The Winthrop Woman

by Anya Seton

  They obviously did not realize it. Elizabeth looked at the dark sullen faces, some tattooed, some scarred, and felt from them an actual wave of hatred, which dismayed her. She began to wonder if, after all, a Pequot squaw would make a good maidservant.

  The other ladies of Boston apparently had no misgivings. The instant Winthrop stepped off the platform, indicating that the constable should take charge, there was a bedlam of greedy cries, while the would-be owners nearly stampeded the barricade. Some grabbed at the hair of the squaw of their choice, some called frenziedly, "That big one. That one, I want that one!" There was also shrill dissension when two ladies picked on the same squaw.

  "Gentlewomen and goodwives!" shouted the constable over the hub-bub. "Ye can't have 'em like that! Some is bespoke. The large one over there," he gestured to his guard who hauled the squaw in question to one side, "she goes to Mr. Stoughton. That little one with the three marks on her belly goes to Lieutenant Davenport. Mrs. Calacott has been allotted that one; them two heathen boys and girl're going to Salem." As he eliminated several more and tied around their necks red strings with labels of ownership, there were groans from the disappointed housewives. "Now fur the rest," said the constable pompously, squinting at a list. "I'll call off the names in order o' consequence to take their pick. First, Mistress Winthrop, our Governor's lady!"

  Margaret, who did not need a squaw herself but had promised to get one for Mary Dudley in Ipswich, said, "Oh dear, they all seem so fierce. That one, I guess—" She pointed nervously to one of the youngest. The Indian girl was duly tagged.

  The constable continued reading from his list: Mrs. Cotton, Mrs. Wilson, Mrs. Dudley the elder, Mrs. Endecott, Mrs. Saltonstall, all of whom made a choice. He had finished with the gentry on his list and was moving down into the goodwives when Winthrop, who had been watching benevolently, suddenly turned to Elizabeth and said, "Why, the constable's left you out! The best ones are nearly gone. Halt!" he cried.

  The constable stopped anxiously. "Aye, Your Worship?"

  "Where's Mistress Feake's name?" said Winthrop. "She ranks long before those you're reading."

  "I—I didn't know, sir—" stammered the constable, who was newly appointed. "Her being of Watertown, n' wi'out special word I was told to take them from t'other towns last."

  "Never mind," said Elizabeth hastily. "I don't think I want any of them."

  "Nonsense," said Winthrop, stepping forward. "Your aunt says you need a servant, and I shall certainly not have my niece slighted. I'll pick one for you." He stepped up to the barricade, and pinched a fat brown arm. "This one seems solid, and healthy, you shall have her, my dear."

  "No!" cried Elizabeth. Not again should her uncle foist his own choice on her. She ran up to the fence and grabbed a handful of hair at random. "Her, I'll take her."

  There was a ripple of astonished laughter from the other waiting owners and Elizabeth saw the reason for it as her squaw turned around. The Indian had but one eye. In place of the right one there was a red pulpy socket. The right side of her face was hacked with hideous purplish scars which ran down her neck and ended in a crisscross pattern on the distorted right breast.

  "Oh, Bess!" Margaret cried. "She's the worst of the lot. She'll frighten the children!"

  Herself, appalled, Elizabeth hesitated, though noting that the squaw was quite young, and lithely muscled, her skin smooth and golden brown away from the mutilations. Then the squaw made a curious motion with her hands like an unconscious plea, the left eye looked steadily at Elizabeth, and though it seemed expressionless, some dilation of the pupil conveyed suffering and intelligence. Why, it's a human being! Elizabeth thought. She, like all the others, had viewed these mute dark-skinned bodies as cattle, to be selected on the grounds of use. "I'll take her," she repeated more firmly.

  "An unfortunate selection," said her uncle, but not even Elizabeth's customary headstrongness could annoy him today. He walked back to Margaret, and began to chat with young Mrs. Saltonstall. Elizabeth remained uncomfortably beside her squaw, wondering what to do with her. While she stood there the interpreter came up to them. He was a Narragansett, and had been shipped north from that tribe which had been allied with the English in the Pequot war. He had been taught English by Roger Williams and spoke it well.

  "Missis—" he said. "You want know your squaw's name, or other matter?"

  "Oh, yes," said Elizabeth. "I want to know all about her."

  The Narragansett spoke for some time, while the squaw listened motionless. There was a pause, and Elizabeth with dismay thought she had got herself a maid not only repulsive but mute. Then the squaw spoke in a rush.

  The Narragansett turned to Elizabeth. "She say her name Telaka, which mean, before night—not day."

  "Twilight?" suggested Elizabeth, and the Indian grunted acquiescence. "She speak strange—not Pequot." He stopped because Telaka burst out with vehemence at the word "Pequot." The Narragansett held up a hand to stop her, and she became silent, the one shiny black eye looking anxiously at Elizabeth while the Indian translated. "Now I know," said the interpreter. "She NOT a Pequot. She hate them. They capture her from a tribe far far to the setting sun, where no white men live. Siwanoy tribe was hers, Sagamore Mianos, her father."

  "Was she a chief's daughter?" asked Elizabeth astonished.

  The Narragansett shrugged. "She say so. Pequots very bad to her. Bum her, cut her because she run away. Pequots do this." He swept up and down Telaka's ravaged face, neck, and breast with an indifferent hand.

  "Ask her," said Elizabeth, "how old she is, if she's married and has children."

  Telaka answered this more quietly, and Elizabeth realized that the guttural voice was musical and rather pleasant.

  "She say," said the interpreter, "She not know age, but has seen many winters, mebbe like you, Missis. She was married in her tribe, but her man was killed by Pequots."

  Yes, thought Elizabeth, faintly amused at the "many winters," I suppose she is about my age, poor thing. "Ask her," she said finally to the Narragansett, seeing that many other owners were awaiting his help in questioning their new acquisitions, "if she is willing to work for me, and will try hard to be a good servant."

  When Telaka answered this she turned her head away, and Elizabeth saw the thin brown hands clench.

  The Narragansett's mouth twitched in a grim smile as he translated. "She say you look kinder than Pequots, but she no like to be anyone's slave. She say she never lie, she won't answer more. She say too that she very homesick."

  So, thought Elizabeth wryly. I suppose that means she'll ran away, and I doubt that I care.

  The constable put Telaka's rope in Elizabeth's hand, saying, "Here y'are, Mistress Feake. D'ye want a guard to help get her home?"

  Elizabeth shook her head. "Take the rope off her, constable. I can't lead her about like a cow."

  The constable obeyed but protested. "I fear ye've got a bad 'un, ma'am, have a care she don't murder you in your bed, I don't like the look in that eye."

  Elizabeth was not sure that she did either, but the squaw, who had stiffened and sucked in her breath as the constable untied her bonds, watched the rope fall to the dust, then turned in obvious astonishment towards Elizabeth, who put out her hand and said, "Come, Telaka." Telaka seized the hand and held it between both of hers, a warm, and surely not unfriendly, grip. When Elizabeth began to walk towards the Charles landing where the Feake boat and one of the menservants waited, Telaka followed quietly one pace behind her new owner.

  During the weeks before Robert's return with Daniel Patrick, Elizabeth got used to her squaw, though she never had any certainty as to what Telaka was thinking. Elizabeth made her a black eye patch, and gave her an old dress of her own to wear. This covered much of her mutilation, so her appearance though grotesque was no longer repulsive. The children after their first startled curiosity accepted her without question, and indeed in her own expressionless way she was good to them. She made Lisbet a corn-husk doll, and sometimes when nobody was ar
ound Elizabeth heard her singing to the girls, strange monotone little songs that sounded like wind in the pine trees. Moreover, she was a good worker. Elizabeth had only to show her once, and thereafter she could perform any task, even the detested sewing. She spoke seldom, but listened much with a sort of concentrated purpose, and at the end of August, Elizabeth realized that Telaka was learning English exceptionally fast, and understood almost everything she heard.

  Elizabeth preened herself on her choice, and the intelligence of her squaw, nor would she listen to the neighbors' warnings that there was something sinister about Telaka. Goodwife Bridges was particularly caustic now that Elizabeth no longer hired Dolly to work. She and Goody Warren and Goody Knapp talked a good deal about Mrs. Feake and the ugly heathen she'd got, and for all anybody could see on neighborly calls didn't seem to be converting at all.

  "Last Wednesday," said Goody Bridges to her cronies one day, "I ran in for the loan of a smidgin o' yeast, and finding that squaw alone, and polishing the coppers which they surely needed, I must say, I asked her right out, Did she know God and did Mrs. Feake teach her the catechism?"

  "What'd she answer?" asked Peg Warren, her mouse face eager.

  "She said, 'My missis, she mind her own business.' That's what she said, and in as good English as you or me, a'most. I was skeered I can tell ye, wi' that one toad eye a-gleaming at me. She's uncanny, that's what that savage is."

  The three women looked at each other with meaning. Peg Warren said, "Depend on it, the Devil's helped her learn English so as to ran away better, like all them squaws in Boston, allus taking off for Connecticut. I hear Mrs. Wilson's was brought back from Narragansett and branded on the forehead, but now she's gone again. I wouldn't trust that Telaka far as you can throw a barrel."

  The goodwives Warren and Knapp nodded solemnly. "Is that blue jay still there i' the kitchen?" asked Goody Warren after a pause.

  "Aye," whispered Goody Bridges. "Tame as you please, hopping about on the table and squawking and eating from that Indian's hand. 'Tisn't natural."

  Again they met each other's eyes, but said nothing more. Elizabeth was now again the Governor's niece, walls had ears sometimes, as all had discovered in the old country as well as here, indiscreet speech was dangerous, and authority could hale anyone up before the court for slander at the slightest complaint. They dropped Mrs. Feake and her uncanny squaw in favor of a topic quite safe in Watertown and scarcely less interesting; the inexorable progress of the chastisement of the infamous Mrs. Hutchinson and her brother-in-law Wheelwright.

  Elizabeth was scarcely aware of what was going on. First in early September there was the excitement of Robert's and Daniel's return from Connecticut. They were full of the Pequot war and its successful conclusion; except that Sassacus, the Great Pequot Sachem, had escaped and fled to the Mohawks, though that, said Daniel, was of no consequence. The Pequot wasp's nest had been destroyed, all the other Connecticut Indians were jubilant. Uncas, in particular, the Mohican chief, was now violently pro-English, and the settlers' lives were at last safe.

  "Was there danger? Were you nearly wounded?" asked Elizabeth tremulously, feeling the ancient female thrill of awe for the returning warriors, and glad that Robert looked well, and had actually gained weight.

  "Why, o' course there was danger, silly lass!" laughed Patrick, not adding that he had protected Robert from it very skillfully. "We're a couple o' heroes, aren't we, Rob?"

  Robert had seen some fighting, and been anxious to do his part, but it had developed that he was most useful at the Fort, acting as scribe and accountant. Neither he nor Daniel mentioned this to Elizabeth, and Robert basked in her admiration.

  Then in September Elizabeth was brought to bed of another girl. The birth was easy, there was no time to summon Anneke, and Telaka quietly did what was necessary. Elizabeth was bitterly disappointed that she had not borne a son; for some days in the weakness of lying-in she was depressed and tearful, until the healthy pleasure of suckling the infant and delight in its sturdiness and crop of red-gold curls brought acceptance and soon she realized that she loved it very much. That, tiny as it was, she had a special feeling for it, different and more intense than for the other two at that age. For some reason, as the baby lay in her arms and nuzzled her breast she thought again of the strange beautiful experience in Mrs. Hutchinson's parlor, and she told Robert that she wished to call the baby Anne.

  "If you like, dear wife," he said tenderly. "It was your mother's name, was it not?"

  "Aye," she said. She had almost forgotten that. "But wait—" She raised herself on her elbow, looking up at Robert with sudden dismay. "Now I remember that Uncle Winthrop once said the name was hapless in our family. Three babes he has had named Anne, and all died so soon." She kissed her baby and hugged it against her breast.

  "Well," said Robert who had much knowledge of the Scriptures, though he seldom showed it, "Call her Hannah then. 'Tis the same in Hebrew, and both Anne and Hannah mean Grace."

  "Do they?" Elizabeth said smiling dreamily. "How strange." She lay back on the pillows and said, "Have you heard aught of Mrs. Hutchinson? How she does?"

  "How she does?" repeated Robert astonished. "Why, she goes on trial soon, and Wheelwright is banished."

  "Dear Lord!" cried Elizabeth starting up again. "What do you mean?"

  "Why, I mean just that," said Robert a trifle sharply. "You must know that the synod of all the colony ministers at Newtown found that woman and her brother guilty on eighty-two points of heresy."

  "No," said Elizabeth. "I didn't." She added through tight lips, "And I presume my Uncle and Mr. Wilson ably found eighty of the points themselves."

  "Bess! It frets me when you speak in that tone of your Uncle Winthrop. I cannot understand you."

  "Don't try," she said. "But tell me what has become of Mrs. Hutchinson's powerful friends? Of Harry Vane, and Mr. Cotton, of Captain Underhill and Mr. Coddington; do they not help her?"

  "Vane has sailed back to England," said Robert slowly, unwilling to go on, but also anxious not to cross her who was still in childbed. "Mr. Cotton, when the ministers all exhorted and prayed with him at the synod, confessed at last that he had been in error to support that she-Satan in her wicked heresies. He was penitent."

  "Oh, was he indeed!" she said. "So Mr. Cotton is now safely enfolded with all his godly colleagues, and need no longer be embarrassed by Mrs. Hutchinson's long trust and affection."

  "Wife!" cried Robert suddenly anxious. "You're not yourself. You speak unreasonable." He came close to the bedside and took her hand. "Pray forget all this, it has naught to do with you."

  She withdrew her hand. "What of the other two, Underhill and Coddington, and the many more who believed in her?"

  "In truth," said Robert, "I do not know." His lids blinked and the stubborn shut look stiffened his face.

  She did not mention the subject again to Robert, but she thought of it much, and relied on Daniel Patrick's visits to keep her informed.

  The Captain attended Anne Hutchinson's trial in his official capacity, and came back each evening from Newtown increasingly disgusted with what he had heard. "She's a fine, spirited gentlewoman," he said one day when Robert was out, and they could talk freely. "Holds her head high and answers 'em with so much pith, they get dumbfoundered. They quote Scriptures, she quotes back at 'em, and I'd a laughed except there's something goes against me grain to see thirty men badgering one lone woman. She doesn't look well either, and they say she's with child, poor soul."

  "Who's hottest against her?" said Elizabeth quietly. "My Uncle Winthrop, I presume."

  "Aye," said Patrick with a rueful laugh. "He acts as judge and prosecutor both, and a sharp sarcastic tongue he has, trying to trip her up. That long-nose pastor from Roxbury, Thomas Welde, he and Hugh Peter're the nastiest, but there's not one of 'em decent to her, far as I can see, now Mr. Cotton's slid t'other side o' the fence."

  "She has no friends at all left?" whispered Elizabeth.

  "Oh, I wou
ldn't say that." Patrick rubbed his nose and frowned. "But they're not let in the courtroom, 'cept Mr. John Coggeshall, and him the Reverend Peter muzzled at once. Mr. Coddington too, he spoke up for Mrs. Hutchinson right smartly. 'Here is no law of God that she hath broken,' he said, 'nor any law of the country that she hath broken. Therefore she deserves no censure.' But they wouldn't listen."

  "What law can they pretend she has broken?" said Elizabeth. "How can they do this to her!"

  "Well, Bess—" said Patrick fumbling for his pipe, and shrugging. "The way I see it, His Worship and the magistrates and reverends have somehow turned a woman's liking for one kind of preaching above another kind o' preaching into a hideous crime against the Commonwealth, 'n that's the nubbin o' it."

  Elizabeth fretted that night about what she had heard. Had she been quite recovered she would have braved any consequences to get to Newtown and try to see Mrs. Hutchinson, though she knew very well the lady was under guard, and no woman would be allowed in the courtroom. As it was, she prayed for her friend, and sent her uncle thoughts of intense dislike.

  The next evening, long after supper, Daniel came again to the Feakes. Elizabeth had gone downstairs for the first time, and was sitting in their best chair by the fire. Robert was hunched over the table writing a letter to his nephew, Toby Feake, who was still in Germany with Robert's sister but intended to come to New England. This prospect pleased Robert, who explained to Elizabeth, "A likely lad. Sister Alice says he's handy with boats and shipping, is very fond of the water. He'll be useful to us, especially since Hugh's bond is nearly up and we'll be short a man."

  Elizabeth cared little whether Robert's nephew came to live with them or not, but she agreed with the practicality of replacing one of their servants, and thought it might be pleasant to have a kind of son in the house. "You're sending him the passage?" she asked idly, watching the flames dancing between the big black andirons. Robert grunted, and Telaka came in from the kitchen with a tankard of hot spiced beer. "Drink," she said, thrusting the tankard at Elizabeth. "Make milk."