“’Course I remember,” Abby said. “It was only a few years past. But he’s the one caused your limp! Your ‘face and frailty,’ as you put it, is a consequence of his constantly boxing your nose and eyes and cuffing your ears.”
Hester dabbed at the light sheen of sweat on her forehead. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”
“Truly? And what will I understand? How you let that swine of a man cuff you about and rut you day and night as if you were a crippled sow?”
Hester’s eyes blazed for a brief moment, and Abby hoped to receive a sharp rebuke or slap across the face. Any such response would show that her mother retained a measure of spirit. But the fire in Hester’s eyes quickly died, leaving behind only an apathetic stare. Instead of lashing out, she shrugged and said, “We suffer for our children, not ourselves.”
Abby frowned. “And what is that presumed to mean?”
Hester turned and started walking toward the creek. Abby followed, waiting for a response. She watched her mother scoop a handful of sand from the water’s edge and dump it in her chamber pot. Abby sighed, and did the same. They swirled the sand around the inside of the pots with their fingers, scrubbing and grinding it against the hardened fecal deposits. Then they rinsed the pots in the creek and inspected them.
Abby said, “Fine. Don’t tell me. But why can we not just leave this wretched man and his poor excuse for a house?”
“Leave? Has your brain been seized by vipers? Where would you have us go, child, Sinner’s Row?”
Abby knew her mother was right. There weren’t many pleasant options for women in North Florida Colony in 1710. She lowered her eyes and said, “I like not the way he looks at me.”
“He has looked at you that way for two full years, though you knew it not till now.”
The way Hester proclaimed it gave Abby pause. “Two years ago I was thirteen!”
“Aye, child,” Hester said. “Now ponder that fact a moment before speaking.”
Abby did. In the colonies, as in Europe, the minimum legal age for marriage had been twelve for girls, fourteen for boys, for as long as anyone could remember. Still, in Abby’s experience, it was outrageous to think of a forty-year-old man rutting a child. Then the weight of Hester’s words hit her and made Abby realize for the first time what had transpired in the man’s house. Her stomach lurched.
“You kept him from me these two years. That’s why you accepted these many beatings and ruts. You were protecting me.”
“Aye, child.”
They embraced and held each other for a long moment. When they separated, Hester said, “It was not your fault I chose a surly man.” Her free hand drifted absently to her face and touched the bumps at the bridge of her nose. “I did what I could to keep him off you these many months.”
“But now?”
Hester fixed her gaze on Abby’s eyes. “Now you’re fifteen, fully bloomed, and his desire to have you exceeds my ability to protest.”
Abby’s eyes widened. “So I’m to be your way out? You’re to have a new husband and I’m to be left here to rut the swine?”
“You’re young and strong and untouched. He’ll be nice to you for the duration.”
Abby was so busy trying to wrap her mind around her circumstance, she almost missed it.
“What duration?”
“Walk with me, child.”
They crossed the small clearing and stood close behind the privy, squinting their eyes against the foul odor. When she was absolutely certain her words would not be overheard, Hester whispered, “When Thomas Griffin buys me, I will set at once to acquire a vial of arsenic from his apothecary which I shall give to you. A few drops in your stepfather’s every meal will do the devil’s work within two months. And you will rise in station, inheriting his house and the proceeds of his business.”
“You cannot be serious. I’d have to marry him for this to be the legal result.”
“That may seem the worst part to you now, but on further reflection, you’ll find it a sound plan to help you become a young woman of property.”
Abby had no intention of reflecting thus. In fact, she had plans of her own, that she had never discussed with her mother. But something her mother had said didn’t sit right with her.
“Why do you think Thomas Griffin will purchase you?” she asked. Then she shook her head with disgust, thinking about her mother being sold off like the family cow.
Hester patted her hand. “Mr. Griffin has always been kind to me, and his daughter needs a mother.” She saw the skepticism in Abby’s eyes, and added, “And there’s more, child, though unseemly it would be to discuss the matter further.”
Abby’s eyes grew wide as saucers and she nearly voiced her outrage. But then she thought of the man she’d met at the river crossing six months ago, and what happened during his last visit.
His name was Henry, and he’d come to her like a gift from above, on horseback, carrying a leather satchel filled with useful things. Fully grown, ten years older than she, Henry was a man of property, and close kin to Mayor Shrewsbury, the wealthiest, most powerful man in the colony, save for the governor himself. He was well-traveled and conversational, with an exhaustive inventory of colorful stories featuring far off lands and remarkable people.
Astonishingly, Henry had managed to show up three of the five times both her mother and step-father happened to be gone. She now knew where her mother had been on those occasions, but how fortuitous for her that Henry always seemed to show up at the most opportune times.
She knew he was the man she’d marry, had known it from first sight. Not because he was tall and handsome, or rich and worldly, but because she could feel his presence from a great distance, even before he emerged from the woods. And not just the first time, but every time! If she could always feel his presence a quarter hour before he arrived, how could this not be transcendent love? The powerful feeling he projected put her soul at ease, calmed her fears, and spoke to her heart.
Henry was coming.
She couldn’t feel him yet, but he’d told her the day. He might miss the target by up to a week, for all plans were subject to weather, and he’d be traveling tricky terrain. But this time when he came to visit, she’d seal the deal. They’d ride off to town, get married, and she’d be free of this wretched life once and for all.
Abby was not ashamed that she’d given herself to Henry during his third visit two months ago. Though he was twenty-seven years old, Henry was unmarried and available. She’d made him swear an oath to that effect before their first kiss. Though she hadn’t expected to be taken so hastily her first time, much less from behind, Abby was pleased to know he shared her feelings of attraction. As for the event itself, she had known only the basics of what to expect, for her mother had spoken few words on the subject of fornication, and most of them only moments ago. But her Henry was obviously versed in the subject, so she put her trust in his expertise, and was at peace with her conscience.
Henry was coming for her. And soon.
Hester pushed a wisp of blond hair from Abby’s face and secured it behind her ear. The two women embraced again briefly, gave one last look around the clearing behind the slat-board shanty, and went inside the shack to start the dinner pot.
Inside, the heat was unbearable, and Abby’s eyes took it all in: the dirt floor, the worm-wood walls, the leaky roof, the rotten door. As she looked she was overcome with guilt over her mother’s sacrifice. Hester had fended the man off as long as she could, and was willing to be humiliated and sold at public auction to give her daughter a chance at a decent life.
But while Abby loved the idea of killing Philip Winter, she had no intention of marrying and rutting the man in order to acquire his earthly possessions.