by Anya Seton
“Oh—” said the widow, nodding, and she clasped her long white hands that were scarcely reddened at all by the housework. “Thank you—maybe that’s it. Nat’s all for the South, you know.”
Johnnie compressed his mouth. “Come, Hes,” he said abruptly, and turning, they left the widow.
Blast Leah! thought Hesper, trying by main strength to recapturethe gaiety of the morning. Nat Cubby, Amos Porterman, and the proclamation—all disagreeable subjects. To hell I pitch it—she whispered, and her anger was much relieved.
They reached the Town Dock at the foot of Water Street and were forcibly projected into a new mood, for the ground around the entrance to the dock seethed with a tangle of yelling, pummeling small boys.
“Squael him—squael him good—” shrilled a voice, and a stone flew out of the mêlée in Hesper’s direction.
“Down bucket, Hes!” cried Johnnie, and she ducked.
“What in Hell d’ye think you’re doin’!” Johnnie reached to the ground and brought up a struggling red-faced urchin, held him securely by the ear. The victim pointed at a larger youth who picked himself from the ground. “He was kickin’ my cat. He’s from Salem.”
“Oh if that’s the right of it—” Johnnie released the ear. “I thought it was you wharf rats fighting the Barnegats again, and I’m a Barnegatter m’self, remember.”
“Sure, Jigger,” said the small boy humbly. “Jigger” Peach was a hero to the small fry, and so nicknamed because of his famous skill with the mackerel jig.
Johnnie turned to the foreigner. “What’re you doin’ in Marblehead?”
“Come to live with me aunt on Pearl Street. Me brother’s been called to his company awready, and I’ve no place to stay in Salem.”
“Ah—” said Johnnie. “To my thinkin’ there’s no place fit to stay in Salem. Ye’re better off now, m’ lad, but not if you go a kickin’ our cats, or ye’ll be rocked out o’ town for sure.”
“Yes, sir—” said the youth and walked sulkily away.
“Ye want to toss me the painter once we’re aboard?” said Johnnie to the small Marbleheader, whose nose was dripping blood that mingled with two dirty tears.
Johnnie’s order was obeyed with gratitude after Hesper jumped into the boat. Johnnie followed, shoved off, and hoisted the sail. “Keep the tiller, Hes,” he said. “There’s still gurry in the bilges, for all I swabbed this morning. Mind you leave that Gloucester ketch to windward,” he added sternly, as he went to work with scoop and sponge.
“Yes, sir,” said Hesper smiling, mimicking the small boy’s adoration. She cleared the harbor and all its craft nearly as well as Johnnie would have, and after they rounded the Point of the Neck off the lighthouse and the Fire-top swished along on the port tack, she relaxed into a dreamy content, watching Johnnie. He’d cleaned out the last of the gurry, an ancient composite of fish remnants, chopped bait, and sea slime, still faintly odorous but not disagreeable to Hesper whose nose was accustomed to all kinds of fish smells. And now he squatted on the floor boards tinkering with a splitting knife, his head bent, the muscles in his shoulders moving beneath his dark blue jersey, while he whistled softly through his teeth. She watched his brown hands, spotted with healed scars from the hissing line and the fish spines.
And she thought his hands wonderful in their deftness and strength, for all the scars and the black hairs that grew on the backs.
“What are you thinking of, Johnnie?” she asked at last, for he had repaired the knife and was now fussing over his tackle box, re-allocating lines, hooks, and sinkers already neatly stowed. She knew that he was avoiding talk.
He shut the tackle box with a snap. “I was thinkin’ of you, Hes.”
The tenderness in his voice, and the underlying note of portent, distracted her. Johnnie moved aft. “Watch it—you’re losin’ headway!”
She let her hand fall from the tiller as Johnnie took over, and she leaned her head against his shoulder. If we could only stay like this. The crisp sunlight, the salt smell of the long Atlantic rollers, the little Fire-top gliding over them so smoothly. Alone on the wide blue sea, with the feel of Johnnie’s arm around her and the warmth of his body coming through the heavy jacket to her own flesh.
Johnnie did not speak again, nor did she wish to. He steered the sloop to the cove south of Castle Rock and beached her on the shingle. Hesper jumped out, wetting her feet.
“I suppose I might a carried you,” said Johnnie, laughing at her, “but even a landsman should know enough to wait for the wave to suck back.”
They clambered up the “Castle”—piled masses of porphyritic rock, tawny yellow, rose, and pale green squared into gigantic blocks and cleft at the base by deep fissures. Into these the Atlantic crashed and foamed throwing up jets of spray. They scrambled to the top to a cuplike depression protected from the wind and covered with sparse earth and sparser beach grass.
“Take off your shoes and stockin’s, Hes—” said Johnnie. “You don’t want to feel crimmy.”
Hesper obeyed, tucking her bare feet modestly beneath her long woolen skirts, setting the shoes and stockings to dry in the sun.
Johnnie stood with his back to her gazing down the Neck. “Old Churn’s beginnin’ to spout, wind’s about right,” he observed. “Want to look? Much better show than Rafe’s Chasm, Cape Anners’re so boastful of.”
Hesper knew and Johnnie knew that they had both seen “The Churn” at work a dozen times, throwing spray a hundred feet in the air and booming like a cannon. Johnnie was making conversation.
“Sit down, do—” she said. He turned, and giving her a look half of appeal, half of decision, threw himself on the coarse beach grass beside her. He picked up a pebble and shied it out over the rim of sheltering rock. “Proclamation’s in, Hes. The Postmaster let me read it head o’ the official announcement. It’s War.”
Hesper gathered herself up tight, not looking at his upturned face. “Well, we expected it. The militia’ll go I suppose. It’s nothing to do with us—nothing at all!”
He sat up straight. “Hes! How can you talk like that! Have ye forgot the night we rescued the slave girl? You were concerned enough in that!”
She frowned, searching for the right words, remembering the emotions of that long ago night. There had been pity and excitement and fear, and exultation, but all tepid now in memory, irrelevant to the joy of what came later when Johnnie bespoke her on the beach.
“Slavery’s bad, of course”—she said; she paused to control the shake in her voice, went on with cool reason—“but there’s no need for war. They could settle it without fighting if they’d only try. Even if they do fight, it’s nothing to do with you Johnnie. You’re a Marbleheader and a fisherman.”
He sighed. Women, he thought—even Hes, and his mother’d been as bad. They’d argue, they-’d forget in a moment the things they’d always believed in. As if it wasn’t hard enough without their tears and pleadings.
He took Hesper’s hand and held it in both of his. “I’m goin’, sweetheart. It may be wrong, but I’m goin’.”
The bright sky darkened, the sun-warmed rocks pressed down on Hesper, sharp and threatening. Her fingers clutched at his hand. “But why? Why? Why? There’s plenty of others to go. You’ll never make a soldier. You’re no landsman. And what about us—our wedding?”
She hadn’t meant to say that. Hot tears started to her eyes. She turned from him, staring at a seagull that dipped and vanished and rose again.
“I know, Hes.” That Johnnie should speak so patiently gave her fresh fear. “I’ll not be a soldier, bufflehead. You’re right it’d be hardly to my likin’. The sea’s to my likin’ and it’s on the sea I’ll fight. I’ve joined up with Cap’n Cressy on the Ino. I’ve to report at Boston tomorrow.”
“You’ve already done it,” she whispered. She took her hand from his. She leaned her cheek against the rock. Down below them a wave crashed into the fissure and sucked back to sea with a long sigh.
“I had to while I had the
courage, Hes. I know you’d talk me around, else. I don’t want to leave you, sweetheart. I needn’t tell you that, but it’ll not be for long. Those Rebs’re soft, and I’ll wager there’s not a seaman knows larboard from starboard in the lot of ’em. It’ll be over soon, and we can be wed as we’d planned.”
She was silent, her head bowed, her gaze fixed now on a tuft of salt-rimed grass. He loved her, yes—but despite that you couldn’t get around something else. He wanted to go. He didn’t have to, he just wanted to.
“Use reason, Hes.” He put his hand over hers where she held it clenched in her lap. “It’s no different than if I was off to the Banks for a fare.”
She stirred then. “It is, Johnnie. It’s very different. I’ve no fear for you at sea anymore. You understand the sea. But what could you do against shot and shell?”
“Why, I must take my chances like the rest,” he said crisply. “Come, Hes. No long face. Give me a smile, Lass. I’ll be back safe and sound afore you know it. You should be proud, not grouty. Marblehead men are ever the first to fight for their country, no matter we keep ourselves to ourselves between whiles. And your own stock as forward as any of them.”
Yes, thought Hesper, and they got killed too. A cold wind blew through her veins; she could not smile, though Johnnie had his arm around her waist, and murmured love words which she did not hear. Instead she heard Gran’s long-forgotten voice, high and quavering. “Richard never come back. He said he would but he never come back. Crazy to go he was, standin’ right there on the rug I hooked in his fine new uniform....
She turned to him at last, throwing her arms wildly around his neck. “Johnnie—I love you so—don’t leave me—” but her cry was silenced by his mouth.
The breeze freshened as they clung together, and the distant booming of the churn mingled with the hastening crashes of the waves on the base of Castle Rock. The spray flew up into their sheltered summit to drift down and mingle with her tears. Unknowing and unscheming, she wooed him with the warmth of her young body until she looked into his face and saw the grim mask of desire, then she drew from him with a sobbing cry.
He shut his eyes and his demanding arms dropped. “Aye—you’reright—” he said very low. “We’ll not have long to wait—I swear it. I’ll be back by snowfall, Hesper.” He drew her head down to his shoulder, and her fear vanished before his calm certainty. They sat together talking a little of their future until the shadows deepened on the wall of encircling rock, and rising wind blew chill from off the ocean.
When they climbed back in the boat for the sail home she was calm and comforted. She’d been a fool to make such a fuss. Why then should she suddenly see Aunt ’Crese’s black face plain against the sail as it bellied taut and hear the rocking waves whisper “Heartbreak. Heartbreak—yo’ll think it won’t mend, but life’s got a hull lot up her sleeve foh you. De heart’s tough, honey.”
Rubbish, she cried, as she had in the smoky little tavern three years ago, the old woman was crazy. There’d be the familiar heartbreak of waiting for news, and the joy of reunion. That was what Aunt ’Crese meant if she meant anything.
She looked up at Johnnie’s dear profile, rugged and sure against the darkening sky.
Johnnie was killed in a skirmish at Gibraltar in April of the next year. Killed by a random shot on the deck of the Ino after she had blockaded the confederate steamer Sumter.
The news reached Marblehead in June and was conveyed to Johnnie’s family. His mother, Tamsen, herself distracted with grief, did not at once think of breaking the news to Hesper, and when she did ask the Reverend Allen, Pastor of the Old North, to tell poor Hes Honeywood, it was too late. The town crier had preceded him.
That afternoon, Hesper was in the taproom drawing ale for a couple of Marblehead privates who were home on furlough, George Jones and Bushy Chapman. Hesper knew both young men well, and having listened to their account of the capture of Roanoke Island was now indulgently turning a blind eye to their present amusement of matching pennies. This Susan would never have allowed, nor any form of gambling in her Inn. But Susan had gone over to the Neck, to Brown’s farm for chickens. Provisions for the Inn were getting hard to come by on account of the war.
“You any news o’ Johnnie, Hes?” asked Bushy Chapman, pocketing six pennies. “His ship still over to Gibraltar?”
“Don’t know. Haven’t heard since Christmas.”
Bushy who was not observant thought she spoke sharply, and thought her unmannerly to turn her back like that. He shrugged and drank from his mug. Nice enough girl, not bad looking if you didn’t mind ’em big and all that red hair, but not his cup of tea. This reminded him of something, and he bent across the table to murmur to George. Hesper, checking the account book, heard fragments. “Mighty tempting pair of ankles—Second house on Training Field Hill—”
Hesper smiled a trifle acidly. That would be Charity. All the boys were after her, but she hadn’t settled on anyone yet.
The jangle of an approaching bell and a sort of whining shout cut across the taproom. Hesper and the two men turned around.
“What now?” said Bushy. “Bad news by the oily way he mouths it.” The jangle and whine grew louder as the crier turned the corner of Franklin Street. Hesper distinguished the words “Peach” and “In action.”
Hesper stood up resting her hands on the counter, her eyes fixed on the window. The crier stopped in front of the Inn.
“Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Another of our brave young men gone to glory. Young John Peach killed in action. God rest his brave soul.”
The two young men stared at each other “Poor Johnnie’s got his—” then Bushy jumped—“Down bucket, George! she’s going to keel over!” But Hesper pushed them away. She ran to the door and called the crier back. “What did you say?” She listened, her face glistening white in the doorway. “You’re sure there’s no mistake—”
“There’s none, miss.” The crier looked at her curiously and waited. Mrs. Honeywood often gave him a sip of port to wet his gullet, no matter the news, but it seemed the girl wasn’t going to. He moved on toward Front Street, jangling the bell. “Hear Ye, Hear Ye—”
Hesper walked back into the taproom and sat down at the table. She put her left hand flat on the beer-stained wet top and stared at Johnnie’s ring. She didn’t say anything, or move, even her eyelids didn’t blink.
George and Bushy stood nervously across the table. “Wish her ma was here—” whispered George, “Gorm—she’s white as a flounder’s belly.”
He cleared his throat. “Hes—we’re motal sorry about Johnnie. He was a good lad.”
Hesper did not move. Her head with its heavy weight of red braids held rigid as if she was sitting for a tintype.
“Let’s get her some brandy—” said Bushy, and poured out a nogginful from a bottle he found under the counter. But Hesper would not touch the brandy; she shook her head and continued to stare at the little gold ring with the diamond chip in its center. Bushy drank the brandy himself.
George picked up his peaked blue cap. “We’d best let her be. Though I wonder if her pa—”
The door bell tinkled and both boys sighed with relief, for the Pastor came in.
“She’s heard the news about Johnnie Peach, sir—she won’t speak—” The young men sidled past the Reverend Allen and escaped.
The minister was himself at a loss, in the face of the girl’s immobility. He touched her on the shoulder. “Hesper, I’ve come to bring you God’s words of comfort.” He spoke sternly, knowing that best in shock. “Stand up and come with me to your parlor. This is no suitable place.”
She raised her gaze from the ring and let it rest on the black frock coat in front of her, her eyes moved upward over the white stock to the bland middle-aged face above it.
She put the hand with the ring in her lap, and turned her head away.
“Child, you must rouse yourself!” The minister sat down staring with distaste at the stained table. “You’re a good Christian. You know that death i
s but the gateway to a more beautiful life—life everlasting. And those that die gloriously for their country, like young John Peach, I’m sure that the Gentle Shepherd gathers those lambs very quickly to his loving bosom.”
Hesper’s lips quivered and the minister leaned forward.
“Johnnie wouldn’t like that, being a lamb,” she said. “He’d want to be on the sea.”
The minister swallowed. These Marbleheaders, Especially the old stock. You never knew where you were with them. Trouble ever since he’d come here from his quiet Maine town.
“I make allowances for your grief,” he said coldly. “But you must bow your head to the will of God, and you’ll find solace. Your church and Holy Writ alone can give you comfort. And if you cannot accept this yet, rest in the memory of all those who have suffered in the past and found help in Jesus. Your own forefathers—”
Hesper raised her head and her eyes rested again on his face. “My forefathers didn’t come to Marblehead for religion. They came for fish.”
“Really, my dear Miss Honeywood!” His face flushed and he stood up. “I believe you have no feelings at all. I’m wasting my time. I’m amazed, that you—a regular communicant, should receive me like this—I don’t know what to think.”
Hesper seemed to listen to him, and as he stopped she nodded. “You see, I don’t care what you or anybody thinks. With Johnnie—” she paused, went on in the same measured voice, “With Johnnie killed, it doesn’t matter.”
“There child—” said the minister, slightly mollified. “Try not to think about it. I shall pray for you, and return in a day or so, when you’re more yourself.”
Hesper rose. She was as tall as the minister, and he involuntarily stepped back from her, startled by the chalk white of her face, the forehead glistening with tiny beads of moisture, and above it the burnished red hair—like a patch of blood against the pine wall.