Scouring pots, changing Tommy’s clout, cleaning lamps and chamber pots, sweeping and making the beds that were Abigail’s portion of the housework—all that was one thing. Abigail’s conscience, if not precisely clear on the subject of pursuing her search for Rebecca while Pattie was left home doing all the work, could at least be salved by the reflection that because the girl’s parents had too many children and not enough money, Abigail was in fact providing Pattie with an alternative to labor still harder and more degrading.

But there were no two ways around laundry.

It should have been done last week, when Abigail was wandering around the countryside with young Thaxter and listening to hysterical sermons delivered by the Hand of the Lord. With winter weather threatening, there was no way to tell when it would become impossible to wash the vast and accumulating quantities of shirts, chemises, dish clouts, and rough-rinsed baby dresses. As she and Pattie drew quantities of water from the well, tended the fire under the cauldrons in the yard, and filled tubs with water and lye, Abigail thought despairingly, Forgive me, Rebecca . . .

We are women, and bound as women are bound, to the labor of caring for those they love.

Curiously, the suspicion that had formed in her heart gave her a strange hope. If she’s being held captive in the Tillets’ attic (madness! surely madness!) she at least is safe as long as Mrs. Tillet’s supply of shirts holds out . . .

Tommy tried to eat one of Johnny’s toy soldiers and nearly choked. Charley and Johnny decided they were Indians and ambushed Nabby with clubs of firewood. Messalina threw up a hairball into the drawer of clean shirts.

More wood. More lye. More shirts.

John put in the briefest possible appearance for a dinner of roast pork and apples, then vanished to meet Sam and the others. After cleaning the dishes, scouring the pans, sweeping and washing the kitchen floor, and checking the fires under the cauldrons in the yard, Abigail changed her cap and assembled a dinner for Orion and his mother. “You,” she ordered Pattie, “sit down and crochet or something until I get back. I refuse to have you turn a hand at the laundry until I’m here to help you.”

“Yes, m’am. No, m’am.”

A servant is worthy of his hire—Heaven only knew what riches were Pattie’s true worth, if anyone had that kind of treasure to pay her with.

The printshop on Hanover Street was closed. The girl Damnation was in the keeping room, stolidly cleaning lamps that obviously hadn’t been cleaned in days and should have been scoured that morning: She’ll have the house aflame if the soot in them catches fire, Abigail reflected.

Mr. Hazlitt wasn’t in. Hadn’t been in since early morning. Did Damnation know where Mr. Hazlitt might have gone? No, m’am.