Caroline was away from the print shop on the day James returned. Three times she had tried to meet with the officer of the Committee for Three Kingdoms, making a plea for the rights to the second-floor apartment to be returned to her, claiming her late husband had held a legal lease to it and the Covenanters were no longer using it. Twice he had said he would investigate, taking her name, her late husband’s name, and telling her to call on the morrow. On the third day, he told her that he was sorry, but inquiries had revealed her husband, Sir William Pendleton of Oxfordshire, had died fighting for the King. Therefore, his lease was forfeit.
‘But his son and rightful heir, Arthur Benjamin Pendleton, lost an arm fighting for Parliament. Certainly, that counts for something.’
‘Whose regiment?’
When she answered Cromwell’s Regiment in Cambridge, he smiled and said he would make inquiries. He wrote down the name and told her to come back on the morrow. The next morning, he told her he was sorry, but the committee would not let her move back into the leased quarters until after the outcome of the war was settled and a special commission was set up to determine which properties should be returned and which sequestered. All he could do was give her leave to maintain the current arrangements.
On her way back to the print shop, she was considering her only option. She had no intention of intruding on the privacy of the newly wedded couple. The hardest part of the winter would be over soon. The attic room would have to do. Without the press there was no longer work for her at the print shop. She would find her lost income somewhere else. Better to make the move before James came back. It would be easier. She would do it today. Or maybe tomorrow morning, she thought, pulling her coat tighter against a sudden gust. The wind was still out of the North. The attic would be cold as a tomb tonight. Besides, she had retrieved a forgotten jar of pear conserve from the back of her attic cupboard to make fritters for Ben. They were his favorite. Tomorrow she would come earlier and, if the drawing room was deserted, build a fire in the hearth. The warmth would linger in the attic chimney well into the night.
But when she entered the print shop, she heard James’s voice, followed by Ben’s easy laughter. Her instinct was to turn and run. She could retrieve her personal things later.
‘Is that you, Caroline?’ Ben called. ‘I promised milord you would be here soon. Did you have any luck with the commissioner?’
Too late to leave now. She scarcely glanced at the pair sitting at the table with a pitcher of ale between them. ‘Welcome back, my lord,’ she said, taking off her cloak and hanging it on a hook by the door. Stepping into the kitchen nook, she put on her apron. ‘The lease is in limbo, subject to forfeiture because William died in the King’s service,’ she said as she began to beat eggs and flour into a bowl. ‘But I told him about your service, Ben, and that bought me a little more time. He said the current circumstances were approved until it could all be sorted out after the war.’
‘By current circumstances, if you mean that little mousehole,’ Ben said, ‘you know that will not do, Caroline. There is plenty of room here. Tell her, milord.’ Then he must have sensed the tension in the room; his tone lightened as he said, ‘James will be off seeking adventure soon. It will be really lonesome here without you.’
As if he was just going away for a little while; as if he was not leaving their lives forever.
‘He’s all atwitter with his plans. Trying to talk me into coming with him. Said Patience would probably like it fine. If not Roger’s “Little Rhody” plantation, then maybe Plymouth Settlement in Boston. Lots of Puritans and independents there.’
She looked up at him then. At them both, her face burning under James’s bold, questioning gaze.
‘I told him we might join him later,’ Ben said lightly. ‘After he’s charmed all the savages and built us a fine cabin.’
Caroline was grateful for his easy laughter, but she could not look at James as she asked, ‘Your trip was successful then?’
‘Very. When you came in, I was telling Ben that I have already booked passage on a fine Dutch merchant ship. Bedrijf is its name in Dutch. I think that means Endeavor. An appropriate name, wouldn’t you say?’
‘When will you be leaving for good?’ she asked, hearing the smallness of her voice.
‘Not for a few weeks. I told Jan, the captain, quite a jolly fellow – we became fast friends – that I would let him know for sure in a couple of weeks.’
‘Does that mean you are not sure now?’ Ben asked.
‘Almost sure. Just a few loose ends to clear up.’ His gaze at Caroline was so direct, so questioning, that she could not meet it. He talked on. ‘It is a very fine ship. Well built. Sturdy enough to weather rough seas. Good heavy cannon for protection. Ample hold for supplies and cargo. Clean bunks for single travelers. And two private cabins for families. Jan makes four crossings a year for the Dutch West India Company to New Amsterdam, bringing back beaver pelts for sale and taking new supplies to the settlements along the Hudson River. I told him I needed a couple of weeks before I would give him surety. I want to see our young man here happily married. Thursday next, right, Ben?’
‘A free man for three more days,’ Ben said. ‘I am glad you are back, so you and Caroline can be our proper witnesses. The only person Patience invited was Mr Milton, but he declined, saying it was on a school day.’
‘When do you sail?’ she asked, trying to sound as if it were just idle conversation, trying to keep the quiver from her voice.
‘The Endeavor sets sail on the Ides of March. Ship manifests are due in on the first of March.’
‘Do you have to take supplies? How will you know what is needed?’ Ben asked.
‘Captain Jan set me up with his quartermaster. Gave me a list. Basic stuff: barrels of flour and salt pork, casks of oil, farming tools, seeds for planting, guns, ammunition, some bolts of good English wool. Said he would also advise some crates of chickens and a rooster. A lot would depend on whether I intend to set up my own household or live in a common house with some single freemen.’
Ben sipped his ale and asked, ‘Do you? Plan to have your own household?’
With her back turned, Caroline pretended to busy herself.
‘I guess that depends on whether I have need of one. Maybe later. If you and Patience come out. Roger promised me, when he was here, that I could stay with them until the next spring if I don’t have time to build a cabin before winter. But in either case, the quartermaster suggested I not try to ship furniture. Simple furnishings, tables, chairs, I can buy over there. A few craftsmen are already set up in New Amsterdam and Boston. He said the Narragansett Bay Plantation was more basic than Boston or Plymouth, but ketches and sloops plied the waters all up and down the coast, trading among the settlements. Jan supplies a large trading post in New Amsterdam.’
‘So, milord. Are you going to be a farmer, a fisherman, or a trapper? Which is it?’ Ben asked.
She was beating the batter too hard. The fritters would be sure to fall apart. Like everything else in her world.
‘Won’t know until I can get my feet on the ground.’
‘What about the small press? The one you started out with. Are you taking that one?’
‘Yes, I am taking that one.’ He paused, raised his voice. ‘You are very quiet, Caroline. Have you nothing to say about my plans?’
She spooned the batter into the hot grease, trying not to let her hand shake. ‘I think it all sounds very frightening, James. I will pray for you every day.’
‘Umm that smells good,’ Ben said, pushing back his chair, coming to look in her skillet. ‘There won’t be anybody across the ocean who can make fritters like these. Did you know he was coming home today, Caroline? Is that why you made them?’
‘I had no idea when or even if he was coming back,’ she said. ‘No idea at all.’
Her tone was sharper than she meant it to be. Ben noticed. She could tell from his puzzled expression.
‘I am going to tell him, Caroline,’
James said quietly. ‘He is your family. He has a right to know some of what has passed between us.’
‘Tell me what?’
‘I have asked your stepmother to marry me.’
He said it flatly, bluntly. The words just hung in the air, like overripe fruit, waiting to fall. Caroline dumped the slightly underdone fritters into a platter, so she could escape, and plopped the platter onto the table between them. ‘This is not a conversation I wish to have. Not here. Not now,’ she said.
‘If not now, when, Caroline?’ She turned to leave. James caught her by the wrist. ‘Please sit down. Let’s talk. Don’t you think at least you owe me that much?’
He was right. After all that had happened, she did owe him something. But the way he made her feel whenever he was around, a heady stirring of her senses, a rapid beating of her heart, made it hard to think. What could she say? One by one, he untwined his fingers from around her wrist, but she did not walk away.
Ben smiled at her, a warm, sweet smile. ‘This is not a total surprise to me, Caroline. At least it would not have been before milord announced that he is leaving us. I thought then I must have misread the signals.’
‘Signals, Ben? What signals?’ she asked.
‘The way you are together. The two of you. Easier, lighter, even when we are just working, than when you and I are alone. When you are with him you remind me of the Caroline I knew as a boy. It is almost as if the world is not tearing itself to pieces.’
She sat down, her senses so raw that the yeasty, greasy smell of the fritters tightened her throat. ‘You do not feel that I would be disloyal to your father’s memory marrying so soon?’
‘Who am I to pass judgment? My own loyalty to my father is certainly questionable. Families are complicated. Sometimes circumstances force us down unexpected paths. You were a good wife to him while he lived. And as to it being too soon? Life happens faster in such times as these. I would be happy to see two people who are very important to me happy together.’ Then he turned to ask James, ‘But why are you planning to leave and Caroline making plans to stay?’
‘She turned me down.’
There it was. He was forcing her to have it out right now. In front of Ben.
She turned to face him directly. ‘And what of me, James? What if I do not want to go off with a man of short acquaintance to a wasteland that lies across an ocean?’
‘Is it the “wasteland” that frightens you, Caroline? Or is it that you don’t trust me?’
‘How can I not trust you, James, after all the kindness you have shown to me and Ben? But trust your judgment? Well, that is another matter.’ He was the one who looked away first this time. ‘There is a recklessness in this man, Ben. Or have you not noticed?’
Ben nodded. ‘I have noticed, Caroline. Though what you call reckless some people might call bold. Bold is not always a bad thing. Difficult times call for bold.’ Then Ben looked at James as if he was weighing Caroline’s words, considering hard. ‘You do have somewhat of a reputation. Do you love Caroline truly, milord? The forsaking-all-others kind?’
James furrowed his brow, eyebrows shooting up like crooked blackbird wings. ‘Do I seem like the marrying kind to you? Why else would I propose to her, even campaign to overcome her objections, if I did not wish to bind us together forever?’
She was about to complain that she was not some piece of goods to be bargained for when Ben’s words startled her.
‘Do you love her enough to abandon your longing for this venture, enough to stay here with her?’
‘Stop.’ She held up her hand. ‘That is not a fair question. You do not need to answer that, James.’
He just smiled, that crooked blackbird-wing brow settling into smooth flight, and said, ‘I think it is a fair question. I do need to answer it. Yes, Ben, I do love her enough to marry her, even if she decides she cannot leave.’ Then he grabbed both her hands, his forthright gaze riveting her own, making it difficult to doubt his sincerity. ‘I suppose that is why I did not reserve a berth on the ship. I could not commit to leaving without you. If you agree to marry me and cannot see your way to going with me, I will abandon the venture. Ben is my witness.’
She pulled her hands from his grip, searching for the right words. ‘What about all your elaborate plans? You have already sold the press. Even if I agreed and we stayed here as man and wife, how would we live?’
‘We could live by my wits and winnings, as we are now. But I don’t think you approve of that.’ He shrugged. ‘If we had to leave London because of pressure or lack of opportunity, we could go to Holland. I could try my hand at trading. Or there is that rock-pile of an estate I abandoned. We could go back there. A few rooms in the house might be habitable. But just barely. An old caretaker lives there now. He raises pigs and pays me quarterly rents.’ He paused and ran his long fingers through his hair, sweeping it back in a gesture of frustration. ‘A pig farmer’s wife? It would not be much of a life for a lady.’
‘I was lady to a conscripted knight, a sheep farmer’s wife, James. It wasn’t such a bad life, was it, Ben?’
‘Not a bad life at all,’ he smiled. ‘I didn’t realize how good it was until it was gone.’
‘You could just as well be a farmer’s wife in Narragansett Bay, and we would be our own masters, make our own living as we choose, paying no rent and only such small taxes as we vote ourselves, no king’s palaces or church wards to fund, no religious tyranny …’ He held up his hand, palm out, in a gesture that said he knew he was pressing too hard, but he couldn’t stop. ‘Freedom from the oppressor’s yoke, Caroline. Isn’t that worth a little risk?’
She could see the tension working in the lines on his brow, the tightening of the muscles in his jaw.
‘But I will marry you, Caroline Pendleton, and stay here with you because, wherever we live, whatever we do, I will be happier with you than following some freedom dream without you. Does that answer your question, Ben?’
‘That answers my question.’
‘Do we have your blessing then?’
‘You know how much I admire both of you. And I think my father would give his blessing. He was a very practical man. Not much of a risk-taker. In that way you are very different, but he would not like to see Caroline alone. Not that she would be. You would have Patience and me, Caroline, and you would be more than welcome to live with us. All that, to say it is your choice.’
‘Well, Caroline, will you be my wife? If we married soon we would still have a little time to consider together our future before some of our options close. Do you trust me enough to know that even though I will make my best case, I will abide by what your heart desires?’
She was weak with exhaustion. ‘I can’t think about this now. I realize the time is short. You deserve an answer. I will return tomorrow and give you an answer.’
‘Return? Please, Caroline. Whatever your answer, there is no need for you to go back to Gresham Street. Since I have made my intentions known, for propriety’s sake, I will take lodgings in the tavern down the street until we are married – or until I go to America alone. Patience and Ben will have the downstairs and you the upstairs. If we decide to marry and stay in London, we’ll decide later about our living arrangements.’
The silence in the room pressed on her as they looked at her expectantly. She could not breathe. ‘Thank you for that consideration, James. I will bid you both goodnight. Enjoy your fritters. There is some milk hanging in the cistern beside the back door. Best fetch it now so it can thaw.’
Both men stood up as she left the room, their ‘goodnights’ following her up the stairs.
For a long time, she lay in the dark, her mind a chaotic jumble, listening to the low voices of James and Ben below, not making out their words, but hearing their easy laughter. It was a comforting sound. Yet when she drifted off to troubled sleep, she found no comfort in her dreams, not images of turbulent seas and stormy gales as she might have expected; instead she was haunted by a sea of another kind. Tides of tur
bulent humanity pressed in upon her. Fear clotted in her throat, threatened to drown her in fury, all howling for the same thing – the bloody head of one frail old man. She woke at dawn, gasping for breath, thinking for one heart-stopping moment that she was being forced to look into the dead eyes of the Archbishop Laud’s bloody head.
The sound of Ben, already stirring below as he stoked the banked fire to life, brought her back to reality. But the dream – more memory than dream – had been reality too. She dressed quickly, washed her face in cold water and ran a comb through her hair, braided it into a bun and went downstairs.
‘The two of you were up late last night,’ she said.
‘I hope we didn’t disturb you,’ Ben said. ‘He was telling me all about the ship, about the plans he’d made …’ He left off brushing some embers back from the hearth to look up at her. ‘Tentative plans, all depending on you, of course. And I was feeling a little restless too. It isn’t everyday a man takes a wife.’
‘Did he say what time he was coming back here?’
‘He said he didn’t want you to feel pressured. Said he was going to give you a little time. He had some things to tend to. Said he wanted to see about getting an apprenticeship for Ralphie and to check on Little John with Mr Milton. He said to tell you he’d be back well before sunset and for us not to cook. He’d bring a pie and a bottle of wine. And I don’t think he meant for me to tell you this, but he was also going to check with the vicar at St Bride’s about times. Just in case.’
‘Aren’t you and Patience being married by the preacher at Norton Folgate?’
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