Honor (12 page)

Uncertain over the meaning of Honor’s unexpected smiles, Samuel now faced the ordeal of a communal meal. He didn’t like sitting among others who conversed, excluding him. He also wanted to keep Honor away from the other men aboard.

As they neared the table, he saw the men standing, waiting. Manners dictated that they wait to sit until the ladies had been seated. Honor gripped his arm, and he helped her negotiate the bench, her narrow skirt constricting her movements. The other ladies followed her lead; then the men sat down.

One handsome young man wearing the finest suit and shiniest beaver hat Samuel had seen aboard—a dandy, all right—managed to shift into the place directly across from Honor. The dandy greeted Honor with many words and flamboyant motions. Samuel fumed, taking his seat beside his wife, ignored. Royale set Eli between his wife and him.

The two servants—one waiter and one maid, with Royale helping them—served the meal family style, passing around large bowls of boiled potatoes, sliced ham, thick pieces of bread, cheese, and a bowl of ripe apples. The food awakened his hunger, and he served himself from the bowls passed to him. He noted that Honor filled Eli’s plate as she talked and smiled. This caught around his heart. She would be a good mother to Eli.

The irritating dandy addressed Honor. Samuel could sometimes read lips. He caught the word
husband
and stiffened. What was the man saying about him?

Honor touched Samuel’s arm and signed the man’s question: “What does your husband plan to do in Cincinnati?”

Why hadn’t she just answered for him? Then he realized that she was attempting to include him in the conversation. But he really didn’t want to converse with the dandy, with any of these strangers. Finally Samuel signed, “You may tell them I’m setting up my own glassworks.”

Honor sent him a searching look, but she said and signed his words to the man. The dandy said something in response. Honor signed the man’s comment: his name was Sinclair Hewitt, and he planned to find work as a journalist at the
Centinel of the Northwest Territory
, one of the first newspapers in the region.

Then the conversation went on without Samuel. He could only “hear” what Honor chose to sign for him. And she had to use her utensils to eat, so she couldn’t sign everything said—though she obviously continued to include him and thereby called attention to him. He chewed his food and tried to appear unaffected.

He watched everyone laugh at something the dandy said. Samuel’s stomach burned as he sensed not only their exclusion, but under it their dismissal of him as less than they were, invisible, unworthy of such an attractive wife.

Honor repeated the “amusing” comment to him, and he nodded like a puppet.

He glanced at the cabins, one in front of him and one behind. He and Eli would share one berth of the men’s cabin. He didn’t like that his wife would be in another room, not with so many strangers on board. He knew his mother wouldn’t want him to doubt Honor’s loyalty; however, men were unpredictable and would not see him as a barrier to getting closer to his pretty wife. They were
mistaken, of course, but they didn’t know that. And he didn’t want to be forced to prove it.

His food churned in his stomach, hot and unsettled. Only one night and one more day, and they would arrive in Cincinnati. Then he could take his wife away from these men, away from temptation.

OCTOBER 16, 1819

The next morning, when Honor stepped outside the ladies’ cabin, Samuel, holding Eli’s hand, was waiting for her. She gazed uncertainly at her husband. Ever since they’d boarded the steamboat yesterday morning, Samuel had been acting very peculiarly. He’d either prowled the deck, hovered around her, or abruptly walked away from her and brooded. Could she get him to tell her why?

“Morning,” Eli said, but Samuel signed no greeting.

Ignoring an unexpected urge to take Samuel’s arm and draw him closer, Honor instead bent and cupped the boy’s chin. “Is thee enjoying this steamboat trip?”

“I like the boat,” Eli declared and signed, rising to his toes like a young cock crowing.

Eli’s innocent words won her smile. As she talked with Eli, a silent Samuel steered them to the breakfast table. In the bright morning light, she noted once more how substantial her husband looked. She recalled how he’d quickly moved to protect her the day before. There was good in him, but why couldn’t he relax and enjoy this fascinating experience just a little? She was trying to make the best of things.

The smell of fried bacon and buttered toast filled the
air around the table. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a figure in the distance. A woman on the high forested bluff was waving a white handkerchief.

Honor hurried to the railing and waved her own handkerchief in return, wondering who the woman was and how she liked living in the Ohio wilderness. Samuel moved to stand behind her again, protectively. Defensively?

Within moments, as the boat rounded a bend, the woman disappeared from sight. Again, a simple exchange had cheered Honor. She walked the last few feet to the table and turned to Samuel and Eli, smiling, only to see Samuel’s face become taut.

All the gentlemen greeted her with more than average courtesy, and she blushed at their attention. Samuel helped her sit modestly on the bench once more. “Good morning,” Honor wished the company in general. She bowed her head and said a silent grace.

When she looked up, the journalist again sat across from her. She smiled at him and opened her napkin. Beside her, Samuel tensed further.

Bowls of scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, buttered toast, and thickly sliced bacon passed from hand to hand. “I didn’t think the food would be this good, Sinclair Hewitt,” she said and signed, trying to include Samuel.

“I’ve been surprised greatly on this journey. The landscape is so much more striking than I had expected.”

Signing his words, Honor tilted her head to one side, encouraging the young man, hoping Samuel might catch some of his enthusiasm.

“Look at these high bluffs.” Sinclair Hewitt motioned
broadly toward them. “So high, and such a wild, a picturesque grandeur, which those who have never viewed nature in her primitive and unspoiled state can hardly imagine.”

Honor continued signing the budding journalist’s grand words.

Everyone else gave their attention to the young man, who continued to wax eloquent. “What dense and interminable forests.” He raised both arms. “Trees of the most gigantic size. Did you notice the broad shadows they cast yesterday afternoon? And this river, so placid with meanderings and frequent bends, and all the wooded islands—”

Honor listened carefully, enjoying his elaborate words as she signed them. A glance at Samuel caused her fingers to falter. His face was set and darkened.

Several of the men chuckled, interrupting the poetic flow. One jested, “Well, you said you were a writer, and now we believe you!”

Hewitt grinned good-naturedly. “And which one of us could have believed that one could travel from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati in only two days?”

Honor signed this to Samuel, and she and the other people around the table—except for her husband—agreed with his observation. Steamboat travel was amazing. She glanced once more at Samuel and tried to gauge his mood. He frowned more deeply. Her own enjoyment faded.

“Can you imagine how steamboats will revolutionize trade from the Northeast to New Orleans?” Hewitt asked. “Cincinnati is going to become a great hub of trade, truly the Queen City of the West!”

Honor leaned forward to agree with the young man’s contagious optimism.

Under the table, Samuel squeezed her thigh. Not enough to hurt her, but as an unseen command for restraint.

Her gaze flew to his face; his expression thundered at her.

She tingled with alarm. What had upset Samuel? She signed this to him, glad no one but Eli would understand.

Samuel didn’t reply, merely glared at her.

Honor sent him a look that she hoped he read as notice of a coming discussion. He did not acknowledge her silent message with so much as a flicker of an eyelash, but merely began eating.

A lady across from Honor asked her if she was from the South, distracting her. But only for now. She would not be ignored. Her husband had avoided talking to her on this boat for the last time.

Samuel found he couldn’t evade his wife. As he roamed the deck, she dogged him. Finally, in a spot where they couldn’t be easily observed, he stopped and faced her. “Why are you following me?”

“Because thee will not talk to me. Why did thee press my leg at the table?”

He folded his arms and tucked his hands under them.

“That won’t work. I deserve an answer. No one is looking at us, and no one can read our signs. Why did thee press my leg like thee was upset?”

“I don’t like that man, that dandy.” His fingers snapped the words.

“We’re only going to be on this boat for such a short time. What does he matter? I said nothing inappropriate to him, and neither did he to me. He is merely a talker, a man who amuses others. What’s wrong with that?”

When she put it that way, he was left with nothing to say. “Sorry.”

She plainly adjusted her expression, letting him see her set aside her irritation. “Very well.”

He started to turn and begin pacing the deck again.

She stopped him by touching his arm. “I want to know more about where we are going.”

So do I.
He hesitated to tell her he didn’t know any more. He was the man, the husband. He was supposed to have everything taken care of. But he couldn’t put Honor off again. Better stick to the simple truth. “I have the name and address of the land agent in Cincinnati who arranged the sale. When we arrive, he will take us to our property and we’ll see it. I only have the legal description, nothing more. What more could I have?”

She pressed her lips together. “Is that really all?”

“Yes,” his fingers slashed. He was frustrated too. “I want to know more as well, but we will find what we find.”

I hope we like what we find.

Samuel read these words on her face as clearly as if her fingers had signed them. And he could only agree. He had a wife and child depending on him now, and Royale, too. He would have to make everything work out. Worries he had buried bubbled up once more. He smoothed his hair back and situated his hat. And he began pacing again, dragging the heavy responsibilities behind him.

S
AMUEL’S COLD,
possessive manner had ruined the rest of Honor’s last day on the steamboat, and now the fiery sun hovered above the Ohio. She gripped the railing, assailed by a new uncertainty. The red-orange of the lowering sun reflected on the river, rippling toward land, toward their destination, toward Cincinnati.

The shoreline spread out flat. Then a steep bluff jerked her gaze upward. Honor craned her neck, glimpsing not the expected thicket of trees but a jumble of rows of houses, factories, and in the distance, church steeples. So big.

Breath rushed out of her. After miles and miles of uninhabited forest, now this—a fully grown city. Sinclair Hewitt had said Cincinnati was called the Queen City of the West, and now she saw why.