“Let’s go. I’m ready for school,” he announced in a rush.
“Trousers, Sean?” I asked.
“What about my trousers?”
“You are not wearing any.”
He frowned, then started to laugh. He ran to me and hugged me, then backed away with a red face. Still laughing, he announced, “Yes, I’ll need trousers. Thank you, Ma’am, for reminding me.”
The rest of the dressing and breakfasting routine was hurried, as Sean wanted to get to school and Kate did not want to be dressed. She kept pulling her dress off. Finally I slapped her hand in frustration. She cried and reached for Sean.
“Katie,” he told her, “you’ll have to look to Ma’am now. She is your keeper now, not me. I’m a big boy now.” She cried harder and tried to crawl into Sean’s lap, getting oatmeal on his shirt.
“Kate! Look what you have done. You dirtied my best shirt. Now I’ll have to wear my Sunday shirt to school.”
Kate cried harder and crawled into my lap, leaving a trail of oatmeal up my dress. I sent Sean up to get his Sunday shirt on, and took Kate like a sack of grain under my arm and went straight for my room. I would have to wash her and change my dress before I could take Sean to school.
When we were finally all dressed, we left for the school.
Sean kept running ahead, and I kept reminding him that gentlemen did not abandon their duties as escorts to the ladies of the household. He would return to walk with us, but a few minutes later he was off again. The fifteen-minute walk to school seemed to take an hour. I sat in the hallway with Kate for the first half-hour. Once I was sure Sean was settled and would do as the schoolmistress instructed, I took Kate to the green.
“Where Sean?” Kate asked for the tenth time.
“He is in school, Kate. He will be home tonight,” I replied again.
“Why school?” she asked.
“Your father ordered it,” I replied, feeling frustrated.
“When Sean?” she asked.
“When school is over today. Go play, Kate,” I ordered.
“Sean, Sean, Seeaann!” She wailed and began to cry again. I hugged her to me and let her cry. It had been this way all day.
When school was over for the day and Sean met us on the green, Kate had a smile for her beloved big brother that was brighter than the sun.
Sean adjusted to the school quickly, and did well at his lessons. He even shared them with Kate and me. He knew that his father did not want Kate to have even the rudimentary education that was common for girls from well-to-do families, but Sean loved his sister and wanted her to share in everything that he did. In fact, both of the fights he got into that year were over his being a “woman’s man,” which he was called because he spent so much time with his sister and very little time with the other boys. Both times he was wearing his Sunday best. Both times, the garments were utterly destroyed. Not even my augmented mending skills could salvage those clothes. Each incident brought a predictable tirade from his father.
In the second fall of my stay with the Professor, we lost our housekeeper to marriage. This meant a disruption in the routine of the house. The Professor took his time about finding a new housekeeper. I had to watch Kate all day, see Sean off to school, run tea to the library at night, cook for all of us, and clean. It was exhausting. The Professor told me over and over again that it could not be that hard. After all, I had but two children to look after, and the house. He, on the other hand, managed quite easily to teach three classes and look after a total of forty students. MEN!
It was during that time that I first met Robert. I was tired, and the tray was so heavy as I struggled up the stairs. There were eight for the lecture that evening, the usual six and a pair of brothers that I had not met before. They were from Virginia, I had heard the others among the Professor’s students groan when he announced that these two were to join the group. I walked into the room and nearly tripped over the outstretched legs of one of the brothers. The second jumped to his feet, and seized my tray. We were both off balance and the contents of the tea tray went everywhere. The pot landed on the Professor’s desk. I knew what was coming next.
“You clumsy child, can you not do the job for which I pay you?” he railed at me.
The one who had grabbed my tray came to my defense. “Sir, it was entirely my fault. I will take the blame for this unfortunate accident. And how dare you talk to a lady in such fashion?” he shouted at the startled Professor.
“Young man, you will wait in the hall. Margarethe, you are to clean up this mess and apologize to each of these gentlemen. If there is a broken cup in the ruins, you will purchase a replacement from you own funds.”
Just then I turned to see the other brother crush a tea cup under his boot and smile.
“Gentlemen,” the Professor announced, “let us retire to the parlor. We obviously will be unable to continue the lecture in the midst of this ruin. Margarethe can bring us our refreshment there.” The next comment was icily addressed to me. “Margarethe, we will finish our discussion in the morning.”
I worked like a fool for the next hour, cleaning up, refilling the pot, getting a new cup down from the cupboard, and taking the tray into the parlor. I escaped without having to say a word to anyone.
The next day the Professor was true to his word. I cried for an hour after our “discussion,” during which I had said not a word. I was in ruins when there was a knock at the front door. It was one of the Virginia brothers, but I didn’t stay to see which. I ran up the stairs. I am sure he saw me, but I did not answer the door. He was still standing on the porch when I went out the back way to fetch Sean from school.
Each day for the rest of the week, he would come to the door and knock. I would refused to answer. I knew it would not be too long before this comedy drew the attention of the gossips in the town. Something had to be done. On Friday, I answered his knock, intending to send him firmly away.
“Good morning, my dear lady. Thank you for answering the door. May I come in?” tumbled from his mouth.
“Good day, sir. You are welcome, and no,” I responded. There was a good thirty seconds of silence as he fit my answers to his questions. They were obviously not the answers he had expected.
“Dear lady, may I have the pleasure of your company at the next dance?”
“No, sir, I do not dance.”
“Then’, may I please escort you during a walk on the green some evening.”
“No, sir, I do not walk.”
“But, dear lady, you have two legs and they appeared at the lecture on Tuesday to be in good working order. Why is it that you do not walk?” he asked, raising an eyebrow as he did so. I chuckled. This could not be the brother that had caused the problem. It was, perhaps, time to change tactics.
“With whom am I speaking, sir?” I said, imitating his drawl.
“Why, I am Squire Robert Allen Singer of the Virginia Singers. My family has a large plantation in Virginia. We are the largest growers of fine tobacco in all of the Colonies. Even the King uses our tobacco,” he replied. “May I have the pleasure of your company after church this Sunday?” he continued as if in a single breath.
“No, Mr. Singer, I am sorry, but I have two small children whom I must mind during the service. Good day, sir.” I closed the door on him, almost shutting his fingers in the door. The nerve of him. The King uses his tobacco, indeed! Everyone knows the King will have nothing but Jamaican tobacco.
Every day for the next several weeks, Squire Robert, as he passed the house, doffed his hat and bowed. Word of this worked its way back to the Professor, and he confronted me one Sunday after church.
“That young man was making sheep’s eyes at you all through the service,” the Professor declared. “Don’t let any ideas about how you will run off and marry him enter your head. Not that it isn’t the proper role for a woman. But your first duty is to me.
And your getting married would leave me in an awkward position just now, with no housekeeper and two small children.”
“Sir, I assure you that I have no intention of marriage. I am totally uninterested in seeing anything further of Squire Singer.”
“Margarethe, I assure you that he has every intention of marrying you. He has already had the enormous effrontery to tell me so. And, so long as you do not inconvenience me with an abrupt departure, I have no objection,” the Professor announced. “You will, after all, need to marry in order to have children. That is a woman’s calling. There is no other reason for women to exist.”
I was furious. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream at him.
Instead, when he turned his back to fill his briar, I curtseyed and replied, “Yes, sir,” and departed the room quickly.
The routine became almost bearable when the Professor announced that he had hired a new housekeeper. Betsy was two years my junior and rather slow. We got on as sisters, though. She took over almost all the housework and would even watch Kate for me while I took Sean off to school. She, unlike the old housekeeper, was to live in the house with us.
I now had a roommate, and found that I could no longer read at night without awakening Betsy. Kate solved my problem by becoming very sick for several weeks. We almost lost that little girl. At the doctor’s suggestion, I moved into her room at night. I gave her the medicine the doctor had brought, I bathed her in cool water when she grew too feverish. For almost a month, I scarcely slept. But, once Kate was able to sleep quietly, I managed to read two whole books from the Professor’s library in only one week. After that, I moved into Kate’s room permanently. That solved the problem of being able to read at night.
The Professor was willing to let Betsy watch the children two evenings a week while I went to prayer services. Robert was often there, though I never spoke with him alone, or accepted his perennial offer to escort me back to the Professor’s door. Since the Professor seldom returned before the dinner hour, I could slip away mid-afternoon for a walk in the nearby woods, or to sit along the river and think. Twice, Mother came in the shape of a bird, and spoke with me for a few minutes. Those were some of happiest times during the whole of my stay in Cambridge. In return for the evenings of child-minding, Betsy would take two mornings a week to go to the village green and to the market.
That winter, building on the letters that Sean had taught to Kate, I started teaching Betsy how to read. Little did the Professor know he had two literate females under his roof. He would have fired both Betsy and me if he knew.
Robert’s brother called one day to pay the Professor for his classes. He handed me an envelope with one torn comer. I told him that I could not take the payment for the Professor.
“Can’t you read, girl? It’s written clear as day on the envelope,” he said in a sarcastic tone.
“Professor MacLean prefers that the women of his household do not read,” I replied. It was true enough to ease my conscience without betraying my secret.
“I am James Cameron Singer of Virginia!” he exclaimed.
“The finest family in all of Virginia. You will take this envelope and give it to Professor MacLean. See to it, my girl.”
“I, sir, am not your girl and you will not tell me my business,” I replied, getting angry.
“You will take this envelope or I will tell the good Professor that you have been spending your evenings with my brother, instead of at the prayer service.”
“Sir, you would not.”
“Yes I would! Gladly!” he replied as he pushed the envelope into my hands.
I shuddered and shut the door in his face.
When I handed the envelope over that evening, the Professor opened it and glared.
“The amount enclosed is short by two pounds, Margarethe. Since you tore the corner of the envelope, your wages will be docked to make up the deficiency,” he proclaimed. I knew argument would only enrage the Professor, and so I nodded and left the room. Somehow, Mr. James Cameron Singer was going to hear from me!
He tried twice more to leave me torn envelopes. Being wise now to the trick, I refused each time. When I was not there to warn her, Betsy accepted the second and was docked two pounds, six. Sean was the one burned the third time. He lost two pounds. We all wanted a piece of Mr. James Singer!
Just before last Christmas, I noticed that more books than usual were missing from the Professor’s library. I counted and found sixteen books not in their places on the shelves. One was in Betsy’s room and one in mine. Fourteen books missing. When the Christmas recess came, the Professor would audit his library, and there would be the very devil to pay.
During the next lecture, I watched carefully through the vent in the library wall. I thought I saw one of Robert’s friends slip a book under his waistcoat while the Professor was writing on the blackboard. I nearly denounced him to the Professor at once, but then realized that I could be in more trouble than the thief. I was torn, with no idea what to do. That evening was the last lecture before the College was dismissed for Christmas holidays.
It was the day after Christmas, and the students had not yet returned from their holidays at home, when Sean caused the problem. In the middle of the night, I looked up from my book, and realized that I smelled smoke. I ran from Kate’s room with Kate bundled in my arms. The door to Sean’s room was covered in flames. I could hear him crying inside the room. I was uncertain what to do next. Kate was crying, and everyone else seemed to be asleep. I did not know if the Professor was home or not. I ran to my old room to wake Betsy. I handed Kate to her, and shouted for her to run out of the house.
I went across the hall to the Professor’s room and called for him. He was not there. His window was open, and I could see a track in the fresh snow on the roof of the porch. The smoke was getting thick and the flames were very hot. I wanted to follow the Professor out the window, but Sean was my responsibility.
I ran along the hall until I was opposite Sean’s door. It was now open so I gathered my nightclothes closely around me and dashed through the flames that filled the doorway. Once through, I could see the remains of a pipe, matches, and tobacco pouch lying on the floor. Through the window I could see the snow filling the sky, large white flakes melting in the flames. The bed, and the edges of the room were hidden in the smoke and flames. Sean was there, apparently unconscious, in the arms of a skeletal figure. I recognized him from Mother’s story of how she had finally convinced our father to marry her. It was Death who was holding Sean.
“Good evening, sir,” I addressed him politely, as I reached out and firmly seized Sean’s ankle. It was the most accessible part of his anatomy, cradled as he was in Death’s arms. “How considerate of you to tend to my charge in the midst of his unauthorized experiments with tobacco. But, since I am now at hand, I’ll relieve you of any further duty towards the lad.”
“What’s this?” cried Death, peering at me intently.
“Another fool eager to die for tobacco?”
“Why, no sir. I despise the stuff myself. The smoke makes one cough, and one’s clothes smell terrible. I’m just trying to do my job. But I always understood you to prefer wormwood to tobacco.”
With that, Death leaned forward to peer at me even more searchingly.
“I thought you looked familiar. You must be related to that alchemist with the excellent trick of transporting spirits. Amer—yes, that was his name.”
“Amer is my father,” I replied. “And Samona, the witch whose life you spared that evening, was my mother.” As I talked, I slid my other hand up between Death and Sean, lifting the boy up and against my bosom as one does with a sleeping baby. Now I was holding Sean, but Death was still between me and the window through which I could fling him to safety.
“And here are you, quite a grown-up lady! What is your name, my dear?” asked Death.
“Margarethe Crafter,” I replied,
pacing back and forth while bouncing Sean as if he were still only two and being a bit fractious. “Why do you ask, sir?”
“I always like to keep track of the family doings of my friends. And how is your father these days?” was Death’s suave response.
“I’m afraid I do not know. I came to Cambridge to study mathematics, because with mathematics you can describe any thing or place or event in this universe or several others. But the only position I could find was with Professor MacLean, who will tolerate no woman with intellectual pretensions. Since my ability to read is a secret from him, I have not received nor written any letters for over two years. But, if I may say so, I am very pleased that you need to ask, sir. That means you have had no call to visit any of my family while I have been in Cambridge.” As I spoke, I continued to pace, edging closer and closer to the window. Sean’s room overlooked the front of the house. If I could roll him out of my arms onto the roof of the porch, he would slide down into the snow bank below, and thus escape Death.
“You are every bit as clever as your father. A most excellent young woman indeed. But you are distracting me from my duty. The boy you are holding must come away with me. Tobacco is a killer, you know.”
“I had not known, but if it is, as you say, a killer, then I should think you would prefer that it be less widely used.” One more round of pacing, and I would be close enough to fling Sean out of the window.
“Eh, why do you say so?” Death looked puzzled.
“Because of the workload for you, sir. If the craze for tobacco spreads throughout the world, how will you ever keep up with all the people you have to summon to their doom? It must be terrible to have to travel so widely and work so hard.” With the last sentence, I flung open the shutters and rolled Sean out into the snow and safety. I quickly turned, expecting Death to seize me, since I had deprived him of his intended victim. But he was still looking puzzled and bemused.
The Crafters Book One Page 13