by Vicki Delany
Maggie gathered her skirts in her hand and started walking up the stairs. “Send Helga to my room immediately. I will be ready for the carriage in one hour.”
“Margaret.”
“Yes, Mother?”
“I wish it did not have to be this way.”
“As do I, Mother.”
The carriage was waiting in front of the house when Maggie descended. Helga had hastily packed the things Maggie had brought with her. One of the farm hands loaded her trunk into the carriage. There was a box beside it. A big wooden tea chest. Maggie lifted the lid and peeked in. Piles of baby clothes, blankets, and soft toys.
Mother did not come out to say good-bye, but Maggie thought she might have seen the corner of a curtain in the parlor lift.
She never saw her parents again.
***
November 15, 1776
It was mid-November, and the baby was long overdue, when the first pangs struck Maggie. There were not many servants left, the young ones had gone to the war, joining one side or the other, and some of the older men came to her twisting their caps in their hands and not looking into her eyes, to tell her they’d been threatened with arrest—or worse—if they continued working a tory’s land.
Several of the local men had left with Hamish to join the British forces, tenants as well as landowners. No one took their families with them; everyone believed the women and children would be safer if they remained in the countryside away from the fighting.
The group of women whose husbands had gone with the Royal Regiment provided some support to each other, and so Maggie didn’t feel that she was entirely alone as the crops rotted in the fields and winter’s chill crept down from Canada.
On a cold, rainy night, Maggie woke to a stab of pain. At last, the baby was coming. She called for the housekeeper and sent her out into the wet night to fetch Mrs. Allen, the midwife. Mrs. Allen had two grandsons in the Continental Army, one son was a clerk to no less a figure than Benjamin Franklin, her husband was an important man in the Committee of Public Safety, and she herself had been one of the most vociferous of the Patriots from the first whisper of rebellion. She had attended the birth of hundreds of babies, most of whom had lived, many of whom had not. She knew being born was a dangerous business, and never was it the fault of the child the leanings of their parents. She provided Maggie with the best care of which she was capable over the long lonely months. She never discussed her family’s activities, nor did she question Maggie about Hamish.
Mrs. Allen came immediately and helped Maggie to safely, easily for a first-born, deliver herself of a big, strong, lusty girl.
Maggie cradled the baby in her arms and leaned back against the pillows in joyous exhaustion. The maid cleared away the bowl of bloody water and stained towels, a smile on her face for the first time in months.
Mrs. Allen dried her hands on a clean towel. She stood beside Maggie and they were silent for a moment, staring in awe at the screaming infant. She had a mass of thick black hair, pale skin, and long thin fingers.
“A new American. A free woman,” Mrs. Allen said. Then she began briskly issuing instructions for the further care of both mother and baby and slipped out into the morning to return to her own family.
Maggie slept.
When she awoke, the baby had been tightly swaddled and laid into a wicker basket placed beside her mother’s bed. Long lashes lay against her cheek and she slept. Maggie reached out one hand, and stroked the infant’s back. “Flora,” she whispered.
Maggie and Hamish had decided to name their child after Hamish’s mother who had died when he was young. “Soon,” she whispered to Flora, “soon.”
***
July 12, 1779
Flora touched a slice of bread to her doll’s mouth. She lifted a tiny china cup decorated with pink and blue roses and gave the doll a sip of tea. She dabbed the doll’s bright red lips with a napkin.
Sunlight streamed in the parlor windows and lit up the little girl’s black hair, tied back with a red velvet ribbon. The two women watched her play, rare smiles touching the edges of their mouths.
“You should think about leaving, my dear,” Mrs. Dietrich said, finishing the last of her own tea. “We’re going. You and Flora must come with us.”
“Why?”
“We dare not stay here any longer. Loyalist property is being confiscated, people turned out of their homes. Women and children left with nothing but the clothes they wear. I heard from Rudy. He says we must leave now. While we still can.” Rudy Dietrich had been one of Hamish’s tenants. It would have been almost unbelievable only a few years ago, that Maggie would invite his wife to take tea in the parlor. He had left shortly before Hamish, gone to Niagara to join Butler’s Rangers. The Rangers, Maggie knew, were a fast-moving, irregular force, moving through hundreds of miles of American wilderness, raiding Rebels and rescuing captured British or Loyalist troops.
“You heard from Rudy?”
“Last night. A knock at the kitchen door in the early hours. One of the Rangers, telling me to gather what families I can and prepare to leave. He will return tonight.”
She spoke openly, only because the housekeeper had gone out. No one could be trusted in these dark days.
“Tonight?”
She nodded.
“But that gives you no time to prepare. How will you pack in one day?”
“My dear, we will not be packing. We are to take what we can carry. That is all.”
Maggie sat back in her chair and thought. She hadn’t heard from Hamish in a year. She had sent word to him of Flora’s birth with a family leaving for Niagara. A few months later, a letter had arrived, expressing his joy at the news. A few other letters followed, short, hastily written, expressing the hope that she and the child were well and they would soon be together.
For the past year—not a word.
Which meant nothing, she reminded herself, as she did constantly. Everything was in flux, so many people on the move.
“I don’t know where my husband is,” she said at last. “How can I leave and not be here when he comes for us?”
“He may not be able to,” Mrs. Dietrich said. “Come with us, Maggie.”
“Thank you,” Maggie said, very formally. “I don’t believe it is necessary for Flora and me to leave at this time.”
“As you wish, my dear.”
***
December 14, 1779
Maggie had not heard from her own parents since her last visit to their home, so long ago Flora hadn’t even been born. She’d written several times in the first year, but had never received a reply. Whether her letters did not get to their destination or her father had forbidden her mother from replying, she did not know. She hoped it was the former, yet suspected it was the latter.
Darkness was falling. Mrs. MacDonald lit one of the last of the tallow candles, threw one of the last pieces of good firewood onto the fire, and stirred the watery soup that would be Maggie and Flora’s dinner, prior to heading off to her own cold lonely home. They had been discussing the state of the larder and pantry. Barely the beginning of winter and supplies were perilously low. Some of the shopkeepers would still do business with Mrs. MacDonald, as long as she pretended she wasn’t buying for her tory mistress, but Maggie was running out of money and of things for Mrs. MacDonald to sell in exchange for food, candles, cloth, and other necessities. There were no men left, no one to bring firewood or to care for the farm animals. Which scarcely mattered as there were no farm animals left either. The cows and chickens had gone long ago, snatched straight from the coop or barn, and last month the one remaining horse, too decrepit to pull a plow or a wagon, was gone in the morning. Taken for horsemeat, almost certainly.
Hamish had left her with money and a fully supplied larder, telling her he’d return in a few months when all
this was over.
He had not believed he’d be gone for so long. No one had.
Mrs. MacDonald was a childless widow; otherwise she would probably have left long since also.
The two women started at a rap at the door. They exchanged glances. Flora moved from the corner of the kitchen where she’d been feeding her doll supper and gripped her mother’s skirts. They never received visitors. Little Flora scarcely knew anyone at all. Most of the Loyalist families had left with Mrs. Dietrich, and those few who remained were too nervous to venture outside.
Hamish?
Maggie twisted her hands together and nodded to Mrs. MacDonald.
It was not Hamish, nor anyone she knew. A man, not much taller than five feet, with rummy eyes sunken into dirt-encrusted cheeks and scarcely a tooth in his mouth. His clothes were homespun, travel-stained, and well worn. His coat a moth-chewed horse blanket wrapped around his shoulders. Paper, cheap paper of the sort political tracts were printed on, spilled from the holes in his boots. He held out a parcel, wrapped in brown paper, tied with string. His hands were filthy and he was missing two fingers on the right.
Mrs. MacDonald took the offering.
The man did not wear a hat. He touched a finger to his forehead and turned without a word.
“Wait,” Maggie cried. “Who are you? Who sent you? Won’t you come in and warm yourself? Mrs. MacDonald, quickly, put the kettle on.”
He spoke over his shoulder. His accent was New York and surprisingly well educated. “I cannot spare the time, Madam. Consider this a favor for a lady I knew a long time ago. Good day and God bless.”
He left and the year’s first flakes of snow swirled around him.
Mrs. MacDonald put the parcel on the table, and she and Maggie studied it. There was no writing on the wrapping. Flora stretched onto her toes to get a good look.
“Thank you, Mrs. MacDonald,” Maggie said. “It’s almost dark, you’d best be off home.”
Reluctantly, Mrs. MacDonald took her leave.
Maggie untied the string with shaking fingers, while Flora climbed onto a chair to watch. Maggie expected it to be from Hamish, but it was not.
A shawl, soft pure wool. Two small sweaters in cheerful yellow and cream. Candles, wonderful wax candles of the type the shops no longer stocked, not the cheap, smoky tallow ones the kitchen girl made. When she still had a kitchen girl. A bundle of coins wrapped in a lace-trimmed handkerchief embroidered with Maggie’s mother’s monogram. A wooden box, inlaid with sea shells. Inside was a pearl necklace, an emerald brooch, and two gold rings, one of which was set with crystals.
Maggie touched the strand of pearls. Flora reached out and took a ring. “Pretty,” she said. She slipped it on her own finger and admired it.
The last time Maggie had seen those pearls had been at dinner, the night before she left her parents’ home. Her mother had brought no jewelry to her marriage; she did not come from the sort of family that could afford jewelry. Maggie’s father had been so proud to be able to buy lovely things for his wife.
The money and jewels were not sent to Maggie for her inheritance. Her mother had wanted her to have them so she and Flora would not starve.
She searched the wrappings, shook out the shawl and sweaters, but she could find no note or message.
“Give me that, precious,” Maggie said to Flora. “It’s too big for your finger. I’ll put it away someplace safe.”
“Okay,” the girl said. “I’m hungry.”
“We’ll have our dinner in a minute.” Flora was so thin. Too thin.
Maggie climbed the stairs with a heavy heart. It had been easy for her, and her mother, to insist that politics was not women’s business. Something men discussed after dinner over port and cigars once the ladies had withdrawn, or when gathering around the paddock to discuss the price of a brood mare or prize bull.
But war took food from women’s mouths all the same, and drove mothers and daughters so far apart that a mother dare not even send her daughter greetings or inquire after the health of a grandchild.
She put the coins and jewels into the small box where she kept the diamond earrings Hamish had given her on the eve of their wedding. She had worn them in Charleston, to balls and parties, and to dinner at her parent’s home.
But not since. She held them up and the stones sparkled in what dim winter light came through the window. She said a prayer for Hamish, as always, and tucked the earrings away. If the choice came between watching Flora die for want of food or medicine, Maggie would sell the earrings. But for nothing less.
Chapter Thirteen
“Help. Help.”
I was drowning. I tried to swim to the surface. Water was in my eyes. I struck out, heading for shore. I hit something. “Ouch,” it said. “Aunt Hannah, wake up.”
“Call your mom,” a voice said from a great distance.
I took a breath and felt muddy water in my mouth. I struggled to rise.
“Lie still. Help’s coming.”
“I’m okay.” I rolled over. A woman knelt beside me. Lily was punching buttons on her cell phone while her eyes, wide with fear, stared at me.
“I’m okay,” I repeated. “Help me up.”
“Aunt Hannah’s hurt,” Lily said into the phone. “You’d better come.”
“No. I’m fine.” I quickly checked myself out. My head, surprisingly enough, was fine. My right wrist hurt when I flexed it but that seemed to be all the damage. I struggled to stand. After initially trying to push me back down, the woman relented and gave me her arm. Between them, she and Lily hoisted me to my feet. I swayed and Lily gripped me tighter. I gave her a weak grin. “See. Perfectly fine. I tripped, that’s all.”
The rain had stopped and the sun had come out. Some of the smaller puddles were dry already. That was quick, I thought.
“I’m Rachel. Rachel McIntyre, from down the road,” the woman said.
“Hi. I’m Hannah, Joanne’s sister.”
“So I guessed.”
Now that school was out for the summer, Lily and Charlie spent weekdays at adventure camp. Jake drove Charlie to the younger kids’ camp in the morning, and Joanne and her friend Rachel, who had a daughter Lily’s age, took turns driving the girls. A young girl was peering out the window of a rusty van, watching us.
I opened my mouth to ask why they were home so early, but instead said, “What time is it?”
Rachel checked her watch. “Four-thirty.”
I sucked in a breath. I’d gone to the shop immediately after lunch. That would have been just after one. I’d been here, lying on the ground, for more than three hours. I must have slipped in a patch of mud and lain here at the door to the root cellar. Thick bushes, rarely trimmed, crowded the back of the shop, and I would have been invisible to anyone out in the fields or stopping at the store.
My vision began to clear and I could see Joanne, tearing across the fields on the bike she used to get around. She was pedaling flat out, her braid flapping behind her.
“I’m okay,” I said as she threw the bike to the ground. “I slipped and fell. That’s all.”
“She was unconscious,” Rachel said.
“Momentarily stunned. Really, I’m fine.”
My sister studied me. She stared into my eyes looking for pain. “Yeah,” she said at last. “You look okay. You’d better go inside and sit down. Lily, go with her.”
At that moment a blue car pulled into the driveway. Joanne groaned, “Not now, of all times.” Jake’s mother, Marlene, got out and marched straight toward our little group. “What’s going on? What’s the matter?” she demanded.
“Aunt Hannah’s been hurt,” Lily said. “She fell into the mud and was unconscious.”
“I was not unconscious,” I said, but no one seemed to believe me.
Marlene tutted her dis
approval. “Some people aren’t cut out for farm life. Too bad when it grinds other people’s work to a halt though.”
“That’s not the half of it,” Joanne said. “First Liz phoned in sick this morning and then Connor cut his hand and had to go to the hospital for stitches.”
“Is it bad?” I asked.
“Nothing too serious. It’s his left hand so he was able to drive himself. He said he’d be okay, but I don’t want to chance it getting infected with working in the dirt and all.”
Marlene couldn’t criticize a hard-working farm hand for getting hurt on the job, so she changed the subject. “I thought I’d bring out the first batch of my raspberry muffins. I know how much Jake likes them. I’ll put them in the kitchen, shall I? Then I have to be heading straight back. Work never stops on the farm.”
She remained firmly in place.
“Thanks for your help,” I said to Rachel.
“Sorry I panicked. You sure looked unconscious there.”
I gave her what I hoped was a friendly smile and allowed Lily to lead me into the house as Marlene followed. Lily shifted her backpack and told me today they’d had a visit from a First Nations woman who told them stories. “She was real old.”
In the kitchen, Marlene began arranging muffins onto a platter. She offered one to Lily, who accepted quickly. “You be sure and tell your dad I made these specially for him with the first of the raspberries.”
“I will, Grandma.”
Marlene looked down her hawk’s nose at me. “You seem to have recovered quickly.”
“I wasn’t unconscious.”
“No. I’m sure you weren’t. No reason to get the whole family in an uproar, was there?” Clearly I was not to be given the honor of tasting the first batch of raspberry muffins.
“No time to be standing around,” Marlene said to me. “I’m off home.”
She gave Lily a kiss and left the kitchen. As she crossed the office, the porch door opened. Marlene didn’t bother to drop her voice. I heard the word malingering and something about “in our day, if we weren’t sick we were expected to put in a day’s work or go hungry.”
