The Winthrop Woman

by Anya Seton

  The tithing man stiffened, but stood his ground. "You'll find out what I mean when this ribaldry is reported to the court, and your lewd speech to me, too, Captain Patrick!"

  Daniel thrust Anneke aside, he hunched his red head between his shoulders, his great hairy hands clenched into fists.

  "Ye can report this to the court too, then—" he said softly. His right fist shot out and landed on Job Blunt's long chin. The tithing man crumpled like a straw man on the threshold.

  Elizabeth gave a cry, then they were all silent looking at the quiet huddled figure. Suddenly Toby laughed, his oxlike face grown animated. "What'll we do with him?" he said. "Is he dead, Captain?"

  Anneke whispered, "God allemachtig!" She and Robert both moved at once and rushed to the tithing man. Job Blunt was not dead. They turned him over, and he breathed and moaned. "Give him to drink!" said Anneke. Robert obeyed, and ladled some of the fiery wassail into the tithing man's mouth. Job spluttered and feebly moved his hands.

  "Here—" said Patrick who had quite sobered. "I'll dump him downstairs. When he comes to, mayhap he'll not remember, and we'll deny everything."

  "'Tvill do no good, Danny," said Anneke sadly. "So many complaints there've been of us lately. So many fines. And you wrote that foolish angry letter to the Governor."

  Elizabeth knew of the letter, but Robert had not been told and he looked his dismayed question from Anneke to Daniel who said roughly, "I lost me temper! I've not had me bounty money yet fur the Pequot war, nor the lands that were promised. I know his Worship's got scant use fur me, and would treat me like Underhill if he had cause, but I want justice."

  "You'll not get it with angry demands—nor probably at all," said Elizabeth, falling wearily back on the pillows. Her head was spinning and the merry Christmas had broken into jagged pieces.

  "How I detest this God-blasted Bay," said Daniel through his teeth. He picked up the inert Job, flung the man over his shoulder and carried him downstairs, where Telaka was waiting with obvious anxiety in her eye.

  "Missis all right?" she asked. "Much noise, much loud talk not good for her or babe."

  "She's all right," said Daniel. "Now. But I doubt she or any of us'll take our ease for long. Tend this carrion, Telaka, till he comes to his senses, then I suppose ye'd better boot him out, though I'd like to wring his neck."

  "E-ne-my?" said Telaka carefully, watching Patrick. "He is bad man?"

  Patrick gave a snort of disgust. "Enemy forsooth! Worse'n a Pequot At least the Indians don't go sneaking and tattling, whatever else they do." He went back upstairs.

  Telaka repeated the word "Pequot" under her breath. She turned the tithing man over with her bare foot. Then she knelt down beside him, and extracted a small deerskin pouch from the bosom of her blue cotton dress. She poured some powder from the pouch into her brown palm, spat on it, and rolled the mixture into a ball. She was trying to insert this ball between Job Blunt's flaccid lips when he raised his lids, gazed up at the glittering black eye and the mutilated face, gave a wild shriek and shoved the squaw violently.

  When Daniel, Toby and Robert ran down to see what the new commotion was, the tithing man had fled stumbling into the night, and Telaka stood with her arms folded by the kitchen fireplace.

  To their agitated questions, she gave only one answer. "Bad man gone." The left side of her mouth lifted, but whether it was a smile or not there was never any way of knowing.

  On the following day, Job Blunt took his complaints to Watertown's minister, the Reverend George Phillips, and Mr. Phillips listened in silence to all the heated accusations—drunkenness, lewd singing and dancing, keeping Christmas, bodily assault, cursing and obscene language. The minister was a quiet man of decided opinions which frequently did not agree with those of his fellow ministers at the Bay. When he thought it right he had defied Winthrop and the Boston clergy, as in the matter of Elder Browne's Anglican views some years ago, and of Watertown's due representation in the government. He owned a large library and was a man of learning which in him had instilled perspective. He would brook no disorder in his town, but disliked fanatical methods of subduing it; he also disliked Job Blunt, though he concealed this.

  At the end of the tirade he said, "Yes, Goodman, these are regrettable charges. I observe that by and large they concern Captain Patrick rather than the Feakes. We've been having trouble with the Captain of late. Perhaps I've been lax in my pastoral duty. I shall visit the Patricks, exhort them and pray with them."

  "But, sir—" objected Job, frowning. "He's got to be punished! The court should give him the whipping post for hitting me, and the language he used!"

  "Quite so," Phillips agreed. "Though neither the Captain not the Feakes are of the class one associates with the whipping post, are they? I shall investigate the matter, and you may be sure of admonishment and fines." The minister's lean terrier face indicated dismissal; he glanced longingly at the Ovid he had been reading before Job's interruption, but the tithing man was thoroughly dissatisfied.

  "Sir," he said, lowering his voice and leaning over the minister's table, "I haven't told you the worst, I was a'most afeared to—"

  Phillips sighed, "Well...?"

  "That squaw the Feakes got. The heathen wi' half a face—she tried to murder me! I caught her stuffing something bitter in my mouth, it burned my lips, and the look in her eye—I tell you, sir, it was devilish."

  Phillips leaned back in his chair. "This, ah—incident took place after the blow on your chin, when you were still addled?"

  "I see what you're getting at, sir," cried Job in angry excitement. "You think I fancied it, but I didn't. And what's more the whole town's talking about that savage—they know she's a witch."

  The minister contemplated his tithing man steadily. "Now, Goodman, you have made a very grave accusation indeed. On what evidence is the 'whole town' saying this?"

  "Well," said Job, sulkily after a moment, "Goody Knapp and Goody Warren, Goody Bridges too, they all think so. They saw that squaw overlooking a cow in the Bridges pasture and next day it died, and she has a familiar too."

  "Ah..." said the minister, raising his eyebrows. "So she has a familiar. A black cat perhaps? Or a toad?"

  "No, sir," said Job. "'Tis a blue jay. It stays in her kitchen, she talks with it."

  "Indeed," said the minister. "An unusual familiar. Is Mistress Feake aware of these suspicions about her servant?"

  "I doubt that," said Job, hunching his skinny shoulders. "She's a bad un herself, by all accounts—no better'n a trollop."

  Phillips stared, his eyes narrowed, and he said with icy quiet, "What do you mean by that?"

  Job looked a little frightened; he licked his lips and his eyes slid from the minister's stem face to the floor. Phillips waited, and Job finally burst out defiantly, "You must know there's long been talk about her and that knave Patrick, in and out of her house at all hours, hugging and kissing too, little Dolly Bridges says, n' then when that last lass o' Mistress Feake's was born—that Hannah wi' red hair—"

  "Goodman Blunt!" said the minister rising. "You have certain specified duties to me and the town. These duties do not include the spreading of malicious slander, which I may remind you is punishable by the court. You are dismissed from your office!"

  Job gasped, he mumbled apology, he demeaned himself to beg for the continuance of his position which had brought him many sly perquisites, but his pastor was adamant. Job finally went off in a fury which he solaced at the ordinary across the meetinghouse green.

  Phillips sat down again and shook his head, knowing very well that this move would not control the slanders he had heard, but would only send them underground. Twinges of pain in his stomach became insistent as they often did when discouragement followed his efforts at the wise handling of his flock. He pushed the Ovid aside and opened his Bible at the New Testament, which unlike his colleagues at the Bay he greatly preferred to the Old.

  In his journal for that year, John Winthrop wrote:

  The devi
l would never cease to disturb our peace, and raise up instruments one after another.

  And he retailed "the plots the old serpent had against us."

  These included the hanging of a mad woman at Boston, continuing Baptist and Antinomian heresies, the disgraceful behavior of Captain John Underhill who, having returned from England and professing repentance, yet proceeded to commit adultery; whereupon being banished again from the colony he went to the Piscataqua region and got himself appointed Governor of Dover, to Winthrop's great annoyance. There were also misunderstandings and high words about boundaries with both Plymouth Colony and Connecticut. Indeed all the offspring colonies instead of honoring the supremacy of their parent at the Bay were showing themselves undutiful. Worse than that was a sudden wave of migration from Massachusetts to Virginia and Barbadoes. Winthrop struggled to restrain these renegades but the Devil continued his subversive machinations. There was a fearful threat from England. After five years Matthew Cradock wrote again for the Charter, saying that news of the colony's dissensions and jealousies was causing grave worry about the Bay's welfare, that the banishment of Mrs. Hutchinson and so many other people was a source of marvel, and that there was a strong possibility that a governor-general would be sent out from England to regulate matters. As they had five years ago, Winthrop and his assistants decided to ignore the letters and foster assumption that they had never been received. King Charles had been so much occupied with his own troubled affairs after the last summons for the Charter that the demand had been dropped; perhaps it might be so again.

  The Bay kept Fast Days, Days of Humiliation, in the endeavor to find out how they had offended God, and lost His cherishing care.

  Yet the disasters continued. There was an epidemic of smallpox, there were earthquakes and hurricanes. There was drought. There was an eclipse of the sun. All these were recorded in Winthrop's journal, which was designed for public consumption and seldom indicated any viewpoint but the Governor's. At the May Elections of 1639 he was very nearly defeated, and was sufficiently stung to write more personally.

  Mr. Winthrop was chosen governor again, though some laboring had been, by some of the elders and others to have changed, but not out of dislike of him, (for they all loved and esteemed him) but out of their fear lest it might make way for having a governor for life, which some had propounded as most agreeable to God's institution and the practice of well ordered states.

  Despite the "love and esteem" of all, Winthrop's worries continued, but he never chronicled the family ones, and in the summer of 1639 these had to do with his ever unregenerate niece, Elizabeth. She came to him in Boston, one July day, disheveled, having dressed hurriedly, and more distraught than he had ever seen her.

  "My uncle, I must speak with you," she said, pushing past the servant with scant ceremony, upon seeing Winthrop alone in his study writing letters.

  "Well, well, niece," he said, rising politely. "What is it? You seem very agitated. There's no ill stroke on your family I trust?

  "In a way—" she said. "Nay, 'tis not the children—Robert though." She paused, unwilling to explain how much Robert was upset. "'Tis Captain Daniel Patrick and his wife—they're leaving Watertown! You've driven them away!"

  "My dear daughter," said Winthrop exasperated. "That is not a sensible speech. Captain Patrick is neither a godly man, nor suitable friend for you or your husband. I did not in fact know that you were intimate. He has been formally accused of lewd attempts on the virtue of a young wench called Sturgis; she has written an affidavit to that effect."

  "But he didn't!" Elizabeth interrupted. "He barely knew her—it's a conspiracy. He has enemies in Watertown—it's that tithing man put the Sturgis girl up to it. Daniel wrote you it wasn't true."

  Winthrop folded his hands behind his back, walked to the cold fireplace, and turning regarded his niece. "Patrick has written me several rash letters," he said in measured tones, "and I have been very patient. My patience is at an end. I have permitted Captain Patrick to leave the colony, which I believe he will do tomorrow."

  "This is the way you requite him for his services!" she cried. "Treating him just like Underhill, like everyone who doesn't go about whining psalms and doting on the ministers. And he's not had the lands or bounty he was promised; if it wasn't that Anneke has a nest egg he'd be destitute unless he can sell his land at Watertown!"

  The dark flush ran up under Winthrop's skin. His nostrils flared and he drew a harsh breath. "You speak remarkably warm about this—this Patrick, Elizabeth," he said watching her narrowly.

  "He's my friend!" she said, not in the least understanding him and the anger in her eyes matching his. "And he's Robert's. Robert is very fond of him."

  "I cannot believe that your husband shows such ill judgment," said Winthrop. "And I do not wish to believe an inference I might draw from your behavior. Patrick and his family are sailing tomorrow; they may go wherever they please so long as they leave this colony."

  "Then we'll go too!" she cried wildly.

  "No, Elizabeth," said Winthrop. He walked over and stood beside her. He was not a tall man and yet to her he seemed to tower as high as the beams. "You will go nowhere." Each word dropped like stone on stone. She drew back slowly until she leaned against the table.

  Her uncle saw the defiance drain out of her and smiled coldly. He went to the door and called, "Wife, come here!"

  Margaret came running in from the kitchen, and Winthrop cut across her greetings to Elizabeth, "Here is our niece, my dear, who has been indulging in one of her peculiar fits of passion. I suggest that you pray with her, and ask God to calm her wayward heart."

  The Patrick family left Watertown the next day. All their goods were piled on a flatboat to be poled down the Charles and then transferred to a ship bound for New Amsterdam. Robert and Elizabeth stood on the little river landing to say farewell, and only Anneke wept. Robert was mute, though his eyes were very bright and his skin unnaturally reddened. He looked at Daniel, clasped his hand and then stood staring into the water. Elizabeth had cried during the night but now she was as silent as Robert.

  "I'll write ye, Bess," said Daniel as he kissed her forehead. "If it wasn't fur you two, I'd be GLAD to go, I've told ye before. I'll find a place far from here as I can, New Netherlands or Virginia, and write ye of it. Then you and Rob can come too."

  "He'd never let us," she said in a wooden voice. "I can never get away." And Daniel had no doubt whom she meant.

  "There, lovey—" he said, much distressed. "You mustn't lose heart. Maybe ye'll settle down better in Watertown wi' us gone, can't tell. I only hope he—" He gestured towards Robert and did not finish. "By God," he burst out, "I hate to leave ye like this, I'll pray fur ye. Haven't tried it in a dog's age, but a Pater Noster or Ave might work. I'll even make me a rosary outa com or huckleberries!" he said chuckling anxiously, but Elizabeth did not smile.

  She and Anneke kissed each other, the Patrick children waved, the flatboat started downriver, and the Feakes turned back to their home.

  Robert spoke not at all the rest of that day, until as they entered their bedchamber he suddenly said, "Bess, I feel very ill. It is a judgment for my great wickedness, as losing my friend is a judgment on me."

  She thought it was "the strangeness" coming on, but it was not. By midnight, Robert had a raging fever, and was vomiting, also he was seized with cramps and bloody flux. There was now a physician at Watertown, Mr. Simon Eire, and Elizabeth hastily summoning him found that the physician confirmed her own fear—Robert had contracted a cholera.

  For the next weeks while she nursed him, there was scarcely time to regret the Patricks or realize how lonely she was.

  Robert recovered very slowly; by the end of October he was still weak and could leave his bed but an hour a day. Elizabeth at Doctor Eire's direction fed her husband laudanum and elixir of vitriol, and her own decoctions, supplemented by a sassafras broth Telaka made and said was used in her tribe to bind the bowels. Yet still, though the violent symptoms had l
ong stopped, Robert gained little ground, and Elizabeth suspected that he had not the heart to do so. He was docile and quiet, he often spoke to her with tender gratitude, there was no hint of the real "strangeness," but he would lie for hours staring at the rafters and when she tried to rouse him by bringing in the children, he would respond with a feeble smile, then slip back at once into the hinterland where he preferred to dwell.

  During the worst of Robert's illness the neighbors had been kind. A new one, Mistress Stone, whose husband Simon had bought land adjacent to the Feakes', helped tend Elizabeth's children. Goody Bridges helped with the constant laundering of fouled sheets; even the goodwives Knapp and Warren had come to the house bearing possets.

  Elizabeth suspected more of avid curiosity than genuine warmth in these attentions and declined them courteously as soon as she could. Besides, Telaka continued to show an extraordinary efficiency. By this time Elizabeth had noted the fear with which the neighbors regarded her Indian, and had even been warned of Telaka by Goodwife Bridges. "I know ye won't hold wi' what I say, Mistress," said Sarah Bridges one day when they met on Bank Lane, "but 'twouldn't be my Christian duty not to point out that yon scar-face squaw o' yours is monstrous weird."

  "Just her looks," said Elizabeth quickly, hurrying on. "She's very good to us."

  "How d'ye know?" persisted Sarah, panting along, her fat earnest face turned up to Elizabeth. "How d'ye know what she does i' the dark o' night? I mean it kindly, Mistress, you being a young gentlewoman as hasn't seen the Devil's works as clear as I have."

  Elizabeth gave an impatient smile. She liked Sarah Bridges better than the other goodwives, but she was tired of discussing Telaka, and anxious to get back to Robert. "Telaka's a fine woman," she said. "We understand each other."