Coralie stared back at her with red-rimmed eyes. “I cannot imagine another conflict like the Old French War that dragged on seven years.”
“Nor can I,” Mae said, sensing they’d found common ground at last. “Two wars in one lifetime are more than enough.”
Mae looked at Lucy, whose head was bent over a coat sleeve as she plied her needle tirelessly. Sunlight filtered through the oaks overhead, a welcome breeze rustling the leaves like silk petticoats. Mae pressed a discreet hand to her queasy middle, half frantic to find relief. She could no longer blame the victuals she’d partaken of days ago being rancid. Nor could she blame it on Coralie’s cantankerous presence or Rhys’s increasing forays away from the fort.
Taking a deep breath, she began piecing together another linen coat lining while wishing for candied ginger or chalk-and-oyster-shell lozenges. The memory of Aaron’s apothecary and all thosehandsome blue and white delftware jars lining his shelves, promising relief, taunted her.
“How’s your sister faring?” Lucy asked without looking up. “I spied her hefting a basket of soiled linens on her way to the river this morn.”
Spied.Mae winced at her wording. Thankfully Lieutenant Gibbs was long gone, and Mae’s suspicions with him, or so she hoped. Yet she still felt the sting of Coralie’s perfidy and her own complicity in abiding it.
“She’s been at work awhile now and seems to have settled in.” Did Lucy hear the relief in her voice? “I think the generals scared her a little. She’s been on her best behavior.”
Lucy chuckled. “Clinton and Harlow are scary, aye. The Brits think so too.”
“Yet you knew my general before all of this started,” Mae replied, “since you’re from the Shenandoah Valley too.”
“’Tis a big valley. Folks don’t often crisscross, though everybody knows everyone else by name—or reputation.”
“What do you miss most about Virginia?”
Lucy grew thoughtful. “The Blue Mountains. They’re bigger than these foothills here and all ablaze in the fall.” She paused and looked up at the quaking leaves overhead. “Maybe these will turn fiery if we’re here long enough to see them.”
“Do you ever regret following the army?”
“Nay, but Petey does.” She gave the little dog gnawing on a bone beside her a loving look. “He misses his barn bed and all the critters he used to chase.”
“Will you come visit me, Lucy, once we’re back there? Or can I come see you?”
“I’d like nothing better. We’ll sit down when the war’s won and have us a proper cup of English tea.”
They laughed till all of Sutler’s Row looked their way. As Mae’s stomach gave another lurch, she rued giving the rest of her mint tea to Caty.
Why had she not thought of searching for wild mint here? Surely somewhere in the woods it grew, likely along Popolopen Creek. Best to gather it of a morning, Mama had once told her, once the dew was off and before the sun robbed it of flavor. Even the hope of it brought relief.
Tomorrow morn, then, Lord willing.
thirty-six
In every human breast, God has implanted a principle, which we call love of freedom.
Phillis Wheatley
A fife broke through the stillness of August, sounding reveille. Mae rolled over atop the lumpy mattress, missing Rhys. He’d gone north days ago on another foray with a select company, the best of his riflemen. When the hours grew hollow without him, she dwelled on all she missed. His smile. His touch. His clean habits in a fort naturally given to filth. The prayers he said morning and evening, the most beautiful she’d ever heard, an echo of his Welsh ancestry. His low, slow playing of her father’s fiddle.
Somehow he seemed to sense how the wilderness struck a woman who’d never been beyond Jersey. His tenderness and patience in the face of her fears and uncertainties made her all the more smitten. The belle of Chatham, as he liked to call her, seemed a far better woman with him by her side.
Once roused, she dressed slowly, pulling at her front-lacing stays and feeling a pinch. She let out a bit before tying them at her waist. How could she be more stout when she’d eaten so little of late?Ignoring the question, she donned a light indigo linen dress, her white apron and cap freshly washed.
Since she tasked herself with her and Rhys’s own laundry, her return to Popolopen Creek was familiar. She arrived ahead of a dozen women who manned the kettles and fires and lye soap, Coralie among them. For now, the gravelly bank was mostly empty save the guards and patrols who roamed and stood watch. One doffed his cocked hat and addressed her as Mistress Harlow when she passed by.
She went farther inland up the creek where water flowed over mossy slabs of rock like stairsteps in a spirited journey to the river below. Amid the ferns grew wild masses of mint with long, lush stems and dark green leaves. She stripped a stem clean and crushed the leaves between her palms, breathing in the heady scent till her stomach quieted.
She gathered more for tea, already envisioning laying it out on the windowsill in their quarters to dry, and continued till her apron was full. The rising sun dispelled the river’s mist, then the queasiness struck hard again, almost sending her to her knees.
Why this foot-dragging fatigue? Frequent naps when she’d never napped before? Feeling ravenous when she wasn’t nauseous? Being near tears for no apparent reason?
She refused to admit what stared her squarely in the face.
