The Lacemaker

by Laura Frantz

  Shadows moved in and out of the icy mist, obscuring the bridge.

  “They’re putting down the planks on the bridge floor they tore up in the night,” a lieutenant said, his spyglass sweeping from left to right.

  “Then they mean to advance,” Noble replied with a backward glance at his men.

  Above the ping of buckshot came the Patriot command, “Hold your fire!”

  Within seconds, Noble saw British captain Fordyce press forward with the shout, “The day is ours!”

  An alarming swarm of redcoats ran up the narrow causeway toward them, only to be met with a sudden roar of Patriot fire. Noble steadied his hands and sighted, dropping the British officer leading the charge. Someone’s son. Mayhap brother. Husband. Father.

  God forgive him, but if this was war he wanted no part in it. Losing Libby had worn him down like a wasting disease. He had nearly lost the will to fight. Yet he reloaded. Misfired. Fired again in haste, nearly choking on the dense smoke.

  Within minutes, Colonel Woodford had brought up the main Patriot force, and the battle began in earnest.

  But Noble’s own personal conflict was yet to be won.

  ’Twas nearly Christmas. The snow foretold it as much as Nathaniel’s timekeeping. Liberty stood by the bull’s-eye window, hearing the crisp aristocratic tones of gentlemen, so different than the rough rasp of seamen. Lord Dunmore? She’d not seen his lordship since the ball in Gosport months ago. Nathaniel said he had gone on to Great Bridge to fight.

  A knock at the cabin door followed by the scrape of the key made her turn. At Nathaniel’s stunned expression all her weariness fell away.

  “Lord Dunmore’s leaving Virginia, m’lady. But first he’s come aboard to make a prisoner exchange. ’Tis you he’s asking for.”

  Before he’d finished speaking, she was in the companionway. How long it had been since she’d left her cramped quarters. She’d first come aboard ship in September, and now ’twas December. Nathaniel followed, hard-pressed to keep up with her even though her legs were so unsteady from lack of use they quivered like twigs.

  Up the ladder she went and into the spitting snow of early winter. The broad deck was slick, and Nathaniel put out a hand to steady her. She blinked at the fierce glare of daylight. Through narrowed eyes she saw a great many seamen and British soldiers, a great blur of redcoats . . .

  And one blue.

  Her heart—oh, her heart—seemed to stop. Not twenty feet away stood Noble. Just as handsome as she remembered. Just as stalwart. His expression was stoic and tender by turns. His arms open.

  She started for him, still trembly-legged, joy pushing her forward. She had eyes for no one else, not the stone-faced lord who had called her on deck, nor the surrounding swarm of gawking men.

  Locked in Noble’s arms, her cheek pressed to his cold, damp uniform coat, she was suddenly aware of how bedraggled she was. Tidy, yes. But bereft of a bath for long weeks and in the same soiled blue dress. And very pregnant to boot.

  “You’re all right, anwylyd?” His head was bent, his mouth near her ear. “No harm has come to you? Or our child?”

  “None,” she replied through tears, trying to keep herself in check. “But ’tis good to be on deck. To breathe fresh air.” Her voice broke. “To see you.”

  He nodded, stroking her filthy hair once so fresh and finely dressed by Isabeau. “Your maid is waiting in the coach with a basket of provisions. Dougray will return you to Ty Bryn.”

  Dazed, she stood a bit straighter, so glad to be going she would not even fetch her few belongings. Why did he tarry? She clutched his sleeve, starting to shake from the cold.

  He unfastened the clasp of his wool cloak and draped it around her. So large it was it dragged the deck, but ’twas warm. So warm, recalling Ty Bryn’s hearth fires. Murmuring thanks, she locked eyes with him. “Let us be away then.”

  “Nay.” He swallowed, eyes damp but jaw resolute.

  “Nay? But Great Bridge . . .” She looked hard at him. “You Virginians won the battle.”

  “Aye, but not the war.” A gust of wind nearly unseated his hat, and he clamped the tricorn down. “I am to stay. You are to go.”

  Stay . . . go. The biting wind flung his words away, her whole world along with them.

  Go? Alone? She met his eyes briefly but he looked away, as if he could not bear another separation. A sick sinking feeling clawed at her as all the implications came crashing down. Overcome, she threw her arms around him. “Nay!”

  As her clutch on him tightened, men sprang into action, shackling him in irons. She whirled to face Lord Dunmore—to beg for mercy—but he had disappeared. Nathaniel and Captain Graves himself came forward to escort her off the ship she now had no wish to leave.

  “Nay!” she shouted again, her ladylike reserve shattering. Twisting her head, she tried to gain a last look at her husband.

  But he was being led away below deck, the rebel blue of his uniform obscured by fast-falling snow.

  “Did Major Rynallt not tell you his grandmother was a twin?” Mistress Tremayne asked.

  Liberty shook her head, no less awed than at first. In the crook of each arm was an infant, one in a lace cap with blue ribbon, the other in pink. Both babies, though small and a month early by her reckoning, were sound, their matching features belying their diverse temperaments.

  Three days old they were, the pride of Ty Bryn and Ty Mawr—and of their grandmother newly arrived from Philadelphia.

  “We shall send for a second cradle,” her mother said. “Though for now this one will do.”

  Isabeau hovered, taking her turn with the bellowing boy. “Oui, he is a noisy fellow! His poor sister will get little sleep and less milk.”

  Truly, they had to coax the littlest Rynallt to wake and eat. She seemed content to doze while her brother claimed the lion’s share of nursing and cuddling.

  “What shall you name them?” her mother asked gently.

  “I shan’t,” Liberty replied. “Not till their father returns home.”

  The older women exchanged glances. Four months it had been since Liberty stood on the Sapphire’s deck as part of the prisoner exchange. Not one word of Noble’s whereabouts had leaked since then, though all feared he’d been transferred to the ghastly hulk Jersey in New York’s harbor.

  “’Tis not odd to delay naming them,” Mistress Tremayne said, settling a supper tray on a side table. She kindly refrained from saying why. Many infants died before their first birthday.

  Liberty surveyed the familiar Welsh fare, and dismay cut in. What did Noble eat? ’Twas a recurring question. She herself had only just begun to recover from her lean months aboard ship. ’Twas an outright miracle she’d produced two healthy babies, the midwife said.

  Her life, so barren and lonesome over the stark, snowy winter, was now full and lush as spring, the births ushering in a new bittersweet season.

  Once again Liberty latched on to her blessings. Count it all joy. Her babies were here. The nursery was full. The Lord had given them a double portion far beyond her wildest hopes. Mama had come. They were all safely at home with plenty to eat, a lovely stretch of summer before them. All because of Noble.

  Her days overflowed with little room to ponder. ’Twas her nights that the magnitude of what he’d done overwhelmed her. He’d traded his life for hers. For his children. For his country.

  In the meantime Norfolk had burned. The British had withdrawn from Boston. All the united colonies were poised to strike or defend their ground. Ty Bryn seemed an island to itself.

  A silver rattle arrived by April’s end from Lady Washington at Mount Vernon. Her gracious letter put an end to all Liberty’s wondering about Noble’s commission and his standing in the army. Martha had written, “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends, or in this case, his wife and children.”

  After that, Liberty found her feet. “I cannot lie abed any longer.” Not with two babies to care for, a blooming garden to walk through, an
d shirts to sew for the needy army.

  “Mistress, you are too busy,” Isabeau fussed.

  “Betimes busyness is a blessing,” Liberty returned, walking the floor with her son.

  Sometimes weariness overtook her, and she could do little but partake of a cup of coffee and listen to Madoc purr as she watched her unnamed babies sleep or wave fat fists and make endearing newborn noises.

  “I hate to leave you,” her mother said at the end of a fortnight. “When you are stronger and the twins are fit to travel, you must come to Philadelphia. I’ve let a house there, large enough for us all. In the meantime, do consider a wet nurse.”

  Liberty said little to this. Neither prospect held any appeal. What a gift it was to provide her babies with nature’s own nourishment. Was this not a part of mothering? Besides, Ty Bryn had her heart and at Ty Bryn she would stay. And wait. And pray with every breath she took that Noble would come home.

  The hardest part was not the scant food nor the close quarters nor the sickness but that Libby, his anwylyd, seemed distant as a dream. Aye, that was the hardest part. The not knowing. Their shipboard reunion and prisoner exchange last winter had been numbingly brief. With the shifting of the seasons came new questions.

  Had she delivered their child? Was she well? Were Ty Mawr and Ty Bryn standing strong? What of his tenants and servants? His tobacco and cash crops?

  His world had shrunk to shades of gray. He knew so little, only that he and forty-some other Patriots were imprisoned on the Packhorse, a schooner afloat in Charles Town’s harbor.

  Daily the ship’s captain offered him his freedom if he would renounce his cause and sign an oath of allegiance to the king, thus enlisting in the British army. Daily he refused. Twice he had received a caning and a fierce blow to the head on his way back to the hold. They’d not hang him if they had the chance to shame the Patriots by making him a turncoat.

  Soon the fine uniform Libby had made him hung like a discarded rebel flag on his lean form. Ravaged by cholera, he survived while many didn’t. The sandy shore of Charles Town’s bay was littered with graves.

  Were Libby’s prayers keeping him alive?

  As spring turned to summer, the heat intensified but the portholes were fastened shut, the iron bars glinting beneath a merciless sun. Beside him now stood Charles Pinckney, equal in rank and recovering from smallpox, his sunken face a mass of open sores.

  “There’s talk of torching the ship.” Pinckney’s voice was low, weak. “Better a quick death than this.”

  Noble studied him, his one true ally. A man of prestige and means in South Carolina, Pinckney seemed about to give up.

  “I heard those of us who refuse to enlist are to be taken to the West Indies, where we’ll be put on ships of war.”

  “I say we overpower them first.” Noble rubbed his jaw, his full beard itchy and vermin ridden. “Before they take us south.”

  Pinckney blinked bloodshot eyes. “Are you mad? What chance have we of that? They need no provocation to kill us—”

  “There are sixteen of them left after the smallpox. Most are unwell, including the captain. There are thirty-three of us.” He spoke like an officer, their predicament demanding bolder action. “Numbers alone give us an edge.”

  “How do you propose we do the impossible?”

  Noble pushed past Pinckney’s skepticism. “I’ve been praying about it. You know our captors hate any sign of patriotism.”

  “Aye, I watched Laurens get thrown from the gunwale for humming ‘Yankee Doodle.’”

  “Exactly. We’ll set up a roar and sing patriotic songs in the middle of the night, which will cause them to open the hatch—”

  “And cut us to ribbons with their knives and cutlasses.”

  “I’ll lead,” Noble continued calmly. “The rest of you will stand close behind. Once the hatch opens we’ll storm it.”

  Pinckney frowned. “We’ve not tried such before. We always act like the officers and gentlemen we are.”

  “That’s partly the trouble.” Noble sometimes rued there were no rogues or cutthroats among them, mostly just the cream of South Carolina turning to Patriot corpses, a lone Virginian like himself among them. “We need to act in a most ungentlemanly manner. The crew won’t expect it, and therein lies our advantage.”

  Pinckney passed a hand over his own unshaven features. “And if we fail?”

  “Leave no room for failure. The alternative is death. We’ll not survive the coming summer in this hulk. Prepare yourself and the men. And pray.”

  39

  For days now Liberty had felt an odd dread. The unwelcome feeling had come on the heels of the babies’ christening, a mostly joyful occasion. Both wee ones had been quiet, their blue eyes open and watchful during the short ceremony as they adjusted to many an admiring glance and unfamiliar arm. The sun had shone. Cook prepared a feast afterward, and though Noble’s place sat empty, the thread of joy was undeniable.

  “Perfect cherubs they were,” Mistress Tremayne said. “How pleased and proud their papa would be.”

  The advent of June was as full of thunderstorms as the christening had been clear. Mistress Tremayne came up from Ty Mawr more and more, on account of the twins, she said. Or was there another reason?

  “You’ve not been yourself of late,” she confessed, lingering in the doorway of the nursery.

  Liberty stood by the cradle, her hand gently rocking. “Oh?”

  “You’re quieter, lost in thought.” Concern was sketched across the housekeeper’s lined features. “No doubt on account of Major Rynallt.”

  “My husband never leaves my thoughts,” Liberty said. “I don’t know where he is. How he is. ’Tis as if he’s vanished from the face of the earth. Lately all I feel is a terrible foreboding.”

  “You’ve not felt such before?”

  “Feelings come and go, but this . . . ’tis like being caught in a bad dream, as if something momentous and terrible is about to happen, only I don’t know what it is.”

  “Then we must pray like never before.” Mistress Tremayne bowed her head in the doorway. “Gracious heavenly Father, our sight is so limited and our hearts are so full. We take comfort knowing You are with the major wherever he is. We continue to ask for a hedge of protection about him, that no weapon formed against him shall prosper. We boldly ask that You bring him home. These babies need a father. The mistress needs a husband. Comfort her heart and quiet her thoughts. In Your gracious name, amen.”

  “Amen,” Liberty echoed. Her daughter startled and began to cry. Scooping her up, she felt her milk let down, so she settled into the rocking chair to nurse, pondering Mistress Tremayne’s unexpected prayer.

  Would Noble come by land or by sea? The particulars mattered little. Dare she hope again?

  Lord, please let it be.

  The last of spring’s daylight slanted across Liberty’s lap, creating a halo about the babe’s head. While her brother slept, the tiny girl regarded her mother with wide-eyed wonder.

  Noble’s dark hair wreathed her pale face in wisps, but she had Libby’s coloring and dimple. More than a month old and in need of a name, she was near perfect. Liberty stroked her flawless cheek, trying to recall the Welsh lullaby Nell had taught her and Mistress Tremayne’s recitation of Welsh names.

  “I shall call you Rhian Hope Rynallt.” She kissed the baby’s smooth brow. “Because Rhian means ‘maiden,’ and Hope because I have hope your father will return to us. When he comes home, he shall name your brother.”

  The din they were raising was deafening. It hurt Noble’s own ears. Their combined voices, weary and disease wracked, gained in strength as the words to the song reached a crescendo.

  Torn from a world of tyrants beneath this western sky,

  We form a new dominion, a land of liberty.

  The world shall own we’re masters here, then hasten on the day.

  Huzzah, huzzah, huzzah, huzzah for free America!

  His own heart seemed to beat out of his chest, his pride
in his new nation was so great. These ragged, irrepressible men surrounding him spurred him on, as did his love for his wife and home. Virginia. Their larger cause.

  He braced himself for the opening of the hatch, the crack of light on deck penetrating the darkness of the hold. When it came, what would follow? Expectation oozed all around him as his fellow Patriots pressed near, ready to spring up the ladder toward fresh air. Freedom.

  They sang another chorus, louder and warmer and more proud. The battered ship shook with a sudden storm of motion on deck.

  At last the hatch cracked open.

  Noble led the charge with a resounding shout. “Liberty or death!”

  If she had dreamed it, she could not have made it more memorable. There she was, looking out at the James just feet from where she and Noble had gone swimming after the storm all those months ago. Unlike that day, this twilight eve was pure gold, not too hot, with a wind rising off the water that ruffled both the chin ribbons of her hat and her dress hem. Her thoughts were full of him. And she kept pondering Psalm 139, that bulwark of Scripture that spoke loudest to her these lonesome days. She took to heart one verse especially.

  If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me.

  The twins were asleep in the nursery. She knew Dougray was not far. Since her abduction, he and Ninian seemed to shadow her, though they tried their best to keep a respectful distance. She herself had turned more watchful, more wary. Because of it she saw the dark speck on the horizon coming over a gentle hill at the back of Ty Bryn when she might not have noticed it before. A stranger. On horseback.

  As she studied him he dismounted, leading his horse on foot. With a slight catch in his step.

  Squinting, she tried to make out more details. Ninian had come out from the garden wall. He began walking toward the stranger. And then, in a rapid about-face, he swung round to look at her before vanishing completely.