Love's Pursuit (14 page)

Silent servants leaned around us to place the food upon the table. No trenchers for the Wright house; each one of us had our own plate cast from pewter. Even Nathaniel and the child.

Once we had all been served, the servants withdrew to the corners of the room. And then, a silence befell us. It was not a wordless silence, for Simeon entertained us all with stories of the Puritan struggle against King Charles and news of Boston. Nay, the silence was more of a posture. It was a watchful silence, a waiting silence. A silence conjured chiefly by Mistress Wright and the servants who sat and stood as if they might be found wanting at any moment.

I could not understand the mood.

Simeon himself was expansive, seemed almost to sprawl in his chair. His demeanor was that of a man with plenty of leisure and ample good will and time enough to spend them both as he pleased. And obviously, it pleased him this evening to spend it with us.

Across from me, his mother made not one sound. Not that I expected her to speak. She seemed too intent upon eating to save any energy for words. But she made no attempt to follow the conversation, no attempt to listen to her son’s words. Though her gaze shifted now and then to him, it was a furtive gaze, as if she hoped he would not notice her. It seemed odd to me. As odd as a woman with a forearm the size of a sapling to eat enough to satisfy a man five times her weight.

Once the meat and sauce had been finished, once the flummery had been served, Simeon requested that his mother play the small organ that stood in the sitting room. “ ’Twas my father who removed it from a church in England. With his own hands. To purify the worship.”

Mistress Wright had started at Simeon’s request. Raised her eyes to look at him and then quickly lowered her gaze toward the table.“Nay. Please do not ask it of me.”

“For our guests.”

She shook her head.

Mary and I shared a glance. ’Twas uncomfortable to be witness to a family disagreement.

Mother laid her hand upon Mistress Wright’s. “Please. Do not worry yourself on our account, Mistress Wright. We will be no less welcomed for not having heard you.”

The poor woman flinched at Mother’s touch.

Simeon’s smile stretched even wider. “I must insist.”

His mother blinked. Stilled. Then she took a great breath, rose, and walked to the sitting room.

The rest of us followed, arranging ourselves behind her in the shape of a crescent moon. For several long moments, she simply sat there, hands upon her lap.

“Mother!” Simeon reached out in front of her and threw open two doors, which revealed a sort of cabinet containing wooden tubes.The insides of the doors had been painted with scenes of maidens frolicking in a garden.

Mistress Wright placed trembling hands to the instrument and began to play. The last time I had heard an organ was in my grandfather’s house. It had always seemed to me a music even sweeter than that of birds. I did not recognize the tune she played. It was something insubstantial, light and gay, which did not fit the season or the gathering chill of darkness outside any more than it fit our sober group. A hesitation between each note soon overcame the tune and worked a tension through the room. I am certain it was as much work to listen to the song as it was to play it, and it was with some relief that I greeted its conclusion. When she started on another, I do not know that I breathed until, at last, she had finished.

The third song must have been well loved. It was played with a growing confidence. A growing grace. And in the playing, Simeon’s mother seemed transformed. Her shoulders raised themselves, straightening her hunched back. Her chin lifted, imparting an illusion of assurance. A smile so worked itself upon her face that she appeared, for that moment, quite pretty. And youthful.

But then Simeon moved to shut the cabinet, stopping his mother from playing when she might have begun another song. And in the closing of those doors, he seemed to lock away his mother’s substance, returning her to us quite as haggard as before.

The final note extinguished itself almost immediately, leaving no lasting impression.

“That was beautiful!” My mother’s face glowed with pleasure. “Wherever did you learn to play?”

Mistress Wright’s eyes strained to meet my mother’s, but they did not. Instead, she answered while looking at the floor. “In England. Before I was reformed.”

Simeon stopped her words with laughter. “Before the
church
was reformed. ’Twas my own father that did the reforming. It was he who chased out the Anglican priest, Mother’s father, and installed a proper Puritan minister in his stead.”

He led us back into the kitchen, where we regained the seats we had left. His face changed from hilarity to levity as he straightened himself in his chair. He cleared his throat, folded his hands on the top of the board, and addressed himself to my father. “I wish to ask you for Susannah’s hand in marriage.”

20

I FELT MYSELF BLANCHING. My hand in marriage? But . . . he wanted to marry me? How could that be? What about Mary?And what about John?

My father nodded. I kept waiting for him to say something, to say anything at all, but he did not.

“If it seems good to you, we can be married this fall. Before the onslaught of winter. You and I are already partners in business. Why not join our families as well? Is there not special compensation to be given to relations?”

If I could have spoken, I would have said “nay” and that would have been the end of it. But I had no right. It was not my place.Later Father might ask my opinion and if he did, then I might tell him my mind. But not here. For now all I could hope was that an agreement would not be made.

My father’s eyes sought my face, and I only hoped my eyes would plead my case for me. “I will think on what you have proposed.”

My body went weak with relief. He had agreed to nothing. Perhaps, then, if John spoke soon . . . perhaps all could be set right.

After Simeon’s Wright’s astonishing announcement, there was little left of which to speak. The abruptness and enormity of his declaration seemed to have stolen from anyone’s mind all but the dullest material for conversation.

Mother prodded Father with an elbow.

He nodded once more. “Thank you, Simeon Wright, for your hospitality.”

“It was our pleasure, was it not, Mother?”

Across from me, a change came over that woman’s face. As if a curtain had fallen, as if she had closeted herself away from us. She straightened and cast her eyes to her lap. “ ‘Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.’ ”

Her odd reply was overshadowed by Simeon’s hearty laugh. “Have no fear. When we are wed we shall see to it, Susannah Phillips, that your parents are no strangers here.”

I should have had no fear, not from a proposal that could be so easily dismissed, but I did. I could only nod. And in my haste to be gone, I had already stood away from the bench.

We made short work in leaving. Mother collected the babe from Mary. Father took up his musket from the wall by the door and we were gone.

I was trying to lift that mantle of fear from my thoughts when Mary fell into step beside me for a moment. “You always spoil everything!”

I glanced over at her, startled at the vehemence of her speech.

“What have I spoilt?”

“Everything. First born. First loved. First courted.”

“You speak of John Prescotte?”

She looked at me as if she thought me daft and leaned close to me. “I speak of Simeon Wright!”

“But ’tis not Simeon I want. ’Tis John.”

“It did not look it from where I was standing.”

“If you want Simeon, then take him.”

“ ’Twas not me he asked for.”

“But John Prescotte—”

“And it was not he who asked for you.”

Bats swooped and flitted through the darkening light of the dusk.Out in the woods beside us an owl sent out a mournful hoot. I walked on in silence, though my thoughts spun themselves into the yarn of a plan quickly. There would be no way to speak in private once the captain returned to our house. With the hour growing late, that time was nearing. It was on this walk home that my plea must be made.

“Father?”

He stopped in the road, Mother beside him. “Simeon Wright has asked for your hand.”

“Aye.”

“He is a good man. Pleasant of character. Godly. And ’tis true—we are already partners in business. Since my wood burnt this spring, ’tis Simeon to which I turn for my trade. ’Tis he who controls my trade. I might wish his price a bit fairer—”

“ ’Tis extortion what he demands!” Mother’s tone was accusatory. Strident.

Father laid a hand upon her arm. “And ’tis not for you to say, Mother. We have an agreement of sorts, he and I . . . and it seemed to me that he did make a promise to be fairer.”

In spite of Father’s reliance on Simeon Wright, I knew that I must speak while there was still time. “I had hoped . . .”

Mother reached out a hand for mine and drew me toward them. “What had you hoped?”

“I had hoped for John Prescotte.”

“He has not spoken to me.”

Yet. He had not spoken
yet
. “Perhaps if he did . . . ?”

Father did not reply.

Which could mean any one of several things. It could mean that John’s proposal would be entertained if he spoke. It could mean that Simeon Wright’s proposal was as good as accepted. Or it could simply mean that Father had not yet made up his mind.

We walked on a few more steps in silence.

“I suppose I could speak to his father.”

Mother turned and beamed a quick smile toward me.

I was afraid to return the smile. Afraid to speak. Afraid to hope in the words he had just spoken. As we walked down the hill, I felt a weight shift from my shoulders, heard a melody in the beating of my heart. And then I remembered that I had left my cloak at the Wrights’.

I paused as I considered whether to go back for it or wait until morning.

“What is it?” Mother stopped at my hesitation.

“My cloak.”

“What of it?”

“I left it. Back there.”

“At the Wrights’?”

“Aye.”

“Then you best go back and get it before night falls for certain. Nathaniel? Accompany Susannah back to the Wrights’. She’s forgotten her cloak. And be quick about it!”

We turned from the group as smartly as if we were marching at a training day review and climbed back up the hill.

In the gathering gloom, the Wright home could only be seen as a dark silhouette against the sky. Not one light glowed from those costly glass windows. Whatever tapers had been burning when we left must have been extinguished directly thereafter.

I clutched at Nathaniel’s arm to stay him. “Do you think . . . they could not yet be sleeping?”

“Nay. Let’s be about it. Maybe we can still catch up to the others before they reach home.”

He closed the distance to the house at a run and rapped at the door. He was still waiting for it to be answered when I joined him.

“Perhaps they did not hear you.”

“I knocked twice.”

The latchstring had not been pulled in, so they must not yet be bent on retiring. I pulled at it, and once I heard the latch lift, I pushed the door open. “Hail and hello!”

We waited, Nathaniel and I, on the doorstep, exchanging glances.

On the wall opposite, I could see my cloak hanging.

“Hello?” No use wasting time. I stepped through the doorframe and went to retrieve my cloak. Quickly in, I meant to go just as quickly out, but Nathaniel had followed me and as I turned in the gloom, I walked right into him.

He yelped. “Watch what you’re about! You’ve stepped on me.”

“Then stop following me about like some newborn duckling!” I grabbed at his arm, pulling him toward the door. “Hush. Let’s go.”

We walked back through the sitting room, but a noise from the kitchen stopped us. It was the sound of Simeon’s voice . . . and his mother’s whimper. I could not understand the words he was saying, but the tone was sharp, the words terse.

As we passed in front of the entrance to the kitchen we could see them thrown into profile by the embers of the fire. Simeon was talking to his mother, finger raised as if to make some point in particular.

She was listening to his speech in a meek attitude, hands tucked away beneath her apron.

As we watched, Simeon raised the whole of his hand above his shoulder. As he swung it down toward his mother, he caught sight of us.

I flinched, expecting somehow that his hand would reach out to strike his mother’s cheek.

Mistress Wright must have thought so as well, for she cringed.

But Simeon only placed his arm around his mother’s shoulders and turned her toward us. “Our guests have returned.”

“I left my cloak.”

He smiled, the fire gleaming off his teeth. “And have you found it?”

“Aye. Thank you.”

“Do not tarry long in the night.”

“Nay.”

Nathaniel and I were in such a hurry to leave that we nearly tripped over each other in our haste. We left the house at a walk that proceeded to a run, and we did not stop until we had reached the bottom of the hill. Finally, once I knew the house no longer loomed behind us, I felt my pace slow to a walk.

Beside me, Nathaniel slowed as well.

I could not stop puzzling over what I had seen.

What I thought I had seen.

In the end, Simeon’s movement had been the gesture of a man embracing his mother. But why had she shuddered at his touch? Why had his knuckles around her shoulder gleamed white in the fire’s light? And why had I been so sure that he would strike her?

Had she not been certain as well?

Yet she had always been a strange woman, a bit addled in the head.

As I prayed that night, I fear my thoughts were not on my words but on Simeon’s. And Father’s. And the words that John might say.

The words that he
must
say.

But if I had expected Father to visit the Prescottes the next day, he did not do it. Neither did he do it the day after.

And by the day after that, my nerves were frayed as if from the sharp edge of a knife. At dinner that third day, I dropped a tray of biscuits. Mother took it from me and then set it on the table. “Father? You must talk to Goodman Prescotte this day or all of my hard work will be ruined.”

He blinked as if he were annoyed at the request. But he nodded once, rose to his feet, put on his hat, and walked out the front door, leaving the rest of us to stare after him.

He did not return until supper.

Once the blessing of the food had been accomplished, Mother wasted no time in questioning him. “Is there to be a wedding?”

Beside me, the captain lifted his head from his meal.

“Aye.”

We waited, all of us, for more details, but that seemed to be the extent of what Father wished to tell us. I was to be wed, but I did not know yet to which man.

“Well, tell us to whom, Father, and when, so we can get about the business of preparing.”

“To the Prescotte boy. Is that not the one she wanted?”

Mary brightened.

The captain shot a glance of disapproval at me as if I were some prized student who had given him cause for disappointment. He shook his head before returning his attentions to his meal.

But I could not care.

I saw Mother nod in approval before I hid my head in my apron and cried in sheer relief. All was right. I had nothing to fear.

My prayers that evening were incoherent with gratitude and joy. The only clear phrase I could muster was one I repeated ad infinitum.

Thank you! Thank you!

I could only hope that God would decipher some higher and more complex meaning in them. As I lay in bed, my thoughts too busy for sleep, I listened to the conversation of Father and Mother through the thin walls.

“Speak, Father. Tell me when their banns are to be published.”

“Oh . . . maybe not for a few months yet. No hurry.”

No hurry! But I wanted to be married now. All the other girls my age had married. It was time. It was past time! And if I did not marry John, then what reason could be given for not wanting to marry Simeon Wright?

“And they are to live . . . ?”

“He’s to start on a house this winter. I told him I would help him fell the trees and plane them, but he wants to do it proper. Take the trees over to the sawmill.”

A proper house!

“ ’Tis good, that. Shows determination.”

“Hmph. Stubbornness.”

“You do not think he’ll do well by her?”

I held my breath, waiting for Father’s answer. Beside me, Nathaniel let out an impossibly long snore.

I elbowed him, hoping that he would turn over. He grunted and snuffled, grinding his teeth.

“ . . . do fine. As well as any of them.”

“ ’Tis he she wants.”

“And what do I care of that?”

There was a shifting of the bed. The sound of a shared kiss. “You do care. You care more about your daughters than any man I know.”

Father grunted.

“He’s a good man.”

“He’d better be. He’ll have my girl to answer for!”

Mother said something I could not decipher.

And then Father’s voice came again. Loud and vexed. “Why did Wright even have to ask?—and tie it to the price of his wood? And why was I sent like some message boy to prod around and get the Prescotte boy to propose? It was a torment to the soul. I might have kept on glowering at him like I have been.”

“You haven’t!”

“Aye, I have. And I could have put the whole thing off another month or two at least.”

“Shame, Father.”

“But then you had me go and ask him if he wanted to wed my daughter? It’s not right, woman! Made me sound as if I was begging to be rid of her when all I want is to . . . well . . . ’tis more than a man can be expected to bear.”

“You did well, Father.”

He muttered something unintelligible.

Mother laughed.

There was silence for a long while, and then Father spoke again. “Are you willing, then, Goodwife Phillips?”

“More willing than not, I’d say.” By and by their talk turned to kisses and their kisses into something else. And it was to that which I fell asleep.