Marcia Talley - The Last Refuge

I spread a bit of butter on my bread and added a dollop of Karen’s homemade strawberry jam. ‘What’s so fascinating about the newspaper, Jack? Surely, that’s old, old news.’

‘You’ll find this interesting, Melody,’ her father said. ‘A fellow named James Hutchings is announcing a sale at Broad Creek Ferry on Kent Island. Listen. To be sold, several negroes, the time of several servant men and women, household furniture, several horses and some black cattle. They will be disposed of at public sale, for ready cash or tobacco.’ He looked at his daughter over the tops of his reading glasses. ‘Imagine. Humans being sold for tobacco.’

‘As if…’ Melody muttered into her porridge.

Jack glared at her over the top of the newspaper. ‘What did you say, young lady?’

‘Nothing, Father.’

Jack flicked a crumb off his vest and returned to the paper. ‘“The time of several servant men and women,”’ he quoted. ‘That means indentured servants, Melody, like French.’

Melody grunted.

‘I’m going to market today, Mr Donovan,’ I informed the master of the house. ‘Is there anything in particular you require?’

‘Oh, can I come, too?’ Melody interrupted before her father had a chance to answer my question.

Her father shot her a withering glance. ‘You’ll be in school today, young lady.’

‘But you let me skip school to go to the dressmaker,’ Melody whined.

‘That was different. School today and every weekday, and there’ll be no arguments.’

‘Sir, do you think Gabe’s too young to start Cicero?’ Michael Rainey inquired. ‘As a republican, albeit in Roman times, he undoubtedly inspired our founding fathers. John Adams is quoted as saying of him, “As all the ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher united than Cicero, his authority should have great weight.” I couldn’t agree more.’

Melody rested her head against the back of the chair, crossed her eyes and made a face at the ceiling.

I reached out and grabbed her hand, jerking the little madam back into proper sitting position. ‘That’s enough! Well-bred young ladies don’t behave like that at table.’

Had it been my imagination, or did Jack Donovan’s plump lips twitch with approval?

Michael Rainey grinned. ‘Perhaps Miss Melody would prefer to study a book I found in the library this morning: The Ladies Compleat Letter Writer ?’

Wisely, Melody picked up her spoon and resumed eating her porridge.

Gabriel, on the other hand, seemed eager to start his lessons. ‘Mr Rainey is teaching me math tricks, Father. Do you want to hear a good one about nines?’

Donovan laid the paper down, picked up his coffee cup and took a sip. ‘Yes. Do tell me all about the nines, Gabriel.’

‘What’s two times nine?’ Gabe asked his father.

Donovan furrowed his brow, feigning deep thought. ‘Eighteen?’

‘Right! And one and eight added together make nine.’ Gabe bounced excitedly on the edge of his seat. ‘Three times nine is twenty-seven, right? That’s a two and a seven, and two plus seven makes nine! Four times nine is…’

But as usual when math came into the equation, Hannah Ives, mistress of Patriot House, tuned out.

‘Hannah showed up in the kitchen with her cookbook this morning to go over the menu for dinner tomorrow. I can read the damn cookbook myself, of course, but that’s not the way it works. So I listen to her read and I measure out the ingredients and I keep my mouth shut. I’m making an independence cake. I hope George Washington appreciates the effort.’

Karen Gibbs, cook

We grew most of our vegetables on the grounds, either in the greenhouse or in the kitchen garden, but fresh fruits, other than apples, were just as scarce at Patriot House as they were in colonial times, so to obtain them, we’d have to go to market.

No Safeway, alas. No Giant. But, LynxE had made arrangements with several vendors at Market Space on Annapolis’ city dock to carry the meat, cheese, produce and sundry items that we might need to buy for Patriot House.

One of my jobs was to plan the meals, a challenging task since – thanks to our Founding Father – I never knew who was going to be dropping in (or out!) for dinner. This couldn’t be done without consultation with the cook who had her finger on the pulse of household stores, so after breakfast was over, I picked up my copy of American Cookery and trotted down to the kitchen.

A fire was burning cheerfully in the large, open fireplace. Karen’s son, Dex, crouched in front of it, using a bamboo whisk to baste a duck that was roasting on a spit being turned by a clock-like contraption mounted over the fireplace. When he saw me, Dex leapt to his feet and bowed deeply. ‘Good mornin’, missus.’

‘Good morning, Dex. I haven’t seen very much of you lately.’

‘I’ve been chopping wood, mostly. It’s gonna get cold soon, and we’ll be needing fires in the house.’

On the hearth, the duck began to sizzle alarmingly. ‘Hadn’t you better get back to the duck?’

‘Oh, yes ma’am,’ he said, bending again to his task.

‘Looks like hard work, Dex.’ He looked like such a little man in his white hose, brown breeches and white linen shirt, that I had to smile.

‘Oh, not so hard. Much better than emptying the chamber pots, ma’am.’

Chamber pots. I’d been mistress of the house only a little over a week and already I was taking the clean chamber pot that sat under my bed each night for granted. I felt my face redden, not realizing that a lad of ten, who should have been playing Little League baseball or going on a campout with his Boy Scout troop had been taking care of our ‘night soil’ every morning. History textbooks hid some ugly truths.

‘Where’s your mother, Dex?’

Dex shrugged and continued to mind the spit.

While I waited, I wandered over to a board near the window where three fresh-baked loaves of bread were cooling. Next to the bread sat two pies. I bent over them, touched a finger to the juice seeping up through a slash in the crust and tasted it – cherry.

On a long table sat the tools of Karen’s trade – wooden bowls and spoons, a rolling pin, a mortar and pestle, a cleaver, a salt pig, cones of sugar and packets of spices. On a wooden block nearby lay a dead rabbit, fur and all, and a lifeless chicken. I was just wondering whether I should go look for Karen in the garden when she struggled through the door sideways, carrying two buckets, one of milk and one of water, balanced across her shoulders on a wooden yoke. ‘Good morning, ma’am.’ She knelt and set the buckets down on the tiles near the door, wiped her face with the hem of her apron.

‘The ham was delicious this morning, Karen.’ It had been sliced from one of several hams – smoked, wrinkled and green with mold – that hung in the storeroom just off the kitchen, a room I knew had been an office until just a month ago. The space that the desk, computer, printer and fax machine once occupied was now crowded with bins of root vegetables – potatoes, carrots, onions, turnips, beets, cabbages – and various grains, such as wheat, oats, peas, beans and dried corn that we’d need during our time at Patriot House. Sugar, salt and jugs of vinegar, oils and other liquids sat on wooden shelves. Jugs of rum, too, which went into the punch that sat out in a bowl in the front parlor, swimming with sliced fruit, ready refreshment for anyone who came to call. There was also a wine cellar in the room below stairs, but it was kept locked, and Jack Donovan wouldn’t trust anyone but himself with the key.

‘Thank you, ma’am,’ Karen said as she hefted one of the buckets and poured some of the milk into a jug. ‘It’s all in the soaking. Draws out the salt.’