Ruth rounded the west wall of the smithy just then, calling Tessa by name. He walked away, his mind returning to the recent post he’d received from John Heckewelder about Keturah. The Moravian missionary was on his way to Fort Tygart, his arrival imminent. A beat of good news among the bad.
18
Ruth seemed a shade green. “Queen for a day, you are. A cake. A kiss. And now a sashay into Cutright’s store.”
“A passing fancy,” Tessa said despite her pleasure. “Tomorrow I’ll be back on the river and ’twill seem a dream.”
“Cutright has some new merchandise, looks like, beyond the usual flints and furs.”
Truly, the shelves had never been so full. Cocoa. Cloth. Pins, buttons, thimbles. Licorice. Snuff boxes. Blank books. Ink powder. Summer softened the British-milled soaps and sharpened the fragrance of the superfine teas. Even the dried figs smelled overripe.
Ruth chattered as Tessa looked, while Cutright stood in the rough-hewn doorway facing the common, pungent pipe smoke wreathing his bald head. Tessa lingered by a shelf of fripperies, drawn to a folding fan made of carved sticks and parchment. Carefully she unfurled its painted folds. The winsome scene was of a harbor with a tall-masted ship, a lovely palette of blues and greens.
“You don’t mean it,” Ruth exclaimed, examining a straw hat. “You’d take a bit of paper and wood over this?”
“’Tis the sea,” Tessa said, further extending the fan’s leaves.
“Never saw the sea and likely never will.” Ruth moved on, holding up a length of sheer gauze with the barest edge of lace trim. “How about this modesty cloth?”
But the lovely fan held an allure Tessa couldn’t possibly put to words or make Ruth understand. Even Cutright, facing them now as if expecting a decision, seemed surprised, even a tad disappointed, in her choice. “Am I to tell the colonel you are content with a mere fan, Miss Swan?”
“Aye, with my thanks.”
“Very well then.”
She passed outside into a brilliant three o’clock afternoon, fan in hand, Ruth following. Wrestling matches were in full tilt beyond the fort’s gates, the accompanying laughter and grunts of exertion jarring. Suddenly she was tired, the events of the day catching up to her—mostly that small emotional storm. Her very first kiss but not, from the feel and heat of it, his.
“I’d best go spell Ma,” Ruth said, wiping the sweat from her brow with a raised sleeve. “The babe’s fractious, as he’s cutting teeth.”
Glad to be alone with her tangled thoughts, Tessa walked beneath the partial shade of the east wall. She spied Maddie outside the cabin she shared with Jude, well away from Hester’s and the west blockhouse.
“Care for company?” Tessa called as she neared.
Smiling, Maddie gestured to the empty bench beside her. “What is that you’re carrying?”
Tessa opened the fan and fluttered it in her hand, courting a breeze and scattering insects, before passing it to Maddie.
“Such a prettily painted scene.” Maddie eyed it appreciatively. “Reminds me of Philly, namely the Delaware River. All those schooners and brigantines bound for England.”
“Do you miss it?”
“Some things I miss.” She handed back the fan. “Some things I don’t.”
“How are you feeling?”
“For an old woman about to have a baby, pretty fine.”
“You’re hardly old, Maddie. Nary a wrinkle do I see.”
Maddie smiled, creating a few creases. “I disremember what year I was born, just somewhere in Philly. My mother was a washerwoman at the Blue Anchor Tavern. When she was felled by fever I got bound out to a Quaker lady uptown.”
“I’m sorry. I hope she was kind to you. I’ve never known a town-bred lady.”
“Mercy, Miss Tessa, with that bit o’ finery you can just be one.”
They laughed at this flight of fancy, and Tessa gave an exaggerated flutter of her fan. “What makes one a fine lady, Maddie?”
“Fine ladies follow fine rules.” Tilting her head, Maddie took her time answering. “For one, a lady is never barefooted or bareheaded.”
