The widow's war

by Sally Gunning

  “No, no,” Lyddie said. “I’ve no business at Barnstable. But I wish you every success in her. What have you named her?”

  He looked down and up. “The Betsey.”

  “Ah. A fine name.”

  He beamed at her.

  Lyddie spent the rest of the day busying herself in her room, replacing her summer bed tick with the down one, quilting a petticoat, mending stockings, but as busy as she kept, it wasn’t long before the feelings she’d run ahead of most of the day caught up with her and ran her down. But how to name what it was that laid her out? Was this deadness in her relief or dread? Were these poundings of her heart fear or anger? And who owned the tears, the Indian? Edward? Eben Freeman? Or were they for some other thing she could only feel without naming?

  Silas Clarke carried home all the talk from the tavern. There appeared to be little surprise over the fact that the Indian had left for the north; the surprise was that he’d waited till so late in the season. Some blamed the dead wife; some blamed drink; some blamed the in-born, contrary nature of the Indian. As far as Lyddie could tell, no one, openly at least, factored her into the equation.

  But Lyddie had other problems now, or, rather, the same old one. No matter how neatly Patience Clarke kept her shelves, they were seldom full enough for a husband, wife, and five children, and Lyddie’s own pantry frequently got raided. Lyddie knew it and even saw it and had no heart to snatch a piece of bread out of a hungry child’s hand, but when she caught Silas Clarke ripping open a fresh loaf she shouted so loudly he swung around with the loaf pressed to his chest like a shield.

  “Blast you, woman, you war-whoop like some Indian!”

  “Mr. Clarke, you will pay for that loaf.”

  “And what did you think, I was stealing it? Write it in the book and clear out of my way.”

  “And the beer barrel. I’m marking you down for half.”

  “Bah! I’ve not touched your stinking rat piss. Here, step aside or be sorry you didn’t.”

  Lyddie stepped aside. She had as little hope of collecting for the bread as she did for the beer, and if she didn’t wish to starve feeding the Clarke family she would have to find some other kind of work, and find it in a hurry.

  But the theft of her food was not the only harm Silas Clarke brought down on her. It soon became clear that as he brought home one kind of news from the tavern, he left off another. He hadn’t been so blind drunk as to miss the implication of Sam Cowett’s several visits, especially the last one, behind a closed bedroom door. Silas Clarke began to look at Lyddie with a certain air of speculation, and soon after that, the Myrick sisters cut off their chatter when Lyddie came into Sears’s store and Caleb Sears roughly tossed her change across the counter.

  Another week of raids on her stores, another week of nothing but rebuff to all her work inquiries, another good chill descending, and Lyddie found herself where she thought she’d never be again: on Nathan Clarke’s doorstep, lifting his knocker.

  Hassey opened the door and called behind her in a hoarse whisper, “Madam! ’Tis the widow here!”

  Mehitable came into view with the babe on her hip. Hassey backed away. Neither woman spoke, but when Lyddie held out her arms, Mehitable laid the infant in them, a fat, rosy child, fresh-fed and drowsy. “Oh, Daughter,” Lyddie said. “It thrives and you thrive. I’ll see no happier sight in my lifetime.”

  Mehitable’s eyes teared. Or did it just appear so through the film in Lyddie’s? But soon enough Nathan Clarke stuck his head out of his study.

  “’Tis Mother,” Mehitable said.

  “I need you to tell me that?” Nathan said. “Rather you tell me her business.”

  “She comes to see her grandchild only.”

  “She has no grandchild. She’s no part of this family. Tell her to be gone.”

  Lyddie reluctantly handed the babe back to its mother. “In truth, Nathan, my business is with you. It concerns your brother and his family. They invade my stores and strap me beyond my capacity.”

  “And what do you tell me this for?”

  “They’re your tenants. You’ve arranged to extract your rent from Mr. Clarke’s pay at the tannery; perhaps you could also extract their board.”

  He laughed. “You expect me to run your collections for you?”

  “Or perhaps if you speak to Mr. Clarke—”

  “You speak to him. You seem to have little trouble carping at men. And as we come to that subject, what do you hear from your Mr. Freeman?”

  “I hear nothing from Mr. Freeman.”

  “Hah! Did I not tell you, Wife? You said he would not so easily give over! A lot you know of it. And now, with this latest we hear—” He broke off, even Nathan Clarke not quite able to look at her. It must have been quite the shock to him, to find his own falsehoods come back at him as truth. “All right, then, Mother, does that conclude our business?”

  “I came to determine if you would make any effort to remedy an unlivable situation. As you do not, I’ll now pursue my own course.”

  “Your own course! And what might that be? You can’t look to Eben Freeman to throw the law after me now.”

  “Eben Freeman is not the only lawyer of my acquaintance.”

  Clarke stiffened as if he’d been thrust through. Lyddie had tossed the words out with little thought; indeed, she’d not gone as fast as Nathan to the legal issue, but once Nathan took her there, it began to come together in her mind. Why not find another lawyer and sue Nathan Clarke for her keep and care as Eben Freeman had once suggested? At the time it had seemed a poor choice, but as a last choice, it shone brighter. But how to pay for such legal service?

  Lyddie walked home, making a mental list of her personal possessions, taking tally of the sum she might get for this plate or that coverlet, but when she walked into her house she found Silas Clarke rampaging through her room looking for the bottle of brandy. She was forced to drive him out with a pair of scissors held point-first. Once he had gone Lyddie jammed her latch with the scissors and dropped onto the bed, shaking, less from fear than from fury.

  To have given up so much in order to secure her small corner and to now have that corner invaded set loose a new thing in Lyddie. Two weeks earlier and it might not have taken her the same way, but now her mind had been eased about daughter and child, and she’d seen Shubael’s pretty sloop at anchor in the channel. She took down Edward’s picture in its silver frame and carefully removed the canvas. She wrapped the frame in a piece of flannel, set it on top of the chest, and sat down to write a note to Shubael.

  39

  Lyddie handed out seedcakes to all the children, sending the oldest with the note to Shubael, requesting passage to Barnstable. The child came back with a message from Shubael: they would sail within the week; be ready. Lyddie next sat down and wrote another note to Mehitable, explaining her intended absence. She sent it to Nathan’s with Silas’s oldest girl. Mehitable sent back no answer.

  The message came from Shubael on the following Tuesday: they would sail the next day; be at the landing at half-six in the morning. Lyddie gave Patience Clarke free use of the cow’s milk and the hens’ eggs if she did the milking and collecting; she took the padlock off the barn door and fixed it to the pantry. She heated a kettle and gave herself a good wash: hair, face, armpits, groin, feet; she packed a bag with a spare gown and slippers, shift and stockings in case of a severe soaking; she laid out one of Rebecca’s shorter gowns for shipboard, the better to keep the hem above a sloppy deck. She packed a basket with bread, seedcake, apples, dried salt beef, and her knitting to do on shipboard; that night Shubael sent another message: they would sail Thursday.

  Thursday morning Lyddie got dressed, tied her bonnet and buttoned her coat, collected her bag and basket, and said good-bye to Patience and the children. Silas Clarke had at last decided he’d best show up at the tannery, so Lyddie was spared any farewell embrace from him. She set off down the road for the landing, but when she rounded the final turn and saw the bay, she knew they wou
ld not be going anywhere soon; not a single ripple marred the water’s surface. Shubael stood at the water’s edge, directing the loading of the dory with a last-minute collection of boxes and barrels, in between directions staring out across the glassy sea.

  As Lyddie came up he turned to her and made some effort to twitch his mouth into a smile. “We’ll freshen.”

  “Of course.”

  He said the same, off and on at ever-increasing intervals, for the next hour, and then sent Lyddie home. She fussed the house into deathlike neatness until Ned Crowe arrived at two in the afternoon to inform Lyddie that the sail had again been postponed to Friday six.

  Friday morning a fine gust lifted Lyddie’s hem as she stepped into the road, and by the time she reached the landing a steady breeze scoured the surface of the water. Lyddie and her bag were lifted into the dory, and Ned Crowe rowed them to the Betsey.

  The wind was stronger than it looked. Lyddie went below to store her bags, and even there she could feel it, pushing at the wooden sides until they creaked with an in-and-out kind of hopeless pleading. In her life Lyddie had taken many sea journeys to Boston in whatever sloop Edward sailed in as master, and she had always stepped onboard with some little consciousness of danger, but at least there she had known full confidence in her captain. Shubael was growing old; it had surprised Lyddie when she’d learned he’d gone out in a small whaleboat after those blackfish in the bay, but she imagined he could manage the less agile task of shipmaster.

  The wood creaked again, neither loud enough or soft enough to be ignored; the boards under her feet pitched, and she sat down on the bunk to examine her surroundings: two bunks with narrow table and benches built over lockers in between, topped by a hanging lantern and a slatted hatch for light and air, the remaining few feet packed tight with spare sail. Lyddie wedged her own bag into the nearest locker, left the cabin, and went out on deck.

  The wind was out of the southwest and finicky. Shubael brought the Betsey to sail, and at once she heeled over hard, causing Lyddie to grab hold of the rail; she found a seat on the leeward bench and Shubael ran her out to the northwest. From there Lyddie lost the hours, her mind flying ahead of the Betsey, or behind the Betsey, back to other sails, back to Edward. Eventually she heard the call to stand by for sheets, and they came about on a southerly tack, into the harbor. She looked up at the sun and was shocked to see it stood at dead center.

  As they approached the wharf at Barnstable Lyddie felt no sense of trepidation; she barely looked at the man standing beside the pile of crates, and her eye only came back to him when it had finished with the rest of the landscape: the marsh, the church spire, the horses and wagons, but as soon as it came back it recognized the height, the clean angles. Of course, she thought. Of course any “business at Barnstable” would involve Shubael’s new partner, Eben Freeman. Lyddie went below to keep out of the way while they unloaded; even inside the harbor the wind was considerable, and the banging of the blocks and slatting of the sails competed with the tramp of the crew’s feet. The floor under Lyddie’s feet pitched and rolled uneasily; Lyddie had a fair pair of seaman’s legs while under way, but it was another story altogether at anchor. It soon came to a choice between vomiting into the bilge and going back on deck; as the sounds from above had diminished to nothing Lyddie chose the latter. She climbed up the companionway, saw the sails down and lashed and the deck empty, but the dock wasn’t. Shubael and Eben Freeman stood side by side, admiring the Betsey together. Shubael saw her and waved. “Come along, Cousin! We’re invited to dine with my brother! He’s sent for a chaise for us! Is it not delightful?”

  Shubael was worse than old, he was a fool; he deserved his foolish wife; he deserved to be shipwrecked or windbound or capsized in the deepest part of the channel. As soon as Lyddie came within speaking distance Eben Freeman walked around to the far side of chaise, stiff-faced and stiff-backed, but Shubael jabbered on blindly.

  “All right, Cousin, in you go.”

  “I wouldn’t wish to impose on Mr. Freeman. I’d planned to dine out of my basket on board and attend to my business.”

  “Dine out of a basket! Don’t be silly. Come on now, in you go. We’ve got a good wind for the return and we don’t want to lose time.”

  But once they were all in the chaise, where Lyddie might have wished Shubael to continue his jabber, he stopped completely. As Freeman still said nothing, Lyddie felt she had no choice but to venture something in his direction.

  “This is kind of you,” she said.

  “Not at all.”

  “Do you like your new vessel?”

  “Indeed.”

  “Indeed!” Shubael cut in from behind. “Is that the best you say of her? She’s the prettiest ship in the harbor.”

  “She’s the only ship in the harbor,” Freeman said.

  “Not for long, I expect,” Shubael answered. “Now with this blow,” and silence settled again, lasting until they reached the main road.

  It had been several years since Lyddie had visited Barnstable village, and coming from such a backwater as Satucket the bustle of the court town set her spinning. Nathan Clarke owned one of two chaises in Satucket and took it out seldom; here, if Lyddie gazed after one, another was sure to come from the opposite direction, and men and women constantly crisscrossed the road between the shops and taverns. A handful of horses stood tied in front of the courthouse, their tails lifting in the wind, and the sight of them sparked a shower of questions from Shubael: how went the Winslow case? What was being said about Clarke in the village? When did Freeman see it settled for good? All of which Freeman answered with a shrug or a single word.

  Freeman lived a short distance from the courthouse along the King’s road, in a double-doored saltbox in which he both slept and worked, the working side identified by a professional shingle hung in front of the door. Lyddie passed through the door to the residence in something of a numb state, noting little except a general sense of simplicity and order. She had some recollection of a tender veal roast set out by Freeman’s housekeeper, an elderly woman he addressed as “Mrs. Crocker,” which did little to explain her life situation. Lyddie spoke when spoken to, mostly by Shubael, but when form required, by tight-voiced courtesy from Freeman; in the main she was left alone as the men talked about the Betsey. She looked at Freeman when she could do so unnoticed but found little in his face to describe his thoughts. At length the subject turned to the weather, and as Lyddie had kept an ear on the whistling wind throughout the meal, she was unsurprised when Freeman suggested they might end up windbound. Shubael jumped up at once and charged off for the harbor.

  Lyddie stood also. “I must get to my business,” she said. “I thank you for your hospitality.”

  She was nearer the door than the table when Freeman said, “I’d not expected to see you here.”

  “Nor I you.”

  “No doubt if you’d known you’d see me you’d not have come.”

  “I could hardly have expected a welcome.”

  “I’m sorry, this is the best I’m able.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  Freeman leapt out of his chair. “Blast what you mean and what I mean and what that asinine brother of mine means! What was he thinking to bring you here?”

  “I can’t think. But I do have business in town. If you would tell Cousin Shubael—”

  “Oh, sit down, sit down. Good God, we’re not a pair of children.”

  Lyddie returned to the table and sat down. Freeman remained standing, gripping the back of his chair. “I’ve had a deal of time to get the better of my anger and I thought I’d done so. I thought I’d most certainly done so. I even thought I might now manage an answer to your letter.”

  “The one releasing you from our engagement.”

  He peered at her. “A difficult letter to write.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “I mean to say, my answer to it.”

  “Allow me, then, to release you from that obligation as well, by ack
nowledging the offer as accepted. And now may we move on to other subjects?”

  “Very well.”

  They fell into silence. Lyddie dropped her eyes from Freeman’s strained face.

  At length Freeman said, “Let me begin with inquiring on your business in Barnstable.”

  “I’ve come to engage a lawyer.”

  “A lawyer!”

  “I find it necessary after all to sue Mr. Clarke for my keep and care, as well as to deal with a difficult tenant.”

  “Tenant?”

  “Silas Clarke.”

  “Silas Clarke? He’s put Silas Clarke in there?”

  “He has.”

  More silence.

  “Perhaps you could recommend a man of law to me,” Lyddie said.

  “You’ll not want Doane, he’s Clarke’s man. Perhaps Bourne. He’s across from the courthouse.” He paused, perhaps thinking of fees. “You continue in the employ of Mr. Cowett?”

  “I do not.”

  Another silence. “I believe at one time I spoke in a derogatory way on the subject of Mr. Cowett. I should like to correct what impression I might have given by saying that I have always found him a man of principle.”

  “I don’t believe your concerns about Mr. Cowett were entirely unfounded. You spoke of grudges.”

  “He holds a few. And not all unwarranted.”

  “Including one against my husband?”

  Freeman’s face widened out in surprise. “Your husband?”

  “Did not my husband’s family acquire his land without paying?”

  “Your husband’s family was given that land as gift.”

  “But why? I saw the deed and no reason was given.”

  “There were too many to put in writing. The Berrys took care of the sachem’s ill son; they hired a lawyer to make out a document protecting the sachem’s land for his heirs; they aided the son with an English education…I can’t recall every single instance, but there were many, I assure you. In exchange, the sachem deeded the Berrys a parcel of land, not a large gift by any lights. No, no, Sam Cowett held no grudge against your husband. In fact, he was so distraught at his failure to save him he took it as his job to look out for his widow.”