Hester noticed a dark stain on the bottom of the open trunk.
Eleanor followed her gaze and shut the lid.
“You are not to touch that.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And Hester, if Caleb says anything about this room, you will tell the colonel he is lying.”
Hester had learned to hide her fear as efficiently as any servant in the house.
“I understand what you’re asking,” she replied.
Eleanor studied her face.
“That is not the same as agreeing.”
“No, ma’am,” Hester said quietly.
For a moment they stared at one another across the lamp.
Eleanor dismissed her without another word.
Hester walked downstairs knowing she had crossed a line she could never uncross.
Chapter Six: A Child Behind the Curtain
The following morning an errand boy arrived at Lottie’s cottage with news that changed every plan.
Hester had seen a bundle carried through Hawthorne’s back entrance before dawn, accompanied by Doctor Avery and a woman named Mrs. Dobbins.
The bundle had moved.
The physician had entered Eleanor’s sitting room with it and locked the door.
Caleb read the note in the woodshop at Red Cedar while Amos watched his face.
“A baby?” Amos asked.
“Maybe.”
“But she said she was still expecting.”
“Hester says nobody heard a birth.”
Amos rubbed his chin.
“That doesn’t settle it.”
“No.”
“We need to know whose child that is before we let the woman call it yours, hers, or anybody else’s.”
Caleb folded the paper into four tight squares.
“She can claim anything she wants.”
“People believe a claim until somebody can tell them how it was made.”
Amos glanced toward the field.
“But even then, they might believe the person with the bigger house.”
That was the part Caleb understood best.
At noon the rider came back from the nearest post station with another message.
Silas read it in front of the workers.
“The colonel requests Caleb immediately,” he announced.
“The lady says there has been a misunderstanding.”
Caleb looked toward Amos.
A misunderstanding was a word people at Hawthorne used when a plate had been broken, a bill copied incorrectly, or an order inconveniently remembered.
It was not a word that could contain the months Eleanor had taken from him.
Silas approached the carpenter’s bench.
“Pack your tools.”
“I haven’t finished the barn roof.”
“You’re leaving.”
“May I write my sister?”
“You may do what you’re told.”
Amos set his saw aside.
“The bridge on the east road has a broken support,” he said.
