Love's Pursuit (28 page)

43

“I AM MARY PHILLIPS, Susannah’s sister, and Simeon Wright promised himself to me before he published banns with my sister.”

The room grew quiet so suddenly that it brought pain to my ears.

Our minister blinked his eyes open and looked around the room, drawing a finger beneath the collar of his shirt as if it had grown too tight.

“Did he say aught to anyone about it?”

“None but me. But he did say it.”

Half the girls from Stoneybrooke were now looking at Simeon Wright as they might look upon a serpent.

Simeon stood. “ ’Tis not exactly . . . I mean to say . . .”

“He promised himself to me and then he went and pledged himself to my sister.”

“Fanciful dreams from a fanciful girl.” Simeon dismissed her with words as well as with his actions. He refused to even look at her.

“He told me that we would be married before the new year.”

“I said nothing of the sort.”

“He said everything of the sort. All those things and many more.”

“I promised nothing.” His appeal was made to the jury. “I cannot be held accountable for the imaginings of a foolish young girl.”

Mary’s face went flush. Her foot stamped at the ground. “I am not foolish, Simeon Wright. The only things I knew were the things that you told me. I hated Susannah for stealing you from me. But now I only pity her.”

He had not broken any law, but he had certainly broken every woman’s faith. It was not right to dangle one girl from a finger while you were intent upon winning the hand of another. Especially if it were her sister.

“Do you have anything further? To add?”

Mary shook her head and walked back to her place, head held high.

I did not know how she could do it. Her admission had cost her. And had she even once turned in my direction, I might have thanked her.

As it was, John Prescotte stood and took her place.

“I spoke to Simeon Wright back in October about buying boards enough to build a house.” As he paused, his eyes came near to meeting mine. “I had asked Goodman Phillips for his daughter Susannah’s hand in marriage and I meant to build the house this winter. Simeon Wright told me he would be happy to sell the boards to me . . . for . . . much more than I could afford.”

The clerk looked up from his transcript. “How much more?”

“Three times more than they should have cost. It was enough that I did not have the money. Nor did my father. I decided I would wait until spring, after the threat of savages had disappeared, when I could forest the lumber myself. But before I could do it, banns were read at church for Simeon Wright and . . . Susannah.”

Simeon Wright protested. “He makes it sound as if I stole the girl from him. I asked her father—”

Father pushed to his feet. “But you did not wait for an answer.

The banns were read, ’tis true, but not with my blessing. And not with Susannah’s.”

“But—”

“Order!”

The selectman waited for the three of them to cease their speaking. “ ’Tis not our custom to force our daughters to marry.”

It was an implied accusation. And it was one best answered by me. “Father did not force me. He asked me. He asked me whether I had any reason for him to refuse Simeon Wright. What reason could I give? The man I wanted to marry no longer wanted me. So what excuse did I have? That I did not like the way he looked at me?That he frightened me? And how is it that I would want to damage the relationship between my father, a carpenter, and the man who supplied his wood? If you, Thomas Smyth, had spoken. Or if you, John Prescotte, had said something, then perhaps . . .”

The selectman turned the full force of his glare on Simeon Wright. “You have several offenses to explain.”

“I?
I
have accusations to answer? I am a man of business. Do you know how hard it is to gain timber from the wood? The trees are huge, their trunks almost too enormous to fell. There are some several miles over which the logs must be transported, over the bridge and then down the hill to the mill. There are biting flies in the spring. There are bears about in summer, and wolves that prowl in the winter. And just when all the beasts have bedded down for the winter, there is snow.”

Of all the long list of his complaints, there was one thing he had forgotten. One thing that he might have placed before the others.

And so, I reminded him of it. “And the savages.”

“The what?”

“The savages.”

For the first time, he looked at me not with confidence but with uneasiness. And it was then that I knew. “There were never any savages, were there?”

“Of course there—”

“Daniel doubted there had ever been any at all. After all his time standing watch, he never saw any signs . . . none but the savage killed in the attack and the footsteps left at Goodman Blake’s.” I turned my eyes toward those from my own town. “Did any of the rest of you ever see them?”

There was silence.

The selectman repeated the question. “Did any of the rest of you ever see a savage in those parts?”

From the quiet there came one small voice. “I did.”

All eyes turned toward Small-hope.

“I saw savages.”

It was not the response for which I had been hoping. “You . . . you did?”

“Aye. I saw them in the wood cutting trees and I saw Simeon Wright speaking to them.”

“Where?”

“Well, I . . . it was in the snows. I ran across the cart bridge. I kept to the path for a while, but then I left it. . . .”

Across the aisle from me, Father stood to question her. “And which way did you leave it? To the west or the east?”

“To the west.”

To the west of the cart path was where the common was located . . . and the trees in the common were for the use of all men as determined by the town constitution. They were only to be cut and paid for with the town’s approval. Simeon Wright had his own lands for cutting timber. They were located in the pines, east of his mill, which was located east even of the river.

The outrage amongst the townspeople could not be contained. And then one of the jurors from Stoneybrooke addressed himself to Simeon Wright. “You stole trees from the common?”

Another stood beside the first. Both were reddened with rage. “You cut the town’s trees when you had your own to do with as you wanted?”

And then a third stood. “I threw nearly all of fall’s harvest into the fires this winter! I sacrificed my family’s food for warmth, and all the while you were taking from the common what you pleased?”

Simeon held up his hands in protection, as if the words were blows. “This is not about me! ’Tis about Susannah Phillips and her gown. Look at her! She is a harlot! A whore! And that captain would never have come if I had not told you there were savages about.Savages!” He snorted with derision. “They were only there because I was paying them. You never would have known it. Never would have suspected it. My father would have said . . . my father would have said . . .”

“ ‘Ye have troubled me to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land . . . and . . . being few in number, they shall gather themselves together against me, and slay me; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house.’ ” At the sound of Goody Wright’s voice, the room stilled.

The selectman silenced Mistress Wright and turned his attentions to her son. “For what then did you kill the captain, Simeon Wright? For absconding with your betrothed or for working out the treachery you were about in the common?”

“Susannah is mine!”

The selectman dismissed the jury so they could make their decision. They returned scant minutes later.

“President of the jurymen? How do you find?”

“We hereby determine that the plaintiff, Simeon Wright, has willingly and wittingly done wrong to the defendant, Susannah Phillips, in commencing and prosecuting an action against her. We thereby impose upon the plaintiff a fine for this false clamor. The promise made by Susannah Phillips to marry Simeon Wright is declared not valid, since it was made by threatening compulsion. The plaintiff, Simeon Wright, is ordered to stand trial as defendant for the willful murder of Captain Daniel Holcombe. We suggest that Simeon Wright be tried also for bearing false witness against Susannah Phillips.”

“This is an outrage!”

The president of the jury cleared his throat. “We also wish to question the young girl who is servant to the Wright household. If she is determined to have been disfigured by Simeon Wright, she shall obtain her freedom with the possibility of recompense—”

“This is beyond the scope of—”

“As these crimes are capital offenses, we suggest also that Simeon Wright be held here in Newham at Selectman Miller’s house.”

“I shall appeal to the General Court!”

At that threat, the demeanor of the president of the jurymen cracked. “And do not forget to tell them, Mister Wright, that you murdered the governor’s own cousin!”

They led Simeon Wright away in manacles. His mother followed behind him, wringing her hands, muttering. So faint was her speech that I could only hear phrases. “ ‘Simeon and Levi . . . instruments of cruelty are in their habitations.’ ”

After Simeon’s departure, the people of Stoneybrooke moved to gather about me. John Prescotte reached me first. And at his approach, all the others fell back.

“I am sorry. I feel as if . . . if I had only . . . when you asked . . . I would like, if you are still willing—”

I shook my head. “There is no debt here, John.”

He looked at me then. There was little left of the boy I used to know. But in his eyes, I could see the beginnings of the man he would become. He nodded once. And then he turned and walked away.

Goody Baxter came up and shook my hand. “ ‘O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.’ ”

Goody Hillbrook patted my arm. “ ‘And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God . . .’ ”

People offered felicitations and platitudes as thanks, as if I had been responsible for freeing them from Simeon Wright’s oppression. I had not been the author of their freedom. But I knew who had been. Quietly, I disengaged myself from them and I stopped Smallhope and Thomas before they left Newham for home.

“Thank you, both of you, for what you did for me.”

“You did not deserve such treatment, Susannah Phillips. Not from such a man.”

“Thank you, Thomas . . . even if you were the only one to think it.”

“I was not the only one.”

“But you were the first. If you had not spoken . . .” There was no need to say what might have happened.

Small-hope would not look me in the eye. But I needed her to know something. “Small-hope?”

Finally, she raised her head. But the look she gave me was filled with guilt, and soon her eyes slid from my gaze. “I could have saved you. I could have stopped him.”

“You tried to warn me, you tried to stop him, and you did save me. You did everything that you could.”

“But . . . at first . . . I did not . . . I felt . . . I knew what kind of man he was from the time I first met him. And I said nothing.”

“And neither did any of the others.”

“But you see, I wanted—”

“You wanted to be safe.”

“Aye.” It came out as a sort of sob.

“I have reason to believe, Small-hope, that your name has been mispronounced. In my experience, no hope is small.”

At that, finally, she looked straight at me.

At that, finally, the strain of the trial began to tell its tale through my tears. “I owe my life to you, Hope, and I will never be able to repay you.”

She stepped forward with some hesitancy, but then embraced me. “You already have.”

We walked back from the trial, Thomas and I, in silence. And in that space, something worked its way up from inside me. Something of which I wanted to speak, but for which I had no words.

When eventually we reached home, Thomas, ever a gentleman, stood aside to let me enter first. But he did not come in after me. He stood, in the doorframe, eyes busy. Finally, they fastened upon his axe and then he strode over to it and lifted it from its place. “There has been too much neglected in these past days.”

It was then I finally knew the words to say. “Aye, Thomas. And you the first among them.” I approached him slowly so that I would not startle him. I went to him, placed my hands round the handle of the axe, and took it. I set it in the corner and walked back to him. “I owe you something, Thomas.”

He was already shaking his head before I had finished speaking. “You owe me nothing.”

I smiled. “Perhaps not. But there is something I wish to give you.” I went to the door and shut it. And then I pulled in the latch string. “But only if you want . . . only if . . . you want . . . me . . . ?” The most difficult thing I have ever done was to look into his eyes right then. But I did it.

And in his eyes, I saw me.

I saw hope.

44

AFTER MY TRIAL, THERE was another trial, of course, at which Simeon Wright was convicted of willful murder and of bearing false witness against me. They were both capital crimes. He was sentenced to die by hanging.

Having killed the governor’s cousin, we all knew there could be no appeal to the governor’s mercy. After the conviction, a fourday period was required by law before he could be hanged. But at some point during those four days, Simeon disappeared. He and his mother both. It was expected that he might sneak back into Stoneybrooke intent upon harming me. And so, as Daniel had done so many months ago, a double watch was instituted.

April turned into May and then into June.

It was during harvest, some weeks later, that we heard Simeon Wright was found up in Connecticut Colony with his throat slit. They said it was savages that did it, but his mother was never found.

All they that take the sword shall perish by the sword.

God is my judge.

The men tried, through that summer and into fall, to convince a millwright from Boston to take up Simeon’s place, but none would have it. And the road to Newham had been enlarged and cleared. Truly, it was not so far a trip to go to buy lumber. And so finally the town put the house on Wright’s hill to the torch.

I watched it burn, along with everyone else. At times, a spark would leap from the pyre, searching for something to ignite, but the men stood ready with buckets and blankets and nothing else was threatened by that place. I saw everyone I had ever loved on that ridge, silhouetted by flames, as they stood watching.

Mother and Father stood shoulder to shoulder, with the look of one body and two heads about them. Mary stood beside John Prescotte, the child’s hand in her own. I doubt any had noticed yet, but Mary and John seemed to have eyes only for each other. Nathaniel stood away from the group with his friends, bounding this way and that, taunting the flames. Over at one end was Abigail, her newborn babe nestled in her arms. Hope Smyth stood at the other end, a babe ripening inside her womb. Since the trial she seemed to be in all places at once in that quiet way she had.

Aye. Everyone I had ever loved was there.

Everyone save one.

By evening, the house had been reduced to a pile of bricks and a few scattered embers. They were raked free from the ashes and then doused. The next morning, again everyone gathered at the Wrights’, but this day, there was no idleness. It was a day for work. A day to sift the ashes, to recover the nails from the ruins. To retrieve from the destruction that which could be salvaged.

There were other things recovered from Daniel’s death. Nathaniel found his conversion experience in all of it and became a member of the church. And Nathaniel was not the only one. I had experienced my own conversion as well.

I had been interviewed by the minister about my profession of faith. I knew exactly what it was I wanted to say. But somehow, it all got lost in the telling. And I realized, as I spoke that day in meeting, that Nathaniel had been right.

I had pondered the verse in Isaiah that he had quoted to me as we lay in bed that morn. I had learnt it forward and backward, but never before had I put the two parts of it together. Not as I did that day.

Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee: therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life.

God
had
seen. God
had
understood. God
had
loved.

God loved me.

He had sent a man to rescue me.

He had sent a man to die for me.

A man had died
for me.

I had never been worthy of such sacrifice, and I knew that I never would be. I was not good and could never hope to be, but still God loved me. Still He had pursued me. And so, as I stood from my bench and walked to the front of the pulpit, it was with tears streaming down my face.

“I am not good. I merit no favor, deserve no grace from God.There is nothing I can do to coax God to save me. Nothing I can do to deserve to whisper in God’s ear, to feel His eye upon me.There is no work that I could accomplish that would place God in my debt or coerce Him to act on my behalf. But still, He does it.Still . . . He did it.”

I had to pause then, for tears threatened to overcome my words.

“Daniel once told me that faith like mine was a gift. The irony of his words was that I had none. My poor faith was based on my own goodness. It was based on what I could do, all the things that I had done which merited God’s favor. But now I know that faith is the last thing in which I should place my trust. Far better to rely on God’s mercy and His grace. I can never hope to earn those. I will never deserve them. But . . . I have
no doubt
that God loves me.”

The gasp of those seated before me drowned my words. But I reminded myself of what I had just been taught. “God saved me. I am certain of God’s saving grace. I stand convinced of His love. And it has nothing to do with my faithfulness, for I have none. I am faithless. But He pursued me because He loved me. He wanted me.”

I looked around the room, but no one would meet my eyes. And I knew why. I had spoken a blasphemy. Truly, God wanted none of us. Surely, He would toss us, all of us, into hell, without a qualm. None could be convinced of His love; it was not for us to truly know of His grace. It was only for us to hope. And pray for His goodness.

But I did not hope, not anymore, because I knew with a growing conviction. God was only good. Oh, that He should even want one such as me. But despite all reason, despite all teaching, I knew that He did. He had shown it. He had shown that He loved me by reaching down and rescuing me and exchanging the life of a good man for my own.

I covered my face with my hands and wept from that knowledge. Wept from God’s vast love, which had been wasted on such as me. Though I had done nothing, would never do anything to merit it, I was grateful for it. Beyond grateful for it. I was jealous of it. I would let no one pry it from my hands. Not ever.

The minister coughed into his hand and then brushed it against his beard. “It is commendable, Susannah Phillips, that you are so certain of grace.”

“I have no doubt.” And oh, how it shamed me.

All eyes were fixed on me once more. And there was present in them a judgment. I knew they thought me a heretic, but I was no longer bound by their opinion. Grace had freed me.

“However, has your . . . experience . . . not changed you, somehow, on the inside?”

“Aside from recognizing the depth of God’s love? Nay . . .” I fairly sobbed that word. “I am the same wretched soul I always was.” Amen and amen.

“If there has been no change in your heart . . . if you can state no internal evidence of this . . . this . . . experience of God’s grace . . .”

I knew then that I would never be accepted as a member of that church. As I moved down the aisle to take my seat, people pulled their skirts from me for fear of contamination. Mothers shielded their children from me for fear of contagion. From this point onward, I knew I would take Hope’s place. I was the outsider now, the stranger.But there can be no stranger thing than the saving work of God’s grace. Or the goodness of His mercy.

Autumn chilled as it whirled toward winter and the month of blood was soon upon us. We turned our attentions to making sausage and soap and candles. But there is no pleasure in the labor when one labors alone. Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth. . . . And one alone always does eventually fall.

They were little things, those first mistakes of mine. A shirt sewn too short. A kettle of pottage spoilt for want of concentration.I saw the reproach each time in my mother’s eye. But how could I explain that my ear was tuned to sounds not heard? My eye calibrated to things not seen? For the turning of autumn to winter was the season of Daniel. And my heart longed for all the things that I could no longer have.

I would turn in the silence to listen to an imagined word. Take pause at my work to share a thought. And in that space, my heart would continue its conversation with its beloved. Why do we think a conversation between souls stops when one of the people has gone? It continues on just the same, though only one remains to keep the vigil.

We suffer such ideas from the mothers of lost babes. Why cannot such grace be allowed others of us who grieve? Because the knot of matrimony was never tied? Because the two bodies were never united?

My responsibilities were soon relegated to tasks given the simple.But when they were done, none objected if I wandered the ridge alone. And so I did. I wandered. And as I walked, I pondered the coming days of darkness. Of the season to be spent in chill solitude. And I did not know, not for certain, if I could survive. It was on one morning following just such a wander that a stranger rode up to our door. I would not yet have returned from my walk but for the snow, which had begun falling in earnest.

Hearing the clatter of hooves on the path, Mary threw open the door to see who it was. Snowflakes swirled into the opening and through them came a man who filled the doorway with his frame and then stooped as he came through it.

“I, Joshua Eton, come from Boston.”

Mother’s hand flew to her chest. “My mother?”

“ ’Tis you, then, who are Goody Phillips?”

“Aye. Have you news for me?”

“ ’Tis indeed your mother. She has sunk into a decline. Your father, the minister, fears that it must signal the end. He asked me to come for help.”

“But—’tis November. The snows!”

“Aye. The snows might keep one gone until spring.”

Not again. I did not know if I could face the coming months without her. But then I did not know if I could face the coming months with her, either. Not in Stoneybrooke, where so many could not comprehend the astonishing bounty of the grace of God. And so, I made a decision. “I could do it. I could go.”

“Nay!” Mother sprang at me, as if I might take flight at any moment, and held fast to my arm. Then she turned toward the stranger. “Nay. Susannah has not been well. If my father wants a hand for aid, then he’ll want my Mary.”

“But . . .” Mary’s voice sounded of ten thousand injustices.

I freed myself from Mother’s grip and took a step toward him. “I could go.”

The stranger fixed his eyes upon me, doubt shading his eyes. “But are you well? Are you willing?”

“Am I . . . what?”

“Are you willing?”

My glance met my mother’s. How many times had I heard the tale of the courtship of my father? And how many times had I longed for my grandfather’s presence since our move from Boston?In offering up myself in Mother’s place, I had discovered that more than being able to go, I wanted to go. Very much. “Aye. I am willing.”And I formed my lips into a smile as I said the words.

“If we leave now, we can surely make Newham by nightfall. I know I have no right to ask this and ’tis likely it means keeping you away until the roads thaw in spring, but the minister . . .”

“Just let me gather my things.”

The tension left his stance then, and a smile flickered across his face, throwing a shadow across the cleft in his chin.

I collected my night shift and my night cap. My other skirt and waistcoat. An extra pair of stockings and a petticoat.

Mother took them from me and tucked them into a sack. Mary added a scarf.

I wrapped my arms about my sister and gave her a swift embrace.

Then, after kissing the child, I took my cloak from its peg and fastened it tight beneath my chin.

My mother stepped forward and pressed a palm to my cheek.

I leaned my face into that warmth.

“I will tell your father. He will come for you in the spring.”

I nodded. “And bid good-bye to Nathaniel.”

“We will.”

And then, because she was so close, I hugged her too.

The snowflakes that had been sifting softly to the ground since morning had gained in both size and number. When we left the house it was to enter a world slowly turning white. Joshua’s horse was a large one, a dappled gray, and eager for the journey. He stamped at the ground when he saw me and turned his head in the direction of the road, straining against the reins that secured him to the fence.

Joshua clicked at him. Murmured something. Took a piece of biscuit from his pocket and gave it to the horse. Then he untied the reins and mounted. He reached down a hand for me and I was soon settled, riding pillion behind him.

We were not far down the road before we came to the place where Daniel had died.

It looked the same, from the snow that covered the ground to the trees that stood watch along the meadow, but somehow it all seemed different. A shiver crept down my spine for a moment, and then we passed by that place and kept going.

Slipping my hood down I turned back just once, like Lot’s wife, to catch a glimpse of what I had left behind. But there was nothing there. Only a road disappearing into a wood that was rapidly becoming covered with snow. Soon there would be no mark of our going. No trace of our ever having been to Stoneybrooke. But I knew that it would wait. They would wait. And perhaps one day I would return.

I was rescued. Spared. I did not know why. But I did know who had done the sparing. Was I worth it? Nay. But there must have been some reason. And in spite of everything, I felt myself absurdly free. I was loved with a love much greater, much vaster, than I knew, by a love so impassioned that it had pursued me. Me! As if I was worth that effort. Nay, I was not good. I never had been. But I was loved.

As Daniel had once said, God is only good. And life was a gift. Of that I was certain. I did not know yet what to do with it, or what was wanted from me. But I would. I had hope. For I knew that there remained love enough. And that all eternity could be held for the space of a lifetime within the heart. What I once had would be mine again. Only infinitely brighter, infinitely purer, infinitely sweeter. And all would be righted at the conclusion of love’s pursuit.