The Endless Forest (58 page)

“Is that what you want to call it now?” he asked, and ducked before she could swat him.

She really did need to get more sleep, she told herself every morning. But then when she climbed into bed at night her body responded to Daniel’s without hesitation. That was another, newer kind of hunger that could hardly be stilled. She would catch sight of Daniel talking to a student, and her whole being flushed with need so that she had to turn away and use all her powers of concentration to remember what four times four made.

The children were very good at distracting her. They were full of stories that erupted with no warning. Martha knew she should be teaching them about self-discipline and the rules of polite discourse, but they were so earnest and their stories often so funny that she found it hard. She would only be in the classroom for a few weeks, after all, and the children did seem to be learning something.

Or at least, most of them were learning.

Young Nicholas Wilde fit into the class seamlessly, as biddable and sincere and cheerful a student as she could imagine, but clearly one who might never learn to read or handle calculations beyond the simplest sums. The blessing was that he didn’t seem to see this as a lack in himself, and maybe it was for that reason that the others resisted teasing him for sitting every day with the most basic primer, each time approaching it as if he had never seen it before.

The only reaction Martha had witnessed happened during morning recess when Pete Ratz asked Nick why he couldn’t read at his age. Adam had stepped in immediately to ask why Pete couldn’t throw a ball, and that had led to a competition, one that ended with Nicholas and Henry tied for first place.

The Bonners didn’t like to lose. When it did happen they were gracious in defeat; even the little people had learned that lesson early because their parents and grandparents would tolerate nothing less. But then, Martha suspected, it was easy to be gracious when they so seldom lost.

They had taken Nicholas in as their own, and that was as much protection as any child could hope for.

As tired as she often was, Martha could not even retreat to the empty apartment at the back of the school to sleep during lunch recess, because one of the Bonners was sure to drop by to bring her something or pass on an invitation or ask a question or simply talk. Lily, still confined to her bed, sent notes that Birdie delivered every morning and then waited to hear read aloud. Within days the whole lower class had joined in and the reading of Lily’s letters had become a morning ritual. When Lily heard about this, she started illustrating her notes, so that Martha found herself holding up a sketch of the raccoon who had got his paw stuck in a bottle, or Amelie wrinkling her nose over a bowl of porridge.

The work in the village had finally been finished, which meant very little to her until the afternoon when she and Daniel came home to see
that the Bonner men had started building a stable behind their house and would start on the extension to the house itself once she told them what she wanted.

If I only knew, she told her new father-in-law, who laughed and went back to sawing. The next day Ethan brought her a dozen drawings to consider. She might want an addition of one larger room or two smaller ones, a bigger workroom along the rear of the house, or set off at a right angle. Should they dig a bigger cellar? It would be difficult but not impossible. Or would she rather have a springhouse?

Martha took the plans out on the porch to look at them only to discover Gabriel, waist-deep in a hole that would eventually be a well and then, with luck, have a pump, so that she didn’t have to go as far as the stream for water.

“Ethan has got some idea about putting a pump right in the kitchen,” Gabriel told her. “Sounds crazy, I know. You’ll have to be careful or he’ll rebuild the whole house around you.”

On Sunday morning Martha woke very late to the sound of Daniel’s knives thudding as they found their targets. She felt a twinge of irritation, that he should need so little sleep when she felt as though she could spend the whole day where she was in the cool shadows with a breeze washing over her. She had wondered if she would be able to live in such an isolated place and found that she loved the quiet.

She would drift back into sleep if she wasn’t careful, and they were expected at Uphill House for supper. Really she should get up and wash her hair. And she was hungry. All good reasons to get out of bed, but she was so comfortable and more relaxed than she could remember being for a very long time.

Maybe she did drift off again, because she woke to find Daniel standing beside the bed. His hair was tousled and his shirt wet with perspiration, but it was his expression that concerned her.

“What is it?”

“Jemima,” he said. “And her husband. I told them to wait on the porch. Should I send them away?” His tone solidly neutral; he wanted this to be her decision.

Martha pressed her face into the pillow slip for a moment and then slowly, she sat up.

“I think it would be best to get this over with.”

Daniel nodded grimly. “That’s my take on it too.”

“Give me ten minutes,” Martha said.

Daniel said, “Take twenty. They can wait.”

He waited on the porch with their unwelcome, not entirely unexpected visitors, his gaze fixed resolutely on a point in the middle distance. They made no attempt to talk to him and had nothing to say to each other, which alarmed him, oddly enough.

Daniel was patient; he could wait just as he was for hours, as he had done often enough when hunting. He wondered if Jemima had changed so much that she could do the same. She had always been short-tempered and impatient, unable to keep her tongue or her opinion in check. Now she simply sat with her gloved hands folded in her lap and her gaze fixed on her own shoes. There was a look of concentration on her face which struck him as preoccupied.

Time passed and the day grew warmer. Daniel closed his eyes and listened, breathing deeply to find that point where his feelings could be stored away. His job here was to provide support for Martha, which meant he couldn’t lose his temper.

By the time she came out onto the porch, he thought he was almost there.

She was wearing a simple gown of sprigged cotton, and she had wound her hair around her head and covered it with a cap. He hadn’t ever seen the cap before, and decided that it must have come from Manhattan. Maybe from the same milliner who had sold her those awful hats she liked so much.

Daniel stepped up beside her and took her hand. Her skin was clammy.

Jemima and her husband rose.

There was a long moment’s silence while Jemima studied her daughter from head to foot, as if to reassure herself that this was indeed the girl she had borne and raised up. Now a corner of her mouth twitched, whether in satisfaction or distaste was impossible to say, though it made his hackles rise to think she might be finding fault.

Martha’s tone was even. She said, “You wanted to talk to me?”

Jemima drew in a deep breath. “Yes. It is good to see you so healthy and happy.”

She didn’t rise to the bait, and Daniel was glad of it.

“What is your business here?” Martha asked. Her tone still steady and remarkably cool.

“I come to ask a favor of you,” Jemima said.

It was the last thing Daniel had been expecting, but Martha didn’t seem surprised. She said, “Why do you think I would be inclined to do you any favors? You abandoned me to the care of others without a word, and then you appear out of nowhere in Manha—”

She broke off. Daniel stepped closer so that she could feel him there, ready.

“Seems to me you should be thanking me for getting you out of that marriage. Didn’t things turn out better for you in the end?”

Martha jerked as if she had been slapped. “It was none of your business,” she said coldly.

“I had my reasons.”

“I’m sure you did. Just as I’m sure they had nothing to do with my well-being, and everything to do with your own.”

Jemima said, “You don’t belong in Manhattan. You’d never fit in there. You belong right here, where you were born.” And she gave Daniel a sharp look, one that made the hair on the back of his neck rise.

“Leave,” he said. “Both of you, right now.”

“First I need an answer,” Jemima said.

Martha coughed a laugh. “Why would I ever want to do you a favor?”

“It’s not so much for us,” said Focht, “as it is for your brother.”

With her head averted, Martha listened. Mention of the boy demanded that much.

Daniel still had hold of her hand, and he held it tight as Jemima told them that she and her husband needed to leave Paradise, and that they would be gone two or even three months. It had to do with business that couldn’t wait, and they could not take young Nicholas with them.

Without looking at her mother, Martha said, “Do I understand correctly that you want me to take your son in?”

Focht said, “If you will not take your brother in, Nicholas will stay at the Red Dog with Lorena and Harper—”

“Which is more than you did for me or Callie when you ran off,” Martha interrupted, speaking directly to her mother.

“He’d be happier with you or your sister,” Focht finished. “And you needn’t worry that he’ll take up too much of your time. Harper can keep him busy exploring, when you don’t have any other use for him.”

Daniel felt Martha stiffen, something that Jemima caught as well. Her mouth twitched and a satisfied expression crept into her eyes. While she was making no progress convincing Martha, her husband had found a vulnerable spot. Daniel wanted to point out to her that any thinking person would be put off to hear children spoken of in such a way.

There was something not quite right about this whole subject. Daniel cast back in his memory for Harper. A boy who had a lot of leisure time, though he was one of Focht’s servants. Unlike the rest of Focht’s servants, from what Daniel had seen.

And the boy asked a lot of questions, something no servant would do. Daniel was uneasy now, and so he resolved to look more closely at Harper.

Martha was saying, “This is something I need to discuss with my family before I can give you an answer.”

For the first time Jemima flushed. “You must mean your husband’s family,” she said. “I am your mother. We are your family.”

“You are a stranger to me,” Martha said. “I repudiate you.”

“You’ll keep a civil tongue in your head when you talk to me,” Jemima said.

Daniel said, “Now see, there you are. The real Jemima. Didn’t take much to make you shake off that mask you wear these days.”

The small twitch at the corner of Jemima’s mouth gave him some satisfaction.

Focht said, “There’s no need to be—”

Daniel said, “You’d best stay out of this.”

“And why is that?”

Daniel looked the man directly in the eye and held his gaze for three full heartbeats. The skin under Focht’s eyes and along his jaw sagged, and his complexion had an odd cast to it, like a man who was recovering from a long illness that had kept him indoors. He might be clever, but he didn’t have the wherewithal to stand up to Daniel. Focht dropped his gaze.

Jemima said, “If you must have your vengeance on me, at least leave your brother out of it. He is innocent. Surely you’ve seen that much over the last week.”

Martha’s smile was cold. “I wondered what you were angling for.”

“Yes,” Jemima said. “I sent your brother to school so you could get to know him and see that he is no threat to you or your sister. Will you take him in, or not?”

“You can leave now,” Martha said. “And I’ll send word to you tomorrow.”

She went into the house and closed the door behind herself.

“We have to leave today,” Focht said to Daniel. “Within the hour we’ll be gone. I’ve paid Mrs. LeBlanc in advance for room and board for the boy and two servants. If you take him in, send Lorena back to Boston if you want, but leave Harper. Nicholas should have someone familiar nearby.”

Daniel counted to three and then he turned to look at Jemima. He said, “You don’t fool me, you know. As sure as you’re standing there smug and superior, I know you have got some scheme going. I don’t know what it is you want, but you can be sure I’ll figure that out soon enough. There’s one more thing I can promise you. Nobody will take revenge on that boy. That’s not the way we think, but you wouldn’t understand that. Now you are trespassing on Hidden Wolf. Get gone, and don’t come back here uninvited.”

Jemima’s jaw tightened and her eyes narrowed. He might have been able to drive her further, all the way to that place where she could no longer conceal her real motivations, but Focht put a hand on her shoulder.

Finally she drew in a deep breath, and turned her back on Daniel. He stood and watched them go, and then waited until he had mastered his breathing and his temper both. Then he went in to see what he could do for Martha.

S
unday mornings toward the end of the school year, Birdie was preoccupied with what she considered a great responsibility: One way or another, they had to come up with a prank before class let out for the summer.