Into the Wilderness

by Sara Donati

  At the door, Mrs. Schuyler hesitated. “You will have a good husband in Nathaniel Bonner,” she said. “I only wish this were being seen to in a more orderly fashion. That you had some lady of your family here to advise you.”

  “I doubt anyone could be more helpful than you have been,” Elizabeth said quite truthfully. But she touched the letter still secured against her skin, remembering it for the first time in over an hour, and dreading the moment when she would have no choice left but to read it.

  When she had bathed, and washed her hair with what she knew must have been Mrs. Schuyler’s finest imported soap, and dried herself, Elizabeth lay down on the bed, completely relaxed and comfortable and totally unable to sleep for even five minutes. She had sent Jill away so that she could dress in privacy, but then she lay on the bed wrapped in the robe that Mrs. Schuyler had provided. Hung up to air were three dresses: the one she had worn last night on her way up Hidden Wolf, the extra dress she had packed, and the fine doeskin overdress lent to her by Many-Doves.

  Many-Doves had made the dress for her own wedding to Runs-from-Bears. There were a hundred hours in the fine bead and quill work on the bodice and skirt, and it shimmered where Jill had hung it to air, the fringe on the hem fluttering in the breeze. Elizabeth had never imagined herself in any wedding gown at all, much less one as beautiful and rare as this. Her cousins had been married in satin and silk and brocade, in dresses that cost more than a laborer’s yearly wage. But aunt Merriweather had been firm on the matters of trousseau and etiquette, and the money had been spent gladly.

  Reluctantly, Elizabeth found her aunt’s letter and spread it out on the bed before her.

  The fourteenth day of March, 1793

  Oakmere

  My dearest niece Elizabeth,

  Never before in my life have I more wanted those magical powers which no mortal can possess. It is only by borrowing such divine gifts that I could transport this letter to you as quickly as I would wish. Such is my concern for your welfare and future.

  I am afraid that such strong words will alarm you, but my dear Elizabeth, my concern for you is real. What terrible thoughts have consumed me since your letter arrived this evening. I sit here, writing by candlelight—a privilege I oft denied you in the name of economy—after even my maid has retired, because I know that I will not be able to sleep until I have put down on paper what is in my heart.

  You write to me of your father’s wishes for your marriage, to Dr. Richard Todd of the town of Paradise, once of Albany, and you ask my guidance and advice as any young woman of good breeding must. You write nothing shocking of this young man, no hint of poor character or of any trait that is less than admirable. Yet you do not want to marry this Dr. Todd, and you say so clearly. What you do not write, but which is very clear to me also, is that your father exerts his influence on you, because the connection would be an advantageous one for him. If you had come to me with this even a year ago, my answer would have been quite simple. I would have urged you to marry this young man without haste. But all has changed.

  Permit me to be candid with you, Elizabeth. Do not marry where your heart is not. Do anything but marry only to please your father.

  In the years we were fortunate enough to have you make your home with us, I did not often praise you. But my dear, I did admire you, although your clarity of purpose and single-mindedness sometimes bemused and perhaps even irritated. It is only since you are gone away to make a new life for yourself in the Colonies (for such they will always be to me) that some of this has become clear to me. The reasons for this are twofold; the first is your recent long letter in which you describe your school and your work with the children of Paradise; the second, the work of an authoress of whom I shall write below. On this basis, I have had occasion to examine my own behavior toward you and to find it lacking.

  You have found a calling in life, something which is denied to most of our sex. To give this up for marriage, when there is no material need to wed, seems to me a sin.

  Now, I anticipate that such a material need does indeed exist. Do not forget, my dear, that your beloved father is also my brother, and as much as I love and cherish him, I also know him too well to overlook his weaknesses. Your brother’s recent troubles are, I fear, to lay at your father’s door, for he has no head for business or for money, except a propensity for spending it. In any case, it does no good to decry your father’s follies; they can no longer be undone, and we must face them and deal with them. You write not one disloyal word of your father, but I imagine that he is in debt, and that to the extent that it is necessary for him to seek this Dr. Todd as a son-in-law.

  Well, I will not have it. I cannot stand by and watch your father take away from you a calling upon which any husband must certainly impinge. Is the schoolhouse you wrote of so carefully and lovingly planned, to be abandoned so soon? Even the best-meaning, best-loved, and most rational husband in the world who claims to share his wife’s dreams does not gladly share the same lady with the children of strangers.

  Marry not, Elizabeth. And so that it will be possible for you to pursue your studies and your teaching, I am prepared to do what must be done. Along with this letter I enclose a contract, duly notarized, which bestows on you a monetary gift of two thousand pounds sterling, which should make it possible for you to purchase those properties of your father’s and thus render him solvent. The land will thus remain in the family, in your able hands to do with as you see fit; my brother’s financial difficulties will have been resolved, and you will not be obliged to marry at his whim.

  You are wondering why your old aunt should take it into her head to reverse every bit of wisdom you ever heard her give over tea. There is a simple, and yet quite apt, explanation for this, my dear, and you are at the heart of it.

  Shortly after you left us, when I had begun to miss your company and good conversation at my table, I finally took up that volume you so kindly gave me as a gift on the morning of your departure. You will be surprised to hear, perhaps you will even question the veracity of my claim, but it is true. I have become an admirer—a critical admirer, but an admirer no less—of Mrs. Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Most especially I was struck by the truth of her observation that there are many women who are worthy of education, but who are denied the reason and support of their fathers and brothers. Such women must usually struggle through the world on their own, but in your case I hope you will accept the help and direction of an aunt who loves and admires you, and respects those noble causes to which you have dedicated your life.

  Aunt Augusta Merriweather

  Postscript. Mr. Colin Garnham, a business acquaintance of your uncle Merriweather’s, leaves tomorrow for New-York. I will pass this letter and its contents to his able care, and authorize him to spend what is necessary to get this letter into your hands at the earliest opportunity. He will deposit the funds entrusted to him with the bank in Albany. I make you this gift not from your uncle’s resources, but from my own. Such is my faith in you, dear niece; I know you will fulfill my highest expectations.

  Elizabeth felt for a moment as if all the air in the room had suddenly disappeared. She read the letter again, and again. Her aunt Merriweather, dour, dear old Merriweather, had simply handed her everything necessary to do what she wanted to do with her life. Security for her father, financial independence for herself. The freedom to teach her school, because it stood on land she owned.

  She read the letter a fourth time, and put it down to pace the room. The polished floorboards were cool to her bare feet, but she barely noted that.

  Her father.

  Elizabeth stopped where she was, held her newly throbbing head in her hands. Her father had read this letter and known that his troubles were solved, but he had kept this information from her. Knowing what he knew, he had pushed, until he could push no longer, for Elizabeth’s engagement to Richard Todd. These ideas did not fit together, and yet they must.

  It wasn’t the money, then. Or
the land. In spite of his protestations of wanting to keep the land in the family, her father was so desperate to pass the patent over to Richard that he had lied to her. He had stolen this letter, hid it away from her.

  Jill announced herself at the door, and Elizabeth flung it open, frightening the woman so that the tea things she carried swayed and clattered dangerously on their tray.

  “Pardon me, please,” Elizabeth said. “But I must speak to Nathaniel, immediately.”

  “Shall I fetch him, then?” the girl asked, flustered. “Is something wrong?”

  Elizabeth took the tray from her, nodding. “Please tell him to come to me, that I need him. Straightaway. And please—don’t alarm anyone else. Just send him to me.”

  She was sitting on the edge of a chair with the letter on her lap when he came in.

  He hadn’t escaped Mrs. Schuyler’s attentions, that was clear. Sometime in the last hour he had bathed and shaved and he was wearing a fresh shirt, linen this time rather than homespun or buckskin, creamy white against the tanned column of his neck. There were shadows under his eyes, but he smiled at her, a relaxed smile. She tried to smile back.

  “You’ll have the Schuylers in an uproar, inviting me in here.”

  She handed him the letter. He walked to the window to read it, leaning with one shoulder against the jamb as he did so. The light moved on his face as his eyes scanned the lines, one after the next. Then he raised his head and looked at her.

  “When did this come?”

  “Yesterday. I found it with the deed and the patent in the secretary last night. I just read it now.”

  He was watching her, waiting.

  “Nathaniel. What does it mean?”

  There was a guarded look about him. “It means you don’t have to marry me anymore, if you don’t care to.”

  She stood up and crossed the room. “That’s not what I meant,” she said peevishly. “I was asking about Richard, and my father, and why—”

  “I know what you meant. But there’s something else we got to get settled here first. You can do what you like now.”

  “Of course I can,” Elizabeth snapped. “But I could do that before as well. Do you imagine that I was doing this against my will?”

  “In the name of a good deed,” he said, shrugging. “Maybe against your better judgment.”

  Elizabeth drew up, feeling her face flood with a bright, burning indignation. “Then you know me not at all, Nathaniel Bonner,” she said. “And perhaps you had better reconsider yourself what it is you said you wanted from me. Unless—” She hesitated, and pushed on. “Unless you’ve already had that and satisfied your curiosity.”

  Even in her discomposure, Elizabeth could see how the anger took hold of him, how his lids lowered and his jaw settled hard.

  “Is that what you think of me?”

  She hesitated, and he grabbed her by the upper arms, pulled her in close. “Answer me. Is that what you think of me?” His grip was punishing, but she bit her lip rather than cry out.

  “Let me go,” she said. “At once.” Nathaniel dropped his hands and stepped back.

  “No,” she said finally, rubbing her arms. “It’s not what I think of you.”

  There was an almost imperceptible shifting of his mouth.

  She said, “And what do you think of me? That I am here to fulfill some good cause?”

  “If you don’t need to be here, and you’re still here, then I want to know why,” he said, his voice hoarse now, on the edge of anger but steady.

  “I’m here because I love you,” Elizabeth said in a voice more calm than she would have imagined. “In case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “You never said.” There was something of an accusation in his voice.

  “Neither have you!”

  He looked out the window, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.

  She laughed, because otherwise she knew she would cry. Woodenly, she moved across the room to stand in front of the bed, far away from him, where he could not touch her.

  There was a hesitant knock at the door; neither of them turned.

  “Is everything all right?” Mrs. Schuyler asked.

  “Fine,” Elizabeth and Nathaniel barked in unison.

  “The minister has arrived,” she sang out.

  “Please allow us a few more minutes of your patience, Mrs. Schuyler,” Elizabeth answered, her gaze fixed on Nathaniel. “We’ll be down shortly.”

  When her footsteps had faded reluctantly away, Elizabeth blinked.

  “Won’t we?”

  He came across the room in three strides and bore her down on the bed before him, pinning her there with his hands and knees. His expression was absolutely ferocious; she thought that this must be the way he had looked in battle when he had an enemy squarely in his rifle sights.

  “You could have what you want for yourself.” His voice dropped, very low. “Live in the schoolhouse, teach. The land’s yours to do with as you please. There’s money enough to buy you independence, from your father and from me, too. If you don’t want to sell us Hidden Wolf, we’ll be good tenants.”

  Her eyes swam with tears; his face doubled and tripled. She could not raise her hands to touch him or to wipe her own cheeks.

  “Is that what you want?”

  “No,” he said, a muscle in his cheek jumping. “No.”

  “Tell me,” she said, her voice barely audible.

  “Damn the land,” he breathed against her face. “And damn your father and damn your aunt Merriweather and most of all goddamn to everlasting hell your know-it-all Mrs. Wollstonecraft.”

  “Tell me why,” she said, more forcefully now, straining up toward him.

  “Because I love you, damn it. Since you have to hear it. Because I love you. That’s why I want you.”

  “Well, you have me,” she whispered, no longer fighting him. “If you really want me.”

  He groaned then, gripping her harder, his fingers pressing into her wrists as he pulled them up and over her head. He dropped his face to the curve of her throat, nuzzling her like a loving and thankful child, his mouth open against her skin.

  Then he was a child no longer. He kissed her, a bruising kiss, stealing from her even her gasp of welcome as he reached under her robe, his hands as hungry as his mouth. She moaned with the terrible pleasure of it. He yanked at his own clothing and then he was with her, sinking deep inside with a cry, whispering in her ear, shocking, entrancing words in bright colors as piercing and immediate as the thrust of his body into hers. She arched against him but another part of her waited, terrified, for the next knock on the door.

  It was over quickly. When he began to shudder in her arms she held him tightly until his trembling subsided, stroking him and wiping her wet cheeks against his hair.

  “I would guess this is what they call putting the cart before the horse,” she said softly, when he was quiet.

  He laughed then and gripped her closer to him.

  “You didn’t get much out of that,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  “I beg to disagree,” she said, stretching under him a little.

  His head came up in surprise. “Do you now?” One hand slid over her damp skin to capture a breast. “Well, let me show you, then.”

  “Oh, no.” Elizabeth began to untangle herself from him, pulling back from his embrace. “Mrs. Schuyler will be outraged. We’re late already.”

  But his hands were everywhere, touching her, his mouth moving across her bare shoulder. She tried to stop him and managed only to press his palm against her breast.

  “Nathaniel!” With a great shove she removed herself from the bed and stood there with the robe half draped about her, her hair dancing wildly, her chest heaving with every breath. “Listen to me!”

  He focused, with considerable effort, on her face.

  “Don’t look at me that way!”

  “What way?” He reached out to touch her; she scrambled away.

  “Like you want to—devour me whole.�
��

  “Darlin’,” he said, finally producing a smile. “That’s just what I had in mind.”

  She clutched her robe tighter, and tried to modulate her voice.

  “Nathaniel. We are supposed to be in the parlor being married, right now. Do you realize that the whole household is waiting downstairs for us while we—”

  A wolfish grin, flashing white.

  “While we—do—this.” She stamped her foot. In irritation and frustration and fierce, undeniable arousal.

  “All right, then,” he said, sitting up. “I suppose this”—that grin again, scalding her—“will have to wait. If you think you can keep your mind on the business at hand, as unsatisfied as you are.”

  “I am perfectly satisfied!”

  He raised one brow, and his voice came hoarse. “You don’t know the meaning of the word, Boots. Not yet.”

  Elizabeth choked back a hasty reply, realizing that she could not enter into this conversation, not without fear of repercussions which might keep them here while the whole household waited. Pressing her lips together, she whirled away from him and stood in front of the mirror, trying to bring some order to her hair with shaking hands. He pulled his clothes into shape and came up behind her. Gently, he caught her wrist and took the brush away from her.

  “Let me,” he said, and he did, he brushed her hair while she stood and watched him in the mirror, unable to break away from his gaze.

  “Leave it free.”

  “But—”

  “Leave it free,” he repeated. “Please.” She nodded, finally.

  “I’ll be waiting downstairs,” Nathaniel said. “Don’t be too long.”

  She watched him go, his hand on the handle, the way it turned. His shirt, somehow, looked completely as it had when he came in. He was unruffled, with no sign about him of what he had just done. Elizabeth looked in the mirror at her own flushed face and cursed him soundly, but silently.

  “Nathaniel!”