The Endless Forest (13 page)

All in all Birdie didn’t mind the fact that Gabriel was married. She wouldn’t really be alone until the fall, when Luke and Jennet took the children home for the winter. Even then, Birdie reminded herself, she would have Lily, who needed her help.

And exactly that was the plan. Birdie would make herself indispensable—a word she looked up in Ma’s dictionary—and that would convince the grown-ups that it would be best if she didn’t come back to school this year. Instead, she would move in with Lily and Simon in order to be there whenever Lily needed anything at all.

It was perfectly logical and reasonable. She just had to convince the grown-ups.

When Hannah went out on a call, Birdie went with her and spent that time sweeping mud or washing down walls, scrubbing clothes, toting firewood, pumping endless buckets of water, and most usually, entertaining the children. She ran errands for Curiosity and Ma and anyone else who needed things fetched. She liked it best when somebody sent her down to the village, so she could see for herself how much progress was being made.

The old trading post had already been pulled down and they were just starting to lay the foundation for a new one, which would be larger, with room for things like plows and bathtubs.

Missy O’Brien found this not to her liking at all. “They talk about plain,” she said. “They are mighty good to themselves.”

Birdie heard her say this to Becca LeBlanc outside the Red Dog.

“Well then,” Becca said in her driest tone. “I guess you’ll be going all the way to Johnstown for your buttons and salt.”

Becca could draw blood with the dull side of her tongue. Most people didn’t even notice when they’d been tweaked until five minutes later. She had a high spot on Birdie’s list of grown-ups who could be counted on to teach her something.

Every day, as soon as her errands and chores were done, Birdie ran down to Ivy House to see what she could do for Lily. Sometimes there were other people there—Ma or Da, Hannah or Jennet or Ben or Luke. Neighbors and old friends. Even the nieces and nephews were allowed to come, but only under close supervision. To Birdie’s relief, they were never allowed to visit for very long. Nathan and Henry and Adam thought this was unfair and took every opportunity to argue about it with her.

Today Birdie stopped at the door and listened. No voices, which meant Lily was alone or asleep. She went in as quietly as she could and stood beside the window in a puddle of light.

Lily slept with a book opened over her belly. She didn’t have a bump yet, but some women took a long time to grow one, or so Curiosity said.

Birdie crept around quietly, bringing some order to the parlor. Or at least, trying to. The little house had been stood on its head. Simon hung the chairs on wall pegs to make room for what Ma called a chaise longue, but really was just a chair with a long bit attached so you could stretch out your legs. The whole thing was covered over with a feather bed and sheets and blankets. Lily could recline on a chaise longue, which made it better than a bed with a lot of pillows.

After the first day Birdie had to admit it had been a good idea, because Lily looked like a princess in her pretty dressing gown, with her feet in velvet slippers the color of roses, with daisies embroidered in white silk. And she was allowed to sit up halfway, which meant she could drink the tea Mrs. Thicke brought her every hour, and she could read and draw. The only time Lily was allowed out of bed was to use the chamber pot behind a screen Simon had put up just for that purpose.

There were plenty of rumors in the village about why Lily had taken to her bed only one day after coming home, some of which were funny and others that were not. The first thing Birdie did when she arrived every day was to give Lily all the gossip. She was ready with it when Lily woke up with a little start.

“Little sister.” She yawned. “How long have you been here?”

“A quarter hour, maybe a bit more. Look, Mrs. Thicke just made fresh tea. I’ll pour you some.”

Lily said, “What news in the village today? Anything interesting?”

Birdie considered what to offer first. “Friend Katie Blackhouse thinks you must be consumptive,” Birdie announced.

“Does she? That would be very dramatic, wouldn’t it? Any other good bits?”

Birdie recited it all in a rush. The Brodie house had a roof again; Simon and some of the other men had shored up the Meeting House so maybe it wouldn’t have to be pulled down altogether; and the Truebloods had gone back home, and high time because Cyrus was driving Leyton Yarnell to distraction.

Birdie paused in her recital to make sure Lily was comfortable and didn’t need anything.

“You fuss like Ma,” Lily said. “Go on.”

The last bit of news was that Magistrate Bookman had gone to Johnstown on official business but ended up coming back with the kind of supplies the Friends didn’t want or need—alcohol and ammunition—as well as three dozen hens and a single rooster.

“Missy said how the poor old bird would work himself to an early grave, but he’d die happy.”

It was rude to tell such stories, but it did make Lily laugh aloud, and that was the idea.

Lily said, “You bring so much light into the room, like a hundred candles at once.”

Birdie tried to look modest, but she was so pleased that it was hard. She went to get a fresh pillow slip and brought back the brushes to work through Lily’s hair.

“You spoil me,” Lily said. “If I were a more suspicious person I would think you were plotting something.”

Birdie managed to smile, and hoped that her sister wouldn’t see the crack in it.

On her way home again Birdie was feeling satisfied with her afternoon’s work. Maybe she really did have a chance of convincing Ma and Da that school was not the right place for her, at the moment at least. But then Jane Cunningham waved her down outside the post to ask had she heard the news? Maria Oxley had died sudden in the night, just when she seemed to be getting back on her feet. And all those children left behind. Wasn’t it true that Birdie was there, helping, when Hannah set Friend Maria’s broke wrist?

Sometimes there was no help for it but to be rude. Birdie turned on her heel and started straight up the hillside, forgoing the road or anything that might have served as a path.

M
artha heard the news about Maria Oxley from Hannah, who came by one midafternoon to share it.

“Where is Birdie?” Hannah wanted to know. “I need to be the one to tell her, because she’ll take the news hard.”

“Were they very close?” Martha asked.

“Not especially,” Hannah said. “But she helped me set the arm, and she will want to know.”

Maria Oxley was now the seventh casualty of the flood. On the first day one of the Sampson brothers had been pulled from the far side of the river; his two brothers hadn’t been found and probably would never be.

Noah Trueblood, Grandma May, and Alexander Crispin were put to rest in graves that took a long time to dig because the earth was still frozen in the new graveyard, and now Mrs. Oxley would join them. People kept telling each other that it could have been much worse; that it was God’s own mercy to have saved so many of them. Martha thought
that Daniel Bonner deserved a good part of the credit, as he had been the one to sound the alarm.

That afternoon she took the mending outside to work in the fresh air. She found a spot in the sun on the side of the springhouse that faced the kitchen. Nearby Anje was tending the week’s washing, a task that required all her attention and thus spared Martha a conversation that would be awkward at best. Anje was the best of the LeBlanc sisters, but even she was given to asking questions that Martha had no intention of answering.

She slipped the darning egg into a sock and chose a bolt of thread from the workbasket. As she threaded the needle she wondered who would come by to talk to her today. The children would find her eventually, but Martha hoped that Curiosity would come too, and spend a few minutes. She liked talking to Curiosity, who seemed to see things nobody else saw, or at least to credit the things nobody else considered important.

The wind came up from the village and with it the sound of hammering and sawing, faint but persistent. Every man who could be spared had been put to work, and as a result most of the families who had lost their homes in the flood would have roofs over their heads within another week. Sooner, if it weren’t for the spring mud.

Sometimes Ethan came by and gave her news from the village or read the newspaper to her while she mended or sewed. From him she learned which houses needed roofs and which families were in most need of food or an encouraging word. Not that she provided these things; she stayed on the hill and did what she could to help the Bonners. But Ethan clearly needed to talk of these things, and it was an old habit between them, something left over from Manhattan when he had been her tutor.

The Spencers had first enrolled Martha at Miss Martin’s School for Young Ladies, but she had felt out of place there and terribly unhappy. Letters went back and forth between Manhattan and Paradise, and one day Amanda presented a proposition. The Bonners believed Martha was too intelligent to be satisfied with a curriculum that went no further than needlework, deportment, and rudimentary French. She should learn Latin and the classics, algebra and philosophy, and anything else that interested her. Italian? History? Tutors could be had for any subject, really, and in the comfort of the Spencer’s house.

In the end Ethan had taken most of the responsibility for her schooling. Miss Anne Schubert was hired as a singing tutor—Martha had no
interest in pianoforte, but she did have a clear and very sweet alto voice worthy of training, or at least the adults claimed that to be the case. There was a drawing teacher as well, and from Amanda she learned the fine points of crewelwork embroidery.

The only problem, as Martha saw it, was that Ethan’s concern for her education was something he took far more seriously than she did herself, at least at first.

He gave her books to read and long lists of verbs to conjugate and memorize. At a weekly supper he would draw her into conversation about her studies. This was not so terrible, because Will and Amanda were always there and the discussions were often too interesting to be thought of as examinations.

Then Ethan had moved back to Paradise, leaving her with the injunction to keep working on the list of books he had left behind.

It had been a relief at the time, not to have to bother with conversations about taxes and trade, Cromwell and Richard III. No more French subjunctive clauses, or dusty old Latin historians. When Ethan left Manhattan Teddy had just begun to court her, and with Teddy on her mind there was no room for anything else. Martha rarely thought of Ethan at all—she was embarrassed to admit this to herself, but it was true—until the day Teddy broke off the engagement. The Spencers did their best for her, but she would have liked to have Ethan nearby as well.

She was not the only one who felt his absence. Ethan Middleton was one of the most eligible young men in Manhattan. He had a great deal of money and property both; the men all thought well of his skills in business and his financial dealings; he was personable and good-looking and he could dance so well that when he did make an appearance at a ball, many heads turned eagerly in his direction.

In New-York he had presence and a sterling reputation, but here in Paradise they saw him differently. It most likely had to do with his Bonner cousins. In a crowd of Bonners, Ethan seemed to fade away. Martha had talked to Amanda Spencer about this more than once, because it struck her as unfair.

“His whole posture changes,” Martha had said. “As if he doesn’t want to be seen.”

Amanda couldn’t disagree with Martha’s observations, but she knew more of Ethan’s history and saw the matter differently.

“He is very much like his father,” she said. “But only in his appearance.
The high brow, the shape of his head and hands and fingers, all except his coloring—he is the image of Julian. But in all other ways he is nothing like Julian at all. Not in temperament nor in spirit. Julian had no ambitions at all, and Ethan—why, you see for yourself. There’s hardly a charitable cause that he doesn’t support. He is always hard at work on one project or another.” She drew in a short breath and held it for a heartbeat. “Cousin Julian was a difficult and unhappy young man.”

Which was all Amanda could be coaxed to say about Julian Middleton, who had died of burns from a fire he had set himself, only a few hours before Ethan was born. There was a great deal more to the story, but those details had proved impossible to extract. Plenty of people knew about Ethan, but nobody was talking.

With that thought a possible explanation came to mind and so she asked Amanda directly. “Can you tell me just one thing? Does Ethan know the things you won’t talk about?”

Amanda nodded. “Oh, yes,” she said. “There were people in Paradise who made sure of that.”

Which meant, Martha understood, that it was her own mother who had had some part in telling Ethan things that would hurt him most. His mother had been vain and silly and died too young, and his stepfather had little use for him until he was old enough to take over the more unpleasant tasks that came a doctor’s way.