Page 34 of Dark Tides
She turned away from her son and took Sir James’s arm. “Shall we walk together into the fields? I so love the country.”
“Of course, if you wish.”
He let her take his arm and was relieved that the nursemaid followed them with the baby, like a chaperone, as they walked towards Horsleydown Fields.
“I understand now what it is you want from the warehouse,” she said in an intimate whisper.
He did not like the way she said “the warehouse,” as if they were a commodity that he might order on the wharf, and not the woman and her son that he loved.
“But Mrs. Reekie is of stone! And she is very ill, you don’t know how very ill. There was a terrible accident. I think at sea. And then for her son Roberto to drown too!”
He could taste cowardice in his mouth like brine. “A very… tragic… coincidence.”
“But here is another coincidence,” she said, speaking quickly, her accent getting stronger in her excitement. “You come to the warehouse, wanting a wife and a son—and I come to the warehouse: a widow with a son!”
“The cases are hardly—”
“Don’t you see?” she demanded. “The very things that you need: I have here. You hoped that Mrs. Reekie, a widow, had your child, and that she would marry you. Butecco!She denies you. But I have her son’s child, and I am a widow. Do you see?”
He thought he could see nothing but the enchanting dimple at the side of her mouth where the fashionable black patch set off the creamy pink of her cheek.
“I must be very stupid…”
She laughed. “No! No! You are too modest. An Italian man would catch my meaning at once. But I don’t care for Italian men, don’t think that of me! If I had wanted to marry an Italian I had only to stay in Venice where I was much admired. But I need to have a friend in England, a man of property, someone who will introduce me to the people who will buy my antiquities. I need a protector in England, someone to care for me and my son. And my son needs a father, someone to keep us and educate him, bring him up as an English boy.” She looked at him inquiringly. “Now do you see?”
“Are you proposing that I should help you? And be a father to your boy?” he asked, feeling his face grow hot at her immodesty.
“Of course!” she said limpidly, as if it were the most obvious of solutions. “You want a son?”
“I want my own son!” he said, as if it were wrenched from him.
She beckoned the nursemaid, who stepped forward again and showed the little face, the hands like tiny roses, the face like a flower in the lace cap. “Have this one!” she urged him. “And marry me.”
JUNE 1670, HADLEY, NEW ENGLAND
Ned attended the town meeting about the defense of the country after the Sunday afternoon prayer service, standing at the back alongside the other single men of the town. There were only three of them; the other two were tradesmen: a glazier and a carpenter, invited by theminister and the elders to bring their skills and scrape a living on a half lot. Ned was not called on to speak, though he knew the native people better than any of them, meeting them daily on the river and in the forests, and ferrying them in and out of town. But a friendship with the native peoples was no longer seen as an advantage, it put a question mark over a man’s loyalty; a knowledge of their language was not a useful skill unless it was put at the service of the settlers.
The messenger from Mr. John Pynchon, son of the founder of Springfield, commander of the militia, deputy to the general council and the greatest man in the valley, brought a stern warning: every town militia must be mustered, drilled, armed, and prepared to defend their own areas. Every town must report what the neighboring savages were doing, if they were friendly or complaining, if they were trading or refusing to service the settlers. There were reports that the leader of the Pokanoket tribe, King Philip, had invited the king of the Niantic people to his fort at Mount Hope. Ned listened as one speaker after another warned of the danger if the old rivalry between the Niantic and Pokanoket were ended, if the Niantic were to join with the disloyal Pokanoket, if they were to refuse land sales to the settlers, to deny trade, to deny service. Once or twice one of the elders glanced towards Ned, one of the few men from Hadley who used the many paths that crisscrossed New England, who met Niantic people on the river and in the forest. Ned kept his head down and said nothing.
Minister John Russell prayed for calm and careful judgment as the meeting ended and stood at the back of the meetinghouse with the elders to say good-bye to each neighbor. Ned was one of the last out and waited by the minister as he locked the door, pocketed the key, and they walked together to his house. The minister’s wife and children and Mrs. Rose, the housekeeper, followed the men.
“You weren’t at prayers earlier today, Ned Ferryman?”
“No, Minister, many of the Hatfield people like to hear your sermon and I ferried them across the river and home again.”
“Who’s keeping the ferry for you now?”
“John Sassamon. He said you had given permission.”
“Yes. He’s a good man, a Harvard man like me. He brought the message from Mr. Pynchon.”
“Aye.”
“Is it all quiet in the town, Ferryman? No natives coming and going on the ferry? No dugouts on the river, no more than usual?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary,” Ned said. “They’re still unhappy about the fish traps.”
Minister Russell nodded. “Tell them if they bring in fish again, we’ll pay a little extra,” he said. “Let’s get things back to normal. No ill will, no rumors.”
