"You talk as good as that rascal, Tom Cary," James Fewox said. "I could say a few words for you, now, if you want to get elected to something…. On either side!" he added.
Sarah Alice laughed with them all, and gave Jean a favorite fan for a gift.
Many of the leaves had fallen, but many tired, brown leaves still dangled from the oak and hickory branches. There'd been no hard, killing frost this year, and it was well into October. A cold wind blew from the north as they sailed down the Machapungo and worked up the Pamticoe. They passed by the Romney Marsh practice fields of Cary's militia to the mouth of Town Creek. The winds turned more westerly and they entered the creek, seeing the town of Bath right ahead. It started on the far heading of a back creek, and stretched—scattered—for a quarter of a mile along the Town Creek bank.
"That's where Mister Lawson and Hannah live," Richard said, pointing through the trees to a white house sitting on a knoll of land that was the point between the back creek—Adam's Creek—and Town Creek.
Matching, white-washed fences surrounded the first waterfront lots, and enclosed a large parcel of land across from the Water Street. There sat Lawson's house, facing the serene, dark waters of Adams and Town Creeks.
Edward docked his graceful sloop at Lawson's wharf, and sent Tapoc— whom Jean had loaned to Sarah Alice during her stay—to alert the Lawson servants that Mistress Sarah Alice Harrison had arrived to call.
In minutes, Hannah Smith was running down the hill to greet her guests. Although not married to John Lawson, Hannah Smith—the daughter of a longtime planter on the Pamticoe—was treated with a love and respect that was envied by most wives of binding, civil ceremonies or of the rare, clerically-blessed unions. Lawson had gone to the extent of making provision in his will for his "beloved Hannah," Jean had told her, and for their two children, Isabella, almost six, and a toddler, John, not quite two.
Sarah Alice had been charmed and intrigued by John Lawson in Williamsburgh, and by the stories he'd told of Hannah and their busy life. Lawson had made a most exhaustive journey through Carolina; he'd surveyed the town of Bath—picking the choicest lots for himself, of course; he'd sent voluminous collection of plants and animals back to the London apothecary, James Petiver, his chief sponsor; and there was his book. Hannah apologized for John's absence, but he'd ridden his horse to the plantation of Tobias Knight to report on the Palatine settlement. He was returned from the new town, New Bern, which he'd surveyed at the juncture of the Trent and Neuse Rivers for de Graffenried's Palatine and Swiss settlers. He'd be home for supper, Hannah said, and hustled her servants to move Sarah Alice's things inside.
"Looks like we might get some rain," Hannah said, hopefully.
"The Indians, my friends, are far better to us than we are to them," John Lawson told his dinner guests. "An Indian will offer food to passing strangers; we would hold back from their children a stale lump of pone."
"But we bring them God!" Sarah Alice replied in amazement.
"Which one, Mistress Harrison? They had their own before we came. We bring them yours, mine, the Quaker's, the baptizers…. I fear we may have confused them," Lawson said. "Major Dorsey is of the Scots Church, I believe? When is your conversion to occur?" John Lawson looked at her with bemusement.
"John, don't tease Mistress Harrison. She doesn't hear the humor you intend," Hannah warned her husband.
Lawson looked to Sarah Alice with a smile on his face.
"I'm sorry my dear. I was only trying to amuse our guest as she so charmingly amused me in Williamsburgh. You find no humor in religion, Mistress Harrison?"
"No, I admit I do not, Sir. But I find your ability to see wit in everything a most charming and generous attribute," she said.
Mister Lawson had turned in his chair and was sitting with his legs crossed, riding his son up and down on a foot. The boy screeched with delight, and Sarah Alice thought that the forty-five year old father might do so, too.
"I'm a naturalist, Mistress Harrison. It is my job to observe life of all kinds, and I've observed that life in Carolina lends great opportunity for the wit of irony. What we say about the Indians and the real facts is one such irony. Oaths—or affirmations—to religion or authority are belied by the reality of actions. Such ironies have their humor."
"I'm afraid irony requires too much knowledge and thinking for me, Sir," she said.
"Ah, ha," Lawson said. "You've just proved yourself a mistress of the form by your very denial," Lawson said.
"You're a mite too charming with the ladies for a man with his will already made out," Hannah said, glaring at him with a proud laugh in her eyes.
"Yes, my dear," he said, as his son stepped down, and Isabella mounted her father's foot.
Footsteps on the piazza summoned a Lawson servant. When the door opened, Sarah Alice saw the hideous Carman with an old, toothless woman.
"Mistress Hannah, you're hiding my treasure," the old woman said.
"Edy, come in," Hannah Lawson said. "Come inside, Carman. Is it raining, yet?"
"No, Mistress Hannah, looks like it's blowed over. Gettin' colder, though."
Sarah Alice watched and listened in amazement. To see Carman and a toothless old woman appear at the front door of such a man as John Lawson was, in itself, surprising. But the delayed recognition and acceptance that this old hag was her sister, Edy, was shocking.
Edy rushed to hug her younger sister, but Sarah Alice stepped back, and Edy relapsed into a manner that she'd lost with Carman in Bath. She tilted her head and let the hood fall across her face. She lifted a hand to rest on her chin, hiding her mouth.
Sarah Alice recovered and stepped forward to embrace her, but Edy felt unclean before her well-dressed and imposing sister.
"Darling Edy," Sarah Alice said, and held her sister close. She recognized the look of pain that she'd inflicted, and her own eyes filled with regret for that, and for the life and company her sister had suffered since the pox had left her so scarred. It had been Edy's dowry, after all….
Both sisters were crying as the men stood by awkwardly, when Hannah hugged them both and comforted them with, "Now, now. Isn't this lovely?"
More footsteps on the piazza sent Lawson's servant to open the door to Richard, Edward, and Fewox. Sarah Alice was amazed, again, at the reception given to her rough-looking relatives. Lawson and Hannah knew them all—Fewox and Anne had befriended the young Hannah Smith and the newly arrived John Lawson when the Fewoxes first came to Bath to seat Glover's land.
Lawson was a scholar and therefore suspect, at first, by the folks of Pamticoe. But he'd also been among the first of the settlers here, and had won the attention and admiration of his neighbors. To be invited by John Lawson on his rushed visits home, was a treat to any man or woman with a taste for wine or spirits. He was generous with his drink, with conversation, and valuable advice. He had bottles of drinkable spirits, as well as those that preserved his collections of small animals. Lawson delighted in testing the brandies he made from his crop of various plums, peaches, pears, apples and berries he cultivated and studied. He experimented with new plants, and a banana tree that he'd ordered the previous winter grew green outside, as did a palmetto he'd brought back from Charles Town.
As the brandy flowed and the conversation grew freer and looser, Sarah Alice relaxed into the atmosphere of this strange place. John Lawson was as much at ease among the Williams men and Old Fewox as he had been with Commissary Blair and the Harrisons. He discussed the breeding of bulldogs with Fewox with the same intensity and knowledge that he'd discussed European politics with Colonel Harrison.
The next day Richard was returned to his Machapungo plantation, while Sarah Alice remained as an honored guest. The entertainments began again, friendly mixtures of Anglicans, Presbyterians, Quakers, and the baptizers. She found herself chatting, openly, with dissenters! She saw, very soon, that the warm reception at Deep Creek and at Scuppernong was being repeated at Bath, but for different reasons. The earlier ones were because of h
er Harrison connections; her Bath reception was owed to her own family ties. John Lawson was more close to Fewox and her mother, to Richard—and her sister Edy!—than he was to Colonel Benjamin Harrison or his fellow Scot, Commissary Blair. Glover's few friends here—among them, Tobias Knight—knew that the Fewoxes were once bonded to Glover, and that Carman brought needed goods to the merchants. Edy Carman could heal many sicknesses that Doctor Llewellyn could not. This attribute of her sister's was news to Sarah Alice; another example of what she'd missed. All of these years she'd had a family she'd not known. It was good to be a Williams again.
After a week, Sarah Alice put on her most homely dress and green apron and walked with Hannah Lawson and Tapoc to call on Edy. It was a cool day, but still nothing like one would expect for late October. In the warm sun she had no need for a cloak, even, as she walked up Water Street from the Lawson home at Town Point.
There were several stores and warehouses along the street, and at least a dozen houses she could see. Many of the houses belonged to merchant ship captains, Hannah had said, who all worked with her brother-in-law, Carman. They passed the workshop of John Jordan, a cooper, and thoughts of her father returned. He would have liked it here in Bath, she thought. The three women stopped to watch the grinding at the horse-driven grist mill that belonged to Lawson and his partners Christopher Gale and Doctor Maurice Llewellyn. Down the street, two boat builders she'd met, Thomas Harding and William Powell, were hammering and sawing.
This was a noisy outpost in the wilderness, she thought. The people of Virginia should see what was happening here, good people doing good things. Mister Lawson had surveyed a large lot that was set aside for a church, along with three hundred acres of glebe land to support it. Only passing missionaries had paused in Bath, though, and there was no church building. Sunday prayers were given at the home of a Mister Gale—brother of Lawson's mill partner—who held the collection of books sent here from England by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Still, the promise of the town was uplifting, and Sarah Alice was in good spirits when Hannah left her and Tapoc at the door of Carman and Edy's temporary home.
Carman was often at sea, Edy told her, but when he was in port the couple stayed in a tiny house that belonged to Tobias Knight. When Carman was away for long times, Edy stayed with her mother up at Scuppernong. Edy and her mother kept close ties. They'd spent many years together, in different circumstances, and travel was relatively easy around the county or up the road to the Albemarle Sound and Edward's land. But the relationship between the reunited sisters was difficult and strained, Sarah Alice felt. She couldn't overcome her reaction to Edy's appearance and her reservations about the temporary legality and respectability of Carman's trade—preying on enemy shipping and bringing goods into port for sale. She dared speak of that aspect to her sister.
"Yes, and he'll not stop it when the war ends, neither," Edy said. "He's bitten by it. He was raiding foreign boats—New Englanders, too—before there was a war. He's a good man, though, my Carman is. And he's taken right good care of our mother, he has!" Edy was determined to stop her sister before she started. Things were different in Carolina.
"I only worry for you, should something happen to him," Sarah Alice said.
"I'm not worried about me, don't you be," Edy said firmly to her younger sister.
"Where has he been, this week?" Sarah Alice asked her sister directly.
"They're out doing the Queen's business," Edy answered.
"They? He left with Edward and Richard. They're not with him, surely?"
"Richard went home to his family and his pine trees. Carman and Edward be using that fine sloop to go sail hunting. French and Spanish sail," Edy said.
"And you say nothing?" Sarah Alice asked.
"I used to sail with him," her sister replied, evenly.
"When will they be back," Sarah Alice wanted to know. "Major Dorsey may come at any day!"
"Could be a month, could be a year. Could be, they won't!" Edy threw her own worries at her sister. Sarah Alice was still a spoiled child. "But if they don't, they'll be heroes in Bath Town, you can believe that. You see how the fine folks treat us, don't you? It's not because they like our looks!"
Sarah Alice turned away, and Edy spoke more softly.
"Don't you worry. One blast from the cannon and the merchant ships heave to. The captains own nothing but their lives. The ship owners are in Bristol or New York. I told you, I sailed with him."
"But Edward has no cannon," Sarah Alice said.
"Our friend, Tobias Knight, can get his hands on anything. Guns and cannons can be got. You ask Richard's friend, Governor Cary, about that."
"Why would Cary need guns and cannon?" Sarah Alice asked. "Are the Spanish coming to Carolina? Governor Hyde is here now. The conflict between the Cary and Glover parties is passed."
"Word came down from Governor Hyde's headquarters at Mister Pollock's on the Chowan, that he's named both Glover and Pollock to the Council. If you knew Carolina, you'd know that that's asking for trouble from the Bath County people."
Sarah Alice walked back up Water Street, followed by the borrowed Indian slave. This was a dangerous place, she thought. There was only a thin layer of civilization here, represented by men like Lawson. But even those men—including Governor Cary, a son-in-law to Archdale, the Proprietor—mingled with, and trafficked with the basest sorts. She looked at her own clothes and nearly cried. Could she make it through the winter? When would Major Dorsey come?
The new year came, and with it came hope.
Sarah Alice was awakened on the first Sunday in April by little John and Isabella's screams of delight. Otherwise, there was a quietness and stillness that was unsettling. She looked through the window and saw blinding white. A deep, wet snow had fallen in the night, covering everything and muffling the vibrant songs and screeches of red birds hiding in the berried holly trees. Mister Lawson's broad-leafed banana tree was weighted down and doomed. The palmetto held a cone of snow.
Suddenly, a cannon boomed, the muffled echo sounding ominous. Snow fell from the palmetto and slid from the steep-roofed house onto the ground. Sarah Alice looked out her window again and saw the sails being lowered from the tall masts of her brother's sloop as it passed the house at Adams Creek, and coasted up Town Creek to a merchant's wharf. The ensign of Saint George slowly flapped in the quiet air of the peaceful Sabbath.
Within minutes, Water Street was filling with people bundled up in cloaks and furs they really didn't need; hurrying to the wharf; laughing; thanking God that the winter draught was over; hopeful, now, that there would be enough winter to kill the projected insects of next summer; exchanging invitations for nog; throwing balls of snow; curious as to what goods Carman, as quartermaster, had chosen to bring back from the raid.
The beauty and prospect of the scene made Sarah Alice giddy, and she hurried down the narrows stairs. Hannah was as excited as her children; snow was seldom seen in these parts, and it was April! The children drank their beer, and ran outside.
Sarah Alice's elation was dampened when she realized that the welfare and safety of her brother—and of Carman, her sister's provider—was unknown. When she and Hannah reached the wharf there was a crowd. Some people were already dressed for services at their various places of worship; some of them still wore the clothes they'd slept in; many hadn't been to bed.
Everything was white except the blue-black water of the creek, the red birds and bluejays that scratched for food, and the greenery of pine boughs broken by the heavy snow. Even Edward's boat was covered with snow and ice. Carman slipped and fell on the wharf when he came ashore, but rolled in the snow laughing, as Edy ran to help him up. A boy atop the center mast threw down streamers of red and purple ribbons to the delighted crowd.
The sloop was low in the water, and the crowd speculated on what might be aboard, as Carman talked to the merchant who owned this wharf. The man seemed excited, and climbed up on a cart to tell the crowd to pray for these heroes
on this Sabbath day, and to return tomorrow for the ribbons, buttons, cloth, sliver plate, and fine Madeira wine that these men had brought to Bath.
That afternoon, Edward came to the Lawson home to see his sister. Sarah Alice assaulted him with questions and denunciation when he came in. How could he go about this dangerous enterprise when he had a wife and children depending on him? Did he think he was Sir Francis Drake? Was he playing children's games he'd never got to play? He barely knew how to manage his sloop within the Sounds, how could he expect to survive against seasoned veterans of the sea?
Edward dismissed her worries. There were easy spoils to take. Many ships were storm damaged, or blown off course. His new craft was swift. He had Carman with him! He stopped her questions with the word he brought from Charles Town: Major Dorsey was sailing within the week to Bath, and then—with his ship loaded with masts, rosin, and tar for the Indies—the couple would return to Britain.
Sarah Alice spent her week opening trunks and hogsheads to decide what she'd wear for the Major's arrival. She stayed inside at the Lawson's, preparing clothes and wigs for the reception of her betrothed.
Becoming Americans Page 38
