Caleb's Crossing (19 page)

“Mr. Corlett writes that he is but recently widowed and is in want of a gentlewoman to assist him in the running of the school. He has a number of boys boarding with him, English and Indian both, and is sensible of the fact that such boys, especially those of tender years, need a steady feminine presence. It seems there has been a difficulty obtaining a locally hired servant adequate to the situation, on account of the Indians, you know. I have assured him that you are a most capable girl, despite your youth, and quite accustomed to our tawny brethren.” He paused there, with such a look upon his face that signaled he expected me to be conscious of a compliment. I gave him back no sign of it.

“Consider, Bethia. You would be doing a service, not just for your brother, but for the other boys resident there, including young Joel and Caleb, in whose fortunes I know you take an interest.”

Makepeace shot me a look at that. I answered his glance with a withering glare. I saw the thought dawn on his countenance: it was in his interest now to do or say nothing that would anger me. His future seemed to rest, quite suddenly, in my hands.

“May I have some time to think on this, grandfather?”

“Yes, yes, of course you may. Consider well. But keep in mind that it is only four years that are asked of you. And we do not need to announce the nature of your service. You go there as companion and helpmeet to your brother, merely. Not that the arrangement is anything to be shamed by, I do not suggest that it is…. I would not have you think so. The school is highly thought of. Why, Corlett writes that he has charge, presently, of the late governor Dudley’s own son, so do not think I ask you to be handmaid to just any gaggle of snot-nosed urchins. And after, you may return here, of an age to marry and have a family and a household of your own. But you will have seen the mainland, tasted town life. The school neighbors the Harvard College, did I tell you so? Master Corlett’s son serves as a fellow and tutor there. And I have heard that the Corletts are intimate friends of the college president. Who knows? You may catch the eye of some square cap who suits your fancy better than a farmer lad. In any case, it is not an opportunity that presents itself to island girls very often, Bethia. Bear that in mind as you consider.”

We took dinner with grandfather, during which he talked of everything but the subject that burned in my mind like a brand. Caleb joined us at board and I felt his gaze on me. I was not sure how long he had been within the house. I wondered if he had overheard the conversation and knew what was proposed. I supposed that he and Joel would be glad to have me nearby—a familiar face, a helpful hand. But when our eyes met, his expression surprised me. His brow was creased and his looks cold.

Before we left the house, I took grandfather’s sleeve and drew him a little aside as Makepeace searched out his hat.

“Grandfather, may I ask you—you say Master Corlett is but recently widowed. I wonder what you might know of him, his character?”

Grandfather, grasping what was behind my question, reddened slightly. “My dear, be easy. Master Corlett is an elderly gentleman. He has grown children—a daughter, married and settled with a large family of her own, at Salem; another son, as I said, a tutor at Harvard. I’m sure Master Corlett will treat you as he would his own granddaughter.”

I wanted to say, “I hope he would not indenture his own granddaughter because he is too thrifty to bear a slight financial loss.” But I thought of mother, held my peace and walked home at a fast pace, in silence, aware that my brother’s stare was boring into my back.

X

I
decided that night to give my assent to grandfather’s plan, because I discerned God’s hand in it. But I thought to keep my own council regarding this choice for reasons that were not so godly. I had Makepeace upon a pin, and I intended to let him squirm there. For three days, I took a vast amusement in the small courtesies that came my way. Of a sudden he was splitting bavins unasked or at my elbow at the well, offering to carry my water.

Each night, I took up the Homer that father had bequeathed to me and I gave myself the luxury of a candle by which to read it. The first night, Makepeace looked askance, but then quickly arranged his features and went up to his shakedown with nowt but a civil good night.

On the third day, I asked Makepeace if he might spare me for some hours, and though he talked around the point of what might be my purpose, when I showed that I was disinclined to give it, he did not interrogate me further. Had he pressed me, I do not know what I would have answered, for my purpose was obscure even to myself. I just knew that I wanted to be free and alone for a time, as I used to be, as I had not been in such a while, and as I could not be again once we left the island.

I rode first to father’s cairn and sat on my accustomed mossy stone. It was shaded by an old beech, and the light, filtering through the swaying leaves, cast shadows like lacework across my folded hands. Speckle walked to the pond’s edge and set her great head down to drink. It always made me smile to watch her. Even if she had been hard ridden, she drank with a delicate restraint, her muzzle barely breaking the surface, her lips closed, sipping as daintily as a duchess. When she had her fill, she turned and cropped the grass, twitching her rump to shift the flies that lit there. I listened to the sound of her teeth ripping at the sedge, the wet champ of her jaws, the buzz of the discommoded flies in wait of a chance to resettle on her sweaty flank. The sun was warm and buttery. I tilted my face towards it. After a time, the tears ran, and the mare turned her liquid gaze on me, laying back her ears as if struggling to understand what was amiss. She left off her cropping and walked over to stand by me, as if to bring me comfort. I stood, wiped my palms over my face, passed a reassuring hand down her neck and remounted, turning her for the south shore.

When we reached that long expanse of sand it was low tide. I walked her down to where the strand hardened and the waves broke about her hocks. She lifted her head, her nostrils widening. I took off my cap and tucked it into my bodice. I leaned close to her ear, and urged her to a gallop. The salt spray winged high on either side as we pounded down that beach. I felt the wind and the spray, the thud of her hooves, the counterpoint of the hammering surf.

When she began, finally, to tire, I eased the reins and let her slow as she would. When she brought herself to a stop, I turned her up the beach, slid off her back, loosened her bit, and threw myself down upon the hot sand. I felt my skin tighten as the spume dried into a white crust on my hands and forearms. Speckle dropped her soft muzzle and nudged my ear. I smelled her grassy breath. She licked the side of my cheek, tasting salt. A long, glistening thread of drool detached itself and fell onto me. I sat up, laughing, and pushed her off, wiping my face with the wet hem of my skirt. She walked away a few desultory paces and stood, slack hipped, blowing great, soft snorts.

I lay down again and closed my eyes against the glare, listening to the sound of the surf as it arced all around me, the thrumming fall of the breakers, the shush of the receding waves. Every now and then I felt my skin cool slightly as a cloud passed across the sun. From time to time a gull would voice a rich cry, high and urgent.

I lay there for a long while, drifting, letting thoughts pass like the clouds. Then Speckle neighed softly and tossed her mane. I looked across to see what had startled her. There was a shadow on the sand. Even before I turned my head, I knew that it was Caleb.

In that shimmering, golden light I saw the wild boy I had met here four summers past, no longer wild, nor boy. The hair was cut short and plain, the fringed deer hide leggings replaced with sensible black serge. The wampum ornaments were gone, the bare mahogany arms sheathed now in billowing linen. Yet neither was the youth who stood before me some replica of a young Englishman. He was hatless, shoeless, and without his hose, so his long calves were bare. He had no doublet, and his shirt, sweat soaked, clung to his chest.

“I saw you ride out of the settlement. I knew you would come here—.” He was straining to contain some strong emotion. He seemed to almost vibrate with the effort.

I scrambled to my feet. “You don’t mean to say you ran here, all the way from Great Harbor?”

He turned an open palm as if to say, How not?

“But why would you follow me”—I lifted a hand to indicate his undress—“in this state?”

“I had to speak to you privily before you assent—it is true, I hope, that you have not yet assented—to this shameful plan of your grandfather’s. And there is never a moment … you come not in my way.” His effort at restraint failed him at this point, and he almost shouted. “Do not let them make a slave of you, Storm Eyes.”

I stepped back, surprised by his sudden wrath.

“I have no idea what you—”

“I thought your grandfather honorable.” He turned and spat on the sand. I winced.

“He is honorable, Caleb. You must not—”

“‘Must not!’ I am full up to my throat with ‘must not.’ You English palisade yourselves up behind ‘must nots,’ and I commence to think it is a barren fortress in which you wall yourselves.”

His anger sparked my own. “Is that so? Then may I ask what you are doing, taking our bread and our instruction? Laying yourself to our books as if your very breath depended upon uttering a phrase in Latin? Mouthing our prayers so piously at meeting?”

“I do not come here to speak of myself,” he said. “I know what I am about. I am come here for you, because I see now you have no family worth the name. Your father was a good man. He would never have countenanced this. But your grandfather loves his gold more than he loves you. As for your brother…” He lifted his chin sharply, his mouth drawn into a scowl. He thumped a fist against his chest. “
We
make slaves of our defeated enemies whom we hate, to avenge a death or the like grave wrong. How comes he to think it right that you, a sister, should be enslaved for his profit?”

“As if you did not work every woman in your otan to a raveling, day following day! I have seen how it is among you. You do not find hard toil dishonorable when you set your own women to do it.”

“Shared and necessary toil is one thing. Slavery is another. If I were your brother, I would not sell you into base servitude just to buy myself a future.”

The easy tears of that season welled. “You
are
my brother, Caleb. My heart tells me this more clearly than any ink mark on a document.” I reached out as if to take his hand, but some constraint stopped me in mid-gesture. “The law may say what it will, but you and I know what is true. And father—he loved you as a son. Look to Makepeace, if you do not credit what I say. You will see that he eats himself hollow with envy of the love our father bore you.”

I watched the anger leave his face, the muscles of his jaw relaxing under the high broad bones of his cheeks. He reached for the hand I had half extended, lifted it and bent his head to it—a gentleman’s gesture: I could not think where he might have seen it done. I felt the heat of his breath, the hint of his lips, and then he let the hand go, reaching for a strand of my hair. The pins had fallen, and it hung, loose and damp, almost to my waist.

He spoke softly, almost as if to himself: “When we first met here, my hair was longer even than this.” He fingered the strand and let it fall, raising his hand and running the palm across his own close-polled head. A thought came to him then, and he gave a sudden, dazzling smile. “It may be that your father loved me, as you say. But not until I cut my hair. He had a boiling zeal to see it gone. My ‘barbarous deformity,’ he called it.” The smile faded. “Truly, I did not know I was such a sinner until he taught me to hate my hair.” His face was grave now, his brow creased. “So many things I loved, I have had to learn to hate. And it all started in this place, with you, Storm Eyes.”

He turned from me then and looked back across the dunes that hid the pond where we had first encountered each other. Then, with his easy grace, he folded his legs under him and sat down upon the sand, his back very straight, his eyes upon the horizon. Without looking at me, he beckoned—the same brisk gesture he had always used when he wanted me to follow him. So I settled myself on the sand beside him and stared out at the waves. Often, in the past, when we had looked together at a common thing, I had learned that we saw it in quite different ways. He had taught me, long ago, how to see a school of fish moving through the water deep below the surface—how a certain change of light and dark could disclose them and reveal where one must throw out a net. Because of him, the sea to me was no longer an opaque mystery, but a most useful lens.

He lifted a fistful of sand and let it fall through his fingers. “You ask why I eat with you, learn your prayers. Why I study to hate all that I once loved. Put your ear to the sand. You will hear my reason.”

I tilted my head, puzzled.

“Can you not hear? Boots, boots, and more boots. The shore groans under the weight, and yet more come. They crush the life from us.”

“But Caleb,” I said. “This land—I mean, the mainland—they say it is a vast wilderness—there is room and to spare even when we come many thousands….”

He had scooped up another handful of sand and stared at each grain as it fell through his fingers. “You are like these. Each a trifling speck. A hundred, many hundreds—what matter? Cast them into the air. You cannot even find them when they land upon the ground. But there are more grains than you can count. There is no end to them. You will pour across this land, and we will be smothered. Your stone walls, your dead trees, the hooves of your strange beasts trampling the clam beds. My uncle sees these things, here and now. And in his trance, he sees that worse is coming. Your walls will rise everywhere until they shut us out. You will turn the land upside down with your ploughs until all the hunting grounds are gone. This, and more, my uncle sees.” Caleb slapped his hand down upon the sand, then he drew it into a fist. “And yet he refuses to see that God prospers you, and protects you, and keeps from you the sicknesses against which his powers are as nothing. So, this do I see: We must find favor with your God, or die. That, Storm Eyes, is why I came to your father.” His expression was grim. I wanted to reach for his hand, offer some comfort. But I did not. I just sat there, wordless, until he spoke again.