The Endless Forest
Page 63

“But it occurs to me,” she said. “That it would take less than a week to add on a room. Nathaniel and Simon believe it can be done, and then you can come back and stay with us as long as you like.”
Martha tried to say something, but Elizabeth held up a hand to ask for another moment.
“I am making a muddle of this, but really what I want to say is that we would like to keep you here with us, despite all the talk about getting Lily home. We’d like to have you here, and we will do whatever is required.”
“Lily is your daughter,” Martha told her. “There’s no need to apologize. Of course you need and want to have her here, and really, with all the building that needs to be done in the village, it would be very selfish of me to let Nathaniel and the others drop everything to see to building me a chamber. Ethan’s little house will suit me very well.”
“I still am very unhappy about the idea of you on your own,” Elizabeth said.
“There’s Mrs. Thicke,” Martha reminded her, but it didn’t seem to help. The crux of the problem was that she had no people of her own. No matter how loved and cared for she had been in the Spencer household, in the end she was not related to any of them by blood, but only goodwill. And now even that was at an end; she was able to see to her own affairs; she was an adult, and responsible for her own welfare.
Here she was, situated in a small, very pleasing little house with no one to call master. The idea was shocking. Revolutionary. Exciting. She could spend her days as she wished, sleep late mornings or walk around from room to room in her chemise.
Where that odd thought came from she wasn’t sure. Martha turned her attention to her trunks. Clothes and shoes and hats, boots and shawls and cloaks. She put her brushes and combs out on the dresser and then spent some time considering where she wanted her books.
It was true that she had a great many books, including a collection of novels that she often reread. It was a bit scandalous of her—she had never got up the courage to tell Teddy or his mother that she read such things—but now there was no need to hide her preference. In Paradise no one looked down on novels; at least, no one who had ever had Elizabeth Bonner for a teacher. When the class had been particularly productive or well behaved, Miss Elizabeth had rewarded them with a half hour or even an hour of reading aloud.
Martha put her books on the mantelpiece in the parlor and was pleased by the way the light picked up the gilded letters on the spines.
All through the day visitors dropped by, mostly out of curiosity. The women old enough to be her mother did not hesitate to ask her pointed questions. Who was to do her washing, then, and had she brought plates and bowls and such all the way from New-York City? Surely she must have had such things, if she was about to get married.
A significant pause always followed this observation. It was Martha’s habit to ignore such comments and questions, and in the end most people gave up and went back to household matters. They wanted to know about her pewter and where she would get her firewood, if she would buy soap and candles from the trading post or send to Albany or Johnstown for such things. If she was afraid, a single young woman alone with only Mrs. Thicke nearby. If she feared for her good name or her virtue. That last from Missy O’Brien, whose red, wet nose twitched as she went from room to room, determined to sniff out whatever secrets hid behind doors and in cupboards.
After a simple dinner Martha took the crumbs from the table outside for the birds and stayed a minute to feel the sun on her face. She thought of sitting here with a book, but then she was an object of enough gossip, and there would be more talk if she was seen reading in the full light of day. As if there were no work in the world worth putting her hand to, when in fact she had stockings to mend, and shoes to polish, and letters to write. She turned to go back in and saw Callie coming up the lane.
She wore an old gown, singed at the hem and much mended. On her head was a straw hat with a hole in the brim.
Somehow Callie had learned a trick that Martha knew she could not master. Callie followed her heart and her conscience and her good sense, and damn what the neighbors thought. She didn’t care for fancy clothes and didn’t seem to mind the loss of all her things in the flood; she wore what people loaned her without complaint. It was an admirable thing, but an odd one.
If Martha were to say as much to her, Callie would just laugh and agree that she surely was odd, and hadn’t Martha known that all along? She was the daughter of a woman who wandered through the village at night, ate dirt, forgot her own name. And no one had ever let her forget it.
To Martha’s way of looking at things, Callie had done more than well for herself. She had—or had had, before the flood—a well-run farm and orchard, and the respect of her neighbors, and the satisfaction she got from every day’s hard work. Martha had been spoiled by opportunity and money, and she knew it.
“Hello,” Martha called to her. “Will you come in and have some dinner?”
Callie squinted up at Martha, her expression close and guarded. She was angry about something. Whatever it was, Martha would hear about it before she left again. Callie couldn’t keep such things to herself. She was quick to take offense but she didn’t hold a grudge, at least not in Martha’s experience of her.
Mrs. Thicke had gone off to see her sister, and so Martha fixed Callie a plate and sat down with her.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s not my cooking.”
“I don’t remember you having any trouble in the kitchen.”