Chapter Eight

DILLARD BEACH MYSTERY UPDATE

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Dillard, October 23, 1678 – Evening

It was John Rand who first suggested they have a formal ceremony at the meeting house to bind the two lovers together. Rebekah would have none of it.
“Hand fasting is fine enough a joining for me, John. I do not hold with most of what the preacher says, and all that talk he claims for spirits. You know I am glad of any reason to avoid the Sunday rituals as often as I can. Could we not simply claim ourselves wedded and bedded and be done with it?”
John looked up from the fish net he was repairing. The firelight from the hearth fire barely gave him enough to see the twine he was twisting.
“Avoid the Sunday service once too often, Bekah, and we will both be in need of a special blessing from the hand of that preacher. Such men are always looking for their coin, that is certain and it is our unfortunate duty to provide it to them. As for our joining? I am content with a simple ceremony. Just we too, and perhaps the blacksmith? I will ask him for the favor if you wish.”
“No blacksmith’s anvil will forge us tighter than our hearts declarations, John. Trust and love are enough for me. Both my parents are long since dead and I have no siblings to ask. Just we too, is what I desire.”
He smiled. “Then it is decided.” He continued to work the strands of netting, repairing the hole that had only just ripped open that morning. “Will this coming sabbath be a good day for our binding? I will not be fishing.” He waited for Rebekah to answer.
“There is still the matter of where we shall live once we are bound together. You have not invited me to your cottage, so I have no point of comparison.”
“There is no comparison, Bekah. My small shed is nothing but a shambles of wooden planks. It is right enough for a single fisherman. But not a place for any woman to visit. When we are bound together, I will live here, with you, in your cottage. My shambles will be left to serve another fisherman quick enough.”
“Then there is something I must tell you. It is a situation decided by law, years ago that must remain firm.”
John looked at Rebekah, puzzled at her words.
“I welcome you to join me and live in my cottage as long as we are bound together. But the property remains in my name. You need to know you will never own the land or the cottage.”
“I don’t understand, Bekah. That is not the usual way of things. As your husband, all that you own will belong to me.”
“No. The law stands in my favor on this point.”
“Why? For what reason have you received such a privilege?”
“Because the property, cottage and land from the spot whereupon we stand to the shoreline was given in gratitude to me and sealed in a perpetual agreement by the owner, Amos Dillard.”
“One of the town founders?” John asked, surprised.
“Yes. Amos Dillard, whose family still controls nearly all of the land you walk upon. A few years ago, I saved the life of his young wife and their unborn child. It was a very difficult birth and the local doctor had given up all hope. Amos must have been truly desperate to finally call me to her bedside. He promised all manner of riches if only I could save his young wife and their child.”
“And you met with success?” John asked.
“I was most fortunate. The garden had been plentiful that year and every tincture I had made was fresh and full of potency. That, and having birthed a dozen babies that same spring with great results, gave me the confidence I needed to overcome what to the doctor had seen as an impossible situation. Fortunately, all was well.”
“And you were well rewarded.” John stated.
“I was well rewarded.” She agreed. “But not without lasting difficulty. The doctor, Joshua Taylor, never forgave me. He took it as a personal affront that a midwife could succeed where he had failed. He still views me with suspicion.
“Well, I don’t give a fig,” John declared. “The land is yours by right of your hard work. I do not claim it nor should I want to. I am, after all, a fisherman, and best suited to work on water rather than solid ground.” He laughed and took Rebekah into his arms. “We are well joined, Rebekah Howland. You to your herbs and spices, and myself to my fish and oysters!”
On the evening of the following sabbath, as the sun slowly sank below the shimmering horizon, the two lovers walked the cottage path to the shoreline. When they reached a spot just opposite Shell Island, the smallest island in the bay, Rebekah stopped.
“Don’t think me sentimental, John, but years from now, I want to be able to remember this spot and come back to it, to remember what it is we do now.”
“I do not think you sentimental, Bekah.”
“When I was not but three in years, my father would row me out in his dory to Shell Island to spend the day in the harvest of quahogs, all the while telling tales of great riches to be had in return for all my efforts. Now, in you, I realize the best of all riches I could desire.”
“Better than quahogs?” he teased.
“The best of all riches,” she said softly.
They joined hands and hearts then and bound themselves one to the other with three hand fasting cords Rebekah had thought to bring.
“The first,” she explained, “is white for purity, the second, blue for fidelity and the third, red for passion.”
“I like the red one,” John smiled broadly.
Rebekah pulled him close. “As our hands are bound together by these cords, so too are our lives bound together forever.”