Saturday’s Child
Saturday’s Child
Emilia was so pretty. Barely into her twenties, she combined the bloom of youth with gentle maturity—the perfect age. Versed in child care, too, and responsible, she would be a fine catch for some lucky young man—should any lucky young man happen by and notice her. Emilia might as well be living in a convent, so cloistered her household and so bleak the male prospects in Epworth outside it.
Susanna shifted slightly in her chair and leaned back, eyes closed, as Emilia’s voice floated along. Susanna enjoyed this time of day just about best. Emilia liked to read aloud, and Susanna appreciated the chance to rest her tired eyes and let her ears do the work. With Sam gone again, it was just the two of them once the maid and younger children were off to bed. Mother and daughter, teacher and student, and now, friend and friend.
“The End.” Emilia closed the book. “That was better than I thought it would be. Two Danish missionaries in Tranquebar sounds a bit dull until you get into it. Considering all that happened to them, and how aware they were that those difficulties would be there, I can’t understand why they went in the first place.”
“They didn’t go, Em. They were sent. Great difference.”
“God would send them deliberately into such hardship? What kind of goodness is that?”
Susanna perked upright. “Divine goodness. You just read an account of two Danes, from their point of view. Consider God’s point of view. He cares for those two men He sent and also, as much, for the lost souls in that remote outpost. The missionaries suffered hardship in order to do God’s will, not just in themselves but for the lost. Don’t you see?”
Emilia shrugged. “I know the two Danes bought themselves a lot of treasure in heaven.” Then she corrected herself hastily. “I understand that’s not why they did it; I don’t mean that.”
“I understand. Yes, I agree with you.” Susanna melted back again into her soft chair. “I often wonder if there is something more I can do for the glory of God.”
“I can’t believe you of all people would say that! You serve Him every day, from morning prayer through school and devotions right to now.”
“That’s as much for me as for Him. It’s how I draw strength. I mean something just for Him.”
“Mama—” Emilia’s voice was so tight, so ear-nest, that Susanna opened her eyes to watch her. “Mama, you don’t realize how it hurts us when Papa’s gone so much. He chases after money that isn’t there while he spends money that isn’t there either. He spends all his time at home on that poetry of his that no one reads, and then he spends all his spare time away trying to get someone to buy it.”
“He’s a man of faith, Emilia. His religion is pure, and that covers a lot of faults.”
“Sure. Covers a lot of faults. But it doesn’t help Jackie, who’s pretty much grown up without a father. It doesn’t help Charles who doesn’t really know who the man is. And us girls—we—” Emilia sighed and sagged back. “It’s bitter with him gone. That’s all I can say. I resent him leaving you to raise his children all alone. And I resent that we never have enough money for simple things. Decent clothes, books to read—anything.”
“I never realized how strongly you felt.”
“Ever since I’ve been old enough to help with the house. Until I had to go out and find bread and then scrape some little bit together to pay for it, I didn’t realize how hard it was to keep this family going, and I hate it. I hate the haggling.”
Susanna’s memory blurred back to Southwark and her sister Elizabeth’s haggling—and how Susanna hated the haggling and in her wide-eyed innocence had vowed never to stoop to that. And now, her own daughter—“Society offers no opportunity for intelligence in its women, but you might be able to marry out of it.”
“No. Not sitting here.” Susanna pondered a few minutes and detested the conclusions her mind kept drawing. “We’ve neglected you, Emilia, your father and I. I’ll write to him instantly and tell him to look for a position for you, and you and I will seek one also. You’re very well educated. You can teach. We’ll get you out someplace where you can meet a good man.”
Emilia laughed. “Is finding me a husband your extra service to the glory of God?”
Susanna smiled. “Of course.” The smile faded. “No, I want to do more. Charles is four, not really ready for serious thought about any topic he can’t see with his eyes. Same with Kezzy, who’s three. But the rest of you—know what I want to do? For the glory of God start right here, with my own children. Give each of you an hour of my time, just to yourselves. No interference, no other children. One each evening. We’ll squeeze some time in after supper.”
“You mean like Monday is Molly’s and Tuesday is Hetty’s and that?”
“Yes. What do you think?”
“Monday’s child is fair of face; Tuesday’s child is full of grace; Wednesday’s child is full of woe; Thursday’s child has far to go; Friday’s child is loving and giving; Saturday’s child works hard for a living. But the child that’s born on the Sabbath day is blithe and winsome and bonny and gay.”
“Where did you get that?”
“Hester down the road, when I stayed with her after the fire.”
Susanna wagged her head. “Years later, and you children still remember all those paganish bits of trash, when you can’t recall how to decline a Greek verb decently.”
“We’re certainly not so naive as to believe such things; it’s just a verse to say.” Emilia blew out her candle and shelved the book. She headed for the stairs. “Good night, Mama.”
“Good night, dear.”
She paused at the stairs. “Mama? What day was I born on?”
Those two Danish missionaries could never have dreamed that the story of their work would prompt a mother to give her nine-year-old Jackie an hour each Thursday. Susanna had precious little time to meditate on the way one’s works influence others in mysterious and far-flung ways; she was too busy entertaining doubts. Could she spare the time? What would she talk about with just one child, for the children were all totally accustomed to operating in the midst of a big friendly group?
Monday, Mary. Sixteen and full of life, Molly seemed to be handling her deformity well by ignoring it. Susanna learned to her mild surprise that the child planned marriage and family just as much as any other girl, and she seemed to have the right notions about what to seek in a husband.
Tuesday, Mehetabel. Hetty Wesley was the mischievous one, the wild one, the romantic. She pictured knights on white horses, as well she might at fifteen. So had Susanna at fifteen.
Wednesday, Anne. Ten-year-old Nancy on first appearance seemed dull and listless. Susanna at last got to know the girl beneath the surface and learned quickly to appreciate her gentle, quiet, methodical way of thinking.
Thursday, John. Jackie. Her brand plucked from the fire. Quick and clever in some ways, plodding and taciturn in so many others; he was utterly unlike Sammy at nine or any of the girls at any age.
Friday, Martha. Patty was only five. For the first time since Sammy’s infancy Susanna could enjoy a small child. Through Patty she learned how many little things she had missed in the other children as baby came upon baby.
Saturday ended up becoming Charles’s day. He seemed the sort never to outgrow his childish impetuosity, so like his father. Even before he could read and cipher he blotted up not just knowledge but ingenious ways to put that knowledge to unusual use.
Sundays Susanna devoted an hour each to Emilia and Sukey. Like so many of her projects intended to give glory to God, such as home services, this too satisfied her as much as it served her Lord. Her doubts about what to do for an hour evaporated. The difficulty became to crowd into a limited time all that both wanted to talk about.
And she began again to prepare religious texts for the children’s use. She assembled a commentary on the Apostles’ Creed to give them insight into the liturgy. She built a similar exposition on the Ten Commandments. Her study, all poured into her head, was beginning to pour back out, and it gave her a solid feeling of satisfaction.
With Sammy years gone to school, Susanna pictured her maturing daughters as the next to leave the nest. She was shocked when in 1714 Sam and Sammy got Jackie placed in the Charterhouse preparatory school, with an eye toward Oxford. How could they do that? The lad was her little man at home, not even twelve yet.
At age twenty-five Sammy decided on a girl he loved and married in London. Not only was the boy bright and studious, he possessed all Sam’s virtues and few of Sam’s faults. Sammy’s poetry received a wider acceptance than his father’s ever had. And Sammy could handle money. From the age of seventeen on he sent Susanna money regularly to help support brothers and sisters he had never even seen.
A year later in 1716 they spirited Charles away just as they had robbed her of Jackie. At the age of eight Charles left her nurturing, tutoring, disciplining, molding—much too early to be deprived of a mother’s strong influence. Susanna felt cruelly betrayed by men in general and her men in particular. She knew it was un-Christian, and yet she couldn’t scrub that feeling out of her thoughts no matter how hard she tried.
Sukey married a lout named Dick Ellison simply to get away from the poverty. Susanna was bitterly disappointed in her choice. She really shouldn’t have let it show, but it probably did. Sam, never one to hide opinions, started calling Dick the wen of the family, and a painful cyst the fellow was, too.
Emilia found a position teaching in Gainsborough and, with money from Uncle Matthew and her brothers, eventually opened her own school. She struggled so desperately, Susanna ached for her.
Nancy married timely, a gentle and rather pedestrian young man named Lambert. They suited each other perfectly.
Susanna awoke one morning to realize how rapidly her flock was shrinking. She thought of her own mother’s brood diminishing as one girl then another married, one boy then another went out into the world to seek his fortune—and hardly ever found it. And now it was Susanna’s turn.
But one boy had found it. Her brother Sam, the genius of the family, had built himself a personal fortune in trade with the East India Company. And in 1724 Samuel determined to return to England from his home abroad, bringing his wealth. Susanna was a fifty-five year old woman who hadn’t borne a child in fourteen years. Affairs around the house could attend themselves for once. For the first time in thirty-five years Susanna would go home and greet her brother.
The fact that she had not actually been bedridden for some years had masked the fact that she was not a strong woman. The one-hundred-fifty mile journey wearied her greatly. She resisted the compelling mother-urge to hasten straight to Westminster and hug her Sammy and Charles. Instead she rode directly down to the docks at Billingsgate.
The dock and the market here were exactly as she remembered them. The odor of stale water and aging fish still pervaded the riverfront. The same shrill voices hawked slabs of salt cod that looked exactly as it had thirty-five years ago.
Little bobbing smacks rubbed shoulders with stately galleons as fishermen and tradesmen came and went. Two men here complained about the risky channel between the starlings of London Bridge. Over there three others were heatedly denouncing the flat market in squid and mussels. Fishwives outshouted everybody in their eagerness to sell their slimy merchandise.
Nothing here had changed, and for a shining moment this churning, bustling scene rejuvenated her. It brought back to life dormant memories of youth and vitality, when she prowled these docks for bargains and haggled with the best of them.
That must be Samuel’s ship out there, that great yellowish bulk of a vessel with most of its sails furled. It ghosted on a gentle breeze, pushing slowly and casually up the main channel at the speed of a strolling man. Susanna walked along the shore beside it, shouldering through clusters of conversationalists and loiterers, sidestepping pushcarts.
The East Indiaman turned majestically; the sail slung below its jib flapped; then it slipped sideways ever so slowly and bumped casually against the wharf. Men shouted as they tossed about ropes thicker around than Susanna’s waist. Her heart began to thump in anticipation.
Heads clustered beyond the railing amid ships as seamen threw out a gangplank; it thudded against the stone-and-timber quay. Here came several men, at least one of them a passenger. Susanna worked her way in closer to the foot of the gangplank.
That wasn’t him. Nor was that—nor that fellow. An uneasy trill bothered her stomach and began inching up her breastbone. Where was Samuel? She waited a respectable time after the last departee, then marched up the steep gangway. For the first time in her life she set her foot upon a cambered deck. She noted in passing that it was quite as stable as solid land and walked over to the first man she saw.
“Excuse me. I’m seeking out a passenger, Samuel Annesley.”
The man barely glanced at her. “Annesley? Eh, nae, mum.” He turned immediately back to his work of coiling a coarse rope.
“Who might know him here?”
“Ye could ask aft, I s’pose.”
“Thank you.” She hesitated. “Which way is aft?”
The man waved an arm toward the rear of the vessel.
She was quite clearly in the way here. Seamen and dock hands were bringing all manner of crates and bales up from below. The deck was already stacked high; Susanna barely found room to slip past the cargo and the shouting, sweaty workmen.
The sterncastle rose at a majestic slant, all gaudy with its intricate carving and bright colors. Its paneled door was every bit as elaborate as the great oaken doors of St. Mark’s. The ornate outside piqued her curiosity to see the interior, but she didn’t get the opportunity.
A somber magisterial sort came stepping out of the door. He paused and squinted as his crinkly eyes adjusted to the light.
“Excuse me. Are you in charge?”
The man studied her. “I’m her master, aye.”
“I’m here to meet my brother Samuel Annesley, a passenger.”
“Nae, mum, not aboard this vessel.”
“I can read, sir, and your trailboards attest that this is his ship. From the Spice Islands. Annesley; about sixty-five, well dressed, well-spoken, eyes and hair similar to mine.”
He stared at her for the longest time. She felt an anxiety welling up in her, and it came as much from this man’s gaze as from the situation. “I’m sorry, mum.”
“I’d like to see your passenger manifest, please.”
His demeanor shifted, hardened. “As ye wish. Y’ll find him at the beginning of it but not the end. He took quite ill early on and was by his own request put ashore. It’s in the log.”
“And his effects? His baggage?”
“With him, mum, wherever he be now.”
She wanted to argue further, somehow reverse this nightmare, but nothing she could say would change this man’s story. She mumbled something about returning and squeezed past the growing mountain of things on deck. She fell in between two porters and walked the gangway to solid ground.
Who could help her? The crown maintained an investigating board and full court to handle maritime affairs. Sammy would know where to go, whom to see. Sam might also, although he wasn’t very good at business matters.
In the end she received no satisfaction. Neither Samuel nor the fortune he was purportedly bringing home could be traced. Even though the authorities agreed the circumstances were suspicious, they also agreed that they could do nothing.
Susanna visited in London awhile, reacquainting herself with the sights and smells of yesteryear. She went to see St. Paul’s Cathedral just for curiosity; it had been started about the time she was born and finally completed fourteen years ago.
And then she journeyed home to shabby, muddy parochial little Epworth, strangely emptyhearted.