18
Our first clue comes in Winthrop’s striking absence from the text. The novel
begins during the rule of Governor Bellingham, who presides over the public
interrogation of Hester that serves as the story’s initial scene. The next interaction Hester
has with a political figure is roughly three years later and the leader is, again, Bellingham,
who is no longer the governor, though he still holds an “honorable and influential place
among the colonial magistracy” (69). Hester’s ostensible reason for visiting Bellingham
was to deliver a pair of gloves he ordered from her (she made her living as a seamstress).
There were, however, more pressing matters on her mind. She had heard that “there was
design on the part of some of the leading inhabitants, cherishing the more rigid order of
principles in religion and government, to deprive her of her child” (69). The proponents
of this plan professed a “Christian interest in the mother’s soul” and suggested that Pearl
would be a “stumbling block from her path” back to redemption. Similarly, they claimed
that Pearl would enjoy a “fairer prospect” by “being transferred to wiser and better
guardianship.” Hester sought audience with the “grave old Puritan ruler” about this
unacceptable separation because “among those who promoted the design” he “was said to
be one of the most busy” (71, 69).
In contrast with Governor Bellingham’s early and repeated prominence in the
text, the only mention of Winthrop comes in the latter half of the novel—Chapter 12,
“The Minister’s Vigil”—where it is reported that Hester and Pearl have just been
“watching . . . at Governor Winthrop’s death bed” (105). This is a vital scene for a
number of reasons, not the least of which is that it offers the novel’s one established
historical date—it has always been a matter of record that Winthrop died March 26, 1649.
Only through the information offered in this scene can the opening date of the novel be
Convention