Warmth mixed with fear filled my heart. I pictured the blushing, stumbling Quaker boy, far nearer my age than Cullah. He was a man, not a boy, and anything he desired I could not hold from him long. I drew myself up as if no fear ever crossed my mind. “I have not been asked to wed, nor have I given such a word to you. There is no priest about, nor a witness. Have you come here to destroy me, then?”
He exhaled, making a noise through his lips. “I would sleep with your loom in the lower room. You bar the door above. You have my word as a gentle suitor that I will not harm a hair on your head. Though given any piece of bark I could manage to make you a bundling board in a trice. It would be a, a loving way to sleep.” He took my hand and kissed my fingers, too tenderly, so that heat passed over and through me as if the sun had burst through a heavy sky on a cloudy winter’s day.
I said, “New Englanders are prodigiously fond of that contraption. It is a wonder every maid has no less than seven children before she is wed.”
“Some may,” he said, and laughed.
After some talk, I felt safe, even confident of his promises, until I said, “Good night, then,” at the top of the stair, preparing to close the door.
“There is only so much temptation a man can withstand. Better place the bar.”
I slammed it in place so he would know it was there. The brigand. The lout. Commoner. Villain. But as I climbed into my bed I felt his presence in the room below me as if the fire in my grate were stoked up for a bitter day outside. To turn my thoughts from him, I imagined making myself a gown from my finest-made cloth. During the night a thrumming from my own insides awoke me, heated desire clawing at my ribs like a caged animal. It took me a moment to connect the feeling to the presence of him below, but the image of Patience writhing with Lukas under the yew trees filled me with disgust and made me shake my head and turn over, determined to sleep.
We departed early for Lexington town. I found the things I needed and spent time studying the gowns of ladies I saw, although most of those on the streets were but servants fetching and carrying. I bought a pair of delicate gloves at a reduced price because they had been torn by a careless customer wearing a ring. I could fix the rip easily enough.
The sun lowered as we left for home, and we walked the road nearly alone.
My mind was full of measuring and where to put tucks and flounces when Cullah said, “There’s a wicked wind.”
“What?”
“Do you not hear it? As if Goody Carnegie is crying on the wind.”
“Perhaps we need a charm against evil, then. Or a prayer, if you be so inclined.”
“I never was one to memorize prayers. It always seemed to me at the times I was in greatest need of God’s helping hand, I couldn’t remember the words. My prayers wouldn’t come except in a scream. Otherwise, I try not to bother the man, like some who has got to ninny over their porridge every moment.”
I leaned toward him and chanted in a low whisper, “Gum-boo cru-ah-he na clock. Gum-boo du-he-he na’n gaul.”
To my great surprise, he answered with, “Gum-boo loo-ah-he na lock, Gum-boo tru-he na’n loo-ee. I thought you knew no Scots.”
“I did not know it was Scottish. Ma said it was Gaelic and as a child I thought that was African. Go-intay, go-intay, sailtay, sailtay, see-ock, see-ock, oo-ayr.”
Whether because of the charm against evil on the road, or because we seemed so strange no one would touch us, we made the house safely and in good order. “Now go on with you,” I said. “I have a great deal of work to do if I am to wear a new gown in two weeks.”
“You are quite sure I could not light a fire for you tonight?” The smile on his face was so dark it seemed more foreboding than well-wishing.
“Good day, Cullah MacLammond. I shall await your coach on the twenty-fourth. If I cannot finish this gown I will wear something else.”
“I bought that cloth.”
“Let me see the color of your gold.” I held forth my hand. “A proper lady’s gown is no small feat, yards and yards of cloth, tucking and lacing and twiddly stitches.”
“I will have to pay it in partials.”
“I suspected as much. Then I may have to wear it in partials. I merely promised I would try. Pity you did not buy a professional seamstress, for I am slow at it.” When he was a few feet from my door I called, “Watch for Indians on your way home. See if any of them have aught in coin you could borrow against your debt.”
*
When the embroidery was finished I held it to the light and admired it. Oh, la! This was cloth for a noblewoman or the vest of a lord. Perhaps it was fitting, then, that I kept it, as a marker, a passage, to my own life.