Rebecca Wentworth's Distraction (22 page)

He heard footsteps on the stairs—Rebecca, no doubt. He decided to tell her nothing about the sorry contents of his pocketbook.

Chapter 33

T
HEIR SEA PASSAGE,
however, was not propitious. Doubts started after an elderly man in rather disorderly dress approached them.

“How seems the weather to you, sir?” he inquired of Sanborn, and then added, with the offering of his hand, “Doctor Benjamin Warren, of Philadelphia.”

“Fine enough,” Sanborn said. “Does it not seem so to you, Dr. Warren?”

“To the eye, perhaps,” the old man said in a flat voice and shook his head doubtfully. His head indeed was comical despite the gravity of his countenance. He wore two conspicuous carbuncles upon his face and, from beneath his well-worn hat, a wig that had become all straightened and yellowish at the extremities, exposed, no doubt, to years of sun, moon, and rain. “I overheard the captain saying to his mate that there was no remedy for it but he had failed to procure a conjurer.”

“That is but sailorly superstition, sir, surely.”

“Nonetheless, even to men of investment and science, to sail without a horoscope of the journey is foolhardy.”

“You believe so?”

“Every waterman in Britain and the colonies believes so, sir. But I fear our captain capitulates to expediency.”

“Perhaps this once,” Sanborn said. He looked about at the sky again. “It seems a pleasant enough day for sailing, nonetheless, Dr. Warren.”

“We have little choice but to cast our lots with what seems.”

“There would be time still to disembark, sir, if that would set your mind at ease.”

The old doctor looked at him. “There is time. Yes—time.” He turned away and they did not cross his path again on deck.

A day out of Boston, storm clouds began to appear on the southeastern horizon, as if a great deluge were blowing up out of the tropics. The captain warned the few passengers to prepare for a treacherous gale, and then began ordering his seamen about. Sanborn and Rebecca left the still-sunny deck and secured themselves below, choosing her own tiny quarters in which to ride out the storm together. From below, in an apparent calm, they were unaware of the storm's development, and its full force hit them suddenly. They held one another in the sickening motion and in the clamor of furious waters against the hull and bulwark.

So, Sanborn thought, this was how it would end after all. He felt a frightening inevitability about their doom, as he had called it, though the doom he had referred to was not likely to have been going straight to the bottom in a gale.

It was a long second day, riding on an angry sea in the hold of a ship. When the fury abated, sometime before dawn the following morning, the captain called everyone on the still-wind-battered deck and announced that they had taken on water from some undetermined damage, perhaps more extensive than they knew. They had been blown east and then southeast out to sea. They were now limping back to the coast, he said, and the safest harbor in their approach would be New York. They would be putting in for an indefinite period of time for inspection and repairs.

The passage to port seemed to take forever, but the ship finally limped into Turtle Bay with the tide and began searching for a proper mooring where the captain might arrange for repairs. Everyone was relieved just to have come through alive, but the captain had managed to hint darkly that it would not be possible for passengers to remain aboard while extensive work was done to the vessel. How, Sanborn wondered, would he and Rebecca afford lodging for perhaps several days, even before they would have to pay for lodging in Charleston while they earned their passage to the Indies? Might a commission be garnered quickly? That did not seem likely. Were they to starve, finally, on the streets of New York where Chance had for some reason planted them? He would have to explain now to Rebecca the full measure of their insecurity. He had, he saw now much too clearly, been a great fool. And now he would have to reveal himself a fool to Rebecca.

There were about a half dozen passengers the first mate gathered together to disembark. The passengers were to be lodged at a fair price, the mate explained, at Mrs. Hog's, a clean establishment with dining and a number of other dining rooms within a short walk. While they were below decks gathering their things, Sanborn described their frail estate to Rebecca.

“I wondered if we might be near the end,” she said and looked away.

He finished putting his things into his portmanteau and hurried the two of them up to the deck where the other passengers awaited them.

As the mate conducted the passengers to Mrs. Hog's, Dr. Warren appeared and fell in with Rebecca and Sanborn. “Sailing without a horoscope always tempts Fate,” he said. “I thought I'd die even before we sank. I was sure we were to sink!”

Sanborn now noticed that if his attire was weather-beaten and old-fashioned, it was once of considerable expense. Dr. Warren explained that he had sojourned in New York on many occasions. He vouched for Mrs. and Mr. Hog's at the corner of Broad and William Streets, recommended two other establishments to dine or to sup—in particular one Robert Todd's establishment, which served as the start of the Boston Post Road. Then he began his inquiry into the nature of Sanborn and “your pretty wife's” travels. Sanborn concocted a story of travels for his wife's health to visit relatives in Charleston, which seemed to satisfy his curiosity. He then launched into a lecture on the people and habits of New York, where they might hear as much Dutch as English.

“These people are of good cheer with strangers,” he advised, “being all, or most, good topers, but if ye cannot join them in their revelries they think nothing of standing aloof. E'en the gov'nor himself, Mr. Clinton, was a jolly one before illness plagued him. He exemplifies their knack for bawdy punning and wit. The government is under English law, y'see, but the chief men are Dutch—mayor, recorder, aldermen, and assemblymen.” He glanced at Rebecca, who had remained silent, and then winked at Sanborn. “And unlike Philadelphia ye'll see plenty of handsome women here riding out in light chairs or walking the streets of an afternoon under their umbrellas painted prettily and all befeathered.”

“Never been to Philadelphia, sir,” Sanborn said.

The old man looked at him with a sort of pity for the untraveled. “Indeed,” he went on, “some were celebrated for beauty and intellectual accomplishment before they were eclipsed by their excellent marriages: Admiral Warren's Susanna DeLancy and her captivating sister Ann. And Mrs. Clinton of course, whose ambition, clear intellect, and strength of will some say are still greater than her august husband's.”

That very afternoon, Dr. Warren took them to dine at Todd's, where there was a mixed company, and where Rebecca and San-born found they had to excuse themselves soon after an enormous dinner of bacon, chicken, veal, and green peas, as the company around had settled in for bumpers to take them, perhaps, till supper. Rebecca soon found she preferred to excuse herself from all but the necessary mealtimes, thereby avoiding rather rowdy and eccentric company, while on occasion Sanborn stayed on for drinks and conversation, or such as passed for conversation among men in their cups and laden with food.

At the Hogs' table one evening, when Rebecca avoided supper, Mrs. Hog inquired after her health. Sanborn replied that his wife suffered from occasional attacks of vapors and melancholy, and at times found herself indisposed for table. Mr. Hog lifted his glass of charged punch and winked, as if vouchsafing a bit of wisdom from an older man to a younger. “There's nothing to cure it for the ladies, then, sir,” he said, “but a vigorous and regular mowing.” Sanborn was taken back by such lewd wit in public, but he recovered momentarily. He had heard such language frequently since arriving in New York, but he now saw that his host's wife and daughters thought nothing of it from husband and father.

Rebecca tended to stay indoors, reading or sketching or conversing with Sanborn after he returned to their connubial room from the Exchange or the Merchants' Coffee House and a few hits of backgammon or a game of chess. He had been meeting sundry persons and putting about that he could paint likenesses; he even entered a small advertisement in the
Gazette.
But within the first three days no patrons called.

On the third evening when he returned to their room, she had locked the door and refused to let him in. After her refusal, she no longer spoke to him from behind the door. He shook the door, spoke to her earnestly but quietly from the other side, and rattled the handle, but he soon thought better of all that for fear he might disturb the house and be thrown out.

He descended to the common room and began to drink with others he found there, well into their cups. At some point late that night, he ascended to their room once more, but still she would not let him in. He ended up sleeping in a corner, head on table, after the other tipplers left for their own dwellings or beds. Mr. Hog chuckled when he found him there upon closing the rooms.

“Ah, sir,” he said, “‘tis nothing unusual, these falling-outs with the ladies.” He laughed outright. “They need their privacy now and again. But they always come 'round in the end.”

Sanborn barely heard him. It was as if someone were speaking to him from a dream as he lay half-awake. He felt the man place a blanket over his shoulders at some point later, and then all was silence.

Late the next morning the innkeeper, keys in hand, helped Sanborn up the stairs. He was about to turn the key in the lock when the door opened. Rebecca was in bed, still asleep in the darkened room. They were careful not to disturb her.

Mr. Hog left and Sanborn lay down on the floor to nurse his hangover a while longer. He plumped some of Rebecca's clothes that had been flung on the floor into a pillow. The room finally stopped spinning. His eyes and head ached, but he could sleep no more. Drowsing, waking, turning, he finally noticed for the first time that the room was covered with sketches and drawings and a painting or two tacked to the walls.

So that's what she's been up to, he thought. What in the world could she have been thinking, excluding him and spending the last two days, perhaps longer, secretly, manically making these images?

He lay there looking about. The room was not well lighted because the blinds were drawn. Some of the productions appeared quite strange, others less so, but it took him another hour still before he was ready to rise off the floor, soak his head from the pitcher of water, and scrutinize them in better light.

As he opened the blinds somewhat and began to examine them, he heard Rebecca stirring beneath the bedclothes. He glanced over to her, but her eyes were still closed and she did not appear fully awake. The paintings were of the sort he would not wish anyone here to see. Among the drawings, less mystic, as he put it to himself, were many studies of heads and torsos of the Hog family, some of their fellow guests from the ship, and regular customers to Mr. and Mrs. Hog's board and bar. Her depiction of Dr. Warren was quite comical, the others more somber. She had done them all from memory, and despite all he knew of her, the feat astonished him still. But even as he looked at the comparatively innocuous drawings, he knew that they would be unacceptable. They were perhaps less objectionable than the paintings she had done at Blackstone. Still, they penetrated the character of their subjects in a manner too unconventional, too truthful, to hazard a disagreeable response. Could she have possibly imagined she might sell these? Was that her object in producing them?

“What do you think, Daniel?” Her voice from behind startled him.

“As ever, these are exceptional.”

“I had to do something!”

“Yes, I see you did. But of course these as they are, Rebecca, cannot be shown, can they?”

“Shown? I had hoped to sell them. What else would I have done them for with our precious materials? And there was little enough time left to us.” She got out of bed and began to pin up her hair as she stepped over to the wash table.

“My dear. . . .” He hesitated, trying to think how to begin. “My dear, do you not see these excellent depictions might cause offense if taken wrongly?”

“Offense?” She was washing herself quickly. “How are they offensive? I drew these people precisely, without pretext or satire—”

“Rebecca! Have you forgotten the effect of your portraits the last time you assumed no offense? Would you have us on the streets?” Perhaps he was being too insistent. These drawings seemed, after all, less . . . he searched for a word,
revealing
than the Blackstone portraits.

“Do you begrudge me earning our subsistence, Daniel?”

“Don't be ridiculous. I'm at the point, we are, to accept, to take joy in, anything that might contribute to our security. How can you doubt that?”

She stood straight, wiping her face. She came toward him, looking at the drawings particularly. “I see no insinuations here,” she said. “Are you saying there is too much truth?”

“Call it what you will, my dear; there is more of it than these common folk might bear.”

She stood there in her nightgown, towel in hand, looking at them all again. Then, calmly at first, she began to tear them off the wall, crush them into balls, and throw them on the floor. The more she did so, the more agitated she became. As he stood helpless in his surprise, watching, she continued her destruction of the drawings and moved to the paintings. When she ripped the first canvas off the wall, he ran over and grabbed her arm to turn her toward him. Her other arm came around, as if unconsciously but vehemently, and struck him on the shoulder with the painting. Then she dropped the painting and her hand reached for his face, but somehow he managed to grab the hand first and, holding both arms now, arrest her thrashing movement completely.

She writhed in anger and frustration for some moments while he held her. All the time she said nothing more, weeping silently, only her tears betraying the depth of her wound. Then almost as suddenly as the outburst had begun, it subsided. He released her. She would not look him in the eye. She returned to the bed, wiped her eyes, and put on her dressing gown. He dared not speak further.