“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“If I return to Concord today, it will be late before I can arrive again the morrow.”
“You could sleep at Goody’s house.”
“Not alone.” When I said nothing, he said, “Now she’s dead, the fairies scurry in the joints of the place. I could barely stand it with my pa there. That place does not rest easy. I could sleep here.”
“I would be ruined if you slept here.”
“I would make you my bride this day, Miss Talbot.”
Warmth mixed with fear filled my heart. I pictured the blushing, stumbling Quaker boy, far nearer my age than Cullah. He was a man, not a boy, and anything he desired I could not hold from him long. I drew myself up as if no fear ever crossed my mind. “I have not been asked to wed, nor have I given such a word to you. There is no priest about, nor a witness. Have you come here to destroy me, then?”
He exhaled, making a noise through his lips. “I would sleep with your loom in the lower room. You bar the door above. You have my word as a gentle suitor that I will not harm a hair on your head. Though given any piece of bark I could manage to make you a bundling board in a trice. It would be a, a loving way to sleep.” He took my hand and kissed my fingers, too tenderly, so that heat passed over and through me as if the sun had burst through a heavy sky on a cloudy winter’s day.
I said, “New Englanders are prodigiously fond of that contraption. It is a wonder every maid has no less than seven children before she is wed.”
“Some may,” he said, and laughed.
After some talk, I felt safe, even confident of his promises, until I said, “Good night, then,” at the top of the stair, preparing to close the door.
“There is only so much temptation a man can withstand. Better place the bar.”
I slammed it in place so he would know it was there. The brigand. The lout. Commoner. Villain. But as I climbed into my bed I felt his presence in the room below me as if the fire in my grate were stoked up for a bitter day outside. To turn my thoughts from him, I imagined making myself a gown from my finest-made cloth. During the night a thrumming from my own insides awoke me, heated desire clawing at my ribs like a caged animal. It took me a moment to connect the feeling to the presence of him below, but the image of Patience writhing with Lukas under the yew trees filled me with disgust and made me shake my head and turn over, determined to sleep.
We departed early for Lexington town. I found the things I needed and spent time studying the gowns of ladies I saw, although most of those on the streets were but servants fetching and carrying. I bought a pair of delicate gloves at a reduced price because they had been torn by a careless customer wearing a ring. I could fix the rip easily enough.
The sun lowered as we left for home, and we walked the road nearly alone.
My mind was full of measuring and where to put tucks and flounces when Cullah said, “There’s a wicked wind.”
“What?”
“Do you not hear it? As if Goody Carnegie is crying on the wind.”
“Perhaps we need a charm against evil, then. Or a prayer, if you be so inclined.”
“I never was one to memorize prayers. It always seemed to me at the times I was in greatest need of God’s helping hand, I couldn’t remember the words. My prayers wouldn’t come except in a scream. Otherwise, I try not to bother the man, like some who has got to ninny over their porridge every moment.”
I leaned toward him and chanted in a low whisper, “Gum-boo cru-ah-he na clock. Gum-boo du-he-he na’n gaul.”
To my great surprise, he answered with, “Gum-boo loo-ah-he na lock, Gum-boo tru-he na’n loo-ee. I thought you knew no Scots.”
“I did not know it was Scottish. Ma said it was Gaelic and as a child I thought that was African. Go-intay, go-intay, sailtay, sailtay, see-ock, see-ock, oo-ayr.”
Whether because of the charm against evil on the road, or because we seemed so strange no one would touch us, we made the house safely and in good order. “Now go on with you,” I said. “I have a great deal of work to do if I am to wear a new gown in two weeks.”
“You are quite sure I could not light a fire for you tonight?” The smile on his face was so dark it seemed more foreboding than well-wishing.
“Good day, Cullah MacLammond. I shall await your coach on the twenty-fourth. If I cannot finish this gown I will wear something else.”
“I bought that cloth.”
“Let me see the color of your gold.” I held forth my hand. “A proper lady’s gown is no small feat, yards and yards of cloth, tucking and lacing and twiddly stitches.”
“I will have to pay it in partials.”
“I suspected as much. Then I may have to wear it in partials. I merely promised I would try. Pity you did not buy a professional seamstress, for I am slow at it.” When he was a few feet from my door I called, “Watch for Indians on your way home. See if any of them have aught in coin you could borrow against your debt.”
* * *
When the embroidery was finished I held it to the light and admired it. Oh, la! This was cloth for a noblewoman or the vest of a lord. Perhaps it was fitting, then, that I kept it, as a marker, a passage, to my own life.
I made the construction of a new gown my highest goal; it was finished the night I went to the dance with Cullah. His father drove the coach, accompanied by that old parson I had spoken with, so that everything was quite proper. The parson did not recognize me, so I left off questioning him whether he’d seen August.
Cullah did not mention the gown, though he did remark on the ribbon on my bonnet. He seemed at first distant, and sat out more than one dance to confer with the old parson. I said to him that he wore those new boots well and that I hoped he had indeed learned to dance in them. And in truth there was no step at which he was not adept, though he turned about with many girls more than me on that floor. I felt eyes upon us when we danced, and then it seemed they were on him even when I sat. I had to go to the balcony more than once to catch some fresh air, for the place was stifling. He drove me home, begged again to spend the night, and left me, whistling one of the reels loud enough to keep the Indians and fairies at bay. It was the most diverting evening I had ever experienced, with enjoyable food and gracious music.
Then, I did not see or hear from Cullah for a week. I worked at first cheerily, but as time wore on without a word from him, I grew pensive, and felt I had been tricked into this work and the waste of that rich cloth I could have sold for a goodly sum. My trepidation turned to anger, and I put the gown away in my trunk.
One gray morning, I caught the smell of snow coming on the breeze, as subtle as a rose. Something in the breeze carried the faint taste of mint and comfrey tea. And that day, there came a conveyance such as I had only seen in town. A flat wagon, driven by Cullah himself, came rattling up to my house. “Pa told me you have need of this!” he called from the seat. He took down pieces of wood, shaped and honed, carved with designs in parts and painted, too. As he got each piece on the ground and put it into place, turning screws and tapping here and there, a chest began to take shape.
I thought he had brought the old chest in the front of his shop, but this was a new linen press and not the same size at all. “I did not order this,” I said. “Though it is nice.”
Cullah faced me and said, “Jacob said you saw the ones out front. They’re just examples. I thought, after I was here last, that you need something to put your work into, so it doesn’t come to stacking it on the floor. I measured the place by the loom. If I’m any good at my craft, this ought to fit in it.”
I watched him tug the chest through the door and wiggle it into place in its corner by the loom, so snug as if it had always been meant for that spot. I could not help clapping my hands happily. Such warmth spread through me, I wanted to hug and kiss him. I closed my eyes, thinking, do not lie to me, oh, my heart. Bear no false witness of my feelings, for I fear that I love this man.
He stared into my eyes, a mixtur
e of emotions playing upon his face, and then said, “You went with me to the dance with no ill effects. But I have told you my wish that you marry me. I tell you now that I will wait for you to have me. Until the day you tell me to stop waiting, that you love another, I will wait.”
“You do not ask whether I love you.”
“If you grow to love me that would be excellent. For now, that you tolerate me would be enough. I know I love you with my very core. Everything I have and all that I am I would give to you. I will hold that love sacred until you tell me it is all lost. Until you say you love another. That day I will bury it. If I must wait until the waves stop coming from the sea, so be it.”
“You give very little quarter.”
“Love and war. No quarter given, none asked.”
“Cullah. Eadan. Is there any other thing in your past than that which your father told me?”
“Such as a wife and seven children?”
I laughed. “I was thinking since Jacob took the Stone of Scotland perhaps you’d stolen the crown jewels. Is there a wife?”
“No. Although I have, well, learned a few manly arts from a tart or two.”
“And would you be inclined to return to them, say, when I am sick on childbed?”
“What kind of rogue do you take me for, woman?”
“I want a man who is steadfast and chaste. Past tarts excused. Future tarts will be cause for great strife and a clout on the head. Before drawing and quartering.”
“Miss Talbot, you are a stern taskmaster.”
“I shall need a stick, then.”
“I will fetch you one.”
“I shall marry you, then.”
He gasped with a look on his face that made me see him as he might have been when but a child. “You will?”
“Despite my lack of arts and understanding, sir, I find that I love the very sight of you. The way your hair will not part straight. The way you laugh. I cannot but move my hand across my loom that it is not touching your cheek.”
Cullah sank to one knee, looking for all the world like a man in a painting before his lady. “When? Today?”
I laughed. “We must post banns. Let us choose a day together. Christmas is coming. That would be a better time.”
He smiled and his eyes filled with tears, saying, “I’ve kissed you before. Will you not kiss me now, my troth-ed wife? I do fear I shall die for want of it.”
I thrilled at his words. “If this be life or death, perhaps a single chaste kiss to keep you alive.” Our kiss was not chaste, nor was it singular. I fell into his arms as rapt as ever I could imagine love to be. While I concentrated on the soft warmth of his lips, my mind raced ahead to what marriage might bring. Passion filled me that seemed only assuaged by forcing my entire body against his, and I did it, his arms encouraging me, until I had to pull away, weak and shuddering.
His wide shoulders seemed like the very frame for which I had traveled all the steps of my life up to this moment, to lean upon, to depend upon. This man was no boy and no narrow-shouldered gentleman of the realm. Everything about him was strength and work, his hands callused as my pa’s had been, his eyes merry with the joy of hard work and the satisfaction of producing beautiful goods. The very smell of him was pleasing.
He whispered against my head, “We could make a public announcement at Lady Spencer’s winter ball.”
“What ball?” I asked.
“Mid-December. You are invited.”
“And are you?”
“I will be there. It would be right for your family to announce it. Since you have none, I will ask Lady Spencer to do your honors.”
“Cullah, that would be wonderful.”
I wore the lavender dress to the ball, and this time decked it with Patey’s string of pearls, putting the sapphire brooch at my décolletage, the ruby ring upon my finger. I topped it with the hat trimmed in the velvet ribbon, to which I had added embroidered edges. Cullah and Jacob both seemed to take a glance at me and turn their heads as if in shame or embarrassment. I asked, “Is something amiss?”
Jacob stopped the horses before the mansion. Cullah pursed his lips, asking, “Will you be ashamed to be seen with me?” He looked down at his secondhand boots, polished with beeswax so heavily that he smelled of honey.
I pulled up my skirt and stuck out my feet in their old leather shoes, cleaned, but not so much as a wisp of wax on them. “Are you shamed to be seen with me with these shoes? The slippers I had counted on split apart. I hoped you brought some of that wax to use on the way.”
He shook his head. Looked into the woods then down at his rough hands. Felt his chin, as if the beard betrayed him, too. “No one will see your feet. No one will take their eyes off your form and face. Dancing lessons are not enough. I see it now. I am but a carpenter, Miss Talbot. I shall wait for you outside with Pa.”
I closed my eyes for a moment, feeling such a part of his heart already linked to mine, that pain seemed to come from him to me. “Our Lord was a carpenter. If you will not go, then I shall not go in. I shall wait with you. There could be no reason to go in without you, for I would dance with no other, and I will be seen by no other.”
Cullah lifted my hand and pressed his lips to my fingers in their fragile gloves. A bit of rough skin on his thumb caught in the lace glove and pulled a loop of fiber. He gave a sigh. “My hands are too rough to touch you at all.”
I said, “The gloves, my love, are to hide my own calluses. Say you will go in with me or we may as well stay here.”
Jacob whistled at the horses and said, “You will go in, son, or I’ll box your ears.”
“Well and aye,” Cullah said, “well and aye,” though he did not appear satisfied.
The Spencer home, fitted out for a ball, was grand beyond any that the most fanciful story could have drawn. All the ladies were decked in perfection, and I counted myself among them. The only thing missing for me were more stylish slippers, but still, I had a serviceable pair of shoes in which to dance, and my feet would feel none the worse on the morrow. The men tried to equal the ladies in their prim wigs and gilt shoe buckles. A few, I saw, wore no wigs, and so Cullah did not seem out of the ordinary.
The Roberts family was attending. Serenity and Wallace had returned from Virginia for a visit. Serenity’s midsection was well swollen with child, which at first seemed not amiss until I counted months, and remembered their marrying without much of the usual delay or planning. Depending upon when the babe came, I realized, it might have been made soon after his leaving me at the docks. Perhaps even before. Perhaps that would explain the level of distress the family had shown me? Others whom I met from Virginia that evening, men and women alike, had come quite bedazzled in lace. Wallace, of course, was dressed to his fullest flattery. As Serenity sat, swollen and pale, he danced, his carriage perfect as it had been before but now slowed and meticulous with the Virginia planter’s mien, so that he caught attention from men and women alike.
I tried to avoid their presence in order to have a pleasant time. Alas, that was not to be. During a lull in the dancing, Lady Spencer sent Portia Roberts to ask me to come to her side. When I did, Serenity and Wallace stood by her, along with another woman I did not know, a dark-haired woman with high cheekbones. She wore an exquisite gown of the same fine cut and craft as Lady Spencer’s yet without the ermine trim befitting a lady’s status. When she introduced me to the seamstress Johanna Parmenter, Mistress Parmenter bowed slightly lower than I had, and smiled most courteously.
As we began to talk, Cullah excused himself and said he had to speak with Lady Spencer. I knew of this, of course, for he wanted to ask her blessing on our betrothal. It seemed needless to me, but since she favored both of us—and that was her own choice when she could have easily banned me for the spurning by her son—I would be thankful indeed for her blessing.
Mistress Parmenter led me, taking my arm in hers, away from the Spencers to an alcove. “I asked to meet you for a purely selfish reason, Miss Talbot.”
&
nbsp; I smiled, trying to place my emotions in reserve the way Lady Spencer did. “How may I please you, Mistress Parmenter?”
“I must know where you got the fabric you wear. France? It looks French. It must be. But you have paid a fortune for it and yet wear it so modestly. Perfectly elegant taste. Most women would add so much ruffle they hide the beauty of the fabric for which they have paid so dearly.”
“I would rather not say whence it came.”
“I must know. I swear I will keep your secret. Was it contraband? Oh,” she said, turning around me, as if inspecting a model. “Your lines are sleek and yet in style, and the ribbon, so subtle. But I apologize; it is not comely to observe so closely. It is only that I am allowed by Lady Spencer to come here to observe the fashions, so as to keep her in perfect currency of habit.”
“Oh. You are a dressmaker?”
“I am.”
“Then I will tell you the fabric for this gown came from my own hands and loom. I am a weaver.”
She frowned with a critical eye, leaning close to my bodice without any shame. “And who embroidered?”
“I did it myself.”
“Alone?”
“I have worked on this for many weeks. I am not by birth a craftswoman. I am permitted to wear this, even by sumptuary propriety.”
“I should say you are. But, la, you have been taught by a master.”
“I suppose. Some of what I was taught I have refined out of stubborn intention to create the finest cloth.”
“Do you have more? I will pay you twelve shillings a yard for this.”
“I have only some left, perhaps five yards. I would sell it for fifteen shillings. Each yard.”
“Done. When will you have more?”
“Do you want it exactly as this? I could create indigos and cream, or crimson, besides this purple.”
“The purple is divine, but I will take anything you create. Twenty yards of any color will do. Did you make your hoops and panniers, too? I thought as much.” Suddenly she leaned her head away from me, observing me again but with a strike of scorn on her face. “You are, then, a competitor.”