The Taker

fell down her back in long ringlets. It was evident why Jonathan’s mother had picked Evangeline: she was an angel sent to earth, a heavenly figure worthy of her eldest son’s attentions.

I could have wept, there in the church. Instead, I bit my lip and watched as she brushed by Jonathan, giving him the faintest nod, stealing a glance up at him from under her bonnet. And he, pale-faced, nodded back. The entire congregation followed this minute exchange and understood what had transpired between the two young people in the fluttering of an eye.

“It’s about time they found a wife for ’im,” someone behind me muttered. “Now mebbe he’ll quit chasin’ after the girls like a dog in heat.”

“A scandal, I say! The girl is but a child-”

“Hush now, the difference ’tween their years is but six, and a good many husbands are older than their women by more’n that…”

“True, in a few years’ time it will make no difference, when the girl is eighteen or twenty. But fourteen! Think of our own daughter, Sara-beth; would you wish to see her married off to the St. Andrew boy?”

“Good heavens, no!”

Below, the rest of the McDougal girls formed a loose chain around Jonathan and their parents, while Evangeline stood shyly a pace behind her father. Now is no time to be coy, I thought at the time, straining to hear what was being said below. You are the one he will wed. That handsome man is to be your husband, the one who will take you to his bed every night. He is a hard man to give your heart to, and you must prove yourself up to the challenge. Go stand next to him. Eventually, with much urging from her parents, she stepped out awkwardly from behind her father, like a newborn foal trying out its legs. It wasn’t until they stood side by side that it struck me: she was still a child. He towered over her, so much larger than she was. I pictured them lying together in bed, and he looked as though he could crush her. She was small and trembled like a leaf at his slightest attention.

He took her hand and stepped closer to her. There was something gallant about the gesture, almost protective. But then Jonathan leaned over and kissed her. It was not his usual kiss, the one I had memorized, the one so powerful that you’d feel it down to your toes. But he’d signaled that he’d accepted the marriage contract by kissing her in full sight of their families and the congregation. And in front of me.

I understood Sophia’s message to me, then, from the dream. She wasn’t exhorting me to kill myself in recompense for what I had done to her. She was telling me that I had a life of disappointment before me if I continued to love Jonathan as I did, as she had. A love that is too strong can turn poisonous and bring great unhappiness. And then, what is the remedy? Can you unlearn your heart’s desire? Can you stop loving someone? Easier to drown yourself, Sophia seemed to be telling me; easier to take the lover’s leap.

All this reverberated in my mind as I watched from the balcony, tears forming, my fingers digging into the soft pine railing. I was high above the congregation floor, high enough to take the lover’s leap. But I didn’t; even then I was mindful of the baby inside. Instead, I turned and ran down the steps and away from the wrenching scene before me.

TWELVE

I rode home from church in silence in the wagon with my father. He kept an eye on me, wrapped in my cloak and scarf but shivering and with teeth chattering, even though the winter sun had come out and painted us both in sunlight. He said nothing, undoubtedly attributing my ill appearance and reticence to the news of Jonathan’s betrothal. We stopped at the tumbledown Catholic church and found my mother, sisters, and Nevin waiting in the snow, blue-lipped and chiding us for being late as they climbed into the wagon.

“Hush now, we have good reason for the delay,” my father said to them in a tone that meant he would brook no nonsense. “Jonathan’s betrothal was announced after the service today.” Considerately, there was no merrymaking among the rest of them, only glances from my sisters and a sneer of “Pity the girl, whoever she be!” from my brother.

When we arrived at our farm, Nevin unharnessed the horse while Father went to check on the cattle, and my sisters took advantage of the sunny day to see to the chickens. I followed my mother desultorily into the house. She bustled around the kitchen, getting ready to work on the evening meal, while I sat on a chair in front of a window, still in my cloak.

My mother was no fool. “Would you like a cup of tea, Lanore?” she called from the hearth.

“I do not care,” I said, careful to keep a warble of sadness out of my voice. My back to her, I listened to the clatter of a heavy pot hung on the hook over the fire and the splash of water poured from the bucket of drawn water.

“I see you are upset, Lanore. But you knew this day would come,” she said at length, firmly but kindly. “You knew one day Master Jonathan would marry, as will you. We told you having such a strong friendship with a boy was inadvisable. Now you see what we meant.”

I let a tear dribble down my face since she couldn’t see me. I felt weak, as though I’d been trampled on and battered by one of the bulls in the field. I needed to turn to someone; I knew at that moment, sitting there, that I would die if I had to keep this secret to myself any longer. The question was, who could I trust in my family?

My mother had always been kind to us children, defending us when my father’s upright sensibility got the better of him and his scolding grew too harsh. She was a woman and had been pregnant six times, with two babes buried in the churchyard; surely she would understand how I felt and would protect me.

“Mother, I have something I must tell you, but I am terrified of how you might react, you and Father. Please promise me that you will still love me after I have said what I must,” I said, my voice quaking.

I heard a muffled cry escape my mother, followed by the sound of a mixing spoon clattering to the floor, and I knew I had to say no more. For all her advice to me, for all her pleading and nagging, her worst fear had come true.

Nevin was made to hitch the horse up to the wagon again and go with my sisters to the Dales’ house on the other side of the valley, and stay there until our father fetched them. I was left alone with my parents in the darkening house, sitting on a stool in the middle of the room as my mother cried softly to herself by the fire and my father paced around me.

I’d never seen my father so enraged. His face was red and bloated, his hands white from clenching them into fists. The only thing that kept him from striking me, I believe, were the tears flowing down my face.

“How could you do it?” my father railed at me. “How could you give yourself to the St. Andrew boy? Are you no better than a common harlot? Whatever possessed you?”

“He loves me, Father-”

My words were too much provocation for my father; he lashed out and struck me hard across my cheek. Even my mother sucked in her breath in surprise. The pain radiated sharply from my jaw, but it was the rawness of his anger that stunned me.

“Is that what he told you? Are you stupid enough to believe him, Lanore?”

“You’re wrong. He really does love me-”

He drew his hand back to hit me a second time but stopped himself. “Do you not think he’s said as much to every girl who’d listen to him, to get them to give in to his desire? If his feelings for you are true, why is he betrothed to the McDougal girl?”

“I don’t know,” I gasped, wiping tears from my cheeks.

“Kieran,” my mother said sharply, “don’t be cruel.”

“It’s a hard lesson,” my father said back to her, looking over his shoulder. “The McDougals have my pity, and ’tis a shame for the wee Evangeline, but I’d not have St. Andrew for a son-in-law.”

“Jonathan is not a bad man,” I protested.

“Listen to yourself! Defending the man who made ye pregnant and hasn’t the decency to be standing here beside ye, giving your family the news!” my father bellowed. “I take it the bastard knows about your state-”

“He does.”