The Honorable Imposter (House of Winslow Book #1)

by Gilbert, Morris

  On a ship for the first time in her life, Dorothy Bradford lay on her plank bunk in the tiny cabin shifting from hot to cold and hot again, not caring if she lived or died, while her husband wiped up the mess. Then he himself took sick and had to lie down, and Humility came into the cabin to take care of them.

  Humility waited until Dorothy fell into a fitful sleep, then left the cabin. Below deck the enclosed air was soured by seasickness, although those women who were well kept the spruce planking swabbed clean with salt water. Walking was not easy, for the great width of the Mayflower in proportion to her length made her subject to the push-and-pull of the waves. With every change of wind, she waltzed with a thunderous flapping of canvas. The ship was built for roominess and carrying capacity. Below the deep hold and the upper deck was a gun deck about twenty-six feet wide and seventy-eight feet long. It was here that most of the passengers were settled. Humility had to step carefully, for most of the deck was covered with quilts and bedding. Beyond the gun deck the ship’s sides bowed together until she was only nineteen feet wide on her upper deck.

  Humility wandered aimlessly over the ship, hoping to take her mind off her queasy stomach. She peered into the forecastle, where the crew lived. A good portion of it was taken up by the galley, and the foremast came through the forward end of it. Not much space for thirty men, she thought. But sailors traveled light, and half the men were always on duty.

  She did not go below the poop deck, the sailors being active in that area, but later she discovered it contained the poop house, a cabin about thirteen by seventeen where the master’s mates dined and relaxed. There also was the Great Cabin where the captain slept and ate in lonely splendor.

  Humility had heard a fragment of discussion between Captain Jones and Elder Bradford, learning that the poop house had been divided in half and that about eighteen passengers were accommodated there—a situation that did not endear the pilgrims to the crew! But some arrangement was necessary, for there were eighteen married couples, and eleven unmarried girls, many in their early teens, as well as eight or ten very young children aboard. Most of these were in the after-house cabins, where there was some degree of privacy. That left, Humility figured, as she made her way downward to the lower parts of the ship, about fifty-four people to be taken care of on the gun deck—married men without wives, bachelors, and grown boys. Some slept in the shallow, a large fishing boat taken apart and stored in sections; others had crude bunks built into the ship’s sides, and a few imitated the sailors in their hammocks.

  In one of the dark passageways she suddenly encountered one of the crew, a swarthy thick-bodied sailor, who deliberately pressed his rank body against her in the narrow space. He grinned broadly, exposing a wide gap in his upper teeth, and said in a thick, slurred voice, “Well, naow, looky ’ere wot we finds!” He put out a stubby finger to touch her face, and when she whirled and made her way quickly back toward the gun deck, he roared with laughter, calling after her, “You can’t run far, can yer now, missy? And the gals don’t get away from Jeff Daggot—no, they don’t!”

  In her haste to get away from the man, Humility ran headlong into the arms of a surprised Sam Fuller. He held her up as she fell backward, gave a deep laugh, and said, “Well, where could you be going in such haste, Humility?”

  “Oh, it’s you, Sam!” she gasped, taking a deep breath. She glanced over her shoulder and decided it would do no good to complain, so shrugged and gave him a smile. “Just exploring a little. What are you doing?”

  “A mite of doctorin’, lass.” His large eyes crinkled in a grin, and he shrugged, adding, “Nothing to do for seasickness.”

  “Dorothy is very bad!”

  “Yes—and I’m thinking it’s a bit more than just the usual trouble at sea.” He leaned back against the bulkhead, and there was a frown on his broad face. “I’ve said all along that some people ain’t fitted for the hard life. Mrs. Bradford, why, she’s a fine lady, but she is pretty delicate. I told William all along he ought to leave her home until we get a little comfort built into the new land.”

  Fuller looked at the tall girl with sudden interest. “You had some pretty rough handling, Humility—the business with young Winslow?”

  “I’m all right, Sam.”

  He shifted uncomfortably, for there was something in her brief statement that did not seem good to him. He pulled at his beard, finding it hard to put into words what he wanted to say, and finally murmured, “Don’t be a sour woman, Humility.”

  She managed to give him a smile, and patted his arm, “I—I won’t get sour, Sam. I promise!”

  “There’s my girl!” He nodded vigorously and then said, “I don’t think anyone has given any thought to our two friends in the sail locker. Wouldn’t do, either, for the captain to be introduced to them this close to England. They must be getting a mite hungry, eh, lass?”

  She saw his design, testing her to see if she could face Gilbert, and she laughed suddenly, saying, “You’re not very subtle, are you, Sam? All right, I’ll see to it.”

  “God love you, lass! That’s the sweet spirit I like to see in a gal!”

  Humility made her way to the galley and wheedled some biscuits and two portions of cold meat from the gnome of a cook. Thomas Hinge was very slight and crippled, but was friendly, especially with the children who crowded around his small fire hoping for tidbits as he cooked. He smiled crookedly at Humility, saying in a surprising bass voice, “You ’as quite an appetite for a young lady!”

  “Oh, that’s because you’re such a fine cook, Mr. Hinge!” she laughed, and was rewarded by a dish of plum duff from the little man.

  Finding her way below was easier now, though she had to grope her way along until she got to the cargo hold. There she found a small door at the forward end of the cargo hold.

  When the door opened, William Brewster peered out, holding a candle high, and when he saw who it was, he smiled and said, “Ah, Humility! Come in, come in!”

  She entered the small room, and found herself looking down at Gilbert who was sitting on a bundle of sailcloth with his back against the bulkhead.

  He was, she saw, very pale, and the leg stretched out in front of him was wrapped in a thick roll of bandages. He looked startled as she stood over him, his eyes widening as she entered and set the lantern down on a small table—the only furniture in the compartment.

  “Hello, Gilbert,” she said steadily, willing herself to meet his eyes. She nodded and asked, “How’s your leg?”

  “I’m all right,” he said finally. “Leg hurts some.”

  “You must be hungry,” she said quietly and set the food down.

  “You thought of us,” Brewster nodded with a smile. “That’s like you, Humility.” He took a bite of biscuit, then nodded to Gilbert. “Try to eat, Gilbert. You lost a lot of blood.”

  She was not comfortable, and got up to leave.

  “Can I get you anything, Mr. Brewster?” Humility asked.

  “I have what I need, thank you.” He held up his worn Bible.

  “Can I bring you anything—” she faltered for the first time over his name, and covered up the omission by saying, “Maybe you’d like your Bible, too?”

  Gilbert did not lift his head as he answered, “No Bible—but my green notebook I would like.”

  She did not miss the bitter note in his voice as he mentioned the Bible, but said only, “I’ll bring it.”

  She left quickly, and the two men ate the food. Brewster noted that Gilbert was only picking at his meal, but said nothing. Finally he ate his share of the duff and handed the bowl to the younger man, saying, “Eat all the rest of this, Gilbert. It’s fine duff; it’ll help you get your strength back more rapidly.”

  “For what?” Gilbert asked, his voice full of bitterness. Impatiently he spooned the food out of the dish, then flung it on-to the sailcloth. “What difference does it make? I’m not going anywhere—have nothing to do!”

  William Brewster was too wise to rush the young man. He kne
w that Gilbert Winslow was, for all his swordplay and toughness, finely wired and as sensitive as a woman. The old man made no attempt to speak to the despair that shrouded Gilbert, but spoke of other things until Humility came back with a leather-bound book which the young man took with a curt nod.

  “Mr. Bradford said to tell you he’ll come and talk with you tonight. He said it would be better if you didn’t leave this room for a day or perhaps two.”

  “Yes. I expect that would be wise.”

  “I’ll bring your food in the morning,” she said, and left without a glance at Gilbert.

  Brewster sat down and opened the large black Bible with a sigh of contentment. There was a swallow of light beer left in his cup, and he drank it down, saying wryly, “I’m a very carnal man! Look, here’s the Word of God—and here’s my beer, and you see which of the two I mind first?”

  “Man shall not live by the Bible alone—doesn’t it say that somewhere?”

  Brewster glanced swiftly at his companion, well aware that the caustic remark was the fruit of a bitter spirit, but he only smiled and answered gently, “Well, something like that, I think.”

  He read steadily, immersing himself in the Scripture, noting after a while that Gilbert had found a worn pen and a small quantity of ink. He had hitched himself up painfully with the book on his good knee and was slowly writing.

  Brewster had slept little since they had scrambled on board the Mayflower, and now as the regular rocking of the ship rolled him in a soothing cadence, his eyes grew heavy, and the last thing he knew was the sound of Gilbert’s pen making a thin scratching in the small cabin.

  September 7, 1620

  The keeping of a journal is the business of lovesick maidens.

  Yet here am I, Gilbert Winslow, sitting in the dark sail locker of the Mayflower, scribbling away by the light of a stubby candle, my only companion a religious fanatic.

  The cabin is no darker than my own heart. How quickly life can reverse itself! Was it only a few brief hours ago that I was secure in the certainty of place and fortune in the service of the most powerful Lord in all of England, happy in the hope of the love of a beautiful woman? And now, here I sit in this dank hole with my life wounded far worse than my leg—which, by the way, throbs as if a demon were pounding a white-hot spike into it!

  Brewster has gone to sleep, and I do not need to write any longer. I began writing to keep him from talking to me, nothing more. He is so confounded cheerful in the face of everything! Of course, he is safe now, bound for his New World where he can preach to the naked savages to his heart’s content. To give him his due, he is an honest man, quite convinced that this world is but a bit of practice for the world to come. They all think that, actually seeming to enjoy suffering! They claim hardship endured for God is like money in the bank, that it will build up compound interest until they get there to enjoy it!

  But trying to talk to these fanatics about hard fact is like talking to a tree! They just give you a smile dripping with sweetness and ask, “Why, where’s your faith, brother?”

  In a few weeks, after scurvy hits and teeth start dropping out, I’d ask a few of them, “Where’s your faith, brother!”

  No, I will not. That’s the bitterness of my own heart.

  I pity them, for it will not be as they think—no paradise on earth!

  I have only one hope. I am strong and I will endure this voyage. I will endure the beginnings—and I will be aboard the first ship that comes to the accursed place!

  One thing I will not do—I will not join these people in any way. My lad Tink is a likely chap. But I will be leaving him as soon as I can, so no need to get emotionally involved in him. Brewster is a fine man—one of the few in this earth who would forgive another for such as I planned to do to him. But he’ll starve or be killed by savages like the rest. Humility—I cannot write about her . . .

  I will give these people the strength of my arm—but not one inch of ground in my heart—so help me God!

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  STOWAWAYS

  Gilbert’s wound began to knit almost at once, and three days after leaving Plymouth, he began to get sick of the sailroom. There was nothing to read but Brewster’s Bible, and when the older man was absent, Gilbert was driven from sheer boredom to read the mystic visions of Ezekiel and the lists of clean and unclean food in Leviticus.

  He spent long hours thinking of Cecily and of the lost opportunities of their life together. Now that she was lost to him, she seemed more desirable than ever, and the wealth and power which had been a mere possibility as Lord North’s man, in his imagination became more solid and real than ever. A dark streak of fatalism imposed itself on his spirit, and the optimism that had been a part of his character faded as the lonely days dragged on.

  William Brewster noted this, of course, and he said to Edward on the first Sunday at sea, “Edward, I’m worried about Gilbert. He does nothing but lie in that little place and mope.”

  They were standing at the starboard rail, watching the passengers come up for the first service since leaving England. The small deck was crowded; everyone who was not seasick came topside, most of them rather pale from the close confinement below.

  “There’s no help for it, I suppose,” Edward answered shortly. There was a reserve in his face that was unusual as he said, “I’m still finding it hard to believe that my own brother betrayed us!”

  Brewster pulled at his grizzled beard and in his gentle voice said, “There’s one thing we can take comfort in, Edward.”

  “What’s that, William?”

  “He couldn’t go through with it. When the time came, there was something in him that refused! He has great good in him, Edward.”

  Edward studied the face of the older man; then a smile touched his lips. “There is that, isn’t there? It gives me hope that he may come out of this business a man.”

  “I’m sure of it, Edward—but it’s going to take all our prayers. He’s bitter now, you know. I think if you’d have a word with him, it might help.”

  “All right, I’ll do it.” Edward saw that Bradford was mounting the poop deck, and said, “I think the service is beginning.”

  As Bradford was preparing to speak, Brewster looked down from the upper deck, seeing for the first time all the passengers together, and it gave him a sense of uneasiness to see how small the Leyden group was. Only twenty-seven in all, less than a sixth of the church—a minority that showed up clearly as he saw the bulk of the strangers on the crowded deck.

  There were about eighty of these, volunteers whom Thomas Weston and his business friends had recruited in London and its vicinity to fill out the plantation’s quota.

  Some, like Christopher Martin, were dissatisfied with the Church of England and quite ready to join the kind of church the Leyden exiles had created. Others had obviously succumbed to the Weston vision of profits in the wilderness and, like millions who would follow, were headed for the New World to make their fortunes. Stephen Hopkins, Brewster thought, was certainly one of these. He had already made one voyage to Virginia, and had survived a harrowing shipwreck in Bermuda. Now he was sailing on the Mayflower with his pregnant wife Elizabeth and their three children. He was a man of considerable means and had brought along two servants, Edward Dotey and Edward Leister, both of London.

  Another “stranger” was John Billington, a surly, contentious character, Brewster knew, with a viper-tongued wife and two unruly teenaged sons.

  Scanning the crowd, Brewster nodded with more approval on William Mullins, boot and shoe dealer of Dorking. He was a devout man bringing his wife and two children, Joseph and Priscilla. Mullins had bought nine shares in Weston’s company—equal to an investment of about one hundred pounds—and he had a large supply of shoes in the ship’s hold—the last of his stock.

  Some of the men were servants hired by more affluent members of the group, such as husky John Howland hired to do the heavy labor in the wilderness for Carver. Twenty-two-year-old William Butten was to
do likewise for Samuel Fuller.

  Important to the venture were two master mariners—Thomas English and John Allerton—two ordinary seamen who were to man the ten-ton shallop stored between decks on the Mayflower. They were under contract for one year, and were essential for helping explore the shallow waters along the coast.

  One other hired man of considerable importance was Captain Miles Standish, a short, stocky, tough ex-soldier who had been assigned to handle the plantation’s defenses. Now thirty-four, Standish had served with the English army sent by Queen Elizabeth to aid Holland against Spain. The last English troops had been withdrawn from Holland in 1609, about the time the first of the Scrooby exiles were making their way to Amsterdam and finally Leyden. Standish had met some of the leaders of the Green Gate congregation in Leyden, and Bradford had remembered the pugnacious warrior as the right man to superintend their military affairs. For Standish, whose only trade was soldiering, it was a welcome offer; between wars, the English government had an unpleasant habit of discharging its best men, leaving them either to steal or starve. Childless, the captain brought along only his wife Rose.

  Bradford raised his voice and began a hymn, and as the others joined in, the crashing of the green waves on the plunging bow, the whistling of the wind through the rigging, and the creaking of masts and spars muffled the reedy voices.

  After several hymns and a long reading from the Bible, Bradford preached a short message. He took his text from Deuteronomy 8:7: “For the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills.”

  Bradford raised his seamed face and said, “This is the promise of our God—we will rejoice and be glad in it!” Then he exhorted the people to remember that it was God and not man who had delivered them and would provide for their needs. He spoke briefly, ending by saying, “I call your attention to verse 11 of this chapter, where we are warned: ‘Beware when thou hast eaten and art full that thou forget not the Lord thy God, in not keeping his commandments!’ ”