The widow's war (20 page)

Lyddie handed out seedcakes to all the children, sending the oldest with the note to Shubael, requesting passage to Barnstable. The child came back with a message from Shubael: they would sail within the week; be ready. Lyddie next sat down and wrote another note to Mehitable, explaining her intended absence. She sent it to Nathan’s with Silas’s oldest girl. Mehitable sent back no answer.

The message came from Shubael on the following Tuesday: they would sail the next day; be at the landing at half-six in the morning. Lyddie gave Patience Clarke free use of the cow’s milk and the hens’ eggs if she did the milking and collecting; she took the padlock off the barn door and fixed it to the pantry. She heated a kettle and gave herself a good wash: hair, face, armpits, groin, feet; she packed a bag with a spare gown and slippers, shift and stockings in case of a severe soaking; she laid out one of Rebecca’s shorter gowns for shipboard,
the better to keep the hem above a sloppy deck. She packed a basket with bread, seedcake, apples, dried salt beef, and her knitting to do on shipboard; that night Shubael sent another message: they would sail Thursday.

Thursday morning Lyddie got dressed, tied her bonnet and buttoned her coat, collected her bag and basket, and said good-bye to Patience and the children. Silas Clarke had at last decided he’d best show up at the tannery, so Lyddie was spared any farewell embrace from him. She set off down the road for the landing, but when she rounded the final turn and saw the bay, she knew they would not be going anywhere soon; not a single ripple marred the water’s surface. Shubael stood at the water’s edge, directing the loading of the dory with a last-minute collection of boxes and barrels, in between directions staring out across the glassy sea.

As Lyddie came up he turned to her and made some effort to twitch his mouth into a smile. “We’ll freshen.”

“Of course.”

He said the same, off and on at ever-increasing intervals, for the next hour, and then sent Lyddie home. She fussed the house into deathlike neatness until Ned Crowe arrived at two in the afternoon to inform Lyddie that the sail had again been postponed to Friday six.

Friday morning a fine gust lifted Lyddie’s hem as she stepped into the road, and by the time she reached the landing a steady breeze scoured the surface of the water. Lyddie and her bag were lifted into the dory, and Ned Crowe rowed them to the
Betsey.

The wind was stronger than it looked. Lyddie went below to store her bags, and even there she could feel it, pushing at the wooden sides until they creaked with an in-and-out kind of hopeless pleading. In her life Lyddie had taken many sea journeys to Boston in whatever sloop Edward sailed in as master, and she had always stepped onboard with some little consciousness of danger, but at least there she had known full confidence in her captain. Shubael was
growing old; it had surprised Lyddie when she’d learned he’d gone out in a small whaleboat after those blackfish in the bay, but she imagined he could manage the less agile task of shipmaster.

The wood creaked again, neither loud enough or soft enough to be ignored; the boards under her feet pitched, and she sat down on the bunk to examine her surroundings: two bunks with narrow table and benches built over lockers in between, topped by a hanging lantern and a slatted hatch for light and air, the remaining few feet packed tight with spare sail. Lyddie wedged her own bag into the nearest locker, left the cabin, and went out on deck.

The wind was out of the southwest and finicky. Shubael brought the
Betsey
to sail, and at once she heeled over hard, causing Lyddie to grab hold of the rail; she found a seat on the leeward bench and Shubael ran her out to the northwest. From there Lyddie lost the hours, her mind flying ahead of the
Betsey,
or behind the
Betsey,
back to other sails, back to Edward. Eventually she heard the call to stand by for sheets, and they came about on a southerly tack, into the harbor. She looked up at the sun and was shocked to see it stood at dead center.

As they approached the wharf at Barnstable Lyddie felt no sense of trepidation; she barely looked at the man standing beside the pile of crates, and her eye only came back to him when it had finished with the rest of the landscape: the marsh, the church spire, the horses and wagons, but as soon as it came back it recognized the height, the clean angles. Of course, she thought. Of course any “business at Barnstable” would involve Shubael’s new partner, Eben Freeman. Lyddie went below to keep out of the way while they unloaded; even inside the harbor the wind was considerable, and the banging of the blocks and slatting of the sails competed with the tramp of the crew’s feet. The floor under Lyddie’s feet pitched and rolled uneasily; Lyddie had a fair pair of seaman’s legs while under way, but it was another story altogether at anchor. It soon came to a choice between
vomiting into the bilge and going back on deck; as the sounds from above had diminished to nothing Lyddie chose the latter. She climbed up the companionway, saw the sails down and lashed and the deck empty, but the dock wasn’t. Shubael and Eben Freeman stood side by side, admiring the
Betsey
together. Shubael saw her and waved. “Come along, Cousin! We’re invited to dine with my brother! He’s sent for a chaise for us! Is it not delightful?”

Shubael was worse than old, he was a fool; he deserved his foolish wife; he deserved to be shipwrecked or windbound or capsized in the deepest part of the channel. As soon as Lyddie came within speaking distance Eben Freeman walked around to the far side of chaise, stiff-faced and stiff-backed, but Shubael jabbered on blindly.

“All right, Cousin, in you go.”

“I wouldn’t wish to impose on Mr. Freeman. I’d planned to dine out of my basket on board and attend to my business.”

“Dine out of a basket! Don’t be silly. Come on now, in you go. We’ve got a good wind for the return and we don’t want to lose time.”

But once they were all in the chaise, where Lyddie might have wished Shubael to continue his jabber, he stopped completely. As Freeman still said nothing, Lyddie felt she had no choice but to venture something in his direction.

“This is kind of you,” she said.

“Not at all.”

“Do you like your new vessel?”

“Indeed.”

“Indeed!” Shubael cut in from behind. “Is that the best you say of her? She’s the prettiest ship in the harbor.”

“She’s the only ship in the harbor,” Freeman said.

“Not for long, I expect,” Shubael answered. “Now with this blow,” and silence settled again, lasting until they reached the main road.

It had been several years since Lyddie had visited Barnstable village, and coming from such a backwater as Satucket the bustle of the court town set her spinning. Nathan Clarke owned one of two chaises in Satucket and took it out seldom; here, if Lyddie gazed after one, another was sure to come from the opposite direction, and men and women constantly crisscrossed the road between the shops and taverns. A handful of horses stood tied in front of the courthouse, their tails lifting in the wind, and the sight of them sparked a shower of questions from Shubael: how went the Winslow case? What was being said about Clarke in the village? When did Freeman see it settled for good? All of which Freeman answered with a shrug or a single word.

Freeman lived a short distance from the courthouse along the King’s road, in a double-doored saltbox in which he both slept and worked, the working side identified by a professional shingle hung in front of the door. Lyddie passed through the door to the residence in something of a numb state, noting little except a general sense of simplicity and order. She had some recollection of a tender veal roast set out by Freeman’s housekeeper, an elderly woman he addressed as “Mrs. Crocker,” which did little to explain her life situation. Lyddie spoke when spoken to, mostly by Shubael, but when form required, by tight-voiced courtesy from Freeman; in the main she was left alone as the men talked about the
Betsey.
She looked at Freeman when she could do so unnoticed but found little in his face to describe his thoughts. At length the subject turned to the weather, and as Lyddie had kept an ear on the whistling wind throughout the meal, she was unsurprised when Freeman suggested they might end up windbound. Shubael jumped up at once and charged off for the harbor.

Lyddie stood also. “I must get to my business,” she said. “I thank you for your hospitality.”

She was nearer the door than the table when Freeman said, “I’d not expected to see you here.”

“Nor I you.”

“No doubt if you’d known you’d see me you’d not have come.”

“I could hardly have expected a welcome.”

“I’m sorry, this is the best I’m able.”

“I didn’t mean—”

Freeman leapt out of his chair. “Blast what you mean and what I mean and what that asinine brother of mine means! What was he thinking to bring you here?”

“I can’t think. But I do have business in town. If you would tell Cousin Shubael—”

“Oh, sit down, sit down. Good God, we’re not a pair of children.”

Lyddie returned to the table and sat down. Freeman remained standing, gripping the back of his chair. “I’ve had a deal of time to get the better of my anger and I thought I’d done so. I thought I’d most certainly done so. I even thought I might now manage an answer to your letter.”

“The one releasing you from our engagement.”

He peered at her. “A difficult letter to write.”

“Yes, it was.”

“I mean to say, my answer to it.”

“Allow me, then, to release you from that obligation as well, by acknowledging the offer as accepted. And now may we move on to other subjects?”

“Very well.”

They fell into silence. Lyddie dropped her eyes from Freeman’s strained face.

At length Freeman said, “Let me begin with inquiring on your business in Barnstable.”

“I’ve come to engage a lawyer.”

“A lawyer!”

“I find it necessary after all to sue Mr. Clarke for my keep and care, as well as to deal with a difficult tenant.”

“Tenant?”

“Silas Clarke.”

“Silas Clarke? He’s put Silas Clarke in there?”

“He has.”

More silence.

“Perhaps you could recommend a man of law to me,” Lyddie said.

“You’ll not want Doane, he’s Clarke’s man. Perhaps Bourne. He’s across from the courthouse.” He paused, perhaps thinking of fees. “You continue in the employ of Mr. Cowett?”

“I do not.”

Another silence. “I believe at one time I spoke in a derogatory way on the subject of Mr. Cowett. I should like to correct what impression I might have given by saying that I have always found him a man of principle.”

“I don’t believe your concerns about Mr. Cowett were entirely unfounded. You spoke of grudges.”

“He holds a few. And not all unwarranted.”

“Including one against my husband?”

Freeman’s face widened out in surprise. “Your husband?”

“Did not my husband’s family acquire his land without paying?”

“Your husband’s family was given that land as gift.”

“But why? I saw the deed and no reason was given.”

“There were too many to put in writing. The Berrys took care of the sachem’s ill son; they hired a lawyer to make out a document protecting the sachem’s land for his heirs; they aided the son with an English education…I can’t recall every single instance, but there were
many, I assure you. In exchange, the sachem deeded the Berrys a parcel of land, not a large gift by any lights. No, no, Sam Cowett held no grudge against your husband. In fact, he was so distraught at his failure to save him he took it as his job to look out for his widow.”

“For
me
?”

“You had asked me what made Cowett change his mind about dividing the woodlot and I didn’t know, so later I asked him. He said at first he thought you wished to stay on at the house, so he fouled the sale by refusing to divide. Then he said that you’d spoken to him about your hopes for a speedy sale, so he agreed to the division. In the end he saw the first thinking was correct and that he’d done wrong and he wished to set it right. I don’t know whether he did, or what he had planned to do—” Freeman looked at Lyddie and away. “After that we didn’t speak the way we used to.” He stood up to get more cider, but before he returned to his chair, Shubael entered the room, full of wind and waves and ship, carrying the conversation away from Lyddie. She was just as glad to be left alone, her head too full to be sorted for the purposes of conversation, but too late she came back to it and found that her stupid curse at the dock had taken hold: they were windbound and would not sail till tomorrow. The next thing Lyddie understood was that Freeman had offered them rooms and that Shubael had accepted.

Shubael set off for the dock again to better secure the
Betsey
and Lyddie stood up to hunt out Esquire Bourne, but Freeman stopped her.

“A word, please, before you go. Something that I have on my mind.” He made some adjustment to his chair, his mug, his shirt cuff. “We spoke just now of Mr. Cowett, but I don’t believe I’ve said all I should on the subject. I have an apology to offer; I should not have allowed Clarke to arrest him. I was not thinking what was right, I was thinking what was convenient. I insisted on seeing something between you that wasn’t; I wanted him away from you; I exhibited poor
faith. This is not to say I don’t smart yet over your lack of faith in me, of your refusing to trust to my governance; it’s more perhaps to say that now I understand what caused it. As you saw my poor governance over the matter of Cowett you were brought to think it might be the same with my governance over you. That is what I wish to say to you and that is what I wish you to accept, if you can.”

“If you mean to say you wish me to accept your apology for Mr. Cowett’s arrest, that privilege falls to him, not me. I might add, I know of the law that gives you governance over slave, or servant, or wife, but none that gives you governance over free Indian or unmarried woman.”