The Hearth and Eagle (10 page)

They fell into conversation, and Mark was astonished to find that this Mr. Isaac Allerton was a Separatist from Plymouth, of importance to that colony, having been Assistant Governor for many years, negotiator of Colony business in London, and having recently taken as a second wife Fear Brewster, daughter of the Elder.

Mr. Allerton had been trading in Maine in his ship the
White Angel.
He had been twice to England in her, he had just stopped at Salem, but was returning to Plymouth with a cargo of stockings, tape, pins, and rugs, on which, though he did not say so, he expected to make handsome profit. Nor did he say that he was becoming extremely unpopular at Plymouth, where a growing disquiet at the sharp increase in the colony’s floating debt began to focus attention on the vague activities of their agent, Mr. Allerton. True, he always had satisfactory explanations, and there was about him an ingenuousness that disarmed criticism, but even his father-in-law, Elder Brewster, was becoming aware that Isaac’s successful trading expeditions always seemed to impoverish the colony.

Mark did, however, gather that Mr. Allerton, being somewhat wearied of life in Plymouth, intended to settle elsewhere. And that having investigated many lines of commerce, he had decided on a new one which would certainly make his fortune. Fishing.

“Here—” said Mark, smiling at Phebe, “you may be sure I pricked my ears, and questioned him narrowly.” He paused, and she knew that now would come something of importance, by the off-hand tone in his voice. “You know the point of land across the little harbor here?”

“You mean that they call Derby Head?”

Often she had stood on the Salem wharf and gazed at the low headland across the water. For her as for the earlier Dorset people it aroused a poignant memory, being by some trick of nature shaped exactly like the headland at the mouth of the River Wey.

She brought her thoughts back for Mark had gone on. “He told me he had land and a fishing stage at the other side of Darby Fort. He calls the place Marblehead, and says it is the best harbor for fishing on the coast. He will remove there himself soon, and he says I may share in the venture with him.”

“Is it there you mean to settle, then?” asked Phebe slowly. “But are there others there, Mark?”

“Oh, a fisherman or two, I believe—They do say a Guernsey wight named Dolliber wintered there last year in a hogshead.” He chuckled as he saw her expression. “But when Mr. Allerton comes it’ll make all the difference. I go there with him tomorrow to look at the place.”

“Is it far from here—?” she asked presently, because Mark seemed waiting for her to speak.

“Not by water, an hour’s sail with a fair breeze. Come, poppet—don’t look so dismal. I vow it’ll be the very place for us. I’ll decide when I’ve seen it.”

He got up, stretching his long legs and yawning. His black curls grazed the thatching, and under the worn red leather doublet she saw the strength of his shoulders, the bulge of his arms. Yes, he was a proper man, and it was right that he should rule. But there was another love for which she felt allegiance, small indeed, beside her love for Mark, but still an insistent claim, and she would have no peace until she spoke of it.

She watched him shamble about the wigwam, then pick up his fowling piece. He settled on the stool, scooped up a handful of tinder, and whistling through his teeth fell to cleaning his gun.

Her heart beat fast as she rinsed the pewter beer mugs in a cask of rain water outside the wigwam, burnished them to silver with a fair linen cloth as her mother had taught her, and placed them on top of her bride chest. She tended the fire and the hearth, sweeping the ashes neatly behind the great andirons with a twig besom she had made.

“Mark—”

He nodded, intent on the hammer of his fowling piece.

“While you were gone, I’ve come close to the Lady Arbella....”

He clicked the hammer again, and his lips tightened. “So I suppose since you swooned on her doorstep; it angers me to see you headstrong. You knew my wishes.”

Phebe sighed and attacked obliquely. “But didn’t you like Mr. Johnson? You saw much of him at the Bay.”

Mark shrugged. “He’s well enough for one of the canting East County folk. He talks overmuch about the state of Grace.”

“If we should settle in Boston near them, I’m sure he’d find you preferment, you might be freeman at once—nay wait, dear—” for he had shaken off her hand and his lower lip jutted out, “I ask only that you open your mind to the thought. True, they can help us advance but you can also help them, they’ve need of a great strong man like you in the new plantation.”

He made a derisive sound, “What cozzening is this, Phebe! You think I don’t smell some womanish plot. You and your meddlesome peeress!”

Anger struck through her, and she took a step back. But she looked at his stubborn side-turned face, at the fall of his hair which covered the sickening mutilation of his ear, and her anger died.

She came close again and spoke very soft. “Our babes will be born near the same time, Mark. Their interest would mean much. It’s not us I think of, but of our child.”

His hand fell from the fowling piece, and he turned his head. “God blast it. I’d forgot the child.” He reached out and pinched her cheek in unwilling contrition. “Poor lass—small wonder you seem so dithering.”

He rose and walked to the doorway of the wigwam. The coming of a child was a problem he had not anticipated in his enthusiasm for Allerton’s proposal. Nor had he till now thought of the danger for Phebe. It crossed his mind that he should have left her home. Safe she would have been, comfortable—and no encumbrance, until he had made permanent settlement. But he thought too of her softness and warmth. The full, curving mouth that always spoke gently, and yet parted in sharp desire to his kiss.

“It may be the Marble Harbor’ll not suit me at all,” he said. “Let’s forget the matter for now.”

He set sail with Isaac Allerton the next morning in the
White Angel
for Marblehead, and while he was gone one problem was settled.

For the Lady Arbella died that evening in her husband’s arms. There were many crowded into the small room, and Phebe huddled into the far corner by the door. Mr. Johnson himself had sent for her earlier, saying that the Lady called for her. Arbella had had one excruciating sharp pain, and then all pain had stopped. The fever red had left her thin cheeks, and they became yellow-white as the sheet on which she lay. Master Gager, the physician, himself very ill, had been carried to her bedside and carried away again. He had recognized the symptom which he hourly expected in himself. The intestine had been perforated and there was no hope.

Almost at once the delirium left Arbella, and she knew what was going to happen. Before she sank into a stupor she greeted Phebe with the old sweet smile. “So we cannot plan for our babes together since God has other plans for me and mine. Nay, don’t weep, Phebe, I am content to obey His will, there is no other happiness, child.”

This, Phebe filled with grief and rebellion could not believe. She tried to pray when the others did. Isaac Johnson, though himself distracted with sorrow, could pray, and Master Skelton the minister and Master Endicott, and the hushed neighbors who stood by the entry and on the steps. But Phebe could not. She envied them their certainty o£ being able to pierce the iron wall of death, but Phebe helping to shroud the body of her dearly loved friend could find no comfort.

The Lady Arbella was laid near Master Higginson on the burying point that jutted close to the South River. And atop the grave they placed a heavy flat field stone—for fear of wolves. Phebe standing apart from the others, watched the hasty ceremony with a misery so bitter that it was near to disgust. Everywhere on the point there were new mounds; even now before the final words had sealed the lady’s last rest, two servants waited with shovels for the digging of another grave. Doctor Gager had died, and Mrs. Phillips. Arbella’s maid, Molly, had outlived her mistress but an hour. Goodman Bennett, Good wives James and Turner, and Mr. Shepley, and some indentured servants, all had died this week.

And to what purpose—thought Phebe. What had they accomplished here? Where were Arbella’s beauty and courage now, and where her babe that might have been born to gentleness and happy childhood in the castle of its ancestors? Buried in the wilderness beneath a stone for fear of wolves.

She turned and started up the path across the fields. I’m going home, she thought. I’ll make Mark see reason, and if he won’t—I’ll go alone, until he’s ready to come back to me. Nothing can make me bring forth my poor child in this enemy land. She stopped and leaned against a tree, seeing against the coarse dry stubble at her feet a shimmering vision. She saw her mother and father holding out their arms to her from the doorway, and smiling welcome. She saw the great hall behind them garlanded with roses and ivy as it had been last Saint John’s Day, and heard the blithe singing of her sisters at their spinning.

She felt the smoothness of the lavender-scented sheets on her own carved oaken bed, and she saw herself and the babe lying there together, safe and tended by her mother’s knowing hands, while the mellow sunshine—not fierce and scorching like here, flickered through the mulberry leaves and the diamond-paned windows. She had not cried before, but now a sob burst through her throat, and she stumbled blindly on the path, until a hand touched her shoulder.

She raised her bowed head to see Mr. Johnson beside her. His cheeks, no longer pink, had fallen into sharp grooves. His thin blond hair was uncombed, and from his black habit he had cut away every button and shred of lace.

“Mistress Honeywood—” he said, speaking through stiff lips—“will you come back with me, I’ve something to give you.”

She nodded a little, and they walked silently together along the Highway past the green to Arbella’s house. Phebe cast one look at the plank bedstead on which the Lady had died, and turned away, standing by the door.

Isaac Johnson opened a drawer of the little oak table. “She loved you much,” he said, his voice so hoarse that Phebe had to lean forward to hear.

“And I her, sir—”

He fumbled among several letters which he brought from the drawer. “I go straight back to Boston. There’s so much to do—I doubt that I’ve much time before I join her. The sickness gripes at my bowels. It is the Lord’s will. Here are letters she left—one that treats of you. You shall have it.”

He held out to her a folded sheet of paper. Phebe took it, and opened it, stared at the lines of clear, delicate writing.

“I cannot read it—sir,” she said, very low.

“Aye—to be sure.” He snatched it back from her, and she saw that he was impatient to be alone with his sorrow.

“'Twas meant for her sister, Lady Susan Humphrey, but never finished.” He steadied his voice and began to read.

‘“No word yet from home, so I write thee again, dear sister, perchance to send this by the Master of the
Lion.
I try to keep my thoughts from harking back, but ofttimes I cannot, this to my shame for there be many here who are braver.

“ ‘There is great sickness, and I do pray for the babe I carry. I am much alone and endeavor to strengthen my spirit in the Lord God who led us here. He gives me solace, and in especial hath vouchsafed to me a friend. This, one Phebe Honeywood, wedded to one of the adventurers, and naught but a simple yeoman’s daughter, but a most brave and gentle lass. She is not as illumined by Grace as I could wish....’”

Isaac paused, started to say something, but sighed instead, and went on. “‘Yet she is of fine and delicate spirit, and God is closer to her than she knows. She hath, I confess, been inspiration to me—having a most sturdy courage to surmount any disaster and follow her man anywhere, and found a lasting home.

“ ‘O, my dear sister, it is such as she who will endure in my stead, to fulfill our dream of the new free land, such as she whose babes will be brought forth here to found a new nation—while I ... too feeble and faint-hearted....”’

Isaac’s voice cracked. “That’s all.” He held the letter out again. “Keep it in remembrance of her.”

Phebe could not raise her eyes, red had flooded up her cheeks beneath the slow tears, “Our dear lady misjudged me—” she whispered. “I have no courage—indeed she did not know—”

Isaac was stirred from his own grief by her face. “God will strengthen you, mistress,” he said. “Trust in Him.”

He rose, putting out his hand. She took it and curtsying, turned and left him alone. She went back to the wigwam, and throwing herself down on the pallet lay staring up at the ragged rush thatching.

Arbella’s letter rested beneath her bodice on her heart, and seemed to whisper its words. “It is such as she who will endure—to fulfill our dream....”

She thought of the promise Arbella had asked of her in the first days of her sickness. “Promise me you’ll not give up, no matter what may happen.” She had not promised.

It’s not fair—cried Phebe to the gentle yearning voice, and lying there alone on the pallet, she vanquished the voice with a dozen hot refutations. This founding a new land, this search for a purer religion, was not
her
dream. To her, God had made no special revelation. And as for Mark—would it not be wiser to free him for a while from her hampering presence—hers and the babe’s, until he either tired of the venture or had made a really suitable place for them. It was no disgrace to go home, every home-bound ship was crammed with those who had seen the pointless folly of the venture. The Lady Arbella, herself too weak for survival, had no right to appoint Phebe her surrogate.

The August afternoon flattened under a blistering sun. Beneath the wigwam’s thatching the heat gathered stifling, and fetid with the smell of the swamps. Once, slow footsteps plodded down the path outside toward the Burial Point. Phebe heard the sound of sobbing and one low cry of anguish that faded into nothing. Then again there was no sound but the rasp of locusts, and the rustle of the close-pressing forest.

I shall find the Master of the
Lion
—she thought, starting up at last. The
Lion
would sail as soon as there were fair winds.