The Endless Forest
Page 52

Elizabeth heard herself gasp in surprise, and she was not the only one. Martha looked ready to bolt, in embarrassment and anger. She stood suddenly, but Daniel kept talking.
He was saying, “I think there would be some advantages to having Martha’s help, but it was rude of Birdie to raise this subject at the supper table. It was selfish of you to raise the subject at all, Birdie. I know you are frustrated with school, but that is no excuse for embarrassing Martha in front of her friends.”
All the color left Birdie’s face. She turned stiffly toward her father. “God-kissing carrion, Da. If she’s embarrassed it’s because Daniel’s flirting with her in front of everybody.”
“Enough,” Nathaniel said in the tone all the children recognized. “And please, Birdie, if your ma can resist quoting Shakespeare at table, you could do as much.”
Birdie dropped her head and studied her plate, but her expression was mutinous. She was mumbling to herself, her whole person twitching with frustration. They all listened to this for a moment. Even Martha stayed where she was, turned toward the door.
“Go on then,” Nathaniel said. “Say whatever it is you’ve got stuck in your throat. And then go up to bed. We’ll not see you at this supper table again, not until you’ve seen the error of your ways and made amends.”
Birdie stood up, wounded and angry that her plan had come to nothing. She said, “I am not being selfish. I am not. It’s for Lily; the whole idea is for Lily.”
“How would my teaching help Lily?” Martha asked, her tone calmer.
Jennet said, “Ach, that’s the plan.” And to the table: “Birdie is thinking that Martha could move in to the apartment in the schoolhouse and then Lily and Simon could move up here and take her chamber.”
“It’s small, but I don’t think they’ll complain about cramped quarters,” Birdie said, trying to sound dignified.
Luke said, “But that would mean that Martha would have to live alone in the apartment. There would be a lot of talk.”
Daniel said, “Exactly. Which is why it’s out of the question. Not the teaching—that’s something I’d want to talk about—but Martha living alone in the schoolhouse, no.”
Birdie opened her mouth as if she had something more to say, and then slumped back down into her chair when she saw her father raise a single eyebrow in her direction.
“Are ye saying that the people in the village would keep their children awa in protest?” Simon asked.
“It’s likely,” Daniel said. “An unmarried woman living in the school-house just wouldn’t sit with most anybody.”
“He’s right,” Elizabeth said, and all eyes turned toward her. “Even if Martha wanted the apartment, it wouldn’t be a good idea. She came home hoping to start fresh and avoid the gossip that made her life so difficult in Manhattan. But we’ve been talking about this as if Martha had no voice and could not speak for herself. Martha, what do you think?”
The girl’s complexion was splotched with color and her eyes flashed in the candlelight; she was holding back tears.
“It would cause talk,” she said quietly. “That’s true.”
Birdie was bouncing in place in her earnest need to be heard.
“Birdie, go on.”
“Ma,” she said, resolutely refusing to look at Daniel. “You are always telling us that we have to make decisions based on our own understanding of right and wrong. It’s the way we’re supposed to live our lives. It’s our way.”
“Birdie,” Martha said. She drew in a deep breath and let it go. “Birdie, you forget, I am not one of you and I won’t be judged as if I were. I also understand now that I am the one who has been selfish. Your plan was meant to bring Lily back home, and that’s as it should be. She should be here. Tomorrow I’ll go see about taking a room at the Red Dog. I should have done that on the first day.”
Birdie reached out to take her wrist before she could walk away.
“I never meant to drive you away! That wasn’t the idea at all!”
“Now ain’t this a mess,” Ben said. He pitched his voice just so, and they all turned to him. “Everybody’s so wound up you can’t see what’s sitting right in front of you. Martha, stay a minute and hear me out, and if you’ll listen, I’ll see if I can untangle things. Elizabeth? Nathaniel?”
Nathaniel made a sweeping gesture with his hand, an invitation to go ahead.
Ben Savard didn’t often speak up, but when he did people paid attention. His eyes were a strange and compelling blue-green that even the most conservative of matrons, the ones who disliked Africans and Indians on principle and were horrified by the very idea that nature would allow a human being of mixed race to survive birth—even they could not look away when Ben Savard smiled. Elizabeth had seen it happen more than once in the village, and it happened again around the table as postures relaxed.
“Fifty years ago they would have called him a witch,” Hannah had once said about her husband. “He only has to look at you hard and say a word to get his way.”
Ben said, “Now bear with me while I work through this and make sure I’ve got it all right. We know Lily needs watching over, and everybody would be happier if Elizabeth could do that right here, at home. That’s not to say Birdie ain’t done a good job, because she has.”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “She has done an excellent job.”