Anne of the Fens (16 page)

“If ever two were one, then surely we.”

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-T
WO

S
IMON AND
I married when I was sixteen, in a small celebration. I had a fine new dress of blue silk, one I probably would have few chances to wear again but that I could bring to the New World. We enjoyed sweetmeats and fine wine and a lovely cake.

That night after the others had left, Simon took me in his arms. “I wonder,” he said, “if we would have found each other without that one summer's day you journeyed through the fens.”

“It was only one day? It felt like weeks.”

“Afternoon of one day, to night of the next, just a little more than twenty-four hours.”

“I only know we have found each other now.”

A few months after Simon and I were betrothed, I passed Marianne, who was glowing, on the stairs. She smiled as she said hello. When I went to bed that night I found, sitting on a plate on my trunk, a roll with sugar icing in the form of a cross upon it. I knew the significance of the cross. Years before, Queen Elizabeth had forbidden rolls with a Catholic cross on them, except at Easter, and it was not Easter. Marianne had confessed her religion to Davey, and he had accepted her in spite of it, The roll was a thank you from Davey to me.

The Earl had been allowed to return to the castle after ten months in the Tower. He seemed a little paler and thinner, but not otherwise changed. He, also, planned to come to the New World, though not on our voyage. When I asked Simon why the King was letting us go, he said that the King encouraged settlements in the New World as a way of getting rid of troublemakers, while whatever money the settlers made from exports, like lumber and crops, was subject to English taxes.

Southhampton, England – Easter Sunday, March 27, 1630

I
T TOOK OVER
two years of preparation. Finally, the
Arbella
and three smaller sister ships were ready to push off to sea. At the end there were sad farewells with the Earl's family, and most of our servants, and Marianne and Davey. I gave Marianne a small tapestry from my room for her new home, as well as the clothes I could not bring with me.

We set sail with a man named Winthrop, appointed to be our governor. I thought Father should be governor. I thought it was Father's temper that swayed people to appoint Master Winthrop.

No sooner had our four small ships left port than we were buffeted by a storm so terrible that even the captain and sailors were frightened. The swearing was far worse than anything Father had ever uttered. People spewed all about, and the stench down in the hold was unspeakable. I never got seasick, even in the storm, but the smell in the hold was so bad that I vomited. When we could kneel without being flung about, we prayed mightily. We fasted. No one really wanted to eat anyway, so it was not much sacrifice to God.

The storm lasted three days and then gradually abated. We had been traveling south along the English coast, but had made little headway. We went ashore for a bit to recover, and so the sailors could clean the boat. Yellow daffodils covered an English hill. I felt tears in my eyes. Knowing I might never see them again, I dug up a bulb and put it in my pocket, hoping I could plant it in the New World.

The next day, we left England behind forever. Patience and I stood at the rail and watched our country disappear, fainter and fainter, until we could no longer tell whether the line at the horizon was land or mist.

We had not gone far when, in the distance, one of the sailors spied eight dots on the horizon.

As we watched, they gradually took on the shape of ships. Everyone crowded on deck. Patience pulled my arm and said, “Perhaps they will come aboard and the men will tell us what we will find in the New World.”

Then I heard the captain say to Father, who was standing by him, “They fly no flag.”

One of the sailors nearby shouted, “God's eyes! Pirates!”

The captain hushed him, but everyone had heard. Patience grabbed my hand tightly. The captain ordered more and more sail, the ship groaned, and we slipped along faster than we had ever gone, even in the storm. We stayed on the deck and watched, hoping to see the ships fall back, but instead they grew in size. The captain kept his watch by the rail, peering through his glass. When he put it down his face was grave. After a deliberation with Master Winthrop, Father, and Simon, he turned to everyone and spoke.

“We shall fight!”

The sailors raised huzzahs, and a hushed murmur went through the passengers. Father's face was flushed, and he shook his fist. Master Winthrop looked pale but determined.

“Fire is the danger,” the Captain continued. “Tear down these cabins on the deck, then throw overboard everything that can burn, the bedding especially.”

Simon came to me and put his arm about me, whispering reassuring words, and calling me his brave woman, as he often does. Simon said that the ship could withstand a good deal of buffeting and cannon holes and broken masts without sinking, but that if it caught fire it would sink, and we would all be drowned.

In a few minutes the sailors destroyed the little cabins that some of the poorer Puritans had built so carefully on the deck. We women raced below decks, hauling up blankets and pillows and coverlets and tossing them over the rails. The sea looked like the washing-up water, full of bits and pieces of things that could no longer be identified.

Mother came running up, her arms full of our blue feather comforter. Patience and I watched it float away, and Patience said, “If we survive the pirates, we shall die from the cold.”

The captain had signaled the other ships in our little fleet, the sailors had pulled down most of the sail, and the ship turned to face the enemy. And then there was a cry from the sailor poised on the mast.

“Flag, flag ahoy.”

We saw that the lead ship hurrying towards us had hoisted the English colors.

We all fell to our knees, as though we were one person. “Hosannah,” rang over the water. The sailors joined our noise, but their cries were more rude. The ships came alongside, and men came aboard. It was fine to see other Englishmen, to know we were not alone on the broad water.

The next morning as we went to sleep, we missed our comforter. Mother said she hoped it was not so cold as some said, in the new land. That day we fell asleep like babies.

W
E SLEPT IN
shifts because there was not enough room in the tiny boat for everyone to sleep at night. Most of the three hundred passengers slept in the hold, crowded together like eels in a bucket. We women from the wealthier families had a room to ourselves. It was only enough to hold one bed and two cots, with no place to step around them.

Patience, Mercy, Sarah, I, and Mother slept in the morning, from six o'clock until two in the afternoon. It was often hard to go below to sleep then, with the light strong, though of course once we got to our room below deck it was always dark. John Winthrop's wife and her girls slept in the afternoon. Lady Arbella had the right to sleep at night with her husband. I worried about Lady Arbella, as she was pale and sickly. None of us were used to the hard life — the cold, the dampness, the lack of good food and privacy — but she least of all, and she seemed the most affected.

Simon slept at night, with the large group in the hold. I missed his company, as he was always involved with Father and Master Winthrop.

The rocking of the boat was sometimes pleasant to fall asleep to and sometimes not. When I could not drop off, images flashed through my mind of waves crashing over the boat, sinking us, drowning us in our beds. None of us could swim, of course. I sometimes thought of my other boat trip, and wondered whether life would be a continual adventure, and whether I wanted that.

After a week, we settled into monotony, nothing to see but our ship, the rocking up and down, the spray wetting everything. The odor of the sea was gone, and one of the sailors told Simon that what we think is the smell of the sea is really the smell of the place where the sea meets the land. I wanted that smell again. Instead there was only the stench of all of us crowded into this tiny boat — us and the animals. Most of the animals went into the other boats, but we had a few cows and chickens below decks to provide milk and eggs. The chickens merely clucked, but the cows bellowed to be milked, and bellowed to be fed, and perhaps bellowed because they were frightened. Children cried, sometimes for hours, hungry, cold children who could not be comforted.

The birds were gone, the gulls and the others that had hovered around us at the start. There was nothing to see but occasional fish. Some were strange, different from anything I have seen, with wings above the water. Some were huge and some chased each other around and seemed to play. Sometimes one of the men caught one — a porpoise it was called — and we ate it. Once we saw a whale that spouted and played and threatened to sink the boat. Finally it left us.

Meals were plain. Generally we ate oatmeal or hard biscuits and cheese, with ale or cider. At the beginning we had a bit of smoked meat, until we ran out, and what was left turned rancid. The smoked fish lasted, and sometimes there was fresh fish. There were no vegetables after the first days, except dried beans and onions, and even the onions began to rot after a time in the damp hold. Vegetables were not my favorite food, but I missed them. The chickens stopped laying and the cows stopped giving milk. What there was went to the young children. The cider tasted good to me, and I drank more than my share. Almost everything was eaten cold because of the risk of fire on board.

Often I would find Sarah on the deck reading her Bible. The first time, I was astounded, but it became commonplace. She turned not only holy, but acted as though she knew more about religion than any of us. She spoke teachings like a minister and she chided us for all our missteps. Once I told her that to be truly Christian was to be charitable. She just made a face at me, not that different from the faces she made when she was seven.

We traveled day after day, till it seemed that the sea must be endless and we would go on forever. Everything became wet, and I was often colder than I had ever been in my life, except for the time I was so drenched in the fens and had to walk back to the castle. I would hear Mother muttering that she wished she could have her drafty castle back again.

O
NE DAY THE
captain began to take soundings, and though he found no bottom, we knew the end of our journey was near. I saw the first gull, and after a day or two we smelled land again. On June sixth, we saw land for the first time. We traveled south for a few days till we found the harbor we sought.

We could see the settlement, just a few huts, cruder than anything that the poorest villagers lived in at the castle. Davey's house was grand in comparison. None of these roofs had the neat thatching I was used to. I guessed that there were none of the reeds we had in such abundance in the English fens. Simon said someone had brought reeds along so that we could plant them.

There were a few wisps of smoke curling from a chimney or two, and a slight smell of smoke, though mainly the smell of mud. We had come far from the fens, only to return to their smell. And surrounding this small patch of mud there was only forest. Trees, trees, everywhere. We were exchanging one sea for another. There were no clearings, no light in the forest. As far as the eye could see. Full of Indians, wolves, and bears.

At the thought of what lay ahead for us, for Simon and me, for my family — what difficulties, what want of the basic necessities of life, like food and shelter and warmth — my stomach began to churn. Then I remembered that it was Arbella, not I, who was sick from the trip. And I remembered how I had submerged myself in mud when the Sheriff's men were looking for me, and how I had climbed the castle wall.

My stomach calmed as I prepared to disembark with the others. The bravest woman Simon knew was quite able to deal with danger and privation.

A
FTERWORD

A
NNE IS MY
ancestor, and I thank my mother for some of the research into her life. This is a work of historical fiction. The essentials are true, but I have made up conversations and some incidents like Anne's travel through the fens. I have tried to portray behavior that is consistent with the way she describes herself at fourteen.

W
HAT
H
APPENED TO
T
HEM

Anne Dudley Bradstreet
is recognized as the first woman poet in America. That first year in Massachusetts, none of the Puritans could have imagined such an outcome. Arbella, her husband, and others died of the hardships. Many of the settlers returned to England. Gradually, however, a new Boston was established.

Anne and Simon
began a family and eventually had eight children, four girls and four boys. Anne managed to develop her skill as a poet while bringing up the children in the wilderness. She wrote of the happiness of her marriage, how much she missed Simon when he was away, and of the children. She was one of the first women to write so intimately about her life. She also wrote poems about historical events and women in history. Simon probably enjoyed these, but the language of almost four hundred years ago makes the poems difficult for today's reader. In this story I haven't used the archaic language of that time, but kept some of its formality.