The Endless Forest
Page 65

“Thank you again for my dinner,” she said. Nothing remarkable in her voice, as if they were hardly acquainted. Martha followed her to the door, trying to gather her thoughts together and find something to say.
“By the way,” Callie said, pausing in the open door. “The ice-out party is tonight at Lake in the Clouds.”
Martha found it difficult to take this information in. “A party at Lake in the Clouds? Tonight?”
“Short notice, but you don’t have to get dressed up fine. You’d only ruin a good gown. There’s a big fire and dancing and food.”
“Who will be there?” Martha asked. Her voice came a little hoarse.
“The Hidden Wolf folks, and most all the younger Bonners from Luke down to Gabriel. The children they leave at home with the grandparents. A few friends and cousins from Good Pasture.”
“Oh,” Martha said. The question that came to mind was not one she wanted to ask Callie, but she didn’t need to put it into words anyway.
“I expect he’ll be by this afternoon to invite you,” Callie said.
“What I was wondering,” Martha said, “is if you’ll be there.”
Callie met her eye. “Maybe,” she said. “Maybe I will.”
Lily woke to find Daniel sitting beside her.
“There you are,” he said. “Ma said she’d have my liver if I woke you. Did you know you snore, little sister?”
Lily tried not to smile and found that a very difficult trick. She said, “I’m still older than you and always will be. And you’d snore too, if you were tied down day and night.”
“Maybe so.” And then: “Ice-out tonight, did you hear?”
“It would be hard to miss. The whole house is in an uproar.”
He met her gaze. “I was wondering if maybe we should have ice-out down here this year.”
“That’s kind of you, but it wouldn’t feel right to ask for everybody to change their plans. And if you did all come down here, what would I do? Watch you from the window?” She shook her head. “Ice-out belongs to Lake in the Clouds. You go, and don’t worry about me. Ma has got something planned, her and Curiosity and Birdie.”
There was a small silence.
She said, “Would you stop rumpling your face like that? I don’t mind staying behind, I really don’t. There’s a reward coming down the line for all this good behavior.”
His gaze wandered to her middle and something moved across his face. Worry? Discomfort?
Finally he said, “That makes sense. But once you’ve got that baby safe on the outside of you, we’ll have a party. You still like a party don’t you? I can’t imagine Italy would have changed you that much.”
“Oh, I like a party,” she said. “So you came by here to try to cheer me up?”
“I suppose.”
“Ah,” she said. “There’s something else, I can see it on your face.”
Daniel was pleased to be able to nudge his twin toward a better mood, and for a moment he thought they might have a whole conversation without an argument. But he wasn’t a coward, and so he said it.
“I’m going to invite Martha to the ice-out.”
Her expression shifted, so subtly that a stranger wouldn’t think much of it.
“You think that’s a good idea?”
“I do,” he said evenly. He held her gaze.
When they were young Lily could scold her brother and cousins into a corner and keep them there until there was no choice but to concede the folly and repent whatever scheme they had in mind. Daniel had the distinct feeling that such a scolding was coming his way, and he didn’t like the idea.
He said, “You can’t talk me out of it, Lily. We’re not ten years old anymore.”
She said nothing for a long time, putting together her argument. Daniel waited patiently because there was nothing else to do. They would have this conversation sooner or later, and it might as well be now.
She was saying, “You have waited so long, Daniel. Why must you settle all at once on Martha Kirby?”
Daniel made her wait, as he had waited. “Why do you dislike her so much?”
“Oh, Daniel.” Lily sighed. “I don’t. I don’t dislike her.”
“So it’s about Jemima. You can’t see the difference between Martha and her mother.”
A muscle in Lily’s jaw fluttered. “Of course I can see the difference. If Jemima was gone for good—” She paused as if thinking through what she was about to say, and he interrupted her.
“If we got word tomorrow that Jemima was dead, you’d welcome Martha into the family with open arms. Is that what you’re saying?”
She shook her head. “I’m not thinking that far ahead, and I hope you aren’t either. What I do know is that Jemima could show up here any time and if she does—when she does—she will look for any opportunity to cause us harm.”
Daniel found it hard to imagine what kind of harm Jemima might cause the Bonners, but he could see how much Lily believed what she was saying, and how distressed she was.
“The only person who really has cause to be afraid is Martha herself,” he said. “And Jemima’s already stripped her of the life she had in Manhattan.”
Lily put her hands flat on the coverlet and smoothed it. “We were there, Daniel. We were there on the day Martha was conceived at Eagle Rock. I know you reckoned it out for yourself. You can’t deny it. You saw Jemima, what was in her face when she caught sight of us. I doubt many people have ever seen her true nature as we did that day. Do you think that’s gone away? Do you think she’s sitting in Manhattan or Boston or Albany wondering how to put things right? The simple fact of the trouble she set out to ruin Martha’s engagement makes it clear that she’s as bad as she ever was. Can you disagree with that?”