by Lorin Grace
He didn’t notice Miss Brooks and Miss Page until he ran into them.
He apologized and walked on. A block later, he realized he’d left his doctor bag on the porch. He took the long way back, keeping an eye out for any of Miss Webb’s boarders.
Twenty-seven
A chaperone is not enough. She isn’t with you all the time.
Sarah touched her lips. How could anyone possibly know about Monday’s kiss? Dorcas might have deduced something, but the notes had started long before she’d arrived.
Sarah had stood at the bottom of the stairs a half dozen times. No one outside of the house could have seen the kiss. And if Amity had seen it, she would have said something.
Someone was very good at guessing.
Sarah pretended to be sick for the next three days, telling Dorcas it was her woman’s complaint.
Tim sat next to his mother in the family pew and waited for the last bell to chime before the meeting started. Sarah sat with Samuel and the children. And Lucy was keeping the babies away for another week, though no illness circulated in the community.
Sarah was the only congregant who had been in bed with any type of illness this week. And the only single female who refused to see a doctor, it seemed.
Seth made a run for the door. Sarah hurried after the little boy, easily catching him before he exited the building.
Amazing recovery.
Perhaps Mother was right. He needed to enlarge his social circle.
Reverend Palmer started off with the announcements—two weddings, one death, one birth. He hadn’t heard about the death. Must have been one of Dr. Norris’s patients.
During the hymn, he leaned over to his mother. “I’ll come to your musical night. When is it?”
“Wednesday the third.”
As little Emma yawned, Sarah closed her eyes and breathed in the baby smell. This was her favorite part of being an aunt. She had discovered this over seventeen years ago with Maryanna. For years she had dreamed of holding her own baby. She could be content to live the life Dorcas did, being passed from family to family to care for children, as long as there was an infant at hand. But it would not be an easy life.
Dorcas had little money or anything else to call her own. Even servants received some recompense for their work. The woman she called friend had little love for children and hinted she would be needed back in Billerica by the end of the month. Sarah suspected her departure had more to do with not wanting to be present when Amity delivered. Dorcas had mentioned spending the rest of the month at Thomas Jr.’s home, although she had rarely stayed there.
Coaxing her to stay became a daily conversation. Sarah needed Dorcas as a buffer between her and Tim. There couldn’t be another kiss. Dr. Morton had the splints removed, but according to his wife, he continued to complain of pain and asked Tim to stay through the first of August. Thirty-one days, give or take. She could avoid him that long if Dorcas stayed.
The kiss had either been a terrible mistake or a gift. Either way, she wanted to repeat it. Mark’s kisses had been warm and comfortable, like reading next to a fire on a winter’s night. She touched her lips. Tim’s had been more like what a moth must feel like near a flame—the need to draw close regardless of the risk.
A risk she could never take. Not with Tim, not with John, not with any man. The price was more than she could ever pay.
The role of spinster aunt suited her. Little Emma fussed for Lucy, so Sarah reluctantly gave up her charge to go join in the Sunday-afternoon chaos in the parlor. Even surrounded by her nieces and nephews, her empty arms magnified the hole in her heart. She let out a deep sigh. Maryanna snuggled next to her new husband on the couch, reading a book to Stella. They had been married for three months now. There would be another baby next year.
Maybe a grand-nephew could soothe her soul better than twin nieces.
The Misses Garretts both played rather well, and Miss Brooks’s voice was unexpectedly sweet. Mother had pulled together a fair amount of people, including a few other bachelors, and the sweltering heat from a week ago had reverted to unseasonably cool weather. Halfway through the evening and it was not as disastrous as he thought it would be. A half hour of mingling over refreshments, another hour of music, and everyone would go home.
As the last notes of the pianoforte faded, Tim started his circuit of the room. Both of Miss Webb’s boarders were seventeen and were much more interested in Ichabod.
Dr. Norris and his wife were there, but as Tim approached, the other doctor turned his back. Tim made a quick turn—right into Miss Page and Miss Brooks.
“Oh! Dr. Dawes, your mother is so gracious to start the holiday off this way. I can’t wait for the reverend to read Defense of Fort McHenry. It is such a stirring poem.” She would find it stirring. The first stanza started with her favorite word.
“I am sure it will be. Miss Brooks, I enjoyed your selection.” Tim’s nod was met with a blush. “If you’ll excuse me, I believe my mother needs me.” A little white lie. His mother tried to communicate something else with her fan, but he chose to ignore it and joined her anyway.
She frowned at him. “I thought you were going to make an effort.”
“I’m mingling with all the guests.”
“That is not what I meant, and you know it. Go sit. The second half is about to start.” His mother started for the front of the room. Already people were taking their seats, choosing places different from their previous locations. Only a few spots remained. Widow Webb must be giving her boarders advice on how to sit by prospective suitors. There were obvious seats and four bachelors still standing, each empty seat flanked by young women desperately seeking spouses.
A straight-backed chair from the dining room had been moved into a corner. Ichabod made a beeline for it, narrowly beating a young man Tim had not met before tonight, from New Hampshire. Soon the only seat left lay between Miss Brooks and Miss Page.
It was hard to tell who smiled more when he took it—his mother or Miss Page. Miss Brooks wore a funny little smirk as well.
A fiddler and a couple of older men stood. One was missing an arm, curtesy of a musket ball fired by a redcoat at Bunker Hill. The first notes of the “Massachusetts Liberty Song” began to play, and it wasn’t long before many in the room joined them in singing:
We led fair Freedom hither, and lo! the desert smiled;
A paradise of pleasure now opened in the wild:
Your harvest, bold Americans, no power shall snatch away;
Preserve, preserve, preserve your rights in free America . . .
Lift up your hearts, my heroes, and swear, with proud disdain,
The wretch that would ensnare you shall spread his net in vain:
Should Europe empty all her force, we’d meet them in array,
And shout huzza! Huzza! Huzza! Huzza for brave America!
The words of the late Dr. Warren filled the room. Tim closed his eyes. Images of men lost in the battles of the Second War of Independence filled his mind. Would that his children never need fight. It had been such a useless war. Men died, property was destroyed, and all because of the British blockade. More than fifteen thousand men could be building their lives, homes, and country, but now they lay buried for the cause of Mr. Madison’s war.
Only the threat of what his mother would say kept him in his seat. Reverend Palmer stood next and recited Mr. Key’s poem, penned after the battle at Fort McHenry. If Tim’s thoughts hadn’t been so poignant, he might have laughed at Miss Page’s quick intake of breath at the first line: “O say can you see . . .”
Tim had only read the poem once in a well-worn newspaper. The words of the last stanza flowed over him, erasing the melancholy embracing him.
O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and
the war’s desolation.
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
A rousing applause filled the room. Next to him Miss Page predictably commented, “Oh! That was glorious! Oh! Have you ever heard such a recitation?”
Tim bit back a smile lest she think he meant it for her. People swarmed around his mother. She had put on the most triumphant of evenings for the night before Independence Day.
Instead of joining the throng as Miss Page and Miss Brooks had, Tim moved to the back of the room and counted down the moments until he could escape.
Twenty-eight
“Independence Day should not remind one of the crossing of Valley Forge.” Dorcas added a log to the fire. “Do you think your sister will still come into town with the weather like this?”
“She has been looking forward to it, so unless one of them is ill, I am sure she will. Don’t worry. When Samuel and Lucy arrive with the family, this house will warm up fast. I am glad that Amity could spend the day with her father. I worried that a dozen extra people would upset her.”
Dorcas ground coffee beans for her preferred morning beverage. “Did I tell you one of the women I sat with at church has invited me over for the day? They are going to host a little dinner and play a quiet game of cards. I think I shall enjoy my time much better there.”
“I hope you don’t feel like I am chasing you off.” Sarah set two bowls on the table.
“No, nothing like that, but with Amity at her father’s, I would feel like a green apple in the bushel. If my sister was coming I might stay, but . . .”
“But there are far too many little children for your taste?” Sarah hoped her smile conveyed her teasing.
Dorcas poured the beans into her coffee pot, one of her few possessions. “Only a few weeks and you understand me well. It is not so much the older ones as it is the little ones. I just don’t think I can be in the same house as month-old twins. I am sure they are adorable, but I . . .” The sentence faded off.
“Was facing spinsterhood easier when you were my age, or has it grown more difficult over time?”
“Why would you ask that? You haven’t reached your twenty-fifth year. And the doctor looks at you as if he would skip courtship and go straight to marriage if you would allow it. I realize you are in mourning, but you were not really related to Mrs. Wilson.”
Sarah shook her head. “Emma would have been my mother-in-law had Mark not died. My own mother died shortly after my fifth birthday, and Lucy raised me, but Emma filled the gap when I needed a mother. But I decided I couldn’t marry long before she died. It has nothing to do with mourning.”
Dorcas sat at the table and motioned for Sarah to do the same. “Dead men don’t come back. It took me years to learn that. I gave more than a quarter of a century to loving a man who could never love me back, caring for my siblings’ children as my heart yearned for my own. When he died, another man wanted to court me. He waited for my time of mourning to pass. He wrote me letters as I chose to spend much of it in seclusion at my aunt’s home in Brattleboro, Vermont. When I returned, I still could not betray my beloved, and eventually the other man married another. For the first few years, I didn’t mind being a spinster so much, but then my parents died. I never learned to write well, nor was I educated beyond the dame school. My sewing skills are mediocre at best. At first, taking care of my sister’s and brother’s children was the perfect answer to my problem. But as each child grew and never thought of me more than they did the household cook, a new emptiness filled me. I am useful, and my sister’s families treat me well enough, but I don’t belong to anyone, and no one belongs to me. If I had it all to do over again, I would accept the suit offered me. I may not have loved him as much as my first, but I could have loved him more in time, as good marriages seem to grow in love. Instead, I walk around feeling like there is always something I miss.”
For a moment, no words came to Sarah’s mind, then understanding filled her. “That is why you don’t like to be around young children. It hurts too much to long for something never to be yours.”
Dorcas nodded and stood to pour herself some coffee. “That is part of it. I fall in love with them way too easily, but when they are sad, they never want me. I reached the age where love is a liability, a longing for things I will never feel. I don’t know what is keeping you from accepting the doctor, but in twenty years, you will wish you had.” She set her cup in the dry sink and went upstairs.
The fire popped. A combination of bright light, heat, and ashes, it danced a fine line between life and death. Somewhere in the flames lay the perfect metaphor. Too bad her life was already full of ash, or she might be tempted to hope for the flame.
A festering splinter caused Tim to be late to see the parade. Technically, since he was now a veteran, he could join them, but he’d left his uniform tucked in his trunk. The battle he’d fought, and often lost, had not been against the British but against an unseen foe stalking the lives of soldiers before and after the cannon’s blasts. Men missing an arm or a leg passed in front of him. Their lives had been spared, but at a terrible cost. These men would not want him marching by their side.
As he followed the crowd to the green, he wished he had thought to bring his greatcoat. At least they would all be standing close together for the reading of the Declaration of Independence, forty years old today. The Wilson clan stood off to the left of the temporary stage. Tim chose to move to the right. Too late, he realized he stood behind many of the women who boarded at Widow Webb’s. He stepped back so as not to be too easily noticed, but the conversation still reached him.
“Do you think it is proper … in mourning?”
“ … Independence Day … betrothed died in war . . .”
“Oh, what are they doing … they belong at . . .”
“Girls don’t … the fallen women . . .”
Tim tried to move back farther, but as the mayor started to speak, the crowd moved in and his way was blocked.
“Most of them live near the docks . . .”
“Unless they live . . .”
“Oh … Mrs. Wilson never really married . . .”
“ … if Samuel Wilson married his wife . . .”
“Of course, they’d take in Amity … just like the rest of them . . .”
“ … no better than they ought to be . . .”
Tim turned and made his way out of the throng. He’d rather stand in the cold wind than listen to the gossip. Old gossip, too. The standoff between the old minister, Reverend Woods, and Thomas and Emma Wilson had become a local legend. They’d claimed they were married, and he’d said it wasn’t legal. But in the end, actions spoke louder than words, and the Wilsons had lived happily as a couple for more than thirty years. Now they lay side by side in the cemetery, both under the name Wilson. As far as Lucy and Samuel Wilson went, he didn’t know the whole story, but he remembered the day the intentions were first read. That was the day he’d decided to marry Sarah and tell her so behind the church.
He tried to focus on the words of the Declaration. But from his new vantage point, he could see the Wilsons clearly. Sarah stood in front with the children who were still shorter than her. She had expertly avoided him for a week now. If the women of Widow Webb’s house put as much effort into catching him as Sarah did avoiding him, one of them would have caught him by now.
The wind gusted, and Tim headed home. He would need his greatcoat before the day ended. Firecrackers would be lit, and someone was likely to get hurt.
Pounding on the door woke Sarah. She pulled a quilt off her bed and wrapped it around her shoulders. Dorcas stood at the top of the stairs.
“What on earth?” Dorcas handed her candle to Sarah when the pounding started again. “You answer it.”
Sarah hurried to the door. “Who is it?”
“Sarah, it’s Amity and me!”
Tim? Here in the middle of the night? She set the candle on the table and opened the door.
Tears coated Amity’s face. Tim supported the girl’s weight as if standing was more than she could bear.
“D-da-d-d-da-d.” Amity fell into Sarah’s arms, nearly toppling her.
Sarah looked to Tim for an answer as she tried to pull Amity fully into the house.
“Mr. Burns is dead.” Tim slowly mouthed the words.
Dorcas appeared, fully dressed and with a lantern.
“Help me get her into her bed, please.”
Dorcas put an arm around Amity and took some of the girl’s weight off Sarah.
“I need my bag. I’ll be right back.” Tim shut the door behind him.
“I’ll get her in bed. You’d better get something on over your shift,” said Dorcas.
Sarah hadn’t realized the quilt had come off. Grabbing it from the floor, she ran up the stairs. The black bombazine would be handy tonight. The thick material wouldn’t show if she didn’t wear her corset. Sarah reached the bottom of the stairs just as Tim did. “What happened?”
“I’ll tell you after we get Amity settled. She hasn’t had one of her seizures yet, and I would like to see if we can prevent that. Can you make—”
“Sarah? Help me!”
