The widow's war (8 page)

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.

The tea and cheese were gone and the second loaf cut into when Lyddie looked out her window and saw her cousin Betsey approaching. She had the door wide when Betsey reached it, and as Betsey pitched straight into Lyddie’s chest Lyddie found herself embracing her cousin more warmly than was her habit.

“Cousin!” Betsey cried. “Do you know how glad I am to see you standing? Your daughter didn’t know a thing of your condition, but neither did she seem inclined to come and find out; I said very well, then, if no one else will take the trouble I’ll go and see what ails her.”

“And why should something ail me?”

“Why, when you weren’t at meeting—”

“Today is the Sabbath?”

“Heaven help me! I’ve got you dead on the ground and all you
want is an almanac.” She dropped into a chair. “Must I beg for a cup of tea?”

“Begging won’t help you. I’ve nothing but water from the well, and bread and butter.”

Betsey’s eyebrows, which had been nestled into the puffy flesh above her eyes, shot up under the edge of her cap. “So. ’Tis true, then. He’s packed you off with nothing.”

“He’s not packed me off. I went away of my own will.”

“And does he provide?”

“He does not.”

“Then ’tis all the same kettle. You must go back, Cousin. At once.”

Lyddie stood up. “Would you have that water? A slice of bread? Or perhaps you’d care for some dried herring?”

“Herring! Think you to live like the Indians? Or do you shock me with such a thing in hope of getting me to stock your pantry? And me with Shubael off in Canada, conserving daily against his delay or demise, living in constant state of penury? This is not to say I wouldn’t be glad to take you in if you could make your keep, but I can’t afford to feed you for nothing. Perhaps if you were to ask your son—”

“I don’t ask you to feed me or to house me. I came here because I wished to be here. I’ll make my way.”

“How?”

As Lyddie had no answer to that she said nothing.

“Oh, I see how you are, Cousin. I know you better than some others. They have in the past disagreed with me, but I’ve long recognized a stubborn side to your nature. And pride. Pride is a luxury no woman can afford; you must go to your son and ask forgiveness for your intractable behavior. Tell him you will stay with me. In truth, my brother comes so seldom now, and with Shubael away, I’d be glad
of the company. I’m quite sure if you asked your son he would provide for you at my home the same as he would have provided for you had you stayed under his roof. My brother puts down fifty pounds a year for Aunt Goss—”

“My son wouldn’t pay you fifty shillings.”

“Fifty shillings! I can’t feed a pig for fifty shillings! What do you think I’m made of?”

“I don’t think you’re made of anything, Cousin Betsey. You may rest easy. Thank you for coming. And please tell my daughter I’m not ailing.”

“Shall we pray before I go? As you missed meeting?”

“I’ll tend to my prayers in the usual way. Good-bye, Cousin.”

The puffy eyes widened, no doubt in suspicion of Lyddie’s usual way of tending to her prayers, but in truth, once Betsey had gone, Lyddie was stabbed with some compunction as she considered the degree of her own neglect. She dropped to her knees and tried to send up an apology for ignoring the Lord’s Day, but as she struggled for the proper humble words she was stabbed by something stronger than compunction, which gripped her first in the stomach and then rolled outward through her body until it had melted all the strength from her limbs.

Lyddie was hungry.

She pushed herself unsteadily to her feet and went to the pantry. She unwrapped the cloth that had contained the herring and found one remaining. She picked it up and chewed without pleasure, but after a few minutes the sensation in her stomach eased. She unwrapped the remaining bread and considered. If she baked two loaves once a week…She rewrapped the bread. Her cousin was, of course, right. She had little choice but to go to her son and ask forgiveness and hope it would go better than her recent effort with God. Lyddie looked down at the remains of the leathery herring with dis
taste. How was it, she wondered, that the darker peoples so enjoyed this food? Or did they enjoy it? What choice did the slave have? And as to the Indians, they no doubt went after the fish because it was plentiful and accessible. Because they would rather eat than starve. As Lyddie would rather eat than starve. As she would rather eat herring than beg forgiveness.

Lyddie crossed the road and cut through the thick brush to a lonely stretch of the mill creek. It was not as dark with fish as the upper, more congested part of the stream, but as she waited they came, three or four dusty shadows at a time. Lyddie tucked up her skirt, and gripping the tow sack in one hand, knelt down above one of the calm pockets at the edge of the stream. The first pass netted nothing but weeds, as did the second and third and onward until she stopped counting. She sat back to rest and watched the stream. In the protected pool where she’d wildly plunged her sack the herring circled and zigzagged continuously, but directly in the middle of the current the downstream push was so strong that the fish were brought to a temporary standstill. Lyddie edged onto a rock that jutted out into the stream, waited for just that minute of stasis, and thrust in her hands. They closed around the fish; she brought her hands into the air, but the fish torqued violently and flipped free into the stream. The second fish escaped on its way to the sack; the third she dropped into the pouch of her skirt and wrapped it in its folds until it stopped writhing, then transferred it to the sack. She caught two more, and soaked and exhausted, sat back.

So, she could fish. And come summer she would have cabbage in her garden, and by fall she’d harvest the apples from her orchard and pick the plums that would spring out on the scrubby brush behind her house and by winter she would have stored and dried her squash and
pumpkin and beans. Lyddie sat in the quiet wood, for once thinking of what God had provided, not what he’d taken; she felt herself drawn close to prayer until the thought struck her that she was now in a greater state of sin than she had been that morning: she’d been fishing on the Sabbath.