They started in roasting the apples. I could not bring myself to believe this was my son; though he seemed like him he did not look like him or talk like him. But no duppy or fairy would sit so close to a fire. No ghost would want to eat. I watched them a while, then asked again, “Where is Cullah?”
Brendan squinted and said, “He’s coming. It is taking much longer for him to travel with the people going with him. He told me to get Rolan to some shelter and food and go on ahead. I didn’t want to leave him, but there were reasons. Oh, that is good. Have you bread, too? And cheese?”
“Would you like some ale warmed?” Gwenny asked.
“I will take it any way it comes, warm, cold, or frozen solid,” he answered.
While I cut slabs of bread and cheese, she poured tankards for him and for Rolan. Rolan took a cup from her with a sheepish nod and said, “Merci.”
I asked, “Do you want to clean up? We might retire upstairs and leave you with clothes and water mixed with vinegar. I have sponges and soap. Your wound,” I said to Rolan, “needs dressing.”
“Madame?”
“Votre blessure a besoin de bandages.”
“Oui.”
I turned to Brendan. “Will you be all right to stay down here tonight? It is late. We will make your bed tomorrow. For now, wash yourselves and sleep in these blankets by the fire.”
“Ma?” Gwyneth began.
“Up to bed, children. Benjamin? Wake Dorothy and take her by the hand. You both sleep with me tonight. Jacob?”
Brendan said, “Good night, Ma.”
“Good night, Ma,” Rolan mimicked.
When we got to the top of the stairs, I pulled Gwyneth into my room. Jacob came up behind, and bolted the door, while unlatching the secret passage to the tower room and from it to the stair down to the barn. We would not leave, but it would be there if needed. Then we arranged for him to make a pallet in one corner, while the children all took my bed, and I slept curled up on a chest with a blanket.
Morning came late, and the clouds had not parted, indeed the cold wind that blew in brought winter with it, and two inches of snow. If we had left those men in the parlor below to face the winter night, they would have died. I would have acted less charitable had not there been a familiar ring to his voice. So, when I descended the stairs to find someone I now recognized as my son, clean shaven and wrapped in a blanket, with clean hair, my heart felt as if it swelled in my chest. I smiled. “Brendan,” I said. “Oh, please forgive me for not recognizing you. I had no idea you would change so much.”
“Well and aye, Ma. Why did you keep insisting it was Pa calling for his mother?”
“Do you not know? Your voice has gone so low I thought it was your father. You sound exactly like him. I am so pleased to have you home, son. So thankful.”
“I am happy to be home. I was sore afraid you would have more soldiers billeted here, and poor Rolan would have to be turned over to them. He is supposed to be my prisoner but he’s an all right chap after you get to understand him. Farm boy from the south of France, pressed to be a soldier just as we were, and shipped here to fight us.”
I bent over the bed where Rolan slept. His face and hair were clean but not shaved, and the dirty bandage was still about his throat. I touched his head. He had fever. “Why did you not change this bandage?” I asked. By then, the rest of my family started meandering downstairs.
“He said he would tend it. He let me wash first, and soon as I got shaved, I fell asleep. I slept like the dead until just before you came down.”
“Rolan?” I called. The man did not move. “Brendan, get me that vinegar and some rum. I will change this. You had better pray for him if he is your friend, for to get a blood fever in the neck, he will never last.”
I thought I had witnessed all the worst that man or animal could bear in the way of sores and disease, but I was not prepared for what came away in the filthy stocking at Rolan’s neck. I was glad he did not seem to feel me tending him and glad I had not yet eaten. Once I got fresh linen wrapped about him, I hoped he felt better, for I knew I felt better, but whether or not he felt relieved as I, I could not tell. I tried to wake him and held up his head to put a spoonful of rum between his lips. He swallowed it, opened his eyes for a moment and mumbled something, then fell back to sleep or swoon.
I took my scissor and trimmed the beard on his neck and then trimmed all about his chin, as well. I combed his hair and braided a queue in the back, tying it with a length of woolen yarn. “Why are you doing that?” Gwenny asked. “What difference does it make how the man looks if he’s sick unto death?”
“I am not doing it for his grooming, Gwyneth. It is to keep the hair from tangling about the bandage or just getting in his face. Keeping the bandaging and wound clean are most important now, and it will need to be changed again in a few hours.”
“I’ll do it,” she declared with a conviction that brooked no response.
Brendan told me about his prisoner. Rolan Perrine was the second son of a farmer. He had no interest in soldiering, while Brendan thought of nothing else. Rolan was a terrible shot, and more terrified of killing a man than facing a noose for desertion. He had admitted to Brendan that when he had him in his line of aim, he had pulled the barrel high so as to fire at his officer’s command yet not kill anyone. Brendan laughed deep in his chest. “Fine soldier, this fellow. If he killed anyone it was an accident. The most effective weapon he used on our men was being too thin to see behind a tree. Me, I, well, have you any of those flat cakes you used to make?”
“Yes. See if Rolan will have another spoonful of rum while I make the batter and start the iron heating.”
Rolan did not die that day or the next and he was still alive when Sunday came and able to sit up and eat broths and pancakes. I begged Brendan to stay with his friend. “I never miss Meeting now,” I said. “Do not look surprised. I have sent many a prayer heavenward on your behalf. And your father is not home yet. Your uncle sails under more danger of his own making. There is more to living in a town than I knew when you were young. Things have happened. It is important to go and to give to the poor and to keep in good graces with all who know us.”
“But you always said to trust your own heart.”
“That is true, son. I do not do this for trickery but to make myself known. If people have your acquaintance and friendship, they are not so quick to believe falsity. Last month across town, Goody Meacham was tried for witchcraft because she argued with a neighbor whose dog killed her goose. The neighbor’s child then died and his cow had a calf born with two heads. No one knew her. No one came to her defense. She might have been hung had not the judges disagreed on whether she looked the part of a witch. I never want to be in a place where no one would come forward to say to a judge that they have known me to be righteous. A life well lived, in some respects, needs witnesses.”
Brendan cocked his head. He watched me pour batter on the hot iron, turned back to my gaze, then he said with a laziness to his voice that belied the workings of his brain, and that I recognized in the son I knew, “That will be something to think about. I believe you are right. Evil loves darkness and good the light. Is that cake ready to turn?”
I smiled and flipped the flat cake over. The other children gathered around and ate, and after breakfast Jacob said he would stay with the boys while we went to Meeting.
* * *
Eleven days after Brendan came home, I was out in the barn when I heard a voice in the woods, singing the “True Lover’s Farewell.” I stood in the barnyard and looked in every direction, for the voice echoed all about. I had forgotten what a nice voice he had to listen to, every note on the right pitch. “Cullah?” I spun on my heels as I called with all my strength. “Eadan!” Searching the meadows and fields, I saw him at the edge of the woods. He had a huge sack over one shoulder and his sword lashed over the other one. What was more, he was clean and his beard neat, his hair in a tail at the back under a tricorn hat, wearing not his tartan but new
clothes made of skins. He stepped out toward me and I to him. Then he put down the sack and sword and ran full out. “Eadan!” I cried again. At last his arms closed about me and swung me about, both of us wanting to melt into the body of the other. “Husband. Oh, my husband, you are home.”
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.