Though the servants called him Shrimp, we women knew Captain Myles Standish as the Man Whom Even the Maidservant Would Not Marry.
Once, Myles Standish sent his newly freed indentured servant, Allard, to ask a maidservant’s father if he could come to dinner that Saturday. A man inviting himself to dinner nearly always meant a proposal.
In hearing Captain Standish’s request, the maidservant, Sara, asked of the courier, And what of you, Master Allard?
The courier understood this to be perhaps his only opportunity to save a woman he admired from an ill-suited marriage.
Would you marry me? Master Allard asked.
Sara said yes.
The courier returned to Captain Standish with great apology, but of course, not deeply sorry, as Master Allard married Sara two weeks later. Captain Standish outwardly supported the marriage, but he found small ways to punish his courier. When the time came to separate the parcels, for instance, he granted the courier marshland and the oldest cow.
In a colony as small as ours it was difficult to refashion yourself. Outwardly, he was Captain Myles Standish, but amongst us women, he was less. After that incident, he wrote to the sister of his first wife in Holland. Barbara joined us a few months later.
Every Sunday after Captain Standish married Barbara, we gathered in front of their house to begin the church processional. Standish beat a drum until the crowd gathered. He wore a long cloak and side arms, carried a small cane in his right hand and his musket on his left shoulder. In a line of three across, with the elders—William Brewster and my husband—by his side, they led the way to the meetinghouse for services. My husband always wore his long black robe and his musket, as did William Brewster, and the other men lined up behind them, each carrying their muskets as well. We women followed. Once inside the meetinghouse, each man propped his firearm beside him, furnished with at least six charges of powder and shot, as was custom, and which would later be law. Even on the Lord’s day, the men were on guard.
It seems God is looking for a chuckle today, Susanna said.
She tipped her head to the two people coming down the path, toward Standish. It was the maidservant who had famously declined him. Sara was very pregnant and holding her new husband’s hand.
Good day, we heard Standish say, in a harried voice.
It was an entirely ordinary day. None of us women saw the signs of what was to come.
Eleanor Billington
I’m punching the dough, right, readying for my turn at the oven and I get to thinking. Talking. John’s at the table cleaning his musket, waiting on his lunch. Pushing the rod in and out. Our son Francis, good boy, out in the field. One son in the field working, one son behind our garden in a grave.
We have every right to that meal as they do, said I.
He said nothing.
Master Billington. Ye hear me?
He held the barrel up to the light. Blew. A puff of gunpowder on his moustache.
We don’t need what they are giving. I’ll walk on by that way, tip my hat, let Weston know I’m watching. Maybe hold my musket in my right hand. Scare him a bit.
John put on a growly bear of a face, but I knew he preferred to let the spiders find their way out of our house than smack them himself.
My sons, as I said, they liked to wander. Six months here, it was my youngest, Francis, that climbed the tallest tree at the top of the hill and spied with his great eyes a lake. He ran to tell Standish, sweet naive boy that he was, wanting to make the soldier proud of him. Standish called him a liar.
My son came home crying.
So I went to Standish.
I said, How dare you call my boy a liar.
Apologize, said I.
That scoundrel would not. I took my boy’s hand and marched out of the meetinghouse and past it.
I told my boy, Show me.
I could not climb as high as he, but I could ride a horse faster than any other woman. We took our neighbor’s horse—nay, borrowed, for I returned it—and rode two miles west.
Betwixt the trees, there it was. The smoothest, biggest lake I’d ever seen.
Francis Billington Sea, I said to him.
We whooped and called it across the water. There was no one to hear us, but the birds took flight. How proud I was of him.
We went back to Standish the next day. I told him I’d seen it with mine own eyes. I thought his eyes would fling from their sockets. Since my boy had found the lake, it had to be named Billington Sea.
I punched the dough harder. That Weston, that Standish, that Bradford. All of them disrespecting us so.
My husband made to leave with his gun.
Where you off to? I asked him.
An errand, he said.
An errand? I said. Only errand you’ve ever done without saying so is going off to find more liquor.
He snorted. I knew he was up to something, but whatever it was, it was his business, not mine.
Perhaps I should have called my son to follow him.
Newcomen
After lunch, John Newcomen walked past the palisade, past the guards, out again into the fields, out into his land. The palmy green leaves of sassafras in the undergrowth, swaying in the wind, the tall thin pines, the heavy-trunked oaks and maples letting in shaded light, the gentle sound of fresh water from the brook. If ever he had known God, he’d known Him in the forest. Now the bed of needles his feet stepped upon were his, as was everything his eyes and the trees would let him see. He stretched out his hands as if to hug it all, all ten acres.
He noted what trees would be best for lumber. He was ready to begin building.
Eugenia was waiting for him to send a letter and money to board a ship to bring herself to him. He wanted to work quickly.
As soon as the house is made, I’ll send for you, he’d told her seven weeks ago.
They were at the shore he would depart from, overlooking the waves of the ocean. Sun close to setting, his last night in England.
She frowned.
He kissed the tip of her upturned nose and tried again. Before the next harvest.
Eugenia would not lay with him, despite every way he tried, even whence he proposed, even on his last night. She was waiting for the ceremony. He did not know a woman’s body intimately and did she know it would make his want for her stronger? But what if he perished?
She was unmoved.
John Newcomen walked his property line and thought of her, wanting to know the edges of what was his, and absorb intimate knowledge of where he should set their house, where she would plant her herb garden, where their children would roam.
He found an oak tree, an ideal tree to begin his house with, and while he felled the tree and measured with his feet what he would need, he thought of her.
Here he was, in his future. The one he’d skipped dinner on Sundays for three years to afford. If his mother were alive she would have been proud of him. He’d done what they’d always wanted to do: He had escaped rotten England, and if she were still alive he would have sent for her next, after Eugenia. He looked at the rocky soil. Our children will help clear these stones. We’ll mark their height as notches on the walls I build. When first he had watched Eugenia betwixt the trees, with her younger siblings, hanging laundry and singing them a song, when first he saw her thus he thought, nay he knew, Eugenia would make a good mother. It pleased him to think of her living here, this land he could bring her to, this house, these fields, these birds, this brook, this future.
She was a fair woman. Someone who believed he could do what he promised. He was a man who needed someone to see in him the bravery and steadfastness he wanted to see in himself but at times did not believe he possessed.
Newcomen had made progress on the tree, nearly felled, but his revelry was interrupted.
Hello there, a man’s voice said.
He had heard no man approach. John Newcomen turned around. The voice was confident, which somehow made it eerie. But it was only his new neighbor to the right, crossin
g their shared boundary. A bony man, with dark curly hair and a downward gaze.
Billington’s the name, the man said and held out his hand.
Newcomen reminded himself of who he was—John Newcomen, a landowner, not a servant—and gave Billington a firm handshake.
It seems, Billington said, Standish has told you what is mine, is yours.
Newcomen looked around.
You are building on my property.
Newcomen stared at Billington, trying to assess from what was before him—moustache, worn clothes, greying tooth—how much power Billington had and, therefore, how he should respond.
Are you dumb? This is my tree you’ve cut into. And now you owe me for it.
I’m just following the map I was given.
I’m sure you don’t want any trouble. Your land starts there, he said, and pointed to a tree three or more acres away, which would have reduced Newcomen’s acreage considerably.
John Newcomen thought, I’ve been out here all morning. Why are you waiting until now to tell me? But also, This man is lying.
John Newcomen said, Is that so?
Billington nodded his head with exaggeration, as if Newcomen were empty-headed.
I’ll inquire again with Standish.
I wouldn’t trouble him, Billington said. Best just to take my word. Over there, now, by the pine, not the oak. You can leave this tree.
Newcomen looked at the oak. He looked toward the pine Billington was claiming was the start of his property line.
Tell you what, you leave it here, don’t need to pay me. It is a waste, as I wanted the shade, but seeing as you are new and did not know …
On the ship over, John Newcomen had sworn that in his new home he would be a man who did not let anyone treat him like his stepfather had. He seemed to always find a man, or a man found him, who reduced him to the boy he once was.
If that was where my land began, Captain Standish would have said it. Nor am I your free labor.
His ears were hot.
Now, excuse me, Newcomen said, and turned back to chopping.
This would be his life here, next to this man? In front of Billington he would be composed, but inwardly he was shaken. His neighbor was slender but tall. Could Newcomen defend himself against him? He thought so and kept on chopping.
Billington made no motion for some time. Newcomen kept on with his work. He gathered thorny vines to use to pin in the two goats he would be given. One cannot let another man know, especially when first meeting, just how easily shaken he can be.
Newcomen finally heard his neighbor’s boots moving away.
Billington turned. You’ve been warned.
Alice Bradford
After checking on the dough and finishing the mending, I could no longer put off my day’s real task of warning Master Billington, by way of his wife, of what might happen if he repeated his ill behavior. Though I had lived five hundred yards from Mistress Billington for six years, I had not crossed the threshold of her home. I told Mercy to keep up her work finding stones in the garden and, with Joseph in my arms, crossed over to the Billingtons’ house.
The charges against her husband were serious. But knowing the Billingtons, I suspected they did not think of it as such. Captain Standish had recently been there, and I regretted that I had to come upon her second.
I rapped softly on the door, revealing my timidity, which displeased me. I knocked again, louder.
The door opened. In front of me was a woman who had, clearly, just emerged from bed. I was not to say, Sleeping in? in my most pleasant voice, because that was not the way of a godly woman, especially a governor’s wife, but it was on my tongue.
Eleanor Billington looked at me from head to foot. Where her eyes caught I made my own judgments. My corset was cinched, but my dress did not yet fit again since Joseph. I was a tired woman, which made it harder to maintain a love for God’s creations, particularly myself.
Come to see me, eh? she said.
I cleared my throat.
Yes, I said and adjusted Joseph in my arms.
Inwardly I admonished myself for not being the mistress the situation called for.
Your husband mad at my husband for speaking the truth? she said.
I was surprised she knew, but tried to stay on course.
That letter disparaging us will not help the colony, nor your husband.
As I spoke, Eleanor flicked something from her arm onto the floor. I hoped it was not a flea.
Her hair was not covered and the unruly strands—which is to say, nearly all of her hair—had freed themselves from the bun she must have made the night before.
I felt wretched in her gaze.
We have to get along, I said. And that cannot be done with lies, I thought, but speaking thus would have only provoked her.
I continued. Prithee speak to him? Persuade him thus? The governor has taken pardon before. He is a benevolent man.
Why was I putting on my pleading voice for her? She looked as if she would spit in my face.
Good day to you, mistress, she said. Was she really scooting the governor’s wife out of the door thus, without offering tea?
She picked up the broom and began brushing dirt toward me and over the threshold.
The tip of my dress was already ringed in grey though I’d washed it the day before. I didn’t need any more dirt. I had been respectful. In my right arm was Joseph, sweet and asleep, but my left arm was free.
She watched me look around. She stopped her sweeping and cocked her head.
On the table by the door was a basket of eggs.
You have made a second wife of yourself, haven’t you, mistress? No one would even know your dearest consort married him first.
I picked up an egg. What was I doing?
I flung it to the floor. The cracking sound made a satisfying crunch.
She shrieked. I hadn’t known she could shriek.
Lady!
The yellow oozed onto Mistress Billington’s broom.
Joseph wailed.
Before she could say more, as if to run from what I’d done, to make that part of myself go away, I rushed from the threshold. I closed her gate, fast—I’d never felt my legs could carry me so fast, except they could, and did, later that evening.
In the gardens, I saw Susanna’s and Elizabeth’s white bonnets duck back down below the chamomile. They’d been watching, as I would have, too. I could hear Eleanor Billington. She had left her door ajar and laughed, a large laugh meant only for others to hear it. How could I let that lowly creature bother me so?
My husband was ahead, crossing the road betwixt our house and the meetinghouse.
He stopped and almost smiling asked, Go well?
I could see he had suspected that was how it would go. He wanted me to know firsthand how easy it was for a Billington to rile. I thought of Dorothy. I regretted I had not done it as well as she would have.
Other men were behind my husband, other elders, coming back from a meeting. There was the inevitable fight of what plots of land to assign, who would have new neighbors, the new arrivals to appease, the maps to finalize, the people to settle. And behind them, too, was John Newcomen. He’d bought acreage sight unseen while in England and, unfortunately for him, had been placed next to the Billingtons. John Newcomen going by was a cause for the women to stop and say hello. He reminded some of us of what our sons, the ones who had died as infants, might have become. I would say he was twenty. Eager and simple in manner, two reasons to look kindly upon him. I regretted that Standish had placed him so near the Billingtons. It was not a good or sustaining impression of what the colony hoped to be.
I offered John Newcomen a hello. He tipped his hat. I saw a blush mottle his neck. People gave deference so easily, I learned as a governor’s wife. I was never pretty and never from great wealth, and as a girl, that was all girls had to give them deference, aside from piety. But here each new set of men tipped their hats and the women bowed because I was the governor’s wif
e. If I was being honest, it was a new vanity of mine.
William gave his hand to me. Once the others were out of earshot, I whispered of the Billingtons, Wretched lot, aren’t they?
My handsome William smiled, bowed his head, and guided us toward the house.
John Billington
John Billington, on his horse, nodded to the guards standing at the palisade, and rode through his field, on his way to meet the man he would trade with. But as he approached his field, he saw the newcomer had not heeded his earlier warning. An acre away, the man was, far too close, on Billington’s own property, chopping down his oak tree still.
What’s this? Billington called from afar, forgetting for a moment his vow with himself to begin with pleasantries. It was a recent vow he’d made after an unfortunate evening in the room beneath the meetinghouse, when a hypocrite had claimed he was inebriated. He was not, but that did not stop Captain Shrimp.
Newcomen, the man said, as if he, John Billington, had forgotten his name the first time.
This man was only a boy, the age his eldest son would have been. But this did not lend Billington any kind feelings toward him, rather it was an irksome reminder.
Newcomen’s hand was outstretched, but Billington did not take it. John Billington folded his arms.
I told you, that’s my land.
Newcomen apologized, said that Standish marked specifically this place, and the tree, as his. Newcomen said he was not to blame, that he was newly arrived, et cetera, et cetera.
Billington heard the name Standish and heard little else after that.
That man is set against me, doing this to provoke! Billington thought.
He saw yet again how Standish was intent to kick him out of the colony before he got what was due to him. Billington had been tracking his days and his land, suspicious the governor and elders were looking to take away what little they’d promised.
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