The day seems now to dawn upon us, but Clouds and tempests may yet arise to endanger our Bark …
—GEORGE WASHINGTON
Now, being the morning afterward, Mary felt anxious. She heard her brother’s coach return; it was well into the night, too late to ask about the particulars of the meeting. Her brother and George—what was said? Had he even mentioned her? She was so very eager to find out, but it was only dawn.
“What shall become of me?” Mary spoke the words aloud while alone in her bedchamber. The Prelude and Fugue No. 2 in C Minor by Bach was playing in her head. Thoughts of the prior afternoon swirled about. She attempted as delicate a walk toward him as she could, wanting to appear genteel. She hoped her footsteps did not echo too loudly as she was often told they did. She even practiced a sashay with Susannah beforehand. “Step softly,” her sister had advised.
Embarrassment filled her mind as she reflected on the moment she tripped on the rug. She rushed, for she knew she needed to take her seat quickly before the tune’s up-tempo returned. Her nerves took over. She stumbled left. Her shoulder hit his chest, which did give her a touch of his solidity. Built by hands divine for certain.
Then the moment lasting too long. Could she think of nothing better to ask about than deer? Why not ask about his military position? His expertise in field command? His home in Virginia? No, instead she brings up deer! A thousand and one times she pictured him. Any sense became ruffled in his presence. Just his physical mass appeared as if it could wrap around her and protect her from the world.
She was overly gregarious about literature. She was sure of it. While often her greatest deficiency was conversation, sometimes without the ability to articulate a syllable, she went on without hesitation with him. He hardly said a word on the subject. He just looked at her with a heavy eyelid in a romantic sort of way. Blue with a touch of gray. She sighed at the memory.
She placed her hands on the ornate wallpaper next to the fireplace. The fire from the birch logs rose to warm her hands. Watching the flame, she let her fingers move along the wall as she imagined what it would be like to place her hands around George and feel his lips on hers. Oh heavens! His lips. The tea was too hot. She should have let it cool before it was poured. She hoped he did not suffer a burn.
The stove plate on the floor at the front of her hearth caught her eye. The engraving, an Old Testament passage with no spaces between letters, cast in relief in a slab of iron, was created long ago to ease her mind when sorrow roused a maelstrom of emotion within:
ICHHABEDENRABENBEFOLENDICHZWERS
DIBD K17C
Today she did not want to give thought to the seventeenth chapter of the Book of Kings and the passage “I have commanded the ravens to feed thee.” It reminded her of her broken will and the shrill call of the raven. If it weren’t for those birds, she might not have been rescued those years ago—the day Elbert vanished in the river’s current. If not for the raven, she would have been left to die, as she should have been. She didn’t like ravens.
She stared at the words for a time. Her eyes moved to a cleanly cut piece of birchwood that she reached down to pick up and used her strength to place over each of the letters in the metal. When the letter I was still peering out, she looked upon it with disgust. Heat struck her hands as she maneuvered another log to cover the letters on the metal slab completely.
She was tired of rereading these mournful chapters of her life. Tired of being afraid, of crying herself to sleep, of the nightmares. She wanted to think of the mingling of sweetness and gallantry, of generosity combined with charm, of the man who was helping to restore her one heartbeat at a time. George did not look upon her face with pity, as did so many others. It seemed he might know nothing of her past. When his eyes gazed into hers, she felt alive with the hope of a destiny still to be discovered.
With a newfound breath within, Mary walked toward the window. Her feet stopped at the shelf. She checked the position of the newspaper, the one that had printed George’s journal. Relief. The paper was neatly placed, with writing away from the cursed.
Glancing out the window, she espied something unexpected. Temperance and François. What a splendorous sight! This was the first time she ever saw Temperance holding a man’s hand. She was always so busy in the kitchen, she seemed to have little time for beaux. Temperance smiled widely as she bid him farewell; she looked happy. So happy. Mary was happy for her. Love. Everyone needs more of it in their lives.
FOOTSTEPS IN PERFECT even tempo sounded from the stairs. A knock at the door. It was Temperance. “Mr. Angevine has asked me to advise you that five articles of correspondence have arrived for you. Ten more arrived yesterday, one of them an invitation delivered by the sheriff himself, which requires a response. He is a persistent one, that Mr. Delancey.”
“Captain Delancey.” Mary rolled her eyes. “He’s made certain I know of his title.” The constant requests from him—she paid no mind to them. “Temperance?”
“Yes, Miss Polly.”
Mary desperately wanted to ask her about son petit ami, but she refrained. “The banquet was more than any of us could have asked for.”
“The evening was my pleasure. The food that remained was placed in packages, as you suggested, and taken to the church for distribution to the need-filled.” Temperance’s face had a beautiful glow to it.
“My gratitude for all you’ve done.”
THE MORNING WAS chilly, requiring Mary to put on a woolen riding coat. Around her waist, the brown fabric fit snugly and fell wide at the hips. She wrapped herself up with a silk scarf. She put on leather gloves and a riding hat. “You are capable of the impossible, Mary Eliza, for you have survived the unthinkable,” she murmured, remembering how her father said it with such inspiration. She had promised Papa she would say it each day.
She hurried down the stairs and out to the back porch. The winter air enveloped her in its coolness. The sun was low on a clear horizon. A soft wind blew from the northwest, bringing with it a trace of hay. She practically skipped toward the stables. Riding always made her feel alive. Her breath left a trail a smoke. She could hear Mr. Chew speaking loudly.
“She has a pretty large swelling under her belly.”
“In foal, you suppose?” Was that George she could hear with him in the stable?
“I suppose, or occasioned by the buckling of the girths too tight,” responded Chew.
George’s voice alone made her feel giddy. She regained her composure as she entered.
“Gentlemen, a good day to you both.”
“Miss Philipse, good day. Would you kindly take a look at Colonel Washington’s horse? I believe her in foal.”
Mary was glad of the request, for it kept her from wanting to stare at the commanding presence before her. “May I ask the name of this fine mare of yours?”
For a moment, George seemed incapable of an utterance. After a hesitation, he spoke. “Diamond.”
Mary looked at him quizzically.
“Her name. Diamond.”
“A lovely name.” Mary gently placed her hand on the filly. “Diamond. Shall we place her with the gentle mares on the hill at the north, Mr. Chew?”
“I will see to it. He’s named every one of his horses, Miss Polly.” Chew pointed to them. “Each of them hath a name.”
He names each of his horses, how endearing, she thought.
Mary approached another one of George’s horses, a chestnut bay.
“This is Woodfin.” George followed her. “A horse that carries the English crown upon his shoulder … and my Jack, spotted like a fawn upon the side of his neck. This horse has come a long way after being injured in a fall.”
“Oh, the poor creature.”
“How did he recover, Colonel?” asked Chew.
George patted the horse. “I followed Gervase Markham’s directions as near as I could.”
“Markham has the surest ways to cure a horse’s malady in the known world,” added Chew.
Mary smoothed her hand across its hide. “Which remedy was used to effect a cure, Colonel?”
“I had the horse slung upon canvas and his leg fresh-set—walked him on three legs, with the sound leg tied up very sure with a garget, to require him to put weight on the lame leg. When I let down the lame leg and let it stand on the ground, I heated a little water and clapped it onto the swelling that remained. I then tied up the lame leg again and repeated the same.”
“What about the bloodletting, Colonel? Tell her about the bloodletting.”
She saw George signal with his hand to Chew to discontinue that conversation.
“Let me introduce you to the rest of the team.” He walked with her to the next horse. “Rock was bred in Pennsylvania. Not a spot of white on his dark brown coating, standing strong and fourteen and a half hands high. Prince is near a twin to Rock. This here is Buck. Crab belongs to Captain Mercer. This fine bright bay is the largest horse of the group and has not been named as of yet.”
Mary enjoyed his introductions.
“What do you think of the name Bale?”
“That will suit him just fine with his coloring.” Mary replied. “A rather tall horse.”
“Fifteen hands high, yes,” he responded.
He paid such kind attention to his horses, unlike the sheriff, calling them “specimens.” How ludicrous!
“And a remarkably large hind, wouldn’t you say?” asserted Chew.
“Mr. Chew tells me not to dare ride with the finest equestrian of the colony.”
“And who might that be, Mr. Chew?” she asked coyly.
“I must apologize for telling the colonel of your prowess on horseback.”
“Very kind of you, Mr. Chew.” Mary added another blanket on the horse before lifting herself up to sit sidesaddle. “You’re welcome to join me, George.”
Not even a second passed before George mounted Woodfin. His buff wool riding coat trimmed in a light green silk was quite elegant with its coattails down the back. She quite liked his fashionable boots, black at the bottoms with brown turn-over tops. She also could not help but notice the outline of a coin in his left-hand pocket and his leg’s strength through his buff-colored buckskin breeches, which fit like a second skin on him.
The pair moved the horses in a sedate walk out of the stables. 1W was branded on his horse. W for Washington, she was certain. 1W—the same as Willoughby, but for a different reason. Her father gifted her this mare. She recalled his words that day: “I have branded her with a one and a W, for I have only one wish for my Mary Eliza,” Papa had said to her. “My wish for you is freedom … to let go and allow love to find its way to your heart.”
“Would you care to see the deer park?” she blurted out to George. Not again, she thought, after the word was already out of her mouth—deer!
He nodded, not taking his stare off of her.
“Quite easy in hand is your Woodfin,” she said to fill the quiet.
“As is your Willoughby.”
“I believe in caring for him with tenderness.”
“I experienced the tragic loss of a horse in my youth.” A sympathetic tone surfaced in his voice. “Now I treat all with a discipline of proper care and a good amount of exercise.”
Arriving at the park within minutes, Mary pulled back the reins. They dismounted. Westward, upon a sloping path to the river, the family of deer was before them. “Not a person is allowed near them. Frederick takes fine care of them. Never has one been hunted on our property. They are in their first year. They still carry the light yellowish brown tone.”
“And I would imagine the younger they are taken, the easier they are raised.” He looked directly into her eyes. “The view adds a romantic and picturesque appearance to the whole.”
The use of the word romantic impaired her rational thinking.
He began to speak again, thankfully. “And what of the deer distinguishable by the darkness of their color?”
She shook her head to clear her mind. She knew this answer. “From England. Near a dozen have been brought here from different parts of the world. Frederick holds the office of Keeper of the Deer Forests. It’s been passed down for generations in our family. He formed our deer park himself, yet he often laments the damage to the gardens.”
“At a loss, I would be, in determining whether to give up the shrubs or the deer!”
As she laughed, a ringlet fell to the front of her face. George reached over, placed his fingers upon it, and took time in moving it away from her cheek.
Happy emotions spun around inside her head. She searched for something to say to him. “Would you care for some dirty chocolate, George?”
She watched him cock his head before he answered yes.
He placed his hands around her waist to assist her in mounting Willoughby. Her lips let out a sigh. After he mounted, she prodded her horse into a canter. The two rode to the manor.
GEORGE WHISPERED TO her after they had dismounted. “I hope you have not forgotten my request.”
“What would that be?”
He spoke into her ear. “To hear your lines of verse.”
Jitters simmered up inside. She responded the only way she knew how—by moving quickly past him. She walked to the nearest door. It was the one to the lower level. They entered from the side entrance into the dim cellar, which extended under the southern portion of the manor below the west parlor.
What she noticed caught George’s attention with light from a small window shining onto them—columns of ten-shilling and ten-pence pieces in neat linear formation, filling the rectangular working tables.
“The counting of toll moneys begins in about an hour from now,” she said. “Much work needs to be done, for King’s Bridge is the only crossing to the mainland.”
George was silent, staring behind the tables at the canvas bags filled with coin piled on top of one another.
She felt the need to explain. “Charity and humility. That is where true worth comes, not from coin.”
He took a moment before responding. “One thing is more envied than wealth.”
“And what might that be?”
“The circle of an amiable family … in a situation free from cares.”
His words, “free from cares”—that is how she felt in his presence. She guided him up the stairwell. “If you would, please follow me, George.”
“A demand I so ardently wish for.”
She tiptoed up the stairs. He copied her manner of walking, which made her chuckle. They quietly made their way to the first floor of the manor.
“If you would kindly find a seat in the parlor. I will be in the kitchen to have our beverage made.” Mary hurried to see Temperance, who quickly answered her request. She measured a pint of milk and brought it to a boil with a stick of cinnamon in a chocolate pot. When the liquid was hot, Mary sweetened it with Lisbon sugar and added cocoa pieces. The mixture emitted the most pleasing of scents. She watched Temperance pour this into cups with two handles, one on each side. Mary hoped this might offer more protection for the colonel, as she didn’t want to have another burning incident.
To the second floor, Mary scurried to get out of her riding clothes and find a poem. Which could she choose? Most of them harped on sorrow, on gloom. Might there be one? Please let there be one, she thought. One that would be acceptable, maybe one of no measurable importance, of a jovial nature.
Had she even written a poem like that? She shuffled through the papers on her desk. Was there not a moment of merriment in her world she could have made the subject? Each focused on guilt, on regret. He did not need to know the truth about her, not now. If he knew she was cursed, he would certainly run from this place.