The Endless Forest
Page 20

“Ethan, you must have some more soup,” she said, starting to rise. “You are too thin.”
“No you don’t,” Nathaniel said, pulling her back down again.
“Ma,” Birdie said in mock irritation. “You’d scold me if I kept jumping up from the table.”
“Leave her be.” Luke winked at his stepmother. “It’s her best broody hen imitation.”
Ethan said, “I couldn’t eat any more, Aunt Elizabeth. But maybe there is something I can do for you? Shall I trounce these louts for their impertinence?”
“They may tease me all they like,” Elizabeth said over the laughter. “Today I can’t be ruffled.”
That silenced them for a moment, thinking of the village and the families who had lost so much.
“How bad is it?” Hannah asked.
“Not good,” Gabriel said into his bowl.
“Six missing,” Daniel said. “All three of the Sampsons, Noah True-blood, Grandma May, and the Crispins’ youngest, Alexander.”
“One of your students?” Lily asked her brother, and he nodded.
“Ten years old, good with numbers. Quiet boy, polite.”
“He’s got family on the other side of the river,” Ben said. “He might be there. Could be that the Sampson brothers and all the rest of them are sitting in the kitchen at the mill house drinking cider.”
Nathaniel said, “Let’s hope so. What we do know for sure is, a lot of stock went down the river. Oxley’s sheep and some goats too. A dozen or more milch cows.”
“And a good lot of Callie’s trees are gone,” Daniel added. “Maybe three quarters.”
When Daniel spoke of Callie Wilde it was always with a certain amount of warmth. Elizabeth had once had the idea that something more might grow out of their friendship, but that had never come to pass.
For the first time Martha Kirby spoke up to ask a question. She said, “And Callie herself? Is she safe?”
“She’s a little banged up,” Nathaniel said. “But last I saw her she was walking and talking. Becca gave her a bed at the Red Dog.”
Daniel’s eyes had settled on Martha and stayed right there while the conversation moved off in a new direction. It struck Elizabeth then that he didn’t recognize her, or maybe he was in too much pain to take note. The lines that bracketed his mouth said very clearly that he had strained his shoulder today and must now pay the price. Anything that might distract him would be welcome.
Elizabeth said, “Daniel, you must remember Martha Kirby.”
He started at the name and came up as if out of a dream, already rising from his seat. He leaned over the table and extended his good right hand to Martha.
“I haven’t seen you in five years at least. I guess I was away when you visited the last few times.”
Martha shook the offered hand and agreed that it was a very long time since they had seen each other. She looked as tired as any of them, but she bore it well: a dignified, friendly young woman, sure of herself without any hint of arrogance, though she was rich by most men’s standards and had spent half her life in the city. To look at her you wouldn’t know that just a week ago the life she had built for herself had fallen to pieces.
Elizabeth had taught Martha as a child, and looking at her now she saw that she had not changed very much after all. There was a quiet strength about her, a dignity that was easily read from the way she held herself. And sometime since they had arrived back in Paradise she had lost the stiff posture of the last weeks. As if she recognized that this place was truly safe, and she belonged here.
She wasn’t the only one to take note. All the men watched Martha when she crossed the kitchen. There was nothing untoward in it; they watched her as they would watch any well-favored young woman, with appreciation. The simple pleasure of looking at a girl in her first full blush. Martha had her father’s heavy, thick hair, though hers was many shades darker. Her complexion was clear and high in color, and her features strong. She might be shy of men for some months or even years, but if she showed any interest at all she would have proposals enough to choose from, before the summer came to an end.
“She’ll have to rebuild,” Martha was saying about Callie.
“I’d have her up here,” Elizabeth said. “But every bed is occupied, some more than once.”
When the laughing stopped, Elizabeth was content to sit quietly at the table and listen as the men talked about the work that would have to start the next day. How many houses would have to be torn down, how many might be repaired, if it might be possible to salvage materials from the great piles of rubble that marked the passing of the water.
Then the apple grunt went around and Elizabeth felt Nathaniel looking at her.
“You and your apple grunt,” she said, but she smiled.
“I’m fond of apples,” he said, winking at her. “Always have been.”
Martha got up to gather plates and take them away, and Daniel watched her go.
He said, “No apple grunt for you, Martha?”
Under the table Nathaniel bumped Elizabeth’s knee with his own and then he leaned forward to whisper in her ear, his warm breath stirring a few wayward curls.
“Stop it.”
She began to protest and his hand pressed into her leg, fingers sliding provocatively.
“If he gets a whiff of what you’re thinking you know he’ll run in the other direction. That ain’t what you want, is it?”