The Widow's War: A Novel Read online

  Lyddie walked the shore as far as the mill creek, then turned along the creek itself until hard peat turned to swamp, but she found nothing of Edward except the water that had suffocated him. She stood with her back against the wind and looked at the water, wondering what it was like, drowning, finding nothing in her life to bring her close to it until she turned around and the wind tore down her throat, snatching her breath. She tucked her chin and faced down the wind. This time, as she approached the bloody carcasses, she saw that a second phase of activity had begun; the try pots had been hauled from the try yard, and a handful of men and boys ran back and forth stacking firewood under the great kettles and lobbing thick chunks of blubber into the pots to boil down, while the old men stood by with their long-handled dippers, ready to skim off the oil. One of the men laid down his dipper and started toward her: Edward’s cousin Shubael Hopkins. Lyddie had had enough words from Shubael; she reached the track to the landing road before Shubael could hail her and turned down it.

  This time Lyddie snuck a look at Edward’s house and barn as she passed: the same gray salted shingles, the same heavy planked door, the same windows tucked up under the eaves, but the whole of it now seemed webbed in a strange new deadness. She hurried past onto the King’s road until Nathan Clarke’s house came into view, a grander thing than the others along the road, defying the wind for a full two stories.

  Nathan Clarke was about to receive a visitor: a long, gangly, rusty-haired gentleman had just swung his leg over the rump of an equally long and gangly bay horse. Putting man with horse, Lyddie came to the name: Ebenezer Freeman, Cousin Betsey’s brother, late of the village of Satucket and now practicing law in the town of Barnstable. Lyddie had come to know the lawyer around the edges of meetings with her husband or in accidental intercepts of his visits to his sister; she pushed herself up the drive and caught him just as he finished tying his horse inside the barn.

  Years of riding the court circuit in hard weather had given the once-clean planes and angles of the lawyer’s face a cobbled-together look; when he saw Lyddie his features disrupted themselves further.

  “Widow Berry! I’m just come from my sister’s. I was there last night when Shubael…I wish to say—” He stopped and looked away. “I do not…I’m sorry, I cannot—” He brought his eyes back. “Here, let me take you in out of the wind.”

  He reached for her arm. She pulled it away. Why must they all move so fast? From barn to house, from house to house, from wife to widow. She looked through the open barn door at Eben Freeman’s horse lipping hay off the ground; behind the horse stood a neat row of Nathan’s livestock: a pair of bays and a black, three cows…. She looked again. The black horse, the smaller cow, were Edward’s.

  She turned to the lawyer. “You called me widow just now. Am I assumed so before the law?”

  “Not now, no.”

  “When, then?”

  He paused. “You will be officially widowed when either your husband’s remains are returned to you or a court of law declares him dead.”

  “You made up his will, did you not?”

  Again, the pause.

  “We need wait for no court here, Mr. Freeman. My husband is dead. I would know my situation.”

  “Very well, then. In your husband’s will he gives you your standard ‘widow’s thirds.’ Mr. Clarke, as your nearest male relative, receives title to all property while you, as Edward’s relict, retain life use of a third of either the physical property itself or a third the interest resulting from its sale, whichever Mr. Clarke deems appropriate, for as long as you remain Edward Berry’s widow. Your husband stipulated that you might keep any personal property brought with you to the marriage; he further provided that you receive the use and maintenance of the cow. Your keep and care is to be charged to Mr. Clarke, again, for that period of your life in which you remain widowed. If you should so happen—” He broke off. “Widow Berry, you shiver. Please, come inside with me now.”

  He took her arm, and this time she let him turn her. Inside the house, the keeping room had grown livelier: Hassey scoured the floor, Mehitable tended a kettle, Jane trimmed and set candles while Bethiah sat at table scraping the mold off a squash.

  At the sound of the lawyer’s voice Nathan came out of his study. “Freeman! Glad to see you.”

  “My sympathies, Mr. Clarke. To you and—”

  “Yes, yes, we are greatly distraught. I don’t see how we’ll recover. Now come in here, we’ve a great deal to discuss on the matter.”

  He pulled the lawyer into the study and closed the door.

  3

  The Sabbath broke with a continued heavy wind swirling down the mill valley. The women and girls squeezed into the chaise, while father and son saddled their horses. The water mill stood quiet on the Sabbath, but nothing had quieted the creek, which foamed angrily out of the millpond, over the rocks and down the valley out of sight into the bay. Mehitable guided the chaise past the Smalley house and two more Clarke houses without seeing a living being; at Poverty Lane they overtook a cart full of Perrys and the Sears family on foot, and by the time they caught sight of the meetinghouse the King’s road was dotted with walkers and riders from both directions.

  Nathan Clarke dismounted in front of the meetinghouse and took charge of the carriage horse; the family spilled out onto the ground. Cousin Betsey came up and offered Lyddie some further words about Edward’s great reward at hand; Lyddie managed to receive the blessing and disengage in one turn, but she lost the image of Betsey’s soupy eyes only to gain a similar one of the bay beyond. She hurried in. She found Mehitable and the children in their pew, set her hot brick at her feet, and sat down. There were, as usual, near three times the number of women as men at meeting. Would that ratio hold in the life beyond? Lyddie wondered. Was that the reward Cousin Betsey had in mind for Edward?

  Linnell Foster brought his infant to the front to be baptized, and Lyddie heard a sharp crack of ice as the Reverend Dunne dipped into the bowl. The babe wailed as cold fingers touched the fragile skull. “Look not to this earth to find your comforts.” Those were the first and last of the minister’s words that Lyddie heard, but she couldn’t have said where her mind had gone for the remaining two hours; she would have said she thought of nothing, felt nothing, but cold.

  After the service they stepped out into stinging snow. Nathan Clarke decided they would pass the time before afternoon service at Bangs’s Inn across the way and led the family into the road. Lyddie found herself separated from her family by the Gray brothers, Jabez and Roland, who shouted back and forth to each other above the blow.

  “Sea won’t lay down for a week now.”

  “’Twouldn’t bother that mad Indian.”

  “He knows his way in a whaleboat, mad or no.”

  “Mebbe so, but I’ll not crew for him.”

  “He makes me more per share than any Englishman I know.”

  “Talk to me about shares when they fish you out of the drink.”

  “He saved those four, didn’t he? I guess I’ll not quarrel with him.”

  “Then I guess you’re not Edward Berry.”

  Edward’s name came back at her on the wind like a slap, bringing her up to pace, allowing her to catch up with her family just as they entered the inn. She set her brick in the fire with the others to re-warm, and looked around. The long room was thick with chattering folk likewise sheltering from the storm; the steam rose from their clothes, smoke whirled outward from fire and pipe, Lyddie felt more breathless than she had out in the wind. She took a step toward a nearby door and felt her arm gripped as if by a hawk’s claw. She whirled around and discovered that she’d been speared by the old midwife, Granny Hall.

  “Take heart, Widow Berry. Your husband sits at God’s hand, helping Him look after your children.”

  “Cannot God tend his dead alone? He should have ample time for the task, as he spends so little of it in care of the living.”

  Granny Hall blinked. Several people near Lyddie turned
around. She could feel the iron band of control that had wrapped her tightly for three days begin to rust at the edges; she slipped out of the old woman’s grip and passed through the nearest door into a smaller, empty room. The fire there had been neglected; she moved her skirt aside and got as near as she dared, but the heat failed to reach her face.

  A voice cut through the chill—a familiar voice—echoing from the depths of the next room.

  “Three good-size chambers below,” Nathan said, “plus one smaller, and the pantry, and nice, tight attics above.”

  “And the woodland?”

  “Six acres. And if you want his share in the sloop—”

  “What need I of shares in a sloop? I’m after setting up my daughter at housekeeping. Now if you were to offer furnishings—”

  “Furnishings! Certainly. But we barter separate on furnishings.”

  “Very well. For the house and woodland I’ll offer three.”

  “Four.”

  “Three-twenty.”

  “Three hundred and eighty pounds, Smalley, and there I rest as if against a wall. What say you?”

  “Very well. How long till we settle? The court must declare the death.”

  “’Tis no great matter; we’ve witnesses saw him go down.”

  “Yes, all right. But I shall want to look the place over.”

  “Then you shall look it over. Thursday nine suit you?”

  “Thursday nine.”

  The footsteps divided, one pair fading, one sharpening. Lyddie turned, preferring to meet whichever party came her way eye to eye, and as she was tall and Deacon Smalley short, she did so literally. He looked surprised to find her off alone in the empty room but recovered himself with the usual civility.

  “Good day to you, Widow Berry.”

  Lyddie dipped her head. “You were speaking to Mr. Clarke about my husband’s house?”

  “Ah, so you’ve heard, and now you must chastise! Very well, I give you my word there’ll be no more talk of business on the Sabbath. Will that satisfy?”

  “My concern is not the Sabbath, my concern is the house.”

  “Then you’ve no concern, Widow Berry. Your son and I have it well in hand. Now I must be off to collect my family. Good day to you, Widow Berry.”

  Lyddie woke to a clean, pure silence, as if a cloud of nagging insects had suddenly flown off. No more wind, but in its place came the smell of oil from the try pots, seeping through the cracks as insistently as the wind had done in the days previous.

  And it was colder. Lyddie used the night jar and hurried into her clothes, pausing when she heard a sharp crack on the outer door. Early for a visitor. She heard hushed voices, heavy feet, shuffling feet, Bethiah’s piping, “Who is it? Oh! Who is it? What, Jane? What? ’Tis not! Oh, ’tis not!”

  Lyddie heard the rest as if inside a well: Nathan’s order for a blanket, the scrape of a chair, the clatter of a bucket, the thud of booted heels on wood. She opened the door and crossed the keeping room to the table, where the family had assembled around the thing that remained of Edward. She reminded herself that this was what she had been hunting on the shore, this proof of him dead, and here was proof beyond testing. His rough work clothes remained intact, but his exposed face and hands had been ravaged by the sea bottom or whatever scavengers still lurked in the frigid water; she had trouble finding her husband under the discolored, misshapen, tattered flesh. Better the sea had kept him.

  She felt a not ungentle hand on her elbow. Nathan’s.

  “Let us pray.”

  The family dropped to their knees around the table. “Blessed are they who die in the Lord,” Nathan said.

  The amens rang around her.

  4

  Lyddie moved through time with a mindless will borne of long practice. People passed in and out, carrying with them the pervasive scent of whale oil, draping Lyddie in piousness; the long, muffled night cracked open with more visits and more prayers, and in the morning the solemn procession marched to the churchyard, after which everyone turned from Lyddie with clandestine relief and went back to their own business.

  Nathan Clarke called her into his study that night after his supper. He sat at his desk with his chair turned from her, his waistcoat open over his rounded belly, a pipe in hand and a tumbler at the ready. He twisted a pouched neck in her direction.

  “I’ve good news for you, Mother. Deacon Smalley’s made a handsome offer for Father’s house and woodland, as well as its furnishings. I should say this will bring you a tidy sum for all your pins and ribbons.”

  “Some of those furnishings came with me to my marriage.”

  “No doubt.”

  “I understand from Mr. Freeman those things remain with me now.”

  Nathan Clarke had lifted the tumbler but paused without drinking. “Well, indeed, if you desire them. As you’re well aware, my wife has, with great goodwill, relinquished the large front chamber for your use, but as I’m sure you’ve taken note, there’s little room elsewhere to displace its current furnishings. Far wiser to sell the bulk of yours to Deacon Smalley and thereby augment your earnings. Now, if you wish to keep the odd candlestick here, a piece of dinnerware there…I know you possess a few nice bits and naturally—”

  “I have need of a few things, yes.”

  He took his drink and set the glass down crisply. “Very well, then. Collect them before Thursday nine, so I may strike them off the inventory.”

  She asked the Negro Jot, Hassey’s husband, to take her in the wagon. The smell from the try pots remained strong, and Lyddie’s throat tightened against it, tightened again when she saw the house. That look of utter deadness persisted. She pushed open the door, saw the cold hearth, and understood what had seemed so wrong as she stood outside the door: she had seldom seen her chimney without its smoke.

  She stepped inside, closed the door behind her, and moved straight to the hearth. Except for the absence of fire, nothing had changed—the pot hung from the crane; trivets, toaster, and iron spider sat on the bricks; Edward’s pipe, tongs, and musket hung from their hooks above; her wool wheel and flax wheel sat in their corner. Lyddie took the tinderbox off the shelf, laid the rag on the hearth, and set to work with the flint and steel. It was not her best skill; one day of mortification early in her marriage she’d allowed her fire to go out and had run to the Smalleys to borrow a live coal rather than go through the ordeal with the tinder, but at last she got a spark, and from the spark came a smolder and from the smolder a flame. She scrabbled in the wood box for bits of bark and fed the flame into a decent burn and eased on more wood until the heat set her back on her heels. She sat that way until she warmed, but as soon as the discomfort of the cold was gone she became aware of the greater discomfort of an idle pair of hands.

  Lyddie stood and looked around, sorting mentally through her things: the table and chairs, which Edward had made, would have to be left behind for the deacon’s daughter, but she would take her iron and copper kettles, old friends through twenty years of marriage, as well as her pewter plates and tankards and spoons. Lyddie knew of mothers and daughters who ignored the custom of keeping their households separate despite sharing a roof, but Mehitable had made no such hint, and Lyddie had not expected it. Unless invited otherwise, Lyddie would take her own meals at her own fire, but as she and her daughter would use the oven on different days and launder on different days they might share the dough trays and bread peel, buckets and washtubs. Lyddie would keep her own milk pans and molds, hoping to find room for them in Mehitable’s buttery. After all, Edward had seen that she would have her own cow, knowing full well her pride in her cheeses; in fact, he had himself proudly pushed so many wedges on their callers that Lyddie had once accused him of trying to get rid of it.

  Lyddie crossed to the front room. Here there were few things that had come with her to the marriage, but several that she counted among her treasures: a miniature of Edward in a silver frame that he’d commissioned for her in Boston, a favorite candle stand, the cherry te
a table, the looking glass Edward had carried home for her all the way from the Carolinas. She would take the miniature, of course, but she could lay no true claim to the stand or table; surely, though, the looking glass could be said to belong to her?

  Lyddie approached the glass. It had been weeks since she’d looked at herself, and she was shocked at the change but unable to name its specifics. The twists and falls of hair held the same lone swath of white, the fans at the corners of her eyes hadn’t deepened, but cheek and jaw protruded, as if the loss of her old desires and cares had hollowed her, honed her to a new keenness. She must learn to know this woman. She would take the glass.

  Lyddie carried the glass through the short hall, past the stairs, into the bedchamber opposite the front room, and there she found most of the things that were indeed lawfully hers. The bed had come with her to her marriage, her own hands had pulled the goose down that filled the bed tick, she’d stitched her eyes blurry on the coverlet and hetcheled the flax and spun the thread and woven the cloth that had made the linen underneath it. Still, Lyddie had no need of bed or tick at Nathan Clarke’s; she would take the coverlet and linens and leave the bed for Smalley to buy from her. She piled the bedding into her arms, returned to the keeping room, and spread it on the table. She took the pewter off the hutch and wrapped each plate with care until she realized that as she worked she was listening for sounds from the other room, straining for something to fill the empty air. She stopped working and turned back to the fire. It was still in healthy blaze, but she wanted more—a wild flame, a loud roar, a heat thick enough to choke the deadness around her. She reached for a log but paused before dropping it on the fire, seeing a vision of Edward with ax in hand, out on the woodlot in the bitter wind, but soon enough she came to another vision: Nathan Clarke and Deacon Smalley haggling over the woodpile as they’d haggled over the woodlot, the one growing richer as the other grew warmer, as Edward grew colder, as she grew colder….