by Anya Seton
The youth laughed too, setting her on her feet. "Do it again!" he said. "'Tis a fine game with so fair a player."
Elizabeth looked at him with attention, startled by this gallantry. The voice, deep and nearly a man's, had the lilt of the southern counties. He was dressed in the common leather jerkin and red Monmouth cap of the artisan class, but his inflection and words sounded almost like gentry. His rosy, beardless cheeks, freckled nose, and the softness of his lank taffy-colored hair indicated his age, but if he had not yet his growth—he was going to be a huge man, for already he topped Elizabeth by four inches and his shoulders were thick and broad as Captain Peirce's.
Elizabeth's sailor guide was waiting, yet she lingered, curious and attracted by the youth who was looking at her with open admiration. "What are you whittling?" she asked at random. She examined his piece of wood, and cried, "Oh, how skillful!" He was fashioning two intricately carved balls out of a maple burl.
"Well," he said, showing how one ball moved within the other, "f must keep my hand in, I was 'prenticed to a joiner in Dorset."
"But surely you've not finished your 'prenticeship!"
He shook his head and grinned at her. "No, Mistress. Just begun. But I'd no stomach for daily beatings, and naught to eat ever but bowls of slops."
"You ran away ...?" she whispered. "How did you dare?" The punishment for escaping 'prentices was rigorous. "And how did you get passage money?"
"I didn't steal it, I assure you," he answered the startled speculation he had seen in her eyes. Years later she was to remember this moment on the Lyon's main deck, and the sudden attraction that rose from nowhere between them. Even at the time she wondered at herself for her compelling interest as she said, "What is your name, and where are you bound?"
"William Hallet," he said, sketching a bow, "and I'm bound for where pleases me most. I'm my own master now." He spoke with perfect courtesy, yet she was conscious of reserve and dignity beyond his age.
She recollected herself, said hastily, "Good Luck to you, then," smiled and joined her guide who was picking his teeth and staring gloomily towards the western sky where black clouds were massing. She descended through the hatch by a steep ladder to the 'tween decks, six feet high, where many of the passengers had hammocks slung. It was preferred space since it had portholes but these were battened down at present; the stench was strong, and the light poor. The Beamsley boy was twelve years old and lay doubled up and moaning in a hammock, while his mother who was great with child watched him anxiously. "He've bin so, sence daybreak, Missus," she said to Elizabeth in broadest Lincolnshire. "Writhing 'n' a-clutching his belly till I'm fair beset."
Elizabeth bent over the boy, who seemed slightly feverish, but had no pocks or spots. She poked gently at his rigid abdomen, and he cried out when she touched the right side near the hipbone, but Elizabeth did not think him very ill. "Just some cramp and wind in the bowel," she said reassuringly to the mother. "Has he been purged?"
"Aye-that, Missus. Mr. Atkins, the barber, drenched him good, not two hours a-gone."
"Hot cloths on his belly might ease him."
"There's not room at the fire to heat water, Missus," said the goodwife distractedly. "Cook won't let me near."
"I'll see about that," said Elizabeth, and she went down another ladder to the dark, smoky hold where a small hearth had been built of fire bricks. Over it the ship's cook in a greasy apron was stirring an enormous iron pot. It contained a stew of salt beef and dried peas, for the common folk's and sailors' dinner. The Captain and cabin passengers had a separate galley under the poop.
The cook turned a surly face on her request. His main function was not the preparing of food, which consisted almost entirely of this stew, but the guarding and doling out of provisions. "We've no water to spare," he growled, but seeing from her dress that she came from the privileged class, he added, "Ye can heat beer, if ye must. We've more o' that." Elizabeth looked around for a pannikin, and was rescued by Sally who came lurching amongst the piled kegs, holding a mug of goat's milk for Ann. "Be ye here, then, ma'am!" she cried in astonishment.
Elizabeth explained her errand, and left the heating of beer for compresses to Sally while she followed the sailor to the compartment near the fo'castle where were stored the Winthrops' private chests and household furnishings. The sailor held a candle while she rummaged. There was less motion down here, but the air was fetid. The goats, pigs and a brood mare were quartered nearby, as she could hear by bleatings and snufflings which rose above the constant creak of wood and slap of water. There was the smell of tar and bilge, and worse ones too, for the common privy bucket stood outside the compartment.
Strong as Elizabeth's stomach was, her nose was sensitive, and she began to get queasy while she searched amongst the kegs of oatmeal, sugar, figs, pepper, saltpeter, suet, tallow, wine vinegar which John Winthrop had bidden them bring. There were three firkins of butter and dry-goods boxes too, containing hats, shoes, stockings and bolts of wool in sad colors and red. Except for the necessary pewter, iron pots and andirons there had been scant room for furniture, though Margaret had brought a bedstead, some Turkey carpets, and a huge carved court cupboard which had belonged to her father. Of personal furniture, Elizabeth had only four well-stuffed chests and the great silver salt cellar which had been given her by Adam Winthrop.
She came at last upon her store of herbs and seeds, and found the packet marked "Valerian." She sniffed the heliotrope odor gratefully, and filled her pockets with other herbs which might prove useful, feeling as she did so an instant of content. Suddenly, in the Lyon's stinking, swaying hold she had a moment of acute awareness, seeing that the skill she had acquired in the use of these simples was a pure satisfaction, an island of refreshment amongst the turmoils of love-longing, of grief or even zestful hope which usually tempested her. Then a rat darted out from behind a keg and ran across her feet. She jumped, and hurried from the hold, back up to the deck where she looked for the lad, William Hallet, but he was nowhere to be seen.
The next afternoon at dinner, the Captain announced sadly that the Beamsley boy had just died. A sorry shock for the parents, since the child had taken a turn for the better soon after they put the hot cloths on him. The pain had stopped. But he had died all the same.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," breathed Elizabeth, stricken and bewildered.
"It is the Lord's Will," said Eliot kindly to her. "We must not question God's decisions."
"Amen," said Margaret in a trembling voice. "God is all merciful, no matter what afflictions he sends to try us." Her baby seemed no better today, despite the concoction of valerian.
"Tiens, what a pity," said Mirabelle, delicately gnawing on a chicken breast—the Captain's galley still had fresh meat. "But me, I am sceptique. I do not call this boy's death God's Will. It is mauvaise fortune, or destiny, or perhaps man's ignorance—I do not mean yours, chérie," she said to Elizabeth. "You did what you could."
Margaret looked unhappy, feeling that she should wrestle with Lady Gardiner's laxness, but Eliot did it for her. "That is not a Christian view, my lady," he said gravely. "Beware of the Devil's insinuations."
"Oh I do, my friend, I do," said Mirabelle smiling sweetly at him. "And I know I am a foolish woman, in need of guidance." She gave him a soft submissive glance, and the young minister thawed.
Jack watched with detached amusement. He believed that the boy's death was God's Will, or it would not have happened, but he shared with Elizabeth the urge to heal, and far surpassed her in scientific interest. If we could have seen into the boy's belly, he thought, I wonder what we would have found. There must have been a bodily cause, even though God instigated it. This speculation led him to Martha, who still looked very ill. She sat as far from the others as she could in the tiny saloon. She had eaten nothing but broth, nor spoken a word during dinner. He knew that she slept badly, for he heard her tossing and sighing in her bunk beneath his. Once he had seen a wild hunted light in her eyes, and when he spoke to her she had not
answered, nor recently had seemed to want the reassurances she had always implored.
"—And so we'd best get on wi' it!" said Captain Peirce rising and finishing instructions to Eliot. "Ye can pray what ye like, sir, but on my ship we'll 'ave the burial service as well."
Eliot acquiesced and read the prayer book over the little canvas-wrapped bundle on the main deck. He, like all the nonconformists, had broken with set prayers, as they had with other forms and rituals of the Church of England, but he was a reasonable man.
The crew and passengers stood, bareheaded, by the rail as the weighted bundle slipped into the sea. There was a shrill scream from the mother, and then silence. The sailors swarmed up the rigging. The Captain ordered an extra ration of beer for everyone. The ship's life continued.
A week later in the driving rain, the scene was repeated. All night they had been tossed and buffeted by an equinoctial storm, and at the height of it the baby, Ann Winthrop, loosed her tenuous hold on life. Margaret took it quietly, though into her soft brown eyes there came an added depth. She listened gratefully to Eliot's prayers, and she read incessantly in her Geneva Bible. Elizabeth noted with wonder that Margaret's staunch faith seemed even to strengthen after this tragedy, and she grieved less than any of them, but applied herself to helping Elizabeth with Joan, who remained healthy, in extra cherishing of her own little Sammy, and in trying to hearten Martha.
There was no doubt that Martha must have some strange malady. She had ceased to speak at all, except for one sentence when they told her of little Ann's death. "Good," she whispered, and went on with confused words from the burial at sea in the prayer book. "We commit her body to the deep ... until the sea shall give up her dead ... and the corruptible bodies of those who sleep there ... shall be ... shall be at peace ... in the Lord." The girl turned her head and wept without sound as she had taken to doing.
Margaret and Elizabeth exchanged a frightened glance. They found that Jack shared their mounting worry, though manlike he tried to make light of it, saying that sea voyages often depressed sensitive organisms. They called Atkins, the ship's barber-surgeon, who examined Martha's mouth and said she had a touch of scurvy. So Jack ordered up from the hold the gallon of infused scurvy grass, saltpeter and lemon water Governor Winthrop had written them to prepare in Groton. Martha drank the medicine when told to, and seemed a little stronger. Sometimes she sat on the poop deck and gazed down at the waves with a listening look as though they spoke to her, but mostly she lay in her bunk and stared at the rough planking above her head.
In the middle of October, they entered their eighth week of the voyage. Lately they had been delayed by contrary winds and fog, interspersed with sudden gales which occasioned the usual accidents. The spritsail had torn off in a heavy sea, some of the shrouds on the mizzen had parted. These had been repaired by the sailmaker and ship's carpenter with help from male passengers. There had been other mishaps which Captain Peirce looked upon as routine. Two of the goats died and the company greedily feasted on them since three casks of provisions had spoiled. A sailor pitched from the rigging of the mainmast and broke his leg on the deck. There had been two vicious fights, one between sailors, and one between two drunken passengers. The sailors had been well flogged by the bo'sun. Jack Winthrop had disciplined the landsmen in an improvised pillory.
Somewhere in mid-Atlantic they had sighted a ship with a strange rig and feared she might be an enemy privateer. They had manned the guns. But she turned out to be a harmless Swedish trader bound home with cod from the Grand Banks. One time they narrowly avoided a gigantic waterspout, which whirled and funneled to leeward, another day there was anxiety about a frolicsome school of whales near as big as the ship, which surfaced and blew too close for comfort.
The master mariner remained imperturbable through all these incidents, but there came an afternoon of dead calm when he summoned Jack to his quarters. "Sit ye down, sir," he said, puffing on his pipe and extending a mug of rum. "I wanted a word wi' ye."
"Anything wrong?" Jack asked slowly, smiling thanks for the drink.
"Not yet, but I'm uneasy. There's a queer thick smell to the air, and it's turned too warm. Look at us!" The Captain pointed through the porthole to a yellowish sky and glassy sea which undulated in huge lazy swells that scarce rocked the ship. "Wallowing in doldrums we are, and at this latitude!" He placed a stumpy finger on his chart. "I figure we're about crossing forty. We're a couple o' days off the Banks on a stiff breeze, and we should be getting it, or cold fog. This feels like the Indies." It felt like the coming of what the Caribs called a "hirracano" such as Peirce had once battled through on a voyage to Barbadoes, but that was ridiculous so far north.
"The bo'sun saw St. Elmo's fire balls skipping up 'n' down the foremast yester e'en," said Peirce heavily. "Mebbe I believe it, mebbe I don't—but the crew's fidgety."
Jack nodded gravely. Not a seaman lived but considered the spectral lights of the "corposant" boded disaster. "What can I do, Captain?"
"Look to the passengers, quiet them if trouble comes. I'll 'ave me 'ands full wi' the ship. And muzzle that Goodwife Knapp in the 'tween decks. She's taken to ranting and prophesying. First she saw a merman, then she saw a sea sarpent. Now she's crying that there's witchcraft aboard, and the Devil's lurking in the sail locker. Oh, there's one or two like 'er on every v'yage, and about this time the landsmen allus get excitable, but I want as little of it as possible. Get Mr. Eliot to 'old a psalm-sing, that'll calm 'em when we begin to strip the decks and batten down the 'atches." He paused and sniffed the heavy air like an old hound. "Aye, there's something bad a-brewing."
Jack went off to obey orders, and tried to do so without alarming anybody. But there was tension and foreboding throughout the ship.
In the poop they all reacted to the unrest. Margaret redoubled her private prayers and helped Elizabeth soothe Joan who had grown fretful. Mary indulged herself in the gripping romance of Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia, and managed to forget her surroundings. Mirabelle decided to profit by the calm and a bucket of rain water gathered in the last gale. She proceeded to wash and dye her hair. To the women's astonishment, Martha got out of her bunk, dressed herself in a gray silk gown hitherto unworn, put on her best lace collar and cuffs and went to the stern gallery where she walked back and forth in an agitated manner, quite unlike her previous torpor.
In an hour a southerly wind began to blow, and the wide oily sea ruffled. There was general relief as the ship moved again—under moderate sail. The familiar creakings and strainings and swishings were welcomed. Soon the sky darkened and fat raindrops began to fall. The wind increased and the Captain furled the topsails, rejoicing that the Lyon had always been maneuverable, answering quickly to the helm as he tacked, hoping that they might withstand being blown straight back towards England. But by seven there was a full gale, worsening every minute, and shortly thereafter Peirce knew that all his fears were realized. The wind passed the tempest point into a howling fury with mountainous crashing waves as bad as the "hirracano" near Barbadoes. He had got her turned into the wind, and reefed all but a section of the mainsail before the worst of it. Then he lashed himself to the mizzen, near the grim sweating helmsmen on the tiller.
They could see the black waves towering and crashing over the fo'castle as the Lyon continually plunged, shook herself, hesitated and sluggishly recovered. They heard above the din a sickening boom like a cannon shot, and peered through sheets of rain, until there was a lull. "Half the mainmast's gone!" groaned one of the helmsmen, while they saw the tattered mainsail flying off white against the blackness. "If only the rudder'll 'old!" cried Peirce. "By God—if only the rudder'll 'old. Ye might pray, men."
In the poop they were already praying, each in his own way. Eliot was not with them since he had been battened down in the hold with the common passengers, and there they had long ceased to sing psalms while they desperately calked leaks and worked the pumps. The Winthrops, white-faced, were huddled in the saloon, clinging to each other and the
fixed center table. Jack helped steady the women and soothe Joan and Sammy who were both wailing as they were all thrown from end to end of the pitching cabin. Mary moaned from time to time and retched into a bucket.
"Lord be merciful, be merciful," Margaret kept murmuring. "Yet if it is Thy will that we drown, take our souls straight to heaven and Thy loving arms."
"I do not wish to drown," cried Mirabelle plaintively. She had wedged herself on the floor between the table and bench, her damp red hair flowed around her. "It seems I do not wish to die without the last rites. I am not so sceptique as I imagined!"
Nor am I, thought Elizabeth, clutching Joan harder as a thunderous wave crashed over the main deck and deluged them with spray through the portholes. She found that she too was praying; frantically pleading with the Almighty to save them and making Him promises. "I will be good always. I'll have no more sinful worldly lusts. I will obey and worship Thee as I should. Oh, save Joan at least—Dear God!"
After a while there came a sudden stop to the roar outside, the ship steadied a trifle. They looked at each other with fearing wonder. "Can it be over?" whispered Margaret.
"I don't know," said Jack. "We can pray so." He flexed his cramped limbs and stumbled to the brandy keg. "Here," he said dipping out a mugful. "We need it." They all drank, even Martha who seemed in this moment of general terror to have forgotten her own. Her little face was exalted. She looked as though she had some happy secret.
"That Goody Knapp!" said Jack at random, speaking to distract them. "From Silly Suffolk, like us! She sees monsters and goblins and enchanted islands, she prophesied this tempest because she says we've a Jonah aboard."
Martha drew a sharp little breath, and fixed her hollow eyes on her husband.
"How interesting," said Mirabelle, easing herself and shaking out her hair. "Who could the Jonah be? Not me, I hope. Some of those good women below do not like me because their husbands do."
"No, not you," said Jack, smiling faintly. "She's fixed on some wretched sailor her goodman ran foul of."
