A Company of Rogues, page 3
Nancy met John Gale’s eyes for a moment; he was the first to look away. He knows, she thought, and then, He has always known. But does he know that I know now?
She had grown up under this man’s gentle authority; he was master of the household where she was a servant; he was the father of Kathryn, her mistress and dearest friend. He was master of the apprentices, of which Ned had once been one. What Nancy had not known until a few weeks ago was that John Gale was her father. If he was ever to own that, to acknowledge her as his daughter, surely her wedding day would be the time to do that?
But of course he would not. To do so would be to admit that he had been unfaithful to his wife. That he had taken his servant Tibby to bed, and brought their bastard child into his household. Nancy had grown up believing Tibby was her aunt and that her own parents had died of plague. As she grew, she had begun to wonder whether the woman she called “Aunt Tib” might, in fact, be her mother—but she had never guessed who her father might be, until Tibby told her the truth.
And what does it matter, after all? It was not as if the Gales were a wealthy family, where being a base-born daughter might promise some inheritance. John Gale was a stonemason, and the only thing he had to leave was his house and his business. That would have gone to his eldest son, if young John had lived; now it would go to Walter, as Lily’s dowry. Nancy neither expected nor needed anything from John Gale.
She pulled Tibby into an embrace. “I hope you’ll be happy, my dear girl,” Tibby said.
“I am so glad we came home and got married here,” Nancy said. She had thought that today, perhaps for the only time in her life, she would call Tibby Mother, but the word would not form on her tongue. It was a name she had never called anyone; how could this alien word convey any more love than simply “Aunt Tib”?
“You might stay home, you know,” Tibby said.
“You might come with me.” They had talked of it for weeks, but Nancy knew she would never coax Tibby out to the colony. She was as much a part of Bristol as the old city wall, as sturdy and unchanging.
“Come now, I’m famished, and there’s a feast waiting for us,” said Ned, tugging at Nancy’s hand.
“Feast” was, perhaps, too fine a word for their wedding breakfast, but it was fortunate that Ned’s brother owned a bakeshop. As the two families—and a few neighbour children hoping they might sneak in unobserved—squeezed into the main room of the shop and the savoury pies and pastries were passed around, Nancy felt wrapped in the warmth of the celebration.
There was more to this day than just her marriage to Ned. That bond had been sealed long ago when she first promised to wed him, and sealed anew when they found each other again after their long separation. But with the vows exchanged and the wedding feast eaten, she felt she belonged to a family, as well as to her husband.
And now they were going to turn their backs on all that, and cross the seas again.
Much later that night, behind the curtains of the bed that Ned’s brother Dickon and his wife had vacated so they could have it for their wedding night, Ned turned to Nancy. “Have we made the right choice?”
“What, to marry? A bit late to be doubting that, is it not?”
He laughed softly. “Indeed, no turning back from that. But to go from here—to leave Bristol again. Are we doing the right thing?”
They had booked passage almost as soon as they returned to Bristol, intending to marry quickly and be gone. But when Nancy had returned to the Gale house, learned of the sorrow and suffering there, and heard from Tibby the true tale of her own birth, she wanted to linger for a time. Now midsummer was past, the fishing fleet long since gone to the New Found Land. Their plan was to seek the next ship they could find that would make port anywhere near the Cupids Cove colony.
Nancy sighed. “I had the thought today—’tis a pity to leave here, where we have family and friends. But the wedding feast is over, and your brothers and sisters will return to their work. Tibby will keep house for Master Gale, and Lily will plan her wedding while Walter runs Master Gale’s business. When everyone goes back to their lives, what is there for us here? Would you go back to stonemasonry? Work for Master Gale and Walter as their journeyman?”
“I could,” Ned said. “It was my first trade, and I am sure Walter could use another pair of hands. But what would you do?”
“Aye, there’s a question.” As a married woman, Nancy was unlikely to find a place in service. “We would have to rent a room or two, and I would keep house for you—not that there would be much house to keep.”
Ned smiled, one hand tangling in her hair as it lay loose across her bare breasts. “Two rooms in a Bristol house would be little space compared to a home in the colony.”
“It would be easier.”
For a woman, work in the colony included much more labour than a town-bred serving girl had been raised to expect. Nancy had been taught to cook and clean, to brew and bake, to mend and sew. She had not been prepared to care for livestock, to plant and harvest vegetables, to help build shelters and walls—never mind learning how to split, gut, and salt codfish.
“Do you want that? An easier life?”
Nancy tried to answer honestly. “Since we have come back to Bristol, so many folk—your mother, your sisters, Lily and Tibby, the fishmonger’s wife—have asked how I can think of going back to the New Found Land, to such hardship and danger. Even without such disasters as I have suffered, the weather there is harsher, and the winters colder.”
“Not to mention the fear of wild beasts and wild men,” Ned added.
“Though neither of those ever troubled us. And since I came to know Pocahontas and Matachanna and the other Powhatan, I have not so much fear of the native folk. But ’tis true—the New World is a harsh place to live.” She paused, momentarily distracted by the play of his fingers across her body, then caught his hand and kissed it before going on. “It might seem like a safer life, here in Bristol. Yet think of the Gales. Only Kathryn went to the colony, while all the rest stayed here—and half the family died of sickness in their own house.”
“True enough—there is less of the plague over there than here in England.”
“And I thought, also”—she searched for the right words—“after all I have seen in these last few years, two rented rooms on a Bristol street would seem small to me, now.”
“I feel the same,” said Ned. “In the New Found Land we may well have our own house and our own land—could you imagine? Two common folks such as yourself and myself, Master and Mistress Perry.”
“Don’t be giving us too many airs, now! You cannot be certain of a house and land. We were both in service to Nicholas Guy before; why should we not be again?”
“Ah, love, you cannot imagine how glad Kathryn will be that you are safely back. She will insist that Master Nicholas give us whatever we ask for, even to a piece of their own land to build our house upon.”
“Your reward for rescuing me.” Nancy laughed.
It was a jest between them—Nancy, the maiden in distress, and Ned, her rescuer. Of course, that was not the truth of the tale. He had left the New Found Land with that intention, and travelled far in his quest to do so—but by the time he found Nancy she had a good position in the household of Virginia planter John Rolfe and his wife, the Powhatan princess Pocahontas. Nancy felt she had done a credible job of rescuing herself.
“Then that is what we will do, if you are content—we will return home together, triumphant,” Ned said, and kissed her.
The morning after their wedding, while Ned went down to the docks to talk to sailors about finding a ship bound for the New Found Land, Nancy cleaned up from the wedding feast alongside Ned’s mother and sister-in-law. The older woman paused frequently in her work, seeming to need more rest than the tasks required. When she left the room, Nancy turned to her new sister-in-law.
“Is Mother Perry well? She tires so easily.”
Mary lowered her voice. “She did not want to tell you or Ned, for she hated to bring any sorrow on your wedding day—but she’s not been well at all. She has little strength, and she coughs up blood—just as Father Perry did before he passed away. She was glad to see Ned once more, and to see the two of you wedded. She said I wasn’t to tell Ned, but…”
Nancy did not tell Ned herself, but urged him to go and talk to his mother. And when that sober conversation was done, Nancy suggested they stay in Bristol awhile longer.
“You will not be sorry to delay our journey?” Ned asked her.
“No—I think not. In England or in the New Found Land—I am at home as long as I am with you.”
Four A Wanderer is Brought Home
Harbour Grace, July 1617
Nought beneath the sky
More sweet, more worthy is, than firm consent
Of man and wife in household government.
—Homer’s Odysseys, Book 6, 278–80
Kathryn woke, stiff and uncomfortable in a strange bed. She heard men’s voices. Memory returned: the pool in the forest. Thomas Willoughby. His house; his servants; the storm.
Slowly she unfolded herself and got out of bed—she had slept in her petticoat and kirtle. Neither Willoughby nor either of his men was in the house; the door stood ajar, revealing a clear, sunny morning.
Outside, Willoughby tended a fire with pottage cooking over it. He scooped out a bowlful and handed it to her. “The storm is over; you must bring me home now,” she said, taking it without thanks. “And bring one of the men with you, so my husband will see we were not alone.”
“Ah—he will be happier to think you spent the night with three men than with just one,” Willoughby said, smiling.
“I’ve no time to bandy words with you, Master Willoughby. As soon as I have eaten, you must take me back to Musketto Cove.”
“I cannot spare a man to go with us,” he said.
She had not heard Higgs approach until he spoke. “Begging your pardon, Master Willoughby, but it may be best if two of us go with Mistress Guy—you and I may need to row on the way back.” He looked at his master as he spoke, but glanced quickly at Kathryn afterwards.
As Willoughby’s shallop sailed out of Harbour Grace and around the point of land, Kathryn remembered the frantic search through the woods after the fire and pirate attack four years ago, when Nancy had gone missing. Would Nicholas and the servants have carried out the same kind of search for Kathryn last night?
At least they would soon know that she was alive and well. She did not dare guess how her husband might react to the news of where she had spent the night. If he had sense, he would be glad she had taken shelter with a neighbour on a stormy night. But men did not always show good sense where their honour was concerned.
Musketto Cove was a small, welcoming circle of water surrounded by a tree-lined shore that enclosed the little bay like a pair of embracing arms. The Guy family’s house, outbuildings, and wharf were on the north side of the bay-head at the end of the pebbled beach that separated the ocean from a small freshwater pond. Kathryn had come to think of this place as home, and she was always glad, when travelling back from Cupids Cove by boat, to make that turn into the cove and see their plantation unfold before her. Now, for the first time in a long time, she felt a flutter of trepidation as her home grew near.
Thomas’s only chance for a word alone with her came when they tied up to her husband’s wharf. She had not seen any of Nicholas’s boats out on the water, though normally at this time in the morning he and the men would be out fishing. His shallops were tied up at the wharf. They are still searching the woods for me, she thought.
“Stay here, Higgs,” Thomas said as he helped Kathryn out of the boat. “I will see Mistress Guy to her door.”
Kathryn was about to invite Higgs to come to the house as well, to say that she’d gladly give him a drink as thanks for bringing her home—but that would mean that Thomas would linger longer. So she said only, “Thank you” to the servant, and walked up the path with Thomas.
He bent close to her ear to speak. “I did not jest, when I asked you to come live with me. Now that you have been in my house, I mean it all the more earnestly—I would have you.”
“You’d not take another man’s wife, Thomas. What folly!”
“I would, if she left her husband willingly. Your husband has not the power he once had in this country, now that there is a new governor whose name is not Guy. Nicholas is only another planter. Will he fight to win you back if he knows…?”
Knows what? She knew Thomas could ruin her with a handful of words—could tell Nicholas that she had slept with him four years ago in Cupids Cove. He could even lie and say that she had gone to his bed last night. She would deny it, but whose tale would Nicholas believe?
At that moment the door to the house burst open and Daisy More came running down the path. “Mistress! ’Tis you! Alive!”
“Of course I am alive, Daisy!” Kathryn set down her basket and caught her servant in her arms and embraced her. “And ’tis glad I am to be safe home! Where is my husband, and the children?”
“Bess has your youngsters down at her house with her own two, trying to settle them. The men started searching again at first light, but—ah, here he comes now.” They looked up to see Nicholas Guy emerging from the trees beyond the house, breaking into a run as he caught sight of his wife.
“God be praised, Kathryn, you are home, and safe! Where have you—?” He broke off to look at the man accompanying her. “Master Willoughby?”
Thomas quickly told his story of finding Kathryn in the woods, sheltering her in his tilt overnight during the storm. Kathryn added, “I tarried too long gathering berries and plants in the forest—I quite lost my way, and ’twas great good fortune that Master Willoughby was nearby.” She held up her full basket, as if she needed proof of her tale.
Nicholas nodded, glancing down at Willoughby’s boat. “Do you and your man wish to come in, take some ale before you start back?”
“’Tis kind of you, but no, we had best be back at our day’s work. We will visit sometime, for I welcome any guidance you can give me in the business of starting a plantation in this country.” His voice was so smooth and civil that it was impossible for Kathryn to believe that just a few moments earlier he had been urging her to leave Nicholas and come live as his mistress.
“You have my thanks,” Nicholas said.
Kathryn had already moved away from the men, towards the smaller house where Bess and Frank lived. The children were tumbling out the door now, and the men’s voices retreated to a murmur as Kathryn set down her basket and ran to meet her children.
“Oh, mistress! I was telling Jonathan and Alice all morning that you’d be back today, safe and sound,” said Bess, who was carrying a crying Jemmy in her arms. “But this young fellow won’t settle at all, wants his mama. We was all near out of our minds with worry.”
“All is well,” Kathryn said, telling Bess the briefest possible version of her tale as she took her crying son in her arms and sat on the doorstep of the house. She unlaced her kirtle and settled him at her breast, his suckling giving them both ease.
The older children, tugging at her skirts, interrupted Kathryn’s attempt to tell Bess how she had gotten lost in the woods. Four-year-old Jonathan climbed up into her lap, while three-year-old Alice ran her fingers over her mother’s arms, hands, hair and clothes as if to reassure herself that Kathryn was real.
“Mama, did you see the fairies?” Alice wanted to know. The older children had all been given stern warnings about the danger of being taken by fairies if they went into the woods alone.
“No, I was not fairy-led—I am your own mama come back again, I promise,” Kathryn said, and thought, Though that is just what I would say to reassure her if I had been taken by the fairies. But fairies only troubled to capture sweet-faced little girls with golden ringlets and blue eyes, not sensible matrons.
Looking down at Alice’s face, with its echoes of Thomas Willoughby, Kathryn remembered that when they had met in Cupids Cove last month, Willoughby had told her that if she had a son born after their affair, he would claim the boy, but a girl was not worth the trouble. Let us hope that if he ever sees you, he will continue to think you worthless, Kathryn thought, cuddling her daughter close.
Later, when the children were playing and everyone else was at work, Kathryn took advantage of a few moments’ peace to go to her sleeping chamber and pull a clean shift and kirtle from the chest that held her clothes. She had only a few changes of clothing, and except for special occasions, most were worn for many days of work about the house and garden before being laundered. But yesterday’s adventures had left her kirtle stained with mud and grass, and her petticoat soaked with sweat. Perhaps that was why she was eager to change out of them—or perhaps it was the knowledge that she had worn them in Thomas Willoughby’s bed.
Nicholas surprised her; she stood there clad only in her shift, her hair loosed from its pins so she might comb it tidy again. She felt oddly exposed, though Nicholas was the only man in the world who had the right to see her in this state.
“So, you spent the night at Willoughby’s plantation.”
“I begged him to take me home straight away, but the storm blew up quickly.”
“How did you come to be all the way over to Harbour Grace?”
“I told you—I lost my way. ’Twas a pleasant day, and I walked a long time before realizing I could not find the path home. I stumbled upon Master Willoughby in the woods by accident.”
“The storm had not started then? Why did you go with him to his house, instead of returning home at once?”
“I did not know the way, and he said ’twas faster for him to take me home by boat.”
