Our Own Country: A Novel (The Midwife Series) (16 page)

“Cassie, is that Watkins’s sack upon the table?”

She nodded. “An’ it my fault, too. He was jus’ turning to leave and I open my fat mouf about someteeng. It made ’eem forget.”

“Never mind whose fault it is,” I said. “The point is, what is he to eat all day? Will you have the man starve?”

Cassie set her shovel against the side of the house. She wiped her hands on her apron. Then, slowly lifting her head, she let her eyes rest upon my face.

“No you don’, Miss Eliza.”

“No I don’t, what?”

Cassie approached me until we stood only inches apart. “No you don’ go puttin’ yourself somewhere you don’ belong. The devil, ’ee follow you and take our Watkins back to ’ell wit’ ’eem.”

“What on earth do you mean, Cassie? I simply wish to take the poor man his victuals. The day is fine, and I’m not otherwise engaged.”

“So, you
go
b
e
udderwize engage, Miss Eliza. I send Linda to ’eem. She ’appy to go. What business is ’ee to you?”

I did not reply but returned, feelings hurt, to the kitchen. She followed me there like an angry wasp.

“You want to see ’eem ’anged like a ham in de smoke ’ouse? You tink your uncle, or even your faddah, won’ do ’eet?”

“I wish to bring him his sack, as a Christian kindness,” I said, hurt turning to indignation. Why needed I to argue my case with our slave? “It will do me good to stretch my legs. I’ve been indoors for too long and am restless.”

“Restless, yes. I shore agree wit’
dat
.” Cassie nodded. “You plenty restless.”

“Cassie,” I said warmly. “I know of no other slave who would dare speak to her mistress so.”

Suddenly, Cassie picked up the gunnysack, thrust it at me, and said, “Well, go, go. But ’ave a care what I say. Cassie know white folk and dere ways.”

Delighted to be in possession of the sack at last, I kissed her on her angry cheek, found my cape, and departed. I strode down Deer Street toward the ferry, shielding my eyes against the bright sun, my heart filled with effervescent hope.

The coast was alive with activity. Carts rumbled down Front Street to the market, and, as I approached the road, my nose was treated to the fecund smell of horse dung, hay, and rotting fish. The ferryboat had already left when I arrived at the wharf. I had to wait near half an hour with a cold wind blowing. Two rough-looking men soon joined me. They were sawyers, also waiting to make the short trip to Langdon’s shipyard. They nodded politely, no doubt wondering what a lady was doing with a reeking gunnysack slung over her shoulder. After several moments of awkward silence, I spoke.

“Our man, Watkins, forgot his sack this morning. I thought
I’d
bring it to him.”

“We’re happy to bring it for you, miss,” one of them said. “We know the one.”

“Oh, thank you. But I was hoping to get a look at the shipyard. How goes it? The
Raleigh
, I mean?”

“She’s coming along. We’ve got ’er up on staging. Your ma
n’d
be up there now, I expect, layin’ the planks.”

“He won’t be hard to spot,” the taller one said. Then they laughed.

“Yep. Only slave we’ve ever seen at Langdon’s. Even though he’s near white—from a distance.”

The older one laughed again. “Oh, but he’s a good worker, I’ll grant him that.”

“A very good worker,” the younger one agreed. “Knows his place, though.”

The boat approached then, and we readied ourselves to board. During the crossing, the men fell silent, and I enjoyed the sensation of the wind whipping my face. I knew not why, but having one’s breath taken away by a strong wind seemed to take away all fear.

The boatman helped me out on to the rocky shore. From where we landed it was easy to spot the hull of the
Raleigh
, raised high in the air.

“Just there. See him?”

Indeed, I did: His shirtsleeves were rolled up, exposing fine, tan arms upon which blond hairs glistened. He gripped a hammer, and a pouch of nails was tied about his waist. He stood in profile, hair across his face, eyes focused, brow prominent, full lips pursed in concentration. I thought him the most handsome man
I’d
ever seen.

The two men bowed slightly in my direction and went off to the pit. It was a covered pit—freshly made, to judge by its pale-yellow planks.

Everywhere, men labored at one thing or another. There was a tremendous amount of dust in the air. It floated over everything in swirls and eddies, at the whim of winds that shifted constantly. I coughed, and from the blur of dust I saw a tall, fair-haired man approach. He looked to be in his mid thirties. He had a long face and long nose, and his eyes shone with keen, quick intelligence.

“Hello,” he said, bowing. “Whom do I have the pleasure of meeting? I’m John Langdon. You must be shipwrecked, to find yourself here.” He smiled at me with such an easy grace that I blushed.

“I’m Eliza Boylston, sir. My family and I are staying with my uncle Robert Chase just now.”

“Ah, yes,” he said, and his eyes flit away from me, giving me to understand that he placed my uncle among the enemy ranks.

“We arrived last June after—after the engagement at Charles-town. My brother, Jeb, was killed there.”

I felt a swift pang of shame. Had I spoken of Jeb so that the colonel would think better of me? Oh, vanity!

Colonel Langdon pursed his lips and murmured, “No one should have to die fighting to keep his God-given rights. Yet it
is
a cause worth dying for. I’m very sorry, Miss Boylston. One grieves no less for heroes.”

“No,” I agreed.

“I’m afraid you’ve come to Portsmouth at her lowest moment. But she shall rally.”

“
Raleigh
, sir?” I smiled up at him.

Catching the pun, he laughed. “Clever girl. Well, yes, in fact. We’ll put Portsmouth on the map, and she’ll have her glory back, by and by.” Colonel Langdon then noticed the dirty sack on my shoulder. “I somehow think that sack isn’t yours, Miss Boylston.”

“Indeed not. It belongs to my uncle’s man Watkins. John Watkins.”

“Yes. Well. I wouldn’t want him to starve. He’s one of our best shipwrights.” The colonel led me to the hull and called up. “Johnny! An angel has arrived with your dinner!” The colonel turned to me and bowed. “It was a great pleasure, Miss Boylston. I hope we meet again.” And, giving a familiar wave to “Johnny,” he was off.

Watkins had been too focused on his work to notice my presence. Now, however, he stood up, and then slowly descended a steep wooden ladder to the ground. Though it was cold in the island wind, Watkins’s white shirt was translucent with perspiration. The muscles of his arms were outlined in sawdust and grime. His hair, dark beneath and golden above, was wound in tight curling locks that fell across his forehead. He wiped his face with the edge of a rolled sleeve. “Miss Boylston,” he said, bowing.

The sound of my name upon his lips sent an unwonted thrill through me.

“Watkins.” I nodded. One did not curtsy before a slave, but I had nearly done so. I then proffered his sack. “It seems you forgot this.”

“Cassie, blast her!” He looked annoyed. “She distracted me. She always does, for hardly has one epic tale ended than another begins.”

I would have liked to agree with him, for his words described my dear Cassie perfectly. Instead, I found myself saying, “Is it her fault, then, that you forgot your sack?”

“Entirely.” He sounded quite grave, but then he smiled briefly, revealing a pair of dimples so fine they stunned me into silence.

I handed him his sack. As Watkins took it, I happened to notice his hands. There were angry red sores upon his palms. “Your hands!” I exclaimed. “Allow me to see them.”

Instinctively, he took a step back and put his hands behind him. “There’s nothing wrong with them.”

“But there
is
. I insist.” I quickly grasped his wrists in a proprietary manner. He flinched as I turned his palms up. Two, nay, three sores bled freely on each palm. The blister on his right hand was quite inflamed.
I’d
heard that such wounds could become putrid and require the amputation of a limb—or worse.

“Watkins, how can you—how can you be such a fool?”

“Your uncle likes it not when I do not earn my keep,” he replied.

“That’s an odd notion.” I released my grasp. “My uncle makes a tidy profit off of your labor. The least he can do is keep you alive to work another day.” Then, without listening to his rejoinder, I went off to complain to Colonel Langdon.

“Miss Boylston,” Watkins called entreatingly, “if you insist on telling anyone, let it be Mr. Hackett. I have no wish to importune the colonel.
I beg you
.”

I nodded my assent without turning round. Several rods off, a man I guessed to be Hackett stood over a sawpit. A short, florid-faced man, Hackett was growing redder at what he saw in the pit.

“No, no, man!” he cried to the bottom sawyer, one of the men who had accompanied me on the ferry. “Can you not see that you are far off the mark?”

I half expected him to leap down there and blurted, “Mr. Hackett! A moment of your time, if you please.” At the sound of my voice, Hackett turned. “As I was bringing my family’s slave his victuals, I’ve discovered him to be in most egregious condition.” How easily I adopted the superior tone Mama might have used!

It was quite effective. Hackett was officious as he led me away from the pit. “I know your uncle. A fine man,” he said placatingly.

“Indeed.”

Together, we approached Watkins, who stood at the base of the staging. He shifted from foot to foot, impatient and annoyed. Then he removed an apple from his sack, took a bite, and was about to take another when he saw us approach.

“Your hands,” barked Hackett.

After some hesitation, Watkins finally opened his hands for Mr. Hackett’s inspection. Seeing the open sores, Hackett made a face, spat on the ground, and growled, “By God, Watkins. Three days off! Now get out of here and take care of those sores. I’ll send word to your master.”

Hackett had turned to go back to the sawpit when I interjected, “I should think his duties must be more varied if the same thing is not to happen again.” Instead of replying, the shipmaster now merely grumbled something and went his way.

“Well, Watkins,” I said with a cheerful lift in my voice, “you may as well finish your lunch while we wait for the ferry.”

Suddenly, and with vicious force, Watkins threw his apple core toward the shore. He mounted the ladder, put his tools in a sack, carried them down with him, and took them to a nearby shed for safekeeping. Then he joined me with obvious reluctance.

The shore was windy, and, as the ferryman had not yet arrived, Watkins sat himself beside a beach plum and opened his gunnysack. Finding a biscuit, he bit into it noisily.

The silence became uncomfortable. I said, “Cassie shall have some kind of salve, no doubt. She’ll make you well in a few days.”

“Undoubtedly.”

His sudden coldness, so different from the smile I had received when he first had greeted me, wounded me. I almost felt like weeping, but instead I asked, “Have I—have I given offense, Watkins?”

Watkins turned, smiled at me oddly, and said, “My mother, a most excellent woman, died when I was nine.”

“I’m very sorry for it. But what mean you by that?”

The ferryman approached. Watkins waved to him and hastened to finish his biscuit. He then rose, dusting the sand off his breeches.

“Only that it has been a long time since I’ve had a mother, and I have no great wish for one now.”

The rebuke, so unexpected, made me turn away. “That is a cruel thing to say.” Tears pooled in the ledges of my eyes.

“No, not cruel”—he hastened to reply, just as the ferryman approached. “It’s just, I—”

“Comin’ aboard?” The ferryman was upon us.

“A moment.” Watkins turned his shoulders to the ferryman and looked at me, but I could not read his eyes. I understood with dawning horror that I neither knew him nor knew how to speak to him, and that my attempt to do so had been a grievous error.

We returned to the other shore in silence. There, I cursed myself roundly for having had the clever idea to bring Watkins his gunnysack.

20

THE INCIDENT WITH WATKINS UPON BADGER’S ISLAND
unsettled me for several days. A profound remorse followed me everywhere. Each time I recalled his words, I cringed with shame. The others had been grateful for my kindness. Where had I gone wrong with Watkins?

I saw him not after that, and so did not learn whether or by what means Cassie treated his blisters. He seemed to vanish even from the background of my life, and our bizarre encounter on the island eventually took on the wavering unreality of a dream.

In May, the
Raleigh
was launched. Many of the townspeople strolled down to the shore to see her off. There was a formal ceremony, Colonel Langdon presiding, and then to great cheers and celebration the
Raleigh
unfurled her square-rigged sails and turned down the Piscataqua, lifting, with her sails, the hopes of our Rebel citizens.

It was not until June that I next came upon Watkins. This was out on the plains west of town, at the annual Negro elections. Cassie and the Whipple slaves had been speaking of nothing else for near a month.

“Miss Eliza, there’ll be music and dancing, and everyone has such a good time. Everyone will look beautiful,” gushed Dinah one morning. “Oh, please come, Miss Eliza!” She pressed her slender fingertips together.

“But won’t I—stand out?”

“Maybe a little,” Dinah admitted. “But other white folk come to watch. Oh, do come!” Here, she gently grasped the sleeve of my gown, and I assented.

It was a fine, warm day when I first espied a scene that made me doubt my own vision: A huge crowd of Negroes had gathered on Middle Street. These must have been men and women not just from Portsmouth but from all the neighboring towns. King Nero Brewster, their elected leader, and several of his officers, all dressed in brightly colored tunics, led a procession that included Negroes on horseback—with guns and swords!

I followed the crowd down the street, onto Middle Road, and into the plains on the outskirts of town. Many sang to drums and lively music. All the while, I tried but failed to understand what these elections were about—and why families such as my own allowed them.

When we arrived at the plains, I saw that there were already near two hundred Negroes waiting there, all dressed in their best and most festive clothing.

Standing behind the crowd, I watched the solemn ceremony in which the new officers were elected and sworn in. King Nero stood on a hastily erected podium and called out each name in turn. After each name, murmurs went up among the crowd. To my surprise, John Watkins’s name was called, and he emerged from the crowd to claim his title as a newly elected deputy.

“It is a very great honor for one so young,” said someone beside me.

King Nero Brewster spoke a few words in praise of Watkins, and the audience clapped and cheered. Watkins descended the makeshift podium, and though I stood at some distance, his eyes lit on me. He seemed deeply surprised at my presence, and I actually imagined he might speak to me, when all at once he veered to his left and smiled at Linda.

She wore a bright-red turban and a simple red gown, which made her lovely, dark skin glow. A turquoise stone sat at the hollow of her neck.

Linda, shy and silent with my family, laughed easily with Watkins and their mutual friends who had gathered around him. I soon left for home, imagining how they would dance till early light, at Bell’s Tavern, to Cuffee’s lively violin.

It was right and good for Watkins to love Linda. But as I walked home from the plains, I grew unaccountably morose, and I found myself wishing that a gentle wind would blow Linda out to sea.

The following morning, having made my way to the kitchen after breakfast, I asked Cassie, “How did you enjoy the party?”

Cassie put a worn brown hand to her head. It was creased with wrinkles, though I doubted she had seen her thirty-fifth birthday.

“I drank too much, and now I ’ave a ’eadache.”

“Poor Cassie. Have you no remedy you can take?”

“Oh, yes. I take ’eet already. ’Eet doesn’t work.” Here, she gave me a sheepish grin.

“And—and the others? They had a good time?”

“Oh, dey all have a fine time. Linda, she dance with Johnny till Cuffee can’t hold da bow no longer. Dey keep beggin’ ’eem for ‘one maw, one ma
w
.
’
”

“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself, Cassie. Truly.” I kissed her on the cheek and let her get on with her work. I then quietly repaired to my chamber, where I allowed myself an hour of exquisite misery, replete with copious tears.

On Thursday, July 18, the Declaration of Independency was read from the western steps of the State House on King Street. To many, it was a vindication of all our suffering. Those Rebels whom my family had so long derided were now our leaders. This was now their country.

My family reacted to the news with silent dismay. Uncle Robert paced his house as if it were a prison. Were it not for us, he would surely have fled. But the confiscation of homes was escalating; soon, his physical presence was all that stood between us and homelessness. When, the following week, my uncle was asked to swear his loyalty to the Cause by signing the Association Test, he refused, rendering his position even more precarious.

Papa, however, signed it, much to my surprise. When I asked him why, he shrugged and said, “It is useless to swim against the tide—eventually, one will tire, and all will be lost.” But one night that same week, I overheard Papa arguing with Uncle Robert about it. In this argument, Papa sounded far less pragmatic than he had with me.

“We would do well to avoid this topic, Robert,” I heard Papa say. They were in his study, but the door was only partly closed. I stood in the hall, barely breathing.

“I’ve a right to be proud of my son, Richard. Just as you are.”

“Just so. I am vastly proud of Jeb. If I could take back our bitter arguments, I would. Surely you can appreciate that I begin to resent those warmongers who killed my son. I begin to think I lacked vision . . .” Papa’s voice trailed off.

“Vision? Of what, pray? A Rebel victory?” Uncle Robert laughed derisively.

“A vision not of war, Robert, but of eventual peace,” Papa said. “A vision of how we might be—better.”

Uncle Robert sneered, “As if anything could be better than the Empire! Honestly, Richard, I find your shift in attitude most worrisome.”

My father did not reply, and as he left his study, I snuck off to the kitchen, unperceived.

Just as the people celebrated in the streets, the smallpox invaded. It spread quickly. A smokehouse and guard were established at the great swamp. Everyone coming in to Portsmouth had to be “smoked.” We ourselves did not set foot abroad.

I recall only with difficulty those weeks in the summer of ’76. While it was a time of vast unrest without, within Uncle’s house there was only tedium, genteel discomfort, and mounting tension between Papa and Uncle Robert.

Mama forbade the Whipple slaves to enter our home. Without Dinah’s sweet and youthful energy, without Cuffee’s music, the house was doubly dull. I had not enough to occupy myself and began to feel quite low. Then, on September 22, we were awakened by a loud rapping on the front door. I peered out my chamber door to see Uncle descend the stairs in his robe and bare feet. Soon there came a piteous groan.

Mama emerged from her chamber. “Brother, what is it? What news?” she cried from the top of the stairs. We all emerged from our chambers. A messenger had arrived from New York. There had been a terrible fire, and my cousin, Lieutenant George Chase, had perished. I had moved out into the hall and heard Mama shriek, “Oh, poor Brother!”

“An act of God, Margaret,” Papa replied with some conviction. Mama took this as consolation, but in it I heard an almost spiteful sense of vindication.

For many weeks, the house lay draped in somber black bunting. The pendulums of the clocks were removed. We wore black armbands and jet mourning rings that Uncle Robert brought back from New York. He had been unable to bring the body of his son with him, however. Our Committee of Correspondence, the local Rebel governing body, determined that doing so might cause a riot, the truth of which I did not doubt.

It was never known who started the fire that decimated half of New York in September of ’76, but recriminations on both sides were bitter. As for what happened to my cousin, it was said he had left his ship and gone into a building to help his fellow officers. But I subsequently heard that this building was in fact a house of ill repute, and that Cousin George had been a frequent patron of it.

After Uncle Robert returned from New York, he spoke little. His once portly body lost flesh. Each morning, Cassie brought him her most special tisane and bathed him. She spoke to him soothingly, and I marveled at how she could be so kind to the man who at best ignored his slaves and, at worst, whipped and humiliated them. Indeed, Cassie was so kind to this sad specimen of a man that one day, as he sat in a steaming tub in the kitchen, he grinned at her as if she were the only good thing left on earth.

Mama was certain that her brother had gone soft in the head. She spoke to him as if he were a child: “Shall Brother have a walk today?” Or “Shall Brother come with me to market?” Uncle Robert always looked at her with a blank gawking stare and said, “I shall go with Cassie, this afternoon.” The town soon began to take note of old Uncle Robert strolling into town with little black Cassie by his side.

In the kitchen one morning that autumn, as Cassie made an apple crumble, I asked her why she was so kind to Uncle Robert. She looked at me sternly. “What dey teach you at meeteeng, Miss Eliza? I tink maybe your ears is plugged wit’ wax.”

“I only meant that—”

“I know what you meant. You tink I owe him nutteeng. That he’s not a good man. But only tink how
alone
’ee is. Not a soul in de world care about ’eem. I could not treat a dog so.” She clutched at her neckerchief and I was about to interject a word when Cassie, warming to her subject, continued, “When it hurt inside you like dat, dat’s a good ting. Dat pain open your uncle’s eyes. He
see
Cassie now.”

“
Sees
you?” I smirked. “One more day of such kindness, and my uncle shall be hopelessly in love with you.”

“Pshaw, dat won’t nevah happen.”

“Why not? You think no master has ever fallen in love with his slave?”

But Cassie would hear no more such talk.

“Out! Out!” She shooed me away. But, leaving the kitchen, I wagged a finger at her.

“We’ll see, Cassie. We’ll just see.” An apple came flying toward my head, but, thankfully, I ducked in time to miss it.

In November, Congress ordered the building of nine ships of
war: five enormous brigs of seventy-six guns, three ships of seventy-
four guns, and a smaller ship of eighteen guns. Our town soon became an anthill of frenzied industry. Watkins was sent once more to Badger’s Island, this time to lay the keel of the
Ranger
.

Watkins, Cassie informed me, had now risen through the ranks not merely of the slave community but also of the shipyard.

“Dey say he become master shipwright now dat Colonel Langdon has gone off. He very busy now, but after meeting he like to walk with Linda.”

Linda, Linda, Linda. Ever since the Negro elections in June, Cassie had been narrating in tiresome detail the growing romance between Linda and Watkins.

“Yes, dey love to walk about town after meeting. Out to da windy point past the ferry. Oh, you should see dem, Miss Eliza. A more beautiful pair of niggers you nevah seen.”

“I don’t doubt it,” I said sourly, “though I myself have discerned no special understanding between them.”

“Dat because dey keep it a secret,” she whispered. “You know de master wouldn’a want no black babe around here. Not dees days. He knew, h
e’d
maybe sell Linda. Maybe even sell Johnny.”

I frowned. “Mama is quite attached to Linda now. And Uncle Robert would be a fool to sell Watkins—”

“Dat may be. But you know I speak the truth. You know dey sell us when dey want.”

Oh, I did know it. I suffered greatly to remember Toby, and Cassie fell silent. But while it pained me to see Cassie absorbed in unhappy recollections, I was grateful for her silence upon the vexatious topic of Watkins and Linda.