The Wild Swans

by Peg Kerr

  “But I am a magistrate; I must also weigh evidence. You allow your fears to overrun the facts. We have no reason to believe she is a witch.” He took Eliza’s hand. “I will remember your words. And yet, upon searching my heart, I cannot find fault with my intent to wed her. I am still resolved, Reverend, to join my life with hers.”

  Eliza let her breath out slowly and felt the prickle of tears in the corner of her eyes.

  “I—” William stopped, and then blinked as a realization came to him, bringing with it a sharp flare of hope. “I am sorry I must refuse your request,” he said evenly, “yet I fear performing the ceremony cannot be legal.”

  “What? Why?”

  William shrugged and with an effort kept himself from smiling. “Since we do not know her name, we cannot formally announce the banns to ensure there is no impediment to the marriage. And of course, without the banns ...” He let the words trail off.

  Eliza felt her heart sink.

  Jonathan opened his mouth—and closed it again, turning very red. A flash of anger, underpinned with uncertainty, made him draw his brows together. He gave Eliza’s hand a squeeze, and when she turned to him, he asked urgently, “Is there an impediment? Are you already married or betrothed?”

  Eliza shook her head.

  “Have you ever been married?”

  Again, Eliza indicated no.

  “May I see your Bible, Reverend?” Jonathan said abruptly.

  William frowned, perplexed, and then carefully lifted his Holy Book from its place at the corner of his desk and shoved it forward. “Why, if I may ask?” he ventured, as Jonathan opened it.

  “I am going to name her,” Jonathan said with a dangerous edge to his voice as he began turning pages. “With the first woman’s name I find in this book, and you may use it to announce the banns.”

  “You cannot do that!”

  “I most certainly can. Be it Deborah, or Miriam—”

  Or Jezebel, William thought acidly.

  “—that shall be her name, and if—” He broke off and looked up in surprise as Eliza reached over and gently took possession of the Bible.

  Silence fell as she took the book into her own lap and began turning pages with a whisper of paper, searching for something. She found it quickly and handed the book back to Jonathan, her forefinger tapping on the page.

  Jonathan read where she indicated with dawning delight until William could contain his curiosity no longer. “What?” he asked. “What did she show you?”

  Jonathan looked up, grinning with a wolfish satisfaction, and placed the Bible back on the desk, swiveling it around so William could see. “She has turned to the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke. It tells the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth, the parents of John the Baptist, and how Zechariah was rendered mute by the angel of God.”

  Eliza pointed to the page again and tapped her other hand to her chest. Jonathan looked where her finger pointed. “Elizabeth?” he said.

  Eliza nodded.

  “Your name is Elizabeth, truly?”

  She smiled and nodded again, relieved and pleased.

  “Elizabeth,” Jonathan said again, tasting the syllables, his face softening. “It is beautiful. I am pleased to have your own name to call you . .. Elizabeth.”

  “Look at the Gospel lesson again, Jonathan,” William said urgently. “Zechariah’s lips were stopped by the angel because he displeased God with his lack of faith, his ... his unwillingness to hear God’s message.”

  “And as a sign of God’s presence,” Jonathan replied stubbornly, “when Elizabeth had fulfilled God’s promise by giving birth to John, Zechariah’s speech was restored. The name Elizabeth means

  ‘consecrated to God.’ What further sign,” he added with a kind of triumph, “do you require, Reverend?”

  He closed the Bible with a thump. “Now: will you marry us, yea or nay?”

  As William looked at him, he realized with a sinking feeling that he had lost the argument. Nothing would change Jonathan’s mind now, not even if William were to point out that his own name, William, meant “resolute protector,” that he opposed the match only because he had Jonathan’s interests at heart. If he remained adamant in his refusal, the minister reflected uneasily, Jonathan might take the girl to the next town to wed her with the aid of another minister or a justice of the peace. Nothing would be changed—except that his friendship with Jonathan would be irretrievably broken. Or worse yet, William feared, continuing to refuse might tempt Jonathan into committing the damnable sin of fornication. Better to marry than to burn, he reminded himself glumly. He heaved a sigh. “Very well,” he said, very unwillingly. “The first announcement of the banns will take place this coming Sabbath, declaring the betrothal of Jonathan Latham and Elizabeth ... Elizabeth, er—”

  “Call her Elizabeth Wood,” Jonathan said firmly. “For there I found her, in the wood.” A smile hovered about his lips. “And thank you, Reverend Avery. You shall not regret this.”

  And so it was that Jonathan and Eliza stood before the congregation on the following Sunday for the formal announcement of betrothal, to the astonishment of many. More than one maiden wept some private tears of grief or vexation, as suited her temper, although in truth, none had cause to say that Jonathan had ever treated her unkindly or broken faith in any way. And all agreed that no one had ever seen him look at any girl in the village the way he looked at the strange, dowerless newcomer. Patience Carter was perhaps the person most delighted with the match.

  The reading of the banns was repeated at the two Sabbath meetings following, and on a golden morning in September, Jonathan and Eliza joined hands before William to be married. Jonathan spoke his part of the ceremony in a firm, clear voice, pitched so all within the meetinghouse could hear. Eliza made her covenant vows by nodding in response to the questions William put to her, and by placing an X under the record of the marriage in the register, opposite the name Jonathan had chosen for her. William blew on the page to dry the ink and then carefully closed the book again, his face rigid and impassive. Then everyone in the congregation trooped to Jonathan’s house, where his servants had set trestle tables under the trees, spread with breads and sweet butter, roast meat, pies, cake, sackposset, and rum. William took only a small cup of rum, speaking to no one, and he left early. Jonathan and Eliza walked together, arm in arm, to greet their guests. As they accepted congratulations and toasts, and Jonathan laughed and Eliza smiled at the various jokes, they never really took their eyes from each other. Only a few guests still lingered until the sun sank low in the west, for there were chores to be done, and a full day’s worth of work waited for all upon the morrow. Patience was one of the last to leave, her broad face beaming with smiles and flushed from the rum. “Bless you, my dear,” she exclaimed, leaning forward to kiss Eliza on the cheek. She patted Eliza’s hand and said warmly in a lower voice, “If it be a sorrow to you, my pretty one, that you have no mother here today, remember you may always turn to me instead in the same way.”

  Eliza pressed her hand and kissed her gratefully in return, thinking that her presence did much to fill the hole in her heart left by Nell’s absence on this, her wedding day.

  “You have done a good day’s work here,” Patience continued, winking at Jonathan. “And do you a good night’s work tonight, Magistrate Latham, so I may collect the midwife’s fee from you nine months hence.” She laughed her rich, ribald laugh and clouted him familiarly on the shoulder as he blushed. Then she strode off arm in arm with her daughter, weaving a bit unsteadily, and her voice drifted back to them, singing a hymn so beautifully it could have made the angels weep.

  Eliza’s smile slipped a little as she turned her face toward the west, where the last curve of the sun was dropping below the horizon. The clouds just above that point dazzled the eye like molten gold, and the waning light made everything else look amber, as though viewed through a glass filled with honey. She closed her eyes and her heart flew toward her brothers, like the point of a compass turned
unerringly toward the north. She wondered sadly if they were well, if they had any inkling what had happened to her that day. The memory of the partially finished coat and the nettle flax waiting for her in the chest upstairs rose up to comfort her.

  She heard a step next to her and opened her eyes to find Jonathan watching her. She brushed the moisture from her eyes and held out her hand to him, smiling, touched by his anxious look of concern. His face lit up in response, and he drew her hand up to rest in the crook of his elbow.

  “My dear wife,” he whispered to her, savoring the words, “shall we go inside?” They smiled privately at each other, and Jonathan led Eliza over the threshold of their home.

  The servants had already gathered before the hall’s fireplace, and there Jonathan read the evening’s scripture and led the prayers to end the day. He performed his religious duties as the master of the house with his usual careful devotion, and she knelt beside him, listening with full attention, head bowed. Each felt something else, too, a wordless joy from the presence of the other that added a sweet poignancy to their worship.

  After the last amen, he drew her to her feet, took a candle as he bid the servants good night, and led her up the stairs to the bedroom. Her fingers trembled in his as they entered the room, and he felt his heartbeat quicken.

  She stood before the bed, looking about herself as he lit another candle. The quilt Patience had given them as a wedding gift had already been spread on the bed. When he set the candleholder on the table and held out his hands to her, she came to him without hesitation to clasp them lightly. His hands felt warm and strong to her, and she wondered at the coldness of her own fingers. She did not want him to think her cold to him, and she searched his face anxiously, hoping to find there again a longing for her to match her own. He thought her face looked a little grave, her eyes dilated. It cut him to the heart to think she might in any way be afraid of him. He remembered what the midwife had said, that she had not had her mother with her today, and he suddenly wondered what she understood about what happened between a man and his wife. The thought made him feel even more nervous, but protective of her, too.

  “I...” He hesitated, and his eyes wandered over to the pitcher and basin. “I see Sarah did not leave water; I will go fetch some. Goody Carter left your nightclothes for you in the chest under the window.”

  She nodded, understanding he had found a way to give her a private moment to herself, in case she felt shy to undress before him. She did feel shy, and his perceptiveness pleased and touched her. When he returned five minutes later, she stood before the window barefoot in her nightgown, her fingers untying the strings of her cap. “Let me,” he said gently, his mouth dry. She tilted her face up to his as he put down the pitcher and then, with infinite care, eased her cap back from her brow and placed it on the table.

  A sigh escaped him as he tenderly lifted the coil of her hair from the nape of her neck and unwound it, so that the silken rope fell over her shoulders and tumbled down her back. The brushing touch of his fingertips on her neck made her shiver with pleasure. He could see, in the shadowed hollow of her throat, the rapid movement of her pulse. His fingers slowly traced her high cheekbones, the delicate curve of her ears, and then luxuriously buried themselves in the soft ruddiness of her hair, lifting it and loosening it to float freely over her shoulders. From there, his fingers drifted down to explore the matched planes of her shoulder blades, and, then, greatly daring, glided forward to find the soft curve of the underside of her breasts. He smiled at her ragged intake of breath.

  “I... do not know what you know. Elizabeth,” he breathed. “Will it content you to let me ... discover it? And to teach you what you do not know?”

  She stepped forward, eyes shining, to place her hands gently on his chest like a benediction, and lifted her lips to meet his.

  In the quiet hours of the deep night, she awoke, still cradled in his arms. Jonathan stirred in his sleep and murmured something into her hair. She nestled her cheek against him to soothe him with her touch and smiled to hear the sound of his heartbeat, calm and steady. Sleeping in a bed with another felt strange, but she felt sure she could grow to like it very much. The slow rise and fall of his chest began lulling her to contented drowsiness again.

  And then, at the very edge of sleep, she heard again the call that had awoken her: Eliza. Her brothers’ voices, calling her name faintly as if from very far away: Eliza. Eliza. She raised her head to listen. Jonathan, disturbed by her movement, turned over, and she brushed a hand over his shoulder apologetically and sat up.

  Ten minutes of concentrated listening convinced her the voices had indeed been a dream. But now she was thoroughly awake. She looked down wistfully at Jonathan and then rose soundlessly and padded to the chest to fetch a shawl. Throwing it over her shoulders, she stole her way out of the room without waking her husband.

  The room he had shown her was two doors down. She eased the door open and found her way to the chest along the wall by the moonlight spilling through the window. Inside lay the stripped and broken nettle stems, her first partially finished coat, and the small quantity of coarsely spun thread left over. She held up the coat and frowned, wondering how she could add the sleeves to finish it. Using the saplings as a framework for weaving the spun nettle flax had worked well, but that would not be possible now that she had left the woods. Her foster father had shown her how to weave pieces on a frame loom he had created from lashed sticks—perhaps she might fashion something similar to make the body of the next coat. As for the sleeves, the frame loom would work for those, too, or perhaps they could be knit. She would also have to replace her apple-and-stick drop spindle in order to ready more thread. As she ran the finished thread through her fingers thoughtfully, she could still feel the burning but not as sharply, because the juices had dried. Still, she knew the blisters would come back as soon as she began breaking fresh nettle stems again to extract fibers to spin into more thread. She wondered if she could at least slather goose grease on her fingers to shield her hands. “Break the nettles into pieces with your bare hands and feet,” the fairy had told her. Eliza frowned. The admonishment to use bare hands presumably meant unprotected. Using grease might spare her from pain, but it might also undo all her efforts to break the spell. She sighed. At least she could keep a jug of the dock decoction in the chest, to slather on her hands afterward.

  Her fingers tightened on the coat and then, reluctantly, she put everything back into the chest. More work would have to wait until she had a spindle and some way to do the weaving. She tiptoed back to her own room. Jonathan had not changed position since she had left him, and stealthily, she slid under the bedclothes next to his side. He turned and put an arm over her in his sleep, drawing her close. Very soon, she was warm again.

  Eliza and Jonathan quickly settled into their life together.

  Jonathan’s work continued much as it always had. Sometimes he remained at home, engrossed in meetings in his office with the town’s clerk of the writs, interviews with freemen to find a new bailiff for the town gaol, or interrogations of witnesses concerning various disputes about wages. On other days he met with the committee of safety in the taproom of the public tavern, or rode out to mediate the squabble between Goodman Corwin and Goodman Gibbs over a pair of sheep shears, or to sternly warn Goody Clarke that her absence from the next Sabbath-day meeting would not be tolerated. When Jonathan rode home again, tired from a long day of soothing ruffled tempers and repeating patient explanations to the obstinate, he found it pleasant to find his wife waiting for him, surrounded by the warm lamplight spilling from the doorway.

  Eliza’s days, too, were busy. She rose early to stoke the fire and to prepare for the household and eat a hasty breakfast of toasted bread and cheese, turnips, or oat porridge. Then there was the garden to hoe and weed, small beer to brew, linen to wash and mend, geese to pick, bread to bake, and a host of other tasks and occupations to fill her time until well after sunset.

  Her muteness necessaril
y made directing the servants’ work a challenge, but she soon worked out with them a crude system of hand signals, which served them for most of the day-to-day activities. On the whole she liked them rather well. Goody Grafton, the widow who had served as Jonathan’s housekeeper since his parents’ deaths, at first proved inclined to be prickly, rather resentful of her demotion in status now that Eliza had joined the household. Being an honest woman, however, she soon had to acknowledge that the magistrate’s new wife was neither lazy nor a fool. There was something to be said for working for a mistress who never scolded when the fire went out. Sarah, Goody Grafton’s assistant, and Jonas, who chopped wood and did the stable chores, were even more easily inclined to adore a mistress who gently recalled attention to the task at hand with a touch on the shoulder rather than a clout on the ear.

  Patience Carter stopped by frequently to visit. Often, she invited Eliza to accompany her to a new mother’s lying in, a quilting party, or a neighbor’s house for an afternoon spent spinning, or coiling and fitting a new rag carpet. “For the neighbors should know the new bride isn’t too proud to barter changework, if you want them to come to help you at hog-butchering and soap-making time.”

  It did not take long for the midwife’s sharp eyes to note that while Eliza looked cheerful and healthy enough, she often seemed to be almost nodding off from fatigue. Worried, Patience took it upon herself to consult privately with Goody Grafton. “How is it that your mistress is so often weary? Is she retiring very late after sunset? Does she stint herself on her meat or beer?”

  “Nay, I think not,” Goody Grafton replied and frowned, thinking. “But ‘tis true as you speak, now that I think upon it... she often does droop in the afternoons and early evenings.”

  “Perhaps the magistrate keeps her from her rest. He seems refreshed enough each morning, I trow.”

  Mrs. Grafton’s mouth pursed up in disapproval at this bluntness. “I could not say, Goody Carter,”

  she observed primly. “And even if I could, it would not be my place to do so.”