Patience & Sarah (Little Sister's Classics) (18 page)

He says, “I’ll draw up papers. You can’t squander your birthright and then come back. Don’t expect to.”

“No.”

“You’ll need a map. I can spare you one.”

“Thank you.”

He pushes back his chair and gets up. At the door he turns and says, “Would you really rather go than give her up?”

I risk the truth. “Yes, Edward.”

He shakes his head. “So be it,” he says, and opens the door to go. Again he turns. “But what do you
do
?” he asks.

My maidenly blush calls forth in him a manly blush. He does not stay for answer.

I must see you. There is no time to lose. I am flinging on my cloak to go to you, when I notice that it is almost evening already. You will soon be here, perhaps before I can get my milking done.

No matter who comes with you, I will speak.

You bring the one I would have chosen, your mother. She is not awkward now, knowing my affection for her. I take her hand and lead her to the fireside. You must make your own way.

“I have news,” I say.

Your mother says, “I hope good.”

“I’ll tell it, and let you decide which. I’m going to the west.” I feel you start and tighten.

She says, “Oh! When?” and although she must have had some idea she has to stop and blow her nose and look away.

“It could be as little as a week. Whenever my brother gets my money for me.”

“Oh. In such weather?”

“It’s none too early. I have a long way to go and I want to buy land and get a start this year.”

“It’s a chancey step,” she says.

“Yes, it is. But I’ve wanted it for a long time. Last summer when I kept school, I made up stories for the children about the frontier, when I was supposed to be reading them the Bible.

She smiles weakly. “I’ll miss you. We all will.”

“I want to take Sarah with me.”

“I figured.”

“I knew you did.”

I turn to you. “Will you?”

You stride around my kitchen. “Going’s a different thing to making up stories,” you say. “You got no more idea than a jaybird,” you say. “Just when I can be some good here,” you say.

You keep on pacing. Your mother and I wait.

You say, “I want to. But is that any reason? When I can be some good here finally?”

You mean, is it right to choose pleasure over duty? Can you yield to a longing for kisses, when other people’s necessities are at stake? Nothing you ever heard of tells you you have a right to choose me. I hoped you’d thought this through before. I may have to go without you. There may not be time, before, for you to face and learn to endure your own necessities. When I am gone you will, and then I will send for you.

“I’ll be going anyway,” I say, to let you know that I am being compelled to go. “First will you do something for me?”

“Anything!”

“Stand still and let me measure you. I have a length of goods I can’t look at without thinking of your hair.”

“Oh, no!”

“You said, ‘Anything.’”

You press your lips together, a stubborn child, but I will not let you off. What are you to travel in if I do? I bring my measure and make you stand. Your mother keeps the notes. She draws numerals very nicely now. I suppose she’s been practicing in the hearth dust.

(You see, sweetheart, it’s not so bad to be measured when I do it.)

“What’ll Pa say about me living off of him all winter and then leaving again as spring comes on?”

Your mother says, “He’ll say nothing.”

I see a new Mrs Dowling. Women are not so very powerless after all. He will say nothing. She should make up her mind more often.

Chapter Two

Here we go. It is cold clear dawn, a March morning. There may be bare dirt for Edward to bring his sleigh back over, but it slips along easily now. We are nested together in a little row, Edward and then me and then you, under bearskin robes. He is seeing us off in style, probably in the thought that it’s a blot on a family, too, to let a member leave under what could be interpreted as a cloud.

Your whole side is pressed against mine. There wouldn’t be room between us for a thread. Your face is very sad, and mine must be too – we’ve both been weeping. Although I think it shows no dislike of what we go to, to feel a grief for what we leave, I want to comfort you. I slide my hand under the robe, hoping you will do the same so I can reach you in hiding there. Either you don’t understand or you decide against it.

The horses clip along, carrying us into parts I haven’t seen since my father brought me home at the end of my education. I leave my country without having looked at it or known it, as someday I must leave the world. Uncheerful thoughts like this assail me, but the harness bells are as merry as a wedding party.

Yes. A wedding party. Of course. I uncover my hand and in the open, under the sky, under the eyes of my brother, I reach for your hand inside the muff I gave you. Surprise makes you start and almost draw back, but then you accept me. We ride now palm to palm. I marry you. Embracing inside secret walls never married us. The open, the sky, the eyes of my brother marry us and the harness bells are our wedding hymn.

There is no pleasure in it. Is there usually, in a wedding? The object is a public declaration, and an earnest of intent to build private joy again.

Edward says nothing. We all sit staring straight ahead, like figureheads. After some miles I feel sufficiently declared, and squeeze your hand, and let it fall.

Earnest of intent is what I have from Edward: enough money to journey comfortably by ship and coach. I have also his promise that when we find the farm we want he will send the means to hold it, and every year thereafter enough to make the payments, until I have received a total of one thousand dollars. I don’t know whether this is generous or not, in exchange for my part of my father’s house, and my cows, and all the things I couldn’t cram into three trunks, and a lifetime’s keep. I just don’t have any way of knowing. It depends on what a lifetime’s keep might have come to.

I have sworn that I will ask no more, and not come back again. Our agreement is all written up, signed and sealed, witnessed by upright witnesses. The Supreme Court could not set it aside. Yet all that gives it value is that Edward is honorable, and I am. If he should fail me, could I come back and law with him, without a cent to pay a lawyer? And if I should fall on evil days and present myself helpless at his door, could he turn me away? We might have left all to honor in the first place, as you and I, without a marriage contract, leave all to love.

The coastal trader is due today, in its own haphazard way. It may have been and gone already. It may come tomorrow. Against my will, I get a feeling that if we have not missed it, and if it comes today, our whole journey will go well. I do not like omens so weighted against me, but it is what was sent.

We reached Stratford midmorning. From afar we see masts, and then our lovely ragamuffin ship, wide, ungraceful, low in the water, so beautiful. I choke with relief at the sight of it.

We are far from late. The captain is auctioning the cargo he got upcoast, which is barrels of oil and rum, salted fish, and cloth and dyestuffs and glass. He stands on a bale, hammering and chanting. He is bartering for Stratford horses and cheese and butter. I like to think that some of the cheeses are mine.

Mockingly, Edward says, “I expect you want to start fending for yourselves now?”

Immediately you climb out, but I catch your arm and whisper, “I have all our money. Stay here. I’ll go.” Then I climb out, and while I am considering how to move through this crowd of men and horses and interrupt this busy captain and hire him to carry us to New-York, Edward gestures us both back and goes himself. We wait beside the sleigh like shy children.

We look at each other and smile for each other’s sakes.

“We’ll be all right,” I say.

“Yes,” you say doubtfully.

“I have a way of knowing. Were you afraid when you set off before?”

“No, but then it was just me and I didn’t care.”

Edward returns. “It’s taken care of,” he says. “Come on.”

You hand me your muff and start to lift one of the trunks. Even to me the sight is odd and Edward is shocked. “No, no!” he says. “I’ll get a boy. Come on board.”

Stubbornly you keep your hands on the trunk. “I got to begin,” you say.

I say, “Later, not now,” so you yield and Edward makes a way for us across the dock and up the gangplank. It is best not to be two women alone on such a walk. He establishes us on splintery benches inside the ship where we can’t see anything, the Ladies’ Cabin. He goes back to see to our baggage. The captain is chanting again, recovered from the flurry of our arrival. The crewmen with many curses are loading horses. I do see we mustn’t go outside while men are cursing.

We sit close together. Maidenly shyness can seem to be the reason, if anyone sees us. Indeed, it may be the real reason. There is no excitement in pressing against your side.

You say, “I been worried about what all I can’t do to take care of you. I
know
I’m not strong’s a man. I’m not such a fool as I was. But now not to be let to do even what I can! I could’ve toted the trunks easy. If you’re wanting me to be a lady, I don’t see how it’s to go.”

“Just until we get away from Edward,” I say. “He’s been good to us. Just a little longer, for his sake.”

Even I can hear my tinniness, so how can you miss it? The fact is, you are right. There will be these issues all along our way, and I will be ruled by this folly: I do want you to be a lady around other people, even though it’s because you are not a lady that there is hope for us.

You say, “Then when we get to New-York I’m to take the trunks off?” and you smile unhappily, knowing better.

I say, “It does seem to matter to me. I know it’s nonsense. It will probably pass quite soon since I do know it’s nonsense. Can you be patient with me?”

The worry briefly leaves your face while you look at me tenderly. Yes, you will be patient with me, and I in turn will hurry.

Now you are restless again, fidgety. You get up and pace around our small dim dingy enclosure. I admire your princely stride, the flow of the almond-dyed wool dress I made you, your strength, your stubborn beauty. May God make me worthy of you, in a hurry.

Edward returns. Our baggage is stowed aboard, he says, and our passage paid, and no I needn’t bother about what it cost him.

“Thank you, Edward,” I say, standing. A formal moment: we shall not meet again.

“Take care,” he says. “Do your part. Write to me. Work hard. I wish you happiness.”

“You
do?
” I say, amazed and touched to tears. “Oh, Brother, if you do – if you really do – give us your blessing on our day of beginning!”

“With all my heart,” he says.

I am weeping and he puts his arms around me. I am engulfed in the male scratchiness and smell of his coat. He says, “Of course I give my blessing. I took for granted you’d know that. Little pesky bullhead sister! Of course I hope you find the life you were born for. It wasn’t here. I hope it’s there. I have cared for you. Of course.”

Now you come near and he hugs us both in the same hug. He looks at you, so kindly. “I wouldn’t want, myself, to let too much depend on how long a woman’s love lasts,” he says. “But – take care of her – don’t let her run you – God keep you.”

He kisses my cheek and then yours and then mine again, and then he goes without looking back.

I can’t remember one single thing I don’t like about my brother Edward.

BOOK FOUR

Sarah

Chapter One

I said, “He had no call to say that to me.”

“What? What did he say?”

Then I remembered something Parson told me, how you must never say a word against somebody’s wife or husband or house or child or brother or sister, and if
they
say something, contradict them.

“Nothing,” I said, and Patience sat there looking sappy and overcome because Edward liked her after all, like it was a wonder she didn’t deserve. To my mind, he was too fond, not just of her but of me too, and I suspect he liked to think about us. I wouldn’t begrudge him that, exactly, except he put on such holy airs.