The Wild Swans

by Peg Kerr

  He recounted a tale for Daniel about a trapping trip he had taken the previous winter, and as his face grew animated with the telling, Eliza found herself studying him in turn. She had always liked to study people. She sensed his interest in her, and it made her realize that he watched people carefully, just as she did. That perceptiveness, in fact, was what made his stories so interesting. She liked him, she decided. He had an open frankness in his manner that appealed to her, and a generosity of spirit that tried to see the best in people.

  As the sun sank lower toward the horizon, Eliza gradually grew restless, and her attention wandered outside the window. Patience noticed, and threw Jonathan a significant look. “Do you wish to step outside for a breath before bed, then, child?”

  Eliza rose from her bench, and like a ghost, glided out the door.

  “What was that about, then, Goody Carter?” Jonathan asked, puzzled, as the door closed behind her. Patience sighed. “Every evening she wishes to be outside to watch as the sun sets. Something about the time of day seems to grieve her heart, I think; I do not know why.” She and Katherine cleared the plates from the table, and then Daniel went outside to saw wood at the woodpile behind the house, and Patience went to the cellar to skim the barm from the ale to mix with flour and water to make the next day’s bread sponge.

  Quietly, Jonathan went outside. Eliza stood in the yard, motionless, watching the sky as the sun slipped below the horizon. Jonathan sat on the bench and waited. As the last rays of the sun disappeared and the golden brilliance of the clouds in the west faded to rose and gray, she turned to face him. Her cheeks were wet.

  “Will you come and sit with me, then?” he said gently, wanting to ease the stark pain he saw in her face but unsure how to do it. “I would be grateful for your company.”

  Slowly, she came over to join him on the bench. For a time, they simply sat together companionably. A few stars came out, and the sound of crickets and frogs from the marsh filled the purpling twilight with peaceful song.

  He began to speak, almost at random, telling her about his work as magistrate. “It is always interesting and varied, which suits me, for I fear doing the same work day after day would be a trial for me.” He gave a deprecating half smile. “God gave me a temper too easily restless. I license innkeepers and sellers of fish, clear the highways of obstructions, oversee military commissions and the town’s provision for the poor. I act to protect church doctrines and prevent against profanation of the Sabbath. And I mediate disputes, both locally and for the county court.” He hesitated. “The trick of it, you see, is having a heart always open to God’s guidance. And willingness to learn and listen.”

  The stars overhead grew bright and clear, twinkling with hard-edged brilliance. He could not see her face anymore in the deepening shadows, although he could hear her quiet, steady breathing. He listened to that breathing for a long time before he dared to add: “I would wish to ... always listen to you.

  “Even if you ever speak to me only with your eyes.”

  The Sabbath-day meetings were the only opportunities William had for several weeks to observe Eliza. He noted with approval that Goody Carter had dressed her modestly, and accepted with a satisfied nod the midwife’s assurances that the girl’s hands and feet were healing properly. He had the opportunity to observe her narrowly while the deacon lined the psalms, reading the verses so the congregation could sing the responses. She did not sing, of course, but instead sat quietly with all apparent attention, only moving to munch the fennel seeds offered her from Goody Carter’s handkerchief. During the nooning break, she did not exchange covert glances with the young men in the congregation, but stayed near Katherine and Daniel Carter, eating the brown bread luncheon from Goody Carter’s hamper, her eyes modestly downcast. Satisfied, William turned his attention to preparing mentally for the afternoon sermon and prayers, and he gave her little more thought. He would have been shocked to learn that Jonathan had ridden out thrice in that fortnight to sup at Goody Carter’s house. But Jonathan did not tell him.

  When three weeks had passed, the two did go together, at William’s insistence, to the midwife’s home to formally fulfill the requirements of the Alien Act, with Jonathan as the appointed examiner and William as a witness. “Although,” Jonathan pointed out, “it may be argued I do not have the authority to expel her, even for cause, because I think there may be honest doubt about whether the law can even be applied. Since the question of application of all laws is entirely open until the colony hears the Crown’s decision about the restoration of the charter.”

  “We do not know,” William said lightly, “and therefore, surely the best, most conservative course is to follow the established custom until matters may be clarified.”

  “Very well,” Jonathan said. “I can curious to know what Goody Carter has discovered about her.”

  To Jonathan’s private disappointment, Eliza was not there when the men arrived. “I sent her with Katherine to Goody Porter’s,” Patience explained. “They were going to wind quills, for Goody Porter is setting up her loom to warp a piece.”

  “That was undoubtedly wise,” William agreed. “If the girl cannot speak with us, we can make our judgment by listening to your frank opinion of her.”

  “What have you learned about her?” Jonathan asked as they sat down at Patience’s table. Patience brought some tankards of cider. “To begin,” she said, offering one to each man, “she knows how to make cheese.”

  Jonathan sat up straight. “Indeed?” he said, intrigued.

  William took a draw from his mug and raised an eyebrow. “To make cheese? Of what import is that?”

  Patience smiled. “Do you know how to make cheese, Reverend?”

  “Why, er...” His words trailed off.

  “You make it with rennet. Would you even recognize rennet if you saw it? It must be heated with several gallons of milk—do you know how long it takes until the curd forms?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, an hour or two. And do you know what you must mix into it after breaking the curd and draining off the whey? A little of your fresh butter. And after you have packed it into your press, what must you do to it while turning it as the whey drips out?”

  “I confess I have no idea,” he admitted. Jonathan, he noted with some irritation, was grinning behind a hand at his discomfiture.

  “You must change and wash the cheesecloth covering it, several times. And after you repack the cheese in dry cloth, how long do you leave it in the press, my good Reverend, before taking it out to powder and put in the dairy house to age?”

  “I do not know, I tell you,” he replied, more sharply than he intended.

  “Thirty or forty hours or so.”

  “No one has ever taught me how to make cheese,” he snapped, feeling obscurely criticized.

  “That, good sir, is my point. Someone has taught her. A careful housewife, I deem, who taught her the importance of thorough pressing, and the virtues of cleanliness.” She waited a moment for that to sink in. “She knows herbs. Not so much the native ones, though. And she does not know their healing properties, but instead how they may be used as dyes.”

  “Hmm.”

  “She can dress a fowl, tend a fire, and bake. She knows which plants are weeds to pull up in the garden, and she is very deedy with her needle—she mended one of your shirts, in fact, Mr. Latham, and did a pretty job of it.” She went to fetch it from a work basket in the corner.

  “And so she has had a proper maiden’s instruction,” Jonathan said, taking the shirt from her and turning it in his lap to examine it.

  “Indeed she has. She is used to hard work and labors diligently and willingly. I do not even have to ask her; she finds things to do.”

  The men glanced about the room. The pewter on the sideboard had been wiped, and the usual covering of crumbs was gone from the table. Someone had made the bed that morning. All the blankets, shirts, and dresses that had been spread out on the benches and floor during the last visit
had been put back into the storage chests. The floor and hearth were swept clean and the andirons scrubbed. Jonathan and Wilh’am exchanged a look, the meaning of which was plain: the house looked cleaner than either had ever seen it.

  “And one thing more.” Patience smiled. “She can read.”

  “What?”

  “Can she indeed?”

  “I came in one afternoon to find her head bent over my Bible. She had been reading the Psalms.”

  “But why then will she not write?” William demanded.

  Patience shook her head. “I do not know.” She hesitated. “And another matter: whenever she stops her work, she does it to watch the sky. She is looking for something.” She sighed. “What it is she looks for, I do not know. And every sunrise and sunset, some grief steals over her. It goes away quickly, and she will go back to work. But it always comes again.”

  Thoughtfully, Jonathan turned the shirt over in his lap. The rent in the sleeve had been neatly darned. He turned it inside out to look at the stitches more closely. His fingers brushed against something, a patch of thread where he did not expect it, and he looked more closely.

  On the inside of the shirt, right at the spot that would rest over his heart, a tiny white work design had been embroidered, a small cluster of forget-me-nots. He rubbed his finger absently over the smooth, neat stitches, and then, carefully, so that no one would see, turned the shirt back.

  “She is a good worker, then?” he said briskly. “As good as the last girl you had?”

  “Oh, aye, much better than Joan.” Patience snorted. “Thank Providence Nathan Miller proposed and took that lazy lie-abed off my hands.”

  “And the girl reads scripture,” Jonathan said softly to himself, his fingers suspended over the hidden white work. He glanced at Patience. “And her carriage, it is as it should be?”

  “She has always been the veriest modest, proper maiden.”

  “Is she attentive during your evening devotions?”

  “Aye, and during Sabbath-day meeting, too.”

  Jonathan nodded. “She has shown herself to be diligent, obedient, and open to God’s word. Are you content to continue boarding her, Goody Carter?”

  “Aye,” Patience said slowly. “I confess I do wish I knew what troubles her so. But she is a hard worker, and a good-hearted girl.”

  “Jonathan,” William said faintly, but he sensed that his moment to argue was perhaps already past. He was right. “I have made my decision,” Jonathan said firmly. “The girl stays.”

  * * *

  Jonathan and William rode back to town together. When they parted company at the tavern, Jonathan immediately turned his horse’s head toward Goody Porter’s farm. He met the two girls on the path walking back.

  “Good afternoon,” Jonathan said, drawing rein.

  “Mr. Latham,” Katherine Carter said, bobbing a curtsey and grinning.

  In surprise, Eliza raised her eyes to meet his and dipped a polite curtsey, too. She felt real pleasure at the sight of him. Few in the town, she had discovered, could speak so easily to her without seeming to be bothered by the awkwardness of her silence. Patience was one, but that was different: Eliza’s silence did not trouble her simply because of the inexhaustible flow of Patience’s chatter. The magistrate, on the other hand, possessed the knack of speaking with her without making the conversation seem truly one-sided. He would ask her questions, and wait for her to nod or shake her head, truly interested in her opinion. He read her expressions, and at the tilt of her head, the wrinkling of her nose, or a shrug, he would say in response, “Do you know, I have never been sure of that myself,” or exclaim, “I knew you would agree!” His eyes turned toward Eliza now, and she could see her pleasure reflected in him.

  “Good afternoon to you,” he said gently. As he looked down at her, he had a sudden flash of memory, of her warm hair, unkempt and tangled, tumbled about her shoulders. Now it was covered, all bundled modestly out of his sight, making her neck look even longer, more slender. He had never noticed before how the weight of a woman’s hair could make a swelling curve in her cap, just above her neck. Jonathan dismounted. “Would you please tell your mother,” he said, addressing himself to Katherine,

  “that I have taken your friend to... to see something. I will escort her home when we are finished.”

  Startlement contended with curiosity on Katherine’s face, but she ducked another curtsey and nodded. “I will tell her,” she replied shyly. There was an awkward pause, and then Katherine shrugged and resumed walking down the path.

  Jonathan waited until she was out of sight, and then turned to Eliza. “I would like to invite you to come see my home. Will you?”

  Surprised again, Eliza nodded.

  And so it was that Magistrate Latham’s servants were exceedingly disconcerted by the unexpected arrival of their master at home in the middle of the day, with the strange girl who had been staying at the midwife’s home. If Jonathan noticed their consternation and curiosity, he gave no sign of it, but simply dismissed them to their tasks, leaving him and Eliza to walk through the house alone. It was an exceedingly fine house, built of clapboards, with an overhanging second story, and gable windows set with casement sashes. “My grandfather was one of those come to these shores with John Winthrop,” Jonathan told her. “My father built this house, but he and my mother were carried off by a fever the following winter. My younger brother died of diphtheria in his second year, and my sisters have married and moved away. The house has been mine alone since my twenty-first year.”

  As he walked her through it, he carefully pointed out all the comforts, from the fireplaces in each room to the wide staircase and closets and the airy windows. Everything had its proper place, and the air smelled of lavender, and the currants Jonathan’s housekeeper had cooked that morning for jelly. The meaning of the unspoken question behind this trip to Jonathan’s house, the reason for his earnestly hopeful manner, slowly began to dawn on Eliza. This was no idle tour; he was showing her his home to find out if she could imagine herself as its mistress. Her heart began to beat more quickly at the very thought, and she stole a glance shyly at his face as they mounted the stairs together. She liked him, esteemed him, certainly—did she feel any more for him than that?

  Could she learn to love him?

  The memory of her responsibility to her brothers smote her again, a whiplash of dismay. Eliza still had not seen the swans at all since the day Jonathan had taken her from the cave. She had struggled against the growing fear that they had abandoned her, flying on without her. But perhaps she was wrong, and they still searched for her. If so, then making a home with Jonathan would be like abandoning them all over again, just when they needed her most.

  On the other hand, if she could not find a way to complete her task, she wondered how she could possibly marry Jonathan at all. She would have to remain mute for the rest of her life, never speaking a word to her husband or perhaps, someday, her own children. Eliza shivered, despite the warmth of the sunlight coming through the windowpanes.

  On the second story at the end of the house, Jonathan showed her another room, smaller than the rest, but carefully and comfortably furnished. Green paragon hangings decked the walls.

  “I thought that... with the green hangings,” he said a little uncertainly, “this room might remind you of your former home. And see ...” He went to a chest in the corner, opened it, and beckoned her closer. “It might please you to have these with you, to think of that time.”

  She came to look, and what she saw inside made her gasp and brought the blood rushing to her cheeks. She reached into the chest and touched the thick bundle of stripped nettle stems that had been taken from her. Underneath these lay the partially completed coat and the rest of the nettle flax she had prepared. The thought that now she could work again for her brothers’ release made her face light up in the first smile Jonathan had ever seen her make. She reached out and took Jonathan’s hand and kissed it.

  “It makes you happy?
” he said, his uncertainty melting away in dazzled delight with that smile. She nodded, her face aglow.

  Overjoyed, Jonathan pressed her to his breast. “And... can I make you happy?” He held her out at arm’s length again, and tenderly touched her face. “Would it content you to come make your home with me, as my bride?”

  The look in her eyes gave him all the answer he needed.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The water is wide. I cannot cross o’er

  Neither have I the wings to fly

  Give me a boat that can carry two

  And both shall row, my love and I.

  —“WALY, WALY,” TRADITIONAL

  Elias switched his schedule to take the next day off since it was his birthday. At Sean’s suggestion, they walked down to Avenue A, to Leshko’s for breakfast, where the smell of coffee and frying sausage curled around them tantalizingly as soon as they stepped through the door. “One of the booths in the back is open,” Elias suggested, pointing.

  Sean shook his head and nodded toward another booth at a front window, where a man and a woman were just standing to leave. “I want to see the park.” The man put on a pair of red-rimmed heart-shaped sunglasses as he threw some money on the table, and the two sidled past Sean and Elias to squeeze out through the awkward entryway. The waitress, a doe-eyed woman of twenty or so, appeared as if conjured to clear and wipe the table. Sean and Elias then claimed their spot, sliding across the cracked burgundy vinyl seats as she poured them coffee. Elias wrapped his hands around the thick, white china cup and took a slug of the hot liquid gratefully. It was strong; he made a face and reached for the cream and sugar.