The men wrinkled their noses and backed away from me. “Be off with you, woman,” one said. He turned to his mate and whispered, “What a creature!”
I nodded and smiled, and walked on, amazed myself at the drabble that had poured from my lips without so much as a pause to concoct it. Sister Joseph would have been appalled.
He called after me, “And for Christ’s sake, go to church. Damned colonials.”
When I met him at his shop, Cullah took my barrow and said, “I was thinking that you work too hard, always at the cloth. You will cause yourself to go blind.”
“I will be careful, husband. I will rest my eyes.”
“There. Working, working. Resolute, my wee wife, you are as determined as a badger, and for what? Our children are grown.”
“I suppose I cannot stop. I feel I must work at something.” And like a chant or an old string of Latin prayer, the sentence finished itself in my mind as, “or I shall not get home to Jamaica, to my mother,” and that surprised even me. It was true, now that I was alone so much, the children gone, those old words echoed more and more.
Meanwhile, Cullah had continued talking and I had not heard anything until he said, “You need a diversion. Let’s stay the night in Boston. I’ll drive the wagon. I have chests to deliver. We’ll bed at your brother’s house.”
I stopped walking and said, “I have no way to dress my hair in the morning. What shall we eat?”
“What is the fuss with hair? Women fiddle for an hour and then cover it with a cap so you would not know if she were bald as a pumpkin. If your brother cannot give us meat, we shall eat at an inn or a stall in the street. He has had provender at our table often enough, August could grant us a stale crust and a noggin of something. I must get there today, Resolute.”
I said nothing still. What could he know about my pride? My hair?
When we got to Boston we went to Revere’s, and Benjamin showed us a hammered brass charger he had created. I was so glad then that Cullah had come with me. Our son was growing so quickly. Seventeen already, and tall as his father, but with my lighter hair and skin. We all went to have a meat pie and ale at a nice tavern nearby, but Cullah grew more sullen as the meal continued, until he ceased speaking at all.
When we returned, Deborah Revere herself met us, smiling, and she kissed my cheeks. “Come next Thursday to our supper. Dining at eight o’clock. There will be music by seven, so come early. We are having some new music done.” She looked from my face to Cullah’s. “It will be a good place for all our sons.”
He glanced at me. “Then they shall all be there, madam. We have a daughter of a good age, too.”
“Of course. Then I shall expect, what, four of you?”
“Yes,” I said. “Thank you so.”
She cast her eyes around the place. “There shall be excellent company, Mr. MacLammond. Twenty-one of us, sir. Good day, then.”
“Good day,” Cullah said, as my mouth was open to utter the words.
When we left her presence, I tugged at Cullah’s sleeve. “Tell me, husband, what wounds your spirit so? Is it your finger causing such distress?”
He did not turn to me, or smile. “It is that I see my children, Gwenny’s bairns, and I do not wish them to grow up in a land such as this. I did not mean to be harsh to you. I am worried about the future.” He chucked the reins. “It’s intolerable.”
He tied our workhorse and farm wagon at a ring several doors away from August’s home. The street was lined with hansom carriages, and music poured from the open door at Wallace and Serenity Spencer’s house. Candles had been lit in several downstairs windows and more of their guests had just arrived. I pushed aside the knowledge of it coming from their house, and stepping to its beat let the music lift my spirits. I said, “Was it not excellent that we happened to go to Benjamin’s workplace in time to see Mistress Revere?”
Cullah said, “It was no accident. I was promised to go there, today.”
“Promised? For what purpose?”
He looked about the street, his eyes wandering to some flowers overhanging a ledge outside a window three stories up, but he muttered, “Mistress Revere has given me a message and we must attend that supper even if we are standing at death’s portal. The sons to whom she refers are not our children. Nevertheless, our son Benjamin must be there, likewise Dorothy. We must see that she is dressed as befits a child of royalty. And you, too. Have you got a new gown? Silk? Something with the finest trim?”
“It is but ten days away. I have some embroidery work, a stomacher, and some silk fillets made that I meant to sell. I can make the colors work for a mantua and wear my old petticoat with a bit of ribbon. There remain three bolts of silk from that stock Lady Spencer left to me. Dolly and I shall create her a gown from those.”
“See those flowers there? Why do you not plant some of those?” he asked, as three men in fine clothing walked past us. Then he lowered his voice again. “I suppose I shall need a coat such as that?”