The Endless Forest
Page 157

Curiosity said, “While I got you two alone, let me ask you what is happening with young Nicholas Wilde.”
Elizabeth scanned the crowd and saw that the boy was coming around the far side of the house with his arms full of firewood. The other boys followed suit, with the littlest carrying one piece of tinder in each hand.
“Callie and Ethan took him home,” Lily answered Curiosity when it was clear her mother would not.
“That don’t sit right with you, Elizabeth?”
She hesitated. “If they want to take the boy in, who am I to stop them?”
This question was still hanging in the air when Daniel and Martha came into the clearing, the young dog they had brought home with them racing ahead. Just behind them came Birdie and Lorena.
“They brought Lorena,” Elizabeth said. “We should have thought to invite her.”
At the sound of voices raised in greeting the children looked up from the wood they were stacking. Nicholas shot across the clearing, strong legs pumping, to throw himself into Lorena’s arms with such joy that it made Elizabeth’s throat clench.
Lorena bent her head down to listen as the boy talked, pointing to the tables, the other children, the firewood, the sky overhead. She listened as any mother would listen, with pride and joy.
“She raised him,” Lily said. “She’s like his—” she broke off, because Callie had come into their circle.
“She might have raised him,” Callie said calmly. “But she’s not his mother. She’s not any blood kin to him at all.”
All the frantic activity came to a stop when they sat down to eat. Even Lily was allowed to sit up at the table, but Curiosity kept an eye on her.
There was a leg of lamb stuffed with herbs, another of veal, and a ham, along with flour and cornbread, and the last of the squash, potatoes, and carrots from the root cellar. The Bonners liked their food, but the talk carried on, multiple conversations at once that ebbed and flowed together and then parted.
With her plate untouched before her, Elizabeth took it all in. Most of it she had heard hundreds of times before, old jokes and gentle teasing, comments about the veal, questions about the chutney, when the first new greens might be ready for picking, and was Luke planning on hoarding the whole plate of Annie’s special cornbread or might he pass it down?
It was no small feat to feed so many, but it was worth it. These Sunday dinners stayed with her through the short winter days.
Nathaniel raised his head and looked at her. Reading her thoughts, again. Under the table he squeezed her hand.
“We’ve done all right for ourselves, Boots.”
Then he leaned over and neat as a kingfisher Nathaniel hooked a piece of lamb from Lily’s plate. She slapped his wrist, laughing and then held up her fork and waved it. “Do not,” she said with a halfhearted scowl, “do not make me use this.”
From the children’s table came cries of encouragement, but Nathaniel held up his hands in surrender.
Callie got up to help clear the tables, and sat down again when Curiosity gave her a pointed look. “Little girl, walk with me, will you? My Dolly and her Joshua coming by this afternoon and I got to get back home.”
For a moment Elizabeth watched Callie walking alongside Curiosity, head bent down to hear what the old woman had to say.
Lorena cleared her throat. She said, “Thank you kindly for dinner, but I should get back now.”
Elizabeth turned to her in surprise. “I thought you might stay the afternoon. I hoped you would.”
She looked around herself and saw that for the moment they were alone. Lily had been spirited away in Simon’s arms, Nathaniel was off with the little people, and Jennet and Hannah and the others were clearing the table to set out sweets.
Lorena had a calm smile with nothing of artifice in it. “I don’t think Miss Callie would like that idea,” she said.
It was true, and Elizabeth hardly knew what to say. To explain Callie’s behavior would require a long conversation and the breaking of more than one confidence. She could not take those things upon herself, no matter how sound the cause seemed.
Instead she said, “He is a fine boy, Lorena. You have done an admirable job with him.”
Lorena studied her folded hands, because, Elizabeth realized, she was in a similar situation. There were things she might explain, but not without breaking confidences.
Finally she said, “The most important thing to me is that Nicholas is happy and busy and folks don’t take advantage.”
“There we agree,” Elizabeth said. “And I can promise you I will do everything in my power to see to his welfare. You may not know that I had a brother, and that Ethan is his only child. I know that Ethan will never let the boy come to harm of any kind.”
“Sometimes,” Lorena said, “sometimes the best intentions do the most harm. Don’t you think?” She stood. “Please, will you tell your husband I said good-bye, and thank you?”
“Of course,” Elizabeth said. And then, quickly: “There’s really no need for you to sit alone on a Sunday afternoon. I wish you would stay.”
Lorena smiled. “But I won’t be alone,” she said. “I’m going to go walking with Levi, and then we’re both invited to take tea with Daisy and her family.”
“Oh,” Elizabeth said, trying not to show her surprise. “That sounds lovely. I’ll wish you a good afternoon, then. Will you come again?”
Lorena inclined her head. “Thank you. I’d like that.”