by L. E. Waters
They reach the sanctuary of the weeping beech cathedral. I part the lush curtain of branches in order to enter the cool hideaway. The girls begin at once to climb the branches that hang so low they touch the ground. I run and jump on the highest limb I can reach, shimmy up the rest of the branches until I’m halfway up the massive tree, and finally have some sun shining down, dappling my face.
“John, no fair! You know we can’t reach you in these wretched skirts!” Julia cries, frustrated, as she nearly tears one of her petticoats.
Honora seems pleased on the first branch she climbs to and sits there sweetly, like a happy, fat sparrow.
Such joy buzzes through me—a feeling of such perfect contentment that I must live through it, create a perfect moment. I turn and swing my way down while reciting a poem I wrote the night before:
“How weak is my rage his fierce Joy to control.
A Kiss from thy body shoots Life in his Soul.
Thy frost too dissolv’d in one Current is run
And all thy keen feelings are blended in one.
Thy limbs from his Limbs a new Warmth shall acquire;
His passions from thine shall redouble their Fire
‘Til wreck’d and o’erwhelmed in the Storm of delight
Thine ears lose their hearing, thine eyes lose their Sight.
Here Conquest must pause tho’ it ne’er can be cloy’d
To view the rich plunder of beauty enjoy’d,
The Tresses dishevelled, the Bosom display’d,
And the Wishes of Years in a moment repaid.
A Thousand soft thoughts in thy fancy combine
A Thousand wild horrors assemble in Mine;
Relieve me kind death, shut the Scene from my View,
And Save me, oh save me, ere madness ensue!”
At the last line, I swing right beside Honora on the curved branch as Julia squeals in utter delight.
“Honora, will you have mercy on me and let me keep my sanity, sparing me the thought of another man who shall win you, by saying you will marry me one perfect day?”
“Oh, how horribly romantic! Under the weeping beech!” Julia claps in excitement. “Honora, you lucky girl! And how handsome he looks!”
Honora appears half so enthused, but even in such low light I see her bright green eyes sparkling, giving me some promise. She smiles. “It is so romantic, John, but we cannot eat romance, live in it, or raise children on it.”
“Oh, Honora, you have ruined the moment.” Julia plops to the ground in a circle of skirts, her shoulders hang in sympathy for me.
“Julia, you know father wouldn’t allow it. John would have to be more sensible.”
I take her hand and try to catch her eyes with mine. “I will be sensible. I have been working at my father’s horrid accounting house for months.”
“You say you feel compelled to join the army, since you despise accounting so.”
“Honora, if you promise to marry me, I assure you, I will be the last one leaving and the first one arriving. I will toil away in a sea of vapid numbers, swim through them, and bring some home to you. Please, I cannot imagine my life without you there, making every instant heaven at the sight of you.”
Julia has now perked back up and reels as Honora nods trustingly. I grab onto her in such a fever that we lose balance and fall to the soft-mulched ground, where I feel no pain of gravity.
Chapter 2
The heat is strangely oppressive this late in the day, making me drowsy and unable to stare at the endless, sterile numbers on my ledger any longer. My love for letters is as great as my disdain for digits. Sleep triumphs over eyelids that are far too heavy to hold up.
Honora stands before me at the top of a high cliff. She gives me a challenging stare with her dizzying eyes as a mist forms right in front of us. I smell the moisture just moments before we step into the cloudburst. Instantly, we’re soaked, and we both bring our arms up to catch the rain in our hands. The large drops pound our skin, and the rain makes rivers down the creases of our bodies. She is happier than I’ve ever seen her, and she starts to spin around. I open my mouth wide to catch the cold drops, and she laughs and copies me. Our games are stopped by a close bolt of lightning, followed by an ear-splitting crack of thunder. She laughs as I jump at the sound, and I quickly pull her under a rock ledge near us.
It’s just big enough to fit her small frame and mine. Since we can still watch the storm coming, she stays and, since it’s too dangerous to run now, I stay too. Even though the storm is beautiful, watching Honora watching the storm is far more so. I watch as the drips of rain run from her dark hair down her cheeks to her chin, or off her straight nose to land on her thin, pink lips. She doesn’t even notice me staring, since she is so enthralled by the lightning flashes. The air under the rock smells sweet from the water steaming off our warm bodies, and my knee tingles where it touches her knee. I feel so safe and happy under there with her.
The scene disappears with a flash of lightning.
I search for Honora again in the changed scene and, once I find her sitting on a pile of blankets, I hurry to sit beside her. Nervous, I find a flint rock in my pocket and rub my fingers over it. The flint pops out of my hand and lands between us. When I reach for it, she quickly bends forward and, giggling, shoves me out of the way to grab it up.
“Give that to me.” I hold my hand out, but she clutches it tight to her. “Give it back, or I’ll have to take it from you.”
She laughs and turns away, tucking herself around the flint. I wrap my arms around her and try to pry her hands open, but she thrashes around so I can’t take it. She then rolls up and runs off, and I quickly follow, enjoying her game. I catch flashes of her fringed skirt and almost capture her as she darts around some trees. I follow her swishing sound through the underbrush and come out to see her head bobbing in the sea of high, dry, winter grasses. I know I can catch her now and pick up my pace.
Quickly, I’m behind her and jump on her, bringing her down below the hay. She laughs and pants from all the running, and I grab her hand as she tries to hold it away from me. Pinning her down with my legs, I pry open her fingers, one by one, until the last stubborn two fingers clench over the flint. I bring her hand up to my teeth and threaten to bite them. She shakes her head as though she doesn’t believe I will. When I put them into my mouth she squeals, releases the flint, and pushes me off her. I secure the flint back in my pouch and lie back with my arms over my head in the grass, which looks like tall, tawny feathers from where I lie. The sky is a true blue with no interruption of clouds. She lies down beside me.
Another flash of lightning and I feel her in my arms. I look down to see Honora, limp and lifeless. As I hold her close, I kick the horse I feel between my legs, and we speed across golden, endless fields. I bring her up to the cliff where we were before. I stand there and shout, “Bring her another storm!”
I jump awake and realize I’ve fallen asleep on my ledger. A puddle of drool muddles some of my numbers. Why do I always have such dreams of Honora leaving me in some horrible way? Not being able to make sense of it, I wonder about the time. Hoping my watch has been running slow, I fish out Father’s gold watch and wind it as he did so many times before.
I catch my slumped posture in the mirror, which makes me straighten up. I’m disappointed with my reflection since I don’t look nineteen years. Although I’m slender and tall, taller than most men my age, I still have a boyish look to my face. I pinch my thick eyebrows slightly to see if it ages me at all and, as my dark brown eyes stare back, I still see but a child. My attention is so focused that I’m blinded to the woman staring at me from the walkway outside the window. Once my eyes switch past the second dimension of the glass, Mother throws her arms up and lets loose in French at such a volume I hear it through the thick panes.
She still fumes as she opens the door. “—Your father is looking down on you from heaven right now, kissing and gazing at yourself in the mirror, and saying, ‘This is no son of mine!�
�”
“Mother, I have been working all day. I only was distracted for that silly moment.”
“John André, your father has been dead for almost a year now.” She floats to the chair at the desk beside me with her usual aristocratic air and reproaches me with her swan-like charms, her fiery orange hair piled up in curls on her noble head. “You are not a boy; you are a man. The man of the house with your three sisters and small brother. We need you to take care of things.”
I nod, wishing she had only walked in earlier to see me working. “I will make you and father proud.”
She cheers up quickly, as she always does, and grins, her hazel eyes happy again. “My handsome boy.” She bends over and tousles my hair as she lights and flutters out the door in her many layers of lace and silk, leaving a calming trail of perfume behind her that always makes me feel five-years-old.
When I’m sure she has left, I take out from my shirt the portrait I’ve looked at a dozen times today already. Oh, how I wish I had put that gap in. Her smile seems foreign without her sweet imperfection. A house without a window. The night without stars. A ship without an anchor.
A clerk from the accounting house across the court catches my eye. He carefully locks the door and waves to those who remain in the adjoining house. My eyes set on one aged and hunched-over man, who seems permanently bent over his ledger. Not wanting to become this man, I spring up and grab for my keys, dreaming of seeing Honora before the setting of the sun.
I haven’t been to see her in two months. I need to seem dependable, and that illusion comes at the great price of exile from Litchfield. Julia has devoutly written me daily with sweet closings by Honora, as she isn’t a girl of letters. I live for each letter and reread every line, hoping it will transport me somehow to her space. But now I’m on my way, down the lanes that make my heart beat faster with every turn bringing me closer to that resting spot betwixt the hills, where a party is to be thrown and I will get to ask Honora’s father for her hand.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
I ride up to the large stone estate and hardly notice Julia call to me from the swing high under the tall ash, her ribbons rippling in the wind behind her. Not wanting to delay my reunion with Honora for a second, I give her a happy wave as I tie my horse to its hitch and run up the hundreds of stone steps to the mansion, pretending to ignore as Julia leaps off the swing and comes running to me. By the number of horses hitched, most young men were lucky to leave their work early. I’m instantly jealous of the couples already coming out for a stroll in the gardens as I hurry inside. An orchestra plays a minuet, and the servants rush to and fro, setting the tables and fetching refreshments for the guests.
I hear her everywhere and spin, trying to find where her laughter hails from. Finally, I spot her across the ballroom amidst a close group and recognize her small, delicate form under the bustles and bows that hide the shape I could make a dress for from memory. I shuffle through the crowd while keeping my eyes on her.
“John! I must speak to you!” Julia calls out, causing the couples around me to stir at the discord. I turn to appease her, and she runs up with an expression of sheer pain.
“What bloody well is the matter?” I say as I take her arms.
She glances down, away from my eyes. “Let us discuss this outside.”
I wonder why she would want to leave the room and immediately turn to look at Honora and, in one moment, I know. In an instant, my heart tears and spills its useless contents into what feels like the pit of my stomach, causing an immense rush of nausea. There, Honora laughs beside a stuffy, puffed-up man who stands far too close to her side. Without thinking, I let go of Julia’s arms and push faceless people out of my way. As I make a scene, Honora turns and intensifies the nausea that much more by seeking shelter under that man’s arm. Julia tries to pull me away, but it’s like a mouse pulling on my coat sleeve.
“Honora.”— It comes out horribly choked—“Can we please go outside to talk?”
She actually just shakes her head as though I’m someone she’s never spoken to, let alone promised her children to.
I reach out to touch her arm, and the man, who has the face of a carp, grabs hold and interrupts my contact as though I’m some sort of leper, contaminating his property. He releases me with a look of warning.
I stand there like a fool and ask, “Is not this party for us?”
The empty-eyed man scoffs at my pathetic display, and I can’t move my feet. To flee the room I have to turn my despair into anger, or I fear that I will never budge from that spot. I look at the most beautiful thing in my world as she easily, oh, so easily, averts her eyes. Deciding not to see me anymore, she pushes me out of existence, just like that. She only looks upon him now.
Afraid I will forget to breathe, I push my way back out and knock into an unfortunate servant carrying a tray of glasses. Nothing could have looked more tragic and humiliating. A terror I wish I could wake from. Stomping over the servant, I fling my way through the terrace doors and out into the garden, where I desperately try to find a place to collapse.
The weeping tree.
I’m there in moments, and I fall to my knees and cry, amazed I held it back so long. I hear the rustle of the leaf curtain and desperately hope when I turn Honora will be standing there, but no, it’s Julia.
“John, I tried to tell you before you went in—”
“Oh, how fantastic! Why didn’t you tell me in your letters, Julia?” I shout, far too loudly.
She begins to cry too. “I hoped she would have come to her senses by now.”
I let out a pitiful, unmanly cry, and she puts her small arms around my back. “She is such a fool, and one day she will taste it.”
I get up and try to remove all traces of my childish cry.
“Where are you going?”
“I have to leave this place.” I break out of the weeping tree world.
Julia emerges behind me. “Stay with me, John. We can go wander the whole night in the gardens and quote Shakespeare.”
I turn, realizing she is in sad distress also, and I take her sweet shining face in my hands and kiss her forehead. “I am going away, Julia, but I will write you, my loyal little bird.”
“But she will grow tired of his dullness soon, and you must know under the most challenging opposition the heart always triumphs!” She tries desperately to stay optimistic.
“I have endured enough for Honora. Let carp-face endure now. I bid you adieu, for this heart seeks out kinder, military glory.”
Chapter 3
After twenty-eight miserable days, a sailor calls out that the harbor is near, and the men scuttle about the deck preparing to dock. America is close at hand and, after the uncomfortable journey, I’m anxious to get off the infested ship and into a nice, mediocre tavern. Something about ships on the open ocean makes my breath hard to draw in and seeing the shores on both sides allows me to breathe easier. Each night since leaving port, I dreamed of the ship coming to pieces in rough water and small children with a little white dog struggling for their lives in black water. I wake up each time in a fevered sweat.
However, there lies the land that is under such distress presently. A civil war has broken out, and I’m eager to be part of the army that suppresses it, helping to save the colonies for the King. I take my journal out and read over my latest entries, all reliving the pain I tried to leave behind in London and suddenly worry that I have put a whole ocean betwixt me and Honora. I write,
“I urged the land, in phrensy’d mood
To follow with the tide;
And, as the land more backward stood,
The river’s course I chide…
Despair’d, I stagger’d from the strand
And sought this silent grove
Where these sad lines my fault’ring hand
Has pencil’d unto love.”
I hurry to gather my things and stand on the deck, waiting to finally step off the ship. The influence of the Dutch rema
ins in the architecture and layout of the city, far after New Amsterdam became New York. The houses are impeccably kept, even after some of the Dutch returned to their homelands. The tall, narrow, red-and black-bricked houses with red tiled roofs line the city along the Hudson. Their gable ends face the streets without the roof extending over the front but over the sides, with the front and back supporting the house like book ends. Most are decorated with fancy weathervanes, initials, or dates of construction. Each house has a front stoop with two opposing wooden benches, where some of the families sit and say hello to passersby. Big, shiny brass knockers hang on every Dutch door, some left top-half-open to keep out the livestock that roam the street at will. Young boys at leisure spin tops with whiplashes whenever the streets clear of carts.
My head fills with images of the glory of rescuing down-trodden citizens in the midst of war. Sumptuous palaces rise to receive me. I see orphans, widows, painters, fiddlers, poets and builders protected and encouraged. As I hold my head up high and walk through the colonial streets, I’m taken aback by crude looks of disgust, and one delightful woman scraping a scalded pig stops her task to spit thickly on my boots. I follow the enlisted men I’ve traveled with to an ample Dutch-style inn.
Upon entering the dark, wide-beamed room, my eyes adjust to see the room is crowded with British soldiers, all in pristine uniform, playing backgammon and smoking pipes, while a few tired dogs take rest on the cool hearthstone. The brick fireplace is bordered by the most beautiful blue-and-white painted Dutch tiles featuring Biblical scenes, and the mantle tree is bordered with a pleated crisp, white linen valance. Richly carved furniture is painted in bright colors, lending a cheerfulness to the room despite the dreary look of those who occupy it. An old fiddler plays pub music in the corner, and I take a seat beside a man with a half-empty mug.