Caleb's Crossing

by Geraldine Brooks

  “You know what they are saying?” he whispered. His face was haggard.

  I nodded. “I told them it is not possible, this scandalous charge.”

  “But the midwife and yourself are the only ones who can speak to it. She—” and he tilted his head in the direction of the master’s room, his face suddenly softened by a tender concern “—will not give it out.”

  “Perhaps she would, to you, if you counseled her so.”

  Caleb turned to Joel.

  “How can I counsel her on this matter?” Joel whispered.

  Their expressions told me then more than I had guessed as to how things stood between them. I felt a pang of envy at this, which shamed me. Why should they not feel a bond of affection with this poor girl? I looked away, attending to the soup kettle. It suddenly seemed indelicate to look into their faces, when they revealed so much.

  “They will give her no peace.” It was Caleb who spoke.

  “I know it.”

  “We cannot allow it, Bethia.”

  “But what power have we in this?”

  “We have to get her from here. If we could bring her to the island, she could disappear among our people and be safe from their questions and their scorn and their brutishness.” His voice was rising. I turned to him then, and put a finger to my lips, to remind him where we were.

  The island had always been a place of refuge for Wampanoag in flight from trouble on the mainland. Indeed, my own grandfather had brought his English followers there seeking sanctuary of a sort. The heat of the broth had made its way through the bowl I held, and brought my mind back to the chore at hand.

  “I have to bring this to her now. If she does not take some nourishment she will not live to need our rescue. Let me think. We can do nothing this night. We will try to talk more on this matter come the morrow.”

  XVIII

  But come morning, the school was still on end, roiling like a smote anthill. Tempers were frayed and nerves raw on all sides. It had not helped when, in the small hours, Anne, crying out in night terrors, brought the whole place awake and astir all over again. It was as much as Master Corlett could do to marshal the boys to their books, and more than he could do to have them attend to them. They were rowdy and unsettled when a heavy knock upon the door further disturbed them. My heart flipped, thinking that it might be an officer of the court, come for Anne already. Instead, into all the upset suddenly stepped the person I least expected to encounter.

  I was with Anne at the time—I had slept in the room with her, or tried to, at the least—the master consigning himself to my pallet in the kitchen. He sent a pupil to answer the knock.

  When I heard the familiar voice, I could not credit it, so I stepped out into the hall. Noah Merry, wild curls caught back into a tidy queue, barn frock laid aside for sober town apparel, and standing a good head taller than when I had last seen him, was asking for the master. When our eyes met, we both of us colored. He made me a slight bow, but we did not speak, as the master came from the schoolroom then and the two of them retired to the kitchen, where they were shut up together in private conference for what seemed to me to be a long time. When they emerged, the master called for me and told me he had consented to spare me for an hour, after I served the boys’ bever, so that I could walk with Noah Merry.

  At first, I was dismayed at this. But as I served the boys, I had a moment to reflect. Better to give him, face-to-face, my grounds for refusing his suit, and not send them on a cold sheet of parchment carried to the island by Makepeace along with I knew not what slanders about my character.

  We walked out, side by side, past the tight-pressed houses on their narrow lots. I stole glances at Merry, when I could. He wore his new height well, and although his looks were still softened by a boyish smoothness, a comely man had begun to show in a certain line of cheek and jaw. He seemed agitated as we made our way past the meeting house and turned north, along the narrow path that followed the meanders of the town creek. I burned to know if the master had said aught to him as to how things stood between myself and his son. In all the alarms of the recent hours, nothing had been resolved. Samuel Corlett’s proposal still hung in the air, unanswered.

  For a good while he gave me news such as any islander might speak of, and which, in the usual run of things, I should have been avid for, since it closely concerned those nearest to me. It seemed that challenges to grandfather’s leadership were on the rise, led by the Aldens and their followers, who clamored for a say in the plantation’s management and law making. They were ever on the lookout for excuses to stir up the settlement, the matter of drift whales being one rub, chousing in certain land sales another. Because grandfather, as magistrate, took the Indians’ part when justice demanded it, the Aldens had used this in their agitation against his leadership. Merry reassured me that their cause as yet had attracted few followers. “Most remain content enough to leave your grandfather in charge of affairs. We do not share Giles Alden’s appetite for sitting in meetings to dispose upon every rod of fence post or peck of corn.”

  But the talk was stilted, our minds severally running on the matter that stood at the bottom of our joint concern. We had reached to the burying field, which marked the northern edge of the settlement. Beyond were only cattle yards, giving way to marsh meadow and the tangled pine swamp that passed for forest. We turned, and were almost to the watch house, when Merry stopped in mid-sentence and dashed a hand across his forehead, which was sweating, even though the day was cool.

  “I had to come here in person,” he blurted. “My conscience would not allow me to do otherwise.”

  “Your conscience?” I asked, puzzled.

  “Bethia—if I may address you so—as you well know, it was long our fathers’ wish that we—that you and I—should one day marry, and you must know, or I think you must know—that for a long time it was my most ardent wish also….”

  “Noah, I—”

  “Please. This is difficult. Let me say my piece. The short of it is, since you left the island, my affections have become engaged elsewhere. Father did not know of it, and I now see it was very wrong in me to keep my own counsel in this matter—I should have made a clean thing of it and told him from the beginning—but in the event, I did not do so, the lady in the case being even younger than yourself and not of an age for handfasting. And so when your grandfather of late came to father—well, father liked your brother’s proposal, and he accepted it without consulting me, thinking I would be glad to have sooner what I had schooled myself to wait upon. You can imagine how low I felt myself when he told me. It was only then that I made plain to him that there was a bond of affection sprung up between myself and another and—oh, Bethia, I am sorry—but after you left, and even before, to be quite frank, I had allowed myself to entertain doubts, you see, that you returned my regard in any degree. I had never been sure if you had any particular attachment, or feelings, for me, except those of a friendly neighbor, and so when Tobia, I should say, the young daughter Talbot—”

  “Tobia Talbot? But that is wonderful, Noah! I do wish you both the greatest joy.” The Talbots had come to the island just a year before I quit the place and I did not know them well. But I had formed an impression of a cheerful and capable girl, a year my junior, with easy, open manners and a lovely singing voice, which rang out in meeting, but also might be heard in snatches as she went about her chores, if she thought herself alone.

  He stopped in midstride and looked at me, his forehead creased. “So you are not … you do not…?”

  “Dear friend,” I said. “I am not anything other than delighted for you, and I do nothing but wish you joy of each other.”

  His face, which had been pinched with strain, eased itself back into its familiar pleasant amiability. He swept his hat off his head, threw it up into the air and caught it, making me a cavalier’s bow. “I cannot tell you what this means to me,” he said. “I have lain awake, waiting for a ship to bring me here, dreading this day, and how I must, as I thoug
ht, cause you pain.” He reached inside his jacket then, and produced a roll of parchment. “Now, at least, I can give you this as a gift outright, and not, as I had thought, in payment of an obligation.”

  “Obligation? You owe me no debt….” He put the roll into my hands. I felt a ragged edge. My heart fluttered. I opened the roll, and my eyes confirmed what my hands had already told me. It was my document of indenture. Corlett’s copy, and grandfather’s, both.

  “I—I don’t understand. What does this mean?”

  “It means you are free. We have bought you out. The master’s only condition in releasing you was that you stay on at the school during preparation for the matriculation. After, you will be free to go, or stay, on whatever terms you agree between you.”

  I felt the old anger rising. “Did grandfather force you to this? Did he accuse you—falsely—of breach of promise? There was no ground—”

  “Not at all. Be easy, I beg you. It was my own idea, and my father seconded it at once. It took a vast amount of persuasion before your grandfather acceded.”

  I stifled a snort of derision. Merry read my face. “No, I speak the truth. I was there, in the room. Your grandfather was at the first most unwilling for us to undertake this expense. But we made our argument, and he consented, on the condition that he will reimburse us when a certain venture of his matures. You know we are business partners, after all. His investment in our mill has allowed us to bespeak some ingenious new equipment that is to be manufactured for us in England.” He went on then, into some detail about gears and flumes and things that I could not picture nor had any interest in. I was staring at the parchments in my hand. Suddenly, I was free. Free to come and go as I would. To choose Samuel Corlett or not choose him. Free to make no choice at all, for the moment. I suddenly felt so light that I thought I might lift off the ground and float away like the seeds of a blowball.

  I entered Master Corlett’s house still elated, but I was brought swiftly back to ground by the brooding silence of the place—an unnatural absence of sound in a house that usually wore out my nerves with its clangor. It was clear that the pupils were gone. My footfalls were loud in the hall. Hearing me come in, Master Corlett stepped out of the empty schoolroom. His face was gray. “I asked your brother to take the pupils out. Bethia, this matter of the girl has taken a grave turn. I have had conference with Goody Marsden. She does not support you as to the … to the…”

  I did not leave him groping for a delicate word. I knew well enough what he meant. “What says she?”

  “She says three months. She says it is a common thing, to miscarry at that time.”

  “So it is.” I tried to speak calmly but my voice shook. “On that at least she is correct. But master, on the other, she is entirely wrong. I cannot think why she is saying this. A shapeling of three months is hard even to descry from among the clots with which it is expelled…. Master, this was no three-monthling. I held it. I burned it, as she bade me, but it was difficult, so humanlike—” My voice was quavering. I took a breath. “Master, it was a formed infant. He was a boy.”

  He sank down onto the boot bench in the hall. He looked old and spent as he buried his face in trembling hands.

  “I will go and see her myself,” I said. “I will know the basis for why she makes this untrue claim.”

  I turned and went back out into the street. I was angry and upset, and I strode on swiftly, eager to confront the woman. But on my way to Goody Marsden’s rooms I slowed, and then stopped, as it dawned on me that my errand was quite futile. I thought of Goody Marsden’s hard looks, her rough and dirty hands, the discourtesy, even cruelty, with which she had dealt with Anne. It came to me plainly that whatever lay at the bottom of her wrong opinion—failing eyesight, incompetence, malice—or even, perhaps, the corrupt influence of some powerful interest—she would not recant it. And my word would not count against hers. Not with anyone. It was unclear whether even the master put store in it. Better, then, to get Anne away, out of reach of lies and slander. I retraced my steps back to Crooked Street and made towards the nearest tavern. There were three in the town; Noah Merry had to have taken rooms in one of them.

  I came first to the Blue Anchor, plucked up my courage and walked in, ignoring the stares of the low kinds of men and the dissolute youths taking the hot waters sold there. Luck was with me, for just as I was about to apply to the tavern keeper, Noah Merry came upon the stair, and seemed much struck to see me in such a place. I suppose he read the distress in my face, for he gave me an arm and led me into the street, and once again we walked.

  Quickly, and with as much self-command as I could muster, I related the flagitious history to him. His kindly, open face closed in upon itself, and when he spoke, it was with a depth of anger I had not credited him capable. It came to me then that the very openness of his character and his frank, unstudied manner would feel revulsion at the kind of Janus-faced behavior Anne’s plight evidenced. It clearly disgusted him, that those very ones who set themselves highest—those “living saints,” as they styled themselves—were in fact but whited sepulchers, the stench of their true baseness deeply offensive to him. While he did not fashion it in those words, that was the import of his reaction, and when I begged for his help, he offered it readily.

  “I think that there is no need to involve Iacoomis,” he said, when I mentioned that my plan was to send the girl to him. “They would think of him, first, if suspicion arises that she has fled to the island, and if there is any appetite to pursue her there. There may very well not be. As you say, those most responsible in this might well be those who have it in their power to let the matter drop. In any case, do not write to Iacoomis regarding the girl. Better he not know her whereabouts, and then he cannot be pressed to tell them. Neither do I think Manitouwatootan is a good place for her. There are too many in that town who now have dealings with the English, and her presence would be remarked upon, perhaps, in some loose exchange.”

  I was struck by Merry’s good sense and cool head as he continued. “Better, I think, to bring her home with me, and from thence to the Takemmy sonquem. His family will shelter her, I have no doubt of it, and the people of that otan have little contact with Great Harbor but through my family. We are on good terms, Bethia. It is as your father always wished it—we each of us profit fairly from the other. If they cede land to us, we are at pains to see that they get a fair return, in corn milled, or iron goods, or skills shared—whatsoever kind we can repay them.”

  “If only all the families dealt so,” I said. But I had little interest, at that moment, in the broad matter of relations on the island. My mind was all on the Takemmy sonquem, and his large village in its handsome setting: the ponds, sparkling expanses of sky water catching every golden-red gleam of sunlight, and the clear, dancing rills and brooks that fed them. I could see Anne there, living the life she might have had, before disease robbed her of parents and clan. Then I thought of that young woman—not so many years older than Anne, whose fire-warmed wetu had sheltered us the night Caleb’s father lay close to death. Anne was not that woman, and never could be. She could not peel off the life she had lived like a shed skin. She would bring her Englishness with her, for better and for worse. It was hard to see what use she would find, in such a life, for her extraordinary gifts. Instead of a life as scholar and then governess, she would be consigned to the lot of any squa—the backbreaking toil of the field and the common pot. Yet there surely was no better choice for her, or none that we had in hand to offer.

  “But if we are to attempt this thing,” Merry was saying, “we must do it soon. I have a shipment of goods due to sail when the tides and winds are fair. Will the maid be fit for such a journey within the next two or three days?”

  “She will have to be,” I said. “She is young, with the healing powers of the young. The chiefest enemy to her recovery is, I believe, the fear of what will follow it. There is little to promote a return to wellness when she knows that if she rises from her bed she will be ha
uled to court and bound up to a whipping post. But to leave all of that behind—well, I will be unsurprised if that prospect does not speed her to her feet.”

  When we reached to the schoolhouse, Merry offered his hand, and I took it with a high heart, knowing that I had a true friend there. He said I should look for him an hour before rush lighting the following day, or at first light the next. He would come with a cart; he would not risk a barge where concealment of the girl would be impossible.

  What neither of us had factored upon was Makepeace. Now, in the midst of our leave taking, he came walking towards us from the meeting house, the younger pupils, whom he had taken in charge, following behind him like a line of ducklings; Caleb, Joel and Dudley bringing up the rear. Merry then drew off Makepeace, to give him the ground of how things now stood regarding the matter of our supposed betrothal. I helped to shepherd the boys indoors and tried to keep them in order as I gave them bever.

  Makepeace sought me out while they were still at board. He could not meet my eyes as he enquired, with as much delicacy as he possessed, whether Merry had given him a true account as to my feelings. I assured him that he had. “I had gathered,” he said dryly, “from your behavior some weeks since, that your heart was untouched by Merry. But I wonder that you are not made a little aggrieved by the loss of material prospects. It is by no means certain that the offer of such another establishment will come your way.”

  “As to that,” I said, “I am content to trust to the providence of God.”

  “Well said, I am sure. So, that’s an end of it then. The whole thing has been most unfortunate, I must say.” His face took on a blotchy hue. There was some strong emotion working there. He could barely meet my eye. It came to me then that he felt ashamed. “I am sure it is all for the best,” he sputtered. “Those that marry where they affect not will affect where they marry not, and that is an occasion for sin, as all know. And I hope you will forgive me if I forgot that, for a time.” He looked down, and picked at an invisible speck upon his cuff. “I miss father, you see. I am not the man he was. He would not have misjudged the matter so. He would not have spoken, or acted, as I did. I will strive—I will pray—to do better…. And I will see to it that Merry and grandfather are swiftly repaid the monies outlayed upon your—forgive me—I should say, upon my behalf.”