Flight of the Sparrow (36 page)

It is well after midnight when Joseph returns. He stumbles as he comes through the door into the kitchen, alerting Mary to the fact that he has consumed more ale than usual. She is reminded of Quinnapin’s drunkenness, though Joseph is at least able to walk. Lately he has been going directly to bed, saying nothing beyond his prayers. But this night he is cheerful and his good humor has apparently loosened his tongue. Before she has a chance to inquire if he delivered her message, he says there is good news—the Mathers are expecting yet another babe. A cord of envy tightens Mary’s womb. Joseph knows that she longs for another child, yet he seems insensible to how this news
strikes her, and instead goes on and on about his friends’ joy. Mary watches him, carefully controlling her expression so that it will not betray her feelings. He sways before her as she puts away her needles. Finally he says that Increase is eager to see her narrative. He presents this news as if it bears no relation to her message.

“He has great hope that it is a true account of the Indians,” he says, sitting clumsily on the bed. She dutifully kneels before him and removes his boots, even as she bites back a retort. She doubts that any Englishman or -woman could write a true account of the Indians. It seems to her that no one but Indians themselves know the truth of their lives or their hearts.

“When will he see me?” she asks. “I would meet him sooner than late.”

“Tomorrow you will bring your work to him. I warrant he is as eager to see it as you are to show it.” Smiling, Joseph reaches out and fingers a curl that has come loose from her cap. “Do you imagine I cannot discern your sin of enthusiasm?” He smiles. “It is no secret that you are an impetuous and headstrong woman. Let us have no more dissembling, wife. Meekness is a tiresome virtue.”

She has never heard Joseph speak this way about meekness. It surprises her that he has lost patience with the most womanly of virtues, the very one she has constrained herself so often to practice. Would he prefer a woman who orders her husband about? She thinks at once of Weetamoo and her imperious manner, of how she commanded Quinnapin and he obeyed without a murmur.

He reaches for her again, and draws her head into his lap. He places one hand on the back of her neck and pulls her face against his loins. He moans and Mary has the terrible thought that he wants her to perform an unnatural act. With a shudder, she wrenches away and stumbles to her feet.

“Go to bed, Joseph. You are overweary.” She does not add that he is also drunk.

He gives her a bewildered look. “Are you not coming?”

“No,” she says, turning away. “I cannot yet. I still have chores that must be done before morning.”

Mary does not retire to bed until she is sure Joseph is asleep. She is frightened and disturbed by what he has said and done, and she lies staring into the dark for a long time before she sleeps.

•   •   •

S
he dreams she lies naked in a small wetu. Sunlight slides through the smoke hole and she can smell venison boiling in the stew pot. She turns her head and sees that Quinnapin lies beside her. At first she thinks he is sleeping. Then—to her horror—she sees that he is dead. His head has been severed from his body and the flesh is rotting away from his skull.

Mary wakes abruptly, her heart thrashing and her stomach heaving. For a moment she thinks it is morning, but she hears no birdsong and the sky is not yet the pearl gray color that signals the hour before dawn. She sits up and tries to pray, to reassure herself that the dream means nothing. But her prayer does not come. When she stretches out again, she is unable to return to sleep.

Even as she looks forward to the meeting with Increase, she worries that he will tell her nothing of James. And she suspects he will find her narrative wanting, for she has not been able to perceive God’s hand at all in her ordeal.

•   •   •

I
n the morning Mary packs up her box of pages and walks to the Mather home. A maid lets her in and shows her into the parlor, where Increase sits at his table, writing. He does not look up.

“Mr. Mather, I have brought my manuscript. My husband said you would be glad to see it.”

He raises his head and peers at her. His eyes are bloodshot. “Sister Rowlandson.” He gestures for her to place the box on the table. “You may leave it in my care.” He turns back to his writing.

“But I would speak with you,” she says.

He does not stop writing. “I will read it soon, if it be God’s will.”

The scratch of his pen on the heavy paper annoys her. “I have questions on another—”

He cuts her off. “Rest assured I will treat your words gently.” He glances up to give her a thin smile. A carriage rattles past on the cobblestones. “Now you must grant me the peace to work.” He rises and holds out his hand to take the box.

Mary’s tongue feels as if it has been suddenly coated with dust. “Will you not allow me to speak?” she asks hoarsely.

“’Tis not the time.” He leans across the table and takes the box from her. “Fear not, for I will discern the hand of God in your trials where you have not. I will insert the appropriate Scriptures and make plain how the Lord aided you, how He has raised you up to transcend the evils all around you.” He clasps the box to his chest, as if it were as holy as the Bible. He taps his index finger on it, twice. “Once I have improved your text and published it, you will regain your former status as a good and pious wife.”

Finally, she understands he is telling her that the manuscript seals their covenant. It has secured James’s safe passage back into English society. And hers as well. James will live and she will regain the respect and status she lost during her captivity. Joseph will resume his husbandly duties. He is telling her that she will no longer be the subject of gossip and suspicion; she will have the support and sponsorship of the most respected minister in the colony.

Yet the stark truth is that if she could choose, she would rather live among the Indians than be restored to English society. She closes her eyes and heat suffuses her neck and face as she thinks of James. She recalls his words:
The Indian ways are fading like a mist.
The fact is that she
cannot
live among them, for they are now a defeated people. Their ways are no more. Only one path lies before her.

When she opens her eyes, Increase is smiling as if he has given her a gift. Clearly, there will be no chance for her to ask about James. He gestures toward the door. “God go with you,” he says.

“And with you.”

She is startled when he reaches forward and touches her shoulder before resettling himself in the chair, but she understands it is a blessing and an assurance that he has not forgotten his pledge.

•   •   •

A
t home she finds Joseph in an unusually buoyant mood. He presses her for details of her encounter with Increase. “You are certain he will publish it soon, then?” he asks. He says the stories the gossips tell of her in Boston and Cambridge are growing more malicious with each passing day. He tells her some have even asserted she is carrying Monoco’s child. Mary feels a choking sensation, as if a stone has lodged in her throat. Once again, she assures her husband that no Indian has defiled her. That sadly, as he well knows, she is carrying no child at all.

Her desire for news of James does not leave her. She lingers when she goes abroad in the market, hoping to overhear gossip about him. She considers taking Joseph’s horse to Cambridge and searching the shops for him, or traveling to Natick to see if he is there. She asks Joseph if they might attend worship in Cambridge one Sabbath, but he disapproves—whether out of loyalty to Increase or dislike of the new minister in Cambridge, she is not sure.

Then, in answer to her prayers, an opportunity presents itself. In late October, Joseph begins complaining of a sore on his leg. Mary treats it with salves and poultices, but the sore does not respond, growing daily in size and tenderness. He no longer goes out but stays in the house, sitting in his chair with his leg propped up on a stool. When Maria Mather tells Mary that Hannah Eliot, wife to John Eliot, is renowned for her healing arts, Mary easily persuades Joseph to travel with her to Roxbury.

The Eliots’ home is more humble than Mary expects, considering Mr. Eliot’s reputation as the great missionary to the Indians and author of the Indian Bible. Mr. Eliot himself opens the door and invites them into the small, dark parlor, and while Joseph consults with his wife at the hearth, Mary speaks privately with the minister in a corner of the room. Above them, dried roots and herbs hang from the ceiling, pungently scenting the air.

Though Mary dares not inquire specifically about James, she questions Mr. Eliot on the current situation of the Praying Indians. He shakes his head sadly when she mentions Natick, and reports that conditions there can only be described as wretched.

“’Tis the only remaining praying village,” he says. “So all Christian Indians are confined there, no matter their tribe or homeland. I’ll warrant there are many unconverted who have sought refuge in Natick to escape slavery and death. ’Tis dirty and overcrowded, little more than a prison for the poor souls who occupy it.” He sighs. “I travel there as often as I am able, bringing them food and raiment and the hope of the Gospel.”

Mary tries to imagine the Indians she knew living in such conditions, but all that comes to her mind is a memory of watching them dance around the circle fire. She can still hear the deep, rhythmic beat of the drums, feel her heart keeping time with the dancers’ feet. She is so caught up in remembrance that at first she doesn’t realize that Mr. Eliot has asked her a question.

“Mistress Rowlandson?” he says.

She blinks at him. “Forgive me. I fear I did not hear you, sir.”

“I said perhaps you and your good husband would like to accompany me on my next visit, a fortnight hence.” His smile is hopeful, encouraging. “It would be a fine act of Christian charity.”

Mary’s face is suddenly so warm that she puts her hands to her cheeks. For the first time in many weeks, she speaks directly from her heart. “I would be honored, sir.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Mary
sits perched on the narrow wooden seat of the cart, wrapped in a blanket and wedged between her husband and Mr. Eliot, who has hired the cart, oxen, and driver, Samuel, a member of his church. Samuel walks the whole way, guiding and encouraging the two oxen. They are not well matched, and Mary regularly bumps shoulders with both men as they make their slow way from Boston to Natick. Joseph, his leg now well healed, is nevertheless in an ill temper. He has made plain to Mary his doubts about the wisdom of this journey.

“What perversity could make you wish to be among Indians again?” he asked her, wrinkling his nose as they rode away from the Eliots’ home after their visit. Mary expressed her surprise because, in Mr. Eliot’s presence, Joseph had pretended a great desire to minister to the Indians. She was relieved when he did not demand an answer to his question, for she dared not confide the truth, nor could she think of any fabrication that would have satisfied him.

In the cart bed behind Mary are two large bundles—one of blankets and one of linen shirts. Mary has collected them from members of Increase’s congregation for distribution in the praying town.
They will stay in Natick overnight, a prospect she knows Joseph dreads. Throughout the journey, Mary has kept silent as Joseph and Mr. Eliot discussed the latest news of the plague raging in London. As they descend a long hill through a forest of oak trees, the cart-driver walks in front of the oxen, bellowing at them to slow down so the wagon will not break an axle on the stones and ruts. Even before she glimpses the stockade fence, Mary smells the smoke of the cook fires, the faint gaminess of stew pots. The trees thin out and she sees the rounded domes of wetus. Braids of smoke twist toward the sky.

The cart enters the town through a broad gate and Samuel halts the oxen in a litter of spiny burs under a chestnut tree. It is the only big tree left standing inside the stockade. The wetus are clumped close together; the frozen ground is strewn with stones. A breeze carries the stink of feces.
There is not enough land for all the people here,
Mary thinks.
This is worse than the crowded conditions at Wachusett.
Mr. Eliot climbs down first and then Joseph, who offers Mary his hand to steady her. Her heart is beating so hard she feels light-headed. She stumbles as she steps onto the ground.

“I thought Praying Indians were supposed to live in
English
houses,” Joseph says in a disgusted tone.

Mr. Eliot regards him thoughtfully. “I think it best they live as they choose. In whatever circumstance they deem comfortable.”

Joseph scowls. “How can
this
be called comfort?”

But Mr. Eliot has turned away to greet two Indian men as other men and women emerge from the wetus. Mary has a vivid memory of carrying Sarah into the village of Menameset three days after the attack. Her heart had been pounding then, too—with terror. Now it is anger that animates her. The two men call out to Mr. Eliot. “
Koonepeam!
Welcome, Eliot!” They approach with both hands outstretched, to show they carry no weapons. Mr. Eliot’s smile is so wide Mary imagines his face might split.
“God wetomuakquish!”
he says, grasping each hand in turn.