It was the first time I had spoken to Caleb beyond a few required words since the night of the full moon. As I gave him the news, I had thought he would be pleased, but I soon sensed that he set little store in it. “I wish we had some authority, other than your brother’s word, that she is indeed well set. He is not a man renowned for his fellow feeling. I will be glad, Bethia, when you are safely returned to the island and can see to her welfare.”
“Caleb, I should tell you that I might not—” I began, but I could not continue, for we were interrupted then, by one of the smaller boys, crying out for my help with a splinter driven deep into the fleshy part of his palm. I turned to the boy. Caleb sighed, and went off to give the news to Joel.
As the candidates for the college examination sat late at their book and the master heard their sundry recitations, I went about my work, but my mind was unquiet. With the approach of matriculation day, the matter of my own future was in the balance as much as theirs. I had to consider what to do with Noah Merry’s gift of my unexpected liberty. At one time, the choice would have been plain. I would have scuffed the stinking mud of Cambridge town from my boots, packed my box and booked a passage on the first boat heading for the island.
The island cried out to me. I longed to feast my senses on its light and air, and restore my spirit with its peace. If I answered its call, soon enough I would live again in the familiar rhythms of its seasons—the wincing winters and dappled summers, its shy, reluctant springtide and gleaming, bronzed leaf fall. I would be cradled by the known world of kine and crop, the heaviness of each day’s familiar chores lightened by love of the very place in which I did perform them. I knew that life; I knew my place in it. If I threw my thoughts forward I could see myself at every age. To be sure, parts of the picture were wreathed in fog—the goodman beside me did not turn his face to show me who he was; the number of children at my board ebbed and flowed—but the woman at the center of the vision was clear; in bud, in blossom, and blown. I did not fear even the last of these visions: the frail old crone, hands gnarled and claw-like from a lifetime’s toil, cheeks, etched and hollow, billowing forth a final breath. I knew that even as her petals withered, a good fruit ripened: the fruit of a life lived for family and faith and the rich harvests of a fertile place.
But there was another vision, less welcome, that went with this one: a single image in my mind of a door—heavy, solid, oaken—closing forever in front of me. It was the door to a library. The door that had opened for me, just a chink, in this place of learned men. I did not have an exact vision of what my future life would be if I married Samuel Corlett. I only knew what would not be, if I did not. There would be no more Latin phrases drifting down hallways, no works of poetry gifted me by tall men in scholars’ gowns, no high rhetoric or witty disputations.
And this, also, I could conjure, for better and for worse: the press of lips and urgent hands. These had not made fertile furrow for lucid thought about my future. Instead, the memory of a moment under the apple boughs would come to me unbidden. I would have to stop what I was doing and try to gather myself. I learned then that girlish yearnings are one thing and womanly desire quite another. One might feel the light brush of Eros’s wing and entertain forbidden fancies when one knows full well that what is longed for lies far beyond reach. It is another thing to burn with lust and be sure that a turn of your finger will bring the object to his knees before you. I had a struggle now that threatened my peace and looked set to pull me in the direction of all manner of vanities and follies if I did not take the most stringent pains to discipline myself. Had a speedy marriage to Samuel Corlett been on offer, I believe I would have consented to it, whatever my misgivings about the suitability of the match. But I was saved by the certain knowledge that even if I accepted him, we stood a year off the safe harbor of a marriage bed. An engagement, I reasoned, would create more, not less, temptation.
No further words had passed between us, that day in the apple garth. I had been in no state to speak, or even to think, so completely governed was I by the animal passions he had awakened. I had run off, mute as a beast, and he, perhaps as startled as I by his lack of restraint, had let me go. It was many days before we next had opportunity to speak, and I had had time to consider my answer. The interview began awkwardly, once again in the college library. It was the Lord’s Day, and we were meant to be returned to the meeting house, for afternoon devotion. But Samuel had asked his father to go on ahead of us, and the master, divining our need for a private moment, had done so.
The college, at that hour, was deserted. So the impropriety was just as great, alone together in the library, as it would have been in his chamber. But I could not sit in his chamber with any composure, so we walked out and made our way, as if sleepwalking, to the library. He closed the heavy door and leaned against it.
“Better to leave it open, do you not think?”
“Wherefore? There is no one here.”
I breathed again the biscuit tang of the books and struggled for calm.
“When last we were here, I asked you a question. Here we are again. And so I await your answer.”
It was clear that he was not in the least degree pleased when I gave it, and less so when he grasped that he could not sway me. But I was able to quoth his own words back to him: “You yourself said you would have preferred an unhurried courtship, and that only the press of events drove you to make your offer when you did. And you told me quite frankly that aspects of my character are displeasing to you….”
He would have cut me off then, but I continued to speak right across his words of protest. “My circumstances have, happily, changed. Let us take full advantage of the change. Let us have the courtship that you, yourself, spoke of so favorably. Let us come to know each other more fully. That way you will see, in time, if my ‘headstrong’ nature really is supportable to you.”
“Bethia, I misspoke. I was not myself that day. I do not—”
“Samuel, I am asking for a small investment of patience. Let us use the time we have been given, by the exigencies of your present employment. I am speaking of a few months, only. I will undertake to remain here, in Cambridge, during that time, so that we may probe this thing, without tie of obligation on either side. Let a half a year pass, at the least. If—and only if—please be clear that I expect nothing from you and hold you unbound in every particular—after that time, you still wish to enter into an engagement, ask me again for my hand. By then I will be able to answer you with reason, and with my whole heart.”
“I cannot like this plan, even though I realize I brought it upon myself, by my boorish manner to you over the matter of that salva—that maid, Anne.”
“That is not so.” I took a breath. We had not troubled even to sit upon the bench, but stood, just as we had entered the library. I turned a little aside and let my hand run across the spines of the nearest volumes. “You force me to say what I would not. But I must begin with you on a ground of complete honesty. A marriage that has not got such a bottom is like a building with its sill laid down upon sand. You might not wish to hear this, but it is the truth. There was no way in which you could have expressed yourself to me, no silken poesy with which you might have glossed your offer, that would have induced a different answer, once I had my indenture papers in hand.”
“Is that so?” He had stiffened. “Honesty is certainly a fine quality between a man and wife. A little tact, perhaps, also might be considered an asset.”
I colored. He studied his nails. “As my feelings seem to be a matter of indifference in this plan, I suppose I must consent to it.”
“Is that what you think? Then I must think you have not been attending to me closely. Let me be even more plain. If I had no concern for your feelings, and, indeed, did not in some degree return them, then I should be on the first boat south the day following the matriculation examination, and I should not care if I set foot in this reeking midden of a town ever again. I stay here for the life I believe we might be able
to make together—” I swallowed. “I stay here for you, Samuel.”
His face changed then. The strain went out of his brow and his eyes—his expressive eyes—gazed at me with a look that combined ardour and tenderness. A line from Anne Bradstreet’s poem came to me: “If ever two were one, then surely we.” She must have known it, too: this same maddening desire. Was it wrong to give way to it? At that moment, all my mental reservations burned away. I was consumed with the urge to make two one, then and there, no matter what commandment I might break to do it. I had broken commandments before, after all: the very highest of them. All my efforts at reformation seemed nought but vain folly to me at that moment. I felt the reckless freedom of one who knows she stands already among the damned. Why not, then, another sin? One that stood much lower upon Sinai’s list of Shalt Nots?
This time, it was my fingers that dug into his hair. Then his hands were on my waist, lifting me up to him.
XXI
Master Corlett called me into his study as the matriculation day neared, and asked if I had formed an idea of what I wished to do thereafter. “Much as I rely upon you, I do not ask you to stay here now that your brother is gone. This situation is beneath you. It has ever been so, and I know you took it on only out of sisterly duty and warm affection.”
I tried to suppress a smirk at that last. I did not want to offend or shock the master. But he was off on one of his meandering tracks and did not notice my unseemly reaction. “Unfortunate, that your brother felt as he did. I do think he might have … but there it is. He is gone, and you still here. Entirely unsuitable … And then, of course, quite unexpectedly, that unfortunate girl, Anne, is also gone, although—” He was looking at me queerly as he said her name, but a spasm of coughing seized him, and when it quieted he did not complete the interrupted thought but passed over Anne entirely. “Next week, of course, the other two, Caleb and Joel, will matriculate—”
He must have noticed my start of surprise at the certainty of his expression, for he did glance at me then. “Oh yes—I have no doubt of it. No scholars of mine have ever gone before the college president better prepared than they. They will matriculate, and move, forthwith, to rooms in the Indian College. I have told the steward he would do well to see that a place is furnished ready to receive them, and I have told President Chauncy that they will need a tutor. He of course remains a skeptic as to their capacities and has done nothing in that regard, no matter how I prod him. Do you know what he said, Bethia? You, particularly, will not credit it. He said he had written to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, to tease out yet more funds. He is claiming that he will have to pay such a tutor a higher salary than the tutors of the English scholars. When I asked him wherefore, he said it would be necessary ‘to encourage them in the work, wherein they have to deal with such nasty salvages, and for whom they are to have a greater care and more diligent inspection.’ Nasty salvages indeed!”
“How did you answer him?”
“I told him what he seemed incapable of hearing: that these youths were some of the ablest I ever had, and if anything would require less inspection. Do you know, Bethia, I think at bottom he cannot be so deaf as he seems to be. But since he came here and perceived the flow of funds that had already been got from the Society—and that with no likely Indian scholars yet in sight—he has come to think of the entire venture as a kind of milch cow. His mind is ever on what he might extract from these youths and not what he must impart to them. But I feel sure that must change, once he comes to know them….
“In any case, what I was getting to is that once Caleb and Joel are gone from here, I will be left with only the very young Nipmuc boys resident, and encountering them should not prove too fearsome, even for a timid Canterbridgian goodwife. With the money young Merry paid for your indenture—most generous, I must say—I am in purse to offer a good wage to a daily woman who’ll not need to lodge here … the short of it is, you must feel free, my dear, to return to keep house for your dear brother on that beloved island of yours.”
I shifted on my stool. “Master, I do not plan to do so. Not just presently.”
His watery eyes gazed at me from beneath brows that had grown as unruly as an unmown hayfield. “What says your grandfather to that?”
“He is indifferent.” It was true. I had written to grandfather seeking his permission to remain in Cambridge, and the letter I had back from him dealt with the matter in half a sentence, before devolving into a catalogue of his own squabbles with the Aldens and their faction, who continued to press for popular governance on the island and to mock his manorial ambitions. “He said I should do what suits me.”
“Is that so?” His eyes traveled to the ceiling. “Do I dare to entertain a hope that it suits you to stay because there is some sort of … some manner of … understanding … between yourself and my son?”
“Perhaps better you should apply to him on that matter,” I said, but the sudden heat in my face had given him the answer. The pale eyes twinkled with pleasure.
“I am glad of it. Though I wish it were a clear and settled engagement. When the two of you came in so late to afternoon meeting on Lord’s Day last, and looking rather ill, the both of you, I thought you must between you have decided against…. I do not press you to say more than you feel is right. No. I do not. But I at least will speak it plain: I look forward to the day when I might call you daughter. And I am sure I do not know what Samuel is about, a man of his age. Then again, a man of his age may keep his own counsel and need not seek the light of his father’s countenance on his every step. But you, Bethia: whatever lies between the two of you, it does not change the fact that you should not stay on here. And I speak unselfishly, for you have been a boon to me this year, and I will sorely miss your service, and your company. I would help you to a better situation. There must be something more suited, in the town, a position as a governess—”
“Master, I do have a situation in sight. I had hoped you might recommend me for it, though it would mean that I left your service a little before matriculation day. I heard of a place just now come vacant at the college—a young woman who served in the buttery. She is to marry next month and will leave in a few days to her new home, with her husband’s family in Ipswich. I have enquired for it.”
“But Bethia, that is but a menial post. Lighter work than here, perhaps, but still lowly. You are a learned girl; you have every quality that good families seek in a preceptress for their daughters. You should not toil as a scullery maid, it is beneath you—”
I looked at the kindly old man, his face creased up with concern for me. I decided to open my heart to him.
“Master, there is a reason I desire this situation—”
He smiled knowingly, and interrupted me. “It is evident. You wish to be near to my son.”
I hardly knew what to say to that, since being near his son burned me like a brand. “I could not of course expect his attentions while he is engaged with his students. I was speaking of something else.”
“Well then?”
“Master, all my life, the one thing I have yearned after is an education of the kind that is closed to me by my sex. My father stopped instructing me when I was nine years old. He did not wish me to learn Latin or Hebrew, and yet, as I think you know, I am a fair way upon the path with both those ancient tongues. I have done this by listening an ear to the lessons of others. Makepeace’s. The boys here, with you….”
“Did you so? I was not aware of it. You seemed fully occupied by your work.”
“I did not mean to deceive anyone, and I listened only when the work allowed of it. But as to the college: you recall how the rooms are arranged—the great hall, how the buttery hatch opens right into it?” I leaned forward, warming to my subject. “Master, it is where the scholars take their meals, but it is also where they gather every morning, after prayers, to hear President Chauncy lecture to them. Do you see? I will have the benefit of those lectures—I cannot help but hear them, as I go about pre
paring the dinner. My hands will be engaged in menial tasks—but my mind … my mind will be free. Three hours—every morning. And in the afternoon, while the freshmen are with their tutors, I might overhear the sophisters’ disputations in the hall, as the president moderates them.” I felt my face glowing, anticipating how it might be. But the master’s face was stern. He shook his head.
“This is most unwise, my dear. Most imprudent. These lectures are not fashioned for the unfurnished mind of the fairer sex. What need has a wife and mother to cudgel her faculties with the seven arts and the three philosophies? Have a care, or you will torment yourself into a malformed, misguided wretch….”
“But you have taught young Dudley here; you are acquainted with his sister, Mistress Bradstreet. Surely you would not call her intellect malformed, for all its learning…?”
“Well, she—” he spluttered, and coughed again. “I had in mind another Anne, one whose fate you would not want to call down upon yourself. The infamous Mistress Hutchinson. I expect you know what judgments God heaped upon her. Exile, monstrous birth, scalping at the hands of salvages…”
I leaned forward, ardent to win my point. “Master Corlett, you make, I fear, the case opposite to the one you intend. Mistress Hutchinson preached against the very learning I seek. Her heresy was that knowledge came to her as the direct revelation of God. She scorned the good men of letters who were her ministers; she denigrated the very kind of hard-won book knowledge that the Harvard College was set up to impart. There are some who say there would have been no college founded here, had her faction prevailed….”