Seeking Eden

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Tokpa

  Three

  Tokpa

  Four

  Tokpa

  Five

  Six

  Tokpa

  Seven

  Tokpa

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Tokpa

  Twelve

  Tokpa

  Thirteen

  Tokpa

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Tokpa

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Tokpa

  Twenty-two

  Tokpa

  Twenty-three

  Tokpa

  Twenty-four

  Tokpa

  Twenty-five

  Tokpa

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Tokpa

  Twenty-eight

  Twenty-nine

  Tokpa

  Thirty

  Thirty-one

  Thirty-two

  To the memory of Viera, with love

  APRIL, 1683

  One

  I could not see my face, but I guessed I had a black eye. And the knuckles of my right hand were bruised and bloody: that would tell its own story.

  I hoped they had all gone to bed, but when I opened the back door I saw both parents there, sitting on the bench in the kitchen, my father with the Bible open in his hand.

  “Jos!” My mother sprang up. Relief, then shock at my injuries, showed in her face.

  My father rose in a more measured way. “Where hast thou been, Josiah?”

  I’d had too much to drink. I felt queasy, and wanted nothing more than to crawl upstairs and fall on my bed. But he was waiting.

  “Limehouse. The Blue Anchor.” I tried not to slur the words.

  I knew from the set of his lips that he was angry. But my father has never beaten me, never even raised a fist. Friends do not approve of such methods of chastising their children. Instead, my parents express sorrow and disappointment, which always makes me feel guilty, as if I could never be good enough for them. And who could live up to my parents, so brave and determined over years of persecution, so strong in their faith?

  My father had noticed my hand. “Thou hast been fighting?”

  “Some youths set upon us. I hit one of them.” I remembered the satisfaction of that punch, my shock as the blood spurted, the approval of Ned and Sam.

  “Jos, Friends don’t strike back,” my mother said.

  “Perhaps I am not a Friend.”

  And yet I knew I was. I had been born a Friend. I dressed like one, looked like one, went to Meeting – usually. But there were Friends and friends. I had other friends at the Blue Anchor, drinking companions, friends who were outside the narrow world of the meeting house.

  “I could not stand by and let others fight for me.” I swayed, and steadied myself against the doorframe. I was having trouble forming my words and wished my father would leave me alone.

  “It’s those false friends who lead thee into this trouble,” he said, and I could hear his mounting anger. “Thou refused to come to Meeting on first-day—”

  “Meeting!” I spoke contemptuously. “It’s a fool’s game to go to Meeting! To let the sheriff’s men turn you out and lock the door, and then charge you with ri … righteous and…” The words “riotous and tumultuous behaviour” – the accusation frequently levelled at our people – proved too much for me in my drunken condition, and I finished lamely, “And arrest you because you hold the meeting in the street.”

  “But we do hold it.”

  “For what? To be beaten and fined – or dragged off to prison?”

  “Art thou afraid of that?”

  “Husband…” My mother touched his arm, her eyes pleading.

  I had turned sixteen two months ago. I was old enough now to be arrested for being at a conventicle; my youth would not protect me, as my sisters were protected.

  I glowered at my father. “I’m not afraid,” I said. “But if I’m going to be charged with causing an affray I’ll make sure I start one first.”

  Without warning, I retched. A sour burning was in my throat. I rushed outside, but did not reach the privy in time. My parents must have heard as I splashed my dinner and the evening’s beer onto the cobbles of the yard.

  I felt dizzy and foul. I wiped my face with the back of my hand and slunk back in.

  “Sorry, Mam.”

  She was already moving instinctively towards the scullery, where the pails are kept. My father restrained her. “Let him do it.”

  He turned to me. “Jos, it’s late. Draw a bucket of water and sluice the cobbles. Then wash thyself and go to bed. And in the morning, when thou’rt more sober, take time to wait on the inward light – it will guide thee if thou attend to it.”

  As I went into the scullery I heard him say to my mother, “It’s as well we are leaving England.”

  And she sighed – a great, heartfelt sigh, it sounded, and said, “Oh, Will!”

  I cleaned up, and went to bed. I felt ashamed of my behaviour and yet aggrieved at my father’s response.

  I had grown up resenting Friends. Not their beliefs – those I shared; they were part of my being – but their stubbornness, their refusal ever to defend themselves or even to worship in secret, the way they made my childhood a time of fear. I remembered a day – I know now it was in January 1671, at Ratcliff, for it is written up in our Society’s records of Sufferings. I would have been a month short of my fourth birthday and was with a group of children being minded by a woman Friend at her house while our parents were at Meeting. We heard the soldiers – the trained bands – come marching up the street, heard their harsh voices, the tramp of boots. And the woman, who had been telling us a story, stopped speaking and looked towards the door. Fear flooded through me. I knew something bad was going to happen, and I wanted my mam, I wanted her now. Now. I began to cry, and Tabby Lacon (she’d have been about seven, then, one of the older ones in the group) took my hand and said, “Don’t be scared, Jos.” But she was trembling, too.

  Almost at once we heard a great shout and commotion, and banging, and people crying out for help. The woman ran to the door, and we with her.

  The priest of Stepney, the one I called “the bad man”, the one like a crow in his black robes, was dragging someone from the meeting house. His two servants struck out with canes, hitting, hitting, right, left; and people were screaming. No one fought back. Men and women let themselves be hauled out, struck and pushed to the ground. Some knelt and prayed. And the soldiers didn’t help them; instead they seized and beat them and put guards around them.

  “Mammy!” I screamed.

  I saw her, blood on her gown, on her arm, streaming between her fingers; and Dad, helpless, forced back by the soldiers. One of them struck him a blow with the butt of his musket.

  I tried to run to them, but the woman pulled us in, close against her skirts that smelt of smoke from the hearth fire. I clung to Tabby’s hand and wailed out my terror and desolation. I understood at that moment that the world was not a safe place, that my parents could not protect me. The bad men were hurting Mammy, and Dad couldn’t help her. He would not fight back, and neither of them resisted as they were led away.

  After my night at the Blue Anchor, the morning brought me a thumping headache. I rose unwillingly and went downstairs to join the rest of the family on the benches either side of the table.

  As always we sat in silence: Mam, Dad, Betty, Sarah and me. I would not admit it, but I liked to start the day this way. It felt right. Even when we had eaten and beg
un to make ready for work, we moved quietly, without bustle or needless talk.

  Our home was five rooms over the print shop. I had grown up to the smell of ink, the thump of the press when big Matthew Crale was operating it; the dusty quiet of the bookshop after hours. My father’s business partner, Nat Lacon, had the adjoining house. The two of them had been running the printer’s and bookshop in Stepney ever since 1667 – the year after the Great Fire; the year I was born.

  The girls went off to school, and I put on an old shirt and breeches and set off for the shambles, where I worked for one of the butchers. Not jointing carcasses – that’s skilled work – but cleaning up, emptying the tubs of entrails, scrubbing tables, sweeping blood and debris into the channel that runs down the centre of the road.

  It was filthy work and I hated it, but I’d taken it because I was angry and wanted to strike back at my father, who had called me lazy and unwilling after my apprenticeship to Thomas Green the notary was broken off.

  “I will not have thee idle about the house,” my father had said – as if I had wished such a thing – so I had gone out and found myself this employment. And I took pleasure now in coming home stinking of the shambles and, on first-days, feeling the eyes of the meeting on me and knowing Friends felt sorry for my parents for having such a wayward son – though I suspected that some of them also felt a little complacent that their own children had turned out better.

  When I arrived Ned was already starting work; he was my friend of the night before, and one of the butchers. He grinned at my black eye. “Bet that pleased your father. Thy father,” he corrected himself, mockingly.

  I endured much teasing from my workmates about Quakers (as they call us) and their ways. “I threw up in the yard too,” I said, eager to be seen as one of the group.

  We laughed. It had been a good night. Ned appeared unscathed by it: his eyes blue and clear, his complexion pink. He wielded the cleaver with swift, well-placed strokes. Ned was twenty. He was in a well-paid trade, earned enough to buy drink, clothes, and women, when he wanted. He went to church on first-days, but religion did not seem to invade his weekday life as it did mine. He felt no guilt for the brawl we’d been involved in last night, nor for our drunkenness.

  “They hope I’ll reform when we go to America,” I said. I began sharpening knives on the whetstone.

  “When do they mean to go?”

  “Fifth or” – I’d started to give the Quaker names of the months – “July or August. It’s best to make landfall in spring or autumn, we’re told.”

  Landfall. I liked that word. It spoke of voyage, of adventure.

  “And will you go with them?”

  “They expect it.”

  It had crossed my mind to refuse. They would not force me, at sixteen, I was sure. But not to go would be hurting myself, for the New World drew me with a sense of strangeness and wonder. People who sailed in the winter season said that even before land was sighted there came from it a scent of sweet herbs and flowering grasses blown on the wind across the ocean. The truth was, I wanted to go.

  “I’d go,” said Ned, grinning. “Have you seen those pictures of the savages? The women with their breasts bare and only a little apron in front – nothing behind! Hey, that’ll liven up you Quakers!”

  I had, of course, seen the prints he spoke of and had thought about encountering such a woman. The respectable girls I knew were chastely covered and I had to imagine what lay beneath. Tabitha Lacon, for instance. I had known her all my life, but two years ago I had begun to have quite different feelings about her. She was older than I and for many years had been taller; but I had grown fast – five inches last year – and now she barely reached my shoulder. She was small, blonde and slender, with a narrow waist that she would set her hands on, either side, when she was arguing with me or telling off Nick, the apprentice. I was afraid to touch her now, and yet I wanted to. But I loved Tabby in vain. To her I was simply little Jos next door; she was twenty now, and worked in the print shop downstairs; and she was promised in marriage to Francis Eldon, a bookbinder in the City. There were other girls in Stepney and Ratcliff meetings, but none I admired as much as Tabby. And the girls I met in Limehouse, at the Blue Anchor or the Mermaid, were too coarse for my liking.

  When I arrived home that evening my father said no more about my behaviour of the night before. That was his way. But I saw him glance with distaste at my blood-spattered clothing and dirty hands. I went into the scullery and washed away the filth of the shambles and presented myself clean and sober, though still with the black eye.

  It was then that I noticed the letter in my mother’s hand, and the expectant faces of my sisters.

  Two

  When we were all seated around the table, my mother said, in a voice of simmering excitement, “This letter came today, from Pennsylvania; from our friends, Daniel and Judith Kite. Your father and I have both read it.” She offered the letter to him. “Wilt thou read it aloud, husband?”

  But my father said, “No, no! It’s thy letter. Judith wrote to thee. Thou should read it.”

  I saw that she was pleased at this. She said, “It was sent nearly three months ago. They are all in good health, and have a plot of land, and – well, Judith says, ‘Forgive me, Susanna, for not writing earlier. We arrived, as planned, before winter set in and have been hard at work ever since, clearing the ground for planting, building a house, buying animals (we have a fine horse now, and chickens, and a pig), and setting up the forge. All is new and promising here and exactly as described by the Proprietor in his writings. The necessities of life are to hand, prices are cheap, Daniel has plenty of customers, and I shall be kept busy growing food and caring for the animals. The young ones help us, and are well. Now in this winter season, we have great quantities of snow, and the rivers are locked in ice. We look forward to spring. Are your plans made? I long to see thee again, dear Su, and thee too, Will, after so many long years…’” Here my mother’s voice wobbled.

  “When did thou know Judith, Mam?” asked Betty. And Sarah, wriggling on her seat as she always does when interested, exclaimed, “They have animals? Will we have some?”

  “We may have chickens, Sarah,” my mother said. “We know Judith and Dan from our Shropshire days, twenty years ago. Judith had her first child there – Benjamin; he’ll be about eighteen now. They emigrated to Boston before Jos was born, to take the Truth to the New World. Dan is an outspoken Friend, a preacher – a troublemaker, the authorities would say – and Boston was a challenge for him, since Friends have never been welcome there. He and Judith have suffered years of persecution.”

  “Like us?” said Sarah.

  “Worse than us,” said Betty, who read the books and pamphlets in our shop.

  My mother agreed. “Often worse than us.”

  She read on: “‘This new colony of Pennsylvania will be a haven for many people. There were Dutch here already; and Swedes who have long been settled – we see their log cabins all around. English, Welsh, Germans and French come now, all fleeing persecution for their faith. There is constant activity, new houses finished every day, new streets, new settlers arriving, fair prices for plots of land, and fair rents, and plenty of work to be found. We have great hopes for this venture, dear friends. It is truly a holy experiment, as William Penn has called it. Without a militia, without arms, with freedom of religion, and seeking fellowship with all people, we shall be living the gospel every day. We have come seeking Eden, and believe we will find it here.’”

  She laid the letter down, and we all fell silent for a few moments. I listened to the crackle of the fire and lost myself in imagining that far-off land where Eden could be found.

  When the silence ended, my mother said, “This strengthens my belief that we have made the right choice.” And then she got up and said, “Now let’s eat.”

  The girls immediately broke into chatter. Betty helped my mother bring the food to the table and Sarah set out the cutlery. All three females were unusually tal
kative – but this was no ordinary day. After supper we all went down to the bookshop and my father brought out the pamphlet written by the Proprietor, William Penn, to encourage settlers to come to Pennsylvania. He found a map, and spread it out on the counter so that we could see where the new city of Philadelphia was being built: sixty miles up the Delaware River, near its convergence with the Schuylkill, so that the city stood on a promontory between the two rivers.

  “We will land here,” he said, pointing, “on the Delaware side, though there is no wharf yet, and we must be brought off the ship in small boats. The voyage will take two months at least.”

  My mother put a fist to her mouth and shook her head. I knew this sea crossing was the part she dreaded, especially for Sarah, who was often ill.

  “Many others have made this voyage and survived,” my father said gently.

  “I know, husband. I know. And if Judith has endured it, so shall I. And put my trust in God.”

  “Life will be hard at first,” he said. “The Proprietor says here, ‘They must be willing to be two or three years without some of the conveniences they enjoy at home.’ But, ‘There is better accommodation, and English provisions are to be had at easier rates…’ And see here” – he took up a second pamphlet, The Present State of the Colony of West-Jersey – “this is another settlement on the Delaware, more old-established than Pennsylvania, where many are Friends. They say, ‘The air is temperate and healthy, winter not so long as it is in England’ – so it will be better for Sarah – ‘few natives in the country; but those that are, are very peaceable, useful, and serviceable to the English inhabitants…’”

  I read on, to myself, and found descriptions of the many creeks and bays, and navigable rivers; of the woodland bought from the natives, full of familiar trees like oak, cedar, chestnut, walnut and mulberry, and others that were new to the English.

  “What will our house be like?” Betty asked.

  “We’ll have no house at first,” my father said. “We’ll have to build one.”

  Betty gave him a sceptical look. None of us could imagine our father building a house, and he knew it.