by Sara Donati
“Those are all the children,” Katherine repeated. “From the village,” she added.
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow and waited, for it was clear that Katherine had something else to say.
“There is one more name I haven’t given you, because that child doesn’t live in the village; she lives with her family on the other side of Half Moon Lake, up on Hidden Wolf Mountain.”
Elizabeth made ready to write. “I would like to have her name,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to exclude her if she would like to come.”
Again Katherine hesitated. “I am surprised you don’t know of her yet.”
“Why would I know about this little girl?” Elizabeth asked, puzzled.
“Because she is Nathaniel Bonner’s daughter,” Katherine said.
Elizabeth smiled thinly. “His daughter?”
“Her name is Hannah. A bright little thing.”
“Mr. Bonner is unmarried,” Elizabeth said, and then wished she had not, because Katherine was looking at her with a kind of understanding that made Elizabeth uneasy. “Perhaps I misunderstood him. No matter.”
“Everyone calls him Nathaniel,” Katherine said easily. Then, without prompting: “She died in childbed,” she said in a low tone. “In spite of everything Cora Bonner and Curiosity and Dr. Todd could do for her. Nathaniel has never recovered. She came down with a fever, you see—”
“How very sad,” Elizabeth interrupted her gently.
Katherine dropped her eyes, perhaps to hide the eagerness there. She knows it is unseemly to gossip, thought Elizabeth, but she can’t help herself.
“Nathaniel’s mother-in-law keeps house for them since his mother passed on,” Katherine volunteered, her voice trailing away reluctantly. With a nervous smile, she looked up at Elizabeth.
“Did my brother say where he was going?” Elizabeth asked suddenly.
There was a little sigh from the younger woman—relief? Disappointment? But Katherine followed Elizabeth’s lead and put the subject of the Bonners aside. “An appointment in the village, he said. Let me tell you, Elizabeth, although I would not say it to him, that it is truly wonderful to have a young man of fashion and taste in Paradise.”
Elizabeth smiled at this description of her brother. “What about Dr. Todd?” she asked. “He seems a very likely young man.”
Katherine reddened and sat back to sip at her tea. Elizabeth saw clearly that she had disconcerted her visitor. Now it is my turn to want more information than is seemly, Elizabeth thought. A good lesson.
In the early evening her father came to find her where she read in the study, all excitement about the coming party and eager to share his enthusiasm with her.
“Well, Lizzie,” he said, trying very hard to appear solemn. “What are you wearing this evening?”
Elizabeth put down her paper and quill and looked up at her father where he paced back and forth before the fire. At more than sixty he was still a very fine looking man, with an imposing figure, a high forehead, and a mane of gray hair bound at the nape of his neck with a simple black band. Powdered wigs were going out of fashion, and he had been quick to give them up; his full head of hair had always been a point of pride. Her father’s color was very high, Elizabeth noted, and she wondered about his health, although she was pleased to see that he was in good spirits.
“Do I need to change, Father?” she asked, looking down at herself.
“What!” he cried out. “Gray for a party?”
Elizabeth smiled. “I usually wear gray, Father, but I have another gown which might please you better. I will wear that.”
“Good!” he said, satisfied. “I want to show you off this evening.”
She hesitated. “Father, I hope you will not think me forward, but I have invited Mr. Bonner and his son to the party. So that we can discuss the building of the schoolhouse.” Her father had no objection to this, she could see, and so she continued.
“I am very much looking forward to meeting all your friends,” she said. “But I would like to remind you that I have no intention of marrying.”
The judge drew up, surprised, and turned to her with his hands clasped behind his back. His lips pursed, he considered his daughter for a long minute, until Elizabeth began to grow uncomfortable under his gaze.
“This cannot possibly surprise you,” Elizabeth said finally. “I have been honest with you from the beginning.”
“I would like you to marry,” her father said shortly. “It would be a comfort to know you well provided for beyond my death.”
“I have some money of my own,” Elizabeth said. “You know that. I will never want for basic necessities. And when one day you are gone—I don’t foresee that in the near future, but when that day comes, then I hope that my brother will be of assistance to me. He will not lack for material wealth.”
The judge frowned. “You have more faith in your brother’s ability to put his past behind him than I do,” he said. “If he manages to reform, you may be right. But who knows what will happen? No, I would be remiss not to take your prospects and your best interests into consideration, my dear. And there is the matter of the land. The stewardship of this land is something I take very seriously indeed.”
Elizabeth hesitated. “I do hope that Julian will keep his promise to you and to me,” she said. “I think the repercussions of his actions are clear to him, finally, and I hope that the lesson will stay learned. He is capable of learning how best to manage the family holdings. He is certainly interested.”
The judge gave a short wheeze of impatience. “You cannot build your future on your hopes for your brother. You need someone else to depend on, once I am gone.”
“I trust that I shall always be able to depend upon myself,” said Elizabeth with what she hoped was a disarming smile.
The judge walked up and down the room once, his hands crossed on his lower back. “Elizabeth, what kind of father would I be if I didn’t make provision for you?” He seemed to consider, and then strode to his desk. From his waistcoat pocket the judge took a small key, and opening a drawer he took out a piece of paper. Squinting a bit, he looked it over, and then he came to Elizabeth and put it in her hand.
“ ‘Deed of Gift,’ ” Elizabeth read aloud.
The judge was looking very satisfied with himself. “The original patent,” he said. “All of it, which includes Hidden Wolf. A thousand acres, my dear. For you. The rest of the property—another two thousand acres—is meant for your brother, of course. One day, when he has proven himself. It has been my life’s work, and it is my primary concern to maintain the family holdings together and in trust for my children, and generations to come.”
Confused, Elizabeth looked up at her father, and then down at the document again.
“… said property and all leases and improvements upon it to the only use and behoof of my said daughter Elizabeth Middleton, her heirs and assigns …”
“But why?” Elizabeth said. “Why now, and in this manner? This is surely highly unusual.”
“I thought you would be pleased,” the judge said, a little affronted.
“Father,” Elizabeth began. “Please do not think me ungrateful. I simply don’t understand what would move you to do something like this.”
“It is not so unusual,” said the judge, “to want to see your property well disposed of, in the capable hands of trustworthy children.”
Elizabeth wanted to take her father’s words at their face value, to believe that she had his trust. But he would not meet her eye, and he began to gnaw on the stem of his pipe quite ferociously.
“It is unusual to pass valuable property into the hands of an unmarried daughter,” she said. “I could do with it as I please, after all.” Then she looked at the deed once again. A wave of understanding washed through her and left her feeling hollow.
“You haven’t signed it yet,” she said. “And it isn’t witnessed.”
The judge rocked back on his heels. “I will sign it before witnesses on the day you m
arry.”
Startled, Elizabeth rose from her seat. “And whom do you have in mind for my husband?”
“Richard Todd,” her father answered simply. “I thought that was obvious. It is an excellent match, Lizzie. Together you will have some five thousand acres. Not as large as some of the patents to the west, but sufficient. You shall be well provided for, no matter what foolery your brother gets up to with his lands once I am gone. Richard can be entrusted to look after Julian’s interests as well as yours.”
Elizabeth’s knees were trembling. For a moment she thought she might be truly ill. How could she not be, with this bitter pill her father was asking her to swallow. She had come so far, and had such hopes of another life, only to find that he had been bartering away her freedom before she had ever had a chance to experience it. And for this he expected her admiration and gratitude. It was too much to bear, and yet she must, if anything was to be salvaged. She folded her hands tightly together and gave her father a look she had learned from her aunt Merriweather, the one reserved for the most outrageous of men’s endless maneuverings. “I wonder that you think I am so dim-witted that I wouldn’t see through this ploy.”
“There is no ploy,” the judge sputtered. “What have I done but to offer you almost half of my most valuable holdings?”
Elizabeth shook her head with such force that her hair began to slip from its pins.
“A married woman cannot possess land. If you sign that on the day I marry, the property goes almost directly to Richard Todd. It is not for me, but for yourself and for him that you are doing this. You must esteem him very highly. Or perhaps you fear him?”
“I am doing it for you,” the judge fairly roared, waving the paper in her face. “A husband is someone who will look after your interests. If I die and all my property goes to your brother, he will gamble it into nothing in a year. I have spent my life building this village out of wilderness and it will all be for naught, and then where will you be?”
“Where I am right now, with a little money of my own and no property,” said Elizabeth, raising her voice to speak over her father’s blustering. “If you really wanted to show your concern for me and protect me from Julian’s excesses, you would sign that deed today, and trust me to marry or not according to my own best interests.”
There was a silence while Elizabeth watched her father stalk away to lock the deed in his desk.
“There is more at stake here than you are acknowledging,” she said. “Is there some financial problem I don’t know about?”
“None that concerns you,” he said shortly.
“I would say that it concerns me if you are trying to marry me to a stranger in order to resolve your difficulties,” Elizabeth responded.
He spun toward her, and she saw the ticking of a pulse in his cheek.
“Have I struck too close to the truth, Father?”
“I have had some bad luck with an investment,” the judge said slowly. “That I will not discuss with you.”
“Well, then,” Elizabeth said. “If Richard Todd is so keen to have more land, sell the thousand acres to him. I would hope that would provide the liquidity that you lack, and there would still be two thousand acres for us, surely enough to live in comfort.”
Her father flushed so deep a red that Elizabeth was alarmed.
“I have spent thirty years,” he began, his voice wavering. “I have invested my life in this land. I will not sell it, not at any price. I am asking you to consider Richard’s offer of marriage, because it would keep the property in the family, and resolve my difficulties. But I am also convinced that Richard would be a good husband to you and look after your best interests.”
“It is very unfortunate,” Elizabeth began in a tone that was calmer, but clear and resolved, “that we must argue on my first day here. But I hope you will do me the favor of believing me when I tell you that I will never consider marrying Dr. Todd. I could not marry someone who keeps slaves. Even if I loved him, I still could not marry him. My conscience would not allow it.”
“He is the right husband for you,” her father said. “If you were more sensible, you would see that.”
There was a moment’s silence as Elizabeth struggled with her temper. “Then I am not sensible,” she said. “But I will not act against my conscience.”
“There’s no other man suited to you in station or property for many miles.”
“You will not sell your property, but you will sell your daughter, have I understood you correctly?”
“You are impertinent!” he sputtered. “I would have expected that my sister might have done a better job with you—”
“Do you care, Father, about what I want?”
“I care about your welfare.”
“Listen to me. What I want is independence. It is ‘the grand blessing of life, the basis of every virtue; and independence I will never secure by contracting my wants, though I were to live on a barren heath.’ Do you know who wrote that?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” the judge said, exasperated.
Elizabeth picked up the slim volume she had been reading when he found her and she handed it to him. “Mrs. Wollstonecraft. A Vindication of the Rights of Women.”
The judge looked down at the volume in his hand and then shook his head. “You are being influenced by this, by this—”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “I have been influenced by these writings. But no more than you have been by the writings of Thomas Paine.”
The judge dropped the book on the table. “The Rights of Man cannot be compared to this drivel.”
“You haven’t read Mrs. Wollstonecraft, how can you know?” Elizabeth said impatiently. And then seeing that she was not going to sway her father, Elizabeth stopped and tried to gather her thoughts.
“Keep your property and your gift of deed. If you will sign it only on my marriage to Richard Todd, then it will never be signed. If you continue to attempt to force me into an alliance which I do not want, I will go back to England and take up my old place in the home of my aunt Merriweather.”
The judge’s jaw dropped. “You would not.”
“I would. I came here to be free of the restrictions I lived under in England. If there is no freedom for me here, there is no reason to stay.”
Elizabeth gathered her writing materials together and made her way to the study door.
“I’ll leave the book with you,” she said. “In case you care to read any of it. Now if you will excuse me,” she said, “I have to make myself ready for your party.”
· · ·
The parlor was cleared of most of its furniture; only chairs remained in little groups of threes and fours, and a long table laid with gleaming linen and good plateware, onto which Curiosity and her daughters had piled food of every possible kind. The room was lit with beeswax and bayberry candles and a collection of pewter lamps. Although it was full dark outside, even at five, the room was as bright as midday.
Elizabeth went about her duties as hostess as she had been trained to do since her earliest girlhood, making sure that everyone was well supplied with food and drink, that no one was without a conversation partner for long. She smiled and nodded and answered questions as they came to her, but she was terribly distraught and sometimes felt that everyone must see this clearly on her face.
It was her father’s duplicity which lay heaviest on her mind. Elizabeth could not look at Richard Todd, who smiled at her kindly and was helpful in every way, without thinking that he and her father had schemed together behind her back to plan a marriage she did not want and could not countenance. It was hard to be civil under such circumstances; it was harder to pretend that nothing was amiss. All of her plans were in peril.
And Nathaniel had not come. She was surprised, and a little hurt, and then distressed at her own reaction. She could not deny to herself that she was attracted to him, but she also knew that it was an inappropriate preference, one of which her father would not approve.
Unli
ke Elizabeth, Julian seemed to be completely amused by his surroundings; everything was to his liking, nothing could be improved on. There were pretty girls: Elizabeth watched him flirt outrageously with Katherine Witherspoon and with Molly Kaes, a young woman who ran her father’s farm; there were games and dances and absurd behavior to make light of. There was very little to occupy him except the things he liked most; he did not take note of his sister’s distress. Elizabeth knew her brother too well to expect anything else.
Every man in the room seemed to want to have a conversation, from the toothless Mr. Cunningham to Mr. Witherspoon, the minister. There were three or four young men who seemed to be unattached, and who followed Elizabeth with their eyes wherever she went. This was something unaccustomed for her, as she had grown up with three prettier cousins. Elizabeth had long resigned herself to spinsterhood; in fact, she found certain promises and comforts in the idea, and she was not pleasantly surprised or flattered by this unexpected and unwanted attention. She did not believe that these men were interested in anything but her father’s holdings. But she managed to deflect their advances without hurting many feelings, by gesturing to the guests she must greet and look after. Only Richard Todd was truly persistent; he would not be put off and followed her around the room until she realized she must spend at least a few minutes talking with him.
Dr. Todd wore an expensively cut coat of deep blue with brass buttons, and a stock of linen and lace at his throat. His breeches were perfectly skintight and showed not a wrinkle from the floral waistcoat to the knee. He had trimmed his beard and cut his hair and his manners and address were everything polite and refined. He complimented Elizabeth on the brilliancy of her complexion, on the beautiful simplicity of her deep green gown, and on the wonderful table. She accepted some compliments graciously, disavowed any credit for preparations for the party—never letting him see that it was not a compliment to assume she had been busy in the kitchen. He worked very hard at presenting himself as a gentleman, and she did not want to embarrass him.
“You are an admirer of Mrs. Wollstonecraft,” Richard Todd said when a lull had come once again into their conversation. “I saw your copy of Vindication and your father told me you had lent it to him.”