Lyddie spent the night with Diana. Everyone was kind. Diana had her family at last. Then why had something snapped like a broken warp thread inside Lyddie’s soul? Wasn’t she happy for Diana? Surely, surely she was—happy and greatly relieved. “You must write to Brigid and tell her you are fine, ey?” Lyddie said as they parted the next morning. “She can read now, and she worries.”

*  *  *

It rained all the way through New Hampshire, a steady, wearying drizzle. Lyddie rode inside the coach. There was only one other passenger, an old man who took no notice of her. She was grateful because she cried most of the way. She, tough-as-gristle Lyddie, her face in her handkerchief, her head turned toward the shaded window. But the tumult that had raged inside her damped down more and more as though beat into the muddy earth under the horses’ hooves. When they finally crossed the bridge into Vermont, the sun came out and turned the leafless trees into silver against the deep green of the evergreen on the mountain slopes. The air was clean and cold, the sky blue, more like a bright day at winter’s end than November.

23

Vermont, November 1846

One more night along the way and the sky had turned into the underside of a thick quilt. The coachman pressed the team, eager to get to the next stop before the snow began to fall. It was nearly dusk when the coach took the final dash around the curve in the road that brought it to the door of Cutler’s Tavern.

Nothing had changed except herself. At first Triphena pretended not to recognize her at all—“this grand lady come from the city of looms and spindles.” But soon the game was over, and the old cook gave her a warm embrace and drew her to a seat by the giant fireplace.

“I would’ve thought you’d have a cook stove by now,” Lyddie said half teasing, as she looked around the familiar kitchen.

“Not while I’m cook here,” Triphena said fiercely. “I reckon everyone has those monstrosities in the city, ey?”

“They work fine. We had one at the boardinghouse.”

Triphena sniffed. “They’ll do, maybe, for those who ain’t real cooks.” She handed Lyddie a cup of her boiled coffee, thick with cream and maple sugar. “So you’re for a visit home, ey?”

Lyddie was brought back with a pang to her present state. “I’ve left the factory,” she said, “for good.”

“So it’s back to the farm, is it?”

“My uncle sold it.”

“But what of your poor mother and the little ones?”

“Mama died,” Lyddie said. There was no need to tell Triphena where. “And baby Agnes as well.”

“Oh, dear,” said Triphena softly.