Chesapeake

by James A. Michener

  He was listening to such a monologue when an English sailor made an unbelievable statement: “Our men marched to Washington, burned the city and captured the whole American government. The United States is no more.” When Turlock shouted his disbelief, the sailor said, “Ships like yours will be driven from the sea. They’re hanging captains like you ... right now.”

  Even after he had collected his money, Turlock sat day after day in the Infierno, seeking information. He could not believe that a nation so promising could have collapsed, but before he departed on his third voyage to Africa a French officer arrived at Belém with confirming news: “You Americans must learn never to challenge England without our help. Now you’ve lost everything.”

  For the first time in his life Turlock was bewildered. He needed the easy money provided by the slave trade, but he also needed information about home. He felt that if America had succumbed to the British he ought to be on hand to aid the new system, whatever it was to be. He knew that the wounded country would need practiced men and sturdy ships to develop its commercial interests.

  So in spite of attractive commissions from Brazilian slave dealers, he sailed not to Africa but to the Chesapeake. He arrived there in April 1815, to find no English warships on patrol, no impediment at the capes. Gingerly he sailed into the bay, hailing the first ship he saw. He and the other captain spoke to each other.

  “Defeated? Hell, no! We drove the redcoats back to London.”

  “I was told that Washington was burned.”

  “It was, and not a thing was lost. We’ll build it better than before.”

  “England is not ruling us?”

  “Nor ever will.”

  The ships passed. Turlock stood by the railing, the speaking-trumpet in his right hand, his silver fist hammering rhythmically at the wood.

  When he reached Patamoke he found that he was regarded as a hero, the man who had kept the American flag aloft. He did not tell his neighbors of his second defeat by Captain Gatch nor of his ignominy as a slaver. He was so relieved that America was still free that he accepted the plaudits.

  In triumph he became a moody man, as effective at forty-seven as he would ever be. But he had no wife, no home, really, no job; and he could never erase from his mind those drifting months on the Atlantic when he had not even a port he could claim his own. He thought: I’ll stop at Patamoke for a while—give the Ariel a good mending. Then something’ll turn up.

  In the meantime there was’ considerable excitement on Devon Island, and he found himself sailing down there more and more.

  As soon as the war ended, Penelope Steed Grimes had informed her London circle that she was taking her pretty daughter Susan to Maryland, in the Americas, to be married. For some years she had been in communication with her distant family, the Steeds of Devon, and had known of her father’s death. Simon Steed had been well regarded by Fithians, her London family, for he had been generous in supporting her. When she married Captain Grimes, Simon had sent five thousand pounds, a tremendous sum which had helped her husband buy a colonelcy in a good regiment. He had died fighting Napoleon, but by then Simon was dead, too.

  Her correspondent at Devon had been Isham Steed, her grandfather’s brother, a delightful old man who had visited London in 1794 to attend Penelope’s wedding to Captain Grimes; he had enchanted the community as a witty, well-educated gentleman who could laugh at American pretensions. He liked Penelope and through the years had kept her informed about the Steed half of her heritage.

  He had written, proposing that young Susan come to America and marry his grandson Paul. At first the idea seemed preposterous to Penelope. “They’re cousins, in a manner of speaking. And Paul’s gone to some silly school in America where he’s learned nothing, I’m sure.” She rambled on, as she often did, but in the end began to take seriously her great-uncle’s suggestion.

  Fithians assured her that the Steeds were one of the soundest families in America, and that if rumor could be trusted, Simon had doubled his fortune in the rebellion. The family was stable, as witness Uncle Isham, and now that peace had settled over the area, life in Maryland could be quite acceptable. A portrait painter had shipped to London a likeness of young Paul, and when everything was added up, a Steed-Grimes marriage seemed practical, despite the consanguinity.

  So in the summer of 1816 Penelope Grimes, lively widow of forty-one, took passage on one of the Steed ships accompanied by her daughter Susan, aged twenty, and after a crossing as placid as the good relations now existing between England and America, the ship dropped anchor at Devon. Susan, standing at the rail, saw with delight that Rosalind’s Revenge was as handsome a plantation home as she had been promised. “It’s protected by a hundred trees! It’s a splendid place!” Her musical voice carried over the water, and as she came toward him, Paul was even more charmed by her dainty style, the beauty of her features.

  Days of exploration and enchantment followed, with Penelope as pleased as her daughter by the unexpected suavity of Devon. “Really, it could be transplanted right into rural England and no one could detect the difference. Susan, we’ve come to a little paradise.”

  Both women were fascinated by the idea of literally owning servants who could be told what to do without fear of their departing in a huff. But even so, when old Isham and young Paul appeared one day leading a shy black girl of thirteen, neither of the English visitors was quite prepared when faced with the actuality of slavery.

  Shoving the little girl forward, barefoot and dressed only in a slip, Paul said, with obvious pride, “She’s yours, Susan. Name’s Eden.”

  “Eden what?”

  “Just Eden. Slaves don’t have names,” and Isham added, “She sews beautifully. And she’s young enough to train in the ways you desire.” Eden, her smooth and beautifully composed features betraying no sign of understanding, stood silent as the Grimes women inspected her.

  “She’s a gem!” Penny said, but her daughter was confused as to what one did with a slave. “How do I ...”

  “You own her. She sleeps outside your door,” Paul explained. “She does whatever you wish. Because she belongs to you.” Turning to the black girl, he said abruptly, “Back to the kitchen,” and the girl vanished.

  “Paul!” Susan said when the girl was gone. “What a sweet gift! And the glorious parties you’ve been having.”

  “There’s to be more,” he assured her, and that night Susan met for the first time some of the Steed captains. Among them was Matthew Turlock, not at present working for the Steeds but a figure of some importance in the community.

  “This is our local hero,” Paul said with a faint touch of amusement. “He fought the British.”

  “I’m sure he fought well,” Penelope said as she took his right hand. “I’m told some of your seamen were quite heroic.”

  “Yes,” Susan burbled. “My cousin’s married to Sir Trevor Gatch and he told us ...”

  At the mention of Gatch’s name Captain Turlock stiffened. “He was a formidable enemy,” he said. “He’s the one who fired the cannon at this house.”

  “This house?” Penelope said in disbelief. “Did the war reach here?”

  “It did,” Turlock said.

  “You must see what your friend Sir Trevor did to us,” Paul cried, his voice rising rather higher than he had intended, and with a lamp he led the way upstairs to his room, where the two cannonballs were lodged in the wall near his bed. “Had Captain Gatch lowered his sights three feet, I’d have been killed.”

  “Oh, look at those dreadful things,” Susan cried. “Coming right into the room. Could I see them?”

  She looked about for a chair to stand on, but then turned abruptly to Captain Turlock and said, “Lift me up. I must see them,” and before anyone could protest, she had placed herself in front of the bearded waterman and drawn his arms about her. With a heave he projected her toward the ceiling, holding her aloft without difficulty, and as she traced the outline of the iron balls she cried, “Oh, Paul! You could inde
ed have been killed.”

  When Captain Turlock put her down he turned to Mrs. Grimes and apologized. “I would not have presumed ...”

  “It’s nothing,” Penelope said. “Susan does as she wishes, and no harm.”

  “We’re mightily pleased that she’s to live among us,” he said gallantly, and he was so polite, so rough and authentic, that Mrs. Grimes began to take an interest in him; all during that first dinner she talked principally to him, learning of his years at sea and of the adventures to which Paul had alluded. On their third dinner together she asked some really personal questions, but she was hardly prepared for the astonishing fact he revealed: “I’ve never forgotten you, Mrs. Grimes. When you left for your exile in London ...”

  “I hardly call it an exile, Captain.”

  “You quit your home. That’s exile.”

  “I found a new home. That’s good sense. But when did you and I ever meet?”

  “When you left for London, you sailed on my father’s ship. And I sailed too. And it was my job to care for you.” He paused, recalling those exciting days when he and America were fledglings and everything was new. “I kept you in a basket, forward, and fed you and took you to the women when you cried.” He said this so simply, and with such remembered affection, that Mrs. Grimes was moved. “We called you Penny then. I was eight.”

  “And so much would happen to us both,” she said impulsively. “How did you lose your hand?”

  “Captain Gatch shot it off. The day he laid those eggs in the wall upstairs.”

  She laughed at his expression, then asked, “So you’ve been fighting the English all your life?”

  “Not viciously,” he said. “It was long drawn out ... year after year we ...”

  “But you hate Captain Gatch viciously, don’t you?”

  “I do. That war never ends.”

  He took her about the bay, pointing out the plantations on Dividing Creek owned by the other branches of the Steed family, and then sailed her to Patamoke, where he showed her his clipper, the Ariel, on blocks at the Paxmore Boatyard. “Look at those clean lines. They move through the sea the way a heron moves through air.”

  “And what’s a heron?”

  He started to explain when George Paxmore, tall and grave of mien, his flat hat perched on his head, came from the boatyard with a problem that obviously was serious. “I must talk with thee, Matthew.”

  “When I’ve finished showing Mrs. Grimes the river,” Turlock said. “Her daughter’s to be the new mistress at Devon.”

  “Fortunate girl,” Paxmore said, not removing his hat or extending his hand. “You’ll come back?”

  “I will.”

  “What’s a heron?” Penelope asked again when the solemn Quaker had left.

  “Have you never seen a marsh?”

  “No, but I’ve been told you live in one. I should very much like to see it.”

  So on the sail back to Devon he detoured at Turlock’s Creek and led the sloop into those narrow and exciting waters where the sparta grass grew eight feet high, creating a world of mystery, and as they sailed silently in this wonderland a heron flew past, legs dangling far behind the tail feathers, and Matthew said, “There he goes, the great fisherman. Our Indians called him Fishing-long-legs.”

  “Did you have Indians ... in the old days?”

  “We have Indians now ... in the new days.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m part Indian. Three times members of my family—far back, of course.”

  “You’re part Indian!” She was fascinated by this exotic information and intended advising her daughter of it as soon as she got back to Devon, but before this could happen, there was a detour.

  “I used to live up there,” Matthew said, indicating the log cabin which Turlocks had occupied for two centuries.

  “I’d love to see it. Can we walk?”

  “If you don’t prize your shoes.”

  “I don’t!” And she was out of the sloop before he was, running up the path to the rambling house in the woods.

  A Turlock woman of indeterminable character appeared as the voices drew close to her cabin, and two children kept behind her skirts. “Oh, it’s you, Matt,” she said. “What brings you here?”

  “This is Mrs. Grimes. Her daughter is marrying Paul Steed.”

  “Lucky girl.”

  “Mrs. Grimes, this is one of my cousins, name of Bertha.”

  Penelope tried to say something gracious, but the impact of the cabin and its occupants was too powerful. This was America, the America cartooned by British wits, and it repelled her. “I think we’d better go back.”

  “You wanna see inside?” Bertha asked, kicking open the door.

  “No, thank you. They’re expecting us.” And she retreated.

  This incident should have prepared Turlock for what happened. At Mrs. Grimes’ insistence he had stayed at Devon three days, during which he had an opportunity to watch both Penelope and her daughter more carefully. Young Susan was still an unformed child; with a good husband she might become a strong woman; with an essentially weak man like Paul Steed she would probably relax and become quite ordinary. But at twenty she was beautiful and alert. He wished her well.

  Penelope was a mature woman endowed with that easy charm which comes from living on four thousand pounds a year. Her hair was neat; her teeth were good; her skin was not ravaged; and she was semi-educated. Above all, she was responsive, eager for new adventures in this new world. If some of it, like the Turlock cabin, repelled her, she could still see the merit of life along the Choptank and understand the forces that had framed the various Steed captains. None was more impressive than Matthew Turlock, and by various actions she let him know she thought so.

  Therefore, at the conclusion of the third day the captain went to his room, washed carefully, inspected his nails and presented himself to Mrs. Grimes. He spoke simply. “I’ve been thinking that you might consider remaining in America ... might even have thought of ... Well, the Ariel does belong to me ... I’ve been careful with my money ...”

  Mrs. Grimes broke into a nervous but not disrespectful laugh. “Is this a proposal, Captain Turlock?”

  “It is.”

  As a lady of breeding she tried to restrain her nervous laugh, but it broke through as an insulting giggle. “Me? Live in Maryland? For the rest of my life?” She controlled herself, then placed her hand on his arm, saying, almost in a whisper, “I’m a Londoner, Captain.” Then she added something which under more relaxed circumstances she never would have said: “Can you picture me in a cabin? With Bertha?”

  “I do not live in a cabin now,” he said gravely, keeping his silver fist behind him, lest that, too, offend.

  “Dear Captain Turlock,” she began, but then the nervous giggle returned. She felt ashamed, tried twice to compose herself, then rose and kissed him on the cheek. “It’s quite impossible ... Indians ... in London ...” With a flutter of her hand she indicated that he should go, and with a deep bow he did.

  As soon as he left she informed the Steeds that she would be sailing for London immediately. “I’ve behaved poorly, and I’m ashamed of myself.”

  “Did that Turlock embarrass you?” Paul Steed asked menacingly, as if he might conceivably run after the captain and thrash him.

  “No. He paid me the honor of proposing.”

  “Proposing?” When the household was informed of this gaucherie the laughter was general, except for Susan, who said, “I’d love to have him for my daddy. That great silver fist hammering on the table, laying down the law.”

  “He’s a waterman,” Paul said, and the packing began, but before Mrs. Grimes could sail, old Isham Steed died, and after his funeral, when his papers were inspected lest promissory notes of value be overlooked, Paul came upon a copy of his letter to President Jefferson, and when this was circulated within the family, Mrs. Grimes gained a better picture of the Indians her daughter’s new family had known in previous centuries:

&nbs
p; Devon Island, Mlnd.

  13 July 1803

  Dear Mr. President,

  Immediately upon receipt of your request that I send you a report on the Choptank tribe I assembled an impromptu commission consisting of the best informed citizens of this area to inquire into the matters you raised. None of us is an expert, and none speaks the Indian language, but we and our forebears have lived with this tribe for generations, so although our information is not scientifically precise, it is the best available. With that apologia I proceed.

  At this date we know of only one Choptank Indian surviving on this planet. She is Mrs. Molly Muskrat, aged 85 or thereabouts, infirm of body but tantalizingly clear of mind. She lives on 16 acres of moderately good land on the left bank of the Choptank River across from our capital city of Patamoke. She is, so far as we can ascertain, a full-blooded Choptank, the daughter of a well known workman in these parts and the descendant of chiefly families. She has most of her teeth, a remarkably full head of hair, and a lively interest in things. She was delighted to talk with us, for she is aware that she is the last of her people. Her age is of course uncertain, but events which she saw personally occurred about 80 years ago, so we are not hesitant to give her age as about 85.

  Legend puts the apex of Choptank society in the first decade of the 17th Century, when the tribe numbered some 260 souls, 140 living in a village on the site of the present-day Patamoke, and 120 farther upriver close to where Denton now stands. They were inferior in number, power and importance to the southerly Nanticokes, and sharply so to the tribes on the western shore of the bay.

  A persistent tradition among the Choptanks claimed that the great man in their history was one Pentaquod, a mythical figure supposed to have reached them from the north. Mrs. Muskrat believes him to have been a Susquehannock, but this seems unlikely, for Captain Smith encountered a real werowance named Pintakood, and doubtless she has the two names confused.