by Laura Frantz
Sighing, Eden struggled with this new complication, wishing for a different outcome, a chaste sister. How long would Elspeth keep weaving deceit and selfishness into the fabric of their lives? How long would Papa and Mama allow it? Unlike the fine fibers spun on her wheel, their lives seemed like tangled thread, knotted further by the coming of a babe who wouldn’t know his or her true mother . . . or father. Eden took a breath and held it, back tense and eyes tearing, sending up a petition to a being she was unsure of.
Had the Almighty made this babe? Like He made the flowers in her beloved garden and the wind and weather? If so, please let the child grow to be kind and good and giving, not like its mother. Two wayward Lees were too many!
At her amen, the air was rent by a hiccup and a cry—so high and sharp it sent the fine hair on her neck tingling. She sensed it was a boy—hoped and prayed it was. A boy was less likely to take after Elspeth, would make a fine companion to young Thomas.
In moments, the door to the weaving room cracked open and Papa’s voice filled the quiet space. “A son—just whose son, we know not. But ’tis as lusty a babe as has ever been born in York County.”
Eden simply nodded, watching her father’s sturdy shadow retreat, knowing he wanted to be at his forge among the sameness and predictability of the iron he worked, much like she sought solace in her spinning.
She hadn’t asked how Elspeth fared and felt a twist of guilt. But she needn’t wonder. Her older sister led a charmed life. Be it tallying ledgers or cavorting or begetting babies, Elspeth Lee came out as sleek and well-crafted as a fine Pennsylvania rifle.
’Twas snowing harder, Eden noticed, and was shiveringly cold. Within minutes of Papa’s announcement, she abandoned her spinning and went to the kitchen to check the spitted meat and baking bread before joining Mama and Elspeth in the bedchamber. Though she’d offered to be present at the birth, Mama had forbidden it. Her youngest daughter’s virtue must be preserved, she insisted in a strained whisper. This seemed a bit odd given the fact Eden had witnessed a great deal of barnyard carousing and the birth of countless animals. But Mama held sway.
Since the York midwife was absent, Mama had had to manage everything herself, for not even the meddlesome Mistress Middy knew about Elspeth. All thought it was Mrs. Lee who was lying in. For months now Elspeth had been kept hidden out of fear someone would discern the truth. Bound by a lingering English law, a midwife was obliged to learn the father’s identity for all unwed mothers. Her strategy was simple: she waited till the throes of labor to ask whom the father was. Oftentimes only then was the secret divulged, and the new parents later hauled to court and fined, chastised, and disgraced.
“Here, let me take him,” Eden told her mother. “I’ve made a sugar treat.”
With practiced hands she embraced the wailing, flailing bundle of flesh and brushed his open mouth with the treat that had always soothed Thomas. It pained her to see that even angry, he was every bit as handsome as Elspeth. She searched for some sign of his father in his livid countenance, names and faces of settlement men buzzing in her head like horseflies. David Hofstettler. Josiah Himer. Angus McEachon. Donal Shire. Wouldn’t the father step forward in time, anxious to see his own son?
Frantic, the baby began sucking, but it was a short-lived reprieve. ’Twas his mother he wanted, her known scent and warmth, but Elspeth turned aside and slept, her comely form buried beneath a hill of blankets.
“She needs her rest.” Mama’s face held a telling anxiety, the tired lines of midcentury deepening. “Where is your father?”
“At the forge.”
Their eyes met and held. Mama looked so worn it seemed she had given birth. “The babe is to be mine and your father’s. Not a word is to be breathed otherwise.”
“Yes, Mama.” Why else had Elspeth pled illness and kept to the house so no one would know? The plan was nearly foolproof. Mama certainly looked the part—plump, full-bosomed, clad in shapeless wool or linen dresses. None would question the babe’s origins.
“What will you call him?” Eden asked quietly.
“That I don’t know. Your father hasn’t decided.”
So Elspeth wouldn’t name her firstborn son. Eden felt a twist of grief. If this was her babe, she’d savor the sweetness of naming him, illegitimate or no. But Elspeth had never held with sentimental things, didn’t care for children. Though perhaps, in time, she’d take to her own.
Whoever’s son he was, this new one flailed in her arms and let out a war cry, sugar treat forgotten. Mayhap he was Heinrich Grossvort’s, as the man so loved the sound of his own voice. But Heinrich was so dark, and this child’s hair was pale as bleached linen.
Watching, Mama sighed and pushed a graying curl behind her ear. “I’ll swaddle and try to quiet him. Go below and ready the meat and bread. Thomas will be rousing and your father will want his flip.”
Eden gave up her bundle, nearly wincing at his stubborn squall. Down the narrow hall she went, into the warm confines of a kitchen smelling of rosemary and thyme, so reminiscent of her garden. She felt nearly wrenched with longing to be lost in it. Truly, ’twas her garden she craved, just beyond the snow-covered door stone.
Dropping to her knees at the hearth, she took a bake kettle from the ashes and pretended the aroma of bread was a rose instead—the red damask rose she’d gotten from Hope Rising’s gardener last spring. Lost in whimsy, she failed to hear the footfall or the knock.
“Begging your pardon, miss. Would this be Liege Lee’s?”
The strange voice came from behind, so deep and rumbling it seemed to be underground. Eden felt a swift spasm of mortification. There was simply no getting up gracefully. Her backside, covered as it was by two petticoats and an indigo short dress, faced the stranger. With furious haste she pushed herself up by her palms and turned to meet him. A man filled the door frame, a shadowy giant.
Face aflame, she managed, “Would you be . . . ?”
“Silas Ballantyne.”
Nay! Papa’s new apprentice? On the day of the babe’s birth!
His bearded face took on a swarthy hue. “I knocked on both front and back doors and had no answer.” His tone was heavily Scots and a touch apologetic. “With all the noise . . .”
All the blood left her head and she had no answer. She’d gotten up too suddenly and the kitchen seemed to swirl.
“Eden, are you there?”
Her mother’s high-pitched voice carried down the stair, and then she appeared, babe in arms. The nameless lad was screaming lustily with no thought to their fragile circumstances. There was no disguising a newborn’s cry. All their carefully placed plans began to unravel fast as thread.
Mama’s eyes grew wide as saucers, and her plump face paled at the sight of Silas Ballantyne. “I’ll go get the master.”
The kitchen’s shadows seemed to deepen when the stranger shot a glance up the stairs as if he knew Elspeth was there—knew all their secrets—and had come to call them out. Or perhaps he was simply wondering where his lodging would be?
Quickly Eden took stock of him like Mama did her spice cupboard. Sturdy, wool-clad shoulders. Black boots and frayed breeches, and a greatcoat so shabby it seemed mere spiderwebbing in places. Hair as rich and multihued as the hard cider Papa kept locked in the shed, a damp amber-gold threaded with red. In their humble kitchen he cut an imposing figure. He stood, she guessed, more than six feet tall. She couldn’t get a fix on his features, couldn’t tell how pleasing or plain—
“Eden,” he said quietly, in a voice so low it was nearly lost to her. “Like the garden.”
Her head cleared. “The garden?”
“Aye, of Eden.”
She tried to smile. “I—I’m sorry for my mother’s haste. She’s . . .”
“Busy with the babe,” he finished for her.
“Aye, the babe.” She turned toward the water barrel beside the kitchen door and plucked a pewter cup from a nail. “Born today. We’ve not even named him—” She bit her tongue all too late. Oh my
!
He took the cup from her unsteady hand. “Today,” he echoed, a touch of awe in his tone. “I’d heard you frontier women were hardy . . .”
While he took a long drink, she felt mired in a stew of subterfuge. Could he sense her panic, her deceit? She must speak of something else—anything. “You—you’ve come far without a companion.”
“I had Horatio.”
“Horatio?”
“My gelding.”
She looked out the window in the fading light and saw a horse, its snow-capped nose at the pane.
“If this is the wilderness, there were no dangers along the way,” he said. “No wild animals. No Indians.”
Darting another look at him, she almost laughed despite herself. Did he think this the wilderness?
Silent as a savage himself, Liege Lee filled the doorway. “So, Silas Ballantyne, you’ve braved a snowstorm to get here.” Voice gruff, he glanced at Eden. “Daughter, see to the man’s horse.”
The Scot turned and shifted his load, shaking her father’s soot-stained hand. Eden began taking small steps backward, wondering if master and apprentice would take a liking to each other when such had never happened before. She could hear Mama down the hall but no more wailing. The babe was likely tucked in the worn cradle by the hearth. Supper awaited with the stranger.
’Twas at supper that she noticed his thumbs. The candlelight seemed to call attention to their ends. At first she thought them injured. Had he burnt himself at the forge? ’Twas a dangerous work they did. Pity softened her, nearly made her forget the babe in the cradle or little Thomas at her elbow making a mess of his beans. But it was the stranger’s bowing of his head that most moved her. Was he . . . praying?
Silas Ballantyne seemed to marvel at their table. “I’d not thought,” he said quietly, “to find such fare so far west.”
Eden read deprivation and loneliness in the words while Mama smiled wearily and passed him more beef and bread. Glancing in Papa’s direction, Eden waited for him to belt out the admonition that there was to be no talking at table. But to her dismay, and surely Mama’s, he launched into a speech of all he possessed.
“I’ve got four hundred acres here along the Elkhannah, a fine wife, two young sons . . .”
There, he’s gone and done it, Eden thought. Claimed Elspeth’s babe as his own.
“A pair of marriageable daughters . . .”
Her bread turned to ashes in her mouth. She wanted to crawl beneath the trestle table.
He continued on, confident. Nay, boastful. “A fine harvest of wheat and flax, twenty head of cattle, countless chickens and an aggravation of goats, a bountiful garden, corn that surpasses eighteen inches an ear. Not all you’ve heard about this land is fabricated. The woods to the west of us really are alive with Indians. Settlers beyond the Alleghenies still fort up on occasion. Any questions?”
“Two daughters?” Silas asked, shooting a glance about the room.
Eden’s fork stilled.
“Aye, two. One’s ill and abed,” Papa said.
Silas buttered a piece of bread, expression thoughtful. “Tell me about the forge.”
The forge. Always the forge. Was he winning her father over already? Papa’s grim expression beneath his shock of graying hair told her he had not. Papa seemed tetchy, a bit on edge. Was he thinking of Elspeth? The babe beginning to stir in its cradle near the hearth?
“The forge.” Papa forked a slab of beef onto his plate, voice rising as the infant’s fussing intensified. “What about it?”
“How long you’ve been in business. How you come by your iron. What you turn out.”
The crying could no longer be ignored. Eden got up, food forgotten, and fished the babe out of the cradle. Mama soon relieved her, her whisper low and urgent. “Make them both some flip. And mind your cap—it’s all askew. You must put your best foot forward.”
’Tis not my foot that needs to be minded but Elspeth’s.
The Scottish apprentice now belonged to her sister, Eden realized with a little start. But Elspeth was abed. Disappearing into the kitchen, she measured out generous amounts of molasses, small beer and rum, and a dash of cream and egg. This she poured into two tankards, returning to the dining room, cap still askew, careful to keep her eyes off Silas Ballantyne.
4
He speaketh not; and yet there lies a conversation in his eyes.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Silas watched the young woman at the hearth now that the room had emptied. Greathouse’s words came rushing back and nearly made him groan.
She’s no sow.
Nae, most decidedly not. Whatever Liege Lee’s faults, he’d sired a lovely daughter. But it wasn’t the snug lines of her wool dress that drew his eye, nor the worn lace kerchief dressing up her shoulders, nor the fact that her linen cap was a bit crooked.
A spitfire, he’d thought at first sight.
But as soon as she’d spoken, he’d detected a certain sweetness about her that altered his hasty opinion. And her smile . . . losh, bright as a sunrise, raising a dimple in her right cheek. But it was her voice that held him captive. He’d expected it to be high, girlish, simple. But when she spoke it was like a song. Soft and dulcet. Somewhat refined.
Leaning back in his chair, he crossed his arms and legs, waiting for the drink she made him. Into the flames went her poker before the tip turned his pewter mug sizzling. Though he’d been in the house an hour or better, his insides had hardly thawed.
When she handed him the mug, their fingers met and then their eyes, hers a startling indigo in the pale oval of her face. Shyly she turned back toward the fire, and he caught a flash of cherry red as she flipped the length of her hair over her shoulder. Bound with dark ribbon, it cascaded to her waist in lush spirals, thick as blackberry vine.
Eden, indeed.
The other daughter was ill, the master said. Just as well. If she’d been present and was half so bonny, he’d have been struck speechless.
When Liege returned, he took up his own mug, surprising Silas with his terse words. “We breakfast at first light. Eden will show you to your garret room. Tomorrow comes all too soon.”
Silas looked from master to daughter, saw the pained expression that crossed her face then skittered away like mist, making him think he’d imagined it. But she merely lowered her head and nodded, expecting him to follow, he guessed.
Bidding Liege good night, he walked a respectable distance behind Eden, down a narrow hall past two closed doors, then up a small, winding stair to a second and third floor that nearly had his knees to his chin. Once, her taper nearly went out in a draft, but she cupped her hand around it and pressed on, finally pushing open a door at the very top of the stair.
The promised garret room.
It was small and prim, redolent of linseed oil and old wood. A narrow bed, a stove, a table, and a chair made it hospitable, and he was heartened to see a small window. Immediately he looked west, if only to look away from her. The snow made the land lantern-bright, the view unobstructed for miles.
He nodded his thanks, stepping around her, remembering he’d left his belongings below. Setting the candle on the table, she added a chunk of wood to the glowing Franklin stove before shutting it soundly. He’d seen such contraptions in Philadelphia but never one so small. Fit for a child, it barely came up to his shin, yet he felt its warmth from several feet away. Bethankit, he nearly uttered aloud. ’Twas a far cry from the unheated hovel he was used to.
With nary a look, she left him. He heard her soft footfall in the stairwell and wondered where she was off to. The babe was howling again with the keening pitch of a newborn, as if announcing Silas would get no sleep. Sitting in the too-small chair and finishing his flip, he contemplated whether or not to fetch his haversacks or wait till morning.
Down the dark stairs Eden flew, berating herself for forgetting his belongings. The house below seemed empty of all but the babe’s cries. Though he was tucked away in her parents’ bedchamber behind clo
sed doors, her ears—and nerves—felt shattered. To ground herself, she leaned into the parlor table where the Scot’s rifle rested, her gaze falling to the smooth walnut stock bearing silver mounts, worked with a pattern of twisting acanthus leaves much like the copper lantern.
Had he fashioned this too?
This fine gun lacked a nameplate atop the barrel. Turning it over, she searched for a signature, finding it secreted beneath the side plate.
Silas Ballantyne, 1783.
A tiny ember of delight, of discovery, flickered in her heart. Those who labeled a gun so subtly often felt their craftsmanship was God-given and to display their name prominently was to take away from His work. Usually Papa made sport of such folk behind their backs when they brought their rifles for repair, but their humility had made a far different impression on Eden.
Perhaps . . . Her heart quickened. Perhaps this Scotsman was a believer, someone who could speak to her of God—more so than Margaret Hunter with her mysterious Quaker murmurings.
Listen to the Light, Eden. Quiet thy thoughts. Worship is deeper than words . . .
Hoisting the canvas haversacks and rifle and nearly gasping at their weight, she trudged back upstairs. The apprentice met her halfway, surprising her in the stairwell, relieving her of her burden and handing her his empty mug.
“If you grow cold . . . have need of another quilt—” she began.
“Nae,” he said abruptly.
His terse tone surprised her. But he was weary, she reminded herself, in need of rest, with no understanding of her alarm. She glanced over his shoulder and into the garret, feeling a desperate need to rescue the private things she’d hidden there. She’d never dreamed Papa would want him upstairs and not in the room off the smithy reserved for apprentices. But the roof was leaking there and he’d had little time to repair it. Or might he have other motives? Like wanting him nearer Elspeth?