“Well, that we’re apologetic. Wallace and I are monstrously sorry for the incident that happened in our home and trust you will say nothing at all about it. We are both very sorry you became upset. There. That’s it.”
“Is that why you called?” I asked, bridling a cauldron of anger that she was stirring. Perhaps she was only here to forestall another meeting between Wallace and my brother. “Why, Serenity, you cannot be sorry that I was upset.”
“Why not?”
“You cannot apologize for my feelings. You may apologize for your actions. You may even try to apologize for your husband’s taking advantage of my daughter and disgracing her, and throwing an honorable young man out a window with a fist to his jaw. But”—I slowed my words, emphasizing each one—“you may not apologize for my feelings. My feelings are my response to your husband fondling my daughter. He all but called out my brother to a duel. No, Mistress Spencer, you must apologize for your husband’s actions.”
“Well. Well. I told him he was mistaken sending me here. You are not our level of society. You were a slave. Everyone knows what slaves are like.”
“Why, Serenity, I lived with you. I was your companion and friend. Indenture was in my childhood. Perhaps I lack understanding, not being so refined as yourself. What are you implying?”
“Your children are from all different masters.”
“How many children on your plantation look like Wallace?”
Serenity stood with a hop, nearly tumbling over the chair in which she had been sitting. “How dare you.”
“Fifteen, by now I should say, at least.”
She stomped toward the door. There, she stopped and looked from her gown to a bolt of fine blue wool I had laid there on a small table, waiting to be wrapped and taken to town. She gasped. They were the same fabric. She whirled at me. “You may think you belong in our society, Miss Talbot, but you do not. You are nothing but a tradeswoman, a crafter. You and your family will never darken the door of my home again.”
I thought of Lady Spencer’s grand home, now already pledged to my brother, and realized that Serenity had no knowledge of that. “I would not let Gwyneth’s shadow fall upon so much as your coffin. I am a crafter. Had not the Crown taken my plantation from me, I might have grown up to be much more like you, Serenity. So for that, I am thankful I learned to weave.”
She sniffed, patting her own cheeks as one might soothe a pensive child. “One must make allowances for the lower class of society. God sent you to be a slave so you could learn to weave and make your living outside of good society as a crafter.”
“God sent me to be a slave?”
“Otherwise you’d have become a slut.”
At my side on the table rested a bowl of apples, most of them soft and awaiting cooking down for apple butter. It was done before I knew it. It was done as if someone else ran into the room and put the apple into my hand and pulled my arm. I threw it at her with every ounce of strength I had. I roared at her, “God sent you this apple, then, to teach you manners!” The fruit hit Serenity at the base of her lower lip and splattered upward across her face, causing a tiny cut in the lip at the same time. A drop of dark red appeared on her lip.
Serenity shrieked for her men, and proceeded to feign a faint on my doorstep, her face filthy, and her wig falling off sideways. The man holding her right arm while her backside slid into mud at the doorway asked, “May we bring her inside, madam?”
“No. I will help you get her into the coach. I think she will be most comfortable in her own home. She was rambling on about madness in the family. Repeating herself. I believe the woman is having a spell. Quite incoherent, perhaps mad. It runs in the family, you know. Get her home and I insist you send for a physician. She needs a vigorous vomit and a good bleeding. See to it that a doctor does it as soon as she gets home.” We got her into the coach where she tumbled down against the seat as a child might sleep.
The coach left, though I did not enter the house until it was well out of sight. “Jacob?” I called. “Jacob, I must talk to you.” I told him what I had done, adding, “Oh, Jacob, they will come for me. If we were in England, they would transport me here. The Wallace Spencers have wealth and position. I am doomed.” My children came down then, and I was forced to confess another time. “Children, your mother lost her temper in the most terrible way. I was insulted and did not forbear to take it quietly. I should have asked the woman to leave. Or merely told her I was not pleased with what she said.”
My little Dorothy said, “Ma? What did you do?”
I drew a deep breath. “I hit Mistress Spencer with an apple. A mushy one. Right in the face.”
“Yippee!” Benjamin whooped. “Did it make a big mess and bust out all her teeth? I want to see that!”
“Oh, son. I am so sorry I did it. Gentle people ought not to behave so.”
“What did she say to you, Ma?” Gwenny asked.