Daughter of Satan (30 page)

In the quiet of her room, her window barred and bolted, she would say: ‘I hate the man. I was settling down peaceably before he returned, but now he is back to plague and bewilder me. What a good thing it is that soon I shall sail away and never see him again. There is no safety from him. He bows formally, but there is nothing formal in the glances he gives me. He is planning all the time how to shame me. I can sense it!'

It was early summer. Their ship – the
Liberty
– lay in the harbour.

In her cottage Annis was packing together her most
cherished possessions, telling her children of the new life which would be theirs in the wonderful land across the sea. The Swann family would be going, and forty others. Mistress Alton had begged, with many tears and much humility, to be one of the party. She was suspected of witchcraft after Jane Swann had been tortured and she had said nothing of the girl's presence in the house. What would become of her, she wanted to know, if she were left behind? The answer was obvious. She would be homeless, and to be homeless and suspected of witchcraft was a pitiable plight for any woman to find herself in.

Richard and Tamar had despised this woman; they knew her for a bigot capable of spying and great cruelty. Yet she had become a Puritan and had as much right to make the journey as any other. So even Mistress Alton was preparing to go.

And one day Richard and Humility called Tamar to them.

Richard was very excited. ‘It seems we have had a very narrow escape. This man, Flame, whose credentials seemed so excellent, is, I hear, nothing but a pirate. He and his men are a band of scoundrels. Their plan undoubtedly was to take us out to sea, murder the lot of us, steal our possessions and go off with the ship on errands of piracy. We have indeed had a lucky escape.'

‘Glory be to God!' said Humility.

‘Does this mean another postponement of our journey?' asked Tamar. ‘It must, since we shall have to find another captain and crew. And whom can we trust? Captain Flame seemed such a good man.'

‘There need be no delay,' said Richard. ‘I think we have found a captain and crew whom we can trust.'

Tamar looked at him expectantly.

‘Bartle,' said Richard, ‘has promised to take the ship to the New World.'

SO THE
LIBERTY
was to set sail with Bartle in command. Now she dipped and rose with the tide as she waited on the whim of the winds.

All that morning the last of the stores had gone aboard; legs of mutton minced and stewed and packed in butter and stored in earthen pots; roast beef in vinegar; gammons of bacon; oatmeal and fine wheat flour; wines and ales; butter; ginger; sugar; currants; prunes; cheeses; and the juice of lemons to ward off the scurvy.

The crew, the captain and the master were all on board; the chirurgeon with his physic; the cooper and the carpenter with their tools. The boatswain had tested the tackling and sails; and his mate was waiting to haul up the anchors; the cooper and the carpenter were talking together.

Tamar stood on deck with her children and Richard. Humility was leading a band of Puritans in the singing of psalms; they had just finished praying for a safe journey.

Looking back at the land where she had lived her life so far, Tamar was filled with emotion; and yet, she was not sorry to be going . . . now.

The children were hopping about beside her. Even Lorea could not keep still. Dick was shrilly pointing out the parts of the ship to Rowan. He called her attention to the sails and the rigging. His friend the boatswain had shown him the needles and twine he used for mending sails. ‘If we had a big storm, the sails would get torn. Then we might have to take to the boats. We may be drowned.'

‘I wouldn't,' said Rowan. ‘I'd be in the captain's boat.'

‘So would I,' cried Lorea. ‘I'd be in the captain's boat. So would you, Mamma, wouldn't you?'

Tamar did not answer; she was looking back at the land.

‘It's hardly likely we'll get across without one big storm!' said Dick importantly.

And the girls squealed with delight.

Bartle was in deep conversation with the master of the ship.

‘He's telling him how to trim his sails!' cried knowledgeable Dick. ‘He's telling him to what port we're going and to what height!'

Richard said: ‘You seem to know a good deal about sailing a ship, young Dick.'

‘Oh yes. Sir Bartle told me. When I grow up, I shall sail with Sir Bartle.'

Tamar smiled: ‘Dear Richard,' she said, ‘how glad I should be to see you as gay and carefree as the children. It has been a wrench, I fear, to sell as much of your land as you have done, and to leave your native country.'

Richard shrugged his shoulders; but she knew that he was thinking he would come back home. He had not sold his house, but had handed it over to a distant cousin to hold in trust till his return. If he did not come back, the house would be his cousin's. But Richard was certain he would come back.

The children were dancing round Bartle now.

Tamar saw his hand rest lightly on Dick's shoulder. Dick was asking more of his continual questions.

Richard followed her eyes. ‘Do you still hate him?' he asked.

She did not answer.

‘We have to remember he is our captain now,' said Richard. ‘We have to obey him without question.'

‘Ah,' she answered lightly. ‘His orders will be for his crew, not for his passengers.'

They were silent. The tide was on the turn.

They heard the raucous voices of the sailors and younkers shouting to each other; they heard the singing of a shanty. Then the windlass was heaved round; anchors were being lifted; the yards bráced. The sails were now set and the
Liberty
was slipping out of the Sound.

They had been two days at sea and the wind was freshening. Many of the passengers lay sick in their cabins – so sick that they wished themselves back at home.

Tamar was not sick; she had come on to the upper deck to escape the confined lower quarters and to get a breath of fresh air.

The children were below in the care of Annis; she hoped they were sleeping. Even Dick was a little tired after all the excitement of the last two days.

And as she stood there, Bartle joined her at the bulwarks.

He stood very close to her. ‘I always planned to make a voyage with you,' he said. ‘But I did not think to bring your husband with us.'

She did not answer, but moved away from him. He slipped his hand under her arm and drew her closer to him.

‘A stiff gale,' he said. ‘And an overgrowing sea. How like you this, Tamar?'

‘It is early yet to say,' she answered.

‘Early indeed!' He put his lips close to her ear. ‘Whither are we going, you and I?'

‘To the New World, I thought. That is, if you can be trusted to make the voyage.'

‘But where else do you think? To joy, to pleasure? To continue this miserable frustration?'

‘You should know.'

‘So I thought, but it would seem to be you who calls the tune.'

‘How is that?'

His voice was hard and angry. ‘For sixteen years I suffered such misery, such agony, such humiliation as you cannot conceive. That would not have happened . . . but for you. But for you those sixteen years might have been spent at home . . . with you and our children. But your pride and your folly ruined not only my life, but your own. Do you think I forget that? Do you think that I shall allow you to forget it?'

‘You went to sea at your own desire,' she said coldly. ‘You have said that you knew what risks you ran. Was it my fault that the Turks took you? Even had I foreseen it, should I have married you, loathing you?'

‘You wanted me. It was only your pride that prevented your admitting it. You are a proud and foolish woman, Tamar, and I will never forgive you for what you have done to us.' His voice was tender suddenly. ‘Why, there are tears on your cheeks.'

‘Tears!' she cried angrily. ‘It is the spray. I think I shall go down to the children.'

‘You will stay here.'

‘If I wish to go, I shall go. No one shall order me.'

‘
I
shall order you.'

‘Ah! The Captain in command!'

‘Exactly. Any who dares disobey him is clapped in irons.'

‘You would dare to clap me in irons!'

‘If it were necessary.'

She burst into laughter; he laughed with her.

‘You pretend you do not wish to stay,' he said, ‘and yet you cannot tear yourself away.'

‘What of your duties to your ship? Should they not be engaging your attention?'

‘The ship is well looked after.'

‘What are your plans?'

‘To take the ship to the New World.'

‘I meant . . . concerning yourself . . . and myself?'

She heard his deep, throaty laugh. ‘My plans concerning you have changed little since I first clapped eyes on you.'

‘I am waiting. What is it to be? “If you do not invite me to your cabin, I shall put the whole ship's company in irons. I shall murder them all . . . or hand you over to the Turks!”'

‘You put ideas into my head,' he warned.

‘I have a husband who shares my cabin,' she reminded him.

‘May God damn the Puritan!' he said. They were silent for a while before he continued: ‘When I was in captivity, the only way I could endure my life was by imagining another life side by side with my wretched existence. When I was working in the galleys, I pictured myself riding over green turf with you beside me, and that we laughed often together over the follies of our youth. I dreamed that we rode home to Stoke and our children came to meet us. It was a life worth living,
and even you – proud as the Devil with your black witch's hair flying in the wind – were contented.'

She murmured: ‘I am sorry for what happened to you, but the fault was not mine. It was yours . . .
yours
. . . It began that day when I was fourteen. Had you but been kind to me when I most needed kindness, ours might have been a very different story. But what use to reproach ourselves? We are as we are and nothing can change us. You are brutal, and you will always be brutal. It is no use crying for a tenderness which only kindness will nourish.'

‘The fault was yours!' he cried. ‘Do you think I could not have caught you? A little girl of fourteen! It was because I saw real fear in your eyes that I let you go. As for those nights . . . Why did I force you to do what you did? Because you were longing for me to do so. Because you deceive yourself, it is easy for others to deceive you. Do not think that you will ever escape from me. Do you think I would let your marriage to a Puritan stand in our way? I will tell you something, so that you will understand to what lengths I will go. Captain Flame is a much-maligned man. He is a good captain, a worthy man. But there could only be one captain in charge of the ship which carried Tamar away, and that was myself. So . . . I saw that this was so.'

She turned and looked at him in amazement.

‘Is there no end to your villainy?' she demanded.

He laughed significantly.

‘Only one,' he said.

They had been a month at sea, and Tamar knew with that sure intuition of hers that they were heading for emotional disaster.

Everything that Humility did or said irritated her beyond endurance. Her feeling for him was turning to hatred. She laughed inwardly to contemplate the struggle he was having with himself, confined as they were to the close quarters of their cabin. He believed her to be in a state of pregnancy and he longed for her; she would hear him, praying in the bunk above her own, and she knew she was the subject of his prayers.

It was thoughts of Bartle that disturbed her. She felt that he was in as complete a control of her destiny as he was of this ship. She knew that he was only awaiting his opportunity.

He would humiliate the Puritan whenever he could; and his crew followed his example. When Humility approached a group of sailors, their language would become a shade more obscene. Humility, now as ever conscious of his duty, had ignored their insults and their gibes and had done his best to make Puritans of them.

The conditions of life at sea were having their effects on all those unaccustomed to them. The roughness of the weather, the constant fear of sighting a hostile vessel, the monotony of the diet – all these things, though novelties at first, were beginning to upset the passengers.

The children were the happiest. They suffered less from the rigours of the weather, and as long as they had something to eat they were happy. Annis' five eldest – Christian, Restraint, Prudence, Felicity and Love – made themselves useful looking after the babies; the young ones – Charity, Patience, Joshua, Moses, Matthew, Ruth and little Miriam – played those games in which Dick was generally the leader.

And even watching the children, Tamar knew the tension was increasing. Dick was growing more and more like Bartle; this likeness was not, naturally, one of feature, but of gesture, mannerism and forthright way of speaking. Dick had begun to imitate the Captain in every way he could.

Even now at this moment, Dick was playing Captain, and he had the other children about him, to each of whom he had assigned some role as member of his crew.

Dick, rosy-cheeked, his eyes flashing, was shouting orders, and that manner of standing, legs apart, was Bartle's; that throaty voice was Bartle's.

‘A sail, a sail! How stands she, to windward or leeward?'

Annis watched them with her. Annis muttered to herself and cast anxious glances at her mistress.

‘And what ails you?' demanded Tamar. ‘You look sick and sorry, Annis. One would think you had not hoped and planned for this . . . for years . . .'

‘I'll be glad enough when we touch land,' said Annis, ‘the
new land . . . Aye! I'll be glad enough then. 'Tis this long sea journey, mistress. So full of perils . . . I do shake and shiver in my bunk at night when the ship do roll and I hear the shouts of the men.'