“House cap for the lady of this house.”
“That looks beautiful. Most extravagant. It is lovely. Thank you.”
“I t’ink you wear this, and you t’ink of my affection with it.”
Warmth flowed up my face from my bosom. “How kind. I shall. Is Master Cullah home?”
“He is, Mistress. Sleeping upstairs from the sound of his snoring,” she said with a grin. She blushed.
I said, “Now, we have work to do, rather, I have work. I am going to mix dye and see if I can replicate that blue with indigo and whiting. I will not insist you help me. This is treason against the Crown. I alone will hang for it if I must.”
“I have already made a pattern of it for you. I took apart the sides real gentle, and pressed it, and laid it on muslin. Marked all the places of it. I didn’t cut any of it, so it can be put back together in no time.”
I straightened. “You did in so few hours?”
“I didn’t want to cut it, so I took some time holding it and pinning it. Missy Dolly helped. She going to have baby, you know? She and I cut the pattern. All we need is cloth.”
“I have cloth. All we need is the dye. A baby? La. Another grandchild. Wonderful!”
“Mistress? I have somet’ing to tell you.”
“Yes, Alice?” I busied myself with clearing off the table to begin work.
“Mistress, it was me dropped that crystal glass.”
“I have no crystal glass.”
“Long time ago, at Master Spencer’s ball. It was me.”
I searched my memories. “Why did you say it was not you?”
“Because I already owed you for too much. You buy me from Mistress Spencer, her throwing a fit. Then you say I am free. You saved me from a beating that night. I didn’t want to have you t’ink I owed you so I must stay, must do as you say, must be somebody’s slave. I wanted to see how it would be if you had not’ing more to hold me.”
“Why tell me now?”
“Just want you to know, I see you now.”
“I do not understand.”
“It took a long time to trust. Now I know.”
I nodded. “It does. That is good of you to tell me. I will love my new cap.”
Outside, I stirred and boiled and dried dye mixtures on differing weaves and thread. I could not get the blue of the coat exactly, but what I had was within five shades of it. I bleached whites and creams, and we pressed and shrunk, stretched and dyed yard after yard of cloth. Then we began to cut them. I worked until my fingers bled.
Two weeks later we had ten coats made, and as many pairs of breeches and waistcoats in contrasting white linen. It was fine work, with small stitches, and not a pucker would I allow. Even Bertie helped, becoming quite a hand at sewing on buttons. This was a small thing, I knew. There was no way a single small family could clothe an army. What I wanted to do was to just make a few soldiers warm.
During those two weeks, five different sets of travelers came to my door begging food. One group consisted of four young men and one old one. We had already finished our meal, but I invited them inside, and said, “Sirs, I have some hasty pudding in the pot. I will share it with you, but I have nothing else.”
“Give us money, then, that we can buy something in town.”
“We have no money.”
“You have money. This is a big house. There is always money.”
Cullah said, “This house was built big because it housed a large family, and once there was money to build it. It is not so now.”
One of the men sidled past Alice and toward the stairway. He stopped and backed from it, feeling with his hands behind him. Down the stairs came Bertie, the pistol in hand, aimed right at the man’s head. Bertie’s voice had not yet deepened, but when he said, “You leave this house,” they listened to him. “I am but the smallest, and my five brothers wait up the stairs, each bigger than the other, and each one carries a pistol and a musket and sword bigger than the last. If you make it past me you must fight the next man, six of us in total, and that man there is my grandfather who is Cullah MacLammond, the heartiest Highlander who ever lived. Waiting by the door is my uncle, a vicious pirate who scuttled seventeen ships on the high seas and never was caught. He will put a dagger through your liver and pin you to a maple tree so the sap will run across your middle forever.”
The men left my kitchen fast as they could. I barred the door. Alice looked at me, at Bertie, and I stared from him to her, too. Cullah laughed, saying, “The lad has your gift of a sharp tongue and a quick story, my love.” Bertie glowed with pride in himself.
I stared hard at Bertie. “Best mind that tongue. It will cause you trouble, too, if you are not careful.”
Cullah said, “Put the pistol away and come with me. We have rows to hoe and a ditch to dig. Nothing like hard work to build up a boy and still his tongue.”
Bertie’s face fell. I arched my brows. “Go on and dig, Bertie. When you are grown you will thank us for it.”