Abiding Peace (2 page)

Jane stepped closer to Christine. “Good for you. You stayed calm. I’d have spat in her eye.”

Christine gave her a rueful smile. “I felt tempted to say what I thought, but …”

“I know. It’s not in your nature, and it
is
Sunday.”

“Their children are all dead or moved away, and I suppose she does need help.”

“My husband is waving at me,” Jane said. “I suppose we and the Dudleys shall all take dinner at the Heards’ today, so the men can discuss building the new pews with Brother William. Of course you mustn’t tell the parson they are talking about work on the Sabbath.”

Christine chuckled, but Jane seemed to take the matter seriously. She left Christine and joined her husband. The neighbors living close to the meetinghouse opened their homes on Sunday afternoon to the farmers from outside the village, so they would have a place to eat their Sunday dinner in relative comfort. Then all would return to the meetinghouse for the afternoon service, which sometimes went on until the supper hour. Christine waved and gathered the pastor’s three little girls about her.

“Goody Deane, be you joining us for dinner at the parsonage today?” Samuel Jewett called to his elderly neighbor, who was saying good-bye to a knot of other ladies.

“Aye, if ye want me,” the wrinkled old woman replied.

“Of course we want you.”

“Especially if you’ve baked gingerbread,” the impish John added.

Samuel swatted playfully at his younger son. “Here now, be polite. The lady will think you a greedy pig.”

“He is that when it comes to gingerbread.” Goody Deane cackled as she hobbled along toward the street.

Samuel and Christine matched their steps to hers. John, Ben, and Abby ran ahead, but Ruth toddled along holding her father’s hand, and Constance stuck as close to Christine’s skirts as a cocklebur.

The two women set to work getting the meal ready as soon as they reached the parsonage. Samuel helped little Ruth change out of her Sunday dress and watched with approval as the children helped carry dishes and set the four pewter plates and mismatched mugs on the table.

He sat down at the table with the two boys and Goody Deane for the first sitting. When they had finished, Christine and Abby quickly washed their dishes and set the table again for themselves, Ruth, and Constance. It was the regular routine of the family. Samuel wished he could afford more dishes, but they got along. Elizabeth had never complained, and he had carved wooden bowls enough to go around. Perhaps he could purchase a couple of tin mugs from the trader. But there were so many other things they needed, and his small stipend was paid only if the tithes amounted to enough to cover it. Members of the congregation occasionally brought his family a load of wood or a sack of meal, it was true, but the pastor’s family was one of the poorest in the community.

He saw Christine cast a wistful glance at the loom in the corner of the room. Samuel gave her free use of his deceased wife’s loom and spinning wheel. Christine had shown a talent for weaving soon after her arrival two years earlier. She had learned the craft from the nuns at the convent in Canada where she’d lived for four years. Of course, they both knew she wouldn’t be weaving on Sunday.

Samuel turned his attention to the meal—a simple stew, corn bread baked yesterday, and the promise of gingerbread after. The spicy smell of ginger tantalized them all from beneath one of Goody Deane’s threadbare linen towels.

He didn’t like to recall Christine’s background or the events that had brought her into contact with his family. A number of the village’s residents had been captured by Indians, either at the massacre of 1689 or in other raids. Several members of the Otis and Dudley families, as well as Charles and Jane Gardner, were survivors of captivity. Busybodies set rumors flying about the conditions under which the captives had lived and the state of their souls as a result. But none of the others had lived in a nunnery for years, as Christine had. The people of Cochecho had accepted most of the redeemed captives back into their ranks, but he knew a few still looked on Christine with suspicion because of her years at the convent.

He saw growing acceptance as Christine attended church faithfully and performed good deeds with a self-effacing humility. Most of the prominent women of the community now treated her well. Samuel’s close contact with her had taught him that her faith was firm, and her love and tender care for his children was exceeded only by that which their own mother had bestowed. Christine was indeed a blessing to their family.

“Will you have some greens?” Goody Deane stood at Christine’s elbow with a wooden bowl of boiled greens the girls had gathered at the edge of the woods on Saturday.

“Aye, thank you.” Christine held her plate up.

“We’ll be eating corn from the garden soon.” Pastor Jewett set the kettle of steaming water for the dishes aside and raked the coals into a heap on the stone hearth. He covered them with ashes, banking them. They didn’t want to keep burning wood all afternoon since it was now very warm in the house, but they would want the live coals later, when it was time to cook supper.

“Yes, and cucumbers, too.” Goody Deane put a small portion of greens on each of the girls’ plates.

“I can’t wait for fresh corn.” Constance rubbed her tummy.

They all laughed.

“Me, either,” Christine said. All that was left of last year’s crop was dry ground corn and a barrel of parched corn kernels, and those supplies were dwindling. “It will be a little while longer before we get corn, though.” The summer garden supplied them with plenty of green beans, leaf lettuce, and tender carrots and beets. This time of year, the Jewetts ate as well as most other families in Cochecho.

Samuel sat down and opened his Bible on his knees. He wanted to refresh his mind for the afternoon sermon.

When Christine and the girls had eaten and washed and put away their dishes, Goody Deane threw out the dishwater, and Christine put Ruth on her pallet for a nap.

“There, now,” Christine said to Abby and Constance, “Goody Deane and I shall see you at worship. We’ll go home now for a short rest. Be good girls, won’t you?”

“I be going to call on Richard Otis after the service this afternoon, to see how he is recovering from his wounds,” Samuel said.

Christine straightened and looked at him. “Do you wish me to stay with the children then?”

He hesitated. Richard Otis, the blacksmith whose father had been killed in the massacre six years earlier, was one who had suffered grievous wounds in the attack two weeks ago. Since that fray, the elders had posted a lookout on the meetinghouse steps during each service. But the parsonage lay in the middle of the village, and he would not be gone long this evening. If the service did not run overly long, he could be home before dark. “Nay. You’ve done so much. There’s no fire hazard, and Ben is a responsible enough lad to watch his sisters for a couple of hours. Eh, son?”

Ben grimaced. “Yes, Father.”

Samuel stood and ruffled the boy’s hair. “Good lad.”

Christine hung up her apron and glanced once more toward the loom. She couldn’t work at her weaving today. In fact, scripture bade them do no more work than they found absolutely necessary on Sunday. Samuel strictly enforced the Sabbath rest in his household. He knew Christine understood this, but still, her plain features took on a wistfulness when she regarded the loom.

“Let me walk you ladies home,” he said. “I’d like a word with you, Miss Hardin.” He was not usually so formal with her except in public, but the matter he needed to discuss was a serious one.

Christine raised her eyebrows but said nothing.

After the three had crossed the road together, he paused on Goody Deane’s path.

Christine halted as well and waited for him to speak.

“Constance tells me Goody Ackley asked you to work for her,” he said.

Christine looked down at the ground. “Aye. But I declined her offer.”

Goody Deane swung around near the doorstone. “I’ll be stretching out yonder if you need me, Christine. Thank you kindly for the vittles, Parson.”

“And thank you for bringing the gingerbread, ma’am. It added a festive note to our Sabbath-day dinner.”

“Ah, well, a bit of gingerbread never went down wrong, I say.” Goody Deane nodded and went into the cottage.

Samuel cleared his throat and met Christine’s gaze. “If I could pay you in coin, I would. You know that. Your labor in my house has been worth much more than I’ve been able to give you. But I expect the Ackleys would give you a fair wage, and if you—”

Christine’s hazel eyes grew large as he spoke, and her brow puckered. “Please, Pastor, do not speak of it. I do not wish to go to the Ackleys’, and I’m happy with our arrangement.”

He exhaled and smiled. “Bless you. But the Ackleys would give you room in their loft, I’m sure. The last hired girl had a place there.”

“I enjoy living with Goody Deane, and I think I do not boast to say she likes having me.”

“Oh, to be sure,” he said quickly. “I’ve thought it good for her since the beginning. I’m certain you are a great help to her, and she seems in much better spirits since you’ve boarded with her.”

Christine nodded. “A pleasant situation and a congenial employer go further than a generous wage, sir. And I’m not sure how generous the goodwife we speak of would be.”

Samuel couldn’t refute that. He’d heard Goody Ackley wrangled over the last ha’penny with the trader, and her husband, Roger Ackley, was well known to be a skinflint. But even the stingiest couple in Cochecho would probably pay Christine more than he could. He rarely gave her a coin. He did allow her to sell cloth that she wove on his loom and keep the profit, but most of the textiles she produced seemed to find themselves clothing his own children.

“When it comes down to it, I don’t give you much for your labor.”

“Ah, well”—she looked down once more, and her cheeks flushed—”you give me all I need, sir. My food and any other necessities. And you’ve allowed me to be a part of your family, which is a great boon.”

They stood in silence for a moment. Samuel tried to imagine the family now without Christine. A brief image of domestic chaos and wailing children flickered across his mind. “You truly do not wish to go to the Ackleys’ farm, then?”

“I do not.” She looked up and gazed at him earnestly, her plain features less serene than usual. “If you are happy, I should like to continue things as they are.”

“We agree then. I shall see you in half an hour, at meeting.”

Samuel tipped his hat and turned toward the street.

A week later, Christine spent a good part of Monday morning working in Goody Deane’s garden. The pastor had suggested in the spring that they plant enough vegetables at the parsonage for Christine and Goody Deane as well as the Jewett family, and Tabitha Deane’s small plot was now given over to herbs. Christine had invited the three little girls to help her weed the small garden and pick mint, yarrow, and basil leaves for drying. Ruth and Constance took to the work eagerly.

“Why don’t you sit in the shade now with your dollies?” Christine asked when they had picked all the herbs she wanted for the present. “I shall finish placing stones along the path here. You girls may play for a while, and then I shall fix us a cup of mint tea.”

The two girls retrieved their rag dolls from the back stoop. Christine had fashioned Ruth’s doll from scraps, modeling it from the design of the ones Elizabeth Jewett had stitched for her two older daughters. Now Ruth’s doll, Lucy, was never far from her. She had cried the first time her father told her that Lucy could not go to church with her, but Abby had calmed her and whispered to her that their dolls would go to “doll meeting” while the real people were away. Ever since, Ruth had happily dressed Lucy in her best gown and shawl on Sunday mornings and left her sitting on Mother’s chair beside Abby’s and Constance’s dolls when they left for the meetinghouse. Stories about “doll meeting” were now favorite bedtime tales.

After a quarter hour’s hard work on the stone walkway, Christine looked up to see Goody Deane and Abby Jewett returning from their excursion to the trading post. While Christine disliked going out among people, Goody Deane enjoyed socializing. When her joints didn’t ache too badly, she would happily undertake errands while Christine dealt with cleaning. Christine had permitted Abby to accompany her on her excursion that morning.

“Miss Christine,” Abby cried when she spotted her in the garden. She ran up the path, clutching the handle of the small basket Goody Deane had entrusted to her. “We got the black buttons you asked for and a bottle of ink for Father!”

“Lovely.” Christine straightened and pressed her hands to the small of her back. Being tall had its disadvantages. “You two are just in time to join us for a cup of tea.”

The widow had by this time reached them. “Bless you. I can use it.” She pulled a snowy handkerchief from the sleeve of her brown linsey gown and wiped her brow. “I shall remember this heat next winter when I’m shivering. Remind me if I complain about the cold.”

Christine laughed and gathered her tools. “Come, Ruthie. Constance, time for tea.”