The Vanishing Point (21 page)

"Once you are there," she pointed out, "you could ask them to post the banns, could you not? In two months, we might go together to be married."

"I said before that such a journey would put you in peril. I can ask the minister if he can spare a traveling parson to come our way and perform the ceremony. It might take many months, even years. This is how it is in the backwaters. Do you think we are the only couple to live together without blessing of the clergy? Some have three children or more before they get their minister. You know I love you, don't you, Hannah?"

"But it is a sin. You know it well. Our child shall be a bastard." Her own vehemence shocked her. Something inside her was changing—it was more than just the child growing in her womb.

"A sin, you say." His face darkened. "I have given you my entire love and devotion. God has blessed us with a child. How can you call that a sin?"

"It's wrong."

"You don't mean what you say." He spoke passionately. "When did you suddenly get to be so pious, Hannah?"

"We should have waited until we were married. I should have mourned her for a year. You
know
it's wrong. We don't even dare speak her name."

He stared in disbelief. "It was you who started it all. Do you forget?" Betrayal shot through his voice. "I was willing to leave you alone, but you said that you cared for me."

"Stop." Turning from him, she walked blindly toward the garden. She didn't need him to remind her that she had brought this on them both. She had betrayed her sister more deeply than Gabriel ever could. Hadn't she forced him into divulging May's infidelity? Because of her prying, he had made her swear the pact not to mention May. He and May hadn't chosen each other, but Hannah had chosen to covet her sister's widower and wheedle her way into his bed.

Foxglove grew at the garden gate, its poisonous flowers pink as a baby's face. Remembering May's first letter, she sank to her knees.
Most of all, I long to plant the Foxglove, for it reminds me of Home.
She had given May the seeds.

When she heard Gabriel's footsteps behind her, she expected him to take her arm, raise her to her feet. But he didn't. He was in a temper. She could tell from his unsteady breathing.

"God has been kind to us, Hannah. Is it not an even greater sin to be ungrateful for all our blessings?"

With some effort, she struggled to her feet. From the look on his face, she saw that her words had wounded him deeply.

"All our happiness," he said. "Would you call that a sin?"

His face blurred. Her stomach was tight and her head swam.

"Do you regret it?" he asked her. "Do you wish yourself back?"

"Gabriel, no." She wished she had something to hold on to, to keep herself on her feet. "No, I..."

"Hannah." He caught her before she could fall. "Are you not well?" He held her as if they had never quarreled. "Tell me it isn't one of your attacks."

"
No
," she said in panic as her mouth filled with the taste of iron. Then it passed and her heartbeat returned to normal.

She must have frightened him, though. He was in tears.

"I shouldn't go," he said. "What if you have one of your fits while I am away?" He looked at her with such love.

She drew a deep breath. "Gabriel, you
must
go."

She hated to have him think of her as a weak and helpless woman. If she had a fit alone or with him standing by, it was all the same. When the fog came over her, she was beyond his reach and help. The trip was no frivolous mission, she reminded herself. Without sugar and salt, they might not survive the winter.

"Gabriel, I am sorry. Of course, I do not wish myself back. I just wish I could be your wife."

"I will do what I can to see if a minister can travel here."

***

The day before he left, he taught her to load and shoot his hunting musket. "If you are armed, you are as strong as any man." He squeezed her shoulders. "You were never a coward, Hannah Powers. Surely you have no cause to be frightened now."

Early the next morning, she ignored her queasy stomach and cooked him a huge breakfast of fried eggs, bear sausages, and griddle cakes. She filled his satchel with cornbread and strips of dried venison. She walked with him to the dock.

"Don't stay away long. Not an hour longer than you must."

She stood on the riverbank waving until he disappeared from her sight.

***

Hand on the sheathed knife in her belt, she wandered to the creek. Her eyes were raw from the tears she hadn't let him see. She had let him paddle away, let him believe she was self-sufficient and brave. How she wished they could have gone to Anne Arundel Town to be married. The minister would have spoken the blessing over them, absolving them of their sin, putting everything right. But it was futile without the banns. And here she was, alone in the wilderness with a child in her belly.

In the eyes of the world, she was a fallen woman. In her old village, there had been ruined girls turned out of their homes, forsaken by their lovers, and left to bear their babies alone on the alms of the parish. How she had pitied those poor stupid creatures with their cowed faces and great lobbing bellies. Pariahs, they were, the butt of every joke, the mainstay of the vicar's harshest sermons. Some had even taken their lives rather than live with the shame. At least May had been clever enough to keep herself from getting pregnant until she was married. Hannah cursed herself for never asking her how she was able to keep her belly flat and her courses regular all those years.

The cold creek reflected a woeful face. How long she stood there gazing she never knew. But the face in the water changed. She saw May at the age of eleven, blue eyes full of mischief. "Come, Hannah, I've something to show you. A secret!"

Little Hannah raced after her. Cutting across the pasture where the big white bull ignored them, they reached the spring tumbling over mossy rocks. Steep green banks rose on either side, hiding them. This was their special place. First May had to make sure it was safe. Body tensed and stiff as a soldier's, she came to a rigid halt and looked around. "
Now!
" She pulled her dress and shift over her head and plunged into the moss-colored water. Hannah was right behind her. It took her longer to get her clothes off, for her hands were smaller and clumsier, but soon she tumbled into the stream like a puppy. Water-washed agates caressed her feet. Tendrils of waterweed wrapped around her ankles as if to bind her forever to this secret green place where she could never come to harm.

The shock of cold water sent her and May leaping, splashing each other until they were as slippery as seals. Arms uplifted, May danced in the water. She was already beautiful, her soft chest sprouting breasts. Each time they played this game, May had a different body, hair appearing where there had been smooth skin before. She let only Hannah see her like this, her sole witness to how her body was changing. Teeth chattering, May reclined in the streambed, submerged to her waist. Her new little breasts hardened, pink nubs stiff and puckered. Hannah looked down at her own flat body. Her sister had powers, that was certain.

"Look, I am a mermaid!" Keeping her legs and feet together, May wriggled them as if they formed a great finned tail. "Look, I am a water faery!" She rolled in the streambed, staining her skin with green moss. "I am a hungry witch that eats little girls!" Turning her fingers into claws, she chased Hannah over the slick stones, both of them shrieking and laughing, until May caught her around the waist and gently bit her nape like a mother cat. Later, after they had dressed, skin still tingling from the cold water, May let Hannah comb her hair.

"I am a princess," said May. Hannah believed her.

The vision in the water shifted. Her sister was pregnant, with a belly like a sack of cornmeal. Sitting down heavily beneath a naked birch tree, May began to sew. She was not making baby clothes but stitching her own shroud.

Enough.
Hannah struck her fist into the water, sending out ripples. What kind of woman was she, staring into the water, her head filled with such darkness? If she kept this up, Gabriel would think she was mad.

***

The following day, she pulled the cradle from under the bed. Something awful ran through her when her finger found the crack in the headboard. How could that crack even be there? Who or what could strike solid birchwood with enough force to make that crack? It would be unlucky to lay her baby in the dead child's broken cradle. The crack spelled out a curse. Shoving it back under the bed, she decided she would ask Gabriel to make a new one. He had all winter to work on it. A brand-new cradle lined with rabbit fur.

Hannah knit her hands over her belly. She wished she had paid greater attention to the lore of pregnancy and childbirth. In truth, it had never interested her as much as Father's herbal medicine and the art of surgery had. Looking back, she could only laugh at her ignorance, thinking such calamities befell other women and would never touch her.
Did you believe you could escape a woman's fate?

Physician's daughter, indeed. She had been playing the fool, bedding Gabriel without once thinking of pregnancy. Perhaps because her body had always been so flat and compact, she secretly suspected she might be barren. Or was it because May had been able to get away with it for so many years? She had wanted so badly to be like her sister. Well, she had gotten her wish. May's lot was now hers.

What's done is done.
It was time to stop acting like a child and face her condition. Opening May's trunk, she took out the infant clothes and their mother's old birthing gown, with its slit up the front to make it easier for the midwife. Just looking at it filled her with dread. May was the robust one, with the wide hips perfect for childbearing. Hannah considered her own narrow pelvis. How was she supposed to survive this if her sister had not? It appeared that May had not worn the birthing gown, for it was still ironed in Joan's precise pleats, a film of dust clinging to the age-yellowed linen. May had refused to put that thing on.

Hannah tried to estimate how far gone she was, but it was difficult without a calendar. She had suffered her first morning sickness when the cherries were ripe. Now the leaves had turned red and gold. It must be October. Was she five months along or six? She was already showing. Her dress had become so tight, she'd had to let out the seams. When she stood in the sunlight and looked at her shadow, her belly stood out like a hump. Because she was so thin, it looked unnatural, as though she were a child play-acting with a pillow tied around her waist. The belt with the knife Gabriel had given her merely accentuated the belly that protruded beneath it.

She hung up the infant clothes and birthing gown to air on a rope tied between two trees. They fluttered in the wind like a ghostly mother and her babies, trying to fly away from this lonely place.

"T
HIS IS ADELE
." Cousin Nathan nodded to the barefoot girl.

"A pretty name," said May.

The girl couldn't seem to take her eyes off May's dress, even though it was crushed from the boat. May had not wanted to wear her wedding gown on the endless journey upriver, but Nathan had insisted.
When you step out of that boat, the servants must see that you are a lady. You must show them at once that you are their mistress.

When May caught the girl's eye, Adele smiled before her shyness got the better of her and she stared at the ground.

"A mere slip of a girl, she is," Nathan whispered. "But superstitious like the rest of her kind. She would have us believe she is a voodoo sorceress. I tried my best to set her right, but she needs a mistress to instruct her properly and guide her with a firm hand." He paused to look over his shoulder at Gabriel, who fussed over his dogs.

"She is barefoot." May's eyes traveled from Adele's naked toes to the Irishmen's shod feet. "Did you provide no shoes for her? It is October, nigh on winter."

The girl glanced at her so timidly that May wanted to take her hand. She reminded her of Hannah. She looked to be the same age, and Adele's eyes betrayed a secret wisdom, as though she were privy to things forbidden to girls. May thought of how Hannah believed that she didn't know about her helping Father with his surgery. Well, this girl possessed some similar knowledge. Her gaze, though bashful, was not servile. Adele was not backward in the least.

"She has been given a pair of shoes, to be sure," Nathan replied. "But she refuses to wear them unless snow does cover the ground. No doubt she is accustomed to going barefoot on her native island."

"Pardon me, sir." James addressed his master. "Shall I carry Mistress Washbrook's trunk to the house?"

When May smiled at James, he grinned right back at her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gabriel watching. Although he said little, the boy noticed everything, every look that passed between her and his father's servant.

"Yes, bring her things to the house," Nathan told him before returning his attention to May. "You must be hungry, my dear. Well, soon you shall taste Adele's island cookery." Again he lowered his voice. "Her former master was French." He wrinkled his nose. "She douses everything in cider, fruit, and broth."

May's eyes followed the girl darting up the path. She hoped the house would be a sight nicer than the Shipwright Inn in Anne Arundel Town, which had been little better than a barn, with straw and horse blankets instead of beds and linen. After the wedding dinner in the tavern below, Gabriel had joined her in the bedchamber, barely bigger than a cupboard. She had held him off, saying she was too weary from her ocean journey. He hadn't objected. The narrow space obliged them to cram together, his slender back pressed to hers. In the night she had awoken, thinking she was back home with Hannah. She rolled over, thinking to throw an arm around the body beside her, hug it for comfort, when the sour reek of the straw reminded her where she was. The day after the wedding, they had sailed in the shallop boat to the river mouth and camped on the banks. Luckily it had been a dry night. She had huddled in her blanket and stared at the stars. The fact that their wedding had not yet been consummated provided a small degree of comfort. The thing was not carved in stone and could still be annulled.