Patience & Sarah

by Isabel Miller

  I say nothing, and of course you don’t.

  He says, “Have you prayed to be freed of it?”

  I say, “I meant to. Last summer I got as far as my knees.” (You turn and stare at me. Well, darling, of course there are some things about me you don’t know.)

  “But didn’t pray?” he asks.

  “I found I didn’t wish to be freed of it.”

  Gravely he says, “The Devil wouldn’t let you pray.”

  “I prayed. But not for that. I prayed to be fulfilled in it.”

  He thinks it over. It is impressive that God didn’t strike me with lightning for such a prayer. There is a chance that God is not offended.

  I must leave everything for Edward to think of. I wait.

  “Martha’s upset,” he says.

  I say, “I’m sorry.”

  “She says she hoo-hooed pretty loud and you didn’t hear.”

  I bow my head.

  “She says it could’ve been anybody. One of the children. A neighbor. It’s God’s blessing she was the one.”

  “Yes.”

  “She feels you must be made to stop. Can you tell me you will try?”

  I am silent.

  He says, “She wasn’t told about the other time.”

  “Thank you.”

  “So she thinks it’s still a bud that can be nipped.”

  Now there is a long silence.

  He says, “I won’t be rushed. I need time to think this through. Martha can’t make up my mind for me. I have to meditate and pray.”

  “I’ll do the same,” I say.

  “Good day, Miss Dowling,” he says, looking at you for the first time. He is taking your measure. Your worth is clear to see. I trust he sees it. In any case, he likes you.

  “Mr. White,” you say shyly, and nod.

  He goes. I sit beside you on the bench. You put your arm around me. I lean against your side.

  “What do you think he’ll do?” you ask.

  “I think he’ll ask me to leave. I needn’t though. I am protected by my father’s will. We needn’t go until you want to.”

  “If we don’t go, then he’ll do something else. Like keep me away. Should I come tomorrow?”

  Martha and I meet in the barn. It is early morning. She sits at her cow and I at mine. The milk hisses into our pails. She wants to remark but can’t decide how to begin. I won’t help her.

  “I always knew there was something wrong with you,” she says. That needn’t have taken so much thought. She could have blurted that out first thing. “Many times I’ve tried to make Edward see it, but no.”

  “He wouldn’t see?” I ask, pleased.

  “Oh, no! Not his sister! Nothing could be wrong with his sister! How many times I said it, ‘Edward, she means to make you keep her all her life. She means not to marry and do her part,’ and he’d just say, ‘Oh, she’s young yet.’ Young!”

  “Good Edward,” I say.

  “Well, now he’s got to see. Spoiled and indulged like a princess! And see what comes of it. If I had my way you’d soon be glad to marry like any other woman, and not too fussy who, and do your part. Nothing but spoiled. What made you think you needn’t marry except pure spoiled? And think you could do things man and wife don’t do?”

  “Kiss? Don’t you kiss?” I am very curious. I have had no such confidences before. To skirt so close to someone else’s secret life! Yes. I am curious.

  “I won’t say,” she says. With stool and pail she flounces to her next cow. “Not like that we don’t. I wouldn’t care to. Not like that.”

  I say, “Well, of course, if you wouldn’t care to – ”

  “I wasn’t brought up that way.”

  (But I wasn’t either.)

  She says, “Wait till I tell Edward how you’ve been this morning. Cool as a pirate, not an ounce of decent shame in you. It’s a sin, you know. I don’t expect Edward remembered to mention that to you. Saint Paul forbids it.”

  “He does?”

  “With all your Bible reading and Bible pictures, you don’t know that? And your fronts all open like no-good Jezebels, and not caring who might walk in and find you, and her not even in the family!”

  I am astonished. “Martha – Sister – ” I begin, but I am too astonished to go on. And perhaps she doesn’t realize what she has said.

  It is afternoon. I am at my table, painting Saul on the road to Damascus. There’s a tap at my door and then I hear it open. That will be Martha with her Bible.

  She sits down half around the table from me. “I had some trouble finding the passage,” she says. “It’s not one I expected to have a need for.”

  I say, “You see, you put my mind on Paul. Here comes Saul, the raging wolf with all his attendants, who will all be wolfish too – perhaps you can’t tell at this stage. But, see, the road bends, and we can see, although Saul can’t, that in just about one minute he will be knocked flat by love and rise up Saint Paul.”

  “I expect you want to claim that’s what happened to you.”

  “No.”

  “Well, don’t, because here’s what he says,” and Martha reads in her false flat reading voice: “‘Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves: who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the women, burned in their lust toward one another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; being filled with all unrighteousness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosever thou art that judgest; for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things.’”

  Martha doesn’t like the drift of the last part, so she stops there.

  The condemnation is powerful indeed. I cannot answer it. I must bear it. May God save my heart for love, despite Saint Paul.

  “I see you thought you could argue it away, but you can’t,” Martha says.

  “No. He says it. He says I am worthy of death. So be it.”

  I continue to paint. She watches against her will. Everybody likes to see a painter at work. She needn’t be ashamed.

  Since I cannot dispute Saint Paul, we sit in silence. My house smells good, from a cake I am baking for you. It is snug here and pretty and quiet and fragrant. Martha is bothered by the seductions of my house. She starts to go, but doesn’t. Close by my side, alarmingly close, she lingers and says, “It could’ve been so sweet, working and helping each other here. It was what I thought about. It was what I thought would be. Edward and you and me together. And then you didn’t like me anymore, and I forgot I liked you, and I just lately remembered. Do you remember we used to like each other?”

  Keeping such distance as I can, I say, “Yes.”

  “I get so lonesome with just Edward. We don’t kiss. There’s something he does to me, but we don’t kiss. We’re not sweet together. And the children. And the girl. She’s no better than you were, Patience. She’s sullen too. So many times I wish I could sit by you of an evening, but I expect you wouldn’t want that.”

  How cruel and cold to leave her there, unhugged, unreceived. But she’s too late. I am yours now, and my hugs are only yours.

&nbs
p; She says, “No, you wouldn’t.” (Her voice hard again.) “You’ve got those Dowlings trooping in here every night, and them not even in the family.”

  She and her Bible go. I am uneasy. What would Saul have done if love had flung him down and then decided not to keep him after all?

  Edward has finished two days of meditation and prayer. He is here to tell me my fate. I sit with my hands folded, meekly ready to accept it, in case it is a fate I am willing to accept.

  “You have made a great mistake,” he begins. “These are the passions marriage is meant to discourage and then extinguish. At first we imagine and hope, but in marriage we learn we are not wanted. But we find solace in work and in making the world go. I speak of men. I have no idea what women feel or want. Have you?”

  “No. Not in general.”

  “Most people manage well enough with marriage and work, but what’s to become of you? You have wakened feelings marriage can’t help you with. You let them wake, and you let them grow, and you took pleasure in thinking of them, and here we are. As to work, I honestly don’t see how a woman’s work uses her mind enough to help her this way. She can’t fight these feelings by work. The only hope is not to let them wake.”

  “But here we are,” I say, quite timidly. I do, in fact, feel timid. I have taken a terrible risk. His power is very real. I am grateful to Martha for telling me that he cares more for me than he ever seemed to. Except for knowing this, I might not be able to bear the frights of this confrontation.

  “Yes, here we are. You’ve made us all a problem. And I have had to think what it is my duty to do about it.”

  “Have you decided?”

  “I considered all the things I might do,” he says. “First was the possibility of turning my back on it all and letting it go on. But Martha found you, and someday the children could, or a neighbor, and then the family is disgraced and the children unmarriageable. I confess I couldn’t be quite blind. I turned my back all this while, I confess, and here we are.”

  “Yes.”

  “Next was asking the girl’s father to keep her away, as he did before. It would mean brute force, considering the feelings you’ve encouraged in each other. It would be difficult, but duty often is. It’s what Martha wants.”

  Oh praise God for Martha! Except that she wants this, it is what he would do.

  He says, “I think the end of such a course would be that I had to declare you mad and build you a cage in the loft.”

  I am shocked. I haven’t thought of this at all.

  “But I’m not mad,” I say.

  “No. But you soon would be.”

  “Yes.”

  “And there’s grounds to question that it would be best to drive you mad. It’s a blot on a family, madness. I think it’s not my duty to bring it on.”

  “I hope not,” I choke.

  “You spoke last year of wanting to go to Genesee.”

  To hide my relief and pleasure – because I don’t want him to think that he is shirking the duty of punishing me – I say, “That has come to seem unreasonable.”

  “I thought so at the time.”

  “Yes, I know you did.”

  “It’s the only solution I see now. It needn’t be to Genesee, of course. But I can’t let you stay here.”

  “Our father’s will – ” I say, knowing Edward must have thought of it. I don’t want to think of an objection he hasn’t anticipated and dismissed.

  “I am prepared to make a money settlement for your property here.”

  “But then my subsistence. Who can say how much it might be worth over the years?”

  “Woman! Are you trying to drive a hard bargain? You are in no position to.” He frowns magnificently. We are a handsome family. I hope that God will someday give Edward, too, the great task he longs for. “You can trust me to be fair.”

  “I know I can, Edward. When must I go?”

  “You are not helpless. You are in good health, and you know how to do all the female things, and how to keep school.”

  “Yes. When must I go?”

  “And she’ll be with you, I assume. At least there can be no children. The two of you alone can manage, if you’ll go where land is cheap and the arts you know are wanted.”

  “How soon?” I say.

  “The sin is for your own soul to bear. I’ve done what I can if I protect my family.”

  What can I say to reassure him that he is being harsh enough?

  I try. “To leave the home my father built me! The protection of my brother! His children! My friends!” To say it is to see some truth in it. My tears are quite unexpected and unforced, almost guileless.

  “You might have thought of that before,” he says, feeling better.

  “Couldn’t Sarah just live here with me?” He can tell Martha that I begged for that, but that he was strong and cruel.

  “I’m not obliged to keep her in food and shoes, to let her be an example to my daughters.”

  I submit and say no more, but think sad true thoughts to bring the tears along.

  He says, “There’s a parcel of land I can turn into money. I’ll have it soon.”

  “It’s winter!” I say.

  “If you want to make a crop this year, you should be starting. It won’t be long. Can you behave yourself, knowing it won’t be long? There can be no more in this house.”

  I nod.

  “Tell me there will be no more in this house. I know your nods.”

  “There will be no more in this house.” I’m afraid it will be easy to keep this promise. I pray that my feeling can flow again when we have built our private place.

  He says, “I’ll draw up papers. You can’t squander your birthright and then come back. Don’t expect to.”

  “No.”

  “You’ll need a map. I can spare you one.”

  “Thank you.”

  He pushes back his chair and gets up. At the door he turns and says, “Would you really rather go than give her up?”

  I risk the truth. “Yes, Edward.”

  He shakes his head. “So be it,” he says, and opens the door to go. Again he turns. “But what do you do?” he asks.

  My maidenly blush calls forth in him a manly blush. He does not stay for answer.

  I must see you. There is no time to lose. I am flinging on my cloak to go to you, when I notice that it is almost evening already. You will soon be here, perhaps before I can get my milking done.

  No matter who comes with you, I will speak.

  You bring the one I would have chosen, your mother. She is not awkward now, knowing my affection for her. I take her hand and lead her to the fireside. You must make your own way.

  “I have news,” I say.

  Your mother says, “I hope good.”

  “I’ll tell it, and let you decide which. I’m going to the west.” I feel you start and tighten.

  She says, “Oh! When?” and although she must have had some idea she has to stop and blow her nose and look away.

  “It could be as little as a week. Whenever my brother gets my money for me.”

  “Oh. In such weather?”

  “It’s none too early. I have a long way to go and I want to buy land and get a start this year.”

  “It’s a chancey step,” she says.

  “Yes, it is. But I’ve wanted it for a long time. Last summer when I kept school, I made up stories for the children about the frontier, when I was supposed to be reading them the Bible.

  She smiles weakly. “I’ll miss you. We all will.”

  “I want to take Sarah with me.”

  “I figured.”

  “I knew you did.”

  I turn to you. “Will you?”

  You stride around my kitchen. “Going’s a different thing to making up stories,” you say. “You got no more idea than a jaybird,” you say. “Just when I can be some good here,” you say.

  You keep on pacing. Your mother and I wait.

  You say, “I want to. But is that any reason? When I
can be some good here finally?”

  You mean, is it right to choose pleasure over duty? Can you yield to a longing for kisses, when other people’s necessities are at stake? Nothing you ever heard of tells you you have a right to choose me. I hoped you’d thought this through before. I may have to go without you. There may not be time, before, for you to face and learn to endure your own necessities. When I am gone you will, and then I will send for you.

  “I’ll be going anyway,” I say, to let you know that I am being compelled to go. “First will you do something for me?”

  “Anything!”

  “Stand still and let me measure you. I have a length of goods I can’t look at without thinking of your hair.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “You said, ‘Anything.’”

  You press your lips together, a stubborn child, but I will not let you off. What are you to travel in if I do? I bring my measure and make you stand. Your mother keeps the notes. She draws numerals very nicely now. I suppose she’s been practicing in the hearth dust.

  (You see, sweetheart, it’s not so bad to be measured when I do it.)

  “What’ll Pa say about me living off of him all winter and then leaving again as spring comes on?”

  Your mother says, “He’ll say nothing.”

  I see a new Mrs Dowling. Women are not so very powerless after all. He will say nothing. She should make up her mind more often.

  Chapter Two

  Here we go. It is cold clear dawn, a March morning. There may be bare dirt for Edward to bring his sleigh back over, but it slips along easily now. We are nested together in a little row, Edward and then me and then you, under bearskin robes. He is seeing us off in style, probably in the thought that it’s a blot on a family, too, to let a member leave under what could be interpreted as a cloud.

  Your whole side is pressed against mine. There wouldn’t be room between us for a thread. Your face is very sad, and mine must be too – we’ve both been weeping. Although I think it shows no dislike of what we go to, to feel a grief for what we leave, I want to comfort you. I slide my hand under the robe, hoping you will do the same so I can reach you in hiding there. Either you don’t understand or you decide against it.