“Play something for her to sing along to,” Daniel said. “That’ll wake her.”
“Pff. She never sings.”
Still not singing? I frowned at Rachel.
She turned an unsmiling face to the crackling fire.
My hands trembled. I clasped them in my lap. Poor Rachel. What Mr. Linton had done to her wouldn’t fade as quickly as her bruises had. If only he could be made to pay for his crimes. How unjust the world was. Rachel’s sadness, her sufferings—they demanded I not leave the Genesee Valley yet. How could I disappear when she needed me most? “That’s because you’re not playing what she likes,” I finally said, desperate to bring back my former singing pal. “She’s an old-fashioned girl. Give her one of the traditional ditties.”
Holding his instrument like a mandolin, Phineas played pizzicato on the strings and grinned at Rachel. “I have a good tune for you, then, one I know you’ll appreciate. It’s all about a female’s fickleness, scorn, and cruelty.”
She gave him a look. “I can tell already I won’t like it.”
“Everyone likes it.” Observing her the whole while, he tucked his fiddle under his chin and began to play.
I recognized the song immediately. He was right: Everyone probably did love “Barbara Allan.” They certainly would if they heard him play it, slowly, poignantly, beautifully. By the end, we all looked affected.
“That one deserves a second playing,” Daniel said.
So Phineas started it again, and this time my betrothed lent his handsome, low voice to the arrangement, singing after the introduction, “‘It came upon a Martinmas day when the green leaves were a-falling. Sir James the Graham of the West Country fell in love with Barbara Allan.’”
Leaning forward intently, with eyes suspiciously bright and an expression that could only be called painfully enthralled, Rachel suddenly added her lilting soprano to the music, joining in with “‘He sent his men down through the town to the place where she was dwelling…’”
It was the only time I’d ever heard Phineas fumble in his performance. His bow tripped over the strings, but after a missed few beats, he resumed, playing even more passionately than before and now smiling, a smile of pure wonder.
Rachel Welds possessed precisely the kind of voice to warrant that smile.
The two foes married their talents, watching each other with probably just as much aching desire as the legendary Sir James felt when he looked upon Barbara Allan. After a few verses, Daniel joined in again. And I felt my own sensibilities caught, so much so that when Phineas neared the tragic end, I heard myself contributing with “‘Oh, Mother, Mother, make my bed, oh, make it soft and narrow! Since my love died for me today, I’ll die for him tomorrow!’”
Carried away thus, I didn’t realize until I reached the last word of the pitiful promise that I’d been given the chance for a solo.
Daniel bit back a smile and trained his gaze on the ground.
Phineas had stilled the bow in the air. He gaped. “Pretty voice,” he said after a lull, and abruptly lowered the bow. “You could sing in a boys’ choir.”
Pretty, indeed. From neck to ears, I felt a burning flush.
A sound escaped Rachel. She pressed her lips together and squeezed her eyes shut. But again, the sound repeated: a muffled grunt. She wagged her head furiously, and all of her shook—visibly shook.
She lost it. On a roar of laughter, she choked out, “Harry, Harry.”
Conspicuously bewildered, Phineas laughed weakly. “You mean Freddy. Hairy? Not hardly. The boy doesn’t even have his whiskers.…”
Rachel swiped at the tears streaming from her eyes, slapped her hands together, and fell sideways against me. “The evil silversmith,” she gasped through her mirth, “the engagement to me, a perfect stranger—oh, how, how can you be so stupid, Phin?”
Like one suddenly struck in the cheek, he whipped his head in my direction and jerked forward, as if to more closely examine me in the firelight. “Wait a minute. Are you—”
“Not Freddy,” Rachel laughed, then shocked the breath out of me by toppling me backward with the force of an unexpected embrace. “Harriet!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The three youngsters in the loft had had years to grow accustomed to their uncle’s fiddling and so slept through his entire concert. Rachel squealing my name, however, was not a habitual thing, and plucked them from slumber. It took all of her and my cuddling to settle them again. In the end, with her on one side of the children and me on the other, this endeavor lulled everyone. Sleep overtook us before Phineas could badger me about my disguise.
I didn’t start explaining the next morning, either. My brother’s continued absence at dawn eclipsed the Freddy’s-not-a-boy revelation. Where was Gid? That was the question on my lips as I peered around the foggy camp, then shook awake Daniel and our visitors, thrusting cups of coffee in their hands and urging their haste. Gid wouldn’t let his friends wallow in worry over him, not without an excellent reason. Rachel agreed, and even joking Phineas and practical Daniel couldn’t quite disguise their dismay. If something hadn’t happened to Gid, something might have happened to Marian. She was close enough to the end of her pregnancy to elicit concern.
Since Gid had taken his vehicle, the seven of us piled into Phineas’s wagon to investigate, and besides my divulged secret hanging over our plodding party like a curious cloud, nothing seemed changed from the day before. Along the newly widened road, we made our eastward way through wisps of mist, looking as we had twenty-four hours earlier. Every member of our entourage but the children now knew my true gender, but I still dressed as a boy.
The other great experience—that magical moment when Rachel succumbed to Phineas’s masterful playing and Phineas discovered Rachel’s equally masterful voice—might also not have happened. Neither said a word about it. If anything, they looked uncomfortable around each other. Maybe they didn’t know how to incorporate this development into their usual contentious exchange.
As we traveled, the sun began to shine through the fog like a fire beyond a veil, setting the woods aglow. The soft red light turned brilliant whenever it grazed the dewdrops that pearled bark and young leaves.
Soon, a brisk wind muscled up the fog. It was a good air to breathe, alive with rich soil, pitch, and growing things. I liked watching Daniel peer around him and take in the ancient woods: the impossibly thick trunks of trees and the wonderfully varied species of plants and animals. How many intricate ways so much life surely converged near our path, driven by need, fear, and hunger.
Daniel caught my gaze. “I’ll never see the like again.”
“No.” We wouldn’t in Middleton—and not here, either, not for long.
As soon as we rumbled into our friends’ yard, Gideon came to the cabin doorway, holding carefully (and definitely a little dazedly) a swaddled bundle against his chest.
We barely waited for Phineas to pull on the reins before we leaped out of the wagon.
Gid grinned at the approaching stampede. “Look what I did.”
I ran up the three steps to the door, laughing breathlessly, “Oh, did you make that?”
We crowded around the new arrival, and Gid stooped so the children could see, too.
“It’s as red as a crabapple,” Ephraim said.
“And not much bigger.” Phineas rose. He glanced over Gid’s shoulder. “My sister?”
“Just resting.”
Phineas exhaled.
We followed my brother inside.
Marian was half-hidden under blankets in the wall berth, but she was sitting up, knitting, and looking pleasantly peaceful, as if she’d merely sat down to rest rather than recently endured an exhausting delivery. At our arrival, she put aside the needles and yarn and smiled at our soft greetings and the children’s not-so-soft celebratory yips and kisses.
Behind them, Daniel wondered aloud, “Is that a robin’s nest in the bush?” When the children sped to the doorway, he urged them ahead of him, tossed a wink
our way, and escorted the wild ones out.
When the door closed, Gid shuffled past Phineas and presented the baby to Marian, his entire person radiating reverence.
She tucked the infant in her arms and kissed the downy head.
“Well, sister”—Phineas bent to bestow on Marian his own crown kiss—“what is it?”
“A baby.”
“Of any particular kind?”
“It’s a girl.”
“Ah.” Phineas smiled at me and bent again, this time to say in a stage whisper, “So is Freddy.”
Gid turned to look at me questioningly.
I rubbed the back of my hot neck and shrugged.
In a similarly dramatic voice, Marian said, “I know.”
Her brother straightened, disgruntled. “It would have been nice to let me in on the secret.”
“It wasn’t mine to tell.”
“Hmm.” He crossed his arms. “So, everything go smoothly?”
“As smoothly as possible.”
“Your sister…” Gid’s voice caught. He shook his head, his face alarmingly filled with emotion. “She’s amazing.”
Marian gave him an indulgent smile. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“That’s just it,” Gid said, very serious. “You could have. You truly could have. You had everything under control.”
I laughed. “Didn’t you help at all?”
“Well…” He glanced at Marian, obviously seeking permission.
She shrugged. She wasn’t missish.
Color seeped into his face, but his tone was quietly proud when he admitted, “I did catch the baby.”
“And cleaned the knife,” Marian said. “He cut the cord, too.” To Rachel and me, she added, “And never once turned squeamish or fainted.”
He beamed. “It was a miracle. The whole experience … miraculous.”
Phineas snorted. “Come now, Mr. Winter. Babies get born every minute of every day.”
Gid gave him a very un-Gideon-like look: disdainful, dismissive. Then his gaze fell on the infant girl. After a moment, he said in a voice rough with tenderness, “And every time it happens, it’s a miracle.”
Marian’s eyes welled. Maybe she wasn’t as calm and collected as I’d thought. She caught my brother’s hand and squeezed. “It is. You’re right. It really is.”
* * *
I had feared exposure for so long that, in preparation, I’d mentally rehearsed speeches to explain my foray into boyhood. For a long time at Phin and Marian’s, however, no one pried for details. It helped, of course, that so many of us were packed into the cabin and too busy to dwell on my escapade. Daniel constructed some long-awaited corner shelves as a gift to the mother, Rachel took over Marian’s housekeeping chores, I cooked dinner, and Gid traveled all the way to his homestead, then came all the way back, just to present Marian with the ingenious cradle he and Daniel had concocted: a hollowed-out half log that, of course, rocked naturally.
Meanwhile, Phineas, when he wasn’t playing with the three older children, resumed his irreverent teasing.
At one point, Rachel’s gaze met mine. She flared her eyes.
Phin’s jokes were getting old.
Rachel was leaning over the washing barrel, scrubbing the cast-iron kettle, her strong arms agitating the dirty water, when, out of the blue, Marian asked from the bed, “Why’d you do it?”
No need to ask what she meant by it.
Before I could answer, Rachel did. “She was sick of being a girl.”
Phineas sauntered over. “Sick of being female? I don’t blame her. What an awful fate. Hey—” He frowned at the dirty water stain Rachel had painted down his shirt with a slap of her washing rag. “This is my best shirt.”
“Go away,” Rachel ordered without looking at him. She was practically murdering the kettle with her scrubbing. “Or your best trousers are next.”
Later, when Phineas and I found ourselves alone outside the door, he said, “So Freddy’s really Harry. Not much of a difference there.” He selected three pieces of firewood from the stack on the landing.
“Harry’s short for Harriet.” I grabbed a handful of sticks from the kindling crate.
“Who likes to wear trousers. And Daniel Long, I presume, likes Harriet. When she’s wearing trousers or a dress?”
I smiled weakly. “Both, I guess.”
“And now Gideon likes Marian, I think because she reminds him of his mother. And Marian, who enjoys bossing everyone around, grown men included, might just like Gideon. And Rachel hates me because she’s decided to hate all men.”
“Or maybe because you act like an ass around her.”
He smiled sheepishly. “We’re deranged, every one of us. Doing things we shouldn’t.” He grabbed a fourth piece of wood. The armload already reached his jaw, but he was eyeing another piece. “Take my fiddling. Back home in England, my father—a hard man—put up with my playing as long as I was a boy, even encouraged it at times, liking how my musical bent proved useful at all the junkets, a talent to accompany the contra dances and cotillions. But he wanted me to give up playing when I turned sixteen, saw fiddling as a boy’s pastime, the sort of thing you only do as long as you fly kites and throw hoops. He ordered me to focus on the farm and set aside the instrument until I had a son to pass it on to.”
“So you moved?”
“So I moved. I knew I had to farm. But here I can do it however I see fit and keep my passion, too. I need music. More than I need a father’s approval.”
His words got me thinking about the Genesee Valley in a different way. Yes, it was the ideal destination for men like Gid—those New England second, third, fourth, fifth sons who wanted more than their meager inheritance back home would ever give them. But I wondered how many people pioneered for other reasons. Reinvention, escape from rules, freedom to make their own decisions. Or just the chance to be themselves. All of these reasons, they were mine, too.
“I think you did the right thing,” I said. “You should keep your music. It matters, if only because you decide it does. Plus, you’re very good at it.” I reached for the door but hesitated before opening it. “You’ve got that in common with Rachel. Too bad you two can’t get along.”
“Rachel.” He shook his head, then murmured quietly, slowly, and without a shred of humor, “Rachel Welds terrifies me.”
* * *
Marian shifted the infant to her shoulder and patted the tiny bottom until her daughter burped.
I smiled. The eruption sounded loud in the empty cabin.
My friends had maneuvered the other children outside again, to let their new sister sleep undisturbed for an hour. I’d stayed behind to make Mama’s bread dough, so it could rise sufficiently for baking. It was a good recipe. Tomorrow was Sunday, so there’d be no cooking. This would give the housemates some bread to go with their cold supper.
When I finished, I swiped the table clean, covered the bowl, and stowed it on one of the new corner shelves. The interior glowed rosily with the late light. Daniel, Gid, and I would need to leave soon if we hoped to reach the cabin before nightfall.
I perched on the edge of the bench. “You haven’t picked a name?”
Marian shook her head. “If she had been a he, I would have chosen Amos, after my husband.” She drew her daughter down to rest in the crook of her arm. “Maybe I’ll go with Eliza. That was my mother-in-law’s name.”
I fidgeted with the basket on the table, wondering about Gid, wondering about Marian, wondering about Gid and Marian. “I’m sorry about your husband. Do you … miss him terribly?”
“I miss him, for he was a good man: steady, honest, driven. But ours wasn’t a love match. My father wanted the union. I was very young. Sixteen. Too young.” She tucked the blanket more securely around the babe. When she glanced up, her expression was quizzical. “Did you run away to avoid a matchmaking parent?”
“No. I ran away…” How to explain this? “To be myself.” I shrugged. “Actually, I didn’t run away
at all. I left with our parents’ knowledge, then”—I ran a hand through my cropped hair—“changed along the way.”
“Our parents?”
“Gid’s and mine.”
“You don’t look anything alike.”
“He’s my stepbrother, but as good as a natural one. We’ve been siblings for as long as I can remember.”
She nodded, her face lightening with a smile. After a minute, she asked, “And Daniel?”
“Daniel,” I sighed. “Well, he’s kind of everything: our Middleton neighbor, the man everyone goes to for help and advice, my parents’ hoped-for son-in-law, my enemy for a bit, a man who can be aggravatingly competent, but now one of my best friends.”
Her smile widened. “In other words, he’s your beau.”
I nodded.
“A love match,” she mused after dropping her eyes to her baby. She didn’t need to see my expression to verify her conclusion. I supposed I’d sounded precisely how I felt. In love.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The following week was to be my last in the new territory. Though Daniel, Gid, and I respected the Sabbath, at twilight on Sunday we started the garden and worked well into the night by the glow of the stars and moon, squaring off a space, removing stumps, tweaking out the rocks that made up the earth in these parts, and improving the garden’s soil with manure.
The weather had turned warm and dry. High winds blew from the west. Under such favorable conditions, in Middleton, folks might have already prepared their fields. Our tardiness fretted my brother, who paced during meals and worried aloud about finishing the plowing. A man could never grow too much hay and corn. What if he didn’t end up with any? He needed to raise at least enough for the cattle’s bedding and feed.
While Gid and Daniel turned their attention to the field (one plowing like a bedlamite, zigzagging around stumps, the other digging out the worst of the great rocks and dragging them away on the stoneboat), I worked in the garden and planted the crops that could survive the late frosts. Mama had sent us on our journey with an array of supplies. I selected her pea and bean packages and sowed the seeds directly in the unctuous clay soil. Marian had given me some potatoes with rooting eyes, so I planted those, too, then gave everything a good drink of stream water.
The Beloved Wild Page 22