The Ninth Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page B

Hazlitt’s appearance on the doorstep.
    “The Devil sends tempters to call my poor son away from me, to take him from my side.” The lovely widow stopped directly before Abigail, stared at her with tears suddenly brimming in her emerald eyes. “He wouldn’t forsake me of his own volition, and I tremble for him, tremble at his sin! Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land that God hath given thee! ”
    “Of course, m’am.” It was no wonder, Abigail reflected, that for two years now the printing business had been in slow decline, and the shop, with its few books and boxes of stationery, wore a dusty and neglected look. Too many days Abigail had walked down Hanover Street and seen the shutters up while Orion, with superhuman patience, reasoned with this woman, or cleaned up the messy destruction that resulted from her moments of fury.
    “Why would God have given Mankind Commandments, if as that—that deplorable and desolate Worldly-Man out there—has said, that some are saved from the beginnings of Time? Honor thy father and thy mother , and yet he thrusts me away from him! He leaves his own mother to be drowned in the Flood, while he chases after the Daughters of Babylon, the Daughters of Eve! The serpent, the harlot—”
    “Now, Mother.” To Abigail’s infinite relief, the door through to the shop opened and Orion came in, trailed by Sam. “Wasn’t I there to hold your hand, the moment the rain began?”
    Mrs. Hazlitt flinched at the word, and shivered. “ Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail ,” she whispered, “ and the mountains were covered .” Her long, slender hands clutched at her son’s coat-facings, and she pressed her face to his breast. “All flesh died, that moved upon the earth.”
    “Mrs. Adams,” whispered Orion, with a nod in the direction of the cold fireplace. “Could you bring me that vial, there on the corner of the mantle . . . Just a drop, in a cup of water . . . only a drop . . . Mother,” he said gently, in the voice of one trying to coax a much-loved child, “Mother, it’s all right, I’m here. I’ve been here all the time. There’s nothing to fear. Your little king is here.”
    Sam stood with folded arms in the doorway, watching with a combination of exasperation and pity. He wasn’t insensitive, Abigail knew. Only swept, like a prophet, with a sense of his mission, and at the moment, his mission was to protect the cause of colonial liberties—the Sons of Liberty—from being absolutely undone by having the Watch come into Rebecca Malvern’s house and somehow stumble upon the book of names that he hadn’t been able to find. Orion looked fagged to death, as if he had had very little sleep, and if the state of his mother’s mind at the mention of rain was anything to go by, the night must have been a trying one.
    “ The waters prevailed ,” she murmured, sinking down into her chair, “ and all the high hills under heaven were covered . But you were there to save me and comfort me. Don’t ever leave me, my son.” She looked up at Abigail. “My son is a good son. A child of righteousness,” she whispered, and transferred her grip to Orion’s hands as he put the cup to her lips. “I pray every day that he will be delivered out of the snares of Evil, and find his way back to Salvation before it is too late. Save me and comfort me . . . How could a boy who is so good run after the ways of Sinners, and stuff himself in the trough of Hell?” She began to nod.
    “What happened?” Orion asked over her head in a low voice. “Mr. Adams tells me you found a woman—dead—in-in—He said that Rebecca—that Mrs. Malvern,” he corrected himself shakily, “—is-is gone, fled—”
    “Did you see her yesterday?” asked Abigail.
    “Yesterday evening, yes. That’s what I was telling Mr. Adams. I went there just after eight, to pick up the proofs for the sermons she is correcting for me, and a broadside about the meeting