Morning dawned early, or at least it seemed to me. It seemed that I was losing something or that the night had disappointed me in some great way in not being long enough. It felt like I had truly lost something important. It was a most unusual feeling, for I was certain that I had left nothing behind in the wagon, for Fillip would have brought it to me, nor had I left anything at the church as I had not taken a step towards it let alone inside of it. It was most peculiar and very distracting.
A light knock on my door produced the soft voice of our housemaid, Sophie. She entered and helped me to dress then we both headed down the stairs to begin the daily chores. First was preparation of breakfast for the men and for us. Fillip and Father were already eating, citing that they could not wait for me: I had slept in.
"What time is it then? I feel as if I hath lost half the night!"
"More like half the morn!" my father quipped. "It is nearly nine o'clock. We have been in the fields for two hours already, and Fillip has had to inform me of tonight's activities."
"But what is time to a young lass, John, where there is new blood in the town? There are men to be had! Who can be sleeping when there is entertainment to come the next eve in a gentleman's house? Especially when that particular gentleman is the toast and talk of the town."
"Sebastien Diocletian would no more think of me than he would of one of Reverend Hawthorn's daughters!" They all laughed hard; Father, Fillip, Sophie and Mistress Callaway, until the latter caught sense of herself.
"You are right, Synnove. He wouldn't. You are by far to insensible for such a man of status, surely that is why we have all been invited to join him for coffee and dessert this night, when he hath half the town to choose from!" Mistress Callaway laughed openly at me then. "No you are certainly right. He would no more think of a creature like you than he would me. Now stop being ridiculous and eat your breakfast. We shall have to bake a pie to take along. You cannot trust even a European gentleman to have the proper set for such a party without the aid of a woman, and I hear that he only keeps a manservant. What a pity! But I guess that it would be difficult to travel with a female servant. They tend to get jealous of their master's escapades with women. Imagine what a quarrel a love affair would bring!" By this point in her display, she had them all in stitches, even my conservative father, and had me blushing a deep crimson through my stifled giggles and snickers. I should have thought that he would be crawling up the walls in a tirade against Sebastien and any thoughts of a romance between the two of us. He surely realized that Sebastien would not stay in New England and even if he did, he would never convert to the puritan way of life. All of this was racing through my mind as they continued to speak as if it were a well-known fact.
"Oh! Mistress you are surely too hard on yourself! Mr. Diocletian, I'm sure, will fall madly in love with you upon greeting you at the door! He seems to be able to do so with every lady that he meets!"
"Oh hush!" she spat at me as she spanked my bottom lightly with a breadboard. "Take the compliment missy and enjoy it. The way that you carry on it may be your first and last admirer, for they will surely burn you for a witch if you keep up your usual antics!" I laughed as she chided me.
"You have been talking too much with Fillip!"
"Hey! I resemble that remark! All the thumping around in your room last night and coyotes talking down a buck! I am sure the good Reverend can connect it to your evil ways in some form or another." I looked up at him sharply then and he shrunk from the glare of my eyes.
"I awoke to the scream of the buck, and closed my window. You must have sensitive ears to hear the soft bump of a window as 'all the thumping around.' Perhaps they have labeled the wrong family member as a 'witch.'"
"Still Synnove, it is strange that coyotes should take down a deer, let alone a buck," Father mused from his breakfast. "They usually attack much smaller prey. Fillip and I took a walk out to the site first thing this morning, and the more peculiar part of it all is that there was no blood! It was as if the beasts licked it all up. I don't like the looks of it one bit. Even I will not hesitate to say that the Devil is in this. You did not see anything last night when you shut your window against the night wind?" He glanced up at me and I flinched hard at these statements in remembrance of the dream. Father had noted it for sure.
"I did not see a thing save the natural beasts about there feed." He nodded, seeing no lie in my eyes.
"I shall have to be off to town to inform the council of it. You three may have to attend Mr. Diocletian invitation without me; it will depend on how long they detain me with them in town."
"Oh Father. 'Twas probably nothing but a sickly or old buck that they were in luck able to take down. With the Reverend's known opinions of our family, why must we stir the town over nothing, for that is what it surely was, nothing."
"You are probably right, Synnove. It has been a good year, and the coyotes are probably the biggest that they have ever been. But it is still very strange. But we shall keep it to ourselves for now. Well Fillip, we should be off about our humble business once again. The fields call for our attention and the ladies have gossip to be about and young men dressed in London's best to discuss. We are surely not wanted."
"Oh Father! You are always wanted about!" I slung my arms around his neck and kissed his cheeks.
"But you are not wanted in my kitchen when there are chores to be done! Now out with you two!" Mistress Callaway feigned anger and drove them from their dishes with the same breadboard she had accosted me with earlier. "Now my dear, we have men to discuss!" She laughed and I groaned. "Tell me all about him! Is he as handsome as everyone says? As charming and intelligent? Oh I don't get off this farm enough anymore!"
"Mistress, I hardly know where to begin. So many questions you ask and there is work to be done. My mind will surely stray from it and the bread shall not rise."
"Oh posh you! Stop being coy Synnove and answer my questions like a good lass. I will be meeting the man tonight and I would like to know what to expect ahead of time. I detest being shocked by the looks of a young man, be they good or bad. Now out with it!" Her genuinely soft brown eyes twinkled as she spoke.
"He is surely the most handsome man that I have ever seen, but what is there in the looking around here?" She glared at me. "Yes Mistress, he is most definitely handsome. He has long, chestnut hair that is neatly tied back with an odd bit of black and gold string, to catch the light in his unimaginable eyes. Intensely grey with green flecks and altogether pleasing in their other temperaments. His skin may be a bit too pale, but what is such a flaw to a gentleman? They are not meant to be out working the fields, scorching their skin rusty brown in the harsh sunlight like our men."
"They are most definitely men of a different nature. Their work is on papers in the study or in the social arenas. How are his manners?"
"He seems an incorrigible flirt, though it may be the enforcement of the local ladies on him, or just the norm for European society."
"Aye. They say that one must always be engaging and pleasing in the European societies. Fillip said he was quite set on impressing you last night on the journey home?"
"Aye, he said as much. Whether or not it was something he does with all the ladies, though, is another matter entirely."
"Oh will you quite sabotaging yourself! I have it on good authority that it is mostly the young ladies that go after his attention. He takes no notice of them until they slip their scrawny little arms through his, and then he must notice them or be thought ill of. And don't you be asking me my sources, just trust me. It is you that he is after: you mark my words. Now we just have to uncover what he wants with you." I blushed ferociously at this.
"Oh my dear! I am certain that it is honorable! Just calm yourself. All shall be known tonight after I get a look at him. The witch will come out of me and we shall know all," she smiled.
"Witch, Mistress? You were never a witch! You have not the undesirable temperament!"
"You watch yourself missy!" she hollered and threw a small handful of flour at me, hitting me directly in the face, whiting out my flesh completely. "Hey now, that makes little difference to thine skin's colors." I retaliated in the same fashion, with the same result.
"Hey now, but it does for you!" Mistress Callaway hooted again and the fight began anew. By the time that the bread and pies were done, we were absolutely white and could have made another loaf each in the flour that was in our dresses.
