Fire Along the Sky
Page 95

“What would you have him do?” Elizabeth had asked, a little taken aback at the degree of her husband's anger. “He must question the witnesses.” And thus found herself in the odd position of defending a man she did not respect or trust.
“Well, Christ, Boots. Ain't it obvious? Curiosity could have done what six of the others did, in no more than a quarter hour, clearer and cleaner too—” He broke off and sent her a sidelong frown. “I'm surprised you ain't more put out about it yourself, him not letting Curiosity testify.”
“I am put out,” Elizabeth said. “But I know when my energy is wasted, Nathaniel Bonner. As do you. What is really bothering you?”
Elizabeth was at the window, pulling the curtains shut. A white owl swooped suddenly out of a spruce, almost invisible against the snow. It was gone just as suddenly, a limp form caught in its hooked beak.
Behind her Nathaniel said, “I'm disappointed in Nicholas Wilde. But I'm madder at myself for not seeing the weakness in him. I had just about decided that he was the right kind of husband for Lily, when he goes and proves what a damn fool he is.”
Elizabeth turned and opened her mouth but nothing came out but a squeak of distress, much like the one the owl had caused just a moment ago.
Nathaniel managed a grim smile. “Did you think I didn't know?”
“Know? Know what? There was nothing to know,” Elizabeth said, moving to the other window. “They both showed a great deal of good common sense and reason.”
“Now that's a first,” Nathaniel said. “I've never heard it described that way before when a married man takes up with a young girl. And tell me why is it you never told me about this, if you knew?”
“First of all,” Elizabeth said, struggling to contain her voice, “there was no taking-up. They might have been in love—”
Nathaniel grunted.
“Don't you growl at me, Nathaniel Bonner. They were in love, yes, that much must be supposed, but nothing—inappropriate happened.”
“You know that for a fact? She tell you that?”
“No,” Elizabeth said, more quietly. “I could never think of a way to broach the subject. But I know she would have come to me, had things advanced that far. I know it.”
“Rest easy, Boots. You're right, it didn't go beyond a few kisses. That's bad enough, but it ain't a hanging offense.”
Over the years he had surprised her many times, but now Elizabeth found herself almost short of breath. “And how do you know that much? And if it's true, why didn't you tell me?”
“I know because I talked to Wilde, that's how. The day Lily told us she wanted to go to Montreal. I wanted to make sure she was going for the right reasons.”
Elizabeth said, “And those were . . .”
“To suit herself,” said Nathaniel. “And not him.”
At that Elizabeth said nothing, could think of nothing to say, because she was embarrassed to have been so silly. Of course Nathaniel had known about the flirtation, and of course he had acted.
“And so his foolishness, as you call it, was what?”
Now it was Nathaniel's turn to look at his wife in surprise. “He could have written to her, asked her to come home from Montreal.”
“Now you are being dense,” Elizabeth said. “What do you think she would have said if he had asked her to give up her art and teachers and all the rest of it?”
“I don't know for sure,” Nathaniel said. “But one way or the other she would have figured it out, finally. What she wanted more, Nicholas Wilde or the life she's made for herself in the city.”
Elizabeth pushed out a great breath. “Yes, all right. I concede that point. And you're angry at him because—”
“He was too much of a coward to write the letter,” Nathaniel said. “And he went down in front of Jemima Southern like deadfall in a high wind.”
Then Gabriel had come to fetch them to the supper Many-Doves had made for them, and there had been no more opportunity to talk with the children present.
Now, on their way back to the village for the second day of the hearing, Elizabeth thought of Nicholas Wilde as he had been yesterday. Straight of back in the witness chair, his complexion pale under a few days' growth of beard. Older, suddenly, with lines bracketing his mouth. Grimmer, and with good reason. For all his foolishness—and Elizabeth must agree that he had been foolish—it seemed he was being punished very harshly. After almost ten years of marriage to a woman who could not be a wife, he was now bound to Jemima Southern and would not be her husband. His pride had been injured, not so much by the trumpeting of her sins, but by the fact that he seemed to be the only one in the village who had not heard the rumors over the years.
Beyond that, he had lost his daughter. Callie had left the orchard house to live at the doctor's place with Curiosity and Hannah, and she showed no interest in going home again. He could make her, of course; the law was with him, if he wanted to force her. But after yesterday, Elizabeth doubted he would do such a thing. She wondered if he would even stay in Paradise.
They had come as far as the bridge, iced over once again and slick. Nathaniel took a shovel from the sand barrel and cast it out in a smooth arc, and then he took her arm anyway as they crossed.
On the other side he stopped at the second sand barrel and cast another shovelful, and then he looked up at the millhouse and his mouth contorted. The millhouse was one of the newest buildings in the village, but looked to be the oldest. Broken shutters hung here and there like loose teeth, and many of the fine glass windows the first Widow Kuick had been so proud of were boarded over. The house looked deserted, Elizabeth thought and then corrected herself: it looked unhappy. It was a silly idea and yet it stuck with her—the millhouse collapsing in on itself in mourning.