But it took no huge leap of imagination to think how it would look to the new colonists, especially to the women. How many of those wives and maidens, he wondered, were already on board that ship regretting their decision? Was Kathryn one of them? Did she look forward to the adventure? Or was she dreading life in the New World?
He thought of Nancy Ellis too, wondered if she would accompany her mistress. He had sent her that light-hearted message of welcome in Nicholas Guy’s letter, urging her to come over, but he had not really thought she would. She might well be married herself now, though for some reason he found that hard to imagine.
Pictures of Kathryn—as she had looked on her wedding day in her velvet finery, as she looked at fourteen, tripping down over the steps of her father’s house in a faded russet petticoat—kept popping into his head throughout the day, and sometimes at night too. And then, when she finally stepped onto the shores of Cupids Cove, he did not recognize her.
He stood with the others on the wharf, watching as the two boats from John Guy’s ship pulled closer and closer to shore. Several of the new men had already been brought ashore; these boats were both bringing women.
“There’s my Sal! Ah, she’s here at last!” Samuel Butler shouted, and the men around him laughed and cheered as he took off his hat and waved it vigorously in the air. In response, one of the women in the boat took off her cap and waved it back at him.
“Is that Daisy?” Matt Grigg said. “I didn’t even know she were coming! It is! ’Tis my Daisy!”
Nicholas Guy was also straining to see the faces of the women in the boat. “I believe that be my wife,” Guy said, but when Ned looked back at the boat he saw not Kathryn Gale but Nancy Ellis, her thin face, sharp nose, and the straight line of her mouth clear to recognize even with the sheen of her copper hair covered by her coif.
Then, of course, he knew the girl next to her had to be Kathryn Guy, and the features resolved into familiar ones. By that time the boat was nearly at the dock, and men were throwing down lines to the rowers to catch, and offering hands to the women as they gathered their skirts and climbed the ladders.
The men whose wives or sweethearts were on board stepped forward first to greet them, while the other men hung back. Ned saw Kathryn clearly enough then, as she went straight to Nicholas Guy’s arms. He turned from that sight to see that Nancy had just set foot on the ladder, and no one was offering a hand to help her. He reached down, and she looked up at the face beyond the offered hand.
“May the first face to greet you in the New Found Land be a familiar one!” he said, and she grabbed his hand, her face opening in a smile.
“Look at you, Ned Perry! All this way across the world and as foolish as ever, I allow.” She kept her grip tight on his and let him take her other arm and help her up onto the wharf. Then she tried to move away, but he kept hold to her arm and pulled her in for an embrace.
“All the men with wives and sweethearts get a kiss when they arrive; shouldn’t I get one from an old friend?”
“No kiss, but you can hold onto me for a moment. The ground is still swaying and I’m half afraid I’ll fall,” said Nancy, relaxing just for a moment in his arms before she stepped smartly back. “How long will I feel like I’m still at sea?”
“If your sea legs are anything like mine, you should be able to walk steadily in—oh, a month or two at the most,” Ned said. “Lord-a-mercy, Nancy, ’tis good to see you. I never realized how desperate I was to see a face from home.”
“I’ve no wish to flatter you, but truth be told, ’tis good to step off that ship and be greeted by a familiar face. Everything around is strange, but you seem the same as ever.” She tilted her head and eyed him. “No, that’s not so; you are a bit different. You do look…older, I suppose. There’s more to your beard, anyway.” She turned, reaching out her hand. “Mistress Kathryn! If you’ve done embracing your husband, come see our Ned—doesn’t he look a fine, strapping fellow?”
And there she was. Kathryn’s face dimpled into its usual smile when she saw him. “Dear Ned,” she said, and enveloped him in an embrace. “’Tis like having a piece of our old home here in the New World, Nicholas,” she called over her shoulder to Master Guy. “With my sweet Nancy, and dear Ned who was my father’s apprentice since we were children—why, I’ll hardly be homesick at all!”
Then everyone surged around, greeting and introducing the newcomers, and the men began carrying crates and trunks back to the dwelling-houses. Ned found himself near Nancy again, she carrying an armload of bundles and he with a trunk hoisted to his shoulder. He described what they were passing as they walked up the path from harbour—the stone walls they had built in the last year, the guns mounted on them, the plants in the garden. “But there’ll be plenty of time to show you all that,” he added as they reached the door of the small dwelling-house. “This is the newest of the houses, ’tis only just closed in, but Master Nicholas has a bed made for himself and Mistress Kathryn, and I’m sure she’ll have you sleeping close by. You’ll soon learn how much we value that fire on the cold nights here.”
The new dwelling-house was much like a guildsman’s house back in Bristol, save that a sleeping chamber for the master and mistress was built on the main floor rather than up above. This would allow them to keep a close eye on the unmarried girls, for whom beds had been made near the hearth, while several single men, himself included, slept in their narrow berths in the upper chamber. The main room had a table and benches in front of the large hearth, shelves for storage, and one glass window.
As Ned showed all this to Nancy, he studied her face, trying to cipher whether she was impressed or appalled at the place she had come to live. He caught himself doing that over and over during the women’s first few days in the cove. He looked at them to see whether they saw it as a place a woman could settle, raise a family. For without the women, everything they were doing here was meaningless.
But much as he glanced at all the women to gauge their reactions, he looked most often at Nancy. Only now that she was here did he realize how much, back home, he had looked to her to reflect back his own feelings, or to set them straight. The wry quirk of her mouth told him that she found someone’s pompous speech funny but dared not laugh aloud; the quick crease of her frown warned him when his own jest had gone too far. When there had been a job to be done back in the Gale house that had seemed impossible to tackle, he had waited to see Nancy roll up her sleeves and put her hands on her hips, then give that tiny, almost imperceptible nod that told him if all hands pitched in they’d tackle it. It was that nod he was looking for now.
Not that he was blind to the other women. His memory had been full of Kathryn, but he had not forgotten to daydream, as the other young men had, about the pleasure of feasting his eyes on so many female faces, so many softly curving forms. Matt’s Daisy, a tiny blonde girl, had brought two sisters with her, Bess and Molly. They were younger than she, but both taller and broader, hearty farm girls who looked exactly alike: wide hips, curls the colour of honey, and broad faces that broke easily into smiles. There were two orphaned girls of sixteen, Jennet and Liza, close as sisters: they had grown up together in the workhouse. Two of the other married women, besides Kathryn, had brought maids with them: Mistress Colston had, besides her spinster sister, a serving girl named Hetty; Philip Guy’s wife had brought over Elsie and Nell Bly, two daughters of a neighbour who had used to scrub and cook for her—both slender beauties with dark hair and dark eyes. Last of all was a thick-bodied lass called Maggie, a cousin to Sal Butler; she was neither clever nor a great beauty, but she was as strong as a man and a grand hand to work.
In the new dwelling-house where Nicholas and Kathryn Guy were master and mistress, George, Matt, Frank, Ned, and the other fellows lay in their beds in the sleeping chamber at night and discussed which girls were pretty, which looked strong enough to bear children, which were willing to allow a saucy word or a wandering hand without running at once to Master Guy with a complaint.
> “Don’t try anything with that one Nan,” Ned overheard George tell Frank Tipton.
“You learned that the hard way?”
“I only meant to be friendly. She has a severe look, but she’s a handsome lass. And I always did like red hair on a woman. So I said to her, ‘’tis lovely hair you’ve got there, Nan, I’d not mind giving that a stroke, if you’d let me.’ Well, she whirled around on me fast as a spinning top, and quick as you like she said, ‘That’ll be Nancy to you, and you’ll take no liberties with my name nor with my hair neither, George Whittington.’”
Ned stifled the urge to punch George in the jaw. “I could have told you that, George.”
“You and her served in the same house, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I’ve known her for years. She can be a right spitfire.”
“Ah well, I won’t make that mistake again. That one Nell, now—she looks like a gypsy or a Spaniard, and I wouldn’t mind a taste of that. And then there’s little Jennet: she’s got the red hair too, but I’m sure she’s not got such a high opinion of herself, being only an orphan from the workhouse.”
“I wonder if they are doing the same with us,” Ned mused. “Lying awake comparing which of us is the best looking?”
George seemed flummoxed at the idea. “Sure, they’ve come all this way, they ought to be glad to find a man willing to take care of them at all. None of them will want to stay a maid for long, I’m sure.”
Perhaps so; from what Ned could see the women were overwhelmed simply with trying to settle into the colony. “What do you think of it all?” he asked Nancy a fortnight after her arrival, as the two of them carted sacks of rye down to the mill to grind into flour.
Nancy grunted as she pushed her wheelbarrow over a rock. “’Twill be hellish hard work, I can see. I admire the way everyone pitches in to get things built and done, but in faith, I never fancied myself doing farm work—caring for animals, or planting crops. I’m used to buying flour from the miller and making it into bread; ’tis a shock to learn there’s no miller here, and we have to grind the flour ourselves. My back’s sore already.” She stretched out her long arms and tilted her head back to let the sun fall on her face as she set her barrow to rest by the little mill. “And ’tis not bad yet, is it? Warm enough, and sunny most days. But I can’t imagine living in that house once it gets cold in the winter.”
“Rain and snow and cold winds get through the windows, even when you do the best job you can of covering them. Betimes you’ll be colder and wetter than you ever thought possible back in England.”
She laughed. “Ah, that’s the thing I missed about you, Ned Perry—your cheerful outlook. You do know how to put the best face on things!”
“What good would come of lying to you about it? If I try to hide the truth about how hard it will be, you’ll be angry with me the first cold, stormy day.” He looked out at the saltwater pond into which the little millstream flowed, and the deep harbour beyond, circled by its evergreen hills. “’Tis a beautiful country, though,” he added.
“On a day like this, it is.”
“Beautiful in winter, too, with snow on the evergreen trees and the pond in there frozen over. The frost on the bare branches looks like lace, sometimes. You’ll see. ’Tis not all bad.”
“You wouldn’t go back to Bristol?” She made it sound almost like an accusation.
Ned shrugged. “The governor took a few men back with him last summer. They were not going home in triumph. They were either fellows who had asked to go back, or who he had decided were not cut out for this life. I don’t intend to be one such.”
Nancy shook her head. “Men and their pride. And see where it gets us?”
Ned shouldered a sack of grain and opened the door to the mill for her. “It got us across the ocean to the New World. Do you think ships full of women explorers would ever have taken us so far?”
The ring of her laughter made the air of Cupids Cove sound better than anything had sounded to him in a long time. “Not likely! A ship full of women would have turned around, gone back to port, and done something sensible, like making sure there was dinner on the table for everyone.”
“And in faith, that is why men and women need each other,” Ned concluded. “Men to explore new lands, and women to make sure dinner is on the table. Now that Cupids Cove has both, the colony will surely flourish.”
Why men and women need each other. His own words flickered at the back of Ned’s mind all the rest of that day. They ground the flour and brought it back, and, tired as they were from that morning’s work, he went back to boatbuilding while Nancy and Kathryn made bread and cakes with the flour. At suppertime they all gathered around the board in their dwelling-house, Mistress Kathryn and Master Nicholas at the head of the table like lord and lady of the manor.
As the Scripture said, ’twas not good for man to be alone. A sensible young man thinking of his own prospects might stop brooding over another man’s wife and look to someone nearer at hand, someone with a clear laugh like a steeple bell, auburn hair that shone like a polished penny, and steady brown eyes that looked unblinking at the world. Someone with a quick tongue in her head who would put a fool like George Whittington in his place. Might she not have a different answer for an old friend?
Only he had better make his intentions plain quickly. With twelve single women and nearly two score single men, it would not be long before she had another offer.
CHAPTER TEN
An Attack is Anticipated
‘ Tis said, wise Socrates looked like an Ass;
Yet he with wondrous sapience filled was;
So though our Newfound-Land look wild, savage,
She hath much wealth penned in her rusty Cage.
CUPIDS COVE
JULY 1612
“REMEMBER HOW I CHAFED TO BE ALLOWED TO MANAGE THE household back in Bristol?” Kathryn said as Nancy helped her into her petticoat. “How angry I was at Joanna for doing all the work! There’s many a day now I’d be glad for the idleness that troubled me then.”
“Go on now! If we started rhyming off things we miss about home, I doubt Mistress Joanna would be first on your list.” As Kathryn pulled on a green fustian overskirt, Nancy moved around it, briskly brushing off the bits of dust, dirt, and twigs that seemed to cling to every garment in Cupids Cove.
Kathryn was mistress of a greater household here than she ever would have been back in Bristol, for under their roof in the dwelling-house lived four maids and six young men. Meals had to be cooked, clothes washed and mended for their household of twelve people, as well as everyone taking their share in the work of the colony. She was busy from dawn till dusk, and sometimes she and Nancy and the other women sat up by the firelight sewing and mending even after the sun had left the sky. In Cupids Cove, no one complained of idleness or boredom. It was, as they had been warned, a hard life, but she relished the role of mistress. Though she had no jingling ring of keys at her waist, it was possible to imagine herself as the chatelaine of a great estate.
Today, once the morning meal was eaten and the table cleared, animals had to be fed and the garden weeded: these were everyday chores. There was also ale to be brewed and candles to be made. As Kathryn and Nancy went from the bedchamber to the hearth fire, they saw the maids already hard at work. Daisy, Bess, and Molly More had all been dairymaids on the Young estate back home, and all had dairymaids’ habits of early rising and hard work. They had been out and milked the cows and goats, and now as Bess stirred the pottage and Molly cut thick slices of yesterday’s barley bread, Daisy mixed a new batch.
The menfolk, too, were already out and busy, but they soon came clattering through the door in search of the morning meal. The household sat down together at a long table to share pottage, bread, and ale.
“What this bread needs is fresh butter, or some nice cheese,” Daisy said when the meal was done and the men had gone again, “and I mean to make butter as soon as we’ve done cleaning up here. I’d like to get started soon on maki
ng cheese, too.”
“I’d be glad for some plum preserves,” Kathryn said. “Do plums grow round here?”
“I’ve not heard of plums, but Matt told me in a few weeks, by the end of August, there’ll be berries of all kinds,” Daisy said. “We’ll take a few days when they come into season and pick as many pails as we can, then make some preserves. I do miss the taste of anything sweet.”
“You get enough sweetness from Matt, you don’t need no preserves,” her sister Bess teased, pouring out a bucket of water to scrub the bowls.
“As if you’re not getting enough from Tom Taylor!” Daisy replied. “Beg pardon, Mistress Guy,” she added quickly.
The girls were about Kathryn’s own age—Daisy, the eldest, was a year older than she was, at twenty-one, while the twins were two years younger—but they deferred to Kathryn and often hushed or tutted at one another for foolish talk in front of her. Since they made a point of showing respect, Kathryn thought she ought to emphasize her own position as mistress.
“Enough light talk, now,” she said, pressing her mouth into what she hoped looked like a stern line. “We all have work to be about.” She would save her own light talk for the rare moments when she and Nancy were alone.
“I hope both those girls will get themselves properly married off, now, when that minister comes,” she said to Nancy, once Bess, Molly, and Daisy had gone about their chores. “The governor expects the married women to preserve the virtue of the maids, but I can’t be responsible for them and their young men every hour of the day.”
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