The Endless Forest
Page 9

It was no surprise to Lily that her mother was a favorite with the twins. Children had always come to her classroom without a fuss. Her mother had been a strict teacher but scrupulously fair. Most of all, she was willing to listen to stories and to tell her own in turn. She handled her grandchildren in much the same way.
But right now she seemed distracted, her gaze unfocused and her brow furrowed. It was the expression she wore when she was trying to work through some challenge. In this state she could let milk boil over and simply not hear a knock at the door or even her name, spoken clearly. As Martha was trying to speak to her now.
“Mrs. Bonner?”
Lily’s mother jerked out of her thoughts and turned to Martha. She said, “I know it is hard to break a habit, but I hope you will try to remember to call me Elizabeth.”
Martha looked surprised. “I don’t know—”
“You called me Miss Elizabeth in school, after all. Will you try?”
Just that suddenly it came back to Lily, how frustrated she had sometimes been with her mother, who would insist on her understanding of democracy even to the discomfort of others.
Martha was saying, “I will try.”
Lily decided to rescue the girl. She said, “Martha, do you plan to have a house built in Paradise?”
The younger woman looked startled at this question. Her spoon hung frozen in the air.
“You could afford to build a grand house,” Isabel said. “I heard Da say so.”
“You weren’t supposed to be listening,” Mariah reminded her.
Isabel wrinkled her nose in annoyance and ignored her sister in favor of instructing Martha. “We stay with Grandpa and Grandma Bonner.”
“And so will Martha,” Elizabeth said. “Until she decides for herself what she’d like to do. I mean to say, if that will suit you, Martha. Unless you had other plans?”
A small muscle jumped in the girl’s jaw. “That’s very kind of you. I shouldn’t like to put anybody out.”
The girl was angry, all right. Lily could feel it radiating off her like a fever. She was angry but she had lived too long with the Spencers, and she would not sacrifice good manners to give vent to her emotions. Lily knew this because she had felt this way herself many times.
“You aren’t putting us out,” Elizabeth said. “But if you’d rather stay elsewhere you certainly may. What were you thinking?”
Martha’s color rose a notch. “I don’t know. Maybe I could stay with Callie at the orchard. If she has room.”
“I’m sure she’d love to have you,” Elizabeth said. “I know she has missed you very much. Have you written to her to say you were coming home to Paradise?”
“I should have, but … I am looking forward to seeing her. Mrs. Bonner—Elizabeth—” she started, and broke off. “Thank you,” she said. “I appreciate all your help very much.”
“I think you have a great deal to look forward to, though it might not feel that way right at this moment.”
Lily watched Martha struggle with a landslide of emotions: sadness, anger, regret, hope. Finally she managed a small smile.
She said, “You are very good. I have no idea what I would have done without you.”
“I know,” Isabel offered with great seriousness. “You could become an actress. I think an actress is a very good thing to be. Far better than a wife.” And she turned up her nose with such conviction that even Martha laughed.
Martha had started this day as she did the last seven: with a lecture to herself. It would get easier. She would stop thinking all day long about Teddy. She would be attentive to those good people who had taken her away from an untenable position and thus rescued what was left of her reputation.
When her mood dipped low, she would think of Teddy’s face when he told her that they couldn’t marry. How he had studied his shoes, and how that cowardly act shocked her as much as what he had to say. Making a list of his flaws could occupy her for a little while at least.
After breakfast they gathered their things and waited on the porch until the carts and oxen were in place and they could set off for home. Martha liked sitting out in the chill air. It made all the colors brighter, and the sun on her face was welcome.
Jennet’s girls fussed with dolls and talked without pause. Lily had taken out a sketchbook, and Elizabeth was reading a newspaper. Martha wished she had something to do; even knitting, something she had always disliked.
How strange the world is, she might have said to Elizabeth. Right at this moment I should be on a ship, a new bride on my way to spend six months touring Europe with Teddy. But in a moment everything changed.
She had the urge to simply walk away, walk all the way back to Manhattan and the house on Whitehall Street. To the room that had been hers for so long, with its pretty draperies and wallpaper and the thick carpet on the floor. If she had to hide in her misery and shame, why not there? At first she had simply refused when this move was suggested to her, and then Mrs. Broos had cut her on Fifth Avenue. It wasn’t until that point she realized how bad things really were.
She wondered what Amanda had done with her wedding gown. Most likely it was still hanging in the dressing room, a cloud of pale green silk wrapped in tissue. Now Martha understood why the matrons clucked over the new fashion of having a dress made for the wedding day alone. What a terrible waste.
A horse and carriage crawled past. The mud sucked at hooves and wheels and made the driver mutter to himself. And then Simon Ballentyne was there. Martha knew he had come before she turned around, because she had seen Lily’s face and the way her expression softened.