The Endless Forest
Page 139
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“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.
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.
