Mrs. Cook

by Marele Day

  ‘To one who has brought so many presents to his family, I have a gift for you.’

  James took the proffered package and opened it to find a pair of shoe buckles, the edges of which were trimmed with diamantés that glistened in the afternoon light like two perfect sets of teeth. ‘They are beautiful,’ he said, turning them this way and that. After they both had enjoyed the spangles of light the buckles threw into the room, he said, ‘Let’s see how they look in place.’ He fastened them onto his newly polished shoes.

  On the appointed day, Lord Sandwich came in his carriage. Elizabeth thought he’d send his footman to collect James, but Lord Sandwich himself had alighted from the carriage and was standing at the door.

  ‘Mrs Cook,’ he greeted Elizabeth, bowing low. At least he hadn’t brought Martha Ray with him, although Elizabeth was curious about the young woman who was Lord Sandwich’s mistress. It seemed she accompanied him almost everywhere and even acted as hostess when he entertained guests at Hinching-brooke, taking the place of his wife who was shut away in a madhouse in Windsor. Miss Ray was a collector of birds, and what an odd bird she’d collected in Lord Sandwich. Although he was a grand personage, he had a face like an old shoe. Elizabeth had heard the rumours of his debauchery and gambling, and knew that he had been a member of the infamous Hellfire Club, where all sorts of bacchanalian things had gone on. Elizabeth did not appreciate the leering look he gave her, though perhaps it was an expression he wore permanently. ‘I have come to pay my respects to the goat, Mrs Cook,’ he said grandly. ‘Who has served her country, and is now in well-deserved retirement.’ He wasn’t joking, he really did want to see the goat. ‘She’s found her land legs, I presume?’

  ‘Not only that. She’s found everything which is edible and some which is not.’

  The two men went out to the back garden. Elizabeth hung in the doorway, glad that the weather had been dry and there was no mud to dirty James’s shoes. The diamanté buckles shone beautifully.

  The goat did not look up from her eternal task of grazing. The hens seemed to have accepted the newcomer and pecked at the grass nearby. After greeting the goat and, it appeared, speaking to her, Lord Sandwich brought his gaze up to the fields beyond the house. The two men stood there squarely, gazing at the vista, hands behind their backs.

  After a minute they turned and came back into the house. James gathered up his charts, all neatly rolled and tied with tape.

  He was as handsome as she had ever seen him, and seemed not the least bit anxious about his pending audience with the king.

  Elizabeth watched the carriage drive away from the house. She waited at the door, watching it grow smaller and smaller, till it became a tiny speck and was engulfed by the traffic on Mile End Road.

  A DAMASK SERVIETTE

  Yorkshire was hardly the South Seas but Elizabeth had never been further than Barking.

  ‘All aboard that’s going aboard,’ shouted the coach driver. Excitement hovered about the coach station like a swarm of bees. Both those departing and those remaining behind were caught up in it. Rowdy boys chased each other and tipped the hats of unsuspecting passers-by. Street vendors plied their wares, trying to sell cakes and little dumplings to the voyagers. The horses snorted steam out of their nostrils and pawed the ground impatiently.

  The Cooks had the most luggage of all. ‘At least we will return lighter than we are leaving,’ commented James. Earlier in the month he had written to the Admiralty applying for three weeks leave of absence. The Cooks were bearing gifts for their hosts the Wilsons, John Walker and his family, James’s father and his sister Margaret.

  A bell was rung to signal departure. Elizabeth bent down to Jamie and Nat. ‘Now, you are to be on your best behaviour with Cousin Frances and Mr Lieber, do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, Mama,’ the boys chorused.

  The coach driver helped aboard a fat woman who slapped away the hand placed on her behind. Another woman, grinning a toothless grin, was hoisted up into the basket at the back of the coach. Elizabeth hoped the old woman did not have too far to travel. The wind was brisk on that cold December day, and although it was cheaper to travel in the basket, it was not as comfortable as inside.

  All the luggage was on top, but Elizabeth had kept aside a valise of her own to take with her in the coach. It contained some items of food, even though James had told her that they would be well victualled at the inns on the way.

  It also contained the Book of Common Prayer that James had given to Frances. She had offered it as a travel companion to Elizabeth. ‘You don’t know who you might have in with you,’ Frances said. ‘You might prefer to bury your nose in a book.’ It was a good choice. Novels, which Elizabeth was fond of reading, had to be selected carefully, otherwise they might elicit comments from her fellow travellers. The Book of Common Prayer would establish Elizabeth as a respectable woman.

  Nevertheless, as the coach pulled away and the waving figures of Frances, Mr Lieber, Jamie and Nat got smaller and smaller, Elizabeth felt not the least bit respectable, despite the fact that she’d just celebrated her ninth wedding anniversary and that her thirty-first birthday was approaching.

  She and James had never had a honeymoon, never been away on a holiday at all, and though they would not go as far as Gretna Green, she had such a heady feeling that they could almost have been eloping. Away from the children and the rest of the family, away from the neighbours in Assembly Row, away from everyone. Even though they would be staying at inns and then with the Wilsons at Great Ayton, she felt that she and James would be alone together.

  Elizabeth never imagined that the wheels would make so much noise on the road. Nevertheless, it was agreeable to be travelling. The coach went so fast she felt as if she were flying. As well as the fat woman, who took up the place of two, there was a couple—a man with ginger hair poking out beneath his wig, accompanying a much younger woman—and two gentlemen, thin and angular as spiders, dressed alike in black suits. James tried, as best he could, not to take up too much of the precious room. He’d welcome the stops, when he could stretch his long legs.

  They hadn’t even left the roads of London but already the ride was bumpy and the driver going at a cracking pace. Perhaps, mused Elizabeth, it was not so bumpy up there as it was inside.

  At Highgate Hill, on the northern outskirts of London, the ride became smoother, and when they descended the hill, Elizabeth experienced a sliding sensation she thought would never end.

  Though Elizabeth had a window seat and spent her time looking at the fields racing by, she was aware that she and James were under the scrutiny of the fat woman, who was no doubt trying to assess their station in life.

  James was wearing landmen’s clothes and looked as fine as any gentleman. Elizabeth wore a dark blue dress with a rich brown woollen cloak. When Elizabeth turned her gaze towards the fat woman, the woman looked away. What was the polite mode of behaviour in the close confines of a coach? Did you avert your gaze, as the woman had, or chat to each other? Elizabeth looked out the window again, at the heavy grey sky bearing down on the horizon.

  She became aware that the two spidery men were talking about what they referred to as ‘Mr Banks’s voyage’. One of the men had a copy of Gulliver’s Travels on his lap; perhaps that had led to the conversation. James was saying, ‘Aye, what an exciting voyage it must have been.’ Elizabeth smiled. He had obviously not announced himself.

  ‘They came across a coral reef, more than a thousand miles long, which nearly did them in,’ said one of the thin gentlemen, obviously well informed. Of course the newspapers had been full of it. ‘All of a sudden the ship hit the coral, which sliced through the timbers as easily as a saw. The captain, I heard, came on deck in his drawers.’ Elizabeth looked at her husband but he merely continued giving the man his polite attention. ‘Well, they threw everything overboard, casks of water, tons of ballast. What a decision the captain had to make. If they stayed where they were, the ship would grind itself to pieces on the reef. If the
y waited for the tide and went to deep water, the ship would, in all likelihood, sink.’

  Elizabeth wished the man had chosen a happier story to relate. It was the one time, James had said, that he’d truly feared he’d never see his loved ones again. Shipwrecked on a barren shore of New Holland, with no hope of rescue. He’d named the place Cape Tribulation.

  ‘Anyway, the captain decided to go to the deep water. All hands pumped even faster to gain on the four feet of water that had found its way into the hold. In desperation they decided to fother her. That’s coating a sail with tufts of wool and oakum, and wrapping it around the hull,’ explained the man, leaning forward to the one person on the coach who knew full well what fothering involved. ‘That was sufficient to get the ship close enough to land to assess the damage. And you know what they found? The biggest hole in the ship had a lump of coral wedged in it, blocking it up. What had caused the trouble had also saved them.’ The storyteller stopped for breath.

  While Cape Tribulation had been James’s worst moment, it was also his proudest. In the panic produced by desperate situations crews often took to plundering, refusing to obey commands. But not on the Endeavour. Instead of ‘every man for himself’ it was ‘every man exerted himself to the very utmost for the preservation of the ship’. Banks had reported that: ‘The seamen worked with surprising cheerfulness and alacrity; no grumbling or growling was to be heard . . . not even an oath (though the ship in general was as well furnished with them as most in His Majesty’s service).’

  ‘I’d rather do my voyaging in this ship,’ said the man, brandishing his book. ‘I agree with Dr Johnson on that score—going to sea is like being in prison, with the chance of being drowned.’

  The old woman in the basket alighted at Nottingham. Elizabeth noticed how ruddy her cheeks were from the journey, but she seemed otherwise in good repair. Two more passengers came aboard which made it very squashed inside the coach.

  It was almost midnight when they arrived at an inn near Leeds. Elizabeth could not believe how tired she was, even though she’d done nothing all day but sit. James had secured them a bed to themselves. Elizabeth had no idea what arrangements had been made for the other passengers.

  Despite the lateness of the hour, the yard was full of noisy men gaming and playing skittles. Though the window was closed and curtains drawn, still they could be heard, but Elizabeth was determined nothing was going to spoil her night with James. She did a quick inspection of the bed sheets. Passably clean.

  By the time the couple disrobed, the yard had gone quiet, and all that could be heard was an occasional owl calling. Elizabeth watched her husband. First he took off his wig and loosened his hair so that it hung down around his shoulders like kelp floating on the tide. She kept pace with him, taking off her hat and unpinning her hair. They watched each other in the candlelight, the flame glittering in their eyes. When James was disrobed completely, she could see, as she had done on the first night of his return, where the South Seas wind and sun had burnished his skin. The South Seas sun still shone in him, he had brought it back, a gift for Elizabeth. His chest and back, his arms, everywhere save the paler skin which his breeches had covered.

  Elizabeth’s tiredness seemed to have been overtaken by a stronger force. To feel the warmth of the South Seas captured in his skin, to hold him close and feel his beating heart, to hear the quickness of his breath as his desire for her rose. So many times James had played his fingers on Elizabeth’s skin, and now it was her turn. She felt the leathery texture of his arms, drew her fingers up to his shoulders and down the long soft curve of his back to the hard mounds of his buttocks, a body formed by farm work, heaving coal, climbing ropes. His eyes were closed, the lashes brushing his cheeks, the candlelight giving them an even greater sweep.

  There were no murmured tales of the South Seas that night, of the voyage that rose like a tide from his chest and rode on his breath, the words gliding and forming into stories like a flock of birds rising into a sunlit sky. It was time for their bodies, their skin to tell stories of longing and desire finally fulfilled.

  James and Elizabeth awoke to the sounds of the coach being made ready for the day’s travel, and the horses whinnying. They dressed and ate a quick breakfast, staying inside the warmth of the inn till the driver called, ‘All aboard that’s coming aboard.’

  The fat lady had been replaced by a vicar and an elderly couple who were going to Newcastle, although they appeared altogether too frail to make such a long journey. Elizabeth sat next to James, her skirts billowing over his lap no matter how much she tried to contain them.

  After two hours travelling, the day rose and with it a wind. ‘An easterly,’ said James. ‘It will bring rain, no doubt.’

  It did. They’d hardly gone a mile when the wind really churned up, and brought squalls of rain.

  Inside the coach it was atrocious, with Elizabeth being thrown into the lap of the vicar on more than one occasion. She felt nauseous and fearful as the wind threw them this way and that, the rain beating so hard on the windows, Elizabeth was sure they would shatter.

  She felt as though she were in a barrel, a butter churn perhaps, being stirred round and round, her head hitting the ceiling one minute, then diving for the floor of the coach the next.

  James seemed not the least bit perturbed for himself, and Elizabeth understood that he would have faced much worse at sea. His concern was for her and the other passengers, bringing his arm around his wife to cushion the blows, while bracing his other arm across the corner of the carriage so that the vicar could save himself from lurching forwards.

  Elizabeth spared a thought for the driver and the horses that baulked against the wind and the rain, trying to run off the road, away from the weather. She could hear the driver cracking his whip and cursing at the animals.

  But by nightfall the storm had abated and they reached the white-walled city of York without mishap. It was Christmas Eve. Elizabeth lay on the bed in the Black Swan Inn. It was hours before the movement of the coach left her bones.

  Elizabeth caught her husband’s quickening of interest the closer they got to their destination.

  ‘You see how it changes? You see the roll of the moors?’ James was like a young puppy sniffing the air, finding the familiar smells of home in it.

  Elizabeth looked out the window at the gaunt trees, ploughed fields giving way to thick clumps of gorse.

  It was mid-afternoon when the coach deposited Elizabeth and James outside the dark-timbered Royal Oak, Great Ayton. Word spread quickly that James Cook had returned to his boyhood village. Before long a small crowd had gathered. Elizabeth was thankful to see Commodore Wilson’s footman come forward and show them to the carriage. They wouldn’t have been able to carry all that luggage to the Wilsons’. Elizabeth was so tired she could barely even walk.

  The carriage crossed the Leven River, and near All Saints Church turned up the yew-lined driveway, so smooth after miles of rutted roads, leading to Ayton Hall. Elizabeth wondered what the upkeep of such a grand residence might be. Tax on the front windows alone would amount to twenty-eight shillings, to say nothing of the rest of the ochre-washed building.

  They came to a halt at the porticoed entrance to the manor which, up till a few months ago, had been home to Thomas Skottowe. Elizabeth caught the intent look on her husband’s face as he alighted, the squaring of his shoulders. She saw in his expression the boy approaching the house, and now the man. It was only for an instant, in the pause before he helped Elizabeth out of the carriage and cast a look towards the driver taking care of their luggage.

  To come to this house through the front door, as a guest and friend of the host, and not cap in hand at the back door, the boy ready to do his master’s chores, he had circumnavigated the globe.

  Commodore Wilson’s brother-in-law, Ralph Jackson, the Admiralty secretary, was also visiting. There would be much talk of navy matters.

  Tired though she was, Elizabeth found a second wind in the flurry of greeting
s. Great interest was shown in the Maori club that James had brought as a gift for the commodore. This led on to a discussion of cannibalism. Then the commodore, who on his final voyage with the East India Company had discovered the Pitt passage to China, turned to more nautical matters. How did the Endeavour handle herself? How did the collier compare to a sloop, say, or a frigate? Elizabeth and Mrs Wilson left the men to their port and tobacco.

  Elizabeth smiled as snippets of their conversation wafted out of Commodore Wilson’s library. It was the proposed second voyage that was the subject of conversation now.

  Mrs Wilson bent over her embroidery hoop and Elizabeth to hers. Elizabeth’s held a large damask serviette, part of a set into which she was working her initials, with a number on each serviette so that it could be easily identified at the laundry. She had other embroideries in progress at home, but had deemed the serviettes, with the small amount of work they required, to be most suitable for travelling.

  She had already completed the ‘E.C.’ and was embroidering the number 9 in cross-stitch using grey-blue thread. She could hardly keep her eyes open, yet felt that she should at least keep Mrs Wilson company. Elizabeth noticed that she’d missed a square in her work and made a note to check the piece in the morning when she was refreshed.

  ‘It’s a lonely life being married to a man who is married to the sea,’ said Mrs Wilson. ‘But one day, like the commodore, Mr Cook will retire.’

  Elizabeth could hear the excitement in her husband’s voice as he discussed the second voyage. He sounded a long way from retirement.

  Lonely was not the word Elizabeth would have chosen. Her husband’s absences were many things—anxiousness, longing, frustration—but not lonely. She carefully pulled thread through a stitch.

  Elizabeth had two husbands—the one who spent months at a time with her, with whom she had come to Yorkshire; and the imagined husband, the one who was by her side when the one in the next room was away. The one who was there in every breath she took, who inhabited her body as much as she did herself. The husband made of air, and memories and yearning, who nestled into the bed beside her at night.