Our Own Country: A Novel (The Midwife Series) (9 page)

Mr. Hutchinson’s attack upon me was of mercifully short duration. Afterward, he rolled off me, scant of breath. From the corner of my wild eye, wet with tears, I saw that Mr. Inman, who now sat at the edge of the bed, rubbed himself beneath his dressing gown. He soon finished with a grunt, coughed, and then said, “Remove her from my sight.” Just then the cannon off the ships exploded; the sound reverberated through the floor.

“You see,” Mr. Hutchinson said, buttoning his breeches. “I told you that you would not miss the cannons. It is just one
o’c
lock. Let us go.”

I could hardly stand. But I would not ask for his help. I was in pain. There was blood on my petticoat. But I crawled to the door on all fours, then stood and fled the room, crying, “You think I’ll tell no one? Is that what you think?” Mr. Hutchinson hardly seemed to notice my threat. But Mr. Inman, who had gotten back into bed and pulled the covers over himself, replied.

“No. I don’t think you will. No one will believe you. And, as for myself—I’ve done nothing very wrong.”

“Nothing very wrong? How dare you say so?”

“By rights you were mine, Eliza.
Mine
.”

But I had already fled the chamber, disheveled and trembling. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, I suddenly felt cold and faint. I leaned on the newel post and considered calling for the servants. But what would I say? Why was I there, alone? Why looked I in that ghastly state? I found my cape, which hung in the hall armoire, and was about to step abroad—to go where, I knew not. My carriage had gone ahead. I had no money, no friend, and was ten miles from home. In another minute, Tad Hutchinson came up behind me, and I hurried out the door. The dirty, bustling street seemed far safer than those elegant rooms within the Rowe house.

Mr. Hutchinson’s coach pulled up before the house.

“Allow me,” he said, offering to help me up into the carriage. I shunned his proffered hand, and eventually the coachman, an old Negro in a powdered wig, descended to help me up. The ride was short, and we sat in silence. Upon arriving at the state house, I mustered the courage to ask Mr. Hutchinson, “How long have you planned this? That is all I should like to know.”

“Seven months,” he said. “Since the night of the party. Apparently your fiancé was quite dismayed at your reneging on an agreement before all his family and friends.”

I was about to say that I knew of no such agreement but then considered it beneath me to say a single word to my attacker. He noticed it not, however, but went on cheerfully, “I’ll confess to some improvisation on my part, however.”

I might then have leapt out of the carriage and suffered a broken ankle, when once more the coachman came to my aid. I hazarded in a trembling voice, “Would you be so kind as to fetch my coachman and carriage?”

“Certainly, miss,” he said. “Follow me.” I felt the old Negro’s gloved hand press my elbow in support, as if he knew Mr. Hutchinson were not to be trusted, and I had a most terrible thought: perhaps the old coachman had witnessed other ladies in my sorry state . . .

“What? Not staying for the festivities?” Mr. Hutchinson called to me in a loud, petulant-sounding voice. I did not reply. Perhaps he wished to humiliate me further; thankfully, the cannon blasts and the general merriment all but drowned him out. No one noticed as I gratefully mounted my own carriage and sped off down Tremont Street, toward home.

10

MAMA MET ME IN THE FOYER. “GRACIOUS!”
she cried. “You’re home early! Why, what has happened?”

“Nothing, Mama. A slight indisposition, is all.”

“No, indeed. You look as if you were run over by a carriage. Has something happened? Were you robbed?”

“No, no. I tell you, I am simply indisposed,” I said, though I hardly managed to remain upright. “I shall ask Cassie for one of her teas.” And, escaping as best I could, I went to find our slave. She was kneeling by the hearth, having just set something upon the coals. She turned; seeing my stricken face, her own drew tight. I lowered my eyes for shame. She put her rough little hand upon my forearm and felt my trembling through my cape. Then, slowly, she looked up at me and said, “What dey do to you?”

“Oh, Cassie!” I threw myself into her arms. She gently led me to my chamber, undressed me, and let down my hair. She left me for a time and returned with a foul-smelling tea. Sanicle, she said. I knew not what it was, but I drank it. Only when Cassie had succeeded in making me comfortable, and after shooing away my concerned parents, did she sit and take my hand. She stroked my cheek. Cassie then asked, “Who did dis?”

I could not reply; I wished to, but their names would not form on my lips.

“I shall poison dem. You trust Cassie. She know ’ow to do ’eet.” With these words in my ears and her rough hand holding mine tight, I soon fell asleep, finding brief comfort in oblivion.

Cassie woke me early the next morning with more of that foul concoction. She said I must drink it if I was not to get with child. Setting her tray down on my little dressing table, Cassie gently shut my chamber door and patted my legs. “You be well soon, Mees Eliza.”

I was able at last to tell her who had attacked me. At the mention of Mr. Inman, Cassie began to spit curses in her strange tongue.

“Oh, Cassie. I feel so ashamed. So—stupid. And Mr. Inman—he stood by the bed, watching—rubbing himself.” I grimaced and shut my eyes once more, this time against the image I feared would never leave my mind.

“Peegs,” she said. “But you
knew
what men can do, didn’t you, Miss Eliza? Did your Mama nevah tell you dis?”

“No,” I admitted. “I had no notion that men would ever, would ever want—”

“You are but a babe,” she said, though not harshly, caressing my hair as she said so. “You know nutteeng of de world. So, now I tell you a story, a real story, and you learn how we wee-men suffah. You learn how we are
strong
, too.”

Cassie proceeded to tell me the story of when she first came from Africa to my father’s plantation in Barbados. She was but twelve years old. She spoke of her first days and weeks on the plantation, in a shack with her mother, sister, and a dozen other people. Her papa had died aboard the ship. There was no floor in the shack, no beds, no shoes. Thankfully, the weather was temperate.

Papa employed two vicious overseers at the time, and Cassie feared them. She tried to be invisible and for some time thought she was. But one morning, she was so overcome with fatigue that she fell back asleep after the bell had already rung. Everyone had left for the cane fields.

Cassie awoke to dark shadows above her: the overseers. They were white men with lean bodies and cruel eyes. Perhaps thirty or even older. She sat up to dress, but one of them reached out and pressed her back onto the floor, his hand braced between her small breasts.

They reached under her shift and groped between her shaking legs. Then they took turns with her body. When they were finished, they told her to get dressed and into the fields, and that if she breathed a word they would kill her. Ten months later, at the age of thirteen, she gave birth to a baby girl, but the babe died within a few days.

“Oh, Cassie,” I said, forgetting my own misery for a moment. “These were my own father’s men?”

“Yes, Miss Eliza. Your own fadder’s men. But he don’t know what goes on when he not dere. ’Ee don’t even tink about ’eet.”

“Well, I shall make him do so,” I said with conviction, though I had not the strength to stir from my bed.

I lay back on my pillows. Cassie caressed my hair, combing her rough fingers and long, ragged nails through it. Her nails gently scraped my scalp and made it tingle.

“You shall be well ’een time, Miss Eliza. You not de first, nor de last, woman who have dees happen. And some day soon you meet a good man. Like my Cato was. A good,
decent
man—”

Suddenly, there was a knock at my door, and we started. It was Mama.

“Oh, Cassie. I didn’t realize you were already here. Are you better this morning, my dear?”

I grasped Cassie’s hand. “A little, I believe. Cassie has made a tea that has eased me greatly.”

“I’m glad. Shall we see you at breakfast?”

“Not today, Mama. Tomorrow, perhaps. I shall no doubt be much better tomorrow.”

“I’ll tell Papa you are better. He worried all night.”

My dear papa, who allowed little girls to be ravished on his own property. Once Mama had left, I entreated Cassie to tell me the end of her story.

“So, what happened to those men? Were they ever punished?”

“Punished?” Cassie’s eyes widened. “Oh, no.” Here she flashed her broad white teeth. She said, “Mama and I make dem someteeng good to eat.
Very
good. Dey puke for two days. And den dey die.”

11

WITHIN A FEW DAYS, I WAS OUT
of bed, and in a week’s time I was to learn that I was not with child, for which I thanked God in Heaven. But I was beset by terrible cramps, and so retreated to bed once more. Cassie told me several times, “Bring dem heah. Cassie give dem someteeng very good to eat.”

The two culprits, however, vanished directly after the party, and we knew nothing of their whereabouts until spring, when we learned that Mr. Inman was with General Howe and the British army in Boston, and that Mr. Hutchinson had left our shores to join his family in England.

Our situation by this time—February of ’75—was quite degraded. The weather was dreary, the markets were empty, and there was little to eat except for cod, biscuits, eggs, grain, and what preserves Cassie had been prudent enough to store that summer past.

My seventeenth birthday had come and gone without fanfare. Mama now thought it all but hopeless that I should marry, as those men who had not fled had either joined the army or stood in wait to fight.

Thanks to my dear Cassie, I survived the attack upon my person. Yet my soul was in turmoil. I had nightmares, and feared leaving home. Upon stepping abroad, my breath caught in my chest, and I thought I would faint. Worst of all, I had begun to feel a roiling anger that knew no outlet—toward Papa, once more, wh
o’d
given Mr. Inman his consent without informing me. Toward Mama, who, I now believed, surely knew of this consent.

And yet, he had been right about my not telling anyone—for who might I tell who would believe me? Who might I tell without doing irreparable damage to myself? I knew the answer well enough.

When, two weeks after the incident I have described, my mother announced that Mrs. Gage, wife of Governor General Gage, was hosting a ball, for the Loyal and Friendly Society, I replied coldly, “I shall not go.”

“You
shall
go,” she said. Mama then called to Papa. “Mr. Boylston!” She moved out of the front parlor to knock on his study door. Papa was at his desk, peering through his spectacles at the day’s broadside. He wore that look of dismay we had come to know quite well. “Eliza says she will not attend Mrs. Gage’s ball.”

Papa removed his spectacles and gazed up at me: “I should think yo
u’d
be glad to stir from this house; I imagine there’ll be good food and fine wine. Good society, too. May I ask why you avoid the event?”

“Papa,” I began, my voice quavering with emotion, “those boys who remain in our midst are criminals and cowards. The very dregs of your so-called good society. They—”

But before I could say more, I felt a swift jab at my ankle—Mama had kicked me! I opened my eyes wide and stared at her.

“Eliza. I begin to think there is something profoundly wrong with you.”

I turned to face her squarely. “Being your child,” I said with slow, cold fury, “I would not be surprised.”

As I fled up the stairs to my chamber, I heard my father ask, “Do you think that was really necessary, Margaret?”

“Indeed it was,” she said. “Have you not noticed how intractable, how incorrigible, she has become of late?”

“But to say that our boys are criminals and dregs—perhaps there is a reason. Perhaps she was insulted by one of them at the Rowe’s house. The child looks far too pale . . .”

Here, I ceased to hear them, having reached my chamber door in tears, my ankle still smarting from where Mama had kicked me.

Mrs. Gage’s event was the last such event my parents were ever to attend. Every day thereafter, we expected an attack—instigated by Mrs. Gage’s own husband—and remained as prisoners within our own home.

Our provincial congress was ready for war. It had already authorized the purchase of guns, munitions, powder, and cannon. Then, on February 26, a confrontation occurred between General Gage’s troops and the Salem militia, under the command of Timothy Pickering. That such a confrontation might soon occur in Cambridge, we had no doubt. Once more we nailed the planks across the windows and doors.

The following week, we received a disturbing letter from Braintree:

. . . as we were able to clear two fields before winter, I find myself free to focus on the fate of our country and shall likely soon join the Cambridge militia. This shall bring me in closer contact with you. Before then, however, I hope to plant two gardens. Apples we have in abundance, and flax as well. Lizzie shall be kept busy in my absence. She already loves Star greatly and rides him near every day.

Rest assured, Mama, Papa, that my joy in choice of partner is complete. She is my helpmeet, my dearest friend. I have little doubt that my wife could run the entire North Parish on her own, were circumstances to require it of her.

Then, scrawled across the bottom of the page, the paragon herself had written,

Dear Mama, Papa, and Eliza—

I am flattered by my husband’s lavish compliments, but what he could mean I know not. Let it not be a mote in your mind’s eye. I shall scold him roundly for it by and by. Ever yours, Lizzie

Mother found this letter vexatious in the extreme. “Run the North Parish? What can he mean? Richard,” she said, turning to my father, “know you what he could mean by this? Imagine, leaving a woman alone on a farm—I doubt very much whether they even have a servant! Oh, how he must secretly suffer!”

“Secretly suffer?” I objected, picking up a spoon. Cassie had served us a dinner of stewed cod and vegetables. “Jeb seems perfectly contented. Nay, more than contented. But he shall fight, if there’s a war.”

Mama ignored this last statement, which perhaps was just as well. “But only think, Eliza—a cramped little house, and no maid. How slovenly, how chaotic, it must be.”

“Perhaps Lizzie makes up for her slovenliness with her industriousness. I expect Jeb believes there’s more virtue to a woman than keeping a neat house.”

“Indeed, there is not!”

Mama’s fervency had an unfortunate effect: my father and I looked at each other and began to laugh, which neither of us had done in a long time. It was good to see that I still knew how.