A Measure of Light (16 page)

Mary could no longer bear to watch Anne’s brave face as exhaustion took its toll and injustice bore its weight upon her, relentless, like the tolling of funeral bells.

The ministers surrounded Anne. They walked her from the building, moved in a phalanx into the gathering dusk of late March.

As if I were a wild animal
.

The air bore the seaweed stench of low tide. Beneath the cry of gulls came the
rat-a-tat
of drums. Couples moved away into the half-dark, women walking behind their men. They passed up along streets where icy puddles gave the only light. Anne caught sight of Mary standing alone.

Her eyes do see more than most
.

She remembered what Mary had told her. How, in the first days of attending Anne’s meetings, Mary had felt that the Holy Spirit dwelt within her—
and so, she told me, the world did seem lucid, rimmed with holy light …

The men began to move and Anne was swept forward. In the set
of their shoulders, she sensed their conviction that Cotton would succeed in his mission.
Six days
—for six weary days, Cotton would chivvy her to recant, to renounce her powers of prophecy, to admit that she had been in error. In the eyes of God, and for the good of the colony, she must become an example for the goodwives of the New Jerusalem—virtuous, submissive, humbled.

Cotton’s words burned within her.

One week later, the meeting house was packed.

The magistrates and the ministers resumed their places. Again, Anne stood before them, hands folded beneath her belly, a mound of black wool.

Reverend Cotton held up a paper.

“She hath reviewed and recanted most of her errors.”

A mingling of sighs and murmurs rose from the congregation.

“ ‘I do acknowledge I was deeply deceived … my mistake … a hateful error … See that Christ is united to our fleshly bodies …’ ”

The long, isolated days in John Cotton’s study, before and after which she had been given meals alone in her bedroom and been allowed no visits from her children or any other person, were revealed for what they had been: as rain upon a block of salt.

She looked along the row of ministers, realizing that the issue before her was none of the errors that Cotton had read out, but her own error in judgment, a misstep taken as in the ordinary parlours of the earth: she had offended their sense of mission. Yet how could they not see that they were not the only people to whom God spoke?
Surely they know this in their own hearts
.

She sought reparation, although her voice was sharp.

“It was never in my heart to slight any man.”

Faces opened with surprise, there was a shuffle as people sat straighter to see the ministers’ reactions.

“Only that man should be kept in his own place and not set in the room of God.”

The ministers surged to their feet, furious.

“I would be glad to see any humiliation in Mistress Hutchinson …”

“Repentance is not in her countenance.”

“Contrary to the truth … abuse of diverse Scriptures …”

Reverend Wilson pointed at her. His face was flushed, his voice was tear-filled.

“…  slighting of God’s faithful ministers and crying them down as
nobodies
. It was to set up
yourself
in the room of God that you might be extolled and admired and followed after, that you might be a great
prophetess
, and undertake to expound Scripture and to interpret other men’s saying and sermons after your mind …”

The white bands of Anne’s smock drew taut as she straightened her shoulders.

“Remember the Fifth Commandment,” shouted Reverend Peter. “You have been rather a husband than a wife, and a preacher than a hearer; and a magistrate than a subject—”

Mr. Leverett called for quiet. When the men had resumed their seats and the room was once again still, Reverend Cotton spoke. “I now perceive that Anne Hutchinson’s confession hath been in vain, since it is clear that her pride of heart is still strong. Excommunication must follow—and it shall be of the most severe sort:
anathema maranatha
. She must be rejected from God and delivered to Satan.”

Silence fell save for scratchings, clickings—time as measured by wind and branch. It stretched into a minute. Two minutes.

Anne had remained standing. She held her eyes on Mr. Cotton, sitting now with his fellow ministers, but again he would not return her gaze.

Hypocrite
.

—

Reverend Wilson rose. He began to shout, his voice hoarse.

Mary felt her vision narrow, as it had during childbirth, when she had passed into oblivion. All known things grew small, blown as leaves before great wind, scattered. She saw only the stuffed wolfskin kneeling-bag on the floor, felt her knees, bending, the joints, the roar in her ears drowning out even Mr. Wilson’s ranting voice, the words of Anne’s excommunication, her own hands, touching,
excuse, please, excuse
, skirts, brown, purple, black, the empty space of the aisle.

Anne, coming towards her, her eyes wide and fatigued and clear.

Mary reached for Anne’s hand. Language of bone, skin, tendon.

My friend
.

Space, around them, and the firm, swift rhythm of their steps, their skirts intermingled as they strode down the aisle towards a suddenly opened door from whence poured the day’s light.

Just as they stepped through the door, loud whispers came from the last pew.

“Who is she who stands with Mistress Hutchinson?”

“The mother of the monster.”

They did not falter, but passed into cold air smelling of horse manure and melting snow. They stood side by side, hands still gripped.

Their eyes met. Bewildered, Mary saw through Anne’s exhaustion an expression of beseeching anguish.

“Monster?” Mary whispered. “Monster?”

“Goody Hawkins,” Anne said, speaking hand to mouth. She looked away. “She must have …”

Mr. Cotton strode from the door, surrounded by men who would escort Anne home and see that she caused no more trouble until she had passed from their colony.

Mary watched them crossing the square. Brown hats, bobbing.

One white coif.

GOVERNOR JOHN WINTHROP STOOD AT
his window, watching the midwife coming up the street. He felt the lie, ripe in his mouth. Already, he had begged God’s forgiveness for it.

Jane Hawkins entered, panting.

“’Tis a terrible wind,” she said, glancing at his eyes, her own skewing.

The light of early spring filled the room, a remorseless brilliance, revealing cobwebs. Winthrop walked sombrely to his desk and passed his hand over a cedar box, clearing it of dust.

“Please sit, Goody Hawkins.”

The smell of onions and cats rose from her clothing. She looked down—
right, left
—tugging at her sleeves, and Winthrop saw that her chapped red hands were an embarrassment to her.
Good. Better she be ill at ease
. He remained standing.

“An elder came to me and told me of Mistress Dyer’s baby,” he said. “Consequently, I have spoken with Reverend Cotton and Mistress Hutchinson.”

Now the woman could not help but raise her eyes to his. She clenched her hands in her lap, skin drawn yellow over the knuckles.

It would be the best solution, he had thought, pondering, after Anne Hutchinson had left his study a day earlier. The end of this palavering nonsense. He would take the chance that the rumour was true in all its horror.

“She hath told me the child was like unto a monster.”

Jane shook her head. “Nay,” she breathed.

“Do not lie to me,” he said. “God is listening.” He lowered his voice. “Moreover, Goody Hawkins, ’tis widely known of your use of oil of mandrakes and the like.” He pulled out his chair; its legs made a squealing scrape against the floorboards. He sat, slowly. “You have been called witch.”

On the hearth, flames crackled, devouring dry wood.

“I am no witch.”

He fingered his beard, felt the familiar, supportive ruffles of his lace collar. “Tell me what you saw.”

“I did see …”

“Remember. Anne hath confessed, so if you lie, I shall know. Moreover, we shall this afternoon exhume the corpse.”

He saw her eyes shift, widen, and become shrewd.

“Well, then.” She took a long breath. “I will tell ye. When she be in labour, such a noisome savour rose from her body that t’other women were taken with violent vomitin’. They rushed from the room. The bed …”

“What of the bed?”

“Shaking. When the baby came. The bed shook up and down so the bedposts were a-thundering on the floorboards. The women said when they reached their homes, their children were in convulsions.”

Governor Winthrop’s hand closed over his beard and stroked down, closing into a fist at its tip.

“And what did the baby look like?”

He saw the woman’s face slacken. Her lower lip was fattened, as from old bruises. It slid sideways, glistened. She pressed red hand to cheek.

“It had a face but …”

Her shoulders sagged.

She drew a breath, muttered.

“Your pardon?” he said, ironic. “I did not hear.”

“I said, ’twould be best left in the ground.”

“There you are mistaken, Jane Hawkins. God sent a sign. You and Mistress Hutchinson are saved only because you did as Reverend Cotton told you. He did truly believe ’twas sent only for the parents, but now he admits he was in error. To correct your part in the error, you will meet me at the tavern at one of the clock.”

He gestured that the interview should proceed.

Jane Hawkins brushed her skirt with the flat of her hand, her lips turned downward.

Forgive me, he asked the Lord, again, as the midwife continued her terrible account. Anne Hutchinson had told him only that the baby was premature; that she had immediately wrapped it. “My care was for the mother,” she had snapped.

My care is for this commonwealth
.

Coming back along Corn Hill Road with her water buckets, Sinnie saw a group of men, Jane Hawkins and Anne Hutchinson in their midst. The men carried shovels, pickaxes.

Sinnie ran. The water spilled.

Mary stood on the hearthstone, feeding logs to the fire. Samuel was crawling beneath the table, following the cat.

“I saw a gaggle of men with Governor Winthrop and Mistress Hutchinson and Goody Hawkins. Shovels, they had. Heading up Corn Hill Road.”

Mary watched the fire separate as she dropped the log—then knit, again, as flames wrapped round it in a sleek consuming caress.

She felt her womb gathering her into its emptiness, its power of corruption.

—

Evening light lingered, touching the Delft china teapot brought from England, and the cups and saucers, and the high-backed chairs that had once stood in Groton Manor. They ate supper early, for John Winthrop had returned in the late afternoon with twigs in his beard, his boots filthy, his eyes bearing an uncharacteristic wildness, and had demanded that they eat as soon as possible, and told his children to go to their bedchambers immediately after the meal, and bid his wife, Margaret, keep quiet—for he needed utter silence in the house.

After the children had gone upstairs and Margaret to the kitchen, the governor went to his desk. Sat, absorbed, making minute cuts with his penknife, sharpening the nib of a grey-goose quill.

The door opened, despite his edict. Margaret—dear and faithful wife—slipped into the room. She did not come immediately forward but left a beat, as in music, in which to study him.

Untainted, my beloved, in any way. No. I will not tell her
.

He could not sound the unspeakable in this place where one thing was peaceably related to another. His father’s inkstand, the carpet laid upon the table, books, papers. Order created in this wilderness he laboured to mould as God’s kingdom, a place so savage that upon arrival many had died of starvation and his own son had drowned.

“John,” she said. “Why do you ask for silence?”

“Things are awry in our commonwealth and I do endeavour to fix them. I will not sleep until I have done so, therefore I asked for silence the sooner to join you.”

His smile bore only mollification. She bent her head—her habit, her wont. She slipped away quietly, as she had come.

He sat at his desk until two o’clock in the morning, writing in his journal. His quill scratched, scratched. His shoulders rose, energetic. His face was stern, eager.

… 
so monstrous and misshapen, as the like has scarce been heard of: it had no …

—

The following day, whispers spread about the town.

A fish, a bird, a beast, all woven together
.

Sinnie heard women speaking of it at the well.

“No toes, but claws.”

“Prickles, all over the back.”

“Horrible. What could she have done to have been so punished?”

Seeing Sinnie, they fell silent.

Mary strode, agitated, to Anne’s house. She found the rooms emptied of furniture, the family in the process of packing the food that they would take for the walk to Narragansett Bay. She and Anne sat in the parlour, where only two oak chairs remained and no fire burned on the hearth.