At the end of each day came another night in Henry’s arms exploring all the ways they could bring each other to gasping ecstasy while leaving her still a virgin. But her maidenhead felt like a scanty fig leaf indeed. What did it really mean to say she’d come to her husband a virgin, assuming she ever found some suitable bridegroom of her own people, when she’d spent hours naked in another man’s arms? Did it matter that she hadn’t had Henry’s cock inside her—he’d taught her to use that word, at least between the two of them—when his tongue had been there on multiple occasions, and she’d taken him in her mouth in turn?
But she couldn’t stop, even though she had an uneasy feeling it would be wiser to do so. She spent the days craving the pleasures of the night to come, and every night, she met Henry with eager kisses.
After the first night she’d managed to keep herself from crying out her pleasures for all the cabin to hear. But she knew, and blushed to know it, that they were transparent to the Cutlers, not to mention Jeannette and most of the ladies who came to sew and gossip every day. She couldn’t miss the knowing looks, nor the meaning of the fond reminiscences various matrons shared of their own newly wedded days.
They were a blunt-spoken lot, these mountain women. “Enjoy it while you can,” one woman in her early thirties with a baby at her breast told her. “Not that I don’t still, but once you have four or five young ones underfoot, there just ain’t enough time any longer.”
“And you get so tired,” another young mother put in. “If you’d told me a day would come when I’d rather go straight to sleep at night, I never would’ve believed you, but...” She shook her head and yawned hugely.
Thérèse laughed and blushed—it was both the natural response and what everyone expected of her—and the women sewed in uncharacteristic silence for a few minutes.
“Thérèse?”
Thérèse looked up. It was Wilson’s sister Hannah Grant, a young bride almost as quiet as her brother, though milder and more pleasant with it.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Sophia has been asking about you. She wants to meet you, since she hasn’t been able to come down here like everyone else. I was thinking that once you’ve finished that dress, maybe you could take it to her. I’ll show you the way.”
“I’d be glad to.” Despite her persistent wariness in Wilson’s company, she couldn’t help but be curious what sort of woman his fallen plantation lady was.
And so about an hour later, after she’d put the last stitch into the dress—plain white cotton, but with some elaborate tucks around the sleeves and neck—Thérèse set out along with Hannah, Mrs. Cutler and Jeannette.
Jeannette had, after initial wariness on all sides, settled into cautious friendships with the children of the settlement closest to her age, so Thérèse was surprised she hadn’t decided to remain behind with the two young girls who’d been monopolizing her company. She asked her about it as they climbed the uphill path leading to Wilson’s small cabin.
Jeannette shrugged. “It’s been a while since I was around a pregnant woman. I’d like to see how much of what my mother taught me I can still remember. And besides, Martha and Louise keep asking me to tell their fortune.”
Thérèse blinked. “Why?”
“I never should’ve told them my mama was a healer. They’ve decided that means she was a voodoo priestess, and I must be one, too.”
“I’ll have a word with their mothers,” Mrs. Cutler put in.
“They don’t mean any harm,” Jeannette hastened to assure her. “I don’t want to get them into trouble.”
“They ought to know better. Good Christian girls, calling on dark spirits!”
“I’m a good Christian girl, too, and I wouldn’t call on dark spirits even if I knew how,” Jeannette insisted. “And I don’t. And neither did my mother. Ever.”
But Mrs. Cutler strode on ahead more briskly, muttering to herself. “I shouldn’t have said anything,” Jeannette muttered to Thérèse. “All they want is to figure out which one of them is to marry Joe Morrison and which Moses Cutler.”
“Do they both want the same one?” Thérèse asked. She’d seen the boys, lanky youths of fifteen or sixteen, on several occasions and thought she could remember which one was which if she thought about it hard enough.
“They both want Joe because he’s handsomer, but I think they’d be better off with Moses because he’s richer.”
“Well, they won’t marry for years yet. As likely as not, they’ll marry other men entirely.”
“I could play along and promise them tall, dark and handsome strangers. Only that’s what happened with this Sophia Wilson, and look how well it worked out for her.”
Thérèse chuckled despite herself. “You don’t want anyone deciding you’re in league with the devil. I haven’t even reminded anyone we’re Catholic, though if they know enough to know there’s voodoo in New Orleans, surely they know that.”
“Yes, they stare enough as it is.”
“It’s not so bad. These people can go years without seeing a new face, at least the ones who don’t regularly go out to trade. To have three of us appear at once...”
Before Jeannette could reply, they had reached Wilson’s cabin. It was far smaller than the Cutler cabin, which seemed like a mansion to Thérèse compared with everywhere else she’d stayed since leaving New Orleans, but it looked neat and well maintained. It stood in a little clearing with a vegetable plot off to one side and a chicken roost on the other. An amply stocked woodpile rested against the side wall, and a curl of smoke rose from its chimney.
Hannah called out a greeting, and a weak, light voice replied. Thérèse followed Hannah and Mrs. Cutler inside, blinking to adjust to the dim light from the fire and a single window.
Sophia Wilson reclined in the one-room cabin’s bed, propped up on pillows and clutching a quilt over her heavily pregnant belly. To Thérèse’s admittedly ignorant eyes she didn’t look healthy, at once too thin aside from her swollen middle and too puffy through her face and wrists. But she could see the remnants of the beauty that must have drawn Obadiah Wilson’s eye, especially in the bright chestnut curls that framed her face and in her gentle blue-gray eyes.
“Sophia, here’s Mrs. Langevin and her maid Jeannette,” Hannah said.
Sophia sat up, her eyes brightening as she assessed Thérèse’s face and clothing. Thérèse felt suddenly glad that she’d had Jeannette arrange her hair afresh that morning and that the dress she wore was one of Mrs. Cutler’s daughter’s castoffs that she’d remade into something closer to the latest fashion and not one of the two she’d all but worn out in the course of her long journey.
“The Creole lady from New Orleans,” Sophia said. “I’m so delighted to make your acquaintance.”
Her accent was different from the other Tennesseans’, somehow lighter and more elegant. “And I, yours,” Thérèse replied. “I brought a dress for your baby.”
She unfolded the garment and presented it to the expectant mother, instinctively brushing her hand across the elegant tucks and stitching to draw Sophia’s attention to it.
“Why, how lovely! Where did you learn to sew so well? And do have a seat. I’d offer you a cup of tea, but...”
“I’ll make it,” Hannah said quickly, turning toward the hearth.
Thérèse took the rocking chair Sophia pointed her to, while Mrs. Cutler settled herself on a small straight-backed chair and Jeannette, after a moment’s hesitation, went to help Hannah. “I learned at my mother’s knee,” Thérèse said. It was true, but it wouldn’t cast doubt on her aristocratic disguise. A fine lady might indeed have been taught fancy needlework by her doting mother.
“I should have paid more attention, but embroidery was a bore, and there were always slaves for the practical things,” Sophia said. “You’re lucky to have been able to bring
your girl with you.”
“Without Jeannette my dear Henri and I would never have been able to elope,” Thérèse said. “And as her reward we mean to free her. She’s already free in my sight.”
Sophia’s eyes widened. “Oh. My grandfather freed some of his slaves in his will.”
Thérèse nodded. It was better than nothing, she supposed.
“This is so beautiful.” Sophia stroked the soft fabric. “After the baby is born, I mean to try harder.” She turned her earnest gaze to Mrs. Cutler. “I know I should. Only, it was all such a shock to me, leaving home, and then Obadiah left so soon to go down and fight. But he’s back now, and he means to build a second room for the cabin. It will be better now, I swear. I’ll learn to do the work.”
“Of course you will, dear,” Mrs. Cutler said soothingly. “There’s not a woman here who isn’t willing to help, if you’re ready to learn.”
“You’ve all been kinder than I deserve.” She turned to Thérèse again. “Hannah has talked about you so much, how you left your family behind and eloped, too, and rode all the way from New Orleans. And look at you! I’d like to be strong, like you.”
“I’m sure you’re strong,” Thérèse said. She wasn’t sure how to respond to what amounted to a confession from this near-stranger. “If I’d been with child, I’m sure I would’ve found the journey far more difficult.”
“Nonetheless. You defied your family and chose love, too, and you’ve done it with your head held high. I mean to do the same from now on.” Abruptly she went still, her hand resting on her abdomen, her eyes focused unseeing on the cabin wall. “Oh, dear,” she said. “That was stronger than the others.”
Was she going into labor? Thérèse fought an irrational urge to flee. It wasn’t as though she would be expected to deliver the baby, not with experienced, matronly Mrs. Cutler here.
Mrs. Cutler sat up, instantly alert, and Hannah and Jeannette turned from the hearth to stare, too. “The others?” Mrs. Cutler asked. “How long have you been having them?”
“Since a little after Obadiah left this morning.” Her pretty eyes narrowed in worry. “Do you think the baby is coming? Surely it’s still too soon.”
“Babies have a mind of their own about these things,” Mrs. Cutler said.
“I wish you’d said something this morning.” Hannah wrung her hands. “If I’d had any idea, I never would’ve left you alone.”
“It’s too soon,” Sophia repeated.
Thérèse bit her lip. Sophia must have a good idea indeed of when she’d conceived. “It isn’t too soon if the baby is ready,” she said, trying to sound reassuring. “And if you’d like, you can dress it in the new dress once it’s here.”
Sophia smiled. “I’d like that. Thank you.”
Mrs. Cutler took control of the call that had turned into something else entirely. She questioned and examined Sophia, made her drink tea—you’ll need all your strength, my dear—and after a moment’s hesitation kept Jeannette at her side to help her and Hannah, but sent Thérèse to inform Obadiah Wilson and certain older women who had much experience with births. Thérèse couldn’t be offended. Despite her youth Jeannette knew far more about childbirth than she did. She hurried on her way, glad to have a useful task to perform and secretly even gladder to be out of that cabin.
There was something pathetic about so proud and delicate a young lady brought to such a humble place, to what anyone in her world would call ruin. Thérèse didn’t think much of the world’s measures of rank and greatness, since they chiefly rested on having the good fortune to be born to ancestors who’d worked out how to grow fat on the labor of others and the callousness to go on taking such advantages. But she still pitied Sophia Wilson. She’d been given no training for this world. What had Wilson been thinking, to seduce her away from everything she’d ever known?
And there was the man himself, leading a pair of harnessed mules along the path toward his cabin. He frowned. “You’ve been to see Sophia?”
“Yes,” she said shortly. “And I left Mrs. Cutler and your sister there. Mrs. Cutler says the baby is coming.”
“So soon?” His eyes widened with what looked like terror. “Is she all right? Will—will she be all right?”
“I don’t know,” Thérèse said honestly. “I think she’s afraid, but she was talking about all the things she means to do after the baby comes, and surely Mrs. Cutler knows what to do.”
“Oh, my God.” His hands tightened on the mules’ headstalls. “If anything happens to her...”
“It won’t,” Thérèse said, though she was by no means confident. “Think of meeting your baby. Go to her now.”
He gave her a distracted nod and hurried on his way, swearing at the mules when they wouldn’t catch his panic. Thérèse didn’t trust herself to run on the uneven path, but she hurried to find the other matrons. After they’d bustled off, she found herself at the center of an anxious, gossiping cluster of younger women. She told them what she could but excused herself as soon as decently possible, claiming truthfully that with Mrs. Cutler busy at the Wilson cabin, she needed to cook dinner for her household.
Again she rejoiced to have something useful to do, and she made dinner more elaborate than an everyday meal warranted. She might lack most domestic accomplishments beyond dressmaking, and she was useless around a woman in childbirth, but at least she knew what to do in the kitchen. And while she couldn’t manage New Orleans food without New Orleans ingredients, Henry praised the spicy sauce she made for the venison, and if the Cutler men thought it rather too peppery, they were too polite to say so.
After dinner the four of them sat around the fire in desultory conversation. But through all the talk of plowing and planting, the speculation over whether the war had ended and Mr. Cutler’s private theory on the Antichrist in the Book of Revelation—which Thérèse argued against, the better to help Henry keep silent in the face of a slander against his king—she knew all anyone was thinking of was how Sophia fared.
“Should it take so long?” Henry burst out after they’d sat together in sleepy silence for several minutes.
“It can,” the elder Mr. Cutler said.
“But it isn’t good, is it?”
“I’ve heard first babies take longer,” Thérèse said, feeling called upon to impart feminine wisdom and reassurance despite her ignorance. “And maybe the baby is already born, and they’re staying to help.”
Somehow her word as a woman who’d never even witnessed a childbirth calmed the men, and after some discussion of whether the Cutlers ought to purchase a new mule, Henry suggested they all go to bed, pointing out their exhaustion would be of no use to Sophia Wilson or anyone else.
But as Thérèse yawned and took Henry’s outstretched hand to allow him to pull her to her feet, running footsteps thumped up the cabin steps and Jeannette burst inside. Her face was pale and sallow, her dark eyes wide and bloodshot. And her apron was liberally daubed with blood.
“What happened?” Thérèse asked. Surely the answer couldn’t be good.
“The baby lived.”
“But not the mother,” Henry said softly.
Jeannette shook her head. “She bled too much. She wouldn’t stop bleeding. We tried, but she wouldn’t stop.”
“And Obadiah?” Cutler asked.
“Sad. Angry. He wouldn’t look at the baby.”
“I’ll go to him.” Cutler took up a lantern and strode out.
Jeannette leaned against the doorpost and frowned after him. The last time Thérèse had seen her sister so shaken was the morning Bertrand died. “You’re cold,” she said. “You should wash and get out of those bloody things and come to bed. You can sleep with me, if you’d like,” she offered. “I’m sure Henri wouldn’t mind.” She met Henry’s eyes, pleading.
“I’ll sleep by the hearth,” he said.
Thérèse blinked. She hadn’t expected her sister to accept comfort so willingly.
“Are you all right?” she asked a little later when they were tucked together under the quilts.
Jeannette sighed in the darkness. “I am. It’s just—I’ve seen people die before, but never like that. Never that much blood, and after I’d spent hours working on them, thinking I could save them. Well, we could save them.”
“She wasn’t strong, I think. I’m sure you did everything you could.”
“No, and if she’d been listening to Mrs. Cutler and the other women, she might be alive, but it was horrible to watch. She was so scared.” Jeannette gripped her pillow. “You’re sure you’re not going to get pregnant? I know what you’ve been doing up here.”
“Nothing that would get me pregnant, I swear.”
Jeannette made a skeptical noise.
“No, it’s true. When you’re much older, I might even tell you how. Besides, it’s not as though every pregnant woman dies, or the human race would die out.”
“I know. But—you’re the only family I have left. I don’t want to watch you die.”
“I have no intentions of dying. But I’d like to have a few babies someday. If I can find anyone suitable to marry.” Thérèse bit her lip. She couldn’t imagine anyone but Henry as her husband, and that remained impossible.
“Someday. Not soon.”
“I don’t think there’s any chance of it being soon,” Thérèse said sadly. “Poor Sophia. Is the baby going to live, do you think? She thought it was coming too soon.”
“I think so. She breathed right from the first, and she’s small, but I’ve seen smaller babes thrive. Amy Taggart is going to nurse her. Her baby is three months old and she swears she has milk enough for two.”
Freedom to Love Page 19
