Crane Pond (3 page)

Suddenly a cry, loud and sad as the hoot of an owl. It's Sam. For a moment Sewall thinks he's deliberately imitating the bird but then sees the boy's cheeks are streaming with tears. ‘Whatever is the matter?' Hannah cries.

Young Sam is so despairing that for a moment he cannot speak, or perhaps his mouth is full of cheese. Then he manages to blurt out, ‘I'm afraid I will die!'

‘Do you feel ill?' Sewall asks him.

‘No, no, father,' he replies impatiently. ‘I'm afraid of
dying
!'

Perhaps he's caught the contagion from Betty, and being a less spiritual child thinks in terms of the physical event rather than of arrangements in the afterlife. If so, he has passed the infection onwards already. Joseph is crying heartily out of sympathy, while buds of tears form in the corners of daughter Hannah's eyes and Betty's lips quiver as she chews.

‘Oh death,' Sewall sings, using the York tune (he acts as precentor in the South Meeting House), ‘where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory?'

The words seem to calm Sam down. Hannah stares at her brother as if waiting to know whether she is allowed to feel better too, or whether they should both relapse. Joseph, bored with grief, has scrambled off his chair and is playing on the floor, his little gown tented over his knees.

‘What was it, my boy?' Sewall asks.

‘I was remembering when little Stephen died, father.'

Ah. Sewall remembers it too, so well. All the family now think of it. Wife Hannah was brought to bed of Stephen three years before. The baby died just after he had cut his first two teeth. Next day the family processed to the vaults for the placement of his little coffin, two by two. Sewall had the arm of his wife, little Sam (then only nine years old) escorted his sister Hannah, and Betty was led by her uncle Stephen, after whom the baby was named. There was no baby Joseph then. As the coffin was lowered into the vault, one of the bearers slipped and it was nearly dropped.

On the way home and after they arrived there for the funeral meats, the children wept bitterly, Sam most of all.

 

On the Sabbath the weather is too harsh for wife Hannah to go to church since she has a cold. The girls insist on staying behind to dose her with egg yolk and conserve of red roses. Sam goes with Sewall, however. After his outbreak of grief the other day he would benefit from the support of the minister, and Mr. Willard, with his deep measured tones, can be a comforting figure. Also Mr. Willard's son Josiah is Sam's best friend.

It's so cold in the South Meeting House that the communion bread makes a sad rattle when broken into the plates. Afterwards Sewall neighbours a little while Sam and Josiah play about (unfortunately they did the same inside, at least until the tithe-man gave them each a poke with the knob end of his staff). Mr. Usher tells Sewall that the weather is even colder in Muscovy, where your spittle freezes before it hits the ground. He goes on to say that last week he went to Thursday Lecture at Braintree, where the sermon was on the danger of over-attachment to the things of this world. Afterwards, the minister discovered that while he was delivering it his house was being robbed and upwards of forty shillings stolen. Sewall and his friend exchange a look of enquiry, as if to ask whether it would be appropriate to laugh a little, or not. On the whole, the looks decide, perhaps not, particularly by the door of a meeting house.

When they arrive home Sewall finds Judge Winthrop waiting for him in his study. Sewall is chilled to the marrow and Mr. Winthrop, by contrast, seated by the fire as if it belongs to him, is done to a turn. Sewall is also hungry and Mr. Winthrop's presence is an obstacle to dinner.

They exchange greetings. Then Mr. Winthrop broaches what's on his mind: the pirates.

Sewall takes a deep breath. ‘Mr. Winthrop,' he says. ‘Today is the Sabbath. It's not a day to discuss these affairs.'

‘I must disagree, Mr. Sewall. It is a very good day to talk about mercy. It is the best of days on which to discuss charity.'

‘There's nothing to discuss,' Sewall tells him. ‘The court considered the evidence. It found the men guilty of piracy. It sentenced them to be hanged. That's the way of it.'

‘That is the mere skeleton of justice. I am talking about its flesh, its heart.'

‘Justice—,' Sewall begins. He's not sure what he'll say next but has noticed that if you begin with a sufficiently resonant word others will bob along in its wake. But his resonant word sinks beneath the waves.

‘The flesh I refer to is Madam Winthrop's,' Winthrop explains.

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘It is flesh of her flesh.'

Sewall looks at him in astonishment. An inappropriate
pinkness
flashes into his mind.

‘My wife is kin to several of them,' Mr. Winthrop explains. ‘Her brother is married to Hawkins's sister. Also one of the crew is a cousin of hers. She's from Salem, as you know. They are all seagoing folk over there.'

Indeed they mostly are. Sewall's beloved brother Stephen is one of the leading lights, town clerk, town this and that, not himself a sailor in point of fact but surrounded by those who are, just as the houses of the town are surrounded by the sea. It can be glimpsed down every alleyway, from every garden, between many of the buildings, a silver-tongued ocean bent on insinuating itself into the land. Its presence has made Salem a plump and prosperous place.

‘All the more reason for them to need protection from pirates,' Sewall points out.

‘Mr. Sewall, my wife is distraught.
I
am distraught.'

Sewall doesn't appreciate being
Mr. Sewalled
in that peremptory fashion. ‘Mr.
Win
throp,' he replies, ‘you know the expression well enough: Justice is blind. It is the same for an Indian, a negro, or a relative of Madam Winthrop.' He is aware this is not always exactly the case. ‘Or should be,' he adds a little lamely.

‘You insult my wife, comparing her to such people.'

‘I don't mean to,' he says, blushing. ‘My point was simply that one can't make exceptions for personal reasons.'

Mr. Winthrop obviously realises he too has been hasty, and adopts a more moderate tone. ‘This is still a small colony, Mr. Sewall. We don't know everybody but we usually know
of
them, or we know somebody who does.'
 
Sewall accepts the truth of this. More than that, he
loves
the truth of it, even though it has its darker side (he finds himself going to funerals of people he knows, or nearly knows, almost every week). ‘It adds a certain flavour to all our affairs,' Mr. Winthrop continues.

The smell of roasting beef is wafting into the room. Sewall inhales it as discreetly as possible. ‘A
sav
our,' he agrees.

‘Exactly,' says Mr. Winthrop. ‘A savour.' He gives Sewall a significant look, hoping he has driven his point home: justice subtly seasoned with personal knowledge and connections.

‘Mr. Winthrop, may I ask you a question? Do you know why we use hanging as the chosen method of execution of felons rather than some other strategy, lopping off of the head, for example?'

Mr. Winthrop is clearly baffled by this turn in the discussion. ‘Ah, no,' he replies.

‘I think the reason is that hanging involves no direct action by an individual.' This is a matter Sewall has put some thought into. ‘It's merely a conspiracy, so to speak, between the fixity of the rope and the weight of the body. In short, it emphasises that justice is impersonal after all. Perhaps we can continue this discussion at dinner, if you would like to stay and take it with us.'

Mr. Winthrop has the aghast look of a man facing the prospect of discussing hanging while eating roast beef, as Sewall expected (and rather hoped) he would. ‘Thank you, no,' he replies. ‘Madam Winthrop is expecting me. And this afternoon I plan to go and see Governor Bradstreet.'

Simon Bradstreet, very advanced in years, is acting governor pending the implementation of the new charter. He's one of the founding fathers of the colony, having come over on the ship
Arbella
in 1630. Because he recalls the time when the settlement was tiny, the governor may be sympathetic to Mr. Winthrop's ‘personal' argument. Mr. Winthrop is making a threat.

‘Give Mr. Bradstreet my best respects and duty,' Sewall says with as much aplomb as he can muster. ‘And Madam Winthrop too, of course.'

 

Boston is quiet that night. The streets are muffled by a new fall of snow, and the drifts are too deep for the watchman to watch and the lamplighter to light. Once, around midnight, there's a forlorn moo from the Sewalls' cow, stabled in an outhouse at the back of their property.

Sewall wakes, he doesn't know why. Perhaps the cow has mooed again. She couldn't be blamed for complaining about the intense cold. Then he becomes aware of a form standing at the foot of the bed. His heart pounds so loudly he's afraid that it will wake Hannah. He doesn't want her awakened into the middle of his own fear—another person's terror is more terrifying than one's own. And, by reflex, he will experience Hannah's enhanced terror in turn. He has been on such a fear shuttle before.

As his eyes learn to make use of the dim coals of the fire, he realises that whoever it is is small. ‘Betty?' he whispers.

‘No, sir,' the small shape whispers back. ‘Susan.' Susan is their youngest servant, just fourteen.

‘Susan? Whatever is the matter?'

‘Susan?' Hannah asks, surfacing. Then, in a different tone, ‘Susan?'

‘Yes, madam.'

‘Is it one of the children?' They have had nine children from their marriage so far, four alive and five dead. It wouldn't be the first time a servant has brought them terrible news in the small hours of the night.

‘No, madam.'

‘Who then?' asks Sewall.

‘Me, sir,' Susan replies.

‘Are you ill?' asks Hannah.

‘Afraid, madam.'

‘Of what?'

‘I'm afraid—' her voice cracks, a sob breaking through it like a weed in the pavement—‘I'm going to die.' That contagion again!

‘We must all die, Susan,' Sewall reminds her.

‘Husband!' exclaims Hannah. ‘That doesn't help in this case.'

Susan continues to sob. She does so timidly, awkward at being in her employers' chamber while they are sitting up in their bed, each with a starched white night cap.

'Well,' asks Sewall, discomfited, ‘what must I do?'

‘Stir up the fire, get the poor girl warm. I can hear her teeth chattering.' This is a pretence so Susan won't be embarrassed by her tears.

Sewall puts more logs on the fire. He sits Susan upon a stool right by the hearth to catch the warmth, and Hannah fetches a blanket from the chest and places it around her shoulders. Susan's eyes are fixed on the logs, watching fresh flames spring out from them. ‘That is how the spirit is rekindled,' he tells her, ‘under God's grace.'

She continues to stare at the fire greedily, and asks: ‘Is God's grace like wood, then?'

He is taken aback by her literalness. Sometimes he believes he knows what grace is, when he feels elated or even just contented in his mind. Then wonders if those moods are nothing but elation and contentment after all, and he has fixed the word grace to them as you might hoist a flag up a ship's mast. His deepest fear is that he might never have experienced grace at all.

He took the covenant at the South Church just before his and Hannah's first child was born. He prepared for the moment for weeks. It was necessary to give his reasons for joining the church, and he wrote these out on a piece of paper, taking pride in the neat and comprehensive list. But he intended to supplement it by giving a full and public confession of all his sins, both the big ones and the little, so that he could be admitted to the congregation with a clear conscience, and experience grace with a spirit that was fully prepared for it. But when he had finished reading, his confession went clean out of his head.

It was the most important task he'd ever set himself, and he forgot it as casually as if it had been an errand to a shop. When he was back in his pew and it was too late, he tried to reassure himself that God could take the intent for the execution, that He would be able to hear the confession even though it had not been spoken. But the following week when he went to the meeting house, he encountered the aged Goodman Walker, who had known his family for ever, had been acquainted with his grandfather back in England, and Walker gave him no blessing, no greeting even, and failed to welcome him into the congregation.

This neglect filled him with terror. Perhaps he wasn't a member of the congregation after all, not a member of the congregation of the South Church, not a member of the congregation of the saints. He looked desperately round the meeting house hoping for a sight of Christ, who must after all be here. He would be overjoyed just to get a glimpse of Him going out through the door, but saw nothing. When he got home he told his woes to Hannah.

‘Dear husband,' she said, in a calming, almost amused voice. She was only a girl of eighteen at that time but her big belly gave her a comforting authority. ‘Goodman Walker is an old, old man. And all his life he has suffered from the sleeping sickness.' This was true. Walker would talk of a far-off, long ago Manchester, where lavender grew in the streets and folk danced around maypoles to the accompaniment of music, sinful practice though that was. Robert Walker had slept away so much of his life that those days existed fresh in his mind. He might have been surrendering to narcolepsy at the very moment Sewall encountered him, sleep sifting down into his eyes like sand in an hourglass.

Sewall took comfort from Hannah's words, but doubt niggled away. In true conversion there is a change of the person as a whole and he did not feel completely changed. To believe yourself saved when you were not, to imagine you were one of the elect when your forgetfulness suggested the opposite, would be as great a sin as could be imagined. It would be a kind of acting. And John, the baby Hannah was then expecting, developed convulsions a few months after he was born and died, as did so many of his siblings to come. The Lord could compose His frowning countenance from the deaths of babies.