The Maze at Windermere

by Gregory Blake Smith

  We could not stay in the street, so she took me within, and made to show me about the Temple and how it served as a Hospital. We had then, with Phyllis attending, at least the Semblance of some especial Employment as I made it appear that I had been sent over on some Inspection business or other. The sick (for there were no injured) rallied at the sight of her, lifting their heads as best they could (for they are bedded inside the box Pews as if in rehearsal for their Coffins). Judith said to each she would attend them in time. She would continue with the next chapter of Humphry Clinker presently, but they must be patient while she showed the Major about. And could Phyllis get them anything? Again, I was struck by her Equanimity and altogether the Composure of her person, for she acted more the Matron than she did the Virgin. There was one Chasseur under the onslaught of fever, yet who roused himself in her presence and tried to pull his body upright on his tick. Not the only thing the German bastard wished upright, I’ll vow.

  The whole time, of course, I was mad with the Desire to have her alone, and with the Impossibility of any such Opportunity. And mad further, for now I believed, as I had never allowed myself to believe before, that the girl wanted the same thing. The closeness of her, the little Accidental brushing of arm to arm, the rustling of her Skirts against my side, the fertile looks, the odor of the Essential oil I do believe she perfumes herself with, it was all almost more than I could stand. Truly, I think I have never felt (no, not in all such Exploits!) so overcome with the sheer, surging, violent, whelming Desire to have a woman. Even when the damned Surgeon-Major discovered me and of course must come over, I was trembling as if I would leap from inside my skin.

  He dismissed Judith and had at me, honored and gratified he said that the General had sent someone from his Staff, had heeded his Pleas, and more of the like. He was a drunk Peacock and I could barely countenance his alternate Braggery and Sycophancy, his importuning for support, and Tonics, and divers other ingredients to make his especial Febrifuge. Jove, it was as tho’ I had stumbled unawares onto the stage of a damned Drury Lane farce!

  When finally I rid myself of the fellow, telling him to write down everything he’d imparted to me and have a Courier deliver it, I went back through the Temple, making noise as I went that the girl might discover me, but she was nowhere about. Vexed to a Fury, I departed the front entrance, and oh! the clever thing was waiting for me under the Portico! We could do nothing but keep a Public pose, yet the look I had from her eyes and the brief touch of her hand! She asked did I want to meet her? Would I come to the Jewish Cemetery some night at dusk? It was the only place! she said. She would send word to me on a likely night. I told her I died for her.

  The cemetery, damn my eyes! Perhaps the girl is a practiced Libertine!

  Apr 25

  I have had it out with Smithson. Or rather, he has had it out with me. He says he has learned that I am still calling on Da Silva and that I have been seen in the street with Judith. Says he has warned me against my continued Attentions to the Jewess. (Miss Da Silva, he calls her.) Says if he is not satisfied he will go to the Jew and tell him of me and my Character. Will go to Pigot and remind him of the Cambridge incident.

  My Character, the presumptuous fellow!

  I kept a rein on myself. Told him that he misunderstood me. That yes, the Jewess was a remarkable Beauty, what man could not see that, what man would not enjoy sitting in her presence (did the Jewess not have the most Magnificent bosom? I asked just to goad him while appearing to appease), but she was a mere child, a Colonial, unschooled, &c., and even the duplicitous, black-souled, cloven-hoofed Major Ballard would not stoop to that. It’s this damn inaction that sets us on edge, I told him, retreating a Knight. Be a good fellow, I told him, and I’ll break out a bottle I had from Da Silva. (Where does the damned smuggling Fellow get the stuff? I asked.) He turned me aside, said he did not believe me, said I was making light of it, that the Others may be, but that he was not my Dupe, &c., that he wanted me to swear upon my being a Gentleman, and upon my father’s Title (my father’s Title!), swear in the presence of the rest of the damned Officers quartered in this damned Quaker house that I would not Attempt the girl. No matter what Fit might come upon me, he said. At which I nearly blundered a Rook and told the damned Dwarf that I would do no such thing. That he had my word, and that would have to satisfy him.

  No matter what Fit, the Fellow says! Does he intend then to use my Weakness against me, my Confiding in him?

  But now, let me record this: I have had for this fortnight, ever since the Absurdity with the Engineer, the stirrings of a plan regarding Smithson. Yet I did not let myself fully entertain it for I account it an Extremity. I have only considered of it in the Hypothetical. That if one needed to, one might do this, and one might do that. So I have coldly thought it. Yet here’s the Insolent fellow! I will not have my Desires interfered with. Not when it comes to the Jewess! Nor will I have Smithson’s peasant’s mind be the Measure of what I may and may not do.

  ’Tis this: I was much taken by the story Da Silva told me of the Tidewaiter. How he brought the offending man into one of the low places that dot the Wharves, bought him a Rum, and mused about how did not the Tidewaiter think any one of these wharf Rats would do a foul deed for a few pounds, a handful of Doubloons?

  Could not a British officer, in this time of War, go in amongst these colonial Rats and take a likely one aside and treat with him? Did not the War itself provide a Mask? Might it not be used to provide a False scent?

  Doubling Point is a likely place. So was half my intention in hiking out there the other day. Could I not get Smithson, under the labor of an Apology on my part, to accompany me on a Shoot? Just he and I, good friends again. And the Rat waiting out there in the Wastes for us. It could not be more credibly done. And what a Garnish to walk up to Smithson when he lay Mortally wounded and say to the man: Check & Mate!

  And as a kind of douceur: to be rid of the one Soul who knows of the damned Incident with the Razor!

  Question: to dispose of the Rat afterwards? As a defensive move?

  And my story: We were bird-hunting and we happened upon a Rebel party. There were shots exchanged, &c. I gave chase, but there was a boat, &c. And brave Smithson, &c.

  Apr 28

  Damn me to hell! I have had word from Judith but it is not the word I have been awaiting! Rather she is gone with her father into the Interior. ’Tis a Visit they have long been meaning to make, she writes, and no result of the Love (she uses the word!) between us being discovered. But she must visit her Step-Mother and her young Siblings. It will be ten days or a fortnight, she writes. Can I wait? she writes.

  I do not know if Phyllis is gone with her, or who delivered the note. Or if Smithson knows.

  May 4

  The days pass and no word. I am in the foulest State. And a kind of Madness is come over me. I have taken to passing the Jewish Cemetery, twice, thrice a day, and at night going in amongst the slate stones as if I might find her there, waiting, undressed, ready for me. And in my Rage, I find some Wife’s stone, some Miriam or Esther or Rachel, and I undo my flies and work myself up and Defile the face of it, the name, the Hebrew writing! What is it in me?

  The pages of this Volume are at an end. I will pack it up, along with its Brother, and send both tomorrow aboard the Lark back to England.

  And with it, pray, all such Madness!

  1692

  2nd Day

  I was searching through Genesis early this morning when one of Charles Spearmint’s apprentice boys came to the house to return my pattens. He was very polite.

  And now I have found the text I was looking for and will copy it out here.

  And Jacob loved Rachel; and said, I will serve thee seven years for Rachel thy younger daughter. And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her.

  And yet how deceiv’d was Jacob, to be so trick’d that
after his Servitude he must have Leah!

  I watch Ashes from out the corner of my eye, and I am fill’d with wonder at her dark skin and her dark eyes and her pock-mocked face. And O! the love she has engender’d!

  3rd Day

  In the afternoon I was coming out of Samuel Judah’s shop just as Edward Swift was going in. We were each of us affrighted and confus’d and we could do nothing but stand and speak most awkward to one another! We could neither address what was between us, nor simply say a good day as we might have before. Finally he ask’d might he not come to speak to me later that Afternoon. I said he might.

  And now he is just gone. It was a most awkward Interview. I kept Dorcas in the room with us, and had Ashes stay about the kitchen. After some fitful topics, and his mentioning of Father, and the great sorrowful loss of my Mother, he said how much he Admir’d me, that in my Loss and Sorrow I had shown myself an Able young woman. And more of the like. He was most stiff as he spoke, rather as if he were reciting something conn’d and not of the Heart, tho’ it may be uncharitable of me to say so, for one may be awkward tho’ one goes feelingly. He said he had wanted to come to me before, but he was Advis’d against it, and truly he did not wish to press me in this difficult time. He only wish’d me to know that he Awaited me.

  I did my best to answer him. I told him I was but fifteen years of age and did not know whether I was prepared to take on what he would have me take on. I told him I was not yet convinc’d that Father would not return. I told him I awaited Light on the matter, that I could only wait further.

  As he rose to leave he ask’d did I want anything? Did the house need any repair that he might send over one of his sons?

  He is a good man. I do heartily believe that. Yes, as Jane Beecher says, he may see my house and land and my Chattels and think it a wise action to unite those to his, but what of that? Would not Father think alike were he in Edward Swift’s place?

  As indeed he is, if he be still alive.

  Oh, must my Life go this way?

  4th Day

  I have finally work’d up the nerve and have ask’d Ashes about Charles Spearmint. She says she knows of his proposal. She says she has told him he may try to earn her if he so wishes, but that she cannot Promise herself to him, for she believes one night she will be taken back to Africa and will return to Newport no more. He will find himself Indentur’d and no wife, she says.

  She cannot truly believe this. It is but more of her ill will.

  5th Day

  Yesterday I felt so cast down, and the World seem’d so gray, and there being nothing but want of Hope, I threw everything down and went out of the house. I knew not where I was going, at first toward Mother’s grave, then toward Spearmint’s to settle with him, then without intending it onto Spring Street where John Pettibone’s family has their house. And was not that the most foolish Fool thing to do? He is but fifteen years himself, and he has a Mother and Father and no need of me tho’ I know he did like me once. Oh, I pray he did not see me! Passing his house in the falling Dusk like a Wraith!

  But my Heart would not be still, and my thoughts would not rest. So I then went out Jews Street and further until I had gone past the boundaries of the town and come upon the new Ropewalks. They are such low-slung, long, worm-like buildings! Yet the workers were quit for the day so I went out amongst them, and then through the snow to the land beyond where I had never before gone, where there are no houses or paths. And there I stopp’d. And I remember’d Jane Beecher’s fancy of going away, of living alone in the Wildernesse where no one might have her. How I understood her then! and chaf’d and long’d to have the wings of a Dove, as it says in the Psalms, that I might fly away!

  Yet I am back now, for there is nowhere to go. Neither inland (belike into the hands of Indians). Nor seaward to the strange Islands, nor beyond to far-away England. There is no place but the place I find myself in.

  3rd Day

  Before I spent any more of my Heart upon this matter of Ashes and Spearmint, I thought it wise to go to see John Peele. He is accounted a kind of Magistrate among the Friends, and it would be he who I would have draw up the Articles with Spearmint, should it go that way. I wanted to understand what laws of our Province might bear upon what Spearmint proposes. For setting the unusual Circumstances aside, do I even have the lawful right to sell Ashes?

  We sat in his front Parlour with its fine paneling and brass Betty lamps and I acquainted him with Spearmint’s proposal, laying it before him as clearly and simply as I could. He was much taken aback by it, more than I had entertain’d he would be. At first I thought he merely wish’d not to entertain the Notion of a Friend, a member of our Meeting, selling himself into such Bondage, and that may indeed be a good part of what disturb’d him. But it struck me too, and strikes me so now as I write, that he found it unnatural that one African might own another. For that, he pointed out firstly, is what Spearmint propos’d. Once the seven years was up, he ask’d, would Spearmint not own Ashes, even tho’ she be made his Wife in that time? I had to say that I had not consider’d of the question in that way. To which he responded, as if discovering the matter at its root, that with his Indentures the joiner was buying the servant. He would have paid for her and would own her.

  To this I said that I could not believe that that was Spearmint’s Intention. And if it were not, would he not agree to an Article in the Contract that would make it out as such? I meant to say, could we not so write the Articles that they would make it binding upon both Parties that the weekly Payments were to be put toward the purchase of Ashes’ Freedom, not her further Bondage, and that at the end of the seven years’ term, both she and Spearmint would be free?

  Mr. Peele then rose from where he was sitting and with a thoughtful air went and stood at the window. After a time of Reflection he said without turning back to me that he understood the great Difficulty I found myself in, and that he was perhaps remiss in not taking that into consideration. He then said in the kindly Manner I know him for, that we would put our heads together and think this through, and he came back and sat beside me again.

  So we talk’d a good deal, first of how such an Arrangement might be made, whether it were necessary that Spearmint live in the house, what Benefits there might be to me in his doing so. There were also Matters I had only dimly thought on, such as the unusual status of Spearmint’s apprentices being Freemen apprentic’d to an indentur’d Servant, and then, delicately, the question of a child. For if Ashes and Spearmint were to have issue, by the laws of the Colony, Mr. Peele pointed out, the child would be a slave and would belong to me. For all of these matters, we thought Articles could be written into the Covenant to satisfy the parties. There was also the matter of Freedom dues. For it seems in Articles of Indenture there is a giving of land and other goods to the Servant at the fulfillment of his Term. I had not known of this and said there could be no question of any such. That Spearmint had already a Trade and a place of business. The Articles were solely for the purchase of Ashes’ freedom, that Ashes was to be his Freedom dues. To which John Peele smil’d and call’d me a good man of business. That he would mind in future any Transaction he might have with me.

  As I was about to leave he ask’d had I thought any further on Edward Swift’s offer. I paus’d at this and then told him how, at the beginning of the winter when he first came to me with Mr. Swift’s proposal, I had not been able to fancy myself a Wife. But that now, tho’ only a few months had pass’d, I had grown in my own thought and in my own heart in ways that made me think I could be married. Married, I said with what I hope was a not unkind smile, but not to Edward Swift. That I had not told Mr. Swift so with any such baldness, but that I believ’d he understood all the same.

  He ask’d then did Dorcas and I have enough in store, and did we have enough money to get through the rest of the Winter. I told him that there was yet a little Specie in our Bible box, to which he ask’d was that but ou
r everyday money, and had not Father a hidden place where there might be a more substantial amount? I said I did not know of any such.

  2011

  He was in the maze and damn him if he wasn’t lost! He had the briefcase with him, had come out to Windermere to give it to Alice—a last gesture before he washed his hands of them all—and had been met at the door by one of the Salve Regina girls who lived on the third floor and helped with the running of the house. She’d told him Alice was in the maze. Reading, she’d said. So he had gone in, had even done what the college girl had told him to do, to always keep his right hand to the hedge wall as he went, but somehow he’d gotten off, thought he’d be clever and avoid this or that cul-de-sac and now he was messed up, lost, certain he’d passed that bit of dead growth before. He would have turned around and left if he could have—he was nervous enough as it was, worried again that the briefcase was a stupid idea—but he no longer knew whether he was going in or coming out. He had several times the impulse to call out, to call “Alice!,” to laugh and ask her to say something so he could follow her voice. But no, that wasn’t any good either.

  And then suddenly he was there. The narrow path opened onto a little trapezoid of lawn where there was a chaise longue and an iron café table. But there was no one there. He did a three-sixty but there was just the monotonous green of the hedge. He hefted the briefcase from one hand to the other and, just as he did, noticed on the glass top of the iron table a little ring of water like that left by the sweating of a summer drink. He touched a fingertip to it. It was cold.