The widow's war Read online

  Doane: “Indeed? In that case—”

  Clarke: “Oh, the devil take it! Jot! Where the devil is Jot? Jot! Go to Shubael Hopkins and fetch us back Freeman. Tell him the Widow Berry wants him; that should set him running.”

  There followed a span of time during which none appeared willing to approach Lyddie except the lawyer Doane, but Lyddie was sorry he bothered, for otherwise she might have excused herself from the room. Lawyer Doane chattered on about the differences in the weathers between Satucket and Boston, the likelihood of rain, and the condition of the roads, until Jot returned with Eben Freeman.

  Lyddie had not really expected him to come, but she was glad, very glad to see him. He was the tallest, if leanest, man in the room, and adding him to Lyddie’s side of the table went a good way to correcting the imbalance.

  Doane gave a brief summation, during which Freeman controlled his features well, shooting only one look at Lyddie for confirmation.

  As soon as Doane ceased speaking, Nathan Clarke took it up. “If you think to make mountains out of molehills, Freeman, you’ll find yourself in want of earth to move around. This is nothing but a lack of understanding.”

  “I’ve noticed no lack in the widow’s understanding,” Freeman said. “By the condition of her husband’s will she’s perfectly within her right to retain her use of a third the property, in addition to her keep and care—”

  “Which keep and care she will receive, once she puts pen to paper.”

  “Which keep and care she will receive whether or not she puts pen to paper.”

  Nathan gave a crusted laugh. “Very well, Freeman, how do you see your client managing her property?”

  “If she were to set up her fire in the easterly corner of the keeping room hearth, and keep a table and chair and cupboard at that end, and put her bed in the southeast chamber, and take charge of the pantry, as well as a corner of the barn for keeping of her cow, I think she would be well within the strictures of the will and the laws of the colony.”

  “Indeed. And who shall muck out the cow’s corner and harvest its hay and chop her wood? Does she think herself rich enough to hire out such chores?”

  “She thinks you rich enough, Mr. Clarke. You’re charged by her husband’s will to keep her in comfort. Now in the case of the Widow Howland, ‘comfort’ was determined by the court at forty cords of wood a year, eight bushels of Indian meal, two of rye, eighty pounds of beef, fifty of pork—”

  “Mr. Doane,” Nathan said, “pray, put a stop to this nonsense.”

  Mr. Doane gazed at Mr. Freeman. “I make the eighty pounds of beef to be high. In the case of the Widow Selew—”

  “Hang the Widow Selew!” Nathan said. “What care I about the Widow Selew? ’Tis all mad chatter, Mr. Doane, I assure you. Do you imagine a woman of her age would give over such easy life under my roof to live alone in squalor?”

  “Squalor?” Lyddie said. “You think your wife’s parents lived a life of squalor? You may keep your chaise and your silver porridge bowls and your servants. You may even keep your eighty pounds of beef. I’ll take the wood and the hay and the meal and my third of the house to live in.”

  Freeman’s head whipped around, his features at last unbridled. “A minute,” he said. “Gentlemen, you will excuse us a minute,” and without ceremony he grasped Lyddie’s arm, drew her from the study and into her room, closing the door behind them.

  “My dear madam,” he said, “what are you about?”

  “I’m about governing my life, Mr. Freeman.”

  “When I spoke just now…but surely you knew? I spoke to give pause, to perhaps achieve some small addition to your keep and care. I in no way recommend a course of separation from this household. Why, it would be madness.”

  “Very well, then, call me mad. But take no blame on yourself; you didn’t invent this idea, in fact, you’ve done nothing but shown me a way to remove several obstacles. With ample wood and grain—”

  “No, no, no. The law is one thing; the other is the practicality of the situation. Do you think for a minute that by casting yourself outside your son’s care—”

  “He must care for me wherever I am. Did you not just say so?”

  They stood and stared across the foot of space between them, like two people who had just met by surprise in the road, one come from a wedding and one from a funeral. Standing so close, Lyddie noticed that the lawyer’s queue was caught up in his collar. He’d ridden out in such haste he hadn’t settled his coat on his shoulders; he’d taken a good piece out of his day on her behalf; she owed him a great debt that she had no means to repay. She could do nothing for him but reach up and lay flat his queue, but the simple gesture loosed another flood of emotion across his features; as she removed her hand he caught it in his own long fingers.

  “Widow Berry. Lydia. You see? I say your given name, speaking to you now as a husband would if he were present. As your husband would. He talked of what he wished for you, what he felt was best for you—”

  “And you agreed with him? That my best happiness lay in my son Clarke’s home?”

  The eyes flickered away.

  Nathan Clarke shoved open the door. “All right now, you’ve had your little chat. Come, Mother, and sign the paper. Doane must be off to Barnstable this hour.”

  “I shall be glad to sign a paper,” Lyddie said. “As long as it’s one written up to the specification just now outlined by my lawyer.”

  Lyddie might as well have stuck Nathan with her knitting pin. She had some trouble believing that her own son-in-law would say such things, not only to her, but also to Eben Freeman. It drove all the visitors from the house in quick order, except Eben Freeman, whose presence did nothing for Lyddie but draw half the venom. Even Mehitable’s soft tones served as nothing but kindling, although she did manage to entice her husband out of their presence, if not out of their hearing.

  “’Tis done!” Nathan roared from the next room. “Over! Finished! I’ll not have her in front of my eyes! I’ll not have her at my table! She’ll find out what kindness she’s forfeited! Let her sleep in the barn with the bloody cow if she wishes!”

  Eben Freeman cleared his throat. “I wonder if you might like to dine with my sister and me. She’s often suggested it.”

  Lyddie accepted.

  Betsey greeted her cousin with the kind of welcome Lyddie recognized as that of a woman whose husband had just left for a season on the Canada River. Eben Freeman attempted to portray the events of the morning in the lightest possible manner, but Betsey’s eyes immediately turned the size and color of pewter porringers.

  “You’ll stay the night,” she decided. “Let the man cool. We’ll send Eben back with a message so they won’t fret about you.”

  It seemed like a good idea to Lyddie. No doubt it seemed a better one to Mehitable; when Eben Freeman returned he carried a sack for Lyddie in which her daughter had packed two skirts, two shifts, one gown, her hair comb, her letter book, and four pairs of stockings, both winter and summer.

  13

  Lyddie slept poorly. The room she’d been given smelled like paper and ink and horse and tobacco and sweat-dampened broadcloth; she began to suspect she’d been put to bed in the room Eben Freeman used while visiting his sister. The Hopkinses had two girls only left at home, but had in addition taken in an old woman called Aunt Goss, no living person’s aunt as far as anyone knew, but called so by Eben Freeman, who had been great childhood friends with her son. Aunt Goss’s husband had gone out of Nantucket on a whaler and not come back—it had been rumored he lived in the Azores with a mistress—and her one son had been gored by a bull and died some years previous. When Aunt Goss had become enfeebled, Eben Freeman had made arrangement with his sister and her husband to keep her at his charge. Aunt Goss lived in the tiny northeast bedroom, while Shubael and Betsey occupied the southwest one and Lyddie the southeast. Which left Freeman where, up in one of the old beds on the boys’ side of the attics?

  The suspicion seemed confirmed at b
reakfast when the table had to be cleared of several thick wallets of paper, and the thought that Lyddie had disrupted a second household made her dull. The conversation moved around the table with no great help from the others; the two girls fetched and carried in dragging silence; Aunt Goss seemed at best blind and deaf, and at the worst witless; she dropped her shriveled face as close to her plate as she could and picked at the same crust of bread with knotted fingers; Betsey chattered into the air on a variety of subjects that could interest no one but herself; Freeman ate with a steady concentration and an occasional indiscriminate “indeed,” or a nod of the head in his sister’s direction.

  As Betsey wrapped the bread in a cloth Lyddie said, “Thank you for your hospitality, Cousin. I’ll be off as soon as I get my things together.”

  “Off?” Freeman said. “I don’t know that I call that wise. Best you keep my sister company in my absence. I leave for Barnstable this minute.”

  “Barnstable!” Betsey said. “What’s this news? And when was I to be told of it?”

  Freeman attempted to signal his sister with a lifted finger, which Lyddie caught, but Betsey didn’t. Even Aunt Goss raised her head and looked back and forth between them like a small brown sparrow hunting seeds.

  “Did I not say it yesterday?” Freeman said. “I’m sure I said it yesterday. I distinctly recall asking you what you wished me to bring you from Barnstable as my way of thanking you for your kind hospitality.”

  “Hospitality! What a word between family! You fuss over me too much and I’ve often said it. Perhaps some small trifle; last time you gave handkerchiefs, did you not? Very nice. You know my taste; I’m much more simple-minded than some others in our village. Have you seen Mrs. Smalley’s hair comb? Far too grand for me. But if you’re off to Barnstable, let me give you a package for Henry.” She left the room.

  Freeman glanced at Aunt Goss, whose chin had dropped to her chest as if she were sleeping. He turned to Lyddie. “I’ve some trouble understanding my sister,” he said. “For instance, this gift. Common sense suggests a repeat of the handkerchiefs; instinct, however, directs me to the hair comb.”

  “I think you understand your sister very well.”

  “My wife was of a different nature. In some ways, you remind me of her. What you mean to say, you say.”

  “And what I’d better not say as well.”

  He smiled. “A small price to pay for the larger principle.”

  Betsey came back with her parcel. Eben Freeman took it and stood. “Good-bye, Sister. Good-bye, girls. Good-bye, Widow Berry.” He glanced at Aunt Goss. Her mouth lay open, but her eyes had closed. Nonetheless, he stepped over to her and touched his lips to her temple. The eyes never opened, but Lyddie noticed the gnarled hand lifted just far enough to pat Freeman’s. He turned back to Lyddie. “Enjoy your visit.”

  As soon as he was gone Betsey started up again. It was hard, very hard, to be left alone with an old woman and two sickly girls, her husband and sons all gone, not a single male relation left in the village. She’d understood her brother had had a good deal of business with Winslow over the millstream, and she’d looked forward to his having a nice, long stay in Satucket, but now he was gone to Barnstable. She hoped he remembered to stop at her son’s and deliver her package. Henry’s wife had served Betsey a turned leg of mutton on her last trip to Barnstable and she’d been determined not to say a thing about it, but when it appeared again the second day…

  Lyddie stood. “I must be off,” she said.

  “Off! Whatever are you saying? Did you not hear what Brother told you? You’re to stay here, he said. He said—”

  “I must go, Cousin.”

  Lyddie went to her room; Betsey followed and fussed around her as she assembled her belongings, but once she saw there was no turning her she gave over and went to fetch a wedge of cheese and loaf of bread for Mehitable in exchange for the eggs she’d delivered.

  Lyddie left the house with Betsey’s voice and Aunt Goss’s sparrow eyes, open now, following her closely. She headed straight along the King’s road, but at Foster’s way she found herself cutting shoreward, thinking to avoid any traffic on the main road, and along with the traffic, any questions. The road was wet but firm and she found the first decent sun of April comforting. She thought of nothing else but the unexpected fineness of the day until she reached the Point of Rock and saw Bangs’s sloop in the channel, unloading lumber across the flats. Several men looked up as she passed, raised their arms in greeting, and went back to their business. What was one more housewife on the beach with her sack, collecting sand to scrub her floors? She turned left and strode the track along the sedge ground behind the lip of dune. She made poor time over the rough surface, and after a few rods, with a growing damp under the heavy hair at the back of her neck, she came to another opinion about the sun; by the time she reached Robbin’s landing she was dripping under her arms and between her breasts and thighs, but she had managed to come the whole way without speaking to anyone.

  Lyddie left the shore for the landing road and continued down it until she reached the Cowett house. She saw Rebecca Cowett setting plants and waved to her but continued without stopping. When she reached her old house she circled it and went straight to the well. The dark, silky water gleamed up at her; she pumped a bucketful, and before the water even touched her lips she could taste the cool sweetness. She drank hard, and when she was through she dipped both hands in the bucket, splashing her face and neck and halfway up her arms. She bent down, removed her shoes and stockings, and dashed water up under her skirt. She stood still until the breeze took hold of the wet spots and she shivered; she sank down and stretched her length on the grass to dry off in the sun. When had she last done such a silly thing as lie in the sun? she wondered. Before she’d become old enough to sew and scrub and cook; before the age of four, then.

  Lyddie lay in the grass a long time, not to rest, but to feel her space between the two worlds: the damp earth below, the warm sun above. And in what world might she find Edward now? Lyddie wondered. But as she wondered, she discovered that along with her loss of faith in God she’d also lost faith in his heaven and hell. And had she also lost faith in Edward’s soul? No, she decided. He was too much with her. Which left her the problem that if Edward’s soul were neither above nor below, where was it? Did he walk the earth? And if he walked the earth, would he walk it here, in this place of his domestic comforts, or would he choose a place of power, such as the deck of a sloop, or the meetinghouse during town meeting, or even the tavern, where, as Edward had once said, ideas were born, along with the bastards? She knew too little of the world of men to say for sure what Edward might choose; she could say only what she might choose in the same instance. But even to say what she might choose didn’t answer the question, because Edward’s choices were not her choices. Her choices were this house or that house, this man or that man. Or herself, alone.

  Alone. The word rang through her head like a promise. This house that was written so deeply on her heart, why must she leave it now? She had Betsey’s loaf of bread and a wedge of cheese that would keep her two days, three if she were parsimonious. Betsey would think her at Nathan’s; Nathan, if he cared, would think her at Betsey’s. Two or three days in her old corner, and she would ask for nothing more.

  Something set off a trio of crows. They shot out of the woodlot, beating and screaming at the air. Lyddie sat up. The birds settled in the garden on last year’s pumpkin vine, but whatever had spooked them continued to disturb their peace; they retched out their warning until Lyddie began to believe them. She got up, no longer wet, but certainly damp and most certainly stiff. She worked her spine straight and faced the birds. “Be gone!” she shouted.

  The birds flew off, rebutting her all the way. Lyddie returned to the dooryard, picked up her sack, and went into the house. A hush as thick as pudding met her. And more damp. She felt a strong desire for tea and looked without hope at the shelf. Little of value remained on it but the odd bits of croc
kery, the salt box, the worn dough tray, several wooden trenchers and—she saw it without lifting her expectation—her rusted tin tea canister. She pried open the lid and found enough stale leaves for a day or two. She could feel her mouth relax, the corners rise. She went straight to the tinderbox and worked the flint, worked it and worked it without a spark. The fear rose in her. She had crossed her son and her lawyer. She had spurned her cousin. She should never have left Betsey’s; she should never have come here.

  The rag caught. Lyddie fed it a few sticks from the bottom of the wood box and sat back on her heels, as breathless and sweating as she’d been during the walk. She picked up the bucket and returned to the well. The day had gone the way of most fine April days: one minute all sun and warmth, the next chill and gray. The crows had left their post in the garden; either the danger had not materialized and they had returned to the wood, or whatever it was that had scared them in the first place had now chased them farther away. Lyddie pumped the handle and filled her bucket, feeling the rawness of disuse in her upper arms, and again as she lugged the bucket up the path. Half the bucket went straight to the kettle and the kettle to the fire; the rest went by the door for washing. She was ready for food but decided not to eat; a meal postponed meant a meal saved. She went instead to her old room, the east chamber, the one Eben Freeman had posited as hers under law. She had left nothing on the bed but an old blanket to protect the tick; she’d expected Smalley’s daughter and her new husband to sleep on it next, but instead she would sleep on it, in her clothes, under the musty blanket, alone.

  Alone. But why did she not feel alone? She pulled the blanket off the bed and carried it outside for a shake and a snap. She draped it over the inkberry bush and went back to inspect the bed tick. It had survived the mice but needed a good fluffing; she wrestled it outside to join the blanket. Next she swept up the mice droppings and dead insects and cobwebs that had collected in the corners, and by then she was starving. The tea was ready; since she had no milk or sugar or even molasses she took it straight, but Betsey’s loaf was sweet, and it all went down together in a welcome paste. She cut a thin wedge of cheese and looked around the keeping room, noticing other things that had been removed since her last visit: Edward’s pipe and tongs, his musket, the clock. And why not? Those things were Nathan’s now. Lyddie was surprised to discover in herself the sense of greatest loss over the musket. Edward had taught her to fire it back in the early days of their marriage, after a band of Iroquois had beaten in the door of his brother’s house in Duxbury, and although the Cape Indians had never troubled their English neighbors, Lyddie had shot more than one fox with that musket. She had taken comfort in that musket.