Columbine (8 page)

“Is Mercy your wife?”

“Nay. That needle-tongued article left so long past I disremember her face. But I miss our lad,” he said sadly.

“Aye, Torn I miss.”

He’re corked the jug and pointed ahead to where the river curved. High on the spit of land stood a square log building.

“We’ll sleep at Brockton’s ordinary this night.”

There was no dock, and Dianna wondered if she’d be expected to wade ashore through the icy water, or worse yet, be carried. As the sloop hove too close to the bank, one of the crewmen swung a long, thin board from the sloop’s side to the riverbank to serve as a gangplank. Asa went first, and quickly Dianna followed—too quickly. To her surprise, the plank still bounced up and down from the weight of his footsteps, tossing her upward. Instinctively she outstretched her arms for balance like a rope walker and kept her eyes straight ahead. When she reached the shore, the sailors laughed raucously behind her, and she knew then they’d expected her to tumble off. So much for their fun, she thought crossly, and trotted after Asa.

She had not realized how cold she’d become until she stepped inside the ordinary and felt the welcoming warmth from the hearth. There was only the one room, the walls unpeeled logs and the floor packed earth. Five men, dressed piecemeal much like Asa, sprawled on benches around a trestle table, eating and drinking with their hats still on. Before the hearth, a haughty black woman with notched earlobes stirred her kettles, and a man leaned against the wall, smoking a Dutch clay pipe. Every last one of them turned to stare at Dianna.

“Ye be a mite old to start up with a trollop, Wing,” said the man with the pipe, speaking what the others were all thinking.

“How’d you coax her t’come with yer sorry old carcass?”

Asa rested his hand on Dianna’s shoulder.

“Keep yet foul thoughts to yerself, Brockton. This be a lady, not a trollop, and she’s come to help me wit’ Mercy.

Stay close to me, Annie,” he said stoutly, “and these rogues will show ye no mischief.”

It was the first time anyone had shortened Dianna’s name to Annie and the first time Asa had called her anything more than “girl.” Dianna stared up at him in wonder. He was defending her honor.

There was no other way of looking at it. He believed her a lady, and even here in this rough inn in the wilderness, he was insisting on her being treated like one. The questions of what her tasks would be or who Mercy was, seemed suddenly insignificant. She would have her new start after all. Asa’s unexpected gesture warmed her more than the fire, and she couldn’t help smiling shyly as she slid onto the bench beside him for supper.

They ate beans steeped in molasses and laced with salt pork, and drank cider that was thick and sweet.

When at last the wooden trenchers were cleared away and the table and benches pushed back, each man wrapped himself in his blanket or coat and lay down on the dirt floor. Reluctantly Dianna joined them, doubting she’d sleep at all among the snoring and wheezing bodies.

But almost at once the black woman was shaking her awake, and Dianna gulped down her breakfast as she hurried to meet Asa. She found him by the river, loading his bundled belongings into a long, bark canoe.

With him was a wiry young man with waist length hair like cornsilk and pale eyes that were oddly blank.

“We’ll make our own course from here,” explained Asa.

“I’ve stops to make along the way, but we should reach Wickhamton in three days’ time.

This ‘ere be Jeremiah, and he’ll paddle stern.”

The pale young man stared at Dianna, but did not return her smile, and inwardly she shivered at the emptiness of his expression.

“Y’must not mind Jeremiah,” said Asa.

“He’s not full right with his thoughts. When he was a lad, the Abenakis took him captive. Six years he lived with ‘em, until his people finally paid the ransom. More red than white he was by then, an’ kind of daft in the head. But he’s good with a paddle an’ don’t talk overmuch.” “How terrible,” murmured Dianna, but she still found Jeremiah’s staring eyes disturbing.

“Thank God the Indians are gone now.”

Asa snorted.

“That’s what ye Londoners may believe, but here, we know otherwise. Oh, Indians don’t go infer showin’ their faces unless they’ve a reason, an’ these days, they’ve kept to themselves, mostly, ‘cepting for all that trouble at Deerfield, of course.

Sorry sad business, that. But there be good Indians an’ bad, same as white folk, an’ if I knew for certain what riled ‘em, I’d be sittin’ in Boston with the other periwig-lords.”

“Are there Indians at Wickhamton?”

Asa shrugged nonchalantly.

“Nay, not t’bring ye any grief. I’d worry on other things afore Indians, like bears an’ snakes an’ wildcats an’ such.” He fastened the last bundle in place with rawhide straps.

“Now get ye in, Mistress Annie, else we stand here a-jawin’ ‘til midsummer.”

Not at all reassured, Dianna climbed into the center of the canoe. Of course, she’d read about Indians-Asa was fight about Londoners loving every thrilling story about dangerous savages in the wilderness, especially those vanquished by true-hearted Englishmen—but she hadn’t dreamed they’d be part of her new home, any more than she’d considered the string of wild animals he’d named. Now behind every tree or rock, she was convinced she saw an Indian lurking, or a bear at the very least, and she was relieved when Jeremiah shoved the canoe into the water and they floated gently into the river.

As Asa promised, they reached their destination after three days of travelling. At nightfall, they pulled the canoe onto the bank as they had the two previous nights, but this time Asa and Dianna left Jeremiah behind and headed off into the woods. After months of inactivity, Dianna was in no condition to keep pace with Asa, and even though he willingly paused for her to rest, she was out of breath and the stitch in her side refused to go away. Although it was April, snow still covered most of the ground and ice soon packed into Dianna’s shoes until her feet were numb from the cold. She had no idea how long or how far they trudged through the moonlit forest, and it seemed as if they had crisscrossed the same piece of ground over and over. She was close to weeping from cold and weariness when Asa stopped and pointed to a clearing ahead.

“We’re here at last, Annie,” he said happily.

“You’ll take to little Mercy, I know it. Ye both be cut from the’ same cloth.”

Yet even by moonlight, the house in the clearing was not what Dianna had expected. It was small, very small, with a peaked roof that slanted lower over the back. The clap boarding was unpainted and worn dark, and the windows were tiny casements of oiled paper, not glass. There were no shutters or trimmings, no decoration at all beyond a crude border of nailheads hammered into the massive plank door.

Eagerly Asa hurried to the house, and pulled open the rope latch.

“Mercy, child, come and give yet old grandfer a kiss!” he called.

“I’m happy ye not be abed yet, for I’ve someone for ye to meet, someone t’help ye wit’ the house.”

“But I don’t need any help, Grandfer!” cried a small, anguished voice. The only light in the room came from the last embers of the hearth fire, and by it Dianna could finally make out Mercy herself. She had plump cheeks and a turned-up nose and dark hair that straggled from beneath her linen cap. A knitted woolen tippet was tied over her shoulders and around her narrow waist, and her hands, in finger less mitts, twisted nervously in her apron. She looked to be six, perhaps seven, and Dianna was shocked that a child so young had been left alone. No wonder she seemed frightened!

“If you’d only let me stay at Plumstead—” “Nay, Mercy, an’ that’s an end to it!” said Asa sharply, and his granddaughter’s shoulders sagged unhappily. Huddled in the half-light, she looked as lonely and forlorn as Dianna had often felt herself, and her heart went out to the waifish child.

“Mercy, my name is Dianna, Dianna Grey,” she said softly, holding her hand out in greeting.

“I hope we might be friends, you and I—” But Mercy cut her off, shaking her head fiercely.

“Nay, I want none of ye, mind?” Her words strangled on the sob in her throat.

“None of ye at all!”

With her head down, she bolted past them and out the door.

Dianna called her name and began to follow, but Asa held her back and gently closed the door instead.

“She’ll be back in her own time. She’ll be off to weep among the’ beasts in the’ barn, an’ she’ll come to no harm.” Sighing, he prodded fresh life into the dying fire and sat heavily on the three-legged stool Mercy had fled.

“But where are her parents? Surely a girl her age–’ “Dead, the pair of’ them, not twelve months past, of a putrid quinsey,” said Asa.

“My lad, Torn, an’ his wife, Lucy. Poor Mercy! She cannot accept it as God’s will that she be spared an’ her parents taken, an’ she grieves more than is right for a young one.

Y’see now why she needs ye.”

No wonder she had felt a bond to the girl, thought Dianna sadly.

“And this place she spoke of, Plumstead… ?”

“Ah, that be the colonel’s great fine house.” Asa’s voice hardened.

“Like a lord he be in these parts, that man, an’ because my Torn called him friend, he strives to take Mercy from me. Claims he could do better by the girl. Well, that may be, but Mercy’s all the blood kin I’ve left in this world, an’ kin should stay wit’ kin, Tiny mind.”

Dianna rubbed her arms and stared at the closed door.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t go after her? It’s a cold night.”

Asa shook his head.

“Nay, it’s best to let her sort it out herself. She’ll come in when she be ready.”

He rose stiffly from the stool.

“Now I’ll show ye where you’re t’sleep, up here in the loft.”

But fired as she was, Dianna did not sleep until she heard Mercy come inside. Quietly the girl refastened the latch and, creeping past her snoring grandfather, joined Dianna in the overhead loft. From her breathing, Dianna was certain the girl did not sleep, either, but she respected her silence and the privacy of her grief. Cut from the same cloth they most definitely were.

Dianna intended to rise early the next morning and have breakfast waiting on the table for Asa and Mercy. But the sun was well up by the time she awoke, and ruefully she realized the other two were already gone from the house. After three months of sleeping on floors or decks, one night in a bed, albeit one with rope springs and a mattress stuffed with rustling corn husks, had reduced her to a lazy sluggard.

She washed quickly in a bucket of water by the ladder, hoping that Asa hadn’t brought it especially from the well for her, and neatly braided her hair the way Eunice had taught her on the Prosperity. Then came the question of what to wear. With her London gown little more than rags, Asa had told her to take what she needed from the chest of clothing in the loft. First came a bleached linen shift, the soft, clean fabric almost unbelievably luxurious against her skin.

Over that she put a dark red kersey skirt and a bodice of blue linsey-woolsey. She fumbled awkwardly to thread and tie the laces behind her back and cursed the lifetime of pampering lady’s maids that had made her embarrassingly clumsy at dressing herself. Finally she tied on an apron and backed down the loft’s ladder to the one large room below that served as kitchen, keeping room and parlor.

Hands on her hips, she surveyed her new domain and considered where to begin with breakfast. That she had absolutely no experience cooking did not faze her; it could not be so very difficult, given some of the thick-witted cooks she’d met in her father’s houses. She decided to try eggs. All men liked eggs for breakfast, and there was a large basket of them on the table. But first she must build up the fire, and she went outdoors in search of firewood.

The woodpile was not far from the house, and for good measure she chose the largest log from the top, staggering with it in her arms as she returned to the house. At the doorway she spotted Mercy, trudging from the barn with a bucket of milk.

“Good morning!” called Dianna cheerfully.

“It’s a fine day, isn’t it?”

Stunned, Mercy’s face went white as she studied Dianna from head to foot.

“You’re not my mother,” she said as she backed away, the milk sloshing from the bucket over her clogs.

“Ye may take her place and her clothes, but you’re not her and ye never will be!”

“Mercy, wait, please!” But Mercy had already retreated to the cow shed leaving a trail of spilt milk on the bare ground. Of course, the girl would be upset to see her dressed like her mother; Dianna blamed herself for not being more considerate. After breakfast she would go and set things right with Mercy. With a sigh, she dropped the snow-covered log onto the banked embers of last night’s fire, prodded the ashes for a spark and turned her attention to the eggs.

With both hands she lifted a heavy iron skillet onto the table and cracked an egg on the side. The eggshell burst with the impact, and its contents splattered down Dianna’s clean apron and onto the floor, white and yolk slipping between the floorboards. The next egg made it into the skillet, but so did its broken shell, and the next three fared no better. As carefully as Dianna tried to pick out the bits of shell, the pieces only slid farther from her fingers into the slippery mess in the skillet. She frowned, concentrating, and not until her eyes stung and she was coughing did she realize the house was rifled with smoke. The fire, something was wrong with the fire, and she turned toward where she thought it was. But there was only more smoke, thick and acrid and blinding her, choking her. Panicking, she tripped and stumbled to her knees and groped across the floor.

Then suddenly she felt an arm circling her waist and pulling her from the smoke, a masculine arm that, even as she coughed, she knew was too strong and muscled to belong to Asa. The man was carrying her now, out the door and to the fresh air, murmuring odd bits of nonsense to comfort her. He propped her up against the well as she struggled to get her breath.

Then Kit Sparhawk sat back on his heels and swore, long and colorfully, at the woman he thought he’d never see again. She was garbed simply now, like any decent Yankee goodwife; though covered with soot and her eyes red-rimmed: frOm the smoke.