Bound (13 page)

A
lice watched with new eyes, listened with new ears, and saw and heard things she supposed she might have seen and heard anytime since her arrival at Satucket village. The free way of talking, like no boarder and landlady would talk. The way they might say “Widow Berry,” or “Mr. Freeman,” with the air of a line learned. The way they looked at each other, now that Alice knew to watch for it, as if they knew everything about the other, as if they were entitled to know everything, as if they couldn’t wait for Alice to climb the stairs and leave them to each other. Alice couldn’t bear to be around them. She begged a sore finger that prevented her from feeding the yarn evenly onto the bobbin so she could escape to the loom in the attics, but soon enough she couldn’t bear that, either, and returned to the wheel to watch and listen.

One night Alice heard a carelessly shut door and crept down the stairs to put her ear to it; at first she heard nothing but soft, strange murmurs, but after a time it turned to the familiar gusts and groans that set her trembling.

Alice took to going to bed soon after supper, leaving the widow to work her needle alone. In the morning she stepped over Freeman’s chalky boots without touching them.

A STRETCH OF
fine, dry, gold November days set down, and then another stretch of heavy frost. The view outside Alice’s window lost its shape and color, turning to flat, gray lines of trees and ground and water. Alice took some of her pay in cloth to make herself a stiff, loose-waisted apron with gaping pockets, a heavy shawl with long ends to trail down in front, and a thick cloak, which she wore whenever she went into the village. The wind outside began to compete with the noise of the wheel inside; the stockings the women knitted were all of thickest worsted; the men who came to visit Freeman brought in the smell of salt spray and other evidence of the wind’s work: reddened cheeks, watering eyes, disrupted queues.

Nate came back. The widow started up out of her chair at the sight of him, and Freeman cried, “Here, now, Nate! What’s brought you away from Cambridge?”

“Some business for my father.”

Alice studied him. He looked heavier. More solemn. He came to talk to Freeman of the state of things in town, or so he said, but he seemed to lose the thread of Freeman’s talk again and again, looking often at Alice’s corner. At first Alice looked away, but after a time, as she saw Freeman’s eye come after them, she lifted her chin and gazed back at Nate as she pleased. Who was this man to direct them?

That night Alice woke to a sound like the washing of waves against her window, and she looked out to find Nate standing in the dooryard under the light of a gibbous moon, throwing handfuls of sand against the glass. He motioned to Alice, to draw her down. Alice put on her shoes and cloak, wrapping herself well, and went as silently as she could down the stairs and out into the darkness.

Nate had moved into the moon shadow of the barn, and Alice crossed the yard to meet him. “What do you do coming here now?”

“I wished to talk to you. Alone.”

“You’d best go home.”

“I’d best do as I like, which is to stand here. And you’d best do as you like. If you wish to go inside, then go.”

He’s changed, Alice thought; the new solidness outside had gone clean through. No silliness in him now. It should have frightened her, but somehow it didn’t. How odd, she thought, that she could stand alone in the dark with him and fear nothing. Why was it? Because he would have her do as she wished. He would have her go in if she wished. He wouldn’t hold her there.

She said, “What did you want to talk of?” Her eyes had begun to adjust to the dark, and she could see him better now, the shape of him, the white of his smile at her question. He stepped closer.

He said, “Well, for one thing, I wondered how you’d got on with the kissing question.”

So he was silly yet. Alice felt a ridiculous surge of gladness. She felt glad of his silliness, and yet she also felt glad that he had grown more solid, but how close that solidness had come to her now! Or had she moved? She could reach out and touch him if she wished; she could, if she wished, kiss him. She peered through the dark and thought of how soft his mouth had felt against her fingers.

He said, “Alice,” and she put up her hands to stop him as she’d done before, but he was so close to her already. Why, she could feel the heat of him! One step, one step only would bring him into her, but he wouldn’t take it. If any step was to be taken it was to be Alice’s. But of course she wouldn’t take such a step. And yet there he was, closer, yet! No step was needed at all! She could reach out and touch her fingers to his coat sleeve….

Alice reached out. Touched. The cloth felt like skin, as if she’d gone straight through and rested her palm against his muscles and sinews; she felt sure, very sure, that if she kept her hand there it would burn straight through to the bone. She picked her hand up and laid it against his cheek as she’d done before, let her thumb slide down to his mouth and run over it. His cheek so cool, his mouth so warm. And soft. So soft!

Alice lifted up onto her toes and put her mouth against Nate’s mouth, holding on to his coat sleeves to keep her balance; it felt odd, different than she’d imagined, but she didn’t mislike it, didn’t mislike it at all. Nate brought his hands to either side of her face to keep her there while he took his mouth away to look at her; he put his mouth back, still holding her. But Alice didn’t want to be held there. She pulled back; Nate let go. He stood still. Alice stood still.

After a time Nate said, “If you’d like to try that again I shouldn’t run off,” and Alice laughed. How odd that felt too! But then she was afraid, although she couldn’t have said it was of Nate, exactly. She stepped back. “Truly, you’d best go.” A gentle enough phrase, but Nate responded by a shout that sent her back another step.

“Oh, blast this going! Blast college! Blast my father! Blast it all!”

“Shush!” Alice said, but too late.

The door opened. A voice carried across the dark. “Who’s out there?” Freeman stepped into the moonlit yard, breeches pulled up under a loose shirt, stockingless feet shoved into his shoes. Alice thought to shrink back into the shadows, but Nate stepped out into the clear. Alice followed.

“Nate,” Freeman said. “And Alice. Well, now.”

“I mean Alice no harm, sir. I only wished—”

“Whatever you wished, lad, this meeting in the dead of night makes it highly suspect. Get on home.”

“Please, sir—”

“Mr. Freeman knows what he speaks of on meetings in the dead of night,” Alice said. “Best do as he tells you.”

A chill silence closed on Alice from both sides, squeezing her between.

Freeman broke it first. “You might think you’ve naught to lose and perhaps a deal to gain by this behavior, Alice, but Nate, I should think you’d know your situation is something different. Think what you do, lad. Think what you do.”

He returned to the house and closed the door.

Alice stared after him. She felt unsteady, as if the ground had canted sideways and was about to tumble her into the road. How many times a fool could one girl be in her lifetime?
Think what you do.
So Freeman had said, but to Nate, not Alice. Freeman wouldn’t save Alice from Nate, he would save Nate from Alice, as he had no doubt meant to do all along.

FREEMAN DIDN’T MENTION
the night visit to Alice again. There was no need. He rode into the village the next morning and didn’t come back till suppertime; over his toasted cheese and cider he mentioned that the two Nathan Clarkes had set out by chaise for Cambridge that noontime.

Alice returned to her work and put Nate out of her mind, or attempted to do so. During the daylight she did better at this than at the nighttime; during the daylight she could say to herself that she had kissed a boy and it was no strange thing for a girl her age to do. At night she could think only how different she felt now that she had touched her lips to another’s, how nothing on her was left virgin now, but how different it felt when a thing was given of her own free will.

As the nights added up, one atop the other, Alice also wondered why Nate didn’t send another letter.

IT CAME, FINALLY,
just after Christmas, carried by Freeman’s hand, however willing or not willing, and bearing a date three weeks old, which was in itself no odd thing, and yet Alice wondered. She took it and a candle upstairs to read.

Dear Alice,

I attempt to read my Virgil and find it little use to turn the page, as each one seems to hold naught but the image of you. Should I write these words? My father would say no, just as he has said no to my returning to Satucket and managing his tannery. I think of some of the other places I might go and the work I might do, and I think of you with me. What right have I to say such things to you? None. Every. There are such things as natural rights that outweigh those imposed by either parent or society or the content of a man’s pocket.

This is a sad place to be just now. Parliament has crippled the province with its trade laws, and many merchants have entered into bankruptcies. More than one son has been removed from this college for lack of funds to go forth, and I only wish I might count myself among them. I see the lawyer’s life as nothing near so noble as I once did. Besides, what sense in studying the law in this colony if a Parliament in England may countermand it as it wishes? I therefore see no sense remaining in this cold and barren place at all. All hope for happiness lies there at Satucket. I think of the night we were last together and that alone is all my solace.

You don’t write to me. I don’t expect you to write to me. I don’t expect a thing on this earth but what I make for myself and so I tell my father when he tries to hold his pocketbook over me.

If you would but write to me.

I am Always,
Most Respectfully Yours,
N.C., Jr.

Alice sat considering the letter a long time. She wondered what had turned Nate from his chosen profession so abruptly. She wondered at his dreaming of going away and taking her with him. She wondered what he would dream if she told him what she carried. She wondered about writing him, about what she might say and might not say, but in the morning Freeman left early for Boston, without inquiring after a return letter from her, as was the usual custom.

FREEMAN WAS NOT
gone long, returning soon after the turn of the year, accompanied by every man who’d spied his passage through the village, and he trailed with him a black rumor: not only had Parliament refused to read all petitions sent by the Massachusetts colony, but they had also ignored the warning of the non-importation agreement and were considering a new tax requiring stamps on newspapers, licenses, deeds, shipping papers, and all other legal documents.

Alice helped the widow wait on the jammed table but could take little interest in the men’s railing, although she noted that this time Freeman brought no quotes or pamphlets from Otis, and Cobb muttered blackly about Otis voting twice with the governor. Her ear turned again when they talked of the same string of bankruptcies Nate had mentioned in his letter, and Freeman reported that a man he described as the “treasurer and banker of all the colony, or indeed the continent” had stopped all payments, equating the effect to an earthquake.

Alice never did know what Freeman might have said or not said to the widow about her night meeting with Nate, but she could detect in the widow none of the new stiffness that had become so plain in Freeman.

A week later he left again for Boston.

T
he cold struck at Candlemas and didn’t lift. Through the month of February snowstorm followed snowstorm, the sun melting just enough to form an icy crust on top before the next batch fell, so that walking became a series of awkward reaches and drops, the crust holding for one held breath before giving way and trapping the boot underneath. Because the going was so poor, the widow rarely sent Alice to the village, and it seemed to Alice that her fingers now spun not a fine wool yarn but the sticky fibers of her own cocoon.

The snow crust had compacted into something like blue glass, and Alice had just made an exhausting trip to the barn, bucking the wind all the way, when she felt the first dull, griping pain in her womb. She ignored it and worked her way back to the house, where she resumed her spinning, her step hitching only slightly with each weak pain. After several hours she felt the urgent need of her night jar, but halfway up the stairs the pressure released, and a warm wet flow coated the insides of her legs. She removed her petticoat and wiped the stairs; she worked her way up to her room to change and then returned to help the widow with the dye tub, taking care to keep any sign of internal disturbance from the surface.

The two women sat to dinner alone as usual, and if the widow noticed that Alice ate little she made no remark. After the meal Alice returned to the wheel, but the dull repetitiveness of the work only turned her thoughts to the occasional turmoil in her belly. At supper she again ate little but drank long from the beer pitcher, and although the widow watched her closely, she said nothing.

Alice passed a long night, falling into a shivering sleep for a few minutes and then waking with her belly griping hard, her skin painted with sweat. Sometime before dawn the pains began to come so hard and fast there was no hope for further sleep. As soon as first light brushed the window Alice got up, made up her bed, and tried to put on her clothes, but almost at once she was driven back to the bed with a racking that left her trembling. She rose again, dressed herself, and had reached the top of the stairs when the storm assailed her again. She returned to her bed and stayed there.

More light.

Steps on the stairs.

The widow’s hand on her belly.

“Alice, tell me now. How long have you been in travail?”

Alice closed her eyes.

“Alice, answer me. How long have you been in this way?”

“I woke with a stomach gripe. If I might rest—”

The widow picked her up by the shoulders and shook her. “Hear me, Alice. I’ll not play at this game another minute. Answer me. How long since you began?”

Alice tried to think of what to say, how to get the widow to go away so she could deal with her trouble in secret. She said, “At first light.”

“How often do the pains come?”

“Not often.”

“How severe?”

“Like a common gripe.”

“If you can call it so you’ve not come on strong. Stay as you are. I’m off for the midwife.”

The next wave took Alice as the widow clattered down the stairs, and she set her teeth against it. She heard the clunk and hiss of fresh wood on the fire, the clang of a kettle, the scuffle of boots being dragged on, the door latch snapping up and down.

Alice lay with her knees tucked tight through the next pain and the next, the goal in her head to fight it back, to keep it in. For some minutes she was able to believe that the pains had indeed softened and lessened; the next minute they forced her to roll on her side and vomit on the floor. She sweated and shivered at once; she pushed away the blanket and pulled it over and tossed it back again; the next pain came like a hammer and an ax together, and there Alice’s goal changed; to get it out, not keep it in. She pushed, and the pain was so great she thought she would die inside it; as the room blurred she thought she had indeed died, except that she couldn’t believe the dead felt such pain. She pushed again and felt such bursting relief she thought that too might be death, but a lump lay between her legs, and as she reached down to get it away from her she found she was still bound to it by a slippery, pulsing cord.

Alice fell back and lay there under a woozy cloud, unsure if she were alive or dead. After a time she felt the urge to push again, and a pulpy, bloody mass joined the other bloody thing where it lay between her legs. She pulled the blanket over the mess to cover it up and pushed it aside. She couldn’t stop her shaking. She rolled away from the sodden blanket, drew the bed rug over her, and closed her eyes.

ALICE WOKE TO
a strange voice. “I see no mark on it. But covered as it was—”

“She mustn’t wake to such a sight,” the widow whispered. “Take it below-stairs.”

The bed heaved slightly. Footsteps faded off across the room, and Alice drifted away. When she opened her eyes again the widow’s face hung over her, sagging, as if freshly aged. She raised Alice’s head and held a cup to her lips. Balm. Sage. Rum. Alice sipped and lay back. The widow began to wash her face with a cloth, warm and wet and smelling of mint; a shadowy memory of a similar comfort so old it couldn’t form either a face or a circumstance flooded over her. The widow raised her again and eased off her soiled clothes; she washed her arms and hands, between her legs, down her legs, rolled her over and washed her back. She raised her again and pulled a clean shift over her head, worked it down around her legs, and covered her with fresh blankets. When she was finished she sat back and looked at Alice in silence, let Alice look at her in silence. She said, “Alice, the babe is dead.”

After a time she said, “Alice? Do you understand me?”

Alice nodded.

“’Tis downstairs. Granny Hall will bring it to you when you wish it.”

Alice shook her head violently. She didn’t want to see it. She closed her eyes.

Someone said, “Alice Baker.”

Alice didn’t recognize the voice or the name. She kept her eyes closed.

The widow said, “Alice.”

Alice opened her eyes. The midwife stood over her, but she carried no shrouded babe in her arms. She looked taller than Alice remembered. Older. Darker.

“Alice Baker, you must answer this question I put to you in the full fear of God’s retribution if you give false answer. When this babe was born, did it have life in it?”

Alice looked to the widow. The widow picked up her hand and held it. “Alice, you needn’t—”

“Hush, widow, and let her answer. Was there life in your babe as you bore it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did it cry?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did it breathe?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t touch it.”

“You wrapped it in the blanket.”

“I didn’t touch it.”

“You wrapped it in a blanket and pushed it on its face and suffocated it.”

“Here, now!” the widow cried.

Granny Hall turned to her. “Say what you wish, but I know my duty. A bastard child, born alone, suffocated—”

“You know nothing of what you’re saying.”

“I know what I see.”

The two women jabbed back and forth, making Alice’s head ache. She closed her eyes.

ALICE SLEPT, AND
woke, and the midwife was gone. The widow gave her more rum and a strong soup; she helped her to the night jar on still trembling legs; Alice slept again, or perhaps she’d been asleep all along and had dreamed the soup, but she dreamed it again and again. She roused to the sound of voices shouting below-stairs, some she knew and some she didn’t. Heavy-booted heels addressed the stairs along with a softer tread, and a strongly built man with a face as close to blank as Alice had ever seen stood next to the bed. The widow came up beside him, her face lumpy with anger.

“This is Sheriff Stone,” she said, her words bitten and brittle. She turned on the sheriff. “You might look at the girl, sir, and think better of what you would say to her. She’s not been out of this bed since the birth.”

The sheriff cut across. “Alice Baker, you are hereby placed under arrest on the complaint of the coroner of this county for being accessory to the death of a bastard male child born of your body on the twenty-seventh day of February in this the year of our Lord his Majesty King George III seventeen hundred and sixty-five. You will remain in the custody of this authority until it is judged you are fit to travel, at which time you will be confined in the gaol at Barnstable to await your trial.”