Kathleen Kent - The Heretic's Daughter

We ate our dinner in silence, broken only by the sound of the fire and the soft moaning coming from the corner where Andrew lay on his cot. Grandmother and Mother bathed his forehead and tried to force him to swallow whatever they could pour down his throat. Father sat as close to the fire as he could without climbing under the roasting spit and stared into the flames. The sweat poured from his face and he worked his hands together as though kneading beeswax between his palms.

Soon after, Tom and I were sent to bed, but neither of us could sleep. Sometime during the night I heard Andrew cry out as though in pain. I crept swiftly down the stairs in time to see him standing in the middle of the room, his arms outstretched, lit from behind by the fire that had burned low to embers. He had wet himself and seemed confused and wandering in his mind. Mother was trying to move him back onto the cot and he fought her as though drowning. Moving swiftly into the room, I took a rag and bent to clean up Andrew’s mess. Grandmother grabbed my arm and pulled me harshly away.

“Sarah, you must not touch any part of Andrew now,” she said urgently. She softened her grasp and stroked my face. “By touching him you may become ill as well.” She moved me to a chair close to the fire and threw her shawl around my shoulders. She wrapped the rag on a broom handle and cleaned up the clouded water on the floor, then threw the rag into the fire. I fell asleep watching the dark shapes of the two women hovering above my brother’s grasping, restless form.

I opened my eyes to the sound of Father’s voice in the room. It was early morning, and though there was little light, I could see the drawn face of my mother in the gloom. They were speaking quietly but passionately and did not hear me pad on cold bare feet to stand next to my brother’s cot. I looked at the blanket covering him and saw the faint movement of breath. I bent closer to peer at him and could plainly see on his face and neck the slightly raised pustules of the plague, rosy pink to deep purplish red; a pretty color on the petals of a rose or carnation. I took two, then three, steps backwards from his cot, and the thudding of my quickening pulse sounded like the drumming of hussars on horseback, sabers flashing through the air coming to sever our heads from our bodies. Many were the stories of entire families waking together in the morning but by supper all lying dead on the floor, festering in their seeping flesh. He coughed suddenly and I raised my shift in alarm over my face and turned away in fear. The shame over my disgust at his contagion was not enough to stay me as I raced with all the strength in my legs back up the stairs and into the safety of the garret.

ALTHOUGH IT WOULD cost us dearly, Grandmother insisted on sending to town for Andover’s only physician. Richard went straightaway but it took him four hours to come back with the doctor, who stood a good distance from Andrew, careful not to touch anything in the room. Covering his face with a large handkerchief, he looked at Andrew for the space of three breaths, then made a rapid retreat through the front door. But not before being escorted out by my mother’s voice, braying, “You’re no better than a barber!” As he mounted his horse, he told Father that he would have to sound the alarm, post the Bill of Isolation for our family, and send the constable to read the bill to our neighbors. He said all this as he beat the ribs of his horse to ribbons making his escape. Grandmother did not let Richard back into the house but sent him away to stay for safekeeping with the Widow Johnson. As he had slept in the barn, there was a chance he would yet be free from contagion. He did not return that day, and we believed him to be in the home of at least one charitable Christian woman.

Grandmother, sitting at the common-room table, wrote a letter and called me over to her knee. She held my hands, saying, “Your father will be taking you and Hannah to your aunt Mary back in Billerica. You will stay there… perhaps for quite a while.” I must have stirred, for she quickly said, “You will be happy there with your cousin Margaret. And you will have Hannah to look after.” It had been years since I had seen my cousin, who lived in the northernmost part of Billerica, and my memory of her was of an odd, dark girl who would at times talk to an empty corner of a room.

“Can I take Tom as well?” I asked her, and my mother answered for her.

“No, Sarah. We need Tom to stay and help with the farm. Richard is gone and Andrew…” She paused, her meaning clear. Andrew would die soon or if he lived would be an invalid for months. It would be left to Tom and Father to carry all the weight of the fieldwork. Tom stood quietly by, regarding me with the eyes of someone falling down a hill made of powdered limestone. There came a hard knocking on the door, and a large, bristling man came in, announcing himself to be the constable. Holding the Bill of Isolation in one hand and a vinegar-soaked handkerchief in the other, he walked boldly to where Andrew lay groaning on his cot. His cratered face was as Andrew had described it and gave proof that some did survive the pox by the grace of God, or through protection by the Devil. He read aloud the posting that would be nailed on the meetinghouse door for all to see so that we should not “spread the distemper through wicked carelessness.” I looked about my grandmother’s neat little room and saw no carelessness, only order and sober tranquillity. As he left our house he said under his breath, “God grant mercy…”

ISAT SHIVERING, hidden in the frozen straw piled into the wagon, and held on tightly to a restless, struggling Hannah. We were leaving against the quarantine and so must sneak out in the dark of night like thieves. If we were caught, the entire family could go to the jailer. If any of us were left alive, that is, after the pox had spent its fire. Mother’s mouth was pinched tightly as she handed me a bundle of food and a few pieces of clothing. I had expected few words of comfort beyond caring for Hannah, but she straightened my cap with a firm grip, and her fingers lingered overly long at the laces.

Grandmother came with her knuckles pressed over her lips and, handing me a small bundle, said, “Now is the time to give you this.” I unwrapped the cloth and saw it was a poppet fully clothed, with strands of wool on its head dyed in reddish tint to match my own hair. The mouth was made from the tiniest stitches.

“But she has no buttons for eyes,” I said. Grandmother smiled and kissed my hands.

“I had not time to finish it. We shall sew some on when you are returned to us,” she whispered.

Tom waved with a weak hand as Father shook the reins and we started south, back towards Billerica. We had gone but a short distance when we heard Tom calling out to us. He ran to the wagon and pressed something into my palm, closing my fingers back again so I would not drop it. He then turned and ran back towards the house. I opened my fist to find two small white buttons torn from his only good shirt resting in my hand like twin pearls. I would often worry during that long, cold season that the wind was finding its way up his open sleeves, making him feel the bite of winter all the more.

THERE ARE WINTER evenings in Massachusetts when there is no wind and the crust on the snow seems to hold in the cold. And if the moon is three-quarters full, its light adds a kind of warmth to the surrounding earth. The light was so sharp I could see the dark form of a hare rushing across the fields, braving the hooked death of an owl. The long, pitted barrel of Father’s flintlock lay across his knees and I wondered if he regretted missing the chance at bagging such a prize. I had heard Richard many times brag that Father could shoot with deadly measure up to eighty yards and could load and discharge four rounds in a minute’s time, whereas most men could load only three at best.