Like cooking and housekeeping, stitchery was a skill she had learned in the long-ago days of her childhood. With her mother, who had wearied of Marcellus’s constant traveling once the first bloom of wedded bliss had passed into the reality of raising a child, she had occupied a small cottage in the tiny village of Bishop’s Lynn. There she had lived happily until her mother died under the wheels of a runaway wagon, and her
father, who had visited only rarely, came to fetch her away with him. She was nearly twelve at the time, and Marcellus, with his handsome face, fine clothes, and elegant ways, seemed a magnificent being. Willingly she had gone adventuring with him, and let him mold her into the kind of woman he wished her to be. But in the last few years she had begun to find their peripatetic existence both tiring and tawdry, and longed to settle someplace. As she grew to love her father dearly, she never expressed what she felt for fear of hurting him. Now the thought of having a home again, with meals to prepare and a house to clean and people to care for, was so appealing that she was almost afraid to allow herself to believe that it lay within her grasp. Over painful years she had learned the value of hearth and home and domesticity, and she suddenly found herself craving them as a starving man might food. Though she was tired and worn down from all that had brought her to this place, she tackled the waiting work with an energy that made Daniel groan.
Some hours later, swept, scrubbed, and dusted, the front two rooms were marginally presentable. There was still much polishing and waxing to do, and Caroline had decided that the windows as well as the wash would have to wait for another day, but the change was remarkable. Even Daniel, who was wearily chopping vegetables on the sideboard in the kitchen, was impressed with the change they had wrought.
“I suppose we’ve let things slide,” he said ruefully. “None of us is a dab hand at housework, so we’ve just done what was needed to get by. With planting season upon us, that’s hardly more than cooking an occasional
meal. But I must admit, ’tis nice to be able to walk across the room without forever tripping over something.”
Caroline stood over a steaming pot of water, dropping in chunks of meat as she cut them into cubes. The fare for the evening meal would be rabbit stew with girdlecakes; she’d mixed dough for bread and set it to rise, but it would not be ready for baking until the next morn. It was simple food, but tasty and filling, and she had not had time to concoct anything more elaborate. Fortunately, the preparing of savory meals from whatever one could catch or cadge was a skill she had already learned well.
“ ’Tis understandable that the housekeeping should suffer since Elizabeth’s passing,” Caroline replied. She and Daniel, after a somewhat rocky start, were now on fairly good terms. He was an amiable man, if not forced to make decisions that might put him in conflict with his older brother, and a likable one. He even seemed willing to tolerate Millicent, who was purring contentedly from the top of the settle, which put her in the vicinity of Daniel’s left elbow. From time to time he absentmindedly scratched her head.
“Elizabeth was no housekeeper. She …” Daniel cast Caroline a swift glance and shut up.
“She what?” Caroline asked curiously, turning away from the steaming pot to look at him.
“Nothing. She just did not much like cleaning house, is all,” Daniel mumbled, chopping a carrot as if his life depended on it.
Caroline eyed him thoughtfully.
“Daniel,” she began, “if I am to be a member of this
household, it would help me a great deal to know as much as I can about it. Was there some reason why Elizabeth did not clean house? Please tell me.”
Daniel frowned at the carrot he was reducing to shreds. Caroline was too anxious to hear what he might tell her to rescue the vegetable from him while it was still in a state fit for the pot.
“She was ill—really ill from the time Davey was born,” Daniel said to the carrot. “She rarely left her bed. Matt had to bunk with me, so as not to disturb her. She could never sleep when he was with her, she said.”
“So she was ill for a long time—but your brother said that she died of drowning. If she rarely left her bed, how did that come about?”
“She left it that day. She left it and went to the spring. And she drowned.” Daniel’s words were stark. “More I can’t tell you. I was away. By the time I got home, she was already buried.”
Something in his voice made Caroline frown.
“Did you not like her, Daniel?”
He glanced at her then, his eyes opaque.
“She was Matt’s wife. ’Twas not my place to like or dislike her.”
His tone told her that she would get no more from him on the subject of Elizabeth. Tossing the last of the meat into the boiling water, she went to retrieve the vegetables. The sight of the inexpertly chopped chunks made her grimace as she added them to the pot.
“Who on earth has been doing the cooking for the lot of you? Not you, ’tis obvious.”
Clearly relieved to be off the subject of Elizabeth, Daniel turned around on his stool and shrugged.
“Rob’s a fair enough cook, when he wishes to be. And sometimes Mary—that’s James’s wife, he’s our brother who lives in the town—will invite the lot of us to their house to eat. The Widow Forrester has set her cap for Matt, and she’s forever sending out bread and pies and such, much good may it do her. Patience Smith has her eye on Rob, and she makes a tasty pot of soup. Thorn has a whole gaggle of girls after him, and they vie to tempt him—and of necessity, the rest of us—with their culinary talents. For the rest, we forage fairly well for ourselves. None of us has starved.”
Caroline was mixing the buttermilk and flour for the girdlecakes. “I’m surprised that none of the ladies you mentioned thought to volunteer to take on the housekeeping. ’Tis not as sure a way to a man’s heart as through his belly, but it is certainly a way.”
“Matt’s no use for women forever hanging about the place. He’s told them to keep away.”
Caroline looked at him in some surprise. “Quite the gentleman, your brother,” she muttered, setting the batter aside to thicken. Then, turning away from the hearth, she motioned to Daniel. “ ’Tis an hour or more yet till supper. Let’s start on the upstairs.”
Daniel groaned, but followed her as she left the room.
8
“I
won’t eat what she cooks!”
Caroline could hear Davey’s piping voice from the larder where she had gone to fetch a crock of fruit preserve. From what Daniel had told her, she assumed it was an offering from one of the brothers’ female admirers, but when she tasted it with a cautious finger earlier she realized that it had been made with some sort of berry she could not identify. But whatever it was, it was both tart and sweet, and it would serve to go with the girdlecakes. In the summer, when the fruits and berries were once again ripe, she would make her own jams. Caroline frowned as she realized how much pleasure the thought gave her; perhaps, she reminded herself fiercely, she would be gone by then. It would not do to allow herself to imagine that she had found a permanent home. Davey did not like her, and none of the other Mathiesons seemed much happier about her presence. Besides, she herself might choose to go elsewhere. Certainly she did not mean to spend longer than she had to tending these impossible males. She could leave whenever the whim took her—or they could toss her out.
“Hush up, Davey! She’ll hear you!” said John. Like Davey’s, his voice was still youthfully high.
Putting a hand to the small of her back, Caroline stretched the aching muscles there. Lord, she was tired! Too tired to take umbrage with an ill-behaved child, or anyone else. Too tired almost to think. Sweat had curled the tendrils of hair at her temples and nape, and there were damp circles staining the green gown under her armpits. Her head ached, her legs hurt, and she longed for a bed.
Then she remembered she didn’t have a bed. And she was reminded, again, that this was not her home. She was here on sufferance only.
“You’ll eat what’s put before you, and keep your mouth shut in the meanwhile.” Matt’s reproof came as Caroline entered the kitchen. He and Davey met her gaze with identical scowls. Behind them stood John, hands shoved awkwardly into his waistband, and Thomas. All of them looked as wary as Caroline felt. From the sound of it, Robert was talking to Daniel in the front room. Likely they wanted nothing to do with her either.
“You may all wash up and sit down,” Caroline said curtly. “The meal’s ready.”
“Wash up!” The aghast words came from Davey, but from the expressions on the faces of the males she could see, every one of them was thinking the same thing.
She paused in the act of sliding another girdlecake onto the heap already piled on a pewter plate and glared from one appalled face to another.
“If you want to eat in this kitchen, each and every one of you will wash your hands and face before you sit down. I’ll not serve pigs.”
Running the back of her hand over her damp forehead, she turned away to spoon more batter onto the sizzling hot girdle. Behind her she sensed the issue of cleanliness hung in the balance. But she meant what she had said: if they tried to eat without washing, she’d throw the food in the fire! And if her behavior didn’t suit them, they could just cast her out for it! She would not let the knowledge that she had nowhere to go bind her into groveling servitude. She had managed under impossible odds before, and if necessary she could again!
“Davey, John, your aunt is in the right of it. Out back to the pump, both of you. All of you. Thomas, go fetch Robert and Daniel.” Matt’s was the voice of authority, but even so the boys protested.
“But, Pa …!”
“You’ll do as you’re told,” he responded, shepherding his sons out the door. Caroline’s spine sagged a little with relief. She’d won that round, without any of the dire consequences she’d been braced for. It would have been fatally easy to say nothing, to let them do as they pleased. Just for tonight, when she was so tired, it would not have hurt for them to sit down in all their dirt to a meal she had prepared. But it was best to start as she meant to continue, she reminded herself, and she was not yet so spineless as to let them treat her with disrespect.
A moment or so later Thomas, Robert, and Daniel passed through the kitchen and out the door, shooting Caroline sidelong looks as they went. She continued her cooking, ignoring them. When they returned, they
were silent as they took their places around the table. Hands and faces were conspicuously clean.
Caroline turned toward the table with plates heaped with the flat, fragrant girdlecakes. If she felt a tad triumphant, she was careful not to show it.
“We say grace in this house.” Matt sat at the head of the table, and his words were a clear challenge.
“Very well,” Caroline answered, setting the plates on the table and folding her hands in front of her. “Please proceed.”
The menfolk cast furtive glances at one another, then all rose and bowed their heads. Matt made a brief invocation, and then they all sat down again, maintaining the same uneasy silence as before.
Caroline’s lips tightened as she ladled stew into wooden trenchers and carried them, two at a time, to the table to the accompaniment of deafening silence. When food was set before each of them, along with mugs of water, she served herself and carried her own trencher and mug to the table to join them. Men and boys ate hungrily, but no one spoke or looked up as she drew near. All eyes were on their plates as they shoveled down the food.
There were benches along both sides of the table, and a large wooden chair at each end. Matt and Daniel occupied the chairs, while David and Thomas filled one bench and John and Robert the other. There was no place for Caroline to sit.
She stood there, holding her plate and mug, waiting for someone to notice her predicament. But no one did.
“If you
gentlemen
don’t mind, I would like to sit down.”
They looked up at that. Matt frowned, looking around the table.
“Scoot over, Davey,” he directed.
“I don’t want her sitting by me!” It was a wail.
“Do as you’re told, and be quick about it!”
“ ’Tisn’t fair,” Davey muttered, his expression sullen. But as he caught his father’s eye he obediently moved closer to Thomas, his plate and cup making a scraping noise as he shoved them along the table.
“So sit.” Matt returned his attention to his food. Lips tightening, Caroline sat, trying not to notice that Davey crowded as close to Thomas as he could, presumably so that no part of him would suffer her contaminating touch.
“Is there more?” Thomas sopped his girdlecake in the last of the gravy on his plate, popped it into his mouth, and looked around as though expecting food to appear magically in front of him.
“In the kettle,” Caroline said, her spoon suspended halfway to her mouth. She had not yet had a chance to take a single bite.
“ ’Tis good.” Daniel stopped eating long enough to compliment her as Thomas passed her his plate. Like his brothers and nephews, Thomas was blue-eyed and attractive. His fair hair and skin served to disguise his resemblance to the others, but it became apparent when he talked, or moved. Caroline judged him to be the youngest of the foursome, still lanky in the manner of a young man not quite grown into his height. Robert too was more bone than muscle, while Daniel was
more solid. Matt, who was the tallest, was also the most muscular. His physique looked both tough and powerful. There was a time when such a physique would have made Caroline’s pulse quicken, but no longer. The girl who would have once responded instinctively to Matt’s sheer masculine appeal was now buried deep within the frozen shell she had erected to keep hurt out.
“I’ll have some, then—please.” Thomas’s reluctant courtesy earned him the response he sought. Returning her spoon to her plate, its steaming contents untasted, Caroline took his trencher and rose to fill it. When she handed it back to him, he accepted it with a nod and fell to. Sitting again, Caroline began to eat. This time she actually was able to swallow a spoonful before Matt wanted seconds. After that, Caroline managed a few mouthfuls in between trips from table to pot and back again, but not many. It was with a feeling of relief that she realized that at last the pot was empty. Finally she could finish her own meal!