Brookland (20 page)

In what the neighborhood considered a rare act of generosity, the Hicks brothers sent over their mulatto cook, Abiah Browne, to help with the cleaning the next day. She was no older than Prue, and prettier, with a head of chestnut curls that fell in orderly spirals from beneath her woolen kerchief. She watched with curiosity as Prue fastened her knee britches and pulled on her heavy boots. While Prue, Tem, and their father worked at the distillery that day, Abiah cleaned the house of footprints and spilled beer and threw all Johanna's linens outdoors to await the washerwoman. (Pearl reported her horror at the scent of putrefaction.) She moved Johanna's bedstead into the kitchen, and attacked even the
ceiling of the sickroom with soap and water, by means of a washrag wrapped around the business end of a broom. When Prue returned home from work, Abiah was eating some buttered peas at the kitchen table, and the whole house smelled pleasant and damp. “It must have been a lot of work,” Prue said.

Abiah finished chewing and said, “It's all right.”

Prue went into Johanna's room. The scent of soap was strong, but she wondered if she only imagined the odor of decay still lingered beneath it. The room had always been small, and for some reason looked smaller now that it was denuded of personal effects.

“Do you feel her in there?” Abiah asked.

Prue felt a tingle in her spine. “Excuse me?”

“Everyone says she was a seer, like her mother. I felt eyes on me, the whole while I was in there.”

“My sister Pearl's, perhaps.”

Abiah shook her head no. “It's no worry. They didn't feel malign.” She took a long drink of water. “I put your supper on, and it should be ready soon; but there are more peas, if you'd like, in the meanwhile.” She tipped her head toward a skillet on the hob.

Prue said, “Thank you,” and took a wooden spoon to move the peas to a bowl. They smelled green and sweet. As she sat down at the table, she noticed all the sticky spots had been scrubbed clean, as they had not been for some while. She felt a physical sense of relief at not having to watch where she placed her elbows. “It's lovely to have the place so neat. Johanna had been unwell a long time, and my mother doesn't care much for housekeeping.”

Abiah pushed the crock of butter to her across the table. “Well, if your parents ever seek a replacement, ask them to come calling.”

“Don't you like working for the Hickses?”

Abiah shrugged her shoulders. “I like it fine. But your family's temperament seems more pleasant.”

Prue nodded, and deduced from Abiah's comment that her mother had remained abed all day. If she'd been down, Abiah would have found her work more trying.

After Abiah had gone home and the family had retired to the parlor, Prue went back into Johanna's room. The grate had been swept clean, but because of its proximity to the kitchen, the room was still hot. The
ropes creaked on the mattress when Prue sat down. Could it be, she wondered, that Johanna sat beside her, or was in their backyard or drifting around Fly Market? It could not be; she reminded herself it was childish to think it might. Still, she could not convince herself any of these possibilities was more distressing than the possibility that so unique a human soul could vanish, leaving nothing behind her but an ivory hair comb and two dresses to be given to the poor.

March 1
^st

Dearest Recompense,

Very well; I see you do not yet fully understand that of which I write. What could have been more natural, than to have lost my heart to such a man? You did not know me then; & I was exactly the girl to be smitten with him. I was surrounded by people each hour of the day and night, yet counted myself lonely;—he too had a certain solitariness in the very way he comported himself. He was young, and though he was not handsome he had his peculiar beauty. He had been kind to my sister Pearl,—on whose behalf I was ever watchful for a slight,—and had also shewn kindness to my self. & his preaching gave me my first true taste of religion, and opened my eyes to the possibility of a God who had mercy on sinners.

When his church moved to its permanent home, I was crestfallen, for we could no longer sneak in, as the sermons were not on our own property & there was no longer an upstairs. It seem'd an unlikely pass for two girls of good family to be in, not to know how to manage to get themselves religion. (Or perhaps in other quarters the young folk were fired up with holy fervour; but Brookland was a village of people young & old who visited church on Sunday, then pretended it did not exist till the following week.) Yet your Aunt Pearl & I did work it over, as carefully as if it were a chicken bone & we intent on sucking off the last tender bits of meat. The crux of the problem was: We both wished to spend time in Mr. Severn's company, for differing purposes, but I at
least did not wish to tell her what mine was. Hers, I assumed, was simple, in that she desired to expiate her guilt over the theft. It was providential for me in this instance that Pearl was not allowed to wander at will, for the same reason she'd never seen the cooling house until I brought her: For if a carriage came barreling toward her, how could she alert its driver to her peril? After a few Sabbaths without our secret church, she simply requested I take her to him, to make good on the promise about the needlework.

Later that very week I escorted her to the small, bare rectory, and sat tongue-tied by at table while Mr. Severn encouraged Pearl to tell him of her talents & interests. He waited with a kindly smile for her written replies, and it was in watching the manner in which he watched her I first came to understand she was as beautiful as Tem. Thitherto I had thought my appreciation of her came of the peculiar admixture of love & guilt I bore her, but Mr. Severn's eyes danced when he looked upon her. She may have been the runt of the litter, I surmised, but she was a pretty runt all the same. Pearl was obviously intoxicated by his attention, and wielded her pencil proudly each time she replied to him. I wondered if our minister saw her eager writing as I did, as the mark of her difference from the rest of us.

He invited us to visit him as often as we pleased, and a curious narrative began to unfold: which was, we truly became friends. His interest in Pearl was not of the sort she usually elicited,—that people felt pity for the poor mute,—but rather, he took real pleasure in her curiosity & in her observations of the world around her. He spoke to me furthermore as a peer. Until that time it had not occurred to me how I had been creeping up on adulthood; but for all his grey hairs, and th'important work he had come to perform in our community, Mr. Severn was not so much older than I. He was in need of friendship, intellectual companionship, & someone with whom to argue on points of his theology. Pearl and I were both unequal to this last task, yet enjoyed his disquisitions on the subject. I felt it an honour,—which I wanted to trumpet to Patience Livingston, out of sheer spite,—that he asked me to call him by his nickname, Will; and I did not think this at all odd of him.

It was on a rainy evening in his first spring among us Will Severn came to call on my parents. He carried a dog-eared volume of Pappy's
sermons as testament to his admiration for the old man, then long since passed on. He knocked on the front door, as no one ever did, & consequently we all gathered in the parlour with quizzical expressions on our faces to see who had come. He held up the tattered volume while unwinding himself from the seemingly endless length of his shabby scarf.—I only had occasion to hear him preach thrice, he said, once greetings were exchanged, but his sermons were formidable. They called me to follow in his path.

Mr. Severn's boots meanwhile were puddling our floor, & Pearl went to the kitchen and brought back a towel. Mother appeared peevish, her lips pursed tight,—but I could not tell if this resulted from the puddle or the man's very presence. Or rather, I could not see how she could find the man himself disagreeable, but understood his churchiness might have offended her. I was pleased that as it was a Sunday, my father was wearing his best blue coat & a silken weskit. Church or no church, it was his day of rest, and he looked as respectable a paterfamilias as I could have hoped.

Father said,—They drove me from the church entire, but Prue rather liked th'old fire & brimstone, did'n't ye, gell? He did'n't await my reply before adding,—Show'm what a good little hostess you are, love; bring the man a drink.

—I'll get it! Tem shouted. She was so eager to be thought a distiller.

—Yes, I said, Pappy's preaching did impress itself upon my memory.

—Pappy
, Will Severn repeated, smiling at me.—I can hardly imagine the Reverend Mr. Elihu Juster Winship responding to such an appellation. What a slab of New-England granite he was!

—Here 'tis, Tem said. She'd brought a pitcher of gin and two short glasses. I thought she looked unnaturally pretty in her day shirt and work britches, with her short hair loose; but I would've given my left eye to be wearing a simple plaid dress such as Pearl had on & sopping up his puddle from the floor.

Father took the pitcher from Tem & said to Mr. Severn,—You do'n't know the half of it. Girls, take his cloak. Will you join me, sir, in a nip o' the wares?

—Oh, I could'n't, sir, I do'n't partake of spirits.

—Now, come, Father said, I offer it in hospitality.

I took Mr. Severn's cloak, hat, & muffler to hang on the little-used
hook by the front door. They all stank of the rain, but my knees nearly buckled at inhaling the scent that underlay them, of his sweat and of the cedar chest in which he stored his clothes.

—Besides, that's not any ole spirits, Tem offered. 'Tis gin of our
own mannifacture
.

—And indeed, Father added, this pitickular batch is my daughter Prue's making.

—In that case, he said, & took his cup and sat down upon the divan with it, in a manner indicating that sitting on a divan holding a cup of liquor was not the custom in Massachusetts.

We all follow'd round to sit & there were not enough chairs, so Pearl pulled up a footstool to sit at my feet. Mother kept an eye on the Reverend's dripping cloak. He took a hearty sup of the gin and spluttered. We girls all laughed at him;—Pearl & I out of fondness, and Tem, I felt sure, because she was already unbeknownst to our father tippling in the storehouses after hours, precisely, she said, to avoid such outbursts.—My, he said, it does bite.

Tem said,—That's a strong one Prue made. I think she rectified it
four times
.

Mother said,—Do'n't be a louse, Temmy; bring the man some water.

Tem sprang up & Mr. Severn said,—It's very good gin, Miss Winship.

I felt my cheeks go pink. He cleared his throat a few times, and took a good draught of the water Tem brought & handed him with a smart little curtsy.—Mr. Winship, he said when he had recovered himself, I must tell you again how grateful I was all those months you allowed me to use your property to hold my worship meetings.

—No need. 'Tis any decent fellow would'a done the same.

Mother gave each of them a dark look.

—I have met any number of decent fellows since arriving in Brookland, and none other offered me a comfortable place for my church. But this is why I've come: because I see you are good folk, and wish your family might join us, of a Sunday.

Here Father raised his glass to the man, and drank it down in one neat swallow.—I do'n't mean to give offense, he said, but I spoke plain when I told you my father had drove me from the church. Roxana's
family did her the same turn, by dint of treating her too strict. We're non-believers through & through, and we've raised these little pups of ours the same.

—No, Mr. Severn said. Your daughters have a hunger for the life of the spirit.

Could I have made my thoughts leap directly across into his thinker at that moment, without use of the intermediary,—as well as
audible to my parents,—vehicle
of speech, I would gladly have done so. Barring such cognitive powers, I merely glared at him, & assumed Pearl to be doing the same. He must have caught our meaning, for in an instant he went red as a beet, though he still looked at me imploringly.

—They do? Father asked. Which of them do you mean, pray?

—Oh, all of them, sir, Mr. Severn said, and turn'd his shy gaze to our father. If I was not mistaken, he was beginning to perspire.—Three such lovely daughters;—it simply seems wrong to deny them the comforts of an understanding of God & the uses of a virtuous life.

—About the latter part I cannot disagree with you, Father said, and I am doing my best to educate them in that regard. It is only on the former we diverge.

Pearl meanwhile was writing something on her book, then held it up over her shoulder, such that only I could read it. It said,
Do b'leeve her Sweet on you
.

—Shht, I scolded her, before I realized I'd done so aloud. All their eyes turned to me, & I knew not what to say to explain myself.—I cannot speak for Tem and Pearl, I ventured, but I do sometimes wish I understood more thoroughly why people believe, who do believe.