Finally, Tom had had enough of being ignored. One day, as he was training the branches of the newly planted espaliered apple trees, he saw the cook stoop outside the kitchen door to scratch the ginger-colored cat behind the ears. Then she stepped around Tom as if he were a tree stump or a bucket someone had carelessly left out, and continued on her way to the kitchen garden, where she presented her broad back to him and knelt to pull carrots.
Fuming, he finished his task, then strode to the summer kitchen, where he found Betty up to her elbows in flour, making pies. The room was nearly as hot as the smithy but filled with the pleasant odors of spices and yeast.
Radstone had left this afternoon on unspecified business, and for once the forge was closed. Mabel was ... who knew where she was? Hovering spectrally somewhere, no doubt. Henry was in the stable, caring for the mule's lame leg. For once, he and Betty were alone, with no one to interrupt them.
Tom pulled a spindle-backed chair with a loud squeak across the flagstone floor and plopped into it backward in the way he preferred, arms folded across the top, staring at Betty. “All right, then. What is it?”
She lifted her large head, blinking. “What you talking about?”
“You know. Why have you been ignoring me?”
She turned back to her work. “Ignoring you? What kind of fool question is that? I ain't ignoring you.”
“You haven't said a thing about all the changes I've made around here. You haven't even thanked me for saving your dying garden.”
“Ain't my house,” she pointed out without looking up from her kneading. “Ain't my garden. This all belongs to Mr. Radstone.”
“You know I didn't do any of it for him. I did it for you.” He paused, and his voice grew bitter. “You're still angry because you thought I was rude that first day, when we met.”
“I'm not angry. And you was rude.”
“I guess I was.” He cracked his knuckles as he used to before Campbell had informed him it was a loutish thing to do. He’d almost forgotten the old habit. “But what I said then—that was then. Things are different now.” When her expression did not change, he added, somewhat sulkily, “I apologized already, didn't I?”
“Yes, you did.” Slap. A puff of flour rose from the slab of dough.
Strange, he thought, bewildered. Betty did not seem the type to hold a grudge. He wasn't sure why she was so angry with him, nor why her approval mattered so much to him. But it did. Surprisingly so.
She punched her fist into the dough a last time and flipped it over, seeming to be considering something. Finally, she spoke, and her voice was gentler. “I ain't angry at you. Truth is, I never cared two figs about what you did or did not say that first day. Not that I ain't glad you finally come about and apologize,” she added brusquely. “Although it took you long enough.”
“Then why...?”
She stretched and re-stretched the dough under her big hands. Her face wore a frown of reproof. “I know you thought you was better than us at first, with your fancy manners and your fine speech. Down deep, I think you still do.” Her voice softened. “But you're just a boy, and have a lot to learn.”
“Then you don't despise me?” He looked up hopefully.
“Despise you? I seen how hard you work. And I knew it was for me that you planted them flowers, and done all those improvements in the yard. You're a good man, Mister Tom West, even if you do not quite know it yet.” Her tone hardened again. “But there's one thing I cannot forgive you for.”
“What is it?”
She stopped and fixed him with a steely look. “You indentured, ain't you?”
“You know I am.”
She seemed to feel she had answered his question; she twisted off a large hunk of dough, the sleeves of her cotton dress pushed up to her elbows and flour dusting her strong fingers. For her, the conversation was over.
But when he pressed her for an explanation, she finally deigned to explain: “You know what that means, don't you? 'Indentured?'"
His brow wrinkled at the question. “It means I must work for Mr. Radstone until I have paid the cost of my passage, of course.”
“Well, then! You done sold yourself into bondage, that's what I mean!”
“I suppose you could look at it that way. But…”
“You a stupid man!” She deftly formed the lump of dough into a loaf, her movements rapid and angry. “My husband worked ten years on a sugar plantation in Haiti to buy my freedom. The morning of the day I left, he died dead in his tracks. Heart burst. Since then, I been working ten years more to free my son.” Her voice softened. “He'd be about your age. I imagine he's as tall as you, too, by now, maybe as strong or stronger. A handsome lad, with curly eyelashes and a grin that would just 'bout stop your heart.”
She hauled off and shoved the heels of her palms into the dough with a force that resounded through the kitchen. “Then you come along!”
“Me?” He was puzzled.
She nodded grimly. “Look at you! You was born with your freedom. And you chose to throw it away, like a mess of spoiled turnip greens!” Her full lips stretched into a straight line, and she turned back to the stove, presenting him with her stubborn back. It was a view he was used to.
“You're wrong,” he argued. “I did not have as much freedom as you think. And I shall not be stuck here forever, either. Just seven years…”
She did not turn around, but the set of her shoulders told him she was not impressed. He was tempted to tell her that had he not accepted his indentures he would be in gaol or, worse, dead on the scaffold. Liberty had not been a choice for him. But he remembered it would be dangerous to tell anyone about his fugitive status, even Betty.
Just then, a soft, uncertain voice interrupted them.
“T…Tom?”
Tom spun around. It was Miss Mabel Radstone. Strands of her mousy hair hung lank below her cap, her bulbous eyes were diffident. “Father has come back from town, and he wants to see you. Something about that lock you were making for the Wilsons.” Her voice was so faint he could hardly make out the words.
Tom pushed out of his chair, fighting his annoyance. Then, feeling the cook's glare burn into his back, he remembered to bow in Mabel's direction.
“Yes, Miss Radstone.”
Over Mabel's head, his eyes met those of the cook. “Good-bye, Betty.”
* * *
Over the next few days, Tom found himself mulling over Betty's words. You was born with your freedom. And you chose to throw it away, like a mess of spoiled turnip greens. Freedom. He had not known she valued it so highly. He thought of how the cook's husband had fought to buy her liberty and never knew it himself. Once again he felt the yearning that had germinated during his dinner with the Merkel family, when he'd heard of the cheap farmland available beyond the mountains.
Betty was right: he possessed few more rights than an African-born slave. Tom could not leave the property without Radstone's permission, and could not hire himself out to customers who asked for his services, even in his spare time. Even more, deep inside Tom's soul, it chafed to be held inferior to a man he respected so little.
Things had not been much different at Blackgrave Manor, but there, his circumstances had been easier to bear. For one thing, he had not felt his low status as deeply, maybe then, because he had expected nothing more. America had done something to him, had made him dissatisfied. Perhaps it was the knowledge that so many of the people here, business owners, had started with nothing, just like him.
In the old days, strutting down the marble halls of Blackgrave Manor in his fine livery, Tom had risen about as far as possible for one of his station. He had thought only of his good fortune to live in luxury, surrounded by beautiful things, even if they belonged to someone else. A soft bed and good food were all he had cared for. Freedom? The word had never entered his head until he had been cast into prison and knew, for the first time, that it was the only thing worth possessing.
Here, things were different, he thought. Maybe
the after-effects of the recent War of American Independence were to blame. It felt as if he were sitting at a banquet where everyone else was free to indulge but him. All he could do was look on, hungrily.
* * *
Meanwhile, things were deteriorating at the forge. Radstone seemed to be growing jealous of his apprentice's improving skills. When one of Radstone's competitors tried to buy Tom's indentures, he angrily ordered Tom not to speak to the customers and forced him to sit at the back of the forge. Visits to town were off limits. Tom's hopes of seeing the Merkel family again were dashed.
The blacksmith's temper, never good on the best days, worsened. He fell into a rage at the slightest imagined offense, and if Tom dropped a hammer, Radstone swore and cuffed him, nearly knocking him into the fire. Only with difficulty did Tom restrain himself from striking back. He was taller, and by now stronger, but the consequences, he knew, would be dire. So he accepted the insult wordlessly, but inside, he seethed.
That night Tom woke from a dream of revenge so realistic that he was drenched in sweat. He knew full well that if he laid a hand on Radstone, he would be captured and hanged, this time successfully.
His misery was compounded by Miss Radstone's constant sidelong, fawning stares. She remained on the edges of his consciousness like an ever-present shadow, until one day, as the family was eating supper, she unexpectedly looked up from her untouched plate and broke the silence by addressing him. “T—Tom?”
Mabel never spoke at dinner. Especially to him.
“Yes, Miss Radstone?”
“I wonder ... would you mind terribly calling me “Mabel?”
Swallowing, he darted a look at Radstone for his employer's reaction. The hulking blacksmith was shoveling a hunk of dripping beef into his mouth and seemed not to be paying attention to the conversation. Grease spotted his soiled shirt, which was unbuttoned to his dark chest hair, and sweat stains darkened his armpits.
Tom grimaced and grasped at the proprieties as if to a lifeline, although the fact that he, an indentured servant, was sitting with the family proved that the proprieties meant nothing here.
“Er ... I do not know if that would be advisable, Miss Radstone. I am a servant, after all, and ....”
“I wouldn't mind. I wouldn't mind at all.” She was looking directly at him now, as if she had summoned up all her courage to do so. Horribly embarrassed, Tom darted another look at Radstone, who was munching contentedly, seemingly unaware of the undercurrents at his own dinner table. The girl's infatuation was painful to see, and Tom cringed. Until now, he'd done his best to ignore it, helped by the fact that until now he'd scarcely been aware of the girl's existence except as a minor annoyance.
Isaac's warning echoed in his ears: “It is going to get you into trouble, lad ....”
“Yes, Miss ... er ... Mabel,” he mumbled, and shoved food in his mouth quickly so he would not have to speak again. Fortunately she quickly looked down at her plate, and the rest of the meal was conducted in silence, except for the sound of Radstone's loud chewing and hawking into the spittoon located next to his place.
* * *
Tom was surprised when the next day, Radstone summoned him into the parlor. Surprised at the change in routine, Tom stood staring at the dust motes swimming in the light that penetrated the grease-smeared windows until gradually, his master's words sank in. “Er … I beg your pardon, sir?”
“She has been pressing me to talk to you about it ever since yesterday. Do not tell me it has never crossed your mind .... I'm afraid the minx has made her mind up. She's more stubborn than you'd think, from the look of her. Oh, I'm the first to admit she ain't much to look at, but in these parts, I'm considered a wealthy man. You'll never want for anything if you take her on.”
“But ....” Tom found himself stammering. “M-marry Miss Radstone?”
“'Mabel', my boy, 'Mabel.' Marry her, and I shall release you from your indentures.” Radstone snapped his thick, scarred fingers to show how quickly the matter would be taken care of. “The letter you carried to town a few weeks ago was an order for Mr. Merkel to draw up the papers.” He chuckled, studying Tom’s stricken face. “You did not know that, did you? Everything will yours someday, as my son-in-law and heir. Well, boy, what do you say?” Radstone waited with an ill-fitting benevolence. His smile revealed a missing tooth.
Tom did not know what to say. Marry Miss Radstone? (He could not think of her as Mabel.) He would have laughed aloud at the notion but for what Radstone had offered with it. He remembered his conversation with Betty in the kitchen. Freedom. The most valuable gift of all, and Radstone was dangling it before him like a fat sausage in front of the ginger cat. All he had to do was....
He chose his words carefully to avoid giving offense. “Thank you, sir, for your most generous offer. However, I ... er ... I am not worthy of....”
“Balderdash. You wouldn't spit in a tub for her, and I know it as well as you do. But she wants you, and she's my daughter, after all.”
“I ... I need some time to consider—”
“You do that.” Radstone cut off Tom's babbling with a wave of his hairy fist. “You'll sire fine sons off her, my lad. She's not likely to come up with a better prospect, with or without her dowry. And remember—I shall make it worth your while. The forge ... need an heir ... business booming ....”
Nodding until his head felt as if it would come off, Tom backed away and escaped to his room. There, he sat on his cot with his hands over his eyes while he sorted out his thoughts.
Marry ... Mabel? He pictured her stick-like arms and ungainly neck, long and white as that of a goose. Her wiry hair and crooked teeth. And those bulbous, staring eyes.
Tom wasn't vain about his broad shoulders and good looks; he never gave them a thought until he'd learned how useful they could be when housemaids turned and stared as he strode down the halls. At first, their effect had gratified, then amused him, but in the end, they had proved a deuced annoyance, even a danger. He'd never have been brought to this miserable hell-hole, he thought, if not for the curse of his effect on women.
Now history was repeating itself, only this time it would result in a different type of gaol: matrimony. In the past, he’d expected that if he ever took a wife, he'd be the one to choose who it would be. And the girl would be a woman he'd not only want to bed, but to share company with, grow old with. Mabel? Never!
And yet ... how could he decline Radstone's offer? The blacksmith would make the next six years a perfect hell.
When Tom passed Mabel in the hall, he muttered something and dashed by. He was tempted to go to Betty to ask advice. She would know what to do. The cook had a level head and profound understanding of human nature. If anyone could find a way out of this fix, she could. But he abandoned the idea. Betty had raised Mabel from a girl and was as protective as a mother cat hovering over her kitten. The African-born cook would not sympathize with his dilemma.
Yet it was Betty, in fact, who influenced his final decision. Her speech about liberty rang in his ears. Radstone had promised to tear up Tom's indentures, and freedom—even freedom attached with a wife—was better than servitude. After several sleepless nights, he went with dragging steps to tell Radstone the news.
Chapter Fourteen
The wedding was a simple affair, with few guests and little celebration. Tom had sent a message to Mrs. Parker, and he was gratified to see the entire Merkel family arrive in their Sunday best. A few strange faces were scattered in the congregation as well, relatives and friends of Mabel's family, who looked at him suspiciously and muttered to each other behind his back.
Tom ran a finger under his tightly knotted neck cloth while avoiding looking at his bride, who stood next to him wearing a high-waisted sprigged-cotton dress along with a new bonnet and reticule. After the ceremony, as they walked to the coach, Mabel pressed his arm to her side so tightly that he felt as if shackles were weighting him down. Her eyes shone so brightly that they outweighed her bad complexion. For the first and onl
y time in her life, Mabel Radstone looked almost pretty.
His status as son-in-law allowed Tom to move to the main house where a room upstairs had been prepared for the new couple. With a red face he endured Henry's ribbing as he maneuvered his few possessions up the narrow steps.
The couple was to share a room under the eaves, and Mabel had obviously done everything she could to make it homelike. Over the past few weeks, she had braided a rag rug for the floor and purchased a rose-painted ewer for the nightstand. However there was no changing the fact that one could hear every squeak and whisper through the thin walls of the old house, and he found himself dreading nightfall—not to mention all the nights that would follow.
After dinner and a long, awkward hand of patience in the parlor with Mr. Radstone and Henry, the newlyweds excused themselves. Tom tried not to look at the others as they took their leave. As he closed the door upstairs, he eyed the narrow bed and wondered whether he could manage to pass the night without touching Mabel. It would be difficult, but he thought he might manage it if he scrunched up just right, next to the wall, and did not breathe.
Blowing out the candle, he lingered at the nightstand as long as possible, hoping his bride would fall asleep before he came to bed. But when he swung his long legs under the quilt, holding his breath so as not to wake her, she turned toward him, with a rustling of the straw mattress.
“Oh, Tom,” she whispered. “It is like a miracle, isn't it? That you came so far across the sea, just for this? It must have been destined.”
“Yes,” he lied. What else could he say? Then, because he did not want to shame her, he forced himself to turn over and kiss her. To his surprise, the sensation was not altogether unpleasant. Her lips felt warm and eager, and in the dark, he could almost forget her plainness. Without intending to, he kissed her again, this time longer. She was a woman, after all, and it had been a long time since he had been this close to a nubile female. Without volition, his arm crept out. Perhaps this ordeal would not be as odious as he had expected, Tom thought.
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