Agatha and the shadow, a novel

Contents

Page

I. The Shadow . 9

II. The Morning Watch 16

I. The Shadow

SHADOW was stealing along the walls of the room where Bernard Anselm lay dying; and it had already fallen upon the bed when the wife, Agatha, turned her head toward the low fire of yellow-birch, to see what it was which intercepted the light.

It was now near midnight. There had been absolute silence for more than half an hour, — a silence reminding the watcher of that brief season of heavenly quiet revealed in the Apocalypse. After her long alternations between hope and fear for the life of her husband, Agatha knew that the predestined end was fast approaching. God alone would live to fulfil in her his exceeding great and precious promises. So she anticipated her youthful widowhood.

AGATHA.

She had been whiling away the long hours of idle, anxious watching — when nothing could be done to raise one who was now counted with the dead — in thinking over her short, happy married years. She recalled the hour in which she first saw Bernard sitting by the side of her brothers in Pastor Robinson’s church in Leyden.

Agatha had never said to herself that she loved Bernard at sight; but from first sight she had confidence in him as if she had always known him, — a feeling that to him she could turn as the needle to the pole. Her love was conscious of no wiles ; its motion was as natural as if actuated by animal magnetism. Upon the night of that Sabbath, which had been more holy for the first sight of her soul’s mate, she dreamed that she had been with young Anselm in some former stage of existence, — that she had spent with him blissful centuries ; and that now she had her own, — as if an echo had been recovered from happy days in ages before birth. And when she awaked, she believed that the harmony of all worlds demanded their union. Her ambition, her force, were matched by his ability and his manly beauty ; so that her being came to be of fair proportion in loving him.

THE SHADOW.

Of her marriage she had made a consecration. Had not God recorded her vow ? Did not her husband learn to look to her as to his conscience, his better nature ? Agatha thought of her husband’s long absences from her since their marriage, — engaged as he was in the service of the Colony, and making long voyages ; and she thought of her thrill of expectation, when looking for his return. Now he was sailing upon the current of Death’s river, and would never return.

With mind not clear from the superstitions of our fathers, who dwelt habitually upon the confines of the eternal world, often seeing tokens of some supernatural presence, the memory now returned to her — as it had returned perhaps a thousand times — of that shadow of a raised hand which fell upon the altar in the midst of the ceremony of her marriage, in the crowded church at Leyden. It was as if some one had stood behind the bridegroom. No hand of the grim Puritans was raised to forbid the banns when Bernard Anselm, the son of the great India merchant of Amsterdam, was united by Pastor Robinson to Agatha, the daughter of Elder Brewster ; but the bride did see the shadow of a raised hand fall athwart the white altar.

AGATHA.

Agatha had attributed the vision to the fantasies that flitted through her brain and before her eyes in that confused hour in which, so early, she exchanged her happy child-life for the cares of a matron, — an hour of happy agitation, when a maiden conjures up a thousand shapes ; but she had never been able to rid herself of the thought, hardly definite enough to be seriously considered, that an evil angel, seeking to turn her away from blissful paths, threw the shadow upon the altar, and that she alone saw it. Or it might be a warning sent of God. What the symbol might mean she could not divine, — surely not the death of her mother, in Plymouth, although she died the self-same day ; nor the recent death of her honored father ; much less, the trivial pecuniary disaster which Bernard had encountered just before his sickness, by the capture of their trading-post to the eastward by the marauding French ; not the succession of losses following her husband in the New World; nor the ill fate that attended his service of the Colony, — although all those events had seemed dark to her. That shadowing hand might mean more. Would it not have been better had she conversed with Bernard about it ? Was it too

THE SHADOW.

late ? The sufferer had but just now moaned, as if not past consciousness. Could it be — it must be — that the uncanny hand at Leyden betokened his early death? If so, it might return at the last hour.

She now saw the shadow of a raised hand stealing along the wall ; and it fell athwart the bed of the dying.

If superstitious, the Plymouth matron was not without strength; she habitually leaned upon the arm of the Almighty. She could smile at the adversary of souls, and stand without trembling in the very presence of the powers of darkness. Quietly turning her head toward the low fire of yellow-birch to see what it was which intercepted the light, Agatha saw the shape of a young woman of about her own age and figure. The head of the strange form was covered with a dark Spanish shawl ; which even in that flickering light presented strong cardinal lines, serving to illuminate the face. Eyes of great brilliancy looked out from the folds ; but they were not fixed on Agatha. The stranger’s gaze was steadfast upon the form of the dying Bernard, toward whom she was stealthily advancing with her right hand upraised, which had cast the shadow

AGATHA.

before the mournful eyes of the young wife. One accustomed to read faces might perhaps have caught at a glance the mien of a religious enthusiast, — unless indeed there was a lurid glare in those eyes that seemed so full in the half light, — as this strange woman advanced toward the bedside. Agatha could not move quickly enough to hinder the Spanish shawl from touching the low couch of the dying. The woman had brushed by Agatha as if not aware of her presence, or deeming her an intruder in her own house. Had the daughter of Brewster been a mere shade, like the ghost of her father, the weird prophetess of fair face could not have more completely ignored her existence than when she moved swiftly, silently, and placed her hand upon Bernard’s pallid cheek, which must have seemed almost clammy to her touch.

“ Art thou the man ? ” she asked in low, musical, but biting and sarcastic tone. “Thou art the man. Am I not thy betrothed, nay, thy wife, by thine own act ? This, then, is my place, at thy dying-bed.”

Bernard Anselm’s breathing now grew heavier ; and there was a strange choking sensation,

THE SHADOW.

not unlike that which attends the moment of dissolution.

“ I claim thee,’’ said the low, musical voice. And the woman was about to kneel, as if she would kiss the still animated clay.

But Agatha laid her hand upon the stranger’s arm, as if to lead her away, — ‘‘I prithee, hither. Disturb not the dying.’’

Gazing fixedly into the sweet face of pale Agatha, it could be seen by the strange woman that no contest could be wisely made ; and she stepped back from the bedside.

“ I will see thee after the funeral,” added Agatha, bestowing upon the woman a few gold coins in a little silk purse. Perhaps thou hast some claim upon Mr. Anselm of which I am ignorant. I will deal justly by thee. But leave me alone to-night.”

It is not in my heart to hate thee, although thou didst rob me,” replied the strange figure, whose eyes had lost their fire. “ What thou didst was unknown to thee. My wrecked life, my lost soul, I owe to thee ; but thou art innocent.”

And the apparition vanished.

II. The Moening Watch

ONG were the small hours of that night to the mourning Agatha. Her husband had fallen into a sweet sleep as soon as the door closed upon the Shadow. His temples were bathed by the tears of his wife ; and her dark tresses must have smoothed away the agonized expression upon Bernard’s face, for his sleep was like that of a little child. The wife, not yet a widow, gazed into the slowly dying embers. What a boon out of heaven had Bernard been to her. In turn, she had perfect faith. It was not difficult for her to persuade herself that the Evil One lurked in the hours of darkness to snatch at the souls of those near death; and it was more credible that a fallen angel had visited her house that night than that Bernard had ever been untrue.

Then she thought over every second of the time the strange presence was in their room.

THE MORNING WATCH.

And she confidently looked for meeting- the possessed one at some future day, — not unlikely after the funeral ; unless, indeed, God intended to restore the soul of her husband in these morning hours of sweet slumber.

The fire was replenished ; and the great folio Bible was taken from its place. Then the Puritan matron — so young as to appear to be almost still a girl — comforted herself with the story of the resurrection of Lazarus ; and now she prayed to Him who wept with the mourners and raised their dead. Afterward, reclining upon the oak settle, she slept.

When she awoke at day-dawn, it was apparent that Bernard was better. He even spoke, when the sunbeams first touched the oiled paper in the small window-sash : “ I cannot, my dear Agatha, die, and leave your life to be made wretched by that woman who came in last night.”

Then he paused for breath. Agatha making no reply, he asked, — “ Hid Rachel come, or did I dream it ? I heard her voice. I am sure that the Jewess did come. When I am well, I will tell you all about it.”

Agatha made no reply. Could it be that the 2

AGATHA.

midnight visitor was, after all, of flesh and blood ? And could it be that her husband had known her ?

Bending over his pillow she showered her tears upon his forehead, and kissed them all away. She heated the venison-broth, and said : “ When you get well, we will talk of many things in the new life God vouchsafes to us. But we will not talk of anything that troubles your heart or mine until the angel of health returns.”

III. The Brook-side

OULD the Town Brook of Plymouth, in the

Old Colony, tell the story of all that it saw and heard during the first generation of the white settlement, no small part of the world would go there to listen. They would gather from the prairies of the West, wherever the New England Zone includes happy homes ; and the heads of many of the great business houses in the chief cities would for the day lay aside all care, to hear the pathetic story of the Brook. Thoughtful citizens of far-off nations would come. They would come in the dead of winter, to listen to the gurgling water under the ice, telling its heart-breaking story of by-gone centuries ; they would come in the springtime, when its banks are trailing with arhutus^ and when the trees are sounding with song ; they would come in the heats of summer, to learn whether tlie brook was still flowing like that undying

AGATHA.

life which originated upon its banks ; they would gather in the autumn, when the tinkling waters are laden with dead leaves, mindful of the precious death of those humble patriots who were permitted to inscribe their names so high in the temple of the New World fame.

Strange would be that part of the Brook’s story relating to the April morning when Agatha Anselm left her husband in the care of her loving sister Patience, the wife of Thomas Prence, and walked abroad to breathe the sweet air, and gather a few wild flowers for Bernard.

She had gone up the left bank of the brook some distance ; and she stood listening to the robin-song upon the hither bank, when she saw the -strange woman who had visited her last night, apparently asleep upon a bed of ground hemlock. Letting drop her gathered apron and its sweet burden of flowers, in her startled haste, Agatha concealed herself in the shrubbery. And she prayed that God would be pleased to reveal to her something relating to this creature, be she Jewess or possessed of a devil.

Agatha had not long to wait. Rachel, turning upon her dry and tufted bed, made her way

THE BROOK-SIDE.

to the brook-side, and bathed her face, and arranged her long black locks, as she looked into a still, mirror-like surface, underneath which the trout were silently watching for prey. Then, turning to the east, she stretched her hands toward heaven : — I thank Thee, 0 Lord God of Abraham, that Thou hast heard me out of heaven ; and given me the life of Anselm, for which I prayed in the hours of darkness. I now pray Thee to curse him, — unless Thou shalt give him penitence and works meet for repentance. He is with Thee. Curse Thou every work of his hands. May he go to his grave childless. And let him find a curse in the Gentile woman he took to wife, after his betrayal of my trust. May she become to him a fountain of anguish.’’

Then the Jewess bowed her head, and dropped her arms, and kneeled upon the green grass : —

“ I pray, too,” she said in sweet tones, so musical as to reach far through the forest, for my mother. Thy handmaid. God pity her gray hairs, and her lonely life. And hear her prayer for Thy vengeance in this life upon Bernard Anselm, the false-hearted, the betrayer, who has

AGATHA.

wrought in me the ruin that now offends Thee. Pity me, too, in my life of voluntary degradation, in my life of an appearance of evil, — to entrap, beguile, and spoil the Egyptians ; to which my father, now in the bosom of Abraham, made me vow when he was gathered to his forefathers. Unworthy, lost, ap outcast from earth and heaven, do not Thou utterly forget me. Thou Pardoner of the sins of Jeshurun in a thousand generations.”

The wretched woman, whose face was marked with the beauty of the Orient and flushed with the blood of distant centuries, now quieted herself so far as to sing in mournful measure a Hebrew melody, which, for the heart of grief in it, might have come down from the rivers of captivity in the ancient East. Then she arose, and drew from her hollowed girdle a little pulverized parched corn; and she drank of the brook, — then disappeared in the forest.

Agatha, in returning to Bernard, forgot her flowers, and was in no small perplexity : “ Is this strange woman possessed of the devil ? Or has my Bernard been once possessed of the devil ? ” Silently she prayed for the revelation of the secret. And she asked herself whether she

THE BROOK-SIDE.

needed to pray for special grace from heaven to make her a blessing, not a curse, to Bernard, even if it should prove true that the sins of his youth had found him out. Already the demons of doubt were beginning to dart their fangs into her heart, — doubt concerning the purity of life of him whom God had almost removed from a world of temptation; doubt having in it the elements of unquenchable fire, and a domestic world of woe, — unless God should reign in the heart of Agatha.

lY.

MR ANSELM’S ANTECEDENTS.

HE recovery of Mr. Anselm was deemed little less than a miracle ; and there was perhaps not one home among the thirty then comprising the Pilgrim settlement which did not justly claim a share in the answer Heaven had bestowed on prayers to this end. It was thought that none could be spared so little as he. Those who in Leyden had served in a variety of employments — the carpenter, the smith, the pump-maker, the mason, the baize-worker, the tailor, the two ribbon-makers, two hatters, two block-makers, three bombazine-workers, three serge-makers, three printers, four fustianmakers, five merchants, seven wool-workers, and nine workers in silk — were all glad to have the capital which was brought to Plymouth by the son of the great spice-merchant.

Had not the Anselms come up out of Italy into France as early as the eleventh century ? Did they not send an eminent representative to

MR. ANSELM^S ANTECEDENTS. 25

the Holy Land with Godfrey of Bouillon at the taking of Antioch? Settling upon the North Sea in the twelfth century, one of the ancestors of Bernard went thence as the ambassador to Constantinople, a. d. 1140. The treasures of the Japanese trade opened to Bernard Anselm’s grandfather in 1557 ; and in the East Indian traffic son after son succeeded to the spoils of the Orient, — the spice monopoly being held by a few Dutch merchants for a hundred years. It was a happy omen that the great mercantile house was committed to the Pilgrim enterprise. And no one deserved such a husband, or so fitly might become their social queen in the hearty admiration of the godly women, as Agatha, the youngest of the Brewsters. Her tarry in Holland had given Agatha more schooling than fell to others of her own years. The mothers in the - Colony adored the memory of her sainted father, and looked with pride upon the girlish-looking matron who had become daughter to the house of Anselm ; and the giddy creatures of sweet sixteen, who were not quite sober even in Plymouth, looked up to Agatha, and told strange rumors among themselves about her wealth.

AGATHA.

Mr. Anselm — or Bernard, as even a few of the young people dared to call him — was a great favorite. Well educated, of easy address, of keen business perception, with means for great ventures, and paying the largest tax, — it was easy for him to take a prominent part in the affairs of the colony. The government being vested by the body of freemen solely in their Governor and his Assistants, Mr. Anselm had already been one of the Assistants, — the illness of Bradford at the time throwing the burden mainly upon Agatha’s husband. No one can look into the Plymouth story without seeing that Mr. Anselm was by all odds the ablest business man among them, — being the only one comparable with those able merchants who founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony. At that time the Dutch were fairly at the head of the mercantile world, — of vast enterprise in exploring distant seas, breaking the Spanish monopoly in the Indian Ocean, so that the products of the East poured into the cities of Holland. In this, Amsterdam had one half the profits and the controlling interest. The great house of Anselm was foremost at the outset in fighting the Spanish ships, in East Indian

MR. ANSELM^S ANTECEDENTS. 27 conquest, and in gathering the riches of distant seas. There can be no wonder that the men of Plymouth honored themselves in bestowing upon Bernard Anselm so many offices of high trust in matters difficult.

In respect to his true life it is impossible to think of him by any other name than Bernard, beloved of the Brewsters. Indeed, it was said by the oldest in the company of women, who had childhood memories of the neighborhood of Scrooby, that his union of gentleness and determination reminded them of the Keverend B/ichard Bernard; which led them usually to speak of him familiarly as Bernard, rather than formally as Mr. Anselm. It was this Bernard, this general favorite, who had such mastership of the details of business that he had been entrusted with settling the Colonial affairs with the merchant adventurers ” who had shipped the Pilgrims to America. That cargo of conscience carried in the Mayflower, by a necessity which knew no law, was tied to a seven years’ partnership represented in shares, — all improvements made by the Colony to be held answerable for the charges. The ridding themselves of this yoke was due to the skilful conduct of

AGATHA.

Bernard Anselm. No small risks were assumed in doing this. He also aided largely in bringing over more Pilgrims from Leyden.

He had, moreover, measurable success in the Kennebec-patent business, although it led him into a snare. It having been desired by William Bradford, the silk-dyer of Spartan simplicity of life, to gain more liberty by charter, he could think of nothing else ; it was as if rainbow tints were flitting before him, the fair robe of freedom. But Mr. Anselm and the “ undertakers ” in England (who stood with the Pilgrim leaders instead of “ the merchant adventurers ”), desired, also, certain exemption from customs for a term of years. The contest on this point killed the desired charter, although it had passed the King’s hand ; so that the five hundred pounds expended in influence ” was lost. The fur trade of the eastern river was obtained, but not the larger freedom. This led to sharp criticism. Those were times in which an Englishman having a fancy for that kind of goods might pick up in the market now and then a little personal freedom. Some years it was more scarce than others, and the price fluctuated. Any one buying was obliged to carry it out of the country ;

MR. ANSELM^S ANTECEDENTS. 29 he might not flaunt his freedom in England. If he cared to go three thousand miles over the brine into the bush, he could be free ; and if he discreetly said little about what was in his charter, he could establish precedents of freedom for future ages. Now and then a bright man could make a good thing by speculating in this kind of commodity. There was John Pierce, who bought a patent for fifty pounds ; it had more freedom in it than the Plymouth charter, and more territory. It so lapped as to prove a rival right. Governor Bradford bought it in the market at ten times the first cost. The Shirley letters, rescued from a Nova Scotia grocer’s back shop make it probable that Mr. Anselm would not pay out enough in bribes to win his point promptly.

The Colonial agent did, however, do one thing in the business which brought him into great discredit at home ; he engaged Tom Morton as his secretary and agreed to return him to America, in order to please Gorges, one of the persons through whom he had to work in his charter business. First the ^‘merchant adventurers,” then afterwards the “ undertakers ” were not at one with the spiritually-minded, earnest

Bradford and Prence in their intense purpose. Part of them adhered to the Church of England ; they were willing Morton should return, thinking the Plymouth rule too rigid. The recalcitrant Thomas had looked upon himself as almost the only man in Massachusetts who had a good time as this world goes ; and his memory of the “ bewty ” of Mount Wallaston, Merry Mount, — or “ Mount Dagon,” as his enemies called it, — made him eager to go back, not only to hunt and fish, like the true sportsman that he was, but to vex Bradford and the Bay people by showing that some things could be done as well as others. But no explanation could satisfy the Governor ; and some, who hated the libertine Morton most thoroughly, were not slow to intimate that Anselm himself must have a tinge of unsanctified blood about him, else he could ill brook the company of Morton even for a day. Mr. Anselm was, therefore, just before his sickness so nigh unto death, “ caused to pack Morton away.” When, now, the mysterious Jewess was found to be somehow connected with Bernard, the theory that he was one of Morton’s libertines flew like wild-fire among the gossips of Plymouth.

V. Hopestill Oldum

"D ACHEL’S first appearance bj daylight in

^ Plymouth occurred soon after Bernard Anselm and Thomas Prence went to Nauset to set up their homes in the new town, — expecting soon to return for Agatha and Patience, who were keeping house together in the dwellingplace of the former. It was upon the day of Mary Chilton’s quilting party that Agatha saw the figure in the Spanish shawl standing upon Forefathers’ Bock. She could but wonder what the modest maidens of Plymouth would think in their hearts, if it should sometime appear that Bernard was at fault concerning that woman standing in the noon-tide upon the Rock.

It soon appeared that other eyes than Agatha’s had seen Rachel ; and that the stranger had been interviewed by Mistress Tabithay Scadding, and by Miss Hopestill Oldum Old-one ” the boys called her) who gave the quilting party.

AGATHA.

Without hindering busy fingers at the quilt, the women’s tongues were busy. It would be a false impression in respect to the earliest years of the Old Colony, if it were to be believed that the society was like that of heaven. Whatever may be thought of peace or lack of it within the church, two thirds of the people did not belong to the church. There were then all the elements for the average modern life known to our times, in our older States. If any image of the Puritan woman be set up for her posterity to worship, there must be due proportion of clay in the image. She seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands ; placidity is in the folds of her kerchief ! Not at all so. She bustled, and was sometimes fussy, and she spoke vanity more or less with her neighbor ; she sometimes had grudges, and withal talked now and then in a squeaky voice, and settled down to mere gossip and kept it up like corn a popping, — all this was true of the average foremother of New England. Challenge not the affirmation ; and search not the records.

At Hopestill’s house it would have gone hard with that quilting party to have kept clear of matrimonial gossip. That brightest

HOPESriLL OLDUM.

and best of the girls, of strong physique, the mother of a stalwart race, of full blooded English stock out of the Merry Home from over sea, who had just married Peregrine Wliite, was dissected by the gossips, — notwithstanding the frowns, the judicious silence, and the halfrude interruptions and attempts to guide the conversation into other channels, by the Governor’s wife and the more serious matrons of the old-comers.

“ She has married him, has she ? ” exclaimed Hopestill. “ She ’s been marrying somebody every little while. If she ’s actually married now, I ’m glad of it.”

The daughters of the wise foremothers were commonly flattered into the belief that the American climate was already improving their type of beauty, — that they were less Dutchy in appearance than those who came into early womanhood in Leyden, and less stout and beefy ^ than those who in that healthy age had their early homes in England. The sprightly girls were made to have no doubt of their good looks, and their ability to keep up their end in founding a nation of heroes. Of their marriageability none despaired unless Hopestill.

AGATHA.

Easily they fell to chatting of Leyden. During twelve years their young people had become interested in the youth of Holland. The pains taken by the Dutch authorities, to secure the comfortable settlement among them of exiled English weavers, was alluded to ; and the reasons for their removing from Leyden were touched upon. Had they not feared that their children might lose their native language, and their distinctive English Puritan training, and their sense of the sanctity of the Sabbath ? But that which was more lamentable, and of all sorrows most heavy to be borne, was that many of their children — by the great licentiousness of youth in the country, and the manifold temptations of the place — were drawn away by evil examples into extravagant and dangerous courses, getting the reins on their necks.

The women talked of the great kindness of the Dutch, some of whom partook of the communion with them in Robinson’s church ; of whom three had come to America, — Godbert Godbertson, Moses Symonson, and Jolin Jenny to whom they owed it that they no longer pounded their corn in mortars.

HOPE STILL OLEUM.

Agatha not being present, the great beauty of Bernard Anselm was referred to, his well made figure, his air of gentility, his pleasing face, delicate features, large brown eyes, his agreeable tones upon a low key.^

It was like touching a spark to tinder, when Mrs. Bradford spoke tenderly and kindly of Bernard, so recently raised from the grave’s mouth.

Did not Mrs. Tabithay Scadding delight in creating a sensation ? ‘‘A woman,” she said, “whom I set down at sight to be a Spanish Jewess,^ — as I remember to have seen her cursed race in Amsterdam, — came to my house to-day. Oh, what eyes she ’s got ! They glowed just like fire-balls when she called for food. I was so much afraid, I durst not bespeak her. She partook of corn and beer, and as she went