Camp Follower: A Mystery of the American Revolution Read Online Free PDF Page A

upon you on the morrow at one."
    "Well,
now.   Right good of him."   The Welshwoman glanced away to hide the
gleam in her dark eyes.   Her accent had
subsided.   She and Charles, both in
their late forties, had lost spouses to malaria.   In October, they'd strolled the autumn fair arm-in-arm.   "I shall heat soup for supper,
then."   Her footsteps faded toward
the rear of the house.
    Helen took up
needle and embroidery thread to her client's petticoat hem but paused to regard
the room: a chair, couch, table, and mantle clock.   All other furnishing had been sold.   Much of the empty space was occupied by her watercolors and
sketches of Wiltshire and the Salisbury Plain.   The parlor had begun to resemble an artist's gallery.   She'd considered hosting a show, selling her
artwork, and making money off the rebels, but few of them had more than two
pence to rub together.
    At dusk, the
embroidery finished, she and Enid drew drapes throughout the house, secured the
doors, and ate pork and barley soup in the dining room.   Upstairs, heat from the first floor warmed
the bedrooms.   Enid assisted Helen out
of her gown, petticoat, and stays and into an old wool shift.   While the Welshwoman banked the fire in the
parlor below and made a final round of doors and windows downstairs, Helen
washed her face and hands and cleaned her teeth.   She crawled into the bed she'd seldom shared with her husband,
read Homer a few minutes, and blew out the candle.
    She'd been
asleep but a few hours when Enid awakened her, a hand on her shoulder.   "Sorry to startle you,
mistress."   The lines on the
housekeeper's face softened.   "He's
here, waiting in the parlor.   We chatted
a bit while he had some bread, cheese, and wine, and —"
    " Who is here?"   Helen struggled up on
her elbows, still negotiating the sleep-to-wake transition.
    Enid's
expression grew tender.   "That
dear, sweet Mr. St. James."
    Helen's heart
skipped a beat.   Then she rolled out of
bed, shoved her feet in slippers, and draped a shawl about her shoulders.   On her way to the stairs, she took Enid's
candle.
    Upon her
entrance to the parlor, tall, dark-haired David St. James straightened from
inspecting a watercolor and bowed.   In
the seconds that she set down her candle and crossed the floor to him, she
noticed that he'd grown hollow-eyed and lankier in the six months since his
last visit.   But it didn't stop her from
embracing him.
    The warmth of
his hands wandered from the shawl over the small of her back to her shoulders,
and he separated from her just far enough to grasp her hands in his and kiss
them as he always did when he first greeted her.   Along the way, his fingers roamed her wrists, assessing in the
silence and semi-darkness her own loss of weight.   When he took her face in his hands and kissed her lips, the
half-year separation diminished.
    A few minutes
later, Enid buzzed in with wine and a steaming bowl of soup.   "Is that for me?"   David disentangled from cuddling Helen on
the couch.   "Enid, you're too kind,
but I cannot stay."
    "Pish-posh."   She set the bowl on the table and spread a
cloth napkin in his lap.   "From the
looks of it, you seldom slow down enough to enjoy a decent meal."
    "Oww!"   He rubbed his bicep playfully where she
pinched it.
    "I hope
you've the sense not to be living on brandy at them card tables.   There's your spoon.   Eat."   The housekeeper bustled out.
    His familiar
jaunty smile in place, he eyed Helen, jest parting his lips.   She imitated Enid's scowl.   "No talk.   Eat!"
    He saluted and
obeyed, and she studied him, puzzled by his worn appearance.   As always, he was well-groomed and clothed —
fine wool for his mauve coat and matching waistcoat, silk for his shirt and
stockings, a silk ribbon pulling back his long hair.   His cocked hat, held in her hands, was so new that the label was
legible on the inside — a prestigious hatter in New York.   Whatever trials David endured