The door Alice passed through on her way to the chickens was thick, and she didn’t expect to hear as well as she’d heard on the stairwell, but as she bent to the latch she could hear Freeman’s courtroom voice well enough to burn her ear.
“I’d like to know what possible hope that child has of finding work in this village without a single piece of paper to recommend her.”
“She said she would write—”
“Please.”
“All right, then.”
“I can’t say how strongly I disagree with your decision to keep her here. I can’t say enough what a grave disservice you do her. If you think perhaps of recommending her yourself—”
“You needn’t remind me how far my recommendation might take her in this village. To be of any use to the girl it must come from another.”
“If you mean to say it must come from me—”
“You’re well trusted in this village.”
“And how long do you imagine I should be trusted when she slits one of our neighbors’ throat, as she might well have done her master’s?”
“I don’t understand how a man of your sensibility could look at that girl and think her a murderer. Why, if she were a murderer you would help her! But as a runaway servant you turn your back on her.”
“I should like very much to help her. I should like to offer her free passage back to Boston and fair adjudication in a court of law.”
“Then offer it to her. She already has my offer. We’ll see which one suits her better.”
“Against yours I imagine I might save my breath.”
“Then save it, sir. I’ve a cow needs milking.”
Alice scrambled away from the door and around the barn to the chickens. The widow’s bandage gave her little trouble; in fact, it gave her freer use of the hand now she knew it was protected. Once she’d filled the egg basket she helped the widow with the milk pail; she rationed the milk between the jug for drinking and the pans for cheese making, laid the cheesecloth over the pans, and carried the jug to the cellar. She worked with just as much speed as she could manage with care, and she believed the widow looked pleased with her effort. As to Freeman, he had gone away into his room, one of the two below-stairs; Alice could see him through the door at work at his desk on some kind of ledger. At one point in Alice’s back-and-forth he looked up and caught her eye; he rose and came into the keeping room.
“Tell me, Widow Berry,” he said. “Do your plans for Alice leave her time to run a small errand to Sears’s store?”
The widow looked up from where she leaned over the fire, stirring it up for the kettle. She peered at Freeman. “I could allow of an errand.”
“Very well.” Freeman led Alice out the door and into the yard. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a paper bill, one pound old tenor, worth about three shillings in silver. “I’m in need of a tin of tobacco.” He pointed. “To get to Sears’s store you take this landing road all the way to the King’s road and turn right along it. Beyond the mills you take a right at the fork and soon beyond the fork you’ll see the sign for the store—a red and black barrel. Don’t go beyond or you’ll end at Yarmouth.”
Alice closed her fingers around the note and ran into the road.
THE LANDING ROAD dipped and jogged with sun-dried spring ruts, and Alice stumbled more than once, too busy looking around her to mind her feet. She passed few houses on the landing road, more when she took the turning onto the King’s road as Freeman had directed, but most of the houses looked simple and tight, nested low to the ground like the widow’s. Nearer the mills Alice found some grander houses of two full stories, even saw a door and knocker that reminded her of Verley’s; her steps stuttered, then strengthened, as a small flame of anger found her. Why should every fine house have a Verley in it? Why not a Morton? But the thought of Morton did nothing to cool her. He should not have given her to the Verleys. He should have taken her back when she asked him.
Alice worked her way past the first grand house and came to a long, broad tavern building hugging the road. Behind the tavern the millpond shimmered in a slice of newfound sun, its waters somersaulting down the hill into the millstream below. The mill wheel spun under the force of the spring flood waters, churning gobs of spray into the air that the sun turned to minute snowflakes, reminding Alice of the spray on her first ocean voyage. How far she’d come! And how fine a day! How fine a village! Alice walked, and looked, and the anger that had leaked out dissolved into the clean salt air of Satucket.
The road near the mills grew busier, but not with the kind of busyness Alice had been used to at Dedham, or even Medfield. She passed an Indian in English clothes, a red-haired man driving a cart full of barrels, a pair of women in silk dresses, and a tumbling, noisy, mismatched group of children. None spoke to Alice, but they all took note of her, as she might have taken note of any stranger in her own village. Alice passed them all with her eyes fixed on the road ahead, keeping tight hold of Freeman’s bill.
At the fork she turned right and almost at once saw the sign with the red and black barrel. The house looked little different from the widow’s except for the sign, but the door stood open, and Alice stepped inside it. Shelves stacked with crocks and sacks and bolts of cloth lined the walls; several crates littered the floor. A man knelt over the crates calling out the contents while a woman stood behind him marking each item in a ledger: five reams writing paper, two dozen cakes soap, one dozen horn buttons. They both left off work and looked up as Alice entered.
Alice told them her made-up name, and where she was staying. She told them of her errand for Freeman.
The man said, “So he’s back, then?”
The woman said, “The widow too?”
Alice nodded. The man and woman exchanged a look. The man got the tobacco and set it down on the counter. Alice put Freeman’s bill next to it. The man gave her back two shillings eight pence.
Alice curtseyed and left the store, holding the coins tight in one hand, the tobacco tin in the other. She retraced her steps along the road, making note of each landmark as she passed to ease her way on future trips to the village, then caught herself at the foolishness of assuming a future here. Even so, she continued to study each rock and tree and stone wall as she passed it. She came to the landing road and turned down, thrilling at the sense of the already familiar, and found Freeman standing in the yard, wearing the look of an idler.
“Well now, Alice, you’ve managed that errand in short time. Did you have any trouble?”
“None, sir.” She handed over the coins. Freeman dropped them into his pocket, where they jangled against some others. With the jangling of the coins something jangled in Alice’s head; she knew in an instant what Freeman had been after. He’d given her a pound note where almost any coin might do; he’d told her how to get to the next town. If she’d been dishonest, as he believed her to be, she would have headed straight for Yarmouth, leaving him nothing but an I-told-you-so for the widow. All this Alice understood in the time it took Freeman to pocket the coins; what she didn’t understand was whether Freeman was pleased or displeased that she’d returned them to him.