Daughter of Satan (34 page)

It was indeed a ‘land flowing with milk and honey'.

Oh, but those first months! Not then had the fruits of this land been discovered. Meat and meal had been sadly missed; there were too few clothes and bedding; no yarn for lamps; no oiled paper for the windows of the houses which must be built. The cruel cold had overtaken them, had found them unready; but their determination had been stronger than the harsh winds and bitter snows. They would never, they vowed, return to England or Holland; they had vowed to make this country their own, to build a new freedom in a new land; and this, with the help of God, they were doing.

The first settlers had discovered during their second winter that the first winter had been a mild one; then, in spite of the winds and snow they had had to endure, they knew that God was with them, for if they had been obliged to face a normal winter during their first months in the new land, not merely half of the new colony would have perished, but the whole of it.

There was much to tell, so much to listen to. They must tell of the great day of Thanksgiving when Governor Bradford had decided there should be a feast. It should be a sober feast – a solemn rejoicing, a means of showing gratitude to the Almighty for having brought them through great trials.

So Governor Bradford sent men into the forest to kill wild fowl, and there was rejoicing for three whole days.

The Puritans smiled in delighted reminiscence.

‘My friends, what think you? Massasoit came to the feast.
Massasoit was an Indian chief who had become our friend through the Grace of God and the diplomacy of our Governor and Captain Standish – and mayhap by the sight of our cannon. There was dancing and singing, and we were much put out, as you can guess, for this was a solemn feast, a tribute to Almighty God; and here in our midst were savages worshipping their own heathen gods . . . barbarians and pagans, showing us their dancing, their faces painted, their bodies all but naked. But we trust the Lord understood that they were our guests and that we must humour them. And their dancing and their nakedness was apart from the thankfulness which was in our hearts.'

Now to the feast. The pork and beans and fowls cooked together tasted delicious. There was ale and gin to drink; and when they had eaten and drunk they got into little groups and talk broke out once more; and now most of this talk was of home – not the new home, but the home across the sea to which most of them had said farewell for ever.

Yes, it was a wonderful country to which they had come, but they thought of home continually. Here there was fish in abundance – lobsters, clams and oysters besides cod and mullet – but how often did they think of the rich red beef of England and good English ale! Nostalgia was like a disease; it attacked some more than others. Some had died, it was believed, of melancholy, because they missed the richly green fields of England.

Tamar, watching it all, was fired with enthusiasm. She wanted to live here among these brave men and women; she visualized a town which was not merely a street with its plantation and its little houses; she visualized a town – a great town where there was friendship for all, and no cruelty, no brutality . . . but freedom. Yes, freedom was the most important thing – freedom to live one's own life, to think one's own thoughts.

They went back to the
Liberty
to sleep, as there was not sufficient accommodation in the settlement.

Bartle talked to her when they were back on the ship.

‘A noble venture that!' he said. ‘But not for us.'

‘Why not?'

‘Pagans cannot make their homes with Puritans.'

‘Anyone can hope for freedom,' she said. ‘Why should we not become Puritans?'

‘You know that we never could be.'

‘They are a wonderful people. When I think of their arriving and seeing it, not as we see it now, but just a waste land, a sandy bank about which the water breaks . . . a gentle hill on which to build a town, and the forests in the distance in which the savages abound! What had they but their courage and a sea full of fish! I wish I had been one of them in the beginning.'

‘What has come over you?' he asked. ‘You change from one day to another. Have you forgotten that night when we thought the Spaniard was upon us? Then you promised that we should be together. You would leave your husband and come back with me. Now that he is gone, that surely makes everything easier for us. We need not consider him now.'

‘We have to consider him,' she said dully.

‘You talk in riddles.'

‘No. He is dead and I killed him.'

‘
You
. . . killed him!'

She blurted out an account of what had happened in the cabin on the night before Humility's death.

He was scornful. She was fanciful, he said.

‘He killed himself. What nonsense is this! He killed himself because he lacked the courage to live.'

‘I killed him,' she said stonily. ‘Almost in sight of the land he had longed for.'

‘You deceive yourself. As usual, your emotions cloud your vision. You think with the heart . . . not with the mind. How could you know that he would kill himself? Why did he kill himself? Because he lacked the courage to live. He brooded so continually on sin, that he saw it where it was not. Think no more of him. He was a weak man. If God decided he should not come to this land, then it was because he was unworthy. This is a land for brave men and women.'

‘I feel that there is a great weight about my neck. I killed him, and I must pay for my sin. I can find no happiness until I do. I knew that today, when I listened to what these people
had to tell. If I stay here, if I try to do Humility's work, then I shall in some measure atone for my sin.'

He turned on her angrily. ‘I do not know you. What of us? What of our life together . . . the life you promised me if we should escape the Spaniard to enjoy it? Why is it that when the road is clear for us you must build up these obstacles?'

‘I am not young and foolish any more . . . not the woman to be excited by a lover.'

He took her into his arms. ‘I will soon alter that!' he said grimly.

But she was determined. ‘Leave me alone for a while. I wish to think of this. I do not understand my feelings. Just now I can see nothing but his poor white face, his eyes so sorrowful, looking into mine. I can hear only my own voice saying cruel, brutal things to him; they cut into his heart like a knife; and they were the instruments that killed him.'

Bartle turned from her in a passion. He was speechless with anger. He strode away from her.

She went back to her cabin and looked about her with fearful eyes, and it seemed to her that the spirit of Humility Brown was in that cabin. She lay sleepless, turning from one side to another in a vain effort to reach sleep.

It was dawn before she dozed; and then she dreamed that Humility was in the cabin, the water dripping from his sombre garments, while his hair hung dank about his death-pale face.

‘Only by a life of piety,' said the spirit of Humility, ‘can you atone for your sin.'

Early next morning Richard came to her cabin.

‘Do I disturb you, Tamar?'

‘No.'

‘But you look tired. You have scarcely slept. I have slept little myself. Yesterday was a day I shall remember all my life.'

‘And I,' she said.

‘Tamar, you are going to be happy here.'

She shook her head, but he did not notice; he seemed to be looking beyond her into a future which pleased him.

‘When I saw the town they had made,' he went on, as though speaking to himself, ‘I was filled with emotion. Their simple houses . . . small, bare and only just adequate. But think! They must first have cut the trees before they could begin to build. Winslow was telling me that in those days they worked from sunrise to sunset, felling, sawing and carrying timber. He told me that, before the building could begin, many of the men fell sick, and some died. Those who were well enough worked when the weather would allow them. They worked with a will. I would I had been one of them. These men will be remembered as long as men are remembered. And what impresses me most is that on the first Sabbath day, although the need to get those houses built was great, greater still was their faith and their belief that the Sabbath day should be kept holy. There was no work on the first Sunday. I picture them; they had no meeting house – no house at all. I can see them giving thanks in the open air. Tamar, there is a greatness in these men which I have never seen before. Often I have thought I could worship the Carpenter's Son. It was not His own simple doctrines which I could not accept; it was the various complicated versions laid down by different Churches which I rejected one by one. But surely this simple life – this life of goodness and restraint – is the true life. The religion these men brought with them is the true religion.'

‘I feel you may be right,' said Tamar.

‘These first settlers were bolder than the Puritans we have known. The large majority of them spent years of exile in Holland. They did not wish merely to simplify the ritual of the existing Church, but to form a new one. That was why it was first of all necessary to fly the country; then to form a new community of their own.'

‘You wish to become one of them, Richard. I think that is what I wish. To work with them, to watch a great town grow here, a town where there is kindness instead of brutality, freedom to take the place of persecution. I wish to live here simply, as these people do. I
must
do that, because Humility did not live to do it.'

Now Richard was watching her closely.

‘I have been thinking of you . . . and Bartle,' he said.

‘What of us?'

‘That you would now doubtless marry. He loves you and I believe you love him.'

‘I do not know,' she said.

‘You must be happy here, Tamar. It is necessary that you should be. You must make Bartle happy here. You need him, for I do not believe you can be happy without him. I think too that, although it is difficult for us to imagine him in this place, living the life of a Puritan, he may attempt it . . . for your sake. He could go back to England; he could resume the life which would naturally be his, the country squire, the lord of the manor. But, Tamar, you dare not go back. They would have taken you some time or other had you stayed. I always knew it. I was never at peace thinking of it. It might not have been for years . . . but do it they would. One day they would have hanged you. They would never have forgotten that you had the reputation of being a witch. That was why I agreed to come here. I knew you would never be safe at home.'

‘Yes,' she said. ‘I felt that too. They looked at me slyly. They were awaiting their opportunity, waiting to find me defenceless. I often pictured them, coming to take me, as they came to the house that day, Simon Carter leading the way. And not myself only. There is poor Jane Swann. They would have had her. Perhaps even Mistress Alton and you, Richard. None of us was safe. And John Tyler and Annis, and Annis' children . . . they might have been taken for their religion.'

‘It is all religious persecution,' said Richard vehemently. ‘You persist in believing yourself of the witch community because of an old religion whose rites and remedies have become known to you. It is all persecution. Religious persecution . . . from which we are escaping.'

‘Richard, I know I must stay. I must drive the Devil out of my soul.'

Richard sighed. ‘So even now that you are a woman and a mother of children, you believe in black magic?'

‘I know I am of the Devil,' she said. ‘That is why I have
murder on my soul.' She went on before he could interrupt. ‘There is much that you do not know of me. I am full of wickedness. So is Bartle. That is why we cannot resist each other. He is brutal and cruel, barbarous and murderous. I am the same. Yes, I am. Let me explain; then you will understand. Bartle was my lover . . . years and years ago. I did not want him to be, but he forced that on me. Not as it almost was on that occasion when you saved me . . . but more subtly. And I – I know now – was secretly delighted that this should be so. I deceived myself into thinking that I hated him, but that was not so. Then I married Humility. I had no right to marry Humility. It was the Devil who persuaded me to do it. I see that now. If I had married Bartle, I should have had no influence over Humility. Bartle belonged to the Devil already and it was Humility's soul the Devil wanted.'

‘What are you saying, Tamar? You are hysterical.'

‘You think you are wise, Richard. So you are . . . wise in book-learning. But you know nothing of women like me. I saved Humility's life and I was proud of that; and it seemed to me that because I had saved it, that life belonged to me. I know now that that was the Devil whispering in my ear. I deceived myself into thinking that my soul was saved, so that my marriage should not seem incongruous. I see it all so clearly now – my cruelty, my barbarity. You know what happened. Then Bartle came home. Of course I wanted Bartle. We were of a kind. We quarrelled; we hated; and we loved each other madly. It was always like that. And coming over on the ship I knew that I wanted Bartle and I wanted my children . . . but I did not want Humility – so I killed him!'

‘You are not talking sense, Tamar. John Tyler saw the end of Humility.'

‘John Tyler was there when he fell overboard. But why did he fall overboard? There was no reason for it. It was a calm morning. Why should he have fallen overboard? He deliberately went over; he killed himself because I had seen to it that his life was impossible to live.'

‘I can see that you are working yourself into a passion of grief. It was no fault of yours that he went overboard. He loved you; you had given him children; you were
accompanying him to the land he had always longed for. His dearest dreams were all about to be realized.'

‘I killed him, I tell you! I taunted him to his death! His prayers angered me, hurt my pride in myself. It was not for love of me that he had married me. He told me that continually . . . not for the love of my body but for the sake of the children we must have to populate the colony. I could not bear it, so I proved to him that he was as lustful as any man, that he deceived himself but he did not deceive me. Then I taunted him. He was, I told him, not only a sinner, but a hypocrite. The truth was too much for him. He believed he was going to eternal damnation. He was guilty of one of those seven deadly sins about which he was always preaching – Lust. All the years he had been practising lust – not as Bartle practised it, boasting, swaggering, showing himself to the world for what he was. No! He practised it under a cloak of piety . . . under cover of darkness. Those were the words I used to him. And so he went out and killed himself.'