Nicole led Leah around more of the plantation, but Leah didn’t see much of it because her mind was still on the fabrics she’d seen. “Do you really think I could make something like that?” Leah asked while she was supposed to be looking at the dairy cows. She’d milked cows since she could walk and they didn’t interest her, but the idea of being able to create such beauty did.
“Yes, Leah, I believe you could. Would you like it if we went back to the loom house now?”
Leah’s eyes sparkled in answer.
Leah spent the next months seldom more than a few feet away from Janie, who taught her everything from caring for sheep, shearing, and dyeing to spinning, dressing a loom, and weaving. And Leah took to it all as if she’d been born with a shuttle in her hand.
In the evenings she sat behind a spinning wheel and the threads she produced were even and very fine. During the days she put her stool near the loom heddles and pulled threads through according to Janie’s intricate pattern without a single error and without losing her patience. When she wove she threw the shuttle straight through and brought the beater back with a great deal of strength.
In January, Janie said it was time to learn to draft her own patterns.
“But I can’t read,” Leah said.
“Neither can my other weavers. Now, first you learn to draw your pattern.”
In the next few weeks Nicole twice found Leah asleep over a table covered with pattern drafts, intricate graphs of blocks of numbers and treadling charts, as well as tie-ups. She’d extended the numbers to draw the six harness patterns on paper to check herself for errors. There were names such as double chariot wheel, double bow knot, velvet rose, snail trail, and wheel and star.
Nicole helped Leah to bed, and in the morning Clay asked that she come to his office.
“I thought you might like to have this,” he said, handing her a large book bound in blue leather.
“But I can’t—,” she began.
“Open it.”
She saw that the pages were blank and she looked at him, puzzled.
Clay stood beside her. “On the cover it says, Arundel Hall, and every year I have several of the books bound to use for permanent records. Nicole told me of your loom patterns so I thought you might like to record them in this. You could take it to Kentucky with you.”
To Clay’s complete bewilderment, Leah collapsed in a chair, the book held close to her, and she began to cry. “Did I do something wrong?” he asked. “Don’t you like the book?”
“Everyone is so kind,” Leah cried. “I know it’s because of Wesley but still—.”
Clay knelt before her, put his fingers under her chin, and lifted her face. “I want you to listen to me and believe what I’m saying. At first we did take you in because you’d married Wes, but we forgot about him months ago. Nicole and I and our children have come to love you. Remember how the boys came down with the measles at Christmas and you stayed up with them? Your kindness, the love you’ve given us, have more than repaid us for what little we’ve done for you.”
“But all of you are so easy to love,” she answered through tears, “and you’ve given me the world. I’ve done so little for you.”
Standing, Clay laughed. “All right, we’re equal then. I just don’t want to hear any more about what we’ve done for you. Now I need to go back to work.”
Leah stood and on impulse threw her arms around Clay. “Thank you so much for everything.”
He hugged her back. “If I’d known I’d get this kind of reward I would have deeded you the plantation. Now go on back to your looms.”
Smiling, she left the office.
In February, Regan and Travis came to fetch her.
“You’ve had her long enough,” Travis said to Clay while grinning at Leah. Regan had said, with some disgust, that Travis had quickly forgiven Leah for trapping his little brother after Travis saw how pretty Leah’d turned out to be.
With tears in her eyes, Leah hugged all the Armstrong family good-bye.
“Oh yes,” Clay said, eyes dancing, “I thought you might like to have this.” He nodded toward a wooden crate standing with several others on the wharf.
Puzzled, Leah walked toward the box. Behind it was a loom, a beautiful piece of work in cherry with brass fittings.
As Leah gaped soundlessly, Clay put his arm around her. “It breaks down for packing and you can take it to Kentucky with you. If you start crying again I’ll keep it,” he warned.
Again Leah hugged him as Travis said he’d send someone to get the loom. Leah, hating to part with the loom for even a few days, grabbed the long comblike reed and clutched it. As Travis lifted her into the little sloop, she held the reed and waved as long as she could see the Armstrongs on the dock.