“Please, please, Mistress Crafter. I will obey your wishes completely as soon as you tell me that I am forgiven for the grievous wrong I have, in my ignorance, done you. But, if there is an ounce of kindness or mercy within you, you will allow me to make some attempt at reparation before you cast me out into the wilderness.” With this, he threw himself face down on the carpet, at my feet.
This was too much. My indignation was transformed to laughter by the sight of this excess of repentance. I could not quite restrain my chuckles.
“All right. I accept your apology for the incident about the books. I believe you did not mean to be insulting in your offer of marriage. Now, will you please leave me in peace?”
He rose to one knee, and reached out to seize my hand. “Dear lady, your graciousness has made my life worth living again. I exist only to serve you. Please honor me by becoming my wife.”
“Never, if such brief and fraudulent acquaintance is your notion of a proper courtship. You scarcely know more than my name and my looks.”
“Then teach me how I should court you, my fairest one. I will obey in every detail.”
“You must begin by standing up, and releasing my hand,” I began. He did so. “Now, then. You must never cause me to come to harm, or to lose the respect of the community,” I continued. He returned to his seat and pulled his mortarboard from his head.
“You will greet me politely, as you would a lady of your own rank,” I went on. He reached for his stick of lead and a sheet of foolscap.
“Would you be so kind as to repeat that last?” he asked in all seriousness.
“I said that you must treat me with proper respect, not bring harm to me or soil my reputation, and . . .” He was bent to his task, taking notes. I did not know whether to laugh or to cry.
“You will not create scenes in the market, you will offer to carry my market basket home. You will call on me only during those hours when a chaperone is present. You will, if I give permission, escort me to and from church . . .” I watched his hand crabbing quickly across the page.
“Please, kind lady, slow down. I cannot write so quickly as you speak.”
“What are you doing? Taking notes for a book?
“Please do not make fun of me. I only wish to honor your requests.”
“Kindly dispense with the ‘dear lady’ and treat me as your equal. With respect, mind you, but as an equal. No husband of mine will kneel at my feet nor tower over me.”
“Yes, dear lady. I mean, Mistress Crafter.” I could see the flush forming on his face.
“You will respect my answers to your invitations, especially if I tell you ‘no.’ I do not wish to dance. You will wear ordinary clothing to walk out on the green, not your student gown.
“You will call not more than once a week. I will decide if the time is proper to go for a stroll or to sit in the parlor and chat. You will inquire as to my preference in all entertainments and refreshments.” He reached for another sheet of foolscap.
“You will attend all of your classes. You are to devote sufficient time to your studies so that you have a future.” He continued to write in large letters; I knew this lecture would be more expensive than any Dr. MacLean might give.
“When we meet, we shall discuss intellectual matters, or the business of the town. And you, Squire, are not to ask me to marry you again.” He looked up hopefully, having come to the bottom of both his page and his stick of lead.
“I will obey your wishes, sweet lady.” He struck himself on the forehead with his writing hand and started again. “I hope to have the pleasure of calling on you in the very near future, Mistress Crafter.”
He looked positively absurd with the large smear of lead on his forehead and nose and on his hand.
“By your leave,” he asked.
“Have a good evening, sir.” I replied, opening the door for him.
The instant the door shut behind him, we burst into gales of laughter. Both I and Mr. Abdul laughed so hard at the spectacle that our ribs hurt for the rest of the week.
Mr. Singer then began to court me exactly in the manner I had described. He did it so well I had a hard time continuing to refuse his invitations. He kept at it until spring.
My studies were going well, and Mr. Abdul seemed content with my housekeeping, so I resolved to spend another year in Cambridge. At least I could now send and receive letters. Robert kept at it all summer, and my resistance weakened a bit. I permitted him to walk me home from church on Sundays, and from some of the prayer meetings. He kept the courting up through the fall and winter. On New Year’s Eve, under the clear bright stars, he asked me again to marry him.
“Whatever took you so long?” was my response. He silently slipped this ring on my finger and gently squeezed my hand.
“If you will set a date for the wedding, I will write to my family in Virginia to make the arrangements,” he said. “We can get married in the manor house. It’s very beautiful in the spring, with all the magnolias.”
“I think I would prefer to marry at my parents’ homestead,” I replied. “You haven’t met any of my family at all, you know. We could leave in May, marry in June, and visit with each family for two weeks over the summer. Doesn’t that sound more reasonable? Besides, isn’t your brother James the overseer at the plantation now? I really would prefer we didn’t spend our wedding night under his roof, after that nonsense about the tuition money.” Robert had no argument with that, so it was settled.
Two weeks ago, once the roads were passable, Father drove down to get me, and here I am. And the wedding is tomorrow, if I get this dress hemmed in time.
* * *
“So what will happen after the wedding?” Cynthie coaxed.
“He has received a letter of acceptance from Oxford,” Margarethe replied. “We are leaving for England on the first of August.”
“How long will you be gone?” Cynthie questioned.
“Oh, a year or two I think, maybe a little longer,” was Margarethe’s patient reply.
“Why are you going,” Cynthie continued.
“Stop it! I have to get this dress hemmed,” Margarethe snapped.
“But why should I stop?”
“Because you’re going downstairs to help Mother with the pies. Now shoo, before I take a broom to you.”
She chuckled as she left. Margarethe thought wistfully of Sean and Kate, and then of the children she and Robert hoped to have. This was only a taste of her future. “Better get to work,” she murmured to herself.
Anno Domini 1721
THE WIDOW Mansfield glided into her prize boarders’ room with the silent grace of a well-trimmed merchant ship running fair before the wind. Both the young gentlemen were out—of that she was certain, having seen them head off early in the direction of the New Haven town green as the October morning mists were lifting. “Young” she called them, yet guessing by his looks, she suspected that she and Ahijah Crafter were nearly of an age. That other one, though. . .
She put away all thoughts of that second, more uncanny-looking boarder who shared Ahijah’s room. Widows were reputed to be overly prone to weird fancies, if they did not steer their vagrant musings into more productive channels.
“There, now, Dorcas,” she exhorted herself. “To work, to work! ’Ware idleness. It is the very breeding-ground of all manner of devils.” Her pretty dimples showed as she smiled at her own mock severity. “Hark to the woman! Next you’ll be donning breeches and studying for the ministry at Master Crafter’s side.” Laughing, she closed the chamber door behind her.
Having heard no sound from the room above, and not having seen either of the young men return while she was hanging the wash outside earlier, she had decided to take advantage of their absence to do a little tidying. Scholars were notoriously lax in such matters. Their hair might look like a squirrel’s nest and their rooms like the aftermath
of all Ten Plagues, but so long as they coaxed their precious Greek and Latin discourses into apple-pie order, they saw nothing amiss in the world.
Perhaps it was better so, the Widow Mansfield reflected. Had her own dear Thomas been a member of this newly founded Collegiate School, rather than a scamperer after barter and trade, his bones would not now be lying on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. No, he would be content to do all his adventuring and wrangling with the comfortable, harmless contents of old books, and she would not be condemned to a cold bed so young.
Thoughts of her longstanding sorrow and nightly deprivation filled the Widow Mansfield’s clear blue eyes with tears. Briskly she dashed them away. It was not her way to wallow in self-pity, particularly when it would do no good. Better to turn her energies to the task at hand. A thorough turning-out and cleaning-up to occupy mind and body, that was what she needed. She straightened her slender shoulders and grasped her besom more firmly, ready to do battle to the death against mouse-smut, dust, muck, and cobweb.
In the shadowy chamber, wood and ropes creaked. What was it that she had said of idleness, scarce moments before? A breeding-ground of devils? She had spoken without knowledge, yet in this moment no student of the Collegiate School was receiving a more thorough education than Dorcas Mansfield.
Scarce sunlight made the dust motes dance above the narrow bed reserved for her two boarders’ use, but oh! more solid shapes than dust motes were doing far more than dancing there. She felt the bodice of her gown grow tight as she stood staring. Her breath slipped in and out between painfully tight lips, making a small, whimpering sound. Cast aside on the floor beside the bed was the roughspun, sober garb of a poor student, but overlaying it were the softer folds of a fine lady’s gown. The rope-slung bed frame squeaked and complained at such vigorous use. The bedclothes twisted and shifted, yet never quite enough to let the Widow Mansfield know which one of her lodgers was not attending to his studies this morning.
She had to know. Female curiosity was all the reason she gave herself, yet why then did she feel as if a block of granite rested on her chest? Nigh unbearable pain choked her as she forced her throat to utter: “Ahijah?”
Oh, how weak, how pathetic it sounded! The name emerged from her lips no louder than a sigh; still, it was enough. The shapes beneath the bedclothes froze. A girlish voice smothered a giggle. By degrees the thin quilt was pulled down so that the Widow Mansfield might see a clump of tousled black hair (But both of them are dark-haired men, she thought), a brow ivory-pale from long study (Either one may own such, Lord of mercy, either one . . .), and eyes—
Certainly not Ahijah’s eyes, for which deliverance her heart rejoiced.
Certainly not the eyes of any human thing, for which she felt an icy terror close about her soul.
Yellow, they were. Slit-pupilled. Knowing. Sly. Eyes that met hers, only to slip nimbly down to the swelling of her bosom and pierce it, dragging out every guilty secret of a too-young widow’s lonely dreams; laying them before her in the sunlight, shameful, shameless, bare. Every one.
The creature among the bedclothes smirked and brushed back stray locks of ebon hair. Small and white, yet smooth and sturdy-seeming, two infant horns winked out from among the black curls.
The Widow Mansfield’ s screams were heard all the way to the New Haven green and partway across the harbor.
* * *
“No, please, I pray, don’t trouble yourselves any further. I am all right.”
“Are you certain, Dorcas?” The Widow Mansfield’s brother Napthali knelt beside the bed, sweat carving rivulets of clean skin down his face.
From the other side of the bed, a quirky, nervous voice cut in awkwardly before the lady might reply. “She fainted. I found her so when I came into my room. It was the heat. Heat does funny things, you know.”
Napthali Weaver glowered at the dark-haired young man who hovered far too close to Dorcas for any right-minded brother’s liking. “Heat? This late in October’?” His stubby nose distended in a scornful snort. “A simple man I be, and unlettered, but all it takes is a stroll out of doors to tell the weather.”
“Napthali, please.” Dorcas turned the brightness of her morning-glory eyes to her brother. “Ahijah is quite right.” Her gaze warmed and sweetened as it drifted back to the fidgety young man. “Cool it may be out-of-doors, but some of these rooms can hold the heat almost unnaturally well.”
“Rooms ain’t the only things with suchlike properties,” Napthali growled to himself.
“It would be possible, Mistress Mansfield, for me to adapt some certain few features of this house to provide better ventilation.” The young man seized upon the widow’s last remark with the eagerness of a terrier pup assaulting its first rat. “Nor would you need to sacrifice warmth in winter. The designs I have considered are entirely flexible to the season. If you and your good brother, Master Weaver, would give me leave—”
“No,” said Napthali. His froglike mouth shut with an audible snap. His expression seemed to say that the only leave he would gladly give this overzealous, intrusive person was free and willing leave to return to the Massachusetts wilderness that had misbegotten him.
It was unfortunate that in all his years of education at the Collegiate School—to say nothing of his less orthodox, more private studies—Ahijah Crafter had never been taught that there comes a time when the wise man holds his tongue.
“But Master Weaver, the benefits to your house would be extraordinary, the cost minimal. You would not labor alone. My tutor tells me that I am making excellent progress. I could easily afford to give over some of my usual study time and help you. I hope you will not think me immodest, but I do have more than a little skill with carpentry tools. If you’re willing to wait, I have a series of sketches in my room which I will—”
“Progress, you say?” Napthali interrupted.
Ahijah’s black eyes sparkled with almost pathetic joy. It was the first time the beauteous Dorcas’ beastly brother had ever addressed a question to him that showed some human interest in the young scholar’s work. A garden enclosed is his sister, my bride. The scandalously thrilling words of the Song of Songs were not supposed to occupy a future minister’s thoughts so often, nor so inaccurately quoted. On the other hand, neither were a future minister’s thoughts supposed to stray so often to the bewitching face and entrancing person of his landlady. Time not wasted daydreaming about Dorcas Mansfield was squandered fantasizing about the best way to gain the support and favor of the lady’s brother. You had to start somewhere.
“Progress?” Ahijah parroted. “Oh, yes, wonderful progress. My Greek and Latin were a trifle laggard, but now they are both coming on much better than I ever—”
“Good. The sooner you progress, the sooner you’ll have your degree, and the sooner you’ll be gone from New Haven.”
“Napthali!”
Dorcas’ loud reproof had no effect on her brother. “Don’t you be taking on that way with me, Dorcas. I know what I said and I meant it, every tittle. Why in the name of all holy you had to take in these scribble-scrabblers, anyway, is beyond my knowledge. Not as if there’s any decent money in it.”
“Money is it, Napthali Weaver? Shall we speak of money, you and I?” Dorcas thrust herself up in the bed, eyes ablaze. Her brother cringed, aware he’d trespassed on dangerous ground. The earth was the Lord’s but this brave house, and the fullness thereof, was Dorcas’, her dead husband’s legacy. Napthali had talked his way beneath this roof ostensibly to lend strength, respectability, and succor to his helpless, widowed sister. In truth, he and she and half of New Haven knew that Dorcas Mansfield was about as weak and helpless as a bull with nettles tied under its tail.
“I only—” he began.
Dorcas was not interested in hearing his excuses. “These scribble-scrabblers, as your ignorance calls them, are the future hope of the Church, brother mine. How would you preserve the pure
religion if not through well-educated ministers? Ignorance may be a comfortable thing, but so is lying down to sleep in a snow bank. Comfort costs too much, if we’re speaking of financial matters.”
“I don’t much care.” Napthali was sullen before his sister’s hot defense of the scholars. “You see this boarding business as some sort of holy mission, hey? I’ve a clearer eye. And nose. What’s all them stinks as sometimes twist out from beneath that one’s door, then? More holiness?” Again that snort which made squat Napthali resemble the tribe of pigs he pastured. “If I had it my way, I’d ship the lot of ’em back to Saybrook, else upriver to Hartford. Let those towns cope with the college men, and welcome. Little good will ever come to New Haven from such bookish do-nothings.”
Ahijah was abashed. Purely from reflex, his long, thin hands folded themselves into an attitude of prayer he did not feel. Staring down at them, so as not to have to meet Napthali’ s hostile eyes or Dorcas’ kindly ones, he said, “You may yet have your wish, Master Weaver.”
“Ha! Likely, that.” Napthali’s caustic laughter ate to the marrow of Ahijah’s bones. “You lot of ink-lickers are like fleas: once you’ve found warm lodging and good feed, there’s no rooting you out.” As if to emphasize his firsthand knowledge of the subject, he scratched himself vigorously. “If I’m to see your learned backsides soon, then whyfor’d that school of yours r’ar up that great, ugly building hard by the green, then? Housing for every moldery clutch of useless jabber ever put down on paper, that’s what! Books and books, and the squint-eyed moles who read ’em, all to have a finer roof over their heads than many an honest, hard-working man of the colony!”
“Really, Napthali.” For one who had fainted from the heat, Dorcas’ reply was astonishingly frosty. “Your ignorance doesn’t need to be paraded like a prize sheep; we’re all well acquainted with it. The Collegiate School will bring only benefit to the town that sponsors it. Why, just see what life Harvard’s infused up Massachusetts way! If the school were a bad thing, would so many towns be fighting for the honor of claiming it?”
The Crafters Book One Page 15
