Over the Misty Mountains (3 page)

She sure has changed,
he thought to himself as he made his way to the refreshment table, where his mother was sipping from a crystal cup
.

“She’s very pretty, isn’t she?”

“Faith? Why, I didn’t even recognize her!” Josh said, then glanced back toward the couple dancing in the middle of the ballroom
.

“She’s always been pretty, but you’ve never noticed.”

“Well, I noticed tonight.”

“Did you know she made her own dress? She’s a very resourceful one. A steady young woman. A fine Christian, too.”

Josh did not miss his mother’s comment, but at this stage in his life, he was not particularly interested in Christian girls at all. He was, however, impressed by Faith, and as soon as the tall fellow relinquished her, Josh swept her back out onto the dance floor. “Tell me what you’ve been doing,” he said
.

“No, you tell me what you’ve been doing. I’ve missed our walks together and our studies, too.”

The dance went on for hours, and for Josh there was only one person there, Faith Hancock. He had difficulty when the tall young man kept insisting on claiming Faith for another dance
.

“Who is he, anyway?”

“Why, he’s the son of the governor of New Hampshire. He’s down for a visit.”

“A nutmeg Yankee? Don’t have anything to do with him!”

“Why, Josh, don’t be silly. He’s actually very nice.”

“He’s not as nice as I am.” Josh grinned. “I’ll prove it to you.”

Josh set out to prove that he was nicer than the son of the governor, and from that moment on, everything in Josh Spencer’s life was geared toward courting Faith Hancock
.

Perhaps that was the way of it with Jehoshaphat Spencer. He became a single-minded young man when he wanted something. When he set out to become a hunter, he practiced until he became the best hunter in the county. When he decided to be a rider, he had to ride the fastest horses and win the most races. And now he had settled his mind on Faith, and for the next two months he was practically ubiquitous where the young woman was concerned
.

Faith was thrilled, although she never admitted it. For years she had been secretly in love with Jehoshaphat Spencer, whom she never called anything but Josh in her own mind, and now she recognized that he was falling in love with her
.

The time came, then, a mere six months after the ball, in a gardenia-fragrant orchard when the two stood together. They had been silent for a long time, and finally Faith turned to him and said, “You’re very quiet, Josh. Is something wrong?”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me about it?”

“I’m afraid I’m going to die.”

Faith gasped and her eyes widened. Her first thought was that a terrible disease had been diagnosed. “Oh, Josh!” she cried and put her hand on his chest. “It’s not smallpox, is it?”

“No, it’s worse than smallpox.” There was a mournful expression in Josh’s eyes, and he reached his hand out and said, “I’m afraid it’s much worse.”

Fear came over Faith, and she said, “What is it, Josh?”

Reaching out, Josh pulled her up against him, holding her to his chest. “I’m in love with you, Faith, and I’m going to die if you don’t marry me.”

For a moment Faith could not think, and then she realized he was teasing her. She reached out and slapped his cheek sharply. “You are awful!” she cried, relieved and half angry
.

“I’m serious, Faith. I love you with all my heart, and I want to marry you.” He leaned down and kissed her. It was not their first kiss, but there was something about this one that was different. Faith realized it and came to him with a willingness and a yielding she had never shown before. Her arms went around his neck, and she pulled him closer, and for a time the two stood there in silence. Finally Faith drew back and said, “I love you, Josh. I always have—and I always will. . . .”

****

The shrill cry of a newborn child suddenly shook Josh to the core. It jolted him back out of that pleasant past when all had been good and sweet and easy, and now his eyes wildly met his father’s. Both men jumped to their feet and ran out of the study. Scrambling upstairs, they stopped outside the door, which opened at once, and Esther Spencer stepped out. Her lips were tight, and there was a nervous blink in her eyes. “You have a fine son, Josh.”

“A son!” Josh’s eyes grew dim with tears. Everything was all right. He began to shake, and he held his hands together tightly, squeezing them to control the joy that ran through him.

He felt his father’s hand on his shoulder, then heard his voice congratulating him. Then he shook himself and said, “Faith! I want to see her!”

“Son—”

Something in his mother’s voice brought Josh up short. A sudden fear seized him, touching something in the inner part of his heart and running along his nerves. His mother was a steady woman, but this was fear that he saw in her eyes, not steadiness.

“What . . . what is it? What’s wrong with Faith?”

“Josh, she’s in a bad condition, I’m afraid.”

Josh stood there frozen, as if the world had fallen around him. The joy over his new son left, and all he could think was,
Faith’s dying
. He shoved inside the door, and the doctor, who was standing over the bed, turned to him.

“Mr. Spencer—”

Josh pushed him aside with one rough sweep of his arm and fell on his knees. One look at his wife’s face and he knew the worst. Her eyes were sunk back in her head, her mouth drawn back from her teeth.
She looks dead already
, he thought. Grabbing her up in his arms, he held her and began to weep. “Faith—”

He felt her hands touching him feebly and heard her voice whispering, “Josh.”

Holding her for a time, he laid her back down gently and said hopefully, “You’ll . . . you’ll be all right, Faith.”

But Faith Spencer knew that her life was almost gone, and all that kept her alive now was determination to speak to her husband. “Let me hold the baby,” she whispered.

The doctor moved quickly to the side of the bed and placed the small bundle in her arms. Pulling back the blanket, she looked at the tiny morsel of humanity.

“His name is Jacob,” she managed to get out.

“Yes . . . yes,” Josh said, his voice choking.

Faith Spencer reached up one thin arm, touched Josh’s cheek, and her voice was so still that he had to lean forward to hear it. It came just as a wisp of breath. “You must . . . not blame God, Josh. He’s taking me home, but . . . you must not blame Him. He’s giving you . . . part of me to keep.”

“No!” Josh said. “No, you can’t leave me!”

She turned and tenderly kissed the red face of the child, who lay with his eyes tightly closed as if he, too, were leaving. The dying woman looked once at the baby, then her eyes reached up and touched her husband’s for a lingering moment. “I must go with my Lord,” she said, “but I leave . . . Jacob with you. Good-bye . . . my husband. You have been . . . always my . . . dearest one . . . !”

Those were Faith’s last words. She lingered for a few more minutes, then the thin chest heaved once and was silent.

The doctor moved forward, picked up the infant, and whispered, “I’m afraid she’s gone, Mr. Spencer.”

“Keep your hands off me!” Josh overflowed with blind, unreasoning rage. It was the strain which lay deep in him that his parents had never understood. Now it arose like a black cloud. Ignoring the baby, he rose and walked stiff-legged to the door. His parents stood frozen, watching fearfully.

“The baby’s all right, son,” his mother said. Josh stared at her as if she had said something in a foreign language. Without a word, he pushed past her. His father reached out and grabbed his arm, but Josh shook him off and left the room. He walked down the stairs blindly, reached the front door, and without pausing for a coat, stepped outside. The wind blew fiercely in his face as the cold rain mixed with the tears of anger and tragic loss he refused to shed in front of others. A flash of lightning lit up the scene as he moved down the walk. He had no idea where he was going. All he knew was that he felt betrayed by a God he had tried to serve, and he went out into the night. Nothing in the blackness of that night was darker or more ominous than the bitterness and despair that filled Josh Spencer’s heart.

Chapter Two

Incident at The Brown Stag

Since a considerable percentage of people in the Colonies could not read, tavern owners soon learned to follow the English custom of identifying their establishments with a picture. The crudely drawn brown deer with a crown of awkward-looking antlers represented Dutch Hartog’s tavern,
The Brown Stag
. The sign hung from a cast-iron shaft, and as the remnants of the stormy wind tossed the clouds about in the sky, the faded icon creaked as it swung on its hinges.

Inside the tavern, the proprietor stood behind the bar, polishing a glass listlessly. His smallish pale blue eyes were fixed on the customer who sat with his back braced against the wall staring blindly at the thick brown bottle on the table in front of him. Dutch Hartog was one of the roughs. Not over forty, his thick blond hair had receded halfway down his skull, and his mouth had the look of a catfish, twisted to one side, drawn up by a scar that traced its way down his left cheek. He had served in the British Royal Navy, leaving his right foot and lower leg at one of the furious battles fought by His Majesty’s forces at sea. A stout peg furnished the deficiency, but the loss of his leg had made Hartog a gloomy man indeed. He had made his way to America using what money he had to buy
The Brown Stag
at Williamsburg. Now he leaned back and considered, with some dissatisfaction, his establishment.

The tavern was a dark, low-ceilinged place—low enough that a tall man could bash his head against one of the greasy timbers that supported the second story if he wasn’t careful. Half a dozen roughhewn pine tables and a motley assemblage of chairs and stools completed the furnishings of the room, all faintly illuminated by two small windows that allowed dim rays of light to filter in from the outer street. Four tin lanterns with intricate punched patterns suspended from pegs augmented this light with a pale yellowish gleam. The smell of cooked meat, grease, sweat, and alcohol formed a pungent aroma about the place. To the left was a door that led to the kitchen where Dutch’s woman did what cooking was necessary.

A flight of stairs nailed to the side of the wall gave access to the upper part of the tavern, which consisted of four bedrooms. One was used by Dutch himself and whatever woman he kept at the moment. The other three were for rent—usually for short term.

“Dutch, you ought to make him go home.”

Quickly Hartog turned to fix his pale blue eyes on a young woman who had entered the room from the kitchen. She was wearing a green tight-fitting cotton dress, cut low as befitted a tavern girl. She had dark brown hair and eyes, and just above her lip, on the right side of her cheek, was a beauty mark. Her complexion was covered with more makeup than most women wore.

“Ain’t my job to run good customers off!” Dutch grunted. He shoved his weight against the bar and placed his meaty forearms down, staring at his powerful hands. “As long as he’s got shillings, he can stay here and drink.”

Rhoda Harper was not happy with his answer. She stood there hesitantly, the dim light of the lanterns highlighting her rather prominent cheekbones, and her lips twisted with dissatisfaction. “He’s been drunk long enough, Dutch. Tell him to go home.”

“You take him to raise?” Dutch jeered. “Why don’t you take him upstairs. He’s got money, it seems. That’s what you’re here for, girl.”

A slight flush touched the young woman’s cheeks. True enough, she was a tavern girl—the lowest level of life in Williamsburg, no more than a prostitute. Still, despite the hardness of her expression and the tenseness of the set of her shoulders, there was something about her that spoke of a past that was different. “He needs to go home,” she said stubbornly.

Dutch Hartog was slightly puzzled. When Rhoda had first come to the tavern, he had considered her no different from any of the other doxies that came and went from time to time, driven like dead leaves by an aimless wind. They appeared, some sickened and died, and a few actually found men who cared little enough about their past to marry them—or at least to take them away under some understanding. Dutch had taken Rhoda for one of these and had been surprised by her behavior. At times she would drink heavily, falling into the usual alcoholic stupor that many of the tavern girls did. At other times, however, brief flashes of education and hints of culture that did not go with her profession would surface. Several times Dutch had questioned her about her background, but she had been sullenly reticent. Now he saw that her guard was down, and he nodded his big head toward the lone customer, asking, “You know ’im, Rhoda?”

A slight hesitation, and then Rhoda nodded shortly. “I . . . used to, but it was a long time ago. His name’s Jehoshaphat Spencer.”

“Who is he?”

Again the hesitation. “His people are respectable.”

“How would you be knowin’ respectable people?”

Rhoda tightened her lips and turned her head to glance at the slumping figure of Spencer as he drunkenly tried to pour from the brown bottle into the glass. “I knew him when I was a little girl.”

“Here in Williamsburg?” Rhoda’s eyes seemed to grow misty for a moment, a sign of weakness that Dutch had rarely seen. He studied her carefully and waited.

“That’s right, Dutchie. We grew up together. Went to the same school.”

“Oh, I figured you was educated more than most. What about him?”

But Rhoda had said more than she intended. Pain came to her eyes as she seemed to remember things from the past. Long ago she had given up all hope of a better life—still, from time to time, she thought wistfully of how things could have been different. She had hardened herself and given herself over to the life of a tavern wench with no hope beyond that. However, when Josh Spencer had come into the tavern out of the storm, she had been shocked at the clarity of the memories that had stirred her. Josh apparently hadn’t recognized her; it was true that her appearance now was vastly different from the innocent young girl he had known long ago. He would have remembered a quiet young girl, sweet faced, the eldest of seven children. Perhaps he might have recalled helping her with her lessons more than once.