Saturnalia Page 7

  Mr. Currie was bid to scrub the dirtied dishes with snow instead of sand. His wife was ordered to pluck a live chicken. Both were endlessly scolded with false ferocity from every quarter.

  “Dough head! Are you blind? Do you find this mug clean?” “Leap to it!”

  “And no napping while you’re about it!” “Cheeky, straw-brained, slothful servants!” At half past twelve, dinner was served. Always the day’s most substantial meal, on this one day a year it became a true feast, prepared and humbly placed before the household’s new masters by Mr. Currie, faithful to Roman tradition. Barbs ceased to stream from the youngsters’ mouths as they watched the flotilla of well-laden plates and tureens sail in from the kitchen. There was turkey and mutton and roast venison. There was salmon and cod, oysters and eels, olives and raisins and pumpkin bread. Followed by marzipan, mince pie, rumcake, and hot spiced wine for all. It was a meal the memory of which would help to carry them through the winter, through the salted, pickled, cellared fare they would stare at until fresh greens came in spring. It was therefore not devoured dog-style, but sniffed and savored, treasured on the tongue, a meal that was still being consumed when the church bell struck the hour of two.

  Mr. Speke dined not at all that noon, and had taken only bread and milk that morning. For several days he’d scarcely eaten, his body as well as his soul engrossed in fashioning the figurehead.

  He stood before it now, eyeing his rendering of Ninnomi’s features. The past four evenings she’d come to his house. Although he’d no longer needed her presence once he’d sketched her face, he’d felt driven to feed her, all she could hold, to bandage the new wound from Mr. Rudd’s awl, to send her back more warmly dressed against the winter cold than she’d come. During that time he’d progressed from sketches to a model to the full-sized figurehead, six feet high, a single piece of white pine that stood in the center of his shop. Wood chips had collected at its base as he’d shaped a high-cheeked head, then braided hair, then the slender body of a girl. He’d worked furiously, filled with energy never elicited by requests for signboards or chests or chairs. His widest chisels had given way to those narrower, then to those smaller still. The evening before, he’d filed the wood, then sanded, then begun to paint it. Returning to the task this morning, he’d now finished everything but the face.

  He touched his brush to the black on his palette and outlined one of the girl’s eyebrows. Much taller than most, he found it strange to stare into eyes that were level with his own. He recharged his brush. The carving’s skin had already been given Ninnomi’s bronze hue. He finished the eyebrow, painted its mate, stepped back, and felt his heart gaining speed. The face was emerging from the world of wood. He added black lashes, whitened the eyes’ whites, and gave the pupils Ninnomi’s deep brown. He scouted her braid of black hair for flaws. Taking up another brush, he reddened her lips, dabbed at her brow, and subtly colored her cheeks and chin.

  He stood back and stared, his heart galloping now. The figure’s eyes glistened. The face seemed of flesh. He half believed it was indeed the screaming girl’s, and suddenly he felt unsteady on his feet, felt that she was present before him, and found himself cast back to the past: to the winter march on the Narragansets, the loathing he’d shared with the other men for the brutish, barbarous enemy, the sighting of their village hidden on an island in the marshland known as the Great Swamp. So well hidden it would never have been found but for the help of a traitor to the tribe. An utterly invulnerable refuge, but for the past week’s Hell-chilling cold—so fierce that the swamp had frozen solid. The tawnies’ cooking fires scented the air. They were tending to their suppers, not their muskets. The carver crossed the ice with the others, burst into the village, shot one brave, then was driven out with the other soldiers. Fighting his way back in among the wigwams, he was ordered to set them afire. He hesitated, protesting that they could offer the troops shelter from the cold. The officer, enraged, repeated the order. He obeyed, and in minutes the village of branches and bark had become an inferno. The air filled with smoke and screams. Women and children and men too old to fight had been hiding by the hundreds in their houses, surprised by the English, too terrified to flee. Reloading his flintlock amid the panic, he noticed a girl with a wooden ladle, clutched as a weapon or to beat back the flames, watched her dash wildly away, her clothes and hair blazing, her face unseen but her shriek pulsing in his ears. . . .

  Mr. Speke tried to shake himself free of the memory. Struggling to return to the present, he reapproached the carving of the girl and searched for any further need of paint. He studied her moccasins and dress, painted light brown like the deerskin she’d worn. He viewed the belt and shell bracelet he’d recalled, inspected the arms crossed over her chest, then the hands, one of which held a ladle. He’d shrugged off the girl and her cry at the time, had forgotten about her within a few months. He’d married. Dora, his daughter, had been born. Then, this past fall, she’d been seized by smallpox. He’d nursed her through her burning fevers, had pleaded, sworn, shouted to the Lord on her last night to take him in her place. His prayer went unanswered. The child was buried. And without warning the screaming girl was back, remembered in excruciating detail, howling all night long in his head. Then it had struck him that the foes he’d cursed as animals had died with no less suffering than his Dora. That their survivors must have begged them to live, wept, wished to die too, as he had. That the screaming girl’s father, if he’d lived, must have felt the same grief that gripped his own soul. Had his Dora been taken by God, he now wondered, with his own enlightenment in mind? He thought with revulsion of the glee with which the Great Swamp fight was still recounted, the joy that was taken in the tale of how in a single day New England’s mightiest tribe was shattered, toppled from its throne, its people transformed from lords into servants. Some held that God had ordained that the heathen, Devil-worshipping Narragansets should be burned along with their dinners. Others spoke of the tribe’s haughty independence and well-favored lands. Still others moaned of the shortage of servants, a need that Indian captives helped fill. When he heard that single scream in his ears, Mr. Speke knew none of those reasons was sufficient.

  He set down his palette. He cleaned his brushes. No penance would cancel the suffering he’d caused, but he would do what he could within his compass, as he had with the figurehead before him. He’d carved a memorial for the glimpsed girl, albeit with a borrowed face—a girl who’d received neither grave nor headstone. Mr. Epp, the bow of whose brig she’d adorn, would flinch at the sight of her. But he was anxious to sail and would know full well that no crew, superstitious to a man, would cast off without a figurehead.

  He turned from the carving, opened his door, and stepped out into the winter afternoon. The sky was clear, the air frigid, as it had been for several days. He viewed the sun, low, weak, and robbed of all leverage, then recalled it was the solstice. A day of change, when the celestial balance shifted toward the strengthening sun and its return to mastery of the heavens. Gazing at the pale blue sky, the carver felt that he too was moving in a new direction, like the seasons. He’d begun to atone for the deed in his past, had felt its burden begin to lift. The scream hadn’t sounded in his ears for days. All of a sudden he thought of Ninnomi, the waif who’d helped to free him from his bondage to that memory, who herself was chained to the base Mr. Rudd.

  Why shouldn’t he free the girl in turn? He’d helped cast her into servitude six years back. He would liberate her now. He strode back inside and peered at her gentle features duplicated in wood. He would rescue her, and her great-uncle as well! He’d purchase them both from the vile eyeglass maker and bring them here, to his house to live. He would speak to Mr. Rudd about it in the morning!

  He looked long into the carving’s eyes, communicating this promise.

  The First Church’s bell rang out four times. Hearing the sound, Mr. Hogwood whirled from the wig he was dressing, stormed toward the door, yanked it open, scouted K
ing Street, and for the seventh time that afternoon failed to spy the hoped-for sight.

  He stalked back to his bench. He snatched up his comb, but found it impossible to steady his hands. Madam Phipp’s dinner would commence in two hours. All day his shop bell had tinkled gaily, announcing customers collecting their freshly dressed wigs for the affair. Day would shortly give way to dusk. The first of her guests would soon stride up her walk. And still no invitation had arrived!

  Something passing the window caught his eye. He rejoiced, then found that what he’d thought was one of the widow’s red-coated servants bearing a message was actually a bloody-shirted butcher hawking meat.

  “Begone!” the wigmaker boomed, the order unheard by the butcher but noted well by his own apprehensive apprentices. Seething, he scolded his journeymen. He cuffed his know-nothing nephew, Dan. He kicked aside Charity, the cat, then swore at the sight of one of the legion of mice she was supposed to be catching. Draining his third mug of Malcolm’s potent beer, he wondered if a rat hadn’t drowned in the cask, spat, and roared for his manservant the requisite four times.

  “’Tis four o’clock!” he burst out in accusation, furious with himself for ever attending to the whelp’s advice on wooing.

  “Indeed, sir. We must soon be off. I’ve laid out your clothes for you in your chamber.”

  The wigmaker’s brains, bubbling with yeast, strove to understand. “What say you?”

  “Madam Phipp’s other guests will arrive at six. As your invitation appears to have been mislaid by some dim-eyed scamp of a servant, you’re not bound by that hour, and will pay her a visit in advance of the rest—and conquer her.”

  Mr. Hogwood’s fleshy face twitched with hope.

  “Through my own researches, I’ve discovered her chamber. The window to which may be easily gained by a hemlock tree close by.”

  The wigmaker gawked at his man. “Are you daft? I’m too old and too round to be shinning up trees!”

  “’Tis a time for bold deeds!” Malcolm declared. “One suitor will likely lead the woman from mourning to matrimony this night. Let the others trot tamely up to her door. Show her that you’re a lion, not a sheep! That you mean to win her and will enter as you please! Your fiery resolve cannot help but throw a spark on the tinder of her heart.” He paused. “As for the tree,” he added at lesser volume, “I’ll lend you a boost.”

  Confidently, Malcolm walked off. Mr. Hog-wood, his wits soaked with the novice brewer’s befuddling beer, felt a sudden, rapturous trust in the scheme. But what gift would he present to the woman? He couldn’t hope to conquer her merely with the sight of his person. He wheeled and rushed toward the dining room.

  He’d appealed in previous courtship presents to her stomach, her soul, and her heart, without success. This time he would appeal to her account book. He stood on a chair, reached for a sugar bowl high on a shelf, and climbed slowly to earth. It had been passed down through his wife’s

  family, losing its top along the way. Still, it was a handsome piece: heavy, double-handled—and of silver. Here was the offering needed to ignite the affections of a merchant’s widow! He polished it, begged his wife’s forgiveness, returned to the shop, rooted about, placed the bowl in a mahogany box, then scurried to his chamber to dress.

  A quarter hour later the wigmaker set off briskly toward Madam Phipp’s. His scarlet coat matched the setting sun. He sported gold stockings and black silk breeches, and had carefully folded back his coat’s cuffs to reveal his shirt’s luxuriant lace. Twice his height and half his width, as if he were the same man rolled out thin, Malcolm followed two paces behind, bearing his master’s gift. Wordlessly, he conversed with the several female acquaintances of his they passed, drawing upon a vast vocabulary of nods, winks, and smiles. Mr. Hogwood’s eye fell on the males, checking wigs, clothing, and lace against their wearer’s station in life, noting infractions to be reported, making certain that the hierarchy of man was written out plain.

  They reached Madam Phipp’s, slipped around to the side of the house, and halted before a tree. Mr. Hogwood studied it doubtfully.

  “’Tis a simple thing to scale,” whispered Malcolm.

  The wigmaker’s breathing was made visible by the icy air. They passed in among the spoke-like branches. The manservant set down the boxed sugar bowl and cupped his hands. “Place your foot here.”

  Mr. Hogwood did so, groaned mightily, all but snapped his servant’s ten fingers, and stepped onto the tree’s lowest limb.

  “Note the great number of branches,” chirped Malcolm. “’Tis as easy as climbing a ratline.”

  Having never climbed one, or wanted to, the wigmaker failed to share his cheer. He grasped a limb above him with both hands, stepped up to a higher one with his feet, banged his head on a branch, heard the sound of cloth ripping, reached for his thigh, and found his palm was sticky with sap.

  “And women delight in the scent of evergreens,” Malcolm informed his master brightly. “’Twill count in your advantage.”

  Mr. Hogwood ascended, finding the spirit to do so only by closing his ears to his manservant’s encouragements. He sighted the window pointed out to him and scooted toward it along a limb, losing altitude as he went. He peered through the glass, found no one there, raised the window, tumbled inside, and moments later was handed his gift by the nimble-legged Malcolm, who quickly descended.

  The wigmaker glanced around the room. It contained a canopied bed, a wardrobe, and a dressing table, and suddenly it occurred to him that his beloved might be unclothed when she found him, a circumstance that surely would not count in his advantage. Quickly, he set his box on her table. He searched his pockets, put a card on top, then noticed himself in her full-length mirror and was appalled to find that his trip through the tree had transformed him from a gentleman into a rustic. He plucked hemlock needles out of his wig, righted his hat, surveyed his torn breeches, strove to rid his hands of sap, then made out footsteps approaching and desperately dashed behind the bed.

  Outside the window and one floor down, Malcolm leaned up against the house, ruminating upon his lot. He toiled for his master from cockcrow to curfew. He trailed him in the street like a dog. In church, he hunched on a bench in the loft with the other servants and slaves. Soon, however, his bondage would cease! Mr. Hogwood, thanks to Malcolm’s coaching, would capture Madam Phipp’s hand this night, the boldness of his master’s entrance striking from her memory the lamentable gifts Malcolm had delivered. The wigmaker would move here after the marriage. Where, attended by her swarm of servants, he would find himself simultaneously with no need of Malcolm and greatly in his debt for the successful snaring of Madam Phipp—and would therefore gratefully set him free. The manservant trembled with bliss at the thought. Released from his indenture! A man among men! Sent into the world, as was the custom, with a new suit of clothes and his pockets full of shillings!

  Craning his neck, he listened hopefully for sounds of progress from above. Then he heard a clang, turned around, looked in a window, and spied with surprise the serving girl he’d been pursuing. She was scouring an iron kettle. Malcolm tapped lightly, causing her to start, and pantomimed the raising of the window. She shook her head strenuously. Undeterred, spurred on by her resistance, he undertook to impart through the glass his virtuous nature, his regimen of prayer, his deathless devotion to her alone, and the approaching date of his liberation.

  Throughout this silent oration, Mr. Hogwood crouched in fear behind Madam Phipp’s bed. She’d entered the room, her long body clothed in a gold satin gown, to his great relief. Her mood, however, had appeared so waspish that he’d hesitated to reveal himself. His knees aching, he listened as she lavished curses on some absent servant. Mumbling about her spectacles now, she consigned Mr. Rudd’s soul to Hell, replied to herself that she’d spent good money on the maddening lenses, put them on, crossed the room, and glimpsed a reddish figure behind her bed.

 
; “Giles! Whatever are you doing here?”

  Mr. Hogwood, primed to proclaim his love, found his wits emptied of words.

  “Stand up, squatting toad!” the woman commanded. “And while you’re about, fling more wood on the fire!”

  Dazed, the wigmaker straightened up. And gradually realized that between the failing light and her spectacles, the sight of his scarlet coat had enrolled him, in her mind, among her red-liveried servants, while his shape had fixed him as her stout footman, Giles.

  “Be quick about it!” She struck him smartly on the hand with her folded, brass-ribbed fan.

  The wigmaker winced and scurried toward the hearth. Amazed to find himself playing her lackey, wondering when to drop the disguise, he added two sticks of wood to the fire, hoping that warmth would improve her mood.

  “Do you wish me to freeze? Pile the grate high!” She struck his knuckles. “Sag-stomached dunce!”

  Mr. Hogwood massaged his throbbing hand. He stooped with a sigh, hoisted a massive log from the wood box, struggled to stand, then grimaced at a piercing pain in his back and dropped the log. It fell on the fire, sending a shower of cometlike sparks toward Madam Phipp’s satin gown.

  “Idiot!” she cried. “Cockle brains!”

  Crouching on the floor, one hand on his back, Mr. Hogwood swatted at embers with his other, while Madam Phipp alternated between aiming her fan at the sparks and at him.

  “’Tis ruined!” she raged. “Filled with holes like a cheese!”

  Guiltily, the wigmaker rose, and found that a patch of sap on his elbow had affixed itself to the hem of her gown, which was now raised up to the level of her thigh.

  “Knave!” Seizing the iron poker, Madam Phipp parted her gown from his arm with a blow to the latter which caused Mr. Hogwood to howl, slip, fall nearly into the fire himself, and to wonder why he’d ever praised her firmness with servants. “Saucy, impudent scoundrel!” she fumed.