3
In The Land Of Women
Elizabeth's recent marriage and her new obligations did not prevent her from keeping a benevolent eye on Hester's well being and inclusion among her new neighbours. This was not an easy task, though : for, if men would fain show themselves courteous, Hester could feel a natural reluctance in almost every woman's eyes at her sight, that she painfully tried to disentangle.
One day, Elizabeth introduced her new friend to the sewing afternoon at Mistress Jones', one of the eldest sisters of the parish. This widow enjoyed the company and freshness of young girls and young women, and took at heart to help them, either in lending a thoughtful ear to their problems, or finding solutions out of her long experience of life. Thus, she would reunite every week in her home –a vast one, for she was quite fortunate –the young females of the parish. Such reunions were designed to encourage stronger bonds between the girls and young women of the church, at this timid and fearful age, which naturally shrink away from new acquaintances with a blush.
Biscuits and refreshments were put on the table in the middle of the room, while the young virgins joyfully cackled and laughed behind their piece of broidery and the young wives, though now separate from their younger mates by an irrevocable and significant alteration, but still close to them by the age and the heart, full of delicate and youthful fancies, evoked more calmly the new aspects and issues of their domestic life, and answer the questionings of the young one. Elizabeth seemed particularly close to a young woman –Margaret by her name -, not much older than her, but seemingly still unmarried. The reason for such a fate, to Hester's mind, was unquestionably her ugly face and ungracious body.
"Poor girl" she inwardly deplored with a throb of compassion –or was it the tickling finger of condescension and pride? Hester was grateful for her own beauty, yet it seemed that it never brought her a more enjoyable life than more common women, if not a less satisfying one. No knight in shining armour had ever abducted her on his horse, as it happened in fairy tales, but she was married to a wise, though unattractive old man. And now, she lived on her own in a faraway land that hardly possessed the excitement and constant renewal of the continent.
"I wonder how Mistress Power is doing", she thought out loud.
"I visited her two days ago" Elizabeth answered sadly. "She is devastated, yet still praying for the recovery of the child. He is in a strange state now, between life and death. Still breathing, yet totally insensitive and paralysed."
"I had a glimpse of him through the window yesterday" one of the youngest maiden, whose name was Mary, intervened. "I would not be let inside, but I could see his face, and it was white as death."
The news made more than one shudder unpleasantly in the room; however, Mary's friend Judith, a virgin with malicious eyes and a round childish face framed by blond curls, broke the solemnity with a taunting laugh.
"Everybody knows Mary did not go there to see the boy, but to see the reverend, who visits him everyday now!"
The girls sneered unkindly, and Mary blushed at first; but then she proudly retorted.
"When I am a grown woman, I will marry the reverend."
Hester beheld the young maid, who did not look older than fourteen, and shook her head with half a mocking smile, in spite of the pricking cramps she felt in her stomach. All the choir of virgin now talked about Arthur Dimmesdale, draping him with the most significant and worthy virtues humanly imaginable. The reverend's reputation of sanctity in the colony had quickly been made obvious to Hester; however, as a newcomer, she still had to fully understand it, and turned a distant, though attentive ear, at such fervent praises.
"Now, Mistress Prynne is shaking her head at you, Mary" the mischievous Judith went on. ""Oh, Reverend Dimmesdale!"" she imitated her friend voice, pretending to faint.
"Will you stop, you uncharitable girl?" Elizabeth scolded her. "It is bad to talk behind people's back. Now, I want all of you to act as if the reverend was sitting here, next to the window, and able to hear everything you say!"
"Mary, you should start blushing, then!" Judith stubbornly went on. "You always do at the church!"
All the little sister burst into a clear laughter. Mary stood up, red-faced with anger, and her work slipped down her knees.
"You are being so mean because you like the reverend too!" she fiercely fought back. "Do you believe I am too blind to see your ecstatic face whenever he stands at the pulpit?"
"Enough of that!" Elizabeth snapped again. "Tell us what you are working on, Hester."
Hester started. She felt less and less comfortable, sitting on the chair.
"Well, I am sewing a suit for Governor Bellingham. The Election Day is drawing close."
Hester displayed the mantle embroidered by her craft, and all the young ladies calmed down and surrounded her with amazed looks, eager to touch and see the shiny texture, the glimmering threads and the velvet robe.
"Oh, Mistress Prynne, you are so talented!"
"I wish I could embroider like you do! Will you teach me?"
"You could dress a prince!"
"I never saw anyone here wear garment of such splendour and refinement!"
"There is someone here who does" Judith answered with a low tone.
However, she did not dare to not venture any further. All malice was extinguished in her eyes, as if, at least so Hester guessed, she had lost all desire to laugh.
"Say, who is it?" inquired one maiden. "I never heard of this person, nor seen him".
"Speak, Judith" Mary insisted.
At last, she drew a deep breath and resolved herself to speak.
"The Black Man does."
All girls and women in the room froze in their activity and stared at Judith with a kind a fascinated horror. Hester frowned, and addressed Elizabeth a curious look, the woman, now pale and nervous, did not notice. What was this all about?
"You speak nonsense!" Mary retorted. "No one ever saw the Black Man. He hides into the depths of the forest, behind bushes and brakes during the day, and at night, the shadows conceal his figure."
"I am speaking the truth", Judith gravely maintained.
Her eyes were too deadly stern for a lie. She either spoke the truth, or lied with a demonic shamelessness.
"Who is the Black Man?" Hester asked.
One of the girls let out a small shriek.
"She does not know! Mistress Prynne does not know!"
"Do not tell her", Mary whispered to Judith. " The name is cursed!"
"He is the devil, the prince of Darkness." Judith bravely answered. "And my grandmother saw him with her own eyes!"
It must be said that the time was most profitable for the evocation and the sharing of chilling stories of the kind; for today, Mistress Jones, instead of sitting among the young people as was her habit, was having a peaceful nap upstairs. Otherwise, she would have arbitrarily closed the subject and decreed a common prayer long before the matter had arrived to such dreadful confessions. The old woman, in her naïve confidence, had chosen to entrust to the elder sisters the guard of the young one and the watch of the conversation, so that its stream might hold a straight and decent flow. However, Mistress Jones had not foreseen -had she remembered her youth with honesty! –That the guardians would not yield less than the youngest to a sudden and shameful fit of morbid fascination. As they said, wherever the devil was mentioned, there he hurried in great haste: and the spell did work indeed. The hearers, consciously or not, were now all craving to hear Judith's sinister story.
The young girl sat down solemnly, and began the dark tale, until then concealed within the secret walls of the household.
"My mother had a very young brother, the last one of the house; he was dearly loved and cherished, but one day, he did not come back from his play with the children of the neighbourhood. My grandfather, when he had thoroughly searched the village, went to look for the child into the woods. However, the night came, but he did not come back. My grandmother stayed awake for his return, but at midnight, as there was still no sign of him, worried to death, she knocked at the neighbours' door and begged the men to come with her into the forest. She feared something might have happened to her husband. They vainly tried to bring her to her senses: indeed, it was folly to venture into the wood by a pitch-black and snowy night like that one, and they should have waited until morning. But she would not listen, and as they could not resolve to let her go alone, they took lanterns, dogs and rifles with them and followed her. The woods were frozen, and the air so chilly every breath was painful, but it was the deathly silence of an otherwise lively and noisy place, now ominously still under the falling snow, that made them shiver the most. Their callings and the barking of the dogs soon resounded under the trees.
"At one point, when they were so deeply advanced that all sign of the village behind them had long disappeared, the dogs suddenly stopped barking, and recoiled with whines of terror, as if they had felt something in the surrounding darkness. Their masters' commands were not enough to hold them still, and they ran back to the village, leaving the few humans behind.
"Their flight was followed by a horrendous shriek, piercing the darkness, and freezing the blood in their veins. The dread and despair that filled it scarcely sounded human. Some men believed it was a witch, but my grandmother said she recognized the voice of her husband. Hardly knowing whether they should rejoice or panic they nonetheless ran after her to the side whence the scream seemed to come.
"They found him next to a fallen tree, lying in the snow. Drawing the lantern closer to him, they behold a face as white as death and eyes wide with unspeakable horror. The man was dying, but he was not dead yet, and when his errant eyes fell upon his wife, who was bent over him, and recognized her, he gripped her shoulders.
" "I saw him!" he muttered desperately. "The Black Man! There he stands, and waits for his bride!"
"He had spoken in a whisper, so that the men could not hear anything save a confused and half-extinct gibberish. But my grandmother heard, and filled with infused dread, his words haunted her on the way back to the village. Slightly at the rear of the group of men who were now carrying her dying husband, she kept glancing back. She scarcely knew what she expected to see, and a part of herself told her that the man had only spoken in his delirium. However, at the moment she began to turn her head away and hurry forward…"
Judith paused for the sake of the effect, and, aware of the torment her delaying was now inflicting on her listeners, she stepped forward and extended an accusing finger at the embroidered and damasked mantle.
"There, in the dim and pale light of the moon, standing in the middle of a small clearing, between the crooked boughs of scraggy bushes, there she saw the passing figure of a man clothed all in black! –except for this, that all over his body the curvy and bramble-like, or softer lines of the broidered filigrees of his garment, were blazing red in the night, like the ever smouldering fires of the lower regions. His eyes alike were aflame with the fierceness of evil passion, and upon his tenebrous chest, a red, burning symbol. His dark cloak hanged down to the immaculate ground below, that he slowly trod with the prideful contempt of a Spanish prince.
"Such terror seized my grandmother's heart she thought she would not survive the sight; but the time for her to blink, and the figure had vanished into the darkness. Only the dead, white snow, untouched by human or animal foot, remained where she had seen him walked by.
"My grandfather had no injury, nor apparent alteration. Neither did he feel any pain. But he, who had always been of an unshakable health, he died mysteriously the same night. People said he died out of fear. As for the boy, his body was never found."
A heavy silence followed those last words, before the members of the audience began to release their breath and attention. No one dared, or only felt the desire, to laugh to exorcise the evil remnants of the long-standing fright of that snowy night. The visions arisen in their imagination by the thrilling telling haunted them a few more moments; until another girl started to speak, as if to add another share of cursed revelation.
"I heard of this symbol before." She confessed with a trembling voice. "People say it is the Devil's mark, that he applies on every men and women who conclude a pact with him; so that on the Judgement Day, he may claim them as his own."
"Nay" Judith objected solemnly. "Have you not heard what I said? The Black Man is looking for a bride, upon whose bosom the red mark shall blaze too; Methinks she shall be a beautiful woman coming from the old corrupted world, where Satan is king. And the child he will father…"
"This conversation has been going too far" Elizabeth eventually intervened, probably as a matter of conscience, even though the harm had already been done. "Now, you will not tell anybody what we have been discussing in this room today. And I hope you are aware that the Black Man can do no wrong to a true Christian, and that instead of looking for vision and fearing shadows, you had best watch and guard your heart! This is where the demon has the strongest foothold!"
Hester rose up, and fold the piece of cloth she had been working on into the basket, along with her sewing box. The cramps in her lower stomach and back were now a torment to endure. Beside, she found the place rather oppressive now that such dark subjects had been invited.
"Where are you going?" Elizabeth asked, surprised.
"I feel tired "she answered. "I am walking home. Thank you so much for inviting me".
"Well I thought the conversation would be more pleasant" she rolled her eyes. " I am sorry. Have a good rest, Hester! We shall see each other soon enough".
As soon as Hester left the room and closed the door behind her, she could hear the cackles and giggles of the young female flock start again. It resounded with an obsessive, and why not –she could admit it- an irritating restlessness she, in her present state, was hardly able to withstand for long without flying into a temper, as her passionate nature often compelled her to. Beside her lingering stomach pain, her bad headache was very unsuitable for the shrilling and piping tones of girlish babble.
Outside, the fresh air and the blowing wind stroking her face brought some relief to her boiling mind. She walked down the little hill where Mistress Jones' dwelling had been built. The road crossed an open field, and the young woman went on her way among slow-witted sheep grazing and watching her with haggard looks. Hester rocked her basket back and forth, to relax her tense body and try to forget the pain. However, the more she walked, the more intense the pain became at each step, until it rose to a peak, throbbing inside her womb so strongly she had to stop and lean against a fence, breathless.
It was a very uncomfortable situation to be in, she thought. Anybody could chance upon her and worry, or, worse, understand in which monthly state she found herself to be. She patiently bore the pain, waiting a little time for it to pass away.
"Well, what do we have here?" cried a familiar voice behind her.
Mistress Hibbins stood beside her, clothed in a rich dress, not so much by the material and amount of lace and precious shiny threads than by the purple colour of it, mostly reserved for people of high social rank and prestigious status. She held a stick with a golden head in her gloved hand. There was something about the woman Hester could not define, and that still repelled her, even if the lady had turned out to be a benevolent and helpful person at Elizabeth's marriage. She could neither put it on her complexion, nor even on her heavy and excessive adornment.
"Oh, good day to you, Mistress Hibbins."
"I cannot return the pleasantry with that pale and tense face of yours, Mistress Prynne. Where does it hurt?"
"Monthly pains" she let out in a breath, without thinking. "It has always been quite intense, and I learned to endure it. I shall be fine."
The old woman did not look much impressed.
"Why, you do not have to suffer so badly! I know a medicine to kill the pain"
"I thank you, but no medicine ever proved efficient."
Hibbins did not seem to notice her involuntary sharp tone.
"I am not talking about those miraculous drops old quacks will tell you to pour upon you tongue, my dear. Mister Firestone knows the plants very well, and he has healed many a young woman through their monthly agony. Now, come with me."
Hester, too weary to fight, followed the old lady half-heartedly.
The house of Jack Firestone was an impressive dwelling close, by the size and the looks of old gentility, to a manor. The walls were of granite stone with ivy creeping upon it and around the windows, the latters designed in the finest English style. The two women passed a slender gate and entered a beautiful garden, until then concealed to their eyes by the surrounding wall. Hester cried in wonder, when she beheld the blooming bushes of large roundish roses growing along the pathway leading to the house. They were white, pink, yellow, red, and displayed a picture of so many bursting spots of the brightest colours before her eyes, the blinding sunlight enhancing so much their glorious glow, that Hester's head slightly turned.
A few steps further, Firestone stood in the middle of this new Eden, looking after the precious flowers and cutting off weeds or ill stems. He beckoned to Hester and Mistress Hibbins when he noticed their presence. Drawing closer, Hester found the man as serene as ever, and his eyes, as they condensed the surrounding light, were brighter than ever before in their undersea mystery.
"Good day to you, my good ladies. To what do I owe the honour of your visit?"
"Young Mistress Prynne here needs your special attention for bad monthly pains. The poor thing was close to fainting when I met her on the way."
Firestone looked at Hester with the sly smile she had known him when he had shown her around his house the day they first met, and she could not refrain from shuddering. Perhaps it was the result of her imagination, her present sense of acute receptivity and alertness turning a simple displeasure into a physical reaction; or it could be that there truly was something chillingly disturbing in that smile. Both statements being possible, Hester chose to believe the first one, and put it on her feverish restlessness.
"Well, I have something here for Mistress Prynne, if she will follow me inside." Firestone said.
He ushered her into a spacious hall and then an adjoining salon. Hester sat down in a deep cosy seat with velvet armrests, next to the window. There were about five shells full of books on the opposite wall, their dusty edges dimly lit by the sunlight piercing through the window. Firestone left the room for a few minutes, and then came back with a glass of water and a small bottle filled with brown powder. He poured two spoons of the mixture into the glass. The clear water turned into a black smoky filter he handed over to Hester.
"There" he concluded. "Alas, neither is the look attractive, nor the taste excellent. I can promise you a swift result, though."
The child in Hester disgustedly winced at the sight of the glass. However, at this time of the month, the grown woman always prevailed, and it would have been much surprising to be otherwise.
"Thank you, good sir"
The smell was horrendous. She held her breath and drank the brew in one draught, before Firestone's amused eyes
"You may stay here a little while, the time for the medicine to release its effects on your body. Please, make yourself comfortable."
Hester raised her eyes to the man that was so good to her.
"I have not had the time to thank you for your kindness and discretion at the wedding", she said with a rare earnestness. "The consequences would have been disastrous, had you and Mistress Hibbins not been there."
"Do join us in the garden when you feel better" he simply invited her, before leaving the room.
Left on her own, Hester spent most of her time in random thoughts, her eyes lost in the bright blue sky out of the window. From the inside, she could see at the end of the garden that skirted the woods, half-covered under the wide branches of the pine, a rock, out of which joyful streams of clear bright water flowed out, mirroring the sun. So this was the envied spring Elizabeth told her about. Feeling bored, she eventually approached the shelves and began to read the titles engraved on the edges. Most of them were unknown to her. The collection included English translations of apparently antique authors and discourses, treaties on plants and astrology, along with poetry compilations. Hester, out of woman's natural preference for the beautiful and sensitive, picked up a book by John Donne. She used to read Donne with a peculiar pleasure in London –most of the time away from her mother's eyes –for indeed, and the compilation she presently held in her hands only confirmed the poet's reputation, most of his work was about love, spiritual as well as physical. She dove into the erotic verses with rare delight.
"Oh, my America, my new-found land,
My kingdom, safeliest when with one man manned,
My mine of precious stones, my empery;
How blest am I in this discovering thee!"
However, as always when she read or heard about happy love, or saw anything around her approaching it, pleasure dissolved into stabbing pain. For she knew that, unless she broke God's sacred command, she would never know the passionate embrace of a beloved man. The reading arose some vague, confused thoughts, the lustful content of which she quickly realized.
Put the book down, Hester.
She obeyed half-heartedly. It was for the sake of religion, but also for her own sake, as she was only hurting herself the more by comparing her fancies with the dull reality of her life.
However, the moment she closed the book –that is, about half an hour after her taking the medicine –she suddenly realized in disbelief that all pain was gone. The extraordinary result sent her into a transport of gratitude toward Firestone. The bitterest the torment, the more excessive the love for the deliverer: Such was Hester's state of mind when she almost childishly flung herself outside. Firestone, while chatting with Mistress Hibbins, kept on taking care of the flowers as of the many wives of a sultan's harem. Both stopped talking when they saw Hester coming to them.
"Do you feel better?" Firestone asked, even though his playful expression revealed he had not the slightest doubt as for the answer.
"The effects are marvellous", she replied. "It is such a heavy burden you have lifted up from my shoulders, Mister Firestone!"
"Ay, it is true woman is the less fortunate sex by far" the man unexpectedly declared. "However, in measure of what she endures in every aspect of her life, I would willingly assess she proves to be the strongest of the two."
"I say, you love women too much, Good mister Firestone" Hibbins cried. "This shall bring you no good!"
"I love women, this I confess" Firestone retorted. "And methinks these tender and beautiful flowers need the most watchful eye and the sweetest hand for their full blooming."
Thereon he cut off from its stem one of the most triumphantly opened of the scarlet roses of the bush, which, in its rich attire, weighted heavily on the robust branch, and graciously handed it to Hester.
"For you, child" he gently said. "And give me one of your smiles".
The young woman, completely enthralled, could not think much. She took the rose with a blushing smile. Her melancholic face suddenly lit up, and all the facets of her youthful complexion were renewed in a bloom of splendour. Her exceptional beauty shone out like the dawning sun over a gloomy valley at the end of the night: its brightness first stirs up the slumbering orchestra of the birds, which, rising its chirping and fresh symphony, fill the numb earth with their morning worship, inviting the rest of their kind, and every animal that crawls or walk, every flower and tree, every flowing river, to join them; until all of nature, wide awake, bursts into glorious praise to its mighty Creator. Any man standing in front of Hester Prynne at that moment, were his heart as cold as ice, would feel this surge of life flowing through him again, and crave for a kiss from such a gorgeous dawn. Thus, the magic touch of something as simple and worthless as a rose woke up the languid flower of Hester's womanhood.
"Thank you" Hester was at loss for words, her heart throbbing with bliss. "If-if there is anything I could do to thank you…"
"Ah, but" the man interrupted. "This smile is precious enough to have its place among the shimmering treasures of a king!"
"I shall nonetheless return your kindness when the time comes" the young woman muttered, slipping the rose in the folds of her bodice, so that its spot of vivid colour shone out upon her bosom. The magic flower was endowed with such richness and grace it seemed only Hester could match its splendour properly.
Hester Prynne kept on smiling on the way back home. Her beauty, now fully revealed and enhanced by inner joy, drew every look. Young and elder gentleman alike would turn on her way, hit by some gripping spell. Women, on the other hand, stared in pale hatred, and it was not long before Hester could hear bribes of spiteful remarks hurled at her.
"She loves being the centre of the world, doesn't she?"
"And what about those embroidered dresses she wears everyday?"
"Ay, only because she has a pretty face, she thinks she may indulge in all her fancies!"
""I would be honoured!" Methinks she made the governor's head spin to extort him the favour!"
Hester's smile slowly vanished, until nothing remained of its golden and fleeting radiance. Sealing her lips, she bowed her head and sadly went on her way.
