A Wild Yearning (22 page)

"The adz slipped," Nat went on, "and I cut across the tops of my toes. The wound putrefied and Ty said the foot had to come off. But Obadiah Kemble, he's the joiner here in Merrymeeting, he carved me a new foot out of walnut. You needn't worry that I won't be able to provide for a wife," he finished stiffly. "I still work my timberland and farm as good as most."

"Lord above us, ye've got yersel' a foot made of wood!" Delia exclaimed. "Can I see it?"

Nat looked appalled at the very idea and Delia cursed her flapping tongue. Nat Parkes wasn't taking much of a liking to her as it was and if she weren't careful she'd find herself back on
The Sagadahoc Maiden
and on her way to Boston before her dust could settle here.

"I hardly think it would be appropriate—" Nat began, but he was interrupted by Meg tugging on his sleeve.

"Show her, Papa."

"Show her, Papa," Tildy parroted.

Nat absently rubbed his nose and for the briefest moment the creases alongside his mouth deepened into a smile as he studied his daughters' upturned, eager faces. "Well, I suppose I could..."

"Oh, no, please," Delia protested, thoroughly embarrassed now.

But Nat had limped over to drop down onto a keg of nails beneath the eaves of the mast house. He kicked off his big boot, peeled off his home-knitted stocking, and thrust out his leg before Delia. Suddenly, he smiled at her, a full, genuine smile, and Delia got a glimpse of the man he had been before tragedy had blighted his life.

"See there, he's got a wooden foot," Meg stated, giving Delia a hard, assessing look, obviously hoping Delia would shrink from her father in horror.

Curious in spite of herself, Delia leaned over to get a better look at the appendage. It was a wonderful replica of a foot, even down to the five individually carved toes. A hinge had been put at the joint so that it could bend almost as good as a real ankle. It looked so real in fact that Delia almost touched it, as if to reassure herself it was wood, not flesh.

"Oh, Nat, it's marvel—"

"Really, Nathaniel Parkes, you ought to be ashamed!"

Delia jerked upright and whirled to face a huffing Sara Kemble, who had fists on her ample hips and fire in her squinting eyes. Delia hadn't realized it, but the Hookers, the Bishops, and Ty had been walking behind them. Now they, along with Sara Kemble and her perpetual shadow, Mr. Kemble, had all stopped at the sight of Nathaniel Parkes taking off boot and stocking in public to show his wife-to-be his wooden foot.

Delia smiled at Obadiah, ignoring Sara Kemble, which wasn't easy as the woman seemed to be looming over her, breathing fire like a dragon.

"Mr. Kemble, Nat's been showin' me the foot ye made for him," Delia called out. "I don't know when I've seen a finer piece of workmanship."

Sara Kemble puffed a loud harrumph from her fat cheeks. "Mr. Kemble is a joiner, the
only
joiner east of Wells. He had no call to be wasting his skills on such outlandish—"

"I 'spect most any man can come t' make a table or a chair," Delia said. "But I didn't think no one but God could make a foot."

"Did you hear that?" Sara Kemble flung her arm out to the Reverend Hooker, who jumped in alarm, causing Elizabeth to stifle a giggle with her hand. Sara pointed a quivering sausage-shaped finger at Delia. "Did you hear the blasphemous words this creature just uttered?"

"Shut up, Sara," Obadiah said in his mild-mannered voice.

Sara Kemble's mouth fell open, then she drew herself up to her formidable height. "Just who do you—"

"Your husband, that's who. And if I say shut up, then, by golly, you'll shut up!"

Sara's massive jaw snapped closed and she ground her teeth, reminding Delia of a cow chewing its cud. Then she whirled on her heel and stomped back down the wharf, shaking the pilings. Obadiah followed, but not before grinning and winking at Delia.

Delia met Ty's eyes, which were brimming with amusement, and a big smile crossed her face. "Mr. Kemble's gone an' put his foot down. Lord above us, who'd have ever thought it!"

Ty started to laugh and then his eyes focused behind her and the laughter vanished from his face. She turned to find Nathaniel Parkes glowering at her from his perch on the keg of nails. Tildy stood between his spread knees and Meg leaned alongside of him, her hand resting on his arm, a look of triumph blazing from her face.

Furious color suffused Delia's cheeks and she lowered her head, twisting her hands in her petticoat.
Ye wooden-headed fool. Ye're not at the place above ten minutes afore ye're mortifying the poor man who's now stuck with ye for a wife.

A broad shadow fell over her and a long, brown hand landed lightly on her arm, pulling her around. Slowly her head came up. Their eyes met and held.

A lazy smile lifted the corners of Tyler Savitch's mouth. "Welcome to Merrymeeting, Delia-girl."

"We were raided by timber pirates while you were gone, Ty," Colonel Bishop said, setting down his soup spoon and wiping his mouth on the white table napkin he had tied around his neck. "A gang of about fifty came down in sloops from Boston. They cut and made off with some of our best trees."

"We sure could have used that sharp-shooting flintlock of yours, Doc," Anne Bishop added. She had a tart voice, like vinegar, which seemed to go with her angular face. But the smile she gave Ty revealed her fondness for him. "Rifle shot and a couple of your blood-curdling Abenaki war whoops would've scared them off plenty quick."

Ty mumbled something about maybe next time. Delia could feel his eyes on her, and she knew that familiar scowl was meant for her as well. She glanced around the table at the other diners and her eyes met those of Nathaniel Parkes, who regarded her with a puzzled expression, as if he couldn't quite remember the reason for her being there. The dim candlelight etched the lines of grief deeper into his face, and his gray eyes were dull with sadness. Delia knew instinctively he was comparing her to his dead wife and finding her lacking.

For propriety's sake, Delia was to stay with the Bishops until the banns were posted and the wedding could take place. This first supper at Merrymeeting was supposed to be a festive occasion. The Hookers had been invited, and Nat of course. But his daughters had been banished to eat in the kitchen with the servants. Delia thought that if the girls had been at the table, her own lack of sophistication wouldn't have been so obvious and Ty wouldn't be scowling at her.

Repressing a nervous sigh, she looked down at the delftware bowl of creamed pumpkin soup. Taking a deep breath, she picked up the pewter spoon.
Now don't
ye dare spill none, an' don't ye start slurpin' it up like a half-starved hound,
she admonished herself, which made her so nervous she immediately set the spoon down again.

The soup looked delicious and she was famished, but Delia was terrified of making some terrible blunder, as she had done that first morning with Ty when he had accused her of having the manners of a pig. It seemed there were hundreds of rules that were part and parcel of the proper deportment of a real lady, and she despaired of ever mastering them all. She could feel Nat Parkes's eyes solemnly watching her every move. She wanted so badly for him to like her. Lord above us, if she were to marry the man, he at least should
like
her.

Delia had never eaten off delftware or pewter before. Nor had she known the luxury of a separate dining room even existed; she'd always taken her meals in a kitchen or a taproom or bought them off a vendor in the street. The Bishops' dining room was furnished with a fine black cherry table and delicate chairs that seemed to creak every time anyone shifted a muscle. The room smelled cloyingly of dried violets and snuff, which wafted in thick clouds from the person of Colonel Bishop.

Aware suddenly of the overpowering smell of the snuff, Delia felt an irresistible urge to sneeze. The harder she fought it, the more imminent the sneeze became, until it exploded out of her, sounding louder than the discharge of a cannon.

Blushing furiously, Delia covered the lower half of her face with her napkin. "I-I'm sorry," she mumbled. Never had she felt more bitterly ashamed. No wonder neither Ty nor Nat wanted to marry her;
she
wouldn't want to be married to her disgusting, ill-mannered, boorish self.

"It's the snuff," Anne Bishop stated. "Really, Giles, you should be more considerate."

The colonel's heavy-jowled face deepened a shade. "Yes, of course. My apologies, Mistress McQuaid."

Delia stole a look at Ty, expecting a scowl, but instead caught the glint of laughter in his eyes. He gave her a sudden, blinding smile. Thoroughly confused, Delia looked away.

Ty had never appeared more handsome than he did this night, and the sight of him brought a poignant ache to her chest. He had disappeared for a while and returned wearing different clothes—a coat with stiffened, buttoned-back cuffs and a pinched waist that showed off his splendid physique. Beneath the coat was a velvet waistcoat, and the snowy gorget around his neck set off his dark skin and the vivid hue of his eyes. On his head he had worn a gray hat decorated with an indigo-blue ribbon that matched those eyes.

In fact, everyone except Delia had dressed for dinner. Elizabeth Hooker had added a white kerchief to her usual black dress, enhancing her pale, ephemeral beauty. The reverend had acquired a daring touch of color with his clover-green drugget coat. Even Anne Bishop had changed out of her spotted bodice into a violet silk polonaise gown, although the color did little to enliven her sallow complexion.

While everyone else spooned their soup and talked about timber pirates and lumbering, Delia took the opportunity to study the colonel's wife. In her late forties, she seemed older than her husband, weathered and twisted, as if her life had been much harder than the relative luxury of the manor house would suggest. There seemed to be an aura of sadness around her, almost of deep misery, yet there had been an underlying kindness in the few words she had spoken thus far to Delia. Delia noticed a large death's-head mourning ring on the woman's right hand, which was thin and bony with swollen knuckles. Perhaps the reason for the ring explained the sadness.

"I noticed all those masts on the wharf were marked with an arrow shaped like a crow's foot," the Reverend Hooker said, as a servant passed around a voider and the soup plates were cleared from the table. "Does the mark have some special meaning?"

"The King claims all masts measuring over two feet in diameter for the use of his Royal Navy," the colonel explained. "As mast agent I'm supposed to see that white pine trunks of this size are carved with the King's mark, the 'broad arrow,' thus reserving them for the King's use." He smiled wistfully. "I'm afraid that makes me unpopular with some folk around here."

Anne Bishop made a sharp, grunting noise. "That's because most folk can get a better price for their masts in Lisbon or Cadiz than they can from the King. I'm afraid you'll find we're not all loyal, law-abiding subjects here in Merrymeeting."

"Now, I wonder why that doesn't surprise me," Caleb said.

Everyone laughed and Delia began to relax. Colonel Bishop went on to explain how the King's masts had to be perfect, not broken or warped, while the servant set before them plates filled with thick slabs of roast pork, steamed cabbage, and slices of pone slathered with apple butter. Beside the plate the servant placed an eating knife and something in an open leather case that Delia had never seen before.

Actually, she had seen something
like
it before—a cooking tool with a large handle and two large tines called a fork, which was used to hold down a roast while it was being carved. But this fork was small, the width and length of an eating spoon. It had a bone handle and three slender metal tines.

Delia's stomach rumbled with hunger, but she dreaded having to eat with this strange implement. She watched Ty from beneath lowered lids. He held the meat down with the tines, sliced off a piece, then lifted the food to his mouth. Delia watched him do it a few times before she tried it herself.

To her delight, she actually managed it without doing something embarrassing such as missing her mouth or dropping the food on her lap. But she looked askance at this newfangled eating ware. It seemed a lot of bother; she would rather have used her fingers.

Still, she had done it! She was sitting in a real dining room, eating at a fine table, not off a plank board. She was using a fork, or whatever the newfangled thing was called, eating off delftware and drinking from a pewter cup. She had done it.

So ye grew up in a shack on the Boston waterfront. Ye had a drunk for a da an' ye worked in a grog shop since ye was fourteen. But that don't
mean ye can't
change. Ye've never
been so stupid that ye couldn't learn better. So's there's no reason why ye can't learn to dress genteely and muzzle yer flapping tongue. To act like a real lady's supposed to act.

She looked up and met Ty's eyes. He was scowling at her again and her chin jutted up.
I
might not be good enough for yer company now, Tyler Savitch, but one day I will be. Just ye watch an' see.

One day Tyler Savitch would look at her and she would see admiration reflected in those dusky blue eyes.

Later that night, Ty and the Hookers left the manor house together. Ty walked them back to the parsonage, leading his pacer, his rifle resting against his shoulder, one hand wrapped around the stock to hold it in place.

In the dark the encroaching forest seemed menacing to Caleb, full of barely fathomable dangers. He kept expecting to see glowing red eyes, to hear the sudden whoop of an Indian war cry. He glanced at his wife, at her tense mouth that was a tight slash in the pale oval of her face, and knew she felt it even more keenly than he did: the lurking danger lying beneath the beauty that was Merrymeeting.

They stopped in front of the new parsonage. "Stay a moment," Caleb said to Ty. "I'd like a word."

Ty looped the pacer's reins loosely around the porch rail as Elizabeth disappeared inside, taking the whale-oil lantern with her. They could see her shadow moving across the sashed windows before she pulled the shutters closed, leaving the two men alone with the sound of the crickets for company and only the pale light of a waning moon to reveal their faces.

"I must admit I'm a mite disappointed," Caleb said.

"What disappoints you? Doesn't the missus like the house?"

Caleb took off his hat and ran his hand through his light brown hair. He flashed his crooked-toothed smile. "Oh, the parsonage is fine and soon as Lizzie gets all her doodads arranged just the way she likes, it's going to seem as if we've lived here our entire lives." And the windows all have shutters,

Caleb thought irrelevantly, so she can shut out the wilderness and the town that she's already made up her mind to hate, shut out everything, including me, and spin and spin and spin...

Caleb's throat closed around a sigh. He wondered sometimes how he could expect to minister to others when he couldn't help Elizabeth, or himself.

"No, it's just that during those long nights of studying at Harvard," Caleb said, "whenever I sat back and pictured my first ministry, the meetinghouse always had a tall steeple. With a weathercock."

Ty looked at the silhouette of the squat raw clapboard meetinghouse next door. "No steeple," he agreed.

"I suppose that should be a lesson to me," Caleb went on carefully, "not to attach too much importance to wishful dreams."

"There's nothing wrong with dreams," Ty said, but he didn't sound as if he truly believed it.

Caleb let the silence between them grow. He and Tyler Savitch had shared some long conversations on the journey to Merrymeeting and, if asked, he would have said they'd become fast friends for all that Ty was a difficult man to get to know. But Caleb was finding it hard to broach the subject he wanted to discuss.

He decided to try a direct approach. "Are you sure you should allow Nathaniel Parkes to marry Delia?"

"Nat should consider himself lucky to be getting Delia," Ty snapped, letting Caleb feel the bite of his quick temper. "She's going to make him a fine wife."

"You misunderstand. I think Delia would make
any
man a fine wife. But especially you, because anyone can see that she loves you so very much... and I suspect you love her," he added after Ty said nothing.

"I don't love her, damn it all. Just because I—" Ty kicked at the step with the heel of his boot. "Hell, Caleb, I don't know what the emotion means, what it is I'm supposed to feel. Maybe I'm just plain not capable of feeling love."

"Oh, I think you're capable of it, and more so than most men. That's why you're fighting it so hard. Perhaps you feel love weakens you, or makes you vulnerable to pain—"

"Bullshit."

"Fine. Be mulish and pig-headed and stubborn!" Caleb shouted, waving his arms, his own temper rising now, along with his voice. "But remember this. Once she marries Mr. Parkes, Delia is lost to you. Forever."

There. He'd gotten out what he wanted to say. But would Ty take his warning to heart?

Balling his hands into fists, Ty stuffed them in his coat pockets. He had stepped down off the stoop, turning his back, but now he spun around again.

The moonlight cast harsh shadows on the sharp bones of his face. "What would you have me do, Reverend? Offer to marry Delia in Nat's stead on the off chance that I might be in love with her and not know it? Christ, I'm so damn confused at this point it's lucky I remember how to put my breeches on in the morning, let alone distinguish the fine line between lust and love." His lips twisted into a bitter smile. "I can hardly take her as my mistress while I decide which it is, can I? I doubt you would approve. And knowing Delia, she'd slap my face for even suggesting it."

"Yes. I can see your point," Caleb said, feeling sad for them. For himself. "But love—gentle, shining, spiritual love-it comes so rarely between a man and a woman and if—"

Ty barked a laugh, flinging his arms out from his sides. "I want to swive the wench, not marry her! What the hell is spiritual about that?"

Caleb swallowed hard and looked away.