My Name is Resolute (44 page)

Jacob insisted upon the tradesmen’s entrance at the back. I left him and Cullah at the path and went straight for the front. Oswald opened, wearing his usual stony expression, his nose almost too high as he looked over my clothing. I said, “Please tell Lady Spencer that Miss Talbot of Two Crowns Plantation is calling.”

He bowed without a word, leaving me in the foyer. I supposed Jacob and Cullah went to the back of the house. I checked for mud on my hem. Oswald took me to the better parlor this time. On seeing her my spirits lifted until I discovered Lady Spencer was not alone. Wallace stood near the fireplace not far from Serenity Roberts. Mistress Roberts, America, and Portia sat together on a sofa. I bowed to each in turn. Oh, my heart. I came near to making some whimper at seeing handsome Wallace so elegantly turned out, so finely dressed in satins. His chiseled mouth smiled at me with warmth and surprise, and I was filled with the memory of his lips upon mine. I felt my face coloring and turned away from him.

“What a lovely surprise, Miss Talbot,” Lady Spencer said, her tone cool.

“Thank you for receiving me, Lady Spencer, but I cannot stay. I called only to ask after your health and that of your company. I leave you my best wishes.” I forced myself to smile at Mistress Roberts. America grinned merrily at me. “Good afternoon, madam. Young ladies. I hope your family is well.”

Lady Spencer said, “Wallace and Miss Roberts have just announced their engagement to us. We are all most joyful over it.”

A pain pierced me. I fought to control my lips’ quivering. “A most joyful occasion,” I said. “Congratulations to you, Wallace. Many happy returns.”

Serenity smiled at me with the look in her eye of a cat having stolen a juicy morsel from the mouth of another cat. She held her hands in her lap, curled, like paws, I thought. “Thank you, Miss Talbot. We shall be supremely happy. We will marry in a month and journey to Wallace’s plantation.”

“Only a month?” I asked, fixing my face in a smile that hid my surprise. “I am sure you will have much to do in that time, creating a trousseau. How fortunate that you have your mother and sisters to help you.”

“I hear you are a seamstress now. And a spinster. A weaver, that is the word.”

America said, “And you live in the woods with the crazy granny and two louts.”

“America!” Mistress Roberts’s hand dashed out to pat America’s arm in rebuff. “We have not heard anything of the sort.”

I turned to Lady Spencer. “The committee came to my dwelling, Lady Spencer. I am sure they were satisfied that such is not the case.”

Serenity said, “We wish to buy fine linens. I want the whitest white. What do you have to sell? I shall need a seamstress for the simples. Of course, a
qualified
dressmaker will be doing the fine garments.”

Lies slid from my mouth as rain fell from the clouds. I formed a face of curious puzzlement. “To sell? Why, Serenity, I have no wares to sell. I sew for myself as many women do, from the governor’s wife to the poorest milkmaid. If you wish to buy you must seek a merchant.” I raised my hand in a slight gesture I thought showed off the ruby ring on my first finger.

“I would hire you to make the simples.”

“I am not for hire.”

“Mother, make her sew for me,” Serenity said. “Wallace? Surely you must insist that this girl create my goods. I told you she had done my ’broidery before.”

Wallace turned to her with that visage of boredom combined with irritation, the face I had pictured so many times after that night he left me at the inn. “Did you not say, ahem, you were
not staying,
Miss Talbot?”

Lady Spencer gasped at his rudeness and I saw a red flush rise above her high collar. “I have some very good claret we have all just enjoyed. Sit here, by me.”

Wallace forced his beautiful, haughty lips to smile when I joined his mother on a settee. Oswald brought me a goblet of claret. Wallace and Serenity moved to another part of the room. Mistress Roberts and her other daughters sat stoically, as if not sure what their next moves should be.

In a moment, Lady Spencer tapped my skirt with her fan and nodded so slightly I might have misunderstood, were it not for the movement of her eyes. She said, for all the room to hear, “I can see you have had the good fortune to have Johanna the dressmaker create this for you. The fit is exactly the way she creates my gowns. Johanna does not take everyone. Clever to use such light linen in this heat; even though it has rained, the room is stifling today. Perhaps you embellished that frill yourself? Well, why not? A lady may be able to do the finest embroidery and not call it huswifery. Excellent. You have a brilliant hand.”

“I made it myself, Lady Spencer,” I admitted.

She mouthed the words “I know,” then whispered, “Johanna has been busy with a newborn. Nothing like the talk of ladies’ garments to bore my son to tears. I presumed it would leave us some privacy.”

Wallace and Serenity moved from the empty fireplace to a window. The others were conversing and not watching us. I lowered my face and my voice. “I have heard of a sea captain making inquiries of me. I hope it is my brother. Even so, I have enough money now, to return to Jamaica. If you know of any who travel to the Indies and might take a companion, I should be thankful for reference.”

She whispered, “I know nothing of any sea captain. But you’d leave your house? I suppose the work done was not pleasing to you?” She appeared distressed.

Tears brimmed and fell. I dabbed them away and sipped the claret. “I thank you sincerely for the work done, but I have the feeling it is still Goody Carnegie’s house. She wishes me to stay. She is lonely. I—I do want to go home, Lady Spencer. My one wish is to see my mother. To touch her hand one more time. To lean my head upon her bosom to beg her forgiveness for it having taken so very long for her youngest child to return.”

Lady Spencer’s eyes filled also. She stared at the fireplace where Wallace had been, proud and spoiled. “When my youngest child leaves this house, I feel certain he will never return to it.”

“Is it ever thus with children? A mother cannot know if they love her until they are grown?” I thought of Patience, gone to a life that seemed to me a horror. What would Ma think of her actions when she heard?

“It is. Let that be a lesson to you. Once they begin to walk, they are no longer your babes but little men and women placed upon the earth to seek their own means.”

“Mother?” Wallace called from across the room. “Shall we have more wine, or will we be having another for supper? I will send word to the cook.”

I stood. “Let me not intrude on your happy celebration further. I bid you all a good day.”

“Call anytime,” Lady Spencer said. “And do have one of your servants send word when I may be received by you. I shall inquire for you about the other matter.”

I knew that she was aware I had no servants. I supposed she said that to make me seem elevated before Wallace and Serenity. “Lady Spencer, Mistress Roberts. Serenity. America. Portia.” I waited until I was nearly at the door, Oswald’s hand upon the pull, to say, “What was it you were to plant, Wallace? Oh, yes, some vegetable?”

He appeared stung. “Tobacco.”

“Tobacco. Very well. Best wishes for your marriage. May it be
ever
so long,” I said, with a face as near to Oswald’s demeanor as I could manage.

Jacob and Cullah waited on the street; Cullah sat upon a stand meant to allow gentlemen to alight their horses more easily. One of his large boots lay before him, and on that foot he pulled a new stocking and a finer boot made of soft leather. “Ah, they almost fit,” he said. “With a little lint in the toe, it will be fine.”

“Good trade, son. Ah, you’re found out. Miss Talbot, good day. And did they give you good table?”

I shook my head. “Naught but a single glass of wine.”

Cullah said, “You should have come with us to the kitchen. We had such a repast that we may never need to eat again.”

“Ah, you’re always hungry, boy. Put away them things and give the missy something to eat. That’s the good of going in the kitchen door. A few kind words to a cook and we’ve got plenty in the kit for the road.”

“I have a pie here. I think it is beef,” Cullah said.

“I cannot eat on the street.”

“Too proud?” Cullah asked.

“Proud enough not to be branded a lout for bad manners in public. You yourself ate at table, not on the street like a vagabond,” I said. We found a bench under a tree. Once I had half the pie and gave the rest to Cullah, I moved my money to my pocket, put my dyes and bundles in Jacob’s pack, and we started for the house in Lexington. That house. That place where I slept and cooked and wove cloth. Where I waited for my brother. Waited for calm seas. Waited for these cocky woodsmen to finish their noisy labor and leave me in peace. August was coming, that was the one happiness among all the thorns left in my soul by Wallace Spencer. My heart was full and my feet felt heavy with the weight of it.

The road was not much used, and we found long miles without another soul, so Cullah sang. He tried to teach me some of the words to his sad song. After one particularly bad try, he took my hand in his, faced me, and said, “Watch what I am saying.”

“Could you not write it down?”

“I never learned. Just pay attention; if you can learn French you can do this.” He said the words slowly. I repeated them, then more quickly, then with the melody. Suddenly I realized I had heard some of the syllables before, in the chants and charms Goody Carnegie used for every occasion. We sang it again and again, until I had it. He did not let go of my hand. It was only at my door that I realized we had strolled hand in hand and arm in arm like lovers most of the way. Cullah’s father had followed two steps behind, neither speaking nor slowing. I took my hand away, blushing.

Jacob gave me my bundles. None of us spoke. At last I asked, “Ah, shall we have some supper?”

As Cullah was nodding his head yes, Jacob said, “We’ll be sleeping at the goodwife’s house from now on. We will let no man pass the road without knowing what he is about. No more committees will darken your door.”

“But my brother is coming. You would not stop
him
?”

“It might be your brother. Might be some other wight.”

“No one else would search for me. It is August.”

Cullah said, “What is his look? How would we know him?”

I cast my eyes about. “He was fifteen when last I saw him. His hair was not quite as dark as yours. He was not tall. Very big feet. He had a mole on one cheek right above his dimple, so he looked something like a painted doll when he smiled, and a scar over one eye where he once got a fishhook in his brow. I suppose he might be taller, now.”

“Perhaps,” Jacob said. “With big feet, a boy often grows into them.”

“Would you allow me to measure you, so I could make him a shirt?”

Cullah’s face warmed as if he stood before a fire. “One man is not like another,” he said. A low, rumbling sound came from him, a laugh.

Jacob grunted and said, “Measure me, lass. I’m the best measure of any man.”

Cullah’s eyes flashed with anger. “I didn’t say I would not do it.”

“You did.” Jacob’s manner bristled, too, as if he were ready for a battle.

I said, “I will measure you both, then, to make a shirt for August.” Before I had finished speaking Cullah stripped off his coat and drew a deep breath, expanding his ribs, setting his shoulders well back. Jacob growled and took off his own coat, standing beside his son with a frown on his face and his eyes on the ceiling. I used a thread, knotting it for shoulders and arms, length and girth. While Jacob’s face registered a snarl, Cullah’s seemed merry indeed.

*   *   *

We began work again after a couple of days of dry weather. I set my loom to make the finest linen I had yet warped, thinking of a shirt for August. Before that, though, I had miles of thread to spin. Jacob and Cullah slept at Goody’s but worked the day through at my house, and within the week Jacob began the thatching of the upper floor. Cullah was still hard at work on something inside, but I had no time to dandle about and watch them, for I had those many yards of weaving to do for August. The noise of their work bothered me not at all now. Three days passed as if but an hour.

The clatter of the men’s tools had quieted for an hour the afternoon Goody came calling up my lane. I had had to take time from my spinning to tend my goats, and had a nice pan of milk to carry to the house. “Abigail? Abigail?” she called.

It vexed me to answer to that name, frightened me, in a small way, that she might find too much to be similar and I would suffer Abigail’s fate. I called to her, “Goody! I am in the goat yard.”

“Never you mind, dearie,” she said, grabbing my shoulder roughly. “In the house. Hurry. Bar the door, bar the door. Abigail, they are coming.”

I searched the sky for clouds but found none. “No one’s coming, Goody. Unless it is Jacob and Cul—”

Goody Carnegie pushed the milk pan to the ground, wrenching it from my fingers. “Abigail, listen to me. Where are the woodsmen?”

“In the house.” I felt before I heard the concussion that stopped her speech. I thought perhaps I had imagined it. That she had taken a fit. Had had a shock. Frozen in place, she had become a pillar of salt, a Lot’s wife to mark the way to my door. “Goody?”

Her mouth moved. A whimper escaped her lips. Goody fell to the ground, a fountain of blood sheeting across her back. I screamed. Ran toward my door. On the lower level, the stone walls had been filled in—the ample window was now but an air hole. The door had a bar but it was heavy and hard to place. I heard a man’s voice in the woods. Another answered it back. The timbre was wrong, for Jacob’s or Cullah’s voices. In the darkened inside, I looked up the staircase. Any who might circle the house could come in. I looked upon my loom, my spinning wheels and baskets. If Indians intended to steal me away again, I would not be found.

I crept into the fireplace, still warm as it was, and pulled baskets of thread behind me. There were too many embers. It would light the baskets and burn me alive. I sought to crawl beneath the loom, but had not got under when a hand, strong as iron bands, took my ankles and pulled me forth. It was no Indian, though, but a white man. I cried out with all my strength, and the wretched fellow laughed, hoisted me up, crushing the breath from me, and started up the stair. My strength was no match for him, but I could kick against the wall and knock him off balance and I did, four steps up. We tumbled down the stairs, him cursing and furious. At that moment another man came down, but this one saw the barred door and opened it, shoving me through to the outside.