“Zeb doesn’t need your help,” said his mother. “Stay where you are and finish your lesson.”
Marcus’s face fell. He didn’t much feel like reading. He wanted to go to the barn and march up and down the center aisle to Zeb’s commands, playing at soldier and hiding behind the water trough when the enemy pursued him.
His mother hurried out of the room after his father, who had left the front door open to the elements.
“Mind that Patience doesn’t fall out of her cradle,” she told Marcus as she took her shawl down from a peg and left the house.
Marcus stared glumly at his sister. Patience sucked on her fist, which was shiny with spittle and bright red from the constant gnawing.
His sister would make a terrible soldier. Marcus brightened.
“Do you want to be my prisoner?” Marcus whispered, kneeling by the cradle. Patience cooed her assent. “All right, then. You stay where you are. No moving. And no complaining. Or you’ll be flogged.”
Marcus rocked the cradle gently, lessons forgotten, and imagined himself in a cave in the woods, waiting for his commanding officer to arrive and praise him for his valor.
* * *
—
“YOU MUST HAVE BEEN up all night with the commotion, and the traffic between town and the burying ground.” Old Madam Porter put a small cup and saucer on the table at his mother’s elbow. Marcus could see the wallpaper, blue as the spring sky, through the eggshell-thin cup.
Madame Porter’s house was one of the finest in Hadley. It had smooth wooden paneling and brightly colored paint as well as patterned wallpaper. The chairs were carved and padded for comfort. The windows opened up in the new way, not out like the old casements at their house. Marcus loved to visit—not least because there was usually Madeira cake studded with currants and spread with jam.
Marcus counted to five before his mother reached for the tea. Chaunceys didn’t gobble their food or behave as though they couldn’t remember their last meal.
Something poked Marcus in the ribs.
It was a wooden whirligig, and Miss Anna Porter was at the end of it. She was Madam Porter’s granddaughter, and she never let Marcus forget that she was one year and one month older than he was. A roll of her brown eyes and a toss of her red head suggested they leave the adults to their conversation and find amusement elsewhere.
But Marcus wanted to stay where he was and hear what had happened at the cemetery. It was something bad, something nobody would talk about in front of him and Anna. Marcus hoped a ghost was involved. He liked a good ghost story.
“They asked for my help, and I had no one to send but Zeb.” Madam Porter sat down with a deep sigh. “It’s on stormy nights when there is a pounding at the door that I miss having a husband.”
Marcus’s mother made a sympathetic noise and sipped at her tea.
Madam Porter’s husband had died a hero, in battle. Zeb had told stories about Master Porter, though, that made Marcus wonder whether he had been a nice man.
“Really, Catherine, you should rent a house in town. Living out by the burial ground cannot be salubrious,” Madam Porter said, changing the subject. She picked up her needlework and began to stitch a bright pattern on the cloth.
“My grandmother said your pa is a drunkard,” Anna whispered, her freckled eyelids narrowed into slits over pale eyes. She was waving the whirligig to and fro, which made the arms move in slow circles. The face on the whirligig, with its curled black hair and dusky skin, looked like Zeb Pruitt.
“Is not.” Marcus grabbed at the whirligig.
“Is too,” Anna taunted, still in a whisper.
“Take that back!” Marcus wrestled the whirligig from Anna’s hands.
Madam Porter and his mother turned, shocked by his outburst.
“Ow!” Anna grabbed at one of her long red curls, lip trembling. “He pulled my hair.”
“I did not,” Marcus protested. “I never touched you.”
“And he took my toy.” Anna’s eyes welled over, her tears dampening her cheek. Marcus snorted.
“Marcus MacNeil.” His mother’s voice was low but intense. “Gentlemen do not steal from defenseless women. You know better than that.”
Anna had strong arms, ran faster than a scalded cat, and had many hearty male cousins. She was far from defenseless.
“Nor do they torment young ladies with pinches and pulls,” his mother said, dashing Marcus’s hope of reprieve. “Since you are not fit for polite society, you will beg Anna’s forgiveness, and Madam Porter’s, too, and wait for me in the barn. And when we get home, your father will hear of this.”