The widow's war

by Sally Gunning

  Lyddie had begun by expressing her concerns over Mehitable’s youth, but Edward had said, “Better he gets her before she turns headstrong like you.”

  When Lyddie failed to laugh he said, “Come, woman, he’ll keep her better than I’ve ever kept you.”

  When Lyddie still didn’t lighten he leaned forward and brushed his lips across her buckled forehead. “There can’t be another pair as lucky as we two. If by chance my daughter had managed to learn your good sense, Clarke wouldn’t know enough to count his good fortune, as I count it daily with you. Don’t fret about it, my old friend. They’ll make do.”

  Make do. Indeed, Mehitable seemed to make do, better than Lyddie could ever have managed with such a man as Nathan Clarke. Had Edward known their daughter best after all?

  Lyddie thought ahead to meeting. She would not distress her son-in-law by attempting to sit in the family pew, but still, she would be able to see Mehitable; she would be able to form a judgment on her health, if not her state of mind, and with that she would make do.

  Lyddie stepped into the King’s road and took the rise; she joined the foot traffic funneling toward the door of the meetinghouse, and if she ignored the darting eyes around her and the pockets of silence followed by bursts of excessive greeting, it might have been any Sunday of her life past.

  Lyddie entered the meetinghouse and took her seat in the women’s gallery, straining her eyes to look over her daughter hungrily. Mehitable’s face looked rosy and full, her arms plump and strong under her fine English cambric. In due time Lyddie noticed that others looked her way, that her presence in the women’s gallery had been noted and passed along with an elbow jab here or a jerk of the head there. If anyone needed further proof that she and her family were estranged it was there in her separate seat in the gallery. Lyddie felt an odd lightness in her head, or possibly her heart; what did it matter what these people knew or thought? She didn’t care. She sat back and let them look, until even her son-in-law turned in his pew on the men’s side of the hall. Lyddie dipped her head; he turned away; another ripple went through the crowd.

  The Reverend Dunne spoke about the son greeted by the fatted calf; Lyddie stared ahead, all attention, and heard nothing.

  Lyddie had hoped to leave the meetinghouse without further offending her family, but a jam at the door held her back while the occupants of the pews moved forward, and as a space fell open to her right, Nathan Clarke pushed through. He looked, he saw, he looked away to Mr. Mayo and made a great business of accepting an invitation to spend the noon hour between sermons at his home; Mehitable came around on the far side of the two men, as did Nate and Jane and the Negro Hassey; only Bethiah’s face opened bloomlike at Lyddie’s side, but she was pulled quickly away, by which hand Lyddie didn’t know.

  Lyddie cleared the door and struck out directly west, toward home. The wind blew soft and damp from the south; a sky the color of dirty linen hung low; it would rain soon. Since she’d last been along the road the English lilacs in front of Judah Snow’s house and the chestnuts along the road had come into bloom. These were Lyddie’s thoughts: the weather, the advancing season; she would not have said the fatted calf cluttered her mind at all, and yet suddenly Edward’s little cow popped into her mind and refused to give room. Why? Did the cow stand there blocking the road for the other, more somber thoughts that waited in the lay-by of Lyddie’s mind, or did the poor creature worry it might be neglected like the Cowett cow, and run dry? Whatever its purpose, the cow stood square in front of Lyddie’s eyes until she was forced to look back instead of ahead, back to the reverend’s fatted calf, back to her daughter’s glowing cheek, back to Bethiah’s puzzled eyes, back to Nathan Clarke’s noon respite at Mayo’s.

  And there Lyddie saw the creature’s plan as if it had been spoken aloud. The cow would have dropped her calf by now; in fact, the calf would have been put to grass by now; the calf was of course Nathan’s property, as was the cow, but the use of the cow was Lyddie’s, as was enough winter hay for its maintenance, by decree of Edward’s will. And twice a day now, Jane would be emptying the cow’s freshened udders of the milk that was Lyddie’s own. But here sat a stretch of time where the Clarkes would be either at Mayo’s or at meeting and the rest of the town would be either at meeting or sheltering indoors out of the rain, which had just begun to scatter its small, dark coins in the pale dust of the road.

  22

  The Negro Jot was just leaving the barn when Lyddie approached. She’d thought to arrive unnoticed and lead the cow away, but she’d forgotten about Jot and the fact that his Christian leanings were more haphazard than his partner’s.

  “Good afternoon, Jot.”

  “’Noon.”

  “I’ve come to collect my cow.”

  Jot’s black forehead erupted in ridges. “Mr. Clarke’s at meeting.”

  “Yes, I’ve just seen him.”

  “He knows about this cow, then?”

  Lyddie considered the various degrees of truth she might use and settled on, “He knows I’m to have the cow, yes.”

  Jot ran his hands down his homespun breeches. The rain had not yet picked up in any impressive degree, and he seemed happy to linger. It was all Lyddie’s rush.

  “I won’t keep you from your work,” she said.

  “’Tis Sabbath.”

  “Yes, Jot, it is, and I certainly wouldn’t have undertaken such a task today, while Mr. Clarke was out, if he were happier with my presence here.”

  This Jot understood. His forehead smoothed. “You want to take it now, then?”

  “Now.”

  Jot swung around and reentered the barn. He returned with a length of rope and set off for the meadow in the quickening rain. When he returned, Edward’s little cow trailed peaceably behind. He held out the rope to Lyddie, but she hesitated, suddenly foreseeing a situation where Jot would take the blame for her actions.

  “I’d best go in and leave my son a note,” she said, and before Jot could respond one way or another, she ducked inside.

  The house was as the house was on any other Sabbath: the people gone, the fire banked down, any unnecessary household work put away. Lyddie stepped into the keeping room, and the first thing her eye fixed on was her own pewter tankard. Which was worse, she wondered, the half or the whole? She decided that in this case they were equal. She took up the tankard and hunted around for her plates and spoons but was forced to admit she would not be able to manage her kettle. She found a pair of flour sacks in the pantry and stuffed her belongings into them, then strode to her son’s study and sat at his desk to search out paper and pen, but the sight of something familiar waylaid her: the old pocketbook in which Edward had kept his important papers. Lyddie stretched out her fingers and touched the worn leather; it felt thick yet; she removed it from the pigeonhole, unfolded it, and withdrew the first paper inside.

  Know all men by these presents that I Sachemus, sachem of Satucket, for and in consideration of that great love and respect which I bore to my ancient and much respected and kind friend, Jonathan Berry, to whom I am many ways engaged for many kindnesses received, freely and absolutely give all that my parcel of land commonly called the old Indian field, next Satucket river on the easterly side thereof excepting and reserving only for myself and my children and their children and the longest liver of us the right to harvest wood for fence and fuel. In witness thereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal.

  Below the words Sachem of Satucket sat a simple mark that looked like a V, and the names of the two witnesses to it, Stephen Paige and Willyium Freeman, with the date of October 13, 1676. But a further note followed:

  The within and above said Sachemus appeared this 8th of January, 1679, and acknowledged these presents to be his act and deed…and that he gave the above mentioned lands freely to the above said, a great while ago and was greatly sorry that his good friend Jonathan Berry had been troubled by it.

  Before Thomas Freeman, Asst.

  Jonathan Berry. Edward’s great-grandfather.
Lyddie’s eye traveled back to the primitive V. The old sachem would not, of course, have written the formal document himself. Neither did she imagine he would have been familiar with its legal language. But surely the document would have been explained to him before he signed it; surely he must have understood the nature of a gift or he would have stood in expectation of recompense. And wasn’t the addendum further proof of his intention? Some question had arisen over the ownership of the land, and the sachem had taken the great trouble to return to court and testify that the earlier gift had been genuine. But why had he given away the land at all?

  Lyddie returned the paper to its pocketbook, the pocketbook to its pigeonhole. She removed a sheet of paper from the drawer and inked the pen.

  Mr. Clarke,

  In an effort not to disturb you I have taken advantage of this time to lay claim to my property. In addition to a few items my daughter has overlooked returning to me I have collected my husband’s cow, whose use and maintenance were deeded to me in his will. As to the maintenance there specified, I will expect delivery of the winter hay come fall.

  Yours sincerely, Lydia H. Berry

  She returned outside. Jot stood with the cow just inside the barn. Lyddie handed him the sacks, and he affixed them without question across the cow’s withers.

  “I’ve left my son a letter explaining my action,” she said. “In it I make no mention of your presence. It is indeed possible you were off chasing my husband’s mare; she’s been known to leap a fence or two.”

  It took him no more than a second. He nodded. Lyddie led the cow out of the barn. The rain had begun to take itself up with some seriousness. The cow trod along behind her in erratic stops and starts, coming to a halt every time the kitchenware clanked together inside the sack. Lyddie soon learned that if she turned around and leaned into the rope the beast planted her feet and went nowhere, but if Lyddie stayed facing straight ahead as if the halt had been of her own devising, the cow soon stepped out on her own.

  Lyddie had the good fortune to run into no one along the King’s road, but at the intersection with the landing road her luck turned. An old, wasted man limped toward her; once he got close she realized it was no old man at all but Nathan’s brother, Silas Clarke, the so-called limp more a list from the usual cause. He drew himself up as straight as he was able and withdrew his hat.

  “Good afternoon, madam.”

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Clarke.”

  “I say, what have you got trailing?”

  “A cow.”

  “A cow! You say a cow?”

  “I say so, yes.”

  “And what’s it got toting? Some meal, is it? Been to the mill, have you?”

  Lyddie made a noncommittal bend of the head.

  “Well, now! A cow. And a sack of meal. And may I inquire as to how your family is faring?”

  “They’re well. And yours?”

  “Ah, ’tis a sad thing about my family. It seems they’ve run out on me again. I woke up some time ago and found them gone.”

  “I believe I saw them at meeting.”

  “At meeting! Well, now! ’Tis the Sabbath already? I declare, it would appear we have one every two days in this village. I find that very taxing. Well, then, may I inquire as to how your own family is faring?”

  “They’re well, Mr. Clarke, as we’ve established. Now if you would excuse me—”

  “And your husband off to sea, no doubt? Or has he given it up? Did I not hear something—?”

  “He’s given it up. Excuse me, please; you see my cow is pulling.”

  “Well, then, let me assist you, Mrs. Berry. Has your husband taken up dairying over the sea, then? ’Tis all very well to give up the sea, but if one gives up the sea, one must do something else, like dairying. Here, now, let me help you.” Silas Clarke wrenched the rope from Lyddie’s hands and began to tug the animal in an easterly direction while the cow backed west and Lyddie came in from the north, attempting to regain control. It was all too much for the poor cow. She began to buck and hop until the sacks sprung open and pewter went flying in all the directions along the road.

  Silas dropped the rope and stared. “Here, now, I thought you said ‘meal’! Did you not say ‘meal’? I don’t call this meal. I don’t call it anything like. Why, these are dishes. And look here, why, I call this a fine, big tankard. A very fine tankard. Just lying here in the road! I call that very fortunate.” And he wandered off in the wrong direction, or, rather, the right one, assuming he was headed for the tavern.

  Unfortunately for Lyddie, the cow decided to trot off after him, and more unfortunately, Lyddie was unable to catch her up until she herself had reached the tavern, where she drew an audience of the two Grays, the tavern keeper Elkanah Thacher, and three strangers whom she identified by their clothes as mariners. Lyddie’s wet and muddy form dancing after the cow set the strangers off into hoots, but the Gray brothers shuffled out from under the eaves and came around on the two sides of the cow so that Lyddie could move in and grab her halter.

  Lyddie thanked them, set off down the road, collected the remains of her wares, and trudged home. She deposited the cow in the barn, went inside, blew up the fire for tea, took up the bucket, and went back out to the well. The first two buckets went to the cow, but the third went to the kettle; by then every scrap of cloth covering her body was soaked through. She unfastened her skirt tapes and let the skirt fall to the floor, then peeled off her shift, pulling on a loose flannel gown better suited to winter. She padded back to the fire and hung the wet clothes from the beam.

  The tea tasted like gold. She cut and buttered a square of corn bread she’d made with the Indian meal and reveled in a guilty flush of contentment until she thought, Why guilty? Not the cow, certainly, and not Jot, or Silas, or the men at the tavern…She looked again at the bread and came to it: today had been her first in many without an Indian in it.

  23

  Lyddie woke to the smell of the try yards and thought of Edward, not alive, but dead, and the heavy air that had followed his drowning for weeks afterward. She ate a quick breakfast, milked the cow, and staked her in the meadow, pleased to be able to set off for Cowett’s with a fresh pail of milk for Rebecca. As she drew nearer the water she noticed a mast just topping the stunted growth between her and the landing, and her chest lurched reflexively as of old; was the ship Edward’s? Was he safe in it?

  Sam Cowett had the news: it was Seth Cobb’s schooner, in from his second trip south, with all barrels full of blubber and half his original seamen, the other half having run into trouble with the law at Charlestown. Lyddie told the Indian she suspected she had met the replacement crew the day before in front of the tavern and attempted to make a humorous story out of the cow, but Sam Cowett didn’t seem amused by it. After he left she went to Rebecca’s room with a cup of milk and a spoon. She lifted the woman’s head in her usual way, but as she spooned in the milk it ran out across her cheek. She propped Rebecca’s head straighter and tried again; the white runnel traveled straight down her chin. Three more attempts and she gave it up and began to do what she’d advised Sam Cowett to do—she talked to her. About Edward.

  “He was no very big man,” she said, “not near the size of your husband. But he could lift my linen chest, or me, or our children’s coffins. He carried them alone to the churchyard. Always, afterward, he’d want to make another, or perhaps that’s where he took his comfort. Whenever he would go to sea I would crave that same comfort, so much sometimes it frightened me.”

  But no, she wouldn’t tell Rebecca about that. She tried to think of other things, but it seemed to come back each time to the same thing, all the way back to the very first, before they were married, the day he’d put her up on the pillion behind him and ridden out to Eastham to tell his brother they’d published their names and would be married the next month. All the way there she’d felt his hard back beneath his coat and smelled his sweat and salt and listened to the rumble of his voice coming through his shoulder blades where
she’d pressed her face, and she’d thought, this will be my husband. All my happiness in life will depend on the nature of this man. Have I made fair judge of him?

  When they got to Eastham the brother and his family had all gone off somewhere. They checked in the barn and found the wagon out and the horse stall empty, but something about the total emptiness of the barn, or the yeasty smell of damp hay and animal, or the memory of their own physical closeness on the ride over, or perhaps just the sheer power of the commitment they’d just made to each other, pulled them toward each other until they were too close to look and it became all touch and feel. One minute they were standing there perfectly ordered and the next they were all skirts up and breeches down. At first Lyddie thought Edward must have got it wrong because nothing happened but some pain and an odd kind of numbness, but then he gave a shiver and a low shout and the numbness started to go away and she grabbed hold of him so he wouldn’t go away and soon after that there was nothing wrong at all.

  There were, of course, those times during their long marriage when Edward was neither coming nor going, and Lyddie wasn’t rushing between sick child and burned bread, where they took their time with each other’s pleasure, but ever since that day in the barn the rush-and-tumble times always quickened Lyddie as nothing else could do.