"No, I ain't forgotten."
"You shied away. Oh, you was polite about it! But you thought—well, what you just said. That's only natural. And you didn't want to take another man's leavings."
"Aye," guardedly.
"So you went on down the hill. And you was to sail at dawn. And Father was just about to go down and meet with you and with the rest. So I went to him and—and lied. Must've hurt him something dreadful."
"Likely."
"Hurt you, too. But I counted on I'd make up to you by being such a good wife and—well, warm." "I see."
"I never thought you'd do what you did."
"Nobody else thought so either. Didn't myself. Hard to know how you're going to act sometimes, till you're right there facing it."
"Mine was a wickedness. Not just because I broke the Ninth Commandment—"
"You sure did that."
"—but because it was such a cruelty to you and Father both. He believed me, and it wounded him. You didn't, and it embarrassed you. I misdoubt you still believe me?"
"Well-"
"Never mind. I'm glad you stopped. I was going to seek you out and tell you how sorry I am, but that might've been hard to do without causing talk. But now I can tell you. I can say, Thank you, sir, for being so kind.' You were kind, Captain. You were polite and had sweet manners."
The lightning bugs rocked. The grass, wet, gleamed up at him.
"Guess I couldn't think what else to do," he muttered. "First time anybody'd ever asked me to marry 'em."
"It will be the last time I'll ask you, now that you know how I feel."
"Expect you'll find somebody else easy enough, with all you got to offer."
He was thinking of her breasts when he said that, though she might have supposed that he was thinking of her father's wealth, for she stiffened a mite. Then she relaxed. She put a hand over his, on the sill.
"Reckon I won't," she whispered. "If you won't take me, Adam, nobody's going to get me. I got to go now. Father's calling. Good night."
The pressure on his hand was gone, and he looked up and Deborah was no longer there, only the blank window, the far wall blank, too, except for the framed sampler, the exquisite needlework.
Young Obadias, David, Josias, All were pious.
He sighed. He was vummed if he knew what to make of the whole business. Well, she'd hear about Maisie soon—the whole town would— and then she might feel different.
All the same, it shook him, knowing that she had been like that all this time.
He drifted away, scarcely moving any faster than the fireflies. Not until he was off the grass and into the mud of the lane again did he remember the lemons. He'd meant to give her some. Indeed that was why he had gone to the window.
He took three of them from his pocket. They were sleek, bright, hard, a virulent yellow. He had brought them up the hill for Elnathan, truthfully, but he calculated she would not miss what she hadn't known she was going to get. It was a politeness: put it that way. Lemons were formal. There wasn't a housekeeper in town wouldn't squeak with delight, you handed her a lemon. They were thought of as gifts. If you had just come back from the islands, like Adam had, you were virtually expected to fish them out and pass them around among the womenfolks; though of course you could show favoritism, and if you were sparking some certain girl, she naturally got the most of 'em, or even all, for the town always jabbered, when a vessel was fresh in from the sugar islands, about who would get whose citrons and how many.
Adam had six of them now, and he put three on the window sill. He even considered a plan to put four there, giving Elnathan only two; but after all, he was on his way to the Evans house right now, and old Zeph hadn't signed that agreement to sell his share of the schooner yet, so it was best to play safe.
From the lane he looked back at them. They looked bright in the darkness, and firm, and hard. They were good lemons.
He had knocked once on the door of the Evans house but hadn't had a chance to knock a second time, when it was flung open and he was jerked inside and the door was slammed shut and Elnathan had both her arms around him and was kissing and kissing him.
Now here—it looked as if—was to be an evening of shocks. Adam, not without difficulty disengaging himself, was horrified; and also he was scared. For the room was a blaze of light, and he and Elnathan had not been in the habit of embracing in illuminated places. Theirs had been a sneaky affair—an affair of violent, hastily snatched squeezes, their hearts thudding harshly together, or fluttering in panic like newly caged birds, in closets or dim corners, and of the more nearly satisfying but still by no means leisurely pawings in her bedroom when Zeph was abroad on business. Furtiveness was of the marrow of their relationship. Except when they spoke to one another in public, Elnathan a touch condescending toward him, Adam a shade deferential toward her, their talk was in whispers. To tell the truth, though the whole sum of reasons for their getting together was the enjoyment of what is sometimes called the Ultimate Intimacy, they didn't actually know one another well. Their interest in one another could be, at times, intense: it was never informed. The beloved should be studied as well as adored. Adam, had he words, could have described in detail every far, tiny, tucked-away corner of Maisie Treadway's body; but put masks over their faces and he wouldn't have known the naked Elnathan from a naked any-other-woman.
He darted glances right and left. No, they couldn't be seen here, close up to the door, from outside. And surely Zeph wasn't home, though Adam already had run beyond the agreed-upon hour.
Nevertheless Adam had been affrighted. He swallowed, trying to smile. Elnathan, beaming before, now fairly glowered. She was a handsome rather than lovely woman, who ordinarily held herself in; who, if she seldom smiled, seldom really frowned either. It must have been that she saved most of her tempests, of one sort or another, for her lover. It was pretty safe Zeph Evans didn't get many.
"La, 'tis a fine way to greet the lady of your heart!"
Now where in Tophet had she picked up that silly little Frenchy "La!"? This was the first time he'd ever heard it out of her mouth, and it flustered him.
He achieved a smile. It could have been that the effort showed. Anyway Elnathan disapproved.
"Took the breath out of me, just seeing you again."
"You sure hurried here!"
"Ain't been ashore an hour and a half. Come rushing up here, what'll folks think? Ain't even reported to the owners yet. Look—"
He handed her the three remaining lemons, which softened her, though she failed to utter any cries of delight.
"Elnathan—"
"Yes?"
All the voyage home he had been dreading this moment. He didn't want to dirty Maisie, even in his thoughts. She was too clean and good a woman to be treated that way. Yet that Elnathan Evans would expect him back in her bed soon after his return seemed certain. Elnathan might be a wicked woman, and indeed she was, as by the same token he was a wicked man, but nobody could say of her that she wavered. As far as Adam knew, she'd never bedded another man, always excepting of course her husband. Their affair had not been of long duration, and it was hardly likely that one voyage to the Windwards would do anything to decrease her hunger and thirst for him.
"There's, uh, something I want to tell you—"
It was only decent and right. Far as that went, 'twas only common sense; for she'd soon find out anyway.
"What is it, chick?" She still was looking right at him, and standing close, but her eyes had gentled. Oh, she was fond of him! "You want to tell me you missed me?" She was not quite his height, and now as she lifted her face to him her eyelids drooped. "What's the best way to tell me that?"