make sure he hadn’t come up on them. He hadn’t, but she whispered anyway. “You could divorce him and take me with you.”
Hester laughed. “And how many women have you seen in North Florida Colony with money enough to divorce a husband? As for taking you with me, I cannot, as you’re the purpose for the sale.”
There was a slight delay before the horror registered in Abby’s face. Hester softened her tone. “Abby,” she said. “Look at you. Even in these conditions, you are far the fairest maid in the colony. I do not wish you to think ill of me, abandoning you to such a harsh man.”
“Yet how can I not?”
“I have a plan.”
“What plan?”
“He will show you a softer side. Of this I’m certain. You won’t remember, but when he took us in, he was tolerant, even kind, at times. Of course I was young and pretty then. These days I vex him constantly, with my limp, my face, and frailty.”
“’Course I remember,” Abby said. “It was only a few years past. But he’s the one caused your limp! Your ‘face and frailty,’ as you put it, is a consequence of his constantly boxing your nose and eyes and cuffing your ears.”
Hester dabbed at the light sheen of sweat on her forehead. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”
“Truly? And what will I understand? How you let that swine of a man cuff you about and rut you day and night as if you were a crippled sow?”
Hester’s eyes blazed for a brief moment, and Abby hoped to receive a sharp rebuke or slap across the face. Any such response would show that her mother retained a measure of spirit. But the fire in Hester’s eyes quickly died, leaving behind only an apathetic stare. Instead of lashing out, she shrugged and said, “We suffer for our children, not ourselves.”
Abby frowned. “And what is that presumed to mean?”
Hester turned and started walking toward the creek. Abby followed, waiting for a response. She watched her mother scoop a handful of sand from the water’s edge and dump it in her chamber pot. Abby sighed, and did the same. They swirled the sand around the inside of the pots with their fingers, scrubbing and grinding it against the hardened fecal deposits. Then they rinsed the pots in the creek and inspected them.
Abby said, “Fine. Don’t tell me. But why can we not just leave this wretched man and his poor excuse for a house?”
“Leave? Has your brain been seized by vipers? Where would you have us go, child, Sinner’s Row?”
Abby knew her mother was right. There weren’t many pleasant options for women in North Florida Colony in 1710. She lowered her eyes and said, “I like not the way he looks at me.”
“He has looked at you that way for two full years, though you knew it not till now.”
The way Hester proclaimed it gave Abby pause. “Two years ago I was thirteen!”
“Aye, child,” Hester said. “Now ponder that fact a moment before speaking.”
Abby did. In the colonies, as in Europe, the minimum legal age for marriage had been twelve for girls, fourteen for boys, for as long as anyone could remember. Still, in Abby’s experience, it was outrageous to think of a forty-year-old man rutting a child. Then the weight of Hester’s words hit her and made Abby realize for the first time what had transpired in the man’s house. Her stomach lurched.
“You kept him from me these two years. That’s why you accepted these many beatings and ruts. You were protecting me.”
“Aye, child.”
They embraced and held each other for a long moment. When they separated, Hester said, “It was not your fault I chose a surly man.” Her free hand drifted absently to her face and touched the bumps at the bridge of her nose. “I did what I could to keep him off you these many months.”
“But now?”
Hester fixed her gaze on Abby’s eyes. “Now you’re fifteen, fully bloomed, and his desire to have you exceeds my ability to protest.”
Abby’s eyes widened. “So I’m to be your way out? You’re to have a new husband and I’m to be left here to rut the swine?”
“You’re young and strong and untouched. He’ll be nice to you for the duration.”
Abby was so busy trying to wrap her mind around her circumstance, she almost missed it.
“What duration?”
“Walk with me, child.”
They crossed the small clearing and stood close behind the privy, squinting their eyes against the foul odor. When she was absolutely certain her words would not be overheard, Hester whispered, “When Thomas Griffin buys me, I will set at once to acquire a vial of arsenic from his apothecary which I shall give to you. A few drops in your stepfather’s every meal will do the devil’s work within two months. And you will rise in station, inheriting his house and the proceeds of his business.”
“You cannot be serious. I’d have to marry him for this to be the legal result.”
“That may seem the worst part to you now, but on further reflection, you’ll find it a sound plan to help you become a young woman of property.”
Abby had no intention of reflecting thus. In fact, she had plans of her own, that she had never discussed with her mother. But something her mother had said didn’t sit right with her.
