“Alice?” I called. No answer. I called up the stairs. “Alice?”
She was not in any of the bedrooms, nor in the attic. The comb I had given her, the extra skirt and apron, the cloak, all had been removed from Dolly’s old bedroom where Alice slept. The bed had been made up neatly. I went down, and down again, to the loom. By the time I reached the front door again, I was winded. I sat upon the bench outside the door. She was gone.
I went back to my chores feeling lonely. I sat at the kitchen table shelling dried beans into a bowl. The door behind me creaked open. A dark-skinned hand came around the door, pushing it slowly. Alice stepped in. “Mistress?”
“Yes, Alice?”
“I walked near all the way to Boston town.”
“Did you?”
“All that way, I thought more than I could t’ink before when you asked me to stay or go, to make up my mind. All my life I go where I am told. I didn’t know I could do it. If I am by myself for a while, I can t’ink up and down a t’ing from both sides and I can make up a decision in my mind. If I am free, here is what I made up my mind to do. I come to ask you to hire me to keep house for pay. If you like my work, as you have seen it up to now, I make up my mind I have need of pay as a free woman. If you hire me I ask one pound a month.”
“That is less than I pay you now.”
“Only a little. That is what free housemaids in town gets. One pound a month. I don’t aim to be fancy, I want what they gets. I want to be a housemaid in my own shoes.”
I knew what she meant. I had not heard that expression since I was small. “I happen to be in need of a housemaid. I believe I will hire you, Alice. You will work as the family does, five in the morning until eight at night. You may have every other Saturday afternoon off to do whatever you please as long as it is in good moral character. And if you decide you wish to leave, and you have done a good job, I will recommend you to other households providing you give me half a month’s notice. Agreed?”
“Agreed, Mistress.”
“Put your things away. You will find a room at the top of the stairs where the, the previous housemaid stayed. It is all ready for you.”
She smiled. “T’ank you, Mistress.”
*
Fall of 1767 settled in with its gales and flutters of snow followed by warmer days. The garden lay exposed, pumpkins strewn amid dried vines, yellowed beans clinging to poles and cornstalks, dead at the foot but still recklessly in bloom on the tips. Harvest meant constant work. One day as Alice and I picked through cooked pumpkin chunks to crush for pies, testing them with a fork to see if they were done, a wagoner came up our road stirring dust that floated in the misty air. It made a cloud that traveled to where Dolly sat reading aloud the newest pamphlets from Boston, by the doorway under the climbing vines. There were two men. I said, “Go inside. If anything happens, bar the door quick as you can and run upstairs. Alice, ring the bell in the kitchen window with the mallet by it, five rings, to call Gwyneth and Roland and tell them it is dire. Then get yourself upstairs, too. There is another bar on our bedroom door up the stairs. Use it, if you must, and wait in the hidden stairwell.”
The driver came to me just as she got within the house. He tipped his battered hat, which once had been cocked all around but was lapping behind and gave him a comical look. In case that was meant to be one of August’s “high signs” I put my left hand against my chin and touched my elbow with my right fist, changing it as if I had started to cross my arms and changed my mind. “David Cross, to see Jacob Lamont.”
I hesitated. Was that a signal? And was Cross his name or was that also a sign? “I am sorry, Mr. Cross. I do not know a Jacob Lamont.” And I did not, for Jacob’s Lamont name was Brendan like our son’s. “Perhaps you have gotten the wrong instructions.” His hands did not move. I touched my cap, wondering if he would respond with the sign that August and all our family and friends used and never told to strangers.
He did not touch his hat again, but said, “No, no, Mistress. I have been this way before. Ain’t there a man living here name of Eadan Lamont, then?”
I meant to let my face freeze in its expression. I know not whether it was successful. No one was supposed to know of Cullah’s real name. No doubt our children heard me call him “Eadan” now and then, but never those two names together. “You ask too many questions, sir, for a stranger at my gate. Good day.” I made as if to go into the house. When I turned, from the corner of my eye I saw that something or someone moved under a tarpaulin in the wagon bed.
“Tell him I got somewhat for him. It has been a long time in coming. Tell him I will wait for him.”