And then they could quit this sweltering, pine-boxed outpost at the arse end of the world.
CHAPTER 15
A BAG OF GOOSE down lay opened on the bed, the curling, delicate quills startlingly white against the dark gray sacking. There were other things as well, carefully positioned and repositioned next to the bag: four buttons carved from the tiny bones of a squirrel, a cloak pin for the English woolen bought at market, shaved from the pointed splinter of a stag’s antler, a doeskin throw, supple and warm from being cured in the sun. Martha sat, picking up and setting down again each thing, one by one, regarding the treasures that Thomas had left for her almost daily since the mowing of the fields, leaving them in places he knew she would go; shyly, stealthily, without any show or stated expectation for return of favor.
Patience had said nothing of the gifts. She would merely, with a disapproving glance, turn away with a cautionary exhalation of breath as though the frequency of the offerings was suspect, even though Thomas was as ever steadfast in his work on the settlement.
Martha picked up the red book and painstakingly recorded each offering, noting with satisfaction the growing list. It was only recently that she had begun writing again in the journal. Each morning or evening, whenever she could be alone, she would carefully tear open the seam in the pillow casing, make her few entries, and then carefully sew the book back into its hiding place. It was the only thing that she could hold completely, without the prying eyes of others, to herself. Patience had not yet asked her about the book. Her cousin was too preoccupied with her own fears about the coming labor pains to think on that which held for her no great worth.
Martha turned back a page and read the entry from the day before.
Monday, July 7th
Patience gave us a fright on the sabbath for in the meetinghouse, while we sang our hymn, she let out a great gasp and grabbed low at her belly. Ezra Black, the bandy-legged reaper, stepped forward to lift her up and gave hate-filled looks to Thomas and me, as though he would cinder our hair to ashes. We carried Patience from the pew but the pain passed away and by evening she was well and begging for sweet cream and calf’s-foot jelly. As we had none, Thomas stooped for hours to pick mushrooms for her. For me, he has brought purslane.
Thomas had wordlessly upended the green and glistening clusters on the table to dry, their red stalks pointing up towards the ceiling. Like tiny advancing pikemen, she thought. She knew he had picked the purslane for her because she had said in passing that she hungered for it. She stuffed a few of the leaves raw into her mouth, savoring the stringent, almost bitter taste, and held the rest back for a stew for Patience.
Her cousin was becoming more and more knotted over with worry about the birthing, which Martha was certain was soon to come. The pregnant woman’s ankles were swollen, as were her hands and the skin under her eyes. At least her appetite was good, the retching now all but gone. But there was still a disturbing lack of movement within Patience’s belly, and she would often grab at Martha’s hand and place it over the mounded flesh, pleading, “Martha, tell me you yet feel the flutterings.”
This morning, before the sun grew too hot, Martha would go with Thomas to scrape enough slippery elm to make a poultice to ease the passage of the infant through the birth channel. She had wanted to go days earlier, but Thomas had put her off, saying it was not safe. He had for the past week been frequently gone, searching out the scarce game that hid from the heat, and had told her that between the pox and the Indian raids, life was of late never more the width of a blade’s edge.
She closed the book and quickly stitched it back into her pillow. She then took up a short curved knife for peeling the elm branches and tucked it into her apron. Joanna had been sitting at the hearth, practicing writing her name in the ashes with a stick, the letters floating canted and disconnected like sprigs of rosemary in soup.
Martha bent down and kissed her head, the girl’s hair smelling of acrid smoke and lavender, and admonished her, for her mother’s sake, to be at least quiet if not good.
As she walked from the house, John grinned at her and loudly sang, “Now is the month of Maying, when merry lads go playing…” She scowled, her face reddening, but secretly she was pleased, and John laughed and sang even louder, the words of the song following her across the yard.
Will waited outside with the stubborn pout she had come to know as the desperate disappointment of the man-child, forever being left behind when an adventure away from the settlement was under way. She waved to him as she and Thomas walked south, but Will stood, his arms crossed, his narrow hips thrust angrily forward, glowering at them until the view to the path was veiled by the branches of low-hanging trees.
They walked for a while, not talking, Thomas’s pace deliberately slow for her benefit, but there were no glances, and when he didn’t soon reach for her hand, she moved nearer. He stopped once and hunkered down, gesturing for her to do the same, and pointed into the shadows of the bracken. It took her a long time to see the deer, twin mottled shapes, their heads bowed in sleep over each other’s backs, motionless except for the delicate, almost imperceptible motion of their ribs. He gripped the barrel of the flint, upright like a staff, but never moved to fire it.
They stood quietly and moved on, the building heat creating crescents of sweat under their arms. The birds stopped their morning rustling, settling into sporadic calls and answers, and Martha’s hand brushed the carapace of a grass locust clinging, with serrated arms, to her skirt. She swept it away and looked once more at Thomas, his brooding face framed from behind by the powdery dust kicked up by his boots.
She became more discomfited by the silence, by his withdrawn, distracted air, and she burned to ask, Are you Thomas Morgan? Instead, she pulled at his sleeve and said, “I thank you for the gifts.” He stopped, his chin pointing towards the road in front of them. “Thomas…,” she began. It was the first time she had uttered his name in his presence and she was suddenly desperately shy, as brittle and insubstantial as the locust she had flicked away into the grass.
He took her wrist and walked her to the side of the path where a small boulder was planted firmly into the earth and lifted her in one motion, setting her feet on the flattened edge of the rock so that her face was closer to his own. He swept off his hat, gripping her arms tightly as if to keep her from falling off a great height.
“Martha,” he said. She waited for him to speak further, but he dropped his chin and looked away. She knotted the linen of his shirt in both her hands and tugged at the cloth until he looked at her again.
“There are things,” he began, “which must be said.”
“Nothing needs to be said now, except for those promises you are willing to give.”
“No,” he said, his hands tracking the distance of her arms, coming to rest over her fingers still gripping the front of his shirt.
Through her palms she could feel the rhythmic pulsing beneath his ribs, and imagined his heart as large as a waterwheel, churning his warming blood through the length of him. His breath expanded and contracted in moist waves around her face, and a half smile rimmed his lips. “The wolf skin would’ve been better suited to you than the doeskin.”