Becoming Americans (49 page)

      Richard laughed, and so did Sarah Alice. But she'd heard enough around the Harrison dinner table to know that her brothers were on their way to becoming men of substance. It wasn't tobacco, but they'd be able to purchase tobacco land with their earnings when the war was over. Her mother had always been right about that: in Virginia, Maryland, and even in this wild colony, tobacco cultivation brought respectability.

      When they returned to the house, Old Fewox was there. As he ladled punch, Sarah Alice had to admit that there was still a charm about Fewox, although he was toothless, wore a thinning, old periwig with his coat, and had dispensed with the waistcoat. His courtliness to Sarah Alice reminded her of the old rakes at Williamsburgh dinners. It was quaint, this courtliness, but he was not a man of serious qualities. Those old men seldom were.

      A late-in-life marriage of love. Had her mother felt for James Fewox what she was feeling for Major Dorsey? But her mother had been rash, and the fears of Anne Shaw's friends had largely come true, Sarah Alice realized. Anne's marriage to Fewox had led her to life among the lowest of men—and their women, left her bereft of clergy, and had given her endless days of toil in a land where the women worked and the men played, drank, and slept. Now, Anne lived in one place, her husband in another. For that, she'd confided to Sarah Alice, she was thankful.

      Fewox was a gambling clown, in his old age, taken seriously by no one. In this inconspicuous capacity he'd been brought back to Bath by William Glover. But things had cooled down between factions, and Fewox, now, was relying on less reputable old friends.

      Thomas Carman had come along with Fewox, but Edy was still waiting in Bath. He, Richard and Edward, with Old Fewox, would share in the Machapungo part of Sarah Alice's reunion and farewell.

      Sarah Alice had seen such disfigured men as Thomas Carman before, but those were not to be dealt with as family, certainly. She was put off, too, in seeing Richard and Edward's demeanor change when they were with Fewox and Carman. She realized that her brothers had known these men for many years, but to fall into heavy drink with them, and for them all to trade stories of their heroes—the pirates who plied these waters—caused her a good deal of distress. Edward was promoted in the group; it was obvious to her, when his ownership of a two-masted sloop was announced.

      The men sat on benches at the table: Richard and Edward, Fewox and Carman. Sarah Alice sat on the bed with Jean, while Elizabeth and three-year-old Sally played with their cornhusk dolls and took turns carrying embers to the men as their pipes went out. Tapoc, Jean's old Indian slave, sat on the floor in a corner finishing the beaded deerskin slippers Jean intended for Sarah Alice. Everyone's noggins were kept filled.

      "I'll whip you, I swear it, if those moccasins are not finished before Mistress Harrison leaves tomorrow!"

      Jean Williams was a strict mistress, Sarah Alice thought, and a loud, French one at that. It was her home and her right, Sarah Alice knew, but the old Indian woman reminded her of old Mary Bourne for some reason, and she didn't care so much for a savage's needlework to warrant such harsh threats.

      Sarah Alice drank more of the potent punch.

      Still, it was Jean's right to discipline her own slaves, and her family had owned the old woman since they'd come to Carolina. Tapoc had been part of Jean's dowry.

      "I don't care for your crudeness," Sarah Alice said suddenly and loudly.

      The men at the table stopped and turned to her.

      "Mistress Harrison." Fewox stood up. "Please accept from me…."

      "You're in Carolina, Little Sister," Richard said. "In an older brother's home. If my language is sufficient for my wife, it is sufficient for you," he said.

      "It's not just your words and your curses, it's the subjects you speak of with praise. Defiance of the government. Praise for the pirates. More than praise, adulation!" Sarah Alice nearly slipped from the bed. She'd had too much of their local spirits! She must control herself!

      "Girls, go to bed," Richard said to his daughters. They scampered up the ladder to the sleeping loft.

      "Your patience has been worn thin with all of us savages, has it not, Mistress Harrison?" Richard asked. His commanding voice stopped her as swiftly as it had thirty and more years ago. "You don't approve of how we live."

      "And I'm not alone!" Sarah Alice snapped back, as she always had. "John and Joseph are scandalized by what you're becoming. 'Genuine members of Rogue's Harbor,' they said!"

      "Do you know why, Little Sister, that Aunt Mary Williams sent father's brass plaque to Mother instead of giving it to John, or why John was left out of her will?" Richard asked, knowing.

      "I paid the debt off! It was satisfied! She shouldn't have done that," the drunken Old Fewox said.

      Sarah Alice slipped over and held to the bedpost.

      "Our aristocratic brother was taking Aunt Mary's money and investing it in this despised 'Rogues Harbor.' The bondsmen and slaves he bought all died the first year, and the money was lost." Richard hadn't stood, he just leaned forward on the table.

      "And our tipsy step-father, here, saved him. He paid off the debt with one of his easy-come winnings—he doesn't always lose. He's sued John, twice since, for the money, but he's yet to see the money. He needs a new suit of clothes." Richard laughed.

      "A man is judged by his clothes," Fewox gummed.

      Sarah Alice sat in quiet embarrassment over having made such a fool of herself. She'd never drink this local brew again!

      "And you might ought be a little more careful with your accusing Virginia tongue when you get to Bath. We've a different land, here. We've different needs. We have different ways of being governed and of not being governed. You and my Virginia brothers want me to grow tobacco, but your Virginia Burgesses won't let me sell it from there. Well, I'll soon grow tobacco, and I'll sell it. We do things our way, in Carolina," he finished.

      The other men cheered him. His wife cheered him, too, but embraced her sister-in-law and gave her a forgiving kiss on the cheek.

      "You talk as good as that rascal, Tom Cary," James Fewox said. "I could say a few words for you, now, if you want to get elected to something…. On either side!" he added.

      Sarah Alice laughed with them all, and gave Jean a favorite fan for a gift.

      Many of the leaves had fallen, but many tired, brown leaves still dangled from the oak and hickory branches. There'd been no hard, killing frost this year, and it was well into October. A cold wind blew from the north as they sailed down the Machapungo and worked up the Pamticoe. They passed by the Romney Marsh practice fields of Cary's militia to the mouth of Town Creek. The winds turned more westerly and they entered the creek, seeing the town of Bath right ahead. It started on the far heading of a back creek, and stretched—scattered—for a quarter of a mile along the Town Creek bank.

      "That's where Mister Lawson and Hannah live," Richard said, pointing through the trees to a white house sitting on a knoll of land that was the point between the back creek—Adam's Creek—and Town Creek.

      Matching, white-washed fences surrounded the first waterfront lots, and enclosed a large parcel of land across from the Water Street. There sat Lawson's house, facing the serene, dark waters of Adams and Town Creeks.

      Edward docked his graceful sloop at Lawson's wharf, and sent Tapoc— whom Jean had loaned to Sarah Alice during her stay—to alert the Lawson servants that Mistress Sarah Alice Harrison had arrived to call.

      In minutes, Hannah Smith was running down the hill to greet her guests. Although not married to John Lawson, Hannah Smith—the daughter of a longtime planter on the Pamticoe—was treated with a love and respect that was envied by most wives of binding, civil ceremonies or of the rare, clerically-blessed unions. Lawson had gone to the extent of making provision in his will for his "beloved Hannah," Jean had told her, and for their two children, Isabella, almost six, and a toddler, John, not quite two.

      Sarah Alice had been charmed and intrigued by John Lawson in Williamsburgh, and by the stories he'd told of Hannah and their busy life. Lawson had made a most exhaustive journey through Carolina; he'd surveyed the town of Bath—picking the choicest lots for himself, of course; he'd sent voluminous collection of plants and animals back to the London apothecary, James Petiver, his chief sponsor; and there was his book. Hannah apologized for John's absence, but he'd ridden his horse to the plantation of Tobias Knight to report on the Palatine settlement. He was returned from the new town, New Bern, which he'd surveyed at the juncture of the Trent and Neuse Rivers for de Graffenried's Palatine and Swiss settlers. He'd be home for supper, Hannah said, and hustled her servants to move Sarah Alice's things inside.

      "Looks like we might get some rain," Hannah said, hopefully.

      "The Indians, my friends, are far better to us than we are to them," John Lawson told his dinner guests. "An Indian will offer food to passing strangers; we would hold back from their children a stale lump of pone."

      "But we bring them God!" Sarah Alice replied in amazement.

      "Which one, Mistress Harrison? They had their own before we came. We bring them yours, mine, the Quaker's, the baptizers…. I fear we may have confused them," Lawson said. "Major Dorsey is of the Scots Church, I believe? When is
your
conversion to occur?" John Lawson looked at her with bemusement.

      "John, don't tease Mistress Harrison. She doesn't hear the humor you intend," Hannah warned her husband.

      Lawson looked to Sarah Alice with a smile on his face.

      "I'm sorry my dear. I was only trying to amuse our guest as she so charmingly amused me in Williamsburgh. You find no humor in religion, Mistress Harrison?"

      "No, I admit I do not, Sir. But I find your ability to see wit in everything a most charming and generous attribute," she said.

      Mister Lawson had turned in his chair and was sitting with his legs crossed, riding his son up and down on a foot. The boy screeched with delight, and Sarah Alice thought that the forty-five year old father might do so, too.

      "I'm a naturalist, Mistress Harrison. It is my job to observe life of all kinds, and I've observed that life in Carolina lends great opportunity for the wit of irony. What we say about the Indians and the real facts is one such irony. Oaths—or affirmations—to religion or authority are belied by the reality of actions. Such ironies have their humor."

      "I'm afraid irony requires too much knowledge and thinking for me, Sir," she said.

      "Ah, ha," Lawson said. "You've just proved yourself a mistress of the form by your very denial," Lawson said.

      "You're a mite too charming with the ladies for a man with his will already made out," Hannah said, glaring at him with a proud laugh in her eyes.

      "Yes, my dear," he said, as his son stepped down, and Isabella mounted her father's foot.

      Footsteps on the piazza summoned a Lawson servant. When the door opened, Sarah Alice saw the hideous Carman with an old, toothless woman.

      "Mistress Hannah, you're hiding my treasure," the old woman said.

      "Edy, come in," Hannah Lawson said. "Come inside, Carman. Is it raining, yet?"

      "No, Mistress Hannah, looks like it's blowed over. Gettin' colder, though."

      Sarah Alice watched and listened in amazement. To see Carman and a toothless old woman appear at the front door of such a man as John Lawson was, in itself, surprising. But the delayed recognition and acceptance that this old hag was her sister, Edy, was shocking.

      Edy rushed to hug her younger sister, but Sarah Alice stepped back, and Edy relapsed into a manner that she'd lost with Carman in Bath. She tilted her head and let the hood fall across her face. She lifted a hand to rest on her chin, hiding her mouth.

      Sarah Alice recovered and stepped forward to embrace her, but Edy felt unclean before her well-dressed and imposing sister.

      "Darling Edy," Sarah Alice said, and held her sister close. She recognized the look of pain that she'd inflicted, and her own eyes filled with regret for that, and for the life and company her sister had suffered since the pox had left her so scarred. It had been Edy's dowry, after all….

      Both sisters were crying as the men stood by awkwardly, when Hannah hugged them both and comforted them with, "Now, now. Isn't this lovely?"

      More footsteps on the piazza sent Lawson's servant to open the door to Richard, Edward, and Fewox. Sarah Alice was amazed, again, at the reception given to her rough-looking relatives. Lawson and Hannah knew them all—Fewox and Anne had befriended the young Hannah Smith and the newly arrived John Lawson when the Fewoxes first came to Bath to seat Glover's land.

      Lawson was a scholar and therefore suspect, at first, by the folks of Pamticoe. But he'd also been among the first of the settlers here, and had won the attention and admiration of his neighbors. To be invited by John Lawson on his rushed visits home, was a treat to any man or woman with a taste for wine or spirits. He was generous with his drink, with conversation, and valuable advice. He had bottles of drinkable spirits, as well as those that preserved his collections of small animals. Lawson delighted in testing the brandies he made from his crop of various plums, peaches, pears, apples and berries he cultivated and studied. He experimented with new plants, and a banana tree that he'd ordered the previous winter grew green outside, as did a palmetto he'd brought back from Charles Town.