The widow's war by Sally Gunning Page A

light fell behind Rebecca, making her skin appear even darker. The smell was not the smell of an Englishman’s house. Lyddie thought of Eben Freeman’s room. She had found the smell of him comforting and familiar, but this smell, a similar mix of tobacco and sweat, but a different sweat, and something like sassafras but not sassafras…She needed to get out, but how to do it? Fabrication took too long, especially when the fabricating was done by the inexperienced; the quickest way seemed to be the truth.
    “I’ve come away from my son’s house without his express permission,” she said.
    “I see. And it has angered him?”
    “Yes.”
    The woman stood without further words and moved about kitchen and pantry and cellar, returning with a near-full bushel of Indian meal, a pound of butter, what proved to be a half-dozen dried herring done up in a sack, and several ounces of yeast scraped from the bottom of a beer barrel. She filled the basket that Lyddie had just returned, set it next to the bushel of meal, and sat down heavily in her chair.
    “Thank you,” Lyddie said. “I’m deeply grateful. Good morning.”
    She hooked the basket on her arm, heaved up the Indian meal, and gained the door just as it flew inward. She jumped back and missed a collision with Sam Cowett by a hand’s width. “Good morning, Mr. Cowett. I’ve just finished paying a visit to your wife. We’ve bartered some goods and I’m now off. Good morning.”
    “Good morning. Or do you want another?”
    “Another?”
    “Another ‘good morning.’ You gave up two.”
    “You may save the other for later. Good morning.”
    He lifted an eyebrow, and Lyddie flushed. She pushed through the door and into the road as fast as her burdens would allow, listening for laughter behind her, unsure if she heard it.
    Once at home she laid the fire in the oven and mixed up her dough. By the time the dough had finished rising the fire had burned down to a nest of bright orange coals; Lyddie held her palm to the oven brick and could count no higher than ten before she had to remove her hand: ready for bread, then. She swept out the coals, dusted the brick with flour, and set the loaves in. In the ordinary way, once the bread was done the pudding would go in, then the piesand cake and custard, each preferring a lesser degree of temperature; the beans would go last to sit the night, and the week’s baking would be done. This time, her two loaves were the beginning and the end of the week’s work. Lyddie refused to think to the next week, or beyond it.

16

    The tea and cheese were gone and the second loaf cut into when Lyddie looked out her window and saw her cousin Betsey approaching. She had the door wide when Betsey reached it, and as Betsey pitched straight into Lyddie’s chest Lyddie found herself embracing her cousin more warmly than was her habit.
    “Cousin!” Betsey cried. “Do you know how glad I am to see you standing? Your daughter didn’t know a thing of your condition, but neither did she seem inclined to come and find out; I said very well, then, if no one else will take the trouble I’ll go and see what ails her.”
    “And why should something ail me?”
    “Why, when you weren’t at meeting—”
    “Today is the Sabbath?”
    “Heaven help me! I’ve got you dead on the ground and all youwant is an almanac.” She dropped into a chair. “Must I beg for a cup of tea?”
    “Begging won’t help you. I’ve nothing but water from the well, and bread and butter.”
    Betsey’s eyebrows, which had been nestled into the puffy flesh above her eyes, shot up under the edge of her cap. “So. ’Tis true, then. He’s packed you off with nothing.”
    “He’s not packed me off. I went away of my own will.”
    “And does he provide?”
    “He does not.”
    “Then ’tis all the same kettle. You must go back, Cousin. At once.”
    Lyddie stood up. “Would you have that water? A slice of bread? Or perhaps you’d care for some dried