The Endless Forest
Page 145

There was a way to keep him in bed, but it didn’t have anything to do with sleeping, and moreover, Martha could not imagine herself suggesting such a thing. The closest she ever came was to touch his face, a small gesture that captured his attention completely, to her continual surprise and satisfaction both. Maybe she would have worked up the courage to be more direct with him if her courses hadn’t interrupted the natural progression of things and kept them apart for—she counted—five days now.
She forced herself to tell him plainly, and then was a little put out when he took the news without the slightest hint of discomfort. He had nodded and kissed her briefly, changed the subject to something else entirely, and then simply stopped approaching her. Everything stopped; he didn’t catch her up against the wall to kiss her or pull her to him when she walked by. In bed he kissed her good night as if she were a sister.
With her rational mind Martha understood that this was another bit of kindness and generosity, or at least, that he meant it to be taken that way. In fact, it hurt her feelings. There was no logic to it, nor could it be reasoned away.
Now her courses were finally over, but Martha found it was far harder to share that bit of news. Every way she could think to say what should be said made her nervous to the point of jumping. She was being childish and silly, and she had no idea how to stop.
Martha lectured herself at length. Sooner or later Daniel would turn to her, and in the meantime there was a lot of work to do. There was teaching, and the issue of young Nicholas Wilde which seemed to get more complicated every day; most afternoons when they came up the mountain they found that two or three of the Bonner men had come to work on the house. Even with help from Betty Ratz it was hard to keep up with the sawdust and dirt.
Betty took care of the washing and cleaning, and Martha the meals. She had once been a serviceable cook, and now it came back to her. She put egg pies and fried trout, thick soups and cornbread on the table for whoever was around that day. Whatever she produced Daniel ate with enthusiasm, and Betty made sure to praise her efforts.
Betty was a sweet girl of fifteen, nothing like her older and very difficult brothers who had gone to school with Martha. To Betty’s way of seeing things she had the best work in Paradise, looking after the little house in the strawberry fields. She was delighted with everything, and always eager to go home when her work was done so she could report the news to her family: Lily’s Simon had finished another chair for the table he made; there was a new cabinet for dishes, and a dozen new shelves, empty still, for the many books in the house all stacked in piles she dare not even touch for fear of putting things out of order.
When Gabriel had finished turning the new garden plot Betty began to collect seeds from neighbors and friends, and together Betty and Martha planted beets, carrots, peas, parsnip, cucumber, and three kinds of lettuce. Betty turned her hand to whatever work there was without complaint, but she was happiest in the house cleaning and arranging. The cushions Curiosity had sent up for the new settles put her in raptures, each of them embroidered with flowers in colored thread and smelling of lavender.
There were new bedsheets and pillows and pillow slips, and even a new bed, bigger than any bed Betty had ever seen before and so high that she needed a footstool to smooth the covers.
Martha had taken pleasure in all the improvements and gifts, but it was the new bed that gave her real pause. One day when she came up from the village after school let out it was already in place with a coverlet spread over it, one she had never seen before that was almost certainly a gift from Elizabeth.
The shock of the bed kept her right there, red-faced, until Daniel came to find her. She was perched on the edge, her feet dangling a good foot above the floorboards.
“What?” he said when he saw her expression. “Don’t you like it?”
“Tell me,” she said in a low whisper. “Please tell me you didn’t tell your father or brothers that we needed a bed this high for any particular purpose.”
She made him laugh, even when she didn’t mean to. There was nothing cruel about it, and still sometimes it itched.
“Of course I didn’t,” Daniel had said. He was smiling at her in a way that meant he was thinking of crossing the room to sit down beside her—and maybe more. But then he remembered her courses—she could almost see the idea come into his mind—and instead he had gone back to work with Simon, who was making changes to the hearth.
Now Martha rolled over and pressed her face into Daniel’s pillow to draw in his smells.
Outside the puppy was yipping in the high, excited half howl he used to greet someone well known. Daniel spoke a few calm words and Hopper settled. Another creature totally in his power, and really, Martha asked herself, wasn’t it time to pull herself out of this mood?
But she stayed just where she was and listened as the cart came closer and Daniel called out. His father, hauling hardware or wood or more furniture. She should get up and put the kettle on, but instead Martha almost fell asleep listening to the easy back and forth of their voices. Maybe she did fall asleep, because she started when Daniel opened the chamber door.
“Martha.”
She yawned and sat up. “I’m coming.”
“Da brought up the last of your trunks, with your books.”
She was suddenly very much awake.
“I’ll make tea,” she said. “Has he eaten?”
“Gone already,” Daniel said. “But I could eat.”
She climbed out of bed thinking of books.