SEVEN
Years passed in the way they do, with each year seeming no different than its predecessor. But little differences were evident: I was less willing to follow my parents’ rules and longed for a measure of independence, and I’d grown weary of my judgmental neighbors. The charismatic preacher was arrested down in Saco, tried, and imprisoned, then escaped and disappeared mysteriously. But his absence from the scene did little to quell the unrest gurgling just beneath the surface. There was an undercurrent of sedition in the air, even in a town as isolated as St. Andrew; talk of independence from Massachusetts and statehood. If landowners such as Charles St. Andrew were worried that their fortunes would be adversely affected, they made no show of it and kept their concerns to themselves.
I grew more interested in such important matters, though I still had few opportunities to exercise my curiosity. The only fit topics of interest for a young woman, it seemed, were her domestic domain: how to make a tender loaf of molasses bread or coax milk from an aging cow, how well you could sew or the best way to cure a child’s fever. Tests to prove our suitability as wives, but I had little interest in competition of this sort. There was only one man I wanted for my husband and he cared little for the tenderness of a bread crumb.
One of the household tasks I cared for the least was laundry. Lightweight clothing could be taken down to the creek for rinsing and wringing. But several times a year, we’d have to do a thorough washing, which meant setting a large cauldron over a fire in the yard for a full day of boiling, scrubbing, and drying. It was a miserable job-arms plunged in boiling water and lye, wringing out voluminous wool garments, spreading them to dry on bushes or over tree limbs. Laundry day had to be chosen carefully, for it required a stretch of good weather when no other laborious household task needed doing.
I remember one such day in the early autumn of my twentieth year. Oddly, my mother had sent Maeve and Glynnis to help my father with the haying, insistent that she and I could handle the washing by ourselves. She was strangely quiet that morning, too. As we waited for the water to boil, she fussed with the washing things-the bag of lye, the dried lavender, the sticks we used to push the clothing around in the pot.
“The time has come for us to have an important conversation,” my mother said at last, as we stood beside the cauldron, watching bubbles rise to the surface of the water. “It’s time to think about getting you started on a life of your own, Lanore. You’re not a child any longer. You are well into a marrying age…”
Truth be told, I was nearly past a good age for marriage and had been wondering what my parents intended to do about the situation. They’d arranged betrothals for none of their children.
“… and so we must address what to do about Master St. Andrew.” She held her breath and blinked at me.
My heart fluttered at her words. What other reason would she have to bring up Jonathan’s name in the context of marriage if she and my father didn’t intend to seek an arrangement for me? I was speechless from joy and surprise-the latter for knowing Father didn’t approve of the St. Andrew family, not anymore. Many things had changed since the families followed Charles St. Andrew north. His relationship with the rest of the town-with the men who’d trusted him-was strained.
Mother looked at me squarely. “I tell you this as a mother who loves you, Lanore: you must cease your friendship with Master Jonathan. The two of you are children no longer. To continue in this way will do you no good.”
I didn’t feel the flecks of boiling water alighting on my skin or the heat from the cauldron dampening my face. I stared back at her.
She rushed to cover my horror-struck silence. “You must understand, Lanore-what other boy will want you when you are so obviously in love with Jonathan?”
“I’m not in love with Jonathan. We’re only friends,” I croaked.
She laughed gently, but it stabbed at my heart all the same. “You cannot deny your love for Jonathan. It’s quite evident, my dear, as it is just as evident that he does not feel the same way toward you.”
“There’s nothing for him to show,” I protested. “We are just friends, I assure you.”
“His flirtations are the talk of the village…”
I brushed a hand over my sweaty brow. “I know of these. He tells me everything.”
“Listen to me, Lanore,” she implored, turning to me even as I turned away. “It is easy to fall in love with a man as handsome as Jonathan, or as wealthy, but you must resist. Jonathan is not to be your destiny.”
“How can you say that?” The protest broke from my lips though I hadn’t meant to say anything of the kind. “You cannot know what lies ahead for me, or Jonathan.”
“Oh, silly girl, do not tell me you’ve set your heart on him.” She took me by the shoulders and gave me a shake. “You cannot hope to wed the captain’s boy. Jonathan’s family would never allow it, never, nor would your father abide it. I am sorry to be the one to tell you this hard, hard truth…”
She didn’t have to. Logically, I knew that our families were unequal and I knew that Jonathan’s mother had high hopes as far as her children’s marriages were concerned. But a girl’s dreams are near impossible to kill and I’d harbored this one for as long as I could remember; it seemed I was born with the desire to be with Jonathan. I’d always secretly believed that a love as fierce and true as mine would be rewarded in the end, and now I was being forced to accept the bitter truth.
My mother returned to her work, picking up the long stick to stir the clothing in the boiling water. “Your father means to begin searching for a match for you, and so you see why you must end your friendship. We have to find your match before we make matches for your sisters,” she continued, “so you understand the importance of this, don’t you, Lanore? You do not want your sisters to end up unwed, do you?”
“No, Mother,” I said, dispirited. I was still turned away from her, looking off in the distance, willing myself not to cry, when I noticed movement in the forest beyond our house. It could be anything, benign or dangerous-my father and siblings returning from the hay field, someone traveling between farms, deer picking at greenery. My eyes followed the figure until I could make it out, large and dark, a graceful shimmering blackness. Not a bear. A horse and rider. There was only one true black horse in the village and it belonged to Jonathan. Why would Jonathan be riding out this way if not to see me, but he had passed beyond our house and was headed in the direction of our neighbors, the recently wed Jeremiah and Sophia Jacobs. I could think of no reason for Jonathan to call upon Jeremiah, none at all.
I raised a hand to tuck a few loose curls under my cap. “Mother, didn’t you say Jeremiah Jacobs was not at home this week? Has he gone away?”
“Yes, he has,” she said absently, stirring the pot. “He has gone to Fort Kent to look at a pair of draft horses and told your father he would return next week.”
“And he’s left Sophia by herself, has he?” The shimmering figure had slipped beyond my vision into the darkness of the woods.
My mother murmured in agreement. “Yes, but he knows there’s no reason to worry. Sophia is safe on her own for a week.” She lifted the wet garment out of the pot by the stick, a steaming, dripping mass. I took it from her and carried it under the tree, where we wrung the wool out together. “Promise me you will give up on Jonathan and will seek his company no more,” was the last she said on the matter. But my mind was on our neighbor’s tiny saltbox, Jonathan’s horse waiting restlessly outside.
“I promise,” I said to my mother, lying glibly, as though it meant nothing at all.
EIGHT
As autumn deepened and the leaves turned russet and gold, the love affair between Jonathan and Sophia Jacobs did not abate. During those weeks, my encounters with Jonathan were rarer than ever and painfully brief. While it wasn’t all Sophia’s fault-Jonathan and I each suffered demands on our time-I blamed Sophia entirely.
