The Strange Death of Mistress Coffin (27 page)

BOOK: The Strange Death of Mistress Coffin
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Browne found that for the first time in a week he felt the need to eat. He invited his children to dine, but having business and families of their own, they declined.

“Of course,” he said. Then he pointed to the red, leather-bound journal and the papers tied and enfolded beside it. “I have kept among these papers a secret deposition signed by
Shaw and myself many years ago—against the possibility its contents might become useful in any proceedings against the Fletchers, prior to their banishment, or in any necessity to protect your mother's interests.”

His children said nothing. He merely looked at them and continued.

“It is the story White Robin—Higgins—told us during our second journey to the interior. His narrative of the events leading to the death of Mistress Coffin.”

“You credit such a narrative, Father?” Aaron asked.

“Not at the time, particularly. Shaw seemed to. I knew not what to make of it.”

“It is written, you say. May we read it?” Aaron asked.

“I wrote it from memory immediately upon our return from the interior, read it to Shaw, and we rewrote it together as close to our recollections as we could manage. We tried to recapture the precise story, in Higgins' own words, just as it was put to us. I think it is a good enough approximation.” He looked at each of them in turn. “You can see the condition of the manuscript. I will read it to you.”

“But now, Father?” Apphia asked.

“No. You both have your own affairs pressing now. Tomorrow. If you'll both come to dine.”

As they gathered downstairs for leavetaking, Aaron raised a troublesome point relating to trade. It seemed that Edward Randolph, New England Customs Collector, had momentarily invigorated certain duties and restrictions against the exchange and importation, through Barbadoes, of selected European, as opposed to British, goods.

“I don't wish to garnish continually favors of officials nor take chances with the law unless you yourself agree, Father, that we need more such compromises now,” Aaron explained.

“I'll have a word with the Cutts and William Vaughn,” Browne said. “We'll see which way the winds of law are blowing
and what is necessary. Come by tomorrow and sup with me. I'm not sure but we'll have to retreat on the French and Spanish trade, at least for now. Goods crowding the market these times anyway, though there's always a market for French grain and liquor.”

“What the Lords of Trade don't appreciate, Father, is that the whole of New England profits by such trade, strengthens, grows, reflects greater glory on Mother England and all her dominions.”

“Oh, I believe they understand that, Aaron,” his father said. “But they'll not have us clearing the largest cut. Nor will the London merchants, come to that, despite all of our ties there. It is the King's revenue
and
Cheapside's they begrudge us.”

“But they all profit enormously from our labors,” Aaron began to protest.

“Of course. Of course.” Browne waved his hand and smiled. “No, it is simply our assertion of any independence and our profit by what they call this ‘smuggling trade' they deplore. And if the courts were not our own, even Randolph would have cooked us long ago.” He laughed. “It's a good fight, Aaron. Their duties depress our profit enough to score us too. We give and we get.”

“Surely Cranfield in Barbados can be counted on?” Aaron asked as he began to move out into the street.

“I have no reason to believe otherwise,” Browne answered quietly, looking up and down the street. “He owes me a turn or two nevertheless. What's here now?”

“Clearing rum, molasses, divers wines. I shall bring the lists by when I come.”

“You are exporting next month?”

“Deales and pipe staves. The fish looks doubtful at the moment, something of a pricing war on. But the mast ships are contracted directly for England, with Sir William Warren.”

“Good,” Browne said. “Keep to Sir William, and the mast
trade, Aaron;
that
is where the largest return and greatest security lie. I believe Sir William and some few others will control the entire trade before long. And I'm not alone in that belief. Yes, keep with Sir William.”

“I shall indeed, Father.”

“And Blathwayt,” Browne added. “Without the support of Whitehall, without the favor of the Lords of Trade, one piles his fortune upon thin ice. Only fools say otherwise and try to cheat these men of influence out of any profit by our activities. The fools must lose every time, Aaron. They always have.”

The son and father smiled knowingly at one another.

“Excepting the case of Africoes, Father,” Aaron said after a moment of thought. “There is no getting around the Royal African Company, their lock on all legal trade.”

“Of course,” Browne said, “but that is a separate trade, and we are but dabblers yet. Mark my words, some day the whole of the British trade in Negroes will be opened to all comers. The demand is rising fast. Until then, like so many others, we are but interlopers, careful interlopers.”

Aaron smiled. “Cunning interlopers!” he added.

Then just before turning indoors Browne looked at Apphia and added: “And will you, dear daughter, join us for a light meal? Shall I tell Mrs. Hawksworth?”

“I don't see why not. I'll send Millie over later this evening to confirm, Father,” she said. “Thank you.”

XXIV

Aaron arrived earlier than Apphia the next evening that he and his father might discuss commerce. But after Apphia joined them and they had sharpened their appetites with a cup of sack, it became clear to Browne that his children had returned not only to comfort him, but to satisfy their further curiosity.

As they stood before a large, newly made fire in Browne's hall, Apphia opened the subject again.

“And you believed the Fletchers, Father,” Apphia asked, “and then Higgins' account of what finally took place?”

“Eventually, although no judgment has ever been ruled in the matter. And of course Mistress Coffin's journal would account for much that would fit as well. There is a thread of truth running through all three accounts. Up to a point, of course.”

Browne began to explain the circumstances of their finding Higgins for the second time in the interior. “When we returned to the village by the lake, Shaw and I discovered that Jared Higgins had departed with the family into which he had married some time, perhaps a year, before. I can still recall how Shaw kept his face expressionless when the Indians were telling him this. But I kept pushing Shaw to get more information.

“One of the savages answered that Higgins had gone on the big river with the Amoskeags. He guessed he would be found where the river crosses below the pinnacle and the salmon falls.
Shaw asked were they sure Higgins was still alive, and they assured us he was, that he had produced a healthy son.

“The river being strong and the portages few, Shaw and I camped only one night in pursuit of Higgins. But we did not find him among the small Amoskeag encampment at the falls. Moreover, Shaw was unknown among these Indians. They insisted that they knew nothing about a white man among their tribe. But Shaw persisted. He explained who had directed him to their tribe. Eventually we managed to prevail. There was, you see, no ‘Higgins,' only a man called White Robin who might be found with their people near the village of the Wamesit, farther down river.

“That, finally, was where we found Higgins. His tawny skin, his carriage, his ornaments and clothing, his hair, his dialect—all were those of his new people. Even his eyes seemed to have changed, their movement, their darkness, their strange serenity. To our eyes, the transformation was complete. Only the nose and a few missing teeth might have suggested an Englishman to us. In his wigwam close by the river, we came upon this white Indian's squaw and son.

“He—this White Robin—was circumspect. He chose not to speak English. Shaw had to interpret for me. Before we three sat down, White Robin sent his wife and baby out to an old woman who was cooking directly in front of the wigwam.

“Shaw began translating my words to him: ‘Balthazar Coffin is dead.' White Robin responded that ‘he was an evil man.' For a time, White Robin said, he thought he would return and kill Coffin. But he realized he did not know what power he would be up against, and lost his courage. Shaw then explained, at my direction, that he, Higgins, might return now to his proper wife and children. But he continually refused, saying that he had no wish to live among the English. I persisted; after all, his own wife and children. But White Robin only said: ‘I have the
tenderest feelings for them, but I cannot return now.' He emphasized that he was sorry events turned out as they did for his white family, but he could not change all that.

“I tried appealing to his innocence, which we could establish at the bar, but he only retorted that his innocence was clear to him. Finally he asked us to report that he was dead, then they would easily find someone to look after them. I'm afraid I only made matters worse at that point by accusing him of bigamy, adultery, forcing his wife to scorn God's laws, whatnot. White Robin repeated that he lived by the laws of his gods. He said that once he was a false man, but now he had become a true man, or as Shaw translated it, ‘a man'. He said that no truth nor cozening would move him from his life. ‘The life of the English is dead to me,' he told us.

“You see, he had cut himself off from all natural affections of a true Englishman. I believed it was now that he was living the false life, not formerly. He only asked us then if we were certain of Coffin's death. When I assured him we were, he grew silent. He looked at the skins on the floor, his face drained of expression. I thought that surely there must be some conflict between the Indian and the white man. No one, it seemed to me, can deny a former life, however unpalatable it might seem from the present life. I finally said as much. Then White Robin rose and looked at us strangely. He turned, said something, and left the wigwam. I asked Shaw what he had said. ‘He says he needs a sweat,' Shaw replied.”

“He did not tell you the story you have mentioned?” Aaron asked.

“Not until the next afternoon. Here it is,” Browne said, pulling out from beneath some papers on a table a faded, fragile manuscript. “Just as we wrote it from memory upon our return. Higgins had sent word for us to meet him near the bank of the river just north of the encampment where a great tree made open space. By that time I had decided that the only chance
remaining to bring Higgins back was to tell him everything I had discovered, including the diary. I remember now that as I spoke, I could see the river sweeping heavily by. I believe that it must have taken me an hour to tell the whole story, occasionally circling back to fill in a forgotten detail or incident. White Robin listened, interested but serene. He asked a question or two only about the Fletcher brothers.

“I remember now too that Shaw rose and walked about for some minutes before White Robin spoke. ‘The Fletchers are those you seek,' he finally began, in English now. ‘They were, as they said, hired for Coffin's vengeance.' I asked him if it was vengeance against himself and Mistress Coffin.”

Browne looked down at the faded manuscript now and began to read to his children the words he had written long ago.

“‘I learned Coffin was suspicious of me. What led him to believe in such falsehood I didn't know, but it was God's truth to him. Even in his hiring me to carry his wife to market I felt something wrong. But then Jacob Fletcher came to see me. I was planting a late crop. He had information, he said, that might save me. But he made it clear the information should be worth something, so we finally agreed that he'd have my new axe and an Indian bow of mine. I'm not sure how he knew about the bow. He had hoped for coin, but I had none to give him. Only if I agreed the information as important to me as he had promised need I pay. So I didn't see how it could not be. And of course it was.

“‘We had worked together at times. And I knew him for a local tosspot and rakehell. He said first that he did not like the job he had been hired to do by this strange man Coffin. The more he thought, he said, the more he saw we might design to benefit us both, act out a sort of stage play for Coffin's plaudits. Then he told the details of his covenant with Coffin.

“‘The game he had got up to was this: they would capture and bind us as planned. Yet I was to know the playbook as it
played, not the woman. Too dangerous for appearances of the truth. They would filch whatever she had, knock her about, leave her on the island to be “rescued” as arranged. “Coffin is to rescue a cuckold and his lady!” Jacob said and laughed. I would now bear the weight of their attack, but short of death or mutilation. I was to make my escape while they were busy with her.'” Browne looked up at his children, ceasing to read for the moment the words of White Robin.

BOOK: The Strange Death of Mistress Coffin
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