Beheld

by TaraShea Nesbit

  William thought the ship’s Master was not to be trusted. We all did, but Dorothy said, with faith I could not muster, It will be God’s way. I considered my own children and how to get them up the ladder and off the ship before the others if the ocean water rushed in. If the Speedwell were to sink, I was not willing to leave their lives to God’s way. I apologized to God for this transgression, yet there it was and there I was again, sinning.

  When we docked, what I remember of Southampton is the glitter of the sun on a dull sea. The town’s better days had been years ago. As is a monarch’s way, King James called Southampton the finest and sweetest in the kingdom. But when the town declined after losing its monopoly on transporting tin, he quickly sold the castle. The town walls were weedy with elder and yew. Nature asserts where man no longer claims it. On a hill, under the castle keep, a butcher chased after a pig. Another man with a bloody apron ran his hand along a cow’s spine.

  Seamen from other ships were in circles on the dock when we arrived, gambling. I smelled dead fish. I heard a lute. Even in this place, the summer conspired toward celebration. Down toward the dock came Thomas Weston to greet us. Where were my sons? One held Dorothy’s hand, one held mine.

  We moved closer into town. Darkness grew. There were jeers from the alehouses, seamen moving out into the alleyways, their voices gaining in volume. The glint of knives. Women in doorsteps, with one knee lifted, giving a soft hello to our husbands. We scowled at them. We hooked arms around one another. I picked up Thomas. He grew heavy—God tests!—but the day’s excitement had him asleep before we reached the boardinghouse. My husband outstretched his arms and took him. It was one of the last movements of strength I saw in my husband in this lifetime.

  The boardinghouse was not ready for us. We had missed dinner, John Carver said, and William disagreed. Through the hallway we saw guests, portly men dressed for business, wiping their plates clean with biscuits, guests stepping up from their chairs, brushing the crumbs from their laps, and finishing the dregs of the wine. Had the innkeeper eyed us and decided not to feed us because we were exiles?

  I understood suspicion. It should have been a relief for us to be in a country that spoke our language, but then, one feels worse for how close it appears we should be but are not. Those English-speakers were not our brethren. Who was against us? Who agreed with the King’s call to rid us—so-called puritans—out of England, or bring back our heads to, as the King said, Punish their traitorous nature?

  Puritans, I thought I heard.

  Did you hear that? I asked Dorothy.

  Yes, she had.

  We were back in England’s scorn. I had forgotten what that felt like.

  We were wearing the styles of a decade ago, when last we were in England. It was vain to be concerned with these things, but better if one is to be vain, to be vain together with a friend, to share the burden.

  Are we not paying guests as the rest? William inquired to the innkeeper.

  John Carver, one of the wealthiest amongst us, offered money. The biscuits arrived. We took the children upstairs to sleep. I told Dorothy my husband was not well, had not been in the weeks leading up to this journey. A cough that would not cease, a wakefulness in the night even after a day’s long labor.

  He’ll be fine once we get settled into the ship’s distance, she said.

  Cold was its comfort.

  William knocked on the door, to show Dorothy to their room. She kissed my forehead before leaving. I can still smell the myrrh that perfumed her hair.

  That night, I woke to my husband hunched over the side of the bed, trying to get his breath. I moved toward him, put my palm to his back, and felt the bones along his spine. I lightly beat my fists against his back to move the fluid about.

  I’m fine, Good Wife, he said, wanting to usher me back to sleep, without worry for him. He was this way, too austere toward himself. It was only a cough, he said. I had not been one to worry too soon, and needlessly, before this, but long after his deep breath of sleep returned, my eyes were open.

  I had not thought on it much, his age and, subsequently, his death. That he was a decade and a half older than I and would likely leave this earthly world before me was only an idea. People perished all of the time—whole villages fell to plague—but never did I think of how this death would come for us. How foolish I was.

  The day’s matrimonial annoyances—that he kicked our sons’ jacks under the chair rather than pick them up and return them to their place—were not worth the effort I expended on the feeling. Edward Southworth, my Good Husband, might die. I would be a widow with two small children. Where would I go? Who would help me? I tried to conjure there, in that boardinghouse room, everything I loved about Edward. When in the midst of a life with young children, the mind strains to remember our spouses’ goodness, despite how often we address each other as Good Wife and Good Husband. I thought of Edward whistling through the house, of Edward lifting Constant off the ground, of Edward taking my hand unexpectedly while I cooked, stopping me to say, I love you, Good Wife.

  I can see now this was God’s warning. He came that night to prepare me. My husband would pass long before me and what would I do?

  There I was on that lumpy borrowed bed, crying for my husband, who was right there beside me, breathing, his eyes fluttering in dream.

  What we thought would be one night, maybe two, at the boardinghouse, waiting on the ship’s repair, expanded into several weeks without signs of an impending departure. Our tab to the port of Southampton grew. William took morning walks to the dock and found the ship’s Master playing cards, throwing dice, the whiff of evening still on him. Perhaps the Master got a cut of the port fee and that was why he was in no hurry to leave. William had no trust in that ship’s Master. It was no secret William was angry, but when I gave Dorothy the entryway to speak on it—William must be disappointed, I would say—she nodded and kept William’s thoughts to herself.

  Each day docked in Southampton added the cost of more rooms for thirty-five people at the boardinghouses, and each afternoon when it was clear we would not depart, William took an item from the larder. We lost several pounds of butter. We lost many salted fish.

  William wrote letters back to London, pleading to our debtors.

  Dear Sirs, he wrote, We were in such a strait as we were forced to sell sixty pounds of our provisions to clear our debts, and now we are scarce of butter, with no oil to mend a shoe, lacking swords and in want of muskets. But a complaint by William would never turn to self-pity, would it? At the end of each letter he affirmed God’s good grace. And yet, we are willing to expose ourselves to such eminent dangers and put our trust in God … Faith will be the staple food of our journey.

  On the Sabbath the women of the congregation left the boardinghouse to sing Psalms in a loud chorus in front of the alehouse, to outshine the raucous. This chorus was led by Susanna White, and with her protruding belly, I imagine even the most ungodly of the seamen subdued their anger at the women’s righteousness.

  We had to sell so much butter.

  At this rate, we’ll be as thin as poppies, Dorothy said.

  I thought of the little bobbing heads of us as girls, in the old days gathering flowers, getting them ready for sale at the market, and when our mothers were not watching, lying around amidst them, brushing the pollen off of one another’s backs.

  Two weeks went by this way, us losing butter for our future, seeds for our future, a goat for our future. Dorothy sold her mother’s horn clip. I thought my pregnancy days were over, and sold the wicker bassinet. I did not wish to risk my life in labor once again, and Edward and I were no longer frequent with our intimacies.

  But I did not know then what Dorothy did in secret, in the mornings, when no one else was watching. In Southampton, she sent her mother a letter. A short letter paid for on credit, on our congregation’s tab.

  Dear Mother. Please. Help me return. William will not be persuaded.

  Dorothy’s mother confessed to me she
never wrote a reply. I told her it was not her fault, I told her it must have been an accident, I told her all the things that were told to me, because I’m no longer certain one needs to carry the burden of some truths.

  We departed Southampton, but within a day we were docked again, this time at Plymouth, the last port before entering the Atlantic. On another dock, on another shore, not even out of the English Channel.

  Perhaps this is a sign, I said to Dorothy.

  Again she said, He tests.

  Was she suffering privately? What did she share with William? I noticed he was gentle with her, coming up behind her saying, My Good Wife, and Good Mother, the highest honors, not stingy with his affection. I wondered if Good Mother caused her to wince, inwardly. John and her unnamed daughter growing farther and farther away.

  I looked behind to my husband, who had just stepped above deck. He was getting weaker, I saw, but hadn’t lost his spirit. Though from my husband’s expression—quizzical, questioning of all that surrounded us—I sensed I would betray Dorothy.

  What followed were four days more paying port fees, boardinghouse fees, meals for all of us, more debt, more debt. William never slept well, Dorothy said, and I saw him often, walking alone down the cobblestone streets, the first to walk into the wind and rain and the last to leave it.

  She leaks, she leaks, is all that the ship’s Master said, or all, at least, that was reported back to us.

  Perhaps this was a scheme to make the bill higher, to owe the investors in England even more money and increase their profit.

  We congregates gathered around the boardinghouse table, dipping bread into potato soup, the husbands considering our choices. To combine ships or find another Master. Constant would not eat despite—or more likely, because of—my encouragement. I kept trying to keep up my son’s strength as I watched my husband’s lessen. My husband claimed the previous breakfast had still left him quite full and declined more than a bird’s portion.

  William said, about the ship’s accountant, I saw him return to the ship this morning with what must be a hundred or more pounds of provisions.

  Heads turned, ears cocked. He waited for this attention before he continued.

  That’s our money, Standish said.

  William continued: I asked him, “What is all this?” and like the scoundrel I’m now convinced he is, he refused to show me the accounting.

  We each imagined he had purchased what we longed for most. Goose fat, gimlet, a pick axe, what had the accountant tucked away, unnoticed? Why had he come back with a hundred pounds’ worth of provisions, which he had the seamen put in the berth and refused to discuss the contents or accounting with any of us?

  The families began to retire to bed, and I myself was going to lead my sons upstairs, when both the Master of the Speedwell and the Master of the Mayflower entered the boardinghouse. They had conferred, they said, and it was resolved. The Speedwell would not continue across the Atlantic. At this news, Myles Standish stood. William was already standing.

  I cannot do more, the Speedwell’s Master said. She leaks.

  If we were to go to the Virginia Colony, we would all have to fit on the Mayflower, which was full as it was with our indentured servants and adventurers who were strangers to us. The ship was bursting with four dozen passengers, and there were three dozen more of us. We had to choose amongst ourselves who would go and who would stay behind. A ranking was beginning amongst the elders, of which men brought the most to the colony, an ordering of wealth and ableness.

  My husband put his hand on my shoulder.

  Good Wife, shall we? he asked.

  We went upstairs. Instead of speaking to Dorothy about all of this, I spoke that night to Edward. We waited for our sons to be softly snoring in the bed betwixt us.

  It was September. Westerly gales were building across the Atlantic. He was not well, he said. By sunrise it was decided: When the ship departed, my husband and I would step out of line.

  Dorothy was not downstairs in the morning. The innkeeper said she and William had since departed. I hurried to gather my sons and get to the dock. My husband shooed us onward, said he would catch up.

  Through the boardinghouse’s back garden I went, Constant and Thomas slow behind me, so very slow, stopping to watch a snail, to touch the dewy roses I warned them not to touch. It was in this way, me moving forward, then turning back to urge them onward, that I stepped on something that slithered beneath my right foot. I shrieked. There it was, an iridescent green snake, a sign from God, maintaining its place on the limestone.

  What is it? Constant yelled, running in delight toward whatever curious thing had terrified his mother.

  Nothing, I said, knowing they would traipse through the ivy to find it and I needed to get to Dorothy.

  The serpent moved away, I said, but my sons did not believe me.

  I got them to the dock with the threat that I would pinch their ears the entire walk there if I needed to. The serpent had marked me.

  At the dock, Dorothy had an upright posture and looked out on the water. The white ribbon of her bonnet blew out to the side, and her aubergine dress blew outward with it. She began to cross onto the ship.

  I told the boys not to move an inch. Their father was a few paces behind, close enough, I wagered, to disrupt any mischief they might cause. I hurried up the ramp, onto the Mayflower, and down the ladder into the tween deck. So dark it was and musty. I felt a moment of relief knowing I would not be on this journey.

  I found Dorothy setting down her basket. I took her hand in mine. I furrowed my face, preparing my apology, which I knew would be inadequate.

  Dorothy stopped me, said, I wish—

  What? I asked, but I knew what was happening. Each time she thought of a way to tell William she should turn back she answered with his reply before she spoke it.

  So many people were nearby and would have overheard her speaking against her husband. Her placid face, her sweet, unwavering face, took in my apology before I said it, and, I’d like to think, accepted it, hugging me and wishing me well.

  We will join one another soon enough, she said.

  She gave me her handkerchief. Why had I not thought to bring her anything? I felt myself an inconsiderate friend and said so. I looked in her eyes longer than I had done in years and said we would see one another very soon. But I was not certain.

  On the way up, William’s arm brushed against mine. I looked up to see him. I felt aware of the warmth where our arms touched. My husband had spoken to him on the dock, but I did not know that at the time.

  You will be missed, he said and looked down to me.

  He bent down and embraced me. So close I was to his lips. I gave him a kiss on the cheek and moved quickly back up the ladder, tripping on a rung as I went.

  On the dock was my sanguine husband, holding Thomas’s hand.

  You will miss your friend, he said, seeing my failed composure.

  I nodded.

  We waved then to the ship, to all our friends in the tween deck, to the young boys nervous to be at sea, to the older, indifferent sorts, and to the wizened seamen above. Blessings were called and the hope that those below could hear us.

  Thus, that common merchant ship, named not for primrose, cuckooflower, marigold, or cowslip, but for anything that could flower in May, pushed out to the sea.

  My husband, our sons, and I walked slowly back to the boardinghouse. We intended to return to Holland as soon as passage could be booked. But by the end of the week, my husband was dead.

  I won’t speak of my journey back to Holland, a widow with two young sons and no means to care for them. Numb, I was, in spirit. God cares for us by selecting some things for us to forget. I sold most of our possessions—my husband’s boots, a musket, candlesticks, two chairs—which we had intended to take to the New World, in order to pay for our return.

  The children and I took up residence with my parents. I woke each morning with two grieving boys. Dorothy, my dearest consort, moved an oce
an away and my husband was dead. This was not the life I thought would be mine. In the mornings I set myself in mind to get to my friend as soon as I could, but by afternoon it was all I could do to chase a chicken around the yard as my sons napped, and pluck its feathers before they awoke. I tried to feed them well if nothing else. No food comforted me. My body thinned as only before when I grew rapidly in youth. How does a person live with this weight of sadness? I thought then. The answer, I see now, is simple: One just does. Until one cannot.

  Meanwhile

  Meanwhile, in Plymouth, an indentured servant, thirteen years of age, lies on the floor, on a bed of wool, next to her master’s bed, as she does every night. Meanwhile, at the edge of the bed is not her master’s wife, but her master’s brother. She startles awake at the feeling of his hand beneath her blanket.

  Shhh, he whispers. You do not want to wake your master, do you?

  She turns from him.

  He rolls her over.

  Do what I say, good servant.

  He slides off the edge of the bed and climbs onto her. He wrestles her linens away from her body.

  She is stiff.

  That’s a good girl. It will be easier this way, he says.

  No one has touched her, aside from her grandmother and her mother, when they bathed her and put talcum powder betwixt her legs as a younger child. He pulls up her long nightdress, he inserts a thick finger in her cunny. His fingernails are long.

  He shifts out of his linens. A warm, stiff thing in the dark pushes against her.

  He is stiff and remote, grating inside her, squeezing her right breast like a cow’s udder, but with less precision—he’s never lowered himself to milking a cow—and like the animal he is he lets out a guttural Oh. He shifts up his linens, leaves her naked, and slides back to the bed above her.

  From across the room, the mistress of the house stirs. She does not know if the mistress is or was awake.

  Had she done or said anything to him to invite this? The way she bowed? The way she smiled? Was she untoward?