Marie Mercadier stood in the doorway of her cabin in the early morning, trying to decide what to do first. The mornings had begun to turn cool; the leaves on the elm tree that overhung the cabin had already yellowed. Josephine was still asleep inside, and Papa, to whom day and night no longer differed much, had gotten up an hour ago, groping his familiar path to the barn to start work.
Cowling, the manservant to Mrs. Smith, emerged from the front door of the cabin next to her, his waistcoat unbuttoned and his long hair flying in several directions from beneath his hat. He smiled and bowed, but Marie ignored him; no one put on airs like a servant, and she had no intention of encouraging them. Cowling stepped around the corner of his house, and within seconds Marie was treated to the sound of him pissing against his cabin wall. Apparently modesty had not yet come to Philadelphia. A minute later, Cowling reappeared and went back inside. Marie looked in the opposite direction.
The Philadelphia group had taken the last two empty cabins at the north of the village, Mrs. Smith in the northernmost with her maid Jenny sleeping in the front room, and everyone else in the other, men in the front, women in the back. So as summer moved into fall, Marie found herself with a strange new set of neighbors on both sides—the silent Dathan in the cabin just to the south of her, appearing and disappearing like a foxfire with no words beyond the occasional remark on the weather, and Mrs. Smith’s retinue to the north.
Marie paid little attention in either direction. Between her father, the school, and her work for the colony, she had enough to do. But she was aware of them all the time, the coming and going, and she liked the activity. Like the humming of a beehive, it reassured her, made her feel as if life was getting back to normal, as if the war hadn’t changed everything and everyone. It was an illusion, of course; she knew that. But it was nice to imagine in the mornings that Daybreak was back to the way it was, all optimism and hope, thoughts of the common good, everyone’s effort turned toward making the colony prosper.
Turner’s mad declaration had stunned her, but thankfully he had not repeated it. But his return made her uncomfortable for another reason—it reminded her of older days, the days before exposure, and shame, and Josephine. She would never admit it to the townsfolk, but she missed the touch of a man. She rarely allowed herself to remember those times—alone with Turner, hiding in an outbuilding or stealing moments in the print shed, or on the rare trips to town, talking, kissing, letting his hands rove over her body. Those were memories too painfully precious to be let out willy-nilly. But she had not forgotten what she was missing. And now that silent figure out in the fields, more the ghost of James Turner than the actual Turner himself—had she really loved that man? Of course she had, or the man he had been.
Not that she was pining for him. Marie wondered if she should have gone straight to Charlotte after his awkward overture and let the two of them sort themselves out, but what good would that have done? Just more turmoil, perhaps Turner doing something else irrational, and pain all around, especially for the children. No, better to hold that knowledge to herself.
And there was Charley Pettibone hanging around, trying to be funny. Charley was a well-favored young man, in years barely more than a boy, really, although anyone who had been to the war for four years could hardly be called a boy. Once she could have imagined letting Charley charm her; but now there were times when she could hardly stand to look at him. He was a rebel and a traitor, a man who had crossed a solemn line, and as far as she was concerned that step once taken could not be undone. Everyone could talk about general amnesties and oaths of loyalty, but she could no more let him spark her than Jefferson Davis.
So there it was. Men all around, but none of them right. At twenty-seven, she was still marriageable, but barely. Perhaps it was not her fate to marry. Perhaps her task in life was to care for these children that chance had placed into her care—Josephine, and orphaned Angus, and the schoolchildren, Newton and Adam, the Wickman girls, and the rest. If it was, so be it. The life of man and woman would have to remain a foreign country to her, one that she had visited briefly but now could only see from the coast of her own, through fog.
Cowling appeared out of his cabin again, combed and properly dressed, smiling unctuously, and came toward her. No choice but to acknowledge him now. She nodded in his direction, wishing that she had put a kettle on the stove, or anything else to provide an easy escape.
“It’s a beautiful morning, miss,” he said.
“I suppose so.”
“What, you doubt it?”
“The day has just begun. I’m not calling it beautiful until I’ve seen more of it.”
“Ah, you’re a hard case. No romance in that pretty head of yours?”
Cowling’s flirting annoyed her. She turned to go inside, but he caught her arm. “Actually, I’m supposed to give you a message from my mistress. She instructed me to deliver it last night, but I couldn’t find you.”
Marie turned back to him. “Very well. What is it?”
“How about if you tell me where I can find you at night in case I need to deliver more messages?” he simpered. Marie did not respond. “I’ll tell you this, little missy. The Smiths are one of the first families of Philadelphia, so take my advice. Say the right things to Mrs. Smith, and you’ll go far.”
“So what is the message?”
“She wants to talk to you today. You and Mrs. Turner. She wants you both to come see her at teatime.”
“Teatime?”
“Tea and tonic, if you know what I mean.” Cowling made a face and leaned toward her. “Mrs. Smith always has her tonic, morning, noon, teatime, and bedtime.” He mimicked the tipping of a bottle.
“What does she want to see us about?”
“That’s for her to say. But you’ll do well to let me guide you on the right things to say.”
“I need to get my firewood,” Marie said, brushing past Cowling and walking around the side of her cabin. “Thank you for the message.”
But Cowling followed her behind the cabin, and once they were out of sight of the village he grabbed her around the waist. “How about a little kiss, little missy?” He pressed his face against hers. “I hear the girls out here are a wild lot.”
Marie pushed against him, but he held tight. “Come on, little missy, just one,” he said. His breath was hot and sour against her cheek.
There was a sharp crack, and Cowling sprung away from her, looking around wildly. Dathan was standing behind his cabin, twenty feet away, with a long branch of wood, perhaps two inches thick, in his hands. He had one end wedged in the fork of a tree and was breaking the branch into smaller pieces.
“Go away, you,” Cowling said. “We’re busy here.”
Dathan inserted the branch into the tree fork and broke off another piece.
“I said go away!”
Dathan looked over at them calmly and broke the branch in two another time. He tossed one of the pieces onto his woodpile but kept the other one in his hand.
“That your house?” he said to Cowling.
Marie took the opportunity to walk past Cowling to the front of her own house. “Good morning, Dathan,” she said.
“Morning, ma’am. Nice day ahead.”
“I believe so, Dathan.” She stepped inside her cabin and shut the door. She counted three seconds and went to the window; Cowling was nowhere to be seen, and Dathan had returned to breaking up his firewood. He glanced in her direction; she gave a tentative wave from the window, but if he saw, he gave no sign.
Marie went about the rest of her day trying to keep the morning’s unpleasant scene out of her mind. It wasn’t hard; she spent the morning in the Temple with the children, teaching arithmetic and penmanship, and the early afternoon in the cornfields. Work was always there to keep her mind elsewhere. Then as the sun was declining, she saw Charlotte approaching through the rows of corn and knew that the time for their visiting Mrs. Smith had come. She stopped work and wiped her face as Charlotte drew near.
“So,” Charlotte said.
“So.”
“Any idea?” Marie shook her head. “Well, let’s go see, then.”
The two of them left the field and walked toward the village. “Just a minute,” Marie said as they reached the road. She stopped at the pump and wet a handkerchief to wipe her face. “There,” she said. “Even bumpkins can be clean.”
They knocked at the cabin door, where Jenny, Mrs. Smith’s maid, let them in, ushered them into the back room, and then retired. She was a timid girl of seventeen who never met their eyes, skinny with pale skin and straight black hair that she tied into a tight knot in back. She wore a wrinkled housedress with a faint calico print, probably a hand-down from someone in Mrs. Smith’s family. A pretty girl if she would tend to herself, Marie imagined, although she seemed determined not to tend to herself.
Mrs. Smith was propped up on her bed in the back room, an array of tables and pillows surrounding her. Despite the stale air of the closed room, she was encased in dresses and a bonnet, and partly covered with a blanket. With a tired flick of her hand, she waved them to two chairs at the foot of the bed. Mr. Wilkinson, the dour, gray man who had not spoken to anyone as far as Marie knew, stood at the head. A platter of crackers and two cups of tea sat on a table between the chairs.
Charlotte and Marie sat down. The room was silent for a minute.
“Well, here you are,” Mrs. Smith finally said. Marie had decided to let Charlotte take the lead, so when Charlotte did not answer she kept still as well. “You have met Mr. Wilkinson, I suppose.” Wilkinson removed his hat and nodded to them. “You have probably been wondering why we traveled all the way to this place.”
“Your son’s grave is here,” Charlotte said. “It’s quite understandable.”
With the mention of her son, Mrs. Smith gave another feeble wave of her hand. “You have no idea,” she said. “No idea what a burden I carry.” She groped on the table beside her. “Jenny!”
Jenny dashed through the door with a drinking glass half filled with water. She took a bottle labeled “Parker’s Tonic” from the table and stirred some into the water.
“No idea,” Mrs. Smith repeated, drinking a gulp of the tonic. “No one has any idea.” She drank another swallow. “But I must be strong. I have come here for a purpose, not merely to sit at the graveside and mourn.” She gestured at Wilkinson. “Mr. Wilkinson here is the foremost practitioner of the embalming arts in Philadelphia and even the entire country, I daresay. Wouldn’t you say so, Mr. Wilkinson?”
Wilkinson bowed. “You are too kind, madam.”
“Wilkinson has had entirely too much chance to perfect his trade lately, with this horrid war,” she went on. “But I am going to use his knowledge for my own purposes. I am going to have Mr. Wilkinson exhume the body of my son and embalm it for travel, and return him to Philadelphia for a proper burial in our family cemetery.”
Marie sneaked a glance at Charlotte, whose expression was utterly composed. “I see,” Charlotte said. “You are aware, of course, that your son met his death almost eight years ago.”
“I am,” Mrs. Smith said, a bulldog look crossing her face.
Charlotte turned her gaze to Wilkinson. “And you have been aware of this fact as well.”
Wilkinson lifted his chin. “The advances in our understanding brought about by this war have been remarkable, ma’am. I make no guarantees, but I am hopeful that some amount of restoration may be possible to allow the dignified return of Mr. Smith’s remains to his home cemetery.”
“Then we would not stand in your way,” Charlotte said. “Mrs. Smith is willing to spend her money, and you’re willing to take it. You’ll get no interference from the people of Daybreak.”
Wilkinson gave an offended puff through pursed lips, and Charlotte stood up to leave, but Mrs. Smith waved her back to her chair. “We have some woman talk to do,” she said. “Mr. Wilkinson, please give us the room.” Wilkinson backed to the door, giving Charlotte an ugly glance as he did. “Jenny,” Mrs. Smith called. “See Mr. Wilkinson to his house.”
Mrs. Smith paused until she heard the closing of the outside door. “They listen at the keyhole,” she said. “All of them do. They think I don’t know.” She raised herself to a sitting position on the edge of her bed, swinging her slippered feet to the floor. With a grunt she pushed herself to her feet and tottered to the door. She swung it open abruptly, as if to catch an eavesdropper behind it, but no one was there. With an “mmph” of satisfaction, she returned to the bed and climbed back in.
“Now,” she said, stirring more tonic into her water glass. “I must speak to you, mother to mother.” She scanned their faces.
Marie had sat quietly through everything, watching and listening. She had wondered why she had been invited in the first place, having no part in the governing of the colony.
Mrs. Smith cleared her throat in a monstrous rolling growl. “Lysander was my only child,” she said. “Perhaps you were not aware of that fact.”
“No, ma’am,” Marie said, surprised to hear the sound of her own voice. “I did not know that.”
Mrs. Smith looked directly at her for the first time. “I am not surprised,” she said. “Lysander kept his own counsel on many things, despite his reputation as a talker.” She smoothed the blankets over her legs. “In fact, I know very little of his time here in your community. His letters were rare and uninformative.”
Neither Marie nor Charlotte spoke. Mrs. Smith cleared her throat again.
“This is not an easy thing to come to,” she said. “But I must. The thing is, Lysander was my only child, yes, as I have said, and thus my husband and I are the last of our line.”
“Yes,” Charlotte said.
“Unless, that is, unless something happened here. Lysander was a man of considerable appetites, I am told. And thus we come to the matter.” She swung her feet out and sat perched on the edge of the bed. With a shaking hand, she poured more tea into their cups. “Mrs. Turner, I am told you come from a good family, and I mean no disrespect. But if your younger son—what is his name?—your younger son were to turn out to be a Smith, then a bright future would await him. Schooling, a place in the world, everything that goes with life at my level. A house in town, a country house out on the Main Line, a future as a gentleman and a hand in the making of the new America that we—the victors—will create.”
“His name is Adam,” Charlotte said quietly. “Adam Turner. And his father would not appreciate renaming him Smith, I should imagine.”
“Come now, Mrs. Turner. Odd things happen in the course of our lives. It could be understood if a man of Lysander’s finish might have drawn your eye, being an Eastern girl yourself. Your husband’s pride is involved, but we women spend all our lives navigating around the pride of men. Think of the boy. What would be better for him—to grow up with a smooth path to prominence and achievement, or to spend his days out here scratching up the dirt?”
Charlotte stood up. “Thank you for the tea, Mrs. Smith,” she said. “I believe I’ve had enough conversation.”
“What about you, then?” Mrs. Smith said, turning to Marie. “Mrs. Turner here is concerned about her reputation, I’d say. She imagines that acknowledging Lysander as the boy’s father would put her to scorn. What do you think, Miss Mercadier?” Marie thought she heard extra emphasis on the miss. “Mrs. Turner may have all the power around here because of her fine reputation. But you and I, we know that reputation will only take a person so far. Once discarded, reputation shrinks to a speck very quickly. It loses all importance compared to the things that truly matter—like the welfare of one’s child.” Mrs. Smith gripped the mattress and leaned forward. “What’s your opinion, Miss Mercadier? Perhaps you are the one I should have been speaking to all along. You’re a comely young woman. Did you and my son find your way out to the barn now and then? I had fancied that I would find a grandson out here, but perhaps I was wrong. Your daughter would do worse than to be brought up in Philadelphia society.”
“Miss Mercadier’s story is well enough—” Charlotte began, but Mrs. Smith cut her off.
“Let her speak.” Her voice was a hissing growl. “You are fond of speaking for everyone. But I want to hear Miss Mercadier speak for herself. Think about it, young lady. Think about the society she would enter, the match she would make, if I were to bring her back from the West. My lost granddaughter, the story of her parentage obscure and slowly forgotten. You have nothing comparable to offer her.”
Marie felt herself rise to her feet. “You are right,” she said. Her breath seemed to have failed her, and the words came out in a soft croak. “My reputation is nothing to prize. But you see, I am a selfish woman. I love my daughter and will keep her with me regardless. And I would sooner die than give her to an old witch like you!”
And with that she was out the door, pushing her way past Jenny seated on the doorstep and Wilkinson standing in the shade nearby. He tipped his hat. “Go dig your bones, you old monster,” she said.
Charlotte caught up with her as she reached her front door. “Well done,” Charlotte said. “For a moment I thought—”
“I don’t care what you think,” Marie snapped. She shut the door behind herself.
The next morning found her in the same place, home, her father off to the barn, waiting till sunrise to rouse Josephine for her chores. She had spent the evening inside, unwilling to risk an encounter with all the people who had made the day so unpleasant, but this morning she stepped out into the cool air with a fresh mind. This was her community, not Mrs. Smith’s, or Cowling’s, or Wilkinson’s, or even Dathan’s. She would live in it as she pleased and not waste her time avoiding these accidental newcomers.
The sun had barely broken the horizon, but the air was already moist. Another cool morning, but it was going to be a warm day. The children in school would be hard to manage.
Marie heard the sound of something splashing across the river behind her and went around her house to look. She saw Michael Flynn climbing the bank, his son on his shoulders. She had always wondered how Angus managed to get to school with dry clothes.
Flynn carried the boy through the field stubble and put him down in the road, sending him in the direction of the Temple with something between a pat and a shove. His curly black hair was sloppily cut short, something he’d done himself with a razor and comb, obviously. He had tied his brogans together by the laces and draped them around his neck to keep them dry while he forded the river. Now he sat on a stump to put them back on. Something caught his eye; she must have moved a little. For he stood up abruptly, a shoe on one foot and the other in his hand, and took off his hat. “Good morning,” he said.
“Good morning.”
“Thought I’d ride the boy across the river today.”
She nodded. “I didn’t mean to spy,” she said. “Please—”
Flynn sat back down and put his other shoe on, then stood up again, his hat still in hand.
“I’ve been meaning—” he began, but stopped. “I never thanked you properly for your care of Angus while I was away. I embarrass myself, should have thanked you right months ago.”
“It’s all right,” Marie said. “You were just back from the war. Everything was strange.”
“Still. And I hear the school is going well, too. All the boy wants to talk about is school, school.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
There was a pause. Flynn stayed in the road. He sucked in his breath and looked her in the eye.
“I’m no beauty, but I’m a full grown man,” he blurted. “And a Catholic, if that matters. I have a temper, it is true, but I try not to let it out. And you’ll never find a harder working man on the face of the earth. I have a house nearly built, and fence in fine progress, and next will come a barn. I don’t sit on my trousers and wait for luck. I’d ask permission of you to come sit of an evening from time to time.”
They stood facing each other for a while.
“All right,” she said at last. “Come over whenever you like.”