“We are joined,” she whispered. “So I must accept you, all of you, as you must accept me and my shortcomings.”
He rested his forehead upon hers. “It is only fair that you should know, and I must risk it. I feel like a fraud, for I have been hiding something from you.”
She pulled away to see his face. “Just tell me.”
He stared into the fire. “Even as a child, I had the vigor of two boys. I was the terror of my parents. As I grew into a gangly young lad, this energy began to overtake me; the songs coursed through my blood in an endless melody, the sea breeze burned on my skin, every sound—the chirping of birds, conversations, resounded in my ears, and I could shut nothing out. I could not still myself, no matter how many times Father beat me. He was not a cruel man. He just did not know what to do with such a boy.”
“Was there no potion he could give you that would calm you?”
“Believe me, he tried.” His voice grew hard. “I had periods of calmness that enabled me to concentrate on my schooling, and Mother and Father would think it merely a phase. Then, without warning, I would feel the affliction return, the tingling on my skin, the brightness of the gull’s wings, the heightened emotion that poured from me.”
She had difficulty imagining the inability to control her impulses. Was it not just a matter of will?
“After our parents died, Daniel tried to keep me busy procuring herbs, but there were times I could not apply myself.”
“Your brother was a good man,” she said.
“He accepted me, as I was, unconditionally.” He paused for a moment and wiped his eyes.
She put an arm around him.
He pulled back his shoulders and continued. “A year or two after our parents passed, for a while it seemed that my affliction had abated. I went to medical school. It would be the perfect partnership.”
“It sounds like a fine plan.”
“Yes, it was.” He sighed. “Until, without warning my affliction rose up in me, and my stellar reputation at the medical school was shattered in one display. I could not help the melodies that the muscles sang to me, on the dissection table, as they glistened red and I only wanted to share the beauty of their names. So there, in front of fellow students, I unraveled. And the man I knew as Phillip White, who now goes by the name Edward Carter, persuaded the doctors I should go to Bedlam. And he would deliver me there.”
“Bedlam?” Oh God. “Why did you not tell me sooner? And Edward Carter has an alias?”
He clasped his hands in his lap. “I am sorry. I should have done. But what kind of a proposal do you think that would have been? Marry me. I have been in the bowels of Bedlam? Would you have married me?”
“It’s not as if I had a choice in the matter anyway,” she snapped and instantly regretted it. “But I am not sorry, Ian.” She grasped his trembling hand. “It must have been horrible.”
He took in a ragged breath and slowly released it. “Daniel got me out and took me abroad, and no one in King’s Harbour ever knew I had been there. No one but Phillip White. When I was well, I began to travel in search of a treatment for what the Swiss doctor Bonet calls ‘manico-melancolicus, for when the mania ends, despair begins, until the episode is over.’”
She sat for a moment without speaking, trying to absorb his confession. She’d never heard of such a condition, but it made sense: his constant movement, the look of fatigue, the endless music that poured out of him. “How long did you stay abroad?”
“I wandered for five years, searching for a cure and procuring herbs for my brother.”
“And you paid your way by singing?”
“Yes, trying cures along the way—fasting cures, Indian snakeroot...” He grew still, drawn inside himself.
“What is it?”
“Indian snakeroot, used for the heart but also in cases of mania. In my case, I experienced a deep melancholy I hope to never experience again. But Maggie—your sister—the bitter smell upon her breath.”
Her head spun at his mercurial change of subject. “You mean when she came out?”
He bounded off the bed and paced the floor. “Yes, I could not identify it at the time, but Indian Snakeroot is also used to deaden nerves, to mimic death. He could have given it to her for that reason.”
“But why?”
“The man is capable of anything.” He poured them some wine and sat again. “So now you know my story. It is unfair that you are chained to me and my affliction. But I will tell you true, sweeting, that was the past and you are the future. For since I met you, I have found peace in your eyes and your steady grace. Your love has healed me.”
He put his hands on top of hers. “Do you accept me now, Maggie? With all that you know?”
She took his face in her hands. “I do love you.” And it was only when she said the words she realized their strength. She kissed him with all the fervor in her heart.
“So now,” Ian said lightly. “You know your bridegroom is not perfect, which I’m sure has come as a shock to you. It is getting late, and I know you must work tomorrow, and so must I.”
“It is no small thing that I have not been summoned to a birth,” Maggie said. “Nothing short of miraculous.” She yawned loudly. “I can’t say I’m sorry. I feel glorious.”
She smiled at the smug expression on his face.
****
She lay with him again in the early morning hours, this time slow and tender, saying with her body all that could not be expressed aloud.
She awoke long before dawn and found his side of the bed empty. As she descended the stairs, she heard a lute playing a most minor tune, and Ian singing, low, mournful, as if he had gathered all the loneliness in the world and poured it into the song. She did not want to intrude, so keen was his grief, but as she entered the shop he looked up. Her gut wrenched when she saw the haggard hollows of suffering on his face. On the counter sat a beaker filled with brown fluid and herbs and bottles scattered around it.
“What is it? Can you not sleep?”
“Go back to bed, my love. I am accustomed to this sleeplessness, although I dosed off for a short while after our last...endeavor.” He held her palm against his cold cheek and grinned, but it did not reach his red-rimmed eyes. “I will take you up to bed.”
Hours later, she woke again to an empty bed and found him still playing downstairs, head lowered and fingers still tireless. Disquiet washed over her. How could he survive the day without sleep?
He put down the instrument immediately and embraced her. “I have the pot on for tea. I was going to bring you a tray.”
“Oh no, what time is it?” She then became self-conscious of her appearance; her hair must look like a flock of ravens nested there. He, meanwhile, although weary-looking, had already shaven and dressed and smelled of the sea and his unique spice.
The clock chimed eight. “What? Why did you let me sleep so long? I should be making my rounds by now!”
“You deserved a good lie-in this morning.” He grasped her bottom with both hands, pressing his erection against her. “See, Maggie? All I have to do is look at you and I want you again.”
She should push him away, but instead softened with desire. Would it always be thus?
A good while later, they sat at the table eating a breakfast of fresh rolls, thick slices of ham, washed down by fine black tea. She could not stop looking at those fingers, long and elegant, that made music on fine instruments, on her body.
She held up the tea cup. “Is this tea from your travels? It’s delicious.”
He wiped his mouth on his napkin. “From India.”
“You will have to tell me stories of your stay there.”
He averted his eyes. “Would that all my tales were pleasant.” He rose from the table and began to clear the dishes.
She gaped at him open-mouthed.
“I have fended for myself a long time, Maggie. There is no reason to stop now.” He returned and kissed her hard on the mouth. “Besides, I have my selfish reasons. Yo
u work hard and long. I want you to have energy left over at the end of the day, to love me.” He grinned. “For there is much more for us to experience.”
She found it hard to believe there was more to love-making than they had already experienced.
Chapter Nineteen
She made her ablutions upstairs for the day to the tune of Ian whistling in his shop. She felt rested, albeit more than a little sore in places never felt before. But her privities glowed where he had touched her, and the mere sight of the rumpled bed made her blush.
She walked into the apothecary shop just in time to see Widow Jenkins at the counter, her gnarled fingers on Ian’s wrist.
“Young man, I cannot tell you how much that willow bark helped with my rheumatism.” She leaned into him with all the subtlety of a mare in season. “Why, there’s no telling what I am able to do,” she tittered. “And whatever you put in for flavor made it so very tasty.” She eyed him as if he was tasty indeed.
He winked at Maggie, hair already slipping out of his tie. He fastened her package, bowing as he handed it to her.
“Hello, Mrs. Jenkins,” she said.
“Well, well,” she cackled. “So our Maggie has a husband.”
She eyed her up and down, rheumy eyes widening at the red marks on her neck. She had keen eyesight for her advanced years. Despite her best efforts, Maggie blushed, from bosom to forehead.
Widow Jenkins nodded, a gummy smile on her wizened face. “Ah, dearie, I see you have been well loved.” She leered at Ian.
Maggie looked to Ian for help. He grinned and handed the old woman the package.
“Mrs. Jenkins, thank you for coming in. Do you need help home? My lovely bride will be going your way. Mind you, remember to only use the amount I have prescribed for you.”
He walked her to the door and waited as she grabbed her supplies. He wrapped her in an embrace.
Mrs. Jenkins cooed.
“My wife,” he purred. “Beauteous, bounteous, and beloved.”
Her face grew hot. Did he not realize in the course of a day she had turned from the village spinster to a newly bedded married woman? And he knew it was highly improper to kiss her so, drawing her in with the sea in his eyes, tasting of black tea and sugar, lips warm and soft.
Mrs. Jenkins cackled, and Maggie pulled away, but a ridiculous feeling of joy lifted her as she took the old woman’s arm and headed out into a weak sun.
The people of King’s Harbour were out enjoying the fine day. They lingered on stoops with brooms, gossiping and waving. Some smiled and waved at her, but many sent such looks of malevolence she had to fight not to recoil. Word of her marriage had spread swiftly and did not seem to make a difference to those who thought her tainted with evil. The old woman patted her arm.
“Pay them no mind, girl. Those that malign you are not worth your trouble. Those with memories so short should remember the nights you spent at their family’s bedsides. You nursed my grandson back, you did.”
Johnny had been three and not expected to live, but Maggie had stood vigil for two nights, watching him helplessly. How did God decide who lived or died? On what did it depend? Certainly there did not seem to be rhyme or reason to it. Did he decide at all? The good book says, “The rain falls on the just and the unjust,” but does God not make the rain?
She spotted Joannie walking bare-headed in the dim sunlight, face to the sky, bandaged Jimmy tugging at her hand.
Happy to be distracted from sacrilegious thoughts, she called, “Good morning, Joannie. Where are you headed?”
Joannie started with surprise and ran to embrace her. “Oh, and it’s right lovely you look this morning, Miss Maggie! We are headed to have your husband check Jimmy’s head. Did you enjoy your evening, then?” She waggled her eyebrows.
Ed the Butcher yelled from his shop, “And where’s yon randy groom this morn? Can he not walk?”
John the chandler hollered, “I see young Maggie’s moving slower than normal, is she not?”
Guffaws and cat calls resounded in the street, and even the women joined in the traditional post-wedding ribbing. It was quite unfair her husband let her run the gauntlet of ribaldry alone. She could only hope he would suffer the same indignities at the shop today. But judging from his reaction to Mrs. Jenkins’s ribbing, he would probably enjoy it, stupid male.
With a chorus of titters trailing behind her, Maggie took Widow Jenkins home and arrived at her sister’s. Sarah tidied up the breakfast dishes, with more energy and more color in her cheeks than ever before.
She put down the dish rag and rushed over, hugging her with enough force to take the breath from her. How could someone so thin be so strong?
“Sister! It is so strange not to have you here after five years. Do you like your new home?” She peered at Maggie like she could read her mind. “How about your husband?” She glanced at Ruthie, who sat at the table, sounding out words from a primer and casting longing glances out the window. “Is he...satisfactory?” Sarah giggled.
Maggie sighed. “Must we speak of it? He is quite adequate.”
Sarah giggled.
“Sarah, you seem more yourself, today.”
Ruthie looked up from her reading. “No, Aunt Maggie, she’s not herself.” The last word ended on a shrill note.
Sarah ignored the remark. “I feel so much better this morning. We all slept—even the babe. When I awoke, my breasts were bursting with milk.”
“Keep in mind that you must get extra rest and eat frequently. You always were forgetting to eat, but you cannot afford to do so now. There is nothing to you. Perhaps Ian has a tonic that will help you put on a stone or two.”
She smiled and patted her arm. “Oh Maggie, how much you have gone through for me! I would truly be dead were it not for you and your new husband. I feel quite restored now, though. And you look, um, well-rested.”
Maggie huffed and tried to dissuade her sister from her excessive sentimentality, much like old times. “Has anyone come by for me this morning? I expected to hear from Mrs. White. Surely she is ready to deliver by now, and I am concerned about her. I will drop by today.” She avoided Sarah’s eyes. “I overslept, I must admit.”
She had not been prepared for the pleasure his body would bring—those hands, that voice, his member, delighting in ways she could never have imagined...
Sarah giggled. “Maggie! I can see from your dreamy countenance that he was, er, adequate, as you say. You are fair glowing.”
This was the old Sarah. She fished for details about their first evening as man and wife. She would not get them.
“The marriage was adequately consummated.” She blushed. “Rather more than once. Can we not cease this discussion?”
“Splendid—well done!” Sarah hugged her again. “Waste no time in getting with child.” The playfulness was gone. “Waste no time. The goddess will bless you, as she has so many others.”
“Ruthie.” Hiding her concern, Maggie rummaged in the tea can for coins. “You may go outside now. Run to the bakery. Buy a meat pie for your father and Uncle Ian. Deliver them and then you may go to Joannie’s house to help with the children.”
Ruthie threw on her cloak, all the while chanting, “Uncle Ian, Uncle Ian,” slamming the door and waking the baby.
Sarah held the figurine of Ixchel in her hands. “She saved me.”
“What?”
“I remember how I came to have this. I lay underground in darkness, cold and gasping for breath. I tasted blood and something bitter in my mouth. I could not think, could only gasp for air. I grew faint again. So I thought of the babe and tried to feel my stomach for her, but my arms were bound. I tried to open my eyes against the shroud wrapped so tightly, and I could not even open them. White heat flashed through my head as I passed out again, and knew I would die there, wherever I was. And then blackness overtook me.”
“You do not have to speak of this.” In truth, she did not want to hear anymore.
Sarah took in great gulps of air, mouth open, a
s if she had just now emerged from the grave. “And then, hands ripped the shroud off my face, gentle hands on the side of my head and lips upon mine, breathing into me! There shone a light, warm, yellow. Through the narrow opening of the shroud, I saw the long fingers of tree roots, as if I was in a cave, but I knew then I had been buried, but that there was a space empty above me that had been cleared. And I saw, strangely, as if in my mind, but I knew she was still there, because I could see her, an old woman, gnarled with clawed hands upon my shoulders as she placed her dry lips upon mine. And I felt a great hollowness in my center and blood draining from me.”
“And as her lips left mine, I began to breathe on my own again. She chanted words I could not understand, but they comforted me, and she tucked the figurine into the shroud, its weight reassuring as consciousness faded again.”
“It is Ixchel,” Maggie said, and explained to her what she and Ian had learned. “We think that the statuette is a talisman, but I do not know...”
As Sarah tightened her grip on it, there began a low-pitched hum, not heard but resounding within Maggie’s bones.
Sarah nodded. “Could it be its powers that have so quickly healed me? How can I not worship this goddess? She saved me.”
“Sarah, tell no one about this and show the figurine to no one.” Maggie grasped her hand. “It could be interpreted as the work of the devil, but I think it is not.”
Sarah rested and Maggie stood at the hearth stirring soup when Lena knocked softly. She walked in, her face drawn. Immediately Sabine came to mind, and Maggie readied herself for bad news.
“Lena, what is wrong? Please, sit and have some tea. You look as if you need it.”
Lena still stood by the door, casting a glance at Sarah. “This morning, Jonas and Edward Carter sat down at a table. After I served them some ale and returned to my work, I heard them whispering. My hearing is good, ja?”
Maggie nodded, smiling despite herself. If someone whispered all the way in Winchelsea, Lena would be sure to hear them.
“Jonas looked terrified, and Carter hissed at him, ‘mind you see that you keep your mouth shut about that night except to do the task I have asked you to, cretin. Take care of him. Do you understand?’ Jonas nodded and Carter slapped him so hard he fell off his stool. Carter left, and Jonas kept drinking.”
Mercy of the Moon Page 17
