Chesapeake (56 page)

‘Fitz’s.’

She asked their names, then suggested that they walk in the yard, and when they were gone she asked, ‘Why did you bring them here?’

‘Nelly gone. Never come back.’

‘She ran away?’

‘Mmmm.’

Rosalind coughed and groped for her handkerchief. Little wonder that a woman who had been so humiliated should want to quit the river. ‘I would have stayed and fought them,’ she told Stooby when she had wiped her nose. ‘I would have strangled Broadnax in his own—’

Stooby put his hands over his ears. ‘Don’t say. Next they whip you.’

‘You don’t have to listen, Stooby, but Thomas Broadnax walks in danger. Now, what about these children?’

‘No mother. No father. They stay here.’

And with this simple declaration, Stooby Turlock posed a moral problem for Rosalind Steed: what to do with the bastard children of her dead
husband? The whole testimony of her life dictated that she assume responsibility for these three, and the vanishing of her own children was an added persuasion. But she also had a sense of harsh reality and knew that these children had been born in the marsh, of the marsh. Their father was a weak man, lacking in character, and their mother was worse. In these children there was not good blood. They promised small likelihood of achievement; intuitively she sensed that with them she could accomplish nothing.

She had come to believe that the human stock populating this world was wondrously uneven. When she goaded her son into marrying Amanda Paxmore, there was not even a remote chance that the little Quaker girl would turn out badly; she came from solid stock, with the personal fire of old Ruth Brinton in her veins and the irreducible integrity of Edward Paxmore. She trusted that her sons at Bohemia would grow into stalwart men upon whom Devon could depend. But the children of her silly sisters across the bay—what timid and fragile things they would be!

The three Turlocks now wandering in the yard came from damaged sources, and she was convinced that no matter how much love and force she applied to them, she and they would end in heartbreak. They belonged to the marsh, and to move them elsewhere would be cruelty.

‘Take them back, Stooby,’ she said.

‘I seventy-three,’ he said. ‘Soon I die. The children?’

‘They’ll find a way.’

‘Please, Mrs. Steed. Your children, not mine.’

‘No,’ she said firmly. She would not try to share the reasoning behind her decision, nor would she retreat from it, but when Stooby pointed out that he had not the wherewithal to rear the children, she promised, ‘I’ll pay for everything.’ And when she saw him leading the children back to the sloop, his shoulders sagging and his white hair shining in the sun, she was satisfied that whereas he must be disappointed now, he would in the long run see that she was right.

She kept her word. She followed what was happening in the marsh and saw to it that Stooby had the funds needed to raise the abandoned children, but when she heard that he had given them the name Steed, she sent word that this was not wise, and thereafter they were lost among the Turlocks.

Stooby did not die soon, as he had feared. Because of his sturdy life in the woods, and his lean competence in caring for himself, he lived on and on, giving Nelly’s children the love they needed and an introduction to swamp life. By the time the boys had left their teens, they were accomplished watermen, and because they had acquired Stooby’s intense interest in birds and river things, they became the principal suppliers of soft crabs and oysters, roasting ducks and turtles for soup.

Rosalind, watching their sensible progress, thought: I was so correct in not taking them from their natural home. That day they were like waves which had ventured far inland, making a mark they could never again achieve. Now they’ve receded to their tidal level, and there they prosper.

Her own sons prospered too. In December of 1718 they returned from Bohemia polished young scholars, for the Jesuits had taught them Latin, Greek, Italian and French, and they were as familiar with Thucydides and Cicero as they were with the Douai Version of the Bible. They knew little of hunting geese or trapping beaver, but they understood the niceties of St. Thomas Aquinas and were, as the letter from the Jesuits said, ‘ready for the rigors of St. Omer’s.’

Rosalind agreed that they must continue their studies in France—‘Where in today’s world could a young man find better instruction?’ But the thought of sending them across the Atlantic on the May convoy struck terror in her heart, for these were the years when the most hideous pirate of all ravaged the Chesapeake. After the mass hangings of 1713 there had been a diminution of piracy, but in 1716 a dark meteor had blazed across the Caribbean, Edward Teach, a man of horrible cruelties known as Blackbeard. In Jamaica he had roared, ‘Warn that Bitch of Devon we’ll be along to revenge the good men she hanged.’

Twice he had ventured into the bay but had kept to the Virginia shore, wreaking enormous devastation, and at each burned plantation he told some victim, ‘Tell the Bitch of Devon we haven’t forgotten her.’

Rosalind’s response had been instantaneous. She had offered the English navy her five ships, and the financial returns from three convoys had been sacrificed while her captains prowled the Caribbean, searching for Blackbeard. That canny criminal, trained as a British privateer in the War of the Spanish Succession, eluded them, and then in late 1718 word reached Virginia that he had holed up in a North Carolina inlet. Volunteers were called for, and Rosalind sent her ships, but no word had filtered back to the bay.

‘You can’t sail to France,’ she told her sons, ‘as long as Blackbeard roams. He’s sworn to kill you, and me as well, and we must wait.’

In the interim she held the boys close to her. They were the descendants of men who had resisted pirates, and if she had asked them to sail against Blackbeard, they would have done so, but she was satisfied to keep them at Devon. Samuel was almost seventeen, still outgoing and occasionally fractious; Pierre evaluated problems more sagaciously and remained more cautious in his responses, but she was pleased to see that each respected the other and consciously made concessions in order to sustain the bond. They formed a strong pair, and Rosalind thought: They’ll be able to run Devon once they get back from France.

While everyone waited for news from Carolina, she instructed her sons
regarding the plantation: ‘Don’t ever make our garden pretty. And when you marry, promise me you’ll never allow your wives to plant these lovely paths with box. It smells and is the mark of those who have never really loved gardens. They make a game of box, mazes with it, and waste their gardeners’ time keeping it trimmed.’

Pierre asked what plants she did respect, and without hesitation she replied, ‘Pyracantha. It’s gangling and sturdy and most handsomely colored.’ Sam said, ‘You’re describing yourself,’ and she confessed to the similarity.

They were together when the geese prepared for their long flight north, and although she was moved by their departure, the boys were not, and this frightened her. ‘You must live close to nature. Books and priests are not life. The coming and going of the crabs down there in the river … that’s life.’

She led them to all parts of the plantation, pointing out the characteristics of the soil, the life history of the various plants she was endeavoring to grow, and always she managed to pass the marsh which stood at the head of the creek, reaching messily inland with its incredible burden of complicated life. She was there one day when herons came, their long awkward legs projected in front as they landed on the shallow water. ‘Those are the birds I love … so patient … so permanent.’ Her sons began to see their patrimony through her eyes, and to appreciate the heavy responsibility they must assume on their return from St. Omer’s.

‘And while you’re looking at the plants and birds,’ she told them, ‘keep an eye free for the girls. Which ones would fit in with an island? Which would be solid companions? And good mothers like Amanda? Try them all but pick the winner.’

And then, when it seemed that the May convoy would not dare to sail, the
Fair Rosalind
rushed north from Carolina with news that caused citizens to drop to their knees in the middle of the road and give thanks: ‘Blackbeard is dead!’ Rosalind Steed’s ships, supported by others from the colonial navy, had pocketed the pirate in a cove where Lieutenant Robert Maynard had engaged him in hand-to-hand combat and slain him with a cutlass. The pirate’s severed head, which had uttered so many threats against the Bitch of Devon, took its last ride stuck to the end of a Steed bowsprit.

When the news reached Patamoke, guns were fired and Rosalind ordered all members of the Steed family to attend the public prayers held on the wharf, and there she stood, solemnly holding the hands of her sons, as the minister cried in exultation, ‘The long siege has ended! Tonight we sleep in peace! No town on the Chesapeake has done more to vanquish pirates than ours, and standing amongst us is a woman who never faltered in that fight.’

On the peaceful sail back to Devon, Rosalind told her sons, ‘If you ever
engage in a notable enterprise, and you will, see it to the finish.’ Sam asked, ‘Is that why the Refuge Steeds call you Rosalind Revenge?’ But before she could respond, Pierre said, ‘I shall think of you as Rosalind Steadfast,’ and she replied, ‘That I like better,’ and she thought: I do not want my sons to think of me as always fighting against men—their father, Bonfleur, Blackbeard, Judge Broadnax. I could have been friends or partners with any of them. If they had let me. If they had been decent human beings.

In May, when the great convoy finally assembled—two hundred and thirty ships this year—she had no hesitation in placing her sons aboard, for she was satisfied that when their studies were completed they would return to assume their responsibilities as the new Steeds of Devon.

With her sons gone, she was totally alone. There was the house to complete, but that scarcely engaged all her energies. What she needed was life, the growing of children as well as the prospering of trees, so in humbleness of spirit she asked her slaves to ready the small shallop, and when a calm day arrived she got into it by herself and sailed across to Peace Cliff, where she walked unannounced up the low hill to the telescope house. There she sought Amanda and made peace—‘I need you at Devon. And I think Beth needs the island.’

Her granddaughter was a lively child of eight, with amber braids peeking out from beneath her Quaker bonnet. When she curtsied and shook hands, Rosalind thought: This one’s bound to be a notable woman. She’s just the age to profit from the relaxation of a Catholic home after all this Quaker severity. But Amanda was thinking: Rosalind’s the most honest and courageous woman I know, but she is dominating. We’d not be on Devon a week before she’d want us both to become Catholics.

So she said no. ‘I respect thy intentions, but I sense that things will be much safer if Beth stays here. This is her destined life, and Devon could only be a distraction.’ She would permit no extended discussion, and in the end Rosalind had to go back down the hill, get into her shallop and sail home alone.

As she crossed the Choptank, with the gentlest of winds pushing her along, she reflected on the irony of recent events: Stooby wanted to give me Fitzhugh’s three children, but I refused them on the proper grounds that they could never fit into Devon patterns, and I was right. Now I seek my husband’s granddaughter, and Amanda refuses on grounds which I suspect are equally right, that she wouldn’t fit into the Devon pattern. Well, I have my sons, and they’re the best of the lot … bred true … offspring of Cavaliers.

It was possible that her preoccupation with children sprang not from love, for which she had always possessed an enormous capacity, but from
a necessity to feel herself involved in the ongoing processes of life, and it was a happy accident that just as her family existence became most empty, an event occurred which propelled her into the heart of Choptank affairs.

At the home of Judge Thomas Broadnax, husband and wife combined to terrorize the little bastard girl consigned to their permanent care. They had given her the name of Penelope, shortened to Penny, and had made of her the most abused and menial kind of serf. They provided barely enough clothes to keep her warm and only such food as she required to stay alive. Together they believed that their harshness was ordained by God as punishment for the child’s having been born out of wedlock, and that when they chastised her, they were doing His work.

For any infraction of the intricate laws they laid down, she was beaten. If she dared to protest, she was chained to the wall of a dark closet, and beaten afresh when released. Her arms bore permanent scars, and if any older person made an unexpected move toward her, she cringed. Judge Broadnax always explained to her, in heavy legal terms, why it was proper for him to beat her until the blood flowed and why it grieved him to do so, but it was Mrs. Broadnax who terrified her. The judge’s wife could be a demon, striking and scratching and screaming until the child trembled whenever she had to approach her with a heavy tray of food, which Mrs. Broadnax gorged while the hungry child stood attentive at her elbow.

One day, when the persecutions became unbearable, the little girl ran away from the Broadnax home, fleeing aimlessly to any refuge that might preserve her from the judge’s fury. By accident she stumbled into the Paxmores’ boatyard, but when the older brother saw her, and realized that she had run away from the Broadnax home, he became quite frightened, for the harboring of a runaway indentured servant was a principal crime, and he would have none of it. Brusquely he shoved the child away, knowing that if he kept her, he would be subjected to the judge’s wrath.

Bewildered, the little girl wandered down the road until she came to the Steed warehouse, and there Rosalind happened to be inspecting some fearnought in which to clothe her slaves, and when she saw the battered child, and the scars along her arms, she impulsively caught her up and kissed her and told her, ‘You’ve nothing to fear. Cardo, give this child something to eat.’