The Heretic's Daughter: A Novel - By Kathleen Kent Page 0,43

the ground to wave to him. He was studying the fields, one hand cupped over his forehead, hiding his eyes against the light. The corners of his mouth pursed and turned downwards, as though he had chewed on something bitter. But when he saw me, he smiled cheerfully and called out, “Here, then, is my other twin.”

I held tight his fingers and led him into the house like a prized captive. Mother had been stripping corn and stood quickly, shedding silk from her skirt in a storm of green and yellow. She did not like work-a-day surprises.

She frowned and asked, “What brings you to Andover, brother?”

Uncle replied, smiling, “Sister, it’s been a long, hot ride. A glass of cool water would be welcome.” When she turned her back for a cup, he winked at me. He drank quickly and said, “It appears you have prospered at your mother’s house. How fares your homestead in Billerica?”

“You would know better than I, brother, as you have probably only just come from there. And as you see, we have been here in Andover working.”

There was silence as they took the measure of each other, and then Uncle said, taking a different tack, as a ship will do when facing an imminent squall, “Mary sends her loving regards and hopes to visit soon . . . when the climate is not so heated.”

“The weather here may stay hot for some time. But my sister is always welcome. It seems, though, that she may be the last one of your family who will come.”

Uncle said, shaking his head, “I fear my son made bad a visit that I had hoped would bring us to greater felicity as a family.”

Mother laughed through her nose. She stood at the table, her arms crossed below her chest, and said nothing.

“I was hoping,” he continued carefully, “that we might come to an . . . agreement. Perhaps some sort of recompense regarding your mother’s property. It was to Mary, and in turn to Allen, that the land was to go.”

“All that has changed. On her deathbed my mother placed in our hands the care of the land. And this house.”

“Be that as it may, as a physician I know full well what delusions may be brought about by a fever of the brain. It may be that your mother was not in her proper mind when she made those promises. Or perhaps her intentions were . . . misunderstood.” He said the last without adding extra weight to the words, but it hit the mark nonetheless.

Mother uncrossed her arms and took on the look of a river mink poised over a trout bed. “It is of note to me that you would recall your claims as a physician. We could have put it to good use during the fourteen days I spent caring for my mother. Wiping the pus from her weeping sores and changing the bedclothes at every hour when she had the bloody flux. In truth, it surprises me you didn’t hear her screams all the way to Billerica.”

“Sarah,” Uncle said, turning suddenly to me, “I have brought something for you from Margaret. Go and fetch it from my saddle.”

I ran from the room into the yard and let Bucephalus sniff at my arm so that he would know me again. I reached into the saddle pack and pulled from it a small square of muslin. It had been cross-stitched in neat rows of letters surrounded by a colorful border. I brought the small bit of cloth to my face and breathed in Margaret’s scent. She had only just touched the muslin, perhaps a few hours before. I read the letters carefully, teasing out the words from Proverbs. “A friend loves at all times.” Of course she had not finished the verse, for it reads in sum, “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” A remembrance of Allen’s sour face came to mind along with the smell of charring wheat. I sat on the doorstep with Margaret’s sampler tucked into the bodice of my dress and listened to the muffled voices coming from the house. I could not hear the words but I could feel the thrust and weight of them, Uncle’s placating voice countering the more strident tone of my mother. He worked like a potter trying to cool a hot mold of sand and potash into a vessel for use. But sometimes even the most careful of handling will