the issue. She begins to sense he believes she has betrayed him. That he believes she has had relations with an Indian and is awaiting her confession.
One warm night in early June, as they prepare for bed, Joseph tells her about a project Increase has planned. Mary has spent the day with Marie doing laundry and her arms are tired, her hands red and sore. Joseph is unusually cheerful and his good humor has loosened his tongue. He mentions that Maria Mather is expecting yet another child and that there has been a fire in one of the houses in Charlestown.
“And Mr. Mather has designed a new scheme to help people perceive God’s providence here in New England.” He sits on the bed and Mary dutifully removes his boots and places them on the hearth. “He plans an anthology of experiences and trials of people during this late war. Especially those who have been captured or otherwise come under the influence of the heathens. He wants to make it plain that God has chastised us righteously so that we might submit more fully to Him.”
Mary dips her head, as if to signal submission, though it is not what she feels. She wonders if any Englishman can write a true account of Indian captivity. It seems to her that few people know the truth of Indian lives and hearts.
She shakes the thought away as her husband continues talking. Wasn’t her own sister slain by Indian wickedness?
She rises, blows out the candle, and climbs onto the high bed to lie down. The mattress shifts sideways as Joseph stretches out. He rolls toward her and for a moment, Mary believes he is going to take her in his arms. She feels the skin in her neck flush; her thighs grow warm. Instead, he continues expounding on Increase’s project. Her attention wanders from his words; her limbs grow heavy and her brain swirls with strange images.
“Mary, do you not agree?” Joseph’s voice is tinged with a rare excitement. “Such an endeavor would warm their hearts toward us. I warrant I will soon enough find a new parish once your tale is in print!”
She snaps back to wakefulness. “My tale?” What is he talking about?
&nb
sp; “Have you heard nothing I said, wife?” There is a note of pique in his voice. “Mr. Mather wants you to record your ordeal, so that he might print it.”
“I have given no thought to recording it,” Mary says slowly. “It seems a better plan to forget those days.”
“He means to use it to illuminate God’s purposes.”
She yawns. Sleepiness is claiming her even as she struggles to follow his meaning. “I fear I have no time for such an endeavor,” she murmurs. Her eyes close again.
“Mary.” He touches her shoulder and she shivers in response.
“What is it?” She forces herself to look full at him though he is but a shadow in the greater dark.
“Do not dismiss this. It will bring us both public prominence.” His hand is still on her shoulder. She feels her flesh warming under his palm. It has been so long since he touched her.
“I have no desire for fame,” she murmurs. “It is enough that my children are returned to me.” She is so sleepy. Yet her words must be dutiful—and proper. But no, he is not content. He shifts restlessly, puts his mouth close to her ear.
“Promise me you will pray on it, Mary. Increase feels it is a most important project. I want us to be part of it.”
Us, she thinks. Was it not her ordeal? If the story is to be told, is it not hers to tell?
As she drifts off to sleep, she finds herself frowning in the darkness.
• • •
In the morning, Mary recalls their conversation only dimly—it seems to her it might have been a dream. Daylight has washed away the shadows and makes her laugh at the strangeness of her imagination. She has no thought of recording her time among the Indians. Indeed, she does not know how she could begin to capture her experiences.
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