Angel's Flight (19 page)

“Well, M’Bain had thrown everything on the road, and when we were freed, three days later, it wasn’t there any more. The militia needed the wagon and our horses. I can’t complain, for they rescued us. I just thank God we got out unmolested and with my good saddle horse.”

“And who is your family, Mrs. Church?” old Mrs. van Driessen asked.

Angelica noted that Jack—abominable, cool Jack—was so sure of
her that he didn’t even bother to send so much as a flicker of a cautionary glance her way.

“I am, or rather I was before marriage, a Gansevoort from Taghanic,” she demurely replied. She was somewhat surprised at the ease with which she supplied a plausible tale of her own.

“Ah, then you’re used to rough and tumble, Mrs. Church, with those damned Connecticut Yankees raising hell over the border all the time,” old Killian observed.

Angelica nodded, rather pleased to have hit upon a dangerous and out-of-the-way place to claim as her own. She was too aware of the peril they were in to muddy the waters with anything contrary to the tall tale Jack had spun.

He had indeed found them a safe haven in this solid, old-fashioned Dutch family. Of course, she didn’t like their politics, but it was a lesson to sit with these people, so exactly like her own, who were staunchly for the king. Kind, hard-working, decent, prosperous folk, they were now threatened by their neighbors who believed as her own family did!

It was coming home hard, not only the ugliness, but the flat stupidity of civil war. It seemed horrible, crazy, to be on the other side of people like these.

How could parliament have acted in such an ignorant, wicked way? Their folly had forced a cruel division upon the entire hard working, pious, American family!

“And how did a gentleman from England come to take a fair Dutchwoman from Taghanic to wife?” Balt asked.

“Balthazer,” scolded his silver-haired mother. “Don’t be so nosy.”

“Oh, it was arranged,” Jack said casually. “You see my mother was an American who married an English gentleman and settled across the sea. She had several sons, but her brother’s marriage brought him only one child—the lady who is now my bride.”

Graciously, he turned, lifted Angelica’s hand, and kissed it. Embarrassed both by his lie and the look in his eyes, she obligingly began a blush.

The youngest van Driessen wife, a moon-faced baby of fifteen, couldn’t suppress herself for an instant longer. “Imagine!” she bubbled.

Mrs. van Driessen admonished her. “Hush, Jenneke. Don’t be impertinent.”

In spite of the rebuke, the girl’s round green eyes swept admiringly over the visitors, saying as loudly as if she’d been shouting it, What luck! Think of the odds against getting such a handsome man
in an arranged marriage!

“Well, ‘tis apparent you are cousins,” murmured one of the other young wives.

In her lap, she dandled a blonde baby who gnawed on a bone he’d been handed to occupy him. His mother gazed with great interest at the strangers. A magisterial glance from the mother-in-law, however, was sufficient to end this conversation.

“Where on earth shall we put Mr. and Mrs. Church?” A senior wife spoke into the following silence.

“Why in the corner room, I suppose,” replied Mrs. van Driessen. “And upon what shall they sleep?”

“There is a mattress, a few blankets that can be spared, and Gerrit’s bedstead,” said the old lady.

Eyes met eyes across the table. A giggle, instantly suppressed, came from somewhere.

“You haven’t been married long, have you, sir?” Gerrit asked. The notion seemed, for some reason, to tickle him, as well as all the young folk at the table.

“Hush!” Jenneke hissed. She blushed and caught his arm.

She had a quick, merry face. Although she was so young, her stays were loose and her apron bulged with baby.

Angelica had come to understand during the bustle of preparations for dinner that old Mrs. van Driessen considered this daughter-in-law a feckless creature, much in need of keeping in order.

“Mrs. Church looks fair worn out,” a young wife ventured.

“I am very tired,” Angelica agreed. “Twelve hours ago I was awake, hiding in a hollow tree, listening to a fight and wondering if I would live to see noon.”

“Well, my dear,” said Mrs. van Driessen, “now that you’ve had dinner, you should go straight to bed. Swantie, you get the others started on clearing up,” she continued, turning. “Jenneke and I will get Mrs. Church settled.”

“I shouldn’t sleep on your clean things,” Angelica said, looking down unhappily at her smudged and dusty dress. All during dinner in this tidy house, she’d been smelling herself—a combination of fear, possum, and the smoke of burned cabins. “I’m filthy.”

“A clean gown can be found,” said the old lady. “We’ll bring up a basin and some hot water. And don’t you get up until you want tomorrow. I have plenty of help in the kitchen.”

“Will you be pushing on again soon, Mr. Church?” the patriarch asked.

He had been leaning back and listening, chewing on the cold stump of his long, white clay pipe. Allowing his sons to question the strangers, he had watched and listened.

“I hope we can trouble you for two days,” Jack replied. His gaze, full of concern, traveled to Angelica. “I believe it would be good for Mrs. Church if we could rest here tomorrow. Then we will go to the ferry and trouble you no more.”

There was a long, considering pause in which all the grown Van Driessen children studied their plates.

“No trouble at all, sir,” the patriarch said slowly, nodding his gray head. “Will it, Mrs. van Driessen?”

“No, husband,” she replied. “As you say, Mr. and Mrs. Church are welcome.”

Chapter Fifteen

Weary as she
was, Angelica followed custom and offered to help the women clean up, but old Mrs. van Driessen insisted that she go straight to bed.

“You look exhausted, Mrs. Church.”

Angelica had to agree with the assessment. Shortly after, she accompanied the spry, old lady upstairs to a room under the eaves.

Boxes and furniture were arranged by a couple of servants who had been summoned to the task after their dinner in the cook shed. The pegged bedstead was erected, and a cornhusk mattress was set on the slats.

Woven Indian baskets took up one side of the room. The sweet smell lingering in the air suggested that these contained corn meal.

“Leave the door open tonight, Mrs. Church. A little heat will come up and the cats won’t wake you by scratching at the door. Mice do come to get the corn meal and, of course, it’s best if the kitties come after them.”

A shift, worn but clean, had been provided. After the ladies had gone, Angelica shucked off her clothes. She took a complete basin bath in the deliciously warm water, ending with her feet.

Just as she finished drying and dropping the shift over her head there came a knock. It was Jenneke with a cup of medicinal tea.

“What an adventure you’ve had, Mrs. Church,” she murmured, her green eyes alight.

Angelica nodded, tried to smile.

“You must have wondered whether you’d get away alive,” the girl breathed, her hand protectively covering her own full belly.

“Yes,” Angelica replied. “I was really and truly afraid.”

She could see Jenneke was full of questions. Ordinarily, she would have gratified her curiosity, but the sight of this clean refuge and the cozy little bed, made her know just how tired she was. How long had it been since she’d slept in a safe, clean place?

“I saw all those wicked men hanged or dead this morning,” she said. “As much as I knew they deserved it, it was horrible. I need to forget in the worst way.”

“Well, this is a good, strong aches-and-pains tea,” Jenneke said indicating the steaming cup. “It will certainly put you to sleep.” “Jenneke!” The summons came from the lady of the house, now somewhere down the hall. “Don’t dawdle!”

“I have to go,” the young woman said. With a last shy look she added, “Sleep well, Mrs. Church.” She dashed through the door in a way that did credit to the authority of her mother-in-law.

Amused, but relieved to be alone, Angelica sat on the bed and sipped tea. She tasted the bitterness of willow bark, incompletely covered by the smoother tastes of chamomile, hops and honey.

She thought the medicine and her aching muscles would carry her into sleep at once, even if it were barely six o’clock. Downstairs the family was busy, voices rising and falling. There was a clatter of plates and the scamper and chatter of the children.

It was odd to be in bed while the sun was up, as if she herself were a child again. Lying there in the lingering twilight, hovering on the threshold of sleep, Angelica kept seeing images of the sprawled and bloodied dead, the contorted bodies of the hanged. In her mind, too, were echoes of the weeping women and the wailing, frightened children.

Candles came and went in the corridor, beside the peevish protests of youngsters being put to bed. Finally, Angelica drifted away.

“Everything will be fine,” Jack said. Spurring Hal onward, they galloped over a cliff and out into space. Behind them panted hideous pursuers—a group of twisted, blackened, reanimated corpses.

The three of them hurtled down, toward the gray bosom of the Hudson. Her arms, as they had been for so many days, locked tight around Jack’s hard waist.

“It’s just me,” Jack said as she started upright, out of the dream. Her motion was accompanied by a noisy squeal of protest from the bed. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“I’m glad you did,” she whispered, settling down again.

He placed the candle upon a chest. Then he set down the clothes he’d been carrying.

“Our kind hosts supplied me with some water so I could wash, and loaned me these. Tomorrow, the ladies will indulge us with food and sleep and laundry.”

“These are such good people,” Angelica said softly, settling back and rubbing her eyes.

“Indeed they are. I sincerely hope they come through this business safely.”

“So do I.”

“I’m going to have to get in there somehow,” he observed, looking dubiously at the little bed. “There’s not so much as another scrap of blanket in this house.”

From the pillow, she regarded him. Light rose into the peaked corners of the room, transforming him into a benign, fair giant.

Jack pulled the eelskin out of his hair and shook his ashy locks.

Next, he stepped out of his trousers.

Heaven help me. He is magnificent!

“I shouldn’t let you sleep with me at all,” she said, “but well only promise me that you won’t...” Shifting in the squeaking bed, she couldn’t quite muster the strength for what she wanted to say. “What kind of a brute do you think I am?”

He was beside her now, a muscular god in a long, baggy shirt that must have been made for the body of a heftier van Driessen. In spite of what she was saying, the sight of his strong thighs bare below the shirttail raised a tremor of excitement.

“I must admit—” He betrayed a teasing gleam in his eye. “—that after seeing you asleep, I could almost find it in myself to be exactly that kind of a brute.”

“Jack!”

“Hush, Angel,” he said. “I’ve never forced myself upon a woman, and I shall not begin with an exhausted, injured one. No matter how attractive she is.”

As he joined her in the bed, it shuddered and let out a feral squeak. “Precarious,” he observed, continuing to carefully settle.

“Still,” she murmured, “everything is so clean. It’s quite wonderful.”

Once more they rolled up together, his arm drawing her close, his knees pressed against the backs of hers. There was no other way to fit.

Angelica’s knees pressed the wall. She could feel the chill through the patched, thin blankets.

“What time is it?”

“About eight o’clock,” he replied, his warm breath in her hair. He stroked her side gently and then asked, “How do you feel, love?”

“I ache all over,” she replied, wishing her reply hadn’t come out sounding so querulous. “But I know I slept a little, for when you came in, I was having a nightmare.”

“Not surprising. This has been a hard day,” he said.

Angelica found herself smiling at his soldier’s understatement. Then, stroking her, he asked, “What was it about?”

“When you came in, I had just dreamed you had ridden us off a cliff to get away from those devils from the Clove.”

Somehow it wasn’t possible to tell the whole story, and that the pursuers had been missing their lips and noses.

“You said don’t worry. Then you gave Hal a tap and he jumped off a cliff. We were all falling into the Hudson.”

“It would take more than a tap to get Hal over a cliff,” Jack replied. “And,” he went on, humor entering his tone, “if I told you not to worry, it’s probably reasonable that you should not.”

“The usual conceit on your part, sir.”

“Guilty as charged. It’s nice to hear I’m now protecting you even in your dreams. Although, I am sorry you believe I take foolish risks.” The arm around her was warm, strong and brotherly.

“It was the last straw in a way,” she mused, relaxing against him, “that this awful day ended with these kind people. I’m afraid for myself, and afraid for them. I’m afraid for every living thing I see.” Her voice caught in her throat and she huddled down, hoping to find comfort in the clean pillow.

Jack soothed her cheek. “Since you left New York, you’ve had to survive on a battlefield. For several days, your life hung by a thread. The fact is, no matter how good we are, or how important we think we are, we may be gone in the wink of an eye. That was the lesson of my first battle.”

“Did you lose friends?” she asked.

“Several.” Jack moved his bare feet to touch hers. He used the moment to change the subject.

“Little blocks of ice,” he whispered. “Put them against me.”

Silently, she curled up as he asked, resting the soles of her feet against his legs and settling her body closer to the warmth of his. If she hadn’t been so tired, the position might have aroused her.

As it was, she felt him stir and harden, but they were both bone weary. The present warm fit of their bodies was somehow beyond erotic, simply comfortable and right.

Tension drained in the growing warm pool of creature comfort. Angelica remembered what he’d said about how her mind stood alone, stubbornly refusing this new love her body and heart had so entirely embraced.

The candle burned low and steady, shedding a golden light. With his strong body so close, she felt much better. At last she was able to relax, safe within his encircling arm.

Mrs. van Driessen,
Angelica made her way downstairs. In the kitchen, she was offered a breakfast of sweet sassafras tea, bread, and slices of cold ham and cheese.

Jack was already outside at a guest’s chore, splitting wood.

As Angelica ate, she heard the distant chunk of the ax. Jack is no stranger to these common tasks. For a well-born English gentleman, he seems to know many practical things.

Afterwards, she went out to see about the washing, but her blue
-
and-white calico dress was already hung, dripping from the line beside Jack’s shirt and stock. On the far end, the women were just laying up a row of men’s heavy, sodden trousers.

“But I must do something,” she said to Goodwife van Driessen. “Well, dear,” the old woman said, “it’s not necessary, but if you want, sit and shell peas for a while.”

She pointed to the wide porch. “But you mustn’t be out in this sun without a bonnet,” the old lady added as Angelica obediently turned. “Back to the kitchen at once, Mrs. Church, and get a hat from the pantry door.”

Meekly, Angelica returned to the house. To submit to this imperious grandma felt like being home again, being ordered about Uncle Joseph’s housekeeper, Mrs. De Keys. Last year it might have annoyed her, but these echoes of the familiar, ordered world—a world she’d begun to think lost forever—were suddenly precious.

Broad straw bonnet tied on over her cap, Angelica sat on the porch beside baskets heaped with green pods. The sun, even here, was bright and she was soon glad she had the hat.

Swiftly, she ran her finger through the fat green pods, stripping peas into an empty bowl. It wasn’t long before her head began to throb again. At last she excused herself and retreated to her room.

The day, for Angelica, was a succession of long naps. When she finally got up, the good food at the van Driessen table put her back to sleep again. Jack companionably joined her on several of these lie downs, though he was usually gone when she woke up.

Soon after supper, she was back in bed again. When she fretted about how weak she was, Jack explained.

“Besides being scared almost out of your wits, that was a bad fall you took. You’ll feel better tomorrow,” he soothed, climbing into bed beside her.

porch again, facing yet more peas.

“Oh! Goodness! I must’ve bundled it in with the shift and skirt, and never even thought about it yesterday,” she exclaimed, reaching for it. “What was I thinking?”

“I hope you don’t mind,” Jenneke added, “but I looked at your patches. I adore the calico bluebirds! And that bit of Chinese silk is like a spring sky!”

“Yes.” Angelica smiled as she remembered.

Pieces from sophisticated New York, pieces from a jumble at Tarrytown, pieces from some unfortunate person’s trunk in the middle of the uncertainty, terror and passion at the Clove composing themselves into a quilt.

This quilt, if I live to finish it, will chronicle a time of danger, a time of love.

“I’m working a Broderie Perse on white muslin.” Jenneke spoke shyly. “Whenever I get the time.”

“I’d love to see it.”

“Oh, would you? Perhaps you can give me some ideas, Mrs. Church. Your work is so different from anything I’ve ever seen.”

“Probably because no quilt has ever been worked in the midst of such a tempest,” Angelica replied. Taking the pieces, she began to lay them out across her lap.

“These stars are the ones I sewed at the outlaw’s camp,” she said, running her fingers across them. “I found a wonderful cache of cloth in a trunk they’d stolen from some poor person.”

Shyly, Jenneke reached into the pocket of her skirt. When she withdrew it, something was clutched in her hand.

“Perhaps...” she stammered to a halt, blushing in her confusion. “What, dear?”

“You would honor me by...” The girl writhed with awkwardness.

I shall have to shake it out of her, Angelica thought, sighing. “Don’t be silly, Mrs. Jenneke van Driessen.” She teased her, hoping to stiffen the girl’s spine by using her married name. “Do show me.”

“Well. Here.” Jenneke pushed the packet into Angelica’s lap. “Maybe you can work this in somewhere. It would be an honor to have a part of mine—the quilt I’m working—with yours...your quilt.” She looked about to expire with embarrassment.