The Winthrop Woman

by Anya Seton

  "I've the paper to prove it," she said after the flicker of a glance at Will, who signalled back a "yes."

  She took the folded parchment from her pocket and spread it silently out on the table.

  Thomas, Toby and Angell crowded round, staring down at the red New Netherlands seal, at Wilhelm Kieft's unmistakable signature, and the date April 14, 1647, which was clear enough.

  "Ye know we can't read that!" Thomas blurted, but his eyes shifted. "They're diddling us! It might say anything there."

  "It was for that reason," said Will, "that I've brought you an English confirmation." He went to his saddlebag and took out a statement signed by George Baxter which said tersely that Elizabeth Feake's divorce from Robert Feake was quite in order. Further than this slight ambiguity Baxter had not dared go in giving Will the statement. But as Will had hoped, it so startled the three men that they were silent. Toby and Angell would have been satisfied, but Thomas's wits were quicker and his interest stronger.

  "So maybe she's divorced," he said jerking his head. "Though I never heard the like for a sly sneaking bit o' skullduggery. But that's no proof of your marriage. When was that supposed to be?"

  "After the divorce," said Will with cold finality. "You see our wedding bands, and there's an end to it!"

  "Why, so it is," said Angell smiling suddenly. He had always admired Mrs. Feake, and he liked Will Hallet. Nor had he stomach for the violent scene Thomas Lyon had urged on him as his duty.

  "'Tis an upset," said Toby slowly, mulling it over. "Ye might've told us sooner, Aunt, and spared us this morning's jaunt. I've not even had my ale yet. Hallet, where's your keg?"

  "Oh, I'll get you something, Toby," cried Elizabeth, exhaling her breath. "And there's enough for all!"

  "Not so fast, my dear mother—" said Thomas, catching her roughly by the arm. "I'M no fool. This is some trick o' Hallet's to get possession o' the property. Where're your marriage lines?"

  Elizabeth's mind swam, but before she could think of an answer, Will jumped over and struck Thomas's hand off her arm. "There'll be no more of your bullying!" he cried furiously. "And no more of your questions either! And also, Thomas, I feel that you've lived long enough at my wife's house. I suggest you move to Stamford and those friends there you're so fond of. You might spend your own money for a change!"

  Thomas flinched, confused by this sudden attack, and switch of topic. His great fists doubled uncertainly. Will lowered his chin and stood ready. Angell hastily ran between them. "Now, now—men—" he said. "I allus wanted to see ye wrassle but not like this, not in bad blood. Ye best give in, Tom. Will Hallet's got the right of it."

  Thomas's eyes darted to Angell's face and then to Toby's, then returned to Will's icy watchful gaze. Thomas mastered his rage. Fighting the fellow would butter no parsnips now, and they were all against him at the moment. Also these startling developments wanted thinking out, and investigating. There was evasion somewhere, something fishy. He was sure of it.

  "The matter'll not end here, Hallet," he said, picking up his musket. "But out of respect for my mother," he made Elizabeth an ironic bow, "I'll say no more at present. Are ye coming, men?"

  "Aye," said Angell. "My stock's not been watered. I give you good day, Will, and—Mrs. Hallet, I suppose I should say now! Rcbecca'll be in a rare taking when she hears this!" He grinned and followed Thomas out the door.

  Toby remained, noisily guzzling the ale Elizabeth brought him. "That Thomas is a rare one for stirring up trouble," he said meditatively. "Says he's had a letter from Governor Winthrop."

  "What!" gasped Elizabeth, putting down her mug. "From my Uncle John? Thomas hasn't been writing to him!"

  "Oh aye," said Toby calmly. "About the property and what's due Joan, which he thinks not enough, and about that paper my Uncle Feake gave you an' Hallet afore he went to Boston."

  Panic struck Elizabeth as it had not during all Thomas's rantings. "What has Thomas been telling them in Boston?" she whispered half to herself.

  "I dunno," said Toby, belching pleasurably. "But Anneke thinks he's working on the Governor to get Uncle Feake to repudiate that paper. But now—" said Toby shrugging, "that you've divorced my uncle, I expect there'll be more confusion. 'Tis a good thing you've married Hallet, Aunt, or you might be in danger o' losing everything you own."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  ELIZABETH and Will in her house on Greenwich Cove had some months of uneasy peace. It was the happiest time they had ever known, perhaps because they felt an urgency to savor each moment, and a lurking threat, though they never spoke of this. In their big bed upstairs at night they both learned the unguessed delights of passion when it was also mingled with tenderness and humor. By days they worked at their separate tasks—and though often apart from sunrise to sundown, they were always conscious of each other.

  Thomas and Joan had duly moved to Stamford. Elizabeth was saddened at parting with her daughter, and by the sullen look in Joan's brown eyes, but once the Lyons were gone the house took on a lightness and gaiety it had never known through the long years.

  The children blossomed. They accepted without question the news of their mother's marriage and Will Hallet's installation in their home. The girls were delighted, Lisbet in her own frivolous way, Hannah with a loving welcome for a normal and responsive father at last.

  As for the little boys, Will gave them companionship and some much needed discipline, and he taught them to whittle and chop and make good tools.

  During the short time that they were left in peace, Will enormously improved Elizabeth's estate, which had never been well managed. He sold some of her most northern acres to a Dutch settler, and bought livestock with the proceeds; two more cows, and a bull to service all the township. He bought five ewes and a ram. He changed the feed for Elizabeth's puny swine, and they began to thrive. He burned down trees, as the Indians did, to clear many acres which he cannily planted for the highest yield in barley, wheat and com.

  He farmed his own Totomack lands too; and as all this industry taxed even his great strength, he hired one of the new Dutch lads and young Danny Patrick to help him.

  Since Toby did no farming, Anneke could well spare Danny, who was now a big hearty youth, and she had forgiven Elizabeth and Will.

  "Och Bess—" she said one day. "I vas so upset about you, I thought you vere turning light and vicked. Divorce is bad, ja—but I can't blame you, beveling. And you have got a good husband at last."

  "I have, I have," said Elizabeth, her eyes shining as they always did when she thought of Will. She no longer felt guilty when anyone referred to their marriage. Surely there was no real deception, and they had harmed nobody. With each evidence of their increased prosperity, she felt more secure. Even Thomas seemed no menace now. They never saw him and though Elizabeth sometimes missed Joan, the affection of the other children amply made up for it. She was so happy that summer and so busy that she scarcely visited Monakewaygo, and then only the beach. The secret pool no longer called her. In fact the memory of her former feelings for the pool made her uncomfortable. Her garden and her children—and Will's arms at night—sufficed. She wanted to think of nothing else.

  The first blow fell at their Harvest Festival, a day of Thanksgiving and feasting observed at different times throughout all the colonies. Elizabeth and Will, as Greenwich's undisputed leaders, and the owners of the largest house, invited the whole community, and selected the date—the thirty-first of October.

  "Halloween it'll be too," said Elizabeth gaily to the children. "We'll have the games and sport we used to have at Groton when I was little, and jack-o'-lanterns! We used to make them from turnips, but our pumpkins'll do better, and bobbing for apples, fortune-telling with chestnuts, and a bonfire!"

  "Couldn't you manage a husking bee as well, Bess?" said Will with a twinkle. "'Twould be a pity to miss anything, and I'd like a chance at finding a red ear of corn."

  "Oh, you would, would you?" she said tossing her head. "And pray whom would you kiss?"


  "Goody Crab," said Will solemnly. "I've got a hankering for her."

  The children burst into delighted squeals, and Elizabeth gave her rare joyous laugh.

  "Nay—but make it a real gaudy night," Will said, squeezing her waist. "We've all had a fine harvest and much to be thankful for."

  "So much," she said, looking up into his eyes.

  The neighbors were excited at the preparations, all the housewives baked and brewed for days, and the men boasted about it in Stamford, when they went there on market day. Thomas Lyon heard of Greenwich's festival, and delayed by a little certain plans. The results would be far more rewarding if all Greenwich was there to witness.

  He went off to confer again with the Reverend Mr. Bishop and Mr. Richard Lawe.

  All Hallows Eve was a hazy autumn day, with enough chill in the air to make very welcome the huge bonfire, and later the four hearth fires Elizabeth extravagantly lighted in her house. By midafternoon the neighbors began to straggle in, shuffling through the fallen leaves, each bearing some donation for the feast. They laughed when they saw the pumpkin jack-o'-lanterns the children had carved into grinning faces, and lit by candles from inside; they jested with each other, and told tales of goblins and spectral lights seen in Old England on this night.

  Goody Crab after several noggins of rum—and she could hold her drink as well as any man—was reminded of a tale she'd heard in her Yorkshire girlhood, something about a witch's coven flying through the black sky on broomsticks, but Elizabeth checked her. Witchcraft was no jesting matter; some of the guests looked uneasy, and Elizabeth herself preferred not to be reminded.

  They gorged on wild turkeys stuffed with sage and chestnuts, and on the great roasted oysters from Totomack Cove. They had pumpkin pies sweetened with maple sugar, and boiled "plum" puddings made with huckleberries. Each woman had brought her specialty. Anneke, her famous gingerbread, Rebecca Husted some loaves of the precious wheat bread, Elizabeth offered a fragrant conserve of rose petals and wild strawberries. There were apple dowdies and pressed cheeses, there were even sugared raisins which the elder Mrs. Husted had been saving against a great occasion. The housewives had with much ingenuity avoided using Indian corn—the all too familiar staple of everyday meals.

  The men brought hard cider, rum and ale, but Will had provided lavishly. lie was a genial host, happy in the new pleasure of dispensing hospitality, after the bachelor years of wandering, of solitude in trading posts, or of subservience in Sherborne Castle.

  By eight o'clock, there was a pause. Some of the older guests began to think reluctantly of bedtime, the I lusted and Sherwood babies, with other children, were already asleep in an upstairs chamber. But nobody wanted the holiday to end.

  Richard Crab sprang up and waved his mug. "'Tis like old times in Essex at Squire's manor house when I was a lad!" he cried exuberantly, his gnarled weatherbeaten face beaming. "Now we got Will Hallet for squire, him and his good lady! Drink to 'em, cronies! Gi' a rousing huzzah for the Hallets!"

  They all cheered and huzzahed and cried, "God bless you!"

  Elizabeth caught Will's arm and held it tight, while she curtseyed and he bowed.

  "I've got me old jew's-harp," cried Crab. "Let the youngsters have a romp!" And he began to play, twanging away at some unrecognizable but spirited tune.

  Lisbet who had been roasting chestnuts in the fire seized young Danny Patrick; they sprang up and whirled together, not quite in time. Hannah with other children joined hands and scampered uncertainly around in a ring.

  Angell Hustcd grabbed his young wife's waist, and tried to lead her in a country hay, which they neither of them remembered.

  "Well, hinnie—" said Will gaily in Elizabeth's ear as they stood near the passage together watching. "Shall we tread a measure too? For sure we could show them a galliard, couldn't we? What's the matter—" he added in consternation, for Elizabeth's eyes were full of tears.

  "They don't know HOW to dance..." she said, in a choked voice. "The young ones don't. They don't know how it used to be, and they can't learn here in this harsh land. There's a shadow."

  He stared at her. "What melancholy vapors, Bess! Have you drunk too much, or not enough? You were enjoying yourself mightily."

  "'Tis Halloween," she said, trying to laugh. "I'm afflicted with ghosts, and the sense of doom."

  "Then stop it, hinnie. There's no doom but what we make. I ne'er heard you superstitious."

  "I would be merry," she said, "but I dare not, when always something punishes my merriment—Aye—I thought so," she said turning towards the window. "Don't you hear horses?"

  Will listened, and he did. "Bess, what on earth—have you gone fey, has some wizard given you the 'sight'?"

  "Perhaps," she said wearily. "I had a dream last night; but also there was something Angell told me all unknowing. He saw Thomas in Stamford two days agone. Will, I know Thomas has been biding his time and now found out something. I feel it."

  The muscles knotted in Will's jaw. "Stand firm then, Bess," he said. "Admit nothing."

  He strode into the passage and opened the door. "Come in, friends!" he cried, still uncertain whether Bess were right or not, though as three figures moved into the light he saw that she was.

  "Good evening, Thomas," he called out smoothly. "Ever you come unexpected to my door accompanied by two other gentlemen. I find this a trifle monotonous, yet perchance you've come to help Greenwich celebrate its excellent harvest? If so, you are most courteously welcome."

  Will spoke deliberately in slight exaggeration of the speech learned in his aristocratic years. Thomas's companions—the Reverend Mr. Bishop and Mr. Lawe, who barely knew Hallet by sight— were startled. Both were men of education, and did not ascribe Will's way of speaking to Dorset accent as the simpler folk had done. Here was certainly not the low common fellow Thomas Lyon had represented, and they changed their attitudes.

  "We regret to intrude, sir," said Mr. Bishop. "But Goodman Lyon has, er—troublesome matters to divulge."

  "They must be of paramount importance, good sirs, if they have excited the attention of two such eminent gentlemen as— ?" Will paused, cool and supercilious as ever Lord Digby had been when confronted by vulgarity.

  "I am John Bishop, Stamford's pastor," said the minister, uncomfortably. "And this is Mr. Richard Lawe, our magistrate."

  "Precisely," said Will, bowing and concealing dismay though he had been almost sure of their identity. "Two such eminent gentlemen." He turned his back on Thomas who had been trying to speak, and walking into the parlor, cried, "Neighbors, we have guests! Stamford guests! We must make them welcome! Wife, pour out the ale, unless you would prefer rum," he said with anxious courtesy to the two Stamford leaders, who looked nonplused.

  "We didn't come here for drink!" cried Thomas belligerently, trying to regain his confidence. Richard Crab put down his jew's-harp; all the Greenwich folk had drawn to the end of the room, and were watching with astonishment and hostility.

  "True—" said Mr. Lawe, who wished he had not come. "However, a small tot of ale, perhaps." He sat down in Elizabeth's carved court chair. Why didn't Lyon tell us Hallet was a gentleman? he thought. The matter shouldn't be handled roughly like this. He drummed his fingers on his knee.

  The minister also appeared uncertain, but a glance at the renegade Greenwich folk, who had once been bis parishioners, decided him. Reveling they had obviously been, celebrating a Thanksgiving as they pleased, without benefit of clerical decree, prayer, or blessing. He folded his arms behind his back and standing by the fireplace, spoke in his pulpit voice.

  "We regret to cause you embarrassment, Madam." He bowed to Elizabeth who was busily pouring ale.

  She looked up smiling. "But indeed you don't. We are delighted to see you, sir." Her heart was pounding against her ribs.

  "Not the embarrassment of our presence, the embarrassment of our coming disclosure," said the minister quickly, and hurried on. "I have received a letter from Mr. Robert Feake. Written the day before
he finally sailed for England."

  "Ah!" said Elizabeth, with a glimmer of relief. This was not what she had feared. "Poor Robert. How is he?"

  "Quite, quite sane now," said Mr. Bishop sternly. "As evidenced by bis letter to me. He suggests that undue influence was used on him here—" Bishop glanced at Hallet. "The day he ran away from my home, being distracted of wits. He rejects the paper he incontinently signed, and asks that I, and Thomas Lyon, shall reserve the whole of his property until he sees how God will deal with him in England. lie says that he now sees he and his children would be wronged by the terms he had given, and regrets his folly."

  There was a blank silence. Elizabeth did not understand, Will was too stunned to speak. It was Richard Crab who sprang out from the gaping crowd, and cried, "Now then, parson, what the devil d'ye mean by that folderol? The Hallets own the land fair and square, and the rest o' the estate too. Feake he took his share when he run away, and can go signing papers till the last trump, 'twouldn't change things. He's not got his wits, as all of us know who've lived here."

  Mr. Bishop flushed and said stiffly, "You're scarcely a judge of the legal aspects, Goodman Crab. Mr. Feake has written me to conserve his property, and Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts has sent Goodman Lyon a corroborating letter."

  Elizabeth drew a harsh breath, her dilated eyes fixed on Thomas. "Where is that letter?" she said. "The letter from my Uncle Winthrop."

  Thomas bit his lips, there were certain aspects of Winthrop's letter he preferred not to disclose, since he had written indiscreetly, voicing suspicions as facts, nor was Winthrop's reply quite in the tone Thomas had indicated to the Reverend Mr. Bishop and Mr. Lawe.

  The latter now leaned forward. "Goodman," the magistrate said coldly, "I know you have Governor Winthrop's letter with you. It must be produced."

  Everyone stared at Lyon. Will stepped back, beside Elizabeth. "You shouldn't have insisted, hinnie," he said in her ear.

  She did not hear him, she cried again according to a deep compulsion. "I wish to know what my uncle has written—if indeed he has written!"