But Bristol wriggled from her cocoon of warm quilts, gasping at the cold bedroom air. “I’d rather get up today, Mama.” She stretched, testing her back. “You and Charity have been doing my chores long enough.” She smiled, ignoring a small soreness between her shoulders.
Narrowing her eyes, Hannah studied Bristol in the faint light filtering past the crystals frosting the window. “Are you certain? We can manage. The important thing is to regain your strength. You needn’t rush, missy.” Her voice hesitated, pleased at Bristol’s progress, but unwilling to hurry a recovery.
“I’d like to try, Mama.”
“Aye. Very well.” The door closed.
Bristol smiled happily. Today, she thought. Maybe today she’d talk to Noah. She pinched Charity playfully. “Out of bed, goose, the chores are waiting!”
Charity returned a timid smile. “I do believe you’re actually anxious to empty slop jars and fetch wood and water, Bristol Adams! As I live and breathe!”
Bristol’s full mouth fell open. Was Charity actually teasing? Laughing delightedly, she tossed her pillow at Charity’s dodging shoulders and then swung long shapely legs over the edge of the bed.
Both girls dressed hastily in the frigid air, pulling long gowns over homespun petticoats, then fastening their collars and white aprons. Charity cracked a thin layer of ice capping their water pitcher, and each gasped as icy water splashed her cheeks. Reaching for their dust caps, they dashed for the warm kitchen.
Pewter porringers of corn mush waited on a long oaken table, and Hannah poured each girl a steaming mug of beer before returning to a lump of satiny dough she kneaded across the end of the table. She squinted at Bristol, noticing the girl’s wince when she sat. Hannah frowned. “Nothing strenuous for you today, missy. You’ll do best to take it slow.”
Bristol nodded. Helping herself to a second portion of mush, she recognized approvingly that her appetite had returned in force. Later today, if she continued as strong as she felt now, she’d convince Noah to allow Caleb’s courtship. She could convince her father, she vowed confidently. And she would.
At the buttery door, Charity waved and departed toward the corral to shoo the cows into the barn for milking, and Bristol turned her steps toward the well near the gate, a wooden pail swinging from her arm.
A sharp breeze caught her breath, and Bristol bent her head against the wind, avoiding mounds of soiled snow with an unconscious grace, her ripe young body moving with the assurance of an older woman. Beneath a heavy cloak, her gray camlet gown molded a figure impossible to hide, generous curves that drew envious glances from women and hidden moisture to men’s palms.
But observers first noticed Bristol Adams’ brilliant hair. The rich curls tied below her dust cap glowed in fiery tones of red and gold. Parted in the center, her shining hair flowed back to frame a face not easily forgotten once seen. Emerald eyes fringed with surprisingly dark lashes sparkled above Bristol’s high cheekbones, and beneath them curved a full mouth sculptured for laughter and kisses. Her appearance whispered of a different time, far removed in thought and deed from the somber austerity of Puritan discipline.
Occasionally Bristol herself sensed the irony of her physical form. Beneath the drab Puritan garb, she suspected a most un-Puritan sensuality simmering beneath the surface. She’d noticed a certain glow in men’s eyes when she entered a room, and if she was truthful with herself, the glow wasn’t entirely offensive. As she thought about it, a deliciously wicked color fired her cheeks.
Bristol gave herself a little shake. This wasn’t the moment for such bold thoughts. But a smile lifted her lips. She definitely felt better.
Passing the house, Bristol regarded the weathered boards with a soft look of affection. Regardless of what Charity thought, Bristol cherished her home, her roots.
She’d been born in this small house. And Bristol remembered toddling behind Hannah when her mother first set out the rosebushes that surrounded the walls in waves of pink and red throughout summer. At six, she’d cut her lip falling against the rain barrel near the front door. At ten, she’d crashed out of the maple tree, nearly breaking a leg. Her favorite brother, Noah Junior, had died over there, near the barn, crushed by a collapsed hay wagon. Swallowing, Bristol hastily averted her eyes.
Behind the house lay Hannah’s kitchen garden, then a young and thriving orchard. Between the fruit trees and the forest edge stretched Noah’s fields—not the best in Salem Village, but fertile enough to yield a living. Her home.
A sudden lump constricted Bristol’s throat. No matter what happened in life, no matter how harshly the world might treat her, or how far away she and Caleb might one day live, so long as this house and this patch of land remained to come home to, then nothing would defeat Bristol Adams.
Bristol dashed moisture from her eyes and her smile turned wry. Some picture of bravery she made! The mere thought of leaving home wrested tears from her eyes.
Still smiling, she lifted the bucket to a stone ledge circling the well.
Then she saw it. A scrap of white cloth tied to the well bucket, nearly invisible against the white ground and pale dawn sky.
Caleb’s signal!
Bristol spun, her long skirts billowing. She squinted against an early sun turning the fields to shades of pink snow. Her heart thudded wildly, and she peered past the house and fields, intent on the rim of forest, searching for any sign of movement. She saw nothing, but Bristol sensed that Caleb Wainwright watched.
Lifting a shaking hand to her throat, Bristol squeezed her green eyes shut. After all that had happened, after enduring the lash, she dared not sneak off. At least not until she’d spoken with Noah. How could Caleb imagine that she would?
She drew up a pail of sweet icy water, pretending not to see the excited tremble in her fingers. She poured the water into her house bucket and untied the scrap of white cloth.
Slowly Bristol returned to the house, her emerald gaze fixed on the edge of thick pines and winter brush. “Dear Caleb,” she whispered. Her heart ached to see him. “I dare not. I can’t!” She stumbled, catching herself before she fell. “When I’ve convinced Papa, we’ll have all the time in the world. The rest of our lives.”
But she hesitated at the buttery door, and her hand rose toward the beckoning forest. She knew Caleb would see. And he would be waiting.
2
The Adams’ narrow kitchen steamed with spicy scents of cooking and a tang of herbs drying on strings above the fireplace. Above these familiar smells hung a faint odor of polish and pine soap. Several fire-blacked caldrons suspended from the lug pole bubbled and hissed under Hannah’s watchful eye.
Bristol hung her cloak on a buttery peg and carried the bucket of fresh water past shelves laden with stone crocks and small barrels and baskets of foodstuffs. For a moment she paused to watch Hannah divide a ball of dough into four parts, then rapidly shape the rounds into mounded loaves.
Thoughtfully Bristol placed the bucket away from the heated hearth. Perhaps she should talk to Hannah before confronting Noah. She sensed her mother’s ear would be more sympathetic. Bristol chewed her lip doubtfully. Publicly Hannah always supported Noah’s position. On the other hand, many times Bristol had overhead low angry murmurs emanating from her parents’ bedroom—they didn’t always agree privately. It might be wise to have Hannah soften the path before Bristol committed herself to the discussion with Noah. “Mama, there’s something I’d—”
“Sit ye down, girl.”
Bristol jumped, startled by Noah’s booming voice. She hadn’t noticed him sitting in the shadows near the spinning wheel, away from the heated cheer of the hearth. Noah rose slowly, favoring the leg that pained in damp weather. Limping, he carried his morning beer to the table.
At sight of his face, Bristol’s heart sank. Stern lines ran alongside his mouth, and the sun-baked streaks cracking his forehead were deep and forbidding. An odd hurt flickered at the depths of his green eyes, whether from his leg or something else, Bristol couldn’t guess. And he would no
t mention it; Noah Adams was no stranger to pain or hardship.
Born the second son of a simple English cobbler, Noah had never had an easy life. Being a second son had limited his hopes for a prosperous future, never great in any event, and he’d chosen to sail to the colonies at the age of sixteen. Landing in Boston, Noah Adams immediately sold himself into bond service, accepting near-slavery as a first step toward a better future. Throughout the following seven years he had worked hard and shrewdly, hoarding every coin that passed his way. When the bond was fulfilled, Noah had amassed enough cash for a plot of precious land, and, soon after, a wife. Over the years he’d added to the land, land he could not have aspired to own in Mother England.
And in achieving his dream, Noah Adams had worked harder than a man should be expected to. Life was hard in the Bay Colony. Especially for a man with no surviving sons to offer strong backs and willing hands. But Noah Adams didn’t dwell on the might-have-beens; he did what had to be done, cheerfully performing the work of four men and optimistic that the Lord would see him through.
Today Bristol found no trace of that good humor in the eyes so like her own. In his steady gaze she saw only the odd pain and a grim resolution.
Hannah exchanged a sharp glance with her husband and placed her bread to rise near the hearth. She joined Noah and Bristol at the table, her mouth clamped in a thin line.
Nervously Bristol arranged the folds of her gray skirt. An apprehension grew in her mind. She felt something momentous in the atmosphere, saw it in her parents’ tight expressions. Never could she recall anyone in the Adams family sitting without some type of piecework. Her parents looked incomplete, and her own hands felt empty and awkward.
Staring at her parents in the uncomfortable silence, Bristol quite suddenly perceived them with fresh perspective, not as the energetic vital people she saw them as being, but more as they actually were—a middle-aged man and woman worn by disappointment and hardship. Two people bending under a heavy weight.
And their troubled eyes hinted that easing the burden would bring pain to all. Bristol drew a breath and clasped her hands tightly in her lap.
For a long moment no one spoke. Noah ran stubby fingers through a thatch of graying red hair, and he stared into his beer as if the words he sought might be floating there. Hannah perched stiffly on the edge of her chair, gazing stonily into the fireplace. As she looked slowly from one to the other, Bristol’s anxiety increased a hundredfold.
Finally Noah began. “Our lives are mapped by God from the moment of birth.” He continued to stare into the mug he turned between his fingers. “Sometimes we pretend we have free choice, but ye know this isn’t true, merely a vanity of men. Our lives are cast by God.” He lifted his head, and pained eyes met Bristol’s. “The whipping ye endured was scheduled when first ye popped into the world. Nothing could alter it. And nothing could alter the events leading ye to flirt and earn the lash.”
Bristol bowed her head, Noah’s old speech patterns echoing in her mind. With a flash of deadening insight, she knew—absolutely knew—that he would never allow Caleb to court her. She’d delayed too long, his mind was set.
Stunned, Bristol blinked rapidly at her clenched hands. For days she’d planned each careful word, mentally framing the speech to bring her and Caleb together. And now, Noah prepared to sweep her dreams out the door forever. She felt it coming, read it in her father’s lined face, heard it in the finality of his tone. She attempted to raise her mug to quivering lips, but the beer splashed her fingers, and she returned the mug to the table, hiding her hands in the pleats of her apron.
“Looking backward, I see the signs pointing ye toward the whip. And looking ahead, I see a pathway of return.” Noah lifted his beer and drank, setting the pewter vessel hard against the table. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “God doesn’t chart a course, then leave us to flounder, wondering what that course might be. He sends a providence to guide the way. And the providence in yer case is clear.”
A tension charged the kitchen. Now, Bristol thought helplessly. It’s coming now. Her eyes widened, and unaware of doing so, she balled her apron into damp knots. Tiny breaths burned past her throat. She could not have looked away from Noah if her life depended on it.
Noah leaned forward over hands that tightened into fists. “Young Wainwright found the arrogance to ride here and ask for ye. After his conduct brought disgrace on the heads of this family.” Noah’s voice was harsh. “I refused him. If ye were intended to wed young Wainwright, there’d be no lash marks crossing yer back. God does not set such obstacles in the true path. No, the signs point another direction.”
Hopeless tears spilled from Bristol’s eyes and dropped to her clenched hands. A wind whistled through her head, and her heart splintered into shards. No nightmare ever felt as black and numbing as the awful words pouring from her father’s lips.
A deep, painful sigh rattled Noah’s chest, but Bristol’s hurt and bewilderment cut beyond noticing.
“There’s more,” Noah said, as if anything else might matter. “I ordered young Wainwright not to speak or look at ye. He refused a promise.” A grudging admiration crept into Noah’s voice, quickly replaced by anger. “He’ll not be giving a promise that can’t be kept, he said. I respect the man his truth, girl. But I despise his intent.” Noah’s green eyes glowed, and his voice soared. “His glances and his words seduced ye once to the lash, and I’ll not be seeing ye there again!”
Her father’s angry face swam before Bristol’s eyes. Something terrible worked at Noah’s features, his face twisted with pain. Bristol covered her mouth, and her brimming eyes widened in fright.
She’d thought the hurt of losing Caleb was the worst thing that could occur in her life, but Noah’s strange expression announced worse to come. “Papa?” Bristol breathed in a weak voice. Her nails cut crescents in her palms, and tears ran unnoticed down pale cheeks.
“Noah...” Hannah’s hand reached to cover her husband’s fist. A plea lay in her voice, and her face had assumed the color of paste.
Noah shrugged her away. “No, woman, it’s decided!” His battered hands knotted into tight balls, and the intense green eyes appeared feverish.
Without realizing, he shouted, his booming voice filling the kitchen. “Hear me, girl! I’ll not suffer ye at the lash again!” Noah drew a deep breath, passing a hand over his eyes. With an effort he softened his tone. “Young Wainwright refused to allow ye peace, and ye’ve shown yerself susceptible to his eye and tongue. The providence is clear. Ye must be sent away. ‘Tis God’s will and direction.”
Bristol choked. “Sent away? Papa?” She stammered in disbelief, a stone lodged in her throat. Sent away? This was not possible... this could not be happening! She was living the worst nightmare of a lifetime!
Noah stared into the fireplace. He waved a sheaf of papers. “Here is God’s providence, girl, as clear as ye’ll ever see. I prayed for a sign as to where I might send ye, and this arrived yesterday.”
Bristol’s horrified gaze fastened to the crabbed writing filling the pages. “No she whispered. “Oh, Papa... no!” Bristol covered her streaming face with her hands, her small shoulders shaking.
“Aye,” Noah answered firmly. “My sister, yer Aunt Prudence, will take ye in hand. A more upright and godly woman ye’ll never find. In her cottage ye’ll learn whatever it is yer Mother and I failed to teach. Ye’ll learn discipline and humility and the way of the Lord. And ye’ll be safe from Wainwright’s seduction.” He added the last softly, in the tone of an afterthought, but everyone at the table understood that here lay the crux of the problem, all that mattered.
“But, Papa, Caleb isn’t a seducer, he always intended to ask for me... he was only waiting to receive his inheritance. Until he had something to offer. It isn’t that he’s trifling with me.” Bristol sobbed through her fingers.
“He should have waited until then before breaking the community way and seducing ye to the same.” Noah’s voice was unyielding. “Ha
d ye both behaved properly, in the common good, I’d have no objection to young Wainwright. But I see an improper influence here.”
“Don’t send me away!”
“Yer Aunt Prudence raised me like she was my own mother, and her but two years older. The lessons learned at Prudence’s side have served well for nearly half a century. So will it be with ye. Ye’ll see the wisdom of tradition and the community way.”
“Please, Papa!” Bristol sobbed. “I’ve learned the lessons! Don’t send me to England. Please!” Nothing on earth represented a worse punishment than being expelled from home. One hundred lashes would be preferable to that. Racking sobs strangled her voice, slurred her words.
“Ye must go,” Noah said in a low voice. “In my heart, I recognize yer good intent. But Wainwright won’t allow ye to follow squarely, he refused his promise. I can’t send Wainwright away from ye; all that’s open is to send ye away from Wainwright. Such is the providence.”
Hearing the finality of his decision, Bristol threw herself across the table and buried her face in her arms, weeping violently. She’d rather die than sail to a strange land where no person knew of Salem Village, where no familiar face smiled, where nothing was safe and known. England would be devoid of memory. How could she live with no past, no shared memories, no safe place in her world? With a stranger.
“Papa, I beg you, please... please!”
Noah stood abruptly, his chair crashing behind him. Bristol felt his touch, hesitant on her heaving shoulders, then the buttery door slammed behind him, and the only sound was her anguished sobbing.
Hannah slowly rose from her chair. She bent and gathered Bristol into her arms as she hadn’t done since Bristol was a small child. Hysterically Bristol flung her arms around Hannah’s neck, clinging in shock and pain.
“Shhh.” Hannah rocked back and forth, patting and stroking Bristol’s hair, crooning in her ear. “Shhh. Everything will work out right. Shhh.”
But nothing could ever be right again. Never!
Salem's Daughter Page 3