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.“No.No, she hasn’t.” Again his eyes avoided hers.And little wonder, reflected Abigail, annoyed.From the first time she’d visited Rebecca here, she’d suspected that Tillet lusted after her friend.This was no great surprise, given Mrs.Tillet’s aggressively unpleasant nature—for the past eighteen months, every time she’d come by to visit, Mr.Tillet had found some excuse to knock on Rebecca’s door, with advice, or to share some snippet from a newspaper or church business.“He’s worse than Charles,” Rebecca had said, more than once, exasperated.“He wants to know who my friends are, and whom I visit.I used to think Mrs.T.put him up to it, to see if she could squeeze another five minutes’ work out of me, sewing those wretched shirts the customers pay her for.The way he looks at me—” She’d grimaced.“I can’t well push him out of the house, since he owns it.And I would rather be here, and put up with the pair of them,” she’d added, when Abigail had shown signs of walking across the yard and giving Mr.Tillet a piece of her mind, “than go back to Charles.”Reluctantly, Abigail had agreed.Between Charles Malvern’s vindictiveness, and the general Boston attitude that a woman who left her husband must have done so from a preference for profligacy, it had been difficult enough for Rebecca to find a place to live where she might ply any trade other than prostitution.Sewing endless mountains of shirts for Mrs.Tillet and attending three sermons every Sunday at the New Brick Meeting-House were part of what she had to do, to go on living in her little house.“May we go back there?” John asked now.“There’s naught to be seen,” Tillet responded immediately.“The boys coming through after the soldiers, they’ve tracked all up, and carried away what they could, belike.”“Mrs.Malvern is our friend,” persisted Abigail.“If nothing else, we’d like to—”“There’s naught back there.” Mrs.Hester Tillet emerged from the back parlor of the shop, a woman of commanding height and substantial girth, with arms like a stonecutter’s from a lifetime of carrying bolts of cloth.“Nor will there be.’Twas the last straw, and I’d had enough of her weeks ago.Disobliging, lazy slut, always finding some reason why she couldn’t do a little of the work she contracted to do as part of us giving her the place so cheap.If I can turn out a handsome shirt in an hour it’s sure anyone can, who puts their mind to it, and nobody needs more than a few hours’ sleep at night: I certainly don’t.And now she’s run off, and left me with twenty orders to fill.I’ve had enough, and will have no more.”“You can’t turn her out for what happened!” protested Abigail, and Mrs.Tillet turned upon her, arms akimbo and jaw protruding like a bulldog getting ready to bite.“So you’re telling me what I can do with my own property now, Mrs.Adams? Well, I’m telling you, I can’t and won’t put up with a woman who brings such friends onto my property the minute our backs are turned, to murder one another and bring the whole neighborhood tramping through.We have a position to uphold in our church and in this community, and we won’t stand for it.” And, seeing her husband looking wretched, she added, “Will we, Mr.Tillet?”“No.Of course not.”“The woman asked for what was coming to her and was asking for it for some time.I don’t wish to seem coldhearted, but I think we all know the difference between the trials that God sends to prove the righteous, and the deserved punishment that befalls those who deliberately put themselves in the way of sinners.”“Do you, Mrs.Tillet?” The stuffy air of the shop made Abigail’s head ache, and the woman’s grating voice was an iron file on her nerves.“I honor your wisdom, then, because that’s something I’ve never had the presumption to assume that I could determine—nor the callousness to withhold the benefit of the doubt.”She stalked from the shop, expecting John to follow her.He did not, and as the door closed behind her she heard his voice, quick and low, “You must excuse her.overwrought.closest of friends.” She was within an ace of turning back and asking how dared he take their side against her, but was too angry even for that.She strode as far as the corner of Cross Street, then stopped, her temper ebbing and leaving her feeling cold and rather drained.A few moments later she heard John’s step on the cobbles.In a marveling voice, he murmured, “You’ve never withheld the benefit of the doubt?”“Only from those who don’t deserve it,” she retorted.Then, blushed.“Thank you for covering my retreat.The woman never fails to enrage me, and I won’t say my words were uncalled-for because they were called-for.but I would shake poor Nabby to pieces if she’d said them.I don’t know what got into me.I must go back and apologize.”“If you make the attempt I shall put you over my shoulder and carry you bodily home.” John took her elbow, guided her firmly in the direction of Queen Street.“I stayed only to keep Mrs.Tillet from following you into the street and pulling your hair out.Send her a note tomorrow, when she’ll have cooled down—except that I don’t think she ever cools down.As to what got into you,” he added grimly, “after this morning’s events, I’m astonished you’re not in bed with the vapors.I asked if I could come next week and collect Rebecca’s things—”“You can’t let her—” Furious, she tried to turn back, and John’s hand tightened on her arm.“I can’t very well stop her from doing what she is determined to do.What I can do is keep her from selling them at a slopshop.She said she’d have them ready for me.”“After taking out what she considers she’s entitled to in payment of rent,” Abigail grumbled.“Secure in the knowledge that with so many strangers tramping through, the absence of this little thing or that, can be blamed on others and not herself [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]