My Name is Resolute (68 page)

Close up now, I got a look at his eager expression, his weary eyes. He said, “My Resolute, thou art the blithest maid e’er walked the dews of Skye.” Then he kissed me so hard my lip felt crushed. He swung me into his arms and hefted me two or three times, then said, “Beauty walks in your being. Light as a fairy. Are you sure you are not a fairy? I am enchanted by this maid, who weighs less than a pennyweight of feathers.”

I laughed again. “I have so much to tell you. Take me to the house.”

“Oh, wife, I have some to tell you also. Is the boy here?”

“Well and aye.”

“And his friend? Did he live?”

“Yes. And well. He is with Gwenny in the barn, milking.”

“The two of them alone?”

“Well, Cullah, he’s so ill.”

“Not that ill. Let me greet my bairnies, then send one of the other children, no, send them all to keep them company. We have aught to speak of, alone.”

I smiled. “How came you to these clothes? And to return cleaned, and”—I sniffed—“you smell as you did on our wedding day.”

“Ah, so many questions. Would you have me covered in filth and gore? I stopped and enjoyed the kindness of others so I would not frighten you. Come along, Resolute.”

We held hands and found our children. I told them all, Jacob and Brendan included, the silliest things and promised them treats and puddings and sweetmeats aplenty, if only they would go and watch Gwenny and Rolan milk the cows. When the last had gone toward the barn, Cullah and I raced up the stairs and bolted our door.

A couple of days later, when we settled our fluttering hearts and had time to speak of other things, I asked him, “Husband? How did you fare? I feared so often that you would be called less than a soldier for refusing to fight the French.”

“I found that I could fight anyone who pointed a musket at me. A man’s will to survive is greater than his cause, I reckon. Armies count on that, lest no one would fire and we should all sit and have a game of whist and call it finished. One man fires and the lot of them feel threatened. I told Brendan to watch for that. Never to be the first to fire, unless there is no choice, and never under any circumstance be the second, for the first could have been accidental until you know. Many a battle was worked to our advantage by officers who knew that. One shoots from a crafty position. All the men hiding in the brush and trees then are threatened and fire, giving away their position. Now, that is enough battle strategy for my wee brain. Tell me, gentle wife, of what has happened in my home?”

It was not easy to confess to the one I loved yet another way my angry tongue had worked to my disfavor. He listened to the story of the stocks, and the safekeeping by my brother and her ladyship. In the end he laughed. I could but ask his forgiveness, and plead that I lost my senses for lack of his presence. I told him of Patience and August, of my sister’s death and my brother’s vengeance against the man who would have despoiled our daughter. All the little things we had left unsaid, we said. The way the summer turned. The way the air smelled this November, so like other Novembers that it carried with it the promise of roasted meats and sweet pies as well as blizzards and long, long nights.

“I can think of ways to fill a long night,” Cullah whispered to me.

“I can think of one,” I said. “I hope your nights were not so long while you were gone.”

“Every one of them, an eternity without you,” he said. “And you are worried that I have played the rogue? Fear not. I simply added each night to those I will spend with you from now on. I will never again leave your side, my Resolute, not if dragged away by a team of horses.”

CHAPTER 31

January 20, 1757

It was against the law for us to feed and house Rolan Perrine. He was, after all, either an escaped French prisoner or a deserter, so whichever side got hands on him would execute him forthwith. He did not wish to return to the French army, or return to France a pauper, or to go north to the Canadas or escape to the wilderness. I wondered if he thought he would not survive the trip, or if the terror of soldiering was too much for him, for he was a pleasant young man, and well versed in the raising of all types of plant and animal. He loved the land and wanted nothing more than his old farmer’s life. The only chance for him, now that his neck began to heal, was to become as “English” as he could. I once was to become French, I told him. He remarked how the world had turned.

We gave him many suggestions for overcoming his accent and speech. We dressed him like every other man about and burned what was left of his clothing. The more we spoke with him, the more he looked about the place, he said he would love to stay at a farm like ours. So we hired Rolan Perrine, a farmer’s son from France, to farm our fields. He would live in Jacob’s old house, as long as he felt no fear of spirits, and he would plow and plant, reap and bundle, in return for the house and food. And we would help him to become English, starting with his name. He became Roland Prine.

From that time forward, Roland Prine spoke of nothing but soils and fertilizer, rain, moon cycles, asking when was the last frost, when was the first? What did the neighbors grow? What crops had failed, what pests were about? He went to meetings with us at First Church but spoke not at all, and put himself in the path of other men who knew farming, so that by the time in April when it seemed the frost was over and the moon was right to plant, he had already broken the fields. He put in barley, wheat, corn, and two acres for naught but vegetable for the table. Every remaining inch of land went to acres of flax. I felt a mixture of pride and despair, and finally, great resignation at the prospect of its harvest.

I said to Roland, “We will have enough for three families.”

He said, “Then, if my mistress will agree, we shall help those who have less.”

“Well and aye, then, Roland,” I said.

“Well and aye, Mistress.”

That summer our land produced more than seemed possible. Had Roland not been there, we would have suffered, for that summer prices doubled and then doubled again on all house goods we did not grow ourselves. A bushel of wheat quadrupled in price. We ate luxuriously of Roland’s tillage so that we were quite plump, stored for the winter, but also gave much away that harvest.

Cullah said to me one morning, “This is not right. He works the land with old Sam to help, and we eat of it. For the trade of a place to sleep? That is meager ration.”

“Should we pay him, too? We could sell the vegetables, and give him a share.”

“Aye. Let us do that. Gwyneth would be good at that. Now that she has come into full bloom, I doubt any could get an ear of corn sold faster.”

*   *   *

By the spring of 1758, before the month of April had gone halfway, the roads and hills gone to mud, Roland asked Cullah for Gwyneth’s hand. They married April twenty-first, after he had gotten the land broken up for another year’s planting. We gave them a quarter of it for themselves, and Cullah, Brendan, and Jacob would build them a bonny house. As they clasped hands and prepared to walk to the little old cottage now made into a bower, we gave them each our blessings.

Dorothy said, “Learn to make good pudding, sister, and come home sometimes.”

Ben said, “I shall make a hobby horse for your babe when I apprentice with Pa.”

Brendan gave them both his hand, then kissed his sister. “Aw,” was all he said.

I told them I loved them. Cullah said again, “I shall build you a house.”

Jacob stood up, hobbled to the door, and said, “Now, Gwen. I knew you when you were born. Now you’re wed. So don’t be an old sclarty-paps, and come see your grand-par when he gets old.”

We all laughed, so relieved of the sweet sadness of her going.

“I will, Grandpa,” she said. She had tears in her eyes. She mouthed to me, “I am so happy, Ma. Farewell.” Then she turned away.

I studied my hands. My fingers still pained me from embroidering her new shift and gown. And Jacob was so old. Bent. He walked with a stick now, all the time, but he promised to help all he could. My Gwyneth, the child that I had feared so for her life, was now carrying my life into the future. I felt a rush of sentiment I could not place, and with it, a strong wish to return to Jamaica, to tell my mother, “Oh, Ma, I have a beautiful daughter. Today is her wedding day. Oh, Ma, life has made me a mother and you a grandmother, and perhaps soon I shall also be a grandmother. Oh, Ma, hold me close. Let me rest my head upon your bosom for a moment and be a child again, and hear your voice singing to me.” Tears ran.

Cullah put his arm around me, saying, “She will be fine. Don’t worry. She will make a good wife. You have taught her well.”

“Yes,” I said. “She will.” I laid my head against his chest. “Cullah? How is it possible for me to feel so young and so old at the same time?”

He scratched his head and turned to look at my eyes. “Are you ill?”

I laughed, though more tears flowed. “No. I am only a woman, and we are complicated devices.”

“Well and aye, my love. Well and aye.”

*   *   *

That summer when the wheat was green, the flax a sea of blue, and the barley still not more than a hand high, Brendan joined the British army for good. The war with the French had simmered down and yet new recruits were always needed. Because he had proved himself with valor during his previous stint, he was made a lieutenant and sent to Canada to relieve the forces at Montréal. I sighed. Montréal. I knew so little of the place, and yet it was so familiar. All so long ago and far away as if it were a story I once heard. I wept with his going for three days. And then I put on my apron and returned to my life and my loom.

The house felt quiet and empty. I taught Dorothy reading lessons and arithmetic and embroidery. Benjamin learned his lessons in Latin well. I hoped he might proceed to college. He might have the makings of the highest calling, a minister of God. I asked Reverend Clarke to speak to him, though yet a boy, for it was not too soon to plan. Jacob, of course, had never regained the forty pounds he had once promised, but no matter.

Town meetings went on now sometimes more than one a month. One night after being quite late returning from town, Cullah turned to me as we lay in bed and said, “Ressie? What do you believe?”

“On what subject?”

“I mean, what do you believe in? Do you believe there is a thing that is ordained and true and noble enough to die for?”

“I know you believe it. Men do; that is why they fight wars. Jacob fought for his beliefs and you ended up here.”

“I am asking you, wife. What do you believe in so that you would risk everything? Would you pick up a musket and kill a man?”

“Why do you ask me these things?”

“Would you?”

“For my children, yes.”

“There is talk. Among our friends in town. Talk of acting against the Crown. Refusing to be subject to another tax. Another war. No one in Parliament has ever been to this coast, did you know that? Everything costs more and more. Today I could not buy hinges because they weren’t to be had. If I must make them or buy them secretly, it will cost dearly, and I cannot sell my furniture for a price people will pay.”

“What do you mean to do?”

“Nothing, yet. The talk is just there, that we could band together to force prices down. Don’t buy British goods. Make our own or do without. Or depend on people like your brother to bring them from France or Russia or the Indies.”

“What goods are British?”

“That’s just it. Almost nothing and they buy and sell to us for three or four times what it’s worth. Cauldrons. Snuff and snuffboxes and shoes. They have passed a new law that no tradesman is allowed to make ironwork. Piggins and bars must be sent to England and we must buy it back after being worked. Any man caught working iron shall be arrested and tried for treason. Anyone buying iron from other than England faces the same. Not a horseshoe! We will have to take that iron we found in the fields years ago and melt it in secret or face arrest for having it.”

“You will wake the children.”

“Not a candlestick, I tell you. Not a single hinge. We have to be able to make our own. Don’t try to sell your cloth; even the silks from Lady Spencer will be taxed for half their value and I cannot pay it. We will be arrested if we don’t pay. Trade with the neighbors and don’t go to town. I heard from young Paul that their taking our iron will be the subject of the next town meeting. It will amount to having to smuggle home a crane for the fire or a shoe for a horse. There will not even be coin, but we will have printed money on paper that could catch fire like a twig. I am joining the rebellion. The whole of Lexington must be in one accord on this, for we must act together or hang separately.”

“The Quakers do such. They do not trade with outsiders. I do not know about iron, but they make shoes. But, Eadan, what is this talk of dying?”

“Sometimes I lie awake at night and think I am dying. Or I will be dying. And that war is coming. Everything feels so unsettled. Everything.”

I lay there, silent. To me, until he said this, everything in life had felt so settled and happy. Cullah was home. Brendan off on the career he chose. Gwenny married. Ben declining Latin nouns faster than I could think them up. Dorothy doing her first sampler. The land at last farmed and producing well. Life was good. “I am sorry for you, husband, to be so troubled. Perhaps you are worried so because of the hinges, and there will be some in town tomorrow. You have to wait.”

“Or I will design a lid for a box with a hinge built into the wood, and I will not buy a single British hinge.”

I knew I had to proceed with care in the words I chose. I heard the longing in my own heart all these years, so afraid people would leave me, that I feared even a momentary distance. Perhaps having lived in war brought the same. “Do you think, because you have seen war, that you cannot rest? That you think all the world must have war now? That perhaps you cannot lay down your sword?”

“I do not like being so fenced by their rules of trade. I am no longer allowed to sell to my neighbors for barter, did you know that? It will get worse, too. I am sure.”