Alex worried: that she had packed too much, or yet again too little; that Adam would miss them both too much; that Sarah would feel abandoned; that Mrs Parson might choose this time to die.
“I’ll kill you if you do,” she threatened, which made Mrs Parson laugh, her black eyes like bright buttons in her wrinkled face.
“I don’t plan to, and I’m as hale today as I was a week or so ago, no?”
“Probably more,” Alex muttered, looking her over. The totally white hair was neatly bunned and capped, the dark old-fashioned bodice and skirts spotless, and as always, her collar stood stiff with starch. Her hands trembled too much at times for her to thread a needle or perform any precision cutting, her eyesight was gradually becoming weaker, but all in all, Mrs Parson looked the epitome of health, her soft, wrinkled skin pink, her teeth still surprisingly white.
“In particular as she doesn’t even clean them regularly,” Alex said to Matthew.
“Aye, she does,” Matthew said. “I found her with a wee twig just the other day.”
“Hmm. Well, she doesn’t bathe either, does she?”
Matthew laughed. No, he said, Mrs Parson had as far as he knew never fully immersed herself in any body of water, nor had she ever expressed a wish to do so.
Alex had something of a surprise on the eve of their departure when Mrs Parson told her she was coming with them down to Providence with Sarah.
“Sarah?” Alex said stupidly, looking at her daughter.
“Aye,” Sarah said, “we’ll be staying with Ruth.”
“You will?”
Sarah pulled down her brows into a rather impressive scowl. “I know she’s great-bellied, and I dare say I’ll cope.”
“Oh.” Alex tried to catch Matthew’s eye. Was this a good idea, to expose Sarah to the whispered censure of the straight-laced Providence worthies?
“Da says I can go,” Sarah told her.
“He does, does he?” Alex said, rather irritated with her husband for not discussing this with her. “Then I suppose it’s alright. And Julian will make sure you’re included in one or two of the Bible groups.”
Sarah snorted. “Bible groups? I think not.”
“I think aye,” Matthew said. “If you’re in Providence, you will as a matter of course take part in such.”
“Maybe start your own Conversion Narrative,” Alex suggested, tongue-in-cheek. Ruth had spent most of last year scribbling a long, tedious description of her evolving spirituality. A must, Alex gathered, for the wife of an ambitious minister.
“There is only one unwed minister in Providence, and that is Minister Macpherson,” Sarah pointed out, “and him I don’t plan on wedding.” She eyed Mrs Parson speculatively. “You should wed him, Mrs Parson. He could do with a wife, and you must be of an age.”
Matthew burst out laughing. “Gregor Macpherson isn’t forty, and he’ll be looking for a fertile wife.”
“Not me,” Sarah told him.
“Or me,” Mrs Parson added.
Adam had been crying, and when the time came to say goodbye, he leeched on to Alex in a way he hadn’t done since he was a small child.
“I don’t want you to leave me,” he whispered. “I want you to stay here, with me.”
“It’s only for some months,” Alex said, kissing his brow.
“Then I can go with you.”
“No, honey, you can’t.” She stroked him over the head. “And what about Hugin and Lovell Our Dog? You can’t just leave them, can you? And the wood thrush you saved from the cat – how will it survive if you’re not here to nurse it back to health?” The right thing to say, she congratulated herself, feeling how her son squared his shoulder at these his responsibilities. She caressed his downy cheek, smiling down into eyes that shifted in browns and greens before shoving him in the direction of his father. “Say goodbye to your da.”
“He’ll be alright,” Ian said from behind her, and she turned to give this the child of her heart a strong hug. He rested his chin on the top of her head, and they just stood there.
Finally, he released her. “Will you be back in time?” he asked, his eyes drifting over to Betty.
“Of course we will,” she said, and he relaxed. “God willing,” she added, because travelling in this time and age was not a question of timetables and ETAs. He darkened and she smiled. “I’ll be here, even if I have to swim all the way,” she told him, which made him laugh.
Just as they were leaving, she took Ian’s hand. “I…” She looked off to the north-west, blinked a couple of times. “If he comes, will you tell him that I love him?”
“I will.” Ian smiled. He wiped at her wet eyes. “But wee Samuel already knows that.”
*
Some days later, they were finally on the quay, with a sullen David sidling further and further away from them while the Althea strained at her moorings. Alex regarded the fifty-foot long single-masted sloop with definite misgivings: very small, in her considered opinion, to be taking them all the way to Jamaica. Around her, a large share of her family bustled, and she had been hugged and kissed so many times she presently just wanted to get on the boat and wave them all goodbye.
Simon and Matthew were talking intently on the further end of the wharf, with Simon nodding repeatedly at whatever Matthew was saying, and in his hands he held the documents he had brought with him for Matthew to sign. His will, Alex knew, and it made her breath hitch. Just as it had made her throat constrict to realise he was travelling armed, not only with both his pistols but with sword and dirk as well.
“Jan will see you safe,” Kate said. “He’s been sailing these waters for most of his life.”
Jan van Verdhoed was a Dutchman – well, his father had been Dutch, while his mother most definitely hadn’t, to judge from his skin, a beautiful coppery brown. Surprisingly light brown eyes regarded the world from under straight dark brows, a well-cropped beard in the Spanish style covered his cheeks, and from one ear dangled a golden hoop.
“He looks like a pirate,” Alex said, quite taken with this handsome young man.
“Oh, he is,” Kate answered, “or rather was.”
“Gave it up due to a sore conscience?”
“No,” Kate replied with a laugh, “I rather think it was having to witness his father’s death at a drowning stake that made him decide to do something else.” Kate looked away. “Terrible death, to be tied in place as the tide rises around you.”
“Ugh,” Alex agreed.
It took exactly twenty minutes for Alex to remember why she didn’t like boats. They moved too much, and in the brisk wind Althea was bouncing over the waves, making the horizon rise and dip in a very nauseating way.
“Bloody hell.” She clung to the smooth, well-worn wood of the railings, leaned out as far as she could go and threw up.
“We’re not even out of the bay yet,” Matthew said.
Alex glared at him. “Don’t you think I know that?” She straightened up, twisted her shawl tighter round her chest and with her eyes fixed on the bowsprit, made it all the way to the front. A mammoth dog raised his head to look at her, thumped the long feathered tail twice against the deck boards and lay back down again, a vividly pink tongue lolling from its heavy lips.
“Poor you,” Alex commiserated, taking in the shaggy black and white coat. The dog seemed to grin and then closed its eyes to continue its interrupted nap while Alex went back to concentrating on keeping what remained of her breakfast in her intestinal tracts.
She was thrilled to bits when the Althea anchored in the James River just before nightfall – mainly because an anchored ship moved a hell of a lot less than one under sail. Not so her husband, who stood frowning at the outline of Jamestown, a collection of low buildings barely visible in the dusk.
“It will have changed,” she said. “After all, most of it burnt down some years ago.”
“Still the same: humid and infested with midges.” He slapped at his throat as if to underline his statement.
Alex
rested her elbows on the railing. “It will have changed,” she repeated. She turned to give him a smile. “You definitely have, right? Last time you landed as an indentured servant. This time you’re a visiting tourist.”
“A what?”
“A man of leisure with money to spend.” Not that much money. She sincerely hoped Luke would compensate them for their expenses.
“Hmm.” He went back to scowling at the Virginia coast, no doubt recalling with excruciating detail how it had been for him all those years ago when he was offloaded from a ship and sold as a beast – there, in the little harbour they could just make out in the dark.
Early next morning, there was a commotion on deck, with several barks punctuating the captain’s angry voice.
“Pirates?” Alex said.
“Don’t be daft. Pirates here, in the James? I think not.” Matthew tightened his belt, waited while she pulled on skirts and bodice, and ushered her before him onto the deck where most of the crew had gathered round the irate captain and a huddled shape before him.
“Dear Lord,” Matthew muttered and shouldered his way through the crew to stare down at their son.
“Yours?” Captain Jan asked.
“For my sins,” Matthew said, and his voice was thick with anger.
“David,” Alex sighed, “what on earth are you doing here?”
Her son looked up and attempted a smile that wobbled and died away when he saw his father’s face. Matthew’s brows were pulled down over eyes that were like flint, his mouth settled into a line so firm his lips had all but disappeared.
“Matthew…” Alex placed a hand on his arm only to have it shaken off.
“I have a good mind to toss you in and have you swim all the way back home,” Matthew said. “As it is, you won’t be sitting much once I’m done with you. Go on.” Matthew nodded, undoing his belt.
“Here?” David squeaked, looking about the deck.
“Oh aye, here,” Matthew replied, swinging the belt back and forth. Alex felt sorry for her son, but she’d learnt ages ago that in some matters she did best not to meddle, and Matthew in his present state was impossible to reason with. Stupid boy: to so openly disobey his father was a foolish thing to do.
David undid his breeches, dropped them down around his ankles, and bent over, baring a very white rump to the world. Alex closed her eyes. Twelve times the belt came down, twelve times David expelled a whistling sound, and then it was over, David standing up to cover up a bright red bottom.
“A boat,” Matthew said. “I need to find a ship that’ll take him back.”
“Why not let him stay?” the captain suggested.
“Stay?” Matthew spluttered.
Captain Jan grinned at David. “As my deckhand. A lot of work – very hard work. Tends to cure even the wildest lad of the wandering urge. Besides, I don’t see any sloops, do you?”
Alex scanned the waters around them and had to agree: very empty, with the exception of two or three fishing ketches.
After a couple of moments of consideration, Matthew nodded his agreement to the captain’s suggestion, and David was curtly informed that he was to scrub the entire deck. A look of dismay settled on her son’s face, hazel eyes flying to hers in entreaty. Alex made a helpless little gesture.
“And once you’ve finished with the deck,” the captain said, “then we’ll set you to cleaning and bailing the bilges.”
Captain Jan had business to conduct in Jamestown, and offered Alex and Matthew to accompany him ashore, saying that it would be their last opportunity to properly stretch their legs before they arrived in Jamaica.
“We should have taken David along,” Alex said once she was seated in the longboat.
“He has work to do,” Matthew said, “a lot of work. That’s what you get as a stowaway.”
“But he’s only thirteen,” Alex protested.
“Old enough, apparently, to disobey me. Old enough, therefore, to suffer the consequences.” End of discussion, Mrs Graham, his voice told her.
*
Michael Connor was dawdling at his writing carrel when he saw Matthew Graham leap ashore, and his gut reaction was to flee, run like a hare lest the man should recognise him, but then he laughed, shaking his head. Graham had never seen him. None of them had seen him, and while the Graham men were busy fighting the Burley gang to defeat – and he’d seen his brother, dead – he had crawled all the way back to his horse and escaped.
No word had come back down south as to what fate had befallen the men with whom Philip Burley rode out, and as Michael had no intention of divulging any details, he had kept well away from his home further north – except for one very necessary and clandestine visit to his uncle’s cabin. His hand strayed to the heavy pouch he kept safely tucked out of sight on the inside of his breeches – one of three, the other two hidden elsewhere. Courtesy of Uncle Philip, Michael Connor was now if not rich at least no longer destitute – not at all. He went back to his doodling, but where before it had been loops and swirls, now he drew a girl – a girl he’d seen but once and couldn’t get out of his head.
It was probably a foolish thing to do, but Michael couldn’t help it, drawn to the Grahams as iron filings to a lodestone. He sauntered after them as they walked through the few cobbled streets that comprised Jamestown, and from the way they would at times stop and look, pointing this way or that, he concluded that they’d been here before. He slunk close enough to eavesdrop, was amused to hear how impressed Mrs Graham was with all the businesses and shops, commenting that it was much, much bigger than last time they’d been here – even if it was just as insufferably hot.
“Aye,” her husband said, and while the wife seemed well enough at ease, Graham was looking strained, regarding the surroundings with mild dislike.
“Did you know the captain’s here to buy silk, not tobacco?” Mrs Graham said.
“Aye well, it doesn’t make much sense to buy tobacco here and try and sell it in the Indies. They grow it themselves, down there.”
“I remember how proud Sir William was of his homespun silk,” she said. “He swore it was going to be one of the pillars of Virginia’s future prosperity.”
“They have the tobacco. They don’t need anything else.” Graham’s eyes followed a loaded cart that was trundling towards the port: baled tobacco, packed high, with a small boy sitting topmost on the load. The broad shoulders tensed, and Michael recalled that his uncle had mentioned something about Graham having once been indentured down here. No wonder the man was walking about as stiff-legged as a cornered dog.
Michael followed them into the tavern, settled himself at a table beside theirs. The fare was simple enough: cheese and pickles, dark bread, and a stew that Mrs Graham tasted doubtfully.
“Beef? Absolutely not.”
Her husband speared a piece of meat with his knife and chewed thoughtfully. “Nor pork.”
“Possum,” Michael said, “or raccoon.”
Mrs Graham shoved the bowl away from her.
Michael laughed at her. “Meat all the same,” he said.
She turned to smile at him, and eyes as blue as her daughter’s took his breath away. Not like the apparition he had seen step out of the Graham home back in March, but pretty all the same, for all that she was quite old. From under the linen cap peeked a few strands of hair that looked mostly to be brown, here and there a silvered grey. Curly hair. Did she, Sarah, have curly hair? He couldn’t recall if she did, had but seen the long fair hair fall like a shimmering curtain down her back.
A stool scraped over the floor. Michael jerked out of his intense scrutiny and found himself eyeballed by Graham, hazel eyes glaring at him from under dark brows.
“My apologies, it was not my intent…” Michael was discomfited by the stare and swept the lock of hair that always fell forward over his eyes to the side. “I’m being most remiss,” he said, standing up to bow. “Michael Connor, Mr Graham.” As he said it, he would gladly have bitten off his tongue. Fool! To reveal not onl
y his own name, but also that he knew theirs. He sat back down and hid behind his frothing ale, drinking deeply.
“I have no recollection of meeting you before,” Graham said, “so how do you know my name?”
Michael gave him a bright smile. “It is my curious nature, I suppose. I was at the harbour when you stepped ashore, and heard the captain address you as Mr Graham.” A good enough lie, but those hazel eyes regarded him intently, forcing Michael to suppress the urge to squirm.
“Are you from Jamestown?” Mrs Graham sounded only mildly interested.
Michael shook his head, relieved at the change in subject. “Not as such. I’m from York county, just along York River. My father has a small place there. He’s a cooper, and my eldest brother has followed him into that trade.”
“Your eldest brother? So you have many?” she asked.
“Three.” Of which one had died on the Graham homestead. “It runs in the family, to have many brothers. And you? Do you have many sons?”
“Quite a few,” she replied, her face brightening. “Six living and two daughters.”
“And you?” Graham interrupted. “What do you do for a living?”
“Not a cooper,” Michael said, “although I dare say I could turn out the odd barrel should I have to. No, at present I’m working for the harbourmaster. I have a good hand, and a good head for ciphering.”
“A clerk, then,” Graham said.
“A bit more than a clerk, I hope,” Michael replied. A printer no less, but there was no reason to tell them that. It wasn’t as if he had practised this profession since returning from London, but now… He jiggled the pouch, thinking that a printing press was now a possibility instead of an impossible dream. He used the last of his bread to wipe his bowl clean and dug into a small side pocket for some coins with which to pay for his meal.
Whither Thou Goest (The Graham Saga Book 7) Page 16
