JoAnn Wendt

by Beyond the Dawn

  Dennis and the three boarding students who were preparing for seminary slept on cots in the unfinished attic.

  He’d also bought a cracked mirror for her, mending it as best he could and encasing it in a maple stand. She moved to the mirror and checked her appearance. Except for the regret in her eyes, she looked like a bride. Betsy had seen to that, buying Flavia a wedding gown of silk taffeta. The color was royal blue, and the rich hue enhanced the deep blue of her eyes and stirred fiery highlights in her loose, brushed hair. To Mr. Gresham’s irritation, Betsy had given her a royal blue wool serge cloak as well. Dennis’s delicate bouquet completed her ensemble.

  She sat down to wait in the new wingback chair that was Mr. Tate’s nuptial gift to Dennis. Her eyes roamed sadly over the sparsely furnished kitchen to the schoolroom area. Working nightly, Dennis had completed ten student desks and a larger one for himself. His prized books now stood in wall shelves that had been worked with all the pride of a master carpenter. Dennis did everything with great care, not content to do a slap-dash job on anything. She knew he would treat their marriage with the same loving care, and she knew she ought to be happy because of it. But she wasn’t.

  Garth . . . oh Garth . . . Robert . . . her sweet lost baby son . . . She had carried Garth’s child in her womb with joy.... How joyfully would she carry Dennis’s babies?

  Tears rose. She dashed them away. She was determined to thrust grief from her mind for this one day. For Dennis’s sake. Dennis was a good man. He deserved to bring a willing, happy bride to his bed this night. Not a reluctant, weeping bride who yearned for another man.

  She sprang to her feet, pacing, determined to concentrate on Dennis’s many kindnesses and good qualities. He’d shared everything with her: his material goods, his every thought, his hopes for the future. Only twice had he shut her out, and that was when he was visited by men who’d appeared to be business agents. On those two occasions Dennis crisply sent her into Chestertown on errands she knew to be unnecessary. He never revealed the nature of the men’s business, but she’d sensed it had something to do with her indenture. She’d noticed thereafter that Dennis cooled when anyone mentioned the name McNeil. Had Raven tried to buy her indenture?

  The rhythmic creaking of a chaise jolted her. Taking a deep breath and clutching her bouquet, she forced a smile to her lips and went out to Dennis. The boarding students were running alongside the chaise. They’d tied sprigs of wild flowers to the whip stand. When she’d taken her place on the seat beside Dennis and the students were shouting their good wishes, Dennis turned to her. His gray eyes searched hers.

  “Ready, Jane?”

  She swallowed. She knew he asked more than if she was ready to ride to Quaker’s Neck Landing to be married in the small Quaker meetinghouse. In his humbleness of spirit he was offering her one last chance to refuse him. She placed her cold hand upon his warm one.

  “I’m ready, Dennis. Truly. I am honored to become your wife.”

  His smile began slowly, but when it had begun it was like the sun rising. To her surprise, he gulped two great breaths of relief. Clucking to the horse, he gently shook the reins and the chaise jerked forward. The seminary students whooped and cheered them off.

  Dennis drove on in joyful silence, his happiness too large for words. They bumped along Quaker’s Neck Road, well inland from the Chester River. The sky was the thin blue sky of spring. White cloud puffs raced overhead, and the air smelled of freshly plowed earth. Dennis was elated. She could see it in his eyes. As for herself . . . she dropped her gaze to her wedding bouquet. No. I won’t think of Garth . . . At the paupers’ graveyard, south of Chestertown, Dennis called, “Whoa.” It was a stop they’d planned. Flavia’s heart sank at the sight of the desolate, abandoned burying place for paupers. Neddy belonged in a churchyard. But as a murderer, he’d been refused church burial. On the day his crow-pecked body was allowed to be taken down from the gallows, Dennis had gone to town to see that Neddy had been decently buried.

  Dennis got down and tied the reins to a scruffy pine tree, then helped Flavia to alight. Together they climbed the hill to the mound of raw, sun-baked earth. Dennis removed his hat, and Flavia stooped to pluck weeds that had already sprung up. On impulse she untied the bridal bouquet she carried. Gently she spread half of the fragrant flowers upon Neddy’s grave. The soil was sun-warmed and the delicate perfumed bells wilted almost instantly. Eyes misting, she let Dennis lead her back to the chaise.

  “Quaker’s Neck Landing is not far,” he offered softly.

  She tried to match his encouraging smile, then lowered her eyes to her flowers when she could not.

  You’re wrong, Dennis. Quakers Neck Landing is a lifetime away.

  * * * *

  “Faster! Get your speed up, man,” Garth ordered, nervously raking his fingers through his hair. “This ship is moving slower than a tortoise.”

  Harrington snorted. “Any faster and ye’ll tear holes in the mainsail.”

  “Then we’ll buy a new mainsail,” Garth snapped, knowing he was spouting irrational nonsense. The Marabelle was already leaping through the Chesapeake waters as fast as she could go. She was a provisions ship, sleek and quick, shallow-bottomed and able to navigate up rivers to farmers’ wharves where grain and salt pork were loaded for the West Indies. He paced the deck frantically, well aware that Harrington, Jenkins and the crew thought him mad. But he couldn’t contain himself.

  Flavia, alive! God, he was afraid to believe it. Alive. All of this time. Alive and subjected to bondslave work and to God knows what other abuses. Frightened for her life, no doubt. In terror of what the duke might do next. It made him crazy with anxiety for her.

  And to think she was Raven’s “Jane Brown”! Why hadn’t he listened to Raven’s chattering about the sweet, red-haired bondslave with the incredible eyes? He’d never dreamed Raven’s Jane had been his Flavia. Why hadn’t he tumbled to the big clue? “Jane Brown” had refused to become Raven’s mistress. No sensible bondwoman would do that. The life of a mistress was easy; the life of a bondslave was burdensome and even degrading under the wrong master.

  Alive!

  He was torn between wild exhilarating joy and the urge to commit murder. So great was his rage when he thought of the duke he nearly blacked out. He wanted to kill the damned duke, do murder with his bare hands. What a perfect and loathsomely cruel punishment the duke had designed, selling sweet Flavia into indenture.

  His first urge, when he’d made head and tail out of Mab’s senseless yammering, had been to hunt the duke, hound him down, tear him limb from limb for what he’d done to Flavia. But his overwhelming urge was to find Flavia.

  The Marabelle had never before suffered such a rough and abrupt departure. A crewman who’d dawdled on the wharf had been left behind, waving frantically from the pilings, shouting his pleas. Early morning had brought fog, slowing the Marabelle and pitching Garth into a pacing fury of frustration. The day had passed in insufferable slowness. Night was worse. He was on deck hours before dawn, driving the crew on. When his pilot missed the mouth of the Chester River and sailed past it, he’d nearly thrown the man overboard.

  But now the wharves, warehouses and red-bricked mansions of Chestertown’s waterfront were coming into view at last. He paced the deck, gritting his teeth at the maddening slowness with which the buildings grew to normal size. When the Marabelle finally pulled into a slip at the wharf near the royal customs house, he didn’t wait for the gangplank to crash down. He leaped from ship to wharf while the Marabelle was still bumping into the pilings, settling into her berth.

  He hired a mount at the livery stable, tersely inquiring for the schoolmaster. He’d forgotten the man’s name, had paid no attention to it when his steward had reported it in York harbor. The stableman was thickheaded. Garth had to mention the Reverend Byng, a name Mab had put in his ear.

  “Oh, The Reverend Mr. Byng, he be dead, sir. Drived straight through the heart with a terrapin lance, sir. It were a awful to-do.” Happily, t
he man launched into the tale, but Garth cut him off sharply.

  “I want to find the bondwoman who worked at the Byngs’, Jane Brown.”

  “Oh her,” he said, leering and wiping his soiled hands on his leather apron. “There’s some as says she told the truth at the trial. There’s some as says she dint. I’m of a mind—”

  “Damnation, man! Direct me to Jane Brown.”

  The man licked his lips. “Don’t know as I recall rightly.” His tone hinted for money, and Garth complied, digging irritably into his leather jerkin pocket for a coin. He tossed it and got the information he wanted at once.

  His heart thudded with fearful expectation as he jumped from the horse at the Finny place. Slinging reins around a fence post, he strode through the tidy yard to a schoolhouse that still looked raw from construction. Cackling chickens scattered from his path. His boots clumped loudly on the small veranda, but not so loudly as his heart. The door stood open to the spring day. He pounded on it, then waited, each passing second a lifetime. Flavia . . . how would she look? . . . was she alright?

  Boots thumped the length of the schoolhouse. A lad of about fifteen hove into view. “Yes, sir?” he inquired respectfully.

  For a moment Garth’s mouth went dry. He couldn’t speak. He took a deep breath.

  “I’m here to see Jane Brown.”

  The boy smiled widely. “They’ve already gone, sir. They must be in Quaker’s Neck Landing by now. Doubtless the ceremony is over.”

  A prickle of apprehension crawled up his neck.

  “ ‘Ceremony’?”

  The boy smiled again, delighted to disseminate news.

  “ ‘Tis their wedding day, sir. Mr. Finny takes Mistress Brown to wife today.”

  It was like being socked in the gut. Sucking wind, he put his hand to the doorjamb, steadying himself.

  “Tell me how to get to Quaker’s Neck Landing.”

  The boy told him, finishing with, “You’re the second to ask for Mistress Brown today. A stranger came earlier. An odd sort of wedding guest, if you ask me! Ugly big brute. His companion, too.”

  Garth froze. An image flashed. The duke’s black coach waiting in front of his house. The attendants, tall brutish thugs. What had the duke said? Unfinished business?”

  “Have you any weapons?”

  “‘Weapons,’ sir?”

  He began to sweat.

  “Pistols,” he snapped. “Musket, sword, anything.”

  The boy’s eyes rounded in bewilderment.

  “There’s Mr. Finny’s hunting musket. And a cudgel for killing rats. But I say, sir. I cannot—”

  “Get them at once, damn it! They’ll be returned. If not,” he paused and dug into his jerkin pocket, pushing coins at the boy, “this will buy a half-dozen muskets.”

  McNeil rode off, galloping toward Quaker’s Neck Road, riding like the wind. His heart raced ahead. Flavia was in danger! God, no. Surely the duke would not order her killed! But he was fooling himself, he knew. The duke was a madman. Heartless enough to sell Flavid into slavery, he would have no qualms about killing her. Flavia, sweet Flavia! He prayed as he’d never prayed in his life.

  Viciously, he kicked the horse in the ribs, spurring him on. He crouched low in the saddle, urging the horse on.

  “Finny, protect her,” he muttered, as wind and horse mane streamed in his face. “Take care of her, keep her safe.”

  * * * *

  Flavia’s bouquet was beginning to wilt. The dewy morning moisture was long gone from the flowers. The delicate tips of the bells were beginning to turn brown. She’d been waiting two hours in the austere, empty meetinghouse where, when prayer meeting began, she and Dennis would quietly stand up and declare themselves married.

  Before God and these witnesses, I take thee as wife, Jane Brown.

  Before God and these witnesses, I take thee as husband, Dennis Finny.

  But the prayer meeting had been delayed. One of the Friends had lost a horse that morning. A leather gate latch had worn through in the night, and when the man arose, his horse was gone. He and all of the other men and boys had gone to search. A horse was valuable property.

  “It won’t be long, Jane,” Dennis said, slowly pacing the room and pausing to gaze out each window as he passed it. Outside in the yard women were setting up a long table to hold a wedding feast. Flavia knew the feast was to honor Dennis, not to honor her. When the customary Quaker committee of women had called upon her to determine the suitability of the proposed marriage, Flavia had felt their unvoiced disapproval. She could only suppose that Dennis had received more than unvoiced disapproval when the committee of men paid its premarital visit to him. Yet he remained undeterred.

  “It won’t be long,” Dennis said again, fingering the pocket that held the marriage license.

  She forced a smile.

  “We’ve a lifetime,” he said softly, his eyes seeming to drink her in. She tried to look enthusiastic; but her lips trembled.

  “Yes!” she said too brightly.

  A shadow darkened his countenance. Abruptly, he left the window, came to the chair where she was sitting and dropped to one knee. He set her bouquet aside and took her hand in both of his, cradling it with the utmost gentleness, as though he held a fledgling bird that had fallen from a nest.

  “I know thy heart dwells elsewhere, Jane. I read it in thy eyes the first day I met thee. But let me try. Let me try to make thee happy.”

  With a groan of passion, he lay his head in her lap. Awkwardly, she stroked his thinning hair. There was no other response she could make. Could she pledge love? No, not after Garth, she thought, her heart aching. She was fond of Dennis, grateful to him. But in no way did her feelings for him even begin to approach what she’d felt for Garth. In Garth’s arms she’d found the meaning of her womanhood. She’d been shaken by it and forever changed.

  Sadly, she stroked Dennis’s head.

  “I will be your wife, Dennis. I promise. I will be your wife in every way.”

  The eyes he raised to hers shone with a light that was pure and selfless. “Jane . . . dear, beautiful wife of my heart . . . ”

  The moment was broken by the sound of horses’ hooves.

  “They’ve returned,” Dennis said joyfully, jumping up and drawing her to her feet. Flavia clutched at her bouquet, her knuckles whitening. Dennis slipped his arm possessively round her waist, led her to the open door, then frowned as the two horsemen proved not to be the Friends he expected.

  Puzzled, they watched the men dismount. They were not the sort of men who usually came to Quaker’s Neck Landing. They were huge and brutish-looking. The larger man was missing half his right ear and the smaller man had an evil grin that displayed teeth as cracked and broken as the blade of a saw. The men were armed with musket and club. A knife glinted at the larger man’s waist.

  Flavia felt a cold chill and backed away.

  “Dennis?”

  “Get behind me, Jane.”

  He pushed her roughly and she stood trembling behind him, her hands on his serge coat. Fear quickened. She’d heard of such things happening. Ruffians swooping down upon a community, robbing, raiding. But surely not here in peaceful Quaker’s Neck, where there was nothing to steal and where homes seemed to commune in tranquility.

  Afoot, the men loomed even larger. Ignoring the huddle of humble homes and vegetable plots, they swaggered straight toward the meetinghouse. Flavia’s hands stiffened on Dennis’s shoulders. Though the approaching men towered above Dennis, he staunchly blocked the door.

  “What does thee want?”

  “Your purse, matey,” said the ragged-ear man. Dennis dug in his coat, then flung the purse to the dirt at the men’s feet. The thin clack of copper made the men roar in evil laughter. Ragged-ear scornfully scooped it up. “Ain’t got much, has you, matey?”

  “Thee has what thee asked for. Begone!”

  The women fussing over the tables scattered in sudden fear. Flavia trembled as the saw-toothed one continued to swagger towa
rd Dennis. Her eyes darted round the room behind her, trying to conjure up another door. But there was no other door. She and Dennis were trapped.

  “I’ve nothing else of value,” Dennis snapped. “Be gone!”

  The saw-toothed one laughed. “You has one thing more we’ll be taking. The woman. Jane Brown.”

  Flavia choked, her heart stopped. Dennis spread his arms to the doorjamb and planted his feet.

  “There is no Jane Brown here. Begone!”

  But the saw-toothed one kept coming. Flavia swung round in terror. There was nowhere to hide. The meetinghouse was bare except for a dozen straight-backed chairs. She fled into the room, seeking shelter behind one chair.

  She stared in growing terror as the saw-toothed one batted Dennis out of the way with a musket stock crack on the head and stomped in. Dennis fell to the floor holding his head, blood streaming. Seemingly for the cruel sport of it, the ragged-eared one kicked Dennis hard in the chest. Flavia screamed as she heard his rib crack. Dazed, Dennis crawled to his hands and knees, groaning.

  “Jane, run,” he ordered. “Run—”

  She tried to obey, but her legs were sticks. The men laughed anew at her feeble efforts to stumble away from them. They seemed to take pleasure in stalking her, slowly cutting off her escape, slowly backing her into a corner. When she fell over a chair, the saw-toothed one leaped upon her and dragged her up by the hair. She fought him, flailing at him with the wedding bouquet she still clutched.

  He laughed at her, his garlic breath hitting her full in the face. “I brung you a message from His Grace, my pretty.”

  She froze in new terror. The duke? Oh, my God!

  “No—no—please let me go—don’t—”

  The ragged-eared one said, “Give ‘er a ear-to-ear smile, matey.”