Our Own Country: A Novel (The Midwife Series) (38 page)

We all knew these were my last hours in Braintree. But for the rest of the night, we kept sadness at bay. We felt it a sacred duty to celebrate our triumph, for the Lord knew how many defeats we had suffered.

After dinner we danced, and everyone joined in. Mr. Miller and Isaac banged on Lizzie’s pots and chanted strange noises, in very poor imitation of the Natives and their victory dances. Mr. Adams, Abigail, myself, Martha, Lizzie—even the colonel and Ann Quincy—joined in the dance. Martha had been holding Johnny, but when she entered the dance she placed Johnny upon Mama’s lap. “Here you go,” she said. Mama frowned, but oddly, Johnny did not cry. He reached for my mother’s nose as she reluctantly began to bounce him on one knee.

Round and round the table the rest of us went. Our hands and faces lifted to the ceiling, then bowed to the ground. We all chanted in unison, Mr. Adams chanting loudest of all and cutting a most absurd figure. At one point during the victory dance, he made such a sudden and violent gesture that his wig nearly flew off. This brought a roar of laughter from the rest of us.

Years later, I would ask President Adams and First Lady Abigail Adams, “Do you remember that time we danced like Indians in Lizzie’s cottage?”

“I recall no such thing,” replied the First Lady. But I caught her eye, and we laughed.

At around midnight, two men approached our door from the direction of the water: Harry and Captain Wiles. We ceased our dancing at once, but this time there was no burst of laughter.

Only Harry’s voice broke our silence. He said, “We shall be ready to depart by noon tomorrow.” He turned to Captain Wiles for confirmation.

“Ten, if the winds oblige,” Captain Wiles assented.

Ah, yes. The winds. The winds that would blow and scatter us across the earth like autumn leaves.

55

IT WAS EARLY, AND VERY STILL. NO
light shone through the window. No one else was yet awake. But I sat up, holding the blanket across my breasts because Martha had entered Lizzie’s chamber and stood by the bed. She was heedless of the fact that by my side slept the runaway slave Watkins. Johnny was on the other side of me, sleeping sweetly.

“Eliza,” she whispered. “Eliza, wake up. I’ve something to tell you.”

“Give me a moment. I must dress and have some coffee, if possible. Oh, I was so tired—you cannot imagine.”

I began to rise from my bed but Martha forestalled me. “I have something to confess.”

I paused. “All the more reason to make some coffee. Go on, then.” I stood up, stark naked, and reached for my dressing gown. “I don’t wish to wake them,” I whispered. Martha followed me down the stairs.

For several weeks, I had suspected Martha of involvement in the deaths of Dr. Flynt and Mr. Thayer. But now that she seemed ready to tell me the truth, I wished to know the whole truth, not just a part of it.

“Who destroyed our supplies and Lizzie’s beloved Star?” I asked, bending to put the kettle on to boil.

“Cleverly has just now confessed to it.”

“But why did he wish to do such a thing? Why did he wish to harm us?”

“Reprisal,” she said curtly, her mouth tight. “For what I had done.”

“And what had you done, Martha? Was it you who killed those men?” I inquired mildly, now that we sat with our coffee, side by side at the table.

“Yes.”

“I thought so.”

I was silent. Martha glanced at me in surprise. “How calm you are, Eliza, and at such dreadful news as this.”

I sighed. “Our laws and precepts—everything and everyone I once revered, Martha, have long since proved themselves unworthy. Much as I should
like
to judge the sins of others—we all know how well I am suited to the task—I now find that I am incapable of doing so.”

My friend smiled wanly.

“That is most generous,” Martha replied. “More than I feel I deserve. But let me say only that I acted not alone, but rather with the knowledge and consent of my brother, the colonel, and General Washington himself. The men were an immediate threat, and I alone had the means.”

“I am very sorry for you, Martha. Truly.” I reached for her hand and grasped it. “While I can’t pretend to understand how you feel, I do know that it must be a terrible burden. I meant to leave my mother alone—Lord knows she deserved it. Yet, at the last moment, I found I could not do it. I am weak and admire your strength.”

“You know that is not weakness. That is compassion—a luxury
we
could not afford.” Martha’s voice was hardly above a whisper when she added, “I see not how I shall ever recover.”

I sipped my coffee and considered Martha’s words. Finally I replied, “Even Cain was allowed to recover. Did the Lord not give Cain a mark to protect him from others’ condemnation? Martha, though you bear a mark, you shall—you must—recover.”

“But I have taken two lives,” she said.

“I am an unwed mother whose babe is as brown as her homespun.”

“Yes,” Martha said thoughtfully. “That’s pretty bad. And yet, oddly, we like you so much better now than before.” Martha suddenly flashed me a beautiful smile, though her eyes brimmed with tears.

Later that day, we gathered on the beach: Lizzie and Mr. Miller, myself and John, Cassie, Mama and Isaac, Abigail and Mr. Adams. A ways down the shore, Charlie and Tommy Adams played catch with a purloined apple from Lizzie’s orchards.

Harry stood off a ways, to the east of us, before the moored ship, beside Martha. They were speaking earnestly to each other, though we heard not their words. Then Harry got down on one knee before her. To give them privacy, we forced our eyes away, up to the gulls and terns, then down to the plovers running to and fro with the tide, like tiny shadows. I looked up, finally, at John and nodded. It was time to set off.

Embraces, tears, promises to write . . . We waved until our wrists hurt and salty tears burned our eyes, the figures of our beloved friends growing smaller and smaller, and finally becoming grains of sand on the distant shore. Once our separation was complete, and we saw only the iron-gray water, it went easier upon our souls.

For the most part, our little band of thieves—Harry and Cassie and Isaac, myself and John and Johnny—made for a jolly party. For a long time Mama kept herself apart, and I did not try to bring her in. At one point early in our voyage, she had begun to talk about Watkins—though he was but half a rod from us—at which time I took the opportunity to make things clear to her. Things that I had been thinking about ever since we left Cambridge.

“Mama. I fear I must make the situation clear to you, so that we have a good understanding. Assuming we survive this voyage, you must know the house we sail towards is my house—mine and John’s. I shall say this only once, so listen carefully.”

Mama’s mouth gaped open but she said nothing. Cassie stood by me, also silent, all ears.

“You enjoy, or have previously enjoyed, the liberty of saying what you like to me. But in my house, though you may complain all you like about the land or the food or the war, breathe a word of disrespect to myself, my husband, or my son, and you shall find yourself sold to the first trader of old crones. Do you understand me, Mama?”

“I do,” she murmured. “I understand you full well.”

“Good!” Here I smiled gaily and patted her arm.

For several days after this conversation, Mama did not speak, either to me or to anyone else. However, she soon began to complain about the wet bedding in her bunk. Then she expressed shock at the weevils in the potatoes, followed by a diatribe upon the unhygienic state of the necessary. Such was to be her way from now on: casting her jaundiced eye upon the world and leaving us in peace. That was all right by me, for we allowed that old women had earned the right to complain. We soon ceased hearing her, in the way we no longer heard the roar of the ocean waves.

Meanwhile, John, having built boats but never sailed one, grew more joyful and confident by the day, as he crewed the ship alongside Harry. His hand ached him. It was stiff and swollen, but he now had some use of it.

We arrived in New York after a week, where we said a tearful good-bye to Harry.

“I feel certain we’ll meet again someday,” he said to us. “Until then . . . I hope to hear from you, Eliza.”

“Of course. My pen shall be faithful.” I had already written my friends several letters, which I gave to Harry to post for me.

New York to Barbados was a long, miserable journey. Most of the time I kept my eyes on the horizon, the sea, the birds overhead, or the dark waves, in which I saw, or imagined I saw, the heavy tails of great dark leviathans. Several times during our crossing, I did see a tail flop lazily over, or caught a sudden, tall geyser. And upon sight of the beast’s great vanishing tail, I thought:
Never again would we suffer as we had during those days of America’s war of independence.

The winds were against us, and twice we nearly capsized. We were heading to St. Vincent on the French ship
La
Gabriel.
St. Vincent was an island about one hundred miles from Barbados, recently overtaken by the Admiral d’Estaing. Though ill and greatly fearful most of the way, we all arrived at St. Vincent in one piece, some time in mid-September.

Of our weeks on the ship, I have little to say. It was tumultuous and sickening. It was Purgatory. I could neither read nor talk. I could not even open my eyes, but lay either on my cot or rolled in blankets on the deck, the wind slapping me until I felt bruised.

Cassie fared no better. She had not the wherewithal to care for young Johnny, but remained on deck as well, preferring, much like myself, either to be swept off to sea or to freeze solid in the brutal winds. At one point I remarked to her that she had finally succeeded in becoming white.

She shot back, “I may be white, Miss Eliza, but you
green
.”

Interestingly, and with a great show of exasperation, Mama took it upon herself to help with Johnny. The roiling seas that made Cassie and me so deathly ill had no effect upon her whatsoever. She was able to remain belowdecks with Johnny while we froze above.

One day, having descended briefly for something, Cassie returned to the deck, her face aglow with delight and tears in her eyes: “Your Mama read to de child, Miss Eliza! He sit on her lap wit’ one finger in ’ees mouf, like she de best gran’mama in da worl’.”

“Ha, ha,” I replied, tears now in mine, “I pray he’s never the wiser.”

When there was no more light and the winds howled, we were obliged to descend. Once below, I was unable to open my eyes but had to lie till morning with my eyes shut. I had but two gowns, and already there were traces of puke on both. My hair was perpetually sweaty with chills. My stomach heaved, and I groaned constantly.

And yet John’s joy could not be put down by something so small as a woman without her sea legs. As I lay there flat on my bunk, eyes closed, he sang. Sea shanties and war songs, which were diverting for a few minutes but quickly grew annoying.

“John, kindly be quiet,” I would say. And he would place a hand to his mouth and reply, “Oh, pardon!” Silence would reign for perhaps two minutes and then, suddenly, he would bellow, “
Johnny
Todd he
took
a notion for to
cross
the ocean
wide
. . .”

I shall herein gratify the prurient reader who wishes to know whether we were married, and whether we shared a bunk. The truth is, John and I kept separate quarters in the ship from New York to St. Vincent. Apart from the fact that Mama was with us ever since we had left our shores, I had felt an instinctual desire to begin anew. That we were doing so was literally true: We had nothing but ourselves, our friends, and our child to bring to this new life. But I wished for this to be morally true as well. Everything had to be different. With freedom came responsibilities.

By day, when I was well enough, we spoke to each other. There was so much to know and to tell. John’s fascination with me seemed inexhaustible. How had I come to love him? he wanted to know. I said, “When first I saw you disembark from the ferry, and you looked at me with those astonishing eyes of yours . . .”

John loved hearing this story. Over and over he made me tell it, the way a small child enjoys the story of his own birth.

Sometimes John and I lay together in my bunk and said nothing but simply held each other, Johnny in bed between us.

“Eliza,” he said to me one evening, upon a reasonably calm sea, “if nothing exceptional ever happens to me again—or if we perish in a storm at sea—know that I consider my life complete right now, at this very moment. Oh, you cannot know, but I have so much more than I ever imagined I would!”

“You shall yet have more, my love. A house that is yours, and an exceedingly pretty wife . . .” This latter I spoke with a smirk.

“Ha ha. Indeed, I have grown fond of your fair hair, which sticks to your head like glue. And the tart smell of sickness on your frock.”

“You’ve gone mad,” I laughed.