Caleb's Crossing (29 page)
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 hauled 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.”
I thought the interview concluded with that almost apology. But then Makepeace surprised me. “You will not mind, I trust, finishing out your month and a half with Master Corlett here alone? I should have liked you to have come away home with me directly. But it just came to me now that I might apply to Merry for a place on his sloop, rather than continue to wait here, week following week, for that tardy ship on which I have bespoke a passage.”
At once I was alarmed for Anne. It would be impossible to transport her secretly with my brother in tow. “Does Noah Merry have room for you?” I said, trying to keep my voice level. “It is likely that the passenger list is already subscribed.”
“I am sure I do not know why you should assume so.” He looked at me oddly. “In any case, I go forthwith to ask him.”
I misdirected him then, saying that Merry had planned to go directly to the town landing. In fact, I knew full well he was returned to the Blue Anchor. As soon as Makepeace had left, I went myself in search of him, once again braving the stares of the alehouse haunters.
“I can hardly prevent him from taking ship with me,” Merry said. “But if he does so, we shall have to tell him about the girl. I see no other way,” he said.
“It is not in his nature to flout authority. I doubt he has the temperament for this business. I foresee a great difficulty in it.”
But there I was wrong. I had become so accustomed to look at my brother through the one, clouded lens of our own fraught relations that sometimes I could not see him as he truly was. When he returned from his fruitless walk to the landing, I screwed up my courage and drew him off for a private conference. I told him I had a grave favor to ask of him. He listened calmly to what I had to say, his brow cleaving itself into a deepening frown as I spoke. I had girded for any reaction—doubt, wrath, chastisement—any reaction other than the one I got.
“As I see it, this child has suffered quite enough at English hands,” he said. “If what you say is true—and I do not question it, I know you made a study of these things with Goody Branch, though I must tell you at the time I thought it most ill judged, a girl of your age—but that is neither here nor there at the present. The fact is, this child has been used most infamously. As to what the midwife’s motive might be, I cannot imagine, but it is clear that you will be exposed to grave censure if you voice an opposite opinion. And another matter, of which you do not seem to be sensible: the girl was with you, was she not, all night and most of every day? If you make the matter hot with your claims, they might claim in turn that you acted as her bawdress.”
This had not even occurred to me. As repellant as it was, I could see how my brother might be right in this. It would be hard to imagine a way that the girl could have been forwhored while she was at Corlett’s school without my being party to it.
Makepeace let that prospect play upon my mind for a moment, then said, “I know you better than to suppose you might let the matter drop?”
Since he had answered his own query, I gave no reply. He nodded to himself. “As I thought. And I do not ask you to do so. Do not conceive that I do so. This girl has suffered, at the very least, from a reprehensible degree of neglect at the hands of those who would now sit in judgment over her and try to compel her to give testimony. And at the worst—no, I cannot even give it voice—depravity in such a degree. Whosoever did this—a sinner of that stripe—will go to any length to hide his fault. If Merry has already consented to this scheme, then I will do nothing to sink it. Let us by all means deliver her to people who might be able to provide her a measure of protection. Even a band of salvages could hardly do worse than our own have done.”
And thus, with Makepeace as the most unlikely of conspirators, the plan went forward. Anne, pale and weak, grasped my hand when I told her what was afoot. At first, the thought of a clandestine escape and a sea journey with my stern brother and a strange man only added to her terrors. But I spoke to her of the island that lay at the end of the journey: of the rainbow bluffs and the cool sweet brooks; the verdant woods and gentle, watery light. I told her of good people and ample providence and at the end of what I had to say the tears of longing for my home were upon my cheek, and her dulled eyes were lit again with a spark of hopefulness.
Her only grief was in parting from her friends, Joel and Caleb. I contrived a brief, secret leave taking, and since I had to remain in the room, for propriety’s sake, I could not help but overhear what passed. It was clear that a definite bond of affection existed, though if there was some special understanding with one more than the other, I could not make it out. I heard them reassure her about the journey. The two of them also waxed fair about the island, and how it would gladden them to know she was safe there, where they promised faithfully that they would find her when their circumstances allowed.
Two days later, Makepeace took his leave of Master Corlett privily, and what words of thanks or regret passed between them I do not know. In the deepening dimmet, I walked out with my brother and kissed him, the hatred I had felt melted all away by the warmth of his concern for Anne. He climbed up to ride beside Merry. I raised my hand, and bade them a fond farewell. I put my whole heart into my good wishes for their safe and easy journey, knowing my words carried to that other passenger, hidden under a burlap in the cart.
“Y
ou might have consulted me.” Samuel Corlett’s countenance was severe. “You put my father in a most difficult position. The governor’s protégée, a runaway…”
“I do not know that I have given you cause to think I was in any way involved in Anne’s departure from this place. In any case, I hardly think the governor will like to consider her his protégée, still, given his signal failure to protect her.”
“Have a care. That wit of yours mayn’t always prove a blessing.”
“So I have been reminded, all my life.”
We were walking in the apple garth, where the fruits were beginning to swell on the boughs. Samuel gave a great sigh and turned to me. “All my life, I have waited, hoping to encounter someone like you….” His face was at odds with his words, his expression haunted and joyless. An impish spirit seized me, and I decided to try to lighten his mood.
“What do the sages say? Be careful what it is you wish for, lest your wish be granted you.”
He did not answer my smile, but only sighed again. “My mother was an excellent woman. Pious, virtuous. Kind. But she was not the intellectual equal of my father. Not by any means.”
“It would have been strange if she had been,” I said, “seeing that your father had the benefit of two degrees at Oxford and she was the unlettered daughter of a yeoman.”
“I do not speak of book learning,” he said. “I speak of a certain innate quality of mind, a superior understanding. Because she had it not, their companionship was—diminished. Father looked to his books, rather than to his wife. She tried, oh how hard she tried….” His face clouded, as if at some particular memory. “It was pitiful, sometimes, to observe how she would struggle to form a remark to the purpose of some study that engaged him. You know him. You know he is not an unkind man. He has patience enough with these mewling schoolboys, because he sees their promise. But he never had that degree of patience with her. He would dismiss her attempts in a most painful and belittling way. I observed this, even as a lad, and even before I could have given the ground for it, I swore to myself that I should not make such a marriage. So I have reached the age that I must now own in a single state.” He pulled a bough of apples down and stared at the beginning fruits, but l did not think he was seeing them.
