Love's Pursuit (24 page)

36

THOMAS STOPPED HIS HAMMERING eventually. Then he turned toward me, panting and spent, and he asked me one question. “Why do you despise me?”

“I do not despise you.”

“You do not love me.”

I thought about that. Was it true? Did it even matter? “Do you love me?”

There was agony at work in his eyes when he replied. “I have never done anything other since the day that I first saw you.”

“With my eye blacked and my hands covered with burns?”

There was puzzlement at work on his brow. “On the day I took you from your father? Nay. The first time I saw you was several years before, on my very first trip to market. ’Twas from Boston I came then.”

He had seen me so long ago? A stranger to our town? Well, he was the only one. I had never been noticed by any I had lived near.

“And why else would I have married you? Why else would I have paid your father for you?”

“If I despise you, then ’tis for that reason.”

“Because . . . I paid for you?”

“Like some prized ox.”

“How else was I to save you?”

“ ’Tis that exactly. I had to be saved. I had to be rescued. I could not do it myself.”

He blinked. “And so . . . you punish
me
for it? For saving you?”

“Nay! I punish
me
for not being able to save myself.” I left the smithery at a run, going I cared not where. My footprints in the snow would lead me home. My feet kept to what I took for the cart path, punching knee-deep holes in the snow, but then they veered off into the wood of their own accord. The snow was not as deep there, the drifts not so high.

At the start I had been running from the brutal truth of my own words, but now I ran for the joy of it. For the freedom of it. Every foot that crunched down into the snow, every stride I took was a footprint I made, was a mark that I left in a place of my choosing.

And so I walked on. And on. And on.

I did not deserve Thomas, and that was the plain truth.

Why should he love one such as me?

He deserved someone decent. And kind. And good. Someone who did not even know that the things I had seen, the things I had felt, the things that had been done to me, could happen.

And how could I love him? How could I do that to him? How could I curse him with the stain of my affection?

I would not do it.

I could not do it.

He was too good a man for one such as me.

My steps had slowed, and I found myself entering the cave of a snow-covered forest.

But I was not alone.

Somewhere in the trees ahead of me were voices speaking a language that I could not understand. Indians. Must be. And I was standing alone, in a forest bleached by snow, wearing a bright red cape. Even were I to run now before I was seen, a trail of footprints would lead them right back to my front door.

I sunk to my bottom at the base of a tree, putting the trunk between myself and the savages. And then I drew up my knees to my chest. There was nothing to be done about my cape, so I drew it right around me. At least I could keep myself warm until they slit my throat.

I sat there, trembling, listening in terror, until I realized that the voices were coming no closer. And that the words were punctuated by the sounds of an axe and the sighs of a horse. Or two.

What could they be doing with an axe? Besides murdering people?

Even as I asked myself that question, the yawn of a falling tree swept through the wood. It was followed by a muted thud.

I pushed myself forward onto my knees. Peered around my tree.

I could see nothing. Taking refuge behind the trunk once more, I sat, thinking. Trying to make sense of the sounds I heard.

But I couldn’t.

The voices were not coming any nearer.

Hitching up my skirts, I crouched beside the tree, eyes probing the woods once more.

Nothing moved.

And so, thrusting my cape behind me, pinning it back with my elbows, I sneaked to the next tree. If I were killed, then at least Thomas could find someone else to marry. Someone kind. And good.

And willing.

I slid to another tree. And another.

And so on and so on.

Until at last I could see what those Indians were doing. And once I saw it, I still did not understand . . . not until I saw Simeon Wright.

And once I did, I could not get away fast enough.

Aye, there were savages in these woods, and they were doing evil work, but it was a mischief not of their own making.

I slipped through the trees, walking backward, having no wish to alert them to my presence. And once I had gained the spot where I had sat in terror, I turned around and began to run back the way I had come. At least then I would not be leaving two sets of tracks in the snow.

I slowed as the realization struck me that one track would be quite enough. One set of tracks could still lead them to my door. Stopping, I looked around me. Maybe . . . I could sweep them away. Fill them in. Hide them.

With what? They were as deep as my knee, some of them. What would I use? My cloak? My foot? A decrepit fallen branch?

Nay.

I would just have to hope that it snowed again.

Pray that it snowed again.

And I started to do that very thing as I headed back toward home.

Placing the babe in Mary’s care, I stepped out into the forenoon for a breath of air.

Please, God, please make it snow.

As long as it snowed, as long as the drifts did not melt, I was safe.

Please, God, might it snow right through spring . . . and on into summer.

I looked up into a clear sky, knowing, even as I prayed, that my wishes would not be granted. Not this day. Everywhere I looked and everywhere I walked, I saw, I felt, that time was slipping away. The snow drifts had already gone clear at their edges and then crumbled into a mush. If I stood quite still by the garden of a day, I could hear the suggestion of water melting, dripping into the earth beneath the snow.

Time was dissolving, and I could do nothing to stop it.

But still, each evening brought a reprieve. Each night’s chill arrested the melting and froze the snow solid once more. But it was only a matter of weeks . . . perhaps days . . . before the post road to Newham toward Boston would be open. And when Mother returned, I would be married.

How to stop time? How to stop spring from coming? Such a cruel irony, that the relief of warming, the beauty of spring, should signal the end of my own life. That the opening of the prison door into which I would soon be stepping would be heralded by butterflies and blossoms.

The next day one of the Wright servants appeared at our door midmorning with a request for me to join Simeon and his mother for dinner the next day. I did not want to go, but I had been summoned and there was no reason to decline. And so, after having been assured thrice by Mary that I had left nothing undone, I put on my cloak and left the safety and warmth of our home for that solitary house on the hill.

The manservant opened the door to me. My cloak was taken, and I was ushered into the kitchen. Simeon and his mother were already seated. Already eating. Neither rose to greet me.

“You are late.”

“I—it was—the snow—please—”

Simeon held up a hand.

I stopped up my words.

“Be seated.”

And so I joined their dinner. Simeon was seated at the head of the table in his chair, his mother at one side, I at the other. The servants placed a plate upon the table before me and then took themselves away to their corners. I wish I could have joined them, but there was nowhere for me to shrink away to. Nowhere for me to go.

Bread had been set upon the table and butter to go with it. A portion of stewed hare and a pudding had been placed before me.

Mistress Wright did not move to pass me any bread and neither did Simeon. They simply took from the tray what they wanted.

I followed their example. I reached forward and took a slice. The butter had been placed at Simeon’s elbow.

“May I have the butter, please?”

“Nay.”

I blinked in surprise, and then smiled, realizing he was jesting. But as I waited for him to return to seriousness, as I looked into his bland, indifferent face, I realized that he was not. Feeling foolish, I dropped my eyes to my plate. Concentrated on the food. But it was hard to eat, harder still to swallow without a taste of ale.

As I looked up with that thought, searching for the cup, Simeon picked it up and took a drink. But he made no move to pass it around, setting it down near the top of his plate.

I looked at his mother, to see if there was aught to be done in protest, but she only worked at shoveling food into her mouth. She had not finished the half of it when Simeon signaled a servant.

That girl slunk forward quickly and pulled the plate from his mother while she was still eating. Mistress Wright followed the plate with her hand for a moment, pulling off one more morsel of meat.

“Cease.”

At Simeon’s voice she withdrew her hand and folded it with the other into her lap.

While I had been watching them with disbelief, another servant had taken my own plate from me.

And so we sat there, his mother and I, for a long time, while Simeon finished his meal. I might have left during that time, but how would I have excused myself? And with an army of servants trained to do their master’s bidding, I am not certain that I would have been allowed to leave. There was naught to do but sit and pretend that everything was just as it should be . . . and in that household, it seemed that it was.

When Simeon had finished, he beckoned for a servant. After she had taken his plate, he turned his eyes to me. “You may leave.”

I wasted no time in doing as he had commanded. As I walked home, I determined that I would tell no one what I had seen, what I had experienced. What would I have said? Their custom was odd, perhaps, but it was not contrary to any law.

And beyond that, who would believe my words?

37

I HAD FINISHED SLOPPING the pigs and had come round the corner to find Daniel leaning against the house, smoking his pipe. His form was thrown into shadow by the moon’s light. “Goody Ellys told me you had dinner with Simeon Wright.”

With
Simeon Wright? Nay, not with him. I had dined at his house, ’twas true, but I doubted he would ever let me do anything with him at all.

I tried to walk on past Daniel into the house, but he put an arm to my waist and pulled me toward his chest instead.

I wrapped my arms about him, closed my eyes, and breathed deeply of his tobacco-laced scent.

He pressed a kiss to my temple, underneath the brim of my hat. “I asked you a question over a month ago. You never answered. When the snow melts, when I leave here, will you go with me?”

To default upon a marriage agreement was a grave offense. Fathers arranged marriages and girls entered into them. That was the way of it. But when Simeon Wright had published our banns, I had not known there was Daniel. I had known of him, of course, but I had not yet come to know him.

I did know him now.

And I loved him.

Perhaps Simeon Wright only treated me as I deserved, and perhaps, absent my knowledge of Daniel, I might have gone to him meekly. But something pliant and submissive within me had dissolved in the radiance of Daniel’s love. I knew now that there were other better ways to live. I had drunk of the sweetness of love and it had ruined me for anything else. I understood now what I could not have known six months before. I did not have to marry Simeon Wright. I could not marry Simeon Wright.

I could make a different choice.

Once, long weeks ago, Daniel had asked me to marry him, but he had never repeated that offer. I had assumed it was because of what had followed, because of the kind of woman I had shown myself to be. Had I not been willing to give myself to him without any attachment at all? I had known myself to be aberrant, but I had not known just how wicked I had become. Though my heart soared from joy, I knew I did not deserve him.

“Susannah?”

I shook my head. “I am not the kind of woman that . . .”

“That?”

My secret came out like the rush of a wind. “I am not good, Daniel.”

His teeth flashed in the darkness. “Only God is good.”

“But I could be better.”

“So could we all. Hear me now. ’Tis important: Only God is good. But more than that, God is only good. Do you believe it?”

“Aye, but—”

“Do you believe it?”

“Aye.” I had to. To think otherwise would be . . . unthinkable.

“Then there is nothing that can happen which God cannot overcome.” He held me close for a moment in an embrace and then let go a heavy sigh. “We can only cast ourselves upon God’s goodness, trusting that in the end, He is only good. And that His purposes, whatever they might be, shall stand. And so, I must ask you, one final time: Will you marry me?”

It took me a moment to gain control of my emotions. Would I go with him? He asked it as if there were some sort of risk, some kind of danger involved. But there was none. “Aye.”

Marriage. To Daniel! There was no risk. I could envision exactly how it would be. It would be filled with respect and gentleness and . . . and laughter. It would be filled with love. There was no need to consider how to respond. “How will we do it?”

“When your father goes to fetch your mother, we simply ride from town.”

“But . . . I am known.”

“Here. But surely not in Newham. Not in Boston. Not anymore.”

I shook my head. It would not work. “I am known by my dress. By my hat. By my mien. No minister would marry a Puritan girl without the consent of her father. Perhaps if we could reach Virginia . . . I could change my ways. My fashion.”

He glanced at the door beside us, then took my hand in his and led me to the woodpile. From some place deep within it, he drew out a sack, opened it, and pulled a bundle of cloth from it with a flourish.

I gasped.

Held before me was a gown. It was made of some sort of shimmery fabric with trims that glittered even in the moon’s muted light. There were ribbons and bows by the dozens and lace frothed from its low-cut neck and high-cut sleeves.

I was scandalized.

But I was also entranced.

Before I knew they had done it, my fingers reached out to stroke the skirt. “It is too immodest! And too fine. I cannot wear it.”

“A captain’s wife can wear almost anything she wants.”

“But . . . how did you . . . ?”

“ ’Twas intended for a cousin. But what she does not know, she will not miss.”

“ ’Tis . . . beautiful.”

“Believe me, ’tis nothing compared to your own beauty.”

And so we made a plan. Daniel hid the bundle back beneath the woodpile. On the day Father left, I would retrieve it as I went out for the purpose of fetching water. Once dressed, I would join Daniel in the wood. And together we would make our escape.

I lay in bed that night dreaming of the gown. It was too wonderful to behold and much too grand for me. That woman, the selectman’s wife in Newham, rose to my thoughts. It was a gown made for such as her . . . not for such as me. How could any modest woman, any moral woman, think to don a gown like that one?Surely it was a lure meant to entrap me. To tempt me. But tempt me from what? From marriage to a monster? From a life of misery and certain abuse? The gown would be no enticement into sin. Nay, it would be my salvation.

I did not have another chance to speak to Daniel until several days had passed. And when I did, the moment was a stolen one. Taken from time that I implied would be used for necessary purposes.

Daniel greeted me at the edge of the wood by the privy house with a kiss.

“Speak to me of Virginia.”

“What do you wish to know?”

“How are . . . the people?”

His teeth flashed. “Much the same as you and I. They each have one head. Two arms. Two legs, even. Most of them.”

“But what are they like?”

“What are they like? Well, now . . . I seem to recall hearing that they like a good wager as well as the next man.”

I felt my eyebrows rise. A wager? They were gambling men?

“And they raise a cup to each other now and then too. But not so often as to be taken for drunken sods.”

They toasted each other and drank? To excess? And it was there I was to go with Daniel?

“But more than anything, they like to dance.”

“They dance? But we dance here.”

“Aye. A group of meek maids sashaying to and fro. Nay. In Virginia they dance what is called a gavotte, men and women together.”

“Together!”

“Aye. In a dance that goes like this.” He took my hand into his and began to slide back and forth, crossing his feet and then hopping. He pulled me into the dance beside him, moving first this way and then that, singing a sprightly tune all the while. And then he sped from quick to quicker, wrenching me about the wood, spinning and twirling with abandon.

“Cease!”

“Oh, never! The people in Virginia never stop dancing.” But he did finally, with a suddenness that left me gasping. And he did not loose me. He kissed me instead. “ ’Tis how it ends.”

It took me a moment to collect my breath. “How what ends?”

“The gavotte.”

“It cannot.”

“But it does! It ends by kissing one’s partner.”

“Those people in Virginia . . .”

“Aye?” He was looking at my lips as if he wished to kiss them again.

“Those people in Virginia . . . I wish very much to join them.”

“And so you shall! If your Father does not first separate us. I have done my best, thus far, to shield you from my basest improprieties, but I fear I will soon lose my will . . . and most of my convictions. Go. Quickly now.”

I left him alone in the wood, humming a tune and dancing with shadows. I had to take care to leave the smile from my face before I entered the house.

It was difficult to conceal my joy. I was to marry Daniel! I wished to shout my happiness from the town green.

But I did not. Instead I went about my work quietly, humbly, and kept my thoughts to my tasks. Most of them. But as I warmed our sheets for bed one night, I could not resist peering into the future, dreaming about that gown. Perhaps it was because I had never seen Virginia and could not imagine it. Or its people. But I did know what it felt like to be in Daniel’s arms. And I knew what it was—precisely what it was—that I would wear.

How could it be wicked to wear something so lovely?

I checked my thoughts as soon as I knew them. Surely my soul was mired in vanity!

But, as Daniel had said, it was entirely within the rights of a captain’s wife to wear such a gown. A captain’s wife in Virginia. Or the Indies. Or wherever else the winds might take us.

It seemed the next week that I had summoned those winds with my thoughts. A strong breeze rose up from the south and began to melt our prison of snow. There was a restlessness, an expectancy, that worked through our home. Mary found herself tasks that could be done outdoors, and she took the day-girl with her. The babe toddled often to the door. Father took Nathaniel with him to the fields to begin mending fences, and then they started an inventory of the shop. But still the nights came early and cold. And still we sat, as was our custom, together on the settle. Mary and I had tasks to keep our hands busy. Nathaniel had mallets to shape and handles to carve. The captain his gun to clean.

I am sure I looked the perfect daughter. The perfect good wife in training, but my thoughts were far from God and His words to men.As typical of late, my mind had gone on ahead of me to Virginia, that land of hope and promise. And my thoughts were of escape and freedom, rather than submission and piety.

In a few short weeks time I would draw on the gown gladly and I would leave this town. Of course, I would also forfeit the chance to say farewell to my mother. Though I pondered that loss with sorrow, it seemed to me a worthy trade.

But before I left, I determined there was one last thing that I must do.

I did it on the day Father left. On a day that saw snowbanks collapse, bleeding meltwater. A day lit by spring’s pallid dawn. I watched Father ride from the house, lifting a hand in Godspeed, knowing I would never see him again. I stayed my tears as I lifted my cloak from its peg and started out upon my errand. I was going to Abigail’s to bid her farewell. In spite of all that had passed between us, I could not leave her behind without a word.

I slipped through the growing light, from house to house, unwilling that any should see me on my way. I waited until Abigail’s Henry had gone inside the barn before I stepped into her house.

“Abigail.”

She started and turned from her fires toward me. “Susannah?”

“I have come to say farewell.”

“But . . . why?”

“I leave town. This day.”

“Where do you go?”

I shrugged. Smiled. My joy was boundless, and I could not contain it. I laughed. “I do not know!”

“Have you gone mad?”

“Nay!”

“Where does Simeon take you?”

At the mention of that name, my happiness was quenched. “I go nowhere with him.”

“But—”

“I cannot marry Simeon Wright. I will not. I am leaving with the captain. You must tell no one.”

“The captain! But you cannot—you are pledged!”

I shook my head. “You do not know him.”

“I know enough. He is the king’s man!”

“Not Daniel. Simeon! He is . . . he is not what he seems.”

“I do not know how he seems. I have never known him.” Her voice had gone stiff and cold.

I moved to embrace her. To summon the warmth that I had once felt between us. “I could not leave without seeing you. And now that I have seen you, I must go.”

“When do you leave?”

“Soon. This day. Now.”

She evaded my arms. “Then it seems I must let you go.”

“Do not . . . I wish . . .” Her face had grown as hard as her eyes.

“Farewell.” I left then, and she made no move to stop me.

I had no other wish than to be gone from town as fast as Daniel’s horse could take us, but I could not leave without paying one last visit. To Small-hope.

“Small-hope.”

The words were so soft, I hardly believed I had heard my own name.

“Small-hope!”

I left off stirring my wash and looked round.

Susannah Phillips was gesturing from the corner to me.

I withdrew the beating staff from the kettle and sent a quick glance around the place before I went to her. No good would come from our being seen together. It would heap trouble upon her shoulders. And possibly upon my own as well. “What is it?”

“I am leaving.”

“Leaving?”

“Going.”

“Where?”

“Away from here. With Daniel.”

“The captain?”

“Aye.”

“You can’t.” But even as I said it, I knew she could. Knew it was best if she did. “When?”

“This morn.”

“Then God be with you.”

She clutched at my hands and then let them go to clasp me about the neck. “And with you also.”

I felt my cheeks redden above her embrace. “Do you need anything?”