I spread my fingers in your hair, saying, “Come help me. The kitchen’s good enough for you, but not your mother.” Again she says there’s no need, goodness, but I think she is flattered. I hope I detect it.
You with wood, I with coals, we go to the parlor, and to keep the cold breath of it from your mother we have to shut the door of course. I see your face in the glow of the coals. You make the fire.
I like you in these clothes, your work clothes, breeches and shirt. You are graceful in them. My lovely tall cat.
“Is it all right I brought her?” you murmur.
“Of course. What did you tell her?”
“I said you think I need more reading lessons.”
“And indeed I do think so, probably.”
I tilt my chin up for your kiss, but your lips are stiff and nervous. I slap, not hard, your bottom, saying, “Pay attention to what you’re doing. I won’t let you go till you make my toes tingle.” You try again. It’s no use. You are thinking of your mother.
“At least I have my memories,” I say, and though you try to keep me and explain, I go back to your mother.
I make tea for her and talk with her. We speak of seasonable and unseasonable. Then, to frighten you, I say, “Mrs Dowling, I wonder if I dare share with you a vice I learned at school? We can read another time. This evening I want to share with you.”
I think she is almost disappointed when the vice is only cards. She’s not as stern against vice as you seem to think.
I teach the two of you to play Hearts. You learn fast, she less so, but since she loves you she takes no offense.
“Was Sarah always so easy to teach?” I ask, knowing the answer is yes. I hope for stories of baby-you but get none. I think she can’t remember. If you were my little girl, I’d remember.
We sit at my small round parlor table. Studying my cards, I press your leg. You press back. The game is slow. Not knowing numerals, your mother must, at first, count spots. We are not impatient. We can sit this way for any length of time. You would kiss me now, no nonsense. But you wasted our chance and we have to wait.
I will know all of the other Dowling women before the winter is out, but I can’t imagine liking any better than this one. I like her strong body for making you and her big bosom for feeding you and her hands for petting and dressing you. I suppose they swatted you too. We will forgive them, because now they are spotty and veiny, newly innocent.
The game gets easier for her. Before we stop, I have the happiness of seeing her smile. She is enjoying herself. I have made her easy in my house.
Your leaving is not unbearable. Something social rises in me and helps. I touch the back of your neck once, lightly, with my fingertip as I help you on with your jerkin. Then I kiss your cheek and hers.
“We’ll read tomorrow,” I say.
I think I like it better this way than I thought I could. To work and play together, to be out of bed, almost behaving ourselves, gives us something we have needed.
There has been a storm all day. This morning it woke me, howling and pelting my windows with snow and sleet. It’s still going on, late afternoon, as strong as ever. Maybe stronger.
In the still-new pleasure of cozy solitude, I am sewing. How lovely to sew without a nag of guilt. (Edward has hired a girl, and I am simply Martha’s neighbor now, not her servant.) I am making firpins for you, which I measured you for from memory – one hand here and the other here is how far? The firpins will be bolder than I and touch you where I have not. They will caress your body all day, as my lucky ambassador – lieutenant – proxy – and at unexpected, inconvenient times you will remember to feel their touch, which is my touch, and your heart will pound. My heart is pounding at the thought. It is the sort of problem I like for us to have.
And you are in your father’s house, thinking of me, and damnation! You are thinking the storm’s so bad you won’t come tonight. You are thinking, in fact, that I wouldn’t want you to come, that I don’t expect you.
Now listen! Now listen here!
But you won’t listen. I’m like a fly in a bottle, buzz buzz. You don’t hear a thought I’m sending you. You are smug in my love and your belief that I care only for your comfort.
Oh what a maddening girl you are! You have the boots for it, the breeches, the long strong legs, everything but plain common sense and the ears to hear me.
I sigh. No use waiting till it’s even darker and even harder. Sigh. Put on extra woolen stockings. Knot the tops. Put shoes back on. Sigh. Put more stockings on over the shoes. Knot the tops. Extra petticoat. Oh, unkind Sarah! You could leap here, on your wonderful legs. And I’ll be trudging and toiling. Well. Scarf over chin and nose-end. Round and round. Shawl. Cloak. Hood up. Another scarf. Mittens. Lantern.
Trudge and toil, yes! This is an ice storm. The sky is falling. Fences are glazed, trees glazed. In short order, I am glazed. No traction for my glazed stockings. And now not even dim light from the sky. The tiny worthless dots my lantern sheds don’t even show my feet. Toil on, poor wayfarer, buffeted, tossed, a lonely fragile bark, whose only crime is a heart too loving.
No thanks to you, I gain your door. Your worthless dogs, asleep for the winter I suppose, don’t challenge me. I pound your door. No one inside can believe, of course, the testimony of mere ears. A knock on a night like this? Yes, you ninnies! I pound again. Who do you think it is? Who else could it be? Didn’t I tell you, I have to see you every day? I suppose you’re all huddled together in wonderment, preparing to delegate Big Ira to go see what that unaccountable noise is, that sounds so much like somebody at the door.
As I reach to pound once more, the door fades back from me and there you are. Not surprised. Your perceptions are improving. I can make you feel me through a door, even though not through a storm. One step at a time.
You are miserable. And you are right to be. Your whole hangdog figure drips guilt. Good.
I have friends in this house who are glad to see me even if you’re not. You and your father my stand over there and shift from foot to foot and wonder what to do with me. I am nevertheless well welcomed. I kiss your mother and then on reflection your sisters too, except Rachel. She is scowling at me.
“Reading lesson!” I say, and I notice that I have never before heard my voice so cheerful.
But they will not hear of reading till I am rested and warmed. Two little ones (I must remember their names: Lucy and Katy) kneel and strip my icy stockings off. They are so innocent, reaching under my skirts, intent on stocking tops, never supposing I might find them forward. And I don’t. I chance a look at you while their hands explore my legs, but your father is beside you so I look into the fire and smile a very small secret smile, hardly more than a pleasant expression, which only you and he and Rachel will understand.
I should have brought paper. These girls need copybooks. They need slates. With a stick I write LUCY and KATY in the ash dust on the hearth. I write LIZZY. I write EMMA. They are in a row with their bottoms up, copying their names in the dust. I write MARY. Rachel would like her name, but not from me. She won’t ask and I won’t offer. She and I are very much alike. We are both in love with you. I may sympathize with her feeling and even grudgingly find a certain beauty in it, but I don’t think I’m obliged to help her with it. Why should she sleep by you, and I sleep alone?
I say, “Well, now, Sarah, I’m ready to hear you read.”
You bring out your Garvey. I sit behind you on a stool, following and correcting over your shoulder. You make many mistakes.
Your father says, “Not doing too good.”
I am afraid he is on the verge of violating the new unwritten law, that he see nothing and suspect nothing and foremost say nothing. He’s afraid of driving you away again, doesn’t he know that?
Serenely I say, “She’s doing very well. This isn’t the book we’ve been using.”
He subsides. We go on. I think you really can read better than this. I don’t know for sure. I do my part – I do not rest my chin on you
r shoulder, I do not put my hands on your hips.
Your mother says, “You better stay the night.”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t,” I say. “Anyway, the storm is moderating, I think.” At which a gust full of pellets hits the house like a load of hay to make a liar out of me.
“You better stay,” she says.
I look at the little ones. Their faces are very flattering to me, all these eager pretty girls doting unconcealed. I do have an effect on the Dowling women. I imagine I could even win Rachel over, in time, if I cared to. She liked me well enough the day she brought Parson Peel’s letter over.
I look at you. You too want me to stay. The night could be pleasant. So much so that you might be willing to repeat it.
I say, “Thank you all the same, Mrs Dowling. I must get home.”
Their urgings continue, but I resume my not-yet-dry wraps and stockings, light my lantern, and set off. I have not exchanged a private word or a real look with you, but I hope I have told you, in a way you will believe and remember, that we will have a daily life. If you are too timid to have it beautifully, in Genesee, we will have it this way, in Connecticut.
You are angry about something. You come faithfully every evening, bringing a sister, but you do not help me to seize the little moments we might have. You do not come down cellar with me when I go for cider. You are always looking away when I try for your eye. At least, not being agitated, you show me how well you can read.
I should be trying to guess what’s gone wrong, but I shall wait and let you tell me Sabbath afternoon.
And now you too understand about staying out of bed when there’s something that needs to be discussed. I think I could not get you to bed today, by any ordinary means, until we talk.
You are full of your topic and not shy. Your anger makes you handsome in a way I haven’t seen before.
“What made you come to my place?” you ask.
“I have to see you every day,” I say. Demurely, I think, is how.
“Do you call that seeing?”
“I take what I can get.”
You say, “I won’t have it. I won’t be made to do what I judge is foolish.”
“No, Sarah. I have made only my own choice. Your choice is still your own. I’m not making you do anything.”
“You’re making me come every day.”
“And you consider it foolish?”
“Some days it’s foolish. In an ice storm, it’s foolish.”
“All right, I’ll be the foolish one in nasty weather.”
“You know I can’t have that either.”
“It’s not for you to say. It’s my choice. You could choose to hide away and not see me. I couldn’t help that. But you can’t choose whether or not I’ll come. In any weather you find troublesome, look for me.”
“You want me out in storms, to see you when we can’t kiss or talk or anything. It’s not worth it.”
“To me, it is worth it. I value many things about you besides your kiss. So I’ll be out in storms.”
“You won’t. You know I’d break my back to spare you that. Oh, I thought love would be so sweet! I thought things would go easier! You’re running me. You’re playing me. Stop playing me.”
(I do have my hook in your mouth, darling, but I’m not playing you; I’m landing you. I’d better, don’t you think, before we’re both too old for the walk in any weather? It does no harm that you are not deceived. One should not be able to deceive a woman.)
I say, “There’s another way. We can go to Genesee.”
“We can’t.”
“Or you could live here. There’s room.”
I block your “no” with a kiss. “Don’t say no until you think about it,” I say, and then because it’s been so long since we had a proper chance, I kiss you again and again, and as always when this begins we talk no more.
You come to me through the dark, when you need rest, when the snow is deep and blowing, when no sister is gracious about accompanying you, when your mother protests and your father threatens, you come to me. And now you know as well as I, that you cannot resist me. We both need the proof.
You are so much finer than I, noble, generous, devoted to freedom, unwilling to bully. But it is I, and the traits in which I differ from you, who will save us.
I love to alarm you by making my lips into a kiss when our chaperone is intent on her book. She could look up at any time, of course, and it makes the fun, watching you try to shake your head without shaking it, try to indicate her without moving. I stay reckless and imperious, not pitying your blush and your puffed-up throat, leaving it up to you whether to get us caught by leaving me there unanswered. You can always be made to answer, and then I bow my head and smile.
We even make some progress in reading. Your sisters, too, learn easily. I am fond of them, but I begin to be sorry that they are so fond of me. Now they will be as sorry to part from me as from you.
Sometimes I wonder how much of your love for me is gratitude for the ways I have made their lives more interesting. I have made them small gifts, such as cards and jackstraws, and of course the reading, if they are able to go on with it, can give them the world. You dream, I think, of the number of times your mother may be moved to smile. I suspect you of wanting to spend not only your own life but mine in adding to their pleasures. If I would let you, you would be happy to consider our love the weekly refreshment we need for going on with this main task.
As a teacher I groan for your wasted family, but as a woman I must choose only one of you to be devoted to.
Perhaps you are too young. At twenty-two, would I have left everything for love, as I ask you to? Even last year, at twenty-seven (to remember what I would rather forget), I couldn’t go with you. But you are better than I. Everything depends on your being better than I. You have nothing to learn. You need only to be guided to recover what you always knew.
We are lying together on my winter bed in the kitchen, in a sweet afterwards.
“Stay by me. Live here,” I say.
“You said to think on it, so I did. I think you don’t need me here and my folks do.”
“Not need you! I need your warm body in bed and your – I need you.”
“Not my work. You don’t need that. And the folks do. Here I’d just be your pet, and get in your brother’s hair.”
I say, “Do you want another winter like this one?”
“Yes!”
“Exactly like this one?”
You bite your lip and pretend to think. “I’d settle,” you say.
“Do you want ten more exactly like this one?”
“I’d settle.”
“How about twenty-five? Fifty? We can live to be eighty. Who’s to say we won’t? Old maids often do.”
“I hope we do.”
“You hope to be tottering across the ice on your rickety brittle old bones every night of your seventy-fourth winter? Which will be my eightieth winter?”
You eyes are so bright, laughing and unimpressed. You get up and creak around the room, to show me age seventy-four as it is usually experienced, and then leap to show the form it will take in you. I am rebuked that I believe in death. It is our whole difference, I see now. Believing in death has made me brave. It could do the same for you, but maybe there’s no hurry. You charm me so, just as you are. Leap, leap you go, holding your skirt up to show me your legs. In lax and heathen York Sate, surely we can dance? You land so lightly in your soft blue stockings, washed and darned a thousand times. I love you.
In an old cracked voice you say, “Patience? Pate? Patty?” and peer for me everywhere and see me and become young and bound towards me. I curl up laughing, for I suspect that you intend to tickle me. You pry my body straight and lie on it and kiss me. “Just like this, I’ll settle,” you say.
It may take years. It may take age twenty-eight, to believe in death. I decide to enjoy the six years. I reach up and hold your face, luring you into a kiss. You are in no hurry. You like it up there, looking at me
, making me wait. Before it can go to your head I pull you down and we join our mouths together in a seal I am willing to make permanent and then some one says, “What are you doing?” not gentle or in sympathy or in any way that belongs in the same room with love, and I consider who might be capable of such an offense.
Who but Martha?
You pull up from me and stand, oh greatly agitated. I almost think you may run out without your shoes or wraps. I sit up and take your hand. “Settle down, darling,” I say.
You look at me wildly. I smile. “It’s nothing,” I say. And then you’re not afraid either. You are not a coward. You are only afraid that I am. I am so relieved that I am not, just as I hoped not to be.
Martha stares a while. I don’t suppose she wants an answer. I don’t suppose there can be any need to ask of two people with disarrayed hair and opened bodices who are lying in bed and kissing so deeply they can’t hear someone come in, what are you doing? I stand beside you, holding your hand, and wait for her to go away. She does, and then I neaten your clothes and hair, and mine, and neaten the bed, and tug the rope that lifts it back to the ceiling. Edward will be along.
He pounds the door vigorously and waits until I call, “Come in.” His wife should take up the custom. Perhaps she will in the future. He never has before. It is not the country way. My poor brother. He would like very much to see our embrace, and so he concludes he mustn’t.
But I don’t despise his decency and honor. I rely on them.
You are on the bench, looking into the fire. I am at the wheel. He goes to the window and looks at it. It is too frosty to look through. We say nothing. I will not be forward and unwomanly and set him against us. I meekly wait. He clears his throat, and then clears it again.
“I hoped all this was done with,” he says.
Patience & Sarah Page 11
