“I understand. It is dangerous and difficult. I would not ask you to take such risk.”
“You’re a kind one, you are. Now, why don’t you live here, dearie? We shall be neighbors. This house is over a hundred years old and she’s had more than one roof before. I shall give you this house as long as you desire to live in her. If you leave and I’m still alive, you give it back to me. If I am dead, it is yours forever. I have no children, no niece or nephew. Use the money you have to get what you need to make your living and bake your bread. In the fall we’ll press cider, and make beer, and put aside roots.”
Fall? I should not be there that long, I vowed. Fall was the time of stormy seas. It was already mid-June. I would only stay as long as it took to get home. At that moment, four large pigeons fluttered through the beams over our heads and landed on the dirt floor of the place. I said, “I think perhaps I should inquire about a position in town.”
At that moment she seized my arm and held it fast. “I was trying not to tell you this, Miss Talbot. You will find no position in this town or any nearby. Talk from the Roberts family is that you caused them rack and ruin, killed the old man, stole the swain from the daughter, poisoned the dog, and spat in the eyes of the old woman as you left.”
“I never!”
“You best see what you can do about living until you can make your money. You have no choice except the old one that has been the choice of ruined women for all time.”
“Prostituée? Oh, la. I would rather perish.”
“Folks will be rude to you. But you show them you are none of that other.”
“Why do you believe in me?”
She chuckled and winked at me. “I know who you are. I saw who you was at that funeral, saying ‘morning’ to me with no care for eyes upon you. I have no one left in this world. No one speaks to me as I expect they will do to you, but I have this house and all that land there, back to those trees. Forty-two acres in this tract and another five full of bog berries, by the place I am now. This used to be a fine farm; my grandfather’s and his father’s, worked out of the woods with his own hands. That house I live in is on it still, but I had to live where there weren’t so many ghosts.”
“This is so kind of you. I cannot pay you for it. I have done nothing to deserve it.”
“You have done enough. I have reasons for doing this. We’ll write the deed so I may stay in my house until I die. It is a good and kind thing you do for me, to take it. Please take it. I beg you. I will only stay until I die.”
I could do naught but follow her, for without another word she pressed me on the path toward town. We walked to the town center and to the magistrate’s office. There Goody Carnegie signed away her family farm to me with the contingency she had before named, that I stay until she died or turn it back to her. The man was perturbed at her. Whether he disliked her in general or me in particular, or the plan of hers that caused him some trouble, I could not say. It took three hours, by the time he got done looking this up and consulting some of the same men who had studied my answers when I first arrived. All had to see the papers and read what was writ there before I was granted the privilege to do the same. When I had the papers and deed in my hand, I looked them over. Goody Carnegie was saying something about my putting these in a safe place when my eyes caught the words “four hundred and twenty” before the word “acres.”
I whispered, “Goody, this is a mistake. Look at this paper.”
“Hush now, my dearie. Cush-na, by baby. Be only quiet before the magistrates.”
I raised my brows, and turned to the men. “Is this correct, sirs?”
“It is,” one answered me.