The Captive Bride Read online

  “How bad is it?” Edward asked at once. “What does Fuller say?”

  Gilbert bit his lip and cast a glance over the iron-gray billows rolling ponderously over the docks below. “Bad enough, Edward. Sam said when she first fell ill, it was the result of too much bathing. He’s always said that noxious vapors from winds and waters make bathing very dangerous.” He smiled at the thought of Sam Fuller, their only physician since the Mayflower touched the New World. Then a gloomy light clouded his bright blue eyes and he said heavily, “But it’s serious, Edward. She goes down every day! Whatever it is, it’s draining her life before my eyes!”

  Edward reached out and gripped his brother’s arm, saying only, “God is able, Gilbert!”

  “Yes, He is.”

  For the next three hours the two men went from house to house as Edward performed his duty to pass along the news from England. He had been governor of Plymouth, in addition to his offices for the Crown and later for Cromwell, so there was a certain amount of awe in the attitude of some. Others like John Billington, who had long resented Edward (or any other man of authority), and latecomers to the settlement, were less impressed.

  Governor Bradford, of course, was pleased to see him, and they spent the bulk of the day with him. His house was larger than usual, more than twice as large as Gilbert’s. Bradford was a compact man, and since the beginning had been the driving energy that kept Plymouth intact. After hearing some minor news he said, “Come, Brother Winslow, get to it. What will happen now that Cromwell is dead?”

  “His son, Richard, sits in his place.” Edward shifted uneasily, then added, “I fear him, Mr. Bradford. He is not a strong man, and the English have not lost their taste for monarchs.”

  Bradford’s intelligent eyes searched the face of the other, and he nodded slowly. “My thinking exactly.”

  “You think Charles will be brought back?” Gilbert asked.

  “His royal trunk has been packed for some time, Pastor Winslow,” Bradford smiled grimly. “And if Charles sits on the throne of England, we all know what his thought will be concerning such men as ourselves.”

  “He will remember that it was the Puritan forces under Cromwell that beheaded his father and drove him to exile,” Edward nodded. He looked sharply at Bradford and added, “It is well that we are here, with an ocean between us, is it not, Mr. Bradford?”

  “Yes—but our brothers in England are not so protected,” Bradford answered. He shook his head, and there was a sadness in his voice as he said, “I fear there will be a shaking soon in England.”

  They left the governor’s house and made their way up the hill, speaking of the dangers that beset their brothers in England, and as they turned down the street and caught sight of Winslow’s horse, he said, “Matthew is home.” He added drily, “Most of us hitch up a steer or a dry cow to do our traveling—my son has some disdain for such primitive customs.”

  “I see what you mean, Gilbert,” Edward responded, noting the horse tied to the fence in front of the house. “Where did he get the money for such a fine stallion?”

  Gilbert shrugged and said as they passed through the gate, “Not from me. The price of that horse would pay my salary for six years. Matthew doesn’t work, so he either stole it or he gambled for it.” He put his hand on Edward’s arm, saying in a low voice, “I felt it necessary to ascertain which, and I am pleased to report that it is the latter. It would have been disgraceful if a minister’s son had stolen, would it not?”

  Edward noted the edge of sarcasm in Gilbert’s voice, and it saddened him. He had stood by grave after grave where the stillborn children of Gilbert and Humility were buried, and he knew the deep grief that had almost destroyed them both. When the last child had survived, they had poured themselves into the boy with such an intensity that Edward had always feared the result should the child have followed the others to an early grave. He had not been unaware, being a shrewd observer of human nature, that Matthew had been blessed with a strong body and cursed with a rebellious spirit.

  Gilbert opened the door, and as Edward stepped inside and was greeted with a rush from his nephew, he thought for the ten thousandth time, It’s Gilbert at seventeen! It was an eerie resemblance, for young Matthew had the same sharp features, the cornflower blue eyes that all Winslow men seem to have, he moved the same, had the same smooth gait of the natural athlete—balanced, almost sensual, with not a fraction of wasted motion as he crossed the floor.

  “Uncle Edward!” Even the same voice! he thought, and the hard hand that crushed his was corded with muscle as were the arms and shoulders. “My word, it’s good to have you back!”

  “You’re looking well, my boy.” Edward smiled at the young man, “I haven’t seen such fine clothing since I visited Bond Street in London.”

  There was some embarrassment in the young man’s eyes as he said, “Well, Uncle, I suppose I am a bit of a peacock— but I’ve been to Boston, and they expect such things there.”

  “Some do,” Gilbert said quietly. His brother saw the young man’s face flush and the quick flare of resentment in his blue eyes.

  Edward had not been a diplomat for nothing. He said with a laugh, “I remember your father wore an outfit much like this when he was a student at Cambridge. I believe Father took a rather dim view of it, eh, Gilbert?”

  A startled look crossed Gilbert’s face, and then he threw his head back and roared with laughter. “I haven’t thought of that in forty years, Edward!” He threw a smile at Humility and said ruefully, “Father threatened to have me put in the stocks if I ever wore such a garb in his presence!”

  “Father was a stern man,” Edward said gently, and he saw the remark had its intended effect on his brother.

  Gilbert nodded, and there was a softening of the lines around his mouth as he looked at his son. “He was that.” He said no more, but the angry air that had filled the room faded, and young Matthew shot a grateful look at his uncle.

  “Now, let’s hear what you’ve been up to since I’ve been away. How’s the Latin and the Greek? Still giving Mr. Littleton fits?”

  “I’m bound to say,” Gilbert said as he sat down beside Humility, “that it’s rather the other way around.” He gave a fond glance at the young man across the table and smiled. “I mean to say that Matthew has surpassed his teacher.”

  “And that’s what I want to talk to you about, Uncle.”

  “Oh, not now, Matthew,” Humility protested. “Your uncle is weary from his long voyage.”

  “Let the boy talk, Sister,” Edward said easily. He leaned back in his chair and considered the eager face of the young man who at once began to pour out a plan he had obviously spent much time conceiving. In brief, he would either go to school in England or he would die!

  Edward asked, when he could find a gap in the young man’s flow of words, “You want to enter the church, Matthew?”

  “No, the law!”

  His uncle gave a quick look at Gilbert and Humility, and the disappointment on their faces was plain. He saw at once that this family, so precious to him, was on the razor edge of disaster. If the young man had his way, he would be embarking on a path odious to his parents; in addition, they would lose him forever—at least, Humility would! The study of law was a long, arduous process, and he knew in his heart that Humility would never live to see her son again if he left on such a mission.

  “Mr. Shakespeare has given us many fine lines, my boy,” Edward remarked slowly. “My favorite is not well known, but reflects my own views.”

  “What line is that, Uncle?”

  “First we kill all the lawyers!” Edward remarked. “A sentiment I hold firm concord with after dealing with the breed for a lifetime and finding not enough honor for a squad in the whole profession!”

  “The army then!” Matthew cried, his eyes piercing those of his uncle. “I’m not fit for the church, and the law, you say, isn’t fit for me. Let me go for a soldier, Father!” He turned and held out one strong, square hand in a strange pl
eading gesture to Gilbert.

  “Son, you can’t mean that!” Gilbert protested, drawing nearer to Humility in an unconscious attempt to protect her, adding, “Your uncle will tell you it’s impossible!”

  “Why is it impossible?”

  “Think, Matthew!” his uncle said intensely. “There is no army in England for you to serve in.” His face grew stern and he slapped the wooden table with a sharp gesture. “The Model Army of Cromwell was the finest body of fighting men on earth—but Cromwell is dead, and there is no man alive who can rally those troops. Within a year—if God doesn’t do something—Charles II will be the ruling monarch of England, and if you think the son of a Puritan minister could serve in that army, you’re a simpleton!” He had half risen in anger, but it was not at the boy in front of him, but at the fate of the England he loved. Now he settled back and forced himself to be calm.

  “Not the army, Matthew.” It was a rare thing for a Winslow man to beg, but there was a pleading note in the older man’s voice as he said, “Matthew, give the church a try. You’re young and think you have to have excitement. Very natural in a young fellow such as yourself. Your father was much the same,” he added with a smile.

  “You’ve hit it, Uncle!” Matthew said at once. “I’ve heard stories all my life of you, Father! How you were the best swordsman in England, and how you fought duels and—”

  “Son! Son!” Gilbert held up his hand and there was a horror on his face. “Don’t call those days back! For heaven’s sake, do you think I’m proud of them?” He shook his head, and let his head fall as he whispered, “I’d give my life to wipe out those wild days.”

  Humility put her arm around him and said, “Hush! I won’t hear it, Gilbert. You were not evil. You used your sword, yes, but in every case it was to right a wrong.”

  “That’s true, Brother,” Edward added. He waved his hand at the young man in front of him, saying, “He has your blood, Gilbert, and perhaps some of the faults that Winslow men seem prone to.”

  “Are you saying he should go?” Gilbert asked in astonishment.

  “No, certainly not! It’s not my place to make such decisions for your family.” Then Edward rose and said, “I find myself more weary than I thought. Would you mind if I took my rest a little early?”

  “You’re sleeping with me in the loft, Uncle,” Matthew responded quickly. “I’ll go make things ready.”

  As he skimmed the stairs with agility, Humility suddenly sobbed, and Gilbert put his arms around her. “He’s going to leave us!” she said in a broken voice.

  Edward looked at the couple, not knowing what to say. He averted his head, and his glance fell on a sword hanging from a peg driven into the wall. He stepped to the wall, removed the sword and held it in his hands. “I haven’t seen this in some time,” he remarked quietly. It was a rapier made by Clemens Hornn, once the greatest swordmaker in England. He stroked its shallow guard, gleaming like a closing flower carved in steel, then traced the blade down to the tapering, murderous point.

  “The boy has your skill with this, Gilbert,” he remarked quietly.

  “Would God I’d never let him touch the thing! I would not teach him, as he begged me to do. But others did, and I allowed it—”

  “You can’t keep the boy locked up in a cage, Gilbert!”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Man, don’t you remember anything about your youth?” Edward asked sharply. “You of all men ought to understand a little of the struggle the boy’s going through!” He slapped the sword back on its peg, then turned and observed the pair with compassion, but with a severity in his face.

  “You were forced into the church, remember? And what good did it do you, Gilbert? None! You gambled and ran after wenches day and night! And whom did you hate for it?”

  Gilbert raised his head and said slowly, “You. I thought you talked Father into putting me into the church.”

  “And whom do you suppose Matthew will hate if he is forced to follow the same path?”

  Gilbert’s face was pale, but he said steadily, “Me, of course. Do you think I haven’t thought of that?”

  Humility drew out of Gilbert’s embrace and stared at Edward. “You have a thought, don’t you, Edward?”

  “I fear,” Edward shrugged, “there’s no easy answer to this business—there never is! But you must see that it can’t go on. Sooner or later the boy will go bad if he doesn’t have some liberty.”

  “What—what sort of ‘liberty’ do you mean?” Humility asked.

  “Not the law—and not the army!” He paused and began setting things in order in his mind, a custom they recognized. Finally he said, “Let him come to England with me—not to London, but to a small town where he’ll be out of some temptation. I have a friend there, the pastor of the church. He was quite a worldly man at one time. Served as a Major in the Royalist Army for a time, and was pretty much of a gambler, a drunkard and a blasphemer. But that’s different now. He’s ‘Holy Mr. Gifford’ now.”

  “But—what would Matthew do there?”

  “Study business, perhaps. At least that could be the excuse for his going. I have a man there who does very well in that way, and we could set Matthew under him. But I hope for better things.”

  “Such as?” Gilbert asked.

  “Such as Matthew growing older. And under the influence of a man like John Gifford, he will, I pray, find his way. I dare hope you will receive him back a candidate for the ministry in a few years.”

  Gilbert glanced down at Humility with a strange look on his face, and Edward added at once, “As a matter of fact, it might be well for all of us to go. Why, it would be very good for you to go back to England—see old friends—”

  “Gilbert could never leave his church, Edward,” Humility said. She stood there, thin and worn, but there was a light in her eyes that reminded both men of the fire she had had in her youth. “We will pray,” she added quietly. “God will give us His mind on this.”

  As Edward turned to mount the stairs, Gilbert asked, “What place is this—where Reverend Gifford lives?”

  “Bedford.”

  “A small place?”

  “Very small,” Edward assured him. “Matthew will be bored, but he will be safe. Nothing ever happens in Bedford.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  LYDIA

  The 200-ton Fortune rose and fell with the rolling waves under an iron-gray sky. The crew stood by to weigh anchor, waiting only for the couple who had come aboard to have a final word with young Matthew Winslow.

  Gilbert held Humility in a firm grasp to steady her against the motion of the ship, and with the other he held to the rail. His bright blue eyes scanned the face of his son as if he sought to find in the handsome features some portent of the boy’s future. He raised his voice against the rising wind, saying, “God guide you, my boy. God make His face to shine on you.” The strong baritone softened to a lower pitch, and he held out his free hand to grasp that of his son, and he said, “Be faithful to God, Matthew! Never fail Him—never!”

  Matthew nodded, marveling at the strength in his father’s right hand, and he moved forward quickly to throw his free arm around his mother. As he bent to kiss her faded cheek, the thought that he might never see her again on earth swept through him, cutting his spirit more sharply than the stinging winds whipping across his face. He bit his lip and said impulsively, “Mother, if you ask me to stay...”

  Humility raised her face to his, the dark blue of her eyes dominating her wasted face, and put one unsteady hand on his cheek. “You would never be happy here, son,” she murmured so quietly that he had to lean forward to catch her words. Her hand lifted to push a lock of his reddish-blonde hair back from where it fell in his eyes. There was something so familiar in the gesture that the lump in his throat grew unbearable and his eyes stung with unshed tears.

  “Only a year, Mother,” he finally whispered, gathering her in his arms and fighting off the dismay her fragile form triggered in him. “Just a year!”
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br />   “Time to go,” Gilbert said quietly. “The captain must catch the tide.”

  Humility pulled away from Matthew’s grasp and looked up one last time. “Christians never say goodbye, son,” she said, and touched his cheek once more. “Just until we meet again.”

  Then she turned and Gilbert handed her down the ladder into the boat, aided by a burly sailor. He started down, and when just his head and broad shoulders were visible he caught his son’s eye, raised his hand in a curious gesture, as though he were flourishing a sword. A smile broke the austerity of his face, making him look very young in the clear sea air, and he called out loudly, “Be faithful, my boy! Be true to God—and to yourself!”

  Then he was gone, and Matthew turned blindly and walked toward the forecastle. He heard the thumping sound as the sailors shoved the small boat off, but did not stop until he had found a place of solitude along the forward rail. The first mate cried out, “Weigh anchor!” and the rattle of the chains struck sharply on his ear. He bent over the rail, his lungs filling with the sharp briny air faintly mixed with the odors of land, the loamy smell of raw earth. “Hoist the mainsail!” came the cry of the mate, and slowly the ship heeled over, her prow turning away from the land.

  As the sails slid up, the wind caught them, and filled them with puffs of air that cracked like whips. The riggings creaked, and suddenly the ship caught the breeze and lifted like a living thing to breast the waves, leaving the land behind.

  “Give them a wave, boy!”

  Matthew wheeled to face his uncle, who motioned toward the receding shore. “See? They’re waving at us.”

  Matthew turned to see the small figures of his parents, still in the boat, both of them lifting their arms in a gesture that was sadder than anything he’d known all his days. But he lifted his arms and waved strongly, continuing until the small boat touched the shore. As it did the ship shifted and he could see the small craft no more.