Chapter 2

She smiled as she cradled the precious infant to her breast. “What is it, my love? Do we have a daughter or a son?”

Robert stared at his wife. “Why, my dear, I quite forgot to look!”

“You old silly!” She laughed and pulled open the swaddling clothes for a moment. “We have a daughter, love. A beautiful baby girl, perfect in every way.”

“What shall we call her then?” Robert asked gruffly.

She laughed once more and said, “Well, love, as you paid no mind to whether she was boy or girl, let us call her by a name that could be either! I name our daughter Adrien.”

And forever after the weaver loved to tell the tale of Adrien’s naming, but he told it always with a tear in his eye. For that was the last time he was to hear his lovely young bride laugh. She succumbed to the child-bed fever not many days later, leaving him to raise their daughter alone. Fate, it seemed, had answered his prayers that Roberta not be left widowed—but as so often happens, not in the way he would have chosen.

As the miller and his wife were not tardy in following their only daughter to the grave, Robert and Adrien became all in all to one another. He cared for her and taught her and passed to her the books that had so delighted her mother. And when she was older, Adrien kept house for her father. But the weaver grew ever older and one day, when Adrien had not long reached the full bloom of womanhood, he fell ill.

“Daughter,” Robert croaked from his sick bed, “I fear I must leave you soon. I pray you, do not be afraid for your future. You may not be a beauty like your mother was—you favour your poor father too much for that. But you’ve two strong arms, a ready, cheerful smile, and a calm and sensible manner. I’ve no doubt the young men of the village will be lining up at your door once I am gone.”

“You old silly!” Adrien chided him fondly, wondering at the tear that sprang to his eye when she, all unknowing, addressed him as her mother had so long ago. “I don’t need a man to take care of me! For as you’ve said: I’m strong, I’m cheerful, and I’m sensible. Besides which, Father, you are notgoing to leave me.” But she crossed her fingers behind her back as she spoke and hoped God would forgive her the lie, for she knew he was not long for this world.

And indeed, it was not many days before Adrien found herself alone in the cottage, her father’s loom standing silent and forlorn in the corner. The old man himself lay buried beside his wife, and it was no longer Adrien’s lot to watch over him, for that task now fell to the ancient yew that ruled the churchyard, its bright red berries falling like tears upon the graves below.

* * * *

As Adrien was sorrowfully bundling up her father’s clothes to be given to the poor, a knock came upon the door of her cottage. She opened it to find Will Green, the farmer’s eldest son, standing there in his best smock. A squealing piglet struggled to escape from his large, rough hands. With some difficulty, the young farmer tipped his broad-brimmed hat to Adrien, and she hastened to relieve him of his wriggling burden, not without a strong suspicion as to why he might have come.

“Miss Weaver,” the farmer began, “I hope you’ll be so kind as to accept this fine young piglet as a gift, and when your time of mourning is done, will you be allowing me to be a-courting of you? For those strong arms of yours would do mighty well a-helping me on the farm, I’m thinking.”

“I thank you, Master Green,” Adrien said politely, “and I’ll think on your words.” For although she shuddered inwardly at the thought of those large, rough hands upon her body, still she knew the young farmer to be an honest, kindly man and would not for the world have hurt his feelings.

So she put the piglet down by the fire to keep warm, fed it on scraps from the funeral spread, and wondered at herself, that she found the thought of marriage to such a good man so abhorrent.

The next day there came a second knock upon the door. It was Thomas White, the village baker, come to present her with one of his finest loaves. He too tipped his hat to her, leaving a large floury thumbprint upon the brim.

“Miss Weaver,” said he from behind his bushy auburn beard, “I hope you’ll accept this modest gift, and will allow me to court you when a suitable time has passed. For your ready, cheerful smile would be an asset in my shop, I’m sure.”

Although Adrien could not stomach the thought of kisses from such a bristly face, still she knew the baker to be a hard-working, God-fearing man, and so she thanked him kindly and told him she would consider his proposal. Then she sat down by the fire with the piglet and fed it a crust from the still-warm loaf.