LOVE YOUR ENEMIES
(Never On Sunday: Part 4)
"Oh, there you are John. So what kind of day did you have?"
"A good one with James at Ye Olde Pub. What is cooking in the pot?"
"Venison stew, my son. But supper can wait . . . "
She sat a tankard of ale down on the table in front of him along with two letters. "A courier from the pier left these for you."
One was from Second Cousin Brooke who lived with her new husband Sir Edwin Byrd in Virginia. The other one, was from her father in London.
It'd been awhile since they'd heard from Brooke. Ever since she'd become Lady Byrd, she'd ceased to write. Her husband being an Anglican and Royalist, was a disappointment for sure, but they had come to accept him after the shock wore off.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Seeing the letter was several pages long, John's mother brought him his father's gold reading spectacles brought over from England. He and his mother shared them for reading and writing. "With such long letters, you need to be saving your eyes," his mother warned him as he opened Brooke's letter.
Shaking his head, he read of the hardship Brooke was enduring as the wife of Sir Edwin Byrd. He had not only confiscated all of her money and worldly possessions, he was abusing her as well.
Such verbal and physical abuse would never have been allowed had they married and lived in Massachusetts Bay Colony--where Sir Edwin's deeds would have incurred the wrath of the entire Puritan community. But not so in Virginia's Chesapeake Bay Colony. There women were viewed as chattel and had no legal right to divorce.
Brooke begged John to come and take her back to Boston where legally her marriage could be dissolved and she could recover rights to her own property and family trust.
"By controlling my money," she wrote, "he is controlling my life. A life that daily provides continuous misery."
Putting the letter up his shirt sleeve, he opened the second one and found it was from Brooke's father, Peter.
"Dear Cousin John," he penned, "I fear for my daughter's safety. She has informed me her that under Virginia law, everything she once owned, now belongs to him. Furthermore, he takes the allowance I send her monthly. I implore your help in this urgent matter and will forever more be in your gratitude for any assistance your can offer to remove our Brooke from this dreadful and dangerous situation."
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Within hours, John had left by horse for Virginia. He figured, if all went well, he could cover the distance of 400 miles to the Virginia Peninsula in 8 days with a stop over at a sheriff friend's in Archer's Creek near Middle Plantation.
The stop over would allow him time to secure his friends help to get Brooke safe passage to Boston and to write a letter to another friend of his, a Boston magistrate, who could assist her in securing a legal divorce using his address as her legal residence.
Divorce customs were consistent with the Puritans conception of marriage--that marriage was intended to be, "a close and companionate relationship, a union of love and harmony, an act of sexual fulfillment, and an institution with a firm economic basis." (1)
If any of these requirements of the marriage covenant were not kept, it was understood a marriage could be rightfully dissolved. John was sure the laws of Massachusetts Bay Colony would work in her favor.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Traveling the along the trails, John had much time to think back over the past twelve years--how much he loved his family, his new land--how much he loved his little Brooke. She was the sister he'd never had. The daughter he could have had. They'd shared a continuity of life together, in a brand new exciting world.
How he'd missed her this past year.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Brooke's mother had died in the Italian bubonic plague in 1629 and shortly after, her father who'd planned to accompany John to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, was forced to stay in England to care for his own mother who was too ill to travel.
At his Cousin Peter's request, John and his parents, had taken Brooke with them when they sailed with John Winthrop in 1630 out of Southampton on the Arbella.
As they waved goodbye, they swore their allegiance to King Charles I and still considered themselves, official members of the Anglican Church in England.
Under the leadership of Winthrop, he and his fellow passengers landed in Charlestown, and soon moved on to the Shawmut Peninsular along the Charles River where they began to form the type of religious service based on the congregational model. It was what they had always wanted in England, but couldn't achieve--an independent church that managed its own affairs--one free from bishops, holy water fonts, statues, candles, crucifixes--anything that reminded them of the Catholic Church and Anglicanism.
They referred to themselves as "Congregationalists" (2) and elected their own pastor. Anyone who did not fit in, was banished. Not just from the church, but the settlement. What's more, they demanded proof--letters of recommendation--vouching for the good character of anyone who wanted to become part of their settlement
Unlike Chesapeake Bay Colony, those John traveled with were solid tradespeople, craftsmen, artisans, and the like; they were middle class people, ones who often had to pay twice the amount of a man's annual income to secure passage to the new world. Two-thirds of passengers were literate.
It was from this background that Brooke was nourished. She became a member of the First Church of Boston and lovingly served the church anyway she was needed to assist Cousin John, and Puritan English clergyman, John Cotton, who was the former pastor of Boston's St. Botolph's Church in Lincolnshire.
With Brooke and other devoted members, they developed a Bible Commonwealth which they were certain would serve as a model throughout New England.
Surely, John thought, such a fine woman was deserving of a good man. Certainly, one far better then the likes of Sir Edwin Byrd, who had caught her off guard and swept her away one moonlight night on a lonely wharf in Boston Harbor.
John blamed himself for that, he should have been more vigilant, put his foot down right then. But he didn't and after that it had taken little effort for the soft-spoken cavalier to charm his way into her life, teach her to dance, and appeal to her latent sense of adventure and worldly things unknown.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Meanwhile, Lady Byrd on her plantation, had no idea that Cousin John was en-route to Virginia to rescue her.
Becoming desperate, she decided she'd had enough--that it was time to escape. Sir Edwin had left the hour before for a three day fox hunt.
Packing the bare necessities she departed with her trusted companion Mary. Hugging her servants goodbye, she told them to tell Sir Edwin, that she was called to Boston to take care of an urgent matter. It was a white lie, so she crossed her fingers behind her back, but in her heart she believed it was true, and that God wanted her to return to family who loved her.
The coachman who took them by stagecoach arranged passage with a broker in the tidelands on small ship that had been commissioned by a Royalist elite cavalier. They rejoiced when they learned the boat would be leaving for Boston that very day.
Waiting on the pier as their agent had instructed, Brooke told Mary not to worry, that they could present their papers and board ship, as soon as the crew returned.
Checking her clock-watch fastened to the chain around her neck, Brooke assured Mary, "It won't be long now . . . " but she never had a chance to finish. Two rough looking deck hands grabbed them from behind and began caressing their bosoms and dancing them around the pier.
Laughing uproariously the drunken men pressed coins into the women's hands and said, "We pay well for our whores, fret not, we won't bind you and make you look like your dead. We like the live ones, we do!"
Breaking loose, Lady Byrd swung at them and slapped the coins from their outstretched hands into the water. "Keep your filthy money! We are paid passengers to Boston. Not whores!"
Looking in the distance they saw a respectable looking man coming towards them who had the appearance of one having authority. He wore a red uniform a black plumed hat. Brooke cried out, "Help us, help us please!"
Swaying forward, he came close to the women as the other men stood aside, with smirks on their faces and leaned against a lantern post.
Lunging at Brooke his eyes narrowed, and he reached out, and grabbed her by the laces on her bodice. Unbeknownst to her, they had become untied and hung dangling from her dress. The lace tightened immediately as he pulled her towards him hard. She winced in horror and shame and her saucer like golden eyes filled with tears.
Leaning close to her, he blew in her ear and breathing hard he played with her laces as if she were a puppet on a string. Finally jerking her to him he let go to make her lose balance and force her to look him as he grabbed her and brought her straight into his face, to stare at his muscular hard body, his obvious budges everywhere rippling and throbbing.
"How do you like being controlled by Lord Cavendash? Shall we "kill some time," rather than try to "improve the time" as the Puritan's do?"
Her knees trembled and strange sensations ran up and down her body. How could she help but NOT want his control? She tried to fight it, but she couldn't. She wanted this rare raw specimen of a man to consume her in every way possible. Ways she didn't even know, but wanted to find out.
He paused and moaned low commanding, maneuvering, groping, kissing, playing with her neck and the tops of her bosoms. He took her breath away--made her forget there were others watching. Now here she was, helpless and wishing everyone would go away so she could feel his manhood, explore him . . . oh gawd yes, heaven help her . . . she wanted more . . . far, far, more.
"You might want to keep your bloody bosoms tied up," he barked, "keep 'em in there, tightened up, unless you want me to take care of them for you before you tie 'em up again."
Her face flaming, she hauled off and slapped his drop-dead handsome face. Why did she do that? It hurt her more than it did him. There was no denying it. How could she hit the most heart-breaking irresistible tantalizing face she'd ever seen and wanted to keep seeing?
Laughing he grabbed her around the neck and undid her long raven hair and then pressed his mouth down upon hers over and over, again and again. Long sensual hot wet kisses. How many she didn't know or care. He was there with her and she was in another world.
When he released his grip, she flew from him, reeled across the deck, wild as a she-devil-cat swinging by its tail.
"Take them away!" he ordered gruffly as if completely sober,"below with them until I decide how to proceed in this matter."
Grabbing her wrists the sailors still drunk, roughly pulled them towards the back of the boat. Brooke snapped her head back and caught the cavaliers eye.
"Now I know why they call you scurvy red coat dogs," she yelled at the top of her lungs, "you are nothin' but swine!"
Lord Cavendash chuckled, and gloried in the laughter of his crew; this was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She was shocking and haughty and took his breath away. If circumstances were different, he would have asked her to join him in his cabin for dinner, but he hadn't even found out her name . . . maybe he'd have her for desert later.
The last thing he heard before the trap door slammed was her warning.
"When Sir Edwin hears of this, you will be flogged and hanged."
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Lighting his pipe he went starboard to think. He hadn't enjoyed himself so much in a long time, but of all the women he'd known, he wasn't certain which slot she fit in. That was okay he told himself, it makes her all the more interesting . . .
"Lord Cavendash, Lord Cavendash. You'll be wanting to take a look at these. The Lady says she's a Lady. Lady Byrd. Look, here's her papers. You'll have to see for yourself. Never did learn to read I'm afraid . . . "
Grabbing them away from him, he looked down and frowned.
"Return Lady Byrd and her companion back to me immediately, their baggage too."
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Minutes later standing before the towering giant of a man, she tried to look self-satisfied, but she wasn't so foolish as to push it. At the same time, it was all she could do not to run to him and throw her arms around him. She wanted him so badly, but pride would never allow her to tell him that. Not now, not ever. He would have to come to her. He owed her that.
"Lady Byrd. My apologies," he said clearly with a sober tone in his voice, "there has been a mistake. This is not the ship you were supposed to be on, your intended one has left. I will delay my sailing and personally escort you back to your plantation--to the safety and pleasure of Sir Edwin Bryrd. With his permission, you can depart with us tomorrow. I promise you safe passage and all considerations to make amends for my grave error. Please forgive me."
Lowering her eyes she said, "I forgive you Lord Cavendash. I accept your offer and apology."
As a crew member escorted them to the dinning area for tea and biscuits Mary asked Brooke, "What are thou thinking about?"
"THE SIGN ABOVE MY BEDROOM DOOR: LOVE YOUR ENEMIES."
*****************************
To Be Continued (Part 5)
Footnotes:
(1) Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways In America; Marital Customs
(2) The Puritans established Harvard College only six years after they landed to guarantee an adequate supply of learned Puritan Clergyman for the Congregationalist Churches.
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Submitted by:
Madison
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