Her Dear and Loving Husband (12 page)

Now, here was James Wentworth. Tall, gold hair, handsome in a manly way, a smile that, when he smiled, could clear away a stubborn storm hovering over the bay. His eyes were so dark, and where at first she found them intense, now she saw his kindness, his concern. Yet, though they spent hours together, he had never said anything that made her think he wanted more from their relationship. The way it was then, with him extending his arm, sometimes kissing the top of her hair, not even holding hands, seemed to be the way it was going to stay. So it was just as she always knew: romances, where the hero sweeps the woman off her feet, carries her to bed in the heat of passion because they can’t restrain themselves any longer, were a fantasy.

“Sarah?”

Sarah shook herself from the reverie that thinking of James had brought on. Jennifer smiled at her.

“I was writing about the dream I had last night,” Sarah said.

Jennifer stepped closer. “I know you don’t like to talk about it, but if you want to confide in someone, you can talk to me. Maybe I can help.”

Sarah nodded her thanks. She was so busy the rest of the afternoon she was surprised hours later when she saw the threatening darkness outside. The wind picked up, the trees rattled, the leaves whistled, and she dreaded walking home in that weather. Maybe she would have to buy a car after all. Then she saw Jennifer looking toward the door.

“There he is. Your professor.”

Sarah thought she saw James nod, but he was too far to hear. He stepped into the elevator and disappeared, a hint of a smile still lingering on his lips. Something about the way Jennifer watched him made Sarah pause.

“Jennifer…”

“Yes?”

“You can tell me the truth, I don’t care, but…do you like James?”

“Of course I like James. We’ve been friends forever.”

“No, I mean, do you
like
James?”

Jennifer shook her head, waving her hand in front of her face as if she were swatting a fly. She dropped into the swivel chair in front of the computer and clicked around in the card catalog. “Nothing like that. He’s an old family friend. I mean an
old
family friend.”

“He’s not that old. He’s about my age.”

Jennifer laughed. “You like him too. Only I think you like him a little differently than I do.”

“I don’t think he feels the same way about me.”

Jennifer spun around on her chair, startling Sarah with the suddenness. “What makes you think that?” she asked.

“We’ve never been on a date. He’s never asked me out to dinner, a movie, even for coffee. Sometimes I think he’s interested—something about the way he looks at me. When he kisses the top of my head I think there might be something more between us, but then he turns away and goes home. We’ve never even held hands. If he was interested he would have asked me out by now.”    

“He’s kind of old fashioned.”  

“What do you mean?”

“In older days when a young man was interested in a young woman they wouldn’t go out on dates like we do now. He’d visit her family, make small talk with the father, compliment the mother, have dinner with the family. Whatever time he had with his intended, the only way they could get to know each other was in front of everyone. He’s just trying to get to know you without pressuring you. He’s really quite a gentleman if you think about it.”

“That’s sweet, and odd, I think.”

“It’s a very old fashioned way of doing things.”

“I didn’t know there were still men who thought that way.”

“James does.”  

Sarah sighed. She gathered her loose hair and lifted it off the back of her neck, waving it to fan her flushed skin. The heat in the library must be on high, she thought.

“I don’t know what to think,” she said. “In so many ways he’s almost too perfect. No man can be so amazing without having some fatal flaw. Tell me the truth—is he really some axe-wielding homicidal maniac when no one’s looking?”

Jennifer laughed. “Of course not!” she said. But there was something in the way she swung back to her work, checking the bar codes on a stack of books as if that were the most pressing thing in the world, that made Sarah wonder if he really was a homicidal maniac after all. Sarah laughed at her own paranoia, thinking she must have been watching too many scary movies on television.                                         

Suddenly he was there, James, leaning against the librarians’s desk, taking her breath away. When she saw him, the angelic smile, the gold hair, the black eyes that should have looked like voids but looked instead like darkness reaching for the light, all her worries melted away. 

“Hi, Sarah,” he said.

“Hello to you too, Doctor Wentworth,” said Jennifer. “Isn't this your night off?”

“It is, but the weather’s pretty ugly out there. I thought Sarah might like a ride home.”

 “I’d love a ride home,” Sarah said. She glanced at the clock on the wall and saw she had another half hour on her shift.

“Go,” Jennifer said. “It’s a quiet night. I’ll take care of closing.” She pushed Sarah out from behind the desk. “See you tomorrow.”

When James parked in front of Sarah’s house she felt brave and invited him in. At first she was sure she made a mistake. He had such a strange expression as he looked first at her house, then at her. He looked concerned, she thought, or confused, and he took too long before answering.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.” She didn’t want to sound hurt by his lack of enthusiasm. “I just thought you’d like some coffee. It’s getting cold in the car.”

“Yes,” he said finally, “I’d love to come in.”

When they were in the house Sarah went into the kitchen and brewed some coffee. James went straight to the bookcase to see what books she had, and then he looked around at her furniture, simple and modern, and said hello to her cat Tillie. Tillie had quite a reaction. She spit, hissed, and leapt to her feet, and if she had a tail it would have ballooned in fear. She looked like a picture of a witch’s cat on Halloween, her black fur sticking out in every direction. She ran to hide under the bed.   

“I’m sorry,” Sarah said. “She doesn’t usually act like that.”

“Cats tend to have trouble with strangers.”

He picked up the book Sarah left on the glass end table.  “
Persuasion
by Jane Austen,” he said. “One of my favorites.”

“It’s one of my favorites too. I’m reading it for the fourth time.” As she rinsed out the coffee grinder it occurred to her. “How funny,” she said. “You have the same last name as Anne Elliot’s love, Captain Wentworth.”

James sat on the sofa and looked at her. “Yes, there is quite a coincidence there.”

“
Persuasion
is such a romantic story, isn’t it?” she said. “I love how Anne Elliot falls in love with Frederick Wentworth, but she’s persuaded by her family that he isn’t good enough and she breaks off her engagement from him. Years later he confesses that he still loves her, she admits she still loves him, and they come together again. It’s one of my favorite endings.”

She thought he was going to say something, but he stayed silent, staring at her.  

“How lucky they were,” she said, “to have a second chance at love. Not many people get that.”

 “I think everyone wishes they could have a second chance with the one they love,” James said. His voice was small.

She got their coffees and hovered near the sofa. She was enjoying their time together and didn’t want to scare him away. He seemed so pensive since they talked about
Persuasion
. She decided to sit on the sofa beside him, close but not so close. He sat his coffee on the glass table while she sipped from her mug.

They spent the next hour talking about Jane Austen, and James knew so much about her, even her personal life, almost, Sarah thought, as if he had known her. He knew what she liked to eat, how she spent her days when she wasn’t writing, whom she visited, whom she loved. It was late and Sarah was tired, but she had that schoolgirl crush feeling overpowering her again and she didn’t want him to leave. She thought she should get herself more coffee—a caffeine boost was just what she needed. She reached for James’s mug and realized he hadn’t touched it.

“You didn’t drink your coffee.”

“Actually, I don’t care for coffee. I just wanted to spend more time with you. But I’ll get you another cup since you look like you’re about to fall asleep on me.”

He went into the kitchen and she heard him rattling with the coffee pot, pouring the liquid into her cup. She was tired, it was late for her, so she put her head against the sofa and closed her eyes. She would rest until he came back. She was glad he didn’t want to leave.

She must have fallen asleep. When she woke up she was in her bed, still dressed, covered with her blankets. Through the curtains she could see the pink sun peeking awake in the fading night sky. It was dark in the bedroom, but she could see James’s shadow by the door.

“James?”

Instantly he was by her side.

“What is it, Sarah? Are you all right?” 

“Are you leaving?”

“I have to leave. But I’ll see you tonight. If you’d like that.”

He kissed the top of her head, through the thickness of her hair, then left, shutting the door behind him. She thought she must have been dreaming. If only he would kiss her somewhere besides the top of her head. She didn’t know if she answered him before she fell asleep again. 

I am in the kitchen cooking supper, stirring a pottage in the cauldron in the hearth. My husband comes in and sits at our table, and he watches as my hands land in fists behind my hips as they try to support the weight of my aching back and bulging belly. Although I cannot see his face in the shadows I can feel the agitation in the air. He puts his arms around me and holds me to him longer than usual, as though he does not want to let go, as though he wants to keep me safe. As though he wants to make everything wrong go away so we would always be as we were at that moment, content in our lives together. As I pull away I sense something in his manner and I look at him carefully.

“What troubles you?” I ask.

He seems to wonder how to tell me. Then he says, “They’ve arrested Rebecca.”

“Our Rebecca?”

“Aye. They’ve arrested her for a witch.”

I am stunned, as though I have been shot by a native’s poison-touched arrow. I step away from him and my mind feels muddled. I wish I had not heard what he said. I feel my hands flutter around me as though I am trying to capture some words that might make the nonsense make sense. “Of course she is no witch,” I say. “Someone must speak for her. They must know she is no witch.” 

“They should know, but they don’t. She’s been accused so she’s been arrested.”

“Who would accuse her?” I can hear the near-hysteria in my own voice. “Who would accuse someone as good as our Rebecca of such a crime?” 

“The afflicted girls,” my husband says.

The sense of anguish is too much and I look at the pots and pans lining the shelves on the wall, the scrubbed vegetables on the table, the cauldron in the hearth. I can tell he is as pained by the news as I am and I wish he had not told me just so I would not have to feel the way he feels then. 

“I’m certain she’ll be cleared at her trial,” he says. “All the evidence shall come out then.”

“The false evidence,” I say, “from those horrid girls. You know as well as I how rarely anyone is ever found innocent at their trials no matter how innocent they may be.”

I am at a loss for what to say and my hands continue to flutter at my sides. After struggling to hold back my tears I turn back to the pottage in the cauldron and stir some more, only now my stirring is agitated, as if I am trying to vent the frustration I suddenly feel.  

“I think we should go back to England.” My husband says the words quickly, as if he has to say them before he changes his mind. “My father said he would pay for our voyage and give us money enough to get settled and assist me in starting a business there. Or, if we decide to go to Cambridge, he shall assist us while I continue at university.”

His face is still a blank slate. I cannot tell if the idea of returning to England pleases him or not. I wipe my hands on the rag on the table and walk to him.   

“I thought you were happy here,” I say. 

“I was. I am. But I don’t understand what’s happening. I don’t understand how someone like Rebecca could be arrested. I don’t know the facts from all the cases, and I don’t know that all the people accused are innocent. Perhaps there are such things as specters and other unnatural beings. I know nothing of the supernatural world. But I know that some of the accused are innocent, and as long as innocent people are condemned then Salem is not a safe place to live.” 

I stare at the woven rug beneath my feet while I consider. My hands go instinctively to the bump where our baby waits. 

“If we leave on the next crossing I’d give birth on the ship,” I say. “Those ships are horrid enough. They’re overcrowded and the food is barely edible and the air is foul. There’s so much death. I saw two newborns and so many others die on my voyage here.” I walk to my husband and stroke the worried crease between his eyes. “Let us wait until the baby is a few months old and we know she’s healthy. If things are still difficult then, we’ll leave.”

He takes my hand and kisses it. He seems relieved that at least we have a plan, a way away from the hysteria. Patience, our helping-girl, comes silently into the room and giggles when we kiss. Then a dawning crosses as a smile on his lips. 

“She?” he asks. 

“Aye. I’m hoping for a girl so I think of her as she. We’ll call her Grace. Though I’m certain you wish for a son.”

“I wish for a healthy child who shall not have to live in fear.”

I smooth the crease that sits stubbornly in lingering concern on his forehead and he seems better. For that moment I allow myself to believe that everything will be all right, but I am anxious.