Mistress Boles sailed past Esmée with a terse greeting and a mention she was needed elsewhere.
Esmée entered and approached the bed. Surely Alice wanted to hold her child, at least till a meal was brought. “Little Alden is beautiful, Alice. And in need of his mother.”
Alice smiled back at her wanly, perspiration calling out her pockmarked skin, her fair braid tousled like straw. “I’m sorry about all the fuss, Miss Shaw. A lady such as you shouldn’t have to put up with such as me.”
“Nonsense.” Smiling, Esmée laid the baby in the crook of her arm. “He’s beautiful. Your father would be proud.”
“Aye, that he would be.” She looked down at her infant as wondrously as Esmée hoped Eliza would look at hers in time. “And my husband too, when he returns from service.”
As the linens were changed and a meal was brought, Esmée took her leave, following Miss Grove out. “I’d best hasten home as the weather is sharp. I just wanted to bring the women’s things as promised. They’re below in the trustees’ office.”
Miss Grove clasped her hand in thanks. “I don’t know how we’d fare without you.”
“’Tis but little. I see now the French refugees have come, and with them more needs.”
They passed downstairs into the courtyard, where a lone oak had been spared the men’s woodcutting. A few benches were scattered about with a view of the large common garden.
“The French encampment is growing.” Arms folded against the chill, Miss Grove looked out on the field, which bore shriveling vines and a few plump pumpkins. “We’re in charge of feeding them. The government has promised provisions, but I wonder if any will be forthcoming. Winter always means a lack as it is. The garden’s long spent.”
“I’ve heard they’re to take the oath of allegiance to King George,” Esmée said. “But I thought they might be moved further south to Georgia and the Carolinas.” Unable to stomach the sight of so much poverty and all its accompanying ills, she looked toward the York River turned to pewter by thick, hovering clouds, the water adorned with vessels of all descriptions.
“I wish they would move on, though I know ’twill not be any easier elsewhere. A few fights have broken out between the almshouse men and the French. These newcomers are hungry and exhausted. Their spirits are low. Some are in forced isolation because of illness.”
Lord, help. These French papists, considered enemies of the crown, weren’t even of the same religion. Yet the king expected Virginia to host such a number? And deepen the almshouse woes besides?
“How long must you help them?”
“I cannot say. ’Tis another of the king’s edicts that brook no argument.” Miss Grove’s tone turned entreating. “Might you acquire some meat for us in the meantime? Even bones will do. Something with which to make broth and feed many.”
“Of course. I’ll speak with the butchers in York.”
“And pray, please, that we aren’t beset with sickness like last season. With the cold came fevers and every imaginable malady, more than the physic could remedy, if we can even get a physic to come.”
“Perhaps a visit to the apothecary would help, to have a supply of medicines beforehand.”
Miss Grove’s lined face eased only slightly. “’Twould be most welcome, as always.”
“You’re in no danger of running low on firewood, thankfully.” Esmée had seen growing woodpiles deftly stacked all about the property. “Though a coal stove would be warmer, at least in the dining hall.”
“We’ve plenty to warm us, thanks to the men’s woodcutting. Coal is a luxury few can afford.”
“’Tis never amiss to hope . . . dream.” Esmée spoke softly, wanting to lift the discouragement in Miss Grove’s beleaguered face. “I’ve no doubt you’re in need of something yourself, carrying the weight of the women and children as you do.”
“Mercy, Miss Shaw.” The woman’s surprise revealed she thought little of herself. A hand went to her hair. “A new cap wouldn’t be amiss. This one is so worn it’s now threadbare.”
Two caps, then. Esmée bid her a warm goodbye, wishing she’d thought of it sooner.
“Take care, Miss Shaw, and God be with you till we meet again.”
A barefoot lad fetched Minta. Esmée stepped atop the mounting block and sat sidesaddle. The biting autumn air did her good. She rode out with a last look at the forlorn French encampment before her thoughts ran ahead to Henri.
Nay. The captain is a conundrum I can do without.
’Twas only her aloneness, her loneliness, that sharpened her interest in him. Was it not? Just when she’d adjusted to life without him, made a resigned peace with his absence, he’d reappeared, renewing her girlish hopes and dreams. Alas, she’d soon turn thirty. Henri was older still. Yet when he was near, all the years seemed to slip away and she felt young again. And he was, if possible, even more intriguing than he used to be.
Or had her own spinsterish ways simply deepened her appreciation of him?
Restlessness churned like a current inside her. She felt on the cusp of something new, though she knew not what. Surely it wasn’t in the form of a privateer with a questionable reputation.
Lord, what is it You have for me beyond the almshouse and chocolate shop?
CHAPTER
twenty
Henri’s most trusted men, recently returned from shore leave, sat before him in a semicircle at the ordinary’s corner table. Despite Hermes’s screeching and Mistress Saltonstall’s robust chatter with a patron in the open doorway, he wasted no time telling them the latest turn of events.
“I have a recent communication from the frontier, sent by Colonel Washington to Governor Dinwiddie.” Henri took out the letter given him, a sad testament to how the frontier fight with the French and Indians was faring, at least at the time the letter was penned. He held the letter aloft as he read, “‘Regular troops exposed all those who were inclined to do their duty to almost certain death; and at length, in despite of every effort to the contrary, broke and ran as sheep before hounds, leaving the artillery, ammunition, provision, baggage, and in short everything a prey to the enemy, and when we endeavored to rally them in hopes of regaining the ground and what we had left upon it, it was with as little success as if we had attempted to have stopped the wild beasts of the mountains.’”
“Colonel Washington is referring to British regulars,” Southack said with thinly veiled disgust. “Not Virginians.”
“Aye, the king’s army,” Henri said. He read on in confirmation. “‘The Virginia companies behaved like men and died like soldiers.’”
“And Braddock, the white-wigged general, was buried overmountain in an unmarked grave, so I heard.” Udo shook his dark head. “Is this not Washington’s third attempt to rout the French and take Fort Duquesne?”
“Aye.” Henri nodded and folded the letter, noting the broken black seal. “And now the French general Montcalm is said to be on his way here.”
“Which led to much ado in Williamsburg with the governor’s council,” Tarbonde surmised, his astute gaze holding Henri’s own. “Have you made your decision, sir?”