The Witch of Blackbird Pond (6 page)

CHAPTER 7

W
HAT ON EARTH
could she think of to say next? Kit wondered in desperation. She sat looking down at her folded hands, reluctant to lift her eyes to the young man who sat on the bench across the wide hearth. She knew that when she looked up she would find William Ashby's gaze fixed steadily upon her. For the last half hour they had sat so. When a young man came to call what did one talk about? Was it all up to the girl? She had tried her best, but William seemed content just to sit, his back stiffly straight, his large capable hands resting squarely on his sturdy wool-clad knees. He looked impressive, in his cinnamon broadcloth coat and the fine linen shirt. His glossy beaver hat and white gloves were laid carefully on a chair near the door. William seemed to feel that merely by coming he had done his share. Apparently it was up to her to provide the conversation.

Aunt Rachel had laid a special fire in the company room and set lighted candles on the table. From the kitchen across the hall Kit could hear the voices of the family as they sat cozily about the fire that was still welcome on these cool May evenings. Tonight she longed to be with them. She would welcome even the Bible reading at this moment. She took a deep breath and tried again.

"Is it always so chilly in New England, even in May?"

William considered this. "I think this spring is a bit warmer than usual," he decided.

As though in answer to her urgent prayer for relief, a knock sounded on the outside door, and as Aunt Rachel went to answer, Kit heard John Holbrook's voice. Her aunt welcomed him cordially, and in a few moments put her head in at the parlor door, her understanding glance taking in the two silent young people.

"Why don't you both come and join us?" she suggested. "John Holbrook has come to call, and we can pop some corn for a treat." Bless Aunt Rachel!

Over a handful of fluffy white kernels William relaxed a trifle. There was something irresistible about popcorn. John, his pale cheeks flushed with the heat, managed the long shaker with a practiced hand. Judith blossomed suddenly in the firelight, and her laughter was infectious. Mercy's eyes were shining with pleasure. Rachel, with a ghost of the charm she must once have possessed, succeeded in drawing William, if not actually into the circle, at least to its warm circumference. Even Matthew unbent enough to ask courteously, "Does your father have all his field sown?"

"Yes, sir," replied William.

"Notice he's cutting some trees up Vexation way."

"Yes, I'm planning to build my house come autumn. We have marked some good white oak for the clapboards."

Kit stared at him. William had not spoken so many words all the evening. Aunt Rachel encouraged him.

"My husband tells me you have been appointed a Viewer of Fences," she smiled. "That is a fine honor for so young a man."

"Thank you, ma'am."

"With all the new land grants I've been hearing of, that will be an important duty," added Mercy helpfully.

"Yes," agreed William. "The Assembly has voted that there should be no unclaimed land left in all Hartford County."

"A wise move," put in Matthew. "Why should we leave land for the King's governor to grant to his favorites?"

William turned to the older man respectfully. "Are you not afraid, sir," he asked, "that we are likely to anger the King the more by such hasty actions?"

"Are you so afraid to anger the King?" scoffed Matthew.

"No, sir, but we cannot hope to hold out against him. If we submit to his governor now, without a struggle, are we not more likely to retain for ourselves some rights and privileges? By provoking his anger we may lose them all."

Kit could scarcely believe her ears. William Ashby was neither speechless nor dim-witted. He even dared to stand up to her uncle! With new respect she moved to pass him the wooden bowl of popcorn, and to it she added a smile that caused him to lapse again into scarlet-faced silence. Matthew Wood did not notice the interruption.

"Surrender our charter and we lose all," he thundered. "That charter was given to Connecticut by King Charles twenty-five years ago. It guarantees every right and privilege we have earned, the very ground we stand on and the laws we have made for ourselves. King James has no right to go back on his brother's pledge. What do you say, Master Holbrook? Or has your teacher poisoned your mind as well?"

"I believe we should keep the charter, sir," John's eyes were on the fire, and his voice sounded troubled. "But Dr. Bulkeley says that Connecticut has misinterpreted the charter. His knowledge of the law is so wide. He says that justice is not always served by our courts and—"

"Bah!" Matthew Wood pushed back his chair and rose to his feet. "Justice! What do you young men? know about rights and justice? A soft life is all you have ever known. Have you felled the trees in a wilderness and built a home with your bare hands? Have you fought off the wolves and the Indians? Have you frozen and starved through a single winter? The men who made this town understood justice. They knew better than to look for it in the King's favor. The only rights worth all that toil and sacrifice are the rights of free men, free and equal under God to decide their own justice. You'll learn. Mark my words, some day you'll learn to your sorrow!" He stumped off up the stairs without a goodnight.

Oh, dear! Could there never be a pleasant moment without this senseless argument? After Matthew's departure the conversation never really righted itself. Kit jumped as the square clock in the corner twanged eight o'clock. Only one hour! It seemed like the longest evening she had ever lived through. William rose deliberately to his feet.

"Thank you for your hospitality, Mistress Wood," he said politely.

John looked up, startled that the time had passed so quickly, and followed William's example. As the door shut behind their backs, a long sigh escaped Kit.

"Well, that's over with," she exclaimed. "At least we won't have to go through it again."

"Not till next Saturday night at least," laughed Mercy.

Kit shook her head positively. "He'll never come again," she said. Was she altogether relieved at the thought?

"Why, whatever makes you say that, child?" asked Rachel, busily raking up the fire.

"Couldn't you see? He hardly spoke a word to me. And then Uncle Matthew—"

"Oh, they all know about Father." Judith dismissed the quarrel airily. "William said he was starting to build his house, didn't he? What more could you want him to say?"

"He just happened to mention that."

"William Ashby never just happened to mention anything in his life," said Judith. "He knew exactly what he was saying."

"I can't see why just building a house—"

"Don't you know
anything,
Kit?" scoffed Judith. "William's father gave him that land three years ago, on his sixteenth birthday, and William said that he would never start to build his house until his mind was made up."

"That's ridiculous, Judith. He couldn't mean any such thing—so soon—could he, Mercy?"

"I'm afraid he could." Mercy smiled at her cousin's confusion. "I agree that William was telling all of us—you most of all—that his mind is made up. Whether you like it or not, Kit, William is going to come courting."

"But I don't want him to!" Kit was close to panic. "I don't want him to come at all. We—we can't even talk to each other!"

"Seems to me you're pretty choosy," snapped Judith. "Don't you know William is able to build the finest house in Wethersfield if he wants to? Does he have to keep you amused as well?"

Rachel put a reassuring hand on Kit's shoulder. "The girls are only teasing you, Katherine," she said gently.

"Then you don't think—"

"Yes, I do think William is serious. But you don't need to be worried, dear. No one is going to hurry you, least of all William himself. He is a very fine young man. Of course you feel like strangers now. But I think you'll find sufficient to talk about before long."

But would they? Kit wondered, climbing the stairs to bed. Her doubts persisted through the week. A second Saturday passed, a third and a fourth, and William's calls fell into a pattern. I shall ask Mercy to teach me to knit, Kit decided after the second Saturday, and thereafter she armed herself with wool and needles. At least they kept her hands occupied and gave her an excuse for not meeting that implacable gaze.

William seemed to find nothing lacking in those evenings. For him it was enough simply to sit across the room and look at her. It was flattering, she had to admit. The most eligible bachelor in Wethersfield and handsome, actually, in his substantial way. Sometimes, as she sat knitting, aware that William's eyes were on her face, she felt her breath tightening in a way that was strange and not unpleasant. Then, just as suddenly, rebellion would rise in her. He was so sure! Without even asking, he was reckoning on her as deliberately as he calculated his growing pile of lumber.

Perhaps she would not have thought about William so much had there been anything else to break the long monotonous stretch from Saturday to Saturday. It was incredible that every day should be the same, varied only in the work that filled every hour from sunrise to dark. Surely, it seemed, there must come a moment when all the tasks would be done and some brief leisure earned, yet always a new chore loomed ahead. A shearing had brought a veritable mountain of gray wool to be washed and bleached and dyed, enough to keep Mercy carding and spinning and weaving for the next twelve months. There was water to draw and linen to scrub and, everlastingly, the endless rows of vegetables to weed and hoe. Kit had not found a single one of these tasks to her liking. Her hands were unskillful not so much from inability as from the rebellion that stiffened her fingers. She was Katherine Tyler. She had not been reared to do the work of slaves. And William Ashby was the only person in Wethersfield who did not expect her to be useful, who demanded nothing, and offered his steady admiration as proof that she was still of some worth. No wonder that she found herself looking forward to Saturday evening.

CHAPTER 8

"T
HE ONION FIELD
in the south meadow needs weeding," announced Matthew one morning in early June, "If Judith and Katherine can be spared, they can spend the morning at it."

The two girls who set out soon after breakfast did not provide such a contrast as on Meeting Day. Scandalized to see Kit wearing out her finery with scrubbing and cooking, Rachel and Mercy had made her a calico dress exactly the same as Judith's. It was coarse-woven and simply made, without so much as a single bow for trimming, but it was certainly far more suited to the menial work she had to do in it. Beyond a doubt, too, it had made for an easier relationship with her cousin. This morning Judith seemed almost friendly.

"What a wonderful day!" she exclaimed. "Aren't you glad we don't have to stay inside, Kit?"

Kit felt quite cheerful. It really was a wonderful day, with a bright blue sky, and the fields and woods all a soft green. The roadway was bordered with daisies and buttercups, pale and thin, of course, compared to the brilliant masses of color in Barbados, but pretty all the same. And for the first time since she had come to Wethersfield she did not feel chilly.

The girls passed the Meeting House, turned down Short Street and went on down the pathway that was known as the South Road. The Great Meadow, Judith explained, was the grassy land that lay within the wide loop of the river.

"No one lives there," Judith told her, "because in the spring the river floods over and sometimes the fields are completely covered. After the water goes down we can use the land. 'Tis good rich soil and every landowner has a lot for pasture or gardens. Father is entitled to a bigger lot, but he has no one to help him."

As they came out from the shelter of the trees and the Great Meadows stretched before them. Kit caught her breath. She had not expected anything like this. From that first moment, in a way she could never explain, the Meadows claimed her and made her their own. As far as she could see they stretched on either side, a great level sea of green, broken here and there by a solitary graceful elm. Was it the fields of sugar cane they brought to mind, or the endless reach of the ocean to meet the sky? Or was it simply the sense of freedom and space and light that spoke to her of home?

If only I could be here alone, without Judith or anyone, she thought with longing. Someday I am going to come back to this place, when there is time just to stand still and look at it. How often she would come back she had no way of foreseeing, nor could she know that never, in the months to come, would the Meadows break the promise they held for her at this moment, a promise of peace and quietness and of comfort for a troubled heart.

"What are you looking at?" demanded Judith, turning back impatiently. "Father's field is farther on."

"I was wondering about that little house," said Kit, by way of excuse. "I thought you said no one lived down here." Far over to the right, at the edge of a marshy pond, a wisp of smoke curled gently from a lopsided chimney. Beyond the little shack something moved. Was it a shadow, or a slight stooped figure?

"Oh—that's the Widow Tupper." Judith's voice was edged with contempt. "Nobody but Hannah Tupper would live there by Blackbird Pond, right at the edge of the swamp, but she likes it. They can't persuade her to leave."

"What if the river floods?"

"It did, four years ago, and her house was covered right over. No one knows where she hid, but when the water went down, there she was again. She cleaned out the mud and went right on as though nothing had happened. She's been there as long as I can remember."

"All alone?"

"With her cats. There's always a cat or so around. People say she's a witch."

"Do you believe in witches, Judith?"

"Maybe not," said Judith doubtfully. "All the same, it gives me a creepy feeling to look at her. She's queer, that's certain, and she never comes to Meeting. I'd just rather not get any closer."

Kit looked back at the gray figure bent over a kettle, stirring something with a long stick. Her spine prickled. It might be only soap, of course. She'd stirred a kettle herself just yesterday; goodness knows her arms still ached from it. But that lonely figure in the ragged flapping shawl—it was easy enough to imagine any sort of mysterious brew in that pot! She quickened her step to catch up with Judith.

The long rows of onions looked endless, their sharp green shoots already half hidden by encroaching weeds. Judith plumped matter-of-factly to her knees and began to pull vigorously. Kit could never get over her amazement at her cousin. Judith, so proud and uppity, so vain of the curls that fell just so on her shoulder, so finicky about the snowy linen collar that was the only vanity allowed her, kneeling in the dirt doing work that a high-class slave in Barbados would rebel at. What a strange country this was!

"Well, what are you standing there for?" Judith demanded. "Father says we have to do three rows before we can go home for dinner." Kit lowered herself gingerly and gathered a halfhearted handful. At the second tug an onion shoot came too, and glancing to see if Judith had noticed, she guiltily thrust the tiny root back into the earth and patted it firm. Bother the things, she would have to keep her mind on them! All at once tears of self-pity brimmed her eyes. What was she doing here anyway, Sir Francis Tyler's granddaughter, squatting in an onion patch?

She jerked at the weeds. If she should marry William Ashby, would he expect her to weed his vegetables for him? Her hands stopped moving at all while she considered this. No, she was quite certain he never would. Did it seem likely that his mother, who sat so elegantly in meeting, had ever touched a choke-weed? There were no blisters under those soft gloves, Kit wagered. She knew by now that the humble folk who sat in the very back of the Meeting House were servants of the fine families of Wethersfield. William would own servants himself, beyond a doubt. She wiped a grimy hand across her eyes. Perhaps she could endure this work for a time if the future offered an escape.

A more immediate escape offered itself that very noontime. The two girls returned home to find Mercy brimming with excitement, her gray eyes sparkling.

"The most wonderful thing, Kit! Dr. Bulkeley has recommended to the selectmen that you help me with the school this summer."

"A school?" echoed Kit. "Do you teach a school, Mercy?"

"Just the dame school. For the younger children, in the summer months. With you to help me I can take more pupils."

"What do you teach them?"

"Their letters, and to read and write their names. They can't go to the grammer school, you know, till they can read, and many of their parents can't teach them."

"Where is this school?"

"Right here in the kitchen."

"I don't know much about children," said Kit dubiously.

"You know how to read, don't you? John Holbrook told Dr. Bulkeley you can read as well as he can."

Kit started. Had John repeated to Dr. Bulkeley that conversation on the
Dolphin
? Likely not, or he would never have recommended her. She had never dared to mention books in this household, where there was no book at all except the Holy Bible.

"Yes, of course I can read," she admitted cautiously.

"Well, they are going to send Mr. Eleazer Kimberley, the schoolmaster, to test you. Then the school will begin next week. Father is pleased too. Kit. We'll both be earning wages."

"Real wages?"

"Every child pays fourpence a week. Sometimes they pay with eggs or wool or such things instead. It will help, Kit, a great deal."

The more she thought about it, the more pleasant the dame school sounded to Kit. Surely, if she were earning wages they would no longer expect her to scrub floors and weed the onions. Even more, a feeling of satisfaction, even of triumph began to grow in her mind. Later that day, as she sat alone with Mercy over their wool combs, she spoke her thoughts aloud.

"If I am earning wages," she said suddenly, "then perhaps you will all think I am of some use, even if I'm not a boy." She could not keep out of her voice the bitterness that had rankled all these weeks.

Mercy laid down her carding and stared at her cousin.

"What do you mean, Kit?"

"That first night I was here," confessed Kit, "Judith said if only I had been a boy—"

"Oh, Kit!" Tears suddenly flooded Mercy's eyes. "You heard that? Why didn't you tell me before?"

Kit looked down in embarrassment. She wished now that she had held her tongue.

"She didn't mean what you think, Kit. It's just that father needs a boy so much to help." Mercy hesitated.

"Mother has never told you much about our family, has she?" she went on. "You see, there was a boy, their first child, two years older than I. I barely remember him. We both caught some kind of fever. I got well, except for this leg, but he died."

"I didn't know," whispered Kit, stricken. "Poor Aunt Rachel!"

"There was another boy, after Judith," Mercy continued. "He lived only a week. Mother said it was the will of God, but sometimes I have wondered. He was very tiny, born early, but on the third day he had to be baptized. It was January and terribly cold. They said the bread froze on the plates at communion that Sunday. Father bundled him up and carried him to the Meeting House. He was so proud! Well, of course that was a long time ago, but after that Father changed. And it has been a struggle, trying to manage without a son to help. That's all we meant, Kit."

Kit sat silent, her own bitterness forgotten. I will try harder to understand him, she vowed. But oh, poor Aunt Rachel, who had been always laughing!