Almost Home

by Wendy Lawton

  Move? Mary dropped her father’s arm. “Move, Father?” Surely she heard wrong. She’d seen no bundles piling up in the hall. “What do you mean, Elder Brewster?”

  The elder spoke in a soft voice, “Mary, take your father’s arm. I did not mean to speak out of turn.”

  Mary lifted her father’s arm again, and, as he seemed to slump against her, she whispered, “We are almost home, Father.” Elder Brewster’s question still rang in her ears, as she repeated the soothing words, “Almost home.”

  A deep ache began to grow in Mary’s chest, and no matter how quickly she blinked her eyes, she felt the sting of threatening tears.

  Mary, your father left for Isabella’s to finish the last of the breeches for Mynheer van Blitterswijck. Ingle and Christian hastened to the weavers for cloth. We still have much work to be completed.” Mary’s mother paused in her sorting and bundling of doublet pieces.

  Mary sensed there was more, but she waited for her mother to go on. From the sound of Mother’s lighthearted movement this morning, it was bound to be good.

  “Mistress Tilley invited you to come to their house. She said that Elizabeth could help you baste these interfacings so that they’ll be ready for Father to tailor. Mistress Brewster said that Fear can come as well.”

  The spring day had already dawned fair, but to Mary it got even brighter. A whole morning spent with her friends Fear and Elizabeth. “Thank you, Mother. We shall work hard.”

  Mother smiled. “How I wish you did not have to work so hard, but even with all of us working we barely put aside anything.” She looked toward the open top half of the door, but her eyes did not seem to focus on anything in particular. “If only …” Her words drifted off.

  “Oh, Mother, I’m happy to help. And when my friends sew with me, ’tis ever so much more fun.”

  Mother now stayed home to help with the tailoring—no more going off to the mill each morning. With all of them working—Isabella at her house and Mary and her sisters at home—they were able to satisfy Father’s tailoring customers much sooner.

  ’Twas not the only change. So much had happened in the year since the rock-throwing incident. Though talk continued off and on about an eventual move, no immediate plans developed. Some in the congregation talked of going to the Virginia colony, but the news coming back from America sounded grim. The rumors included deaths, savages, and starvation. Others in the congregation read of Sir Walter Raleigh’s lush tropical Guiana and wanted to settle there. Mary tried to ignore the talk that circled around their Green Gate congregation.

  Elder Brewster had sailed for London a year earlier on business for the congregation. Nearly every morning Father met with Pastor Robinson, Deacon Carver, and the other men to pray for the elder’s safety. The English searched continuously for Elder Brewster. Some of the congregation’s Dutch friends told them to keep a watch out for English officials secretly sent into Holland to find him, but so far God kept Elder Brewster safe. Now he traveled right under English noses.

  No real future existed for the Pilgrims in Leyden. Mary knew that, but she savored her time in Holland. If she could just freeze the rush of time as winter freezes the flow in the canal, she could be happy. As long as Mother did not start bundling their belongings, Mary was content. Bundles piling up in the hall always signaled that change was in the air.

  “Mary, come help me sort and stack, so you can be on your way,” Mother said.

  “Sorry, Mother.”

  “Woolgathering again?” When Mother smiled, her eyes seemed to crinkle into their own merry smiles. “I’m half afraid to mention that Mistress Tilley invited the three of you to stay for dinner and then work the afternoon as well.”

  Mary pressed her lips together for fear that no sensible word could possibly form on her lips. She longed to run and jump for the sheer joy of it, but a girl of thirteen no longer hopped around like a child.

  Mother packed the market basket with work while Mary pulled her shawl around her shoulders and pinned it. She started to curtsey her good-bye to Mother, but reached out and hugged her instead. Swinging the basket, Mary headed along the canal toward the Hopkins’s home.

  She couldn’t help the bounce in her step. The sunshine falling on her face felt warm for spring. She smiled at everyone she met along the way, even the workmen unloading sheaves of thatch from a cart.

  Mary hummed the melody of the Old One-Hundredth. Before long the words began to form, just as she had learned them from the Ainsworth Psalter.

  Shout to Jehovah, all the earth;

  Serve ye Jehovah with gladness

  Before Him come with singing mirth;

  Know that Jehovah He God is

  She rounded the corner toward Green Gate and hurried to join Fear Brewster at the door of the Tilley cottage. Elizabeth opened the door before they knocked. Mistress Tilley stood behind her.

  “Welcome, friends,” said Elizabeth, sounding grown-up. “Come in.”

  Elizabeth’s mother laughed. “Elizabeth wants to play the perfect hostess, but I keep telling her ’tis a work party not a merriment.” Mistress Tilley straightened Elizabeth’s cap to cover more of the girl’s soft brown hair.

  “It’s merry enough for me,” said Mary. “Thank you for inviting us. Having a whole day to visit will be like the old times when we could play for hours and hours without a care.” Mary stepped inside and felt the warmth of the banked fire.

  “I do not remember feeling carefree,” said Fear. “I used to worry that Elizabeth would fall in the canal.” Fear’s eyes always widened when she recalled some of Elizabeth’s hair-raising antics.

  “That’s why they named you Fear.” Elizabeth teased Fear about her name, but they all knew it stood for Fear of God. Her parents chose descriptive names—like her younger brother’s name, Love. It was short for Love of God. Her littlest brother was Wrestling, taken from Wrestling with the Devil. Their names afforded them no end of teasing.

  “’Tis a wonder I did not push you headlong into the canal, Elizabeth,” Fear said.

  “Before you two start a brawl, shall I divide up the work?” Mary placed her workbasket on the table.

  Each girl claimed her favorite spot on the benches at the table. Mary put the basket of work beside her and handed pieces of corded silk and woolen interfacing to her friends. Fear took her needle case, pin poppet, and thimble case out of her embroidered sweetbag. The other two settled in and did the same. Their sewing tools numbered among their most prized possessions. Needles and pins were especially dear. As the girls talked, they threaded needles and took felted pieces of wool and began to baste the felt to the silk outer fabric. Mary showed them how to curve and shape the fabric as they laid in the stitches. They talked and stitched, bending the cloth over their hands just where the curve of a shoulder would come and laying in basting stitches to hold the shape.

  “Mother decided to cook hodgepodge for dinner,” Elizabeth announced. “And a boiled pudding.”

  “Mmmmm.” Mary loved the taste of savory Dutch hodgepodge stew, and nothing was quite as good as a boiled pudding served with butter.

  “Father keeps wishing for Indian corn to add to the stew,” Elizabeth said. “When Father’s cousin sailed to Jamestown Colony and back, he brought corn.”

  “Indian corn? I thought he starved while he lived in America,” Fear said, looking up from her sewing.

  “He didn’t starve all the time.” Elizabeth always managed to bring up their cousin’s travels in America. Very few in their congregation had traveled far, let alone to the struggling Jamestown Colony.

  “Please, let us not talk about faraway places.” Mary wished they could stay in the Tilleys’ hall forever. “Maybe the Lord kept your cousin safe so he could come home to his family and so he could tell our congregation about the dangers abroad.”

  “But he does not fear the dangers, Mary.” As Elizabeth shook her head, a strand of her hair loosened from under her coif. “He yearns for the rich land of America.” She finished a side p
anel and reached for another.

  Mary frowned, stabbing her needle into the fabric with an audible clink as it jammed against her thimble.

  Elizabeth tilted her head as if she did not understand. “Mary, surely you know that Elder Brewster and Deacon Cushman already received our patent to journey to Virginia.” She paused, looking hard at Mary. “All that remains is to buy a ship and arrange for provisions.”

  Fear spoke gently, “I thought you knew, Mary. The men talk about it at every gathering.”

  Mary smoothed her work and wove the needle into the lining for safekeeping. Placing her piece in the workbasket, she stood up without responding and politely excused herself. Let her friends assume she went outside to the privy. Mary could not bear to sit a moment longer. Her stomach felt hollow. Leaving Holland? Could this be true? Maybe our family will not be going—after all, Father is sixty-three years old. He is the oldest man in the congregation.

  And what about my sisters? Isabella has two little children—she just started her life. Surely she will stay in Holland. Ingle’s Robert lives in Leyden, as does Christian’s beau. Would they leave?

  The once-sunny day dimmed. As Mary walked between the canal and the Hopkins’s cottage, she ran hands along the brick wall—humming a sad bumpity-bumpity song from days long gone.

  Am I the only one to feel like a dandelion puff about to be blown to the wind? Mary looked up in time to see a stork flying to the nest above the roof. A verse she had once memorized from Scripture came suddenly to mind: The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.

  So I’m not the only one to feel this way, thought Mary, as she walked back into the hall filled with savory smells and quiet conversation. It helped to remember that her Lord knew.

  Her friends were right. Three months later Mary sorted through belongings with her mother and sisters, bundling the essentials and stacking them in the passageway. The Chiltons had decided to join the first wave of Pilgrims traveling to the New World.

  Not all the Chiltons, thought Mary. How will I ever say farewell to Isabella? Her oldest sister yearned to come, but her children were still so little. Roger told her they would join the congregation in America later. Each time Mary saw Isabella, they reminded each other that someday they would be together again. It did not help stem the sadness.

  Even worse, Ingle and Christian had decided to stay in Holland. Mary refused to even think about the days ahead of them. The few times she contemplated the farewells with her sisters, her chest tightened till she could barely draw breath. She wondered if a heart could really break; hers felt as if a cruel hand encircled it, ever squeezing, tighter and tighter.

  Yesterday the congregation had called a day of Solemn Humiliation. That meant that the entire day was spent in deep prayer or, as Pastor Robinson instructed, a time for “pouring out prayers to the Lord with great fervency mixed with an abundance of tears.”

  Mary contributed plenty to the abundance of tears. During a break in the service, Mary and her friends walked along Stink Alley together—trying to keep from declaring everything a “one last time” event.

  Elizabeth walked ahead. Mary held Fear’s hand.

  “How shall we live without you, Fear?” Mary couldn’t bear that Fear must stay behind to help care for those of the Brewster family left in Holland.

  “We’ve talked long and we’ve talked hard. We cannot all go. We truly do not have the funds.” Fear sighed deeply and spoke slowly, as if she were explaining it to a child.

  Mary knew that Fear had explained it too many times already. “I know,” Mary said, squeezing her friend’s hand. “But it does not make it easier, does it?”

  The Green Gate congregation had hard decisions to make. Pastor Robinson declared that if more than half the congregation decided to go to America, he would go with them. If less than half went, Elder Brewster would accompany them. As the numbers were tallied, Pastor Robinson was to remain in Holland.

  “The worst part,” Fear said, “is that I cannot bid farewell to my father.” Elder Brewster hid in England—he was still a wanted man. He planned to find a way to slip aboard the ship while docked in England.

  “Tell me what you wish to say to him, and I promise I shall deliver your exact words.”

  Fear said nothing for several minutes. “I want to ponder this, Mary. I wish to find the perfect words. Thank you for your offer.”

  Fear and Mary caught up with Elizabeth and headed back toward the Meeting House. As they entered, they heard the swell of mournful singing from the pages of the Psalter.

  Pastor Robinson opened the Bible to Ezra 8:21 and read, “Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river of Ahava, that we might afflict ourselves before our God, to seek of him a right way for us, and for our little ones, and for all our substance.”

  Mary stepped out of the canal boat onto the landing berth at Delft Haven. Leyden lay far behind. Father hoisted bundle after bundle, containing all their worldly possessions, onto a dray headed to the ship waiting in the Delft harbor.

  A row of canal boats floated on the River Maas, anchored alongside Mary’s. The whole Leyden congregation came to see the Pilgrims off. Mary could not bear to look at faces. She reached down and scooped up a handful of soil. Truth be told, I never belonged to Holland, but Holland worked its way into my heart.

  She could not bring herself to cast the soil down, so she wrapped it in her hankie and tucked it deep into her leather pouch.

  Pastor Robinson fell to his knees, and everyone did the same as he committed the little band of Pilgrims to the Lord. As the prayers ended, the group silently looked ’round the circle. Mary tried to memorize each face. She could not help but wonder if this would be their last time together this side of eternity.

  Mistress Brewster stood with her two young boys, Love and Wrestling. Tears streamed down her face as she kissed her three older children good-bye.

  Mary could put it off no longer. Her sisters had already bid wrenching farewells to their parents. Mary hugged Isabella and Roger and the babies. “Next year, Isabella,” Mary insisted. “Next year you will come to America.”

  “Aye, Little Sister. Aye.” Isabella could say no more. As she pulled away, she pressed a twine-wrapped bundle into Mary’s hands. “For America, Mary.”

  “Write letters to us if you can,” Mary said to Ingle and Christian. “We must not lose each other. I will watch for each ship, praying that it brings word from you.”

  Mary watched her sisters huddle together. Over the last few weeks they had all talked about being brave, but now that the time for parting had come, the Chiltons wept openly.

  As Mary and her parents began to move toward the Speedwell docked at the quay, Fear rushed up to embrace her friend. “Tell my father that I love him,” she whispered, “and that I will care for things in Holland. Tell him that I will walk with the Lord, and I will come to America as soon as he sends for me.”

  “I will tell him those things,” Mary said. “I promise.”

  As she picked up a bundle and headed toward the quay, Mary prayed, “Keep them safe, Father. And keep us safe as well.”

  Later, as the Speedwell headed out toward the North Sea, Mary took one last look at the beautiful Delft Haven and added another short prayer. “And, Lord, let me find a place to belong—to really belong.”

  The Speedwell covered the distance from Holland to England in good time, but her tendency to list and tip offered the passengers a drenching with every roll. Mary and Elizabeth thought it great sport at first, but when their clothing grew stiff from the salt and their petticoats dragged water with every step, they longed for dry land.

  The leakiness didn’t make sense. When the Pilgrims bought the ship, they had completely refitted her—everything was new. Once settled in their new land, the Speedwell was to sail between America and England. The larger ship, the Mayflower, waited for them in Southampton, but she was only a chartered vessel for one passage. When she safely del
ivered her passengers and cargo to the New World, she would head back to England. ’Twas the Speedwell, their own ship, that would carry the Pilgrims’ salted fish, lumber, and valuable pelts back to England and return supplies, mail, and passengers from England to the New World.

  By the time the Speedwell rounded the chalk cliffs of Dover, however, concern among the crew and passengers grew. The ship leaked like a worn-out pudding bag. The sailors checked for holes but found none. Mary kept hearing the words “general weakness.” It sounded alarming.

  “Father,” Mary asked, “do you think the whole trip to America will be this wet?” Her ginger-colored hair usually sprung tiny corkscrews of curls out from under her coif, leaving her to forever poke them back under. Instead, strings of sopping hair lay darkly plastered to her neck. She shivered with cold.

  “Once we land at Southampton, we’ll undertake repairs yet again,” Father said. “Her rig remains faulty, though it was replaced before the last voyage to Holland. And we fear the new mast is too heavy for her and she carries too much sail.”

  “Isn’t that costly?” Mary knew they had little extra money.

  “Aye.” Father sighed. “And even more worrisome is that our departure will be delayed.”

  Even though the news troubled her, Mary was glad her father spoke frankly. She understood that the later the departure, the colder and more treacherous the ocean journey would become. Arriving in America just as the winter settled on the land was even more dangerous. There would be precious little time to build shelter and no chance of growing food to get them through the winter.

  As Mary stood pondering their troubles, she looked at the bundles of their belongings banked against the sea chest. On top of the pile was the gift Isabella gave her in Delft. At the time Isabella had pressed it into her hands, Mary had decided to wait till she landed in America to open it. It linked her to home and family. Besides, from the time she was little, Mary loved looking forward to a surprise. Before the water drenched everything, Mary tied a scrap of oilcloth around it to make sure it stayed dry.