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By Root 1756 0

and two of the men, who must have been house slaves traveling with the party, led the horses off to the stables. Now I could hear the cheerful noises of the group rising up the stairwell. They tromped about in their boots, called to one another, laughed, smoked strong seegars. Helen’s delighted voice wove itself among their deeper tones, and then everything grew muffled as, I suppose, they went in to their supper. Sometime later, when it was entirely dark, Lorna hastened in with a tray and a candle, but she only put the things down, then scurried out. I was happy enough at that; Delia had certainly done herself proud, for I had a dish of chicken stew with three feathery dumplings and plenty of carrots and peas from the garden, as well as a dish of new blackberries and cream. Everything was hot and utterly savory, and I relished each bite.

Nevertheless, with each passing moment, I grew more apprehensive. The big house rang with the sounds of men who, I suspected, had never restrained themselves. At any rate, I imagined five Roland Breretons below, fully armed, and their behavior circumscribed only by the slenderest thread of good manners. The west was full of men who flashed from raucous merriment to violent anger in a step, a moment, a breath. The signs of one— hilarity, loud talk, grins, knee and back slapping, jocular challenges—were always to be dreaded as signs of the other: anger, resentment, pugnacity. Should they pour up the stairs, knowing by instinct that an abolitionist, a Lawrenceite, a Bay Stater by marriage, was in the house, I thought, I could go out one of the windows and drop to the roof of the porch, and after that, well, there was no telling. I got out of bed and pulled my case closer to me and unclasped the hasps, so that my pistol was within easy reach. I got back under the coverlet.

On the other hand, I was Lyman Arquette no longer. I was a woman in a nightdress in a bed, more than defenseless, as entirely within a protected category as if I sat within a glass dome. Perhaps. It was a nice question— was an abolitionist lady still a lady? As far as I knew, this question remained untested, even in K.T.

It didn’t take long for these musings to transform themselves into others. What if Samson and Chaney were down there? A pistol wasn’t designed only for self-defense, wasn’t designed primarily for self-defense, as everyone in K.T. knew but did not admit. A nightdress billowing about could easily hide a pistol. Men filing out of the dining room, seegars in hand, would hardly be bothered to glance up the staircase, which was half in darkness, anyway. I could scrutinize each one at my leisure as he crossed the hall (would they cross the hall?) from dining room to parlor. There was no knowing the layout, as I hadn’t yet been in the lower story of the house. It gave me a hot chill to imagine such things, and once I had imagined them, I felt a breathless compulsion to act, and yet I did not move. I stayed still, quite rigid, in my bed, staring straight ahead out the window into the dark, with the candle flame curling about its wick at the edge of my gaze.

The noise from below continued, stamping and yelling sometimes, laughter other times, the clanking of crockery, steps from here to there. I would say now that it was the very mysteriousness of it all that kept me in my bed. The idea of Samson and Chaney carousing down below seemed to flash, in my mind, from reality to absurdity, back and forth. I hadn’t the courage to find out, though. I made up my mind that there would be a more opportune moment. I made up my mind that it would be a poor return for Helen’s hospitality to shoot her friends as they were getting up from their supper in her house. I made up my mind that revenge was more complicated than I had thought it would be, but then so was everything else one looks forward to with confidence. Lorna returned for my tray, saying only, "I sure ’nuf hope dat Massa Richard gets rid of dese cronies of his ’fore too late, ’cause I is ready for mah own bed tonight."

I shook off my rigidity. "Thank you for staying