The Endless Forest
Page 34

And then of course she was shocked. As the story was told, her expression went still and the color drained from her face. She clenched her hands together and held them on her lap as if she were afraid of what she might do with them.
“I don’t understand,” she said at one point. “You sound as if you liked Liam—”
“Oh, we did,” said Nathaniel.
“But he caused you such harm.” She looked as if she might cry, she was blinking so furiously. “I thought that at the least—”
She couldn’t say it, but they knew, everyone knew what she was thinking: My mother was so very bad, so cruel and destructive, I was sure my father must have been a good man. And if he was not, what will I turn into?
“No one here subscribes to a theory of inherited evil.” Hannah’s tone was almost sharp, and certainly uncompromising. “You stand on your own feet and make your way as best you can.”
Daniel said, “What Hannah is trying to say is, the sins of the fathers got nothing to do with the children. You don’t have to apologize for the mistakes Liam made. He wouldn’t want you to, that much I know. Because Liam was a good man, down deep, and he did a lot more good in this world than he did bad.”
Martha’s expression relaxed, but not by much. When she finally drew in a deep breath and let it out with a sigh, Daniel wondered if she was giving in, or just hiding what she couldn’t bear.
She closed her eyes for the merest moment, and then got up to help clear the table.
Daniel felt a hand on his arm and he turned. “Lilac has got a sore foot,” his father said. “Would you come out to the barn with me and have a look?”
Chapter XVII
So what is it you wanted to talk to me about, Da?”
Nathaniel looked around himself, surprised. “Didn’t I say? Lilac has got a sore foot.”
Daniel wasn’t convinced but he kept his thoughts to himself. If his father had something to say, he would say it in his own good time.
With the lantern held high, they went into the stable. It was like calling out a greeting; all the animals—the cow and her calf, the mule, all the horses, and the oxen—stuck their heads out of their stalls. Lilac gave a loud and insistent nicker.
“She was waiting,” Daniel said.
“Must be worse off than I thought.”
Daniel gave his father a sharp look. “You’re up to something, I can smell it.”
“First things first. Let’s have a look at that hoof.”
A few minutes later Daniel said, “I think you need to have Joshua Hench look at this, or Hannah.”
“I fear you’re right.”
“You knew that full well yourself,” Daniel said. “Why did you really want me out here?”
“Hold on a minute. Let me herd my thoughts together.”
Daniel leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. The familiar smells would cling to his clothes for a day. Cow and hay and ointment, leather and dung. Comfortable smells.
“Your ma and me, we’re glad to see you spending more time down here in the village.”
Daniel opened his eyes and saw a rat the size of a small dog digging at something in the corner.
“Now my position—”
The movement came to him so easily that his father didn’t even register what was happening until the knife struck its target. Nathaniel glanced over his shoulder and then back again, unwilling to be distracted.
“What I was saying was, I’m guessing you want to spend time with Lily, and that’s what keeps you from going back up to your own place.”
“I’ve been back,” Daniel said, going to retrieve his knife. He wiped the blade on a bit of burlap sack. “I went up yesterday.”
“And you came right back down with clothes and books. Now I hate to admit this, but you just about proved your ma’s right about what you got on your mind.”
A flutter of alarm deep in the gut, but Daniel knew better than to let his anxiety show. “And that would be?”
“You’re glad to have Lily home, but it’s mostly Martha you’re hanging around for.”
The surprise struck him dumb for a minute. “Ma thinks I’m interested in Martha Kirby?”
“You spend a lot of time looking at her.”
“I look at a lot of people.”
“So you’re saying your ma’s got it wrong?”
Daniel walked away in his irritation. Everything he might say could be taken and turned around.
He said, “If she is right—I’m not saying she is or isn’t—why would she be worried?”
His father rubbed the bridge of his nose with a knuckle. “I never said she was worried, did I? Not about you, at least.”
“She think I’m out to ruin Martha once and for all?”
His father shot him a look that let him know he had gone too far. “The girl’s tender and still hurting, that’s the point.”
The best option in this situation was to say nothing at all. The habit of silence was one he had courted for years, and could draw on as easily as any Quaker.
Finally Daniel said, “I’m off to the Red Dog with Ethan.”
His father nodded his acknowledgment, and Daniel walked out of the stable, uneasy with the way he was leaving things.
“Daniel?”
He turned around.
“You ain’t asked, but I’ll tell you anyway. She’s grown into a fine young woman, never mind who her ma is. That’s all I’ll say for now.”