May 4, 1730
Weeding time had arrived; extra hands were needed in the fields, and Mallie and Ellery had been recruited. As Mallie was led to the field, she saw five long wooden planks set across the width of five tobacco beds. Two short legs at the end of each plank made them slant. Sitting on the planks, the field hands reached down and pulled weeds. To her dismay, Jason ordered her to climb on a plank already occupied by Derby. For eleven hours his hostility radiated like heat from an oven, competing with the sizzling sun. Mallie groaned and stretched her back. She had by turns lain on one side and then the other, sat with legs stretched in front of her, then with knees bent, and still her legs felt numb.
She kept track of the sun’s path, willing it to disappear beyond the horizon. The horn finally blew, and the workers trudged to the edges of the field. She turned in the direction of the kitchen and accidentally stepped into Derby’s path. Before she could sidestep him, without hesitation or warning, he slapped her. She gasped, bringing her hands protectively to her face. She cringed when he reached out and peeled one of her hands away. He plucked something off her cheek and showed her: a mosquito. She brushed her cheek with her sleeve and began to thank Derby, but he had already turned and walked away.
#
May 8, 1730
All except one of Groom’s guests were gone. Flora, his black servant girl, had started picking up empty glasses and dirty ashtrays. Blair kept his back to her, waiting to get paid, while she worked in complete silence.
“Flora,” Groom said after giving Blair his money, “please give Blair the bread that’s in the kitchen. I’m walking Mr. Lynn to the stables. Blair, I’ll see you in two weeks.”
“Aye, sir. Thank ye for the bread.” Blair paced around the room, waiting for Flora, and sighed dejectedly. After being knocked unconscious during the fire the previous month, he had missed his meeting with Thomas Burt, and Blair had been unable to ascertain where he might be. A flash of something red under a chair caught Blair’s attention. He crouched down to look and found it was a snuffbox. He picked it up just as Flora returned.
“That belong to Mr. Lynn,” she said.
“I’ll take it tae him,” Blair said, running out the door. When he reached the end of the block, the stable boy was standing on a bale of hay, looking in through one of the stable windows.
“What are ye doing?” Blair asked.
“Shush!” the boy whispered, smiling wickedly. “Take a look.” He jumped to the ground, and Blair, intrigued, climbed up the bale. Groom and Lynn were standing close—much too close—to each other. Lynn held Groom’s arm firmly, saying something that was inaudible. Groom looked nervously toward the door.
“Did ye hear them arguing?” Blair asked.
“Just wait!”
Lynn tightened his grip. His words, whatever they were, seemed to become more fervent. Blair tensed, alert to the moment when Lynn might strike at Groom or otherwise attempt to harm him. But then, Groom kissed Lynn, and Lynn returned the kiss. Blair stared in disbelief, unable to look away, while the men kissed with as much passion and tenderness as if they were man and woman. Groom opened his eyes and met Blair’s stare. He pushed Lynn away; Blair jumped to the ground.
“Well?” the stable boy asked. “What did ye see?”
“Nothing,” Blair stammered. “I didna see anything.”
“Ye did! They’re mollies!”
“Here,” he told the stable boy, handing him the snuffbox. “Give this to Mr. Groom.” He would simply run back to the chandler’s. He had just stepped onto the street when the stable door opened.
“Blair,” Groom said, looking grave, “what are you doing here?”
“Mr. Lynn forgot that.” He pointed at the stable boy.
“Magnus, you left your snuffbox at my house,” Groom said, his voice empty of all expression. Lynn stepped out of the stable, also looking grave.
“Thank you, Blair,” Lynn said, offering Blair some coins. “For your troubles.”
“That’s no necessary.”
“I insist.”
The stable boy elbowed Blair but received a glare such as made him step away.
“Why don’t you add that money to Blair’s gratuities next time he plays for us?” Groom said to Lynn.
“That’s a good idea,” Lynn replied.
“Good night,” Blair said, eager to leave. As he walked away, he knew he would never return to that house.
#
Betty interrupted her breakfast to answer the knock on the door.
“Is Blair here?” Blair heard Flora ask.
He jumped to his feet and pushed past both girls, muttering, “Follow me, Flora.” He hurried to the end of the alley and one block down, with Flora struggling to keep up. He finally stopped and whirled on her.
“What are ye thinking? The Craigs will ask who ye are and why ye’re looking for me!”
“You forgot your bread.” In her hands was a bundle wrapped in linen.
“The bread? I forgot the— Ye came looking for me on account o’ the bread?” he asked, exasperated.
“You saw Mr. Groom and Mr. Lynn.”
Blair was taken aback by her bluntness.
“Aye, when I returned the snuffbox.”
“You saw them like man and woman.”
Blair was at the same time annoyed and mortified. Who did this girl think she was, to bring this subject up? How dare she? Did she suspect him of being a mollie too? What did she even want?
“I dinna ken what ye mean.”
“My ancestors consider people like Mr. Groom spirits of the gods.”
Her statement confused him even more. “Well, this is America. Do they know what ye think about this at the Swedes’ church?”
A pained look clouded Flora’s face. “In church they say, ‘Ye shall know them by their fruits.’ God make everything, so God make Mr. Groom. He a good man, a generous man. I know what it’s like to be treated like nothing. Judge not—”
“I get my sermons from Reverend Andrews.”
Flora offered Blair the bread. He snatched it from her hand, turned, and walked back to the shop. For the rest of the day he debated with himself. He thought of the day he disembarked, when two complete strangers called him dishonest, and scum, and of the time when Franklin had insinuated he had inclinations toward criminal activities. The Craigs had also harbored suspicions. Flora was right about one thing: Groom was nothing if not kind and generous. True—men weren’t supposed to kiss men, but Blair wasn’t supposed to fornicate, and he was no model of restraint. And there was another quite weighty, less enlightened consideration: money. If he wanted to bring Janet to America at the end of his indenture, he needed the money. In the end, although unsure whether his decision sprang from following the maxim “Judge not lest you be judged” or from pure self-interest, he resolved to mind his own business.
#
May 14, 1730
Mallie woke up in the middle of the night, freezing cold in spite of the late spring weather, and lay awake until dawn. She spent the entire day shivering and coughing. By suppertime, when she complained of a headache, Margaret touched her face and gloomily announced, “I’ll tell Mr. Bradnox she’s got the fever and agues.”
Polly bundled her in sheets and blankets and sat down to watch over her, fidgeting with a strip of leather in her hands. A short while later Bradnox came in and put his hand to her face. “It might simply be catarrh,” he mused without much conviction.
Mallie pushed away his hand forcefully. “Don’t touch me, Lizzie!” she yelled. She made a choking sound, her eyes rolled back in her head, and her body began to shake violently, her limbs jerking uncontrollably. Polly held her head while Bradnox forced a strip of leather between her clenched teeth.
“So it is the agues,” he said dolefully when Mallie’s seizure had passed and she was lying in a stupor. “I’ll get my medicine chest.”
“Polly?” Mallie’s eyes fluttered open.
“Yes, luv, I’m here.”
“Wot ‘appened?”
“Ye’re sick. Mr. Bradnox is going ter treat yer.”
The planter returned with a chest from which he took a brass lancet and a bowl. Mallie sat in a chair, and Polly held her arm while Bradnox picked a vein. Mallie closed her eyes as the planter placed the lancet on the crook of her arm, cocked the steel blade, and pressed the trigger with his thumb, firing the blade. A warm, deep-crimson jet gushed out. When the bowl was filled to his satisfaction, Bradnox took a long strip of linen and wrapped it tightly around Mallie’s arm, then wiped the lancet with a handkerchief and placed it back in the chest. Through her stupor, Mallie watched warily as Bradnox took a bottle full of a syrupy brown substance labeled “Ipecacuanha,” poured a bit into a cup of water and stirred it, then handed the concoction to her. She grimaced as she downed the drink, then drank a large mug of water to wash the taste from her mouth.
The planter handed Polly a four-ounce tumbler and a corked decanter. “Do you remember when to administer this liquor?”
Polly nodded. “One tumbler when this fit ends, then another every three hours, except when she’s sleeping, and stop when the next fit begins.”
“Good. I’ll come back tomorrow.” Bradnox set an empty pail next to Mallie. She looked at it, then up at the ceiling, puzzled; it wasn’t raining.
“I’ll be back soon, luv,” Polly said. She returned about twenty minutes later, sat next to Mallie, and waited. Mallie’s stomach churned like two feral cats in a sack.
“Polly!” she cried out. Polly helped her sit up and placed the pail under her chin while she threw up violently.
“I don’t want it!” Mallie complained when Polly handed her another mug of water.
“Yer have ter drink it, luv.”
Mallie drank, fighting every gulp, and immediately vomited again. She crumpled on her mat, moaning. Never had she felt so wretchedly sick. Shortly after the evening horn had sounded, Margaret came up the stairs with someone in tow. “You have a visitor.”
For a moment, the sight of Derby made Mallie’s discomfort disappear. He himself looked sick with worry. He sat next to Mallie and told her a few simple stories about his day: a grasshopper he had caught and a new song he had learned from the field hands. Afterward, she could not have repeated anything he said, but his presence was a wonderful balm.
“Please take good care of ‘er,” she heard him whisper when Polly ushered him out. “Two of Mr. Hearne’s workers ‘ave already died.”
“Am I going ter die, Polly?” Mallie asked hours later while Polly changed her sheets and blanket, which were soaking wet.
“No,” Polly replied. “I got the agues before, and ‘ere I am.”
Margaret changed Mallie’s bedding again before dawn. Her temperature had finally dropped, and she wasn’t sweating as badly now. Polly fetched the decanter Bradnox had left, poured a tumbler, and gave it to Mallie. She eyed it with mistrust.
“Wot’s in it?”
“Claret wine, lemon juice, Jesuit’s powder and other things.”
Mallie took a sip and grimaced. “That’s bitter!”
“Well, medicine is bitter. Drink the rest.”
“‘Ow much are yer going ter make me drink?” Mallie asked after she had managed to gag down the revolting concoction.
“Morning and evening for six days.”
“Six days?”
“Six days this first infusion; then eight days a second infusion; then a third infusion two fortnights.”
“No, no, no . . .” Mallie grumbled, nauseated at the mere thought.
“Yer will get better,” Polly said, stroking her hair. “I promise.”
Feeling as if her body were melting through her mat and into the cracks in the floorboards, Mallie whimpered and waited for the next fit to come.
#
May 27, 1730
Bradnox, with Margaret’s assistance, bled Polly. Her body shuddered so violently that the jet of blood streaming from her arm missed the bowl and splashed on the floor. Mallie gasped and looked away. As he had done with Mallie, Bradnox gave Polly a purgative and left the decanter of medicine. When Polly started to vomit, Mallie gently stroked her back while Margaret held the pail.
“Is that wot I sounded like?” Mallie asked with concern some time later. Polly’s breath was coming in wheezing exertions.
“No,” Margaret replied, “and she didn’t sound like that either the first time she came down with the agues. I have chores in the main house now; I’ll tell Mr. Bradnox about it. Before I go, you should drink your tumbler.”
For the first time since her treatment had begun, Mallie drank the potion without complaint. Two hours later Margaret still hadn’t returned. Polly stood up and walked toward the table by the window.
“Polly, wot do yer want?”
“I have ter chop those onions,” Polly slurred, pointing at the empty table. Her legs buckled, and she stumbled forward and caught herself on a chair.
“Polly!” Mallie tried to coax the cook back to her pallet. When Polly refused, Mallie stuck her head out the window and screamed for Margaret, again and again.
“Oh heavens!” Margaret rushed in, took Polly by the arms, and gently steered her toward her pallet.
“Please don’t leave again, Maggie,” Mallie begged.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be here for the rest of the day.”
Mallie lay back down, reassured even as she felt a fresh fit coming on. She shivered and watched helplessly as Polly’s hallucinations grew worse. At some point, completely drained, she fell asleep.
#
Mallie woke before sunup. Bradnox and Margaret sat next to Polly’s pallet. The planter was holding the mouth of a small bottle under Polly’s nostrils; she did not move. He corked the bottle, put it inside his medicine chest, and slammed the lid shut.
“I’ll send Titus and Cumby,” he said coldly, then stood up and walked out.
Margaret began to weep. Mallie crawled toward Polly on all fours, her heart splintering. The twilight coming in through the open window gave the scene an unreal tinge.
“Polly!” she cried. “Wake up! Yer need ter take yor medicine!” She gently shook Polly. Even through her linen shift, the cook’s shoulder was unnaturally cold. Not even when she had learned her mother had died had Mallie felt as much an orphan as when she gazed into Polly’s clouded, lifeless eyes.
#
June 5, 1730
A ghastly scream made Blair look up from the leather he was polishing. The cordwainer and the journeymen had heard it too. It seemed to have come from an upper floor.
A moment later the cordwainer’s wife was in the shop, her face ashen. “Betty is having a baby.”
The men looked at each other in disbelief. When was she even with child? Blair wondered.
“Blair, go find the midwife,” Tacey Craig ordered. “She’s at Arch and Third.”
Blair ran the whole way. He was soon in the midwife’s hall watching her hurriedly throw the disassembled parts of a birthing chair and other implements into a bag.
“I see the girl has been screaming,” the midwife commented shrewdly when she and Blair arrived at the alley. A gaggle of neighbors had gathered in front of Craig’s shop. At the sight of the midwife, the neighbors’ chatter intensified. Blair opened the door to find Craig peeking through the window, looking annoyed. As soon as the midwife had been taken to Betty, Tacey Craig left with baby Ewan and returned with Alice, who looked utterly surprised.
“Katherine Moore will pick up the girls at school and take them to her shop,” Tacey Craig said. “And she has lent us Alice for a few days.”
Blair tried to focus on his work, but every so often he could hear Betty’s cries and moans, and he was dying to go find Johannes.
“I ken who the father is,” he finally told Craig. “Should I go get him?”
“No,” Craig answered sharply. “Keep working.” A couple of neighbors opened the door in the course of the morning, asking if they could help, but Craig curtly refused them.
At noon Alice came down briefly to serve Blair and the journeymen and to get a quick bite herself.
“We need tae send word tae Johannes,” Blair told her.
“Aye, but I canna go now.”
Betty seemed to quiet down for a while, but in the early afternoon it was evident she was again in agony. The cordwainer put down his tools in frustration.
“It’s impossible to work like this,” he grumbled, and stomped upstairs. As soon as his footsteps had ebbed, Blair burst out the door, broke into a run, and didn’t stop until he reached the shipyard next to the Penny Pot.
“Johannes! Johannes!” he yelled, trying to be heard above the noise of the men working on the ship. A couple of men noticed him and alerted Johannes.
“Blair, what are you doing here?” he said, looking down from the quarterdeck.
“Betty’s having a baby!”
Johannes climbed down and took off running, his long strides making it impossible for Blair to keep up. He reached the alley in time to see Johannes at the shop’s doorstep; Craig was holding the door open, looking furious. As Blair approached, several upstairs windows began to open. Craig glanced at the neighbors peering out and reluctantly ushered Johannes inside. As Blair followed at Johannes’s heels, the bleating cries of a baby could be heard coming from the third floor.
“Jeffrey Craig, my name is Johannes Fretzel. I’m the father of Betty’s baby,” Johannes said as soon as Craig shut the door.
“And what is thy trade, Johannes Fretzel?”
“I work at West’s shipyard.”
“Thee is a freeman?”
Johannes voice dropped slightly. “No.” He glanced at the stairs with impatience. “Friend, I take full responsibility for this. May I please see them?”
“No.”
“Please, I’m begging you.”
“I don’t see why thee would want to see the baby; he’ll be indentured until he turns twenty-one.”
Johannes’s face glowed at the news that he had a son, and then his expression turned forlorn. He fell to his knees, his usually gruff voice deflated. “I’m begging you.”
“Blair, go get a constable,” Craig ordered. “Thee should find one at the Crooked Billet.”
Blair took Johannes by the elbow and gave a firm tug. Johannes didn’t budge. “Johannes, please go.”
“Not until I see my boy.”
“I’m warning thee, I will have thee put in the stocks!” Craig threatened.
“Johannes, please!” Blair begged.
“No.”
“I said go find a constable!” Craig barked.
Blair ran out the door, but as soon as he was out of the alley, he slowed down to a leisurely walk, hopeful that if he could buy some extra time, Johannes would be gone and Craig would have calmed down before he returned. But when thirty minutes later he and the constable turned the corner at Second Street, his heart sank; Johannes was sitting on the steps of the shop.
#
June 13, 1730
Standing next to the whipping post, waiting for Johannes to be untied, Blair felt as if he would empty his stomach. Johannes had been tried and found guilty of fornication. Once he was freed from his bindings, Blair and Raimond flanked him, draped his arms around their shoulders, and helped him to a cart that would take them to the shipyard. Johannes howled in pain when they hit a pothole and his back bounced against the side of the cart.
“You won’t be playing at our wedding next year after all,” Johannes said, and Blair nodded sadly. Betty’s indenture had been extended two years and, given that Johannes didn’t have money to deposit a security with the court for the maintenance of his son, his term had been extended a year. “You’ll have time to learn something new. I know all of your songs by now, anyway.”
Blair tried to smile. “I’ll learn some German songs.”
“Tell Betty I’ll come by tomorrow after the Craigs have gone to meeting.”
Blair discreetly studied Johannes: he was lithe and strong, and yet he seemed shriveled after the whipping. It was inconceivable that Betty would soon be subjected to the same twenty-one lashings Johannes had just received.
#
Blair scowled when a knock came at the door. “That had better not be Johannes,” he told Alice, getting to his feet. “He’s supposed to wait until the Craigs are gone.” He opened the door to find a nervous-looking woman.
“Let her in quick and shut the door,” Tacey Craig said, running down the stairs. “Are thee David Fisher’s girl?”
“Yes.”
“Come upstairs.”
Blair and Alice looked at each other questioningly. They heard Betty, her tone pleading and distressed, Tacey Craig’s impatient voice, and the cordwainer, commanding and unyielding. Betty’s sobs intensified and then Tacey Craig and the woman, with the baby in her arms, came down again.
“Give this to thy master,” Tacey Craig said, handing the woman a letter. Blair and Alice watched in shock as the woman and her delicate bundle were all but shoved out into the alley. Tacey Craig shut the door, leaned on it, and sighed with relief. Then she turned guilty eyes to Blair and Alice, who were staring at her, stone faced. “Hurry up with breakfast, Alice.”
As soon as Tacey Craig was gone, Blair ran outside. The woman and the baby were getting into a cart on Second Street. He looked up and saw Betty’s face pressed against the second-floor window, her face streaked with tears. Then Craig’s hands clutched her shoulders and yanked her back.
#
Blair stood next to one of the windows on the front of the shop, once in a while pulling the curtain aside just enough to steal a nervous glance out into the alley. Johannes was sitting in one of Craig’s chairs, Betty on his lap, her head on his shoulder, her hands grasping at the back of his jacket like claws. She cried as if she would never stop. Johannes rocked her and whispered soothing words in her ear. Alice sat in another chair. Both she and Blair looked dejected. It had taken several minutes to piece together Betty’s frantic and disjointed account: the baby had been taken to Clearfield, the summerhouse of one of Jeffrey Craig’s customers. They wouldn’t even let Betty name the baby.
“I . . . I’m so-sor-ry . . .” Betty hiccupped. “I . . . couldn’t stop . . .”
Johannes stroked Betty’s hair. “Don’t blame yourself.”
I will follow Susannah’s advice and be careful, Blair promised himself. For if I have a child, bastard or not, son or daughter of a whore or not, I’ll kill anyone who tries to take it away. His resolve only strengthened two months later, when word came that the baby had died.