“Could a woman make a living as a weaver?”
“There are those. Find a way to add more color than what is available on the ships from France. You will have to risk the coin you have to find out.”
My mind raced like a shuttle flying through the warp, seeing designs on the future. “I will save back enough for my passage and a little more, if all else fails. I will write and hope for word from my brother. I will spend what I must to keep myself.”
A smile spread upon her face as if a sun rose in her eyes. She dropped the fog of ale and madness. “That’s my girl. Let us work, now.”
We set about making out notices—just two—one we would place on the town board here in Boston, one to be nailed on a post set near the crossroads in Lexington. We walked to the craftsmen’s road, a bustling place, noisy with the sounds of men’s work: anvils clanging, a wooden board falling and someone cursing it, the rumble of a sawmill. Goody lifted her nose and smelled the air. “Would you know a dyer’s if you smelled it?”
We asked at the woodsman’s shop if any knew of a thatcher. The thatcher was working so we left word with his wife, so large with child she looked round as a fish barrel. She knew a woolery where we might find wheels. I bought all the wool hanks they had—filling two bushels, plus two bushels of well-hackled linen. I purchased a flax wheel, and we took the small parts in a crate, the rest we had to carry. Goody and I lugged the bushel baskets, the crate, and the wheel. After we had walked three miles, a young man came upon us from behind. He offered to carry the load for us, and at last added, “I’m plenty strong. Your grandmother is old,” said he. “She is weary from carrying this load.”
“No,” I said. “For you could as well take my goods and run into the woods, and we could not chase you without losing the rest of it.”
“Go on with you,” Goody Carnegie said. “You heard the lass. We need no help.” When he had gone, she asked, “Why did you turn him away? I am sore tired, carrying these.”
“He asked for nothing in return. If he had said, ‘Give me three farthings to help you get your load to town,’ I would have believed he simply wanted the farthings. No. I believe he wanted to steal from us.”
“You will get along, I see. There’s the girl.”
With luck, two boys came alongside us, carrying between them a loose basket with two squawking geese inside. “Pleasant day, misses,” one boy said. He had a missing tooth in front, and half the other greatest tooth was eaten away with decay. “I’ll take half your load for a shilling. My brother can carry our ma’s geese.” We let him carry the wheel and two bushels, so we had the crate and a bushel to trade between us. The boy left the wheel at Goody’s door, too, not shirking the last steps. I gave him the shilling and Goody gave him an apple.
In a week I had turned the wool and flax to thread, and carried them back to town in one of the baskets. I sold them to the woolery and bought as much as my three baskets could carry plus another basket. I did this for two more weeks, and by the second week of July I had a purse of nearly five pounds. After two more weeks, I asked at the woolery for a loom maker. I was sent back two streets near another wood shop.
The loom maker, who insisted he not be called “sir,” or any salutation other than Barnabus, was a wizened creature who wore a long robe like the priests I had known. His shop was a muddle of pieces, jumbled and confused bits of wire, tools on the floor and on tables, burned-out tapers having waxed everything to the tabletops. Little light came through the blackened windows and balls of some kind of animal hair drifted about the floor. “My wife of thirty years has died. These three days has she lain in her grave. I can do nothing. Nothing. Please go away.”
Goody said, “Had she been sick a long spell, Barnabus?”
“A year to the day she died. One year. I have done nothing, all these many months. I’m no weaver. Now if you will leave an old man to his grief? Go down the street to Vicksley’s. He’s no good but he needs the work. He’s got fourteen or fifteen children. Maybe eighteen. Who counts?”
Goody Carnegie looked the more sad and said, “And you have none? Oh, you poor man. Poor man.”
I walked toward the back of the shop while they spoke. There in a small room, a loom such as I had never seen took the whole of it. A passage had been cut through the wall so the weaver could climb through it upon the bench. Another passage existed on the far side where the finished cloth could be taken and new warping placed. It had to have been built in that space. Dim windows filtered light upon a bolt of fine linen, so delicate, so intricate a pattern that it must be for some fine use. I memorized it, the warp in black and gray, the weft in four subtle colors. Raw silver and black, threes on threes, raw golden in twos and tens with a single strand of bloodred crimson splitting the pattern.
Inspiration came as if a moment of prescience had descended upon me. “Barnabus,” I whispered. “Perhaps you can do nothing because this cloth remains unfinished. Perhaps you cannot weave this, for you are the loom maker, not the weaver. I am young but I have been a master weaver for four years. If I finish this cloth you may sell it for a great deal of money. It will allow you to carry on, having your wife’s work completed and off the loom.” I smiled and peered into his eyes. I couldn’t say why I liked this old man. He was balmy with grief, that was true, but I had been so, myself. “No one else you shall meet would be able to finish this linen cloth. Your wife had the skill to make the finest cloth in the New World. I am her second. When it is done I believe you will work again.”
“That was ordered some sixteen or eighteen months ago. Who counts? And she could not work on it at the end. I cannot pay you to do this.”
“You said that you cannot use the loom yourself. If I finish this cloth, would you give to me this loom? It will have earned you a living, it will continue to earn me the same, and it will no longer be filling up this room with its sad reminders of what you have lost. What say you?”
He mumbled something, and then asked, “How long will you take?”
“I will start tomorrow. I ask no money. Only the loom itself.”
Goody’s face beamed with happiness. She clapped her hands softly. “That’s my wee Abigail,” she said.
Barnabus appeared worried, but he said, “I will do this as you ask. We shall see if you arrive on the morrow. We shall see what skill you have. If you ruin this and I have to pull it out, I will not do business with you again. But if you can complete this, I agree that I will take this loom apart and carry it to wherever you direct, and rebuild it there for you. You must have a room large enough for it. Do you?”
“I have one room,” I said. “It is enough. I shall be here, early.”
As we left his shop, Goody linked her arm in mine and patted my hand, saying, “Oh, Abigail, I knew you would find a way. I knew you could get along.”
“Goody Carnegie?” I started to correct my name but I sighed, then said, “Thank you for believing in me. Now I must decide whether to return to Lexington or stay in Boston for the night, so I may begin work in the morning.” Thunder beat against the heavy clouds that had formed while we were in Barnabus’s shop. Above them, lightning made the clouds glow as if they were pillows cast into a fire, not yet caught in flame but touching the embers. “Goody, what do you think?”
“You should stay here. I have to go. Leave me. Leave. Abigail, I have to run away, don’t you see? I have to run and not hurt you again.” She tossed my arm from her and backed down the street, her face contorted in agonies only she could know.
“Please stay with me and let us find a place to sleep.”
“Don’t come near me. Don’t touch me!” She screamed and loped down the road, disappearing between two houses.
I could not catch her. Wind tossed my bonnet, and I had to clutch my bushel basket to keep my goods inside it. My feet carried me to the Spencers’ home. Why, I could not say, for I dreaded meeting Wallace again, yet I so needed help, any shame he might heap upon me would be worth a place to lay my head. By the time I knocked at the door, rain
began to fall and lightning flickered. It felled a tree somewhere on the far side of the town common with the sound of a mighty cannonade, yet no one went to douse the flame, for the rain finished the business.
Lady Spencer was busy in the library, and the butler bade me wait in a small parlor. It was poorly furnished, not at all like the one in which I had met Wallace. When at last she entered the room, she looked on me with icy recognition. “How kind of you to call,” Lady Spencer said, “and in such atrocious weather. Some compelling reason, perhaps?”
“There is, madam.”
“I see. Won’t you have a seat? We do not drink tea in this house. Do you drink coffee?”
“Thank you, madam. But I would not sit for I may dampen your upholstery.”
She waved her hand, both dismissing my concern and signaling for the coffee. “This is not the fine parlor where I receive guests. Please be seated. While we are waiting, perhaps you tell me of the urgent nature of this call before Oswald returns.”
“I was most pleased to find you at home, Lady Spencer,” I began, for she could well have told Oswald to inform me she was not. “I know you have no reason to oblige any request of mine. I require a small room for a few weeks. I have promised an old man that I will finish the weaving his wife began. It means a great deal to him. I need a place to stay in Boston to do this.”
“How, hmm, altruistic of you. You say that is the urgent business?”
“If I finish the work, he will give me the loom. With that I may make a living.”
“Ah. So now rather than a lady you show yourself to be a tradeswoman?”
“No, madam. I was born a lady. Ladies must eat. If no one supports them, or provides what they need, even a lady might learn a skill.”
“Why do you not tell me the name of this craftsman?”
“Gladly. He goes by Barnabus.”
The butler brought the coffee. As he poured, from a corner of the hall where he had left the door ajar, I could hear footsteps passing. When he left us, Lady Spencer said, “Barnabus? I know him. His wife died and left my linen unfinished. I intended twenty-two yards for a summer frock. You can finish it?”
“I was taught to weave in the convent in New France. That was but one of the reasons Wallace thought me unfit to marry. I intend to work until the cloth is finished for the payment of the machine itself.”
“And you want a room in my house?” She stood and paced in a small circle, then sat again, took up her cup and sipped. At length she said, “That is the extent of your request? A room? You ask no money, no—no other entanglements?”
“If I may, a meal each day would be nice. If Barnabus had a wife with him I might stay there, but it would not be proper. Though, if it is not convenient—”
“Wallace will be in Virginia for the summer months. I see no reason you may not stay in this house. He’s bought his own, at any rate, and does not sleep here. We have several unused rooms with beds and furnishings. At the top of the stairs, there, turn to the right and take any of them that suit you. I suggest the last one, for it is on the easternmost wall, and if you are to work in a trade, the sun will awaken you at tradesmen’s hours.”
I smiled. “Thank you, Lady Spencer. This is most kind of you.”
“Not at all. Lord Spencer is in London for the foreseeable future. Supper is at seven. I do not enjoy the habit of tea at four and supper at eight. Bad for my gout.”
A smile brightened my face, and it felt as if it came from the inside out. This was a woman, though not to be called a friend, who at least was genuine and honest with me. If ever there was a person I could respect it was a fair, honest one. “I am so thankful. Now that I know the cloth was meant for you, I shall labor even more carefully on it.”
She nodded. Her face seemed to tighten around the mouth, then she gave a small laugh and a wry smile lit her eyes. “You see, I was quite certain you had come here to tell me something far different. I supposed you carried Wallace’s child and for a handsome sum would go to another town and not destroy our family name. When you said you were compelled to come here, I thought I knew. Hmm. A room. Just a room.” She cocked her head and looked askance at me, then nodded, saying deliberately, “We will do that.”
Lady Spencer sent for my trunk to be delivered from the dock to her house. I worked in Barnabus’s shop six days of the week, commencing at seven in the morning and ending at six every evening. At noon he brought me bits of stale bread and boiled carrots, saying that this was his wife’s one requirement of him as she wove and she insisted it kept her eyesight keen. Sundays, I accompanied Lady Spencer to Boston’s First Church for hours of sermons, songs, and prayers. Some of it enlightened me, some sobered me, and some bored me. At supper every night for the first ten days Lady Spencer asked the progress of the cloth. After that, she spoke to me of whom she had seen about town, who had called, and what news she had from either her husband or Wallace in Virginia, and that their sugarcane was growing well. After those days, she talked more of herself, and as she did, she plied me with questions of my life, not in the colonies or the Canadas, but the plantation at home.
She took a drink from her third glass of wine that evening, and asked, “And why, if you know, were your parents there?”
“Madam?”
“Displeased Georgie-porgie? Or was it fat Anne?”
“The king, madam?” I tried not to register the shock I felt at her villainous familiarity with the monarchy. “I know not.”
“My father, my brothers—one of them was hanged, you know, in Newgate. And I might have been as well, for I would have carried a pike with them.” She downed her glass and rang the bell at her side. A man brought her brandy, and she bade him give me some, too, and then filled her own glass more full. “After Widdrington was taken, and Radclyffe, my natural uncle, you see, for they were not too particular in those days, and Charles went to France, the lot of us were transported here. I know about being transported. I know about losing your home, young woman.”
“Yes, madam. Which Radclyffe was your uncle? James? My father claimed himself a son of the cousin of Edward, the second earl.”
Lady Spencer laughed. She smiled upon me with genuineness that made her stern features almost beguiling. She asked, “Is Talbot your true name?”
“Yes, madam.”
“We are cousins, then, Miss Talbot. My name of birth is Mercer. My mother was a Cameron. I married Lord Spencer on the night before the Battle of Preston.”
“Cousins?” As she named off those names, I pressed the fingers of my right hand against my lap as if to press the names to memory. I had a feeling they would be important to me and that if she were not so full of wine she would not speak this way. I said, “If you and I are cousins, then I am a cousin to Wallace, too. It is good we did not marry, then.”
“Marry? Hah. It is good you did not marry but not for that reason. Wallace is not the man his father was, nor his brother Edward. James Edward Stuart Spencer we named him. Of course, you understand the name if you are a Radclyffe. Blast, how the good ones seem to die young. Wallace is clever and ambitious. But Edward…” She tapped her brandy glass and a man filled it again as she said, “Edward, now he was a son. Edward died five years ago, when Wallace was but a lad. You would have done well to marry Edward. In fact, I would have insisted upon it. You are not so close cousins that it could not be. Indeed, many a royal bed is shared by closer. And you, my dear, have a sauciness that would have complemented Edward’s depth and humor.”
“Madam, I—”
“Now, let us speak no more of this. Wallace, I fear, shall go instead for that ninny Serenity Roberts. He claims he loves her, but the truth is that her mother married again, to a man of great means. Oh, never mind. What does it matter?” She finished the brandy yet again. The butler refilled it again, too. “I see that you are indeed the kind of young woman who should make any mother proud; you must take care for the good do die too soon, dear.” She looked so sad, peering into the brandy glass. A moment passed in
silence. A single tear ran down her face.
“Madam, I fear you are disturbed by something.”
“Disturbed? Why should I be disturbed? Wallace has ordered the purchase of two dozen more slaves than he already had. That makes eighty on one plantation alone. His father allowed it and so I cannot forbid it. Got them from Africa. And how was he to pay for it? He told me that place would be making a profit within six months, but it has not. He has torn out the sugar his father planted and put in tobacco, but it will be two years before he pays for a single pipeful, I tell you.”
“Because of poor sales of tobacco, madam?”
“Because of slaves. I hate the very thought.”
I nodded, though I had no wish to discuss something that touched my most painful memories with a woman deep in her cups. “Lady Spencer? Should I help you upstairs to your room?”
“I think you should.”
I left her at a dressing table and went to my little room, closing the door and feeling an immense peacefulness come to me at the sound of the latch. Lady Spencer had laid out to me things of her heart as Donatienne and I had done. This was a trust which did not come often, regardless that it came upon the wings of the grape. I would hold it sacred.
In all the time I worked for Barnabus and slept at Lady Spencer’s home, I did not see Goody Carnegie.
CHAPTER 18
August 18, 1736
On a Wednesday four weeks after I began it, the cloth was finished. Barnabus declared my work superior to any but his wife’s. On Thursday, it was delivered to the dressmaker for the use of Lady Spencer, and a good deal of money was paid to Barnabus. That very day he began disassembling the loom, even replaced a raddle with worn pins, the brake, and two heddles. I tried to memorize every part as he moved this to loosen that. He whistled happily as he worked, but then at supper on Thursday he said it was bad luck to break anything down on a Friday. He would work on Saturday and by Monday, he would be ready to deliver it, so I drew a map so he could find the house. He filled my basket with thread, then, so many spools I feared it would tear loose from the handles. “Never mind,” he said. “I will bring the rest with the loom. Grace be on you, Miss Talbot. And thanks.”