Patey gave him a small and gentle smile, so like Ma’s had been, and said, “Your tears are a precious gift to me.” That started another round of sobs, until we laughed at each other, kissing each other’s lips and cheeks, mingling tears and joy.
At supper we shared all our stories of how Patience came to live here, and how August had fared on the high seas. He swore that he had now crushed Wallace Spencer, though I doubted it. I feared more that in taking Spencer’s goods, August had wounded an enormous bear, and made the man angrier than ever. He was adamant that it was less a worry. However, he intended to stay in his rooms at my house for several months, he said, and conduct some business from here. Then he proceeded to go back to the woods after dark with Jacob holding a lantern for him, so he could return with a heavy chest. That he put in his room in an armoire.
The following day, dressed in brocades, sporting gold buckles, August accompanied me to visit Lady Spencer. Patience refused to go, for she was so ill, but I feared she might not be received with that great black mark across her face. In her formal parlor, Amelia reclined on a couch and did not rise to greet us. “Come, my children,” she called. “I have been waiting to see you. The two of you together. It is a great treat.”
August bowed before her, then stayed upon one knee. “Your ladyship, I fear you will not say it when you hear what I have done.”
“No more about it. I know.” She waved her hand. “I have the papers ready. This house is yours, as long as I may live in it until I die.”
Just as Goody Carnegie had bequeathed to me her home, this woman was giving her house to my brother. “I do not deserve it,” he said.
“Deserve? I promised it in return for badgering some English trade. You, Resolute, must remain charming and wear silks. You must be received in society. Never forget, either of you, that there is always something greater than yourselves at work in the world. Look for it. Seek the whole truth, rather than letting the wind blow you as it will. Both of you are uniquely traveled, schooled in life in ways no scholar knows. Now, enough philosophy. Bring me some water, there, please, dear. With the lemon. Yes. This heat. I can no longer drink coffee but would you have some?”
“If you please, Amelia,” I said, “we should be glad to have the cool water also.”
*
Lady Amelia Spencer passed into eternity the first of July, 1756. The entire town of Lexington and half of Boston attended her funeral though no one had the effrontery to request that the townspeople pay for it. The conspicuous presence of August Talbot, and likewise conspicuous absence of Wallace and Serenity, made for much gossip, which enflamed even more when it was made known that August, a man of questionable character and loyalties, had been made heir to her property. A man approached the two of us after the burial and said, “What, sir? Are you so bold as to attend? I have a price on your head.”
August turned to him with a wry smile and said, “And you, sir, name the price and I shall pay it. Then you will leave my family alone.”
After Lady Spencer died, I began to have dreams from which I would awaken shaking and terrified. The dreams were so real, full of smells and textures, tastes and sensations, that during the dreaming, I thought the events were real, and was only soothed when I wakened, covered in sweat, often sitting up having knocked my arms against the wall. In one nightmare, I descended into dark woods where a cave opened before me and I slid down, down its muddy maw against knives, pitchforks, hay hooks, and daggers lining the walls. I never saw the bottom of it; I tumbled and slid, helpless, trying to avoid the cutting implements on the sides. There I saw Cullah, his face smeared with blood, running, frightened, dying perhaps, crashing through the woods as fast as a man could go, his claymore in his hands. Brendan was not with him. August and the rest of my family would come running, greatly disturbed by my cries.
At last America offered to sleep with me, and that next night when I awoke crying, she took my hand. “You were calling for Master Cullah,” she said.
It was then that I realized the nightmares which seemed to have begun when Lady Spencer died all felt as if I were to be trapped, lost, captured, and only Cullah could save me. Every night from then on, I prayed for them the last thing before sleep. If ever I forgot, the cave and the blades were my home for the night.
*