The tunnel he had dug was narrow. It was so snug that they lay pressed close together, and he drew her closer, seeking to wrap himself around her, to warm her with the warmth in him. She was cold in his arms awhile, shivering, with locked teeth; and he tore open the front of his shirt so that she lay against his breast. Her garments were wet and cold between them and he ripped them away till he and she were close as lovers, and he began to feel an answering warmth in her icy flesh. He drew her hands, as cold as some sluggish creature fresh lifted from the sea, between their bodies, and his arms circled her protectingly. She was woman, the mother, the giver of life; and he was man, the father. And they were alive. So long as they guarded and passed on the flame in them, man would not die.
From the deep springs of their two bodies life began to flow in a rising tide through their arteries. Life which forever renews itself thus renewed itself in them now. They were content to lie thus while life came back to them; but with life their strength a little returned, and he spoke at last.
‘Warm?’
‘Yes. But I thought I never would be warm again.’
‘We’re all right.’
‘Where are we?’
‘I don’t know. This is a haystack. There must be a farm near. I’ll find it in the morning.’ He held her closer. Without knowing he spoke, compelled by that sense of an eternal unity between them which their shared ordeal had imposed, he said: ‘I love you.’
In the darkness her lips, soft, warm, came to press his. ‘I love you, John,’ she answered, between kisses. ‘I love you too.’
5
AFTER that night when her
father died, and again after the long ordeal of Isaiah’s illness, Jenny herself had been for weeks half-sick from nervous exhaustion. It was to be so with her now. Even when they were warm, she still shivered in those long crescendos, like a dog shivering in its sleep, till John thought the spasms of her small body in his arms would shatter it as a glass by vibration may be shattered.
‘B-but I’m not c-cold,’ she assured him. ‘I’m all right, really I am. I’m just so dreadfully t-tired!’
Even when she slept at last, close against his breast, her soft breath warm on his throat where her face was buried, she continued to shake and shiver so that he was full of fear for her. Day came and he saw light through the interstices of the hay, but for a long time he did not stir, reluctant to wake her, dreading to leave her while he went to hunt shelter for them both.
So they were still there together when at last he heard voices near. The wreck of the Mary Ann had been sighted at full dawn, and though the wind was high, boats crossed the sheltered inner harbor to look for survivors along Coetue. They found Cap’n Obed and old Willie Small; and they found Brock’s body where it lay on the beach near the wreck. The others, Arthur and Squid, they did not find; but they followed Evered’s tracks and Jenny’s and so came to the haystack in the marsh land at Coskata.
Before noon Jenny and Evered had been brought safely back to Nantucket town; but Jenny, weak and trembling, could not help herself at all, and when she was put to bed she clung to Evered’s hand and wept that he should think of leaving her and whispered pitifully:
‘I’ll die, John, if you ever let me go!’
‘I’ll never let you go,’ he promised. All the things Ephraim had told him were forgotten. The long ordeal of the night had fused them together; her very weakness bound him now. They were married late that afternoon, he standing by her bed as Isaiah had stood when she and the old man were married seven years before. They were married and then they were alone, and Evered held her in his arms, tenderly as a woman holds an ailing infant, all night long; and for days thereafter he never left her side.
II
They left Nantucket three weeks later. Jenny was still so frail that she must be carried aboard the New York packet. Evered had long since written Colonel Black, and he had an answer from the Colonel, congratulating him on his marriage.
‘I know Mrs. Poster only by reputation,’ he said, ‘but she is one of the most respected ladies in Bangor. And incidentally one of the wealthiest. You may count yourself a fortunate young man. Judge Saladine and Miss Saladine join me in congratulations, at once on your escape from death and on your marriage.’
He added generously that John need be in no haste to report to him, promised to be in Boston in February and said he would hope to see the young man there.
So they need not have gone to New York, but Jenny insisted on doing so. ‘We mustn’t forget Ephraim,’ she said. ‘Nor Ruth Green. Her baby will come in March, but there is still time if we can find him.’ And she added gravely: ‘I remember, too, some of the things Ephraim told you about me, so I want us to see him together, John.’
‘I was a fool to believe him,’ he confessed. ‘I don’t think I ever really did believe him, not even at the first. He was half-mad with drink that night, not knowing what he said.’
‘I hope we can find him—and help him find himself,’ she murmured. But they did not find Ephraim. In New York, Jenny was exhausted by the journey and unable to leave her bed; so John went alone to the address Mr. Richardson had given him. When he came to the place he was glad he had come alone. A negro woman admitted him with a bewildered giggle.
‘I dunno as dey’s any of de young ladies awake yit,’ she confessed. ‘We don’ have many gemmen call dis time o’ day.’
Evered asked for Mr. Poster. ‘I’m a friend of his,’ he explained. ‘I understood he lived here.’
Her white teeth flashed in a cheerful mirth. ‘Yas suh!’ she said with emphasis. ‘He sho did. He was de livingest man I ever did see—long as his money lasted. “Mistus Foah Poster” de young ladies called him! But he gone now.’
‘Do you know where he went?’
‘Tuh de bad place, I reck’n,’ the negress assured him. ‘He di’n’t look like he’d live long when he lef’ here. Tuk foah men to handle him, spite of his being so little and puny.’ Ephraim, she explained, had gone stark crazy, and the Madame sent for the police and they overpowered him and carried him away.
He thanked her, gave her money, and went to the authorities. Ephraim, they told him, had died of the horrors ten days before.
John did not at once tell Jenny this, afraid of the effect upon her of the dark news. She was terribly thin and frail, so that it made him wince to see her arms like sticks, her collar bone like a slender bar under her skin. For a while in Nantucket she had declined all food; and when at his tender urgency she tried to eat, her stomach refused to receive any nourishment.
‘I’m sorry, John,’ she told him in wistful apology. ‘I wish I could eat and get nice and plump for you. I’m not really a delicate woman, but it’s always this way with me when something terrible happens. It was so the night my father died, and it was so after Mr. Poster was sick. I’m truly sorry, darling, but I can’t help it.’
‘Don’t worry,’ he urged. ‘You’re alive, and you’re getting well, getting better every day. Soon you’ll be fine.’
‘I know how hard it is for you. I’m afraid I’m not a very satisfactory wife. But I will be, John, one day.’
‘Don’t worry about me,’ he insisted. ‘All I want is for you to get well.’
This was true enough. There was in him in these days of her weakness no ardent hunger, but only a clumsy tenderness and a yearning like prayer. Seeing her so weak frightened him, filled him with terrors he could not confess; and when he kissed her it was as gingerly as though she were a bubble which would vanish at the least touch. He never thought in these days of the things Ephraim had told him. They were forgotten, dismissed as the lunatic ravings of a madman. It was impossible that they could have been true of Jenny. Evered was no blind and fatuous lover; but in those hours of storm and wreck and death, Jenny had become a part of him and she was his wife. His wife-whatever she had done or should do—she would always be, to cherish and protect and to defend.
It was to protect her now that he concealed for a while the ne
ws that Ephraim was dead. Not till she was stronger, and not till her questions became insistent, did he at last admit the truth.
When she heard, she held fast to his hand, comforting him. ‘There, John. Poor John! I’m so sorry. He meant so much to you!’
‘I’m sorry for the poor girl.’
‘We’ll do everything we can for her,’ she promised. ‘Perhaps we can find some good man for her.’ She said thoughtfully: ‘We must go back to Bangor soon.’ He spoke of Colonel Black and his business in Boston and she nodded. ‘We’ll go to Boston, then, when I am stronger,’ she agreed, and smiled and said: ‘Perhaps it is just as well not to go home to Bangor right away. Some of the good people there may be critical of me because I did not wait longer after Isaiah died. But if I had waited without you, John, I would have died myself.’ And she asked: ‘Where will we live, John? Where will our home be?’
‘Where would you like to live?’
‘In Bangor,’ she admitted. ‘I always have lived there. But I will live where my husband decides.’
He laughed in a quick, happy pride. ‘I like the sound of that. You really are my wife, aren’t you?’
‘I’m going to be. Oh, John, I’m going to be the best wife ever was.’
‘Colonel Black wants me to live in Bangor,’ he told her. ‘So you’ll have your wish.’
Her eyes shone. ‘But John,’ she said, ‘may we build our own home—please? I don’t want to go on living always in the Poster house. I was never happy there—but I want to be happy all our lives, John, from now on.’
‘I want you to be,’ he said.
She was half-lying on the couch in their room. She lifted her arms, and he stooped to slip his arm around her and to kiss her lightly. She pressed her lips to his in a soft passion; but there was no strength in her, and she fell back and her eyes filled.
‘Oh, John, I’ve so little to give you!’ she whispered. ‘Will I be better by and by?’
He held her gently, comforting her while she lay contented in his arms.
III
It seemed to him afterward that from the day when he told her Ephraim was dead, as though she had dreaded seeing that lost young man again, she began to mend. The change at first was more one of the spirit than of the flesh; but though she was still so terribly thin that to hold her in his arms the still nights through awoke in him only a great tenderness and compassion, yet he had no longer the frightening sense of weakness in her, of a flickering flame which might go out at any time. Within a few days she began to be interested in clothes. Her own things had been lost on the Mary Ann, the garments she had worn that night were ruined, and the substitutes he had bought for her in Nantucket were drab makeshifts.
They’re as sober as my weeds,’ she told John gaily. ‘I want to go home to Bangor decked in finery like a bride.’ And she asked: ‘Am I wrong, John, to have married you so soon after Isaiah died?’
‘Never ask me if you’re right or wrong, Jenny. For me, whatever you do will always be right.’
‘I’m so glad we found each other. You know, John, I’ve always remembered the first time Ephraim spoke to me of you and told me how fine you were. I wanted to ask him so many questions about you, and I wanted him to invite you to Bangor, so that I could see you for myself. Was that wicked of me? I think I loved you already, John—even though I was really fond of Isaiah. The dear old man was always so good to me.’
She seemed to him like a child, depending on his opinions and advice as she depended upon his strength. He was required to consult with her about her purchases, and to approve everything she bought. She vowed that she would have nothing he did not like, but he found this was not strictly true. Once it was a bonnet upon which his opinion was demanded; and she donned it and faced him, radiant and smiling, and asked:
‘There, do you like it, John?’
He answered honestly: ‘Why—not very well. Not so well as the other.’
‘Oh, don’t you? Why not, darling?’
‘Well, isn’t it a little too—’ He tried to put his feeling into words. ‘Oh, do you really think so?’
‘I’m sure it’s not so becoming as it should be.’
She urged: ‘But John, don’t you like the color?’
‘Why, the color’s all right, but the shape . . .’
‘But don’t you see how prettily it is curved here, and the little ribbon bow there? Don’t you think that’s sweet?’
‘I really don’t like it, Jenny,’ he insisted.
‘But John, look! Look now and see it in daylight, here by the window. Sec how the shadow makes my face seem nice and round? See this, John. See that!’ And she turned to and fro before him, insisting that he admire the many virtues of this charming bonnet, persuading him to abandon one objection after another till he had admitted liking so many things about the bonnet that he could no longer pretend he did not like the whole. Then she kissed him gratefully and happily and cried: There, I’m so glad you like it! Don’t you just love it? I knew you would!’
He was amused by her, and delighted with her; and as with her quickening spirit her strength began to return, she put on day by day a vivid and compelling loveliness.
They came to Boston late in February, and though the journey fatigued her she was quick to recover. Colonel Black approved her highly, and Mrs. Black gave a splendid dinner in their honor. The gentlemen at table were all men of large interests, and the talk began with the French trouble. They conjectured whether France would grant the President’s demands that American claims for vessels seized by Napoleon be settled, or risk an American war; and that led to a discussion of the potential effect of war on business, and then suddenly, since every man there was interested in Maine lands, the speculative prospects were the only topic and everyone listened while Colonel Black predicted the imminent collapse of the churning land market in Bangor.
‘They’re trying to charter new banks there now,’ he said, ‘to issue bills, to provide money for this crazy gambling. I went to Augusta to listen to the debates.’ He chuckled. ‘It was worth the trip to hear Representative Washburn. He made a blistering speech on the motion to postpone one of the incorporations. He said, by the way, that if all such measures now up for passage are passed, the banks in Penobscot County can issue up to a million, three hundred and fifty thousand in bills. That’s absurd on its face. But then he went on to say that any man in Bangor thinks he ought to be permitted to start a bank if he can borrow fifty thousand in specie—the proposed laws require that sum to be paid in before discounts are permitted—and he said: “If we allow it, and there is fifty thousand hard money in Bangor, they will make the same fifty thousand do for each new bank, borrowing it from one another so that on Monday it will be the basis for incorporating the City Bank, and on Tuesday the Franklin, and Wednesday the Lafayette, and Thursday the People’s, and Friday the Penobscot, and Saturday the Stillwater Canal. Then on Monday, if no more banks want to incorporate, they’ll send the specie back to the actual proprietors.” ’
Even the ladies up and down the table laughed at this ironic exaggeration, and the Colonel went on; but John paid less and less attention to the talk. Watching Jenny in the candlelight, he felt his throat fill with delight in her. It seemed to him that these surroundings, the long table fine with linen and gracious with heavy silver and exquisite china, the hothouse flowers, the candles and the tinkling crystal prisms of the candelabra, the handsome gentlemen and the white shoulders of the ladies, combined to produce in his wife a bloom he had never seen before. Her eyes were glowing, her cheeks bright; and her low-cut gown revealed shoulders and bosom now well fleshed, where the bones no longer peaked the sunken skin. This transformation, it seemed to him, had come since they entered the Colonel’s door. Till today she had been—or had seemed to him to be—still weak and small and delicate, so that he was afraid to touch her lest his awkward strength bruise her tender softness. He realized now for the first time that she was no longer thin, but she was naturally small of stature and de
licate of mould. Certainly there was in her tonight no hint of the sighing invalid.
He watched her with a growing hunger, dreaming dreams the fulfilment of which till now, out of consideration for her weakness, he had deferred; he watched her till she met his eyes and met them fairly, and smiled at him with understanding and with promise too. So that night at last, when they were alone she came into his arms, holding him close, drawing down his head, kissing him in a new way, whispering breathless ardent words.
‘John, I’m well again. John, darling patient John, you’ve waited so long. Oh, John, I love you now.’
IV
In March they went to Freeport to see his mother; and Mrs. Evered, at first faintly ill at ease with Jenny, was quickly won. These two spent long hours together while John went to and fro about the town renewing old acquaintances, or talked long talk with his brothers; or he might sit with his wife and his mother, watching smilingly their happy talk together, watching Jenny more radiant and blooming every day, her health and strength long since restored by her deep draughts at the healing spring of their love.
Mrs. Evered told Jenny all the tales of John’s boyhood, those sometimes embarrassing reminiscences to which mothers cling so fondly and which they repeat over and over to the amused confusion of their sons; and Jenny told how she and John met on the Mary Ann. She brought alive for John things he had already forgotten.
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