Anne of the Fens (15 page)

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY

T
HAT NIGHT
I began feeling better and practiced getting up and walking down the castle passageways. I felt so accomplished. I was reminded of when Baby Mercy was an actual baby, beginning to walk. We all clapped, and I wrote down how many steps she had taken each day, until there were too many to count.

Mother observed me staggering along the castle wall and decided it was time to reclaim her room. I was able to walk to my room by myself, though Mother held one elbow and I pressed my other hand to the brick.

It was fun to sleep with Patience again, and we stayed up late talking about what Simon had told me and whether Father would pay the King the money he wanted. In the morning, I tried to get up for breakfast, but fell back into the bed. Marianne brought me my porridge and said that Arbella needed her and that she must return to her care. I thanked her. My voice felt strained, and she did not look me in the eye.

T
HAT NOON
I got up, put on a skirt over my shift, straightened my hair and put on a bonnet, and took my place by Sarah at the table. Everyone was there, including Father, though Simon did not appear. Everyone greeted me gladly, and even Sarah said, “Welcome.” I saw her staring at my pockmarks, and when I looked back at her, she flushed and looked away. At least she did not whisper, “How ugly you are!” the way she might have in the past.

Father said the grace. I had been savoring the thought of my first real meal and I took an immediate, large sip of ale. The servants served us the food, then left. The leg of lamb looked heavenly. As I prepared to cut into my slice of meat, my head already buzzing from the ale, Father tapped the table.

“Now that Anne has joined us and we are all here, I have an announcement to make.” He was using his important voice.

He began as though he was telling one of his stories, but it was our story, the story of what had happened to our family since Sarah had posted Simon's paper on the board in Boston market. He told about John and about how I had foolishly accompanied him. He knew many details of the trip that Simon must have told him.

“The consequences of all these events are the following: The King has demanded large sums of money from us, Anne's reputation has been damaged, and she may never marry.”

Once again I waited for Sarah to whisper, “It is because you are so ugly,” but she restrained herself.

“I was planning to send you away,” he said, looking at Sarah, “but I have found a better way to punish your wayward soul.”

He paused and looked around the table with a satisfied glance.

“We are going to the New World.”

It was as though he had said, “We are going to fly to the moon.” We hardly reacted because we could not believe it.

Mother finally said, “What nonsense is this?”

I could see how upset she was, calling Father's words nonsense. When he did not reply with anger, I was astonished.

“I am not joking, Dorothy. We are going to New England, in the New World.”

“Why, when?” She stammered, not able even to ask what she wanted to know.

“There is no other solution. We can join the other Puritans in that land and worship without fear. This country will soon be broken in two by a religious war, Puritans against Catholics. You do not want your son killed in battle and your daughters slaughtered for their religion.

“Then there is the matter of the money the King is demanding. It will not take long for him to take everything the Earl and I have. We shall call the ship the
Arbella
.”

That detail somehow made it real. We were going to get into a ship called the
Arbella
and sail, who knew how many miles, across the ocean.

“It will be good for our souls. We will have to leave most of our things behind. There will be no more fancy hats, or frills on bonnets and petticoats, or silk, or leg of lamb and sugar cakes.”

He gestured to our meal, lying cold on our plates, as we gaped at him.

“Very little sugar at all.” He looked hard at Sarah.

Her lower lip trembled and she jiggled her foot under the table.

“May I be excused?” she said, in a low voice.

“No, I want you to sit here and see the pain you have caused.”

Mother's face was drawn and white. I was surprised that Father had not told her earlier.

“My beautiful house in Boston...” was all she said, and then the tears began to stream silently down her cheeks.

“Will Simon come with us?” I asked.

“He will have to decide,” Father replied.

I realized later that it was of Simon that I thought, not John, though I knew John was going to the New World.

Sarah could no longer hold her tears, and they burst out. She rose and went to the other side of the table, where she threw her arms around Mother's neck.

“I'm sorry,” she sobbed.

Mother, stiff at first, melted and put her arms around Sarah.

“Enough,” she said to Father. “She is only a child. You may all leave the table.”

And we did, although we had barely touched the meal. Mother had her way over Father in one small respect.

I
WENT BACK
to bed while the others resumed their day's activities. I thought all day and could barely wait till Patience came to bed. Would we survive? Would we be killed by Indians or by wild beasts? Would there be servants or could we manage without them? Would I have any time to write? How would my health be in a different climate? I had heard the winters of New England were fiercely cold, while the summers were much hotter than here in England.

When Patience came to bed, we talked mainly of what could we bring. It was less frightening than these other questions.

How many bonnets? Could we bring stiff ones that needed to sit on a frame? Would we need warmer clothes? Or more clothes for warm weather?

I had ruined my best dress and then burned it in Davey's oven. I could smell the burning silk in my mind, yet. Would I ever get another best dress? Father had said no silk. Would we bring only practical clothes, bonnets to cover the head rather than to look fetching, boots rather than shoes, colors that didn't show the dirt?

“Father will probably let us bring our chest with our clothes in it.” Patience was optimistic, as always. We looked over at the chest. We knew it to be completely full, and many of our things did not fit into it. Shoes and boots lined up along the wall, and bonnets stood in boxes.

“We will need new things. At least we can shop. I saw the most beautiful green wool bonnet in Boston last winter,” Patience said. “Or we could see what New England is like and buy things there. Oh.”

There was silence as we both realized that we could buy nothing there, that there was no merchandise that did not come from England. We would have to bring everything we would ever need, unless goods came later on a ship from England.

We stopped talking then, but it was a long time before either of us fell asleep.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-O
NE

W
EEKS PASSED
. I regained my strength quickly, now, and went back to life as it had been. Some things changed, however.

Father insisted that we do more of the servants' work, so that when we got to the New World we would know how to care for ourselves.

“Think like a peasant! Look about you in the village! Soon you will be living in a hut with animals and vermin, and the smell of the hearth always about you and your clothes.”

Father seemed to delight in the prospect. I was not sure whether he thought of it as mortification, like Catholic saints do for their souls, or whether he saw it as an adventure. A little of both, I thought.

We would take some servants, but nothing like what we had at the castle. I spent hours with Cook, learning the herbs of the garden and the castle village. We seldom ate greens, but we would rely on them in a new country. Most I already knew, but there were a few — borage and orach and southernwood and salad burnet — that I confused with other plants. I learned which mushrooms could be safely eaten.

I wondered if the plants would be the same, or whether I would have to learn new ones, and who would teach me. Would there be magpies and sparrows, damselflies, and ducks?

I learned to make pies, and bake bread, and create stews of all varieties, and how to put a bird upon a spit in the oven, and how to prepare eel pies. Would there be eels in the New World? Here there was little else but eels.

The greater change in me was one that nobody else saw, even Patience. I began to make up verses, but only in my head, not on the page. While I picked borage and rosemary, I rhymed them with storage and carry. I made up poems about the castle and the fens. I made a silly poem about eel pie. I started to make up a sad poem about John, but I did not like it, and did not finish it. I made up poems about the family, many about Sarah, who was quieter than she had been. Still, there were times when I saw flashes of the old spirit in her eyes.

I made up poems about Simon. Father had stopped my lessons. There would be no books to read in the New World unless we brought them.

I saw Simon, occasionally, when he came with Father to our meals. He seemed distant, though he was always kind when he spoke to me. I wondered if he was seeing Marianne. I saw her seldom and I missed her. I missed Simon more; his company, his wit, his thick dark hair, his large dark eyes, his mouth.

I
FOUND MYSELF
waiting, each day, to see if Simon would come to dinner. Finally, one day at dinner, when he had not arrived, Father announced that Simon was moving away from us, to Boston. I almost cried out, I felt the pain so strongly.

As soon as the meal was over I ran to the roof. There was a fine mist in the air, and I could not tell how much of the wet on my cheeks was tears and how much was rain.

What did I feel about Simon? I had first loved him as a kind of father. Better than my own father as a teacher, Simon was patient and gentle. I had loved him as an older brother. I had grown up with him. Now I wanted to love him as a man, and he was gone.

I was deep in these thoughts, looking out at the fens without seeing them, when I heard steps behind me. I turned, and there was Simon.

“It was there that I found you coming back from the fens,” he said, pointing to the tree-lined path, leading away.

“It was I who found you, is how I think of it.” I might be losing him, but I could not be spiritless. “What are you doing up on the roof?” I asked him. “You have never come before.”

“I have often seen you heading up the stairs and I knew you were not going to the fourth floor to visit the Earl.”

I felt easier. He had come looking for me. Whatever happened, he still held me in regard.

We said nothing for a while. We were both leaning over the railing toward the south, not looking at each other. I glanced toward him and saw beads of moisture begin to collect along his hairline, from the mist.

“Father said you were leaving us.”

He sighed. “I cannot stay here any longer.”

My heart grew sore again.

“It's because of you. I don't want to treat you as John did,” he went on.

I didn't know what he meant, and turned to look at him. He looked at me also, and he must have seen my puzzled expression.

“Taking advantage of your being a child—”

“I am not a child,” I interrupted indignantly. We were now facing each other and our voices were loud.

“Fifteen is still a child.”

“I will be sixteen in the spring.”

“I was your tutor, supposed to be teaching you, not drawn to you.”

“Aha. So you did feel something.”

“Yes, but I would never take advantage.”

“No, you never did. But you could have been a little more human, a little less like a stick—”

“No. I couldn't. All my feelings might have come out.”

“And these last months, is that why you have abandoned me, never helping me through what has been a difficult time for me, because your feelings might have come out?”

“Yes, I didn't want to take advantage of that hellish experience we went through together. I feared that you would believe you owed me something—”

“Because you helped to save my life—” I interrupted again.

“You saved your own life. You are the bravest woman I have ever met.”

Tears sprang to my eyes, and I looked away. He had called me a brave girl before, but this was the first time he had called me a woman.

“And now, when you have been sick, I would be taking advantage of that as well.”

“How are you taking advantage? What you mean is that I am ugly now, with pockmarks on my face.”

“Have you ever thought that, for some men, beauty is not the only attribute they want in a woman? That intelligence, and strength, and kindness are more important?”

“So you do think I'm ugly. Smart and strong and kind and ugly. You don't want me. You probably want Marianne.” Yelling at him made me feel better.

“Ha! I don't want you, do I? What do you think I dream of at night? Nothing but a girl who smells like mud and sweat, and has ripped clothes, and beautiful eyes that are full of light.”

He pulled me to him and began to kiss me, hard, on the lips. It was nothing like being kissed by John, which was sweet and dreamy. This was like life itself.

With no words at all, we knew we would be together.

We stayed a long time. It began to rain harder, but we did not notice. Finally, Simon broke away, and we looked at each other, our hair plastered to our heads, our clothes soaked through. I was sure that, for the rest of my life, the taste of rain water would make my knees weak.

Simon hugged me again and as he helped me down the stairs, he said only, “I will talk to your father.”

That night, as I fell asleep, I had the first line of a poem in my head.