It's Hard To Refuse You
Chapter 9
Felicity awoke to a howling that harrowed her soul. Pulling on her dressing gown, and staggering into the hall, she found her husband holding onto her father, literally holding him up. The unearthly howl was Edward Merriman. Nan and Polly were clinging to each other weeping, and Elizabeth, Charles and Bryce were standing by helplessly.
Ben glanced up at his wife, and said thickly, "Felicity, it is your mother. She passed on in her sleep."
Edward Merriman howled again in anguish, and Elizabeth rushed to hold her friend, who was so stunned she could not speak.
"But it was such a lovely party," Felicity moaned. "We were all so happy."
Louisa, who had come up behind her, also clad in a dressing gown, had heard Ben's fateful words. She put her arms around Elizabeth and Felicity. "That will comfort us all someday. Your mother was happy before she went to be with your dear brother and grandparents."
The rest of the day, and the next, went by in a blur. Before she knew what she was about, Felicity found herself at the burying ground in the valley behind the house. Ben had sent servants to clean it up, to trim the grass around the gravestones, and to toss away the branches that had fallen down in the small space. The brush along the path had been cut back, so that when they followed Martha Merriman's coffin to her last resting place, they had a clear path.
Felicity looked anywhere except at that coffin. She saw the three small markers that bore the names of the three sons that had come and gone before her mother's birth. Not one stone had a date of death more than a month past the date of birth. Felicity realized dully that if any of those boys had lived, her mother would never have inherited the plantation. Where would they all be now, if that had happened?
She saw her grandparent's graves out of the corner of her eye. She had forgotten her grandmother's name had been Mercy. The date of death on that stone was the same date that would soon be carved as the date of birth on her mother's stone. How could someone named Mercy have been so unlucky? Her grandmother had lost three sons, and then lost her life giving birth to her only living child. Had her mother ever thought about the fact that she had been the one her mother had died of?
Her grandfather had carved the words "Loving Wife, Gentle Mother, Our Heart's Desire" on his wife's stone. Had he ever thought about the way his wife had died? If he had, had he ever been bitter that Martha had been the one his wife had died of? Surely not, for Martha Merriman had been the pride of his life.
Next to Mercy's stone was the fine, tall, matching stone that marked her grandfather's grave. Her mother was probably with him now, telling him all about their doings. Felicity wondered idly what her grandfather would think of them. She raised tearstained eyes toward her husband, whose hand rested ever so lightly on her back. Grandfather had thought Ben a traitor to the king, but in the end, he had become more reconciled to him. Surely Grandfather had been looking down on her happiness with joy.
She glanced at her sister. Nan was white-faced and weeping. After they had found Martha dead, she had gotten hysterical, crying and vomiting by turns. Charles had carried her to the room they shared, and stayed with her for hours. Nan was blaming herself for making Martha Merriman so heartsick she had gone on to her final reward. Felicity knew that was not true, but when she had tried to reach out to her sister, Nan had refused to listen, seeking Polly's company over Felicity's. Polly, standing numbly at Nan's side, was clutching a bouquet of rapidly wilting flowers. She had always been the most congenial of the Merriman girls.
Felicity hoped in time that she and Nan could draw close once more, but she feared that without her mother's gentle influence, they would eventually be sisters in name only.
Felicity knew that Charles loved her sister, and that her mother had known that as well. Felicity knew her mother would have welcomed Nan's coming child with all her heart. But now she would never see her grandchild, unless it was from above. The baby was due in the beginning of December.
Next to her grandfather's grave was the smaller one that bore the name of William Merriman. Below his date of birth and date of death were the words, "Beloved Son" and Felicity's eyes swam with tears when she saw those words. Again, if William had lived, so much in their lives would be different, but it was no use worrying about that now.
She glanced over at Miriam. She was holding Matthew, who was sleeping with his head on the loyal nursemaid's shoulder. How had her mother and father buried their child without burying their hearts with him? How had her grandparents buried three sons so soon after birth, and still managed to go on? If Felicity had lost her newborn child, she was quite sure it would have devastated her.
Felicity knew that Louisa and Brandon were somewhere behind her, along with Elizabeth and Ben's other brothers, but she could not sense their presence. She thought of how her mother had scolded her for walking Elizabeth all around the plantation the day Elizabeth had arrived. She thought of how they had all laughed. She wondered if she would ever laugh again as she had on that day.
Her wandering mind snapped back to the present. The Reverend had stopped speaking. The plantation's strongest Negroes were taking hold of the ropes, and when Edward Merriman slowly nodded to them, they walked the coffin over to the grave and lowered it. Edward began to weep once more. Felicity had never seen her father weep until the morning she had wakened to find her mother dead and her world topsy-turvy. It hurt to see him weeping now, but Felicity could not cry. She had wept herself dry during the long last night her mother's body had rested in the house they had both loved.
After the funeral luncheon, after the neighbors had offered their last condolences, and eaten the last of the roast beef and ham, and had drunk a last glass of cool water, or chilled wine to fortify them for their journey home, Felicity and Ben spoke to Mr. Merriman.
"You may stay with us, now Father, if you wish," Felicity said.
He blinked. "I would like that. I would like to be close to your mother. We were so lucky. We had such a wonderful life together."
Charles looked over at Nan. The time had come for hard decisions. "That might be best, Mr. Merriman. Nan and I are planning on closing the store and moving to Richmond. We would not want to leave you alone in the Williamsburg house."
Felicity turned on her sister. "You have agreed to this?"
Nan stuck out her chin. "Yes. Williamsburg is finished, Felicity. We have been talking to Brett. He would be willing to let us stay in his townhouse while we find a new place for Charles to open a store. Everyone is moving out of Williamsburg. You know it."
Ben sighed. "Williamsburg is faltering. I know someday it will rise again, just as we knew it before the war, but I do not know when that will be."
"Not in our lifetime," Charles said firmly. "I will keep the store open until after Nan has the baby, and is well enough to travel, but then we will be moving."
He did not tell Ben and Felicity what he really thought, that he was afraid of Williamsburg's decline. He did not think he would be able to continue to provide for his family there. He had discussed coming back to the plantation, but Nan had been against that idea.
"There is only room for one mistress at the plantation, and that is Felicity," she had said firmly. "Elizabeth and Bryce may not mind being the poor relations, but I will not be."
Charles could see her point. He loved being a shopkeeper, and he had not minded helping out at the plantation during the war, but he was not a farmer, and he did not want his children to be farmers. The plantation was a lovely place to visit, but the work was too hard, too dependant on the weather, and other things one could not control. There was too much forest, where a child might get lost, and the river that grew so muddy in the spring, where a child might drown. He was a city boy, and would always be a city boy. And he knew that the latest grave in the valley would always cause his wife to reproach herself. He wanted to spare her that.
The summer passed slowly. Nan and Charles went back to town, and Edward Merriman stayed with Ben and Felicity. He liked going about with Ben and Bryce, watching the horses in the pastures. The conversion of the plantation to a horse farm was coming along nicely. Saul was especially pleased with that change. Felicity thought it was only because horses were his passion, but she soon learned differently. She spoke to him one day when she was visiting the stables, and he was honest with her.
"If we go on as a stable," he said, "that means more pasture, and fewer crops. We won't need as many field hands. That's less colored to be bought and sold like those horses there."
"Why, Saul," said Felicity, "I have never heard you talk about things like that. Have we not always treated you well?"
"Yes'm," Saul said. "Your grandfather was a good master. He never whipped a slave, and he tried to keep families together. He promised me when I jumped the broom with my old woman, that he would never sell her, nor none of my children. And he kept his promise. Me and my old woman was together until she went to glory, and I won't forget that. Your Benjamin, he's a good master, too, but he's still a master. You don't know what it's like Miss Felicity, until you been bought or sold."
"I think Ben does in a way," countered Felicity. "When he was Father's apprentice, he couldn't do as he wished. That gives him a bit of perspective, don't you think?"
The old man sighed. "Yes'm. A bit." He hesitated, and then continued. "You got to watch your father, Miss Felicity. He loved your mama like there was none other in the world like her. What he had to stand, she gave him strength to stand. Without her, he's lost. You got to keep him busy, and make sure he knows he's still got family."
"I am trying," Felicity said, and she sighed as well.
What really kept Edward going was not the plantation itself. It was little Matthew, and his wish to see Nan's child born. He was looking forward to going back to Williamsburg in the fall, after the harvest, to be with his daughter at her labor. He knew his wife would have insisted they go, and he was going to be there, no matter what. Felicity and Ben agreed to take him.
To their great surprise, Elizabeth and Bryce announced that they were having a child sometime around the end of January, and that cheered everyone up. Elizabeth had been afraid that she would never have a child, and now that one was on the way, she was thrilled.
As Ben and Felicity curled up together in their bed that night, they discussed the coming new arrival. They were both thrilled for Elizabeth and Bryce.
"Another winter baby," Ben said with a smile, kissing the top of his wife's head, as she rested it on his shoulder. "Charles and Nan will have their little one around the first of December. We have our Matthew's first birthday in the beginning of January, and Elizabeth and Bryce will have their new child around the end of January. We will have a lot to celebrate each year. It was not like that in my family. We were all spread out, and not just separated by the years. Brandon was born in May, Bryce was born in August, Brett was born in November, and I was born in March. We were not all having our birthdays in a bunch."
"I liked the fact that your birthday was in March," Felicity said. "Even though you were older than I was, the fact that our birthdays were so close together made it less than it seemed. You had just turned fifteen when I turned ten. That was the first year we were together when we saw our birthdays come."
"You were a very precocious ten, though," Ben teased her.
"Mmmm, wasn't I though?" Felicity said, snuggling closer to her husband's side. "I thought I knew everything."
"You mean you actually did not?" Ben teased again.
"I knew what mattered. I knew I believed in you." Felicity then wistfully wondered when they would be having another baby. Matthew was already eight months old and crawling everywhere. It would not be long before he was walking.
Ben grinned. "I am trying, you know." Then he said seriously, "When it is ready to happen, it will happen. Isn't that what I told you the last time you complained about this sort of thing? Enjoy Matt. When we have two, we will probably be so busy that we won't even have time for each other."
"We will always have time for each other," Felicity assured him.
On September 3rd, 1783, the Revolutionary war officially ended with the Treaty of Paris. It would not be ratified until January 14, 1784, but the details were all in place. France, Spain and the Dutch had separate agreements. Everyone in the Merriman and Davidson families was surprised that the lands of Florida were ceded to Spain, but very few people thought that land was worth much anyway. Too much of it was swampy, and they had terrible storms along the coasts every year. They couldn't imagine Florida ever being worth anything.
The next great surprise was that Felicity and Ben found they were indeed having another baby. The baby would come in March, sometime around Ben's birthday.
"There goes your idea of spreading out birthdays," Felicity told him, but no matter what he had jokingly said about being too busy to raise another child, he was actually thrilled. Mr. Merriman was thrilled as well, and more cheerful than he had been in a long time.
The family decided to go to Williamsburg to be with Nan when her baby came, and to stay there until after Elizabeth's baby was born. They all felt she would get better care in town. Many people had moved away, but not Mrs. Deare, and she was the most experienced midwife any of them knew. Ben worried about being away from the plantation for so long, and told Felicity flat out that he would have to be traveling back and forth quite a bit, but she was too happy about the coming baby to worry about it.
Nan's child was due sometime the first week of December, and since most first babies usually came late, Ben and Felicity had planned on arriving at the end of that week, and staying at least through Christmas. Nan, who had not been feeling well since her mother's death, and wanted as few guests under her feet as possible, had been pleased with that idea, and even more pleased that Felicity had sent Rose to Williamsburg to help her sister prepare for the holidays. Edward Merriman and Polly had gone with her. He said he wanted to visit some friends and see how the store was doing, and Polly promised to see to her father's needs.
The preparations went awry, however, when the baby decided she had a mind of her own, thank you very much, and arrived the second week of November. When they got the word, Ben, Felicity, Elizabeth and Bryce packed as quickly as they could and went into town. Mr. Merriman met them at the door, looking like his old self.
"It is a beautiful girl," he told them. "She looks just like your mother, Felicity. Of course Nan always looked the most like your mother. You favored me. They named her Louisa, just as they had promised. Brandon and Louisa wanted to come and see her, but Brandon has some kind of business deal going on that is quite complicated, so they will not be able to come until after Christmas."
"How is Nan?" Felicity asked Charles.
"She had a rough time of it, and she is glad it is over," he said. "It was a long and complicated birth. I felt awful for her. Mrs. Deare said it is going to take her a long time to get her strength back."
Felicity privately was not surprised. Nan had been a sickly child, who had been able to recognize the apothecary's step on the stairs, as she had heard him coming up to her room so often. She had always been the weakest one of the Merriman girls. Felicity had always been robust, and Polly had an inner strength that had seen her through everything from her difficult birth to the illness that had taken her brother, but Nan had never had that kind of strength.
After their cloaks had been hung up, and their things taken to their rooms, they got to see Nan and the baby. Nan had obviously lost a lot of blood. The room had been scrubbed to a fare thee well, but the coppery tang of blood could still be smelled beneath the masking odor of the lye soap. Nan's hair, in two brown braids, fell limply across the white pillow. The shadows under her eyes were a dark purple, and there was a pinched look around her nose. Felicity was shocked to see how waxy and yellow her skin was.
The baby was beautiful, though, glowing with health, her pink cheeks round and full and as she drew her small hand to her rosebud lips, she glanced around with eyes that were clear, and long-lashed. She had taken all of the mother's strength, and Felicity swallowed hard before speaking to her sister.
"Oh, Nan, she is so lovely."
Nan smiled crookedly. "She is, isn't she? She is going to be a feisty little thing, Felicity, like you were, I fear." She shut her eyes tiredly. "How are you feeling, Elizabeth? It won't be long now, will it?
"About six weeks or so, maybe a bit more." Elizabeth was also disturbed by the way Nan looked. Her only experience with childbirth had been the happy day when Matthew had been born. Felicity had labored hard, but she had come through it as well as could be expected, and been able to eat a hearty meal an hour after the baby had been born. Nan looked like she had not even tried to eat since little Louisa's birth.
Ben said cautiously, "It is too bad Brandon and Louisa won't be able to see her for a few weeks. I am sure Louisa is thrilled to have a namesake as lovely as this one."
Charles sat down beside his wife's bed, and lifted his daughter out of her cradle. He had obviously been holding the baby when Nan could not. He looked completely comfortable with her in his arms. "We decided to call this one Lou," said Charles, "to cut down on the confusion. My sister never had a nickname, so it would be hard for her to get used to one now. The baby's whole name will be Louisa Martha Prentis. She is too little yet for such a long name, but she will grow into it. Your father is awfully pleased we included your mother's name."
"Mother," said Nan weakly. "I miss her. She always took such good care of me, and I never appreciated it."
"She did not have to be told we were grateful for her. She just knew. And never fear, Nan. She is looking down on you," said Felicity firmly. "She is with us still, and she will watch over your baby like an angel."
Polly brought in some broth that Rose had made, and Charles told her he would try to get Nan to eat it. The rest of them left so Nan could concentrate on getting some nourishment and rest. When they got to the bottom of the stairs, Polly turned to the others. "Come into the dining room, all of you. Rose has supper ready, and will be disappointed if no one eats it."
They all sat at the familiar dining room table, and let themselves be served, but after the servants were gone, Felicity turned to her sister. "Polly, Nan does not look well to me. What happened?"
"She was in labor for over forty eight hours. Mrs. Deare thought she was going to lose Nan and the baby, too. I was so frightened. Mrs. Deare and Rose would not let me in the room, but they kept calling for more sheets and towels. There was so much blood."
Edward Merriman spoke up. "Your mother had a hard birth with you, child, and she lived on for a long time."
"That was different, Father," said Felicity. "Mother had childbed fever, after Polly was born. Nan has no fever. Her face is as pale as the sheets she is lying on."
"I hope my baby comes more quickly than Nan's," Elizabeth said in a small voice.
"Everyone is different," Felicity assured her. "You probably won't be like me, and you probably won't be like Nan. You are an entirely different woman. But we can go see Mrs. Deare tomorrow, if you like, and see how she thinks things are going."
"That is a good idea," said Bryce hastily, putting his arm around his wife. "That should set your mind at ease."
They ate the rest of their meal in silence, and each retired to think their own thoughts, and dream their own dreams.
