The Winthrop Woman

by Anya Seton

  When they finally went up to their bedchamber at the Lawes', she watched with a trembling heart as he bolted the door. All during the worst of his madness she had never been afraid of him, but she was afraid that night. His eyes glittered black from the dilated pupils. He flung his clothes upon the floor, his pallid face ran with sweat. He shoved her onto the bed and his hands clasped around her throat lightly, but she felt the pressure of his fingers like a burn.

  "This is a strange house, a strange house. And I have strange feelings," he said in the jerky rushing voice. "You aren't you and yet I know you are my wife. Come, come, don't shrink from me like that. You know what my hands can do to those that shrink and cry out. Nay, you don't know. I forgot. And 'twas but a dream. A dream."

  He took his hands from her throat and blew out the candle. But then panting like a dog he seized her violently by the shoulders. She dared not speak or move. When it was finished, he fell slack on the bed beside her. "Oh God," he whispered. "Oh God, I cannot stand it. Vile. Vile—"

  She lay shivering, struggling for breath. She felt him raise himself as though to look at her through the darkness, and she inched away trying to make no sound. If she jumped from the bed and ran for the door, would he be quick enough to stop her? She had slid one foot over the edge when he spoke suddenly. "Bess—" he said quietly. "Forgive me. I shall go. I know I must leave you. God wishes it."

  Her terror ebbed, she exhaled a long sobbing sigh. Through the darkness his voice came as it used to be in the first days of their marriage.

  "I've a devil in me, Bess," he said. "I hurt what I love. I know now what happened to Dan. I killed him."

  "No, no!" she cried, pity mastering the fear. "You didn't do that. 'Twas not your fault. The soldier Blauvelt shot Dan."

  There was silence as though he were unsure, and weighing the truth.

  "Then 'twas because of what I said, the soldier shot him. I hated Dan that day. 'Tis all the same."

  "It is not!" she cried. "It wasn't as you fancy. Blauvelt but waited his chance."

  "Stop, Bess," he said. "Don't confuse me whilst I can still see clear. God calls me back to face my just tribunal from which I fled. I must go. How else will I be cured of my sickness?"

  "But you were better," she whispered. "Much better, Rob. You will be cured." She stretched out her hand towards him, groping until she touched his bare arm. She felt him shudder and shrink away from her in the bed. She drew back her hand.

  Many moments passed, then Robert spoke again, "No," he said. "I'll never heal because I've sinned too much."

  Robert did not relapse into the witlessness of the past years, nor did he maintain the lucidity of that day in Stamford either. After the Feakes returned to their house on the cove, he entered a silent halfway state wherein he cared for himself, ate with the others, and even performed simple chores when Elizabeth asked him to, though these he often did not finish but went instead to his room and sat staring out the window with a dark brooding look, or turned the pages of his Bible, muttering verses to himself. Otherwise he seldom spoke, and when he did sometimes the words were apt, sometimes they sprang from his secret preoccupations. He made no attempt to approach Elizabeth again as a husband, for which she was deeply grateful.

  Revulsion and the memory of fear now tinged her pity for him. And she suffered a miserable shock when she realized at the end of July that she was with child. After the conceptions of the four other little Feakes she had welcomed the signs, and been consoled for the varying disappointments in Robert by the bearing of his children. She had felt strong and happy throughout each pregnancy. This one, from the beginning, was different.

  She suffered from morning sickness and malaise. The summer heat oppressed her, where formerly she had thought it exhilarating. Of nights she tossed sleepless beside Hannah.

  Robert did not notice her discomforts, but one day she snapped at him with so much irritation that he stared at her in dim astonishment.

  "Go fetch me water in the pail from the well," she cried furiously. "Always you must be told! I cannot do it and 'tis your fault I am breeding."

  "Breeding?" he repeated uncertainly. "How can that be, since I've not lain with you in years? How can the babe be mine?"

  "Oh my God, Robert!" she said in disgust. "Of course it's yours. The night of Joan's wedding in Stamford."

  He shook his head indifferently—"I don't believe it," and he shambled out with the water pail.

  Of what use? she thought. Why be angry? Yet she continued to feel anger and disgust. Nor was the presence in her house of Thomas Lyon and Joan a comfort. Thomas was lazy, his mother-in-law soon discovered. He, as well as Robert, had to be reminded of chores, which he performed reluctantly. The only occupation he enjoyed was figuring out various schemes by which the three-hundred acres she had given Joan as dowry might be best exploited, or interfering with the management of her own property, even to selling her best sow to Robert I lusted without consulting her.

  There was a painful scene about the sow. Thomas protested that he knew more about swine than she did, that the sow was too old to farrow again, and that he had made a sharp bargain with Husted, for which she should be grateful and give him a commission.

  The younger children, particularly Hannah, were upset by this scene when they saw their mother's rare anger flash out. Joan wept and backed her new husband. Elizabeth ended by giving Thomas two shillings, and went off alone to Monakewaygo as she had taken to doing whenever she could.

  The children wanted to come with her, and she denied them sharply, telling them to go to Anneke's or do their tasks, or anything they wished, but to leave her alone. She knew that Hannah looked after her, watching from the garden, the chubby little face forlorn, but Elizabeth did not relent.

  The tide was halfway in as she walked across the strip of shingle which connected her Neck with the mainland. Good, she thought. For six hours she would be totally cut off from all that troubled her. And have no means of getting back herself. No claims, or quarrels, or duties to harass her—safe on her island for a little while.

  She walked to the white sands and stood at the water's edge, staring out at the rhythmic blue billows which gurgled and lapped on the hot sand. The metallic August sun shimmered in a sky filled with woolly cloud-puffs. She squinted her eyes against the glare and walked farther down the beach until it curved into a tangle of sumac and goldenrod. In there amongst the little pines had been the Siwanoys' great fishing camp. Now there was nothing left but the grassy walls of the earth fort that had stood there for four hundred years, since the Siwanoys' first ancestors came here out of the west. And the midden—a field of huge oyster and clam shells, discarded through the centuries and bleached whiter than the sands. She looked at the great flat rock where they had signed the purchase. The Manitoo Rock. Because she owned that rock, Telaka had spared them the Siwanoy revenge.

  Elizabeth touched the rock and sighed. She wandered back to the beach, and slipped off her clothes. She lay naked on the sands in the shade of the sumac, until she grew too warm. Then she plunged into the water, splashing herself and lying where the gentle waves could bathe her. Cool at last, she went back up the beach to the sumacs and lay down 011 her green dimity dress. She wrung the water from her hair and spread the long black curling strands on either side of her to dry. As she lay with her head raised a little by the bank she could see far out over the Sound, and farther to the northeast horizon, as Martha once had. She thought of the day on Heartbreak Hill, and of what Martha had said: "I am made of cobweb that tears at a touch, but you, Bess, have fiber like the great seines that seldom break, yet if they do they can be mended again and again."

  Mended again and again. For what?

  "Aye, I know," she said aloud in answer to a monitory voice. Because of the children—but they would soon be grown, except—this one. She looked down with repugnance at her belly, still flat and taut, at her slender flanks. Because of Robert then—but he no longer cared, or needed her as he had even in his worst madnes
s. Because of property perhaps—the tiny power it had brought, the game of acquisition and increase. But that now was thin and disappointing, tarnished too by her grasping son-in-law. Because of Monakewaygo then—and here like the chiming of a muted bell there seemed to be an affirmation. Yet she could not quite hear its sound, and when she tried to listen more intently there was nothing but the coo-roo-roo of the mourning doves in the rustling trees, and the lap and swish of water.

  She lay so still that a sandpiper hopped by her foot and the little hermit crabs scuttled in and out of the seaweed near her elbow. Half drowsing and wholly secure on her island she paid no heed to small noises in the brush behind her, nor the cracking of twigs. Nor saw the shadow of a man fall across the sands.

  It was William Hallet who stood rooted on the bank above Elizabeth, gazing down at her.

  He had watched her from a distance as she splashed in the water, and been amused by the wantoness of her tanned body and the rich darkness of her floating hair. Always she had had this wanton quality, and he knew that in the past he had aroused desire in her, as he had in many women. True she had checked him at Plymouth, and thereby made it harder to dismiss her from his mind. That, and the promise of return he had incontinently made. These past years in England, at the mercy of Lord Digby's weathercock whims, had increased his innate reverence for a promise, which like all debts must be paid.

  He still believed himself untouched by her except as any pretty, voluptuous, slightly older woman could arouse a man.

  In his eyes, as he came through the bushes to the bank and looked down at her, there had been an amorous challenge, and the light touch of mockery with which he would explain his presence here.

  But she lay there on her green gown, naked, beautiful, and defenseless as a child; the long lashes shadowing her sun-reddened cheeks, her soft lips curved down forlornly, her whole quiet face molded in bitter sadness.

  The tenderness which he had repeatedly denied in these years welled up like a spring and dismayed him. He looked away, ashamed. He tried to back off noiselessly before she should be hurt or frightened by his intrusion. His foot twisted on a stone and he stumbled.

  She jumped, grabbing her shift from a bush, clutching it to her body. "What is it?" she whispered, staring behind her with huge fearing eyes.

  Hallet ran down the bank and knelt beside her on the sand. "Forgive me," he cried. "I didn't mean to startle you. Forgive me."

  Her amazement at seeing him in Plymouth was nothing to this, yet now she felt no impulse of unconsidered joy, as she had then. She clutched tighter at her shift. Her eyes turned green, her nostrils flared.

  "How dare you come here on my land? How dare you spy on me!"

  "I know," he said, agreeing with her resentment. "I didn't mean to. I'll try to explain." He drew away a few paces and turned his back. "Dress yourself, if you wish," be said gently over his shoulder. "But you've no need to be abashed, your body is very fair, I've seen none more lovely."

  "My humble thanks," she said through her teeth. "And for giving me permission to dress." She pulled her shift over her head and fastened herself into the green dimity gown. "Now, William Hallet," she said standing, "What are you doing here, and how did you come, since the tide is up."

  "Well, I swam," he said apologetically. "The distance so short, and the day so hot."

  She raised her head and examined him with anger. Aye, his white shirt was clinging wet, so were his brown breeches and dark hose. The wetness revealed the thick muscles of his big body. His lank colorless hair was darkened by sea water. His brown face was longer-chinned than she remembered, and bonier. A common rustic's face, rough-hewn, uncouth, except the gray eyes which responded to her scrutiny with a faint smile.

  "I'm waiting," she said coldly. "For what reason did you suddenly feel the need to track me down, even to my private island? Or was it not to find me you came here?"

  "Aye, of course it was. I've come on horseback from New Amsterdam, where I landed some days ago. I had converse with George Baxter, Kieft's secretary. I inquired for you, as I did from Captain Underhill once before when I sent a message saying I hadn't forgot, Bess. Nor had I."

  "And I sent one back, saying that I had forgot, if you mean our foolish dalliance in Plymouth. Also it seems that years at a time go by between whiles that you remember."

  "And yet—" he said slowly, "I missed my ship in New Amsterdam waiting until Underhill returned with your message."

  She glanced at him quickly, then down at the sand. "What other message could I send?" she said. "And why are you here today?"

  "Because my association with Lord Digby is now finished for aye, and my debt to Mr. William Whiting of Hartford is finally paid off. I've thirty pounds in my purse, a horse, and a provisional land grant from Governor Kieft for a farm on Long Island. I told him however that I wished a look at Greenwich before I decided where to settle. Baxter says that Kieft thinks it a good idea. He wishes this border town strengthened by more settlers, since most of its territory is owned by two weak women, Elizabeth and Anneke Feake." He paused, with a half-smile, "So I came to see one of them today."

  "I see," she said evenly. "You think to buy some of my land."

  "It might be. That's what I told the young man whom I found at your house a while ago. He seemed very eager to discuss the matter, and disinclined to tell me where you were."

  "My son-in-law, Thomas Lyon," she said through tight lips. "How then did you find me?"

  "I was well directed by a fiery-topped moppet, who has a smile as enchanting as I remember that her mother had, though today I've no way of judging. Your daughter pointed out the white sands and said that's where you'd be."

  "Could this business of yours not have waited until I came back?"

  "It could, to be sure, but having started any enterprise I like to see it through."

  There was a silence. She felt his gaze as she stood rigidly on the sand, her head turned toward the sea. I must not be a fool again, she thought, nor let that gentleman's voice and the strength of that big body bewitch me as they have before. I shall be chill and stern, bid him swim back as he came, leave me in peace. But the words of dismissal could not quite be commanded.

  "What did you really come for—" she said. "To see me or to buy fine cleared land?"

  "Both," he answered promptly with his usual frankness. "But now that I have seen you, 'tis more one than t'other."

  She was reminded of the nakedness he had seen, and that her hair was flowing down her back like a goose girl's and that her feet were bare. She blushed.

  "Sit down, Bess," he said. "I assume you don't swim, since earlier I confess I watched you romping in the water, like a sea nymph. So we must wait until the tide runs down again. Let's chat in comfort."

  "I came here for solitude," she said. "There's nothing to stop your going back to the mainland."

  "No. And I will if you really wish it. I want only your good." The bantering note had left his voice, and its sincerity startled her. It was long since anyone had thought particularly of her welfare—not since Daniel died.

  She sat down on the bank in a tentative way, slipped her feet into her shoes and began to braid her hair. He did not encroach on her, he sat on a driftwood log, breathed deeply of the salt air and sighed with the same sensuous pleasure she often felt herself. "There's content in this place," he said. "I do not marvel that you come here." He picked up two yellow jingle shells and frowning down at them chipped them idly together. "Bess, you've had heavy troubles since I saw you last. Baxter told me and today—I saw your husband."

  "Robert's somewhat better," she said quickly. "And for the rest I don't want to think of them, not here on Monakewaygo. 'Tis not fitting."

  He smiled, touched by the youthfulness of this, yet himself aware of a mystic charm here, an other-worldliness and peace. She looked very young, sitting so primly, her hands tight-clasped together, and the long loose braid hanging down to her lap.

  What man has ever looked at me like that? Eliz
abeth thought, seeing in his eyes amused tenderness and understanding. A thickness came into her throat, and she said very fast, "I know nothing of your life in these years, have you—?" She stopped short as he burst into laughter.

  "Oh hinnie, hinnie-sweet!" he said. "I know what you will ask since you do each time we meet."

  "Hinnie?" said Elizabeth puzzled and trying to smile. "Do you call me 'hinnie,' for you think I'm a horse?"

  He shook his head. "Though there's few things sweeter than a saucy little mare. 'Hinnie' is 'honey' in the North Country, where by the way I've spent some time with Digby—fighting."

  "Fighting?" she said slowly. "How so?"

  "For the King. Until Digby changed his mind and we changed sides for the nonce, and back again. I found it confusing." He spoke with curtness, for these memories displeased him. "Wouldn't you like me to answer what you were going to ask me? I can do it in a border ballad, having learned several to while away cold winter nights of deferred battle."

  "Can you indeed?" she said with dignity, but the corners of her mouth flickered.

  "It is called 'The faire Flower of Northumberland,' and some of the verses go rather like this." William tilted his head, and watched her as he sang in a rough baritone:

  "'Hinnie-sweet, I am no foe,' he said

  (Follow my love, come over the strand)

  'By thy bonny face here was I stayed

  For thee, faire flower of Northumberland.'

  "'Sir, why dost come here for sake of me,

  (Follow my love, come over the strand)

  Having wife and children in thy countrie?

  —And I the faire flower of Northumberland.'

  "'I swear by the blessed Trinitie,

  (Follow my love, come over the strand)