Probable Claws

26

March 27, 1787

Tuesday

Reynaldo, Jeddie in the stirrups, trotted up and down the hill on the north side of Cloverfields. A true March wind cut through his heavy sweater and short leather jacket, cowhide. Catherine, arms wrapped around her body, stood in mud laced with silver streaks of ice, watching. A week had passed since her miscarriage. Though a bit weak, she felt fine. Working lifted her spirits.

“Walk back down, make him walk.” Jeddie nodded, halted the powerful sleek horse, turned him. They walked. Reynaldo pinned his ears but he listened. Jeddie then trotted the horse back up the hill.

“Don’t you want me to breeze him?”

“No. Let’s walk back to the stable. Make him walk, Jeddie. If you aren’t the boss, he’ll be the boss. He’s strong-willed and very, very smart. Right now we’re working on balance. We’ll work on wind later.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” Jeddie grinned.

A handful he was, but Reynaldo possessed rare quality. He had lovely movement from the shoulder, powerful hindquarters, and an abnormally long stride. He was born to run. Catherine’s emphasis on his wonderful balance was as much for his mind as his body. Easily bored, which he would let you know, he was intelligent and very alert to his environment.

Jeddie, quiet, supple in the saddle, walked Reynaldo on a loose rein, a vote of confidence in the horse, which Reynaldo liked. He loved Catherine and he loved Jeddie. He tolerated Tulli and Ralston, and thought Baxter O. was decent enough, but there was no way he was ever going to pull a carriage. Never. Reynaldo had a high opinion of himself. But then so did the carriage horses King David and Solomon.

Once in the stable, Tulli ran up to hold the 16.2-hand horse while Jeddie easily swung out of the saddle.

“Tulli, wipe him down. Rub some liniment in his muscles. He likes being rubbed. Put his blanket on him and turn him out,” Catherine ordered.

“Yes, Ma’am.” Tulli nodded.

“Where’s Ralston?”

Tulli answered, “With Baxtor O. in the carriage barn.”

“I’ll help you, Tulli.” Jeddie never shied from work.

“Sit with me for a minute, then you can help Tulli. He’s big now. He can take care of himself.”

Music to Tulli’s ears.

Catherine and Jeddie walked into the large tack room, a small iron potbellied stove keeping things warm as it squatted on a thick piece of slate that rested on packed earth. The wooden floor started a foot and a half from the slate.

Catherine sank in an old wooden chair.

Jeddie pulled up a small wooden tack trunk to sit.

“When it’s slick like today you can still do hill work. The hill isn’t that steep, but going down is less appealing than going up. And don’t do anything without me.”

“Yes, Miss Catherine.”

“We’ve got close to eight weeks until the races. Yancy couldn’t run them in early spring. Too much planting and calving. People won’t be there. Some city people would attend, but for big crowds we have got to get on the other side of spring chores. By the time we race, Reynaldo’s wind will be good, his stamina strong. I mean to win this race, I’m sick of hearing how great Yancy’s Black Knight is.”

“People say Reynaldo’s hot. I won’t be able to rate him.”

“They don’t understand horses. I smile, say little. I don’t waste time on fools.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

She inhaled the aroma of cleaned tack, drying chamois cloths. “Your leather jacket cuts the wind. Lem sold you a good skin and Otto made a nice jacket. You were smart to do that.”

“Lem let me scrape the hide, clean up in his tannery for a week. Did all kind of things. Sold me the hide for five dollars. I didn’t have it, but my father gave it to me from his secret hiding place.”

“Hiding from whom?”

“Mother.”

“Ah.” Catherine shrugged. “He does extra things. My father will let him do chores on another farm. Well, you know that, but your mother never sees the money? How is she now that you have your own place?”

He lifted his shoulders. “Glad I’m out of her house but she’s still at me about getting married.” He paused, looked straight at Catherine. “You knew Mother before I was born.”

“I was small, but yes.”

“Was she ever happy?”

Catherine took a deep breath then exhaled. “No. I don’t think Felicity has ever been happy. The irony is her name means happiness in Latin.”

“I’m happy. I like the horses. I like the work and I like my cabin. It’s big enough for me and easy to keep warm as long as I remember to stack up the fireplace. The nights stay cold.”

“I hate that moment in the morning when my bare feet touch the floor.” She shuddered. “Wakes me up though. Well, you did good work today with Reynaldo. I’m going up to Father. Feels like rain, sleet, or snow. March is so unpredictable. Just is. If it’s clear tomorrow we can work him more. If not, he still gets a rubdown.” She stood, put her hand on his shoulder, patted it, then left the stables.

Catherine opened the back door, stepped into the kitchen. The odors and the warmth lifted her spirits. She hung up her heavy shawl, wiggled out of layers, opened the door to the hall. She heard voices in the parlor.

Walking down the polished floor, she then walked into the parlor filled with Hepplewhite furniture, a large good painting of her mother over the fireplace.

“What are you all doing in here? Thought you’d be in the library?”

“Sit down, my dear.” Ewing patted the brocade sofa on which he sat.

John had folded himself into a large stuffed chair, as had Charles, while Rachel sat on the other side of Father.

“I wish you wouldn’t go outside,” Ewing chided her.

“I’m fine. I can’t sit in my house one more minute. My strength is coming back. Really, I’m fine.”

“You aren’t riding, are you?” Rachel knew her sister well.

“Not yet.” Catherine sounded vague.

John, rare for him, said, “We’ll make that decision together. But she is much stronger and see the color in her cheeks.”

Charles, fingers like a steeple, opened his mouth, but Rachel spoke before he could.

“Charles received a letter from his brother, Hugh, the baron. He is mired in their father’s debts. Sees no way out of the quagmire.”

“How much debt?”

“Close to a million pounds. My father lived a profligate life,” Charles said without rancor. “He had no discipline. Lived for society. Pookie is left holding the bag.”

“Pookie?” Catherine’s eyebrows lifted.

“His nickname. He actually has some sense. He tried to marry a few heiresses, but better placed men than he snapped them up, including one dissolute duke. Well, dissolute he may be. The beautiful Amelia Marlin is now Her Grace. Seductive, that title.”

“Can’t he sell and leave?” Rachel innocently asked.

“He can but he would never have a place in society again. I know it’s hard for you to understand, but place is so important. One’s entire life revolves around it. And those who make money, commercial men, practically kill themselves trying to become ennobled. A baronet is better than nothing. All this uproar about a coat of arms. People pay fortunes under the table for false quarterings going back centuries. I know it’s hard to fathom.”

“Your brother needs a way to survive?” Catherine asked.

“He does. Being a younger son, I have nothing with which to help him. I live such a different life. He couldn’t understand. Having said that, I do want to take my wonderful wife to England someday.”

John spoke up. “The flintlock your father gave you. It has gold and silver mountings. Made by Nicolas Noël Boutet. Might that bring in money?”

“John, it would bring in ninety pounds, perhaps a bit more. A drop in the bucket. You won that from me. Spoils of war. It’s your gun.” He smiled. “My father gave that to me. I’m not giving it to Pookie. Let’s say we spare the Boutet.”

John nodded. The flintlock was exquisite.

Catherine sat upright. “Don’t despair, Charles. Let me think on it.”

He looked at his sister-in-law. Charles respected Catherine’s mind, her business acumen.

Rachel, too, stared at her sister. “You’re cooking something up. I can always tell.”

“Mmm.” She wiggled her hand, which to Rachel meant that whatever it was, it was outrageous.

Later, as Catherine and John walked back to their house, Bettina and Serena looked from the kitchen window.

“Too thin.” Bettina shook her head.

“Sorrow. Such a sorrow.”

Bettina nodded. “The fate of women. We birth stillborn children, those that live, you thank God for their lives. Take two brothers. Both come down with the cough. One lives. One dies. Why? I know of no woman who has raised all her children to adults. Not one.”

“Even Mrs. Ewing?” Serena was a child when the mistress had died.

“Even Miss Isabelle. She had a son who lived four days.” She threw up her hands. “You never forget the ones who slipped away. You can still remember their voices, the light in their eyes, the way they smelled in your arms when you held them. You carry them forever.”

She knew of what she spoke, having lost two children. Bettina looked back at Catherine. She was strong. She’d go on. But there’d be questions now in the back of her mind.

The front of her mind was a different matter.