My Name is Resolute (62 page)

“Otherwise you’d have become a slut.”

At my side on the table rested a bowl of apples, most of them soft and awaiting cooking down for apple butter. It was done before I knew it. It was done as if someone else ran into the room and put the apple into my hand and pulled my arm. I threw it at her with every ounce of strength I had. I roared at her, “God sent you this apple, then, to teach you manners!” The fruit hit Serenity at the base of her lower lip and splattered upward across her face, causing a tiny cut in the lip at the same time. A drop of dark red appeared on her lip.

Serenity shrieked for her men, and proceeded to feign a faint on my doorstep, her face filthy, and her wig falling off sideways. The man holding her right arm while her backside slid into mud at the doorway asked, “May we bring her inside, madam?”

“No. I will help you get her into the coach. I think she will be most comfortable in her own home. She was rambling on about madness in the family. Repeating herself. I believe the woman is having a spell. Quite incoherent, perhaps mad. It runs in the family, you know. Get her home and I insist you send for a physician. She needs a vigorous vomit and a good bleeding. See to it that a doctor does it as soon as she gets home.” We got her into the coach where she tumbled down against the seat as a child might sleep.

The coach left, though I did not enter the house until it was well out of sight. “Jacob?” I called. “Jacob, I must talk to you.” I told him what I had done, adding, “Oh, Jacob, they will come for me. If we were in England, they would transport me here. The Wallace Spencers have wealth and position. I am doomed.” My children came down then, and I was forced to confess another time. “Children, your mother lost her temper in the most terrible way. I was insulted and did not forbear to take it quietly. I should have asked the woman to leave. Or merely told her I was not pleased with what she said.”

My little Dorothy said, “Ma? What did you do?”

I drew a deep breath. “I hit Mistress Spencer with an apple. A mushy one. Right in the face.”

“Yippee!” Benjamin whooped. “Did it make a big mess and bust out all her teeth? I want to see that!”

“Oh, son. I am so sorry I did it. Gentle people ought not to behave so.”

“What did she say to you, Ma?” Gwenny asked.

“She said she had come to apologize for what occurred at the ball—Wallace Spencer was too proud and sent her—and then she apologized for my upset, not for your affronting.”

Jacob said, “It isn’t like you to be offended over mere words. I have known you to be almost stoic when faced with a braggart or a lunatic.”

“But she was neither. And her husband took evil advantage of my precious Gwenny. Besides, that was not all she said. She said God had made me a slave and that was where I belonged.” I burst into tears. “Oh, my dears, they will come for me. I could hang for this. My poor babes. You will be motherless and scorned. I have ruined us.”

“But Ma, it was just an apple,” said Benjamin. “I threw an apple at Thomas Bedford’s sister Nanette and it had a worm in it. All I got was that Thomas’s father flicked my behind with a switch a few times.”

I bit my lip from the inside.

Jacob said, “Well and aye. If your mother gets a switch a few times, we won’t think the worse of her, will we, children? After all, she was defending our family honor and your sister’s name.” Of course, all the children agreed with that, but my heart broke so that I wanted only to go to bed, and left America and Gwyneth to serve them supper.

America brought me tea and a bit of pudding. “I am sorry,” she said. “I cannot help but think she deserved even more, but I wish I had been the one to deliver it. Then you would have nothing to fear.”

That evening, when August rode home on a fine stallion, leading another horse he had bought, I was forced to tell the story yet again. August’s understanding was far different than mine, as was his response. “No one will arrest you,” he said, “if I have to load muskets and fight them off.”

“August, we cannot do that.”

“Then we will take your family and disappear. Or you will hide in one of your many priest holes. You built them for just such a purpose, did you not?”

“I would not break the law.”

“It was what the wench deserved. If she were not wealthy, no one would give another thought about it.”

“But she is wealthy. She will do something.”

“I will duel that fat fop over it. That will settle it. It must be done before the magistrate is called in.”

“I will not have you risk your life on that account.”

“You risked yours.”

I sighed. “I am undone. I am undone. I need Cullah. He always answered cunning with silence, and it was the right thing. I have never been able to master my own tongue.”

August laughed in a knowing way. “Only this time it was your hand, I think. Like a good cider, my little sister, you are very sweet and a wee bit spoiled, hiding a hogshead of black powder and cinnamon in your stays.”

“August! The children will hear.”

He laughed again, a bit louder, and said, “I wish that they had heard you bewend the hassock-headed bitch. You have a talent for it; it would have improved their education.”

I clapped hands over my mouth, but felt a laugh similar to his welling up from the terror within. I giggled through my tears. A pirate bold is my bonny brother, I thought.

“There,” August said. “It was only a matter of time before you let go of your fear and took this for what it really was. At best, a matter of honor. At least, two housewives squabbling.”

“August, how low.”

“You could claim it so, and given fifteen minutes before any judge, she would show herself to be the lower of the two.”

The following day August left early again, claiming he had an errand in town that could not wait. He returned at evening with no explanation other than “business.”

The next two weeks dragged past in long dreary days, some so gray we all felt compelled to sleep most of the time away for the sun barely changed the color of the sky at all from night to day. Only the lowing of the cows brought us from sleep. America tried her best to soothe me at every turn.

Two soldiers came on a Friday morning. They delivered to me a paper with the words “Writ of Summons” upon it in large hand-scribed letters. I was not being arrested, I was being sued for damages to the person of Serenity Spencer. Grievous injury, it said. Violent attack. Bloody mutilation. I closed my eyes. In my childhood I had seen bloody mutilation. “What manner of lies is this?” I said aloud to any and all. “This is nothing but falsehood. Nothing but confabulation. What shall I do?”

The soldier shrugged. “Appear in the court when it says to appear, Goody. Else we come and haul you in a cart, tied and bound to a tree. Good day to you.”

Tears rose in my eyes and I closed the door. For several minutes I could not speak a word. I stared at the floor, horrified at what I had done. The sound of my own breath going in and out filled the room. I closed my eyes and turned my face upward, so wrought with anguish at my own being, my many faults, that no prayer came to me at all.

And then I heard, “Haff. Haffa. Ahah! Mama, hap!” I opened my eyes to see my Dorothy, her face an open display of shock and disbelief. On a low stool, a candlestick had lost its taper. Dolly’s wee skirts and petticoats smoldered and exploded into tongues of orange flame. Her face at that moment registered only surprise.

I fell upon Dorothy, tearing the flaming cloth with my hands. I crushed her to me, pressing the fiery ash against my body, setting alight my apron, my house cap, and my skirt. Dorothy wailed now, terrified at the fire as well as what I was doing. I flung burning fabric away and crushed her at last against the floor with my own body, forming my arms against her tiny ones to smother every last bit of flame.

I felt more than saw my other children, my men, America, all standing, helpless, watching, chasing and stamping cinders of burning cloth. I stammered out, “Get—water.” I rolled off Dorothy and she let out a wail that came from her soul’s core. I stood her up and pulled again at layer after layer of burned petticoat and stockings, until, even as she wailed, half the poor mite was naked before us all, pink and scorched. Only then did I breathe. She had lost most of her hair back of her ears on the whole expanse of her head. The skin there was blistered and red. Her face, thankfully, untouched and whole. Her legs had blistered in rising whitish lumps, though her back seemed unscathed, for the fire had stopped at the sash of her pinafore. “Oh, baby,” I said. “My baby. Whatever possessed you to step over a burning candle?”

Dorothy cried. It would not have mattered if she could have explained her action. Children did things because they knew no fear, they had no judgment, and they cannot look forward in time, not even one minute. I bathed her backside with cool water cupped in my hands and she cried all the harder. Gulping air, at last she let me bind her sore legs with clean linen bandages. I held her in my arms and rocked our bodies together, singing “O Waly, Waly,” until by the second verse, she slept.

I shook my head and said, “I could not move fast enough.”

August said to me, “Ressie, you were like a wild animal. You saved her life.”

America said, “Now she is sleeping. Will you let me clean your wounds?”

My hands hurt mercilessly. I had blisters, too, though the tops of several of them had already opened and torn away; they tormented me most thinking that my babe felt such burning pain. As America dabbed at my hands and face with wet cloths, I felt every sting as if it were Dorothy’s. I asked, “Have I my hair?”

“Yes, in the back. Poor thing, the front is gone. Also your eyebrows and lashes. They will grow.”

“I have to go to town on Monday to appear before the magistrate.” I sighed. “I will look a madwoman even if I wear a new cap, pulled low. If I must, I will powder my face. All I care is that Dorothy is well.”

That night Dorothy glowed with fever as did I. In the morning, I bathed her with woolen pads soaked in cool water before the fire in my room. She cried as if I tortured her, revived enough to eat, cried more in distress, then slept again. August was away from the house early in the morning, but did not tell me where he was going. America and I tried to salvage what could be had of my clothing, for not a scrap would I waste. All of it would make something, even if it were a pot holder. I sat at length and studied the stool where the candle had been. I wanted not so much to place blame for the accident, but to prevent its occurring again. All I could figure out was that someone had moved the candlestick from its usual place on the mantel to get at the box on which it sat, and had not put it back.

I looked inside the box. Tobacco. Perhaps August had reached into it, and not thinking about the whimsical nature of children, had busied himself with a pipe, even lighting it with the candle, and set it by his feet on the stool. Dorothy had been used to playing upon the steps and jumping from the second one to the hearthstone. With the stool there, she may have thought it nothing new, or perhaps thought she could jump high enough to get over it. Had he been so careless as to endanger my child?

Just the day before, when she was playing at dancing, I had said to her, “Oh, my, how high you jump! Look at my Dolly fly up, as a wee jumping jack.” Perhaps she thought she really could fly. There was no end to the guilt I owned this day. If my precious Dolly should die from this, I thought, I shall throw myself into the sea.

*   *   *

Monday, America Roberts and August came with me to town, after she had helped me dress and hide my missing hair with a lacy cap. She put my bonnet on but I could not stand for it to be tied against the raw red skin under my chin and neck so I tied it loosely as some wore for style, and hoped it not too brazen. I was dressed as if in mourning except for the white cockade at my throat.

On the way there, August tried to convince me things would turn out for the best, but when I walked into the town hall I thought I should faint. I kept my eyes on the floor until I heard them read a statement that included my name. Then I looked about. I saw Serenity and Wallace Spencer, clothed in new luxury, matching brown silks with gold embroidery. Lady Spencer accompanied them, too, seated on the front row of benches before the table of judges. I turned away. I must look a drab old crow. I touched my bonnet. I had not powdered my face except to hide the red of my forehead, for I knew that I might be moved to tears in this procedure, and that would leave streaks that could not be explained. I must seem a horror, I thought.

I sat between August and America, who patted my arm and tenderly held my hands as if she must have sensed they felt burned and painful, though I wore gloves. Another man rose and read another statement. My head spun. I held August’s arm so that at one point he patted my hand but loosened my grip. He smiled when I complied. I tried to return it, but I doubt that I succeeded. Before me sat men in long wigs and black robes, making judgment against me and my household for all time, I feared. Such gloom took me as I had never before known. I saw my poor hurting babe, first, then thought of all my children, even the ones long in their graves. I wept, thinking of Cullah. August shook my arm. “Listen,” he whispered. “You must listen.”

Serenity moved to a chair in the center of the opening between the magistrates’ table and the bar that separated them from the rest of the people. She acted as if it were difficult to stay conscious, and patted herself, fanned herself, though it was so cold our breaths bathed the room with a foggy softness.

When the magistrate prompted her again, Serenity said, “I had gone to call upon Goody Mackle-man, there, as a kindness and courtesy, although it was beneath me to do it. The minute I came through the door she hurled such curses and threats at me as to nearly cause a lady of my gentle upbringing to succumb. She might have even tried to cast a spell upon me, I do not know, for I have no knowledge of that sort of devilment, being a God-fearing wife and mother. She then began to cast apples at me, crashing my mouth and face. She bruised me and caused blood to cascade down my gown. This tooth, here”—she pointed—“is chipped now. If you don’t hang that woman you must at least run her from the town. Tarred and feathered. Yes. Send her from the town and confiscate her property.” She nodded at Wallace after saying that, smiled, then resumed a somber face.