Love's Pursuit

by Siri Mitchell

  “How could you—”

  “Hush! She might still be out there.”

  I wanted her to be out there. I put Mary’s hand aside and crossed to the door, pulled it open wide.

  There was nothing there but the wind. It blew a few snowflakes in across the doorstep. Looking down, I could see where Small-hope had stood. Her shoes had pressed an outline into the snow.

  Of a sudden, I knew a strange desolation.

  Running down the path, I called out her name. As I reached the road, I could see her in the distance, her slight form wrapped in her russet colored moth-eaten cloak.

  “Small-hope!”

  She gave no sign that she could hear me.

  The next week the weather began to warm. The sun came out of a day and began to melt the snow. Drifts that had been shoulderhigh soon shrunk to the height of my waist. Three days more, maybe four, and the roads might be judged clear.

  Father might leave.

  Mother might return.

  In three weeks time, I could be wed.

  I had counted on a three-month reprieve. Now I had not even half that.

  Several days later after dinner, Father made an announcement.

  “Tomorrow I go for Mother.”

  My hopes sank to my toes and poured out upon the ground.

  He looked toward me. “I must not delay. Not while the weather is so favorable.”

  “Nay, Father. You must not delay.” I knew that he must go.

  “ ’Tis not that . . . well . . . hmph.” He dropped his chin to his chest. Left it there for a moment. “What else can I do?”

  Nothing. There was nothing that anyone could do.

  He opened the Bible and began to read. It was from the book of Psalms. “ ‘The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy . . . He giveth snow like wool: he scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes. He casteth forth his ice like morsels: who can stand before his cold?’ ”

  Who indeed? And had I not already profited from God’s snow and hoarfrost and ice? Why then should I hope to profit any longer?

  I went to bed that night, dull of heart and tired of hoping.

  But in the morning, I woke to a world gone white once more with snow. Father would go nowhere this day, nor this week, perhaps not even this month. And neither would Mother.

  Some several days later, after the road had been broken out once more, I set Mary to work with the day-girl, showing the girl where the pigs were kept and where the chickens made their roosts. Not long after, I heard the door scratch the floor and looked up, surprised they had accomplished their tasks so quickly. But it was not the girls; it was Simeon Wright.

  He had not knocked but had come through the door as if he owned the place. And then he sat down at the table.

  “Good day to you, Simeon Wright.”

  He fixed his pale eyes on me in reply.

  “Is there aught that I can do for you?”

  “Nay.”

  I sent a prayer to heaven that the girls would come back soon, for I had no wish to entertain him on my own. I went on with my work for some moments, sliding the pressing iron back and forth across Father’s shirt. But Simeon Wright’s constant stare unnerved me. I cast an eye toward him as I was drawing the iron back toward me and it ran right into my other hand.

  Abandoning the iron, I slipped the burnt finger into my mouth. Then I rummaged through the cupboard to find an unguent to smear atop it. Fumbling with the top of first one pot, then another, I finally found the right jar.

  Mary came in through the door with the day-girl behind her, saw Simeon sitting at the table, and went right back out, nearly barreling over the poor mite in her haste.

  It was only after I had applied the cream to the wound that I realized I had left the iron atop the shirt. I rushed to pick it up and found the shadow of its base imprinted upon the material. Permanently.

  Now Father had only one shirt left: the one he was wearing.

  From the table, Simeon spoke. “Have you naught to eat?”

  I looked up from the burnt shirt. Blinked.

  “ ’Tis noon. Or nearly.”

  Nearly? It would be noon in . . . about one hour. I could not understand what it was that he was asking. It was our habit to eat a bit past the noon hour. About the time that Father came in from his shop.

  “At Wright’s hill, we eat at noon.”

  “And here, we eat a bit later. I could offer you something, but if you insist upon having it now, ’tis only a biscuit and some cheese that I could serve you.” The pottage had just come to a simmer over the fire. As I looked toward it, I realized I needed to place the pudding atop it to steam.

  Simeon rose to his feet and came toward me, staring at me with great intensity. “When you are mistress of Wright’s hill, you will see that I am served. Well. At noon.”

  I moved to place some distance between us. “It will be my pleasure to do so. When I am mistress of Wright’s hill.” As I stood there calculating how many more steps back I could take until I trod into the fires, the door opened once more and the captain came through it. Relief turned my knees to water.

  The captain’s glance took us in. Settled on the space between us. Looked back toward the parlor. Up to the loft. “Have you no one to help you?”

  “Nay.” And bless him for noticing.

  He came to my side in two quick steps. Taking the iron from me, he set it on the hearth. After pouring the dying embers from the iron’s heater, he refilled it and then set the iron in it once more.“Do you need the pot moved? The fires stirred?”

  Simeon moved off away from us and returned to the table, mumbling about women’s work.

  “If a man cannot make himself useful, then what sort of man can he be, after all?” The captain smiled at Simeon Wright, though it seemed to me, by the set of his shoulders, that he would rather have struck him.

  True to his sentiments, the captain made himself useful indeed, hauling logs and piling them beside the hearth. In his presence, the burden of Simeon Wright eased and I was able to concentrate on my work once more. Enough to realize that I was woefully unprepared for dinner. And that I needed Mary and the girl to help me.

  I rolled up the ruined shirt and set it to the side, then turned my attentions to the turnips meant for the pottage.

  “What is it?” The captain had finished piling the logs and now he stood before me, gazing into my face. “You appear as if you had some great decision to make.”

  “And I have. I had hoped for Mary to climb up to the loft and get me some corn and berries, but I do not know when she will return.”

  “I can do it as well as she.” And so he did.

  But while he was up in the loft, the babe began to fuss.

  I put aside the turnip I was slicing and went to get the child from bed. I set him on the bench across from Simeon and gave him a biscuit to keep him quiet.

  All was well for a moment, but then the babe let out such a howl that I nearly cut my finger off.

  I looked up from my knife to find Simeon taking to hand a portion of the child’s biscuit and placing it into his mouth.

  “ ’Tis the babe’s!”

  He shrugged. “And I’m a man grown. With the needs of a man. It can wait until dinner.”

  Nay, the babe could not! No more than he. “In this place, children are loved . . . and fed.”

  “How curious. In my place, when I was a child, they were cuffed and caned and whipped. Especially when they wailed.”

  I might have laughed, but the words had not been spoken in jest. Frowning at the sudden presence of two children in the house, one small and one fully grown, I picked up the babe and moved him to the floor at the end of the table. And I handed him a piece of turnip as I did it.

  The captain came down from the loft, bringing the corn and berries with him. He was setting them down upon the table when he lunged of a sudden at something behind me. “Nay—I do not think you’d like it much in there!”

  I gasped as I sa
w the captain grabbing at the child who was intent upon a journey into the fires.

  “Let it go.” Simeon’s words were strangely placid.

  I turned toward him in disbelief. Let it go? Let the child be burned?

  His eyes seemed indifferent to the babe’s plight and curiously cold. “Could be it learns more from getting its hairs singed than it does from being stopped upon its way.”

  The captain picked up the babe by the nape of its collar and then secured him in his long arms.

  Simeon frowned at the pair of them. “You do not stand watch today?”

  The captain sat at the table opposite Simeon, set the babe on his knee and began bouncing him up and down. “I’ve watched the others on watch and they do well. And I will watch them again this forenoon. But I must ask you, Simeon Wright, why, in spite of everything I say and everything you’ve seen, you insist upon being out in the wood.”

  “I do not.”

  “Was it not you I saw early this morn?”

  I looked up from my turnips with interest. Had it been? Simeon Wright had been the first to notice sign of the savages. ’Twas he who ought to be the most concerned about them. And he of all people who ought not wander about.

  “This morn? I do not think you could have seen me.”

  “Would have seen you? Is that what you meant to say? Maybe not . . . I was standing a bit . . . concealed. I doubt any would have noticed I was there.”

  Simeon frowned. “Where was this you thought to have seen me?”

  “Are you certain it was not you? With the dawning of the sun?

  Coming back across the bridge?”

  Simeon shrugged. “Why would you have thought it me?”

  “Because I could have sworn I recognized the glint of sun off your hair . . . but perhaps I was mistaken.”

  The captain mistaken? Surely not. And if so, then why would he be so cheerful about it?

  The babe clapped his hands and began to babble in the way that babes do.

  The captain took one of the mite’s chubby hands into his own and pretended to nibble upon his fingers.

  The child giggled, and so the captain took up his other hand and nibbled on that one as well.

  “You are a fortunate man indeed, Captain Holcombe, if all you have to do in a day’s work is play at child’s games . . . and stand hidden in the brush, waiting for people to cross bridges.”

  “Then you are a fortunate man as well, Mister Wright . . . if all you have to do in a day’s work is harass some woman trying to do her work.”

  Simeon’s jaw tightened.

  The captain ignored him and bent to press his lips to the child’s belly to tickle it. “But if all I do this day is keep a child from the fires, then I consider it an honest day’s work.”

  Without a word to the captain, with a nod to me, Simeon Wright pushed away from the table and left. And at his going, we breathed a great sigh of relief.

  The captain opened his mouth to speak.

  “Do you not say it.”

  “I—”

  I held up a hand to stay his words, and then I walked straight out of the house to the edge of the wood. I had not bothered with a cloak, but still I made my feet take steps slow and deliberate because I wanted so badly to stomp them. I could not bear Simeon Wright in my house for half an hour’s time. How could I be expected to live with him?

  I wanted to weep, I wanted to yell. I wanted to curse God and die. But I did none of those. What good would it have done? And what purpose would it have served?

  I let a lone tear trickle down my cheek instead.

  26

  I HAD BEGUN TO find sleep only with great difficulty. Began, in fact, to dread it. I would close my eyes and let my mind drift toward the edge of slumber only to have it snap into vigilance with the memory of some task I had forgotten to do that day or some chore I would have to see to in the morrow. It was torturous, that drifting away and then reeling toward wakefulness. I felt like some fish being jerked along by a string.

  Eventually my thoughts would soften around their borders and the urgency of remembered chores seem not quite so urgent. I would slip into a dream of day, a dream of work. And I would repeat those tasks I had just so recently finished. I would instruct the day-girl in this and that and command Mary upon our daily routines and all would be accomplished in harmony and good humor. I would reach the hour of supper, I would place the biscuits upon the table and would realize, with shameful astonishment, that I was quite naked and had been for the entire day. I would look around at my family’s faces wondering why no one had thought to tell me, why no one had warned me. And just as I began to use my hands to cover my shame, the faces of Father, and Mary, Nathaniel and the captain, would fade into white brightness and the form of Simeon Wright would come walking toward me through that haze.

  And then it was just the two of us. Alone.

  As he stepped near, a slow smile would begin at the edge of his lips and curl up into a sneer. And then he would come for me.

  And I would wake, panting with fear.

  Though the ground was blanketed with snow, the month was still November and November was the month of blood. There were pigs to be slaughtered and sausages to be made. Hams to cure and bacon to be put up. The tasks were common to every household, and so we assembled ourselves together to accomplish them.

  I chose to carry offal to the fire for burning. It was dirty, smelly work, but it was also a task that I knew would ensure my solitude. The attentions of Simeon had pinched my soul. I did not wish to be where others chattered of mindless things. I did not want to hear their gossip or their laughter. I only wished to be alone.

  As I walked to and from the slaughter, I set my thoughts beyond my work to the tasks that awaited me at home. When Father left to put our meat up, I would go with him to see to the fires and to check the porridge meant for supper. On the morrow, with the fresh swine’s fat, it would be time for making soap. And later in the week, I would have to do a washing.

  As I began to think of tasks to assign the day-girl, a shadow crossed the ground in front of me. I looked up to see Simeon Wright. Glancing around, I realized we were hidden from sight by the walls of the meetinghouse.

  I hefted the bucket to my chest and wrapped my arms about it. The smell was offensive, but it placed a barrier between us. I smiled. “Good day, Simeon Wright.” I looked over my shoulder in the direction I had come. Moved sideways as if I meant to return to the others.

  He blocked my going with a swift step. “Good day.” He put a hand to my arm.

  I tried to pull it away.

  He stopped me by hefting the bucket from me and placing it beside him on the ground. “You should not have to do such work.Not now. Not when you belong to me.” He put his hand to my arm again. Only this time, it clasped tighter. And he put his other hand to my face. “You are so . . . beautiful. What is it about you? Why have you bewitched me?”

  I closed my eyes, willing him to go away, but I could do nothing to block the burning imprint of the brightness of his eyes.

  “My father always told me I was nothing. He always told me I would never make anything of myself. If only he could see me now.” But for the caress of his whisper, the tone of his words might have been violent. “I have the sawmill. I have built a garrison house.And now I have you.” He trailed a finger from my cheek toward my lips.

  A numbing chill spread forth from his touch.

  “I have always been watching you. Did you know that? I have always been wanting you. I knew you would make a good wife. But you never saw me, did you?” His hand cupped my chin.

  I dared not move.

  “Not in Boston, and not here either. Because of John Prescotte.But John no longer wants you, does he? So look at me now.” He was whispering still, but the words had a peculiar sting to them.

  I flinched.

  His hand tightened. “Aye. That’s it. Look at me. Now.”

  I did it. In truth, I was afraid for what he might do to me if I did no
t.

  There was a strange smile playing at his lips.

  “You will be the perfect wife. Chaste. Pure. As a lily among thorns.My father was wrong about me. I took you from John Prescotte. I won. You are no one’s but mine.”

  Tears began coursing down my cheeks.

  He wiped them away with gentle hands, then pulled my head to his chest and kissed the hair that had escaped my coif at the temple. “All will be well. You will be my wife. And I will be your husband.”

  I clung to him because he was the only thing I could grab hold of. My only partner in that madness.

  “You will have fine gowns and servants and wealth in abundance. I will give you anything you want.”

  But he was wrong. He could not give me what I wanted because the only thing I wanted was to be free.

  Soon he left me. But I could not wipe my tears away. Could not rid myself of the knowledge that I had clung to him, that I had willingly embraced him. And the thought of it soured my stomach.

  I retrieved my bucket, tossed the contents onto the fire, and then walked back toward the slaughter. From this distance, the only way any would know of my plight was if I gave the secret away. But I would not do it. And so I wiped away my tears, threw back my shoulders, and walked among them, worked among them, and no one guessed. No one knew.

  She was crying.

  Susannah crossed the town green in front of me, but some paces off. I had seen her talking to Simeon Wright. And now she was crying.

  To everyone else she might have appeared as she always did. But I knew differently. I knew how she felt. I could tell it by the way she held her arms pressed against her sides, as if everything within her threatened to leak out upon the dirt. As if in keeping her arms close she could stop up her pain and keep it hidden. And this one thing at least she was determined to do. And do well.

  How could everyone look but fail to see?

  How could no one understand?

  If she would cry out, if she would speak, then we could help her. But I knew she would not do it. She had too much pride.

  I, too, had suffered from pride in abundance, though I had not known it at the time. But pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.