Into the Wilderness (4 page)

Even
in her mortification,
Elizabeth
had to notice how different the two men were: one fair, with great masses of
red—gold beard, and dressed expensively in linen and wool; the other dark and
lean, dressed only in leather breech clout and leggings, his naked chest smooth
and muscled. Then
Elizabeth
realized that she was looking at a stranger—a grown man—without a shirt, when
she had never seen even her brother in such a natural state. She felt herself
flooding with color.

Surprise
crossed Nathaniel's face; he sat up and opened his mouth to speak but
Elizabeth
had already
begun to spin away, sending her hair around her into a whirl. She slammed the
door shut behind her, her face burning, and ran back toward the stair, where
she bumped full force into her father and brother.

"
Elizabeth
!" the
judge said, startled. "Are you quite well?"

"Really,
Lizzie," her brother chimed in, straightening the lace stock at his neck.
"Look at you. What a sight you are."

Elizabeth
scowled."If I knew where my things were, Julian, I would not be here in
the hall offending your sensibilities."

The
judge put an arm around her shoulders. "Go back to your rooms, my dear.
I'll send someone along with your bags right away so that you can change for
dinner. Richard is here, and he's anxious to meet you, so put on something
pretty."

The
tone of this request, coaxing and unfamiliar, made
Elizabeth
pause in her flight up the stairs.
"Richard?"

Her
father smiled. "Richard Todd—I've written to you of him. You must have
seen him just now, tending to Nathaniel. He is anxious to be introduced to
you."

And
Elizabeth
remembered,
suddenly, those words she had heard just minutes before:
Is your father as content to have a spinster daughter as you are to be
one?

"It
seems the sights of the sickroom were such that she didn't notice the
doctor," Julian was saying as
Elizabeth
disappeared up the stairs. At any other time, she would have responded to her
brother's impertinence, but now, suddenly uneasy, she wanted nothing more than
to get away.

The
housekeeper was called Curiosity Freeman, and
Elizabeth
soon understood how she had earned
her first name. When Galileo brought up her trunks and valise, Curiosity came
along—to help
Elizabeth
get settled, she said, but it was clear that there was more than baggage on her
mind.

"How
many times the judge will get himself into mischief with that smoothbore, I
hate to think," she began without preamble. Over
Elizabeth
's protests, Curiosity lifted and
moved the trunks without catching her breath or losing her train of thought.

"Never
you mind, I suppose I can manage these few valises of yours. I've lifted
heavier things in my life."

Elizabeth
noted Curiosity's broad hands and muscled forearms and had to agree that she
was capable.

"Don't
you worry about me, miss. Not much short of a musket ball could put me off my
feet." This put her in mind of the recent drama, and she took up the topic
again. "Nathaniel would be crossing to the other side this very moment if
he didn't have somebody watching over him, that for sure. But that little
bullet certainly did push your homecoming out of the way, didn't it?"

"Mrs.
Freeman—"
Elizabeth
began.

"No,
miss, you must call me Curiosity. It's the name my mama give me, and I go by
it."

Elizabeth
smiled. "It seems everyone here goes by their first name."

"All
except the judge."

"Well,
then, please call me Elizabeth." This was a social breach which never
would have been countenanced at home;
Elizabeth
knew that Julian would complain to her that she was too familiar with the servants.
This train of thought was interrupted by Curiosity, who had her own questions
to ask.

"You
a Quaker, like your mama was?"

"No,
we were raised by my aunt Merriweather, Father's sister. But admire very much
the Quaker teachings—"

"Well,
you won't get no argument from me, as Quakers bought me and my Galileo free. It
was your mama's daddy who done that for us, but I expect you heard that story.
We been working for your folks ever since."

Elizabeth
smiled at this good report of her family. "I hope my father's done well by
you?"

Curiosity
stood up suddenly. She gave
Elizabeth
a long, steady look, her dark eyes hooded. Then she smiled. "Time to get
to table. The menfolk will be waiting." She turned toward the door, her
wide skirts rustling around her.

"Has
my father done well by you, by you and yours?"
Elizabeth
repeated, uneasy at the woman's
sudden reticence.

Curiosity
spoke with her back to
Elizabeth
.
"He done pretty well by me and mine, miss. But there's others who ain't as
satisfied." She turned and saw the questions forming on
Elizabeth
's face, and held up her palm.

"Time
to get to table," she said, and then she was gone, before
Elizabeth
could remind Curiosity to call her
by her Christian name.

When
Elizabeth
had changed
into a simple gray dress with a lawn shawl tucked into the bodice and tamed her
hair into a roll along the back of her head, she stood looking at herself in
the mirror. The vision of Nathaniel Bonner, bare chested, rose up before her
and she scowled fiercely at herself. Nathaniel was waiting downstairs, as was
the mysterious Dr. Todd, and she would have to go and deal with both of them.
This was not what she had expected for the first day in her new home. In
England
she had
not been much in society; she had preferred the company of her books, and the
few close friends she had left behind.

When
she could wait no longer,
Elizabeth
found her way down to the dining room where the meal and the men waited for
her. With great enthusiasm, her father took her by the arm and presented her to
Dr.Todd;
Elizabeth
smiled politely and answered his inquiries as to her trip and health, all the
while too aware of Nathaniel, who stood with his back against the wall, his
arms crossed, and his gaze fixed on her.

Richard
Todd did his best to capture all her attention for himself: he was solicitous
and amusing, and the look in his blue eyes set below a mane of red—blond hair
was friendly and seemed sincere. She judged him to be just over thirty, with
hair thinning high on his temples.
Elizabeth
saw that while his coat and waistcoat were well cut and suited him well, they
could not hide a propensity for fleshiness.

Seated
at one end of the table opposite her father,
Elizabeth
found herself too near Nathaniel
Bonner for comfort. He was on her left; Richard Todd sat to her right. At the
table's head the judge was flanked by Hawkeye and Julian.
Elizabeth
noted with some relief that the three of them had immediately taken up a
previous conversation on the war in
France
and that she would not have
to entertain five men.

And I can certainly manage this
, she
said to herself firmly, and she turned to Nathaniel, suddenly determined to
make a new start with this strange man. He wore his own clothing again, the
dressing on his wounded shoulder showing through the rent in his shirt, still
stained with blood.

"Are
you in pain, Mr. Bonner?" she asked. "Is your wound distressing
you?"

"Nathaniel,"
he corrected her. Then: "I am comfortable enough, miss. Thank you most
kindly for your concern and interest."

"You
are most kindly welcome," she said, matching Nathaniel's tone of mild
impertinence.

The
dining room was small and somewhat dark, but it provided a profusion of serving
tables and odd pieces of furniture for
Elizabeth
to concentrate on while she considered her predicament. She was at a loss on
how to start a conversation which would engage both Richard Todd and Nathaniel
Bonner; subjects which were the staples of polite dinner conversation at home
would not do here, and she did not know them well enough to bring up more controversial
political topics, although she would have liked to hear their opinions on
President Washington's Proclamation of Neutrality, or the French defeat of
Austrian and Prussian troops at the battle of Valmy. Neither could she ask them
about their work without opening up many subjects which would be unseemly,
although this topic interested her greatly.
Elizabeth
glanced around the room again and
noted that there were a number of oil paintings, landscapes all of them, some
quite awkward and naive in their execution, but a few very appealing.

"I
see my father has been collecting the work of local painters,"
Elizabeth
said to both
Nathaniel and Richard Todd. "Interesting, some of them. I like the
mountain glade."

"That's
a lopsided contrivance," Hawkeye volunteered from the other side of the
table. "Nothing in nature to match it."

"Is
that so?"
Elizabeth
asked. "Well, perhaps I haven't seen enough mountains to know. But I do
like it."

"You
are very generous," Richard Todd said, and
Elizabeth
turned to him. "Hawkeye is
right."

"I
agree that not all of the paintings are equally well done, but certainly there
is some merit here—aren't you being rather hard on the artist?"
Elizabeth
asked.

"It
seems I must be," Richard Todd said calmly. "As the artist, it falls
to me to be my own sternest critic. The judge is too kind to be honest. He
hangs everything I produce."

Elizabeth
was
surprised to learn that the doctor had painted these landscapes; at home, young
women were sent to drawing masters to learn to make pretty sketches of
mountains and children, but young men rarely showed an active interest in art.

"Are
you interested in painting?" Richard Todd asked her.

She
laughed. "I have no talent for it," she said. "But with such
landscapes around me, perhaps I will try my hand.

"Don't
you find it interesting," she continued, addressing her remark to
Nathaniel Bonner, who fixed his attention on her willingly, "that such
beauty and bounty has been left untouched and unappreciated for so long?"

"This
land was not empty before the Europeans came," he said in clipped tones.

"Nathaniel,"
began Richard, but Nathaniel cut him off.

"It
was not unclaimed," he continued. "And it was anything but
unappreciated." With a glance toward Richard Todd, and then toward the
judge, who was deeply involved in his own conversation and who had not followed
this exchange, Nathaniel stopped himself.

Elizabeth
was
astonished and intrigued all at once; she wanted to hear the rest of what
Nathaniel had to say. But before she could think of some way to make this clear
to him, Richard Todd claimed her attention.

"You
will want to have a look around the village, Miss Elizabeth," the doctor
said to her with a friendly smile, helping himself to venison from the platter
which Curiosity offered for the second time. "You must be very curious
about your new home. I know Mr. Witherspoon—our minister and his daughter are
very anxious to make your acquaintance."

Thankfully,
Elizabeth
turned to him. "Yes, I am looking forward to my first trip to the village.
I am especially curious to meet the children."

"Children?"
Richard Todd smiled politely.

Elizabeth
looked toward her father, who was arguing once more with Julian.
 
"Yes, the children," she said.
"It would be hard to teach school without them."

"You
mean to teach school?" Nathaniel Bonner asked. All of his agitation had
disappeared. His gaze was cool, but engaged.

"Why,
yes," she said. "I do. That is why I came here."

"The
judge hasn't said anything about that," said Richard.

For a
moment
Elizabeth
was truly speechless. She had spent six months in
England
preparing to teach school,
her first school. Buying books, consulting educators, reading. It had consumed
her completely, and now she found out that her father had never even mentioned
her plans to his closest companions. She was struck with a terrible thought:
her father had brought her here on false pretenses. Everything Nathaniel Bonner
had said to her in the sleigh was true.