“It is not that I knew Will so well,” I gasped, “but he was so young! Just a little older than I!”
“I know,” Elizabeth said, in her soft cow-voice.
“And now he is down there at the bottom of all that dreadful ocean—”My voice did ridiculous things, squeaking and breaking like a bawling babe’s. “—and the fishes—”
Elizabeth leaned over the side of the bed and opened the lit tie box she has kept with her ever since we sailed. The cabin is so small that everything is close within reach, and an arm outstretched from the bed can nigh touch either wall. From the box she brought out this book, folded in a brown Holland sheet. She unwrapped it and laid it on my lap, and then used a corner of the sheet to wipe my eyes as though I were no older than Damaris.
“Constance, there are many times when a woman needs someone to talk to, and I hope you will remember I am always here to listen. But there are other times when a woman has thoughts she cannot share with anyone, and yet she must needs rid herself of them, if only to see them more clearly. Perhaps this is one of those times. I brought this journal—it seemed that one of us should keep some account of this . . . this strange adventure. Your father never will,”—she smiled a little—“I doubt he could sit still long enough. My thoughts are not worth the writing, and besides, I can always croon them to the babes, who think they are lullabies. The journal is yours, Constance. May be it will help you.”
I have written nothing in the book till now, except on the first page, simply because it was so clean and white and seemed crying for the touch of a quill. There I wrote “Constance Hopkins, Her Book,” and underneath I put “1620.” It looks very neat, and rather important. Somehow there seemed nothing left to write about poor Will Butten, perhaps because I had said it all to Elizabeth. And since then, though I have held the book often, and smoothed the pages, and looked at that first page that makes it truly mine, I have written nothing more until today.
It is very strange, this being anchored offshore, rather as though we were nowhere at all. Everyone says the voyage is over, for which God be thanked! But where are we? We still must live on this stench-filled, rolling “Mayflower” until those men who already seem to be the leaders—and of course Father is one of them, he could not bear it if he were not—make some decision as to which part of this cold, gray, deadly land will be our home. Home! Oh, London, I miss you!
I want to feel civilized cobbles under my feet, and look out of the diamond-paned window in my little bedroom, and hear the mongers crying their wares. I want to push through the crowds in Petticoat Lane to buy a bit of lace or ribbon, and watch a London wedding—the shy bride and proud groom going into the church, followed by parents and friends and families. I always thought that someday I would be married in the same way, but these psalm-singing folk from Leyden believe that marriage is a civil thing, with no need for churching to make it proper.
If I stay in this fearsome land—and if ever I marry—’tis most likely that old Governor Carver will mumble some few words over me and that will be the end of it. And what matter, after all, since whom would I marry? Gangling John Cooke, no older than I and prone to spots? Handsome John Alden, with eyes for no one but Priscilla Mullins, even though that pallid minx Desire Minter follows him step by step about the ship? Edward Dotey or Edward Leister, Father’s two bondsmen, who plague me and tease me and vow they will swoon for love of me? Hardly likely! Father says there will be a stream of ships bringing new settlers. It may be. But it seems to me that any who come here of their own free will are addled in the head, and not such as I would choose for a mate.
Just before we sailed Father gave me a bauble, a pretty bracelet, narrow and gold and with a delicate chasing of ivy round it. “To remember London by,” he said.
It rests lightly now on my dirty wrist, and I shall keep it by me always. But even without it, I can never forget London!
November 11, 1620
’Tis two days later, a Monday night, and much has happened. While I was writing last seems all the men in the party gathered together to form a written compact, agreeing on John Carver as our Governor (one of their formalities, since it had in truth been so for some time), and upon a method of government. When that was done a few of them went ashore, and certainly Father was among them. They saw little, and since night was closing in, stayed but a short time. All yesterday, it being the Sabbath, the Leydeners prayed. What a praying lot they are! Father insists we join them for most of their interminable churching, and he roars out the hymns and prayers in a voice that surely can be heard halfway to heaven, casting up his eyes and trying to look holy. He says ’twill do us no harm, and might do much good to follow this group in everything, and I cannot say he is wrong, though I find his saintly attitude most comical.
Today, however, things were somewhat more to my liking. Most of the women gathered together their bundles of dirty clothes and linens, and with much squealing trepidation we clambered down the wavering ladder into the little open shallop and were rowed ashore. Even crowded into the small boat as we were, it took several trips to deliver us all onto the beach, since the children needs must come too, of course, but once there we had a most satisfying surge of laundering in fresh, clear water, cold enough to turn my hands to ice. The sun had come out and there was no wind, and the scrubbing made me so comfortably warm (for the first time in weeks) that, in spite of horrified cautioning from all the women, I washed my hair. What true pleasure it was to sit in the sun, feeling it warm on my cold head, and watching the loose strands of hair shine as they have not for months.
The men had the shallop on shore and had started repairing her so they can sail up and down the coast a bit, searching for the best spot in which to settle, though to me there seems little difference. While they were scraping and hammering—in truth a pleasant sound on a sunny afternoon—and the women draped every shrub and rock and patch of clean sand with their drying clothes, the children found clams and mussels and oysters which we all ate until some were sick from a surfeit of rich food, and of course Giles was one, the glutton! But still the day was a good relief from the crowded, rolling “Mayflower,” and I do hope ’twill soon be repeated.
Dorothy Bradford did not come ashore with us, and I know it puzzled Will. She sits by the hour in that dreadful dark, putrid room on the ship, staring straight ahead of her, saying little. I talked with her a bit that day we dropped the anchor and some of the men, her Will and my father among them, came ashore.
“I hope Will is happy now,” she said. “He has waited long for this moment—to put his feet on a land he could call free.” Her eyes are as gray as the coastline looks from the “Mayflower.” Very few people have truly gray eyes.
“You do not share his joy?” I asked.
“I feel nothing, except, perhaps, a small pleasure that he, at least, is content.” Her mouth is small and barely moves when she shapes the words, as though speaking were too much an effort for her.
“You miss your son,” I said—I don’t know why. But Mistress Bradford shook her head a little.
“No, not even that any more. At first I did—for nights I wept, trying not to let Will hear me. But I realize now I shall never see Johnny again. I no longer weep.”
“But surely he will join you here—when you have a house, a place to care for him.”
“Do you think so?” she asked. “I do not. I have kissed my son for the last time.”
“You must not think such things! You must not, Mistress Bradford!” I said. “We must all hope! I have heard your husband say so.”
“Aye, my husband’s life is built on hope. But not mine.”
“He loves you very much,” I ventured. “Many