As dusk fell, supper preparations were well underway, given they had cod. As she came downstairs, Mrs. Hurst met her, wonder on her face. “We’ve something out back, Miss Mae.”
Together they retreated to the rear door overlooking the frozenkitchen garden to find a dressed deer hanging. Mae’s surprise equaled that of Mrs. Hurst, who exclaimed, “I’ve not had venison in an age!”
Shivering, Mae shut the door. “Father always had a fondness for wild game.”
“Who on earth could have brought it?” Mrs. Hurst asked, returning to the hearth in higher spirits.
Mae followed her into the kitchen, hearing a noise at the front door. Their supper guests already? James’s familiar voice rang out. Was General Harlow with him? Never mind the amiable Captain Sperry. He wasn’t quite so intriguing and couldn’t be guilty of bringing them venison, she felt certain. She continued to the hall, where they were hanging hats and matchcoats on a pegged wall. The hired lad, Adam, had taken their horses to the stable.
“I’m guessing we have you, General Harlow, to thank for the back door gift,” Mae said.
He turned toward her with a smile. “Only if you prefer venison.”
“And if I don’t?”
“I’ll bring down an elk, then.”
Mae grew tongue-tied, realizing they were the only two in the hall. Coralie and James had already passed into the parlor with Captain Sperry, who was running a hand over the veneered spinet after exclaiming his pleasure over the cello in the corner.
“Whose instrument?” he asked.
“My late mother’s and now my sisters’,” James replied. “The cello is my poor attempt to join them.”
“Have you a violin?” Captain Sperry asked with a quick look at General Harlow as he entered the room. “One of us plays rather admirably. And he’s been trying to teach me when we’re not on the march.”
Mae masked her surprise. A sharpshooting violinist? She went to a corner cupboard and withdrew a cracked leather case. Of all the things she missed about her parents, their music was foremost.Turning back around, she handed it over to the general. “Our father’s.”
He opened the case with a thoughtfulness that touched her. “Maple and spruce. A fetching fiddle. Mine was lost at Quebec.”
Lost? A story there, she thought, her curiosity at fever pitch. She watched him rosin the bow and tune the strings while James sat down with the cello and Coralie at the spinet. Not quite a quartet...
The general, still tuning, already had her on the edge of her seat. “My mother taught me when I was small. Her family had a long fiddling tradition in Wales.”
Mae could no longer hide her surprise. A female fiddler?
He paused his tuning to look up at her. “Being a pastor’s daughter, you don’t associate the fiddle with drinking, dancing, and the devil?”
She smiled. “Heaven’s music, rather, Father often said.”
“Aye.” He struck a string. “Music has gotten me past many a hard place.”
His intriguing words gave her pause as he launched into a tune that began slowly but soon had her pinned to her chair, mouth half open. His fingers flew on the fingerboard, infusing emotion into every skillful stroke. Some of his notes resembled chirps—birdsong—so lifelike she almost looked out the window to the nearest tree. She wasn’t the only one transfixed as he finished and his bow slid from the strings.
“See what we have to endure in camp some evenings?” James jested.
“Well, I’ve never...” Coralie said from her seat at the spinet as General Harlow returned the borrowed fiddle to its case. “I hardly feel capable of following such a musical feat.”
“I shall limp along with you,” James said, taking up his own bow.
In seconds the parlor was filled with the cello’s rich resonance, a harmonious balance to the spinet’s delicate notes. But Mae waswanting more of the violin—more of General Harlow himself. He sat near her on the sofa facing the hearth. Firelight flickered over his strong features, shadowing his whiskered jaw and dark brows, the slant of his nose and cheekbones. He was as rugged as he was handsome. His presence, like his violin playing, seemed to overflow the parlor.
Or had he made such a bold impression because masculine company was a rarity?
“I meant what I said about sewing for the army,” she told him during a lull in the music. “Your men must have many material needs. I’m a lone woman, but I can make a small difference.”
Finally he looked at her. “What have you in mind?”
“Shirts. Blankets. Hats and scarves and stockings. Whatever is needed most.” If he’d asked for the moon she might have agreed to it, given her fledgling infatuation.
