the 3rd inst. from Emery Verley of Medfield, a servant girl, indented by the name of Alice Cole, aged fifteen years, five feet in height, light complexioned with light hair and blue eyes, comely features. Whoever secures this servant in any gaol in this or the neighboring governments shall have five pounds reward and reasonable charges paid by E. Verley of Medfield. N.B. All masters of vessels are forbid to carry her off, and any others to harbour her at their peril.
Alice stared at the box, exactly centered in the middle of the newspaper page. The words five pounds seemed to leap out of all the other words on the page. Surely, surely, such an advertisement would attract the attention of every reader. It occurred to Alice to wonder how long the advertisement had been out there, and she returned to the front page of the paper to find the date. When she saw that it had been published on June the twenty-fifth she received her second great shock: it didn’t seem possible that so much time could have passed since she’d left the Verleys. She closed the paper and raced to the cupboard shelf where the widow kept her almanac. June had indeed run down. July was well along. And so came her third shock: the courses that should have given Alice their usual trouble a fortnight past had never appeared to trouble her at all.
FOURTEEN
A t first it seemed some trick of time only; she hadn’t been gone as long as she thought and she only needed to recount the days to ease her mind. Alice counted and recounted but she couldn’t make any better sum of it: Nabby Morton had married Emery Verley near the end of April; Verley had lain atop her from the end of April until she’d run off in early June; her June courses had never come. Such was the truth of it.
Next Alice decided it was nothing but an ordinary quirk in a usually most reliable schedule. She watched between her legs for the first week, then another; she imagined the griping in her womb that always signaled the dark blood and imagined the streaks on her bedsheet and shift; in the dead of night she felt sure she could feel the stickiness with her fingers. But every morning it was the same: the snowy linen, the dry skin, the still womb.
Oddly, the rest of life continued the same, with the single exception that Freeman commissioned the widow to make him a jacket of the crimson broadcloth, and out of the sum he paid the widow the widow paid Alice a shilling, making careful note in a ledger that showed the hours spent at spinning the yarn for the length of cloth, as well as the subtraction for her keep.
Alice added the shilling to the other coins she’d received for this and that small task from Freeman. She continued to listen at her wheel, and at the stairs, but since Freeman’s return he’d made no further mention of either sending her back to Boston or finding her work in the village. In fact, the nighttime chats seemed to have diminished; working a loom was heavy work, and Freeman seemed to have come back from Barnstable in greater fatigue than he’d left for it; most nights the household retired to their beds in unison. Every morning Alice checked her sheets and shift, but she did so as if she were in a dream, as if she couldn’t believe the sight of nothing could be made into something to fear.
With Freeman’s return came the boy Nate, or that was to say, with his return the boy Nate actually came inside, exchanging the Locke for another book and asking Freeman his questions. Freeman had a way of answering a question with a question so that the boy was forced to talk more than seemed to suit his natural inclination, for if Freeman left the room to fetch a book or paper the boy at once fell into silence, as if he were a bird whose cage had just been darkened. He looked at Alice from time to time, his face such a glowing rose if she caught him out that she found herself taking looks at him when his attention was engaged with Freeman. For a time she thought her oldest
Alice stared at the box, exactly centered in the middle of the newspaper page. The words five pounds seemed to leap out of all the other words on the page. Surely, surely, such an advertisement would attract the attention of every reader. It occurred to Alice to wonder how long the advertisement had been out there, and she returned to the front page of the paper to find the date. When she saw that it had been published on June the twenty-fifth she received her second great shock: it didn’t seem possible that so much time could have passed since she’d left the Verleys. She closed the paper and raced to the cupboard shelf where the widow kept her almanac. June had indeed run down. July was well along. And so came her third shock: the courses that should have given Alice their usual trouble a fortnight past had never appeared to trouble her at all.
FOURTEEN
A t first it seemed some trick of time only; she hadn’t been gone as long as she thought and she only needed to recount the days to ease her mind. Alice counted and recounted but she couldn’t make any better sum of it: Nabby Morton had married Emery Verley near the end of April; Verley had lain atop her from the end of April until she’d run off in early June; her June courses had never come. Such was the truth of it.
Next Alice decided it was nothing but an ordinary quirk in a usually most reliable schedule. She watched between her legs for the first week, then another; she imagined the griping in her womb that always signaled the dark blood and imagined the streaks on her bedsheet and shift; in the dead of night she felt sure she could feel the stickiness with her fingers. But every morning it was the same: the snowy linen, the dry skin, the still womb.
Oddly, the rest of life continued the same, with the single exception that Freeman commissioned the widow to make him a jacket of the crimson broadcloth, and out of the sum he paid the widow the widow paid Alice a shilling, making careful note in a ledger that showed the hours spent at spinning the yarn for the length of cloth, as well as the subtraction for her keep.
Alice added the shilling to the other coins she’d received for this and that small task from Freeman. She continued to listen at her wheel, and at the stairs, but since Freeman’s return he’d made no further mention of either sending her back to Boston or finding her work in the village. In fact, the nighttime chats seemed to have diminished; working a loom was heavy work, and Freeman seemed to have come back from Barnstable in greater fatigue than he’d left for it; most nights the household retired to their beds in unison. Every morning Alice checked her sheets and shift, but she did so as if she were in a dream, as if she couldn’t believe the sight of nothing could be made into something to fear.
With Freeman’s return came the boy Nate, or that was to say, with his return the boy Nate actually came inside, exchanging the Locke for another book and asking Freeman his questions. Freeman had a way of answering a question with a question so that the boy was forced to talk more than seemed to suit his natural inclination, for if Freeman left the room to fetch a book or paper the boy at once fell into silence, as if he were a bird whose cage had just been darkened. He looked at Alice from time to time, his face such a glowing rose if she caught him out that she found herself taking looks at him when his attention was engaged with Freeman. For a time she thought her oldest
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