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Elizabeth gulped and laughed. Mirabelle constantly said things Elizabeth had chided herself for thinking, and had even voiced in moments of rebellion, though she later repented. But Mirabelle seemed unaware of sin or guilt, and it was extraordinary that she seemed to have escaped all righteous punishment. She was gay and charming and titled; half the men on the ship were in love with her, while even the minister John Eliot did not censure her. It was puzzling.

“You are too serious,
ma petite”
said Mirabelle, squinting into her hand-glass and rouging her wide, voluptuous mouth. “Much too pretty to be so serious. You must please yourself while you can.”

“I’d like to,” said Elizabeth slowly. “I did once -” she thought of the Mulberry Garden and that ecstatic Palm Sunday, “but it was wrong - and I was punished for it.”

“Bah!” said Mirabelle, smiling at the girl. “You think that because you are a Puritan. Always examining conscience.”

“But I’m not! I’m not truly religious at all. Not like the others!”

“You cannot help it,
chérie,”
Mirabelle’s small greenish eyes fixed themselves kindly on Elizabeth. She nodded and shrugged, “You cannot,
help
acting from what you were taught in childhood, even though you don’t want to. Above all this is true for a woman,”

“Have you no religion, my lady?” said Elizabeth, disliking the other’s calm certainty, and finding that an image
of
a frowning John Winrhrop had risen in her mind.

The Frenchwoman laughed. “I was baptized a
catholique, I
shall die one,
sans doute.
In between I don’t concern myself. Time enough to worry about my soul when my body no longer gives pleasure.”

They were silent, Elizabeth gazing back across the water towards the dim line of the Devon coast, while Mirabelie affixed a tiny black star beneath her collarbone to emphasize the whiteness of her skin and draw the eye lower towards the charm of her
décolletage.
Elizabeth watched and said timidly, “Forgive me, but why do you make this voyage to find a man who deserted you?”

“But I desert
heem!
cried Mirabelie, showing all her beautiful teeth in a hearty laugh. “I disappeared one day to Anjou with a so handsome colonel, you can’t imagine! My poor Christophe consoled himself by going to London and marrying a very rich English lady. I did not blame him. But soon I tire of my colonel, and it appears Christophe tires of his new wife - she is quite ugly, poor thing, and thin, it must be like sleeping with a rake - so he goes off to your colonies, and I go to London to find him.”

“You found his English wife? But weren’t you angry?”

“Ah
ça, non,”
said Mirabelle, laughing harder.
“She
was. But I am the first -
’la légitime.
I still feel
tendresse
for Christophe, and say I’ll go to fetch him back - if I want him. Or maybe I’ll send him back to her, or it may be he’s happier with the doxy he has now. How do I know until I see?
En fin,
I like to voyage, and certain complaisant gentlemen in London made me presents, so I can do as I please.”

“I see,” said Elizabeth, wondering what such a life could possibly feel like, envying it, even while aware of more shock than she wished to admit. She gazed hard at Lady Gardiner, thinking that without the paint and powder and hair-dye her looks would not be remarkable at all, and yet she gave the impression of assured beauty.

“Chérie”
said Mirabelle gently, shaking out her taffeta skirts and standing up. “I’ve noticed something. I’m older than you - how many years I don’t tell - and I like you very much - so you must not mind what I say. You are not happy, your brother-in-law, Monsieur Jack Winthrop, is unhappy, and your little sister - she is sick in her cabin all the time, so she is unhappy too.”

“Well?” said Elizabeth sharply, turning away and clenching her hands on the railing. “There’s naught to be done about it.”

“Quelle folie!”
Mirabelle sighed. “When it is so simple. You two desire each other, and pretend you don’t, so you suffer.
Je suis pratique, moi.
Satisfy this desire - oh very discreetly - and soon you won’t have it. The little sister will be none the wiser, and you will all be happier!”

Elizabeth drew a rough breath, and her eyes blazed. “That’s wicked! It’s disgusting! How dare you say such a thing!”

“Voila,”
said Mirabelle sadly, shaking her head. “The little Puritan indeed. Why can I not
say
what you have often
thought?
I give you good advice. I am very experienced.”

Elizabeth’s hands relaxed, and her anger died, quenched by her inherent honesty. She stared at the white board planking with its lines of oozing tar, and said in a low voice, “How did you guess it? It frightens me that anyone should have guessed - surely nobody else . . .”

“No. No one else.” Mirabelle put her scented hand on the other girl’s shoulder. “But
I
can tell by the way you look at him when he does not know. I can tell because he is the only man on the ship who has no awareness of
me.
Tiens,
chérie,
do not be a stupid little provincial. All could arrange itself. My cabin behind the roundhouse is most fortunately placed for privacy, this I have proven. You may use it any time.”

Elizabeth felt her cheeks turn hot. She glanced at Mirabelle and saw in the seductive face only genuine sympathy and some amusement. She understood that to Mirabelle this was all a game, that to her the bars of guilt and rigid prohibition actually did not exist.

“I could not,” said Elizabeth quietly. “But even if I could - Jack would not, so please never speak like this again. It pains me.”

“Pauvre chou,”
said Mirabelle, tucking her cosmetic box beneath her arm. “As you wish. But then you must find another man soon. A husband you can manage. A husband who adores you blindly. Yes, a man like that would make you happy.” She kissed Elizabeth on the check and went in through the companionway to her cabin, where she was not surprised to find the second mate - a lusty young Scot - awaiting her impatiently.

The voyage continued. Two days later they passed Land’s End on a stiff breeze and the passengers crowded the decks to watch granite cliffs and the lighthouse slide past and fade into the sky behind them. All the passengers were very quiet - the ordinary folk crowded in the waist of the ship, and the privileged ones on the poop. Of the former only Goody Knapp from Suffolk wailed convulsively, and one elderly tanner who was going to join his son in Boston cried out in a high quavering voice, “God Save the King, and God Bless Our Old England!”

The Winthrops stood close together. Margaret’s eyes were wet, and there was a lump in Elizabeth’s throat, but these Cornish cliffs were not their England and two weeks on shipboard had dulled homesickness.

“I shall be back again someday,” said Jack confidently. “I’ll not say adieu.” He knew that his father would need an emissary to the Old World, and that there would be business for the Colony to transact there. He had no feeling of exile, nor fear of the journey, having spent so long at sea on his trip to the Levant and being at heart a voyager.

“I shall never go home again,” said Martha in a small wooden voice. “Never.” She turned quickly from sight of the water, and leaned her head against Elizabeth’s shoulder.

“Nonsense,” said Elizabeth, putting her arm around her sister. “If Jack returns, doubtless you will, and anyway the
new
country will soon be ‘home.’ “

Martha said nothing. She had nearly recovered from seasickness but had grown very thin; her blue wool dress hung limp as rags, and her little bones jutted through the pallid skin. She looked at Jack, a dark, veiled look, but he did not see it. He was talking with John Eliot by the rail, The two young men found each other congenial and were full of eager speculation on what they would find. Eliot was particularly interested in the Indians and made plans for their conversion. He had read everything he could about them, and even memorized the names of some of the tribes. At Jesus College in Cambridge he had become a linguist and exceptional scholar. In the ship’s saloon he and Jack passed many an hour together discussing their specialties. Eliot expounded the Bible and the liberal Puritan views of Mr. Thomas Hooker, with whom he had studied in Essex, while Jack drew sketches of fortifications, of windmills and saltworks. Jack’s mind teemed with ideas for establishing the new country, and making it profitable. While he was occupied with these things he forgot his troubled marriage, and the dark disturbances produced by Elizabeth.

Captain Peirce came out to them on the poop, swept them all with a rather sardonic eve and said. “Well, we’re fairly off at last into the open sea. Glad to see ye’re not sobbing.” Nor praying either, he thought This shipload was the least canting and psalm-singing of all he’d carried to Massachusetts. Even Eliot, the minister, minded his own business, and only preached on Sundays.

“Where’s Lady Gardiner?” Peirce asked, though he suspected the answer.

“Why, she went in some time ago,” said Elizabeth. “Said she was tired of staring at the English coast.”

“Aha,” said the Captain. MacDuff, the second mate, was missing too. Still, the Scot was off duty now, and Peirce was far too canny a Master to concern himself with anything which did not prejudice the ship or passengers’ safety.

“How is your babe today, ma’am?” he asked Margaret, who tried to smile and did not answer. Each day little Ann grew more listless, and could scarcely be roused to drink the goat’s milk a servant brought up from the hold where the beasts were kept.

“May I go below, Captain?” said Elizabeth quickly. “To where-ever my chest of herbs is stored? I’ve some dried valerian I think would help the baby, and I can best find it myself.”

The Captain gave ready consent, though he did not permit female passengers to run about the ship at will, getting in the sailors’ way and hurting themselves in heavy weather. “Since ye’ve knowledge of physick, Mistress, will ye ‘ave a look at the Beamsley boy while ye’re down below. They tell me ‘e sickens.” And the Lord grant it’s neither measles, plague, nor smallpox, thought the Captain grimly. Any of those killers could halve a shipload in a fortnight.

Elizabeth was given a sailor as guide, and followed him down the stairs to the main deck. Several children were crouched by the windlass playing at Hot Cockles, while a large lad of about fifteen sat on the windlass, whittling and good-humouredly umpiring the game. The wind was veering, and the sea roughened. The
Lyon
gave a lurch as Elizabeth passed the group. She caught at the lad’s shoulder, and landed almost in his lap. “Forgive me I” she cried, laughing. “I thought I’d better sea-legs.”

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-coloured 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 skilful!” He was fashioning two intricately carved balls out of a maple burl.

“Well,” he said, showing how one ball moved within the other. “I 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 good-wife 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.