The Last Days of Dogtown

“I never told tales on you, neither,” said Easter, softly but firmly.

The two women, usually so companionable, fell into an awkward silence that lasted until Judy suddenly remembered a pot left on the fire and departed, wasting a freshly poured cup of tea.

They had reconciled the very next day, as neither woman would permit anything to damage the bond

between them, not even their secrets.

Wherever she walked, Judy was careful to steer her thoughts away from Cornelius. She never took the path where she’d first laid eyes on him, crouched over a squirrel trap. Their eyes had met just as he snapped the animal’s neck.

Judy smiled at him. She was no hypocrite: she ate squirrels and knew how they died. “Enjoy your dinner,” she had said and walked off. When she arrived home, the animal

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was laying on her doorstep, gutted and skinned, the first of many gifts.

One night, alone in her Dogtown bed, Judy finally admitted to herself that she had been in love with Cornelius. “In love”

precisely as it was described in the novels and poems she had read with Martha; love as a kind of sweet madness that colored everything. Judy had been shocked that strangers across the ocean could describe the workings of her Yankee heart: the preoccupation and yearning, the soaring happiness and keen appreciation of a man’s hidden qualities, the sub-lime meeting of souls. And yet, there was never a mention of the sort of union she’d shared with Cornelius, the longing and fulfillment of the flesh that could transform two bodies into one.

In the books, love was expressed in sidelong glances and witty banter. Judy could recall only a few conversations with Cornelius. For them, love had been expressed in the interplay of tongues and fingers, the absolute conviction that their bodies belonged to each other, waking and sleeping. And if he never gave her testimonials, Judy remembered a thousand physical proofs of his tenderness and affection.

Judy wondered whether the literary silence about such matters might have had something to do with Cornelius’s race, or with the British pedigree of the authoresses. Or perhaps there was something unnatural about her, to have welcomed him into her bed, and to have responded to his touch so freely.

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With the years, her body had become drier and cooler and the memory of Cornelius’s great legs astride her, his flesh pressed into hers, became strange and even repellent.

Finally, Judy did not long for him anymore, and with the benefit of time came to believe that his disappearance had been for the best. He had proven himself untrustworthy and cruel, leaving her feeling cheapened and cheated. Since then, she had attached her heart to gentler and more constant subjects: Oliver and Polly, and their Natty. Easter.

And poor Martha Cook.

After nearly two years as Martha’s companion, Judy had come to feel like a member of her family. Martha encouraged her to borrow freely from the library and to bring treats from the kitchen whenever she visited with Oliver, Polly, and Natty. Martha had not only told Judy to consider the house her own, she had made it so by dismissing a housemaid who’d muttered something about

“that Dogtown witch and that cursed animal of hers.” She even gave away the cat so that Greyling could come indoors freely, hoping to sway Judy to move into town.

“I don’t like to think of you all alone in that wilderness,” fretted Martha.

“I’m not alone,” said Judy. “Easter’s nearby, and Greyling watches over me. If I lived here, I fear you would discover just how simple I am and grow tired of me.”

But the two of them became more and more like sisters, and when Martha’s complaints took a turn for the worse, Judy nursed her as tenderly as any blood relation.

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Chest pains kept Martha in bed for a week, and then what had been vague aches in her legs turned into hot daggers. Dr. Beech became a daily visitor, prescribing various potions, but to little effect. One sleeping draught gave Martha a headache that left her whimpering and begging for death.