Flight of the Sparrow

by Amy Belding Brown

  • • •

  There are more public hangings of Indians. Mary hears rumors that many, including Philip’s wife and son, have been captured and sold into slavery. Then comes word that Philip himself has been killed—shot by an Indian in a swamp near Providence. His body was drawn and quartered and his head set on a pike and displayed in Plymouth.

  The Council declares that the Indian hostilities are over.

  Mary longs for word of James. She desperately wants some assurance that he is safe and well provided for. But she cannot make inquiries, cannot even show an interest in the fate of the Indians who came in under the amnesty. All she can do is concentrate on writing her narrative, as she pledged. All the news events must wash over her now, as if they had never occurred.

  Yet whenever she hears a whisper of news about Praying Indians, she listens closely, longing to ask questions but holding her tongue for fear any inquiry might risk James’s life. She thinks often of the Indians confined to Deer Island during the hostilities. She wonders if those who survived have been allowed to return to their homes. Then, in September while in the marketplace, Mary overhears a conversation between a cobbler and the wife of a shipbuilder as she looks over his wares. The wife is boasting that one of her husband’s ships has been used to transport captured Indians to Barbados, where they will be sold as slaves.

  “I warrant few will outlast the trip,” the woman says. “’Tis said Indians make poor slaves and even poorer sailors.”

  The cobbler nods and feigns a polite laugh, though Mary notes his expression shows little interest.

  “The lucky ones are confined in Natick,” the woman continues, fingering a blue velvet shoe embroidered in gold and silver. “My husband says they keep a close eye on ’em there. No Indian can step outside the town limit, on pain of death. ’Tis too dangerous to allow them to come and go.”

  The cobbler draws the woman’s attention to a pair of red and yellow silk brocade shoes, and smiles when she emits a gratifying Ahhhh!

  Mary moves on to a fabric stall where bolts of bright cloth are stacked in a colorful wall behind the vendor. She prays that James was not forced aboard that ship. Her fingers shake as she examines a length of cotton printed all over with small red flowers. She wonders if he has even come in under the amnesty. Perhaps he fled north to be with his children.

  She thinks about the cruelty of a law that restricts Indians to one town. She knows how bitterly they abhor confinement. She recalls James’s harrowing description of his brief imprisonment in Boston. She remembers him telling her that many Indians believe they will die if they cannot freely walk the earth. In the midst of her own captivity, Mary found a singular pleasure in moving about as she wished. Her greatest misery, apart from Sarah’s death, was on the few days when she was closely confined in Weetamoo’s wetu.

  Then one morning the town crier calls out the news that James the Printer and two hundred other rebellious Indians have come in and submitted to the authorities. The town buzzes with excitement. Mary is surprised, for she had not known that James was famous enough to create such interest. She longs to know more, to find out where he is. But there is no one she can ask except Increase Mather. She considers showing him what she has written, on the pretext of seeking his approval. When they are alone, she could ask after James’s welfare. But before she is able to implement her plan, Joseph finds her pages.

  Mary does not know how he found the box, for she hid it well behind a loose wainscot board near their bed. She suspects that Joss saw her conceal it and told his father. Ever since his return from the wilderness, the boy has been plagued by bouts of unpredictable behavior; sometimes he is secretive and sometimes unruly. Joseph has suggested that the Indians hexed him, but Mary assures him that is not their way. “More likely ’twas one of the Boston gossips,” she says smartly, and then regrets it when her husband hushes her with a warning frown.

  “These ‘gossips,’ as you brand them, have only our welfare in mind,” he says. “Please remember they are the very ones who contributed their monies to your ransom.”

  She closes her mouth and bows her head, for this seems to be what Joseph requires of her since her return. He has long since stopped pestering her for details of her ordeal, though she knows he still believes her silence cloaks a guilt of such enormity that she can never be forgiven it.

  She finds him with the box on a cloudy afternoon in late September. She has just come from visiting Abigail Whiteman, invalided after a fall. She carries a basket of food that Abigail generously pressed on her. Joseph is seated at the table before the open box, poring over her pages.

  She is so startled she drops the basket. A pork loin rolls out from its cloth onto the floor, but she ignores it. She rips the page from his hands, gathers up those scattered across the table surface, pushes them into the box and firmly shuts it. There is no thought in her, only anger. She is trembling with fury. She clutches the box to her breast, so outraged she cannot speak.

  Joseph rises. His face has gone pale and he looks very solemn. He reaches for her, but Mary, the box clutched to her breast, backs toward the open door. Then he speaks, and the timbre of his voice startles her with its tenderness.

  “I had not known,” he says softly and she thinks she sees a tear rise in his eye. “Why did you not tell me?”

  She shakes her head, for she has no answer to his question. She sees that she wounds him still further with her silence, but she does not know how to mend it. Her mouth is as sealed as a tomb.

  “I had not thought your time was so hard there,” he says. “You have been sorely tried. Yet you have been the Lord’s faithful servant.” He moves around the table to her and this time Mary does not step away. She lets him touch her—her shoulder, her arm. He raises his hand and strokes her cheek. She begins to tremble. Not this time with fear or fury, but with grief. Wracking shudders course through her as a great sorrow overwhelms her.

  He takes her in his arms. It is the first time he has embraced her since her return, and it undoes her. She presses her face into his chest, sobbing. She feels his hand caressing her back in long, almost amorous strokes. He whispers something in her ear that she cannot hear. When at last she gathers herself enough to lift her head, she sees him looking down at her with a sorrowful expression that matches her own.

  “I am sorry you did not feel you could tell me these things,” he says. “How faithful you were to our child! What courage you showed in caring for her.”

  Mary’s tears well anew and she wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. She feels as limp as wet cloth, as if grief itself has melted her bones. And for a fleeting moment, she has the absurd wish that she could tell her husband about James.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Summer slides into fall, and Mary works on her pages every day, striving to finish the narrative so she can present it to Increase. The leaves turn crimson and gold and the nightly temperature drops; Joseph begins to spend every evening with friends. As soon as he has consumed the simple meal Mary prepares, he leaves the house, claiming he must be about the Lord’s business. Sometimes he does not return until nearly morning. Despite her own exhaustion, Mary dutifully waits up for him, writing as long as her eyes will allow, and then sewing by the light of a candle while Joss and Marie sleep on their pallets in the room’s shadows. She wonders bitterly what sort of business compels him to abandon his family night after night. She imagines gathering enough courage to demand an explanation.

  Instead, one evening in October as he is leaving to call on the Mathers, she asks if he will take a message to Increase. “Tell him I am ready to show my pages.”

  Joseph blinks. “I did not know you were so near finishing. Should I not read them first to determine if they’re satisfactory? ’Twould be a sorry business to trouble Increase if they are poorly done.”

  She feels a pinch of anger. Why must Joseph always question her abilities? Why must he always prove an
obstacle to her wishes? She knows, even as the rebellious questions rise in her, that he is merely doing his duty as head of the family.

  She sees that he is waiting for an answer. “I have done the best I can. ’Tis time he saw them.”

  His frown deepens, but she perceives it is more impatience than annoyance, for he keeps glancing at the door, eager to be gone. “I may be a good while,” he says. “You need not wait up for me this night.”

  She does wait up, as he knows she will, sitting at the hearth, knitting a pair of stockings from discarded thread. Though the night is cold, she does not light a fire. Joseph has denied her that comfort, reminding her that the home is not theirs and they are not in a position to overly concern themselves with fleshly ease.

  What he means is that they are poor. Until she was captured Mary had never wanted for warmth or food or any necessary thing. Since then, she has become well acquainted with deprivation—of food, of comfort, of safety—but she has not imagined it would extend past her return to English society. It has not escaped her notice that the comforts Joseph deprives her of in the name of household economy are ones he freely partakes of by visiting friends. She feels a dark and tangled bitterness growing in her.

  It is well after midnight when Joseph returns. He stumbles as he comes through the door into the kitchen, alerting Mary to the fact that he has consumed more ale than usual. She is reminded of Quinnapin’s drunkenness, though Joseph is at least able to walk. Lately he has been going directly to bed, saying nothing beyond his prayers. But this night he is cheerful and his good humor has apparently loosened his tongue. Before she has a chance to inquire if he delivered her message, he says there is good news—the Mathers are expecting yet another babe. A cord of envy tightens Mary’s womb. Joseph knows that she longs for another child, yet he seems insensible to how this news strikes her, and instead goes on and on about his friends’ joy. Mary watches him, carefully controlling her expression so that it will not betray her feelings. He sways before her as she puts away her needles. Finally he says that Increase is eager to see her narrative. He presents this news as if it bears no relation to her message.

  “He has great hope that it is a true account of the Indians,” he says, sitting clumsily on the bed. She dutifully kneels before him and removes his boots, even as she bites back a retort. She doubts that any Englishman or -woman could write a true account of the Indians. It seems to her that no one but Indians themselves know the truth of their lives or their hearts.

  “When will he see me?” she asks. “I would meet him sooner than late.”

  “Tomorrow you will bring your work to him. I warrant he is as eager to see it as you are to show it.” Smiling, Joseph reaches out and fingers a curl that has come loose from her cap. “Do you imagine I cannot discern your sin of enthusiasm?” He smiles. “It is no secret that you are an impetuous and headstrong woman. Let us have no more dissembling, wife. Meekness is a tiresome virtue.”

  She has never heard Joseph speak this way about meekness. It surprises her that he has lost patience with the most womanly of virtues, the very one she has constrained herself so often to practice. Would he prefer a woman who orders her husband about? She thinks at once of Weetamoo and her imperious manner, of how she commanded Quinnapin and he obeyed without a murmur.

  He reaches for her again, and draws her head into his lap. He places one hand on the back of her neck and pulls her face against his loins. He moans and Mary has the terrible thought that he wants her to perform an unnatural act. With a shudder, she wrenches away and stumbles to her feet.

  “Go to bed, Joseph. You are overweary.” She does not add that he is also drunk.

  He gives her a bewildered look. “Are you not coming?”

  “No,” she says, turning away. “I cannot yet. I still have chores that must be done before morning.”

  Mary does not retire to bed until she is sure Joseph is asleep. She is frightened and disturbed by what he has said and done, and she lies staring into the dark for a long time before she sleeps.

  • • •

  She dreams she lies naked in a small wetu. Sunlight slides through the smoke hole and she can smell venison boiling in the stew pot. She turns her head and sees that Quinnapin lies beside her. At first she thinks he is sleeping. Then—to her horror—she sees that he is dead. His head has been severed from his body and the flesh is rotting away from his skull.

  Mary wakes abruptly, her heart thrashing and her stomach heaving. For a moment she thinks it is morning, but she hears no birdsong and the sky is not yet the pearl gray color that signals the hour before dawn. She sits up and tries to pray, to reassure herself that the dream means nothing. But her prayer does not come. When she stretches out again, she is unable to return to sleep.

  Even as she looks forward to the meeting with Increase, she worries that he will tell her nothing of James. And she suspects he will find her narrative wanting, for she has not been able to perceive God’s hand at all in her ordeal.

  • • •

  In the morning Mary packs up her box of pages and walks to the Mather home. A maid lets her in and shows her into the parlor, where Increase sits at his table, writing. He does not look up.

  “Mr. Mather, I have brought my manuscript. My husband said you would be glad to see it.”

  He raises his head and peers at her. His eyes are bloodshot. “Sister Rowlandson.” He gestures for her to place the box on the table. “You may leave it in my care.” He turns back to his writing.

  “But I would speak with you,” she says.

  He does not stop writing. “I will read it soon, if it be God’s will.”

  The scratch of his pen on the heavy paper annoys her. “I have questions on another—”

  He cuts her off. “Rest assured I will treat your words gently.” He glances up to give her a thin smile. A carriage rattles past on the cobblestones. “Now you must grant me the peace to work.” He rises and holds out his hand to take the box.

  Mary’s tongue feels as if it has been suddenly coated with dust. “Will you not allow me to speak?” she asks hoarsely.

  “’Tis not the time.” He leans across the table and takes the box from her. “Fear not, for I will discern the hand of God in your trials where you have not. I will insert the appropriate Scriptures and make plain how the Lord aided you, how He has raised you up to transcend the evils all around you.” He clasps the box to his chest, as if it were as holy as the Bible. He taps his index finger on it, twice. “Once I have improved your text and published it, you will regain your former status as a good and pious wife.”

  Finally, she understands he is telling her that the manuscript seals their covenant. It has secured James’s safe passage back into English society. And hers as well. James will live and she will regain the respect and status she lost during her captivity. Joseph will resume his husbandly duties. He is telling her that she will no longer be the subject of gossip and suspicion; she will have the support and sponsorship of the most respected minister in the colony.

  Yet the stark truth is that if she could choose, she would rather live among the Indians than be restored to English society. She closes her eyes and heat suffuses her neck and face as she thinks of James. She recalls his words: The Indian ways are fading like a mist. The fact is that she cannot live among them, for they are now a defeated people. Their ways are no more. Only one path lies before her.

  When she opens her eyes, Increase is smiling as if he has given her a gift. Clearly, there will be no chance for her to ask about James. He gestures toward the door. “God go with you,” he says.

  “And with you.”

  She is startled when he reaches forward and touches her shoulder before resettling himself in the chair, but she understands it is a blessing and an assurance that he has not forgotten his pledge.

  • • •

  At home she finds Joseph in an unusually buoyant
mood. He presses her for details of her encounter with Increase. “You are certain he will publish it soon, then?” he asks. He says the stories the gossips tell of her in Boston and Cambridge are growing more malicious with each passing day. He tells her some have even asserted she is carrying Monoco’s child. Mary feels a choking sensation, as if a stone has lodged in her throat. Once again, she assures her husband that no Indian has defiled her. That sadly, as he well knows, she is carrying no child at all.

  Her desire for news of James does not leave her. She lingers when she goes abroad in the market, hoping to overhear gossip about him. She considers taking Joseph’s horse to Cambridge and searching the shops for him, or traveling to Natick to see if he is there. She asks Joseph if they might attend worship in Cambridge one Sabbath, but he disapproves—whether out of loyalty to Increase or dislike of the new minister in Cambridge, she is not sure.

  Then, in answer to her prayers, an opportunity presents itself. In late October, Joseph begins complaining of a sore on his leg. Mary treats it with salves and poultices, but the sore does not respond, growing daily in size and tenderness. He no longer goes out but stays in the house, sitting in his chair with his leg propped up on a stool. When Maria Mather tells Mary that Hannah Eliot, wife to John Eliot, is renowned for her healing arts, Mary easily persuades Joseph to travel with her to Roxbury.

  The Eliots’ home is more humble than Mary expects, considering Mr. Eliot’s reputation as the great missionary to the Indians and author of the Indian Bible. Mr. Eliot himself opens the door and invites them into the small, dark parlor, and while Joseph consults with his wife at the hearth, Mary speaks privately with the minister in a corner of the room. Above them, dried roots and herbs hang from the ceiling, pungently scenting the air.

  Though Mary dares not inquire specifically about James, she questions Mr. Eliot on the current situation of the Praying Indians. He shakes his head sadly when she mentions Natick, and reports that conditions there can only be described as wretched.