Patience & Sarah

by Isabel Miller

  But Rachel climbed up. She interrupted. “Shove over,” she whispered, and lay down on Sarah’s pallet, though her own was right beside. She strained to see Sarah’s face, but couldn’t yet. Sarah could see very well, from having been in the dim light longer.

  “What happened?” Rachel whispered. When Sarah said nothing, Rachel said, “Your face. It shows in your face. What happened?”

  Sarah said, “I found my mate.” She thinks she said that because it wouldn’t have been fair to let it seem that Rachel had to stay behind for an unimportant reason. I think she just plain wanted to tell.

  “Who?” Rachel asked, alarmed but not forgetting to whisper.

  “Patience White.”

  “And she goes with you and I stay here?”

  “Fraid so, Sister.”

  Rachel pressed her face against Sarah and wept. Sarah held her, whispering, “Never mind, Sister. Pretty soon the one for you will come, and you’ll be glad you’re not there with me. You’ll be glad about your whole life.”

  “I hate her. She’s rich and that’s why.”

  “No. I love her. I love her.”

  “It’s always been you and me.” Rachel lifted herself and looked at Sarah. “From the start. When the babies was inside Ma and she couldn’t get up and feed us or anything. When they was coming and we was scared she was dying, wasn’t it always you and me holding together? How can you say you love somebody but me?”

  “It’s different. She kissed me. I never felt such a feeling.”

  “I’ll kiss you.” Rachel pushed her dry frightened lips against Sarah’s. “You want something else? I’ll do that too. More’n she ever would.”

  “Oh, Sister, don’t. The one for you will come. Man or woman.”

  Rachel sat up and dried her tears and nose on her sleeve. They kept filling and she kept drying them. Sarah watched her, not knowing anything to say or do. In time the tears stopped.

  “I wouldn’t have nobody but a man,” Rachel said.

  “If it happens that way to you. It happened this way to me, and I’m really happy.”

  “I used to worry about you. That no man would have you. I never thought to worry you’d think you was a man.”

  “I’m not. I’m a woman that’s found my mate.”

  “Oh, shut up!”

  So Sarah rolled over. Rachel sat a while before climbing down.

  In a house so small the only solitude anyone had was that given by a turned back.

  Sarah fell asleep easily.

  Chapter Four

  Monday when I woke I thought first thing of Sarah. Instantly my bosom filled, as though with milk, and tingled. I lay there thinking how fine it was to be a woman and have a part that could please me the way my bosom did from just a thought, and imagining Sarah, waking now too, thinking of me and glad to be a woman.

  How easy it was to wake that morning, when the world and my life in it were for the first time more interesting and beautiful than any dream I could lose by waking. So many times I had wished to be like a bear and not get up till spring, but that morning the cold couldn’t touch me, and I would not have been a bear and foregone a winter’s kisses for anything in earth or heaven.

  There had been more snow during the night, and a wind to blow the paths full. Tobe was shoveling towards the barn when I went out to do my milking. “Well, you sure look happy,” he said. He smiled, tobacco brown.

  “I am – I am,” I said and stepped into the snow he hadn’t got to yet. He’d been shoveling for a fair while, though, and he’d chopped a hole in the creek to let the cattle drink. A small limping lonely old man, Tobe. How did he get up in the morning? Had anything beautiful happened to him his whole life long? How could he smile when he saw me happy? His pleasure in my pleasure seemed a generosity so unlikely as to make me think, at first, that he must have changed. Then I saw, of course, that I myself had, and I felt a pang at how many years I’d wasted not knowing that kindness was everywhere around, common as stone; and I felt also another gratitude to Sarah, for fixing me so I’d know from then on.

  My two cows, as always when I entered the barn, began at once to sigh and drip milk. I find that so interesting. Martha’s cows always did that too, at the sight of her but not of me. Martha considered it a waste, and I suppose it was, especially in winter, but how interesting.

  There is something very dear and good about cows. They are gentle, alert, calm, and fresh-smelling. I put their careful winter portions into their mangers, and while they fed I pressed my brow hard against their warm, gurgling, dingy flanks, seized the flabby tits, and drew out the scanty thin winter milk. “Dear friend,” I murmured, “Sarah and you and your cow friend and I are going to where you’ll be slick and bountiful and the streets are paved with kisses.”

  I knew of course that for some years the cows couldn’t have even a barn, and that when they did get one it wouldn’t compare with this, my father’s pride. Sarah’s and mine would be of logs and small. My father’s barn was fine, all boards and huge pegged beams and stone. It had a vast crammed hayloft, which was why we could milk all winter, and a threshing floor, and bins for grain, and many stalls, and cover for the plows and other tools, and cover for the buggy and sleigh. It had a special place for breaking and hatcheling flax, something we didn’t do any longer of course and a root cellar, and as a last detail, in the stone of the retaining wall beside the stable door, a gap, a cavemouth, leading into a cozy little lair for dogs. The dogs would never stay in it, and even though my father had felt only playful when he built it, once he had it made he wanted it used and he was angry and puzzled at the dogs. I was a child then, and wanted the dogs to keep house as much as my father did, so I was angry and puzzled too. One day I put my head inside the dog-cave, and heard a sound like a distant waterfall or a conch shell held to the ear, and I think that faint roaring is the reason the dogs were so ungrateful. My father said nonsense, and my brother said nonsense, but I still think that was the reason.

  So I whispered enticing lies to my cows and enjoyed their sturdy warmth. Since Martha didn’t come out to do her milking, I went on and did it for her. I used to feel that I did her milking more often than not, but I must not have really, since her cows didn’t drip for me and did for her.

  When I took her milk to her, she was embarrassed but, if I may say so, I was very pleasant. “I was glad to do it,” I said, and smiled, and asked if there was any other way I might help her.

  “No, I’m managing. Edward says we’ll be losing you.”

  “Yes, if you want to call it a loss.”

  “I might just begin to.”

  “I can see now where I could have done better.”

  “I can see where you wouldn’t take the interest you would for your own,” she said.

  I thought it better not to explain that it was a different need unsatisfied that left me grudging. I wanted to, and I wanted to say I thought I understood how she could go down into the valley of pain and shadows and fear every year for Edward and his babies, now that I found someone I would do that for if need be. Nothing I wanted to say seemed advisable, so I just gave Martha a hug and smiled and went to my place and set myself to copying the map of York State.

  Around noon, Edward came to see me. He looked much as usual, very stern. He stomped around. My longing to tell my good news was a trial. To him I wanted to say, oh, Edward, I know where to get the joy that makes it easy to go on living: from kisses, Edward! But I’d learned at age four, from his shock when I tried to teach him how to get a wonderful feeling inside by moving in a certain way, that there are things one doesn’t tell Edward. So instead of recommending kisses for getting the heaviness out of his step and the downward trend out of his mouth, I smiled and said, “Good morning, Brother.”

  He said, “No, not very good. Sarah Dowling’s making it her brag that you’re her mate.”

  And after all my longing to make that brag myself, I felt my head burn in the mightiest blush of my life. My throat clamped shut and saved me from
speaking while I waited for my surprise and dread to pass. The surprise did pass. I saw that I should have known Sarah would tell, being as tempted as I was, and innocent, and the most honest person in the world. But the dread remained and filled my mouth with dust. I seemed to hear all the neighbors, and all the village, wondering and mocking and scandalized, and my life made an example of. Outcast, I thought, and shut my teeth to bite back a groan.

  “Well?” Edward said.

  So I saw there was still a chance, at least with him. He was ready to consider that there had been a misunderstanding. Dear judicious Edward. I had no intention of testifying against myself. Our Constitution says we needn’t. But what would it profit Sarah and me to persuade Edward, if the village had heard or would hear?

  Nevertheless I had to try. We needed Edward’s help in order to leave.

  I succeeded in saying, “Partner, she must mean.”

  “No, something like wife she means.”

  I produced a tiny astonished laugh, in the hope of misleading him without having to tell an outright lie. “She couldn’t mean that. Who ever heard of such a thing?”

  “She’s bragging it. Her Pa was just here. Pretty riled up. And I don’t blame him. He wanted to see you. I said I’d take care of it.”

  “Take care of what? I’d be very glad to see him. And Sarah. To ask her what she could be thinking of. I think I’d better. Don’t you, really?”

  “I wouldn’t advise it. He said to keep you off his place. I said I would.”

  “I’m just bewildered. What could she be thinking of?”

  “She says the two of you are like man and woman.”

  “It’s so impossible.”

  “If it’s not so, I’m glad to hear it.”

  “How could it be so?” Then I had another question, and I very much feared the answer to it: “Who’s she telling such thing?”

  His answer left me still dread, uncertain. “She told her folks. I don’t know who else. I don’t expect her folks will brag on it. I sure won’t. You just go on about your business and see no more of any of them, and maybe that’ll be an end to it.”

  I said, “I expect that would be best,” which was not at all the same as saying I would do it.

  “That’s better sense than I thought you had,” he said. “You just govern yourself better in the future and we’ll say no more.”

  I nodded one embarrassed nod, like a handshake sealing a bargain.

  “I’ll take these,” he said, rolling up his map and gathering in his book. I didn’t protest. I had the main part of the map copied off anyway, and Sarah and I had most of the book set to memory. He started to leave.

  “Edward?”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t tell Martha?”

  “I don’t tend to tell Martha much.”

  Having been so evasive myself, I couldn’t fail to notice that he didn’t say he wouldn’t.

  Sarah was chopping in her clearing that morning, throwing all her muscle in, feeling wonderful. Her father came up behind her and stopped her ax by catching its handle, and took it from her. That was one of his tricks, not surprising except that she hadn’t heard him coming.

  She felt more than mellow, so she grinned at him. He liked to be grinned at, man to man, when he did something like that. She was too happy to notice that he was in a rage.

  She even had some grin left when he said, “I’ve just come from seeing Edward White.”

  She waited. There were so many reasons for seeing Edward White. But she blushed.

  “About your carryings-on,” he said.

  “What carryings-on?”

  “It’s too late to play sly. Rachel told me all about it.”

  Sarah’s thought must have been as crystal-clear as usual, because he then said, “And you don’t wallop her for it! I’ll see to that.”

  He held the ax while he talked. It looked so small and light in his big hairy hands.

  “Me and Edward White agreed to put a stop. He’ll keep his gal to home, and I’ll keep you.” He held out the ax to her. “Get back to work now. I just figured you ought to know you won’t be seeing her.”

  She ignored the ax. “I will be,” she said, setting off. Long stubborn strides, too proud to run. He was forty-two, at the height of his strength, but past his speed. He might not have caught her if she’d run. As it was, he had it easy.

  He caught her and turned her around and slapped her several times – five times, she thinks – across the face. She felt no pain, only surprise; he hadn’t struck her since the natural educating blows of childhood, such as to teach her not to crawl into the fire, and she had come to believe that he wouldn’t. He wasn’t generally a mean man. He was too big to need to be. He liked to taunt and bellow and lay down the law, but nobody had cause to be afraid of him.

  She can’t remember where her hands were or why they weren’t fighting him. Not that she could have prevailed against his great toughness and strength, but she could have tried. Something about hitting one’s father, perhaps.

  Then he let go of her jerkin with a push. She stumbled backwards and fell. While she was lying there, propped on one elbow, feeling her face and looking at him with a rage as huge as his, he said, “That’s to show, if you don’t know enough to do right, I can still make you. Who do you think they’d blame if this got out? With all the trouble I’ve got in this churchy place, you want to let that holy bitch climb onto you again!”

  He turned his back and went his way. She didn’t chase him with the ax or anything. She just stayed there in the snow, studying how to get past him and down the road and then past Edward, and, after all that, what kind of a welcome she’d get from me.

  My anxiety came and went all afternoon, like one of Martha’s long labors alternating pain and rest. For several minutes I’d be calm, plotting how to save Sarah and me, and then, like a labor pain, the bottom would fall out of my heart and my tongue would go clitchy and my throat like a stone. I would pace the floor and wring my hands and regret that I’d ever clapped eyes on Sarah. Like a bird with only one song, I’d say, “Betrayed! Betrayed!” and think of myself as like Jesus and Sarah as Judas, and then, more moderately, as Peter. Foolish and impetuous and weak, like Peter.

  At one point I even tried to make a picture, since picture-making was a tested way of expressing and calming myself. My hands were too unsteady and I had to give it up. It was to be Jesus kneeling at prayer, and Peter with a group of British redcoats shaking his head (he was to have two faces, to show the shake) while the cock stretches himself up and utters a long bright wiggle.

  During a calm period, I went out to do my evening milking. Tobe was in the yard. It seemed to me that he looked at me knowingly, as though he’d overheard Sarah’s father. “So that’s what made you happy, happy missy!” I heard him think. I wanted to say, “No, I never loved her, no I never kissed her, no I’m not her mate,” and I knew then which of us was Peter, and how Peter felt, and what made him deny the only light he’d ever known.

  I hurried past Tobe, with my face turned away, despising my Peter nature but bound in it. While milking, I decided not to be Peter. I decided to be brave and upright like Sarah, but when I started back to the house with the milk, another cramp of cowardice hit me and I crossed the yard like a spy.

  My kitchen felt like a haven. I began to spin. The wheel squeaked and whirred and the filaments of wool turned to yarn between my fingers. I spun like a spinning machine. Suppertime came. I didn’t feel like eating so I spun right through. Night blacked my window. I lit no lamp. The firelight served.

  I was waiting for Sarah to come and tell me how it happened and teach me how not to be Peter, but she didn’t come. My eyes burned from lack of juice and needed closing. At around midnight, remembering for the first time her dogs and ours, I lowered my winter-bed and climbed into it. Hours passed and I was still awake, picturing how Sarah tried to climb down from her upper window and set her dogs to howling. Dogs will howl over the most familiar thing if they judg
e it out of place. And Sarah was out of place clinging to a house wall at night. I couldn’t stop seeing. She wouldn’t come. I couldn’t sleep.

  How would I do my next day’s work without sleep, I worried, and then I thought, why, I’ll be sick, like any other woman. I laughed a little and fell asleep.

  Chapter Five

  Not knowing how far our tale had traveled, I was careful with everyone, not to act differently, not to be odd. I concentrated and moved everywhere as though watched.

  At family prayers, Edward asked God to guide me to the realization that we are not born to be happy but to do our duty and to save our souls. Tobe and Martha seemed to think just my laziness was meant.

  Sabbath at Meeting and after, I was alert to any change in feeling towards me. I listened for a rustle when I walked in, watched for any hint that I was of particular interest. I found none. Slowly I began to feel safe.

  And that moment I felt safe, I longed for Sarah’s kiss. I had not been able to wish for it until then.

  I made a plan, but it was one Sarah alone would have to carry out, and its success depended on nobody’s knowing that I had recommended it. We had to seem not to have had a chance to consult. So I waited. I seemed to surrender, but I was waiting, patiently, like a cat that knows it can win if it waits, even though it’s not strong enough to break open the mouse’s nest. Sarah, incapable of guile, would never think of a plan; but my chance would come to tell her mine. Someone’s vigilance would lapse. An ally would appear. Something would happen in our favor, and when it did I would be ready.

  She couldn’t, of course, know that. Even as I couldn’t know that every day she was boldly and heroically and stupidly setting off on the road to my house, and being caught and beaten by her father. She would not beg or explain or discuss. She knew that if she lived, she would get to me. What he did was up to him. Her choice was fixed. No one but me could tell her to stay away from me.

  It is a sin to raise a girl to be a man, believing in strength and courage and candor. We can’t prevail that way. Of course her father caught her and beat her and dragged her back. She knew he would, but she counted on his finally tiring, and having other interests. Before that happened, she could be a ruin.