A Wild Yearning (27 page)

"Meg's angry," Tildy said. She had wrapped one arm around Delia's neck, panting against Delia's cheek. Her breath smelled of milk and corn mush. "Meg don't want a new ma."

Nat heaved a sigh, a crease of worry appearing between his brows. "I'm sorry, Delia. I don't know what to do about her."

"She'll come around, Nat, if you let her be."

Delia had already spotted Meg hovering in the shadows between the apple cider press and the mast house. She, too, was wearing a new dress in honor of the occasion, but it hung lankly on her thin frame, its drab brown color blending in with her hair, making her look like a scrawny grouse chick.

Just then a stranger stepped forward, blocking Delia's view of Meg. He was a diminutive man with a small, flattened nose from which dangled precariously a pair of spectacles. Nat introduced him as Isaac Deere, the colonial magistrate who was to conduct the ceremony. Oddly enough for a society in which religion played such a strong part, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony marriages were deemed civil, not religious, affairs.

Nevertheless, the Reverend Caleb Hooker was on hand to give his official blessing, for Nat had insisted on having their vows receive religious sanction as well. Caleb came up to them now, wearing such a wide smile that his upper lip seemed to catch on his overlapping front teeth. "You look lovely, Delia. Wonderful day for a wedding, Mr. Parkes."

Flushing, Nat tugged at the kerchief tied around his neck and mumbled something to the ground.

"Thank you, Caleb," Delia said. She thought about what a true friend he had turned out to be for her—he and Elizabeth. Delia hadn't realized how few friends she'd had in her life before now and she searched out Elizabeth, who had just set a pot of baked beans on one of the tables and was walking toward them, moving with that smooth, ladylike grace that Delia so admired and despaired of ever being able to achieve.

Elizabeth's greeting was more subdued, although her cheeks were dusted with a light color of rose, like a bloom just fading. She took Delia's hand and gave it a hard squeeze. "May God keep you, Delia. May God keep you and Mr. Parkes."

Delia's smile widened to include all those who had started to gather around for the ceremony—Anne Bishop and the colonel; Obadiah Kemble, who grinned and winked at her; even nasty Sara, who glared back at Delia, expressing her disapproval by drawing her pinched lips tightly together like a stitched seam.

Delia looked at all the folk of Merrymeeting who had come together on this warm and breezy summer afternoon to see her and Nat married. Most were still strangers to her, but soon these people would be her neighbors and perhaps someday her friends. The gristmill owner, Constant Hall, and his wife, Charity. Samuel and Hannah Randolf—Sam, with his fiery red hair, was the village blacksmith, and they had seven children with another on the way. Guy and Nancy Sewall, who owned the farm closest to Nat's...

And Ty.

Their eyes locked again and Delia's smile faded. She felt the old familiar ache in her heart.

Ty was the first to look away. He walked off, his boots cutting a swath through the grass as he strode rapidly toward the blue bowl of the bay. He didn't look back, not even when the magistrate cleared his throat and said loudly, "If we might begin..."

Isaac Deere pushed his drooping spectacles back onto the bridge of his nose and stared pointedly at Tildy, whom Delia still held in her arms. Delia set the little girl down, but she kept hold of her hand. It was sticky with sweat, yet Delia drew comfort from it. And courage.

She glanced at Nat. He stared straight ahead, his gray eyes cloudy and brooding and focused on something in the distance. As if, Delia thought, he expected—no, as if he
prayed
—that his Mary would come walking out of the wilderness forest and save him from this terrible fate.

"Nat," she said softly, oblivious to the magistrate, who couldn't help but hear, "it's not too late to change your mind."

He swallowed, squeezed his eyes shut, and his head swiveled loosely back and forth on his neck, as if anchored by a peg that was coming loose. "No, Delia... No. It must be done."

Aye, Delia thought. It must be done.

Yet she, too, yearned to be saved. She had to stiffen her spine to keep from whirling and crying out to Ty with all her heart to come back, come back and stop this marriage, come declare his love and save her from what she was suddenly sure was a terrible mistake.

But she didn't turn around and Ty didn't come back and the magistrate began speaking the words of the marriage ritual, droning them in a bored voice that almost obscured their importance. Nat and Delia gave the correct responses automatically, because if either of them had thought about what they were saying, their throats would have seized up, capturing the words like birds in a cage.

Then, of a sudden, Delia heard Isaac Deere say, "By the laws of God and this commonwealth, I, as magistrate, pronounce you man and wife."

The Merrymeeting frolic was in full swing and Meg Parkes was sulking—although she preferred to think of it as simply keeping to herself.

She was whipping her new top on a patch of packed earth in front of the Bishops' manor house, competing against herself to see how long she could keep it going. She leaned over and started it spinning with a quick twist of her hand. Stepping back, she lashed it with the eelskin thong just as three boys, who were part of a game of whoop-and-hide, ran past her, deliberately jostling her arm and almost knocking her over. One of them was Daniel Randolf, the blacksmith's oldest boy, whom she detested more than anyone in the whole world.

Daniel stopped to jeer at her. "Whyn't ye give it up, Meg Parkes? Ye're never going t' be able t' whip a top right."

"I'm already better at it than you, Daniel Randolf." It was a slight exaggeration. She was as good as he was, not better.

Daniel barked a cocky laugh. "Whoever heard of a
girl
bein' any good at whippin' tops?"

"Whoever heard of a
girl
being any good at anything?" his younger brother chimed in.

Meg tried to think of a particularly devastating remark, but all she could come up with was, "Your mother chews tobaccy," and she'd already used that one on the Randolf boys before. She settled for sticking out her tongue and shouting, "Go to hell, Daniel Randolf!"

Daniel and his brother merely laughed and ran off, hooting like Indians and generally showing off, to Meg's supreme disgust.

"He's wrong, you know. There's no reason why a girl can't whip a top good as any boy."

Meg spun around at the sound of that husky voice, a grimace of dislike already plastered on her face, for she knew who it was: Delia McQuaid, her father's new wife. But
never,
she reminded herself, never would the woman be her mother, marriage or not. Nobody, not even Papa, was going to force her to admit otherwise.

She put on her best sneer. "What do you know about it?"

Delia smiled down at her, but there was a nervous quiver in her voice. "I was the champion top-spinner of Ship's Wharf for five years. And I retired undefeated. I know a trick or two that'll set those lads to spinning on their ears. Would you be wanting me to show you?"

"No. And it's no use your trying to make friends with me because I'm never going to see my way to liking you."

"Aye? That's as may be. But then, my da always said I'm as stubborn as a hen at roosting time. So I'll keep on trying if you don't mind."

Meg shrugged her thin shoulders. She pretended to ignore Delia. She looked instead toward the trestle tables set out beneath the lone white pine with its weathervaned top. A pair of greedy, noisy whiskey jacks were trying to steal the food. Mrs. Bishop shrieked at them and flapped her apron, and the other women laughed.

Meg nodded her small, pointed chin toward the tables. "Shouldn't you be over yonder, helping the others to set out the food?"

"I offered," Delia said, sounding wistful, "but they don't seem to want my help."

Meg smiled to herself. She had already seen the other women shooing Delia away just as they had the whiskey jacks. Except for Mrs. Bishop and the new preacher's wife, the other women liked Delia not at all. Sara Kemble said she'd done bad things back in Boston. For a moment Meg felt sorry for Delia because the other women didn't like her. She tried to harden her heart, telling herself such treatment was no worse than Delia deserved.

But she couldn't stop herself from holding the whip out to Delia begrudgingly. "I suppose you can show me how to whip the top. Were you really champion spinner?"

"Aye!" Delia exclaimed, her strange-colored eyes sparkling so brightly that Meg began to regret her slight unbending. "I kept one going for a good hour once," Delia said. "It broke all records... well, at least all the records that I know of."

Meg watched while Delia set the top up on its apex. She started it spinning with a hard jerk of her wrist and then began to stroke the toy with deft flicks of the whip, prolonging the spin. She got the top going so fast it was just a blur to Meg's eyes and Meg laughed with delight, forgetting for a moment that she didn't at all like her father's new wife.

Delia's eyes flickered up at Meg, and the smile she flashed stretched her lips wide, showing even, white teeth. "It's all in the stroke, you see. You've got to do it lightly, lightly, as if you were trying to brush a pool of water with a feather without causing a ripple. Lightly, lightly..." she crooned, and the top went on spinning.

Daniel Randolf and some of the other boys had drifted back to take a look. Meg could tell they were mightily impressed with Delia's skill. She was whipping the top faster and already longer than any Merrymeeting boy had ever managed to do and Delia was a girl, well a woman, but a female at least, and Meg doubted any
man,
not even her papa, could whip a top any better.

She thumped Daniel Randolf in the side with her elbow. "She's going to teach me how to do that."

Daniel's eyes widened. "Honest to gosh? Can ye teach me, too, ma'am?" he called out to Delia.

Meg stiffened, holding her breath. Delia's eyes flickered up at her again and then back down to the spinning top. "I'd like to, young Daniel, truly. But I'm afraid I can't. It's a secret only us girls are allowed to know."

The boys all looked crestfallen and Meg's face lit up with a triumphant grin. "I challenge you to a top-spinning contest next Sabbath day, Daniel. I'll wager you a penny I can keep mine going longer than yours."

But Daniel had turned on his heel, stalking off. "I don't spin against girls!" he threw back over his shoulder.

Meg stared after him, fists on hips. "Oooh! I hate boys!"

"It's in the nature of them," Delia said. She had let the top spin itself out and bent over now to wind the whip around it. "Cocky, arrogant fellows every one of them. And they don't improve much with the aging."

Rich baritone laughter filled the air. Meg had been watching Dr. Ty approach them from the direction of Colonel Bishop's stable, leading a pretty bay mare. But Delia had her back to him and at the sound of his laughter, she straightened with a snap and spun around as fast as any top, her hand pressed to her breast as if she was trying to keep her heart from flying right out of it.

"Damn ye, Tyler Savitch, how dare ye sneak up on me like that!"

Ty draped the horse's reins over his shoulder and hooked a thumb into the waistband of his breeches, thrusting his hip out. "I didn't sneak up on you. I walked up quite brazenly. And don't believe a word she says, Meg honey." He smiled down at Meg, tugging on one of her pigtails, but a second later his eyes glinting with mischievous lights, were fastened back onto Delia's face. "We're not all cocky, arrogant fellows. Take me, for instance—"

"Ha!" Delia exclaimed, her face turning berry-red. "Why, even Anne Bishop thinks you're worse'n a turkey cock with all your strutting ways."

Dr. Ty looked hurt, but Meg could tell he was only pretending because of the way the corners of his mouth twitched. From Delia's flushed face and angry eyes, Meg got a distinct impression that the woman didn't much like the doctor. But before she could ponder the reason for this she noticed her father, with Tildy by the hand, standing alongside the trestle tables and waving her over. People were crowding around the tables, sitting down on benches, stools, and chests. Already the plates of food were being passed around, along with jugs of spruce beer and apple cider.

"Hey, we're eating dinner now!" she announced. The two grown-ups seemed too busy glowering at each other to notice, so after a moment she shrugged, picked up her top, and ran off.

Delia took a step after the girl, but Ty stopped her by placing a hand on her arm. As usual his touch brought the blood rushing hot to her face and shortened her breath. What had ever made her think that becoming another man's wife would change how she felt about this one? She would always love him, but from now on she would have to take care not to let it show, not even to him. Oh, especially not to him.

Averting her head, she pulled away from him. "Ty, don't... Nat's probably waiting..." she faltered, unable to look at him.

"In a minute," he said. "I'd like to give you your wedding gift first."

That brought her head around and her chin up. Her eyes went from his mocking smile to the bay mare he had by the lead. The mare tossed her head and blew air out her nose, and Delia recognized her as the horse he had given her once before —that morning in Portsmouth when he had first said the words:
Let me make love to you...

She sucked in a sharp breath. "I gave that horse back to ye once already an' ye can bloody well have it back again—"

Delia's chin had started to come up even higher and he gripped it between his thumb and finger. "The horse is for
both
you and Nat. And don't keep throwing my gifts back in my face, brat. It isn't polite."

Delia jerked free of his grasp. The skin burned where he had touched her and she had to quell an impulse to rub it. "You won't mind, though, if I'm not overcome with gratitude. I've learned, you see, not to put a whole lot of value into the meaning of your gifts."

Ty's face tightened, his nostrils flaring, and Delia instantly regretted her hurtful, nasty words. She felt small because of her churlish behavior. Before long he wouldn't even want her for a friend.

She swallowed hard and summoned her courage to meet his eyes directly. "I'm sorry, Ty. I
was
being rude. She's a beautiful horse and a valuable gift and I thank you for it."

For a moment longer his mouth stayed pressed into a tight line, his eyes boring mercilessly into hers. Then his fury left him along with his pent-up breath. "Aw, Delia, I didn't mean to anger you by giving you the horse. You seemed so excited the first time you saw her. I thought she would please you."

"She does please me, Ty, truly. And Nat'll be pleased, too. She'll be useful to us on the farm, because Nat's only got the one horse now and she's a mite old."

A delighted, boyish smile lit up Ty's face, bringing happiness surging within her. "Actually, the truth is Nat's already seen her. He's planning on riding her this afternoon in the race."

Ty stepped over to the Bishops' hitching post, looping the mare's reins around the rail. He leaned back with his arms straight, his palms braced against the rough wood. He had discarded his coat somewhere, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows. Sunlight glinted off the golden brown hair on his tanned forearms. Yet even in this relaxed and masculine pose he seemed tense. Delia was drawn to come stand beside him. She wrapped her hands around the rail and leaned backward, locking her knees and swinging back and forth on her heels. They could be friends now, she was sure of it. Lord above us, but it felt so fine just to look at him.

"What is this horse race you mentioned?" she asked when the silence between them began to feel too intimate. "Seems I've heard nothing but talk of it all afternoon."

The breeze snatched a lock of his hair, blowing it across his forehead, and he tossed his head back, just as the mare had done a moment ago. "It's a tradition at all Merrymeeting frolics."

"I suppose it's you who always wins."

"You suppose wrong. But then I don't compete."

"Afraid of losing, are you?"

His lips quivered with repressed amusement. "No, brat. I don't compete in the race because
I
am the prize. Or rather the prize is a free baby."

"What?" Delia exclaimed, laughing. She let go of the hitching post, straightening to look at him.

"Whoever wins the race, I help deliver his next kid free of charge. It's a valuable prize because my services aren't cheap. And what with the long, cold winters we have up here, folk in Merrymeeting are always having babies."

Unaware she was even doing it, Delia's eyes roamed his face lovingly. "Oh, Ty," she blurted out. "You are truly the most remarkable, wonderful man!"

The laughter fled his face. He looked away from her, out at the thick wilderness forest that stretched into the hills. His eyes had darkened to the color of an autumn sky at dusk. "Not so wonderful... Delia, I'm sorry about those hurtful things I said to you earlier. I don't know what—"

"Don't, Ty. Don't let's speak of it. It's over and done with and I'm... I'm married now." Delia's heart felt as if it would crack in two.

Their eyes met, then pulled apart. When he turned back he touched her again, this time squeezing her shoulder in a brief, almost impersonal caress, and yet it brought her heart thudding up into her throat. "I hope you'll be happy, Delia," he said, a roughness in his voice. "I wish you and Nat all the happiness in the world."

She nodded jerkily, unable to speak and hoping he couldn't hear her heart thumping so heavily in her breast. Or see the tears pooling in her eyes.

"Well..." His hand fell from her shoulder, brushing against her arm, and she had to set her jaw to keep from shivering. "We'd better get something to eat while there's still some left."

Delia bunched her skirts into a wad between her knees, revealing the shapliest ankles Ty had ever seen. Grinning, he watched as she hurled the ball at the wicket—in this case a three-legged stool. Daniel Randolf swung his stick bat through the air so hard his momentum curled him around on his toes. But the ball sailed past him untouched, bowling the stool over.