Mrs. Cook

by Marele Day

  ‘Dear James.’ She saw these marks on the page. But it was a letter she would never send him so she did not have to gloss over what was in the dark side of her heart. ‘It was so unnecessary for you to embark on this voyage and to cause such pain to your wife. No man before you has made three such voyages and as well as the anxiety I always feel, this time I have fears that have never manifested before.’ Elizabeth put down the pen. These fears she dared not give shape to, dared not put into writing—that James was challenging the Almighty Himself. He had successfully pitted himself against the elements once, twice. But tempting fate a third time, and without such painstaking preparations? It was almost an act of reckless defiance.

  She picked up the pen again. ‘Clerke was appointed to command the voyage but you actively sought to take his place. Do you know how it makes me feel to realise that you willingly chose more years of absence from me? Perhaps if you could fulfil your marriage vows for only a small fraction of the time you should never have married at all.’ As soon as these words were on paper Elizabeth immediately crossed them out. ‘Perhaps I should not have been guided by my heart in the first place, should have chosen a man who wanted to be more of a husband to me.’ Elizabeth crossed these words out too. In fact, when she saw what a mawkish black crow mess her words and the crossings-out had made, she tore the letter up and threw it in the fire. Nevertheless she felt much better watching those words turn into smoke and curl their way up the chimney and out of her house.

  The Resolution sailed from Plymouth on 12 July, four years to the day that it had set sail the first time. The coincidence would have been auspicious had the news been better. The ship leaked when it rained, and at the first sign of bad weather. By the time they got to Tenerife it was not only rain but the sea itself coming in. In his letter home, James was caustic about Deptford, saying that he had stressed to the officers of the yard the importance of securing the sail room and other vulnerable parts of the ship, ‘But it did not appear to me that anything had been done that could answer that end.’ The Deptford neglect had already started to show. This was just the beginning of the voyage, when the ship should have been at its best.

  Elizabeth turned her attention to baby Hugh to prevent worrisome thoughts from going any further. These were summer days of cloudy mornings, bright afternoons and frosty nights. Elizabeth stood at the window with Hugh, after the crowing cock had woken him. ‘Is it a garden day?’ she whispered into her son’s silky dark hair. ‘Look. Look at the billowing clouds,’ she said as they moved across their pale blue sea. ‘Just like the sails of Papa’s ship.’ She held their child up to see, focusing on a particular cloud till it had moved past the window frame, out of sight. ‘God made the sky and the clouds, and the sea and the stars, and God will bring Papa back safely to us.’

  She whispered stories of Papa to Hugh, even though he was far too young to understand the words; but nestled in her arms, he would have felt the rhythm of her heart, the vibration of her breast as she spoke, and would take it into himself, in the same way that Elizabeth felt the vibrations of her husband’s voice in his chest when he told her South Seas stories, taking her on a sea of words to faraway places.

  They were glorious days spent in the summer garden with Hugh, Gates shooing the clucking hens away from the crib where he slept and sighed and made sucking noises beneath the veil of net protecting him from bees and gnats, and any possible dangers. ‘He is the most beautiful child, marm,’ Gates would say over and over. So said the neighbours, the Curtises and Honeychurches, the Blades and the Witherspoons when they came to see him. Elizabeth smiled proudly. They had all been beautiful babies, Jamie and Nat now on the verge of manhood; but for Elizabeth, Hugh was the treasure of her heart.

  Sometimes in the garden Elizabeth read the newspaper to Gates. Often it was some instance of a criminal nature, to which Gates would listen avidly. ‘A countryman having bought some linen at a shop in Holburn offered in payment a light guinea,’ read Elizabeth brushing away a bee, ‘which the master of the shop instantly clipped in two. The countryman stared first at the guinea and then at the man who clipped it, and snatching up the scissors made a chop at the shopkeeper’s hand. He cut off the first joint of the finger and ran away.’

  She paused to allow Gates her ‘oohs’ and ‘ahs’ before going on to the next item. ‘A woman was whipped through Fleet Street to Temple Bar, for decoying children from their parents, and putting out their eyes, in order to beg with them.’

  After rounding her eyes in astonishment, and putting her hand to her cheek, Gates would always want more—for instance, what happened to the shopkeeper’s finger, was the man apprehended; who was the woman who put the children’s eyes out, what age was she, where did she come from, how many lashes did she get, was there a big crowd watching, did they jeer and throw eggs?

  Elizabeth often said that she knew no more than what was in the paper, but Gates seemed to take no notice, as if the printed words were windows on the events. If her mistress were to look through the window again, perhaps a bit to the right or left, she would see everything there was to see and all of Gates’s questions would have an answer.

  Sometimes, to keep Gates happy, Elizabeth would make up the missing parts of the story. The countryman came, like so many, to London, hoping to make his fortune. He had fallen into hard times or bad company. He had tried to pass the light guinea, panicked when discovered, and fled. The shopkeeper’s finger mended, and when the missing joint was remarked upon by customers, he said: ‘A counterfeiter did that, but I ran after him, the top of my finger lying on this very counter. He is now in the prison hulks in Deptford. How many yards of linen was that, sir?’

  As for the woman who put out the children’s eyes, Elizabeth could not find a story.

  One afternoon in August, when James was anchored off Tenerife, Elizabeth opened the newspaper and read to Gates the Declaration of the Representatives of the United States of America, dated 4 July 1776. It was a long declaration, and although Elizabeth knew that Gates much preferred an account of a good whipping to events in the American colonies, she insisted on reading it in full. ‘It is much more important than a whipping, Gates,’ Elizabeth said. ‘One of the signatories is Benjamin Franklin, a scientific man of Mr Cook’s acquaintance, a fellow member of the Royal Society. He used a kite to show that lightning is electricity. Did you know that, Gates?’

  In the garden of the Mile End House, close to the kitchen door, Gates sat up as straight as she could, understanding long ago that her duties in this household were not just domestic, and that to a mistress whose husband was away so much, she was also companion.

  ‘Another is Thomas Jefferson, the son of my dear Mama’s friend from Shadwell,’ Elizabeth added, to pique Gates’s interest. ‘Jane Randolph went to America and married Mr Jefferson and their son Thomas was born two years after me. They called their estate in Virginia, Shadwell,’ Elizabeth told Gates.

  While Elizabeth read in full the American Declaration of Independence, Gates remained silent, and Elizabeth was so taken up with it she did not notice whether the silence was due to lack of understanding, lack of interest or, as for Elizabeth herself, the sheer eloquence of the document. Apart from the ‘right to bear arms’, the whole thing had a Quaker essence—equality, freedom of speech, of religion, of everything.

  Elizabeth thought fondly of the Sheppards in Essex and the Walkers in Whitby, ‘the Friends’ as Quakers called each other, and she was glad that both she and James had felt the warmth of the Quaker candle burning in their hearts. Now, though it may not have seemed obvious to anyone else, it was the declaration of a nation.

  At Sir John Pringle’s dinner that afternoon in April before James went away, Mr Boswell had conveyed Dr Johnson’s opinion that the Americans were a nation of convicts, or worse, pirates. But neither Elizabeth nor James were of that opinion. Most of London, certainly the merchants and tradespeople that Elizabeth dealt with, and her friends in Mile End, sympathised with the colonists and thought tha
t the government had treated them unfairly. That night as Elizabeth knelt beside her bed, she prayed for Cousin Frances, and all those caught up in the ‘course of human events’. Especially, as always, she prayed for James.

  Shortly after 30 November 1776, the anniversary meeting of the Royal Society, Elizabeth received an official visit from Sir John Pringle. She sat waiting in the parlour, hat arranged on her carefully coiffed hair, hands neatly folded in her lap. Into these hands she would shortly receive the Copley Medal. On that windy, blustery day Elizabeth gazed at the milky, finely textured skin stretching over her knuckles. She had rubbed goose fat into her hands, then washed it off in warm, lavender-scented water.

  Gates had prepared sugar cakes, which were waiting under a muslin cover. The Staffordshire china, from which Omai had drunk his tea so delicately, was also set out. Such a formal honour as receiving the Copley Medal would not be done lightly, there would be some sort of ceremony, but cakes and tea were ready should Sir John wish to stay.

  Sitting in the wintry afternoon, her hands quietly in place, her back straight, the soft sleeping breath of six month old Hugh marking time, Elizabeth imagined James in the illustrious premises of the Royal Society. She saw Sir John, Sir Joseph Banks, and all the other gentlemen gathered in their best breeches, wigs and hats to hear Sir John’s presidential address and comments on James’s prize-winning paper, the gentlemen having enjoyed a good dinner at the Mitre beforehand, and drunk to each other’s health and then drunk a little more against the chill of the day.

  Elizabeth would read the speech later in its entirety, published in the Society’s Philosophical Transactions:

  Allow me then, gentlemen, to deliver this medal, with his unperishing name engraved upon it, into the hands of one who will be happy to receive that trust, and to know that this respectable Body, never more cordially nor meritoriously bestowed that faithful symbol of their esteem and affection. For if Rome decreed the civic crown to him who saved the life of a single citizen, what wreathes are due to that man, who, having himself saved many, perpetuates now in your transactions the means by which Britain may herself preserve numbers of her intrepid sons, her mariners; who braving every danger, have so liberally contributed to the fame, to the opulence, and to the maritime empire of their country.

  Elizabeth already knew the gist of her husband’s paper, having seen him working on it. Preserving the health of mariners was not only a matter of getting them to eat sauerkraut and fresh vegetables. James ensured his men got more sleep by introducing three watches instead of two—four hours on and eight hours off. Then there was the regime of cleanliness. Once a week the men had to change their linen. Cleanliness made them more sober, James wrote, more orderly and attentive to duty. Bedding and hammocks were dried and aired. Fires were lit to drive out foul air; the acid steam of the burning wood dried up moisture from human and animal sweat, dispersed the stench of bilge water, and acted as an antiseptic. ‘It promotes not only health of the body but of the mind,’ James had told Elizabeth.

  Elizabeth was immensely proud of her husband’s achievements and pleased that they had been recognised with the prestigious award. But where was the medal for being the wife of such a man? What award recognised the hardships and efforts of running the household on her own, bringing up his children largely without his assistance, the heartache of watching their babies die?

  She listened for the coach bringing the medal, difficult to distinguish one coach amid the many, although above the noise of traffic Elizabeth was always able to single out the barely audible murmurings of baby Hugh. He was sleeping soundly. London had spread out to Mile End and had over half a million inhabitants with more and more people arriving from the provinces, seeking work, looking for the same fabled fortunes that Dick Whittington had sought. Not all of them would end up becoming mayor as he did; they would find disease and heartache instead of gold.

  Although her back was perfectly erect, Elizabeth straightened up even further when she heard the firm knock at the door, then Sir John announcing himself to Gates. Gates brought the visitors in, Sir John and a footman dressed in livery, who was holding a velvet cushion on which lay the medal.

  It was the end of a long day, most of which Elizabeth had spent waiting. But waiting was how she had spent much of her life. Not in the everyday detail of it, where there was much to do, but in the great long sweeps of night after the chores were done, in the constant yearning and anxiety pinned to her like a shadow.

  Sir John stayed for tea and cakes, and of course they talked of James. She was not to worry about his safety, Sir John admonished. If ever a man could hold his own on the oceans of the world, it was Captain Cook. Yes, she nodded, while the great unspoken thought tugged at her skirts like a child—her husband, the celebrated circumnavigator, had done more than any man in his field, yet no man could pit himself against the Almighty.

  Hugh woke eventually and amid his soft cooing and searching for her breast, Elizabeth showed him the gold medal, with the Society’s coat of arms, the engraving of Science seated, and read to him the motto: Nullius in verba. She dangled it in front of him and he reached up for the shining thing as if it were a plaything. ‘Your father has saved the lives of hundreds of seamen,’ Elizabeth whispered into the baby’s ear. ‘And the lives of those yet to sail, if his good example will be followed.’

  When Elizabeth finally drew the curtains on the day, and snuffed out the candle, she held the medal between her hands. There were no stars visible in the cold dark sky, so she imagined them in the firmament and stitched her prayers onto them so that wherever James was he could see them. She climbed into bed and lay on her side, her arm reaching to the cold empty place of James’s absence. She held his pillow as if it were his body and fell asleep in its feathers.

  Elizabeth sat bolt upright. Baby Hugh was crying. She did not know if her own screams had woken him or the howling wind rattling at the window. She gathered the baby up in her arms and held him tightly. ‘There, there,’ she said, trying to soothe both him and her thumping heart. ‘It is only the wind.’ Elizabeth relit the candle. The medal glowed as if it had a life of its own. She grasped hold of it, comforted by the solidity of metal. It was only a dream, the wind had caused it. Sir John and his footman had entered the house, but instead of a medal on the velvet cushion, there lay James’s bloody heart.

  Hugh’s cries dissolved in Elizabeth’smilk. The little one suckled, and though the wind continued to howl as if it wanted to rip the window out of its frame, it did not succeed. Nevertheless, Elizabeth felt wisps of wind snake their way into the room.

  ‘Just a dream,’ she said, her breath rippling the fine dark hairs on the baby’s head. ‘Papa is well. Probably at the Cape of Good Hope. Letters will be coming any day now.’

  Through the howling wind outside, Elizabeth imagined Cape Town and the Cape of Good Hope, saw it in the details that James and Isaac had given and that she had seen in paintings by James’s artists. She whispered to the contented baby in her arms about the remarkable mountain whose top was as flat as a table. ‘Then the creases and folds like giant elephant’s feet run down to the town. The bay is as full of ships as our Thames,’ she continued, looking down to find the baby’s eyes closed. She covered her breast, but kept the baby there, feeling his tiny streams of breath on her skin.

  ‘Ships from all over the world stop at Cape Town—Dutch on their way to Batavia, French to Mauritius, Portuguese to the Indies, and of course our own British ships.’ Elizabeth closed her eyes too, thinking of the homeward-bound ships which would bring news of James. She let her mind sail into Table Bay and saw the huge Castle of Good Hope, which held stores for the Dutch East India Company. Her mind flew to the top of Table Mountain and had a splendid view of the town, the whitewashed houses under thatched roofs, arranged in precise Dutch geometrical lines, so unlike the chaotic growth of London. It all seemed to gleam like sunlight on salt. Elizabeth saw zebras, elephants, tigers, ostriches and great horned beasts circling the town. ‘It
is a windy cape,’ James had told Elizabeth, ‘jutting into a windy sea.’

  Wind. Elizabeth opened her eyes. The howling and rattling had stopped. Everything was still. Still as death. Elizabeth wanted to live somewhere in the middle, in the soft breeze between howling wind and complete stillness. She tried to imagine a world without wind. Even a perfect summer’s day, everything in blossom, would seem dead without some slight breeze. Perhaps birds would not sing if there was no wind, bees cease buzzing. It was the wind that brought the scent of pollen to them. It was the wind that carried James around the world and though Elizabeth hoped for an always steady breeze, she knew that was only part of its ever-changing nature.

  With as little disturbance as possible, Elizabeth put Hugh back in his crib, the same crib that all her babies had slept in. She blew out the candle and watched its vapour trail away. Elizabeth picked up the medal once again, held it to her breast as if it were a pendant.

  She had sat this afternoon waiting for the coach, waiting for the knock on the door. Perhaps one day a coach would come, delivering the news she dreaded most. But she must not dwell on this, she must think only of the wind. She prayed that the breath of God would blow cleanly through her heart, that she would have the strength to stand in the face of both its turbulence and stillness, that her heart would remain an open place, and that the wind that blew bitter sorrow and grief into her heart would also take them away.

  THE UNFINISHED VEST

  February 14 1779. It was St Valentine’s Day, the day on which birds chose their mate for the year.

  Although James was always Elizabeth’s invisible companion, for a moment she felt his presence so strongly that she immediately looked towards the door, as if he might be standing on the other side of it. Though there had been no knock, not even the rattle of the wind, Elizabeth put her embroidery aside, opened the door, looked up and down the street.