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She also suspected what had become of Henry, as did all on the ship, but was far too courteous to say anything. While she strove for a comforting word, John added flatly, “There arc many taverns in Hampton.”

“He will come by another ship,” she said quickly. “He would not have returned to Suffolk?”

John shook his head. “No. He was anxious to emigrate. But I wished him with
me.
I was a fool to trust him on shore again. Sometimes, my lady, I am very foolish, and over-confident. Arrogant in mine own opinions.”

“No, no,” she said, laying her delicate white hand on Winthrop’s knee. “You do yourself injustice!” She, like her husband Isaac, was of those who thoroughly admired the Governor, nor thought him arrogant, as did her old steward, Thomas Dudley. Though, to be sure, Winthrop never showed Arbella aught but deference and a warm subtle recognition of her beauty as well as rank. She thought him a charming man. “And look - ” she said smiling. “Take comfort that your two
younger
sons are frisky as pups!” She pointed through the carved wooden rail to the deck beneath where Stephen and Adam with many of the other children on board were engaged in an uproarious tug-of-war, made more exciting when their hands slipped from the tarry rope each time the ship lurched down a wave. “And look there!” she said, pointing to two ships whose flags and sails were faintly discernible through the increasing mist. “Aren’t those of our fleet? Perhaps your son Henry is on one of them!”

Winthrop peered out to sea, and shook his head. “No, my lady, those are still the
Ambrose
and the
Jewel,
which have stayed near us since Yarmouth. But we’ve lost the
Talbot,
long ago. I hope,” he said with sudden anger, “Henry is safe
and
repentant on the
Talbot.”

Harry was indeed on the
Talbot,
but he was not in the least repentant. He was enjoying himself mightily; showing off his seamanship, dicing with the boon companions he had found, prodigally ordering casks of spirits opened at will, and commanding obedience because he was the Governor’s son. He had not deliberately set out to miss the
Arbella’s
sailing, but the Mariner’s Ordinary on the quay at Southampton had seemed a comfortable place to wait for the tardy winds to blow; moreover Will Pelham, who was cousin to the Earl of Lincoln, was well provided with pounds and willing to spend them.

Then Harry’s normally strong head was vanquished by some innocent looking Dutch liquor two soldiers provided, and it was several days before he awakened one morning in a shabby room at the Dolphin, cold sober at last, to find a giggling Flemish whore in his bed. “God damn you, get out!” he cried, kicking her, and such was the glare of his bloodshot eyes that she scuttled from the sour room. Harry poured a jugful of water over his head, pulled on his clothes which nobody seemed to have stolen, staggered from the Dolphin and down to the Ordinary on the quay. Here, where he demanded meat and ale, he found two military men who seemed mistily familiar. A big red-haired one, and a dapper dark one, breakfasting by the fire, which glinted on their engraved steel cuirasses and the muskets and scarlet-plumed helmets they had placed on a bench.

“So ho!” cried the dark one, chuckling, as Harry entered. “Here’s our bully boy, at last! Have you guzzled and wenched your fill, lad? Then come breakfast with us.”

Harry grinned ruefully as he joined them. “I’d no notion I was so cup-shot! We’ve met, gentlemen?”

“Now there’s gratitude for ye,” said the red-haired one mournfully. “When we’ve been your chums this past three days, sharing our precious genever and loving ye like a brother!”

“Oh,” said Harry. “That was it. My apologies, sirs, but - ”    ,

“Ye don’t recall - well ‘tis no crime. Me - ” said the red-haired one, “I’m Daniel Patrick, and him - ” he pointed across the table, “is John Underhill, and you’d best mind us, me gossoon - since we’re both Captains in your father’s company, and sworn to keep law ‘n order!” He burst out in a guffaw, and slapped Harry on the back.

Harry choked on a gobbet of meat, then drank his ale with avid thirst. So these were the two men John Winthrop had hired to protect the colonists, and give them military training. He had heard Jack discuss them with his father. Both Captains had seen much service in the Netherlands, and had married Dutch wives. They were both in the early thirties, and stalwart men by the look of them. Underhill he remembered had spent his early years at Kenilworth Castle, where his father had been steward to the great Earl of Leicester, Queen Elizabeth’s favourite, but of Patrick he knew nothing, and was curious about the lilt and intonation in his voice. “Would you be from the north country, Captain Patrick?” he asked.

Patrick responded with a twinkle. “That I would, young sir - but not north of
this
one! The saints forbid - ooh - ” he said, clapping his hand over his mouth. “I forgot saints is a word I must
not
use. Don’t ye be telling your father on me!”

“You’re Irish?” exclaimed Harry, beginning to laugh. “And a
Papist!”

“Papist no more! I’ve recanted long ago. And why shouldn’t I, when the good monks who raised me kicked me out o’ the monastery on me bum, one fine day - not but what I’m grateful to ‘em. A devilish poor monk I’d a made, but I’m a fair soldier!” He chuckled and wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his buff coat. Harry laughed again, not sure how much of this was serious, but perfectly certain his father had no inkling of any Papist tinge infiltering his company, and at this thought Harry started and said “My God! The
Arbella
must have sailed !”

“She has - ” said Underhill, shrugging. “You gave the Governor the slip, eh? Your friend Mr. Pelham got on the
Mayflower
yesterday, much distressed he couldn’t find you. But I said we’d do our best if you turned up, and now you
have,
we’d best be off to the
Talbot.
She’s riding down Hampton water and the wind’s shifting!”

Before they left Harry scrawled a note to Elizabeth, moved by compunction for the way he had spent these last nights, and he ended it with ah his love and a row of crosses for kisses. He told Daniel Patrick about her too during the long evenings at sea, but this did not prevent him from flirting with the lasses on board, nor with Patrick’s pretty Dutch wife Anneke, who spoke little English but was plump and rosy as an apple. John Underhill’s wife Helena was also on board, but she was fat and chiefly concerned with hopeless efforts to eradicate the
Talbot’s
vermin and filth.

Elizabeth received the note at Groton on the day after Margaret had been painfully delivered of a puny baby girl, who was baptized Ann on April 29. Despite Goody Hawes, the skilled London midwife, Margaret and the baby remained in danger for some days, and Elizabeth had her hands full helping the midwife with the nursing; and though she cried a little over the note, she had few thoughts for Harry, and it was impossible not to feel exasperated too.

“You might know he’d manage to miss the ship,” she said to Martha, shoving the note into her bosom, “Lord, I hope they’ve no taverns yet in the Massachusetts, not that Harry couldn’t find spirits in a howling wilderness, or the bottom of the sea, if he wanted to. The Devil must guide him.”

“Don’t say that, Bess,” cried Martha sharply. “You talk sometimes as though - as though you didn’t love Harry - not the way I love Jack!’

There was no answer to this, and Elizabeth, now that Jack was in London, had recovered her protective fondness for her sister. She merely smiled and went to her surgery where she was steeping a poultice for Margaret’s caked breasts. Martha followed her uneasily and tried to help, but her fingers were clumsy and her mind elsewhere. Suddenly she said, “Bess, don’t be vexed with me, but are you sure you’re right in letting our folk celebrate May Day tomorrow? Our Uncle Winthrop would never permit it. . .”

“No more he wouldn’t,” said Elizabeth dryly, crushing rowan berries to put in the bubbling flaxseed. “But our grandfather did, and I see no harm in it. ‘Twill sweeten the malcontents on the Manor, and besides ‘tis time we had some merriment. I’m sick of long faces.”

Martha brightened for a moment, looking trustfully at Elizabeth, then she shook her head. “But how can you want merriment, when your time is so near?” said Martha dolefully. She had been much frightened by Margaret’s recent agonies and danger, and Elizabeth’s own baby was due soon. “Oh, I wish Jack was here to tell us what to do.”

I’m very glad he isn’t, Elizabeth thought. Nor was Forth at the Manor, he had gone on a long visit to Exeter. Thus it was - Margaret being too ill for consultation - that a delegation of Groton villagers had waited on Elizabeth as sole authority and requested permission to have dancing and May games on the Manor lawn as it was in old Squire Adam’s day.

Pond, the miller, was spokesman, and he had added, “Oi’ll not conceal it from ye, Mistress - there be surliness an’ grudgings in some quarters ‘gainst Wintrups - they know ye mean to sell, ‘n they don’t fancy their home ‘n loivelihoods bandied about loike sacks o’ corn. Thass the truth.” There were murmurs of assent from the other men.

Old Kembold, the thatcher, stepped forward and said angrily,

“The Squoire’ve unsettled us, he hev - luring off our young men overseas to be ate by salvages - deserr-rting us ye maught say; wen toirnes is bad enough here, there be
some o’
us who don’t hould wi’ all this sarmonizing ‘n stinting the good ouid ways - ” His voice, which had risen, stopped with a grunt because Pond had trodden on his foot,

The miller said apologetically, “We don’t mean fur to berate
you,
Mistress, it was just if we maught have a little ould May Fair, n’ a bit of sport, loike we used to, them as grumbles ‘d forget. . .”

“I don’t see why not!” said Elizabeth hardily. “Do as you please,” And she smiled at them. They shuffled out in a cloud of gratitude and compliments. “A foine young ‘oman” - ”even though Breeding she’s a comely poppet” - ”Now if Marster
Harry
were squoire matters’ld stand different”

Elizabeth heard some of this and was naturally elated. It was agreeable to be head of the Manor, even temporarily, and she was not worried about Jack’s feelings when he found out. She could surely handle Jack, and as for Margaret, that poor lady was too miserable with milk-leg, sore breasts, and worry about the much-longed-for baby girl to give heed to Elizabeth’s off-hand information about “some Saturday games for the village.”

Elizabeth had not however envisioned quite what ensued.

May Day dawned warm and shimmering. A steadfast sun drew up perfume from dew-spangled carnations and honeysuckle. It gilded the field of daffodils by the garden wall. Song thrushes warbled in the flowering hedgerows, robins chirped on the lawns amongst tiny pink daisies, and from the copse near the church a cuckoo called twelve times, which was good luck, thought Elizabeth as she awoke and counted. She turned and kissed Martha who slept with her, now that Harry was gone. “Wake up, sleepy-head - Listen, someone’s singing!”

The door flew open and disclosed Sally with a great branch of hawthorn.

“Good morrow, Good morrow, good mistress,
I wish you a happy day;
Please to smell my garland
Because ‘tis the first of May”

sang Sally in a shrill tuneless voice, thrusting the white and rosy blossoms under Elizabeth’s nose. Sally set down the mugs of morning ale and pulled the bed curtains.

“They making ready for the fair?” asked Elizabeth, drinking her ale. She felt extraordinarily well this morning, full of restless energy.

I wish I could dance, she thought, but I
can
wash my face in the May dew, and she motioned for her red woollen chamber gown.

“Thass roight,” answered Sally, her squint-eyes sparkling. “Wat Vintener arst me to go with him, thot means he’s to be me boy - Oh but we’ll have a toime!” The girl giggled, but suddenly remembered something. “Oh, ma’am - vicar’s below in the Hall, been waiting fur ye. He
is
in a taking I”

Elizabeth muttered one of Harry’s best oaths. She had forgotten their rector, Mr. Leigh, chiefly because between Sundays everyone did forget him. He was a pallid, wispy man who had pleased John Winthrop with interminable and learned sermons, but otherwise kept to his parsonage. Elizabeth dressed and went to the Hall, where Mr. Leigh was pacing up and down the tiles, his black gown flapping, the falling bands of his white collar all askew.

“Mistress Elizabeth!” he cried when he saw her. “Did you permit this monstrous ribaldry - do you know what they’re
doing?”

“I said they could have a May Fair.”

“My dear young lady, they’ve put up a
Maypole?”
The word shuddered from his lips as though he announced that the flaming pits of hell had opened on the Manor lawn.

“Oh - ” said Elizabeth weakly. Of all heathenish rites, Puritans considered Maypole dancing the worst, and Winthrop had once gravely explained to his family the lewd symbol involved.

“Well, I can’t stop them now,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“I forbid it,” cried Mr. Leigh in a high quavering voice. “I won’t have orgies in my parish, why, they’ve got tons of strong ale, and mummers, and I think they’re building a stage for - play-acting. They’ve gone mad, all of them except a few of my godly folk. You’d think us back in Papist days. Mr. Winthrop would - would - ” He choked, and beat one hand against the other. “I forbid it I”

Elizabeth was faintly sorry for him. “I wouldn’t try, sir. They wouldn’t heed you, and besides it might make real trouble. They’re discontented as it is.”

The rector knew that this was true. Church attendance had fallen off sharply since Winthrop left, and Mr. Leigh’s exhortations had met with taunts and insult. He threw her a look of thwarted anger, cried, “Surely God won’t permit this outrage in my parish,” and scurried out across the fields for the parsonage to muster what forces he could.

Oh dear, thought Elizabeth, but she was determined to let nothing cloud the exciting day. And it was a day long remembered in Groton. A day of constant music from pipes, drums, gitterns, and singers. A day of dancing. Goody Vintener had unearthed the gilded crown and long coloured streamers for the Maypole - they had lain hidden in her attic for nearly thirty years - and everyone danced around the great painted oaken shaft, weaving and skipping the ribbons. They had morris dancers too, all fitted out with jingling bells; and the ballads of Robin Hood. There were booths with simple fairings, sweetmeats, buckles, and rosettes. On the little stage a wandering juggler, who had been found starving in Hadleigh, gave a puppet show that had the Devil himself in it doing obscene and shocking things, but everyone roared and asked for it again - even Martha and the sedate Mary, who at first had tried to hide her eyes. Both girls had crept nervously out from the Manor House as the music started, and both had been too fascinated to leave.