ONW Pages Aug12ptr.Indd

Old New Worlds e OLD NEW WORLDS a tale of two immigrants e Judith Krummeck green writers press | Brattleboro, Vermont Copyright © 2019 by Judith Krummeck All rights reserved. Printed in the United States 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Old New Worlds is a work of nonfiction. Apart from the actual historic figures, events, and locales that provide background for the narrative, some of the names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously to bring the historical narrative alive. Green Writers Press is a Vermont-based publisher whose mission is to spread a message of hope and renewal through the words and images we publish. Throughout we will adhere to our commitment to preserving and protecting the natural resources of the earth. To that end, a percentage of our proceeds will be donated to environmental activist groups and The Southern Poverty Law Foundation. Green Writers Press gratefully acknowledges support from individual donors, friends, and readers to help support the environment and our publishing initiative. Green Place Books curates books that tell literary and compelling stories with a focus on writing about place—these books are more personal stories, memoir, and biographies. Giving Voice to Writers & Artists Who Will Make the World a Better Place Green Writers Press | Brattleboro, Vermont www.greenwriterspress.com isbn: 978-1-9505840-9-3 cover design: Dede Cummings & Rachael Peretic book design: Dede Cummings artwork: Joan Krummeck printed on paper with pulp that comes from fsc-certified forests, managed forests that guarantee responsible environmental, social, and economic practices by printopia. “Fiction is the history of the obscure.” —Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin Contents e part one 1 part two 65 part three 133 part four 169 part five 219 part six 285 map 345 acknowledgments 347 bibliography 350 PART ONE e Theopolis, South Africa December 20,1836 he raucous call of hadeda ibis overhead was fol- lowed immediately by a low, growling roll of thun- Tder, as if the birds had shaken loose the storm. For one beat, two beats, everything was utterly still and silent, then a downpour set up a percussive rhythm on the parched ground, and the pungent smell released by the rain drifted in at the open window. As the storm picked up momentum, the wind caught at the flimsy curtain, sucking it out through the window. A woman rushed to pull the casement shut. “No, leave it!” said Sarah. The woman stopped and turned toward the bed. Sarah’s voice was almost inaudible against the noise of the drumming rain, but its urgency carried. The woman waited, unsure. The storm had given the room a lurid color, and the wind whipped the curtain in and out, in and out, at the window, the jagged rhythm mirroring Sarah’s breathing. The strange light picked up a sheen of perspiration on Sarah’s face and the silhouette of her pregnant belly. The storm was directly overhead by this time, and a simultaneous flash of lightening and a sharp crack of thunder 3 Judith Krummeck were the prelude to torrential rain. Under cover of the noise, Sarah gave a wrenching, guttural groan. The woman tenta- tively approached the bed. Sarah’s dark hair clung to her wet face, and a long strand was plastered across her throat like a gash. “It’s all right. ,” she said, but the end of the word was twisted in a cry. “Go and call Reverend Barker!” The woman, relieved to have something concrete to do, ran from the room. Sarah listened to her bare feet padding away down the passage. The wind swirling through the room felt blessedly cool across her damp face. As the grip of pain began to subside she listened, still for a moment, to the rain pounding the earth outside the window. When the cycle of pain began again, it was a clutch- ing cramping that brought with it an overpowering urge to bear down. She felt a gush of warmth between her legs. She thought, at first, that it was her water breaking . but the warmth kept seeping and spreading. She lifted her head and looked down the length of her body, sprawled at an angle across the bed where she had fallen when the pain first hit, and she watched as the first stains bled through her dress. Her head fell back again as her consciousness shrank to a scarlet circle of pain. The storm began to subside as quickly as it had come. The rain turned to drips, and the sodden curtain hung limply at the open window. The light in the room slowly changed as the late-afternoon sun broke through again. The strange call of a red-chested cuckoo drifted into the silent room, Piet- my-vrou . Piet-my-vrou . Piet-my-vrou . 4 Chapter One e don’t know if this is what happened. But, as I started to feel my way towards Sarah’s story, and based on the I few scattered facts I knew about her, I imagined that this is how it might have been. I know the date; it was the eve of the summer solstice in the Southern Hemisphere. It would have been hot, and it’s possible there was one of those thunderstorms that cool things off on a late-summer afternoon in South Africa’s Eastern Cape. Perhaps the simple room at the mission sta- tion in Theopolis was redolent of earth, heat, dust, sweat, and the metallic, cloying smell of blood. This would have been Sarah’s sixteenth pregnancy. I also know for a fact that Sarah Barker née Williams sailed from Portsmouth, England, aboard the tall ship Alfred on March 2, 1815, bound for the Cape of Good Hope at the 5 Judith Krummeck southern tip of Africa. One hundred and eighty-two years later, on July 18, 1997, my life intersected with Sarah’s when I leaned forward in my window seat to watch Cape Town dropping away below me as the plane took off. I etched the moment in my mind’s eye, storing it away for all the times I knew I would need to take it out and relive it. It was the first step of my immigration to America—a process that was taking me away from the country where Sarah had planted me, and that would ultimately take me on a long, looping search for her story. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know the history of my ancestors who emigrated from England to become missionaries in South Africa’s Eastern Cape. My mother, Joan née Barker, was a compelling storyteller, and her low voice, with its trace of the Eastern Cape accent, wove its way into my imagination and memory. She kept a double portrait of her great-grandparents by her front door, and I could see in George Barker’s high forehead, deep-set eyes, straight mouth, and large, flat ears a likeness to my mother, and also to my grandfather, my uncle, and my brother. My cousin, Elspeth née Barker, who looks nothing like the rest of us, is Sarah’s doppelgänger with her periwinkle-blue eyes, softly-rounded cheeks, dark, wavy hair, and full, curvaceous mouth. The portrait was my first clue to Sarah. My second was her slanting signature with its beautiful “W” where she signed her maiden name, Sarah Williams, as a witness on the marriage certificate of Elizabeth Rogers and Joseph Williams on January 16, 1815. At first, it was tempting to think that Joseph Williams was Sarah’s brother—but no, he was George’s fellow student when they trained to be missionaries at the Gosport Academy near Portsmouth. Sarah and Elizabeth were both natives of Shropshire and worked 6 Old New Worlds together as servants for the Rev. Mr. Waters and his wife on Kingsland Road in London’s present-day Hackney. George’s signature appears underneath Sarah’s on Elizabeth and Joseph’s marriage certificate, and I’ve exper- imented with several scenarios as I’ve puzzled over whether Sarah and George first met on their friends’ wedding day, or if the four of them had been in each other’s company before- hand. In any event, exactly one week after Elizabeth and Joseph’s wedding, George informed the London Missionary Society’s Committee of Examiners that he wished to marry Sarah Williams. But she wasn’t his first choice. Seven weeks earlier, George had advised the L.M.S. Committee of Examination that he wished to marry a young woman who was a mem- ber of a Mr. Kemp’s church at Terling in Essex. Five days later, he’d sent a letter to the committee announcing that he had failed in his application to the young woman at Terling and expressing, apparently “in the most suitable Terms,” his desire to “acquiesce in the Will of God and go to Africa in the single State.” A cold chill of empathy runs over my skin at the thought of Sarah being George’s second choice. Did he think that the young woman from Terling was the love of his life? Was he on the rebound? Had he simply been desperate to have a wife—any wife—to accompany him on his mission work, as St. John Rivers had been when he proposed a loveless marriage to Jane Eyre in the book that Charlotte Brontë had yet to write? Nobody wants to be someone else’s backup plan.

Load more