Paper Woman: A Mystery of the American Revolution (19 page)

Sometimes when
David got rolling, he was difficult to snag off the stage.
 
Sophie's lips pinched over a burst of
displeasure and prudence.
 
She'd grab
him between songs, allow other guests to become the center of attention.

The fiddler
fired up his introductory measures, and David, saluting her with his tankard
and a wicked grin, sang:

A lusty, young smith at his vise
stood a-filing.

His hammer laid by, but his
forge still aglow.

When to him a buxom, young damsel
came smiling

And asked if to work in her
forge he would go.

Jingle bang,
jingle bang, jingle bang, jingle heigh, ho!

A match for the smith, so away
they went thither.

Along to the young damsel's
forge they did go.

They stripped to go to 't, 'twas
hot work in hot weather.

She kindled the fire and soon
made him blow.

Jingle bang,
jingle bang, jingle bang, jingle heigh, ho!

She lowered her
gaze to the stew, a flush sweeping her neck and cheeks.
 
Jacques had a collaborator.
 
She needed to shut both of them up.
 
Chatter and clatter dwindled so the men
could enjoy David's baritone.
 
When it
came time for the refrain, they chorused it with such vigor that she was
certain the tavern walls would cave in for the "jingle banging."

David circled
the room for the next two verses.
 
Women
gathered children and bustled out.
 
He
wiggled his eyebrows when he reached Sophie on the fifth verse.

Six times did his iron by
vigorous heating

Grow soft in her forge in a
minute or so,

And often 'twas hardened still
beating and beating,

But the more
it was softened, it hardened more slow.

All the men
swung their tankards in the air and roared, "Jingle bang, jingle bang,
jingle bang, jingle heigh, ho!"

She collected
her dishes and musket and hauled them from the common room, chased out by the
closing verse:

The smith then would go, quoth
the dame full of sorrow,

"What would I give could my
husband do so?

Good lad, with your hammer come
hither tomorrow,

But pray, can you use it once
more ere you go?"

Jingle bang,
jingle bang, jingle bang, jingle heigh, ho!

Out in the
kitchen, she surprised Jacques with his hand on Widow Woodhouse's hip.
 
Sophie set the dishes on the counter,
juggled her musket and wagged a finger at him.
 
"That is unconscionable!"

He withdrew his
hand looking insulted.
 
"At our
age, we need no chaperone,
belle
Sophie."

"You know
what I mean.
 
You and my brother are
scheming."

His face
crinkled with a leer, and he listened to David's second song for a moment.
 
"He has an excellent singing voice,
non
?"

"It's gone
quite far enough, thank you.
 
Step
inside to the hallway.
 
You and I must
talk."

He kissed the
widow's hand in apology.
 
"I will
return soon,
mon fleur
."
 
Mrs. Woodhouse sighed and fanned her face with her apron.
 
Sophie flounced from the kitchen.

While David commanded
patrons' attention through more ribaldry, she motioned Jacques down the
hallway.
 
They paused before a window,
and through waning daylight she glanced at the forge out back, where a
blacksmith's hammer bent scarlet metal with a rhythmic plunk and thud.
 
She propped her musket against the wall and
turned on the Frenchman.
 
"El
Serpiente passed through here two hours ago."

"
Mon
dieu
, such incredible news!
 
How did
you come by it?"

She packed ice
into her tone.
 
"By
not
having my hand up Widow Woodhouse's petticoat like some slimy old satyr."

He
grinned.
 
"You would be amazed at
the volume of secrets petticoats conceal."

"Mrs.
Woodhouse divulges
useful
secrets in response to other stimuli."

"We must
tell the others immediately.
 
Fetch your
brother and the warriors, and I shall fetch Mathias —"

"I shall
fetch the others."
 
She grabbed his
upper arm.
 
"
You
fetch
David.
 
The matchmaking game you and he
are playing is neither just nor kind."

"
Belle
Sophie, how much longer are you going to fight it?"

"Fight
what
?
 
There's nothing there, Uncle Jacques.
 
Otherwise Mathias would have shown me by
now."

"That all
depends on what you are looking for from him."

She released
him.
 
"Untangle the sleeping
arrangements."

"But it
gives me such delight to be your father-in-law."

"Don't
ruin my friendship with him."

His lower lip
jammed into his upper lip.
 
"It
must be your monthly time."

"
Uncle
Jacques
."

"Very
well."
 
Expression long, he headed
for the door to the common room, where he paused with his back to her.
 
"Let us discuss your news outside.
 
No interruptions, no eavesdropping."

"Five
minutes.
 
We'll meet you and David
behind the forge."

Chapter Fourteen

DARKNESS DULLED
SOPHIE'S view of the Woodhouse's yard from the tiny window of her room.
 
Washed of trail grime, she'd earned sleep in
preparation for resuming the trek at four in the morning.
 
Yet when she stretched out on the bed, sleep
evaded her.

Far to the
north, her sister grumbled over the printing press.
 
Not so far away, Edward swatted mosquitoes and pined for mosquito-free,
thunderstorm-free Hampshire.
 
Miles to
the south, the serpent pressed on to St. Augustine: El Serpiente, the
blackguard who figured somehow into the murder of her father.
 
And Zack MacVie's damning, beseeching eyes
chased her.

Visualizing Will's
face almost released her tears, but again they dried up.
 
In the final months of his life, as the
silence and awkwardness swelled between them, there'd been too much they hadn't
said to each other.
 
Now they'd never
have the chance for those conversations.
 
Memory of the dream wolf taunted her:
no daughter of mine
.
 
When had he stopped loving her, and why?

The anguish in
her soul drilled down to an ancient depth, and a seventeen-year-old memory
trickled into her mind from the day after she returned to Alton with infant
Betsy.
 
Although she hadn't yet
mentioned it to a soul, Richard Barton had proposed marriage to her two nights
before, in Augusta.
 
"I'll consider
it," she'd told him.

"What's to
consider?"
 
He'd studied her,
astonishment rolling across his handsome face.
 
"Don't you love me?"

That exchange
seemed hauntingly familiar to her now.

But seventeen
years ago, she'd forestalled giving him her answer for a few days.
 
She had unfinished business in Alton.

***

The thud of
a hammer shaping hot metal came from the shop behind her.
 
She settled Betsy in the sling and smiled up
at her father in the sunlight.
 
"A
quarter hour."

Will studied
her from the driver's seat of the wagon, his gray eyes discerning and
shrewd.
 
"A quarter
hour."
 
He lifted the reins and
paused.
 
"Sophie, you look
lovely."

Oh, gods,
she hoped so.
 
"Thank
you."
 
She waved him off.
 
Betsy cooed from the sling.
 
"Soon, my love," she whispered.

Dusting off
his hands, a leather-aproned Jacob Hale limped from the forge into the shop at
the jangle of the bell, while the sounds of smithing continued from the
forge.
 
Arthritis had already claimed
his left hip, but his stern Presbyterian visage relaxed at the sight of her.
 
"Mrs. Neely, how good to see you!
 
What's it been, a year since you left?
 
You shouldn't have stayed away so long.
 
It's almost as though you were hiding in
Augusta.
 
Now, who's this?"
 
He helped her extricate Betsy from the sling
and held the baby.
 
"A beautiful
child.
 
Look at all that dark hair.
 
Hmm."
 
He glanced back and forth between Sophie and Betsy, and she held her
breath.
 
"I believe she's going to
look exactly like you when she grows up.
 
I don't see a speck of Jim Neely in her, God rest his soul."

She exhaled
and grinned.
 
"Everyone says
that."

He handed
Betsy back to her and jiggled the baby's fist, curled around his
forefinger.
 
"Wa-wa-goo-goo.
 
How strong that grip is, little one.
 
If you were a boy, I'd say that fist was
meant to swing a blacksmith's hammer."

Sophie
forced her jaw to relax.
 
"Now
really, can you imagine Betsy a journeyman?"

"No,
no, no.
 
Wa-wa-wa-goo-goo-goo."

She cleared
her throat.
 
"Um, who else is
here?
 
I'd like to show off my pride and
joy before my father returns."

Formality
drew over his face.
 
He straightened and
jutted his chin toward the forge.
 
"Mathias."

"Well,
then, I shall just walk on back —"

"Don't
take up much of his time.
 
He has a
substantial amount of work to finish."

"All
right."
 
She turned away to hide
her irritation.
 
He always had a
substantial amount of work to finish, twice as much as Jacob, Jonah, and
Joshua.
 
When he returned from visiting
his Creek family, he had three times as much work.
 
Yet somehow he managed to get it all done.

She
hesitated in the doorway of the forge, the heat intense, the dusty smell of
red-hot metal drenching the air.
 
Faced
away from the doorway, Mathias probed the living glow of the forge with tongs,
sweat seeping through his shirt and waistcoat.
 
Her gaze strayed to his left shoulder.
 
Outrage scored her soul again.
 
Scars should never have been on his shoulder that summer afternoon the
year before.

He pivoted
to the vise, a glowing spear of metal captured between the tongs, and spotted
her in the doorway.
 
"Sophie?"
he whispered.

She
smiled.
 
"Hello."

Metal
abandoned on the vise, he seized a towel and rushed forward, mopping his face,
mirroring her grin.
 
"How wonderful
to see you again!
 
You look
marvelous.
 
Say, is this Betsy?"

"Would
you like to hold her?"
 
Oh, please
say yes.

"May
I?"
 
He brushed soot off his
leather apron.

Ecstatic,
she handed Betsy over.
 
"Ba-ba-ba."
 
Betsy
gazed up at Mathias.
 
"Da-da-da."

"She's
beautiful, just like her mother."

Hunger in
his eyes spiraled across the distance between them and coiled around her
heart.
 
"Thank you," she
whispered.

"Ironic.
 
She doesn't look a bit like Jim.
 
Just like you."

Now was the
time to speak.
 
She parted her lips.

Movement
snagged her eye, someone entering the forge from the outer door.
 
A gangly, young Creek woman waddled forward
in the beautiful, clumsy way of pregnant women and stood beside Mathias.

At Sophie's
blank look, he said, "My wife, Teekin Keyta.
 
Did no one tell you?"

Teekin Keyta
— Stands Tall.
 
"No."
 
Sophie produced an even voice and bobbed a
curtsy.
 
"How do you do."

"This
is Sophie Neely.
 
She's a childhood
friend who has been living in Augusta.
 
She stopped in to introduce us to Betsy."

Stands Tall
glanced between Betsy, Sophie, and Mathias.
 
"Betsy looks like her mother."

Understanding
shone in Stands Tall's eyes.
 
Oh, gods,
she knew.
 
Change the subject, quickly.
 
"And when is your baby due?"

"Two
months."
 
Mathias handed Betsy
back.