by Lorin Grace
“Shall I move her upstairs or let her sleep there?”
Lucy shrugged. “She is liable to wake as I did.”
“If she does, I will get us all dinner. Ma sent chicken pies today.”
Samuel returned a few moments later without Sarah. “Shall we eat?”
In answer, Lucy rose and shuffled toward the cupboard. Samuel caught her elbow. “Sit at the table. I can get this.” He guided her shaking body to the bench and made sure she was seated before gathering the plates and unloaded the contents of the basket.
Lucy wondered what to say. Telling him to leave now would be useless. She knew he would never leave her without proper care.
Samuel started the conversation. “What happened?”
Confused Lucy looked up at him. Quite a bit. If you must know, my parents are dead. According to you, I am married. And my sole accomplishment today is picking up a ball of yarn. “What happened?” she repeated.
Samuel swallowed a bite he’d snitched. “The week of the blizzard—I know you came to the house and mentioned Sarah was ill, but what happened after that? I have only the dates in the Bible and what little Sarah has said. I am at a loss to figure it all out.” He placed a full plate in front of her and set his on the side of the table opposite her.
“Oh.” Lucy took a bite of the pie before answering. The crust melted in her mouth. She took another.
“After three days in bed, Sarah recovered much like her old self, but not so talkative.”
Samuel chuckled.
“The next morning, Ben complained of a sore throat. He woke in the night with a high fever. For three days, I took care of him so Mama wouldn’t keep going up and down the stairs. Papa Marden would take over at night. The last night, Ben kept moaning, then he fell silent. I thought he’d fallen asleep. The next morning Papa wrapped Ben’s body in the green blanket.”
Lucy blinked back tears and took a sip of warmed cider. She’d watched tears trail down Papa’s face as he explained there was no time to try to dig a grave because of the falling snow. Lucy held the door for Papa to carry Ben’s body outside, then helped him with the ropes. He’d drenched the blanket with a bucket of water before lashing the precious cocoon to the roof, where it would freeze and be safe from animals.
“The blizzard just started so… ” Lucy gestured to the roof. “The following day, Papa didn’t come back in from the barn after his morning chores. I went to the barn to find him. Mama fretted so.”
Lucy sifted through the memories, trying to decide what to say next. “I found Papa Marden sitting on an upturned crate, his head in his hands, weeping.” She’d sat down with him, and he’d held her while she cried with him.
“By late afternoon, I saw that Papa suffered from more than a sorrowful heart. Despite Mama’s protests, Papa continued to try to take care of the farm. All the while, his cough deepened.”
Lucy paused to take a few bites and compose herself. “On the second night after the blizzard started, I found Papa Marden lying on the barn floor, bleeding from a gash in his head. He’d tripped on the shovel. I washed off the blood, and he opened his eyes. He burned with fever. When he was able to stand, I helped him to the house.”
She’d prayed for strength every step of the way as she’d half dragged him through the deep snow to the cabin. Had the wind not died down so she could see her way, she would not have made it to the house. She could not cling to both Papa and the guide rope. He was too heavy. Once inside, she helped Mama put Papa in their big bed and returned to the barn to finish what chores she could.
“Mama wouldn’t let me help take care of Papa. I worried that she would… ” Lucy waved her hand uselessly. “You know, because of the baby.”
Samuel nodded and set his fork aside.
“Saturday morning I prepared to hurry over to your place for help. I heard Mama yell.” Lucy played with her food a moment before continuing. “Papa Marden passed. She didn’t want me to leave, but I should have gone anyway. It took both of us to hoist Papa’s body up on the roof next to Ben’s. The exertion was too much for Mama. I should have—” A sob cut off the rest of the sentence.
Samuel walked around the table, straddled the bench next to Lucy, and pulled her into his arms. “I am sorry. I should not have asked.”
Lucy shook her head. “No, I want to tell you.” She hiccupped. “It helps.” She gave a wan smile and pulled back. Then she hiccupped again and took a long drink of the cider before continuing.
“Mama still didn’t want me to leave. She said another storm was coming and didn’t want me out on Hill Road. You know Mama and traveling in storms.” Samuel nodded. Lucy’s mother had always been skittish about storms. “I would have come anyway, but Mama took to her bed. I thought she was just tired, but I think she knew the baby was coming. I wish she had sent me for your mother.”
Mama’s predictions of another storm had proven right, but the storm had dropped only three inches of new snow rather than the foot her mother feared. That alone would not have prevented her from making a hurried trip over to the Wilson’s house. However, the wind gusts were so strong Lucy doubted she could have made it there and back without becoming lost in the blowing snow. She’d prayed for help to come. It hadn’t.
“Sunday morning, Mama couldn’t rise from her bed. Her labor had begun. I dared not leave her alone to run for your mother or even one of the closer neighbors. I prayed someone would notice our absence from church and stop by to check on the family. When no one came, I wondered if there was an epidemic.” That would have explained why you didn’t come. Why didn’t you? Lucy looked at Samuel but didn’t ask the question.
By sunset, Lucy knew she would be forced to deliver the baby, who should not be coming for another two months. How she longed for the help of another woman. She’d attended Jane’s birth two years previously and, five years before that, had helped with Sarah’s while waiting for Mrs. Wilson to arrive. Those experiences did not give her the skills of a midwife.
“Mama did not have the strength to yell as she had when she birthed little Jane. She just whimpered. I didn’t know what to do. I tried to remember everything your mother did. The baby came in the middle of the night. Mama was so weak she didn’t even open her eyes to look at him before she died.”
Lucy played with another bite of her food, taking her time to chew it so she wouldn’t have to talk for a moment as she recalled details she’d rather not share. Little toes, little fingers. She’d held the tiny baby boy for but a few precious moments. He was as still as the night that surrounded them. Through her tears, she willed him to breathe. Rubbing him and even slapping his tiny backside failed to produce more than one little gasp, which was his first and last breath. Lucy stood alone in the darkness of the night to morn their loss.
She’d sunken onto Mama’s couch with her brother held tightly in her arms and had cried until she was as empty as the cider barrel in spring. When there was nothing left to cry, she rose and prepared the bodies for burial. Her movements were slow and clumsy. She wanted to sleep, to be carried out of the nightmare into a dream world, but dawn would bring even more responsibilities.
“By the time Sarah woke, I had Mama and the baby wrapped in the quilt. I should have gone for your family’s help then, but I was too stubborn, and I was angry that you hadn’t come. I was also too tired to think through what I was doing. It took me most of the day to get them up on the roof.” Only after she’d spoken did she realize she’d revealed more than she wanted to. But she was beyond caring. She wanted Samuel to feel some of the pain that ripped at her heart.
Samuel wrapped his arms around her and let her tears fall. “I should have come. I wish I had.”
“I think I would like to lie down.” Lucy pulled out of his arms and stood to leave the table, but her knees buckled. Samuel’s reaction was quick. Before Lucy could protest, he scooped her
into his arms and held her snugly against his chest.
A flash of movement caught her eye as they entered her room. Sarah had come down the stairs.
“Are you carrying Lucy to bed, too? I love it when I am carried to bed. Sometimes I wake up but pretend not to just so I don’t have to walk. Are you pretending, Lucy?”
“Why, Miss Sarah, were you awake when I took you upstairs?” Samuel asked as he set Lucy on her bed.
Eyes wide, Sarah must have recognized her blunder. “Yes, Samuel. I am sorry.”
“You little minx.” His smile reassured both sisters that Sarah was forgiven. “Sit at the table. I will be out in a minute.” He set Lucy on the bed. For a long moment, he stared at Lucy, and Lucy stared back.
“Do you need—”
Lucy shook her head and pulled up the quilt before he could finish his question, then turned to the wall, shutting out all discussion.
Samuel stood for a long moment before leaving the room.
Lucy traced a crack on the wall and wondered again why Samuel hadn’t come when she had needed him.
Seventeen
Samuel brushed Old Brown. The horse turned his head as if to inspect the quality of his owner’s work. “I know you are restless. The boys haven’t let you out much. Do you like your new home? Or are you missing your old barn too much? This is a nice barn. Good feed, and John’s mare seems friendly enough.” Old Brown tossed his head. Samuel chuckled. “Don’t you go showing her how spoiled you are.”
With Lucy on the mend, he could take his time in the barn. He needed to inspect the livestock, feed, and implements. He hadn’t planned on farming, but farming came with Lucy. And, gratefully, he found it wasn’t as onerous as he’d considered it three years ago. Being in charge of a farm would be different in many ways than working on one. He needed to make plans. An inventory would help him know where to start.
The barn was one of the nicest in the district. Samuel’s father once said Mr. Simms gave his barn more attention than he did his family. He remembered how magnificent the new barn appeared next to the squatty little cabin before John Marden added the two story addition. In comparison to his father’s, the Marden barn was palatial. Several stalls sat unused even after James had purchased the sow and turned two stalls into her domain. The hayloft held more than enough feed and straw for even the longest of winters. Sibby and the other barn cats kept down the rodent population.
The barn even boasted a dedicated tack room. Most farmers in the area hung their bridles and ropes from wall pegs and used a corner of the barn for storage or, like his father, an empty stall. Most didn’t own a barn this size, either. Samuel figured he could keep his carpentry tools in the tack room and rearrange the stalls so he could use the adjoining one as a workshop. Before he’d thought of becoming a doctor, he’d hoped to take up cabinetry like his pa. Winter months were plenty slow enough that a skilled farmer could make some extra money with woodworking.
Samuel looked around, satisfied. The building was solid. The wind couldn’t find its way in between the boards. The doors swung on well-balanced hinges. The layout provided room for farm equipment, a wagon, and a buggy. He wondered what Mr. Simms had planned when he’d built such a monstrous barn in place of the old one. Perhaps raise horses? Whatever Mr. Simms had done in his life, at least he’d built an excellent barn.
Samuel never understood why Lucy hated this barn.
When they were small, she would play in his family barn with his brothers and sister, but she wouldn’t get near her own. He figured Mr. Simms had told her to stay out. The man had been a fearsome yeller. Samuel recalled venturing past the door one day in search of Lucy. Mr. Simms, riding crop in hand, had stepped toward Samuel and yelled at him to get out. Samuel had been so frightened he’d run halfway home before realizing he’d neglected to deliver the gingerbread he had been taking to Lucy. He’d dropped the bundle when he ran but didn’t dare go back.
Even after James became her new father, Lucy still avoided the barn. When sent on an errand to fetch Mr. Marden, she would stand at the door and call rather than set foot inside. Samuel had witnessed the behavior more than once, but that had been years ago.
Had she overcome her fear while I lived in Boston, or had desperation sent her to care for the animals when James Marden took ill?
Samuel put the brush back on its hook and took inventory of the tack room. The tack room door secured with a cross latch—not as long as a full crossbar but high enough that Sarah would not be able to reach it without standing on something. There was even a way to padlock the room, though Samuel did not see a lock around.
When Samuel was ten, he’d come into the barn, mostly to convince Lucy not to be so scared. But she’d cowered and cried outside, begging him to stay out. He remembered how a strong chain and lock secured the room then. He asked his pa about it. His father grunted and said Mr. Simms must have considered his saddles valuable. Deep gouges from the chain were still visible on the grayed walls.
The tack room proved to be neat and orderly, just as he expected James Marden to keep it. A shadow on the highest shelf caught his eye. Reaching up, Samuel found a riding crop.
Odd place to put it. Samuel ran his finger over the fine leather. He never used a crop.
James Marden hadn’t used one either. But Mr. Simms had. He was using one to abuse the horse he rode the day he died. Samuel wondered if this were the same crop Mr. Simms had threatened him with as a boy. Lying on the shelf, it had become dusty, and the leather was cracked. The carved handle bore the initials “W. A. S.” and was ringed with a serpent. He remembered seeing the mark often in his youth, on a sign hanging at the turn from the main road. This crop belonged to Mr. Welford Arthur Simms.
He slapped the crop in his palm. A disturbing image filled Samuel’s mind. He dropped the crop as if it had burned his hand.
No. No man would do that to Lucy. Not even the cantankerous Mr. Simms. Surely Lucy would have told him. Kneeling on the floor, he bent to pick up the crop. From this angle, he noticed there were gouges in the wood around the door and a dark, hand-shaped stain on the wall. He covered it with his own. A child size print, ages old.
Samuel staggered out of the tack room, crop in hand. His stomach rolled. The stain was not paint. Only one thing made him this ill. Blood. Leaning against a rail, he wet his handkerchief in a trough and wiped his face. He still clutched the crop.
What to do with it? He wanted to burn it, bury it, or fling it into the river. If his guess proved correct, taking it into the house to the fireplace would unnerve Lucy. Ridding himself of the vile discovery would need to wait. He returned the crop to the shelf. Samuel sincerely hoped another version of events less cruel than he’d imagined existed.
He spent unnecessary time with each animal before he felt calm enough to return to the house. After Lucy’s reaction to his seeing the scars, he was not ready to let her know he’d stumbled upon this. The nightmares, the scars, the barn—it all fit. He’d told Lucy when they were little that he would always be there for her. He had not been. If he had, his back might be covered with lash marks too.
After a second walk around the barn, he returned to the house. Sarah sat on the braided rug next to Lucy’s bed, playing with two rag dolls.
Sarah raised her finger to her lips. She stood up and tiptoed over to him. “Lucy said it’s time for the dolls to take a nap, but they are not tired.”
The dolls were obviously not napping, but Lucy was.
Knowing Sarah could use some time out of the cabin, Samuel helped her with her cloak and mittens. As soon as she’d stepped out of the doorway, Sarah ran to seek out the barn kittens. She was not at all afraid to play in the barn.
Several choice words came to Samuel’s mind. He was glad Mr. Simms was dead.
Eighteen
The next morning, after breakfast, while he worked in
the barn, Samuel’s mother pulled up in the wagon. Emma wasted no time in sending him to visit the house for the day with Sarah in tow.
What a curious feeling to return to his parents’ home. He had been gone only two weeks, but it didn’t feel like home anymore. He was a stranger, an interloper. Never in the three years he’d studied in Cambridge had he come home feeling like a guest. His home was with Lucy now. Samuel noted slight changes as he drove up. Most he attributed to the melting snow and further preparation for winter.
Thinking of his new home, even calling it Marden’s or Lucy’s seemed unfitting. Although “the Samuel Wilson’s” sounded presumptuous, whatever it was, that house was now home. For the first time in his life, he felt like a visitor in his parents’ home.
Emma poured steaming water into the bucket and added shavings of lye soap to it. The stench of lingering sickness and death and the dust motes floating about the home disappeared under Emma’s care. Lucy rocked in the rocker, her pale face emotionless. She toyed with a ball of yellow yarn in her lap.
“I feel so useless, Mrs.—”
“It isn’t Mrs.” Emma wrung out the cloth. “I told you this past summer you were of an age where calling me by Christian name was permitted. Now that you are a married woman and my daughter-in-law, it is Emma, Ma, or even Mother Wilson if you must, but never Mrs. Do you understand?” Emma wagged her finger playfully.
“But you know I’m not really married?”
“What do you mean not really married? I witnessed it myself, right outside this door.” Emma gestured to the door with the damp rag, sending a cascade of droplets over the floor she’d just swept. “Reverend Woods conducted it. No whispered vows in a snowbank for you.”
“There were no vows, whispered or otherwise. I wasn’t awake. It can’t be.” Lucy wrung her hands, causing the yarn ball to fly off her lap and roll across the floor, leaving a yellow tail behind. “How can God recognize a marriage when someone isn’t awake to even turn down the proposal?”