Daughter of Satan (33 page)

‘
I
. . . in need of guidance!' she cried. ‘Look at me! I am well. I never felt better. You look like a death's head. It may be
you
who need guidance from
me
!'

‘I was speaking of spiritual guidance. The health of your body is good. But what of the health of your soul?'

Then came the climax to which she afterwards believed the whole of her life with Humility had been leading.

It was a calm night and she was lying in her cabin when Humility came in, as was his custom, to kneel and say a prayer before scrambling into the bunk above hers.

As she watched him, she was sure the Devil was with her, for she decided that now was the time to show him that, for all his fine words and great ideals, he was a man as other men were. She would make him see that he was a man, as Bartle was; the difference being that Bartle strode about the ship not caring who saw him for what he was; whereas Humility hid his inclinations with a cloak of piety. She had vowed she would tear that cloak from him; she would expose him, not only before her eyes, but his own. Then perhaps he would
cease to mutter his prayers over her, to offer her guidance, to say in his heart, ‘Thank God I am not as other men!'

‘Humility,' she said; and she stretched out a hand to him.

The gentleness of her voice surprised him. The rushlight showed enough of her beauty to excite him. Her long wild hair fell about her shoulders and her breasts were bare.

‘Wife,' he said hoarsely, ‘does aught ail you?'

She took his hand. ‘I know not. Except it may be that I am not a wife. I am treated as a woman to have children, not as one to be loved. You pray before you embrace me. “Make this woman fertile!” This woman! Fertile! Those are not lovers' words. I am not loved as other women.'

‘I have loved you,' he said. ‘I do love you . . . as is meet for a man to love his wife.'

She leaned forward and, smiling alluringly, put an arm about him.

‘You
have
loved me with passion,' she said.

He closed his eyes and she laughed inwardly at his cowardice. ‘I was dedicated to the Lord,' he said. ‘Marriage was not for me. I had eschewed the lusts of the flesh. God blessed our union. Have we not had three children, and is not another on the way?'

She put her lips against his ear and whispered: ‘I wish to be loved for myself . . . not for the children I may bear.'

‘You are in great need of prayer, wife.'

‘Not I!' she said and her voice held a note of excited laughter. ‘But
you
are, Humility. Pray now. Stay close to me and pray.'

‘You are a temptress,' he said.

‘You must not be a coward, Humility. You must look at me. My nights are lonely because I have a husband who thinks of children and not of his wife.'

‘Why do you tempt me thus?' he asked wonderingly.

‘Why indeed! Why do men tempt women or women men? Come nearer, Humility, and I will tell you. I have been left alone too long.'

A madness seemed to possess her. Bartle and I are no worse than he is! she thought. None of us is very good . . . no one
very bad. I'll not have him thanking God that he is better than others. He shall see here and now that he is not.

She did not love him; she hated him. She did not desire him; he was repulsive to her. But what at this moment she needed beyond love or desire was to show him the truth about himself.

‘Come closer, Humility,' she murmured.

She had not known how desperately he had fought against what he considered to be sin. He was no hypocrite, for firmly he believed all that he professed to believe.

She watched him staring blankly before him – his face pale in the wan light.

The desire to mock him was uncontrollable. ‘So, a man is a man even though he be a Puritan. He knows the same lusts as other men, and when tempted, he can fall just as others.'

He covered his face with his hands.

‘Would I had died
before
this happened. All the years of purity . . . wiped out . . . by a single act!'

She cried heatedly: ‘Do not deceive yourself. The temptation never arose before. If it had, you would have fallen into it. When you went to your attic, I was glad that you should go. I made no effort to detain you. If I had wished you to remain . . . if I had wished you to be my lover, have no doubts that you would have been. I beg of you, say no more, “I am a better man than this one and that one.” For you are not! And it is better for a sinner to say, “I am a sinner,” than for him to say, “I am a righteous man!”'

His lips moved in prayer, but she could not stop her tongue.

‘You ask the Lord to forgive you. For what? I am your wife. Why should it be righteous to shun me? Stop it! See yourself as you are. A man . . . no more, no less. You are a brave man, but others are brave. You are a Puritan, but others are Puritans. You are lustful, and so are other men. There is as much joy for you in your plain garments as there is for me in my colours and silks and velvets. You are not different from others. Know this: If at any time I had tempted you as I did
tonight, you would have fallen. Do not judge others lest you be judged yourself.'

He did not seem to be aware of her. He murmured: ‘I am unworthy. I have shown myself to be unworthy. I have fallen from God's grace and there is no health in me.'

He went out and she lay thinking of him. Now he would know himself. When she told him of her future plans he would not be able to talk of her sin, for if he did she would remind him of his. Some would say he had not sinned, but he believed he had; and surely sin was in the motive rather than the deed.

But later she softened towards him. He was a good man; he was even a noble man. Perhaps when she saw him again she would try to persuade him that there could be no sin in normal acts. She would say to him: ‘If God did not wish us to act so, why should He have given us desires?' She feared she would not be able to comfort him, but the next time she saw him she would try.

She never saw Humility again.

John Tyler was the last to see him alive.

‘It were early morning,' said John. ‘I couldn't sleep, so I came on deck to see what I could see. I thought mayhap I should be the first to sight land. And there he was . . . Mr Brown . . . leaning over the side, looking at the water. I said: “Good morning to 'ee, Mr Brown. A fine good morning.” But he answered me not, and it did seem to me that he were in deep communion with the Lord. I wouldn't be the one to interrupt him at that, so I passed on. I took a look at the pigs and the poultry penned up there. I looked round. He were still there . . . but a minute later when I did glance over my shoulder, he'd gone. I stared like. There was no sign of him. He couldn't have gone below in the time. Then I was struck all of a tremble . . . for something did tell me that he had gone overboard.

‘Well, you do know the rest. I raised the alarm, but 'twas too late. No sign of him . . . and the ship travelling fast before a strong wind.'

Humility Brown . . . lost! The news spread through the ship. A terrible and most shocking accident. There was sincere mourning among the Puritans for one whom many
considered their leader. But there was none who mourned him so deeply as did his wife.

Her guilt lay heavily upon her.

She blamed herself. I sent him to his death as surely as if I pushed him over the side. There will never be happiness for me, since, when I stretch out to take it, he will be there to remind me of my sin. I cannot escape my guilt, because I wanted him out of the way. I believe I knew that he would do this thing if I offered him a temptation which he would be unable to resist.

But even the tragic loss of Humility Brown was forgotten when land was sighted. At last, before these sea-weary people lay the promised land. But Humility, like Moses, was denied the sight of the land for which he had longed.

For ever this sense of guilt will lie on my conscience! thought Tamar.

TO LOOK ON
a strange land which might become home should be a wonderful experience. Tamar stood on deck with Richard and Bartle beside her, and gazed at the coastline which, as they grew nearer, became more and more distinct.

The
Liberty
was anchored now, and galleys and shallops were coming out to meet and greet her. The sailors were lowering the ship's own boats. A group of people was assembling on the shore, eager and excited, for the coming of friends from home was a great occasion indeed.

It was impossible not to experience a feeling of pride to be one of this band of adventurers; but it seemed to Tamar, as she stood there, that a shadowy figure was beside her – a thin man in wet garments and with a look of bewildered horror in his eyes.

She turned at once to look at Bartle. His eyes gleamed. He was the true adventurer, eager for new sights. From Bartle her eyes went to Richard, and she saw in his face the hope that he might play a useful part in this founding of a new community.

How wonderful it was to set foot on
terra firma
after all those months at sea, to be free from the stale smell from below decks which seemed for ever in the nostrils in spite of the fresh sea air! How pleasant to smell the air which had blown across meadow and forest!

Eagerly they were taken to the settlement, where the Elders of the Church and the Governor himself came to welcome them. The settlement consisted of one street which stretched for just over a thousand feet up the slope of a hill from the sandy beach. The houses were roughly made of hewn planks,
but each had its garden reminding all the newcomers suddenly and poignantly of home. And even as they looked along that street – the result of much loving toil, hopes and hardship – they noticed the square enclosure in which cannons were mounted, so placed that they could, at a moment's notice, defend the street against attack from any direction. They had not done with danger; they knew that. There would be perils ashore to vie with those of the sea.

But now was the time for rejoicing. Friends from home were in the settlement, and although most of the newcomers were strangers to those who had already made their home in this spot, this was like a family reunion. Tamar herself remembered some of these men, for she had met them before the sailing of the
Mayflower
. Prominent among these were Captain Standish, Edward Winslow and Governor Bradford.

They asked after Humility, and she found she was too overcome by emotion to speak of him to them. Richard spoke for her.

‘It was a terrible accident. A great shock to us all. And such a tragedy that it should have happened the night before land was sighted. For years he had thought and worked for this.'

‘Doubtless,' said Governor Bradford, ‘it was the will of God.'

And then, before food was prepared to welcome the newcomers, thanks must be given to God for their safe arrival.

It was an impressive scene – the ship's company and the settlers gathered there together on the beach at the bottom of Leyden Street, while the Elders gave thanks and all the population joined in the hymns of praise and glory to God.

After the service of thanksgiving, there was bustle and activity throughout the little township. The newcomers should see what Puritan hospitality meant. There was great delight when it was learned what the ship carried. Poultry! Pigs! Gold could not have pleased them more.

This was indeed a special occasion. Each housewife was busy in a little house, preparing her contribution to the feast of welcome. The newcomers were divided up among the households, and each woman vied with the others in providing a feast of feasts. No mere hasty pudding for the guests! No
maize cake or codfish! Nothing would suit the occasion but the great festivity dish of beans baked with pork and succotash.

There were so many wonderful things to be seen while the feast was in preparation. The children were running wild about the place, lifting handfuls of sand and letting it trickle through their fingers, gazing with longing eyes towards the forest, aching to explore after months of confinement at sea. The settlers' children watched gravely, and some joined in; those who remembered home asked many questions.

The grown-ups talked; they could not stop talking; they talked of the first terrible winter, when more than half their number had died; they talked of the fire which had almost been a final disaster. Mr Carver and Mr Bradford, who had been sick in bed at the time, had all but lost their lives as well as their homes. Ah! That had been a terrible time – and all because of a spark that lighted the thatch of a cottage. But the Lord had looked after them; terrible tribulations had been theirs, but they had come through with His help and His grace.

Talk went on and on; and it was talk that raised laughter and tears – laughter for the tragedies which had brought sorrow at the time, but, in retrospect, could amuse; sorrow for the loss of so many who now lay buried in the New England soil. They told of the making of the plantation; of how they trapped fish in the shallow, rapid river which could be seen from where they stood, emptying itself into the sea; they told how they had discovered that the maize, which they needed so badly, would not grow in the sandy, stony soil until they had planted fish from the sea in the land; then did the maize grow in abundance.

Fish! The newcomers would soon realize that there never was such fish as that which abounded in the neighbourhood of Cape James. There was the Cape itself, clearly to be seen on such a bright day as this. It was shaped like an arm crooked about a corner of the sea. They would see that the cod found in these parts were twice as large as those found elsewhere. What labour that saved in hooking and splitting! Oh, the Lord was looking after them. In the summer, besides the cod,
came mullet and sturgeon. And what caviare and puttargo could be made from the roes! The savages said that the fish in these waters could be compared in numbers with the hairs on men's heads.

Fruit there was in plenty – mulberries, gooseberries, plums, strawberries, pumpkins and gourds; walnut and chestnut trees abounded in the forests; flax grew freely, and from it they were able to make the strongest of ropes and nets. Then there were beavers and otters, foxes and martens – and in the Old Country good money was paid for the skins of such animals.