Our Own Country: A Novel (The Midwife Series) (22 page)

The men hugged one another and lifted each other off the ground till their feet dangled in the air. They then reached for me. I was hugged to within an inch of my life. Finally it was Watkins’s turn to lift me up. I had not felt his touch in several weeks. When he put his arm about me, I shuddered even before he whispered my name. I felt his arm about my waist, felt his breath upon my ear, for the rest of the day.

That night, after I had just managed to doze off, there came a faint knock upon my door.

“Eliza?”

I knew not how to speak, for his voice touched my deepest feelings of both hope and despair, paralyzing my tongue. He was set to leave in three days’ time.

“Would you not bid me good-bye?” he asked, his voice now fully audible. It echoed clearly down the hall.

Terrified, I pulled open the door and fairly yanked him into my chamber, shutting it after him. “Do you wish to be sent to prison rather than to sea? Lower your voice, or you’ll soon have your wish. Mama’s ears are very keen.”

“Eliza,” he repeated, cupping my face in his rough hands. “Be still a moment and look at me.” I would not. “Look at me and tell me that this is not as hard for me as it is for you.” I looked at him at last. Truly looked. Tears threatened to pour from his eyes; all the admirable strength of his body seemed on the verge of collapse.

“You must go. I understand. You are doing the right thing—of that I have no doubt,” I said. My voice quavered, but I stayed the course. “Now kiss me, and tell me you love me. Promise me you shall court me properly, as a free man.”

“You
know
I do, and shall.” He embraced me tenderly. When he had gone, I felt too empty even to cry.

Saturday morning arrived. I readied myself to walk down to Long Wharf with Mama and Cassie. Phoebe had agreed to stay with Papa so that Cassie could see the launch. My posture was stiff and upright, my face, though wan from lack of sleep, composed. Everyone who could walk, and even some who couldn’t, came to the pier that morning.

It was cool and windy. Leaves, fallen from the trees, swirled in great gusts all about us. Women, children, old men, slaves, maids, and what few young men remained in Portsmouth all gathered on the pier. The excitement mounted, and at half past nine a hush caught and rippled through the crowd: Captain John Paul Jones would speak. We were silent for him, respectful, moved as we listened to his words of thanks, and of our future glory.

The
Ranger
held her sails half-furled. The crowd could see her sinewy power ready to be unleashed. Sailors waved happily from the deck to loved ones. Every shopkeeper left his shop and stood without to watch the proceedings. The applause and shouts became a roar, drowning out even the moaning wind. There were already cheers and toasts and spilled jugs of cider. Captain Jones untied the rope from the cleat and climbed aboard. Cassie hugged me, and even my mother clapped her hands together, having caught the contagion of the crowd. The church bell rang as the
Ranger
set off to meet her fate, moving ever more quickly downstream.

My head was buried in Cassie’s breast, and I could not contain a shuddering sob. When I finally lifted my head the
Ranger
was out of sight. But there in the crowd, on the edge of the pier, was John Watkins, holding his case and seeking me out with his eyes.

26

I LEFT FOR SHAPLEY’S ISLAND, THEN CALLED
Pest Island, the following morning. There had been no opportunity to speak to Watkins in the intervening hours, but when I saw him standing on the pier searching for me, my eyes were opened, and my soul was as shaken as Abraham upon the return of Isaac. I knew not what lay ahead for us, but I would not turn back now.

We rowed out to Pest Island six or so at a time. It was an island consisting of about nine acres, wild and uninhabited save for Shapley’s mansion, where many of us would stay. There was also a warehouse on the north end of the island, which was used as a hospital. In this warehouse they lodged the slaves and servants who took the cure.

At this time, it was the custom for parents to send their children to be inoculated while they themselves remained at home. There were chaperones, to be sure, but these young ladies, hardly older than their charges, mingled amongst themselves, enjoying an unaccustomed freedom.

Thus, for three weeks, the island became filled with gay youths set free from parental boundaries. We had little to do but to compare pustules and be merry. We ate in a common dining hall, and the food, though plain, was tolerable. We even had meat on Sundays.

Immediately upon landing, we queued up to receive our inoculations in the warehouse. For most of us, inoculation resulted in a mild fever and a few pustules, nothing more.

The day after my inoculation, I walked the shore. I felt slightly feverish, but I was oddly relieved to be upon an island surrounded by the buffering river. I felt as if I had left myself back in Portsmouth and could rest from the tumultuous feelings I had suffered for so long.

I passed by the landing. A boat was just approaching. I shielded my eyes from the sun and gazed out to it. There was Watkins sitting in the back row, among other slaves come to take the cure. He looked lost until he saw me, and then he brightened. I dared not remain to greet him.

That night, though, I saw Watkins lingering at the edge of the woods. We had supped, though I had hardly eaten. Nerves and a continued fever had rendered me indifferent to food. The sun was setting. It had grown cold, and the wind was strong. I had about me a cape and a blanket, too.

With an imperceptible nod, Watkins beckoned me. I approached, but like a ghost he then disappeared. Suddenly I felt a touch upon my arm, immediately accompanied by a voice.

“Shh! I’m here. Follow me.”

I reached for him, found his hand, then the rest of him. We walked through the dunes; it was dark and cold, though the wind had died down, and the tall grass scratched at my calves. Watkins unfolded the blanket I carried and draped it around us both. The center of the island was dense with shrubs, and there was no clear path.

The moment we arrived on the eastern shore, I felt Watkins’s hand press the back of my head, bringing me to him in an urgent whisper.

“Do you think me a coward? It’s what I think of myself, Eliza.”

“
You
may think that, but I don’t,” I whispered back.

“My will failed me. I always believed, despite all, that I was strong—”

My heart burst with pity for him, yet I would not reveal it. I took his hand and sat him down upon the sand.

“Allow me to say what I feel I must. You
are
strong, Watkins. The way you helped us to eat that time, though you suffered a whipping for it. The money you gave to Linda, though Uncle Robert might have punished you. Is this not strength?”

He shrugged, as if it mattered not. “What have I to offer
you
, Eliza?”

“You have offered me yourself—can a man give more than that? I for one can ask for no more.” I gripped his hand and thought of that moment on Long Wharf. “When I saw you standing on the pier, searching for me, oh, you know not how my heart leapt for joy!”

Suddenly we heard a whooping cry. John turned abruptly. We heard further shouts, but soon enough ascertained that the revelers were not heading toward us.

“I fear it’s not safe to linger,” he said, the spell of our connection broken. “Someone may notice my absence, if not yours.” Having bared my soul, I had no wish to leave John, but I saw the wisdom of his words, and he guided me through the dunes, where we parted.

On the morrow, I was quite ill. I had a high fever, and did not leave my bed. Several pocks had flowered on my torso and arms. My head pounded, and I wished I had my Cassie with me to rub my back and give me one of her potions.

It was only after two days of complete rest that I felt well enough to leave my chamber. Thankfully, thence began an unseasonable warm spell. Without, the sun was bright, and it felt like spring, and in bright daylight I had no fear to walk through the shrubs. Once on the eastern shore, I sat myself upon the sand, a blanket about me, and shut my eyes. A warm blanket of orange light shone through my lids. After perhaps ten minutes, I started at the touch of a hand upon my shoulder. Watkins stood beside me and kissed my head.

“This is too bold,” I said. “One of those old crones in her gundalow may see us.” Indeed, just off the northern shore of Shapley’s Island, the gundalows from Kittery passed us by. They were a dozen rods off, but I feared that one might veer close enough to perceive us.

“Perhaps you’re right. Here, let us move down the shore a bit.” We stood and walked south through the dunes, until the boats were silver flies upon the water. I went to sit, but John suddenly grasped me to him. He lifted me off the sand and pressed me to him. Then he nuzzled his face in my neck, his arms wrapped tightly around me.

He had not shaved his goatee, and I felt it prick my neck. “That tickles.” I laughed. Warming to the idea, John began to tickle me in earnest, and we struggled. I laughed, eventually managing to grasp his fingers and pull them away from me. I remembered the first time I had seen his hands and the blisters upon them. There were no such blisters now.

I grabbed a handful of damp sand and threw it at him.

Giggling, I pulled him back toward me—he had already grabbed a handful of sand, which he instantly relinquished at my touch. Then I brought Watkins’s hands close to my face, as if to inspect them.

“The palms of your hands are white,” I observed.

“You examine them as if you might purchase me.”

“I would purchase you, if I could,” I said mildly. He looked at me tenderly, for honest words were our one precious luxury.

“I remember when you first saw the wounds on my hands,” he said. “I was furious with you.”

“You had every right to be. I was patronizing. I knew not how else to speak to you.”

“And I already knew that I had—improper—feelings toward you. It was my own hopeless frustration that enraged me.”

“Improper, indeed! If Mama only knew . . . but, well, your wounds have healed, at any rate.”

John smiled. When he did so, his face changed. He became someone who might have won not merely my heart but the hearts of many—a leader of men such as Colonel Langdon. But I would not let my lurch of pity reach my face.

“I’m so grateful for my craft, Eliza,” he said. “You can’t know how it sustains me, to have built our ships of war. To have helped with the guns—”

John came closer and whispered, “I have carved my initials beneath the planks, where no one can see. Thus, I feel I’m on the ships, in a way.”

“You
are
on those ships, John. Were it not for you, those ships would never have been built.”

“Perhaps not,” he shrugged.

We sat upon the sand and let the sun warm us. I told him about Cambridge and my life before the war. I told him about Maria, and also about Jeb. Then I added thoughtfully, “You and Jeb would have liked one another. He wouldn’t have given a fiddle about either your color or your status in society. He would have loved you as a brother and moved heaven and earth to help you.”

“If all our citizens were like that,” he muttered, “we could actually win this war.”

We said nothing for a few moments, and then I hazarded to speak of a tender subject. “Cassie tells me that your father was the former royal governor. Is it true?”

John glanced at me guardedly, which look softened after a moment. “That’s what Mama told me. He never acknowledged me, though. In fact, my sister and I were treated worse than the others once his wife saw how much we resembled him. She refused to call for a doctor when Mama was ill—oh, how Mama suffered! She could not breathe, yet for the longest time she would not die. She didn’t want to leave us . . . after she died, the governor’s wife made her husband sell us.”

I sighed and pressed myself closer to him. “We’re a grievous race. I see not why the Lord has seen fit to populate the earth with us. It would be better were the earth inundated by wolves. Or wild boar. At least they don’t kill out of malice.”

“Come,” he said. “Let’s walk down the beach a bit and forget our grievousness.”

“All right.”

We held hands and strolled the vacant shore in contented silence.

27

AFTER OUR RETURN TO PORTSMOUTH, I DID
not see Watkins for several weeks. I slept very ill, and my sleepless nights must have begun to tell upon me, for one morning at breakfast Mama set down her fork and said, “Eliza, your eyes are positively ringed with black. Are you quite well?”

“Oh, yes.” I smiled wanly. “Quite well, Mama. A little hungry, perhaps.”

She darted me a warning glance, but Papa rescued me.

“I agree,” he said. “Another few weeks like this and the soldiers shall come upon our fleshless bones.”

“Mr. Boylston, really,” Mama sighed.

After breakfast, Cassie and I went to the market to see what we might purchase. There was neither meat nor fowl, and the fish had been sold the moment it came to market two hours earlier. In any case, I felt that I could not eat one more piece of fish without growing gills. As we walked glumly through the Whipple property on our way back home, I stopped, for I suddenly had a most intriguing thought.

“Cassie, go on home. I shall stop at the Whipples’ for a moment.”

“I’ll come wit’ you.”

“No,” I said firmly. “Go home.
”
By my tone, Cassie knew not to argue. She frowned, glanced at me once, then curtsied shallowly and fled across the lawn.

Moving quickly, I soon entered the Whipples’ kitchen. Within, it was quite warm. Dinah was at the hearth, her face raining perspiration. When she saw me, she set down her pot.

“Hello, Dinah. It smells good in here. I have a favor to ask of Prince. Is he about?”

Prince Whipple and his master had recently returned from our victory in New York, at Saratoga. The town had planned a celebration for them at the end of that week.

“I’ll fetch him. He’s upstairs.” She wiped her hands on her apron, removed it, curtsied to me, and exited the kitchen, returning a few minutes later with Prince. He bowed to me, mortified that I sought an audience with him. For, though a brave soldier, he was a painfully shy man.

“Prince,” I smiled winningly. “There’s a—tool—I should like to borrow, which I believe you keep in your stables.”

“A tool, ma’am?”

“I—I cannot remember what it is called, I’m afraid. If you will allow me to show you the one I mean . . .”

Perplexed, Prince glanced covertly at Dinah.

“It’s all right, Prince,” I assured him. “It’ll take but a moment.
I’d
be most grateful.” Hesitantly, as if it might be a trick, Prince led the way to the stables. The wind had picked up, and I flipped my hood back over my head. Once inside the barn, and having closed the door, I walked over to a bale of hay, reached down beneath it, and wrapped my hand around the thing I sought. It was a French flintlock rifle.

“Teach me how to use this, if you would, Prince.”

We dared not practice on the Whipple property. Instead, Prince and I met the following day upon those same plains where, the previous summer,
I’d
watched the festive crowd initiate its new leaders. I recalled the turbans, and Linda in her red dress and turquoise necklace, the bright sun, and the rhythmic pulse of the drums . . .

How different the plains looked now. How desolate. There were few trees, and the long grass, grown to seed, was gray and brittle. Only the lone rustle of a vole or squirrel darting for cover disturbed the silence.

I followed Prince to an old Negro graveyard that stood at the edge of Colonel Langdon’s property, in a small grove. It was as safe a place as we could find in Portsmouth. I told Prince that no one must know our secret, “not even the servants.” By “servants,” I meant slaves. And by slaves, I meant Watkins. These flintlocks were not so scattershot as our own Brown Bessies, but they could still misfire or even explode.

In the small grove on Langdon’s property, Prince Whipple, war hero of Saratoga, taught me how to shoot. Prince was very patient with me. First, he showed me the different parts of the musket, then how to pour the powder from the horn into the muzzle, to insert the ball, and to use the ramrod to push it all down. Finally, he taught me how to hold and fire. Before we left the grove after my final lesson, Prince turned to me.

“Miss Eliza?”

“Yes, Prince?”

“It is none of my business, but I should not like any harm to come to you. Whom—if I may ask—plan you to shoot with this rifle?”

Suddenly, I realized that Prince had misunderstood my intentions. And yet, how patiently he had aided me! I laughed and said, “Why, a rabbit, Prince. Two, if I’m very lucky.”

What Prince had not the heart to tell me was that the Charleville carved a rather large hole out of its victim. When I shot my first rabbit, I exulted—until I fetched it, only to discover that half the rabbit had been blown away. I was obliged to shoot seven or eight in order to feed the four of us. We ate several immediately, the day of the victory celebration. Cassie roasted them in a delicious mustard sauce that got brown and crusty. The rest we salted and preserved. She never did ask me where I had procured the rabbits. Perhaps she already knew.

After dinner, Cassie, Mama, and I walked down to the market to attend the celebration. Papa wished to come, but Mama would not allow it, saying the bitter winds would be the death of him. We heard the sound of drums and whistles while we were still on Front Street. Once in the market square, we nestled together for warmth among the crowd and listened to the various speeches and encomiums of the mayor and other officials. We heard from Colonel Whipple, too, and watched him embrace his comrade in arms, Prince Whipple. At this, the people of Portsmouth went wild—our citizens were in a generous mood, I thought cynically, congratulating themselves for recognizing a slave’s contribution to the Cause.

And where was Watkins during all this? I espied him on the other side of the crowd, watching the proceedings with hard eyes. Isaac was next to him, his face animated with pride as he watched one of his own race so honored.

From this point on, I watched John and Isaac. I watched John’s eyes grow increasingly angry, though I knew he did not begrudge Prince his moment in the sun. But I knew how deeply he must have suffered to see our townspeople celebrating Prince’s patriotism.

I turned away momentarily, and when next I looked, Watkins was gone. I didn’t see him again that day, and in the end, I thought it wise to leave him be. He would be too proud to admit his misery to me. Instead, for near a week, I remained safely ensconced in the bosom of my family—either with Mama in the parlor as she sewed or made menus that would never be used, or with Papa in his chamber, Cassie stoking the fires all about like a good little house slave, silent and unobtrusive. To complete this genteel tableau, I took up the needlework pillow
I’d
abandoned more than a year earlier.

Cassie must have feared that I had broken ranks with her, for I did not once appear in the kitchen during this time.

One night, Papa joined us for dinner, and I almost dared to hope that he was getting well. Indeed, he looked quite cheerful.

“What do you know but I’ve received a letter from your favorite relation, Mrs. Boylston,” he announced.

Mama brightened. “Whom, pray? Phoebe Vassal? Susanna Inman?”

Papa paused for effect, then cried, “Lizzie Boylston!”

“Oh, Richard!” Mama said. “How cruel of you to lead me on so!”

Papa was highly amused, and I giggled.

“Well, Papa, what news has she?”

“A great deal, in fact. She writes that she and Mrs. Adams were in Boston to see the arrival of Burgoyne’s troops.”

“Have you the letter?” I asked, my interest piqued.

“At table? Why, no.”

“Oh, do let me read it. Phoebe!” I called. Phoebe came cringingly forth from her hiding place behind the dining room door. “Phoebe, Papa has a letter he would like you to retrieve. It is . . .” I looked encouragingly at Papa.

“On my desk, directly atop the pile of papers.”

“As you heard, Phoebe.”

A few moments later, letter in hand, I read:

Dearest Mama and Papa,

I was going to write you about the uneventful days of a country farmeress, but I’m afraid that everything I was prepared to tell you fled from my mind when I heard the news of Burgoyne’s defeat. Mrs. Adams and I decided to go at once to Cambridge, and I see now that it was providential that we did.

What a sight awaited us! We stood in the Square and saw a sea of men marching wearily in rows—a veritable Red Sea flowing all the way down the road from Watertown. The sheer mass of men threatened to flood the little village, and we backed off some Yards, fearing that they would march over us. Then they halted and stood there quite some time before being marched in smaller groups to barracks on Prospect Hill and elsewhere.

I took the opportunity to pass by our homes, and you will be comforted to know they are still standing, though the gardens have been sorely neglected. Our homes are occupied by various regiments—whose, I did not stop to inquire.

In Braintree, all is well. Miss Miller—that’s the girl you brought me from town, Eliza—and I are kept busy, what with the harvest and the babes that, even now, insist on being born. How these babes came to be I know not, given the absence of men. One would almost believe they were virgin births . . .

“Shocking!” my mother exclaimed. My uncle blushed, but my father seemed to find great amusement in Lizzie’s letter. I folded it and set it on the table.

“I must say,” Papa commented, “Lizzie has grown on me these past years. Yes, I find her letter quite entertaining. I shall have to write her back.”

“Well, do not ask me to sign it,” my mother said. “I abhor the girl.”

“Abhor is a strong word, Mama. After all, she
is
managing, which I find nothing short of remarkable under the circumstances.”

“Perhaps,” Mama allowed. “But, oh, so headstrong, so plainspoken! One would never guess she was the daughter of Judge Lee, though I never did care for her mother. Margaret Lee, I recall, fancied herself a ministering angel. Ran about delivering babies in the dead of night. Lizzie is cut from the same cloth, I imagine.”

Thanksgiving came and went without fanfare. We had no guests, and no food to share. The last time I had gone to fetch a rifle, they had disappeared. Prince told me the
y’d
been “shipped off.”

“Where, exactly, Prince?”

“To the south, to General Washington.” He did not meet my eyes, and I felt Prince withheld something from me. After our humble Thanksgiving meal, I sent Cassie to find out more.

I repaired meanwhile to the parlor, where I read upon a book until all the light had gone and I finally mounted the stairs to my chamber. I felt fatigued and low.

An hour later, there was a knock on my chamber door. It was Cassie, abuzz with information. “Cassie, what is it? What have you learned?”

“Dem arms you asked about, Miss Eliza.”

“Yes, what of them?”

“Well, it was like Prince tol’ you. Some of ’em went directly to Gen’l Washington.”

“This much I know already, Cassie.”

Cassie stood there, gazing uncertainly up and down the hallway.

“Oh, goodness. Come in at once.” Cassie stepped into my chamber and I shut the door after her.

“Well?”

“Well, what you don’ know, Miss Eliza, is that some of dem rifles got sent to Negroes in de Carolinas.”

“Negroes? What kind of Negroes, Cassie?”

“The rebellious kind, Miss Eliza.”

I stared at her. “Why, whoever in Portsmouth would risk their neck to aid a slave rebellion?”

Cassie stared back at me. “Who you
tink
, Miss Eliza?”