Chapter 4: A Whole New World

In blustery November the Janet Lune's luck improved. No more cases of dysentery developed although a few men still suffered chronic diarrhea and spent many mournful days in the neighborhood of the heads, standing at the rail on one foot and then the other and commiserating in a huddle of misery.

After Clemence's burial many days passed without a death but at the month's end a foul odor led to the discovery of what was left of a small convict in the space where the anchor ropes were stowed. The victim, his throat cut, had been crudely emasculated, and that news spread through the ship in minutes as did word of what had been found in his desiccated and rat-gnawed mouth. The purser crossed the twenty-first name from his list, and the first mate abandoned the search for the killer when his usual sources came up dry even after he loudly offered a crown and a jug of rum as a reward.

For some reason, perhaps the improved aim of the passengers, the rat population seemed to have decreased although they could still be heard scurrying through the hold and bilges during the dawn watches. The pair of ambitious apprentices who had been killing, skinning, cleaning, roasting and selling rats for tuppence closed up their forecastle butcher shop.

The ship's standard food, monotonous and salty though it was, got no worse except for the burrowing weevils and stranger-legged vermin in the tinned biscuits. Those who liked to crumble crackers into their watery stew came to look for movement before they ate. Although cloudy and acrid, the water supply remained adequate and still fairly palatable, certainly potable. Most of the men had grown to like the taste of citrus and looked forward to their daily dose.

A few fights broke out on deck, usually angry wrestling matches after loud name-calling, but most seemed, to both participants and crew, more entertainment than serious disputes and often ended in raucous laughter and bloody embrace. The apprentices engaged in noisy relay races around the masts and other athletic contests on Sunday afternoons to the enjoyment of all including Anne and Priscilla who applauded from the quarterdeck after dining with the always-impatient captain and his randy first mate. The mate banned the climbing contests after a leaping boy fell and broke his leg.

Elizabeth and Matthew now often found themselves standing near each other at meals and occasionally held hands as they fell asleep after Matt moved over to Benjamin's empty hammock. An unspoken bond, built on mutual loss, grew between them, one that Elizabeth did not even daydream about. They both mourned their losses silently but deeply. The handholding meant security, not shared affection, so she believed, and she always marveled at the size of Matthew's hand in which hers seemed lost. She was not sure what the craggy-faced man thought of it and neither was he although the contact with her fingers pleased him.

The fair, young boy Matthew had been sheltering went back to his friends; confident he could protect himself from predators. The Conroy girls, at their first Wednesday tea, a rather stiff and awkward get-together in very cramped quarters, had suggested that Elizabeth take the purser's narrow sleeping space next to theirs, but the captain, who had originally considered that plan as proper retribution, eventually rejected the generous idea. The Conroys were disappointed since the purser's prolonged and sonorous snoring often kept them awake.

Heeled over in a steady breeze from the northeast, the ship raised a misty point of land just south of Hatteras early on the twenty-ninth of November having weathered a serious storm that blew itself out after three wet, anxious and turbulent days. The "Lune" then clawed her way up the often-foggy coast with the help of friendly winds from the backside of the gale, sometimes making more than a hundred miles from noon to noon. With the huge mainsail now often hanging out to starboard rather than on the port side where it had been for much of the ocean crossing, the slim schooner took on a different attitude. The air smelled better; the food tasted fresher, fishing improved and most conversations tended to be about the future. Both ruddy Matthew and freckled Elizabeth studied what little they could see of the land and concluded that most of America was densely forested.

The captain had the purser break out his store of razors and scissors, and the men began taking turns pumping the grindstone and barbering each other's shaggy locks, On Sunday, after breakfast and the brief church service in which thanks was given for safe deliverance to the New World, with the sky high and blue and the sea calm and green, the first mate all but ordered the men who had not done so to shave off their scraggly beards and cut each other's tangled hair. He suggested that the use the seamen's system of tie-mates. The cook produced a tub of soft soap for the shavers and those who wanted to wash their greasy heads. Mamood found some more cord and offered it to the men who wished to tie back their tailored locks into the accepted style of the day. Elizabeth strung her clothesline at the forepeak and invited all to use it if they wished although there was almost no wind. Most of the passengers were still wearing the clothes they had come aboard in and therefore most smelled as rank as rotted meat.

Elizabeth washed and cut Matthew's hair and was pleased when he displayed his nicked but clean-shaven jaw to her. No one was ever likely to call the square-faced, heavy-browed, hawk-nosed young man handsome, but Elizabeth thought him rugged and strong like one of the helmeted warriors she had seen depicted in a Cornish cathedral's stained-glass windows. Everyone's morale seemed to improve, and some men even bathed under the pumps; to the astonishment of the Conroy girls when they came on deck unannounced that Sunday afternoon.

Off the coast of Virginia's Northern Neck on another unusually mild day, the hammocks were hauled on deck, more men bathed themselves and the hold was again sweetened with vinegar. Matthew took care of Elizabeth's hammock while she used the girls' soap and washed her long, sun-streaked hair in rainwater the cook had collected for her.

"Should I hack off most a'this mop then?" she asked Matthew, holding out her yard-long skein of wet hair, mischief in her eyes.

"No! Please don't," he replied, standing guard while she dunked her head in the bucket. "S'blood, woman! It's beautiful."

"Such blatherskite, from a knot-headed Kentishman at that. Yer a bloomin' disgrace. An' I was goin' t'ask ye t'cut it for me."

"T'would be a sin, woman. Believe me." He leaned back against the rail and turned serious, his hard face grim and determined, his brow furrowed. "No one knows what'll 'appen tomorrow much less in this Maryland, Elizabeth. But remember, girl, I promised your good man I'd look after you if I could." He snorted and looked away, having spit out half of a speech he had long rehearsed.

"Thank you, Matt, I ken y'did, but I 'spect we'll each 'ave t'care for ourselves once someone 'as our bond. 'Eaven knows where we'll be working or what we'll be doin' in a month or two. You take care a'yourself." She patted his hand. "That's enough f'me. You'll stay in m'prayers. But you've no obligation, man. None a'tall." She wrung out her hair like a mop, having answered his offer without looking at him directly.

"I'll find you, when I kin marry. When I've served m'years, when we're both free." Matthew watched the woman with open admiration as she shook her head and Scotch-combed her tangled tresses. "I'll find you. Then we'll see." He laughed and shook his head. "Maryland can't be as big as London." He grinned widely, relieved to have said what he thought right.

Elizabeth turned away and let her long hair hang down over her face so that Matthew could not see her tears. She had not cried very much when Clemence dropped into the sea, but the pain only hid away, the longing and the empty place. She liked men and enjoyed being loved, had for as long as she could recall. Her view of the future stood clouded at best and generally dark, heavily curtained.

Neither she nor Matthew had ever used the word "love," as far as she could remember, and he had not said that he hoped she would marry him, only that he felt obliged. She did not know what she would say if he asked. He was hardly the man of her girlish dreams. Even poor Clemence had been much easier to look at. She silently wept for Clemence and for herself. The resulting ache lasted until the next morning.

Except when it was raining, the Conroy girls reappeared on the quarterdeck every day wrapped in cloaks and hoods and obviously enjoying the sight of green land and marveling at the flights of birds and the antics of the dolphins that sometimes leapt alongside the ship. Often the younger girl's long, red hair escaped like a deep umber pennant flapping behind her. It was hard not to notice them and sometimes a score of men loitered for their appearances.

The two sullen prisoners, still bolted to the deck on short chains, had survived the icy storm that sent sheets of cold, green water cascading over the rails and through the scuppers. They were exempted from the issuing of razors and scissors. Quinn's curly, red beard now covered much of his narrow face while Sean O'Malley's dark facial hair had a rather broken and splotchy pattern, perhaps because of his smallpox scars. They generally squatted like red Indians, wrapped in faded canvas, as the weather grew steadily colder.

On December the fifth, a cloudy Tuesday, the Janet Lune scudded by the wide, shallow opening of the South River and dropped her best anchor in the muddy mouth of the Severn. They had arrived at Maryland's capital, a town that took pride in its red brick streets, strong-willed women, and graceful good manners.

The captain sent his first mate ashore in the small boat he called a "gig" to make the necessary arrangements for docking and for the sale of the passengers' indentures. On Wednesday a bordered advertisement appeared informing readers of the Annapolis-published Gazette that nearly a hundred "prime and able" servants would be available aboard the "Maryland-built Janet Lune at the city dock on Saturday instant." The ad listed some of the skills the men were said to possess and stated that a few seven-year servants were also available, which all Maryland knew meant convicts, "King's Passengers" some called them. The bottom line read: "plus a number of healthy field hands, likely apprentices and one domestic woman, age 19."

When the gig returned, it brought a slim young man wearing a brown tie-wig, flaring plum-colored jacket with many rows of bright buttons, long waistcoat, fawn knee britches, clocked silk stockings and silver-buckled shoes. He also wore a sword which the sailors called a "hanger." He introduced himself to the captain as one Andrew M'Kenna and asked to see the misses Conroy, whom he named as his stepsisters.

The newly-shorn "redemptioners," as they sometimes called each other, although they knew that was not the proper word, watched this playlet with elbow nudges and unconcealed amusement. They had not seen anyone dressed in such a stylish manner for months nor had they viewed so much hat waving, leg-making and by-your-leaving since some had enjoyed the bawdy comedies on the London stage that often featured a youthful fop or dandy as the butt of coarse jokes of the codpiece or cow-pie variety.

The beardless youth was taken down to the girls' cabin and soon all three appeared on deck, the young women in bonnets and muffs as well as their familiar capes. Next came the young ladies' sturdy baggage from deep in the hold. The crewmen roped the multi-strapped trunks down to the gig and the women followed, showing a bit of stripe-stockinged calf as they climbed over the rail to the boarding ladder. Anne went first, auburn curls tossing across her smiling face, and as Priscilla put her feet firmly on the ropes, with her head barely above the rail, she stopped and called out, "Elizabeth, oh there, Elizabeth."

Matthew fetched the woman, and elbowed passage for her through the crowd of onlookers. "I will not forget," Priscilla told her. "I hope we will see you on soon, and I'm sorry there'll be no tea this week. Here are some things, buttons for your dress. I found them when we were packing."

"Thank you," Elizabeth said, taking from the girl's hand three ornate brass buttons wrapped in a large, pink handkerchief which also held a spool of dark thread and a sliver of soap with two steel needles stuck in it.

"Oh," said Priscilla, popping back up above the rail after taking a step down, "this is my new stepbrother, Master Andrew M'Kenna. My father married his mother earlier this year."

The young man standing by the rail swept off his tall, tri-cornered hat with its royal cockade, made a leg and a small bow and said, "Madam."

Elizabeth answered with an equally small curtsey and replied, "Sir." She smiled into the boy's eyes but did not care for the insolent look and obvious sneer he returned.

Then they were gone. Elizabeth watched the heavily-laden boat make its way toward the shore leaving even sets of oar splashes on each side. She looked toward the black tree limbs and ranks of bright white and dark red buildings in the distance and the large, brick structure rising atop a central hill near a humble steeple. Probably another church, she thought. Maryland seemed to be a bit like England, she thought, just newer, fresher, and she saw no sign of any mines.

The next two days were reasonably mild for a Chesapeake December, and the captain did all he could to get his passengers ready for the Saturday morning sale. They now had three meals a day, including fresh-caught fish, and the harried mate, the squat quartermaster and his foul-mouthed assistant inspected each man for cleanliness and general appearance, forcing some to shave again or trim their hair, pare their nails or wash their feet. Clothes were mended, and the bondsmen were encouraged to spend as much time as they could on deck to lose the pallor most had acquired in November from long hours in the hold under battened down hatches.

On Wednesday morning a narrow, hoy-rigged boat appeared with six uniformed rowers, two militia men with muskets and an officer in full-dress uniform. With an exchange of papers and very little ceremony, the captain turned the Irish prisoners over to them and then watched them being rowed away across the half-mile of glass-smooth water. They could hardly walk after more than a month of being restricted to the radius of their six-foot chains. They left without looking at the men who hooted their departure. Elizabeth stayed below, holding her clenched fist to her heart, tasting bitterness, trying not to hate.

On Thursday the captain called everyone to the ship's stern after the morning meal and explained what would be happening on Saturday. His audience was, at the start, unusually quiet, even apprehensive. There was very little coughing or pushing.

"Elizabeth here will go first, so that she doesn't have to see any of you lot without your breeches." A few men nudged each other and weakly smiled. "The planters sometimes want to see your leg muscles, if you have any left, and examine some other things as well. Ahem. They may even poke at you a bit, but I don't think they'll look at your teeth like you was horses. Some might. Don't look surprised when we ask you to strip off; just do it. Any of you with lice, bathe again and get rid a'them, pick 'em off and crunch 'em; don't flick 'em on other men. And try not to breathe on the buyers. Most a'you smell like a slop jar."

That brought a small laugh and some nervous shuffling.

"We'll put up those with a skill or trade first. That's what many of the town folk come for," said the captain, "and then the apprentices. No jesting from you maggots. Just stand there and answer polite as you're asked, no braggin'. An' say sir. I guess we'll have the farm hands, mechanics and laborers after the boys and see what's left. I know some of you came fresh out of the prisons and poor houses, but we don't have to tell these Marylanders that. Most'll know. It's not like the old days when ships full of convicts arrived hereabouts. Just answer polite and say 'sir' now and again. Tug a forelock if ye've got one."

"What happens if there's more of us than jobs, more than there's buyers?" somebody asked in a flat, Midlands accent.

"Ah, well then, you stay warm, dry and fed in a warehouse or storeroom on the dock until we can find someone to purchase your bond. We have a load of tobacco to take back to Scotland and need to get paid for all this good food you et." The captain smiled and looked about.

That brought some coarse comments and "haw-haw" laughs.

"If it gets right down to the end, to sailing time, there's one or two merchants along Factors' Row that deal in indentured folk, Scots more'n likely, but honest men, and we'll send them what's left. This town and this colony is growing fast," said the captain waving toward the steeply sloping, still-forested land. "I know there's plenty of work for carpenters, masons, mill workers and the like. So you may not get what you wants, not exactly nohow, but there's good work here and even more to the west, toward the hills you can't see. I think you'll all find that. They've got a sight of African slaves now, so the market for whites ain't what it was right here on the coast."

"How 'bout wimmen?" someone yelled out.

"Oh, I spied a number of willing lasses when I was ashore," the first mate said, with a grin that suggested he might have sampled one or two. "Don't think there's a shortage of quail in this pretty town. Never saw a port where there was."

Chuckles and nudges along with a few boasts, forearm gestures and calls for bringing some tarts aboard followed that. The crowd broke into knots of worried-looking men, but the apprentices returned to their violent game of stoop tag, and many envied them their lack of care.

On Friday morning Elizabeth came on deck, early as always, to find a thin coat of snow over everything and a few flakes still fluttering down from a slate-colored sky. The temperature had dropped and the clouds were low and milky gray inland, tumbled like ill-gathered sails. The wind from the northeast had swung the narrow ship around on its prime bower so that its prow now pointed out into the horizonless Bay. The powdery snow felt good under Elizabeth's bare feet as she hurried to brush off the seat board and use the heads.

Mamood was standing by the cook's shack when she got there. He nodded 'good morning' to her, his hands pressed together beneath his lips.

"I didn't 'ave a chance t'thank you for 'elping m'husband," she said, touching his arm.

"I am sorry my poor skills, it was not enough," the man said, eyes lowered.

"What killed him then, d'y'think?"

"Oh," said Mamood, looking up and holding the woman's level gaze, "he drowned, like in the sea. His lungs, they fill up. Can't get breath. I'm sorry, missus."

"Have y'seen snow before?" she asked. The Lascar was wearing only a short vest and sailors' loose pantaloons, but he did not seem to be cold. Snow flakes dotted the dark hair poking from around his head cloth. Like the woman, he was barefoot.

"Oh yes, in the mountains, several places, but not like this. It is, what, so beautiful, like painting on wall, like art. Look. Look. Everywhere." He swept his arm toward the shore where the bare-limbed trees were outlined with snow and the rocks wore caps of white.

"Yes," Elizabeth said. "I'd forgotten."

As more men came on deck and the snow blew across the Bay and through the shrouds, Elizabeth received her hot breakfast; porridge, a piece of gristly meat and a hunk of dense cheese. She went back below and ate, sitting in her hammock, thinking of Clemence and Cornwall.

Matthew hurried down the ladder carrying a large, metal pitcher. "There's tea t'day. Who wants some? It's dark, sweet and hot." Several men approached him with their cups, and when he had served all of them, he came to Elizabeth's place.

"Y'were too early for the tea. Want some?"

She nodded, trying to chew the salty meat, and held out her tin cup. Matthew filled it and then sat across from her and poured himself some steaming tea. Their knees touched as he set the pitcher between his broken boots.

"What're you thinking?" he asked.

"Oh, 'bout poor Clemence an' how we got here, home. This Mary-land looks like Cornwall some, 'specially them cliffs we passed back a'ways." She sipped her black tea. "Nothin' really. I guess I'm that worried 'bout tomorrow. D'I tell you that those silly girls said they'd bring their father t'the sale. I think they'd like me for a maid or some such; c'n y'imagine? Me livin' in a fine, brick house."

Matthew admired the three shining buttons on the front of Elizabeth's dress. He reached out and touched one. "They were, I don't know, interestin' people I guess. Like from a different world than the rest a'us. But they did gi' you these and that fine soap."

"And this kerchief. An' we had tea and talked a'silly things, dresses and lace and such." She sat up straight, bloused out the pink cloth around her neck and tucked it down between her breasts. "Haven't 'ad anything there since w'left London. Makes m'feel all ladylike, it does." She smiled and felt happier than she had for weeks.

"Y'look fine," Matthew said. "Your bond says five years, don't it?"

Elizabeth nodded her head, looked at the deck and broke up her piece of yellow cheese. She knew what he was going to say.

"Mine's only four, y'know. When I'm free, if that little man back there in London told the truth; hah, not likely is it, I'll get some money an' clothes, per'aps some land. Then I'll come find you, I will, lass. I promised. Maybe I can buy that last year a'yours."

Elizabeth shook her head and looked away.

"I been askin' about," Matthew continued with a wave at the knots of men nearby. "Course I don' know what you want."

"Don't you worry 'bout me," she said, avoiding the obvious question, pushing it aside. "I tole you. Look after y'self. The time will take care a'the time. You've got no big brother t'back y'up now if y'decide to go and do somethin' foolish then. And I've seen y'do foolish things." She grinned at him.

"Ho, ye do remember when y'first saw us, don' ya?" Matthew asked, slapping his thigh and almost spilling his tea. "We were a fine, rustic pair, weren't we, bumkins?"

"Hm," said Elizabeth, sipping at her steaming cup. "And weren' y'just a bit tipsy and hadn't y'been abed with some hussy, a fat one at that?" She smiled at him.

"Lord, yes, I still remember her dugs. She was awful, like a whale or somethin', and didn't she smell. Y'saw us come down and head for the ship, didn' ya, you an' Clem?"

"Aye, an' heard poor Ben heave up 'is supper, too, right out in the public street."

"My Lord, I'd forgotten that." He snorted. "Seems like years ago 'stead of a few months."

"Tomorrow, friend, w'turn a page, another page."

"More like a whole new book, a whole new world." Matthew took her hand. It was cold. Elizabeth felt his heavy bones and tight sinews, the blood sliding by, the chain-pump calluses. It was hardly a gentleman's hand. She felt her minutes of happiness fading away and worm-like worry returning, burrowing deep.

The sale began early on Saturday morning after the ship was warped to the Annapolis dock. The indentured men stayed below deck while the buyers came aboard to be welcomed by the captain and the purser. The cook produced an endless supply of coffee and chocolate as well as baskets of what he called scones which were so hard many men dunked them before trying to chew them.

Elizabeth had combed her hair as best she could and tied it back with braided twine. Her shift was clean and her dress mended, her buttons bright. She now stood quietly near the cabin door watching the clean-shaven men in their tight coats and fancy waistcoats step onto the deck and look about at the carefully furled sails and taut rigging. Most were mature, some gentlemen were wearing wigs and carrying canes or walking sticks while others were plainly dressed. A few were obviously in various trades. Two wore leather aprons. They segregated themselves into small groups and held boisterous conversations while they waited, stamping their well-shod feet in the chill. If any glanced at the slim woman, she never caught them at it.