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“Bess,” said Margaret, advancing to the fire, “Pond, the miller’s been here, had a letter from that great hobble-de-hoy son of his, who is - is coming home. He told of yet more deaths out there - it was distressing...”

“Oh?” said Elizabeth sympathetically, while rescuing her crystal brooch from Joan’s clutch. “Still you must not
let
it distress you, my mother - since there’s nothing for it - but to go.”

They both heard the involuntary sound that Martha made. The girl was perched on a stool by old Adam’s desk box, laboriously writing to Jack. He had taught her a simple cipher for their private use, partly to amuse her, and partly because his eager mind was interested in ciphers, as it was in alchemy and medicine and all branches of physical science.

Martha had the key to the cipher beside her, but was proud of having nearly learned the numerical symbols, each one of which stood for a letter, and she tried to make her sprawling, unformed writing neat. She had been, as she did repeatedly, assuring him of her love, quite unable to explain the dark resistance and fears which had clouded their wedding night and thereafter.
That’s
it - she thought - as she heard her sister speak. ‘Tis the prospect of this fearful journey that makes me act so strange with Jack. She dipped her pen, and a great blot of ink skipped off on the paper. She stared at it through hot tears.

It would be a shame to send him a blotted letter, as so many things were shameful. Shameful as her behaviour to him, their wedding night when they had been alone in the great bed upstairs. Screaming, fighting, sobbing, until at last he turned from her, saying in a voice of sad aloofness, “My poor Martha, you need not struggle with me, nor ever fear me.” He had not touched her again except to kiss her lightly now and then as he had always done.

She pulled another piece of paper from the box, and started once more in cipher, “Deare husband.”

The other women had gone on talking and Margaret said, “Pond asked me if you sailed with us - I said I thought so - yet, Bess dear  - how I hope that you will make the match with William Coddington - John wishes it - and it would settle you so well over there!” Winthrop had twice mentioned William Coddington’s projected visit to the Manor, and a groom had gone to fetch Coddington from Sudbury this very afternoon.

Elizabeth sat up, pushing back her hair, which the baby had tumbled, “I won’t know until I see the man!” she said briskly. “But I mislike what I’ve heard about him - writing to the vicar to inquire about my virtues! Writing to you the same! And I’ve little fancy for a widower, no matter how Uncle John thinks to get me ably off his hands!”

“Bess!” cried Margaret, noting sadly that: Elizabeth had returned of late to the rebellious bravado of her girlhood, but Margaret was staunchly fond of her, and had come to depend on her too. “You speak most unreasonable.
You
are a widow, and since Mr. Coddington has most unfortunately buried his wife in New England . . .”

“And is looking for another as fast as possible, and is rich, and is willing to consider me on Uncle John’s recommendation, I should be thanking God for my good fortune?” Elizabeth burst out in one of her rare laughs at Margaret’s rueful face. “Never mind, dearest Mother. I promise to charm Mr. Coddington if I possibly can. I suppose I must marry, if only to get a man in my bed. I find the nights lonely, and I want more babies.”

Margaret shook her head. ‘“I grieve to hear you so flippant - did I not know your warm true heart...”

“Warm true hearts profit little,” said Elizabeth, gathering up Joan. “I will go now and make myself beautiful for Mr. Coddington!” She spoke pertly, but as she passed the desk where Martha was hunched, she gave her sister an anxious look, knowing well that something was wrong between the new couple, and sorry for them, even though she could not help relief that she had not had to witness raptures.

William Coddington duly arrived in time for supper, and Elizabeth had made herself as lovely as the black silk dress and plain mourning collar allowed. She wickedly left off her starched widow’s-cap, and twisted her hair into little tendrils around her face. She rubbed some red salve Harry had given her on her lips. She doused herself with rosewater and patted orris-root powder over her neck and arms.

Sally was in ecstasies as she helped her mistress, crying, “Oh, ma’am, ye dew smell good n’ thass the truth. The gentleman’ll never leave wi’out declaring hisself!”

Elizabeth’s hazel eyes sparkled as she descended the stairs, and her heart beat with an anticipation she had not admitted to Margaret. It would be pleasant to be wooed again, to feel desirable and female. It would be delightful to be kissed and, if Mr. Coddington pleased her, she had little doubt that she could kindle passion in him. Fifteen months had passed since she had said farewell to poor Harry, and his image had faded. Recently she had even enjoyed correspondence with Edward Howes, who apparently still wanted her and was making overtures by letter, though she had no intention of allowing him to get serious again. Her awakened body yearned for lovemaking after the long abstinence; she wished for new romance that would release her once and for all from any forbidden preoccupation with Jack.

But William Coddington, despite Sally’s prophecy, did leave Groton without declaring himself, for after one horrified look at him as she entered the Hall, Elizabeth behaved outrageously.

Coddington was no more than thirty, but his head was nearly bald, and fringed with straggling locks. He was pock-marked, much shorter than she and very fat. He was stuffed like a sausage into an elegant brocaded doublet and velvet breeches. There were several gold rings on his puffy hands. Bowing, he greeted Elizabeth in tones of measured condescension.

“Good evening, Mistress Winthrop, this is a pleasure long desired, I have heard interesting reports of you, and am gratified to see that those of your comeliness at least were not exaggerated - ” He gave her a smug, appraising smile and she noted that his breath was foul from rotted teeth.

“And I’ve heard of you,” she answered, furious with disappointment. “And I observe that perhaps reports of famine in New England
are
much exaggerated.” She glanced from his plump cheeks to his paunch, but her voice was so soft, and Coddington so sure of his own worth, that he merely smiled again in a startled way and said, “I believe they are, at least it is largely the lower sort of folk who complain.”

“I see -” she said. “How foolish of them.” Her smile became more brilliant, gliding away from Coddington to rest on young Leigh, the vicar’s eighteen-year-old son, who had just come down from Cambridge. The Leigh family had been asked to supper to meet Mr. Coddington.

“Is it not foolish of the lower sort to complain of scanty food - Mr. Leigh?” she said to the young man
_s
looking at him through her lashes. He was immediately dazzled, and stammered some fatuous reply.

Throughout the supper, Elizabeth flirted with young Leigh, she drank too much claret, she laughed too high, she interrupted Coddington whenever he tried to deliver an opinion. Martha and Mary stared at her in amazement. Had Margaret been there, she might have controlled this madness, but Margaret had excused herself from the supper party because her baby had again developed fever and convulsions.

Mr. Coddington grew very quiet, and pursed his little mouth uncertainly as he watched Elizabeth. He knew himself to be a man of consequence both in Old Boston and the New - a most eligible husband. He had however been prepared to overlook the fact that Elizabeth was a mere apothecary’s daughter, prepared even to forget somewhat damaging gossip he had heard about her impetuous marriage to Harry, sir.ee her double relationship to Governor Winthrop mitigated these. So undoubtedly did her beauty. He felt himself as powerfully attracted by it as he was shocked by her hoydenish behaviour, which grew worse. After supper Elizabeth, sweetly enquiring if she could entertain them, picked up a lute and sang in her true husky voice a ribald tavern song she had learned from Harry. She was presently joined in the chorus by young Leigh, despite the rector’s glares.

“You do not like my song?” she asked anxiously in the silence that followed. “Oh, Mr. Coddington, I am so disappointed, for I wished so much to please you. Perhaps
this
one will, I think it charming.” And she launched into “Cuckolds all in a Row”.

Before she had finished, Mr. Leigh rose, signalled his wife and grabbed his son by the arm. “We must be going,” he said in outraged tones, throwing Coddington a look of commiseration and apology.

Elizabeth too looked at Coddington, and was dismayed to see a lustful glint in his small eyes which kept roaming over her neck and bosom. She poured herself more wine to offset a fear - the lifelong buried fear of John Winthrop and his wishes. She had defied these once, and dared not do so again by explicitly refusing her uncle’s choice for her, The opportunity must not arise. “Wait,” she cried wildly to the Leighs. “It is yet early, let us play a game of names - to see what images they present I”

The Leighs paused, compelled by her vibrancy and force.

“My maiden name - ” she cried, “was Fones - that’s easy, since it makes us think of fawns. But yours, Mr. Coddington - why what a wondrous suggestive name it is! We think of a great fish, do we not? We think of little pods, and bags - aye, and can we help - when viewing so handsome, so virile an owner of the name,” she paused, went on with silken malice, “Can we
help
think of a codpiece?”

Coddington drew in a hissing breath. His pride of name was as great as his physical deficiency in the area to which Elizabeth so monstrously referred. He threw her a look of fury, and said with considerable dignity, “Your game is a poor one, Mistress Winthrop, and I perceive that you have drunk to excess. I shall return to Sudbury if you will kindly have the horses brought”

It was some days before her baby recovered and Margaret heard of that evening from the rector. She went straight in search of Elizabeth who was working in her surgery, looking pale and drawn.

“Oh, Bess, how
could
you?” Margaret cried, sinking down on the stool and gazing woefully at the girl. “What Mr. Coddington must think - and will tell John!”

“He’ll not tell much,” said Elizabeth slowly, pounding cardamon seeds in her mortar. “Except that he found me unsuitable, ‘tis better that way. You scarce saw him - he was - was -” she shuddered, “like a bloated toad, and yet Uncle John would have had me marry him.”

“Men think not of the looks of other men,” said Margaret helplessly. “And my John is best judge of what’s good for you and all of us. Bess, he is your guardian, your uncle and your father, you
must
obey him.”

Aye, thought Elizabeth, and he has my dowry too, my four hundred pounds which he said he would repay but has not yet. Dear God, that I were born a man, and could strike out alone - with Joan.

“And, in your behaviour you most dreadfully breached the laws of hospitality,” said Margaret, fastening on another unhappy aspect of the rector’s account.

“For that I’m sorry,” said Elizabeth dully. “I was high-flown with wine.”

“May God correct and guide you, my poor child,” sighed Margaret, rising with difficulty for she had remained heavy after Ann’s birth, and her leg veins were swollen. “I pray all the time that you will be touched with His sure grace.”

Elizabeth put down her pestle. She bent and kissed the older woman. “I would be like you if I could, my mother, but I cannot.”

On August 15 of that summer, 1631, the Winthrops arrived at Sandwich in Kent to await Captain Peirce and his ship
Lyon,
which had been laden at Gravesend and was sailing down the Thames and around Kent to pick them up before continuing the voyage to New

England.

Mr. John Humphrey, who was married to Arbella’s sister, Lady Susan, had kindly placed a house he owned in Sandwich at the Winthrops’ disposal while they waited for the
Lyon,
but though it was a goodly Tudor mansion near the Guildhall the Winthrop party was so large that some must stay at the Fleur-de-Lys, which enchanted Elizabeth, who insisted on being of that number.

The inn was .small and musty, the beds none too well aired, but it was gay, the taproom filled with jovial drinkers, the courtyard always a-bustle with travellers and sailors, and passengers like themselves, who meant to embark from the Downs. And at the inn one could better smell the sea.

Elizabeth had been bred in London and the gentle countryside, and was fond of both. Yet from her first glimpse of the distant line of breakers on the Sandwich Flats, she felt a compelling new thrill. Let the rest of them, Margaret, Martha, and Mary, weep for Groton, as they did that night, Elizabeth could not join them. She suffered nothing but relief and anticipation. The Winthrops had brought four servants, amongst them Sally, who had decided to emigrate with Elizabeth when Wat Vintener proved fickle. Elizabeth nursed Joan, then left her in Sally’s charge and escaped into the warm summer twilight, heading through the quaint winding streets for the sea. The sea was retreating from this town that had once been the chiefest of the Cinque Ports, but a short walk brought her to the wide, brown sands, where she stood transfixed, gazing with awe at the crashing breakers, the flying spume, the suck and power of the watery masses, ever striving, pounding, ebbing, indifferent, and beautiful.

“Ah - ” she breathed, stretching wide her arms into the salt-sweet wind. She walked so near the marge that one wave, greater than the rest, swirled round her ankles and she laughed.

“So, Bess - you laugh?” said a quizzical voice behind her. She turned and saw Jack standing on the sand. Some of her own exultance showed in his eyes. “The sea,” he said, “pathway to the New World.”

“To freedom,” she answered, throwing back her head. They looked long at each other and Jack moved closer, then checked himself. “I guessed where to find you, for it’s where I would come too. There’s news. The
Lyon
was sighted passing Ramsgate earlier. She’ll soon be in the Downs with this wind. We may leave tomorrow.”

“I’m glad - ” she cried. “Glad!”