“Why?” he demanded, hard eyes like little pebbles as they narrowed.
“I have missed her.” I said carefully, my voice meek as I recalled how explosively he’d previously met the request.
“Why? Do I not provide for your every need? Why would you need your mother as well?” he questioned hotly, voice becoming alarmingly aggressive.
I knew that I should stop the line of questioning, but my heart wouldn’t let me. My new found happiness had broken my will to be subservient beyond all reasoning.
“Perhaps having my family back in even the smallest measure might soften my womb,” I suggested slowly, watching him turn to look at me. In his eyes, I saw an emotion never present there before. Regret? Guilt?
“I do not know where your family is, Mary,” he admitted quickly, sitting up in bed and pulling his nightshirt over his sagging shoulders.
“Are they not in our family home?” I asked, terribly afraid of the answer.
“Your father was killed, Mary,” he told me bluntly, his voice cold.
“What?” I said, feeling the wind knocked out of me. I had decided long ago that my father was already dead to me, but his demise made me fear for my mother. “How?”
“Debtors killed him not long after we left,” he said, voice short. “He was hung naked from rafters of a pub, for all to see.”
I swallowed, willing the vision from my head. “But you paid his debt.”
“Look around here, Mary, does it look like I ever had the funds to pay off a gentleman’s debt?” his voice was cruel and mocking as he motioned around the humble space. “I hadn’t any money to my name that could have made a difference to his debt.
I told him I’d pay, but I did not.”
“You took me from my mother’s arms with a ruse and left my family for dead without me?” my voice trembled with rage and disbelief as I quickly covered my naked breasts so that his lying eyes could no longer ogle them lustfully.
“Your father was through and guaranteed a death sentence. What do you think would have happened to you when your father died in disgrace? You would have been sold into prostitution. I saved you from a life of being a cheap whore. You should be filled with gratitude!” he roared.
“But I am a whore,” I spat out. “With just one customer, and I work for room and board only.”
His eyes blazed as he pulled me up savagely by my nightgown, spraying spittle onto my face with his harsh words. “I’ve given you the best life you could have hoped for. You should give yourself to me happily.”
“I have given myself to you for years, but never happily. I get more pleasure from breaking down dead chickens.” I knew that I was flirting with death, but the revelation was too much and I found myself no longer caring.
In answer he pulled me out of bed and threw me to the floor, and rained his palms down onto my prone body. My only thought was to not make a sound so that Iris would not wake and find her mother, half-naked and bloodied on the floor, and then be in the eye of his wrath.
When his rage was spent, he drowned himself in drink, and I laid on the floor until I had the strength to dislodge a blanket from the bed onto my body. I could not move further and I drifted in and out of consciousness until the wee light of morning when Mr. Worthe slammed out of the house. Soon Malvina came in and rushed to me, gathering me up and heaving me onto the bed. I knew that her second sight had told her to come as she already had her bag of salves and medicinals.
She ministered to my wounds and coaxed my mouth open, forcing me to swallow one bitter brew after another, and by the time Iris emerged, sunny and bright, I was dressed and sitting painfully at the table.
I winced as she hugged me and thanked the heavens when she ate her porridge and then left to go cavort outside, ignorant to my injuries and the violence the night before.
Malvina sat next to me. “You know I have things to take care of husbands such as yours, child.”
“What are you saying, Malvina?” I asked, abandoning the porridge to search her dark eyes.
“We can solve this problem, child,” she told me conspiratorially, as she gathered my hand in hers. “We can make him a cake of Oleander and he shall trouble ye no more.”
“No,” I whispered, shocked by her words. “It’s murder.”
“He will eventually kill you, child. I have seen it.” Her voice was grave, and the veracity of her words carried to my unwilling ears. “You must strike first.”
“The law will have me, I cannot,” I shook my head, trying to erase the thought, feeling it instead burgeon into a tantalizing possibility. “Do not mention it again, Malvina.”
She nodded and got up to keep the house, brushing the concern from her face as she went about her duties.
Later that afternoon I met George in our spot, and brushed off his worry as he watched me limp to him.
“I need you to go to Boston and find my mother,” I pleaded. “Her name is Elizabeth Grant and I have written her last known address. I must know what has happened to her.”
He began to inquire and I just put up my hand to silence him. “Ask me no questions and do this with haste if you love me.”
He nodded and took his leave, as I leaned against the now barren tree, watching him gallop off.
Each night I tolerated Mr. Worthe, acting as sweetly as I could, and each day I went to the tree, outside the meadow. On the seventh day I found a note attached. George had
