The widow's war Read online

  Lyddie finished her meal, scoured her plate and cup, brought in the bed tick and blanket, and stood idle.

  In Lyddie’s old life there would have been much to do, so much that she wouldn’t see the end of it, but now she had no workbox for sewing or knitting, no flour for baking, no soap for washing, no tallow for candle making. Neither had she a garden to tend, a cow to milk, eggs to collect, or husband to feed and clothe.

  It grew dark. Lyddie found three candles in the candle box, but as she had no book or handwork she decided not to waste them. She banked the flame, went to her old room, and still in her clothes, got under the old blanket. She was more exhausted than she’d been in months, but instead of sleeping she lay awake, listening to the house.

  She’d forgotten it. That creak, was it the shadblow outside the window, or the dried-out ship’s knee beam in the attic? And that scratching sound—bullbrier against glass, or mice? In the woods an owl—or was it a dying rabbit?—let out a wild screech, and Lyddie sat up. She swung her feet to the floor and felt the smooth planks that Edward had laid.

  “Are you here?” she whispered.

  Something answered with a dry rattle that could have been a man’s rusty laugh, watery cough, or last year’s corn husk.

  14

  Lyddie came awake with the mourning doves. As she walked to the necessary a lemon-pink band was just pushing up the gray sky on its eastern edge, and the tang of the sand flats caught at her nose. On her return trip to the house she noticed the plum bushes were in bloom and that a number of shoots had cleared the accumulated leaves in the garden.

  She blew up the fire, boiled herself some weak tea, and cut a thin slab of bread; after that, for no good reason that she could think of, as she had nothing to put in it, she decided to go out into the garden and clear away the rot. She visited the barn first. It smelled of old dung, musty hay, and something dead, probably a trapped bird or a rodent. Nathan must have had no need of a new shovel or an ax because she found both of Edward’s left behind for Smalley to buy, but the only hoe was a broken one, with a bare foot of handle attached; she took it with her, along with an old sack to kneel on.

  The minute Lyddie settled down on her knees the crows in the woodlot started up again; well let them, she thought, there’d be no corn for them to scavenge this year, and no flax for her to pull and spin into linen thread, and no cucumber or cabbage or squash or beans or anything else. So why did she bother over this bit of ground?

  Lyddie’s mind continued to work along that theme, but her fingers paid no attention. They picked away the dead stuff first and then attacked the earth with the broken hoe—the soil came up in thick chunks like molasses candy, and she had to work it loose with her fingers.

  Lyddie had worked well past the dinner hour and cleared an eight-foot square of earth when Eben Freeman rode up. He dismounted stiffly; it might have been that or it might have been the lack of his usual effort to disarrange his face that made him appear to have aged since their last visit.

  “I’ve just been to Clarke’s in search of you,” he said. “My sister said you’d gone back, but the Clarkes were adamant you hadn’t.”

  “And then you came here?”

  “I knew full well where you’d be.”

  “Clever.”

  “I’m surprised to hear you say so. Having ignored my counsel, having deceived both my sister and myself—”

  “I intended to deceive no one, Mr. Freeman.”

  “And what do you intend to live on?”

  “Your sister sent me away with a loaf and cheese for Mehitable, a small theft I hope to make good at a later time, but for now—”

  “Do I understand you? You alienate all source of support and hinge your existence on a loaf and a cheese? Or do you count on whatever it is that might sprout by divine intervention out of bare ground?”

  He pointed to the earth at Lyddie’s feet. She’d been prepared to admit her intention of staying only two or three days, but how, then, to explain the garden? “Did you find your sister’s gift in Barnstable?” she asked instead.

  By the look he gave her she might have asked him if he’d found the king’s jewels in Barnstable. “No, I did not. I was otherwise occupied the short time I was in town, and was in some hurry to return, thinking I might now resolve—” He broke off.

  Lyddie dusted her hands and walked toward the house. Freeman followed her.

  “I would ask you to dine, but you might guess the menu.”

  “You can make a joke of this?”

  “Yes,” Lyddie said, realizing it only as she spoke. “I’ve dirt on my hands, a catch in my back, and an ache in my stomach, but I feel more like myself than I’ve felt in months. My one difficulty at the moment is determining how I might repay a loaf and cheese. And I’m well aware I owe you for your recent services.”

  “You owe me nothing. Your husband compensated me previously for all matters that might arise relating to his estate.”

  “Very well, then.”

  “Very well? By now I suspect he would like to strike me dead. To have set you off here alone, at odds with your son—”

  “You’re not responsible for what I’ve done, Mr. Freeman, although as such an admirer of Mr. Otis I should think you of all people would understand it.”

  “I am at a loss to know what Mr. Otis might have to do with this.”

  “Did he not talk of a man’s right to sit as secure in his house as any prince in his castle?”

  “A man, yes. A woman is another matter entirely.”

  “Your Mr. Otis spoke of giving women the same rights as men.”

  “He also spoke of giving them to the Negro, and yet he doesn’t free his own servant. Mr. Otis speaks in theories only. You cannot—”

  “Why don’t you tell me what I can do, Mr. Freeman? If you must continue this conversation, that would be a more useful topic. Am I or am I not allowed by law to be here?”

  “You’re allowed by law, yes. But you must see, you’re too clever a woman not to see—”

  “That the law will be of little use to me? I do see that, yes.”

  Freeman’s face took on a muddy, slapped appearance. “Excuse me for disturbing you. Good afternoon.”

  “Good afternoon,” Lyddie said. She might have added something else to ease the parting, but her easing skills seemed to have played out along with Edward. She considered it no mean gift that she at least managed to say nothing else until Freeman had remounted his horse and departed.

  Lyddie had just finished her much delayed dinner of bread and cheese when she heard another horse. She looked out, identified her son-in-law, and decided to take up a position of strength on the stoop, if for nothing else than to raise herself above him as he approached. It seemed to work. He bounced off the horse and strode up the walk like a deer flushed from the woodlot but slowed as he drew close and came to a full stop with some feet yet left between them.

  “Well. ’Tis true, then.”

  “I don’t know. If you mean am I here, then, yes.”

  “And you think to stay.”

  “I see no lawful reason why I should not occupy my third of the house.”

  “While you deny me the sale of my portion? Do you expect me to feed and clothe you at the same time that you take food out of my own family’s mouth?”

  “I expect nothing which—”

  “You expect rightly, then. You’re no mother to me or to my wife. As of this date you’re cut loose.”

  He turned and walked back to his horse. Nathan had always chosen leggy beasts, no doubt hoping it would augment his own stature; in fact, it made him appear nothing but what he was: a small man on a big horse.

  15

  Cut loose. The words hung around Lyddie like so much fog for the rest of that day and through the night, never making their meaning clear until the morning, when she stepped outside and caught sight of the woodpile. From the distance it looked like a pile of chicken bones after a good boiling; she moved closer and saw she might get
to October on it, especially if she had no food to cook or clothes to wash. She walked past her cleared patch of garden and thought, I can do that much—plant my garden—and then thought, plant it with what?

  Lyddie hadn’t sent the thought up as a prayer. It couldn’t have been God, then, who sent Rebecca Cowett around the corner of the house with a basket on her arm.

  “My husband told me you were back and at your garden,” she said. “You start so late, I thought to speed you a little.”

  And how had her husband known Lyddie was back? Well, the smoke, of course. But how had he known she was at her garden? Then Lyddie remembered the crows starting up in the woodlot, without any apparent provocation. Did he lurk there and spy? No, she decided. If Sam Cowett wanted to know anything of her plans, he’d have walked up and said “You’re back, then,” as he’d done the last time.

  Rebecca Cowett set the basket on the bare earth. Lyddie looked into it and saw cabbage stumps, tiny squash and cucumber sprouts, young strawberry plants, and a few onion sets. All very nice, but she’d be long starved by the time any of it proved useful.

  Wheels rattled on the rough road, and both women looked up. An ox and a cart, with a boy and girl in front. Nate and Bethiah. And Lyddie’s trunk. They pulled up to the dooryard and got down; the girl began to unload a pile of linens from the cart, and Nate came toward the women with a paper in his hand.

  “Your grandchildren,” Rebecca said. “I’ll not disturb your visit.”

  Nate approached and handed Lyddie the folded paper. She opened it.

  Mother,

  I have sent your belongings to you. I don’t know why you have done this thing, but as you have chosen to do it you must understand you are no longer welcome at this house.

  Mehitable

  “Widow Berry?”

  Lyddie looked up. Rebecca Cowett had not moved far; she now retraced her steps and laid a hand on Lyddie’s arm. “Is all well, Widow Berry?”

  Nate had already gone back to the cart where Bethiah tugged at the trunk, her cheeks for once spotted with color, her wrists like stripped twigs awkwardly bending under the weight. Nate took the handle from her, and she moved around to shove from the other end. Lyddie transferred her eye to the Indian woman. “Yes. Thank you. Good-bye.”

  Lyddie stepped toward the cart, the Indian woman coming with her. Nate had staggered off toward the house with another load, but Bethiah lingered at the cart, fiddling with Lyddie’s workbox. Lyddie moved toward her, and Bethiah knocked over the box, spilling knitting pins and sewing needles and buttons and tape onto the ground. Lyddie and Rebecca Cowett stooped, but Bethiah sidled away to the far side of the cart.

  Rebecca Cowett began to chatter as she picked up buttons and put them back in the box: what handsome buttons, she needed buttons for her husband’s coat, she never understood how a man could be so hard on a coat; but all the while Lyddie felt the Indian woman’s eyes on her, like a black swamp, smothering her.

  Lyddie took up the box and headed with it toward the house. Nate passed her in silence, hustled Bethiah into the cart, and drove off.

  Lyddie worked in the garden till dusk, setting Rebecca Cowett’s plants, sifting the meager fireplace ash around their stems, the crows now encouraged to come back and discuss among themselves their plans for their forthcoming dinner. As Lyddie worked she thought about Mehitable’s note. I don’t know why you have done this thing, but as you have chosen to do it… But when had Lyddie ever chosen? What had she ever chosen?

  Well, she had chosen Edward. She’d been heavily courted by a second cousin from Truro, who had taken the eight-hour journey on horseback twice each month, but Edward had caught her up on her way to meeting one day, handed her a chestnut burr, and said, “Best keep this near you. ’Tis good for putting on chairs to fend off idiot suitors.”

  “I’ve no idiot suitors,” Lyddie had snapped back.

  “Then you must be one yourself, for he’s the surest idiot on earth. No brain, no wit, no anything but chin. Are you fond of chins, then?” And he jutted out his own. It was the kind of chin that finished off the face without a great deal of fanfare, but all through meeting, whenever Lyddie had snuck a look at him, Edward Berry had pushed his chin in the air.

  So she had chosen Edward.

  Lyddie dusted the garden dirt from her clothes and went inside. The house had cooled, and she thought with relief of the bed linens that had come with the children. She ate some bread, now down to the heel, and drank some water, made up the bed and climbed into it, but again lay sleepless, this time thinking about the children. She had barely come to know them, and now, she imagined, she would know them no better. She might see them at meeting or around town, watching from a distance as Bethiah took on the look of a consumptive and Nate went off to Harvard College; Jane would grow lovelier every day until she married and had her own children, and from there her beauty would unravel as quickly as it had come on. And Mehitable? Mehitable would bear and lose her own children, of course, any number of them, if she survived to do it. Lyddie’s chest tightened at the thought of Mehitable in childbed until the very tightness wore her out and she dozed off. She slept and woke, slept and woke, slept and woke, till dawn, but with light came some thought with purpose. She must have food; that was first on the list. And she must return Rebecca Cowett’s basket with a proper thanks. And thinking of the two together, she thought she might be able to accomplish both things with one visit.

  The trees had leafed around the Indian’s house and the interior had grown dim; Rebecca Cowett’s hair lay in a long, shining braid down her back; Lyddie felt little of that former sense of an Englishman’s home, and her unease held her back—Rebecca Cowett was forced to urge her forward into the room in order to shut the door. She led Lyddie to the table, dropping into the nearest chair and waving Lyddie to the other. Lyddie had by now bent her mind to getting away as quickly as she could; she set the basket on the table but didn’t sit down.

  “I came to return your basket,” she said, “and to say the thanks I hurried through so rudely yesterday. You were most kind, Mrs. Cowett.”

  Rebecca Cowett dipped her head but remained silent, watching Lyddie, as her husband had watched Lyddie. What did these people hope to find with all this watching, wondered Lyddie, the color of her skin on the inside? Lyddie pushed into her pocket and pulled out the buttons Rebecca Cowett had admired the day before. “You’re in need of buttons for a husband’s jacket and I am not,” she said. “I am, however, in need of flour and butter and yeast and—” She stopped there. The dozen jacket buttons had cost her five shillings, but there were now only eight buttons left. She might fairly ask for a bushel of Indian meal and a pound of butter and her yeast, but not a thing beyond.

  The Indian held out her hand and fingered the buttons. “May I ask…are you at odds with your family, Widow Berry?”

  No, you may not ask. The meager light fell behind Rebecca, making her skin appear even darker. The smell was not the smell of an Englishman’s house. Lyddie thought of Eben Freeman’s room. She had found the smell of him comforting and familiar, but this smell, a similar mix of tobacco and sweat, but a different sweat, and something like sassafras but not sassafras…She needed to get out, but how to do it? Fabrication took too long, especially when the fabricating was done by the inexperienced; the quickest way seemed to be the truth.

  “I’ve come away from my son’s house without his express permission,” she said.

  “I see. And it has angered him?”

  “Yes.”

  The woman stood without further words and moved about kitchen and pantry and cellar, returning with a near-full bushel of Indian meal, a pound of butter, what proved to be a half-dozen dried herring done up in a sack, and several ounces of yeast scraped from the bottom of a beer barrel. She filled the basket that Lyddie had just returned, set it next to the bushel of meal, and sat down heavily in her chair.

  “Thank you,” Lyddie said. “I’m deeply grateful. Good morning.”

 
She hooked the basket on her arm, heaved up the Indian meal, and gained the door just as it flew inward. She jumped back and missed a collision with Sam Cowett by a hand’s width. “Good morning, Mr. Cowett. I’ve just finished paying a visit to your wife. We’ve bartered some goods and I’m now off. Good morning.”

  “Good morning. Or do you want another?”

  “Another?”

  “Another ‘good morning.’ You gave up two.”

  “You may save the other for later. Good morning.”

  He lifted an eyebrow, and Lyddie flushed. She pushed through the door and into the road as fast as her burdens would allow, listening for laughter behind her, unsure if she heard it.

  Once at home she laid the fire in the oven and mixed up her dough. By the time the dough had finished rising the fire had burned down to a nest of bright orange coals; Lyddie held her palm to the oven brick and could count no higher than ten before she had to remove her hand: ready for bread, then. She swept out the coals, dusted the brick with flour, and set the loaves in. In the ordinary way, once the bread was done the pudding would go in, then the pies and cake and custard, each preferring a lesser degree of temperature; the beans would go last to sit the night, and the week’s baking would be done. This time, her two loaves were the beginning and the end of the week’s work. Lyddie refused to think to the next week, or beyond it.