Love's Pursuit

by Siri Mitchell

  I moved to embrace her. To summon the warmth that I had once felt between us. “I could not leave without seeing you. And now that I have seen you, I must go.”

  “When do you leave?”

  “Soon. This day. Now.”

  She evaded my arms. “Then it seems I must let you go.”

  “Do not . . . I wish . . .” Her face had grown as hard as her eyes.

  “Farewell.” I left then, and she made no move to stop me.

  I had no other wish than to be gone from town as fast as Daniel’s horse could take us, but I could not leave without paying one last visit. To Small-hope.

  “Small-hope.”

  The words were so soft, I hardly believed I had heard my own name.

  “Small-hope!”

  I left off stirring my wash and looked round.

  Susannah Phillips was gesturing from the corner to me.

  I withdrew the beating staff from the kettle and sent a quick glance around the place before I went to her. No good would come from our being seen together. It would heap trouble upon her shoulders. And possibly upon my own as well. “What is it?”

  “I am leaving.”

  “Leaving?”

  “Going.”

  “Where?”

  “Away from here. With Daniel.”

  “The captain?”

  “Aye.”

  “You can’t.” But even as I said it, I knew she could. Knew it was best if she did. “When?”

  “This morn.”

  “Then God be with you.”

  She clutched at my hands and then let them go to clasp me about the neck. “And with you also.”

  I felt my cheeks redden above her embrace. “Do you need anything?”

  “Nay.”

  “Will you tell your father?”

  “Nay. But I could not leave without bidding my friends farewell.”

  38

  HEART BEATING IN MY throat, I walked past the house toward the privy. As I passed the woodpile, I slowed, thrust my hand into its depths and grasped at the sack. Shoving it beneath my cloak, I walked into the privy house and shut the door quick behind me. I took a deep breath in the safety of that shelter . . . and then almost choked on the stench.

  Laughing at myself, I hung my cloak on a peg and then stripped off my clothes and threw them down into the hole along with my hat and my coif. Long ago, picking blueberries in the barren, I would have given anything to go hatless through the day. Now I had been freed!

  I drew the gown from the sack, shook it out, and stepped into it. Pulled the slippery fabric up around my shoulders and drew the laces tight beneath my chest. I draped my cloak once more across my shoulders, gathering it tight beneath my chin. With another deep breath and a wordless prayer, I opened the door and stepped out into my freedom.

  Slipping away behind the privy, I ran into the wood to the place where Daniel waited.

  When he saw me, he opened up his arms to me.

  I ran into them.

  He pressed a kiss to my hairs. And then, still holding on to my hands, he took a step back from me. “The gown becomes you.”

  I felt my cheeks flush.

  “It does. It does not make you any prettier—nothing on God’s earth could to that—but it . . .” His eyes found mine as he searched for words. “It . . .”

  I closed the distance between us with a step forward and placed a kiss upon his lips.

  He held me fast when I would have bestowed upon him another. But as we drew apart, he was smiling.

  And so was I.

  He boosted me up onto his horse with a strong hand. “The sooner we are gone, the sooner we may wed.”

  We rode through the wood for a while and then out through the meadow and down the road to Newham, me perched behind him with an arm about his waist. He held the reins in one hand and held my arm to him with the other.

  I had stepped from the house to see to the chickens when I saw Simeon Wright. It had to be Simeon Wright. He was the only one who rode his horse when he might have walked instead. If he were this far from the mill, this far up the road, it must be Thomas he was wanting. I shrank against the side of the house. I did not want him to see me. Not on this day, not when I knew something he did not.

  As he passed by, he turned his head in my direction. Drew up on the reins.

  I closed my eyes, hoping, praying, that he would not see me, doubting for once the shield of my invisibility.

  Finally, I heard a soft cluck, and then the slop of hooves through melting snow as he rounded the corner toward the smithery.

  I stayed there against the wall for some long moments, trembling. So shaken was I by his presence that I failed to note the coming of

  Goody Clarke. Not until she passed me by and came to a halt not two paces from me, at the shadowed corner of the house.

  As the sound of hooves approached once more, Abigail stepped away from the corner. “Simeon Wright!”

  The splash of hooves stopped. “Goody Clarke.”

  “I have news.”

  “And so have I. The smith is to make a pair of gates for my marriage. To place at the entrance to Wright’s hill.”

  “Then you must tell him to be hasty about it.”

  Simeon Wright glanced round, his eyes coming to rest on the shadowed remnants of the winter’s snow still clinging to the side of the house. “Aye. With the snow melting, Goody Phillips will return.”

  “Nay.” The word rang with the peculiar triumph possessed by those who know something that others do not. “With the snow melting, Susannah Phillips will leave.”

  “Leave?”

  “She leaves with Captain Holbrooke.”

  “Leaves?” He spoke the word as if he did not know its meaning.

  “With Holbrooke?”

  “This day. Now.”

  “She leaves with Holbrooke!”

  I closed my eyes against the fury in his voice. Cowered as he spurred his horse forward, thrusting Abigail aside.

  She was flung into a puddle of mud. And as she pushed herself up from it, she saw me. But she did not shrink in surprise. She did not cower in guilt. She smiled up at me. With malice.

  Why had she told him? What had she hoped to accomplish?

  Did she not know Simeon Wright? Did she not know that he would destroy something? Or someone?

  And then I knew.

  I knew without any doubt what would happen. I could see it plain as a vision before me. I took to Newham Road at a run, hoping that I would not be too late.

  After several minutes’ ride, my anxieties began to settle. I began once more to hope. Began to believe. I lay my cheek against the broad plane of Daniel’s back. How wonderful to love and be loved.

  He raised one of my hands to his lips and kissed it.

  “How now, Captain Holcombe!”

  Daniel stopped the horse so abruptly it began to rear. Though he fed it some rein, it danced about in a circle for a moment before coming to rest. But as it danced, as Simeon Wright spun in and out of our vision, I saw the grip he had on his musket. And the look in his eye.

  “Daniel?”

  He answered with a squeeze to my arm.

  Simeon gestured toward me with his musket. “Come down.”

  I clutched at Daniel.

  He pried my fingers from his waist. “All will be well.” He held out his arm to aid me in dismounting.

  The moment my feet touched the ground, Simeon grabbed at my arm and threw me behind him. I landed on my back in the mud-stained snow, cloak flying out around me.

  Simeon’s eyes turned from satisfaction to rage as he traced the neckline of my gown with his gaze. He reached down, seized my hand, and wrenched me to my feet. Throwing my cloak behind me, he grabbed at an arm so that he could look at my sleeve. “I always knew you were a whore. Now you dress like one!”

  I tried to twist my arm away from his grip so that I could wrap my cloak around me, but he turned his hand in the opposite direction. The pain dropped me to my knees and I cried o
ut.

  “Do not—” Daniel leapt from his horse and moved to help me.

  Simeon motioned him away from me with his gun. “Do not what? Do not paw at your whore? I’ll do better than that. Watch!” He reached out with his other hand and ripped the stomacher of the gown from my chest.

  Daniel reached for his musket.

  Simeon drew back the hammer on his own.

  I threw myself at his legs, but he shook me off like a dog.

  “Cease!” Done with me, he turned his attentions to Daniel. “I would let you have her, but she was promised to me and I keep what’s mine. Even if it’s not fit to wipe the dirt from my feet.”

  I scrambled to my knees. As I did so, a flash of red in the wood caught my eye.

  Daniel spoke again. “She is not yours.”

  “She will be.”

  “She will not have you. She is—”

  “She is mine.”

  Standing as I was behind Simeon Wright, I could not understand for a moment what had happened. Why had Daniel fallen upon the ground? Why did blood bloom forth from his chest? And why was it that my ears would not stop ringing?

  I pushed past Simeon Wright and dropped to the ground beside Daniel. The snow beside him had already gone pink from blood. If I could just stop the bleeding. If I could find something to bind his wound, then I could help him to his feet and get him back on his horse. I lifted my head to see if I would have to help him far, but the horse, feckless creature, was nowhere to be found.

  No matter. I would stop the bleeding first.

  Putting a hand to his chest, I plunged it into the gaping hole, trying to staunch the blood. With my other hand, I tore at the buttons of his doublet searching for the silk scarf, my silk scarf, which he always kept close to his heart. I wrested it free and meant to stuff it into the wound, but Daniel pushed up on an elbow and lifted a hand to grasp at mine.

  I tried to loose it. “Nay. Nay, Daniel. ’Tis a wound. A great one to be sure, but I can bind it.”

  “So little time . . .” He clutched at my hand with a grip so fierce it kept me from my work.

  I felt tears course down my cheeks as I tried to free myself. He did not understand. I could stop the bleeding. I would stop the bleeding . . . if only he would let me.

  “Hush you now.” He groaned, face contorted, and then he dropped my hand and collapsed into the snow. “ ’Tis finished. I am . . . finished.”

  “Nay! Just let me—”

  “Cease.”

  I did then, I ceased my efforts, but only because he seemed so adamant, and I knew there would be time enough to help him later.

  “Let me . . . look upon you . . . once more . . .” His skin had turned a ghastly shade of pale and the look in his eyes was at once pleading and resigned.

  He did not think . . . he could not mean . . . “Do not—” My voice had gone tremulous with sudden fear. “Do not leave me!”

  “Never.” He coughed. A froth of red burbled from his lips. “Never. You will always find me just . . . here . . .” He lifted a hand out toward me, and I leaned forward to receive it.

  He placed it over my heart.

  I covered it with my own, and he stepped into eternity as I held on to his hand.

  As I moved to kiss him, Simeon Wright grabbed me by the cloak and tried to pull me up by its hood.

  I would have none of it. Though I knew my efforts were useless, still I clung to Daniel as if I might save him.

  But Simeon Wright jabbed the muzzle of his musket into my chest right above my heart. Right where Daniel’s hand had been. I only wished that he would pull the trigger and let me die.

  “Listen well. ’Tis murder that happened here, but still you might save yourself. Marry me and I will tell them that I was stopping him from dragging you away. That he forced himself upon you.”

  I could not make sense of his words. Daniel forcing himself upon me? I could only shake my head.

  Simeon threw the musket to the ground, wrapped the hood of my cloak about his fist, and forced me to look at him, to plead with him for air. For life. “Then I will tell them all that you made a harlot of yourself with that . . . that . . . cavalier. And that in seeing you and the gown you wore, you incited me to lust. I could not control myself. It was you who drove me to murder him. ’Twas you who forced me to do it.”

  Still I could not reply. But I let go of Daniel and placed my hands around Simeon’s fists, begging for air.

  He released me then and did it so quickly that I fell back onto Daniel. And that is where the townsmen saw me when they found us, my tears mixing with his blood, my hands smoothing back his hairs. My lips seeking one last kiss from a man who would never embrace me again.

  39

  I RAN TO FIND them just as quickly as I could, but I had not been fast enough. I burst from the forest onto the road as Simeon was shouting at the captain. I called out, hoping that a witness might stop him from what I knew was coming, but my cry had been drowned by the musket’s report. Then I slipped back into the wood from which I had come.

  Thomas found me, some time later, sitting in the snow, shivering.

  “Small-hope?”

  I turned my face toward him. I tried to speak, tried to open my mouth, but I could say nothing.

  He picked me up, an arm beneath my knees and another around my back, as if I were a child. He carried me home and put me into our bed and piled me with covers, but still I could not stop shivering. And so, as I watched, he took a bucket and went outside. When he came back, it was filled with snow. He poured it into a kettle and swung it over the fires. After a time, he wrapped a blanket around me and carried me to the bench. And then he set the kettle in front of me and placed my feet into it.

  It only made me shiver the more. And his kindness brought tears to my eyes. When my teeth stopped clattering against each other, I finally said what I had been trying to say since I saw it happen.

  “He did it.”

  “What?”

  “He did it.”

  Thomas took my chin into his hand and turned my face toward his.

  “He did it.”

  “Who?”

  “Simeon Wright. He did it.”

  His brows knit themselves together. “I know it. ’Tis he himself who admitted as much.”

  “But he did it willingly. With intent.” It seemed no warmth could reach me. I sat there and shuddered as the water grew tepid.

  Thomas realized it and pulled my feet from the kettle. Then he took a long look at me. A look so long and so tender that I could not look away. He banked the fires and undressed, and then he carried us both to bed.

  I slept that night, all of it, nestled within his arms, my head tucked beneath his chin. I dreamt of nothing at all. And when I woke the next morning, he was still with me.

  I awakened slowly, dragged toward wakefulness from a sleep that was both heavy and hollow. It had been a dreamless sleep. But the sentiment that there was something left undone kept tugging at me from the edge of that great chasm of nothingness.

  I yawned. Opened my eyes. Squinted against the brightness of the fire’s glow. I was in bed. But . . . that did not seem right. And how had I arrived there?

  Sitting, I saw that I was not clothed. Not in the gown that Daniel had given me to wear. His gown. My gown. It had been so soft, so smooth, so fine against my skin.

  I saw my mother’s feet shuffle into view. “Child?”

  I lifted my head. My mother was home! But how could she have . . . had not Father just rode out to get her that morning? How had she arrived so quickly? At the sight of her, at the scent of her, tears stung at my eyes.

  She put a hand to my cheek. “You have been sleeping these past days.”

  “My gown.” I plucked at the shift I wore. “My gown.” I did not want this one. I wanted the other.

  “Hush you, now. ’Tis gone.”

  “But . . . but . . . ’tis mine! He gave it to me. To wear.”

  “He gave it to you.” She said it with such immense
sadness, as if it was the worst, the most terrible thing she had ever heard.

  “To wear. Aye. I was to wear it. For Daniel. Where is Daniel?” Where could he be and why was I here?

  She placed her hands on my own and pried my fingers from my shift. “Hush you, now.”

  I did not want to be hushed. I wanted my gown. The one I was to wear. The one I was to have put on to ride away from Simeon Wright. The one I was to be married in. “I want my gown.”

  “Be a good girl, Susannah.” Mother clasped my arm and tried to help me back into bed.

  “Where is my gown?” If I was not in my gown and Mother had already come home, then . . . then I must leave at once with Daniel before Simeon Wright could catch me. Could trap me. Could marry me.

  “You cannot have it.”

  “Where is it? And where is Daniel?”

  “It is not here. The deputy has taken it.”

  Mother’s hands were pulling the covers up over my lap. “Where?”

  “To his house.”

  I let myself be bundled back into bed. But I clutched at Mother when she would have left.

  She turned back toward me. Put a chill hand to my forehead to smooth my hairs back from my face.

  “Why? Why did he take it?”

  “For use in the trial.”

  “What trial?”

  Her hand stilled. “Of Simeon Wright. For taking the life of Captain Holcombe.”

  “Daniel.” My eyes were open. I know they were, because I blinked. But I saw nothing of my house. Everywhere I looked, all was drenched in blood. Buckets and buckets of it. My mother was speaking, but I heard nothing. I could hear nothing because of the great boom of Simeon Wright’s musket. I turned my eyes toward the fires, toward the kitchen. I ought to have smelled biscuits baking and a pottage simmering, but the only scent that filled my nostrils was the smell of gunpowder.

  And burnt flesh.

  I no longer wanted to see. Or hear. Or smell. And so I let Mother place me back into bed and pull the covers up to my chin as if I were a child. And then, carefully, slowly, quietly, so that Simeon Wright would not turn his musket upon me again, I pulled my knees up to my chest and snuck my arms up round my head, curling into the tightest, smallest ball that I could.