Hester(71)

He scratches his head.

“Been checking on the maple trees,” he says.

“I’ve tried your maple syrup.” I shade my eyes. “The sugar house must be back that way?”

Zeke nods, and I can see that he’s impatient to get on. As soon I step aside, he taps his horse and moves on. When he’s out of sight, Nat comes out of the clearing, his face no longer soft as it was when we swam.

“There’s nothing to do at a sugar house at the end of June,” he says. “Something unnatural about him up this way.”

“Yes,” I agree, although I hate to acknowledge it, for Zeke is my friend and he has helped me. “I felt it, too.”

Nat frowns.

“I’ll watch you from the forest,” he says. “You take the path and I’ll stay hidden until we reach the tree that splits the road. You’ll be safe after that.”

There’s a ferocity in his face; it turns the key that he’s fit inside me and I finally speak what I feel.

“Nat.” I close my eyes. What he’s shown me is true and right: love is pain and pleasure at once. “I love you, Nat.”

I don’t wait for an answer but spin around and run—yes, I run—in the wake of Zeke’s carriage and horses, all the way home.





TWENTY-THREE





Nell looks at me from head to foot. It’s early evening, and pink heather twilight fills the sky between the trees behind my cottage. It’s been a month since I first took Nat into my bed. I know I’ve changed, but I don’t know how much until my friend is standing at my door.

“You’re thin, Isobel.” She takes my arm and exposes the underpart of my wrist, pale and almost translucent. “And your cheeks are flushed—have you been in the sun without a bonnet?”

She pulls me into an embrace.

“I’ve come for Charlotte’s trousseau,” she says. “Please don’t worry about your husband—no matter what happens, you won’t go hungry here.”

Nell sits at my table, as I have always hoped that she would. I light the lamp and lay the white-on-white pieces out for her: four petticoats, two nightdresses, and six camisoles for Charlotte; tiny gowns for the babe and a baptism gown with a train embroidered with every flower that Mrs. Silas could name.

“Your work is flawless,” Nell says. She runs her rough hands along the scalloped edges as if they are made of lace meringue that might crumble at her touch. “Mrs. Silas will be so pleased.”

Nell puts two gold pieces on the table. It is more than half a year’s wages at Felicity’s shop.

“She asked me to pay you with this.”

I think of what Mercy told me. But I take the money. I need it.

“Hide it well,” Nell says. “My mama kept her money hidden in the garden—she dug it into the dirt.”

“And what if a chipmunk digs it up like an acorn?” I ask. “And runs away with it in his mouth?”

Nell laughs.

“You put it in a tin, silly goose. My mother put her silver in a tin and buried it beneath her pumpkins.”

We laugh about silver and gold pumpkins, and then Nell’s face goes serious.

“I have something to tell you.” Her words are shaded green, a country glen of splendor. I wonder, not for the first time, what I can learn about a person from the color of her words.

“We’re eloping,” she says. “By the time Charlotte is married next week, Stephen and I will be husband and wife.”

“Eloping? Why?”

“His mother doesn’t want us to marry, because I’m a Catholic,” she says. “But he loves me.” She is laughing again. “He loves me, Isobel, and I love him.”

It’s been days since I told Nat I love him, and I’ve heard nothing from him.

“Where will you go?”

“We’re going to Boston tomorrow—we’ll get married by a priest.”

“Will you tell Mrs. Silas?” I ask. “Surely she would help you.”

“I’ll tell her after we’re married,” she says.

“He seems a wonderful fellow.”

“He’s kind and true, generous with his customers and gentle to his cows. He hates cruelty and injustice. If he had the money to be educated, he would make an excellent minister or lawyer.”

She must see something in my face, for she puts out her arms and pulls me to her as she says, “I wish it was different for you, Isobel.”

“Maybe it will be different one day,” I say. And then, I dare to whisper what I have thought for many weeks. “Maybe Edward will never come home.”

“If he doesn’t, then you’ll prosper without him.”

As we stack up the petticoats and wrap them in a plain cotton sheet, I hear carriage wheels approaching.

“It’s Zeke,” she says. “He’s come to bring me back to town.”

I walk outside with her, but Zeke doesn’t get out of the carriage. He says hello and tips his hat, but he’s not as friendly as in the past, and I wonder if he saw Nat with me—if he knows more than he’s revealed.

“Nell,” I say. I want to tell her everything has changed for me. I want to tell her that I am in love with Nathaniel Hathorne and that my bleeding is almost two weeks late, but I can only hug her to me and whisper “Good luck” into her hair.