Abiding Peace (6 page)

A sudden thought chilled her. The outlaw had demanded a blanket. But Goody Deane had no extra blankets, and surely if she took one from the parsonage it would be missed. All day she thought about it.

In the afternoon, she sorted through Elizabeth’s clothes and selected an everyday linsey-woolsey skirt that she could make over for Abby. With care, she could probably make a dress for Ruth from the material, as well. Samuel had offered her his wife’s Sunday skirt and bodice, but she had turned him down. It would not be so long before Abby was big enough to wear them.

As an afterthought, she examined the bed linens in the trunk kept in the loft. The family didn’t need many blankets at present, and three quilts were neatly folded there. But she couldn’t give one of those to the stranger. Elizabeth had stitched them with her own hands. Not only would the family need them in cold weather, but they would be heirlooms for the three girls. Beneath them, in the bottom of the chest, she found a tattered woolen blanket. That might do. Surely no one would miss it for months, and if she worked hard, she might be able to weave some thick, blanket-weight wool after the trousers and Pastor Jewett’s new coat were finished, though those projects would take her the rest of the summer.

When she descended the ladder, Goody Deane picked up her basket. “I shall go over to my house now and lay supper on for the two of us, unless you plan to eat here tonight.”

“I’ll be there to dine with you,” Christine said. She hated the thought of the old woman’s possibly encountering the thief if she ventured about alone. “Would you like Master John to walk you home?”

“Me? Nay, I can take myself across the street.”

Christine almost protested further but could see no logical reason to do so. She had never been overly solicitous of the old woman in such matters. After all, Tabitha had fended for herself for years. If Christine began to fuss over her, she would get suspicious. “Very well, but do let us know if you need help with anything.”

While the children gathered the clean laundry off the clothesline behind the house, she managed to smuggle the old blanket outside and hide it in the woodpile, where she could get it when she left. And what would she take the man for sustenance? If she came with no food, he would no doubt rant at her. She wrapped two biscuits in a napkin and set them aside. She didn’t like to take him anything that required dishes. Returning them would be too obvious. And the Jewetts were already watching their food supply since the disappearing-pie episode.

And so it was with only the biscuits and blanket that she headed out that night after dark. She told Goody Deane she would make a quick trip to the necessary. When she reached the edge of the woods, she waited for a minute in the spot where the man had accosted her the night before, but all was still. She laid the blanket down, with the biscuits on top. An animal might get the food. But if the blanket were gone in the morning, she would know he had come for it. And if it remained where she left it? She prayed it would. For then she could assume he had moved on.

After evening prayers on Thursday, the parishioners stood about the green in the balmy evening air. The Dudleys and others whose homes were a mile or two away set out, but those who lived close lingered. The hour after Thursday meeting was the social time of the week, more so than on Sunday as the people had more freedom on weekdays to laugh and jest. The talk this week reverted to the rash of purloining suffered by the villagers. Samuel Jewett stood to one side discussing with William Heard the work to be done on the meetinghouse, but he kept one ear tuned to the conversation behind him.

“I think it’s just folks not paying attention and then blaming the imaginary thief,” said Mr. Lyford, who owned the gristmill.

“Nay, not so,” said Joseph Paine, the trader, who also served as the town’s constable now. “There be too many reports of things missing.”

“That’s right.” Daniel Otis, the blacksmith’s son, stepped forward. “I was smoothing the handle of a pitchfork I was making last week. I laid it by at milking time, with my knife beside it. When I came out of the byre and went to take it up again, my knife was missing. Clean gone. I looked all about and asked my family, but we’ve not found it yet. I’m afraid an Indian took it. With what designs, I won’t speculate. We’re locking up our tools, day and night, you can be sure.”

“Young Stephen Dudley goes about as quiet as an Indian,” Mahalia Ackley said.

Her husband smiled sheepishly. “Aye, he scares me. Came up behind me in my cornfield t’other day. I’d no idea the lad was about, and when he spoke to me, it startled me so I dropped my hoe on my foot.”

The other men and their wives laughed.

“That Stephen’s a sly one, that he is,” said Lyford.

“It comes of his living with the savages all those years.” Goody Ackley nodded emphatically. “I wonder if he’s not the pilferer, I do.”

Otis huffed out his breath. “What makes you say that? He’s a good lad.”

“But he’s so stealthy. Them Indians taught him to skulk about, and no doubt he learned to steal, too.” Goody Ackley glared at Otis, as though daring him to contradict her.

“Careful, ma’am,” said Pastor Jewett, and all heads turned toward him. “Speaking ill of someone without a shred of evidence to support the accusation can bring you trouble.”

“That’s right,” said the trader.

“I meant no ill,” Mahalia Ackley said quickly. “I only said how furtivelike he moves. And it’s the truth he stayed with those Indians long after he had a chance to go home to his folks. We all know his brother went to find him in Canada, and he wouldn’t come back. He—”

“Enough.” Samuel’s steely voice silenced her. He advanced a step toward the couple and looked into her eyes. “I tell you, madam, such talk does not become you.”

Constable Paine took up a rigid stance beside the parson. “Indeed. This is gossip of the worst kind that can ruin a young man’s reputation.”

“Aye,” said Otis. “If there is indeed a thief among us, Stephen Dudley be an unlikely candidate. Why would a young man whose father owns a thriving farm steal a knife? Why would a lad whose mother can outcook all the goodwives in Cochecho steal a few biscuits and a dish of sauerkraut?”

“Goody Ackley, desist from this train of conversation or you shall find yourself in the stocks tomorrow,” Paine told her.

“Hmpf.” Mahalia lifted her skirt and turned toward her husband. “Husband, I believe it is time we went home.”

“A truer word was never spoken,” William Heard muttered as the woman marched toward the street with her husband trailing behind her, his chin on his chest.

Paine clapped his hand to Samuel’s shoulder. “Thank you for that, Parson.”

Samuel shook his head. “I should have spoken to her privately first.”

“Nay, she’s let her tongue run too many times in public. You’d think she would learn after the times she’s spent in the stocks.”

Samuel couldn’t help a pang of guilt. Paine represented the law, and he would have put the woman in her place without his own interference. As minister, he needed to stay neutral in local wranglings. Still, he’d felt a compulsion to stand up for Stephen and put a stop to Mahalia’s vicious talk.

“Well, time to get my children home and into bed.” He looked about for them and noticed Christine. She had the three girls and John clustered about her, waiting a short distance off. Ben had edged into the fringe of the knot of adults, but he detached himself and walked toward the family, reaching them just as Samuel did.

“Shall we be off?” Samuel asked Christine.

“Aye, sir.”

They turned toward the parsonage in silence. When they reached the house, Christine entered without asking whether he wanted her presence and helped the girls prepare for bed. Samuel placed his Bible on the shelf and hung up his coat. When he turned, Ben and John were standing by the loom, watching him.

“To bed, boys.”

“Father,” Ben said, “people can’t accuse Stephen of stealing like that, can they? He wouldn’t do such a thing.”

“Nay. There’s no evidence of such a thing. Goody Ackley is a malicious gossip, that is all. No one puts store in what she says. I say that to you in private, however. It is not something I would wish you to say among others.”

“Even if it’s true?” John asked.

“There be times, John, when we ought to keep silence—especially young people. I perhaps should not have spoken out tonight. There were others present who could have done the job better than I, and as pastor, I must be particularly careful.”

Ben nodded, but his face still held a troubled expression.

Samuel walked over to him and touched his arm. “Don’t brood on it, son.” He gave John a quick hug. “Good night, John.”

The boys climbed the ladder to the loft just as Christine came from the girls’ bedchamber.

“Thank you, Christine. Allow me to escort you home.”

“There’s no need.”

“I don’t like you to go about alone at night, especially with all this talk of thievery.”

He thought her cheeks flushed, but in the poor candlelight he might be mistaken.

“Thank you, sir,” she said softly. They walked across the way together.

“I hope Goody Deane feels better tomorrow,” Samuel said. Christine had made the widow’s excuses earlier, telling him she had a catarrh.

“She thought it best to stay away from the children for a few days, and I agreed. She’ll be better off to stay home and rest than to come over to the parsonage and wear herself out with scrubbing and cooking when she’s ill.”

They reached the cottage door, and she paused. “Thank you, sir.”

He looked down at her plain face in the moonlight. A year ago she would have averted her eyes in his presence and tried to avoid his notice at all cost. How far she had come in a year. She was still markedly reserved, but no vestige of fear remained. What a blessing she had been to his family.

“Christine, I appreciate all you’ve done for the children. For myself, as well.”

After a moment, she looked away. “I enjoy doing for your family.”

He nodded. “I thank God for you every day. Good night now.”

She put her hand to the latch, and he turned away.

Christine stood inside the little cottage, her back to the door, listening. Goody Deane’s labored breathing broke the stillness. The poor woman’s nose was clogged, no doubt, which made her snoring more pronounced.

Christine had not encountered the outlaw tonight. Perhaps that was due to Pastor Jewett’s presence. If she stayed with other people and didn’t give him the opportunity to catch her alone, perhaps she could avoid ever talking to him again.

Or maybe he had left the area. She didn’t really believe that, with all the reports in the village. And if he left Cochecho, he would work his evil somewhere else. Did she really want him to go about threatening other people and stealing from them?

The old blanket she’d left at the edge of the woods had disappeared. He had at least taken that last night.

She walked to the kitchen window and pushed the muslin curtain aside. A bank of clouds obscured the moon, and she thought it likely to rain before morning. The wind stirred the branches.

Was he out there, even now, watching the cottage? She shivered and turned away.

Friday was the scheduled workday at the meetinghouse, and Samuel planned carefully so that he could spend the day with the men of the parish, who would give of their time to make improvements on the building.

For years the church folk had talked about building better pews inside—enclosed seating for each family, rather than the rows of plain benches they now used. Constructing a fireplace at one side of the building had also been bandied about, with the conclusion that they could get along as they always had in winter—with their foot warmers and soapstones and hot bricks wrapped in sacking. Some members even brought their dogs to church in winter and persuaded the animals to lie on their feet and keep them warm, but this sometimes resulted in disruption of the service.

Samuel had tried not to take sides in the debate, though in his mind a fireplace would have done them all good. As it was, they retired to nearby houses at noon to get warm on winter Sundays, returning to the frigid meetinghouse for the second sermon. Of course, attempting to heat such a large, open building would take a lot of fuel, which meant the men would have to give more labor toward providing wood. As it was, the parsonage sometimes went short of fuel in winter. He didn’t like to ask them to do more, especially as the nearby supply of firewood was dwindling and the settlers went farther each year to furnish their woodpiles.