The Endless Forest (44 page)

T
wo miles out of Johnstown Callie’s mare threw a shoe and shortly after that, the storm came in, so they arrived at Mr. Cady’s home later than planned, and soaked to the skin. It was Mrs. Cady who told them that Daniel and Martha had left some two hours earlier. No, Mrs. Cady didn’t know where exactly the newlyweds had been headed, but could she help them in any other way?

One look at Callie’s face made it clear that she wanted nothing to do with Mrs. Cady, whose curiosity was open and avid. Ethan thanked her and they walked on into the center of town, where he took two rooms at the White Horse Inn. Then Callie stayed behind, dripping onto the hearth, while he went out to take care of matters that could not wait. She barely looked at him when he told her where he was going, so lost was she in her own thoughts.

In the next hour, while he roused the blacksmith from his Sunday rest and made arrangements for the horses to be stabled overnight, Ethan tried to plan what he was going to say to Callie and failed completely.
He had only a vague idea of what was wrong, but one thing he knew for certain: She wouldn’t welcome empty promises.

She was waiting for him by the front door of the inn when he got back. Her clothes were still wet, and her hair lay in clumps and snarls on her shoulders.

“You know all the same people as Daniel,” she said. There were hectic spots of color high on her cheeks. “You know his friends. Where might they have gone?”

The one question Ethan had hoped she wouldn’t put to him, because in fact he did have some ideas. Daniel had a few very close friends, one of them a carpenter here in Johnstown, and another who lived due west on a large family farm. Both men had served with Daniel and Blue-Jay in the militia, and Ethan had met them now and then over the years. But he had no intention of telling Callie about those friends, because she seemed now to have regained some of the frantic energy that had driven them here in the first place. The idea of intruding on Daniel and Martha at this most sensitive time was not acceptable to him, but Callie would insist.

Hope faded from her face, and she went back to her room without another word.

Ethan ordered a meal and tea, and arranged for the innkeeper’s wife to find some dry clothes for both of them and then he went up to Callie to see what could be done. On the way he thought of Curiosity, and tried to imagine what advice she might give, if she were only nearby to talk to.

He said, “If we could find them this evening, what would you hope to accomplish?”

At first it seemed as if Callie hadn’t heard him. She stared at the untouched food on her plate and then slowly raised her gaze to him. “I don’t know. Nothing, I suppose.”

And then, to his horror, a tear ran down Callie’s cheek. Callie Wilde was the most pragmatic, sensible, least emotional person he had ever known, and now she was weeping for reasons she couldn’t or wouldn’t name. But she would not appreciate soft words, and so he cut to the heart of the matter.

“If you love Daniel, you could have told him so at any time in the last years.”

Her eyes flickered toward him, unsure, and then away again. Rather than embarrassment what he saw on her face was something like annoyance. “What gives you the idea that I love Daniel Bonner?”

“Don’t you?”

“No,” she said. “I think of him as a friend, and nothing more. As I think of you.” She looked at him directly, as if she thought this might cause him pain and she was glad of it.

“I feel the same way,” Ethan said.

“About me, or Daniel?”

Her tone was stark and even strident, but Ethan found that he couldn’t take offense. “I think of Daniel as a brother. He would want to help you if he were here, but he is not, and I am.”

“I don’t want your help,” Callie said. “I don’t want Daniel’s help either.”

“But you would have let Martha help you.”

She regarded him coolly. “Martha is to me what Daniel is to you.”

Ethan was determined to meet her cruelty with calm, just as he was determined to continue the conversation until he had the answers he needed. Callie was angry; she had been angry for years, but she had never let it out, as though she were afraid what might happen if she let go. Others had seen only her sharp wit and sharper tongue, until recently. Until the flood, and Martha’s homecoming.

With Callie the best approach was usually the most direct. He said, “Why are you so angry at Martha?”

She jerked as if slapped. Her face, when she turned to look at him, had drained of all color.

“You think I’m angry. At Martha.”

“I do think so, yes.” Calm in the face of the pain.

“And why would I be angry at her?” Callie asked, her voice low.

“She left you once, came back, and now suddenly she’s left again.”

She struck out like a viper, the flat of her hand meeting his cheek with enough force to bring water to his eyes. Ethan caught her wrist before she could strike again.

The last time Ethan had seen Callie weeping was the spring they buried her mother. Even then she had cried reluctantly, her whole being
stiff with resistance while the tears rolled down her face. Only Martha had seemed able to reach her.

She broke away, turned her back to him and shuddered with the effort to control herself. Ethan waited, five minutes, ten minutes, a full half hour before she was willing to look at him again.

She said, “I do not begrudge Martha her good fortune. I do not.”

“But?”

She drew in a hitching breath. “She is always being rescued. First her inheritance and Manhattan, and when that went wrong everyone came to her aid and brought her home as though she were as fragile as an egg. And now—now—”

For a moment he thought she could not go on, but she found her voice again.

“I have things to lose too, but nobody seems to remember me. Everything turns around Martha. What about me? What about the orchard?”

“Jemima hasn’t said anything about your property,” Ethan said. “Do you think she wants it?”

“She’ll take anything she can get. It’s her nature.”

“Yes,” he said. “I suppose that’s as true a thing as has ever been said of Jemima.”

“Can she do it?” Callie’s voice sank to a whisper. “Could she take the orchard?”

“Yes,” Ethan said. “I think she could. We could fight her in the courts—we will do that—but she has some grounds.”

The tears had started to flow again. Callie pressed her weathered, work-scarred hands to her eyes and made a sound deep in her throat.

“Callie,” he said. “There are ways to put you out of her reach. Ways to turn the law so that it stands between the two of you, to your advantage.”

“As Martha is doing,” she said. “By marrying Daniel.”

He said nothing, and watched the ideas work. She was putting herself in Martha’s place and wondering if she could be comfortable there.

Finally she said, “You’d be willing to do that. To marry me to keep me safe from Jemima.”

“Yes,” Ethan said quietly. “I am willing.”

She walked to the window and back again. Ethan was surprised to note how calm he was, almost to the point of numbness. What happened
in the next few minutes could solve multiple problems, or it could be disastrous.

Callie said, “I don’t love you as a woman loves a man. I couldn’t—I couldn’t—” She broke off.

“That’s just as well,” Ethan said. “Because I couldn’t either.”

He might have laughed, if the situation were not so dire. Her expression was so comically torn between confusion and hope. She sat down across from him.

“I don’t understand.”

“I think you do,” Ethan said. “But for the sake of clarity, here is what I’m proposing. A partnership. A legal marriage, but one that is platonic.”

“You don’t want to share a bed?”

He shook his head. “No.”

She scowled at him openly. “You will change your mind, and what then? I do not want children, and I don’t want the business that goes into making children either.”

“I promise you,” Ethan said calmly. “I will not change my mind. And I am content to remain childless.”

Her brow furrowed. “Are you—incapable?”

It was only a word, one that would give her the assurance she needed. “Yes,” he said finally. “I am incapable of being a husband to you in that one way. But I will be your friend and supporter. You’ll have my protection and my resources and my family to claim as your own. Jemima will not be able to touch you.”

“But she might still challenge me in court,” Callie said. “She might still claim that she has a legal right to my father’s property.”

“She will try,” Ethan said. “But it is me she’ll be challenging as your legal husband. I know many excellent lawyers, Callie. If they can’t stop her outright, they will tie the matter up in the courts for the rest of her life. Or if you prefer to have this settled more quickly, I’ll pay her to drop her case and leave us in peace.”

“That would be expensive.”

“My stepfather left me a great deal of money, and I’ve invested it well.”

She was studying her folded hands. Without raising her head she said, “Why would you do this for me?”

“Because I love you as a friend and I like you very much,” Ethan said. “And because I’m lonely.”

That seemed to reach her as nothing else had. Her expression softened, and Ethan knew it was more than time to leave her to sort things out for herself.

He stood. “You need time to think. We can talk again in the morning.”

“And you might change your mind,” Callie said, looking at him directly. A challenge.

“I’m not going to change my mind,” Ethan said. “If you decide you want to accept this offer, we can be married tomorrow before we set out for Paradise.”

He was closing the door behind himself when she stood suddenly. Ethan raised an eyebrow.

She said, “Where would we live?”

“Wherever you like,” he said. “We could build a house in the orchards or stay where I am now. We could live in Manhattan for part of the year, if you like. Or Boston, or London. The look on your face, Callie. I can’t tell if you’re horrified or delighted.”

“I never thought I’d ever see any of those places,” she said. “I never let myself wonder.”

Ethan bowed from the shoulders. “I will be yours to command.”

And there it was, finally. Callie laughing. In surprise, and disbelief, and the first glimmerings of hope.

W
hen a servant had taken the horses away to the stable, Daniel and Martha followed Mrs. Allen into the kitchen, the warmest room in the house. It smelled of new bread and a stew rich with gravy and vegetables. Martha’s stomach growled so loudly that Mrs. Allen laughed.

“Food first, by the sound of it. If you’d get down two more bowls—”

Martha was glad to have something to do. She set the table and poured water into the teapot while Daniel hauled water and wood and saw to the fire. The hardest part, as far as Martha was concerned, was trying to look disappointed when Mrs. Allen told them that her son Michael and his whole family had gone to a wedding in Little Falls and wouldn’t be back until late the next day.

“It’s too far for me to travel,” she told them without even a hint of regret. “But truth be told, I’m glad of the quiet. Children are a blessing, but a noisy one. So I’ve sent the help away home, all but Henry who took your horses and will see to the livestock. It’s just me and Molly and the quiet.”

Daniel’s head jerked up. “Molly stayed behind?”

“Aye,” said Mrs. Allen, pointing with her cane. “She’s right here if you want to have a word with her. Molly!”

There was a rustling in a box on the other side of the hearth and then a dog appeared. Not especially big, black with white markings, and a grin that looked distinctly human. She came straight to Daniel, who made a great deal of rubbing her head and talking to her.

“Molly’s grandsire followed Michael to the war,” he told Martha. “Hunter stayed with us all through the campaign on the St. Lawrence.”

“And Molly is cut from the same cloth,” said Mrs. Allen. “Didn’t Michael promise you a pup from her next litter?”

Daniel admitted that he had.

“Well, then, your timing is just right,” said Mrs. Allen. “Have a look.”

A puppy was climbing over the edge of the box, followed in short order by five more, each of them in pursuit of their mother. When Martha thought the parade had come to an end a seventh came rolling out of the box in an ungainly ball. This last puppy was twice the size of the others with a round belly and a satisfied air.

“That’s Hopper,” said Mrs. Allen. “Born three days ahead of the rest of them.”

Martha looked up in surprise.

“Oh, aye, it’s true,” said the old lady. “Out he popped, alone. We didn’t know what to make of it. Molly seemed glad enough to see him and he went right to the teat, but anybody with eyes could see her belly was still full of pups, all of them as jumpy as crickets. Three days later she got down to work again and along come the other six. And did Hopper make hay while that sun was shining? I have never seen a pup so fat.”

“He looks exactly like his mother,” Martha said. “The same markings.”

“Aye,” said Mrs. Allen. “And he’s just as smart. Isn’t your lad clever, Molly. Three full days with all those teats to hisself.”