Charis in the World of Wonders

by Marly Youmans

  To see the Danes and Ingalls all together, with cousins and aunts and all, made me sad to contemplate what I had lost. But when Jotham Herrick arrived, my melancholy thoughts flew away like the gossamer seeds on a hollow stalk of piss-bed, blown into the air by a child.

  We separated from the family party and went to speak with the minister in seclusion. For a few minutes, Jotham and I were left closeted together in the small private study while Mr. Dane sent for tea and more little cakes.

  I hardly knew what to say and had begun some polite, weak comment about being pleased to see him again before recollecting our encounter and how we had spoken about marriage together. We had been burning and alive beyond all pleasantries. I fell silent.

  “More precious than gold or silver,” Jotham Herrick murmured, his hand finding mine.

  Looking into his pale eyes, I thought again that he was silver and gold but did not say so. “I am—glad—to see you and know everything that happened the other day is not some idle dream that swept through me and is gone.”

  “And I am right glad as well to meet you again, and pleased that nothing between us is a dream,” he said, and pressed my hand. “But if it were—which simply cannot be true—to be only a dream, it would be a sweet dream, and worth the idleness of lying in bed all day to sleep and conjure images.”

  He kissed me, and I him, and again I felt that we were one, like two rivers that spill together and marry on their way to the sea, or two flames that leap and cannot be told one from another. And I leaned against him, wishing and wanting to flee away with him to some lonely isle where we would be together always and never be disturbed by the ill news that comes so often in the world.

  “You are beautiful in your violet gown, the red and white of you,” he whispered.

  Red hair has more detractors than any other, I find, and to some of the godly it seems wrong in fire and color. The honorable Nathaniel Saltonstall himself was reviled by the unmannerly Swans as Judge Carrot-Head. Long ago, when red-haired, white-faced Elizabeth was Queen of England, fire-tinged tresses may have been the fashion, but no longer. So I was glad he had a liking for my hair.

  “My mother dyed the thread and stitched the dress,” I said. “It is the last she made for me.”

  He held me more tightly, and afterward drew back and took both my hands in his. “I regret that we will never in this life have the sweetness of joining our families, knowing each other’s parents,” he said. “And so I will heap up my love and joy in you so high that no one may pity us or deem something lacking.”

  “Whatever sadness comes,” I said, “it cannot countervail the content of being in your sight. And that is a charm I hope to feel always.”

  The words made me flush, and I bent my head to hide the color rising in my throat and cheeks. Truth to tell, I thought him beyond comely and felt sure that I could never tire of gazing on his coarse shock of hair, his eyes that seemed now an uncanny light gray and now lustrous like a mirror, and the straight form of him. Yet these, I felt, were but patterns of delight, drawn after the inward man, the maker of beauty, the public man, and the soldier in the militia.

  Who could count up the treasure I had in him, or the new love? Only beggars can count their worth. I was, indeed, a sort of beggar in the world, having lost so much, but I was now made rich with another sort of wealth.

  When Mr. Dane returned, trailed by granddaughters bearing pot and cups and more cakes, the two of us were hand in hand by the fire. We sat down to long questions about our families, our histories, and how we each felt about the other. That Jotham Herrick was able to afford a wife was already clear because he had been qualified by the town to serve as selectman, and that required an amount of personal wealth. To see if we were prepared for a family, the minister inspected the ledger book of the shop that Mr. Herrick had been so good as to bring, and together they discussed his future plans of expanding the work and taking on an apprentice, for he had no help but the boy who occasionally hammered silver and was paid in dried corn.

  By the end of the evening, the cakes had vanished, and we were approved and promised to each other in the sight of Mr. Dane. I had picked a verse for the sermon he would preach in honor of our contraction. One fineness: I felt quite sure that Jotham and I were no dream after so many mundane and minute inquiries. At the close, before the minister and his daughter-in-law walked me to Goody Holt’s door, Mr. Dane pushed back his chair and addressed me.

  “Your father and mother were well regarded and of good standing in Boston before the remove. I hear from Major Saltonstall that as yet nothing has been heard of any of the family. For that poor news, I am sorry. But now I am heartened that you wish to change your estate, though you are perhaps over-young for marriage. For the godly marry late compared to others. Yet I believe that union with Mr. Jotham Herrick will be a consolation and a blessing to each of you, restoring and maintaining your place in the world, providing each with a useful helpmeet and comfort and family. You have not had the usual home courtship of our people, but a single threadlet of love, as Mr. Burton writes, is strong: ‘No cord or cable can draw so forcibly, or bind so fast.’ I will arrange for the contraction, and the calling of the first of the banns. And,” he added, “I believe that a notice on the meetinghouse door may be in order, as many will be surprised and like to inspect the edict with their own eyes.”

  The words danced in my head all the way home, though the minister said little more as I chatted with Deliverance Dane about dye-stuffs and fine woolens and the gowns that I was making for the Holt women. I kept thinking of what Mr. Dane had told me at the last. A notice on the meetinghouse door. The union with Mr. Jotham Herrick. A blessing to each of you.

  My honey-sweet evening ended poorly, though that was no fault of mine or of the Danes.

  At the house, Goody Holt and Lizzie appeared to have been waiting for me. Though I crept in the door and, removing my cloak and hat, hoped to gain the garret in quietness, they found me out.

  “How now, Lady Fine,” Lizzie said, catching me in the hall, her face showing displeasure and her words abandoning any pretense of a polite greeting. “Fancy you going out in such a gown and an embroidered coif.”

  “Quite wrong to wear clothing unfit for a person’s estate in life,” Goody Holt said. She came nearer, seemingly in order to scold and frown hard at me.

  “Why does she need such nice things now?” Lizzie joined her mother in frowning and reached to finger my sleeve.

  I drew back. “My mother made the gown for me, and in truth it was but an everyday rag fit for wearing about the house and garden. I had many more better.”

  This was a sheer untruth, God forgive me, for I had seldom felt so provoked, perhaps because of the contrast with my recent pleasures, and in my mind I went so far as to call them a pair of stubborn nazzles, lacking in graciousness.

  I went on. “But though I have not my mother, yet I have the gown woven from thread she spun over many, many hours. So I will wear it, whether my appearance displeases anyone or not.”

  I did not like being so forward, and I was regretful to have been led by sudden anger to tell a lie, but it seemed to me that after what had happened at Falmouth, and after my journey, to hold my ground in such a matter as clothing was no great impossibility.

  “My father attended college, and was well acquainted with the governor and members of the General Court,” I went on. “He taught me Latin and a little Greek and mathematics. There is no need to speak to me in such a mode.”

  “La,” Lizzie said, “such a gem-crusted book you are.”

  “Come away, Lizzie Holt,” her mother said. “She is not so superior any longer, is she?”

  I bolted up the stairs, sizzling with temper, only to find that John in his kindness was crouched by the hearth, feeding wood into a new-made fire. And so the day ended in courtesy and thankfulness despite the two waspish creatures.

  The frost in the air on the next Sabbath morning made me think that our Indian summer was beginning to
ebb away and be lost in autumn. I glimpsed Jotham Herrick on the men’s side from where I sat with my cloak gathered close around me, and let my eyes rest on his profile more than was safe for an attentive mind. Once when his glance swept across our little group, he smiled slightly.

  “Did you see him looking at me?” I heard Lizzie Holt whispering to Bel, who only shrugged and gave me a wink.

  Goody Holt patted Lizzie’s knee. “Hush. But yes.”

  The long hours in the meetinghouse seemed much colder than in the prior weeks, and I longed for a foot-stove with coals. Winter was moving surely toward us. How strange to contemplate that when the snow was piled against the houses, I would be a married woman!

  A little girl kneeling on her three-legged cricket to trace the knots in the unpainted wood of a pew, the boys on the pulpit stairs erupting with jubilant yells when squirrels invaded their territory, a child with head tilted up to watch the spiders among the unholy cobwebs: all these had a fresh interest. After snow and spring and perhaps more snow, I might be a mother.

  Not many days passed before I saw the winter’s first flakes, sparse and whirling in the air and sticking to the grooves on the trees and houses. Goody Holt reproved Bel for dashing about like a hoyden, trying to catch a snowflake on her tongue, but I only liked her the more, seeing that she still had the merriment of a child and joy in the first tiny stars of winter.

  Bel and I soon managed an outing to Mr. Dane’s house, where Jotham Herrick and I talked again with the minister, though we had no chance to be alone. My friend saw her Richard Dane, and the two conferred for a long time by the fire in the kitchen, making plans to have their own way, undeterred by Goody Holt. I almost felt sad for the mother, considering that she would have two disturbances to her peace, for I felt quite sure she would be disapproving of and angry at the news of my contraction to Mr. Herrick. Indeed, I wondered if she had any hold on contentment, for she was always churlish and a force of chaos to me. But soon she could not distress me further. In the colony, we have a love for November marriages on the heels of harvest, and ours would be one—I would be done with my labors sometime in the month and be entirely free.

  The next Sabbath when I walked with Bel Holt to the meetinghouse, the air was decidedly colder, although the sun was bright.

  “The last day of our tolerable weather,” Bel said. “I can feel the chill coming in like spong-water flowing in the air. And not even as warm as when we rose up in the morning.”

  The sunshine brooded pleasantly on our backs, all the same, and we moved along briskly. We were about to be late for meeting, and neither of us wanted to hear a reproach. So we scuttled for the last stretch of the way, jumping the cart-racks and aiming to catch up with Goody Holt and Lizzie. But we had started too late.

  Soon Bel was ruby-ruddy in the face and pulled on my cloak to slow me.

  “Wait,” she said. “Wait on me.”

  I took her arm, glad to see how sweet-tempered she looked despite being flushed and out of breath. “What a lovely day,” I said, though it was more for the feeling of pleasure in my friend than in the chilly hour.

  “The last,” she said again. “Wait and see. Tomorrow winter will come. And the streams will freeze, and the rivers and lakes, and the wolves will sing their weird, wavery songs, and they will come into town and howl for flesh.”

  “For our limbs and marrow-bones,” I said, the thought of howls strangely conjuring Goody Holt. Still, I remembered the time I had seen wolves, and how eerie but peaceful it had been. “And the men will hunt and be paid by the head.”

  “I should like to go hunting. I wonder if Richard Dane would let me,” she said. “When we are married, I mean. It’s vastly more amusing than scouring with sand, preparing food for winter, and dipping candles.”

  “Well, I should like to see that,” I said.

  “But I wouldn’t like to meet wolves or leopards or those horses with horns that can spear us through—I would hunt for deer.”

  “Spear us through? That would be unicorns,” I said. “I have never seen one but would like to do so. But I am not sure they inhabit this land. You might have to sail to the other side of the world. To places where the peppercorns grow on trees with cinnamon bark.”

  “Do they?”

  “I do not know.”

  “And I do not want to go there,” she said. “Then do not,” I said. “Good,” she said.

  “If I had been a hunter, I might have had a better time coming south from Falmouth. My food was not fresh or tasty, especially after drenchings. And once when I snared a fish, an otter stole it while I was trying to catch another one.”

  “I’ll teach you how to shoot when I learn,” she said.

  “That would be quite a wonder,” I said.

  Talking and paying little notice to matters around us, we reached the meetinghouse, where a considerable knot of people crowded around the door to the men’s side. What was happening? We could make out little but last year’s wolf-scalps nailed beside the door by bounty hunters, the long hanging ladders, and the iron crooks and rope and chains mounted on a pole, all useful in case of fire. Someone was shrieking, and we slowed down, unsure whether we should stay or go.

  “I believe,” Bel said, “that is—”

  She hurried forward, and I kept pace with her.

  Lizzie was lying on the ground, screeching. Dr. Abbott was bent over her, attempting to feel for her pulse, but she battered him about the head with a corked bottle until he jerked away.

  “Goody Holt, can you calm your daughter enough to get her walking homeward? Such a choleric fit cannot be allowed to continue overlong, or she will be quite ill.” The doctor sat back on his heels, rubbing his head, and then reeled awkwardly to his feet when he proved still in range of Lizzie’s arms.

  “Noise of a rutting cat!” Dr. Abbott’s words sounded like a curse.

  I traded glances with Bel. “She seems quite robust to me,” I whispered.

  Mouth ajar, Bel stared at her sister.

  Lizzie’s eyes ran over the assembled people. She paused at my face, stopped shrieking, and began again, louder than before.

  “She does not care one jot for me,” I said to Bel, who closed her mouth and turned to look at me.

  “No. And she did not like you from the beginning. For that matter, sometimes she does not like me that much either,” Bel said.

  “Her lungs are working finely,” I said.

  Bel was not listening. “The agreeable part of all this is nobody paying any attention to the people late to meeting,” she said, “and that is us.”

  The ministers had joined in with the crowd. Though they were not on the friendliest of terms, the two men huddled together, and it appeared that they determined for Mr. Dane to accompany the doctor, Goody Holt, and Lizzie on a journey homeward. Mr. Barnard looked torn in mind, as if he would like to stay and hear the sound of his own voice but also to go along, in case there was some devilry at hand in the caterwauling. I could have relieved his fretting and told him it was only ill nature at work. Three of the town officials appeared at this interesting juncture, including Jotham Herrick. I looked at him with pleasure, though he was hunched over to inspect the sufferer and not aware that I was near. With her audience increased, or perhaps because of his close presence, Lizzie now shrilled even louder, alternately shalming at high pitch and wailing words that no one could understand.

  “Whatever is the matter? Usually she is content with being sharp or mulpy,” Bel said. “Is she hurt?”

  Leaning down only to catch another blow, Dr. Abbott staggered backward and was pinioned by someone standing near us.

  “I would conjecture that she is not,” I said.

  The man who had caught the doctor helped him straighten up, gripping him by the elbow.

  “Thank you for that kindness,” Dr. Abbott said. He mopped his face with a large handkerchief. “Both the mother and daughter could benefit from a thrashing,” he muttered.

  I laughed, shielding my face w
ith both hands. Bel prodded me with her elbow. Evidently she had already lost her concern for Lizzie’s woes. “See that man? That’s Ned Farnum.” she whispered. “He lost his leg to the Wabanaki and French dragoons. Mother told me that his wife and daughter died on a march northward, and the baby was tossed onto a heap of rubbish. He says the French are fire dragons! And the Indians fierce as lions. But now he has migrated to Andover, which he finds safer than many inland villages, and says he will stay.”

  Goody Holt caught sight of me and shook her fist at the pair of us, which made each glance at the other again. “What, what?” Bel shouted at her mother.

  In answer, Goody Holt compressed her lips; she did not make an appealing picture, hair dragged to one side, a hank of it dangling down her face, and her hat swang-ways askew. The bodice of her new gown appeared rent. That mishap would give me a sizable piece of repair work in the sewing room.

  “Do you need us?” Though Bel called loudly, it seemed nearly impossible to be heard over the Lizzie-squalls. But somehow Goody Holt grasped the question.

  “Certainly not,” she snapped at her daughter. Her sharp tone cut through the babble of other voices.

  Lizzie was hoisted off the ground by three strong men, one at each shoulder and another grasping her feet. Her gown and petticoats were pulled tidily around her ankles. If a sailor’s hammock could wriggle and roar, well, she resembled just such a naval thing. They set off at a bumble-footed run, with the doctor, Mr. Dane, and Goody Holt straggling behind them.

  “They’ll be bleeding her soon. She won’t like that,” Bel said prophetically. “But maybe it will calm her down.”

  Jotham Herrick noticed me and smiled, and for instants we were the only people on the globe, our eyes locked, the sunshine golden all around. Then he went inside with the town clerk, and just as neatly as if planned, a cloud drifted over the sun.