Love's Pursuit (18 page)

“If a man cannot make himself useful, then what sort of man can he be, after all?” The captain smiled at Simeon Wright, though it seemed to me, by the set of his shoulders, that he would rather have struck him.

True to his sentiments, the captain made himself useful indeed, hauling logs and piling them beside the hearth. In his presence, the burden of Simeon Wright eased and I was able to concentrate on my work once more. Enough to realize that I was woefully unprepared for dinner. And that I needed Mary and the girl to help me.

I rolled up the ruined shirt and set it to the side, then turned my attentions to the turnips meant for the pottage.

“What is it?” The captain had finished piling the logs and now he stood before me, gazing into my face. “You appear as if you had some great decision to make.”

“And I have. I had hoped for Mary to climb up to the loft and get me some corn and berries, but I do not know when she will return.”

“I can do it as well as she.” And so he did.

But while he was up in the loft, the babe began to fuss.

I put aside the turnip I was slicing and went to get the child from bed. I set him on the bench across from Simeon and gave him a biscuit to keep him quiet.

All was well for a moment, but then the babe let out such a howl that I nearly cut my finger off.

I looked up from my knife to find Simeon taking to hand a portion of the child’s biscuit and placing it into his mouth.

“ ’Tis the babe’s!”

He shrugged. “And I’m a man grown. With the needs of a man. It can wait until dinner.”

Nay, the babe could not! No more than he. “In this place, children are loved . . . and fed.”

“How curious. In my place, when I was a child, they were cuffed and caned and whipped. Especially when they wailed.”

I might have laughed, but the words had not been spoken in jest. Frowning at the sudden presence of two children in the house, one small and one fully grown, I picked up the babe and moved him to the floor at the end of the table. And I handed him a piece of turnip as I did it.

The captain came down from the loft, bringing the corn and berries with him. He was setting them down upon the table when he lunged of a sudden at something behind me. “Nay—I do not think you’d like it much in there!”

I gasped as I saw the captain grabbing at the child who was intent upon a journey into the fires.

“Let it go.” Simeon’s words were strangely placid.

I turned toward him in disbelief. Let it go? Let the child be burned?

His eyes seemed indifferent to the babe’s plight and curiously cold. “Could be it learns more from getting its hairs singed than it does from being stopped upon its way.”

The captain picked up the babe by the nape of its collar and then secured him in his long arms.

Simeon frowned at the pair of them. “You do not stand watch today?”

The captain sat at the table opposite Simeon, set the babe on his knee and began bouncing him up and down. “I’ve watched the others on watch and they do well. And I will watch them again this forenoon. But I must ask you, Simeon Wright, why, in spite of everything I say and everything you’ve seen, you insist upon being out in the wood.”

“I do not.”

“Was it not you I saw early this morn?”

I looked up from my turnips with interest. Had it been? Simeon Wright had been the first to notice sign of the savages. ’Twas he who ought to be the most concerned about them. And he of all people who ought not wander about.

“
This
morn? I do not think you could have seen me.”

“
Would
have seen you? Is that what you meant to say? Maybe not . . . I was standing a bit . . . concealed. I doubt any would have noticed I was there.”

Simeon frowned. “Where was this you thought to have seen me?”

“Are you certain it was not you? With the dawning of the sun?

Coming
back
across the bridge?”

Simeon shrugged. “Why would you have thought it me?”

“Because I could have sworn I recognized the glint of sun off your hair . . . but perhaps I was mistaken.”

The captain mistaken? Surely not. And if so, then why would he be so cheerful about it?

The babe clapped his hands and began to babble in the way that babes do.

The captain took one of the mite’s chubby hands into his own and pretended to nibble upon his fingers.

The child giggled, and so the captain took up his other hand and nibbled on that one as well.

“You are a fortunate man indeed, Captain Holcombe, if all you have to do in a day’s work is play at child’s games . . . and stand hidden in the brush, waiting for people to cross bridges.”

“Then you are a fortunate man as well, Mister Wright . . . if all you have to do in a day’s work is harass some woman trying to do her work.”

Simeon’s jaw tightened.

The captain ignored him and bent to press his lips to the child’s belly to tickle it. “But if all I do this day is keep a child from the fires, then I consider it an honest day’s work.”

Without a word to the captain, with a nod to me, Simeon Wright pushed away from the table and left. And at his going, we breathed a great sigh of relief.

The captain opened his mouth to speak.

“Do you not say it.”

“I—”

I held up a hand to stay his words, and then I walked straight out of the house to the edge of the wood. I had not bothered with a cloak, but still I made my feet take steps slow and deliberate because I wanted so badly to stomp them. I could not bear Simeon Wright in my house for half an hour’s time. How could I be expected to live with him?

I wanted to weep, I wanted to yell. I wanted to curse God and die. But I did none of those. What good would it have done? And what purpose would it have served?

I let a lone tear trickle down my cheek instead.

26

I HAD BEGUN TO find sleep only with great difficulty. Began, in fact, to dread it. I would close my eyes and let my mind drift toward the edge of slumber only to have it snap into vigilance with the memory of some task I had forgotten to do that day or some chore I would have to see to in the morrow. It was torturous, that drifting away and then reeling toward wakefulness. I felt like some fish being jerked along by a string.

Eventually my thoughts would soften around their borders and the urgency of remembered chores seem not quite so urgent. I would slip into a dream of day, a dream of work. And I would repeat those tasks I had just so recently finished. I would instruct the day-girl in this and that and command Mary upon our daily routines and all would be accomplished in harmony and good humor. I would reach the hour of supper, I would place the biscuits upon the table and would realize, with shameful astonishment, that I was quite naked and had been for the entire day. I would look around at my family’s faces wondering why no one had thought to tell me, why no one had warned me. And just as I began to use my hands to cover my shame, the faces of Father, and Mary, Nathaniel and the captain, would fade into white brightness and the form of Simeon Wright would come walking toward me through that haze.

And then it was just the two of us. Alone.

As he stepped near, a slow smile would begin at the edge of his lips and curl up into a sneer. And then he would come for me.

And I would wake, panting with fear.

Though the ground was blanketed with snow, the month was still November and November was the month of blood. There were pigs to be slaughtered and sausages to be made. Hams to cure and bacon to be put up. The tasks were common to every household, and so we assembled ourselves together to accomplish them.

I chose to carry offal to the fire for burning. It was dirty, smelly work, but it was also a task that I knew would ensure my solitude. The attentions of Simeon had pinched my soul. I did not wish to be where others chattered of mindless things. I did not want to hear their gossip or their laughter. I only wished to be alone.

As I walked to and from the slaughter, I set my thoughts beyond my work to the tasks that awaited me at home. When Father left to put our meat up, I would go with him to see to the fires and to check the porridge meant for supper. On the morrow, with the fresh swine’s fat, it would be time for making soap. And later in the week, I would have to do a washing.

As I began to think of tasks to assign the day-girl, a shadow crossed the ground in front of me. I looked up to see Simeon Wright. Glancing around, I realized we were hidden from sight by the walls of the meetinghouse.

I hefted the bucket to my chest and wrapped my arms about it. The smell was offensive, but it placed a barrier between us. I smiled. “Good day, Simeon Wright.” I looked over my shoulder in the direction I had come. Moved sideways as if I meant to return to the others.

He blocked my going with a swift step. “Good day.” He put a hand to my arm.

I tried to pull it away.

He stopped me by hefting the bucket from me and placing it beside him on the ground. “You should not have to do such work.Not now. Not when you belong to me.” He put his hand to my arm again. Only this time, it clasped tighter. And he put his other hand to my face. “You are so . . . beautiful. What is it about you? Why have you bewitched me?”

I closed my eyes, willing him to go away, but I could do nothing to block the burning imprint of the brightness of his eyes.

“My father always told me I was nothing. He always told me I would never make anything of myself. If only he could see me now.” But for the caress of his whisper, the tone of his words might have been violent. “I have the sawmill. I have built a garrison house.And now I have you.” He trailed a finger from my cheek toward my lips.

A numbing chill spread forth from his touch.

“I have always been watching you. Did you know that? I have always been wanting you. I knew you would make a good wife. But you never saw me, did you?” His hand cupped my chin.

I dared not move.

“Not in Boston, and not here either. Because of John Prescotte.But John no longer wants you, does he? So look at me now.” He was whispering still, but the words had a peculiar sting to them.

I flinched.

His hand tightened. “Aye. That’s it. Look at me. Now.”

I did it. In truth, I was afraid for what he might do to me if I did not.

There was a strange smile playing at his lips.

“You will be the perfect wife. Chaste. Pure. As a lily among thorns.My father was wrong about me. I took you from John Prescotte. I won. You are no one’s but mine.”

Tears began coursing down my cheeks.

He wiped them away with gentle hands, then pulled my head to his chest and kissed the hair that had escaped my coif at the temple. “All will be well. You will be my wife. And I will be your husband.”

I clung to him because he was the only thing I could grab hold of. My only partner in that madness.

“You will have fine gowns and servants and wealth in abundance. I will give you anything you want.”

But he was wrong. He could not give me what I wanted because the only thing I wanted was to be free.

Soon he left me. But I could not wipe my tears away. Could not rid myself of the knowledge that I had clung to him, that I had willingly embraced him. And the thought of it soured my stomach.

I retrieved my bucket, tossed the contents onto the fire, and then walked back toward the slaughter. From this distance, the only way any would know of my plight was if I gave the secret away. But I would not do it. And so I wiped away my tears, threw back my shoulders, and walked among them, worked among them, and no one guessed. No one knew.

She was crying.

Susannah crossed the town green in front of me, but some paces off. I had seen her talking to Simeon Wright. And now she was crying.

To everyone else she might have appeared as she always did. But I knew differently. I knew how she felt. I could tell it by the way she held her arms pressed against her sides, as if everything within her threatened to leak out upon the dirt. As if in keeping her arms close she could stop up her pain and keep it hidden. And this one thing at least she was determined to do. And do well.

How could everyone look but fail to see?

How could no one understand?

If she would cry out, if she would speak, then we could help her. But I knew she would not do it. She had too much pride.

I, too, had suffered from pride in abundance, though I had not known it at the time. But pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.

Very soon, I knew, she would have little left. Of anything.

Simeon Wright looked up from his labors, from slitting a pig.His eyes sought her. He did not move from his work but kept his eyes fixed upon her all the same.

Fly like a bird, Susannah Phillips! Fly swift, fly far.

Once our animals had been slaughtered and the meat dressed, Father took it home where we submerged some of the pork in brine and placed our flitches of bacon in salt.

I stirred the fire, the one for the pottage, chopped up a pig’s liver and added it to the broth, and then I put my biscuits in a second fire to bake. Father headed back to the town green while I stayed behind and tried to gather my wits. When I found myself jumping at every snap of the fire and turning at an imagined scrape of the door, I took myself back to the green as well. At least with all about me, I would not have to conjure my fears. I would be able to see them well enough.

To see it.

Him.

The next day soapmaking began. Mother was part of a group of neighbors that came together for a whang. They worked at a task as a group and so, in the course of a day, everyone’s soap would be made, but none would have to do it alone.

It was hot work, but it was not lonely. We shouted across fires, keeping up a conversation all the while. Soapmaking was not a task I minded in the winter’s air. At least it kept one warm.

Mary delivered food to us at dinner. Biscuits and cheese and a nice chill ale.

Later in the forenoon, after the remaining soap had cooled, Father helped me turn it into a last barrel. And there they sat: three barrels filled with soap. A soft clear jelly, a grained soap, and the soap that would eventually harden into a cake. My first barrels, and good ones all! They would be enough to last Mother for a year.

Though my arms were wearied from stirring the soap, the passages inside my nose seared by lye-scented fumes, and my eyes itching from the smoke of a dozen fires, still I must confess that I looked forward to the week’s nitpicking that night. Aside from our evenings on the settle, during which we could not speak, it was the one time I spent with the captain.

With Daniel.

In truth, it was the only time that I could touch him. And I knew I was not alone in partaking of that pleasure. He had come to lean into me as I worked. I could feel, through my skirts, the broadness of his back and the shape of his shoulder’s blades. And every time, he urged me on long past when I could find nothing more. And it was then, my fingers could do as they wished. They could slide through his hairs at their leisure and luxuriate in the feel of his scalp beneath their nails.

But that evening, as I worked through his hairs combing and parting, parting and combing, I found nits without number and more lice than I could count. The captain sat on the bench before me long after Mary had finished both Father and Nathaniel.

“Do you hurry, daughter.” A reproach could be detected in Father’s voice.

“I cannot—they have multiplied beyond comprehension!”

The captain’s hands reached up to grab mine. “Simply do as always you have done.”

“But—your hairs. They are so thick and so long . . .”

“Too long?”

“I do not . . . the moment I see one, it takes refuge elsewhere—”

“Then cut them. Cut the hairs.”

“I cannot—”

Father took Mother’s sewing box from the shelf by the door. He rummaged in it for a moment and then came toward me, Mother’s scissors extended. “If you cannot do as he asks, daughter, then I will.”

“Nay! I will . . . I can do it.”

He handed me the scissors.

I took them, heavy, into my hands. And then I grabbed a lock of Daniel’s hairs and I did it. I cut them. Hanks of those long, beautiful hairs dropped to the floor around us. I had the thought to save a length of it, but Mary stooped to gather them as I cut and then threw them all into the fires before I could stop her.

I was able to keep my tears at rein as I went about the task, but as soon as I was finished and I saw Daniel sitting there, his hairs as close-cropped as the rest of Stoneybrooke’s roundheaded men, the enormity of the change and the cruelty of it overwhelmed me, and I fled the house.

All those long, beautiful hairs. The waste of them. The pity of it.

After a while, I heard the door slam. Looked around to find him walking toward me. Seeing him, without the cloak of his hairs flowing out behind him made me cry all the more.

He knelt before me in the snow and succeeded in wresting the scissors from my hands. “Here now! Does it snow? Or rain?” He glanced up at the sky. And seeing it cloudless, he looked at me.

I moved to hide my tears, but he saw them.

Laying the scissors on the snow, he put an arm around my waist and drew me down to sit upon his knee.

“Daniel . . .” Throwing my arms about his neck like a child, I buried my face in his shoulder and wept.

“They are but hairs.”

I tried to laugh and only succeeded in wailing. “You are shorn.”

“They will grow.”

“But you look like one of us now.”

“Rest assured, I will not act like one of you.”

I did laugh then. But my laughter stilled as his eyes came to rest upon my lips. As he tipped his head first down and then toward me. But at the last moment, just before our lips touched, he hesitated.

’Twas me who closed the gap between us with a kiss.

He broke from it. “You should not let me kiss you. I might just want to stay. And you would not want that. I would not want that.” He sounded as if he were trying to convince himself of the words.