Over the Seas

by Josephine Bell

  But Alec shook his head. He knew more about Indian treachery and Indian cruelty than his friend. Will was extraordinary, but wholly to be trusted, otherwise he would not have consented to leave his Polly in such company.

  So the winter slowly passed in privation, fear and much suffering. At any time during those months the native owners of the land could without much trouble or bloodshed have got rid of the strangers altogether. But this they did not do. Others beside the Sugdens managed to billet themselves upon Indian homes, to emerge in the early spring, shamefaced, occasionally grateful, at any rate alive.

  When the snow melted they buried their dead in the new cemetery. Some ninety souls were left out of the five hundred that formed the colony when President Smith went home. There were to be no more than sixty when in May help came at last.

  Polly was brought to bed a week before this happened. Her labour was not so easy as Anne Laydon’s, chiefly because she had found Indian food difficult to digest and had made no headway towards friendship with her red-brown aunts by marriage.

  Alec endured as John had done, well aware of Polly’s frailty and inclined to blame himself for her suffering.

  ‘Why dids’t marry her then?’ Mistress Sugden said roughly. ‘Children be the principal part of a marriage as every father knoweth. Go ask John. I warrant thy pains will pass with my Poll’s and there’s no danger in them for thee as there is, in her weakness, for her.’

  Alec groaned,

  ‘Danger! Alas, my poor Poll! My pretty dear! Danger to her or to the babe?’

  ‘To both. So take thy moanings and groanings elsewhere and seek not to interfere in work thou hast no knowledge of!’

  ‘He had not done so, but he was not too upset to see he was not wanted in the house. Mistress Forrest who had gone back to her own place when the family returned from the Indians, met him at his own door. She stopped to inquire after Polly, nodding wisely when he gave her the latest news in a distracted voice.

  ‘Nay, Sandy, thou cans’t do nought. ‘Twere better to see to thy craft for we now depend wholly upon you fishermen to keep us alive until the first corn come up.’

  This was true. So, much against his impulsive nature that demanded he find himself some remedy for Polly’s agonising delay in giving birth, he assembled his crew and put out to sea, praying his much-loved wife might be alive when he returned, even if his expected son were dead.

  Polly was alive and well he found that evening, also the child, which was a very small but well-formed girl.

  ‘Thou hast a daughter, my son,’ Mistress Sugden told him cautiously, fearing an outburst that might come to Polly’s ears. ‘The young wife had wept bitterly when she heard the news, for she knew what great store Alec had set upon a boy.

  But he did not cry out or complain or show any kind of disappointment. He merely said, ‘And my Poll, Mistress Mother, how fares my Poll?’

  ‘Resting as she deserves. Aye, go to her, son. She longs for a sight of thee.’

  His disappointment was indeed very bitter but he did not feel it at once because he could only be thankful that Polly had survived her ordeal. He knelt at the bedside, not daring to touch her, but laying his face near her hand and praying aloud that her recovery would be as easy and short as the labour had been long and difficult.

  ‘I would it had been a boy,’ she whispered.

  ‘I am content,’ he answered. ‘Well content, my love.’

  But she noticed that he did not trouble to look at the baby when he rose at last and left her. She had failed him, she thought, thereby withering a large part of the delicate plant their love had always been.

  ‘This will not be the only child thou’lt bear him, please God,’ her mother chided her. ‘One would think girls were sent by the Devil to plague men, not to keep their homes and bear their brats!’

  ‘The Devil sends plenty,’ Polly answered quick to defend her man. ‘He wanted a lawful lad of his own and I longed to give it him. Now he will hanker again for his bastard as he did before we wed.’

  This was not exactly true, for Alec had no wish to go back and indeed saw no likelihood of returning to England, nor did he intend to disturb Francis yet again by altering his friend’s relationship with the boy.

  But his disappointment went very deep. He liked women but thought little of their brains and abilities. He accepted the views of his time; it was a man’s world, in which women took a low place in men’s estimation. He continued to make much of Polly, showing her a greater affection than ever before. He remembered his terror at the thought of losing her and was duly grateful to God for sparing her and bringing her safely back to health. But he paid no attention at all to the being in the cradle at her bedside.

  Until one day, coming home from the boats he found the new-born child in Mistress Sugden’s arms, bawling her small head off.

  ‘’Tis well thou’rt come,’ the goodwife said briskly, ‘for I can do nowt to stop her. She waits to be fed and Polly’s at stool, so she must wait longer. Take her, Sandy, while I see to Poll.’

  He backed away but Mistress Sugden would have no nonsense, as she declared roundly.

  ‘The little lass is thine. Happen thou’ll astonish her into silence, seeing thou’st never yet had her in thy arms.’

  ‘I fear … ‘Too rough … so small … Come ye back, Mother, she be taken in a fit now! I’ll not be responsible!’

  For the babe yelled even louder in Alec’s unaccustomed grip, he squeezing her tightly for fear of dropping her.

  ‘Shell do fine. ‘That’s no fit, ‘tis temper and thy awkwardness. Walk her up and down; speak to her. She’ll come to no harm, a right lusty babe an’ all. She’ll see us into our graves, I reckon. Girls be more strong at birth than boys. The good Lord knows they ha’ need to be.’

  Alone with his daughter, whose cries began to diminish, Alec carried her to the door of the house to get a good look at her. The little face was red, the eyes screwed up, die mouth opening regularly to bawl but sometimes closing upon a tiny fist at which she sucked frantically until, disappointed of the longed-for milk, she cried out again.

  ‘Poor atom!’ Alec thought, with unexpected tenderness. ‘So ugly, so furious, so unreasonable, so insistent. Thoult survive us all, as grandmother says.’

  He was about to carry her in to Poll when John came running to say there were ships in the river and it looked like Sea Venture come at last to their aid.

  Sir Thomas Gates had indeed arrived with Sir George Somers in a second ship, and a pinnace carried in each. Between them they had a hundred and fifty new settlers, gentlemen, craftsmen and labourers, with plentiful supplies from the Bermuda island where they had passed a comfortable winter in surroundings they described as a paradise.

  They had come there in leaking ships, blown out of course by the hurricane, but conned to safety by Somers, who discovered the islands in time before their vessel with one sister ship foundered. Like those others who had been separated from them they made their repairs, wanting for nothing in the way of food and waiting for good weather in the spring before venturing to complete the voyage to James Town.

  ‘Seeing we had all we needed we knew nothing of your need,’ Governor Gates explained to the emaciated survivors who welcomed him. They spoke in a feeble, dazed manner, for they had grown so accustomed to death they could not at first accept their deliverance.

  Alec and his friends conducted the governor to the Town Hall, unused since President Smith had left, and to the church, equally dilapidated for Master Hunt had succumbed in January and there was no other minister to conduct a service or attend to the upkeep of the building.

  After viewing the town and giving orders for the instant relief of the famine the Governor with Sir George Somers, his principal, gentlemen and shipmasters, held a conference. Destruction and failure had gone too far, they decided. There was nothing for it but to abandon this ill-omened place, take the survivors and go north to Newfoundland, where at St John’s a new, enlarged colony was now th
riving.

  ‘We have here seen but two industries of any promise,’ Gates explained. ‘The fishing managed by Master Nimmo and the glass-making conducted by Master Laydon, They can be set up again with more profit at St John’s.’

  At this point his secretary reminded him of a letter he bore for this same Master Nimmo, so that tall Scot was called and seen privately by the Governor, after which he went home in a state of great excitement.

  ‘I have further news from Master Angus Leslie,’ he told them all. ‘He writes that the King considered a free pardon for me which he hopes will be sent with the new governor.’

  ‘But Sir Thomas hath it not?’ asked Mistress Forrest ‘Or doth the good alderman mean my Lord de la Warr, who is appointed life governor to follow Sir Thomas?’

  ‘Seeing we leave this accursed spot as swiftly as may be, I doubt me thou’lt ever see that pardon given or not’ said Mistress Sugden bluntly.

  ‘Aye,’ Alec agreed laughing. ‘Besides, it profits me nothing, for I am no outlaw here but a very respected citizen.’ He told them about his interview with Gates from which they understood that he had been given a free hand to assemble the surviving settlers for leaving.

  At the beginning of June they were ready to go. Polly feared the voyage more than most, on account of her baby; Anne Laydon was pregnant again and had similar fears for her little son. Will Trent refused to go, moved his few belongings to his second home in the forest but hung about James Town on the day of embarkation.

  ‘He hath a secret wish to go with us, but dare not leave those women nor his half-breed offspring,’ Alec said.

  But Mistress Sugden said nothing, because Will refused to say goodbye to her. Only when they were all aboard and her brother had disappeared in his usual sudden, silent manner, she spoke about him at last.

  ‘I came here to find and cherish him,’ she said, tearfully. ‘He was mad and I cured him. Now I must go and his madness hath come upon him again.’

  ‘How so?’ Polly asked, clasping her little daughter more tightly as the vessel began to move.

  ‘He said it was no farewell for he would see us all again very soon.’

  ‘In heaven above, did he mean?’ asked Alec grimly, at which the woman exclaimed, thinking of shipwreck.

  ‘Just madness, meaning nowt,’ Mistress Sugden said, wiping her eyes.

  But Will was right and he was not mad, only better informed by his Indian friends. For they had received news the day before the final embarkation of the approach of three great ships making for Cape Henry. As Gates and Somers were still in the river that day they met these ships sailing towards them when they reached the bay. On board were Lord de la Warr, about three hundred new settlers and very ample provisions of food, materials of all kinds, cattle, dogs and horses.

  The exodus was stopped. James Town was saved. Will Trent’s sanity was never again suspected, though he was publicly reprimanded for his secrecy.

  Lord de la Warr was as shocked as Sir Thomas Gates to see the appalling state the settlement had fallen into. He had no doubt whatever of the cause and lost no time in calling together the whole community to hear his opinion of them.

  It was their idleness, their stupidity, their sheer incompetence that had brought them so low, he told them. It could no longer be endured. Words of warning, scoldings, admonitions, even beatings, were no good, it seemed. So more drastic means would be applied. There would be no given rations. Each man would have three acres of land to cultivate as he wished. He would live on the proceeds, whether as food produced or exchanged.

  The early settlers were horrified; even those who had come with Sir Thomas complained, for they had found food gathering easy enough in Bermuda. But Lord de la Warr would not be turned from his new law, though he relented enough to issue food as rations until the starving had recovered their strength and the first harvest of the year could be gathered.

  To supplement the much-needed provisions Sir George Somers and Captain Argall, who had returned in Lord de la Warr’s fleet, set off at once for Bermuda to bring back hogs and corn.

  Alec was delighted to see Sam Argall again and would have gone with him if he could have left home. But as he said, ‘I am tied by my wife’s apron strings and by the swaddling bands of my little useless maid.’

  Captain Argall laughed heartily, teasing him.

  ‘She’ll have her uses anon,’ he said. ‘Nought to be ashamed of, Sandy. Thou’ll get thee a boy in good time, never fear.’

  Lord de la Warr’s very carefully hand-picked new colonists set to work with great energy to repair the whole of poor, neglected, decayed James Town. The houses they built upon the foundations of the old ones were much superior to them. They had two storeys for the most part, some even garret rooms above that, with gabled roofs and tall chimneys as the fashion was in England. They had staircases to the upper rooms with in some cases carved balusters supporting the handrails. The windows were all latticed, which gave John Laydon, now head of the very much enlarged glass-making factory, plenty of work close at hand to occupy several newly arrived members of his craft.

  Alec had come to Lord de la Warr’s notice a very few days after his arrival. ‘the new governor went down to the fish harbour with his secretary, his gentlemen in attendance and a young man called John Rolfe who made a point of speaking to Alec, drawing him aside to do so.

  ‘I think you sent home some samples of herbs, medicinal and suchlike,’ he began, without preamble. ‘Cotton, with a sample of thread spun from it and a piece of cloth woven from the thread.’

  ‘Ye be a cloth merchant or maybe a tailor,’ Alec asked, knowing the newcomer to be neither, but wishing to return to his lordship in order to show him the curing sheds.

  ‘Neither,’ Master Rolfe answered, flushing but keeping his voice calm. ‘My real interest lies in another weed—’

  ‘Tobacco?’ asked Alec and when the other nodded went on, ‘Why did ye not mention it at once? We have grown a bit, the naturals grow it for their ritual pipe smoking. I cannot say I care overmuch for it myself.’

  He began to move away but Rolfe caught him up. ‘I would be very greatly obliged, Master Nimmo, if you would show me what you have grown. I have read of the Spanish cultivation. I think I could improve—’

  Alec swung round.

  ‘Look’ee, master,’ he said. ‘I have to attend his lordship just now. But go you back and inquire for Mistress Sugden that lives at the house of Mistress Forrest. Tell her Sandy Nimmo sent you to look at her tobacco plants. Do as you will with them, or as she’ll allow you. My business is not on land.’

  This time Rolfe let him go, but his purpose was strong and he very soon persuaded Polly and her mother that he meant to improve the cultivation of the poor weed they were inclined to despise, thinking far more highly of the cotton, whose use seemed to them more profitable.

  The colony had been saved in June of that year. By August it presented a very altered appearance and though many of the newcomers had fallen ill of the usual scourges, the proportion of those seriously afflicted was far smaller than with earlier arrivals. The new personally-owned plots were showing the result of Lord de la Warr’s encouragement to work, quite literally, for their lives. A larger leavening of women helped to keep the men in the plantations, for they would not have them idling at home. Many had come as whole families with older children who were delighted with the freedom of their new surroundings, learning to shoot with bow and arrow and flash about the river in birch-bark canoes.

  But a day came in August when Alec returned from a visit to the Governor with news that caused consternation, bewilderment and grief to Polly, who heard it first and then, when she ran crying from the house, to her mother and her friend.

  For the Lord de la Warr had welcomed his fish-merchant, as he called him, very cordially. He had congratulated him upon his great achievements in the colony, upon his loyalty, upon his various military exploits.

  ‘That must be Captain Smith,’ Alec exclaimed, for he could not
recall having performed any military exploits whatever. ‘He was a very good friend to me, my lord,’ he added.

  ‘And you to him, I think,’ his lordship said, smiling. ‘I must tell you I have brought news that I postponed giving you until I judged the reports given of you in England were substantially true. Nay, do not spoil all sir, by a hasty answer. That aspect of your nature is already well known in London.’

  But he smiled again as he said this, so Alec swallowed his sudden rage and bowed low to cover his confusion.

  ‘You are pardoned, Master Nimmo,’ the Governor told him. ‘A free pardon that you are to receive at the hands of His Majesty, King James, himself.’

  ‘But … but…’

  ‘There can be no dispute, no refusal,’ went on his lordship, blandly. ‘It is a command, laid upon me by the King, to deliver to you. Sir Thomas Gates returns to England next month. You will sail with him.’

  ‘But my lord, I have a wife and a very young—a very young child. ‘Too young for such a journey, yet how—’

  ‘You will sail,’ said his lordship coldly, turning to his secretary to conduct Alec from his presence.

  So Polly fled for advice and comfort, weeping, and Alec, with very mixed feelings, followed her slowly to Mistress Forrest’s house, carrying his little bouncing, chuckling, toothless, three-month-old daughter on his arm. After he had told his tale several times over he took his wife and child home again.

  Polly loved him too well to hinder his preparations. Nor in their discussions did she ever cast up his past in his face to justify her grief and anger at their parting.

  ‘It will not be for long,’ he kept insisting. ‘I must receive my pardon and pray God His Majesty doth not keep me waiting for it. I must see my good friends who have worked for this all the time of my—he nearly said ‘exile’ but caught that back ‘—of my outlawry. I must go north to acquaint my parents of it and maybe see Dr Macllroy and the laird of Kilessie.’

  ‘And thy old love Janet?’

  ‘Aye. Mistress Galbraith and her bairns. And Mistress Kate Leslie and my bastard son, a second Francis, as his adoptive father hath called him.’