Into the Wilderness (47 page)

"We
could send MacDonald," General Schuyler suggested, and then listened with
great attention while Anton Meerschaum explained why such a thing was
impossible.

"Then
I'll go myself," he said quietly. "If you and Miss Middleton will
trust me with your business concerns."

Nathaniel
glanced at Elizabeth, and she nodded at him. It was right for him to handle
this discussion with Philip Schuyler, but she was inordinately pleased that he
was sensitive enough to ask her permission to do so.

They
had the patent and the deed of gift on the table in front of them. General
Schuyler had looked at them carefully; Elizabeth knew that the date on the deed
had not escaped his attention. But no look of surprise or censure came from
him. Then, with precision and an understanding of the law that was simple and
exacting, he outlined the steps that needed to be taken to secure their claims.

"Will
you return to Paradise, then, if this business in Albany can be seen to without
your attendance?" he asked Nathaniel.

"No,"
Nathaniel said shortly. "It's best if we stay out of Paradise a while,
until things settle a ways. If you will look after the paperwork, and keep it
safe."

"That
I will," said Philip Schuyler. "And I will arrange for word to be
sent to the judge. Unless, Miss Middleton, you would like to write to him
yourself?"

Elizabeth
shook her head. "I would much appreciate your assistance, sir, if you
would be so kind—”

“It
is a small thing," he said.
 
"I
am delighted to oblige."

It
was clear to Elizabeth by now that Nathaniel's status here was more than that
of son of a dear friend. He was treated with a respect and regard that she had
not anticipated, but which she found deeply gratifying. In the hour they had
spent talking about the business concerns, at least seven men had come in, hats
in hand, to greet Nathaniel and Runs-from-Bears, each of them with real joy and
enthusiasm. Two of them had been Mr. Schuyler's sons, young men of fifteen and
twenty years, eager to talk. They were sent on their way with promises of an
evening party, and the discussion returned to the matter of the property and
taxes.

Elizabeth's
attention wandered to the rest of the household, which had been thrown into a panic
of activity. Three of the Schuylers' grandchildren were in attendance, she had
found out, as well as the four youngest of their own eight, as yet unmarried
children. The house, while neat and well planned, was ill suited to numbers of
this kind and it bulged with people running this way and that, all with jobs to
do. The parlor was being scrubbed, although Elizabeth saw not a speck of dirt
anywhere. There were young women with their sleeves rolled up, boys with
baskets of food and greenery, candles and silver plate and everywhere was Mrs.
Schuyler's Sally, directing the preparations with a sharp eye.

Mrs.
Schuyler herself appeared and gestured to Elizabeth.

"Nathaniel?"
Elizabeth asked. "Do you need me here? Can I go ahead with Mrs.
Schuyler?"

He
touched her hand briefly and nodded. Elizabeth was reluctant to leave him, but
she followed Catherine Schuyler upstairs.

* * *

"I
want you to know," said Mrs. Schuyler as soon as she had closed the door
behind them in the room which had been prepared for Elizabeth. "That we
are very pleased and honored to be able to be of assistance to you today. That
is simply true. But," she added, and she held up one hand. "This is a
strange business, if you'll pardon my saying so, and I'm uneasy about it."

"Your
husband sees no legal impediment to my marriage," Elizabeth said lamely.

"Come,
my dear," Mrs. Schuyler said, sitting down on the edge of the bed.
"My husband is a man above all things, and he sees only that piece of this
puzzle which concerns him. There is something else afoot here, and I wonder
what it is. No." She stopped herself. "I am not going to ask, and I
don't want you to tell me. I trust Nathaniel, and he loves you—that is
enough." She turned to look out the window. In the distance, a mill could
be seen on the banks of a waterway, but it stood quiet now, the fields and
pastures abandoned for the moment.

"You
are tired, and you would like to rest and prepare yourself. The minister will
be here in an hour's time. Can you be ready by half past five? Good. Then afterward
we will have our dinner and a little party."

"How
kind of you," Elizabeth said.

Catherine
Schuyler stood. "I am near to sixty years old, and I hope that I have
learned some things from the mistakes I have made in my life. Perhaps the most
important is the need to let young people make their own decisions. Now."
She looked about herself in a businesslike way. "I will have a bath sent
up, and our Jill will look after your needs. You will ask for whatever you
require." This was not a question, but a statement of fact. Elizabeth
nodded her thanks.

At
the door, Mrs. Schuyler hesitated. "You will have a good husband in
Nathaniel Bonner," she said. "I only wish this were being seen to in
a more orderly fashion. That you had some lady of your family here to advise
you."

"I
doubt anyone could be more helpful than you have been," Elizabeth said
quite truthfully. But she touched the letter still secured against her skin,
remembering it for the first time in over an hour, and dreading the moment when
she would have no choice left but to read it.

* * *

When
she had bathed, and washed her hair with what she knew must have been Mrs.
Schuyler's finest imported soap, and dried herself, Elizabeth lay down on the
bed, completely relaxed and comfortable and totally unable to sleep for even
five minutes. She had sent Jill away so that she could dress in privacy, but
then she lay on the bed wrapped in the robe that Mrs. Schuyler had provided.
Hung up to air were three dresses: the one she had worn last night on her way
up Hidden Wolf, the extra dress she had packed, and the fine doeskin overdress
lent to her by Many-Doves .

Many-Doves
had made the dress for her own wedding to Runs-from-Bears. There were a hundred
hours in the fine bead and quill work on the bodice and skirt, and it shimmered
where Jill had hung it to air, the fringe on the hem fluttering in the breeze.
Elizabeth had never imagined herself in any wedding gown at all, much less one
as beautiful and rare as this. Her cousins had been married in satin and silk
and brocade, in dresses that cost more than a laborer's yearly wage. But aunt
Merriweather had been firm on the matters of trousseau and etiquette, and the
money had been spent gladly.

Reluctantly,
Elizabeth found her aunt's letter and spread it out on the bed before her.

* * *

The fourteenth day of March, 1793

Oakmere

My dearest niece Elizabeth,

Never before in my life have I more
wanted those magical powers which no mortal can possess. It is only by
borrowing such divine gifts that I could transport this letter to you as
quickly as I would wish. Such is my concern for your welfare and future.

I am afraid that such strong words will
alarm you, but my dear Elizabeth, my concern for you is real. What terrible
thoughts have consumed me since your letter arrived this evening. I sit here,
writing by candlelight—a privilege I oft denied you in the name of economy,
even my maid has retired, because I know that I will not be able to sleep until
I have put down on paper what is in my heart.

You write to me of your father's wishes
for your marriage, to Dr. Richard Todd of the town of Paradise, once of Albany,
and you ask my guidance and advice as any young woman of good breeding must.
You write nothing shocking of this young man, no hint of poor character or of
any trait that is less than admirable. Yet you do not want to marry this Dr.
Todd, and you say so clearly. What you do not write, but which is very clear to
me also, is that your father exerts his influence on you, because the
connection would be an advantageous one for him. If you had come to me with
this even a year ago, my answer would have been quite simple. I would have
urged you to marry this young man without haste. But all has changed.

Permit me to be candid with you,
Elizabeth. Do not marry where your heart is not. Do anything but marry only to
please your father.

In the years we were fortunate enough to
have you make your home with us, I did not often praise you. But my dear, I did
admire you, although your clarity of purpose and single—mindedness sometimes
bemused and perhaps even irritated. It is only since you are gone away to make
a new life for yourself in the Colonies (for such they will always be to me)
that some of this has become clear to me. The reasons for this are twofold; the
first is your recent long letter in which you describe your school and your
work with the children of Paradise; the second, the work of an authoress of
whom I shall write below. On this basis, I have had occasion to examine my own
behavior toward you and to find it lacking.

You have found a calling in life,
something which is denied to most of our sex. To give this up for marriage,
when there is no material need to wed, seems to me a sin.

Now, I anticipate that such a material
need does indeed exist. Do not forget, my dear, that your beloved father is
also my brother, and as much as I love and cherish him, I also know him too
well to overlook his weaknesses. "Your brother's recent troubles are, I
fear, to lay at your father's door, for he has no head for business or for money,
except a propensity for spending it. In any case, it does no good to decry your
father's follies; they can no longer be undone, and we must face them and deal
with them. You write not one disloyal word of your father, but I imagine that
he is in debt, and that to the extent that it is necessary for him to seek this
Dr. Todd as a son—in—law.

Well, I will not have it. I cannot stand
by and watch your father take away from you a calling upon which any husband
must certainly impinge. Is the schoolhouse you write of so carefully and
lovingly planned, to be abandoned so soon? Even the best—meaning, best—loved,
and most rational husband in the world who claims to share his wife's dreams
does not gladly share the same lady with the children of strangers.

Marry not, Elizabeth. And so that it
will be possible for you to pursue your studies and your teaching, I am
prepared to do what must be done. Along with this letter I enclose a contract,
duly notarized, which bestows on you a monetary gift of two thousand pounds sterling,
which should make it possible for you to purchase those properties of your
father's and thus render him solvent. The land will thus remain in the family,
in your able hands to do with as you see fit, my brother's financial
difficulties will have been resolved, and you will not be obliged to marry at
his whim.

You are wondering why your old aunt
should take it into her head to reverse every bit of wisdom you ever heard her
give over tea. There is a simple, and yet quite apt, explanation for this, my
dear, and you are at the heart of it.

Shortly after you left us, when I had
begun to miss your company and good conversation at my table, I finally took up
that volume you so kindly gave me as a gift on the morning of your departure.
You will be surprised to hear, perhaps you will even question the veracity of
my claim, but it is true. I have become an admirer—a critical admirer, but an
admirer no less—of Mrs. Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
Most especially I was struck by the truth of her observation that there are
many women who are worthy of education, but who are denied the reason and
support of their fathers and brothers. Such women must usually struggle through
the world on their own, but in your case I hope you will accept the help and
direction of an aunt who loves and admires you, and respects those noble causes
to which you have dedicated your life.

Aunt Augusta Merriweather

Postscript. Mr. Colin Garnham, a
business acquaintance of your uncle Merriweather's, leaves tomorrow for
New—York. I will pass this letter and its contents to his able care, and
authorize him to spend what is necessary to get this letter into your hands at
the earliest opportunity. He will deposit the funds entrusted to him with the
bank in Albany. I make you this gift not from your uncle's resources, but from
my own. Such is my faith in you, dear niece; I know you will fulfill my highest
expectations.

* * *

Elizabeth
felt for a moment as if all the air in the room had suddenly disappeared. She
read the letter again, and again. Her aunt Merriweather, dour, dear old
Merriweather, had simply handed her everything necessary to do what she wanted
to do with her life. Security for her father, financial independence for
herself. The freedom to teach her school, because it stood on land she owned.

She
read the letter a fourth time, and put it down to pace the room. The polished
floorboards were cool to her bare feet, but she barely noted that.

Her
father.