Ned did not argue that he had no appetite for a good business and desire to be an innkeeper. He smiled down at her. “You’re an enterprising woman,” was all he said.

“That’s why I came here,” she agreed. “I was called by God to make a new life in this new world, and I thought it could be a better life than the old.” She hesitated. “There’s nothing wrong with that? Wanting a better life?”

“No,” Ned said quickly. “And it’s what I wanted. I wanted a better life too. Just not… not at anyone else’s cost.”

She put out her hand to shake, as if she were a man. “Good-bye.”

He took her work-hardened hand in his own, and closed his other hand over it, so they were hand-clasped. “I’ll see you the day after tomorrow,” he promised her. “I’m picking fruit tomorrow. Shall I save anything for you? I’ll have high bush blueberries and the first of the wild grapes.”

“I’ll take three pound of blueberries for bottling.” She hesitated but she did not draw her hand away from his warm clasp. “I’ll be glad to see you, Mr. Ferryman. The minister has no objection to you coming to the house to visit me.”

Ned was very sure that John Russell had no objection to a visit, nor to a marriage. The whole village of Hadley was of the minister’s making; he had moved his congregation here from the river settlements in Connecticut, he had measured out the plots himself and invited other settlers to come. Ned had been awarded the ferry to the north and a plot of land, for escorting and guarding William Goffe and Edward Whalley; but even Ned must be settled under the rule of the town and that meant attendance at church, a godly marriage, and a family for his plot. Mrs. Rose was an indentured servant, a widow; she too must settle and marry at the end of her service.

Ned followed his guest to the town gate and opened it for her; she passed through with a little smile.

“I’ll see you, Mr. Ferryman,” she said, and started to walk down the wide green common way.

It struck Ned that this was not the freedom that he had hoped for when he had crossed the ocean. He had dreamed of a life that they had passionately imagined, in the evening lectures of Cromwell’s army—a land where every man would have his own plot, his own faith, and his own rights. Every man would have had his moment of blinding illuminating godliness that would guide him for the rest of his life, every man would have his own voice in government and every man of every color would be free and equal. But here in the land that he had thought would be free, there were still laws that put everyone in his place, there were still masters and men, landlords and servants. Ned was still pulling a ferry, and his wife would be a maid, an indentured servant whose greatest ambition was to make others serve her.

He thought he should have said something warmer, something more agreeable in reply to her plan of winning a husband, but he had not found the words. He thought he had always been a fool around women. His wife had died young, and the only woman he had ever understood had been his sister, and she had betrayed everything he had believed, and nearly died for her falseness. So he let Mrs. Rose go, and she walked on, her white bonnet visible all the way down the track.

Ned turned inside to open Alinor’s letter and, at the first line, pulled the stool towards his rough table, to read and reread the words, holding the paper to the light from the open door to make out the scratched-out sentences. As soon as he understood that his nephew was drowned he dropped his head to his hands and prayed for the soul of Rob, the bright boy who had been the brightest hope of his family and who had been lost in deep waters. With a little groan Ned slid off his stool to his knees to pray for the boy’s mother, Alinor, and that she survived this new blow, and learned to accept it, as yet another tragic loss.

“Amen,” he said quietly. “Lord, You know the pain that this family has endured. Spare us any more. Let my sister come to understand that her son is lost to this world and gone to another. Let her find peace at her home, and me in mine.”

AUGUST 1670, LONDON

The shipping on the Thames was at its peak in the fairer weather; the great galleons from the East Indies which had caught an early monsoon wind passed the little wharf as if they disdained it, heading to their own deep moorings, and their own great warehouses. Alys maintained her rounds of meeting merchants, drumming up business for the wharf, and seeing the goods in and out, and the Custom duties paid.

Reekie Wharf was the preferred quay for a Kentish hoy that brought broadcloth in winter, and wheat and fruits in harvest time. The master—an old comrade of Ned’s—docked in August and Alys was able to climb the stairs to her mother’s room, where she was tying herbal posies to prevent fever, and put a bowl with fresh plums in her lap.

“Sussex plums,” she said. “Captain Billen brought them.”

Alinor closed her eyes to taste them as if she could see the tree, and the wall around Ferry-house garden, and the little house on the edge of the mire.

“It must have been a good summer on Foulmire for these to be so sweet,” was all she said.

The only idle person in the warehouse was Livia, who could think of nothing but the return of her ship from Venice carrying her goods; but could do nothing to make it come sooner. She hemmed her own exquisite linen, she played with her baby for a little while and then left him with Alys or Alinor for the whole afternoon as she walked in the fields and orchards to the south. She complained of boredom and of the heat, of the monotony of the warehouse life, of the likelihood of them all getting sick from the stinking River Neckinger that discharged into the Thames beside the warehouse. Her only interest was the design and ordering of some small elegant cards, like tradesman’s cards but on thicker quality paper. They showed a drawing of a classical statue head and, beneath, the address of Avery House.

“But these make it look as if you own the place,” Alys objected when Livia showed her the top face of the cards in their box.

“I can’t give my address as Reekie Wharf, Savoury Dock, can I?” Livia replied sharply. “These are antiquities of great value. No man of fortune and taste would be interested in them if he knew they came from here.”

“You are ashamed of us?” Alys asked levelly.

“Not at all! This is a matter of business. Not how things are, but how they look.”

“And does he not object? To how things look? To your using his house, his name?” As usual, in conversation she left James nameless.

“He will have no objection,” Livia ruled.

Alys gaped at the younger woman. “He will? You say: he will? He doesn’t know?”

“He knows I am showing my antiquities at his house. Of course, I have to give out his address. How else will people know where to come?”

“I thought they were his friends, they’d know where he lives?”

“This will remind them to return.”

“However did you pay for them?”

Livia turned her head away to hide a rush of tears. “They were not very expensive, and I had to have them, Alys.”

Alys had a moment of dread. “You’ve never borrowed money from him?”

“No! I would not!”

“Then how?”

Livia’s head drooped. “I sold my earrings.”