Our Own Country: A Novel (The Midwife Series Book 2)

by Jodi Daynard

  The child looked at me, then at Cassie.

  “I like the name Isaac,” he said.

  I took the child’s hand and said, “Very well, then, Isaac. Let us go before we miss the ferry.” And off we went down the hill, toward the ferry and the bright rising sun.

  On the skiff, the child clung to me in terror, but we made it safely across the river and were soon on the island. All around us, men were busily engaged in their tasks. There was such an overall feeling of industry—the noise of hammers, anvils against stone, and the rasping of saws—that Isaac forgot his fear, and his eyes widened in amazement.

  “You see that?” I pointed to the hull in the distance, its ribs curved like the carcass of a whale. “That’s the ship these men are building. It’s a big warship. It’s called the Ranger. In another month, it will have guns upon it and flapping sails. Wouldn’t you like to help these men build a ship of war?”

  The boy turned to me, his eyes eager. Then some anxious thought occurred to him, and he shrank back in fear. “Miss, I don’t know how to build a ship.” In his voice I heard the fear of bloody whipping. I knelt by his side and whispered, “No one shall whip you here. If they do, I’ll shoot ’em with our musket.” At this outlandish thought, Isaac grinned. “Besides,” I added, “you shall have a big brother to watch over you now.”

  “Who? Who’ll watch over me?” he asked dubiously. Isaac cast his eyes about the many white faces. He would have been foolish to believe me without further proof. Which white man would protect him? Nary a one.

  I took the child by the hand, and together we approached the Ranger’s hollow hull. She had not yet been mounted on staging, but around her, half a dozen men were in the process of building the frame upon which she would soon rest. As we approached, I cast about for Watkins.

  He was not among the shipwrights but stood by a lean-to, staring down at an architectural drawing. His figure was silhouetted against the rising sun. He stood with his weight on one leg, in an attitude of indecision. His forefinger rested on the drawing, and he had a dissatisfied air. He then turned quickly, as if to seek someone out, and found me instead, holding the hand of a Negro boy.

  Watkins was surprised to see me, but he approached at once and bent down to address the child. His hair was loose and fell in tightly twisted coils about his shoulders. He had grown a small goatee, hair such as may be worn only among shipwrights and sailors. But it lent his fine features an appealing ruggedness.

  “Hallo, there,” he said to the boy, then nodded civilly to me. “Well, sir,” he continued as he knelt upon one knee and addressed the child. “Who might you be? You’re not by any chance King George, are you? They say he’s very short.”

  Isaac giggled and shook his head.

  “No? I’m relieved to hear it, for otherwise I should have to chop off your head. Here, shake my hand. They call me Watkins. And you are?”

  The boy looked at me.

  “This is Isaac,” I found my voice. “He’s going to be staying with us.”

  “Well, it’s very good to meet you, Isaac,” said Watkins. The child reached to keep his new shirt from ballooning in the breeze. Collarless, and made of fine linen, it billowed around the child. The shirt must’ve once belonged to Cousin George.

  “I would give you a tour,” Watkins continued, “but I’m afraid I can’t break away from work just yet. Would you come back tomorrow? If you come at eleven, I could show you what important work we do for His Excellency. Would you like that?”

  Isaac nodded. He glanced at me, and I knew his question.

  “I’ll come as well, if I may,” I said. “Isaac, I need to speak to Watkins. Perhaps you could look for shells on the beach? You may keep the ones you find. But don’t go too far—I shall call for you shortly. Do you understand?”

  He nodded. “But—”

  “Yes, Isaac?”

  “I’m hungry.”

  I smiled. Children’s needs were so simple, compared to ours! “As it happens, Isaac, Cassie packed some provisions. Go find a rock to sit on so you don’t dirty your trousers. If you eat everything Cassie packed for you, you can then fill your rucksack up with shells.”

  The child looked at me twice to make certain I was sincere; he then ran off to find a flat rock.

  I led Watkins off in the other direction, out of the child’s earshot. Alone with him, I grew suddenly awkward. He stood several feet away from me, head turned to the side, glancing now and again at the strange child I had brought.

  “There’s a story in that boy,” Watkins said, “but I’m sorry I cannot hear it just now. I dare not stop, when so much is in my care.”

  “I understand,” I replied. “We’ve not as yet pried much from him, but I’ll willingly tell you all I know.”

  “Tomorrow, I have a few minutes at eleven, then an hour at two in the afternoon. I usually eat with the other lads—”

  “Yes,” I said, leaning in to whisper. “But allow me to say what presses so upon my mind. It won’t take a moment. Cassie and I, we are praying the boy may apprentice here, at the shipyard. He’s a runaway, and we have little doubt that his owner looks for him as we speak. The boy landed on our doorstep just yesterday. Isaac is not his real name—he won’t tell us it. I believe his life, his survival—”

  “Say no more,” Watkins replied. He then glanced back toward the Ranger. “But I must go.” Then, suddenly, Watkins took my hand in his, looked gravely at me, and departed.

  I sucked in my breath and just stood there a moment or two, while Isaac ran up and down the beach gathering shells.

  22

  THE WIND WHIPPED MY FACE; MY HAND still felt his hand on mine. My ear still heard his soft voice in my ear. I allowed myself a moment of purest joy. The sun was descending and cast its long shadow upon the shore. I felt myself cast in shadow, too. What did I hope? I dared not answer. But his touch had given the lie to my belief that he cared nothing for me or I for him.

  Once home, Isaac fairly skipped into the kitchen, eager to show off his shells. A moment later, Cassie opened the kitchen door with her foot and hip.

  “Miss Eliza,” she scolded. “What you tink lettin’ ’eem in wit’ all dees sand. Here . . .” She thrust a pail at me and waved us both off to the well to wash the shells clean. “I just wash de floor, and ’ee goin’ to track sand all ovah de house. Your Mama is already in a terrible way . . . she gone to fetch de constable.”

  I stood motionless, believing that Mama had reported Isaac. But Cassie, with one look at the child and a slight shake of the head, gave me to know I was mistaken.

  “Wash dose shells, den I tell you. Oh, dees ’ees too much for one day. Poor Cassie heart gon’ stop ’eets bee-tin’ . . .”

  I ran with Isaac to the well and, in my haste, splashed water all over my petticoat, which Isaac found vastly amusing. As a reward for his laughter, I poured the rest of the bucket on his head.

  “Ai!” he cried. “Miss Cassie!” Cassie came out and was not pleased to have to dry Isaac off and fetch another of Master George’s old shirts.

  The shells were soon clean enough to gain admittance to the house, and Cassie set Isaac up with them on the floor in her chamber. She then turned to me. I asked, “Why has Mama gone off to fetch the constable?”

  Cassie could not suppress a guilty smile. “What do you know, Miss Eliza, but Linda has gone and run off wit’ Bristol Wood’ouse!”

  I dropped the bucket and stared at her. Bristol Woodhouse was the slave of that same Mr. Atkinson whose ill fortune it was to be invited to our Thanksgiving dinner. Now he, a goodly carpenter by reputation, had gone off with our Linda. I turned and fixed my eyes upon Cassie, who shrank from my gaze.

  “I thought you said Linda and Watkins were a couple. Indeed, you have spoken of little else these six months.”

  Just then, my mother burst into the kitchen with Constable Hill, Uncle Robert not far behind them. They both looked greatly disconcerted. He had lost a valuable piece of property, and Mama had lost her lady’s m
aid—she would not find such a one as Linda anywhere in the colonies.

  “And here I thought her so pliant, so amiable!” Mama was saying to Constable Hill.

  “Oh, Sister, those people run deep!” added Uncle Robert.

  “Mama,” I rejoindered, standing in front of Cassie, “you can hardly blame a slave for wanting to be free.”

  “I don’t see why not,” Mama objected. “What else could she do? Where could she possibly go?”

  I thought it prudent not to reply. Suddenly we heard the faint clack of Isaac arranging his shells on the floor of Cassie’s chamber. With a gasp, Cassie ran to her room and shut the door behind her. The clacking ceased.

  “What on earth’s the matter with her?” asked Mama. Clearly Uncle Robert had not as yet told Mama about the boy.

  “I have no idea.” I glanced at Uncle Robert, who made as if not to notice me.

  I held my breath in the awkward pause before Cassie returned. Such good and ill fortune at once! Emerging from the old dairy at last, Cassie wiped the perspiration from her brow and, to Constable Hill’s query, said she knew nothing of the clandestine affair. I for one believed her. While Cassie was an able liar, I did not believe her capable of convincing me of an attachment between Linda and Watkins when she knew of another.

  “But Mama, we mustn’t keep Cassie from her work. Let us away to the parlor, where we may offer Constable Hill a seat.”

  “Oh, goodness, you are right.” And we left the kitchen for the relative safety of the parlor. Once there, and seated, however, there seemed little to discuss, and I suggested we look in upon the nursery. The four of us tromped up the stairs to the attic, where we discovered Linda’s bed neatly made, her Sunday frock draped over a chair.

  “Seems she had it planned well,” observed the constable. “To my way of thinking, she must have had help.”

  Signs went up all over town about a pair of runaway slaves. Guards were posted on the roads north and south leading out of town. Stoodley’s coach service was notified, though we doubted any coachman would risk his neck for a pair of slaves. But, after a few days, the couple did not appear, and it was determined that they’d managed somehow to escape the net cast around Portsmouth.

  For six months I had suffered Watkins’s growing attachment to Linda. It had been an exquisite pain, clear and cleansing, each stab telling me that he was ne’er to be mine. Now I recognized the danger to me that came with the freedom to hope. I knew not whether I would have the strength to create another impediment.

  Up to this point my attraction to Watkins had been of a fairly superficial nature. But the week Linda escaped, I learned certain facts that had a powerful effect on my feelings toward him.

  That Sunday morning before meeting, I was standing in the kitchen helping Cassie prepare our dinner when I heard my uncle in the hallway just beyond us. He was speaking to Watkins. I missed the first part of the conversation, but when it grew louder I clearly heard Watkins say,

  “I’m sorry, sir, but I’ve spent it.”

  “Spent it!” my uncle cried. “On what, pray, did you spend my money?”

  I cast a look at Cassie and moved quickly to stand behind the kitchen door, where I peered out to see Watkins, head bowed abjectly as he stood before Uncle Robert.

  “On shoes,” Watkins said. “These ones are nearly spent.”

  I looked down at his shoes. It was true, they were very worn. Why then, I wondered, did he not wear the new ones?

  “I should whip you, boy!” said Uncle Robert. “But the people don’t approve of that anymore—not even thieves may be whipped these days. Oh, well, but you may keep your shoes—I suppose you need ’em. But you must request a pair next time, not simply take matters into your own hands.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Watkins humbly.

  When they had both gone, I turned to Cassie. “That was very odd, Cassie. Watkins just told Uncle Robert that he’d gone and bought shoes with the money he made at the shipyard. Yet he is not wearing them. Why is that, do you think?”

  Cassie looked at me as if she considered lying. But a clever reply did not come to her, and so she said,

  “Dat money in Linda’s pocket, dat’s why.”

  “Linda’s pocket! Why, Cassie, he might have been whipped once more—or worse! It was very foolhardy of Watkins to risk his neck for a pair of runaways.”

  Though feigning annoyance with Watkins, tears of pride had welled involuntarily in my eyes.

  “Here,” said Cassie flatly, proffering a handkerchief from her pocket. “Dry your eyes.”

  On Monday morning, I accompanied Isaac to Badger’s Island for his promised tour. It was cold and windy when we arrived, somewhere before eleven. Once upon the island, I wrapped a blanket around the both of us, and we climbed the dunes.

  Isaac emerged from the blanket and ran after the gulls. I chased after him, he running even faster to keep away from me, until we found ourselves laughing and breathless at the northern tip of the island. At eleven we were far down the beach when we heard the bell announcing break. Isaac then raced back toward the shipyard. My feet tripped over the blanket that I kept about my shoulders, and I was out of breath by the time we reached the Ranger, my bonnet having flown off not once but twice, requiring me to run after it.

  Back at the shipyard, one hundred or so men had put down their tools and gathered around makeshift boards for their grog. They eyed me and the Negro boy. I did not see Watkins but heard him call Isaac’s name. Isaac grinned.

  There he stood, this John Watkins. He was every bit as hale and handsome, alas, as he had been the day before.

  “Hallo, there,” he addressed the child. “Here, have a sip of grog. No? If you’re to be a proper shipwright, Isaac, you’ve got to have yer pint.”

  Watkins’s hands and shirt were covered with a dark substance that looked like gunpowder. Why would he be working with such a thing at a shipyard? He went off for a moment and returned with a mug, which he proffered to Isaac. Isaac took it in both hands, sipped, and then made a face as he spat the grog into the sand.

  Watkins laughed, his face revealing a pair of fine dimples. “You’ll get used to it. Come on.” He took the boy’s hand. “I’ll show you what it takes to build a real warship.” Having stooped down for Isaac, he glanced inquiringly at me and whispered, “Do you leave at once for home?”

  I had no wish to leave, but it was too cold and windy to remain long on the island. I nodded. Then I added formally, “I shall return to fetch Isaac at two.” Then I whispered, “If anyone asks, you might say he’s Cassie’s son.”

  Watkins nodded slightly, and there followed a silence. What came from me next surprised both of us.

  “Perhaps, Watkins—perhaps I might bring a fishing line tomorrow. Yes”—I warmed to my subject—“I should like to learn to fish, and be of use to my family.”

  Watkins nodded once more: “Certainly. Bring a rod, and, if you wish, I can show you how.”

  “Have we a fishing rod about?” I asked Cassie casually, upon returning home. She was on the stairs, heading up to see Mama, who had taken to her bed at the shock of Linda’s escape.

  “You’re not having Isaac fish? Da fish bigger’n ’ee is.”

  “No, no. Don’t be uneasy. It’s for myself alone I inquire.”

  “Master George had one,” she said. “What you want with ’eet?”

  “What I want with it is my business.”

  “Well, then, you may fetch your own business your own self. Master George kept it in the stables.”

  “Thank you,” I replied curtly, and off I went to procure the rod. I found the pole covered in cobwebs, propped against a corner of the barn. It was quite long: near eighteen feet—an old, noble pole, fashioned several generations ago, made of fir and flexible as a whip. As I left the stables, Jupiter called after me, wagging a black, bony finger, “Caution, Miss Eliza. You’re as like to trip and kill yourself with that as catch a fish.”

  “Oh, no.” I smiled. “I’ll manage.” Bu
t, despite my attempts to keep it on my shoulder, the rod bent and dragged on the ground. Its long horsehair line and hook kept coming unraveled. I finally found a means of tucking the line securely beneath the pole on my shoulder, but in the commotion I left the blanket behind, which I soon regretted, as the wind bit shrewdly.

  The ferryman muttered something about the pole being longer than the boat, but he helped me set it over the rim of the vessel so that it dragged behind us. Once we had nearly reached the island, he looked at me and said, pipe still in his mouth. “Where’s yer bait?”

  “Bait!” I cried, having forgotten all about it. “I—I believe one of the men has some. He means to teach me.”

  The ferryman snorted derisively, waving his pipe for emphasis. “Why, you can barely lift the thing.”

  “Indeed I can.”

  “Ha. Well, good luck to you, miss.” Here, he let out a phlegmy laugh.

  I continued to be an object of ridicule as I dragged the enormous rod up the dunes. Yet such is the power of a being to deceive himself that I truly believed I wished to fish.

  Some of the men ceased their labors to observe me, and Watkins himself came striding over, one large hand grasping Isaac’s head as one would a melon, and Isaac kept rolling his eyes up and giggling. Watkins said, “Miss Boylston. Have you your lures? If not, I can provide some.” All this was said in a perfectly audible tone. Watkins then turned to a young mate who had sat down on a rock with his gunnysack, ready to tuck into his dinner. “Jim, would you mind keeping an eye on this lad while I attend to Miss Boylston? Isaac, be very good, and do not stray. Can I trust you?”

  Isaac nodded, for he was by now entirely smitten with the kind and able shipwright.

  Watkins then strode off to the master’s lean-to, where he rummaged through a pile of refuse and found several bits of discarded meat. These he placed in his handkerchief and returned to me. He then took my rod and held it up by one arm, resting it on his left shoulder.