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Back The Ninth Daughter
Chapters (37)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Dedication
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-one
  25. Twenty-two
  26. Twenty-three
  27. Twenty-four
  28. Twenty-five
  29. Twenty-six
  30. Twenty-seven
  31. Twenty-eight
  32. Twenty-nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-one
  35. Thirty-two
  36. Thirty-three
  37. Thirty-four

Gomer herself clung alternately to Abigail and Lieutenant Coldstone, shivering and wiping her nose with her fingers. “Just don’t let her lock me up again. There’s rats at night, sir, m’am, big ’uns, and they talks to me. I’ll sew for you all you want m’am, sir, just don’t let her whip me again.” She was clearly, as Orion Hazlitt had said of his servant girl Damnation, “lacking.” She couldn’t recall the names of her parents other than Ma and Pa, but said that she’d lived with one family and another in the farms around Medford, the most recent being that of Nehemiah Tillet’s sister and brother-in-law. “They hit me now and now, but they didn’t lock me up. Let me sleep in the cowshed. I like cows, m’am. I takes good care of ’em . . .

“She and that man”—she pointed to Tillet—“come to my uncle Reb’s wedding, and Uncle Reb and Miss Eliza, they said they had to go away, and I couldn’t come with ’em—”

“Someone had to look after the girl,” protested Tillet. “My wife was unsatisfied with the woman then helping her with sewing for the shop—”

Like the crippled boy turning the spinning wheel at Moore’s Farm out in Essex County, reflected Abigail sadly. Handed off, to provide labor to whoever would support him. At least Kemiah Moore and his wife appeared to be willing to feed that boy the same rations they gave their own family, and let him sit among the kitchen’s distractions. But maybe, her darker soul whispered, that was only because he was incapable of wandering away.

“An unfortunate story,” said Coldstone, as they walked back along Fish Street in the gathering dusk. “But not a new one.”

“A letter to Medford will yield more information on the subject,” said Abigail. Her head ached—she prayed Pattie had made some kind of dinner for John and the children, and had thought to save some for her—and she felt infinitely tired. Though she knew Mrs. Tillet’s spew of invective had been simply that—the vomiting forth of a poisoned mind—she felt as if she were physically smeared with filth every time the young Lieutenant turned his eyes upon her. “I do beg your pardon, Lieutenant.”

“For using the King’s authority as it should be used?” he asked. “As a tool to protect those incapable of protecting themselves?” He glanced back at Gomer, walking between Sergeant Muldoon and Trooper Yarrow, seemingly oblivious that her ankles were exposed by the hem of Queenie’s borrowed dress. “What will you do with her? She’s obviously incapable of looking after herself.”

“I’ll write to my father,” said Abigail. “He’s the pastor at Weymouth, across the bay to the south. He’ll know a good family who can take her in and will treat her decently. She seems willing enough to work.”