Easton (21 page)

“You don’t dress like Killigrew’s servant,” he says, eyes narrowing.

“That’s the way he wants things,” the boy argues. “Sir Killigrew needs eyes all around London, but he wants us to blend in.”

George takes a half-step forward, trying to scare him off, then pauses, realizing it will do him no good if the boy then runs to let Killigrew know of his whereabouts.

“What do you want to keep silent? Money?”

“No. I don’t work for him now.”

“Since when?”

“Since tonight.”

George looks around again, making sure no one is watching. Some of the crowds at the dockside are dispersing. The violet flame is dying and the barge’s bow sinks slowly beneath the black waters, its mast collapsing.

“Why tonight?”

“I heard what they were going to do to you and the lady,” he says nodding toward Jemma.

Jemma cradles the baby’s head. “The men. I wished I hadn’t led them to you. And now that you’re free, I want to help you escape.”

“Escape to where?” George says rather bitterly; it’s dawning on him now that the child really is as innocent as he seems.

“Back to New-found-land.”

George groans and then laughs. “Back to New-found-land. New-found-land,” he grumbles. “The coast there is controlled by Easton now. Easton, with the full aid and co-operation of the English navy.”

“But don’t you see, sir” the boy says, looking from him to Jemma. “There are more places to hide there. Much more than here. And no one will be expecting you.”

George looks across at Jemma, whose eyes seem alive with thought. She strokes the baby’s head again.

“Easton never stays for more than a few months, anyway,” the boy continues. “He may be gone in search of treasure already.”

“Why are we even talking about it?” George replies, shaking his head. “We can’t get to New-found-land.”

“I can get you there safely,” the boy says, taking a step forward, eyes filling with a strange kind of hope.

“How?” asks Jemma.

George groans again, knowing such an idea to be ludicrous.

“One of Whitbourne’s ships is docked down river. It starts its return journey to St. John’s tomorrow morning with supplies.”

“
Whitbourne’s
ship!”

“I’ll get you on, don’t worry. And the admiral has been detained by the King. He won’t be following for a few weeks.”

Jemma turns. “We must do it,” she whispers to George.

“You’ll be safe,” the boy insists, “I know every bit of her, and Easton’s men will leave her alone.”

George sighs. He can smell the charcoal from the fire now, and black curling ashes waft around them. “Listen, boy. Why would you do this for us?”

The boy’s eyes take on a wounded look. “Because I don’t like spying!” he says almost angrily. “And because I’m coming with you.”

“To St. John’s?”

“No,” he replies quickly. “I know another place, an island some way beyond. Easton has set up his base near there—in Havre de Grace.”

“All the more reason to keep away from it,” George says.

“But, no. He never looks on this island because he thinks people will be far too afraid to be so close to him. There are already people hiding there and Admiral Whitbourne helps them. The ship that leaves tomorrow is to drop supplies there. The admiral wants to protect the people there, even though he obeys Easton.”

“What’s your name?” asks Jemma.

“Tom,” he replies softly, looking suddenly like the child he is.

“Tom,” she says in a gentle voice, “why would you not want to stay here, where there is food and work for you?”

“I don’t belong here,” he says. “I want to go home.”

The snow
is hard and dry and makes no noise under George’s footfalls as he hurtles along, snapping dead twigs and scaring crows from their frozen boughs. His eyes burn so cold he sees double; everything—trees, rocks, snowbanks—has a blurry, blue shadow.

“Sheila!” he yells. But his mouth is so numb that he hardly recognizes the word, even in his own ears. It sounds more like a wolf’s baying.

But an answer comes.

“Here!”

From behind a clump of shiny bare trees she emerges, like a spirit of the rocks, grey-clothed and white-faced, a bucket in her hand.

George stops and holds onto a branch, his shoulders heaving. A lone seabird dips, swoops and circles over their heads. Words are somehow lost in the vast coldness that surrounds him. Sheila smiles slightly, crow’s feet furrowing her otherwise youthful face.

“It’s time then?” she asks softly, approaching with the bucket and handing it to him.

He gasps and tries to speak, but ice seizes up his throat.

“Yes,” he manages to blurt at last.

The fire in the cabin blazes hard enough to scorch George’s face and make his eyes water. Sparks float and land in his hair. But George and Gilbert continue breaking up the wood, stripping the bark and fueling the flames.

Jemma’s cries and the roar of the fire compete with each other. As her pain rises, George becomes frantic, stripping the bark faster. Now and again the men catch each other’s eye and Gilbert gives George a reassuring smile.

George can just hear Sheila’s soft tones as she whispers into Jemma’s ear. For decorum’s sake neither Gilbert nor George ever turn around or take their eyes from the fire for more than a second. If keeping the room warm were not so vital, they would be outside the cabin, pacing in the snow or keeping the children amused. As it is, the young ones belonging to Sheila and Gilbert—Katherine, John, Mark and Mary—are in the other cabin with Tom Spurrell and “Young George.” Young George is Jemma’s nephew. They got around to naming him, at last, around Christmastime. Year-and-a-half-old Young George is learning to talk in single words. George and Jemma think of him as their first-born.

Jemma gives a great shriek, which makes George and Gilbert stop. George almost turns around, but stops when he hears Sheila’s voice.

“Yes! Good Jemma. It’s coming. Coming!”

Gilbert nods at George. He keeps on stripping bark. George, his heart pounding, does the same, though his fingers shake a little as he handles the wood. The thought of losing Jemma has just swept through his mind and is too frightening to contemplate.

It seems to him now that he and Jemma have escaped a cauldron of horror, corruption and hypocrisy and have found their way at last into real life. Even though that real life is on a wind-blown, desolate island off another larger island which is darkened by pirates and politics and even though his small island is still encased in snow in the last week of April, they are nevertheless surrounded by the warmth and light of acceptance. George has sat hour after hour in Gilbert’s little boat with the cold stabbing the roots of his fingernails and the fish refusing to come, and yet even here he has felt some consolation, some nameless hope that better times are waiting.

And there is something more. In the crisp and frozen stillness of this new world, everything is unformed. Even while the cold, damp and hail threatens wife and child, George feels a newness about it all that exhilarates him. In the last few weeks spring has made its first timorous signs of emerging—a pond thawing here, buds appearing there—before being overtaken by the jealous, returning frost. George listens and sometimes laughs as Sheila and Gilbert reassure him that real spring is ready to pounce on them all, flooding warmth, sunlight and flowers all over their little island. George doesn’t quite believe them, yet still finds something extraordinary in their belief. When next he feels the sun struggling to be felt through the piercing wind, he begins to have faith that they are all part of a new creation, that their little group has been mysteriously returned to
The Garden
. In such moments George feels as if the degradation of politics, greed and compromise are as yet unborn here. He feels that, if they are all careful and if they teach their children well, these things can remain unborn—a dormant, unneeded warning. This little community can be the second chance for the world.

So when Jemma cries with pain he feels it is the whole world he may be about to lose. She is the one who has brought him out of the cauldron, leading him into this place of eternal promise. Sheila still talks, urging Jemma to push, soothing her when she whimpers and rests. And suddenly a new sound cuts through Jemma’s gasps and the roar of the fire. It sounds alien at first, like the gasp of a strange animal. But then he recognizes it—the crying of a newborn baby.

George watches while the ship from St. John’s dips toward the horizon beyond the ice pans.

“It’s safe now,” he says to Tom.

They both emerge from behind the cover of some low saplings and join Gilbert and his children, who run in circles among the barrels and sacks. Tom immediately lifts a sack onto his shoulder. The boy is thinner than he was in London last fall, but he is developing a wiry brawn. He also has a dogged, workmanlike way about him. Everyone, especially Sheila, teases him about this.

“Let’s see what it is first, Tom, before we carry it back,” Gilbert says to him with a smile. Tom relents and lets the sack drop again to the huddled mass of supplies.

Whitbourne has continued his practice of sending food regularly to Sheila and Gilbert. George is impressed by this, although it might seem like a trifling inconsistency in Whitbourne’s otherwise perfect record of loyalty to Easton. George is not foolish enough to assume this generosity might extend to himself, Tom or Jemma. So the three of them keep well clear of the coast when there is any sign of a ship.

Gilbert continues to rummage through the sacks and barrels. “Flour, sugar, wool blankets,” he announces rhythmically. “This time there’s news,” he adds in exactly the same tone, not lifting his head. George comes closer to hear.

“Easton has left again. They think it may be for good.”

“What makes them think that?”

“Word is,” he says untying a sack and looking inside, “that the kingdoms of the world are vying for his patronage, begging him to take a title and some land. Even the Spanish.”

“I thought he would return to England. I thought that’s what the pardon was for.”

“Apparently, he only wanted the option,” says Gilbert quietly, retying the bag, then looking in another. “He has become big enough and rich enough now to choose his country. He is known throughout the world as the ‘travelling prince.’”

Gilbert looks up, turns and gazes off at the ship sinking beyond the horizon. “They think he may be headed for Southern France or North Africa. England may not be rich enough.”

Gilbert goes back to the supplies and pulls with his fingers at a cork stopper in a large clay jar. It comes out with a plonk. He sniffs the contents, looks up at George and smiles.

“Brandy!”

Spring has come, it seems, with a simple change in the wind’s direction. An hour has changed the season and it is warm enough for them all to sit out in the night, listening to the crackling of the open fire. Jemma feeds her new baby, the gold of the flames reflected on her skin and the baby’s exposed head. Young George stands and watches his mother and the tiny creature in her arms. His eyes alive with memory, it seems; it’s almost as though he knows that not so long ago this was him. George smiles and watches the three of them as Gilbert continues to fiddle. The sound of the instrument is at one with the licking of the flames, as though fire and melody are weaving their magic in unison.

Sheila comes and sits down next to George. “You and your family are a wonderful addition to this place, George.”

As she speaks, Sheila’s children dance around the fire holding hands. The image of the dark figures and the sound of their cries and laughter as they circle the flames sends a shiver of delight through George.

George smiles. “We feel at home here,” he replies.

“Do you miss England?”

George sighs and thinks.

“What is England? It seems like a dream now. Dream and nightmare tangled together. I think, perhaps...” he stops for a moment, taking in the warmth of the flame. He watches the children dancing again and feels as though he is witnessing something both ancient and new, a scene before the invention of the wheel, before his own land was ever invaded by Romans, Vikings or Normans. Sheila is silent, waiting for him to continue. “I think perhaps I can re-create what I like about England here. I feel as though we can start again.”

Sheila is silent again. He notices her smiling.

“I married Gilbert on board Easton’s ship, you know, fully expecting that I would one day return to Ireland.” She pauses and sighs, the flames cracking. “Easton was a rogue then too, a jealous rogue. He turned us into exiles.”

Sheila looks over at her husband and smiles a little sadly. She has never spoken so openly of Easton before.

“So he’s turned us all into exiles,” George says.

Gilbert stops playing and looks over at them.

“How is my Irish Princess?” he calls. Sheila gestures to him to join them. Gilbert picks up his fiddle and comes over, putting his arm around her shoulder.

“He calls me that to put me in my place,” she tells George, laughing, “because I used to boast about my convent education and noble Irish lineage.”

“Not in the least,” Gilbert objects. “I always meant it. We are all royalty here, hey, George?”

“We are indeed,” George agrees. He looks up at Tom, who stands above him looking down at the fire. “We are all princes here.”

Tom smiles shyly.

The children continue to dance. George shifts over to be with Jemma who whispers in his ear that Tom may be taking an interest in Katherine, Sheila’s eldest. George laughs at first, but then sees Tom’s eyes in the flame and Katherine swaying her skirts with her fingers.

Of course, he thinks. Everything must happen earlier here. There is little time to waste and they have a nation to build. He thinks of Young George and his own new daughter and finds himself hoping Gilbert and Sheila have more children.

He catches Sheila’s eye over the flame. She smiles at him and presses her palm to her belly.

A fresh breeze, at once chilly but carrying the promise of spring, wafts over them all, mingling with the fire, keeping it alive while the horizon to the east shows the first pale rays of the dawn.