The Lacemaker

by Laura Frantz

  “Only if my husband allows it.”

  “He won’t. There’s no time—”

  “If you are my father’s attending physician and he is as ill as you say, why are you here and not by his bedside?”

  “Because he thought a courier—a stranger—too threatening, that someone known to you should deliver the news and then accompany you safely. Given his precarious health, it was uncommonly kind of him.”

  Kind? Such a courtesy was unheard of. But dying men did unusual things. Might her father finally be receptive to the Savior and His message of forgiveness and grace? What kind of daughter would she be to ignore such a plea? Still, she felt a restraining hand, a check not to heed him.

  Doctor Hessel stepped back. “Come away with me. Now. There’s precious little time left.”

  Mistress Tremayne stood in the doorway, looking as conflicted as Liberty felt. “Perhaps if Isabeau accompanies you and Dougray is your driver. I can go along also if you like.”

  “Nay.” Doctor Hessel swung toward her. “’Tis a private family matter—”

  “I cannot come,” Liberty interrupted, finding some solace in simply saying no.

  He looked disbelieving. “You refuse me then? And your father’s dying wish?” Anger spiked the heated words, but she held firm.

  “My place is here.” With my husband. Though Noble wasn’t present she knew he would be against her going. Just like with Gosport, the risk was too great.

  A Scripture sprang to mind, confirming her decision.

  Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

  She looked toward Mistress Tremayne, who appeared relieved at her firm stance. Without so much as an adieu, Hessel went out, pushing past Ninian and Nell in the foyer to make a hasty exit, leaving a great deal of ill feeling after him.

  She spent much time in Ty Bryn’s garden the next few days. Doing so helped keep her mind off her father’s health and Hessel’s disturbing visit. Gathering an armful of daisies, the flower that had rallied the best after the hurricane, she sought out a vase in the pantry attached to the summer kitchen. Given it was the Sabbath and the servants were not close at hand—save Ninian and Isabeau in the house—she was left to her own devices.

  Pushing open the keeping room door, she spied a shelf of glassware and a simple piece of crockery that would suffice. But first water. The well was behind the summer kitchen, and she carried both crock and flowers there, glad for a simple task. Always thoughts of Noble were foremost.

  What was he doing on so cloudy and close a day?

  Lord, please hedge him in behind and before, and place Your hand of blessing on his head.

  “Pardon me, miss.”

  The unfamiliar voice made her turn. A man in ragged homespun stood in back of her, near the closed kitchen door. Her heart squeezed. Was he hungry? Wanting to be fed, as did so many displaced by the storm and the conflict?

  “Are you in need?” she asked, but it seemed a silly question. At his nod, she started for the kitchen. “I’m sure Cook has some bread and meat on hand.” Turning her back to him, she gave a twist to the doorknob.

  What had Noble insisted upon?

  Let the hospitality of the house with respect to the poor be kept up. Let no one go hungry away.

  The man came closer. She could feel him shadowing her, a bit too closely mayhap, and her nose wanted to curl at the smell of his unwashed clothes. Shamed by her reaction, she put one foot over the kitchen’s threshold—and was overcome with a great smothering blackness.

  37

  If he had been at home that fateful day, none of this would be happening. The recurrent thought was like a sharpened sword through his soul. Would he go to his grave laden with regret? Why had he not left his Life Guard at Libby’s side? Now, three months later, her disappearance—and his ongoing fury with Hessel and her father—had become as much a stronghold as the earthworks thrown up by his men. Rage crowded out reason and whittled down his faith.

  God had let this happen. While he’d acted honorably in defense of his wife and his country, a Tory spy posing as a beggar had separated them, mayhap for good.

  A cold, late November wind rattled the paper he held, the ink smudged from repeated reading and the emotion of those first moments. Ninian had delivered the news to him immediately after Libby’s disappearance, and then came confirmation of what had happened.

  Major Rynallt,

  Intelligence suggests your wife has been captured by Tories associated with Dunmore. She has been taken aboard an unknown vessel in Gosport. Word has also come that Lord Stirling is alive and well. No other details are forthcoming. Will advise if otherwise.

  The note was unsigned but had come from reliable sources, through that spiderweb of intelligence the Patriot cause had constructed.

  He’d just been about to go home, ready to tell Libby in person that their troops would move to Hampton to counter an anticipated naval attack by the British. By the time he reached Gosport the ship on which her father was aboard had vanished. No one would tell him where he, or Libby, had gone.

  He returned to a solemn household staff, Libby’s maid more hysterical than he had ever seen her.

  And then, adding insult to injury, Patrick Henry appeared, his blistering tongue intact. In the canvas closet of his army tent, Henry had the audacity to take him to task. “I warned you, did I not? I knew wedding her would cost you dearly. And what is this talk of her being captured? Methinks she is Loyalist to the bone and has played you false—”

  “Nay, not that.” Noble’s pain was so great the words were hoarse. He’d not believe she’d turned on him. Not his Libby. She loved him as he loved her. Politics played no part in matters of the heart.

  Henry took a piece of paper from his pocket. “I’ve done what I could and confirmed what you already know. Lady Elisa—your wife—is supposedly being held aboard an unnamed schooner somewhere in the Chesapeake. There are recent reports she’ll be transferred to a frigate bound for England or taken to New York to one of the prison ships moored near Long Island.”

  Noble nearly swore. The last was new. Horrific. “I’ve spoken with Elias Boudinot about a prisoner exchange.”

  “Washington’s commander general of prisoners?”

  Noble gave a nod. “I proposed to exchange myself for her release—”

  “Are you daft?” Henry stared at him, beads of sweat pearling on his brow. “You are considered one of the most active and virulent of British enemies. You’ll be hanged without delay. Or worse, the British authorities will try to sway you to join them in fighting against us Patriots.”

  “And what if it was your wife? Would you not do the same?”

  Silence. Henry took out a handkerchief and wiped the sheen of sweat away. “General Washington will have none of it. He will not even allow British soldiers to be traded for American citizens, as this only legitimizes the British capturing more citizens.”

  “I am an American officer, not a civilian.”

  “Aye, aye. And you are indeed bereft of all reason if you disobey orders—”

  “No order has yet been given.” To his credit, Washington was gravely concerned about Libby, but his hands were tied. “My circumstance is beyond military law.”

  “You will set the precedent then. And win Washington’s fury and disfavor.”

  “So be it.”

  Henry balled up the paper in one fist. “I understand your dilemma, but I’ll take no part in your plan.”

  Beyond the tent’s sweltering confines came the all-too-familiar rat-a-tat of a drum.

  “Next is Great Bridge,” Noble said, though Henry well knew that too. They were now at Norfolk, twenty miles distant from Fort Murray, where Dunmore held sway with a small army and confiscated military stores from ongoing coastal raids.

  Noble’s mind was made up. If he could at last communicate with the British authorities in the Chesapeake where the coming conflict was to be, he might deter
mine just where Libby was.

  And he would, Lord willing, set her free.

  Liberty’s space aboard the HMS Sapphire was more closet, but Providence had spared her from being crammed in the hold with a great many men. The rebel rabble, as the ship’s crew called them, were mostly Continental militia with a few civilians thrown in. She was the prize aboard this floating hulk of a prison ship, the sole female, oft invited to the captain’s table. When she declined, a moldy biscuit, a half pint of peas, and a half gill of rice was given her. Water was brought in a chamber pot.

  Each morning she awoke to the hoarse cry, “Rebel, turn out your dead.” As the autumn weather turned sweltering and disease raced like rats among the prisoners, more fell. Desperate, still nauseous, she fixed on the meagerest blessing. She had a bull’s-eye window. A moldy mattress. Privacy. Most miraculous of all, she had been snuck a lace kit from the plundering of a near plantation. Though she’d wondered why it fell into her hands, she now saw it as God’s provision.

  What else was she to do, cooped up all day? Not only did the routine ground her and fill her hours, she bartered and sold bits of lace to the crew, who were greedy for gain. They, in turn, brought a piece of cheese or unmoldy bread or extra ration. She must keep her baby well. Already she was showing, her soiled gown hiding nothing. Pared down again she was except for her middle, the memory of the delectable bara brith excruciating. A hasty look in a cracked mirror bespoke a scarecrow in blue silk. If she lived to get off this ship . . .

  Noble’s last letter, delivered to Ty Mawr in September, was tucked beneath her stays, the lettering a ghostly gray from repeated perusing. Was she still his anwylyd? Did he pine for her by day and dream of her by night? She did him.

  Her one regret was that she had not told him her secret. He was to be a father in late spring, by her reckoning. But perhaps Providence had kept her from telling. Mightn’t her absence be all the more troublesome if he knew that not only was her life at risk but their unborn child’s too?

  What a conundrum she was in. He had no idea just where she was, nor did she. When she’d been taken captive that day at Ty Bryn, she’d been whisked to a ship at anchor in the Chesapeake in sight of Virginia’s shore, an insignificant schooner amid the mighty British fleet. Not a word was said about Lord Stirling, nor did she see Hessel, though she believed they were behind her abduction. Her father was not ailing or dead, she soon discovered. ’Twas a lie told to get her here. The ship’s captain confided that, unable to capture Noble, they’d dealt a blow to him by capturing her instead.

  The light from her window was fading. She had no candles and would soon see utter darkness but for the tiny pinpricks of gold aboard other surrounding ships.

  A tap and a muffled voice came at the door. “Yer supper, m’lady.”

  A key grated in the lock as her one shipboard friend delivered her scant supper, a greenish biscuit and a square of pork pooling with grease. She looked past him to the empty companionway. His opening the door seemed to have uncorked the vilest of the ship’s smells. Bilge. Dampness. The reek of unwashed bodies.

  Ignoring them, she smiled. “Thank you, Nathaniel.” He was but a boy, stolen from his family and pressed into service. His own misery and the abuse he suffered from the crew made her more mindful of her own. Betimes hers seemed small in comparison.

  “I remember when you first came aboard, and rumor was you were a high-minded lady married to a Patriot. At every meeting I expected you to hurl insults my way, but ’twas only a kind word.”

  A rat scurried past. She pressed the soles of her worn slippers to the plank floor, resisting an unladylike shriek. By now rats were commonplace. Sometimes she felt the brush of them in her bed.

  Lightheaded, she sat down on an upturned barrel. “You are a fellow captive, not my enemy.”

  He nodded, staring at the tray as if sorry he had brought her such swill. “Yer prayers seem to be helpin’, m’lady. The crew’s not beat me of late. And only two rebel dead this morn.”

  Only two. God rest their souls. “I’ve not thanked you properly for all your help to me.” She took a roll of lace from her pocket and handed it to him.

  His eyes shone with rare glee. “’Twill fetch a fine price in Norfolk.”

  So they were closest to the Tory town? They moved about quite a bit as if to confuse or elude. At the slightest heave of the ship she feared they’d set sail for England. “Any news?”

  He leaned into the doorway, a grubby finger caressing the pale lace. “Dunmore’s preparing for battle. There’s talk ye might be switched to one of the sugarhouses along the waterfront soon.”

  Surely the joy she felt must have shown on her face. To be on land again! There she might have a chance of escape. Here, afloat, there was little hope.

  “Might you smuggle out a letter for me?” Only recently had he snuck her writing tools, at great personal risk.

  “Aye, m’lady.”

  “If you think ’tis too much a danger for you—”

  “For you, aye. Nobody else.” The conflict in his mind was evident on his pockmarked face. “Yer held here, against yer will, with yer babe. ’Tis not me I fear for but yerself.”

  “Very well then. I’ll have a letter for you tomorrow, meant for someone on shore sympathetic to the American cause. If it lands in the right hands they’ll see it safely delivered.”

  But the wrong hands? She wouldn’t think of that. She would pray for safe passage. That somehow the letter would reach Noble. Time was running out. Soon, she sensed, an irrevocable shift in their plight was coming—and not for the better.

  Breaking through their low talk was a rising storm of voices toward the front of the ship. Nathaniel’s face fell. “Best hie to the forecastle and help feed the miserable crew.”

  At the edge of the field where Noble’s regiment was drilling stood his adjutant, looking impatient, something in hand. Without a break in his commands, Noble finished the manual exercise, his voice loud and distinct.

  “Poise firelock . . . Cock firelock . . . Take aim . . . Fire!” Then, amid the acrid swirl of black powder, “Rest.”

  He left the field abruptly, the sun in his eyes, aware of his men’s scrutiny as if they too detected something afoot.

  Alarm lined his adjutant’s face. “This just came, sir. Delivered by a washerwoman out of Norfolk.”

  Noble’s fingers nearly shook as he took in the scrap of unsealed paper. On the outside was his name, penned in—could it be?—Libby’s elegant hand. But without the costly, fragrant foolscap from Ty Mawr, she’d crowded a brief message on the back of a wrinkled receipt for molasses.

  His eyes stung. Disbelieving, he moved into the shade of a hickory, his shoulder cutting into the ragged bark. All the sounds and smells of the busy encampment faded away.

  Dearest husband,

  I am not far. Your child and I—

  He stopped cold. Reread that telling line. Child? Their unborn child. Lord, nay. He stared at the leaf-strewn ground, a fiery carpet of color. This was the first indication he’d had of her whereabouts. He devoured the rest of her words as if he’d been denied a meal for months.

  Your child and I have come to no harm aboard the Sapphire.

  Captain Graves is in command. I may be moved to the sugarhouses in Norfolk soon. Till now I’ve had no ink and paper.

  I love you with all my heart and pray my way into your arms again.

  Anwylyd

  Three months it had been since she’d left Ty Mawr. He knew the day, the very hour. His ache for her never lessened. All his searching with the men he’d hired to find her had come to naught. He’d been left with prayer and prayer alone. And now with a few tersely penned words, his flagging hopes revived.

  Not only was she near, she was carrying his child. The son or daughter of his heart. The heir to Ty Mawr.

  Father in heaven, help us.

  Just like that, the daily nausea ebbed and Liberty felt that flutter deep inside her, a soul-stirring motion that brought to mind the s
unny, white-walled nursery with its walnut cradle and the angels on the fire screen.

  Nathaniel had carried away her letter the week before. ’Twas now the last of November. A dismal, damp cold had descended and a frigid wind blew through the ship’s timbers, causing her to wrap herself in the moth-eaten blanket given her.

  When Nathaniel next came below, his cheeks were fiery with cold. “Some soup, m’lady. Though I don’t know what’s in it.”

  He entered and set the bowl on her bunk. No steam rose. The soup was nearly as cold as they were. She thanked him, wishing for more lace to give him. Of late her fingers had been too stiff to do much work.

  He looked to the companionway, lowering his voice. “Dunmore and the British in Virginia are gathering at Great Bridge.”

  She stared at him, the flutter inside her bolder. “Will there be a battle, do you think?”

  “Aye, the rebels are setting up defenses there, a great many breastworks and such—”

  His eyes flew upward at a sudden commotion above. Without warning, the schooner heaved leeward, along with her stomach. They were on the move.

  But to where?

  38

  Dawn. December 9. Noble’s breath plumed like white feathers as he observed his forward sentries creep toward the hastily erected British stockade dubbed Fort Murray. Hog Pen, the Continentals were calling it. The 2nd Virginia Regiment was encamped near the local church, the Patriot Main Guard positioned behind a seven-foot-high palisade wall. A bridge spanning the Great Dismal Swamp separated redcoats and bluecoats.

  Weary of Dunmore’s coastal raids of military stores, Colonel Woodford’s forces had arrived the end of November, exchanging musket and cannon fire ever since. They were running low on munitions. Perilously low.

  God, hasten the artillery train. It became his constant prayer.

  Once they had the needed cannon, Hog Pen would fall to splinters and the Patriots would drive Dunmore and the British out of Virginia for good. Or so they hoped.