her teeth to stop their chattering, and stared into the shadows over the bed until the muffled tread of Sam’s stockinged feet sounded on the stairs. Sarah pulled the coverlet under her chin and squeezed her eyes shut as the bedroom door opened. He lit the lamp.
“Get out of bed,” he said coldly. Sarah didn’t move. He crossed the room and jerked the covers off her. Her hands still clutched, clawlike, at the air where the blankets had been, her teeth clattered, and she sucked air noisily through closed jaws.
“Get up.”
Sarah gasped; her breath had gone out of her and she gulped at the air. Abruptly, Sam rolled her over, putting her feet on the floor, her face and torso still on the bed, and grabbed up the willow switches he had dropped inside the door. Frozen into rods, the willows sang through the air as he slashed at her legs. Pain loosened her jaws and she screamed. Scrabbling at the covers, she tried to crawl over the bed. He grabbed her collar and dragged her back, whipping her until her nightgown was ripped and ribboned.
He threw down the rods and lifted her up by the shoulders, turning her to face him. “Quit your howling.” A scream tore open her throat, and he shook her. “Quit it now!” Sarah choked and coughed. He held her until she was done. “You feel those welts on your legs and you think on yourself.” As he let go of her, her knees gave way and she sat down hard. Sam pulled off his trousers and, extinguishing the lamp, got into bed, settling the covers around his shoulders. Steam issued from his mouth, the room had grown so cold. He looked at his wife’s narrow shoulders hunched in the dark. “Pull some covers over yourself,” he said, not unkindly. “No sense freezing to death.” There was no response, and he rolled onto his side, away from her.
Sarah sat facing into the dark, her little reddened hands folded in her lap and her small white feet dangling beneath the hem of the tattered flannel. She stared at nothing; her eyes were dry and as blind as the windows made opaque by frost.
An east wind sawed under the eaves, the windows silvered with moonlight and dimmed again. Finally she stirred. Pushing herself stiffly from the edge of the bed and creeping into the dressing room, she lowered her head over the chamber pot and was sick.
Sarah woke up alone for the first time she could remember, and cried out for Lizbeth and Gracie. Her own voice roused her and she sat up blinking in the blue half-light. Sam’s side of the mattress was cold, and his trousers were gone from the footboard. She eased her feet over the edge of the bed, holding the weight up off her legs.
Her clothes were tumbled over the dresser top, the black stockings draped down to the floor. Sarah looked at them and her face flushed. She picked up the dress and petticoat, avoiding her reflection in the mirror, and pulled them on over her nightgown. Dressed, she faced herself in the glass. Her thin hair was matted at the back of her head and stuck out like straw. The collar of her nightgown poked out above the somber brown of her bodice. She ran from the room.
The fireplace grate was cold and the stoves hadn’t been lit. The kitchen door was open and there was a thin layer of ice in the pail she used to heat the dishwater. Sam’s Bible lay open on the table. Sarah eyed it with alarm as she closed the door and sat down on the edge of a chair. Crumpled petticoats gouged at her torn legs; she grimaced, holding in the pain.
Sam had opened the Bible to Proverbs, Chapter Five. At the top of the page was the heading: “The Mischiefs of Whoredom.” The faded satin ribbon lay in the crease to mark the place. Sarah leaned her elbows on the table and, digging her fingers into her hair, read:
“For the lips of a strange woman drop as a honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil:
“But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.
“Her feet go down to death, her steps take hold on hell.”
Tears drowned the words; she threw herself from the chair and lay crying on the floor until she exhausted herself and was still.
Imogene dismissed class at three-thirty and cleared her desk. The wind, which had been rising steadily since noon, howled under the eaves, making the room creak and the windows rattle. The schoolroom emptied quickly, the children running home like late leaves scudding before the storm. Imogene closed the stove’s damper and sat on one of the small desks, listening to the wind cry and the stove click and pop comfortingly. By four o’clock the light was going. She gathered up a pile of texts and let herself out, hurrying home, head down and shoulders hunched against the cold. Someone called her name and she faced into the cutting wind.
Sarah was huddled in the lee of the school, leaning on the rough wood of the building, her cloak held tight around her. Matted hair half hid her face, but Imogene could see that her eyes were red from crying.
“Sarah Mary? Sarah, what in heaven’s name are you doing here?”
Sarah stumbled away from the shelter of the schoolhouse. Her knees started to buckle. Imogene dropped the books, catching her before she fell. Sliding one arm around Sarah’s waist and the other behind her knees, she lifted her, carrying her like a child. The girl’s cloak fell open and trailed over the ground, riffling the pages of the scattered books. Loose pages, freed, flew up and over the buildings like wild things.
She set Sarah down in the rocker in front of the fireplace. Still in a faint, Sarah slumped against the back, setting the chair rocking. Imogene steadied it with her foot and felt Sarah’s face and hands; they were like ice.
Putting the girl’s hands back in her lap, she started to tend to the fire. Sarah cried out and reached for her, and Imogene held her again. When she was quiet, the schoolteacher knelt in front of her. “Here, blow your nose.” Sarah obediently took the proffered handkerchief, blew her nose, and wiped her eyes. Finished, she held it out. “You keep it,” Imogene told her, smiling. “Will you be all right long enough for me to build a fire?” Sarah nodded and wiped her nose again; it was red from the tears and the cold.
When the fire was burning high, Imogene coaxed her out of her cloak and sat her near the blaze with a mug of hot tea and honey. Sarah held it in both hands, blowing on it. “Drink that slowly. I put a bit of rum in it to drive off the chill you took.” Imogene pulled the footstool near Sarah’s feet and sat on it, her dark skirts settling around her like stormclouds. Sleet started to fall and the fire hissed as the first drops blew down the chimney.
The heat and the rum were bringing the color back to Sarah’s cheeks. “Feeling better? You look a little less peaked.”
“I’m better.”
“Do you want to tell me about it?” Sarah looked up from the fire into Imogene’s gray eyes, and the tears welled up, spilling down her face. Imogene took the tea from her trembling hands and set it on the hearth. “My dear.” She took the weeping girl to her and hugged her close. Sarah clutched at her, hiding her face in the soft woolen pleats of Imogene’s bodice.
“Sam-Sam wanted the marriage-” She choked on her tears and coughed. “-the marriage act, and I liked it.” She held tight to Imogene’s waist, her eyes squeezed shut. “I liked it like a whore and Sam whipped me. I want to die. I can’t go home.”
“Hush now. Hush. That’s my girl.” She stroked Sarah’s hair, murmuring. “Come on now, sit up. You can lean against me.” The girl rested her head on Imogene’s shoulder, hiccoughing, and Imogene took up the rum-laced tea. “Here, drink this. It’ll make you feel better.” Sarah drank and relaxed against Imogene’s shoulder, flinching as the cuts on the backs of her legs opened.
“He whipped you.”
Sarah nodded.
“Let me see,” Imogene said gently.
Sarah pulled her skirts up and picked gingerly at a black stocking. The wool stuck where the blood had dried. She yanked it partway down, sucking in her breath at the tearing. The back of her thigh was crisscrossed with marks from the willow switches, the broken skin curled back, white and bloodless, from long, shallow cuts. Tufts of black wool stuck to the wounds, and where the flesh was not lacerated, it was bruised. Imogene looked at the leg and her face hardened. Sarah saw and was ashamed.
“Am I bad, Imogene?”
“No. Lie down here by the fire where it’s warmest. I’m going to tend to those cuts.” She helped Sarah out of her clothes, hanging her dress and petticoat on the pegs in the bedroom. The nightgown Sarah had worn underneath was so tattered that Imogene shoved it into the ragbag under the bed and gave her an old wrapper of
