At that the younger one took off his hat and swept it below a grand bow. “We are ready for our tea, now, mistress, and then we will begin our work for you.”
At that mocking gesture my fear flamed into rage. “Insolent fop,” I said, “you are too late. The thatcher has come and finished, and I am too poor to pay for expansion of the third-floor tower as yet. Before I spend money on the second story, I would make a trip to Jamaica and claim my mother and my estate from the Crown. And before I do that, I would make my coin by weaving the finest linen ever made in this bitter cold, godforsaken colony. Until that is sold, I am too poor to buy coffee, but if I had a single leaf of tea I would not part with it on your account.”
He bristled and his eyes flashed with anger. “Pa, we have worn thin our welcome.”
“Ah, no harm meant, lassie. Here is the letter from the Lady Spencer for our vouchsafe.” He procured a tattered and squashed bit of script from his vest and handed it to me. “Ah. Well. Can you read?”
I opened the seal. “I can, quite well, thank you. In French, in Latin, and in English.”
“There’s a vexation, son,” he said. “A woman who has been to her books will never have any sense.”
It was indeed from Lady Spencer. These louts were her prized carpenters, she said, the older one for any sort of structure, the younger for fine custom casework and joinery. Their names were Jacob and Cullah MacLammond. They had set out in the middle of the night to arrive here by dawn, and on her instruction bound by her for fifty pounds’ worth of repair or building on “my home” in Lexington.
I put the paper before my face to hide my expression from them and closed my eyes, trying to fathom the intent of Lady Spencer in combination with the annoyance of these two men. If she had indeed sent them to me, would she have instructed them to treat me as some savage wench? Frighten me? Or was their clumsy jest only that, a greeting en plaisantant; and perhaps they believed I had been awaiting their coming?
The young one said, “Come, Pa. We’re paid whether this Miss Talbot prefers our working for her or not. We mean you no harm, Miss Talbot. Personal charms be—”
“I know not whether you speak of your own charms, sir, or mine. However, you cannot blame me for fright on seeing a man’s hoary face in my window before the light of day. Your own mother might scream at such a sight. Now, which of you is Jacob MacLammond?”
The older man said, “That would be myself, Miss Talbot.”
“And what do you intend to do here?”
“Well, as far as a third-story tower, I doubt fifty pounds would cover that.”
I looked from him to the younger MacLammond, who was still glowering in anger, and decided to address Jacob. “What was the purpose, then, of that mascarade of speaking to a husband?” I shuddered that the French word had escaped my lips, though I knew no fitting one in English.
Jacob squinted with his one eye. The face before me I saw now was not so much born ugly as it was scarred beyond the point of human features, as if a bear or some other devastating catastrophe had raked him. When he spoke, it was evident deeper scars had fixed themselves to bone beneath skin and wrinkled his visage unnaturally; his mouth widened too far on the left side. “Just a precaution if it should prove I had the wrong house. Wouldn’t want to have some fellow come out for me with a pistol.”
While the thought crossed my heart that I should spend some of my money to own a pistol, I offered them breakfast such as I had, of pears, bread, and small beer. Jacob MacLammond surprised me, taking a bar of tea from his pack, and though he apologized for the saltiness of it, I made a hearty brew of what he shared.
The young one, Cullah, kept quiet as we ate. I had many chances then, by sidelong glance, to weigh his appearance against his father’s. Had not age and some accident misformed the father, they might have been brothers separated by but a few years. I tried to keep my eyes averted as his father ate with gusto, but faced his son as the younger MacLammond had been trained in table manners. At least I surmised so, until he turned to me upon finishing the small portion I had provided, and asked, “How do you come to live alone, young Mistress? Are you widowed? Why are you not indentured or a ward to some benefactor who will watch over you? What is your means, here?”
“Boy!” his father shouted. “Lady Spencer sent us!”
He said, “I want no part of work with a scald or a gypsy. Nor a seductress.”
“I will answer,” I said. “I understand. I am alone because I was abandoned by those who helped me escape from the Canadas. I was a prisoner of the pope.”
“Who helped you escape from the papists?”
I paused and looked the man in his one eye for a moment, because he did not say the word with the affect of nearly spitting it as if it fouled the tongue, as most Protestants did. “I will tell you truly, sir, if you will bind me a promise that you tell no one.”
Cullah asked, “Is it some shame?”
“No. Well, it is. Will you both promise?”