The Hearth and Eagle (3 page)

But he hadn’t come back. He had helped row the retreat from Brooklyn to New York after the dreadful battle of Long Island, and he had written her a letter, cocky as ever—“We saved the army, us Marbleheaders, we muffled the ors and rowed the poor lubbers acrost that little millpond they got down here-along. Don’t fret, sweetheart, it’ll be over with soon.”

How long had she kept that letter sewn into her bodice? Years it must have been, because she had nursed little Tom for two years, and long after that the letter was still in her bodice. It was the only letter she had ever got from Richard.

The Marbleheaders had rowed again on the night of December twenty-fifth. The old woman, caught by a single-minded urgency, got out of the rocker and walked gropingly toward her own room, the warm kitchen bedroom near the great chimney. In the bottom drawer of the pine chest, she unearthed beneath piles of flannel nightcaps an ancient tea box, its purple roses and green daisies still glowing on the lid after seventy years. Richard’s letter was inside, tied up with black ribbon and rosemary, but it was not that she wanted. She shuffled through other keepsakes until she found a yellowed newspaper clipping. It was headed “Speech by General Knox,” and she held it at arm’s length, squinting her eyes.

“I wish the members of this body knew the people of Marblehead as well as I do. I could wish that they had stood on the Banks of the Delaware River in 1776 in that bitter night when the Commander in Chief had drawn up his little army to cross it, and had seen the powerful current bearing onward the floating masses of ice which threatened destruction to whosoever should venture—”

The remembered anguish of a few minutes ago gave place to the old thrill of pride. Sorrow was a solitary business, but pride must be shared. She put the clipping on her knee, and called the child.

“Hessie—I want you should come here.”

Hesper obeyed slowly, a little rebellious. The strange noise in the taproom had stopped, and she had been amusing herself seeing pictures in the fire, the red leaping castles peopled by tiny golden fairies.

“I want you should listen to this. Set down, child.”

The high quavering voice read the first paragraph out loud, and went on from Knox’s speech. “ ‘I wish that when this occurrence threatened to defeat the enterprise, they could have heard that distinguished warrior demand “Who will lead us on?”’ That was General Washington speakin’, Hessie.”

Hesper’s attention came back with a jerk. She nodded politely. The clipping trembled in Gran’s hand, “And you listen what Knox says next. ‘It was the men of Marblehead, and Marblehead alone, who stood forward to lead the army along the perilous paths to unfading gloriesand honors in the achievements of Trenton. There went the fishermen of Marblehead, alike at home on land or water, alike ardent, patriotic and unflinching, whenever they unfurled the flag of the country.’ ”

The long words meant nothing to the child, but she was impressed by the way Gran looked, shining as if somebody had lighted a candle behind her face.

“Richard was the first port oarsman right back of Washington, Bill Blackler commanded the boat. Josh Orne told me all about it months later. He said there was Richard, the sweat freezin’ on his face, and cussin’ something dreadful, but tryin’ to swallow his oaths on account of General Washington there.”

The old woman gave a sudden cackle of laughter. “Richard was a terrible one for bad language. Anything he didn’t like, he’d yell, ‘To hell I pitch it and let the devil fry it on his rump!’ I used to beg him to talk gentle, but pretty soon I give up,” she sighed. “But he was a good boy.”

Hesper frowned, struggling with a new impression. Gran often told stories, often changed like this, going from sad to glad so they didn’t make much sense. Half the time she didn’t listen. But something in the way Gran had said, “He was a good boy...” made it real.

The child put her hand on the bony gray knee. “Who was Richard, Gran?”

The old woman twisted her head. An immense futility engulfed her. Explanations—why didn’t people know without being told, why didn’t anyone remember....

“He was your—no he was your
great-
grandsir, I guess—” she said dully. “And he was killed at the Battle of Trenton.”

Killed, thought Hesper. A queer word. A quick rippling word. It didn’t sound very scary. Not like drownded. That was heavy and black.

Sarah had been wandering back again, not to clear-cut scenes, but to a long confusion of strivings. The striving to give birth here in this room—give birth to Tom. And forty years later his own hopeless striving for life, there on this very bed. Then the striving to make a living, running the tavern alone, until Tom grew up enough to help before he went off fishing with the bankers as a cut-tail. And another striving to give life, in this old Birth and Death room, the night Roger was born, and the niminy-piminy daughter-in-law, Mary Ellis, whimpering she couldn’t get through it. Nor did she. Death again. Opening and shutting, opening and shutting the door of this room. I wish it’d open for me, Sarah thought, I’m getting mighty weary. And she looked at the long cradle which stood in the corner of the room. Built two hundred years ago for Mark, the first Honeywood, who had something wrong with his spine. Rocking would soothe him, ’n’ it soothes me too. In the cradle you could let go all this memory of striving, the beautiful gray peace folded over you, you floated back and forth, back and forth in the gray peace, and sometimes the rocking brought your mother’s voice humming a soft little spinning song—and sometimes it brought Richard’s voice singing above the lap of waves against a boat in the harbor.

“He sang real nice—” she said out loud, and she began to quaver—

A pretty fair maid, all in a garden,
A sailor boy came passing by.
He stepped aside and thus addressed her,
Saying “Pretty fair maid, won’t you be my bride?”

“Gran!” cried Hesper, tugging at the old woman’s arm, for Gran had got up still singing and was going toward the long cradle. Her eyes had sunk back in her head and there was a silly little smile on her face. She was sliding into one of the bad times, when she wasn’t Gran at all, just a helpless old baby wanting to be rocked.

“Gran”—the child repeated urgently—“don’t get in the cradle—Tom and Willy are drownded.”

The old woman paused, the appeal in the child’s voice reached her. Tom and Willy are drownded. Tom and Willy? She groped through the clinging gray peace, and shook her head half in annoyance that the child’s voice was detaining her, half in sympathy. “Well don’t take on, dearie. There’s a many drownded here, and off the Banks too. Hark! I can hear the keel gratin’ on the sand, that’s what folks used to say, when Death’s cornin’ for them.”

Death—the soft grayness floating down through peaceful waters that rocked you back and forth.

Hesper saw that the answering look had gone from Gran’s face. Shaking off the child’s hand she climbed into the long high cradle. She settled down with a sigh like a swish of wind through leaves.

“Rock Sally—” she whispered plaintively. “Sally wants to be rocked.”

Hesper looked down at the small face on the pillow beneath the sheltering oak hood. The wrinkles were smoothed away, the lips smiling in anticipation.

The child put her foot on the rocker and gave it one sharp push, but misery welled up from her tight chest. She jerked away from the cradle, and stumbled into the kitchen.

Gran had gone back to her secret world. Ma and Pa were together behind a closed door. They were talking about Tom and Willy. It was an awful bad thing had happened. But
I’m
here, she thought, don’t they care that I’m here—

She crept to her special stool on the hearth inside the fireplace and leaned her head against the bricks, sobbing quietly.

The small flames kept shimmering and dissolving between the huge andirons, the black balls that topped the andirons stood quiet above the noisy little fire like two proud, strong people. She watched the andirons and her sobs lessened as she began to think about them. Pa and Gran used to talk of them sometimes, though Ma thought they were dreadful ugly and liked the brass ones in the parlor lots better. Pa called these tall black andirons Phebe’s fire-dogs. Phebe’d brought them on a ship across the sea, so long ago that there wasn’t any Marblehead here at all. Phebe was Mark Honeywood’s wife. The first
American
Honeywood, Pa always said, though nobody ever would listen except Hesper. Most everyone in Marblehead had families that went way back too.

But Pa thought there was something very special about Phebe, because of a letter. Pa said a great lady had written it, and it was something to be very proud of. He kept it wrapped in a yellow Chinese silk square in a carved wooden box in the secret drawer of his desk. He’d read it to Hesper on her last birthday, but she hadn’t understood it very well, even though he made her repeat some of the phrases about being brave: “She hath a most sturdy courage,” and “it is such as she who will endure in my stead.”

Hesper had been much more interested in the embroidered yellow silk and the black box carved with the faces of slant-eyed men. These had belonged to Moses Honeywood, Pa’s great great grandsir who had owned three schooners in the China trade, and made a lot of money. The only Honeywood who had.

But Pa wouldn’t let her play with the box, and he kept on talking about Phebe and Mark. He spoke of them as heroes and gods, comparing Mark to Odysseus and Phebe to a radiant all-conquering Hera. Sometimes he was bad as Gran, making her listen to old stories when she wanted to be playing hide and seek between the fish houses with Charry Trevercombe.

Hesper watched the andirons, and the small leaping tongues of fire between them, when suddenly a thought struck her with the thrill of revelation. It was over two hundred years since Phebe’d brought those andirons here, but she must have sat just like this sometimes and watched them too. Phebe was dead—all those others after her—Isaac and Moses and Zilpah and Richard, and now Tom and Willy too. They were all dead. But the andirons were still just the same. They’re letting
me
watch them now, she thought, with awe.

Then there were some things like the fire-dogs, the letter, the house itself that went on and on even if people did. Things that didn’t draw away from you and leave you alone the way people did. Things that didn’t change from day to day. Miss Ellison at Sabbath school said God didn’t either. But you couldn’t touch and see God.

She frowned, struggling with a further concept. For had not Phebe and Mark, being dead, become as enduring as the andirons? Neither could they change now, and yet it was because of what they had been that Hesper, sitting by the hearth in the old house, was as she was.

Pa had said something like this when he read her the letter, but she had not understood. Now a great yearning came to her.

What were they like, Phebe and Mark? Why did they come here? What made the great lady write the letter?

She rested her head against the brick facing, and her eyelids drooped. But it seemed to her that on the flagstone hearth she saw the image of a ship, the size of the schooners in the harbor but of a strange and quaint rig, and it seemed to the child that on the deck of this ship she saw the figure of a girl in blue. She could not really see the girl’s face, and yet Hesper knew that there were tears on it. Frightened, anguished tears, and this seemed strange to her too for she knew the girl was Phebe, and did such brave people cry or shrink like that?

Hesper sighed, and the image on the hearthstone blurred and faded. Her head fell forward on her chest, and she slept. Outside, the nor’easter with its whistling blasts ripped up the harbor, piling the leaden waves against the wharves and causeway, but the house gathered around to protect the dreams of still another Honeywood.

T
HE RISING WIND
brought restlessness and a sense of danger. Already Phebe Honey wood had learned that. It brought the crudest physical misery as well. Phebe raised her swimming head above the wooden rim of their bunk and groped again for the tin basin.

The
Jewell
rolled and lurched and rolled once more, and Phebe, still retching, fell back on the straw pallet. Mark had risen long ago and gone off to the fo’c’sle with the crew. These shipboard days he was always eager and interested as she had never yet seen him in their six months of marriage, nor was he seasick.

From the bunk above Phebe, Mistress Brent gave a long groan, followed by a grunt from her husband and little Rob’s wail. There were three of them up there, wedged into a bunk like their own which, as Mark said cheerfully, was “sized exactly to a coffin.” But they had all been fortunate to get space in the only small cabin. The other fifty passengers slept as best they could on layers of rickety shelves in the Great Cabin, or in hammocks between decks.

This was Friday, the ninth of April, 1630. They had been twelve days at sea and not yet quitted England, still near the Isle of Wight. Dead calms and adverse winds had prevented. Twelve days of cold and bad food and seasickness, and the journey not begun. It seemed to Phebe that already twelve weeks had passed since she kissed her father farewell and boarded the
Jewell
at Southampton, where the vessel lay in the channel with the other three ships in this vanguard of Governor Winthrop’s fleet—the
Talbot,
the
Ambrose,
and their beautiful flagship, the
Arbella.

Phebe raised her head again, then inched gingerly to a crouching position. The dark cabin swirled around her, and she leaned her head against the rough planking. She heard Mark’s laugh from the deck outside and he burst into the cabin.

“What, Phebe—” he cried between laughter and reproach, peering into their dark bunk, “not puking again!”

Over feeble protests from the sufferers in the top berth he flung open the wooden shutter of the deck window, to let wind and gray light rush through the noisesome cabin.

“Aye, you do look green, poor lass,” he said, examining his wife, “but you should cheer now. We’ve a fair wind at last. Come dress yourself—we’ll soon be passing Portland Bill.”