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“Not afraid?”

“Only of your father, I think. Of nothing else.”

He started to say that she needn’t be, that his father was wise and essentially kind, that in any case she was but an inexperienced girl of twenty-one and must be guided. Instead he said, without wishing to, “Mattie is afraid.”

“I know.” Elizabeth pulled her gaze from the waves. “She doesn’t want to go.” She hesitated. “Why can’t you reassure her, Jack? What is there wrong between you two? She loves you so much.”

“Martha is a child,” he said roughly. “Nor wishes to be anything else.”

They were alone on the beach, and plunged unsuspecting into an intimacy they had never permitted before. The gulls wheeled and mewed, heading inland towards the town. The sky turned violet and the waves flung diamond showers upon the glistening dark sand.

“How can she be afraid with you beside her?” Elizabeth’s voice was muted by the waves, but he heard her.

“She is afraid
of
me - of being a wife.”

So that is it, Elizabeth thought. She had begun to suspect.

“She fears childbirth,” said Jack heavily. He reached down and picked up a cockle-shell; frowning, he fingered the delicate flutings. “Fears it more than is natural. She may love me but not enough to -” He flung the shell far from him. “Nor should I talk to you like this.” He raised his head and looked at her in her new crimson gown. The strong breasts and shoulders, the proud, lovely face silhouetted against the sky.

“You must woo her,” said Elizabeth faintly. “Gentle her, persuade her, then maybe force her in the end, a little.”

“Aye -” he answered after a moment, when her meaning reached him. Then he stiffened. He raised his eyes, staring at her now with what seemed like anger. “But, by God, I don’t
want
to!”

“Jack -” she whispered. She caught her breath, and the words tumbled over each other. “Jack, we both love her, you do, you know you do, you must have patience, she is so tender, so unaware . . .”

He said nothing. Fie lock a sharp step forward and seized her in his arms. She made a whimpering sound, but she yielded her mouth to his. They stood there interlocked and trembling, while the waves pounded behind them. A fishing boat grated on the shingle nearby. There were voices and the light of a lantern.

Jack’s arms dropped, he jerked his mouth from hers, pushing her away. “Unclean,” he said through his teeth, “incestuous. May God forgive me.” Dim as the light had grown, she saw real anger now in the brown eyes that were usually merrily observant. An anger that engulfed the world. “Come, Bess -” he said sharply. “My mother will be wondering where we are.”

They walked up the beach, far separated from each other. They went silently through the twisted streets of Sandwich until they came to Humphrey’s house and were greeted at the door by Martha with a glad cry of welcome.

The next afternoon the entire Winthrop company, having driven the six miles to the quay at Deal, embarked in the
Lyon’s
longboat. Though Margaret said nothing as she settled herself in the stern, a tear glistened on her cheek, and she clutched her whimpering baby tight in her arms. Her four-year-old Sammy nestled beside her and stared with open mouth at the half-naked sailors, but she had had to leave Deane in London with the Downings. He was a delicate child and a scholarly one. John had written that he thought it best neither to risk the journey for Deane, nor interrupt his schooling. It was a sorry blow. Yet soon I shall see my
oldest
boys and my beloved husband, if God wills it, Margaret thought, seeking acceptance as always. And the rest of her family were here with her, comfort enough for leaving Deane - and England. The sailors began to row and Margaret, though herself frightened of the water, managed to smile at Martha, who sat rigid on the next thwart beside Jack. The boat started to pitch as they moved from shelter. “See our ship!” cried Margaret encouragingly. “Does she not look large and staunch?” She indicated the 250-ton
Lyon
which rode far out at anchor in the middle of the downs, her flags flying, her high poop newly painted in red and blue, the rampant lion on the prow sparkling with new gilt.

Martha did not turn to look, nor answer. She fixed her eyes on the dirty water that sloshed in the bilges, and pressed her pale lips hard to keep from whimpering as did the infant Ann. Jack despised her fears, she knew, and she despised herself. Already the motion of the boat and the vast insecurity of the treacherous sea made her sick and giddy. She sat frozen, while her muscles tensed as though they could rush her back to land.

Mary Winthrop crouched on a chest of their household goods, beyond the four rowing sailors. Her plain freckled face was composed. Under her serviceable brown wool cape she held her vellum-bound psalm book; in her personal chest she had some other books she had bought in London. These and needlework were all Mary needed to while away the voyage. She longed to see her father, of whom she was quietly fond, For the rest she was a philosopher, and though only eighteen was untroubled by youthful turbulence. She appeared indeed older than Elizabeth, who had wedged herself into the bow with Joan and was eagerly savouring the motion of the boat, the slapping of waves on the hull, and the flying spray. Elizabeth had been sombre enough through the night of sleepless worry over those moments on the beach with Jack. Guilt-ridden, because she could not help reliving them and longing for their repetition. Towards dawn her thoughts had grown so unmanageable that she had even dug her Bible out of the bottom of her bride chest and fumbled through Leviticus until she found the Lord’s terrible ordinances in the twentieth chapter:
The adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death . . . If a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an unclean thing: he hath uncovered his brother’s nakedness
. ..

And if a woman should lust for her sister’s husband ... as well? She had tried to pray for the first time in years. She arose very weary but calmer. She and Jack greeted each other coolly, and both plunged into the bustle of departure.

I can manage to avoid him on the ship, Elizabeth thought, and once over there I shall be free. She had no idea how, but she vaguely envisioned herself and Joan alone in a pretty little forest cottage surrounded by a flower garden, far from interference, or temptation.

The bo’sun piped them on board and Captain Peirce greeted them on the
Lyon’s
deck as they climbed the wooden ladder.

“Welcome! Welcome!” he cried, bowing. “ ‘Tis honour to carry the Gov’nor’s family I I’ve ‘ad cabins built for ye next my quarters in the poop. I ‘ope they’ll serve.”

A wise, tough cockney was the famous master mariner, who had been born in a tenement on London Bridge and raised on the docks. He had had schooling before he took to sea, read for pleasure when he could and had shrewd knowledge of life besides. He was a broad, powerful man, just forty, and sun-squint lines had begun to show, the tiny red veins to burst, in his black-bearded cheeks. He maintained a fierce discipline on his ship, but was not lacking in humour, and after greeting the Winthrops a rueful twinkle appeared in his sharp eyes.

“We’ve a passenger, ma’am - ” he said to Margaret, “I didn’t expect, and find a bit awkward, though I couldn’t refuse ‘er.”

“Her?” said Margaret, casting anxious glances at the decks, which seemed very small and crowded under some fifty milling passengers, bundles, chests, and shouting sailors.

“ ‘Tis Lady Gardiner,” said Peirce. “Leastways
one
of ‘em. The French one.” Seeing that Margaret did not understand, he turned to Jack. “ ‘Ave ye not heard, sir, about the rogue in Massachusetts called Sir Christopher Gardiner? A mort o’ trouble ‘e’s made for your honoured father!”

“Aye,” said Jack frowning, “I have. Gardiner’s conspired against our colony; he plots with Sir Ferdinando Gorges to seize us and destroy our independence. He lives with a wench not his wife and yet has two wives in England.”

“Just so,” said the Captain. “And this is one of ‘em. Coming
^!
ot-foot to fetch ‘im back. She ‘ad the passage money, and letters from ‘igh places, so I couldn’t say ‘er nay, but I misdoubt she’ll fit well wi’ your God-fearing company, sir.” He chuckled, then looked apologetic.

“I thought my father had put Gardiner In gaol to await deportation to England,” said Jack, still frowning. He too had spent a sleepless night.

The Captain shrugged. “ ‘E
was
in gaol. No telling where ‘e be now.”

Elizabeth heard, but was not much interested, being in a fever to explore the ship and see where they would lodge for the voyage. This turned out to be a tiny cabin in the poop, with an upper and lower bunk no larger than coffins, and scarce room enough to stand beside them. This cabin she was to share with Mary, and, of course, Joan. The next cabin contained Margaret, Sammy, and the baby; the third Jack and Martha.

Though these cabins were remarkably cramped, they represented luxury compared to the rest of the passengers’ hammocks or pallets in the hold. Each Winthrop cabin had a minute square porthole and a bucket dangling on a rope beneath it for the disposal of excreta. The common folk had no privacy at all.

“Hush thee, poppet - hush thee -” Elizabeth crooned to Joan as she snuggled the protesting baby down on the straw sacking of their bunk. ‘This’ll be our home for many a long day, we’d best like it!” Elizabeth raised her head sharply, listening to strange sounds that were to become as familiar as the noise of London traffic or of cawing rooks at Groton.

She heard the Captain shout, “Heave away-y-yy!” and the clanking of chain, then the squeak of the windlass as the great anchor rose from the water. She heard the straining chant of the sailors and the bosun’s whistle. She heard the unintelligible orders to “Man the royals” and “the topgallants,” the answering hubbub of “Aye, aye, sir!” followed by the squealing of blocks and swish of unfurling sails. She rushed out eagerly to the quarter-deck, and felt the gentle rocking give way to a thrill and thrust beneath her feet, as though the ship had wakened. The ten square sails and one lateen bellied out taut against a blue-and-mare’s-tail sky. The
Lyon
quivered and plunged southward to the Straits of Dover, on a brisk north wind.

Captain Peirce stood by his helmsman, watching narrowly till they should be past Goodwin Sands, but he threw Elizabeth a word of reproof. “Ye’re not wanted on the steerage, Mistress, ye can take leave o’ England from the stern gallery if ye wish - but ‘twill be tears wasted, for ye’ll ‘ave sight o’ English coast for a long time yet.”

“I’m sorry,” she said “ ‘Twas not to say farewell I trespassed here - it was because - Oh, the ship is so
beautiful,
so splendid!”

The Captain snorted. “I ‘ope ye think so a month from now when we get the line storms, ‘stead o’ puking in your bunk as ye’ll surely

“No, I won’t,” she retorted, and went back through the tiny companionway. Peirce laughed. “A fair saucy wench,” he said to the helmsman. “She and that Frenchy Lady Gardiner’ll spice this v’yage - ’ard over to larboard, ye damn fool!” he added in a bellow.

The north wind held, the Dover Straits were as rough as usual, and the Captain’s expectation as to his unseasoned passengers was justified by supper-time, for which nobody appeared in the officers’ saloon but Elizabeth, an unknown man, and a startling young woman.

The Captain made hurried introductions, though he did not stay with them to eat. “Mistress ‘enry Winthrop, widow. This is the Reverend John Eliot, boarded at Gravesend. ‘Is Worship the Gov’nor’ll be pleased to get another minister.” Elizabeth inclined her head, and the short, curly-haired young man bowed with a peculiarly sweet smile. He doesn’t look like a minister, she thought. He looks almost jolly.

“Lady Gardiner, Mistress Winthrop,” went on the Captain, with a wink at Elizabeth, who curtseyed and stared, seeing in that first instant only an improbable mass of violet red hair, brocaded green taffeta, scarlet lips in a pointed face and nearly naked bosom, with a black beauty patch on the curve of the right breast.

“Enchantée,”
said Lady Gardiner in a husky drawl. She extended her hand, which released a wave of musk. “Charming that you are not seeck like the others, Madame. Oh my dear love of a
capitaine,
you must not leave us? Mr. Eliot will find it hard to entertain two young ladies alone. You must stay, Monsieur, you promised Mirabelle she would have a gay voyage !”

“And so no doubt ye will, my lady!” said the Captain, chuckling. “But ‘twill be gayer if the
Lyon
stays on course and above the waves, so I ask ye to excuse me.” He bowed and walked to the door.

“So agreeable a captain!” cried Lady Gardiner in loud cooing tones. “So virile, how you say?
Manly.
And you too, sir.” She turned to Mr. Eliot. “When I see you embark at that terrible Gravesend - what macabre names you English give places! - I say to myself, ‘Mirabelle, we shall be dear friends, thees young minister and I’ - You have so sympathetic a face!”

“You do me too much honour, my lady,” said John Eliot, retreating slightly along the seat, and flushing. “We’ll all be friends before journey’s end, I’m sure, and you ladies’ll help me endure the heartache I feel at leaving my betrothed to wait in England.”

“Ahah?” cried Mirabelle, with warm interest, “So you have a fiancée? You must tell us about her, mustn’t he, Madame? Do you like to kiss her very much?”

She’s incredible, thought Elizabeth, fascinated, while John Eliot laughed. “I do, my lady, or did rather, and hope to again before very long.” It was impossible to be angry with Mirabelle, though by the time the
Lyon
had reached the Isle of Wight, Elizabeth knew that she should disapprove of her. Mirabelle dyed her hair with henna powder she had brought from Paris. Mirabelle painted her face, she swung her hips when she walked. She blandished every man she saw, not excepting the sailors, and she laughed at all the virtues Elizabeth had been taught to consider sacred. Particularly chastity.

“That is because I am an aristocrat,” Mirabelle explained to Elizabeth one calm night while she sat on a stool in the open stern gallery carefully plucking her eyebrows. “My father was a marquis, and considered chastity vulgar. True, I was born on the wrong side of the blanket, as you say, but no matter. I inherit the trait. Love-making is agreeable. Why not enjoy it?”