The New Year in the New Land
The new year came in bringing with it a driving storm from the Atlantic.
The hoary pines threw up their rugged branches as if appealing to the
heavens for mercy on the women and little children without shelter on
the desolate coast. But the gray heavens did not relent; they poured
snow and sleet down upon the infant colony, coating the creaking pines
with ice that bent them low, and checked their intercession.
As fast as willing hands could work, taking it in continuous shifts by
night as well as day, the community house went up. But the storm was
upon the colonists before the shelter was ready for them, and even when
the roof covered them, the cold laughed it to scorn, entering to wreak
its will upon them.
Sickness seized one after another of the pilgrim band, men and women
alike, and the little children fought croup and pneumonia, nursed by
women hardly more fit for the task than were the little victims.
Rose Standish, already weakened by the suffering of the voyage, was
among the first to be prostrated. She coughed ceaselessly though each
violent breath wracked her frail body with pain. A bright colour burned
in her cheeks, her beautiful eyes were clear and dilated, she smiled
hopefully when her companions in exile and suffering spoke to her, and
assured them that she was "much, much better," speaking pantingly, by an
effort.
The discouragement with which she had looked upon the coast when the
_Mayflower_ arrived, gave place to hope in her. She spoke confidently of
"next spring," of the "house Captain Myles would build her," of all that
she should do "when warm weather came."
Constance, to whom she most confided her plans, often turned away to
hide her tears. She knew that Doctor Fuller and the more experienced
women thought that for this English rose there would be no springtime
upon earth.
Constance had other troubles to bear as well as the hardships and
sorrows common to the sorely beset community. She seemed, to herself,
hardly to be a young girl, so heavily weighted was she with the burden
that she carried. She wondered to remember that if she had stayed in
England she should have been laughing and singing like other girls of
her age, skating now on the Sherbourne, if it were frozen over, as it
well might be. Perhaps she might be dancing, if she were visiting her
cousins in Warwickshire, her own birthplace, for the cousins were merry
girls, and like all of Constance's mother's family, quite free from
puritanical ideas, brought up in the English Church, so not debarred
from the dance.
Constance had no heart to regret her loss of youthful happiness; she was
so far aloof from it, so sad, that she could not rise to the level of
feeling its charm. Dame Eliza Hopkins had carried out her threat, had
accused Giles of the theft of his father's papers, and Constance of
being party to his wrong-doing, if not actually its instigator.
It had only happened that morning; Constance heavily awaited
developments. She jumped guiltily when she heard her father's voice
speaking her name, and felt his hand upon her shoulder.
She faced him, white and shaken, to meet his troubled eyes intently
fastened upon her.
"The storm is bad, Constance, but it is not warm within. Put on your
coat and come with me. I must speak with you," he said.
In silence Constance obeyed him. Pulling over her head a hood that, like
a deep cowl, was attached to her coat, she followed her father into the
storm, and walked beside him toward the marshy shore whither, without
speaking to her, he strode.
Arrived at the sedgy ocean line he halted, and turned upon her.
"Constance," he began, sternly, "my wife tells me that valuable papers
which I entrusted to her keeping have disappeared. She tells me further
that she had dropped them--carelessly, as I have told her--into the
hammock in which your little sister slept and that you saw them there,
commenting upon it; that you soon called Giles to set right some slight
matter in the hammock; and that shortly after you and he had left her,
she discovered her loss. What do you know of this? Tell me all that you
know, and tell me the truth."
Constance's fear left her at this word. Throwing up her head she looked
her father in the eyes, nearly on a level with her own as she stood upon
a sandy hummock. "It needs not telling me to speak the truth, Father. I
am your daughter and my mother's daughter; it runs not in my blood to
lie," she said.
Stephen Hopkins touched her arm lightly, a look of relief upon his face.
"Thank you for that reminder, my girl," he said. "It is true, and Giles
is of the same strain. Know you aught of this misfortune?"
"Nothing, Father," said Constance. "And because I know nothing whatever
about it, in answering you I have told you all that I have to tell."
"And Giles----" began her father, but stopped.
"Nor Giles," Constance repeated, amending his beginning. "Giles is
headstrong, Father, and I fear for him often, but you know that he is
honourable, truth-telling. Would your son _steal_ from you?"
"But your stepmother says no one entered the cabin after you had left it
before she discovered her loss," insisted Stephen Hopkins. "What am I to
think? What do you think, Constance?"
"I think that there is an explanation we do not know. I think that my
stepmother hates Giles and me, especially him, as he has the first claim
to the inheritance that she would have for her own children. I think
that she has seized this opportunity to poison you against us," said
Constance, with spirited daring. "Oh, Father, dear, dear Father, do not
let her do this thing!"
"Nay, child, you are unjust," said her father, gently. "I confess to
Mistress Eliza's jealousy of you, and that there is not great love for
you in her. But, Constance, do you love her, you or Giles? And that she
is not so base as you suspect is shown by the fact that she has delayed
until to-day to tell me of this loss, dreading, as she hath told me, to
put you wrong in my eyes. Fie for shame, Constance, to suspect her of
such outrageous wickedness, she who is, after all, a good woman, as she
sees goodness."
"Father, if the packet were lost through her carelessness, would you not
blame her? Is it not likely that she would shield herself at our cost,
even if she would not be glad to lower us, as I am sure she would be?"
persisted Constance.
"Well, well, this is idle talk!" Stephen Hopkins said, impatiently. "The
truth must be sifted out, and suspicions are wrong, as well as useless.
One word before I go to Giles. Upon your sacred honour, Constantia
Hopkins, and by your mother's memory, can you assure me that you know
absolutely nothing of the loss of this packet of papers?"
"Upon my honour and by my mother's memory, I swear that I do not know so
much as that the packet is lost, except as Mistress Hopkins says that it
is," said Constance. Then with a swift change of tone she begged:
"Oh, Father, Father, when you go to Giles, be careful, be kind, I pray
you! Giles is unhappy. He is ill content under the injustice we both
bear, but I with a girl's greater submission. He is ready to break all
bounds and he will do so if he feels that you do not trust him, listen
to his enemy's tales against him. Please, please, dear Father, be gentle
with Giles. He loves you as well as I do, but where your distrust of me
would kill me, because I love you, Giles's love for you will turn to
bitterness, if you let him feel that you are half lost to him."
"Nonsense, Constance," said her father, though kindly, "Giles is a boy
and must be dealt with firmly. It will never do to coddle him, to give
him his head. You are a girl, sensitive and easily wounded. A boy is
another matter. I will not have him setting up his will against mine,
nor opposing discipline for his good. It is for him to clear himself of
what looks ill, not resent our seeing the looks of it."
Constance almost wrung her hands.
"Oh, Father, Father, do not go to Giles in that way! Sorrow will come of
it. Think how you would feel to be thus suspected! A boy is not less
sensitive than a girl; I fear he is more sensitive in his honour than
are we. Oh, I am but a girl, but I know that I am right about Giles. I
think we are given to understand as no man can how to deal with a proud,
sullen boy like Giles, because God means us to be the mothers of boys
some day! Be kind to Giles, dear Father; let him see that you trust him,
as indeed, indeed you may!"
"Let us go back out of the storm to such shelter as we have, Constance,"
said Stephen Hopkins, smiling with masculine toleration for a foolish
girl. "I have accepted your solemn assurance that you are ignorant of
this theft, if theft it be. Be satisfied that I have done this, and
leave me to deal with my son as I see fit. I will not be unjust to him,
but he must meet me respectfully, submissively, and answer to the
evidence against him. I have not been pleased of late with Giles's
ill-concealed resistance."
This time Constance did wring her hands, as she followed her father,
close behind him. She attempted no further remonstrance, knowing that to
do so would be not only to harm Giles's cause, but to arouse her
father's quick anger against herself. But as she walked with bent head
through the cutting, beating storm, she wondered why Giles should not be
resistant to his life, and her heart ached with pitying apprehension for
her brother.
All that long day of darkening storm and anxiety Constance did not see
Giles. That signified nothing, however, for Giles was at work with the
men making winter preparations which could not be deferred, albeit the
winter was already upon them, while Constance was occupied with the
nursing for which the daily increase of sickness made more hands
required than were able to perform it.
Humility Cooper was dangerously ill, burning with fever, struggling for
breath. Constance was fond of the little maid who seemed so childish
beside her, and gladly volunteered to go again into the storm to fetch
her the fresh water for which she implored.
At the well which had been dug, and over which a pump from the ship had
been placed and made effective, Constance came upon Giles, marching up
and down impatiently, and with him was John Billington, his chosen
comrade, the most unruly of all the younger pilgrims.
"Well, at last, Con!" exclaimed Giles. "I've been here above an hour. I
thought to meet you here. What has kept you so long?"
"Why, Giles, I could not know that you were awaiting me," said
Constance, reasonably. "Oh, they are so ill, our poor friends yonder! I
am sure many of them will go on a longer pilgrimage and never see this
colony established."
"Lucky they!" said Giles, bitterly. "Why should they want to? Nobody
wants to die, and of course I am sorry for them, but better be dead than
alive here--if it is to be called alive!"
"Oh, dear Giles, do you hate it so?" sighed Constance. "Nothing is
wrong?" she added, glancing at John Billington, longing to ask her
question more directly, but not wishing to betray to him the trouble
upon her mind.
"Never mind talking before John," said Giles, catching the glance. "He
knows all about it; I have told him. Have you cleared yourself, Sis, or
are you also under suspicion?"
"Oh, dear Giles," said Constance again. "You are not--Didn't Father
believe?--Isn't it all right?" She groped for the least offensive form
for her question.
"I don't know whether or not Father believed that I am a thief," burst
out Giles, furiously. "Nor a whit do I care. I told him the word of a
man of honour was enough, and I gave him mine that I knew nothing about
his wife's lies. I told him it seemed to me clear enough that she had
made away with the papers herself, to defraud us. And I told him I had
no proof of my innocence to give him, but it was not necessary. I told
him I wouldn't go into it further; that it had to end right there, that
I was not called upon to accept, nor would I submit to such a rank
insult from any man, and that his being my father made it worse, not
better."
"Oh, Giles, what did he say? Oh, Giles, what a misfortune!" cried
Constance, clasping her hands.
"What did he say?" echoed Giles. "What do you think would be said when
two such tempers as my father's and mine clash? For, mark you, Con,
Stephen Hopkins would not stoop to vindicate himself from the charge of
stealing. _Stealing_, remember, not a crime worthy of a gentleman."
"Oh, Giles, what crime is worthy of a gentleman?" Constance grieved. "Is
there any dignity in sin, and any justice in varnishing some sins with
the gloss of custom? But indeed, indeed, it is cruelly hard on you,
Giles dear. Tell me what happened."
"The only thing that could happen. My father forgets that I am not a
child. He flew into that madness of anger that we know him capable of,
railed at me for my impertinence, insisted on my proving myself innocent
of this charge, and declared that until I did, with full apology for the
way I had received him, I was no son of his. So--Good day, Mistress
Constantia Hopkins, I hope that you are well? I once had a sister that
was like you, but sister have I none now, since I am not the son of my
reputed father," said Giles, with a sneer and a deep bow.
Constance was in despair. The bitter mockery in Giles's young face, the
bleak unhappiness in his eyes stabbed her heart. She knew him too well
to doubt that this mood was dangerous.
"My own dear brother!" she cried, throwing her arms around him. "Oh,
don't steel yourself so bitterly! Father loves you so much that he is
stern with you, but it will all come right; it must, once this hot
anger that you both share is past. You are too alike, that is all! Beg
his pardon, Giles, but repeat that your word is enough to prove you
innocent of the accusation. Father will see that, and yield you that,
when you have met him halfway by an apology for hard words."
"See here, Con, why should I do that?" demanded Giles. "Is there
anything in this desolation that I should want to stay here? I've had
enough of Puritans; and Eliza is one of the strongest of them. Except
for your sake, little Sis, why should I stay? And I will one day return
for you. No, no, Con; I will sail for England when the ship returns, and
make my own fortune, somewhere, somehow."
"Dame Eliza is not what she is because she is a Puritan. She is what she
is because she is Dame Eliza. Think of the others whom we all love and
would fain be like," Constance reminded him. "We must all be true to the
enterprise we have undertaken, and----"
"Look here, sweet Con," John Billington interrupted her. "There is
nothing to hold Giles to this dreary enterprise, nor to hold me, either.
I am not in like plight to him. If any one accused me, suspected me as
your father has him, and still more my father did it, I'd let these east
winds blow over the space I'd have filled in this settlement. I'm for
adventure as it is, though my father cares little what Francis and I
do, being a reckless, daring man who surely belongs not in this
psalm-singing company. Giles and I will strike out into the wilderness
and try our fortunes. We will try the savages. They can be no worse than
white men, nor half as outrageous as your stepmother. Why, Con, how can
you want your brother tamely to sit down under such an insult? No man
should be called upon to prove himself honest! Giles must be off. Let
your father find out for himself who is to blame for the loss of the
papers, and repent too late for lending ear to his wife's story."
Constance stared for a moment at John, realizing how every word he said
found a ready echo in Giles's burning heart, how potent would be this
unruly boy's influence to draw her brother after him, now, when Giles
was wounded in his two strongest feelings--his pride of honour, his love
for his father--and she prayed in her heart for inspiration to deal
wisely with this difficult situation.
Suddenly the inspiration came to her. She found it in John's last words.
"Nay, but Jack!" she cried, using Francis's name for his brother,
disapproved by the elders who would have none of nicknames. "If needs be
that Giles must leave this settlement, if he cannot be happy here, let
him at least bide till he has cleared his name of a foul stain, for his
honour's sake, for the sake of his dead mother, for my sake, who must
abide here and cannot escape, being but a girl, young and helpless. Is
it right that I should be pointed out till I am old as the sister of him
who was accused of a great wrong and, cowardlike, ran away because he
could not clear himself, nor meet the shame, and so admitted his guilt?
No! Rather do you, John Billington, instead of urging him to run away,
bend all your wit--of which you do not lack plenty!--to the ferreting
out of this mystery. That would be the manly course, the kind course to
me, and you have always called yourself my friend. Then prove it! Help
my brother to clear himself and never say one more word to urge him away
till he can go with a stainless name. Our father does not doubt Giles,
of that I am certain. He is sore beset, and is a choleric man. What can
any man do when his children are on the one hand, and his wife on the
other? Be patient with our father, Giles, but in any case do not go away
till this is cleared."
"She talks like a lawyer!" cried John Billington with his boisterous
laugh "Like----what was that play I once saw before I got, or Father
got into this serious business of being a Puritan? Wrote by a fellow
called Shakespeare? Ah, I have it! Merchant of Venison! In that the girl
turns lawyer and cozzens the Jew. Connie is another pleader like that
one. Well, what say you, Giles, my friend? Strikes me she is right."
"It is not badly thought of, Constance," admitted Giles. "But can it be
done? For if Mistress Hopkins has had a hand in spiriting away those
papers for her own advantage and my undoing, then would it be hard to
prove. What say you?"
"Oh, no, no, no!" cried Constance. "Truth is mighty, good is stronger
than evil! Patience, Giles, patience for a while, and let us three bind
ourselves to clear our good name. Will you, will you promise, my
brother? And John?"
"Well, then, yes," said Giles, reluctantly; and Constance clasped her
hands with a cry of joy. "For a time I will stay and see what can be
done, but not for long. Mark you, Con, I do not promise long to abide in
this unbearable life of mine."
"Sure will I promise, Connie," assented John. "Why should I go? I would
not go without Giles, and it was not for my sake first we were going."
"Giles, dear Giles, thank you, thank you!" cried Constance. "I could not
have borne it had you not yielded. Think of me thus left and be glad
that you are willing to stand by your one own sister, Giles. And let us
hope that in staying we shall come upon better days. Now I must take
this ewer of water to poor Humility who is burned and miserable with
thirst and pain. She will think I am never coming to relieve her! Oh,
boys, it seems almost wicked to think of our good names, of any of our
little trials, when half our company is so stricken!"
"You are a good girl, Connie," said John Billington, awkwardly helping
Constance to assume her pitcher, his sympathy betrayed by his
awkwardness. "I hope you are not chilled standing here so long with us."
"No, not I!" said Constance, bravely. "The New Year, and the New World
are teaching me not to mind cold which must be long borne before the
year grows old. They are teaching me much else, dear lads. So good-bye,
and bless you!"
"'Twould have been downright contemptible to have deserted her," said
Giles and John in the same breath, and they laughed as they watched her
depart.