The Gardener

by Catherine McGreevy

  When another storm bore down on them a week later he found he was not immune to the pitching waves and the stench of the close quarters after all. Forced to his bunk, he spent the next few days wishing he'd stayed in England. Even hanging would have been better than this wretchedness! Adding to his misery, the livestock being transported in the hold mooed and bleated in hellish cacophony, while several infants wailed in counterpoint, threatening to drive him insane.

  Just then he felt a cool touch on his forehead. He turned his head and opened his bleary eyes. He thought he must have died after all, for an angel was smiling down at him. Kindness beamed from her pink-cheeked face, while silver braids in a coronet about her head shone like a halo.

  “Worst o' the weather's over, the second mate tells me.” Her accent told him this was no angel after all, but the old woman from the bunk near his. “Trust me, you’ll be feeling better soon, luv.” She held out a tin cup of cool water. “Go ahead. Drink.”

  His stomach lurched at the thought.

  “It is all right, ducky.” She patted his shoulder. “If an old woman like me can make it through, why, surely a strong young genl'mun like you can, too.”

  She was right. The storms soon abated, the waves calmed, and the prow turned westward again. When Tom could haul himself up the companionway, he saw the white sails billow against the bright-blue sky as the ship leaped before the stiff breeze like a fox fleeing a brace of hounds. However, things did not return to the way they had been before the storm. He had made the mistake of making a friend.

  Mrs. Parker, as the old woman introduced herself, was not deterred by his grumpy silences. “Morning, lamb,” she greeted him. “Good to see ye up and about again. Here. Have a biscuit.”

  He pushed it away. The last thing he wanted was to be beholden to a stranger. From now on, he was determined to be free of all entanglements. “Thank you, no.”

  “Come!" She made a face. "A big fellow like you must eat, or ye'll be skin and bones by the time we arrive. Besides, I can't finish this big biscuit by myself, now, can I?”

  Reluctantly Tom accepted the morsel, dipping it into his water to soften it. As he nibbled its edges, he suddenly realized he was famished. Mrs. Parker's face lit up as he devoured the rest of his breakfast, and Tom was ashamed of his curmudgeonly behavior.

  The woman appeared delighted to have a companion, and he found himself listening to her life history. Newly widowed, she was traveling to visit her married daughter, she explained, who had done well for herself by marrying a scrivener in a law office in Providence.

  Mrs. Parker paused in her narrative and fixed him with wide, blue eyes. “And here I am, prattling on about meself, and not letting ye have a word in edgewise! Where are ye from, luv? Are ye staying in Providence, or traveling on? Do ye have family in America?”

  He evaded a direct response by grunting. Not hiding her disappointment, she pulled out a skein of gray worsted and a long pair of knitting needles, which clicked together briskly as she finished her story.

  “… And so me neighbor read the letter. Nicely phrased, t'was! Agnes wrote that her husband had paid for my passage so I could come live with them. They've three lovely children by now, and a comfortable home. I suppose it is true what they say, that anything's possible in the New World?”

  He listened, nodding from time to time. Although he couldn't help liking the old woman, he had little interest in her future and no wish to speak of his own. America meant a place to escape until things blew over in England, that was all. Perhaps by the time he had worked off his indentures, Lord Marlowe would have forgotten all the unpleasantness and Tom could return to England, where he belonged.

  “…. And my daughter wrote that Mr. Merkel's cousin, Miles Woodbury, is making his passage home on this very ship. What are the odds of that? A famous scholar what writes books on Thrace and other ancient lands, according to my daughter! Although why would anyone care about Thrace, wherever that was? I had trouble enough finding me way to Plymouth.”

  He had half-tuned her out, but something penetrated his consciousness. “Miles Woodbury?” he interrupted. “Did you say your son-in-law is related to him?”

  “A distant cousin by marriage, I believe. I thought of saying hello to the daughter on deck, but I decided against it. The young lady would think it was forward of me, us not having been introduced.”

  “I doubt it,” Tom said dryly. The chestnut-haired girl he had knocked over did not seem the type to worry about conventions.

  “Oh?” Mrs. Parker perked up. “Do ye know Miss Woodbury, then?”

  “I met her once, briefly. I do not think she'd object if you spoke to her. She seems rather … unorthodox.”

  “'Un … unortho…?' I haven't the faintest what that means, but my, ye do speak pretty!” She subsided in admiration. “Ye sound like a real gen'lmun yerself. I can hardly imagine what yer doing down below, with the likes of us!” She waited for an explanation, but none came. Undaunted, she clapped her hands. “Perhaps I shall speak to the young lady, then. I shall give her a little smile, first, when we pass. If she doesn't cut me dead, I might even go up and say hello. D'ye think she'll be interested that we two women have what yer might call a … a … male friend in common?”

  “I do believe anything you say would interest her,” he said, as he folded himself into his cramped berth. “She appears to be that type of person.”

  “Is she now?” Mrs. Parker mused, but Tom scarcely heard her, for he had stopped listening.

  * * *

  A few days later, Mrs. Parker informed Tom that she had gathered her courage and spoken to Abigail, and that the greeting was received graciously. Soon the old woman and the scholar's daughter were meeting frequently on deck and an unlikely friendship evolved between them.

  Tom told himself that he was uninterested in Mrs. Parker's on-board friendships, especially with Miss Woodbury. Although he was naturally grateful for the girl's help in evading the detectives, he considered the young woman unattractively outspoken, and a dangerous link to Blackgrave Manor. And, while her features were agreeable enough, with a pert nose lightly sprinkled with freckles, they were thrown into the shade by those of the beautiful Jenny.

  Jenny. He slammed the door on her memory. Isaac had warned him that he must watch himself around women for they brought nothing but trouble, and the loquacious pickpocket was right. There were a very few exceptions, perhaps, such as Rosie and Mrs. Parker. But for the rest, Tom intended to keep them out of his life as much as possible, and that definitely included the clear-eyed, plain-spoken, chestnut-haired American girl.

  Chapter Eleven

  When the sailor high up in the crow’s nest spotted seagulls on the horizon, the passengers knew their destination was near. Soon after, Tom, lying in his bunk with his hands crossed under his head, heard shouts from above, and Mrs. Parker put down her knitting with an exclamation. “Now, what do you suppose that could be?”

  Tom shrugged. As usual, he had been ruminating on his misfortunes, and he was in a foul mood. “Who cares?”

  She shook her gray head, tut tutting. “La, Mr. West! To see a young man like ye with such an air! One would think ye were a graybeard of seventy and six, not a handsome young lad with his life ahead of him.”

  “We shall know what it is soon enough,” he said without moving, “and going on deck will not make it happen any quicker.”

  She rapped him on the shoulder with a knitting needle, “Well I, for one, wish to know now.” Leaving her sewing basket, she scrambled up the companionway like a girl of twenty, and when she returned soon after, her round cheeks were flushed with excitement. “Land!” she cried, beckoning. “Come up, luv, and see.”

  Reluctantly Tom pushed himself to his feet. He felt none of her excitement—except, perhaps, for the prospect of feeling steady ground beneath his feet. But there was no harm in going topside to snatch a breath of fresh air, he told himself.

  His interest increased as he climbed up the companionway ladder,
however. A sea breeze tugged at his shirt as he and the old woman wound their way through the crowded stern, where passengers of all sizes and ages pressed against the gunwales straining for the first view. Among the crowd he saw Miss Woodbury. She was not wearing a hat, and her bright chestnut hair had pulled loose from its pins and was whipping in the breeze like a flag. Just then she turned, and their eyes met.

  Tom nodded politely, remembering just in time not to touch his forelock, as he would have in the old days. He must remember he was in an American ship now; no longer did he need to observe the old servile ways. She smiled at him in response, then turned back, standing on tiptoe to see over the others' heads.

  A loud gasp went up as a narrow ribbon of green appeared on the horizon, the first land they had seen in months. Old men, young women, children, leaned toward the sight like flowers stretching toward the sun. In spite of himself, Tom felt anticipation rising as he watched the green strip widen. So this was the New World! For the first time since leaving Plymouth, his thoughts turned away from England, and he wondered what lay ahead.

  When they docked, Tom helped Mrs. Parker gather her belongings and carry them down the gangplank, then turned to bid her farewell. The old woman was gazing around the pier with a lost look, her few boxes and bundles piled around her feet, but her chin was high and her china-blue eyes clear. “Will they find me, do ye think?" she asked Tom. "It has been years since I've seen my family. What if I have changed so they do not know me?”

  For the first time, Tom realized the courage it had taken for Mrs. Parker to cross the sea alone and face an unknown land. Most women of her age no doubt would have preferred a comfortable rocking chair by the fire and the security of a familiar home to a long and dangerous voyage. For his elderly friend's sake, he hoped she would not be left waiting long.

  Then Mrs. Parker's eyes crinkled. “Look over there! That's my son-in-law, the one in the tall beaver hat.” She turned and took Tom's hand. “Good-bye, luv. May life be good to ye. Perhaps our paths will cross again, God willing.”

  “Good-bye, Mrs. Parker.” Impulsively he bent and kissed the back of her hand, as he had seen Jonathan Marlowe do with ladies and duchesses who visited Blackgrave Manor. Mrs. Parker's eyes widened with surprise, but she accepted the gesture as if born to it.

  As Tom straightened, a stout, pale-faced young man wearing an impressive set of black whiskers and a pair of kid gloves marched toward them, sparing a brief, curious glance for Tom. “Mother Parker?”

  “James!” She turned toward the newcomer with a wide smile. “What a pleasure! Ye look splendid. Have ye put on weight? It suits ye.”

  “A touch, Madam, a touch.” He put a self-conscious hand to his mid-section. “Your daughter is an admirable cook. Come, the rest of the family is waiting for you. Tell me, Mother Parker, how was your passage?”

  Tom began to withdraw; it was clear his traveling companion no longer needed him.

  Mrs. Parker pulled free of James' arms and waved wildly at him. “Stay, Tom, stay! I want ye to meet me son in law, James Merkel.”

  Tom felt his hand clasped in a painfully firm grip while Mrs. Parker gushed, “I'm not sure but what I'd be feeding the fish at the bottom of the ocean were it not for this young man. He treated me with as much kindness as if he was me own son.”

  The bearded man bowed to Tom. “If I can ever be of service to you, dear fellow….”

  Tom bowed back, feeling uncomfortable. Here it was again, the odd American habit of treating him as an equal! The other man was clearly well educated, had a clean face and hands, and wore close-fitting breeches and a coat of expensive broadcloth and a silk cravat. A solidly respectable, middle-class gentleman. Whereas Tom, unshaven, unbathed, and wearing a wrinkled coat and stained breeches, suspected he looked and smelled as disreputable as ever a man could.

  Mrs. Parker laid a gentle hand on Tom's forearm. “If ye can tell me where ye'll be staying, luv....”

  “I’m sorry, I have no address yet,” he muttered.

  Regret shone in her sky-blue eyes. “Then I pray fate will bring us together soon. Surely this land is not so large that we will not see each other again.”

  James Merkel tipped his hat to Tom and led his mother-in-law toward a carriage bursting at the seams with screaming and laughing children and a very pretty young matron in a bonnet and parasol. Mrs. Parker turned and waved merrily at Tom until the contraption rolled out of sight.

  Feeling unaccountably dejected, he turned away to assess his surroundings. On the other side of the wharf, he saw a flash of chestnut hair. The Woodburys were mounting into their own carriage while stevedores fastened their trunks on top. Tom felt a sudden urge to go over and pay them a farewell but fought it down. He had already thanked them for their kindness at Portsmouth. That should suffice.

  Just then he saw Miss Woodbury turn and scan the dock, as if searching for something. Before he realized it, she had leapt out of the carriage and was running directly toward him, holding up her skirts with one hand and calling out, as unselfconscious as a little girl, “Rufus! Rufus!” When she caught up to him, her cheeks were flushed and her gray eyes sparkled.

  “That is not my name,” he began, his old reserve causing him to stiffen.

  “Of course not, silly.” She took his hand, laughing up at him. “You are Tom West."

  "How did you know—?"

  "Mrs. Parker told me. Isn't it wonderful?”

  “I beg your pardon?" As usual whenever he spoke to Miss Woodbury, he was soon confused. "What is wonderful?”

  “That we are here! Home, at last! I regret that I did not have a chance to thank you on ship. Father wouldn't let me go down into steerage, and whenever I saw you on deck you turned and walked the other way. If I did not know better, I’d have thought you were avoiding me.”

  “Thank me?” Once again he had trouble following her. “For what?”

  “Why, for being so kind to Mrs. Parker, of course. She told me all about you during our walks about the deck.”

  He began to feel his cheeks grow warm, a habit he had never been able to overcome. What could Mrs. Parker have said? He had deliberately told the old woman nothing about his past, evading her sharp questions to the best of his ability. For some reason, Miss Woodbury seemed to have, uncharacteristically, run out of things to say. He was not sure why she lingered, still smiling up at him.

  Then her face grew pink, and he realized his silence had embarrassed her.

  “It is I who must thank you,” he said stiffly, bowing deeply as he realized in that he had been rude to the young woman who had saved his life. “I never adequately expressed gratitude for your kindness in helping me escape those detectives at Plymouth.”

  “Yes, that was a lucky thing, wasn't it?” she said, her smile growing wider. He thought that she was more attractive than he had thought at first, with creamy white skin that contrasted with her bright hair, a light dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose adding a piquant touch, no doubt from walking without her parasol. “I knew you had done no crime.”

  How could she be so sure he was innocent? Tom wondered, but he could hardly ask her without reopening a subject he wanted to remain closed, so he bowed again. As if sensing he wished to leave, she curtsied with unwonted formality, and her smile wavered. “Very well, Tom West. I wish you all the best in your new life.”

  As he watched Abigail Woodbury walk toward her father in the waiting carriage, Tom felt a sense of relief mixed with an emotion that was more difficult to identify. A peculiar person, that one. Fresh and free and confident, and unlike any other woman he had ever known. He hardly knew how to behave in her presence, for none of the old rules seemed to apply. Impulsively, he took a step in her direction, as if to call her back.

  “You! Over here.” Tom turned to see a heavyset balding man with a sunburned face beckoning him to a raised platform on which had congregated a small cluster of men and women from the ship: indentured servants, like himself, waiting to be bid for by prospect
ive employers. Among the group he recognized the little girl with pale hair in braids, holding tightly to her mother's hand.

  As he mounted the steps, a breeze brought a foul smell to his nostrils, and he turned his head to see another platform across the wharf, similar to the one on which he stood except that the ragged group of people standing forlorn in the center were Africans, their hands and feet weighted with manacles. They must have arrived on the cargo ship that bobbed at anchor next to the Absolom, he realized. He shuddered at the sight of their emaciated bodies and hollow eyes. Who'd have thought that slaves were auctioned here, in the cradle of so-called liberty?

  When a crowd gathered at the base of the platform, the balding man who summoned him began to take bids. Tom was the first to step down, after a short but intense bidding war, to greet his new employer, a squat man with broad shoulders wearing a leather apron. Tom saw the thick wad of bills passed to the auctioneer; his new master must be wealthier than he appeared.

  The man eyed him up and down, his speculative look reminding Tom of when Blodgett had judged whether he'd fit Jenkin's livery. “You look strong enough,” the man said at last, spitting out a wad of liquid brown tobacco between his two front teeth. “Are you?”

  “I hope I shall give satisfaction, sir.”

  The man snorted. “'Sir? 'Mr. Radstone' will do. Know anything about blacksmithing?” The master's voice was as rough as his appearance.

  “No, sir. I was a gardener.” Better not to mention his ill-fated stint as a footman. It might lead to questions Tom did not wish to answer.

  Radstone hawked another wad of tobacco onto the weather-beaten boards of the wharf. “No matter, you'll learn soon enough. And lest you be tempted, do not think of running off. I shall advertise to have you returned and take the reward money out of your hide.” He peered about suspiciously. “Where are your bags?”