The Colony of Maryland, 1746
The days were rapidly becoming shorter, and it was John White’s custom to work in the fields with his slaves and indentured boys without a break for a meal from morning until late afternoon. When the sun was casting long and chilly shadows, he and his brothers rode back to the main house on his plantation, weary workers following him on foot. Although the demands of tobacco culture had eased off with the harvest last month, there were fields to be cleared, fences to be mended, hogs to be rounded up from the forests for the first frost slaughter, and timber to be cut. At the end of the day, all of the men looked forward to a hot meal and warm fire.
Rebecca had taken charge of the household after the deaths of her mother and little sister in the summer’s fever epidemic. Four more of her sisters and two brothers still lived in the home, but most of the property and household stuffs had been left to their oldest brother, John. John’s wife, Sarah, was young, and had come from a prosperous family with many servants. She was still struggling to cope with the demands of being mistress of the house, and Rebecca thought that she was not trying very hard.
Her younger sisters were of great help, but were getting restless and seeking to marry as soon as suitable men could be found for them. Margaret tended a flock of chickens, Rachel’s charge was the vegetable garden, and Mary Ann did much of the laundry and mending. Yet their mother’s firm hand was much missed in the family, and the fabric of discipline that she had imposed was fraying. Rebecca was weary of sharing a loft bedchamber with the two oldest girls, weary of grief for her mother and sister, weary of her brother John’s demands and Sarah’s apparent unwillingness to take her proper place in running the household.
When ten-year-old Benjamin White ran into the house to report that the men were coming in for supper, Rebecca labored with her sisters to see that all was ready. Margaret was stirring the stew in a half-hearted manner, arguing with her sister, Rachel, about the best way to crimp hair. Rachel was cutting up slabs of cornbread, carelessly slamming one of Rebecca’s best knives onto a stone slab near the hearth. Mary Ann was supposed to be filling cups with hot cider, but she was feeling sullen because Rebecca had criticized her for being too slow with the mending. She sloshed hot liquid onto the hand of her little sister, Anne, who screamed in response.
“Mind what you do, clumsy one!” cried Margaret.
“Ah, ’twas just a splash. She’s trying to get sympathy!” retorted Mary Ann, feeling a trifle guilty because she knew that she was out of sorts with the world. She hugged her little sister and mumbled an apology.
Rachel tossed a rag at Mary Ann. “Clean up the cider. I’m not setting the table if it is all sticky. We’ll have bugs a’ plenty crawling about!”
“Clean it yourself! I’m helping Anne!”
“Rebecca! Anne burned her hand!” cried Rachel.
Rebecca, who had been out in one of the storage sheds getting some dried peaches for stewing, came running in the rear door anxiously. “Annie, let me see …” She dropped to her knees and examined her sister’s hand. “Margaret, will you fetch my simples box, please. I have an ointment that should help.” She hugged the six-year-old child and tried to smile. “Ah sweeting, I’ve something here that will make it better. Mary Ann didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Indeed I did not!” snapped Mary Ann, wiping the cider off of the table and, more surreptitiously, wiping a tear from her eye.
Rebecca smoothed a salve of walnut oil infused with marigold and comfrey on her sister’s hand, and then gave it a quick kiss. Anne sniffed and looked at her with wide, sad eyes.
“There … better?” asked Rebecca.
The child nodded solemnly. “Now go and wash your face off so that you’ll be all pretty for dinner. But mind that you don’t wash off the salve.”
“Rebecca, if Mary Ann weren’t so clumsy, this wouldn’t have happened,” began Rachel.
“Liar!” cried Mary Ann hotly. “You’re just fussing at me because James Griffith sat beside me at the fish fry last week. Everybody knows that you’re sweet on him!”
“That is not true! Wretch!” shouted Rachel.
“Bawd!” retorted Mary Ann.
“Hussy!”
“Whore!”
“Cease this! Where did you wenches learn such language! Rachel, get that cornbread on the table. Margaret, stir the stew,” said Rebecca wearily.
“Margaret … do this, Margaret … fetch that! It never ends, Rebecca!” whined Margaret. “Since Mama died—” She paused when Sarah came down the stairs.
“This endless bickering! One might think that my house was a tavern!” she observed. Then she wrinkled her nose. “What is burning?”
“Nothing important, Sarah. Just our dinner,” snapped Rebecca. “Would you like to finish setting up the table? We’ve added extra planks so that the boys can sit with us tonight.”
“Hasn’t this been done yet?” asked Sarah. “I can’t see to everything! Send the bound boys out to eat in the stables. ’Tis too crowded in here!”
“I’ll not send the boys out there tonight, Sarah,” replied Rebecca quietly. “It is very cold, and I don’t want them getting ill.”
Sarah snorted. “They must get toughened up, Sister Rebecca. We can’t go about pampering them as if they were our own.”
“They’re young, Sarah. We’ve had enough death around here.”
“Well, it is a blessing that you’ll be leaving next month! I shall run this household in an orderly manner when you’re gone!”
“I shall be happy to see that day, Sister Sarah! In fact, I shall be delighted to watch you supervise the hog killing tomorrow. You’ll be up to your elbows in entrails, and I shall just sit here by the fire!” snapped Rebecca. She bit her lip and turned away from her sister-in-law to hide her anger. Sarah was only eighteen, not really cruel, and Rebecca reminded herself to forgive the girl’s ignorance.
“Shall I throw a ladle of stew on her?” whispered Margaret.
“No—she’d just fuss about a ruined bodice,” said Rebecca. “She’s worrying about being with child, so let us be kind to her now.”
Rebecca’s sisters were already aware that she had planned to marry and leave the following month, and were planning ways to make Sarah’s life as mistress of the household a very unhappy experience. Rebecca suspected that motherhood and her own absence would mature Sarah quickly. She also knew that her sisters, for all of their contentious ways, would care for little Anne very well. Then again, when she was settled with Philip Dent, she might take Anne into their household.
John White entered the great room of his home with a gust of cold air, followed by his younger brothers and the indentured boys. They went to the big fireplace to warm themselves.
“’Tis cold indeed tonight!” he commented. “I’ve sent the Negroes to their own cabin. Ben, go down and make sure that they’ve got their fire going tonight. I don’t want any of them complaining about being too sick to work tomorrow!”
He turned toward his sister. “The stew smells very fine, Margaret!” John’s weary face brightened when Sarah came to help him off with his hat and coat, and took them to hang on pegs by the front door. She suddenly assumed a very proprietary housewifely attitude now that her husband was home.
Margaret grimaced as she and Rachel filled clay bowls with hot stew from the iron cauldron. Rebecca made certain that her younger brothers and the indentured boys washed their hands in a basin before sitting down. The two bound boys were orphans from Scotland, only twelve and ten years old, and legally obligated to serve John White for the next seven years. Their thin faces expressed ongoing uncertainty about what they were supposed to be doing.
“You shall stay inside tonight,” Rebecca told them. “After supper, check the animals, but bring your blankets to the corner and bed near the fire.” The boys nodded and moved to sit together at the remote end of the table. They eyed the food hungrily, but touched nothing, even when Mary Ann placed bowls of steaming stew before them.
The kitchen and dining area were now filled by the expanded table, and every available chest, stool, and barrel was pushed into place for seating. There were only three real chairs, to be occupied by John, Sarah, and Rebecca. The younger girls became silent in the presence of their men, who were generally too weary to talk. John gave a rather quick prayer to thank God for another day of work and food, and the assembled group grabbed their spoons.
A stew with hunks of pork, bacon, turnips, and carrots was served, along with cornbread, a few pieces of toasted wheat bread for the adults, and stewed peaches with an egg pudding. Butter and small wedges of cheese sat on wooden trenchers for all to share. Hot cider and cool ale were poured into clay cups, although John drank from his father’s big pewter mug. There was no conversation as they ate in the dim candlelight.
When their meal ended, the younger sisters cleared the tables and washed the crockery. Rebecca threw a shawl about her, and went outside with the bound boys to check on the slaves and livestock. When they returned, the boys took their blankets and retreated to a corner of the room. Rebecca took a candle stub, and climbed the narrow wooden stairs to the loft bedroom, seeking a few peaceful minutes in which to write a letter to Bess Witten
John sat beside the fire with his wife for a time, speaking in a low voice of concerns regarding a new cattle pen. Sarah nodded occasionally as she mended some of her husband’s shirts. Margaret sat at the table with Anne and Benjamin, knitting a pair of socks, and correcting them as they took turns reading from a much-used Bible. Mary Ann moved a stool near to them, and took up her own knitting. Rachel sat at a spinning wheel, working on a mound of washed flax, and listening to her little siblings read about the sufferings of Job.
It was not long before the entire household was seeking rest and warmth in their beds. John and Sarah had a chamber off of the great room, and a wooden walkway led to another structure with a fireplace where the brothers would sleep. Rebecca and Margaret shared one bed in the loft chamber, with Rachel and Mary Ann in another. Little Anne slept in a trundle that pulled out at night.
The Scots boys wrapped their blankets about them and settled near the fireplace. The youngest lad still wept sometimes, missing his mother in Scotland, and fearing what was to come. The older boy gently bullied him, reminding his brother that they were on their own now, and, after all, were Scots! They spoke in hushed tones, so that the English folk in this household would not hear them. Tired and filled with hot stew, they soon slept.
On the morrow, all would begin again.
Two days after Samuel’s hunting trip with his father, he borrowed a favorite black stallion and set off in search of what was now young John White’s home. Riding through the lingering dawn, he reached the plantation when the morning was still new. The main dwelling was a two-story wooden structure, rather poorly constructed but larger than most in the Western Branch Hundred settlement. Within a few hundred feet of the main house, other buildings served as barns, storehouses, stables, and residences for extended family members and slaves. Wooden fences surrounded gardens holding vegetables and herbs near the house. Planter White had followed the current fashion of having separate buildings connected to the main house by open wooden walkways. It looked much like his parents’ home ten miles away.
As he rode up, Samuel spotted Rebecca, walking a muddy path between the henhouse and the kitchen building. She wore a dark brown homespun cloak and carried a basket of eggs. Her hair was gathered beneath a white muslin cap tied beneath her chin, but her height and grace of movement identified her instantly. He was surprised at the feelings she evoked in him. He had desired women before, but something about Rebecca always created an immediate physical craving unlike any he had known.
She looked up at his approach, her hand held to her eyes to shield them from the glare of the low morning sun, and paused ankle deep in the mud.
“Mistress Rebecca!” He pulled his horse up near the house and dismounted quickly. “It’s a difficult path you take this morning!”
She stared at him as if he were a spirit from some lost world. She had changed—her face was thinner and held little of the rosy vibrancy that he remembered. But she was as beautiful as ever to him.
“Samuel,” she said simply. “You’re back.” She paused, and tucked an errant strand of hair back into her cap. Aware of her sad appearance, she lowered her eyes and whispered, “I’ve never feared difficult paths.”
“Aye—that I’ve always known. I heard about your mother and sister. I am sorry, so sorry,” he replied. Both stood in silence for some moments. “You live with your brother now.”
She glanced down at the basket on her arm, full of eggs. She had already milked four cows, served a breakfast of corn mush and pork slices to her brother and his household, washed the pewter plates, set her sisters about their tasks, brewed a potion of goldenseal for a nauseous Sarah, and was thinking about getting on with baking bread on this cold winter’s day. She was weary, and not in the mood for dealing with heartbreak.
“Yes … yes, I do. The land is John’s, and everything else that you see around here!” she said without much expression. “Are you well? Bess Witten said that you had been injured fighting the savages.”
He shrugged. “A knife wound in the shoulder. It was well treated and is not troublesome.” He did not want to remember the close fighting with the Indians—and the fact that he very nearly died.
“Let us get out of this mud and into the house,” said Rebecca quietly.
Samuel took the basket from her and held out his hand. It suddenly occurred to him that he had never actually touched her. She hesitated before reaching out. “My hands are filthy, Samuel.”
“No matter,” he replied. She gave him a wan smile, and allowed his fingers to close about hers. Her hand was cold and rough.
“Not the hand of a lady,” she commented as they reached the wooden steps to the house and began to scrape the mud off their boots. Samuel never knew what gave him the courage to raise her hand quickly to his lips and kiss it, but some instinct made it proper and almost necessary. Rebecca pulled her hand quickly away, and her cheeks immediately reddened. Both were surprised by what was happening to them in this unexpected moment of intimacy.
“I’m going to marry Peter Dent,” she began slowly. “I can’t stay here with my brother … I just can’t. You’ll go away again, and I know you so very little, and nothing much makes sense after Mama’s death.” Rebecca had tears in her eyes, and she wiped them on the edge of her cloak. She was sad and confused. “You can always go away, Samuel. I do not have that freedom.”
“I have known many women, Rebecca. I even once thought to marry my cousin, Margaret Beall, and take over her grandfather’s firm. But during all of these months, you are the only lady in my thoughts, and I suppose that I have always thought of you as my lady.”
Her eyes met his warily, and she stood quite still. Samuel felt a bit drunk, but suddenly the possibility of Rebecca becoming another man’s wife was more than he could bear. He had no choice but to plunge into his future without a clear image of destinations. “There is no help for it. We must marry, Rebecca,” he blurted.
Rebecca sank onto the muddy steps, her legs suddenly weak. Samuel sat beside her, the basket of eggs on his lap. “Samuel—it cannot be a surprise to you that I have … a feeling for you. But we must be practical about this. You don’t want a wife and have no means to support one.”
“We’ll think of something. The important thing is that we’ll be together,” he replied. “I don’t want you to marry Dent.”
They were silent for a while. “You’ll grow to hate me, Sam. I’ll be a stone tied to your ankle. I’ll hobble you.”
“Rebecca—I’ve seen so much of the land during these past years. I know that there is more out there,” he said softly, gesturing toward the distant forests. “There are rivers and forests filled with animals. There is soil just waiting to give us what we need. All we have to do is find the right place.”
For a moment her eyes brightened. She had lived a confined life here in Maryland, within a small circle of friends and family with familiar chores, womanly routines, and expectations that she be diligent, hardworking, submissive, and confined to the domestic scene. Marriage to Peter Dent would not change that. True, she would have a fine home and good name, but she was not all that fond of Peter. It was her world, and with Samuel—who knew what might happen? Where would they go and how would they live? But to be free—to leave this place and see new horizons! With Samuel …
Suddenly Rebecca smiled and rose from the step. Samuel was startled, quickly got to his feet, and watched with some dismay as eggs tumbled from the basket into the mud below. Embarrassed, he jumped down and began to collect those yet unbroken in the soft wet soil at their feet. She laughed, and then joined him in the mud, both retrieving the eggs and becoming quite filthy in the process.
“Samuel, do you remember that note you once sent to me when you were with the militia up north?” she asked suddenly.
He was startled at this change of direction in the conversation. “Hmmm, yes, of course I remember. It was snowing that night and I was feeling a bit of longing for home—”
“You wrote something on the bottom of the page, and then scratched it out. I couldn’t read it. What did it say?”
Samuel frowned and wiped his hands on his breeches. Smears of yellow yolk combined with the mud on the dark green woolen material. “I had been drinking a lot of rum. Just to keep warm and forget things. Some of the men were singing—”
“What did you write?” she repeated in a serious tone.
He reached out and brushed a smear of mud off her cheek. She grabbed his hand. “What did you write?” she repeated.
Samuel flushed. “I wrote a line from a song that my grandfather sings. The men had been wailing away but couldn’t remember all of the words to the song. It made me angry for some reason. Grandfather sings it so much better.”
She continued to regard him in silence, her blue eyes unwavering.
“I wrote ‘Come away, my darling,’” he admitted with a brief sheepish smile. “I was remembering you and thinking about how much I wanted you.” He looked down and began retrieving more unbroken eggs.
“How lovely,” she whispered. “What odd fate makes me want you above all other men?” He looked up hopefully and saw her serious expression evolve into delight.
“Who would have thought that I could be become betrothed for a second time while groping through the mud with a man I scarcely know? I’ve meant to marry you since the day you brought my mother those roses! I danced with them in the moonlight. Oh dear Lord, I am a fool.”
“I think that I knew we would someday marry when I first saw you standing in front of the church. Oh Rebecca, it won’t be easy—but I do believe that we are destined to be together.” Samuel and Rebecca shared a clumsy, heartfelt, and very muddy kiss.
The Café, Santa Barbara, 1996
Maddie sniffed. “Very nice, Katie!”
“Oh gawd,” cried James, pushing away the plate that held the remains of his cheesecake. “You couldn’t pay me to read this book, girls. I’m outta here!”
“Yes,” sighed Kate as she watched her brother slip out of the door. “He’s outta here and he left us the bill for his cheesecake!”