She wrenched free, crying out for him to let her go. He held her in his powerful hands and turned her toward himself. He felt her resistance weaken as sobs, thick and deep, rose in her throat. He thought she was choking, strangling, and so held her away, searching her face.
Her eyes were closed, her mouth open, anguish written in bold letters in the way her eyebrows were drawn down. It was as if the pain in her soul would render her unable to breathe or to live.
“Hester, please don’t.”
With a groan, he brought her into the circle of his arms. He held her so powerfully, it was hopeless for her to resist.
She wasn’t sure if she wanted to. His arms tightened slightly, and her own crept up slowly, hesitantly, until they were placed about his waist. She told herself this was only for comfort. Like a child she stayed there, afraid to breathe.
Then she felt a quietness, not a void, just a silent place of rest where there was nothing. A place of pure peace where no thoughts could enter. William King, the herbs, Hans and Annie, her Indian heritage, the pain, nothing, not one semblance of her past, had the power to enter this place.
Noah remained still, neither asking her to speak nor speaking himself. He simply held her, allowing her to tell him when she was ready.
Hester sighed but had no idea that she did. When the rest became so calming, and all the railing of troubled thoughts were banished, she sank forward and laid her head against the thickness of his chest. The sobs rose, quietly then, the anguish melting away by the flow of her tears. He pulled her closer, closer still, as she cried. And still they spoke no words.
When her tears soaked through the homespun fabric of his shirt, he felt as if he was anointed. Hope welled in his chest.
Vaguely, calmly, Hester thought Noah might release her, then lift her chin to kiss her the way William used to do. How would this be different with Noah?
Suddenly she was overcome by a longing that Noah would kiss her. That he would gently lower his mouth to seek hers, an affirmation of his caring, his wanting.
When he loosened his arms, it was all she could do not to clutch at his waist, a needy child who searched for safety. The haven of Noah’s arms was a known place now. She knew there was rest there, and she could never not want it.
He released her.
She was jolted to bare, stark reality. He handed her a clean square of white linen, saying something she failed to hear.
They stepped apart, each one stranded now, knowing they were alone, when moments before they had not known this.
Noah said, “Would you like to share the picnic lunch? I am suddenly quite hungry.” He laughed softly when he looked at her. “It’s all right, Hester.”
That was all he said. She knew what he meant.
He used to say that when she missed a target or the cow kicked over a bucket of milk that they had to have, or when some other unfortunate episode happened. He had always used those words to help her set her life right. So she followed the pattern of her childhood, believing it was all right, including the tears and her love of the plants in this hidden glade. It was all right.
They ate ravenously, the cloth spread on the brilliant carpet of green. The sandwiches were filled with the best roast chicken and with spring lettuce from the tiny backyard plot they called a garden. The molasses cookies were crinkled with rivulets where they separated in the heat of baking, then sprinkled liberally with white sugar. They ate, their eyes like magnets now, finding each other, knowing that they could return to this place just with a glance.
Ordinary food had never tasted like this. The cold peppermint tea was like ambrosia, liquid stars in their mouths.
Noah smiled and asked if she wanted to gather any plants, perhaps fill the picnic basket? He spoke easily, ready to accept a No, or an unwillingness to bend or to allow herself freedom from her wounded pride. She bowed her head, slowly moving it from side to side.
“You don’t want anything?”
“No.”
Then, “Noah, this place is magical. If I would believe in fairies, I would have to say I saw a real fairy ring. These thousands of little flowers are like stardust, sprinkled over the grass by the tips of the fairies’ wands. You know, Kate used to tell me stories about elves and fairies and Saint Nicholas, always telling me first that none of it was true, but her stories always took me places. I imagined these things. Then she would hold her finger to her lips and say it was our secret, that I was not to tell anyone, especially not my friends in school. The other Amish mothers would be shocked, such unwort.
Noah laughed. “Yes, our mother was a bit adventurous with her songs and poems and the stories from the old country. I often wondered about her parents, our grandparents, and if they were truly Amish. Did they belong to the church?”
“She never said.”
“I know. But Mother was different; not as exacting as Father.”
“Don’t you call them Dat and Mam, the way you used to?”
“Sometimes, Hester, I don’t know who they are.” A note of bitterness crept in his voice.
“After our mam died, a part of me died with her. I loved my mother so completely. Dat was different. He never cared much for Isaac and me. We were his hired help. If we didn’t do our work to his expectations, we were whipped with the buggy whip. I can still feel the burning welts. It drove us to do our best, but so often the best was not good enough. By the time we were teenagers, after 14 years of age, we were worked far beyond anyone can imagine.
“I remember felling trees at a young age, well before others our age did. I tried to spare Isaac. He was smaller and lighter, and he used to weep with weariness.”
Noah’s smile was gone, his kindness absent, now replaced by a harsh light, his mouth set by the anger in his remembering.
“But that physical part, the hard work, the endless labor, was nothing compared to the time after our mother passed away. That was when …” He stopped, emotions washing over his face like churning storm clouds.
“That was when I had to face what I tried hardest to deny. Hans loved you more than as a daughter. We were insanely jealous, Isaac and I. To hide his feelings, Hans became rigid in discipline, forbidding you everything, the horses, the rides to town. You remember.”
Hester nodded, hanging on to Noah’s words like a drowning man thrown some form of hope.
“As I grew taller, stronger, Hans, Dat, Father—all the same, but sometimes I am unsure of who he really was—carried a certain fear of me. I’m not sure when it actually happened. I just know it did.
“He saw the trees I felled with an axe, the amount of hard labor Isaac and I accomplished, and he knew his days of whipping us were over. Annie was a bitter disappointment, which created fear as well. He was consumed, then swept away, by his obsession of you, Hester.
“Why did I stay? I don’t really know. Perhaps the whip had driven undivided obedience into me. Fear of disobeying must have been stronger than my will to turn against him. At any rate, I stayed, watching the way Annie treated you, knowing there was no way out.
“If you will forgive me for telling the truth, my love for you was destroying me. I had two choices—to stand against my father to protect you, or to get rid of any feelings I ever had, any fondness for sure, to try to destroy the love I imagined I had. I was unsure, ashamed, and feeling it was as wrong for me to love you as it was for Hans. I drove you out of my mind, my conscience, and my heart. I became a dead, empty shell, a living, walking, breathing person who was left with no emotion, no love, no fear, no anxiety, and, as I practiced daily, no caring.”
He watched Hester’s face, the drop of her bent head, the long dark lashes that lay so close to the golden, burnished cheek.
“I was just inside the house, listening to you and Hans on the porch that evening. I heard his speech.”
Here, Hester’s eyes raked his face, widening in disbelief. She watched his cheeks contract, the muscles turning his mouth grim and taut as he fought with remembered outrages.
&nb
sp; “When you spoke, my heart swelled, my tears ran freely. Goosebumps raced up and down my spine, the hair on my arms stood straight up with the thrill of the truth you pounded into him.
“‘My Hester,’ I thought, ‘you keep going. Please tell him all of it.’ I was shaking, alone as I listened. My bones turned to water; I think I prayed. I remember that God felt closer than he has ever been. I was sure this was the end, and perhaps we could leave together. And then you were gone.
“Hans became like a person demented. We had to follow you, but I went only because I could not bear the parting, knowing that you were gone forever. I was not afraid of your ability to survive; I knew you would do it. But to think of the years stretching ahead without you, even to see your face from a distance, was more than I could bear.”
He stopped, quieted now, and looked off into the distance.
“At war, the outward world around me was in real chaos, but there was a spiritual war just like it in my mind, my heart, my whole being. The only way I knew to survive was to spend all my energy riding, building forts, digging ditches, not caring if I lived or died. Through all of it, including the worst times, I carried one of the smooth stones from your slingshot in my breast pocket. It was like my image of you, the only real thing in my life.”
CHAPTER 14
THE SUN WAS SLIDING TOWARD THE EVENING SHADOWS, THE rosy glow turning deeper. As they remained seated side by side, the sounds of the forest became a symphony, the glade of fairy flowers their theater.
Hester’s eyes were filled with emotion as she listened to the voice beside her, bringing back all the events she had tried to dispel, or blame herself for, which was easier. But now it was clear that neither one had worked.
She watched the antics of two black and orange monarch butterflies, flitting in their dizzying, uncharted spirals, drunk on the nectar of so many flowers, so much color and profusion.
Noah breathed in, a deep cleansing of his emotion, then let the breath out with a quavery sigh, as if the beating of his heart had interrupted the clean breath.
Hester said, soft and low, “I had no idea. I thought you hated me. Along with Annie, with everyone.”
“No Hester, never. It wasn’t possible. I loved you. I just felt it was wrong, somehow, and did what I had to do to survive.”
The Indian blood in her veins held her silent as Hester pondered deeply every word he had spoken.
Finally, she ventured, “You did love me back then. But now it’s different for you. Isn’t that what you’re saying?”
“Look at me, Hester.”
She would not turn to him, so great was her fear.
“I have never given up the love for you that I carry within. I never will. But I know you are like a trapped bird, caged by your past, your own sense of failure.”
Hester nodded. Then she turned, her eyes soft with gratefulness. “Thank you, Noah. You do understand. If I would not have married William …” Her voice drifted off.
Noah let her have all the time she needed to think how to say what was on her mind.
Finally, she said, “I am not a good wife.”
Noah let this sentence hover between them before he attempted a reply.
“Why do you say that?”
“In so many different ways I failed William. His mother, too. My cooking, my rebellion. Sometimes, I hated him. As I might come to hate any man I marry. That exacting obedience, that rigid control, Noah. It takes away your mind, your thoughts, until you don’t know who you are. It’s like a giant leech that drains away your life. And still, you keep up a perfect outward appearance, looking as if you’re happily obeying so that the community around you keeps up their admiration for William and Hester King.”
She flung the last words into the idyllic little forest clearing, destroying the holiness of God’s handwork, the venom rising in her throat.
Noah nodded, choking when he tried to speak, so he let her continue.
“I believe in God’s Word, Noah. I believe in submission, a woman’s place, giving up her will to obey her husband. And this is right and good. God ordained it. But the husband is to love his wife, giving his life as Christ gave his for the church, so is that really any different from what a wife is to do? Doesn’t that mean William had no right to insist on everything he wanted, to say anything, no matter how hurtful? No matter what I did, Noah, it wasn’t good enough. But I wasn’t holy.”
Her voice rose. “Do you have any idea the crushing weight of being unable to produce a son? Barren, Noah. I am barren. I was told repeatedly that the Lord could not bless my womb because I was rebellious. I believe this is true. Please forgive me for speaking boldly, but I know no other way to let you know who I really am—an unfit person, someone who should never marry again.”
“Hester, stop. Those two things are not related—whether you are rebellious or not able to have children. There is a love that transcends that, overlooks it, or doesn’t see it at all. I knew you since you were a child. Do you think I should not love you because you are not perfect?”
“Yes.”
“But that’s not how it is. We love all the imperfections in each other. It is who we truly are.”
“That’s just the English way of thinking. We’re Old Order Amish, Noah, you and I. Frances and William have beaten every aspect of the marriage vows into my head, believe me.”
Noah decided, then, to end the conversation, seeing how Hester was clutching with determination her own shortcomings and that she would not relinquish them. She was like that. As bullheaded as a mule, once she decided something. His eyes twinkled, shining very blue, as he thought about how angry she would be if she knew his thoughts just now. She’d likely take off her shoe and throw it, the way she used to do when he and Isaac threw a wet, slimy frog at her.
No, he would not push her. He had the rest of his life. In spite of himself, he burst out laughing. He tossed back his head, opened his mouth, and laughed until he was finished.
Hester turned to him, glaring, her eyes black with misunderstanding. “What?” she asked.
“Oh, you! I can just imagine. I bet you took off your shoe and threw it at your poor husband.” Again, great ripples of movement sounded through the meadow.
Hester leaned over and hit his arm solidly with her fists. “You can’t laugh, Noah. It’s not funny.”
He caught her hands, held them firmly, looked into her eyes, and said he would love to have a wife that threw shoes at him.
And then, because of the feeling that rose in his chest, and because of how much he wanted her, he released her hands and bent to gather the remains of the picnic lunch, leaving her standing alone again.
Noah drove her home in silence, thanked her for accompanying him, and drove off as she stood in the backyard. The town’s buildings rose up around her, tall and dank and suffocating. She felt trapped, or as if she was wandering aimlessly. She wasn’t sure which. She only knew that Bappie irritated her and that the streets were dirty and filled with far too many people, carts, and filthy old farmers’ wagons with slovenly drivers.
Often, she wondered about Noah’s injury and how it had healed. She wondered if she should have inquired about it, but that seemed too personal so she had let it go. She had noticed him grimace, and observed a stiffness in the way he had carried himself across the pasture. It seemed his back was still bothering him somewhat.
If he thought he could show her all the lovely plants and persuade her to change her mind, he would discover otherwise. This time she meant it. There would be no medicinal herbs in her house. She would never make tinctures again. As time went on, doctors would find many more plants in other countries, hire men to explore those places, and cultivate and gather many more growing things than Hester could ever begin to name. Even now, there were many more cures available from companies called pharmaceuticals. Walter Trout had read to her from the Intelligencer Journal about this booming industry.
So what was puny little wisdom from the old Indian woman really worth? Very
likely next to nothing, as medical wisdom grew by leaps, and highly educated men who went to colleges learned about the body and about plants they could turn into pills to heal it. And so her thoughts swirled about, filling her mind with the noxious fumes of defeat.
One morning, however, she had had enough. The sun rose red with pulsing heat at eight o’clock. She threw out the dishwater, rinsed the tubs, swept the kitchen carefully, went to the mirror and smoothed back her hair, set her muslin cap straight, walked out the door, and did not stop till she came to the biggest house on Duke Street. It was immense, with white pillars cast on either side of the massive doorway, the door itself so large and ornate, Hester had a moment of indecision.
The walls of the house were built of quarried limestone, smooth and blue-gray, and laid to perfection by the finest mason the town could find, the mortar thin and straight without chinks. The windows were tall with numerous small panes, and heavily draped, with ornate moulding at the top. Set back from the street far enough to allow the growth of a few cultivated hedges, trimmed conifers and holly, it was the home of someone who was wealthy, the group known as the “gentry.”
Hester had made up her mind to seek employment in the only way she knew—going door to door, asking if those who lived there needed servants in the kitchen, the laundry, or with housecleaning. She knew it was not allowed by the Amish church, this employment outside of the home, but she was becoming desperate with Bappie getting married and her savings dwindling. She needed some source of income.
Lifting the brass knocker, she let it fall repeatedly, with no answer. The door remained closed. She had just turned to go back down the steps, when the door was opened from the inside.
“Yes?” The voice was level with Hester’s face, the interior shadows making it difficult to see the person framed in the doorway. When the door opened wider, Hester saw a large woman, her hair tied into a white cloth, a white apron covering her dress front, immaculate in her appearance.
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