The Witch of Blackbird Pond

“But I thought the Dolphin was your home!”

“In the wintertime it is, when we sail to the West Indies. But I was born in Saybrook, and in the spring I get to hankering for my house and garden. Besides, I’d never let on to my husband, but the summer trips are tedious, just back and forth up and down the river. I stay at home and tend my vegetables and my spinning like a proper housewife. Then, come November, when he sails for Barbados again, I’m ready enough to go with him. ‘Tis a good life, and one of the best things about it is coming home in the springtime.”

“How did you think they got there? Did you fancy they traveled from Africa in private cabins like yours?”

She had never thought about it at all. “But don’t you have slaves in America?”

“Yes, to our shame! Mostly down Virginia way. But there are plenty of fine folk like you here in New England who’ll pay a fat price for black flesh without asking any questions how it got here. If my father would consent to bring back just one load of slaves we would have had our new ketch by this summer. But we Eatons, we’re almighty proud that our ship has a good honest stink of horses!”

“You mean that, just on an impulse, you left your rightful home and sailed halfway across the world?”

“No, it was not an impulse exactly. You see, I really had no home to leave.”

“Why, girls! What on earth—?” Rachel Wood had come back unnoticed, and she stood now staring at her daughter in the peacock blue gown with something, half fear and half hunger in her eyes.”

An hour ago [Kit] had declined to go to Meeting, saying airily that she and her grandfather had seldom attended divine service, except for the Christmas Mass. What an uproar she had caused! There was no Church of England in Wethersfield, her uncle had informed her, and furthermore, since she was now a member of his household she would forget her popish ideas and attend Meeting like a God-fearing woman.

“You certainly made an impression on William Ashby,” Judith ventured presently.

There was no point in denying it. “Perhaps because I was someone new,” said Kit.

“Perhaps. You aren’t exactly pretty, you know. But naturally William would be impressed by a dress like that.”

William seemed to find nothing lacking those evenings. For him it was enough simply to sit across the room and look at her. It was flattering, she had to admit. The most eligible bachelor in Wethersfield and handsome, actually, in his substantial way. Sometimes, as she sat knitting, aware that William’s eyes were on her face, she felt her breath tightening in a way that was strange and unpleasant. Then, just as suddenly, rebellion would rise in her. He was so sure! Without even asking, he was reckoning on her as deliberately as he calculated his growing pile of lumber.

As they came out from the shelter of the trees and the Great Meadows stretched before them, Kit caught her breath. She had not expected anything like this. From that first moment, in a way she could never explain, the Meadows claimed her and made her their own. As far as she could see they stretched on either side, a great level sea of green, broken here and there by a solitary graceful elm. Was it the fields of sugar cane they brought to mind, or the endless reach of the ocean to meet the sky? Or was it simply the sense of freedom and space and light that spoke to her of home?

“[…] She’s been there as long as I can remember.”

“All alone?”

“With her cats. There’s always a cat or so around. People say she’s a witch.”

“Do you believe in witches, Judith?”

“Maybe not,” said Judith doubtfully. “All the same, it gives me a creepy feeling to look at her. She’s queer, that’s certain, and she never comes to Meeting. I’d just rather not get any closer.”

Kit looked back at the gray figure bent over a kettle, stirring something with a long stick. Her spine prickled. It might be only soap, of course […] But that lonely figure in the ragged flapping shawl—it was easy enough to imagine any sort of mysterious brew in that pot!

[Kit] looked about her. “‘Tis a pretty room,” she said without thinking, and then wondered how that could be, when it was so plain and bare. Perhaps it was only the sunlight on boards that were scrubbed smooth and white, or perhaps it was the feeling of peace that lay across the room as tangibly as the bar of sunshine.

“[…] But no one in Wethersfield has anything to do with Hannah Tupper.”

“Why on earth not?”

“She’s a Quaker.”

“Why is that so dreadful?”

Rachel hesitated. “I can’t tell you exactly. The Quakers are queer stubborn people. They don’t believe in the Sacraments.”

“What difference does that make? She is as kind and good as—as you are, Aunt Rachel. I could swear to it.”

Sometimes Kit wanted to stop her ears. Would she have to hear the price of every nail that went into those board, and every single nail the finest that money could buy? […]

Judith, however took a lively interest in such details. She had a flair for line and form and a definite mind of her own, and it was plain, to Kit at least, that as William planned his house Judith was comparing it, timber for timber, with the house she dreamed for herself. Her purpose was only too apparent as she made adroit attempts to draw John Holbrook into the discussion.

“I think you should have one of those new roofs, William,” she said now. […] “I think they look so distinguished, don’t you, John?”

Mercy laughed at John’s bewilderment. “I don’t believe John even notices there’s a roof over his head,” she teased gently.

“The river is so blue today,” [Kit] said sleepily. “It could almost be the water in Carlisle Bay.”

“Homesick?” asked Nat casually, his eyes on the blue strip of water.

“Not here,” she answered. “Not when I’m in the meadow, or with Hannah.”

“Why should you take it upon yourself to mend a roof for the Quaker woman?” demanded [Matthew].

“She lives all alone—” began Kit.

“She is a heretic, and she refuses to attend Meeting. She has no claim on your charity.”

As Kit watched, her uncle bent slowly and scooped up a handful of brown dirt from the garden patch at his feet, and stood holding it with a curious reverence, as though it were some priceless substance. As it crumbled through his fingers his hand convulsed in a sudden passionate gesture. Kit backed through the door and closed it softly. She felt as though she had eavesdropped. When she had hated and feared her uncle for so long, why did it suddenly hurt to think of that lonely defiant figure in the garden?

For Prudence was an entirely different child from the woebegone shrinking creature who had stood in the roadway outside the school. The tight little bud that was the real Prudence had steadily opened its petals in the sunshine of Kit’s friendship and Hannah’s gentle affection. Her mind was quick and eager.

“Or you can go on to the West Indies with us.”

Barbados! The tears sprang to her eyes. “I can’t, Nat. I have to stay here […] ‘Tis Mercy,” she stammered. “She’s terribly ill. I couldn’t go, I just couldn’t, not knowing—”

“‘Tis true I did not welcome you into my house,” [Matthew] said at last. “But this last week you have proved me wrong. You haven’t spared yourself, Katherine. Our own daughter couldn’t have done more.”

Suddenly Kit wished, with all her heart, that she had never deceived this man. She would like to stand here before him with a clear conscience. She was ashamed of the many times—more times than she could count—when she had skipped off and left her work undone.

I shall tell him some day, she vowed to herself, when I am sure that Hannah is safe. And I will do my full share, beginning this very moment. I don’t even feel tired any more.

William could help her. Why hadn’t she thought of him at once? Anything William said would carry weight in the town. His position, his character, were unquestioned […] The thought steadied her. She thought of him coming to champion her […] Dear dependable William! Perhaps he would come tonight […]

It was Rachel who finally came instead.

“Is it true that you were also acquainted with a certain cat which the widow entertained as a familiar spirit?”

“It—it was just an ordinary cat, sir, like any cat.”

“‘Tis no use, William,” she said now. “You and I would always be uneasy, all of our lives. We would always be hoping for the other one to be different, and always being disappointed when it didn’t happen. No matter how hard I tried, I know I could never care about the things that seem so important to you.”

“The house isn’t important to you?” he asked slowly.

“Yes, in a way it is,” she admitted. “I’d like to live in a fine house. But not if it means I have to be an example. Not if it means I can’t choose my own friends.”

She tried to remember how it had felt to stand on the deck of the Dolphin and see before her the harbor of Barbados. The haunting joy eluded her; the dream shores were dim and unreal. Why had she closed her heart to the true meaning of the dream? How long had she really known that the piercing happiness of that moment had come not from the sight of the harbor at all, but from the certainty that the one she loved stood beside her?

If only I could go with Nat, she realized suddenly, it wouldn’t matter where we went, to Barbados or just up and down this river. The Dolphin would be home enough.