Page 56 of Dark Tides
Mrs. Rose, the minister’s housekeeper, brought a letter for Ned out to the ferry-house as the burning sun cooled at the end of the day and there was finally some relief from the heat.
“I thank you for your trouble,” Ned said, surprised to see her.
“Mr. Russell was going to send one of the slaves, but I thought I’d take a walk,” she said, looking at the dog, and the garden, anywhere but Ned’s face. “Now that the sun’s going down and it’s a little cooler. Is it from your sister?”
“Yes,” he said, glancing at the handwriting. “Out of season. Usually she replies to my letter spring and autumn.”
“You write by the tides?” she asked. “Though you’re so far inland now?”
“The big moons,” he said. “I see them, and they remind me to write.”
“Well, I’ll leave you to read it,” she said, turning back towards town.
“No! Don’t go at once,” he invited her. “I’m so glad you came.”
“Well, I thought I would,” she said.
“Would you like a drink?” Ned indicated the path through the garden towards the river. “You could sit and take a drink? Sumach? Or milk? I’ve got milk?”
She hesitated, as if she would like to stay.
“Please,” Ned said. “Take a seat, watch the river, you don’t have to walk back straightaway, do you?”
“I can stay for a while,” she said cautiously, and took a seat.
Ned went inside and reappeared with two wooden beakers, beautifully carved, and a jug of sumach berry water. “Here,” he said, and poured her a cup.
She sipped. “Very good,” she said. “How long do you leave the berries to steep?”
“Overnight,” Ned replied.
“Are you not lonely out here?” she asked, watching the sudden turquoise flash of a kingfisher, low over the water, bright as a dragonfly.
“There’s always someone wanting the ferry,” he said. “Or with something to trade. And the dugouts pass by, quite often they stop to talk, or they have something to show me, or to sell, or a message they want me to tell someone coming after.”
She gave an exaggerated shudder. “You mean natives? I don’t know how you dare talk to them,” she said. “What messages can you carry for them? I’d be afraid.”
Ned found himself puffing up a little at her admiration. He checked himself. “We’re neighbors,” he said. “It’s right to be neighborly.”
“Not with them,” she contradicted him. “I came here to make a new England; not live like a savage.”
“I hoped for a new England too,” he said. He found himself looking for a common ground with this woman who held such strongopinions; but had never expressed them to him before. “One without masters or lords or even a king.”
Now she looked up at him with a smile. “You and me both know that you can get rid of a king, but there are always masters, and servants,” she said. “And even though we were well rid of one king, his son came back.”
“Pray he doesn’t come over here,” Ned said, hoping for a smile.
“We can trust the governor to keep us free of him, and his heresies. God’s law is greater than man’s—even a king’s—and we have our charter.”
“Amen,” Ned said politely, well aware that New England was righteously devout and the minister’s housekeeper more than most.
“But how do you cook here?” she demanded.
“As anyone does, over the fire. I’ve let it go out in this hot weather. I might light a little fire outside later, and roast a fish on a spit. I could catch another, if you’d like to stay.”
She hesitated. “I have to get back to cook dinner. Perhaps another time.”
Ned nodded.
