When March turned to April, one day I was alone in the house. I pushed open the door to the secret room over the loom. I crawled inside the small doorway then backed out again but returned with two large candlesticks that held three lights each and a stob from the fireplace. I lit all six candles.
The room seemed alive with the feeling of Cullah’s having been the last person there. The dust motes stirred under the flare of the candles. Hung on the wall, as if he would return any moment, were his claymore, his pipes, a worn leathern shirt, and a length of plaid. Under that was the old chest. I opened it. Inside it held a pair of soot-black leggings, trousers not made by my hands. A ragged and scunging black woolen shirt lay folded atop a black cloak, thin and torn in a multitude of places. It looked useless, and it, too, I could see, was not made by me. There was a folded linen, also black. Someone had gashed it. I clucked my tongue. People could be so unthinking of fine cloth. I raised it to judge whether it were worth cutting for something else. Then I saw that the two gashes were eyeholes. I laid the cloth over my head and peered through the eyes. His hat was still on its peg. How did he keep this upon his face? Another folded cloth lay below this one. It had been knotted in the end so that it made a headscarf. I put it on. This was how my husband had slipped through the woods. I felt a surge of power, a feeling almost as if Cullah had lifted me and swung me like a bell.
“Tante?”
I jumped with such violence that one of the candles tumbled, still lit, into the open trunk. I pulled the cloth, blowing out the smoldering cinder. “What do you want, James?”
“What is this place?”
“A room. Just a room.”
“A hiding place.” He paused, searching for words. “Those are weapons. And there, rolls of cloth you have not paid tax for. It is lawless. God ordains all kings and you and your husband shun the laws of this land. Your brother, my uncle, is an outlaw and now your husband is as well.”
“My husband is dead. These rolls of cloth incur no tax sitting here, for I made them and intend to use them. Do you mean to make charges against us, James?” I felt fear and anger welling. I smelled the hatred in my soul, the brimstone of hell, for all that his father had done. I saw Rafe MacAlister in James’s face and the memory of Goody Carnegie’s book of herbs and stories exploded again before my eyes, as if Lucifer himself stood before me.
He thought again, far too long, so that I felt keenly uncomfortable. Then he said, “It is a Christian’s place to bow to the authority given him, but I am a French citizen first, and not a British one. Perhaps I should leave, tante.”
I could no longer bridle my anger. “For New Orleans? I’m sure there are no godless outlaws there. Perhaps you should have stayed in Montréal,” I snapped at him. I would be glad to see the heels of his shoes, I vowed. Then my heart lurched within me. “James, are you willing to join the British army to quell the people of this continent for their love of independence? Would you see us turned out, our farm taken, so King George could buy another cannon to shoot other Frenchmen?”
“No. Not that. It is not as simple a decision as that. I had come to find you to tell you I have been thinking for three days that the time has come for me now to head south, that I had decided to go. I appreciate all you have done for me, but I am really no farmer. I think I will make my way in some kind of trading on the river.”
“Then I am sorry for being angry with you just now. I thought you were condemning me. What will you trade?” Even as I spoke, I had to push away thoughts of Satan’s beguiling ways.
He smiled, a genuine, honest face, with no guile, I saw. Not Rafe MacAlister, but Patey’s abandoned and forgotten son. “I have learned much about the price of woolens.”
We laughed together. “I have some, but I will not sell them to you, because then we would have to pay taxes. I will give them to you, to start your trading business, but I will write you a bill that shows you own them. And, James, I wish you the best of fortune. Will you help me sort them? I can tell you much about how to keep moths away.”
James nodded and turned away just as someone rapped at the front door, making it rattle in its hinges. I climbed from the room and straightened the panel, then my cap. The gusty air of April seemed to press against the door as it opened.
Margaret Gage swooped at me. “I just heard, Ressie. Oh, poor dear. Oh, dear. Poor Cullah. And your sweet Dolly, I am so fond of her. She must be heartsick. Oh, dear, your heart must be broken. My husband said it was a terrible shame. It was not his doing, I swear it. Please say you will come to Boston for a few days? Please say you will. I so want to be near you at a time like this.”
My face went slack. Painful, bitter tears flowed yet again, and I let her clasp me as Patience once did, my arms round her waist. I looked about at my house, my Dorothy standing as still as an ice-covered tree. “That is so kind of you, Margaret, but I could not leave my house.” In truth, I cared not what Margaret wanted, for I was numb.