The Winthrop Woman Page 4

  Margaret and John had seated themselves on a cushioned bench, and they were talking gravely. The gravity did not preclude another element no discerning woman could have missed. John's long rather harsh face showed an unmistakeable desire to please, while about Margaret there was a suggestion of coquetry. Her plump cheeks were pink, her fingers twisted a little scented pomander she wore at her girdle and her round bosom beneath the scarlet taffeta rose and fell more rapidly than recovery from the dancing would explain.

  "Is it possible?" Anne murmured..."so soon and so quickly...?" And knew that it was. John had not loved Mary Forth, his first wife whom he had married at seventeen, and who had been some years older, but for little Thomasine Clopton, his second, he had shown affection and grief. Had felt them too, she knew—John was no hypocrite. It was simply the practical way of men, she thought bitterly. A wife is needed—as house directress, as mother to the children, as purveyor of yet more land and property, as ... ah yes, as the fulfiller of one role above all. She looked at the sensual red curves of John's mouth between the russet mustache and beard, at the thin flare of his nostrils. It is better to marry than to burn, she thought, and how willingly John would again follow that woman-despising apostle's advice.

  "Mistress Fones," said a thick voice beside her. "Will you pledge me in a cup of wine?" She started and looked up at Lord deVere, who stood in front of her swaying a little. "Come, sweetheart, why so dismal?" he added, putting his thick sweating hand on her neck. "Will you show me the Manor gallery? I've heard you have a portrait by King Harry's painter fellow, Holbein."

  "I beg you will forgive me, my lord," said Anne, moving back. "I've not been well. I'm mortal weary."

  DeVere's eyes narrowed, a glint came into them. "Mealy-mouthed little rustic," he said below his breath. He turned on his silver heel and stalked away to Adam whom he approached with a smile. "Well, sir, what say you to the gaming table? At court now they are hot for ' Trump.' Have you the cards? If not, my lackey will have brought a deck."

  Adam's ruddy face puckered with dismay; hospitable and merry he might be, and also desirous of pleasing his noble guest, but he could not countenance gaming in his home. A wager now and then perhaps, or even a throw of the dice, but not cards which were a dissolute foreign invention. He was saved from refusing by the Baroness, who called imperiously, "'Tis late, my lord, and we have far to drive, we must take our leave."

  The Baron was not easy to persuade, for he had planned upon recouping some of his London losses from these simple folk, but his wife had grasped the situation and knew that future favors were dependent on tact at present. The deVeres and Tyndals began the round of ceremonious farewells. When Margaret gave her hand to John Winthrop, he pressed it slowly, and said, "Since you stay some days at Hadleigh, may I give myself the pleasure of waiting on you there ... tomorrow...?"

  Margaret looked up into the intent eyes, then lowered her own. A pulse began to beat in her full throat, she withdrew her hand. "Why, I don't know sir—it seems hardly—"

  "I beg of you, Mistress Margaret. I have found it so agreeable to converse with you, a pleasure I dared hope you shared." He had a warm vibrant voice and Margaret was quite experienced enough to recognize sincerity in it, but she was embarrassed that this country squire, this twice-made widower whom she had just met, should give her a sense of excitement. "It is a long ride to Hadleigh..." she began, and stopped, for her brother came up to them impatiently. "Margaret! His Lordship is waiting. Good night to you, sir!" He looked at John coldly. Arthur Tyndal was a great bull of a man with an air of importance, and his manner clearly showed that he found John Winthrop negligible.

  Margaret flushed; gentle though she was by nature, a spark of revolt against her brother's arrogance made her murmur to John as she curtseyed, "As you like, sir," and her brown eyes smiled a little. She turned abruptly, and nearly fell over Elizabeth whose curiosity about these grand people neither a surfeit of food, nor the lateness of the hour had yet sated. "Bless you child!" cried Margaret, "I didn't see you, did I tread on your toe?"

  Elizabeth nodded solemnly. "It doesn't matter. I—I wanted to sniff that little ball on your girdle, it smells so sweet."

  "And so you shall," said Margaret, holding out her pomander. The child inhaled the odor of sandalwood and violets ecstatically.

  "Bess! You presume!" said her Uncle John, but there was a gratified light in his eye as he watched Margaret give his niece a swift kiss. He had not been wrong in seeing a motherliness in Margaret. She would be kind to stepchildren, and with those broad hips and full breasts she was doubtless a good breeder herself. After the noble party had finally left and the tired Winthrops were all in bed, John stayed up in his private closet, thinking. He glanced at his journal, the "Experiencia," which he had been writing before he left for London. Phrases here and there caught his attention.

  I purpose by God's grace to meditate more often upon the certainty and excellency of my everlasting happinesse through Christ, and of the vanitye and perill of all worldly felicity ... O Lord crucifie the world unto me, that though I can not avoid to live among the baits and snares of it, yet it may be truely dead unto me and I unto it ...

  There were a dozen pages of renunciation and repentance covered with his cramped strongly characterized writing, but he pushed the pile of manuscript slowly aside.

  "It is no sin before God," he said aloud, "to long for a suitable and faithful bedfellow, and if this woman be somewhat frivolous and inclined towards the world, I'll yet vow she is submissive and will be guided by me." He smiled, thinking of Margaret's confusion, her plump cosiness, her soft eyes. I believe I love her already, he thought pleasurably. His first two wives had been well dowered, but they had not also been knight's daughters. This brought him to a less pleasing thought. Margaret's family would make objections, Arthur Tyndal's bearing had been unmistakeable.

  But the opposition would be surmounted, he was sure of it. Confidence surged back, as it ever did after a period of heart-smart and misery. God will help me, he thought, if, to be sure, it be His Will. And went to bed.

  For Elizabeth, in after years, those summer months at Groton merged into a vivid memory of two days. One was the glorious feasting and dancing with which they had celebrated King James's birthday, and the other was the August day of her own great wickedness.

  Elizabeth's troubles began as soon as she opened her eyes and heard rain hissing down the latticed panes. She crept out of the trundle bed she shared with Martha, now that Thomas Fones had returned from London and occupied the big bed with his wife and the baby. Elizabeth went to the window and cast one despairing look at the gray teeming sky. Jack had promised to take her to the Fair at Boxford today. He and Hany had already slipped over there themselves after lessons with Mr. Nicholson, and Elizabeth's ardent heart had thumped over descriptions of the Fair's attractions. There was a dancing bear, and a juggler who could balance a sword on his nose, there were mummers and cockfights, there were booths that sold gingerbread toys and pink pigs made from marchpane. Jack had said he would give her a penny to buy some. Her mouth watered when she thought of the melting sweet almond taste of those little pigs. She had dreamed of them last night, had seen herself sharing one with Jack while they made a wish. And now it poured. "Rain before seven, clear by eleven," old Lem, the reeve, had said the other day when the Manor folk were still bringing in the harvest, but it hadn't cleared then. And it wouldn't today. She felt it. Elizabeth looked miserably at Martha who still slept, and at the drawn brocade curtains around her parents' bed. Her father inside there was snoring rhythmically. If he were not there she would have crept in to her mother for comfort.

  Elizabeth mournfully yanked her little linen shift from the stool where she had flung it last night; she pulled it over her head and then her thin blue wool gown. She bothered neither to wash her face, nor comb the tangled masses of dark curls. She had an urgent errand in the kitchen, and no idea just how late it was. She slipped out of the bedchamber and down the crooked stone
back stairs into the buttery. It was empty; on the oak counter fresh-baked loaves of bread were neatly ranged for serving, a keg of ale was already dripping at the spiggot where someone had drawn off a mug for breakfast, but through the open door into the great kitchen she could see Nannie Podd, the head cook, stirring a pot over the fire. This was bad luck. Podd was a cantankerous old woman, who disliked children and resented intrusion in her domain. Elizabeth edged through the buttery door, holding her breath and praying that the cook would not notice her while she tried to see the spot where she had hidden the sampler and dish last night. She had put them behind the broom by the hearth because that was where the goblin would look, and she had said the charm three times. But the broom had been moved. On the bricks there was no sign of the rolled up sampler, or of the dish of bread and cream.

  Perhaps Puck had taken them away to finish the work? ...She gave a jump, for she felt a sharp pain in her right ear while fingers jerked the lobe, and Lucy's voice said crossly behind her, "What mischief are you up to now, Bess? What do you here at this hour?"

  "N-nothing," said Elizabeth, squirming. The cook turned around, her under lip thrust out, her fat cheeks glistening beneath the mobcap. "Good morrow, Mistress Lucy. Oi've the sage ready steeped as ye ordered—ah—" she added with malice catching sight of Elizabeth. "Miss Goody-body! And dew ye be arter that mucky ould bit o' stitchery Oi found hidden wi' a bowl of slops behoind me besom Oi wonder!"

  "What's that!" cried Lucy, staring at Elizabeth's scarlet face. "What are you talking about, Cook?" The woman reached up to a cupboard, brought down the crumpled dirty sampler and held it out. Lucy gasped as she looked at the straggling ELIZ and saw the rest blank. "Oh..." she breathed. "You wicked lying child! You said it was finished, that you would give it to my mother today!" The girl was genuinely shocked; not even Harry had ever exhibited deceit and disobedience of this magnitude.

  Elizabeth said nothing. She felt some guilt, but stronger yet was despair. She had been so sure that the goblin would help her, and he had not; so sure that she would get to the Fair with Jack and she could not. She had prayed the Lord Jesus for fine weather too. Prayers were not answered, charms failed. There was nothing.

  "Come with me," said Lucy, breathing hard and grabbing the ear lobe again. "I shall take this straight to your father, and then to my mother, and may God forgive you."

  A frenzy like the fireworks on Guy Fawkes Day suddenly exploded in Elizabeth's chest. "I don't care if He does. I hate God!" she shouted.

  She ducked so violently that Lucy lost hold of the ear. The child turned and ran through the buttery slamming its door in her astounded aunt's face. She flew through the scullery where a sleepy boy was peeling onions, and past the pantry, which Lucy had that moment unlocked on her way to the kitchen. On the shelf by the door there was a silver dish full of rare dates imported from the Levant, which were Adam's favorite delicacy. He had once given Elizabeth a taste, and she had liked it almost as well as marchpane. She did not know that she saw the dish as she ran past, or how it came to be clutched in her arms, she had no plan but frantic flight as she darted out into the dripping courtyard across the slippery flags to the stable. She wedged herself between a water barrel and the stable wall as Lucy peered out the door across the courtyard. The girl was young and active but she had been impeded in the chase by her full silk skirts, and now seeing no sign of Elizabeth through the sheets of rain, she shut the door and went to rouse the household.

  In the stable a groom whistled as he curried one of the horses. Elizabeth dared not go there for refuge. She peeked gingerly around the side of the barrel and spied the bakehouse. There was a small disused door that led from its loft to the garrets of the main house. The boys had shown it to her though their elders had long forgotten its existence. She acted again without thought, streaked back across the courtyard and into the bakehouse which was still warm from the ovens and smelled of recently baked bread. Clutching her dish of dates Elizabeth climbed the ladder to the loft, opened the low door and entered the great shadowy attic. There were but two tiny cobwebby windows, high up in the gables; near to one was an old black chest carved in the Gothic manner of long ago. Elizabeth sat down on it, shivered, and began to cry.

  She cried for a long time before wiping her eyes on the bedraggled damp skirt of her blue gown. It was then that she consciously saw the dates. Fear trickled down her spine like the drip from her hair. I can't ever go back, she thought, they'd never forgive me, never. Even Mama. She began to cry again, thinking that one day years from now they would come up here and find her bones heaped on the chest. "Moldering bones," the sexton at St. Sepulchre's always said. She glanced fearfully into the shadows. There was a rusty suit of armor hanging from a peg and a queer helmet a hundred years old that had belonged to a Winthrop. There were piles of dusty chests and a broken spinning wheel, and the looming brick bulk of the great kitchen chimney. The rain pattered on the tiles above her head. I'm so hungry, she thought. Her hand went out of itself and took a date. The sweetness was cloying, she bit down, and her teeth were jarred by the unexpected pit. She spat it out. I wish I was dead already, she thought.

  An eternity dragged by. Then she heard a noise behind her and started in terror. Rats?—or ghosts? She huddled on the chest, her heart thundering in her ears.

  "Bess?" whispered a voice. "Are you there?" A boy came through from the bakehouse loft.

  "Jack!" She gulped and ran to him, flinging herself against him, clinging.

  "Hush," he said awkwardly patting her shoulder. "I guessed you might be here. They're hunting everywhere. Oh, Bessie, what a coil you've got yourself into." His eyes fell on the dates. "So you did take them, Aunt Lucy said you had."

  "I didn't mean to. I only ate one, it was nasty. Oh, Jack, we were going to the Fair and it rained—and the charm didn't work for the sampler, Puck nor Robin Goodfellow nor any goblin came at all."

  "What a baby you are!" The boy shook his head. "Elves do good deeds sometimes, they don't help people who should have helped themselves."

  Elizabeth gave a little whimper and sank back on the chest. Jack had always taken her side before, and now his grave voice sounded like his father; he even looked just like Uncle John with the twinkle all gone from the round eyes under high arched brows.

  "You must come down now, Bess," said the boy more gently. "It's best to face it and be done with it."

  "I can't! I can't! They'll kill me!"

  "Fiddle! They'll but give you a flogging. That's naught to be very much feared of, I've had plenty. Haven't you?"

  She shook her head. She had been spanked once or twice, and her father had boxed her ears, but Thomas was too sickly and indolent for the corporal punishment of his eldest, and Anne was too gentle. Elizabeth looked at him piteously, wanting always to do as Jack said, and yet afraid. The dark lashes stuck out in spikes around her tear-drenched eyes, eyes called hazel, that were changeable in color as a brook, gold-flecked brown, mossy green, or black pools as now. Her pink mouth trembled. The vivid rose had drained from her cheeks.

  Jack felt something peculiar stir in his chest as he looked down at the wan, big-eyed child. He had never been embarrassed by the affection between them, he had never thought of it particularly, nor realized that of the many womenfolk of all ages who surrounded him, he was perhaps fondest of this one. He bent suddenly and put his arm around her. "Come, little coz. I've always known you brave. D'you remember the day Black Brutus ran away with you? You kept your stirrups and sawed his mouth as well as any horseman in the land."

  Aye, she had mastered Black Brutus that day, nor known fear, only a wild exultation, but that had been very different. "For you want me to, Jack," she whispered, and taking his stubby callused hand, she stood up slowly.

  Elizabeth's punishment was worse than anything she had imagined, and the whole family was assembled in the Great Hall to witness it. From the moment of her reappearance downstairs with Jack, she had been received with head shakings and cold stern looks. Some of t
hese looks, like her mother's, were sorrowful too, but even Anne Fones accepted the family verdict that Satan had somehow got possession of her daughter and must be beaten out of her.

  "It is for your own sake, Bess," said Anne sadly. "For the sake of your soul, my poor child. Your Uncle John will conduct your chastisement. He has had more experience than your father in such matters, and also your father has a fit of his ague today." She steeled herself against the fear in Elizabeth's eyes, and being now in her fifth month of pregnancy, sank heavily to a seat in the circle of benches and chairs which had been arranged in the Hall. It was her mother's exhortations which had brought Anne to such cool detached speech, but there was no doubt that her own lax discipline had been culpable, and the list of Elizabeth's crimes truly appalling. The prolonged deceit and lies about the sampler, not to speak of the laziness involved—these were bad, but the subsequent blasphemy against God, and then theft, were beyond any condoning as childish naughtiness.

  John Winthrop stood behind the lectern on which lay Adam's great new King James Bible open at the thirtieth chapter of Ecclesiasticus. John's brooding gaze slowly circled the assembled family. His father and mother sat in tall-backed carved chairs, Lucy next to them, Thomas Fones on a cushioned bench, shivering from his ague, rubbing his gouty fingers nervously, but grim-mouthed above the sparse beard. Thomas did not look at his daughter who had disgraced the Foneses, he stared at the thyme-strewed rushes at the base of the high stool where Elizabeth had been perched in the center of the circle. He heard Anne beside him begin to cry and murmured, "Now, now, wife." All the children were there in the Hall too, and the younger servants, huddled near the kitchen door. So regrettable a circumstance as this would nonetheless yield profit as an example, and prevent others from wrongdoing. Little Martha crouched beside Anne, and stared with horrified eyes at her sister, but John's own children were ranged at his right, below the lectern—Jack, Harry, Forth, and Mary who was but five years old and the only one who did not understand what was taking place.