Love's Pursuit (5 page)

7

IF I THOUGHT MY humiliation at the hands of the captain had been accomplished in secret, I was disabused of that notion at meeting on the Sabbath.

“Why was the captain carrying you in his arms in broad daylight down the ridge?”

“I thought you had your hopes pinned to that John Prescotte.”

If my ankle and my courage had allowed it, I would have turned on my heel and marched right out of the meetinghouse. But good girls did not do things like that, and folly had to be atoned for.

“I had turned my ankle, and he was trying to help me. As for John, I do not know of what you speak.” The less said, the better, the faster the talk would cease. At least that is what I hoped.

“Is he not joining us today?”

I looked in the direction Goody Ellys pointed and saw the captain, musket at his shoulder, marching round the meetinghouse.

I shrugged. If he did not, then he was liable to be fined for refusing to attend meeting.

Goody Ellys clucked. And then she continued with her questioning. “So . . . you fell off the ridge?”

I nodded.

“And what were you doing up there?”

I sighed and heaved a prayer toward heaven. God answered: Nathaniel began drumming the rest of the congregation into the meetinghouse.

As soon as I was seated, I could not know which was worse: to be accosted by questions or to be rendered light-headed from the heat. As the minister took his place and led us in a confession of sins, sweat trickled down my brow. Babes fussed in their mothers’ laps, and now and then a clucking or a shushing could be heard above the minister’s voice.

Throughout the prayers and singing, the prayers and readings, the prayers and the sermon, I alternately wiped wet palms against my skirt and then set them against the smooth wood of the bench beneath me. And all the while I watched from the far edge of my vision as the captain paced round the building, up one side and down the other.

And I wondered what he thought of us. Though I do not know why. And as soon as I caught my thoughts wandering in his direction, I yanked them back toward the minister and his sermon.

The Sabbath meeting was one of the torments of my existence. No matter that I walked with Thomas to the meetinghouse, the moment we stepped inside we were separated, man from woman. He to the one side, I to the other.

Of course, I knew how to be still. And quiet. I could sit for hours with a stillness of soul that rendered the space around me void of my presence. I knew how to breathe so softly that I stirred not even the air in front of my face. And I knew how to sing so that none could discern my voice from the chorus of all the others. But still, in the meetinghouse I became a woman, joined to the other women in the town, even though I did not know how to be one.

How did one leave aside their memories to sit without shame in the house of God? How did one accept the look of another not as a challenge, not as a warning of danger, but as a simple passing glance . . . as nothing at all? How did one become an unquestioned part of something so great, so wonderful, as this community of souls?

The questions were not ones that I could answer. They were the product of my overabundant curiosity, for I did not aspire to something so grand. I was unworthy. More than any of them knew. But I wondered just the same. And I observed.

So much could be learned by watching.

And far better to watch than to be watched.

I listened to the lesson. I would not be so proud, so bold, as to think that it did not apply to me. But in the listening, with my head bent slightly in a posture of penitence, I could see. Well enough to know that Goody Blake was going blind, though no one knew it yet but me. It had to do with the way she cast her hands out before her as she walked and sat. I did not know how she could bear the knowledge of it. I doubt if she had gained forty years, and she had a little one still tugging at her skirts.

Goody Metcalf would have one soon. It did not show yet in anything but her smile and the way she slipped her hands beneath her apron to stroke her belly. It was her first. She would be allowed such indulgences.

The Hillbrooks were doing poorly. Their crops must have failed last year, though I had not heard it. Their property lay down toward the common at the farthest end of the town’s holdings. And now, with Indian troubles, they would not want to linger long during the summer’s harvest . . . if indeed they were allowed to go there at all. But they were wise. They had read the signs and planned for the worst. I could tell it by the way Goody Hillbrook had turned her cuffs inside out instead of replacing them with new ones. By the way she had resewn her skirts so their frayed seams would not show.

The Phillips. . . now there was a picture of prosperity. There was always work for a carpenter when a town was being established. And a good thing, for his daughters would soon be marrying. Did they realize Mary Phillips’s gaze wandered toward Simeon Wright . . . even as her sister Susannah’s steadfastly avoided him?

I wondered about that. Perhaps, then, she had some inkling of his character.

As I sat there listening and wondering, Susannah’s gaze shot now and then toward John Prescotte. But not as often as one might think for a young woman all but pledged to be married. And not in the dreamy, thoughtless way of those mooning over their beloved. Nay, if anyone could be said to capture her full attention, it was Captain Holcombe, who marched round the meetinghouse with the precision of a beating drum. ’Twas to him that her eyes seemed unaccountably fixed.

Curious, that. Because Susannah was good. And kind and meek. Not like some who wore their religion as a cloak to be drawn on or cast off at will. Not like her sister. Neither like her friend, Abigail Clarke.

Those two were cut of the same cloth. Abigail had sat two years before, numbered among her parents’ children, watching Simeon Wright in much the same way Mary did now. But Simeon Wright had never, not once, returned the interest.

Nay, his attention was directed to two women in particular. To his mother and to Susannah Phillips, though only one of them was aware of it. And it was not a benign or casual interest.

I am sure that to ask Mary and her friends of Simeon Wright would encourage coy twitters. He was a handsome man and gave off the appearance of being receptive to flirtation. Half of the girls in town might imagine, with some reason, that he had an especial affection for them. I am sure he had sampled kisses from more than half. But they missed the clues. They failed to read the signs. They never noticed that his smile did not reach his eyes.

Not like Thomas’s. Not that he smiled very often. But who would, when burdened with a wife like me? I often wondered, on his behalf, what might have happened if he had not come to market on that day three winters ago. What might have happened, what his life might have looked like, had he not met me. Which of these girls might he have married?

I did not think upon it often because the burden of it was too great to bear. Neither did I look at Thomas often. Mostly because I did not want to see him looking at me. For he did. I could feel it. But they were most likely looks of sorrow and pity. What other kind could they be?

Meetings were a vast source of information, if only one would bother to look as I did. And I did it with almost reckless abandon. But I had no fear of being caught, for no one ever saw me. Crowded gatherings were the best place to render myself into nothing. To become nobody. And because I did, no one ever thought to turn their glance upon me.

It was after the sermon and before the long prayer that the captain’s name was mentioned. At a motion from the minister, Nathaniel stepped outside the door and returned a moment later with the king’s man.

Captain Holcombe took off his hat, tucked it under an arm, and then strode down the aisle to the lectern. “After having taken stock of the town and its surrounds, I stand ready to reform the watch. I know you’ve already doubled the men, but I wish them to be placed at different points. I call a training day this Wednesday and monthly hereafter.”

A ripple of unease passed through the congregation.

The deputy, Goodman Blake, stood from his pew and cleared his throat. “Every month?”

“Every. Each one. This one and all of them thereafter.”

“For how long?”

The captain’s gaze seemed to stop at the center of the room on the men’s side.

I turned just enough to see at whom he looked. It was Simeon Wright.

“As long as there is a certain threat. As long as you are in imminent danger.”

What could be said? The captain had been charged with our protection. He was only doing what the governor had asked him to do. He stayed, frozen in posture for several moments more, and then he seemed to relax. But just as he stepped away from the lectern, the minister spoke.

“Why do you not wish to join with us in this service?”

He stopped in his movement. Turned slowly toward the minister. “I am sure the savages would delight in catching us all under the same roof at the same time, but if it is all the same to you, I intend that they not be able to do it.”

“You say that God cannot protect those at worship in His own house?”

He smiled. “Of course I do not mean to say He
cannot
protect you. I simply wonder if He will. In England ’tis given that those who act in stupidity reap only pain and sorrow.”

While the minister was left gaping like a fish, the men’s side of the pews erupted in rage. “He blasphemes!”

“Is he some papist come to plague us?”

“Royalist!”

“Cavalier!”

Simeon Wright took to his feet. “He only seeks to protect us from certain threat and imminent danger.” He turned toward the captain. “You, sir: are you a member of the church?”

“This church?”

“Any church.”

He threw back those enormous coattails with his hand and planted his fist on his hip. “I am a member of the king’s Church of England.”

An eruption of questions ensued. “The king’s church?”

“What about God’s church? Is not the head of the Church of England God?”

“How can we entrust our lives to—”

“Silence!” Simeon Wright held up a hand and waited for the congregation to fall silent before he continued speaking. “Since this man prefers the king’s religion to God’s truth, then perhaps the perfect place for him of a Sabbath is . . . outside, on watch.”

The captain bowed. “My thoughts exactly.” He straightened and proceeded down the aisle toward the door. But not before giving me a wink.

Which was witnessed by half the people in that place.

The captain stepped forward from the side of the meetinghouse as I limped out the door. “Mistress Phillips.”

I frowned at him and kept on . . . limping. There were too many people watching, too many goodwives bent on finding a topic for their gossip, to allow the captain to speak to me in so public a place.

Unfortunately, he did not know it. “May I walk with you?”

I did not answer.

He fell into step with me as I followed my parents, despite my pointed lack of reply.

It was then I decided to seize the opportunity his boldness had provided. “You may not flirt with me.”

He leaned toward me but kept his eyes on my parents, who were walking still before us. “Flirt with you?”

“Wink at me.”

“Wink at you?”

“Must you repeat everything I say?”

“Only if I wish to understand what it is you are trying to tell me.”

“I am not some. . . . some . . . scandalous woman for you to treat me so lightly.”

His gaze darted from my parents and came to rest on me. “Scandalous? But I never thought you were. I simply thought you were exceedingly beautiful. And a gentleman is honor bound to . . . honor beauty when he observes it.”

“Then cease your observations.”

“I would rather pluck out my own eyes.”

“Have you a knife? I will do it myself.” That such bold words would issue forth from my mouth!

“Such coldhearted cruelty from one so fair. A very flower of Puritan orthodoxy. And yet so spirited. You fascinate me.”

There was laughter lurking in his eyes. I could see it. And I did not like to be laughed at. I was vain as well as rebellious. But I was still an upstanding citizen of Stoneybrooke Towne. And the townspeople thought me good as well. “Find your fascination elsewhere. I am promised to John Prescotte.”