Ashes

by Laurie Halse Anderson

  Curzon took hold of Thomas Boon’s bridle and walked with his shoulders back and head held high, as if he were again in uniform. I stayed along one side of the cart, with Aberdeen on the other, his head turning back and forth staring at the canvas city on both sides of us, his eyes as wide as Ruth’s. He’d been strangely quiet since we turned southeast to Williamsburg.

  Our pace slowed to a crawl, then the crowd ahead of us halted. The breeze from the east blew a terrible stench in our direction. We had an unfortunately direct view of a line of soldiers pissing into a trench dug into the ground for that purpose. Ruth stared.

  “That is not for your eyes,” I said to her. “Look away.”

  “I need a privy,” Ruth said. “I can go there.”

  “You can’t use that one, it’s for soldiers,” I said, stunned that she had spoken to me direct. “We’ll find a necessary in town, behind a tavern or some such. There are no bushes with suitable modesty here.” I stood on tiptoe but could not see why we’d stopped. “What is this delay?”

  Curzon hopped on the back of the cart. “Cannons are blocking the road, well and truly stuck in the mud.” He jumped back to the ground.

  Ruth squirmed a bit. “I can go behind a tent.”

  “Patience,” I replied, ignoring the angry look she shot at me.

  “Go round the west side of the crowd,” Curzon said. “Down that lane between the tents. There’s a big building beyond them, has the look of being a public place, not a house. See the weather vane atop it?” He handed the donkey’s lead rope to me. “I figger you’ll find a privy at the back.”

  “Wait.” I hesitated before I took the rope from him. “Aren’t you coming with us?”

  He exchanged a glance with Aberdeen. “We’re going to scout around the camp and then the town.” He bit his lip, as if he was going to say something that he knew would displease me. “There’ll be a market hereabouts. We’ll meet up with you there.”

  His words puzzled me. We were to split up in this crowd of military strangers? It went against all of our habits of safety and caution. This was not just a foolish notion, this could be dangerous.

  “Meet us when the bells chime eight,” Curzon continued.

  “In the dark? What if we can’t find each other? What if–”

  “Trust me,” he said, his eyes scanning the crowd.

  I was puzzled about his sudden shift of mood and confused about his intentions. “What are you scheming?”

  “In search of work, nothing more,” he protested, his eyes still not meeting mine. “It’ll be easier for us to move about without lasses attached.”

  And with that, he disappeared into the crowd, with Aberdeen at his heels.

  CHAPTER XVI

  Sunday, September 9, 1781

  THE INCREASE OF OUR SICK WITHIN THESE FEW DAYS PAST . . . MAKES ME ANXIOUS TO STATE TO YOUR EXCELLENCY OUR SITUATION WITH RESPECT TO BLANKETS; THE HOSPITAL IS ENTIRELY WITHOUT THIS ARTICLE . . .

  –LETTER FROM JAMES CRAIK, CHIEF HOSPITAL PHYSICIAN OF THE CONTINENTAL ARMY TO GEORGE WASHINGTON ABOUT CONDITIONS IN THE WILLIAMSBURG HOSPITAL

  I WAS SO SHOCKED BY the sudden turn of events, I stood there like a statue as Thomas Boon pawed at the ground and bared his teeth at a soldier who brushed too close.

  Did they just leave us here? In the middle of two armies?

  “I have to go!” Ruth called.

  The urgency in her voice recollected me to myself. We had to get away from all these uniformed fellows.

  “Come, Thomas.” I dragged the reluctant beast to the right and down the rough path between two rows of tents. A number of French soldiers smiled and nodded at us. One even bowed in Ruth’s direction. I paused to look at her with a stranger’s eyes. Her face was both delicate and strong, and her form was that of a woman, tho’ she was in many ways a child.

  “Ignore those men,” I warned her. “Those are alligator smiles.”

  She frowned and shifted anxiously on the seat of the cart.

  “And stop that,” I said. “You’ll get a splinter in your backside.”

  “I need a privy,” she said. “Or a bush.”

  I pulled harder on Thomas Boon’s rope. The donkey seemed determined to move as slow as possible. Ruth gave a little moan and gritted her teeth. We were all three of us in misery until we made our way clear of the French encampment and reached the large brick building. As we went around the back of it, a tall woman, yellow haired and pink faced, came out a door carrying a basket overflowing with stained linens. When she caught sight of us, she set the basket on the ground.

  “You certainly took your time,” she said with a frown.

  Ruth bounced up and down on the seat, eyes desperate.

  “Pardon me, ma’am,” I started. “It’s just that my sister needs–”

  “Mister Wickham contracted for a full-size wagon. Do those women not know how much washing we have here? Dozens of lads puking. Half of ’em are French and I can’t understand one word. But they puke same as our boys.”

  “Please, ma’am,” Ruth interjected. “Privy?”

  The woman jerked a thumb at a small building just visible beyond a well-trimmed boxwood hedge. Ruth scrambled off the cart, limping toward her goal as fast as she could.

  “Many apologies for her rude tone,” I said.

  The privy door slammed behind Ruth, startling a flock of sparrows that had been hiding in the hedge.

  The woman grunted. “We’ve all been in a similar state, one time or another. Ten thousand lads make these matters even more difficult than they normally are.”

  From the large building came a great roar of pain, suddenly extinguished.

  “Poor sod,” she muttered.

  “Is this the hospital?” I asked.

  She looked me over and then the donkey and the cart. “Not from here, are you?”

  “Newly arrived.” I met her gaze briefly. My toes curled in my boots. Was she good-hearted or evil? You could not tell that just by looking at the outside of a person, that was a sad truth. I crossed my fingers for luck in the folds of my skirt. “We’re here to work but still learning our way around the town.”

  She nodded. “This was called the bedlam house. They built it as a hospital for those who lost their reason. The war has filled it with sick soldiers who have smallpox, the bloody flux, or broken limbs. Filthy creatures, all of them.”

  A harried-looking white man stepped out of the building carrying another basket of bloody linens. “I thought we’d arranged for a proper-size cart,” he said roughly.

  “Aye, but in this, too, we shall have to make do. Needs must, Mister Wickham, needs must. I’ll have a word with Widow Hallahan on the morrow, impress upon her our circumstances.”

  The man muttered something low, set down his basket, and returned inside.

  She motioned to me. “Give me a hand, lass.”

  I grabbed the other side of the biggest basket, and together we lifted it into the cart, then set smaller baskets beside it. As we finished, the privy door opened and Ruth emerged, looking much relieved. She hobbled back to us and climbed onto the seat without a word.

  “Bess!” the man shouted from a window. “You’re needed!”

  “As always,” she responded. “Don’t set your breeches afire.” She turned back to me. “Tell Widow Hallahan to hire a larger cart or send you girls round twice a day, every day. Ain’t right to make these lads lie in filth like sickly hogs.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “I shall make clear the severity of your need.”

  Ruth clucked her tongue and Thomas Boon walked. She waited until we were well clear of the woman’s hearing before she said with wonderment, “Five seats in the privy. Never seen such a thing.”

  CHAPTER XVII

  Sunday, September 9, 1781

  TOOK A WALK TO TOWN WITH A NUMBER OF OUR GENTLEMEN AND TOOK A VIEW OF THE TOWN AS IT IS THE METROPOLIS OF VIRGINIA. THERE ARE SOME VERY ELEGANT BUILDINGS, SUCH AS THE COLLEGE PALACE, CAPITOL OR STATE HOUSE, IN WHICH IS ERECTED A
STATUE OF MARBLE THE IMAGE OF LIEUT. GEN. BERKELY, GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF VIRGINIA, &C.

  –JOURNAL OF LIEUTENANT WILLIAM FELTMAN, FIRST PENNSYLVANIA REGIMENT, ON ARRIVING IN WILLIAMSBURG IN SEPTEMBER 1781

  WILLIAMSBURG WAS MORE A TOWN than a grand city like Philadelphia or New York. One long street, wide enough for two carriages to pass each other with ease, ran from the hospital building at the west end, past the Governor’s Palace near the center of the town, to the capitol building at the far end. Beyond the capitol camped Continental regiments mixed with militia units. When we reached that encampment, we turned around and passed through the town again. I was getting anxious, for I’d seen no signs of a laundry.

  The street bustled with horse-drawn carriages and oxen pulling wagons filled with barrels, firewood, and supplies for the army. The smells of roasting meat and fresh bread made my nose twitch and my belly grumble. The tang of the burning charcoal of the blacksmith’s forge and the stink of freshly deposited horse dung could not compare. Men and women hurried along the sidewalks on their errands to the print shop, the market, taverns, and coffeehouses. Those who bothered to take notice of us saw what they wanted to see: two slaves on a master’s errand, one leading a mean-eyed donkey, the other riding a cart held together with pine tar and hope. I knew enough to use their blindness to our advantage. Our free papers would be given more weight the farther north we traveled, but they guaranteed nothing if we encountered evil and unscrupulous folk. The swamps and the mountains contained different dangers than cities, but in truth, I’d grown more comfortable with them.

  In addition to the worries presented by the town, my troublesome mind kept drifting back to Curzon’s strange manner. The farther north we’d traveled from Carolina, the quieter and more distant he’d become. He had returned to us with the donkey and cart, true enough, but mayhaps that was just a sign of the goodness of his heart; he’d not abandon us to starve. Mayhaps he’d been waiting for a place where I could find work and shelter before he went off on a journey of his own making. Was he already headed for Richmond or Baltimore or the wilderness mountains in the west?

  The answers did not present themselves. Nor did the laundry.

  On our third trip through town I began to worry that our presence was becoming conspicuous. As we passed the market, a short serving woman in a green and yellow striped bodice and green skirt motioned to me to follow her to a quiet spot under a linden tree, away from the hearing of others.

  “You seem lost,” she said quietly as she set down a basket heavy with green beans. Her speech was flavored with the notes of an island. Jamaica, mayhaps.

  “Kind of you to notice,” I said with relief. It went against all of my cautious habits to speak openly with a stranger, but the peril of our circumstance was quickly growing. “We’re to deliver that washing to Widow Hallahan’s, but I don’t know where it is.”

  “Whole town is topsy-turvy,” she said. “You’re wanting to go east a block, turn left at the brick shop with the red door. One street later you’ll see a tavern with the sign of a fat pig out front. Go along the alley behind the tavern, and you come to the laundry. Old Missus Hallahan runs the laundry, her son owns the tavern.”

  I studied the woman closer. Her hair was covered by a dark green kerchief and above that a straw hat. She wore a necklace of two pierced cowry shells around her neck, and her hands showed the strength that comes with constant labor.

  “Is she a good mistress, Widow Hallahan?” I asked.

  “Better than some,” the woman answered. “You been hired out to her?”

  “My sister and me, we’re looking to hire ourselves out,” I said. “We’ve been long on the road and need a safe place to work and restore ourselves.”

  Ruth watched us wordlessly.

  The woman picked up her basket, watching the folks passing by, and taking their measure with skill. She waited until we were again in relative solitude, then leaned close to me.

  “Do not linger here. The confusions of these days might seem in your favor, but they are not. With so many running for freedom, white people hereabouts are eager to steal the liberty of newcomers. Best take your chances with the British, if you can.”

  Without waiting for a reply, she quickly turned, her skirts flaring, and headed back to the market. I wanted to call out, to ask her name and to thank her.

  I dared not, and that left me heartsore.

  * * *

  Once we’d been advised of the location, the laundry was easy enough to find. The one-story brick building with two windows on each side of the door was separated from the back of Gray Boar Tavern by a courtyard crisscrossed with ropes that were filled with drying clothes. I led Thomas Boon and Ruth under the flapping shirts and breeches and stopped in front of a pipe-smoking, wrinkle-faced white woman.

  She put down the torn gray shift she was mending and stood, drawing on the pipe and blowing smoke from her mouth and nose. She scowled as she examined the baskets in the back of the cart. A strong smell of lye came from the open laundry door behind her.

  “Are you Missus Hallahan?” I asked politely.

  “That’s what folks call the daughter-in-law. I’m the Widow Hallahan.” Her nostrils quivered as she bent her face toward a basket. “Where’s this lot from?” she demanded.

  “The old bedlam house.” I hefted a basket. “Where shall I set them, ma’am?”

  She sighed. “By the door, with the rest of them.”

  Through the open windows behind her I could see steaming cauldrons big enough to bathe a cow in. Along the wall stood baskets heaped with dirty shifts, breeches, and all other manner of clothes. I spotted two that contained tidy stacks of clean linens, ironed and folded.

  I lifted the next basket. “Miss Bess has more dirty linens waiting.”

  “I promised that woman nothing. Had another flibbertigibbet lass run off yesterday, all on account of a handsome soldier.”

  I carried another basket and nodded, which seemed to encourage her.

  “What’s the point of that?” she continued. “Soldiers are as dirty as they come, plus they drink all their pay, when they get paid, which is rare. Who wants that sort of trouble, I ask myself?”

  I set the last basket on the ground. Ruth had climbed down and limped over to pet Thomas Boon between the ears.

  “Miss Bess mentioned you might need some new help.”

  “Did she, now?”

  “We could fetch her linens and do more besides.” I swallowed to keep the nervous tone from my voice. “My sister and me can chop wood, haul water, work on the scrubbing board. I’m a fine hand with a needle as well.”

  “You’re not from here,” she said after a pause.

  “No, ma’am.” I thought quickly. “From the north. After our parents died, we came down here to find our aunt and uncle, but they’d moved on.”

  The woman’s eyes had narrowed against the tobacco smoke. “Just arrived?”

  “This very day.” I kept my gaze steady, feeling her eyes on my cheek. The shawl could disguise the mark from a distance, but this close it was easily noted.

  “The look of your hands tells me you know how to work,” she said. “But that mark on your face gives me pause. How do I know you’re not run away from your rightful owners?”

  I slipped into the story that I’d repeated so many times, it had become a sort of charm or prayer. “Born free in the sight of God, ma’am, and into the arms of our parents, also free people. We have papers to testify to that.”

  I pulled the folded oilcloth from my haversack, unfolded it, and withdrew the free papers I’d written for us. She took them from me and held them upside down, at arm’s length, pretending to read them. After a moment spent frowning at the words, she looked me over.

  “How did you come by that mark, then?” she asked. “Caught thieving?”

  “No, ma’am. It’s proof that running with a red-hot poker is a foolish thing to do. Since the year of seventeen and seventy-six I’ve taken to calling it my country mark, f
or it resembles the letter I. I for ‘Independence.’”

  The woman’s laughter made her choke, then cough. “Foolish notion, that is.”

  Before I could embroider more details on my story, two French soldiers come across the courtyard carrying more overflowing baskets. They walked straight into the laundry, which erupted with the loud protests of a young woman. “Oh, no, you don’t. Take those right back to your monsir, you tell him we don’t have time to wash your nasty drawers. You tell him–”

  The old laundress interrupted her in a surprisingly powerful voice. “Be still, Elspeth. I got you some help. We can take them French togs.” She returned the papers to me. “Two meals a day and you can sleep inside. Can’t pay cash until the army pays me, Lord knows when that will be. But I’ll only take you on, not your sister. She’s sickly.”

  “She’s stronger than she looks,” I said hastily. “And the donkey will only listen to her. What if she drove the cart and took care of the delivering and picking up of the baskets? Would that be worth feeding her, too?”

  Widow Hallahan scratched her chin with the stem of her pipe and pondered a bit before saying, “Might could work. You”–she pointed the pipe at Ruth–“take yon cart back to the hospital for the rest. Tell Bess you’ll bring the clean bandages and blankets to her tomorrow.”

  I caught my breath. Ruth couldn’t drive the cart around alone. She’d see a chicken that looked friendly and chase after it, or turn down the wrong street and run into horrid circumstances. It didn’t matter how hungry or tired or desperate we were. It didn’t even matter that Curzon and Aberdeen were on the edge of leaving us on our own. This would never work. Our employ at the laundry had ended before it had begun.