Chesapeake (86 page)

So she adopted the habit of sleeping with one foot free. One morning Eden came upon her dozing thus and reprimanded her, ‘Ma’am, you catch cold,’ but she offered no explanation, and Eden noticed that she continued to keep one foot uncovered.

The cannonballs presented a problem, too. From various bits picked up from the slaves, it was obvious that Paul had not been sleeping in this room at the time of the early-morning bombardment, and that when he ran to the shore, brandishing his musket, Captain Gatch’s flotilla had long since gone. Yet there the two balls remained in the wall, cemented in place for the neighbors to admire, a celebration of his heroism.

She remembered the first time she had inspected them. ‘Is there a chair I might stand on?’ she had asked, but before anyone could answer, she had turned, and Captain Turlock had lifted her, and she had felt the silver fist pressing against her leg—

I’ve got to stop this! But her mind was unable to comply.

With the geese gone, the days lengthened and the bay warmed. Now she went to the roof almost daily, relaxing in the wicker chair like a sea captain, using her telescope to follow the ships moving north and south, and trying vainly to detect what was happening on the western shore. She could see the outline of trees and on clear days could even identify specific buildings, but the people occupying them remained invisible, two or three degrees too small to be distinguished.

‘Come forth, damn you!’ she sometimes cried, as if the farmers were maliciously hiding from her. Then she would lean back and stare at the sky—birdless, cloudless, infinitely remote—and she would think: I’m as invisible to them up there as the people across the bay are to me.

But whenever she began feeling overwhelmed by self-pity she would rush down from the roof and start to work in her garden, that vast semi-wild space with the trees and the flowering shrubs, After the first summer in 1816, when the amber daylilies had exploded all over the lawn, she had patiently worked to confine them to limited areas, digging out the wanderers and rimming the desirable clusters with pebbled borders.

This was hard work and would normally have been turned over to slaves, but she loved flowers, especially the robust daylilies, and on some days she worked till dusk, weeding and digging and replacing pebbles. She did not try to prettify the place. Old Rosalind Janney Steed had left written instructions for all the women who might follow her as mistress of this garden:

But trees died, and unless their departure was anticipated and others planted to take their place when they were gone, a forested garden would, over the course of two or three generations, fall apart. Susan was determined that when she left hers, it would be good for another fifty years.

She was there, one day, working on the borders, when she noticed a large cavity in one of the cedars that lined the outer limits of the garden, and when she dug her little rake into it, she saw that it was doomed. So she walked into the woods north of the house, looking for small trees which she might use to replace the dying one, and she had gone some distance toward the north shore of the island when she saw in the channel something that both delighted and distressed her: it was the clipper
Ariel,
coming home at last. She was delighted that she would be able to talk with Captain Turlock again; she was distressed that she had not been on the roof to celebrate its arrival in the bay, for it was this ship that she had been awaiting since the breaking up of the ice.

She did not wave at the clipper, nor did she step out from among the pines; she merely stood in the shadows and watched every aspect of the returning ship, trying to imagine what seas it had sailed, with what cargo, and into what distant ports where English was unknown.

She remained there for more than an hour, moving ever closer to the shore so that she could see around the trees and follow the progress of the stately clipper—past Peace Cliff, past the Turlock marshes where the geese had stayed, and on toward Patamoke. One thing she had seen gave her comfort: the
Ariel
was dirt-smeared and would have to remain in port some weeks for cleaning.

Captain Turlock had sailed back to Devon for two reasons: he wanted to know whether Paul Steed had accumulated any tobacco for shipment
to France, where the Steed ships did not usually go; and he wanted to renew his acquaintance with Mrs. Steed. On his last visit, eight months ago, he had been flattered by her attention. It had been more than casual, of that he was convinced; and often during the long reaches across the Atlantic, or when lying to off Africa, a haunting couplet drummed through his head, forcing him to recall the provocative manner in which she had looked at him, as if inviting him to approach her:

He was tormented by the images aroused by those glances, and usually closed off his reverie by castigating himself: You’re fifty-five years old. She’s a child. But the thought persisted that she represented his last hope for a woman who could gratify this special hunger. He was most eager to see her again.

So when his sloop tied up at the wharf, he leaped ashore with more than customary spirit, and although he hurried to the office from which Paul managed the plantation, his attention was focused mainly on the garden in hopes that Susan might be working there. She was not visible, and this disturbed him, for she must have known that he was coming.

And then, just as he was about to enter Paul’s office, he chanced to look upward, and there on the roof, behind the picket fence, Susan, in a gray-blue dress and a shawl about her hair, her hands fixed upon the low fence, was staring down at him. She gave no sign of recognition, simply stood there, leaning over and watching him. He, too, made no sign, for he could not tell who else might be looking, but before he entered the office he did scratch at his nose reflectively, using his silver fist.

Paul had no consignments for Paris. ‘Wheat sells there no better than in England, but I’ll tell you what I could use, Captain Turlock. Twenty casks of salt.’

‘I’ll bring it on the next voyage.’

‘When will that be?’

‘We’ll leave next week.’

‘You leaving so soon?’

‘Patch up the
Ariel
and off we go.’

‘I hope we’ll see something of you before you sail.’

‘That would be most pleasant.’

‘And you’ll break bread with us today, of course?’

‘I should like to.’

Paul finished some papers, then led the way to the front porch, where Tiberius, an elderly slave dressed in livery, opened the doors for the two men. ‘Is Mrs. Steed in?’ Paul asked, and the servant replied, ‘She’s on the roof.’

‘Damn the roof. Send Eden to fetch her,’ and shortly thereafter Susan came down the stairs, her shawl gone, her eyes ablaze.

‘Here’s Captain Turlock back home again,’ Paul said, and she said, looking at Turlock, ‘I trust you had a good voyage.’

They dined not in the big room but in one of the connecting ways built by Rosalind Steed more than a century past. It served the exact purpose she had planned; the sun came in upon a small table to which three chairs adjusted nicely, and those occupying the chairs could look out and see the garden trees so close they seemed to be at hand.

‘I do love eating here,’ Susan said as four slaves brought the food, and then she said no more, for the men began to talk, and Captain Turlock told of his new adventures, and after he had spoken of a dozen places, none of which she would ever see, she did ask one question. ‘Didn’t you say when we first met, years ago, that you were engaged in a kind of duel with Captain Gatch, who was married to one of my cousins? You never did tell me what happened?’

Turlock coughed slightly, adjusted himself in his chair and said, ‘We fought each other for years. And in the end nobody won.’

‘But I heard he had died … at sea.’

‘He died gallantly, Mrs. Steed. Trying to do what could not be done.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘He tried to make his schooner sail faster than she could.’

‘What an odd way to die. Did you hear that, Paul?’

‘His schooner sank,’ Paul snapped. ‘That’s the way I heard it years ago.’ He reflected on this for a moment, then added, ‘Took his whole crew down with him.’

‘Was that part of the duel?’ Susan asked.

Turlock coughed uneasily. ‘It was his character, ma’am. He had to do what he did.’

A slave came to advise Mr. Paul that he was needed at the office, so he excused himself, but Susan and the captain remained in the sunlit passageway, and she spoke with great caution, for she did not want to betray the depth of her concern, but at the same time she wanted him to know that the concern was there. She said, ‘A man from Patamoke who sailed on the
Ariel
told me that you had engaged Captain Gatch in a running battle, somewhere here, and that he had defeated you in much blood.’

‘He did.’

‘But in the end …’

‘I survived.’

‘And he didn’t. Was it because you were more clever than he … braver?’

‘It was a duel, ma’am.’

‘I wish I had been on that ship.’

‘We don’t allow women, ma’am.’

‘I mean his. When he was chasing you. And you lured him on.’

‘What are you saying?’

Susan laughed nervously. ‘Captain Turlock, I do know all about the opening battle. He outgunned you, and you ran away.’

Turlock broke into a broad grin. ‘That I did.’

‘But you waited for him in Brazil …’ She was not sure what she wanted to say next, but then a flood of words came upon her. ‘When you told us those inconsequential things about the Amazon—the birds, the bigness, you were really trying to impress me … not about the Amazon, about the battle.’

‘Why would I do that?’ he asked evenly.

‘Because you know that I …’ She looked at him steadily, but then a movement on the lawn distracted her, and she said lightly, ‘Look! Paul has to go to the other shore.’ And they sat side by side, looking across the garden as Paul went down to the wharf. After the sloop moved off, a slave ran to the house and spoke with old Tiberius, who came to inform his mistress: ‘Master, he got to go to the wharf distant.’

‘The table can be cleared,’ she said quietly, and when the room was silent she thought for a long time as to what she must say next. ‘Do you remember how we first met?’

‘On the porch, wasn’t it? With your mother.’

‘I mean, when we became aware of each other.’

‘I have no clear recollection …’

‘You do. I know you do. You remember it as vividly as I do …’ She hesitated, and it was he who answered, ‘It was the cannonballs. You wanted to see them, and I lifted you … and from that moment you have never left my arms.’

‘I should like to see them again,’ she said softly, and taking him by the hand, she led him from the passageway and into the empty hall and up the stairs to her bedroom, and there she drew his arms about her and raised on tiptoe and said, ‘You’ll have to lift me.’

His arms closed, and as he raised her in the air she pressed against him ever more tightly, then threw her arms about his rumpled head and whispered, ‘Don’t let me go, Matt,’ and when he lowered her, they fell, intertwined, toward the bed.

It was unfortunate that the slave girl Eden could not have remained ignorant of what had happened in the room, but late in the afternoon, at her accustomed time for turning down the beds, she blundered in to find them naked. With no embarrassment she nodded gravely to her mistress, turned and left.

In the weeks that followed, when Captain Matt came to Devon on amusingly improbable excuses, or Mrs. Steed sailed to Patamoke ostensibly
to shop and stay overnight with friends, Eden realized how ardent their affair had become. And she supposed that Mr. Steed must know what his wife was doing.

All during the month of June, Paul feigned ignorance, conducting his life in his usual fashion, but when Captain Turlock insolently dispatched the
Ariel
to Africa under the command of First Mate Goodbarn—so that he might remain free to dally on shore—Paul could no longer keep up the pretense. He became moody and was remiss in meeting his business obligations; those slaves who had to approach him for instructions, he dismissed snappishly. He refused to confront either Susan or the captain directly; he allowed his bitterness to fester, and this made him increasingly difficult.

He manifested this in a way no one could have predicted, he least of all. The Steeds had always been known throughout the Eastern Shore for the benevolent manner in which they treated their slaves; indeed, this had long been a family doctrine: ‘Devon slaves eat well and wear warm clothing.’ They were not often punished and never whipped. This tradition was honored even by the remote Steeds at the Refuge, for if anyone there abused his slaves, he was summoned to Rosalind’s Revenge and warned, ‘Steeds don’t do that, and if you persist, you’ll have to leave the Choptank.’

But now Paul Steed, the master of Devon and exponent of the family, took to striking Eden for fancied misbehavior. His fury against her was heightened every time Susan was not at home; he would demand an explanation from Eden, and when she merely hung her head, sulking and silent, he would lose control of himself, and would beat her about the head until her violent sobbing brought him to his senses. But one morning, when Susan was again absent from his bed, he summoned Eden, and when she persisted in her silence, he became so enraged that he produced for the first time a heavy strap, with which he lashed her furiously.

‘Master, I don’t know what she do!’

‘You do, you hussy!’ And he continued to beat her, begging for the truth yet fearing to hear it.

From that day he played the game of wanting to know where his wife was and what she was doing, and he kept beating and questioning Eden, always terrified that she would tell him. Eden was twenty years old, as delicate of feature and clear of skin as when Grandfather Isham had presented her to Susan as a family gift. She had not yet borne children, a suspicious fact, but she had mastered the intricacies of plantation life better than any of the other slaves. She could sew handsomely and tend a room and look after the children when their nursing slave was busy. She had made herself a valuable adjunct to the big house, like a piece
of comfortable furniture, and for Paul Steed to whip her was a humiliation.