The Vow (14 page)
We should be able to move in by the end of summer
, he thought in satisfaction, for the framing of the large Greek Revival-style house had just been completed. At last he would have a residence large enough to house his growing family comfortably, and one that would reflect the modest success of his silk mill.
Samuel and James would remain in the homestead, however.
He looked back over his shoulder at the cluster of buildings where once the rearing shed had stood. Now he had three sheds for reeling where once he had one, and a separate building for the wet, smelly work of dyeing. Someday rows of buildings would stand there.
Reiver saluted the carpenters, then headed home.
When he walked through the door, a thin, high-pitched wail scored his nerves like a cat’s claws. Reiver shuddered in revulsion. This one—he couldn’t bear to think of it as his daughter—even cried differently. “Hannah?” he called, rolling up his sleeves as he strode into the buttery to wash his hands.
Seconds later she appeared in the doorway, her pale face tear-stained and drawn, and her blue eyes desperate. Her arms cradled the wailing baby, and she murmured, “Don’t cry, sweeting,” over and over.
Reiver suppressed his rising resentment and dried his hands. He turned to Hannah. “You look exhausted. Why don’t you give the baby to Millicent for a while and join me for luncheon?”
“Do you know what Ben said about Abigail?” she asked.
“Hannah—”
“He called his baby sister an idiot.” She pressed the baby’s head to her cheek, quieting Abigail instantly. “I’m sure he was just repeating something he overheard.”
Reiver turned away to hide his guilty expression.
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Hannah said, “Who would dare say such a cruel, hurtful thing? I’d hate to think Samuel or James—”
“Don’t dwell on it.” He turned to face her. “Bring her upstairs to Millicent. I want to speak to you alone, in the parlor.”
Hannah left the buttery without protest and returned to the parlor a minute later, her arms empty and her expression bleak.
“Please sit down,” Reiver said, and when she did so, he knelt at her feet and grasped her cold, stiff hands in his. “Hannah, there is something wrong with this child.”
Her face crumpled and she squeezed his hands. “But she’s not an idiot, Reiver. She’s not.”
He thought of his midday meal growing cold and the three new girls demanding his supervision at their looms, and his impatience grew. He rose and released her. “You’ve got to be strong, Hannah. You’ve got to accept the fact that Abigail may be simpleminded for the rest of her life.”
“No!”
“Hannah—”
“I want Dr. Bradley to examine her. Perhaps he can do something.”
“Bradley tries to heal bodily ills. There’s nothing he can do for an affliction of the mind. Nothing any of us can do.”
Hannah bolted to her feet. “There’s got to be something—”
“Enough!” Reiver grasped her arms. “Do I have to remind you that you have a duty to me and our two other children?”
“But Abigail—”
“And what of the mill girls? You haven’t set foot in the mill since this child was born. And don’t think that Constance and Henrietta haven’t noticed.”
“My daughter demands my complete attention right now.”
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“So do your sons and my brothers!” He gave her a little shake. “Don’t defy me on this, Hannah! I’ll not have you placing her welfare ahead of anyone else’s.”
Her eyes widened in stunned comprehension. “You hate her because she’s not perfect, just as you hated your own father for not being perfect.”
He grew very still. “Who told you about my father?”
“It doesn’t matter. I know you hated him because he was the town drunkard and an object of scorn.”
His hands fell away and he stepped back. “And with good reason. He was a lazy, no-account drunkard who made our lives a living hell. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the way I feel about Abigail.”
“Reiver—”
“No matter what you may think, I don’t hate her. I am merely being realistic, and if that sounds unfeeling to you, so be it. As the head of this family, I have to decide what’s best for everyone, and I will not see our sons neglected by their mother!”
“The boys will do just fine. It’s Abigail who needs more of my love and attention.”
Reiver scowled. “You are my wife and you will obey me for the good of the family.”
“Must I obey you even when you are wrong?”
Her unexpected retort caught him by surprise. Then he said, “Especially when you think I’m wrong.”
Hannah hung her head, but her hands were balled into mutinous fists at her sides.
“I’ve made my wishes known,” he said, rolling down his shirt sleeves. “Now I’m hungry and I’d like to eat.”
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Without another word, Hannah returned to the buttery to fetch Reiver his noon meal. He ate the cold food in even colder silence.
In the nursery, Hannah looked down at Abigail sleeping so sweetly and wished they could run away.
Then, wafting through the open window came Davey’s carefree voice exhorting poor Mrs. Hardy to run faster, and Hannah felt her love and loyalty part like the Red Sea, one half staying with Abigail and the other encompassing the rest of her family.
She sighed. Reiver was right. But while she could forgive him for that, she would never forgive him for not loving their imperfect daughter.
She knelt down and stroked Abigail’s smooth cheek. “Don’t worry, my sweet little girl. I will always have enough love for the both of us.”
The following morning a new shipment of raw silk arrived, and Reiver asked Hannah if she would help Constance Ferry sort cocoons and reel the silk fibers.
As the two women sorted, Hannah asked, “Do you like working here, Constance?”
Constance didn’t even glance up from her work. “Yes, ma’am. I earn more than I ever could in another factory. Oh, I’ll quit when I get married someday.”
She blushed a guilty shade of pink and lowered her voice. “But don’t tell Mr.
Shaw.”
Hannah smiled. “It will be our secret.”
Hours later, when the cocoons were sorted, Hannah said, “Now what do we do?”
“We boil ’em,” Constance replied, rising and taking a basket of cocoons to another room, where a large tank filled with scalding water stood near the
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reeling machine. “Be careful of your hands. The water has to be hot to loosen the silk fibers.”
Hannah watched the other woman toss the cocoons in, let them soak for a moment, then quickly dip her fingers gingerly into the hot water and brush away the outer web before finding the end of the true cocoon. When Constance had the filament ends of six cocoons, she began reeling the silk.
Hannah said, “Let me help with the next batch.”
The moment her fingers touched the hot water, she wished she had never volunteered, but once her hands got used to the temperature, she managed to find the filaments so Constance could reel the silk.
Later, when Hannah was through, she left with sore red hands and a new appreciation for the mill girls’ hard work.
Reiver hadn’t seen Cecelia for two years, ever since the day in 1845 she told him she was marrying Tuttle. Tonight they were among the Shaws’ four dinner guests, for Reiver needed a loan from Tuttle’s bank to expand the silk mills. But from the way Cecelia studiously avoided Reiver’s gaze, he could tell she knew the second reason for the invitation.
Her adoring husband kept her well, judging by her elegant, lace-trimmed gown in a flattering shade of rose. The necklace at her throat flashed with genuine sapphires, not humble garnets and seed pearls.
“Nice house you’ve got here, Shaw,” Tuttle said, his bland, boyish face flushed with envy. In a manner reminiscent of Ezra Bickford, he mentally assessed the value of every stick of furniture in the parlor. “It’s new, isn’t it?”
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Reiver nodded. “We just moved in two months ago.” He smiled at Hannah, seated next to Cecelia on the settee. “With our growing family, we need the room.”
He compared his wife with his former mistress. While Hannah wore her light brown hair as she always did, parted in the center and swept over her ears into a chignon, Cecelia favored fashionable beribboned ringlets that gave her a sweet dainty air. Her graceful movements contrasted sharply with Hannah’s broad, abrupt gestures. Cecelia’s vivacious personality drew a man’s attention like a sailor to a siren, while Hannah didn’t merit a second look.
Cecelia said, “And how many children do you have, Mrs. Shaw?”
“Three,” Hannah replied. “Two boys and a girl. And you?”
“A son, fifteen months old.”
The thought that Cecelia must have conceived a child on her wedding night filled Reiver with primitive jealousy, and he sipped his imported sherry to conceal his irritation.
Hannah turned to their two other guests, portly George Burrows, who had just opened a paper mill on the north side of town, and his colorless wife, Louise.
“I know your children are almost grown.”
Reiver only half listened as Burrows boasted about his eight sons, for his thoughts were on Cecelia, who was pretending to be absorbed in the conversation. But he could tell by the tense set of her alabaster shoulders that she was just as aware of him. He wondered how he could contrive to get her alone tonight.
Before he could come up with a plan, Mrs. Hardy appeared in the doorway and announced that dinner was ready. Reiver proffered his arm to his wife, and they led their guests across the hall to the dining room.
“Mrs. Tuttle,” Reiver said, holding the chair to his right for Cecelia.
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She thanked him charmingly, and only Reiver noticed her hand tremble as she gathered her skirts and sat down.
Once everyone was seated and Mrs. Hardy served the cold strawberry soup, conversation resumed, presenting Reiver with the challenge of simultaneously participating in the talk and feasting on Cecelia’s beauty. By placing Tuttle at his wife’s right, Reiver couldn’t avoid looking at Cecelia whenever he spoke to her dull husband. A clever ploy, he thought.
“Coldwater seems to be expanding by leaps and bounds,” Tuttle said.
Reiver said, “In addition to my silk mill and Burrows’s paper factory, we’ve seen a soap factory, a foundry, and a cotton mill go up in just the last six months.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw Cecelia dart him a glance beneath her long, dark lashes.
Tuttle nodded in satisfaction. “We’re on the threshold of a new era, the manufacturing age. Tuttle Senior—that’s what I always call my father—thinks that farming is fast becoming a thing of the past in Connecticut.”
And he droned on and on until the arrival of the fish course stopped him long enough for Hannah to say, “But surely you don’t spend every waking hour concerned with commerce, Mr. Tuttle.”
Ah, but he does
, Reiver thought, risking another glance at Cecelia. In an unguarded moment, she revealed the glassy-eyed look of a wife who has heard the same boring speech once too often.
Beneath the table, Reiver extended his foot, slipping his toe beneath Cecelia’s petticoats until it touched her foot. The intimate caress brought a blush to her cheeks, and she glanced guiltily around the table. When she saw that everyone was listening to her husband expound on his father’s theories of the virtues of hard work, she shot Reiver a malevolent warning glance and jerked her foot away. He suppressed a smile, his point made.
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After dinner Hannah and the ladies retired to the parlor, leaving the gentlemen to their cigars and apple brandy.
Burrows unbuttoned his straining waistcoat, sipped his brandy, and looked around the dining room in frank admiration. “You’ve done well, Shaw. Someday I hope my paper mill will do as much for me.”
“And I intend to do even better,” Reiver said, “with a little help from Tuttle’s bank.”
Tuttle said, “I must admit that Tuttle Senior and I had our reservations when you came to us for a loan, Shaw. After the mulberry-tree disaster, I thought the silk industry was finished in this country.”
Reiver shook his head. “Many silk mills did go bankrupt, but the smart owners learned from that mistake and know that the future lies in manufacturing silk, not trying to raise mulberry trees and silkworms. America’s climate isn’t right for either, as I myself discovered several years ago. Now I import cocoons from the Orient and manufacture sewing thread.”
Tuttle’s small dark eyes assessed Reiver with new respect. “What does the future hold for Shaw Silks?”
Reiver sipped his apple brandy. “Innovation. My brother James is an inventor and has been working on a machine to salvage waste materials from broken cocoons. And looms to make our thread strong enough for use in Howe’s sewing machine.” He smiled confidently. “Your loan would be put to good use, Tuttle.”
The banker lit his cigar and took several deep drags. “I’m impressed, Shaw, and I know Tuttle Senior will be, too. Come to the bank tomorrow and we’ll discuss it with him.”
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“You won’t regret it.” Reiver drained his glass and rose. “If you gentlemen would care to see the mill, I’m sure the ladies will be able to get along without us a little while longer.”
Both men chuckled, then rose to join him for a tour of the mill.
Later, when his guests were ready to leave, Reiver made sure that he was at Cecelia’s side to drape her wrap over her shoulders. She thanked him smoothly, but he could tell from the faint blush that he still disconcerted her.
He wondered what her reaction would be when he called on her tomorrow.
A white-faced Cecelia received him the following day in her expensively furnished parlor.