Into the Wilderness (21 page)

"What
about a trial?" Elizabeth asked. "To see if there is as much trouble
as you anticipate?"

Exasperated,
Nathaniel ran a hand through his hair. "You are stubborn, I'll say that
for you."

"Now
I'm stubborn," said Elizabeth, trying to smile. "just a little while
ago you were admiring my . . . persistence."

"We
could talk about what I admire about you," Nathaniel said softly, but with
such a focused look that Elizabeth stepped back.

"Your
daughter wants to come to my school."

Nathaniel's
look cleared. "She'd have to go down to the village every day on her
own."

Elizabeth
nodded. "That is true. But she came down yesterday to fetch me."

"Good
God," replied Nathaniel. "I don't know what to do with you. Listen,
now. If Hannah comes to your school she'd be traveling the same paths every day
at the same times. Does that say anything to you at all? Can't you see what
trouble that might be?"

"Oh,"
Elizabeth said. "You're afraid somebody might—lie in wait for her?"

The
dim light in the cabin came from a window facing the path where shutter had
broken; Elizabeth looked about, realizing they were at an impasse and wondering
where to go from here.

"Whose
place is this?"

"Your
father's."

She
turned to him, her head inclined.

"Didn't
they tell you? This was his first homestead on the patent. My father helped him
build it."

All
of her uneasiness forgotten, Elizabeth looked around herself with new
amazement.

"Then
my mother must have lived here."

"She
did," said Nathaniel. "Until the judge built the house down by the
lake. The one that burned and had to be rebuilt."

Here
was another story that Elizabeth had never heard, but her curiosity was pushed
aside by a sudden awareness of the opportunity before her. She clapped her
hands together suddenly in delight. Nathaniel looked up from the fire,
startled.

"I
could teach school right here! Until the new school is ready. It's not very
big, but there's enough room if we economize carefully with the benches.
There's a hearth that works, and—" She looked out the window. "A
privy? No. Well, that could be managed without too much trouble, could it
not?"

Nathaniel
was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, smiling and shaking his
head.

"It's
a good solution," insisted Elizabeth, as though he had disagreed.
"And best of all, Hannah would be closer to home."

Before
Nathaniel could object, Elizabeth's face lit up one more degree.

"I've
got the feeling you've had another idea," he said dryly.

"Many-Doves
," Elizabeth said.

"Many-Doves
needs no schooling."

"No,
but she could help me teach. And Hannah wouldn't be alone, coming and
going."

Elizabeth
began to pace the room again, looking at it more closely. "We need tables,
but that's not hard, is it?" She whirled suddenly to find Nathaniel
directly before her. Wound up in her new plans, she forgot to be nervous of
him; presented with the possibility of her school opening very soon, she
forgot, just for the moment, about kissing Nathaniel.

"Don't
say no," she said. "Please, not right away. Think about it. It would
be right to have her here. Little girls are kept away from the things that
would make them strong, in the name of protection and propriety." She
paused. "I came here hoping to change that, at least for one small place.
Don't stop me before I've started, please, Nathaniel."

He
nodded. "I promise to think about it."

Elizabeth's
face, bright with excitement, suddenly shifted: her eyes drifted down to his
mouth, and she looked away.

"Nathaniel."
She raised her head and focused all her attention on him. "What began
between us—out there. It is not a good idea."

"You're
lying," he responded in a congenial tone, but his eyes were glittering, a
feral gleaming. "You think it a very good idea."

Flustered,
Elizabeth tried to draw her thoughts together. "I don't know what you want
of me."

"You
do know," he said calmly. "You know very well what I want of you.
What you don't know is what you want of me."

Elizabeth
stood shaken by the truth of it, unable at first to look at him. She could
acknowledge that he was right and risk the discussion that would follow, or she
could lie to him. She could force herself to meet his gaze; with enough
willpower, she could steel her heart against him and tell him she knew what she
wanted, and that it was not him. But it would be a lie, and she could not bear
to lie to him. He deserved the truth, and she could give him no less. Elizabeth
swallowed hard, and found that for once in her life words had deserted her.

"Don't
tie yourself in knots," he said gently, and she flinched at this, at how
easily he could read her thoughts and moods. He leaned toward her, touching her
with nothing but his words. "I won't put a hand on you ever again unless
you ask me to," he said. "But know this, Elizabeth. You will get what
you ask for. So think hard about it first."

He
opened the door and went out of the cabin ahead of her.

When
Elizabeth emerged a few minutes later, Nathaniel was busy strapping on his
snowshoes with economical and quick movements.

"I
said more than I meant to," he said, gesturing for her boot so he could
strap on her shoes. "I have to ask you not to talk about the thievery at
Lake in the Clouds to anybody at all." For once when he looked at her, he
was unguarded and she saw the full force of the rage generated by the threat to
his home and family. The hope came to Elizabeth, in passing, never to see such
fury directed toward herself.

* * *

They
were coming down through the last wooded section before the outermost clearings
when Nathaniel pulled up short and gestured to Elizabeth to be still. There was
a crackling from the path ahead, and then Richard Todd came around the corner,
with Billy Kirby just behind him. They were talking in low tones when Billy saw
Nathaniel and stopped.

"Hail!"
called Richard, looking up. "Hail, Elizabeth! G'd day, Nathaniel."

Nathaniel
nodded. "You two out for a walk in the snow?"

"Another
storm coming," said Billy. "We can see her home from here."

Elizabeth
looked at Nathaniel and thought how strange it was that his face, so animated
when he spoke to her, so capable of showing his feelings, could show nothing at
all when he wished it, when he needed it so.
He might look at me like that someday
, she thought. And Elizabeth
was stunned to find out something about herself, to recognize what she feared
most of all: not Nathaniel's passion, or his anger, but his indifference. That
he might take her at her word and believe the foolish things she had said to
him in the cabin.
It's not a good idea
.
Suddenly Elizabeth wished Richard Todd and Billy Kirby far away; if she could
just talk to Nathaniel by herself, if she could just touch him, she thought, at
this moment she could say things to him she had once—even this very day—thought
herself incapable of.

He
was turning toward her. She imagined a flicker at the corner of his eye.

"I'll
say my farewells, then," he said. "Elizabeth, I'll be by in the next
week or so, if you want to come along and see the foundations of the school.
Weather permitting."

Richard
was watching her closely over Nathaniel's shoulder. "Yes, that would be
very good. Thank you for your help, Nathaniel. And—you'll think about Hannah,
won't you?"

"I'll
do that. And do mark, if you've got a yearning for apples, you only need to
ask."

Richard
and Billy could not see Nathaniel's expression, but Elizabeth could, and she
struggled not to let her face respond in kind.

With
a murmur of thanks and farewell she brushed past Nathaniel and joined Richard
Todd and Billy Kirby. When Elizabeth looked back, Nathaniel was already lost in
the forest.

"Did
the old woman make a crumble?" asked Billy.

She
turned to him. "What?"

"Did
Hawkeye's squaw make apple crumble?" he asked. "I'm mighty fond of it
myself."

"No,"
said Elizabeth, taken by surprise and trying not to show it.
Hawkeye's squaw
. "They called it
apple grunt."

"Ah,
then," said Billy. As if he understood completely.

Elizabeth
was surprised to see her father waiting for her at the door when she came up
with Richard Todd. The judge had been pacing the hall and watching out the
window, and was out the front door to meet them before Elizabeth could get the
borrowed snowshoes off and thank Richard for his help. With a calculating look
at the judge's expression, Richard took his leave of them.

"I'm
very sorry," Elizabeth said, when her father had made his displeasure
known. "I had no idea you'd be so worried about my welfare. But there was
no opportunity to send you word."

The
judge stopped his pacing and turned his great head to look at her, incredulous.
"It's not your welfare that worried me," he said. "I would hope
that you yourself would see that it is your reputation at stake."

"I
see," she said shortly, moving past him to dry the wet hem of her skirt
before the fire. "You would rather I had gotten lost in the blizzard and
perished than have the village gossip."

"If
you hadn't gone up the mountain in the first place," her father said in
clipped tones, "this dilemma would not have confronted you, and you would
have been home, where you belong."

Elizabeth
swirled to meet her father. All the force of her morning's outing, all the
emotion she had brought to Nathaniel, were close to the surface, and now they
took another turn.

"I
do not
belong
at home!" she
said, struggling to maintain an even tone, and failing.

"The
Bonners are good men," the judge said. "Chingachgook is as fine an
Indian as ever lived." He stopped, more unsure of himself now. "But
they are not suitable company for a young unmarried woman of good family."

"Why?
Why exactly, Father?" Elizabeth watched her father squirm and redden.
"What you are thinking but will not say is that they are the wrong color.
That I should be spending my time with that insipid Katherine Witherspoon and
Richard Todd, people of my own kind."

The
judge's color rose another notch. "And I would have told you so, if you
had bothered to ask me before running off to Lake in the Clouds!"

It
was rare that Elizabeth truly lost her temper, but she felt all the blood in
her body congregate in her hands, her fingers jerking with the need to pick up
something and throw it. "Shall I infer from this that I may not accept an invitation
without your approval?"

"You
will ask my approval," her father said tightly, "or I'll lock you in
your room!"

Elizabeth
drew up to her full height. An awful calm came over her, and the room was
silent but for the sound of the fire and her father's hoarse breathing.

"I
will pack my bags this very day and set out for England, if you do not
reconsider that position," she said in a voice so deadly calm that the
judge swayed as if he had received a physical blow.

Elizabeth
swept past him and shut the door quietly behind her.

* * *

In a
blind rush, she began to pile her things together on her bed, pulling clothing
out of the drawers, folding her dresses haphazardly, her hands shaking so that
small objects fell to the floor and would not be picked up.

Curiosity
appeared in short order, her smooth brown face creased with surprise and
considerable irritation.

"Now
what trouble have you got yourself in?" she asked with one brow raised,
but in a kindly tone.

"As
if the whole household didn't hear," Elizabeth responded, picking with
great irritation at the hairpins which had scattered themselves over the
comforter.

Curiosity
shook her head. "I thought you had better hold of your temper than the
judge."

"Ah,
well." Elizabeth strode to her desk and began to pile books together.
"There's only so much a person can bear."

"You
want
to go back to England?"

"No!"
Elizabeth half turned. Her copy of Inferno slipped from the pile and suddenly
the entire stack of books was sliding to the floor. She collapsed in a billow
of skirts and began pulling them onto her lap. "I don't
want
to go. But what choice do I
have?"

Curiosity
was standing with her bony arms crossed, one toe tapping at the floorboards.

"Now
who is this talking? Sound to me like some little girl don't know her own mind.
Somebody who don't care about teaching school." Suddenly she leaned over
and snapped up a book, held it out to Elizabeth.