Patience & Sarah

by Isabel Miller

  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.

  The anchor chain came rumbling up, and considering what interesting things the sailors would start doing I asked Patience, “Would you like to go up and watch?”

  “No,” she said. “I want to think.” I
figured it was likely her brother she had to keep marveling over, so I left her there and went up by myself.

  And it was a sight, how the sails unwrinkled and caught the wind and the dock slipped away and the town. I began to not want to see it after all, though, with Patience missing it, so I went back down the steep little stairway and started through the little passage.

  There was a finely dressed man there that I couldn’t easy get past. He was friendly and real smiley glad to see me so I smiled too and said, “I been up above seeing how they run this thing,” and he said, “Are you alone?” And I said, “Oh, no, I’m with a lady.” He said, “Perhaps we’ll meet in New-York,” and to be polite I said, “Perhaps,” and then he crowded over against the wall to let me past and I started past and when I was between him and the other wall, he grabbed me.

  Well, there wasn’t room enough in that little narrow passage to use any of what I knew about fighting and making a throw and all that, and anyway he had my arms pinned. I said, but not loud (I would’ve been shamed to be found like that), “Let me go. Let me go,” and he said I liked him, he knew I did, and why should I play I didn’t? I said I didn’t like him, and I upped with my knee to knee him but I missed because he bent away and it only made him laugh and ask where I learned that little trick? And would I really do harm to the Lady’s Best Friend he had inside there? He said he liked a fish that fought and he wouldn’t let it interfere with our friendship that I didn’t agree right away with him on every detail. He said when I came to my senses he’d give me his card so I’d know where to find him whenever I could get away from my mistress.

  I though somehow he knew that Patience was my lover, because that’s a word, mistress, that’s used for that, I think, and it made me kind of weak and nervous, shocked to tell the truth, so I stopped struggling for a little second and he thought he had me so he eased off a little. I nearly broke away, but he got a new hold on me, and I began to think I’d have to do all I could. But I didn’t want to break his foot or bite his throat, and while I was studying if I might have to, I heard Patience say, very cold and furious, “Let her go.”

  Which, just like that, he did, and he picked up his hat so he could have it to take off for Patience, and he bowed but she was giving him a glare I’d’ve died if she ever gave me, and he felt it too, though not the same, naturally.

  She touched me to send me ahead of her along the passage. I heard her coming along behind me. “You’d better keep an eye on that one, ma’am,” he called. “You notice she wasn’t calling for help, ma’am.”

  She didn’t answer him. I heard her coming along behind me, not fast or slow. I wanted to go fast, myself, but I didn’t want to leave her alone with that man either, even though I kind of knew he wouldn’t lay a hand on her. It shamed and scared me clear to my shoe soles to think there was something about me that made him think he could do to me like he did. I don’t see how I could’ve felt much worse if he’d out-and-out humped me, I felt that much soiled, but the worst was feeling I’d brought it on myself somehow.

  Then I thought of something worse yet, which was that Patience would think I’d brought it on, and think I was soiled. By the time we had the door of the Ladies’ Cabin shut behind us, I was so choked up and dry in the mouth and nervous in the stomach I thought I might fall down.

  She stood with her back against the door. I couldn’t look at her. I sat down on the bench and put my hands over my face.

  “Did he hurt you, angel?” she asked.

  I never heard a word so beautiful as that “angel” right then, but my voice shook anyway when I said, “No.”

  “If he did, I’ll kill him,” she said, so quiet.

  “He didn’t hurt me. Just my pride.”

  She knelt and took my wrists but didn’t pull my hands down. She said, “Are you weeping?”

  “No. I’m blushing.”

  “Oh, I will, I’ll kill him. I’ll buy a gun and blow his foul head off.” Then she called me words like innocent and pure and her lamb and her treasure, that sounded so sweet coming at a time when I needed them so much.

  She stood up beside me and held my head snug against her front. I felt her hand under my chin and let her tip my face up.

  “Did he kiss you?”

  “No.”

  There was so much pain in her face I almost couldn’t look at her, and then I saw coming over her the feeling we’d had before but hadn’t had for weeks lately, from worrying and being watched and being scorned and all, and from her promising her brother we wouldn’t in his house. I felt she could kiss me again the way she used to, except this would be fiercer and not careful about anything and how could it stop and what would become of us? I bowed my head.

  She said, “Kiss me!” but luckily I didn’t want to right then. If we’d both felt the same, I just don’t know what.

  I stood up, saying, “Not yet. Not here,” and I walked around. I felt almost all right, to think that Patience had her feeling back. I always knew my own feeling would come back, but I did have some little doubt about hers until right then. How it turned out, my doubt was foolish, but who could’ve said ahead of time we wouldn’t just be friends and partners the rest of our time together and never have our glory again? Once your heart’s gone dead from being scorned, nobody can say for sure it will ever grow back. Maybe it was mean-spirited to walk around feeling better when Patience was still getting herself in hand about the kiss she couldn’t have, but it’s what I did.

  I also felt comforted to know she’d take my part even when I wasn’t entirely in the right. Then I thought maybe she didn’t realize I wasn’t, and I felt obliged to say, “Maybe something I did made him think – a fine-dressed gentleman like that.”

  “He’s a scoundrel and a rascal and a stinking lout and a monster!” She stopped and then said, “What did you do?”

  So I told her everything that happened except I couldn’t stand to tell how he called her my mistress. But everything I did myself, I told, and from how hard it was to tell some parts I could see for myself where I gave him ideas. Patience didn’t even have to say. I was afraid she would anyway, but she didn’t.

  I looked at her face to see if she was still on my side. She had a new expression, like she couldn’t decide if I was mostly hopeless or mostly dear. The way her eyebrows peaked together in worry seemed to say hopeless, but her eyes said dear, and her little shut-mouth smile and her hand holding mine said the same. I figured the verdict was mostly dear.

  She said, “I shouldn’t have let you go alone.”

  I said, “I hope we’re not to tag each other every step the rest of our life!”

  “No. Just when there are men about, and no other women.”

  I said, “But I talked to men all my life. I like men. They know what’s going on. They told me about Genesee.”

  “In our country, they all knew you had a huge father strong enough to strangle a bear. We’re not in our country now.”

  “But last summer I wasn’t either, and nobody bothered me like that.”

  “Last summer you were a boy,” she said.

  Then I remembered how Parson sort of bothered me like that, a little bit, not really the same. I thought it was no time to tell Patience so, in case it made her hate him too, right when I was looking forward to getting a look at him again soon.

  She looked very worried and in a little while she said, “It may be that one must be a male, or be owned by one, not to be their natural victim.” She sighed, so sad. “It may be that there’s no place on earth for women who refuse to bend their necks to be the wards of males – neatly transferred from father to brother to husband to son to grave.”

  I never said that so fancy, but it was what I was trying to tell her when I wanted to stay on like before. Still, now we’d started I didn’t want to go back, and I didn’t want her thinking like that now. The time for thoughts like that was past.

  “I may hate men,” she said, sort of surprised at herself.

  But I remembered Parson
was a man, and Edward White maybe didn’t have the warmest heart but he wouldn’t jump on somebody in a passageway either. I pinned Patience down to admit she didn’t hate them all, but just that one. And we agreed about him.

  “I despise him,” she said.

  I said, “He took his hat off to you.”

  “Which had fallen off in his struggle with you! Oh, I may kill him after all!”

  I had an idea. “No, Patience, listen!” I said. “Don’t you see, it was me. He thought he could, somehow. But you he took his hat off to. Because you’re a lady and I’m not.”

  “I’m not a lady. I’m an ordinary country woman. I milked my cows. I forked away their dung. I helped in the fields at harvest.”

  “No, you’re different. Didn’t everybody say so? And when I come back last fall, everybody sounded strange to me, how they talked, but you. Because you talk like Parson and them. I’m used to it now, but then I could hear it.”

  She smiled a little. “So there’s a use at last for what Miss Amelia taught me. Scoundrels tip their hats.”

  “Well, wouldn’t you druther?”

  “I druther be like you – ”

  “Do I sound like that?”

  “ – and have no difference made between us.”

  “Well, that’s what I mean. Teach me!”

  She said, “I can’t. I love you the way you are. I can’t bear to – imply – that you need to be – brought up – to some – false – I can’t, Sarah. It would destroy our love.”

  I said, “Why, honey, I know my worth. I’d never dast’ve courted you unless I did. I don’t say how I am is lower. It just gets me in trouble out here. There’s ways I need to know, like I needed reading, and it don’t mean you think you’re a princess if you show me.”

  I know how short a time ago I was moping because she wouldn’t let me carry the trunks. It shows how deep that man scared me, how fast I changed my tune.

  She said, “I’ll tell you what. You stay here and I’ll go up on deck, and if I can get back without being indecently approached, I’ll teach you all Miss Amelia taught me.”