“Mr. Aykroyd will accompany you and see you home safely,” Jean Pierre said.
“I’m glad to see you,” Bristol murmured. But neither her voice nor her face expressed gladness at anything.
Mr. Aykroyd looked shrewdly from one to the other; then he shook his white head and tactfully withdrew.
Jean Pierre took Bristol’s arm and guided her silently down the length of the ship. Around. them, men swarmed in the rigging and shouted and hauled and packed and stowed, engaged in the frenzied activity of preparing to get under way. Heavy clouds of sail dropped from the yards, and the Princess Anne shuddered and creaked as a breeze snapped the canvas and strained at the anchor.
Pushing open the door of the captain’s cabin, Jean Pierre led Bristol inside. A robust man with ruddy complexion and thinning hair looked up from the desk with a surprise that quickly turned to obeisance. He sprang to his feet, almost bowing. “Mr. La Crosse! What a pleasant surprise!” He peered behind Jean Pierre. “And this is the young lady that—?”
“Get out.”
The captain’s eyes widened. “I beg your pardon, sir?”
“I said get out!” Jean Pierre roared. “Leave us!”
The captain of the Princess Anne flushed and hurried out the door without a backward glance.
They stared at each other, punishing themselves with hungry longing. And then Bristol ran into his arms, and he held her as if his life depended on her heartbeat pounding against his.
“God help me,” Bristol cried, “I cannot bear this!”
“Tonight,” he said, and his voice was dull and expressionless, “tonight I shall get very drunk and buy a red-haired whore and I will pretend that she is you. I will imagine her skin is as silky and soft as yours, that her mouth and body welcome me with the sweet sensuality that is you. I will touch her and I will feel you beneath my hands. I will enter her, and it will be your voice that calls my name.” His arms tightened around her. “And all the time,” he whispered hoarsely, “it will not be you. It will never again be you.”
“Dear God,” Bristol moaned against his chest. Her hand flew to touch his face; then his urgent lips met hers in a crushing, aching kiss. She clung to him desperately. Never again. His hands burned on her trembling body. Never again. His lips tasted of salt and heat and desire. Never again.
And then he was gone.
With a wrenching sob Bristol fell into the captain’s chair, feeling as if a monstrous wind had pulled the life from her body. She stared out the window with blank eyes; she was numb and empty, a hollow thing with no spark. Above deck a grating squeal shuddered through the ship, and the anchor slowly rose, sucking foam and weed. The leadman’s voice sang out fathoms, and voices shouted from the high rigging. The Princess Anne turned in the current. Slowly she moved out of the harbor, regal and proud, her masts stretching toward a cloudless sky.
They had nearly approached the open sea before Mr. Aykroyd appeared to fetch her. He stepped into the darkening cabin and placed a gentle hand on Bristol’s shoulder. “Captain Kelling do be needing his cabin,” he said in a quiet voice.
Bristol stumbled to her feet, and her wild eyes met his. Then Mr. Aykroyd opened his arms and pressed her head against his shoulder, unable to withstand the anguish on that small lovely face. They stood in an embrace for a long moment; then he patted her shoulder and placed his arm around her waist, leading her up the stairs and through the rocking ship toward the stern.
The quarters prepared for Bristol’s return trip were wholly unlike the tiny dark cell she’d long ago shared with Jane Able. Jean Pierre had put the ten-day departure time to good use, ordering quarters for her as commodious as possible. Three rooms had been joined into one, and a supply of fresh oranges was stacked along the wall behind her trunks. The cots had been removed and a real bed bolted to one wall. She sank to the edge and felt a soft mattress beneath the pink spread. She’d been provided a desk and two upholstered chairs and a wardrobe for her clothing. It almost looked like a bed-sitting-room combination. And empty. Dear God, it was empty.
“Do ye feel like a bit of company, gel?”
Bristol started; she’d forgotten Mr. Aykroyd. She shook her head, red curls sliding across her back. Hoping he understood, she looked up. “No, thank you, Mr. Aykroyd, not right now.”
A grim smile shifted the scars along Mr. Aykroyd’s cheeks. “Well, ye’ll be having it just the same.” He sat down in one of the upholstered chairs and fished in a pocket for his clay pipe. “Ye ain’t the only soul feeling a little dismal just now.” He gave her a sly wink. “Mayhaps someone here is missing a certain plump widow.” Bristol’s eyebrows shot up, and the beginnings of a real smile tugged the corners of her full mouth. “Where’s yer manners, gel? Ye ain’t even inquired about my most interesting social life!” His blue eyes twinkled, and Bristol laughed.
The weeks passed quietly, one day blending uneventfully into the next. Three weeks out, the Princess Anne ran afoul of a raging squall, but Bristol tied herself into the bed and slept through the worst of it. She’d come too close to dying to fear it any longer. If she died in the squall, she would have lived the best of her life; no woman could hope for a greater love than had been hers. And the pain of it was with her constantly.
Mr. Aykroyd was a godsend. Without him, Bristol thought, she could not have endured those first terrible weeks of lonely adjustment. He read aloud while she sewed, he taught her two-handed card games. “Which ye are to put out of yer head the instant we land. Those Puritans have no call to cards. They clamp heads in pillories for less.” Bristol smiled; Mr. Aykroyd never seemed to recall that Bristol herself was a Puritan.
She wrote a hundred letters to Jean Pierre and crumpled each into wads which Mr. Aykroyd fed to the fish—accompanied by a stream of muttering and many sad shakes of his head. She ate plum duff and scouse and complained with Mr. Aykroyd about the quality of the fare. He teased her about her dust caps and plain gowns; she teased him about the widow lurking in Southwark. They strolled on deck and he explained the workings of the cannon and showed her how to tie various knots.
And one day a brown shimmer appeared on the horizon, and soon after, the Princess Anne trimmed sail and maneuvered through Salem’s difficult harbor mouth.
Mr. Aykroyd leaned on the rail and looked across the water toward the low wooden houses of Salem Town. Behind them, they heard a loud whir and the anchor splashed into the waves. On the distant hills, many leaves wore October’s colors; the countryside blazed with orange and red and gold.
“What do ye be thinking?” Mr. Aykroyd asked softly, measuring the pale anxiety in Bristol’s expression.
She stared toward the shore. She’d forgotten the splendor of New England autumns. And how small and squat Salem was compared to the bustle and business of London. From this distance Salem Town looked rather quaint and pastoral. Lazy puffs of dust trailed carts and wagons in the lanes; three cows grazed along the city shoreline. The air tasted sharp and clean; the only refuse and debris lay close to the wharves, quickly dispersed to the open sea.
A stranger seeing Salem for the first time would not imagine the dissension and suspicion underlying the wholesome appearance. But Bristol Adams was not a stranger. This was home. She knew of the problems masked by Salem’s sleepy appearance; what she might have wished to forget, Hannah’s letters had kept alive. All the problems flooded Bristol’s mind, petty volcanic problems. This world was as different from London as mud was from stone.
“I’m thinking that... that I wish I could return with you,” she whispered through pale parched lips. “I’m afraid it won’t be like I remember... I’ve forgotten so much.” She glanced at her soft smooth hands. Within a week calluses would appear; her hands would be rough and red the rest of her life. Once again, the world, with Bristol in it, seemed to turn upside down, and everything was different.
She blinked rapidly. Somewhere, maybe on the wharf, maybe at home in Salem Village, Noah was waiting for her. What would they say to each other? For a
n instant time spun backward and her father’s weathered face rose in her mind’s eye. She saw him bouncing her on his knee, red hair peeping beneath a cap, his green eyes, so like her own, crinkled and dancing with laughter. The child she had been shouted with delight and buried her face in his leathery-smelling neck.
Then time rolled forward, and her vision cleared and focused on the distant dock. There was no mistaking the ramrod-erect posture of her mother, and Charity’s carroty hair catching the afternoon sun. Suddenly, all the years of family enveloped Bristol, and her heart yearned toward them. She wanted to hurry, to run, to clasp them tight to her heart: Hannah, Charity, and most of all, Noah. She’d sailed from home with hard thoughts for her father, and he’d ended by sending her to the greatest adventure of her life. She’d resented the whipping, the exile, and refused to admit she’d earned both; Noah had done only what community rule demanded. It was Bristol who had broken the law. A wiser heart quickened with urgency—she had a peacemaking of her own to offer. She would take her father’s work-battered hands and beg forgiveness for the trouble she’d brought him, the worry she’d caused, the resentment she’d harbored in her heart.
Her eyes moved along the shore. This was her home. She would build a life here, in the healing shadow of her family, the people she loved and who loved her. An ease of mind she hadn’t experienced in months descended like balm to soothe her troubled thoughts. She was coming home! For the first time during the voyage, she began to believe she would be all right.
Mr. Aykroyd read it in her face. He patted her shoulder and reached for her hands. “Gel, ‘tis easier to part here. Them Puritans don’t take to men and women kissing, and I’d be proud if ye feel an urge to kiss this old cheek when ye’re ready to leave.” Bristol returned the pressure of his fingers and felt a sudden sting behind her eyes. “I think ye’ll not be going back to England.” He saw confirmation in her green gaze before she dropped her head. “And it may be that yer ship and mine, they won’t pass again.” He swallowed and waited a moment before continuing. “But I want ye to know...” His voice sounded peculiar. “I want ye to know that if ever I’d been blessed with a wee daughter, I’d have wanted her to be like ye.”
Bristol flung herself into his arms and kissed the scarred and ruined cheek. “I’ll never forget you,” she whispered fiercely. “Never!” Then she stumbled blindly down a rope ladder, and rough hands pulled her into the longboat. She lifted her face, and her green eyes told him good-bye.
“Go with God, little gel!” he shouted across the water.
Bristol lowered her face and gripped the edges of her apron. The oars bit into the water, pulling her away from one life and into another.
She climbed rickety stairs to the wharf, and for an instant her eyes swung to the Princess Anne, her proud masts rocking against the blue sky. A lone figure stood at the railing.
Drawing a deep breath, Bristol resolutely turned her back and looked toward Hannah and Charity. She started toward them, first at a walk; then she was running. And her eyes searched the wagon behind them, seeking Noah, looking for her father.
Then she saw their faces, and a cry tore from her lips. Bristol Adams had come home. But she’d arrived too late.
25
From the moment Bristol left Salem, a part of her had longed to return, had yearned for home. And now that she had come back, part of her still searched for the home she remembered. To her bewilderment, Bristol didn’t feel as if she’d found her home.
Nothing was the same; nothing was as she remembered. The Adams house seemed smaller, shabbier, and the outbuildings more in need of repair than she recalled. Noah’s fields appeared to have shrunk. The safe familiarity she longed for was missing.
However, the greatest changes lay within the house. Mild, amiable Charity had become distant and withdrawn, encircled by a hard shell Bristol could not penetrate. And Noah’s death had cleaved Hannah in half. This Bristol understood, for she herself felt less than whole with Jean Pierre forever gone. She watched her mother with a sympathy born of secret understanding.
Hannah’s energy had diminished to listlessness; a stoop frequently curved the famed erect posture. She turned inside herself and often stared at nothing for hours. Values Hannah had treasured for over fifty years suddenly seemed of questionable merit. She’d buried five sons and one husband. Her two daughters were grown and of marriageable age. Of what earthly use was Hannah Adams? Hannah felt it a gross unfairness that God had not taken her along with Noah; she found no reason in continuing when she’d outlived her usefulness. Staring into the future, Hannah foresaw an immediate need to sell the farm; she could not manage all the work herself. And then what? Was she destined to become a burden, to live in the households of her daughters when they married?
“Neither of us has a husband on the horizon, Mama,” Bristol gently chided. She glanced quickly at Charity, realizing she didn’t know if this were true or not for her sister. Hannah didn’t respond. “And if you came to live with one of us... well, an extra pair of hands would be welcome.” Bristol recalled the difference an extra woman had made at the Royal Rumm, and for a moment she considered telling Hannah. But a delicate shudder moved her shoulders, and she pushed those thoughts from her mind. “Don’t think of it now,” she added. “It’s time to get ready for the Sabbath services. Nothing needs deciding this minute.”
“But soon.” Hannah sighed, rising from the table. She paused at the door of the bedroom she’d shared with Noah, and she straightened her spine as if it required courage to enter that room.
Bristol watched with a sore heart. Her mother had aged greatly since Bristol left Salem. More gray silvered the chestnut in Hannah’s hair, and her vitality seemed to be leaking away. Overburdened eyes squinted from a worn face, and she no longer attempted close work.
Bristol’s mind followed her mother. Her voice was distracted when she spoke to Charity. “Are you ready for services?”
“Aye,” Charity snapped. “We don’t need you ordering us about. We managed fine before you came home, you know.”
Bristol’s green eyes widened, and they stared at each other. This was Charity? Shy, diffident Charity? Bristol stammered, “I’m sorry, Charity, I didn’t mean...”
Charity covered her eyes, and her shoulders caved around her thin chest. “No, no. It’s me that’s sorry.” She sighed and frowned into the fireplace. “Forgive me, Brissy, I... I have a lot on my mind.”
In the last year, Charity had filled out, and although her figure would never approach the lush curves of her sister, she wore a woman’s body. And the face of a freckled child. But an unhappy, sorrowing child. The open, readable face Bristol remembered was gone.
Hannah reentered the kitchen adjusting a plain shawl. “Aye,” Hannah said tartly, and her lips thinned, “I guess you do hold much on your mind, missy.” Her faded eyes moved to Bristol, explaining. “She and that Parris bunch were seen dancing in the woods. Dancing!” Hannah’s expression hurt to see. “Maybe now you’ve come home, Bristol, you can talk some sense to her.”
Confused, Bristol shook the red curls tied at her neck. That “Parris bunch” had also been the Adams bunch when she left.
Charity glared up from the fire, her pale eyes sparking resentment. “We weren’t dancing, Ma. We were skipping!” She lifted a plea to Bristol. “Is skipping so terrible?”
Before Bristol could frame an answer, Hannah cut in. “Tell Charity skipping or dancing or whatever... tell her it’s wrong! She knows it is! But they must have their sport! Their amusement!” Disgust pinched Hannah’s voice. “This community was not founded on sport! What would happen to the common good if everyone decided they needed ‘amusements’?” She spit the words. “I ask you that, missy, what would happen if decent people threw aside their work and demanded sport?”
Hopelessness settled like a mask over Charity’s tight features. “You just won’t understand.”
Uneasily Bristol cleared her throat. “I’ll fetch the wagon,” she said, and fled th
e tensions in the kitchen. Outside, she breathed deeply of crisp chill air. A bank of clouds covered the eastern sky, and Bristol frowned, hoping it didn’t signal snow.
As she harnessed the horses and hitched up the wagon, Bristol tried to sort through the changing relationships she’d returned to find, and she sought to determine what her own role would be. Obviously a person who had danced through two pairs of slippers in one night could not chastise another for mere skipping. On the other hand, dancing was not shameful in London; here it was. It seemed to Bristol that one must play by the rules wherever one happened to be. Or was that just an excuse?
She sighed. Every day in Salem seemed less appealing than the last. During the three days she’d been home, Bristol had listened to a seemingly endless stream of news updating the lives and affiliations of neighbors and residents. The news was not encouraging. Everyone seemed as angry and upset as Charity.
The story best typifying this upset was Hannah’s account of Ann Putnam Senior’s attempt to hold a quilting bee, usually a happy, gossipy event much anticipated. But before the bee date arrived, regrets poured in, and finally the bee had been canceled. Martha Cory could not be seen with Rose Kenneth, as their husbands were recent enemies; several ladies refused to sit in the same room with Parris supporters; if Rebecca Nurse did not attend, then Elizabeth Porter refused to attend; Elizabeth Proctor declined, wondering why she’d been included in the first place; Hannah Adams refused to enter the home of a woman who allowed her daughter (Ann Junior) to skip and thus exerted a bad influence on Charity; if Bridget Bishop attended, those who objected to the tavern owners along Ipswich Road would not; if Bridget was excluded, no others from Ipswich Road would attend. And on it went.
Salem had splintered into smaller and smaller cliques, until it became impossible to hold a large gathering with any hope of success. Someone was certain to be abrasive and offending in his views, inciting a brawl and further dividing the groups on yet another issue.
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