Stranger in Williamsburg Read online

  “Sorry,” Abigail muttered sulkily, adjusting her ribbons.

  Sarah ignored her, and went on brushing Megan’s curls.

  “You look beautiful, ‘Gail!” Megan comforted her sister. “And your dress isn’t so very old, ‘cause I remember you got it to wear to the Randolph’s party just before Sarah came.”

  Abigail glared at her, and flounced out of the room with a rustle of pink silk. Sarah supposed Abigail was still upset because Sarah had a new dress and Abigail didn’t. But Abigail knew Sarah hadn’t had anything but rough linsey-woolsey for over a year. Anyway, her jealousy didn’t give her any reason to be rude to Megan.

  Sarah gave the sad-looking little girl a quick hug. “You look beautiful yourself, Miss Meggie,” she said, taking her hand and swinging it between them as they followed the rest of the family out the door and down the street to church.

  The church bells sounded the call to worship as Sarah entered the Armstrong pew behind Abigail. Megan, last in line, closed the door to the four-foot wooden walls that surrounded the family pew. Though Sarah could look up and see the rector in his pulpit high on their right, sitting down, she could see only the tops of people’s heads in the closed pews around them.

  Remembering Marcus’s comment the night before, she searched the north balcony on her left, but could not distinguish his face from among other dark faces up there.

  Sarah spread the skirts of her new dress over the red cushion, and turned to smile at Abigail out of the joy of being alive.

  Abigail rolled her blue eyes and turned to watch the organist and his assistant take their places down front, where the pipes of the organ rose tall and straight to the vaulted ceiling. Then, apparently feeling superior in her knowledge, she nudged Sarah and whispered, “That’s Peter Pelham, the gaoler. I used to take harpsichord lessons from him.”

  “The gaoler?” Sarah whispered back in surprise.

  “Yes, but he’s a much better musician than he is a gaoler. He gets drunk and lets prisoners escape. Pa says he may have to be removed someday. But he needs the job.” She nodded toward a front pew where a woman followed by many children was being seated. “That’s his wife, Ann, and the survivors of their fourteen children.”

  Sarah watched until the Pelhams crowded into their pew and shut the door, then she turned her attention to the gray-haired man seated at the organ. “Who’s that with him?” she whispered to Abigail.

  Abigail shrugged. “Oh, just one of his prisoners. He brings one almost every Sunday to pump the organ for him.”

  “Girls!” Aunt Charity warned then to be quiet with a harsh whisper.

  Sarah settled back in the seat, prepared to listen to the rector’s sermon, but it was long and dry. Finally, she gave up and let her eyes roam around the building, taking in what she could see of it above the pew walls. Abigail said the walls were to keep them warm in the winter in the unheated church.

  Finally, the service was over, and they filed out to the churchyard, where Abigail met some friends, and Tabitha stood watching for Seth Coler to leave the building with Josiah Chowning and his family. Apparently, Seth lived with the Chownings.

  Standing against the brick wall that surrounded the churchyard, Sarah saw the girl who had sold her the tin cup of apple juice. She smiled, and the girl smiled back, showing her missing tooth. Sarah realized she didn’t know the girl’s name. She walked past scattered white gravestones to where she stood beside a raised, flat tombstone.

  “I’m Sarah Moore,” she said. “I’m from Kentucky, but I’m staying with….”

  “Colonel Armstrong’s family,” the girl finished. “Everybody knows that! I’m Betsy, and I’m indentured to the Chownings.”

  “Indentured?” Sarah repeated. “What’s that?”

  Betsy laughed, again showing the gap where her tooth had been. “That means the Chownings paid my passage over here from Ireland, and I have to work for them until I pay them back. I was ten when I came, and my contract’s for seven years, so I’ve only got five more to go!”

  The girl had been a servant at the tavern since she was ten years old, and she would be seventeen before she was free! It sounded like a hard life to Sarah, but Betsy didn’t seem daunted by it. “I had a friend named Betsy once,” Sarah said, changing the subject.

  Betsy smiled her contagious gap-toothed smile. “Have you still got your pretty little tin cup?”

  “Yes, I do,” Sarah said. “I have it hidden in a safe place.”

  “There are no safe places anymore,” the girl said sadly. “My brother’s gone off to the army, and all we hear from the men congregating at the tavern is war, war, war! Seth Coler, too! I look for him to take off to join the army any day! I ain’t no Tory, but I wish this blasted war was over!”

  “I have a brother fighting up north somewhere,” Sarah said sympathetically, “and I wish it were over too!”

  “Sarah, it’s time to go!” Aunt Charity called, motioning for her to join them.

  Betsy gave her a sassy grin. “They don’t want you hobnobbing with the likes o’ me,” she said. She leaned closer. “Bet she won’t let you come near Chownings’, neither!” Betsy walked off to follow the Chownings out the gate, leaving Sarah standing there with her mouth open.

  “You can’t associate with the servants of Williamsburg, Sarah!” Abigail scolded as they walked home. “You have embarrassed us all to no end!”

  “Did you see your sister standing there dreaming over Seth Coler? Isn’t he a servant of the Chownings?” Sarah replied.

  Abigail stared at her, then picked up her skirts and swished them haughtily. “Seth is an apprentice, not a servant,” she said. “He works to learn a trade. He may not make much money now, but he will own a tavern someday. And, if Tabitha has anything to do with it, it will be a respectable place to take your family for a meal. Of course, he wouldn’t suit me,” she went on, “but Tabby has no higher ambitions, so let her have him! Me, I’ve got bigger fish to fry!”

  “Have you got him picked out, yet, Abigail?” Sarah asked. “And does he know he’s destined for the frying pan?”

  “Him?” Abigail snapped, glaring at her. “I plan to own things in my own right. I won’t depend on some husband to tell me what I can have and what I can’t have! Maybe I’ll own a milliner’s shop, like Gabrielle Gordon,” she went on, “or a jeweler’s shop, like the Golden Ball. And I’ll have indentured servants working for me! How do you like that, Cousin Sarah?”

  “I still don’t see why I can’t be friends with Betsy,” Sarah said doggedly. “She seems nice, and she has the friendliest smile I’ve ever seen. Anyway, didn’t you hear what the rector said this morning about God loving the world so much that He gave his only begotten Son so that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life?”

  Abigail stared at her blankly. “What’s that got to do with Betsy?”

  “Well, what if Betsy believes in Jesus? Will you and Aunt Charity stick your noses in the air and walk right past her on the streets of heaven without so much as a ‘good morning,’ just because she once was a servant?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Sarah!” Abigail snapped, picking up her skirts and hurrying to catch up with her mother and sisters.

  She never did answer my question, Sarah thought. It was hard to understand how some people felt about other human beings, who, except for circumstances they could not control, were just like them. What was it that Uncle Ethan had framed and hanging on the parlor wall? “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

  Would Uncle Ethan pass Betsy by, too? He was a part of the freedom movement, but he was a Virginian, just like Aunt Charity and Abigail.

  Sarah remembered the way people from all backgrounds had mingled in Kentucky. Station in life didn’t seem to matter when your life depended on the marksmanship of the person next to you in the fort, or on some former servant’s willingness to share with you when you ran out of supplies.

  “I reckon I’m more of
a Kentuckian than I thought!” Sarah said aloud. She met Abigail’s raised eyebrows with a grin every bit as sassy as Betsy’s.

  Chapter 6

  Each evening since Aunt Charity had announced her arrangement with the tutor, Sarah had taken a walk down Nicholson to where it joined Waller Street. She had stood there, staring at the milliner’s front door, willing it to open.

  “Why are we standing here watching that brown house?” Megan had asked on one of the evenings Sarah had not been able to escape the house without her. “You said we would catch fireflies on the Palace Green, Sarah,” she had added, tugging at Sarah’s hand impatiently. And, reluctantly, Sarah had let the little girl lead her back the way they had come, toward the street in front of the Governor’s Palace.

  One evening, though, the blue door to the brown house had opened, and Gabrielle had come out. She stood a moment on the front stoop, her white dress fluffed out around her like a giant althea blossom. Her dark, coppery hair picked up a faint glow from the young moon as she turned and said something to someone inside the house. In a moment, she was joined by a gentleman who took her arm and guided her down the walk.

  “Is that her, Sarah?” Megan asked excitedly. “Your new tootler?”

  “Shhh!” Sarah had cautioned, and they had watched until the couple disappeared into the shadows past Christiana Campbell’s Tavern. Then she had turned to Megan and hugged her. “Yes, that’s our new tutor. Isn’t she beautiful?”

  Megan’s nod was barely visible to Sarah in the growing dusk. “Who’s that man with her, Sarah? Is that her husband?”

  Sarah shook her head uncertainly. “I don’t know, Meggie. I don’t think she has a husband.”

  “Maybe he’s her free-and-say! Tabby lives for the day when she can have a free-and-say.”

  Sarah laughed and tousled the little girl’s curls. “Fiance,” she corrected. “And Tabitha lives for the day she can marry Seth Coler. I think she’d skip the whole engagement process if Aunt Charity would let her. And if Seth were willing!” she added.

  “Well, then, maybe he’s just a gentleman collar. I heard Ma say that Miz Barne’s daughter had a gentleman collar last Sunday. What’s a gentleman collar, anyway, Sarah?” Megan asked seriously.

  “Gentleman ‘caller,’ Meggie! What in the world am I going to do with you?” she said, laughing again. Then she turned to look back to where Gabrielle had disappeared in the darkness. “But anybody as lovely as Gabrielle Gordon may have a dozen gentlemen callers, I suppose,” she sighed, taking Megan’s hand and starting home.

  Most evenings, though, as Sarah watched from the corner, the milliner—if she came out at all—either walked alone over to Christiana Campbell’s and disappeared inside, or she walked on down around the corner toward the other taverns.

  Now, the day had finally come when they would be going to her house for lessons! Sarah was up and dressed before Tabitha and Abigail had even stirred. Either they had forgotten about today, she decided, or it didn’t mean as much to them as it did to her.

  Sarah had thought of little else since Aunt Charity had announced her arrangement with the tutor, and she could hardly contain herself now through breakfast and morning chores.

  Finally, Aunt Charity called them into the parlor and began to give them instructions. They must not talk to strangers; they must go straight to the milliner’s; they must not walk on the side of the street in front of the gaol; and, above all, they must not say anything at all about Mr. Armstrong’s comings and goings.

  Having assured her they would commit none of these unpardonable sins, the three girls set off together for Waller Street and their first morning of being tutored by Gabrielle Gordon.

  “I want to hear all about the latest fashions from Paris, and I want to learn some French words that my friends won’t understand,” Abigail planned.

  “Oh, ‘Gail, you mustn’t show off so!” Tabitha scolded. “I want to learn how to run a proper household, accounts and everything. And how to give a dinner party. And how to write proper formal invitations.”

  “Aunt Charity could teach you all those things, Tabby,” Sarah broke in. “Don’t you want to know about the big world out there? About cities like Paris, where Gabrielle is from, or Philadelphia or Boston, where your pa goes so often but won’t say a word about them?”

  “Not really,” Tabitha answered seriously. “I just want to know….”

  “…how to capture and tame the wild and wonderful Seth Coler!” Abigail intoned sarcastically, with one hand held daintily out to her side, and the other holding her skirts as she curtsied deeply. “That’s all you think about Tabitha Armstrong! I declare, you make me absolutely ill!”

  Tabitha just smiled serenely, crossed the street to obey Aunt Charity’s orders about passing the gaol, and walked on around the corner.

  “Why is your mother so afraid for us to walk past the gaol?” Sarah asked Abigail. “Isn’t Peter Pelham the gaoler? We see him every Sunday playing the organ at Bruton Parish Church.”

  “Yes,” Abigail answered, “but as Hester says, ‘He has a fondness for the wine when it is red in the cup.’ Too many prisoners under his care have escaped.”

  Sarah recalled the hard-looking man who had accompanied the gaoler to church last Sunday. She shivered, and quickly crossed the street.

  Tabitha was waiting for them at the end of Waller Street. “You already know her, Sarah,” she said. “You go first and introduce us.”

  All at once, Sarah felt her strength drain right out through her feet. What would she say? Would she be as tongue-tied as she had been the day she met Gabrielle?

  Just then, the door to the milliner’s shop opened, and Gabrielle appeared on the stoop. “Ah, Cherie, you are here!” she exclaimed. “And you have brought the charming Armstrong cousins! Welcome! Come in, and let us get acquainted.”

  Awkwardly, Sarah made the introductions, and the girls followed their new tutor inside the house. Gabrielle led them through the crowded shop into a parlor behind it, where they saw four chairs grouped around a small, round table set for tea.

  Sarah knew from the looks on their faces that her cousins were as enchanted with the room and its delicate furnishings as she was. From the graceful folds of the curtains to the white tablecloth trimmed with the curtains’ dainty flowered fabric, to the small enameled gold and white clock on the mantel, the room was as elegant and charming as its owner.

  “Come, mesdemoiselles, let us sit down and learn the proper way to prepare and serve a tea, non?” She waved a graceful hand toward the curved chairs around the table, and Sarah set the example by obeying instantly.

  Soon, all three girls were old hands at serving a proper tea, except for pouring hot tea from the flowered pot into the matching cups.

  “The trick is to do it gracefully, but keep up an interesting conversation so that the act of pouring is hardly noticed. And never, never allow a drop to spill,” Gabrielle cautioned. “That is the ultimate faux pas, Cherie!” she told Abigail, who hastened to dab with a napkin at a small wet spot forming under the spout.

  “Ah, don’t worry,” Gabrielle laughed softly at their looks of dismay, for each of them had been guilty of the so-called “faux pas.” “We shall practice many, many times. And when we are finished, you will be the most gracious hostesses in all of America! Just like the admirable and indomitable Charity Armstrong, your mother and aunt. I promise!”

  She glanced at the clock, and rose from her chair. “It is nearly time for the noonday meal, and Madame Armstrong made it very clear that you would be expected home for that. So our lessons are over for the day. I will see all of you tomorrow morning, oui?”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am,” they chorused, rising hastily and moving toward the door.

  Abigail barely waited until the door shut behind them before exclaiming, “What a beautiful creature! What elegant airs and movements she has! How graceful! I think I’ll do my hair like hers. And I wonder what Ma would say if I painted my nails?”

  “S
he’d skin you alive,” Tabitha answered, “so get the thought out of your mind!” She sighed. “She is lovely, isn’t she? And what taste she uses in decorating her home! I hope she will teach us how she does it!”

  Sarah nodded, already grieving over having to share her precious Gabrielle. She wanted to keep Gabrielle all to herself. Sarah wasn’t worried about Tabitha. She only coveted a close relationship with Seth Coler. But, likely as not, Abigail would push her way between them, taking more than her fair share of Gabrielle, as she did of everything else.

  Still, Aunt Charity wasn’t likely to have let her come for tutoring by herself, especially since Abigail and Tabitha needed a tutor, also.

  Oh, well, Sarah thought, as they neared the Armstrong house. She would just make the best of it and take advantage of any opportunity to be alone with Gabrielle. And she vowed she would be the best pupil Gabrielle had ever known.

  In no time, it seemed, the four weeks were up, and Aunt Charity tested their newly acquired skills.

  “I am pleased,” she said at last. “You have learned a great deal in a short time. We will continue your tutoring with Miss Gordon.”

  Sarah let out the breath she had been holding, joined hands with Tabitha and Abigail, and they danced happily around the room.

  “Girls! Girls!” Aunt Charity’s voice cut through their merriment. “You will cause me to change my mind!”

  Sarah dropped instantly into a chair, but Abigail, with a saucy grin, protested, “But it’s a new dance our tutor taught us!”

  Aunt Charity smiled a thin smile, then went on with plans for future lessons. “I want to change your schedule from morning to afternoon, if that is agreeable with Miss Gordon. Your being away at the busiest time of the day is working a hardship on Hester and me.”

  She turned to Tabitha and Abigail. “You know your father has decided that money we once used to hire extra help can better be used for….” She hesitated. “…for another purpose. And with two such capable young ladies in the house—and now three, with you here, Sarah—he is right, I am sure.” She stood up. “Sarah run down and tell Miss Gordon that you won’t be there this morning, but I will call on her this afternoon to arrange a new schedule.”