“Thank you, Mistress. You are far more kind than, than I had expected.”
“Good night, then.”
I was not a lenient mistress as mistresses go. I bade America clean floors and launder from morn till night, taught her to bake before the hearth and to season meats and puddings, that last with an eye to her fitness as a wife someday. We purchased an extra brass bed warmer, which she could fill with coals any evening she chose to carry it upstairs, and every evening the bed warmers stood waiting their charging by the great hearth like so many muskets waiting for their soldiers to do battle against the cold and damp. In most chores she was compliant, even happy. America could have gone to any home as a maid-of-all-work. I did not ask why it suited her to work in my employ. If ever I thought of my life at the home of her parents, it was with a mixture of thankfulness and sad regret, anger and pity.
CHAPTER 25
October 4, 1746
After the first chill of fall, an Indian summer came upon us, and the balmy days with cool nights, gentle breezes, lifted Cullah’s dark spirits, for he had not been the same since the news of Culloden, worried every night about lurking evil. I tried my best to entertain the family with stories of Jamaica, and was surprised, now that I had an audience, how much I remembered. The colors of the place came back to me as I spoke, and I imagined embroidering with those shades, when I ever had time again to work at my own craft, and just the thought of it filled me with joy.
The next morning being Sabbath, we were up early preparing for the Meeting. Jacob and Cullah went to the field to hitch our wagon to the one plow horse we now owned. America was busy trying to get Barbara’s and Gwyneth’s plaited hair to stay under their caps, for she had not done them well and she kept having to start again.
I put Grandan into new clouties and went to replace my house apron with a clean one. Cullah came through the door. His countenance was ruddy, his eyes flashing. He lowered his brows when he saw my face and pointed to the door at the stairs to the lower room of stone. “It is about a cross.”
I said, “America, take the children out to the wagon.”
“It is a gumboo cross,” Cullah said. “They should stay inside the house.”
“Stay in and bar the door,” I told her. When I caught the look on her face, I said, “Ask me no questions. Do as I say.”
“But Mr. Jacob?” America asked.
“Do as you are told,” Cullah commanded her with a voice so low it gave me even greater fear. Then he turned and went ahead of me down the stairs. As I reached the floor, he made sure none of the children or America could hear him before he said, “Soldiers are approaching from Concord. It looks to be at least a dozen. They are armed.”
“Perhaps they are but passing us on their way to Boston.”
“Pa has hidden in the woods. Are you able to proceed to Meeting without me?”
“Of course. But if you wish not to go, we shall all stay here.”
“It would be better for the children not to be here to witness, well, anything.”
“Eadan.” I looked at the fear mixed with determination in his face and said, “I will do as you say, then.” I started up the steps but turned halfway up.
He stood upon my bench and pushed back the panel in the ceiling, then drew out his broadsword and axe. I raced down the few stairs and threw myself against him. “Promise me, husband, promise this, that you will not value your honor and your pride above the life of your children’s father.”
“Resolute, a man without pride and honor is not a man, and not fit to be a father.”
I held his face between my hands and kissed his lips, trembling as I did. I whispered, “Wear my kiss upon your lips then for a trophy if you would be a knight. Weave your strength with my love and with God’s wisdom for a shield if you would be a living one.” I sped up the stairs, determined not to look back. And I did not.
“America, we shall proceed to Meeting. I will drive the wagon,” I said to her, with as much confidence in my voice as I could pretend, for I had never driven a wagon, not one time since we married. The children clamored but I said, as I shook the reins, “Your papa has much to do this day and wishes us all to partake of the blessings of Meeting Day. We will see him later. Then we will have a celebration.”
“What of, Mother?” asked Brendan Fergus. “I say, what shall we be celebrating?”
“I suppose we shall celebrate a warm ride for all it is winter a-coming in. We will have a fine supper, and I will make sweetmeats aplenty for you all. Now, speak to no strangers on this road, unless I give you leave.” The horse stepped out, lumbering, gentle. He turned his great head and looked back at me with a quizzical face, if a horse can have such, and continued on his way. I added a lilt to my voice. “Everyone? Faces front, hearts on the lessons of the Sabbath.”
As we reached the joint of the road where the Carnegie farm path met the Lexington–Concord road, a group of soldiers in bright crimson, bearing muskets and swords, caused such a noise that our horse turned his head to see them. I had no good hold on his head and when he turned the reins fell from my hands. He thought the slack rein meant he was doing as he ought, and he turned into the soldiers’ ranks.
The Redcoats shouted, waving their arms about and calling me to halt the horse. One of them grabbed the horse’s collar and nose-rigging and pulled him to stop, saying, “Mistress, you was asked to stop this horse and wagon!”
“I have lost the reins,” I replied.
He blew upward, tossing his amber curls. “Well, then. ’Ere you are. Now, where are you off to, Mistress?”
His lowborn Cockney accent was so like those I’d heard aboard the privateers’ ship that I got a clutch in my throat hearing him. I said, “Church meeting. Lexington.”
“Go there often, do you?”
“Every Sunday as we can manage.”
He nodded in the direction I knew was the road to Lexington. “It’s that way, Mistress.”
“Yes, I know. I lost the rein when he looked to see the spectacle of your coats and the turn was made for me.”
“Well, back him up and on your way, then. We have business at the house down the road. Do you know the house I mean? The one far and awa’ too castley for its own good? Now ’as orders to billet this company of men, since they ’as so much room.”
I froze still as a stone. He waited. He said again, “Back ’im up and be on your way, Mistress,” but this time there was a note of threat in his voice.
“I know not how to back him up, sir. I am not privileged to have much experience in driving and my husband has gone to work.”
“On the Sabbath. That’s strange. Might be arrested for such, where I come from.”
“Truly?” I tried to replace the terror I felt with a look upon my face of surprise and humor. “You must all be devout, then, and I am pleased to make your acquaintance. If you could but help me get this wagon turned, I should say a prayer for you when we get to the church.”
“You ain’t some papist?”
“No, sir.”
He handed his musket to another and shoved at our horse’s wide chest, kicked at his hooves, and got him to back the wagon enough to pull his collar and get him righted. The soldier handed me the reins but I was caught with dire worry, and after we passed a small curve in the road, I got the horse to stop. I turned to America. “They were going to my house, of course,” I whispered. “If all they want is billeting and Cullah meets them sword in hand, he will be killed for nothing.”
“They were staring at me in a way made me feel most naked, Mistress.”
“Your master will protect you and I shall, as well. No one under my roof shall be harmed, but I must warn Cullah before they get there. If he tries to fight them, they outnumber him so greatly it will go badly. Help me turn this horse about.”
“Me, Mistress?”
“Yes. Hold these reins and I will push the brute about as that soldier did.”
She gasped but did as I asked. I climbed down and strained agains
t the great beast with all my might. At length he turned and I returned to the seat, flicking him soundly.
The Redcoat soldiers heard the horse as we approached, and moved to the sides of the road for I then had no control over Sam; he would do as he wished with us at his top speed. We sailed between them, past them, crying children and all, before they could react in any way that would slow Sam. He was slow and huge and powerful, and once he got started, he just did not stop. I hoped Cullah was able to hear the racket, for we made good time, and though the soldiers ran behind us for a little while we outpaced them. At the house, I pulled with every fiber of my being and Sam adjusted his pace not at all. “Stop!” I cried with all my strength. I screamed.
Cullah came running from the house, his axe in his hand. Seeing the horse out of control, he left the axe in a bush and ran for us, took the animal by the collar, and got it stopped. I leaped from the wagon and ran to his side. “Put away your weapons. The soldiers are on their way but they are not after you. They want billeting, Cullah. They are not here to fight you. There are twelve of them. Please do not fight; they will kill you. Cullah, do you hear me?”
“I hear. I will have no soldiers in my home.” He shook my hands off. “You should have gone on as I told you to do.”
“Then you would have come out swinging a sword and been killed. I had to warn you. Gentle words are all you need.”
He lifted the squalling children from their seats and America and I bustled them into the house, down the stairs into the rock basement, and then settled them on blankets as if we had planned something special all along. I raced to the kitchen and fetched treats for them, a jug of milk, a handful of candles in my pocket, and carried them down again. I placed all at the disposal of America, kissed each of my children though the littlest ones still wept and clung to me and it tore my heart to pull their wee fingers from my clothes and hair. I joined Cullah at the front door just as he tucked his claymore behind the cupboard and opened the door.
The soldier who had helped me turn the horse in the road stood there with a haughty sneer. “That’s a fine ’ow-de-ye-do,” he said. “Fine, indeed. Are you the owner of this house, then? Your name, sir?” Before Cullah could answer the soldier went on, “I’m Corporal Landon, charge ’o this company, sir, and these orders say you are to board six of us for six months. That’s the rule. Your house ’as been judged big enough for that.”
Cullah gritted his teeth.
I said, “Let me see that, Corporal.” I read the document and turned to Cullah. “Four months, Mr. MacLammond. Four months, Corporal.” He had a crooked nose and was missing one of the larger teeth right under his nose, so that he whistled when he spoke. Just another freebooter on land rather than sea.
“Four, then, Mistress,” he said, cocking his eye at America.
She slid behind the door and peered from its edge.
Cullah said, “That means you’d be here until after January? And, the man who wrote these orders for you, did he not reckon we have nine people already in this house, and another coming? Did he not think to ask whether every corner were already full?”
“I am a corporal, sir. I do as I am told. I do not ask the captain whether he ’as inquired of the ’ome owner of ’is available floor.”
I handed the man his paper. “I have no extra bedding or blankets and I will not do your washing.”
His eyes grew cold as he looked down at me, for he was a short man, but still taller than I. “It says billeting, Mistress. It means accommodating. Your orders are to accommodate six men ’ere in the ’ouse with food and warmth such as can be ’ad. We ’ave no beds on our backs as you can plainly see. An’ you let one o’ ’Is Majesty’s soldiers die of frost lying on your floor, it’s ’im that’ll pay with ’is neck stretched, I reckon.” He jerked his head at Cullah.
Cullah’s face did not change a whit, as if the threat meant nothing to him. “You will do your own washing and not burden my wife with your dirty drawers. You will keep clean in your person, and above reproach in every action. You will harm no person in my home and you will be polite, chaste, humble, and quiet. I will stand for no profanity under my roof nor in front of my family wherever they may be.”
The corporal put the folded order in his pocket. “You people are right ’andy with the orders. Men? Make off with the rest of you, to the next ’ouse.”
That would be Jacob’s house, I thought. Goody Carnegie’s collapsing house, empty and unkempt. I said nothing. If they meant to stay there, they would have to fend for themselves, indeed. My mind was already humming, trying to think where we should put them all. Six men in my house! Six men would fill up the house with no one else there, and there was America to think of, her young and untouched state, how to keep her safe from any ill-meant attentions. The stair to the attic could not be guarded from our room. She would have to sleep in the top room of our little tower. It was but a closet, meant to use to see across the landscape and down the road a small way, not large enough even for a girl as slight as America to stretch her legs. It was reachable by passage through our bedroom. I would put the children into two rooms rather than three.
The soldiers might be alone in the house if we went to meeting. My heart gave a great thump. We had always kept Christmas in the small ways Jacob had told me, with small gifts and a pudding, and the burning of a tree, though it was outlawed in all of Puritan Massachusetts. There would be no Christmas, no gifts for the Christ Child, no Hogmanay. But my children would be so disappointed if we held it not at all.
To say that billeting soldiers made bedlam of our lives would not do it justice. For three weeks of cooking, cleaning—and I kept my word, showing them the washtub and scrubbing methods—just having them in every corner had turned our snug family into snarling cats. The children fought, hit each other for toys, and bit each other when I was not looking. Cullah snapped at me for no reason, and I nattered at him over carving a new spindle for the flax wheel, knowing I had no time to spin and had not touched it in months. At last I heard myself as some harried shrew of a wife, and burst into tears, begging his forgiveness.
Brendan was enthralled with the soldiers, their uniforms, their weapons. He tried on their coats, marching about the room holding a real sword tucked in his elbow. The rest of the children grew pensive, especially Gwyneth, who started sucking on the ends of her hair, even pulling it from her cap to get to the ends, no matter how often I tied it up. And then one day America ran into the house, leaving the front door ajar, bumping Barbara over in her haste, which sent the babe to screaming. I picked up Barbara and followed America. I reached the last flight of steps above our bedroom just as the girl slammed the miniature door to her tower chamber. Barbara still wailed, but by the time we reached that chamber she was becoming amused by being jostled upon my hip up the stairs. I talked to her as I went, “There, there. Hush now. It was an accident, poppet. Shush, shush.”
I opened the door and ducked to creep inside the tiny room. I found America huddled in a ball as far from the door as she could be. “What happened?” I asked. I set Barbara down, who began crawling, exploring the place. I petted America’s back as she sobbed. She raised her face. It was not bruised but her lips were swollen beyond anything that even a bee sting could do. The front of her bodice was torn and part of her shift had been pulled out of the ripped place, the shift, too, ripped and frayed.
“He said I should let him have a feel of my bosom. He said feeling girls was not wrong. I told him to unhand me but then another grabbed my arms and held me fast. They pulled at my titties. They kissed me and put their tongues into my mouth, though I spat at them and bit them. One of them got his mouth on me and bit my lips so hard I thought he would bite them off. Then he grabbed my, my—I cannot say it.”
“How did you get away?”
“They heard Master Jacob coming. They threw me into the goat shed and blocked the door with a post and left me there. Master Jacob opened it and I ran.”
I turned at hearing Barbara cry out,
“Gom!” which was her name for Jacob. He stood behind us on the stairway, having followed the commotion. Babby made her way toward him and I nodded, hoping to convey to him that I thought everything was soon to be in order. I said to America, “Did they do other things to you? Did any of them open his pants?”
“No. They cursed me and said all they wanted was a friendly feel.”
I put my arms around her. “There was nothing friendly about that. This will not happen again. For now, change your clothes and I will make you some coffee. Bring me that bodice and I shall repair it and embroider it, so that this damage is replaced with something beautiful.”
I hurried through the house making sure all my children and Jacob were indoors, closing every shutter, and at last barring the door. One of the soldiers tried entry and then beat against the door. “Let us in!” he called.
“Go to the devil and shake yourself!” I cried back at him.
Jacob roared with laughter. “You heard the mistress of this house! Do it!” The man outside beat against the door thrice more and then all was silent.
As the sun lowered, another time someone tried the door. Cullah’s voice called out, “What’s this? Who has barred my own door from me?”
I stepped out, and told him of America’s sorrow. “They can sleep in the goat shed tonight. Tomorrow you must find their superior officer in Concord and have them sent somewhere else.”
“I’ll talk to them,” he said, and turned about without even setting down his pouch. He came in for supper an hour later, though the soldiers did not. In fact, I saw them not at all until the next morning when they applied for some breakfast, all of them shivering, filthy, and bearing blackened eyes and blood-stopped noses. The saucy corporal walked bent as if he had been kicked in the middle by a horse.
America told us which of them had held her and which had torn her clothing. But in truth, Cullah said, when he confronted the men all of them came to each other’s aid, and he’d had no choice but to give them all a good drubbing.
“All at one time?” Brendan asked him.