Jarrettsville

by Cornelia Nixon

  I shook my head and let my eyelids screen me almost out of sight.

  Exasperated, he snorted. “You are certainly our father’s son, more than Jackson or me by a long mile. You’re as stubborn as he was.” His eyes probed me hard. “Do you know what they’re saying of her now at home? That she lay with a black man. That she’s having a black bastard and that’s why you went away. Hannah has denounced the rumor as impossible. But I don’t know—where there’s that much smoke, there’s usually a fire.”

  I gave a cry like he had punched me in the gut. “Is that why you came all this way, to slander the best woman I ever loved? If that’s it, I’ll ask you to leave me be.”

  Alex held up his hands and backed a few steps. “Whoa, brother. All right. But what is it then? Can’t I have an answer of some kind for why you have disgraced the girl and left her so alone? Because you clearly had your way with her, or someone did. Someone did.”

  I sighed and hung my head. But he was so hungry for a way to understand, I had to give an inch. “Let’s just say I realized I could not be a brother to Richard Cairnes. I would sooner murder him, and I don’t even like to think that. Did I tell you I have turned Quaker? Yes. I have. I think it’s really what Father was, and it feels right to me. That’s all. I’m finished with the violence that seems to breed down there.”

  He nodded and set his jaw. “I suppose you’re right. But it’s a shame, a girl like that brought low, a girl of such good family. If there is any way you can see your way to help her, clear her name, I hope you’ll think on it. Please consider it.”

  I told him I would. But when he drove away, his brow was still in knots, probably in fear of what he had to tell his wife, and that night I was grateful for the hundredth time to eat my supper in my house alone, no one in need of having anything explained.

  THAT FALL, I DISCOVERED that my orchard included apples and pears that needed to be picked, and the Irishwoman canned them for me and made applesauce and chutney and cider, dug up the potatoes and turnips she had thoughtfully planted, picked all the green tomatoes, and set them along a windowsill to become slowly ripe. She helped me with the final cleaning and baling of the wool, and we talked a little as we worked, her thick, red arms so competent that she could bale faster than me.

  With the autumn ripeness all around, my mind could not help going back to the old orchard where Martha and I had lain so happily the year before, buzzed over by drunk bees, and I felt a hard pang, missing her and that. My mind would torture me with pictures, her face above me or below me, pink and abandoned, her sweet, round breasts. I had always been sad to see her start to dress. I would do the hooks in back for her, kissing each bare vertebra.

  But I knew it was only autumn rut, the same that rams and stags and stallions feel, and I set myself to get the wool to market, cleaned and bailed and hauled, as I ignored the thing ballooning in my loins and threatening to burst.

  When the wool was finally all sold, it was a hot September afternoon, leaves not yet turning red, and I went to drown my impulses in whiskey at the Dutchman’s Arms in Lancaster. Other sheep men were in town to sell their wool as well, and all had money in their pockets now. We took turns standing rounds.

  Soon my senses were quite numb, and the crowd inside the bar was loud, the air thick with smoke and jests and tales of derringdo, when I glanced out the open top of the Dutch door and saw a woman awkwardly dismounting from a horse. She looked oddly rounded, in a long, loose black garment that had been fancifully embroidered with cerulean and crimson birds, and as she slid down to the ground, I realized that she was big with child. The hitching posts were occupied, and she tried to tie her horse up to the low limb of a maple tree, but her fingers looked as big as sausages, so swollen she could hardly make them work. I was thinking that some gallant man should go and help the poor matron, whoever she was, when she turned with a grim frown and studied the horses tied outside.

  With a jolt that almost stopped my heart, I recognized her, though her face was dead white from the heat and bloated like a gibbous moon, streaming with sweat and dust from the ride. Her expression bore no resemblance to the laughing girl I knew—she looked like a harpy come to tear my liver out. And she seemed to have spotted my horse, because she charged straight up the stairs, headed not for the ladies’ parlor but the gentlemen’s saloon.

  If we had met more privately, I might have acted more mature, but now I did not stop to think. I dove through the crowd, around a corner to the hot kitchen, and a clap of laughter followed me, as if the drinking men knew right off what was up.

  Near where I crouched, a red-faced woman with bare arms was kneading dough, a few strands of brown hair straying from under her white cap. She gave me a quick grin, and I put a finger to my lips and pleaded with my eyes. There was a service window leading to the bar, and with exaggerated caution, on tiptoes, she stepped to it to watch.

  I heard the bottom of the Dutch door slam against the wall, and all laughter stopped. The floor creaked underneath a man’s tread, possibly the innkeeper’s.

  “Now, madam,” said a grave male voice. “You know you can’t come in. This is the gentlemen’s. If you would care to step next door into the ladies’, I am sure my wife will bring you some nice sassafras tea.”

  Silently I prayed I was mistaken and that it was some other pregnant lady invading the gentlemen’s saloon. But the next instant I heard her voice and knew I would not get my wish.

  “Help me quickly, sir. I must speak to Mr. McComas, and his horse is here.”

  He tipped his head to one side. “McComas? You mean James McComas, the sheep man? I am afraid he’s gone to his reward, and his boy Alex isn’t up to town today at all, so far as I’m aware. You boys seen Alex anywhere?”

  “Not Alex, Nick! I know his horse. It’s that gray Thoroughbred outside. My mare knows it and greeted it. Now stop pretending you don’t know he’s here!”

  A few men started to laugh low among themselves. “So his horse has been consorting with her mare, and now the mare’s in foal! She’s come to call it to account!”

  The innkeeper tried to keep order with a soothing voice. “Why, there are plenty of grays around. Which one of you boys owns the gray Thoroughbred?”

  Gusts of laughter greeted this, and some guffawed. “What, with a mare on rampage?”

  “You think anyone will own up to that big gray now?”

  I heard a small exasperated cry, and in a moment she retreated, slamming the Dutch door.

  In the bar, men seemed to exhale all together, laughing with relief.

  “Where is that rotter, anyway?”

  “Halfway to Philadelphia by now!”

  “He’s dipped his wick, I swear!”

  “Not bad looking, for a little ball of wax!”

  “She’s come to fetch him on the carpet now!”

  “Now, gents,” one man said gravely. “It’s a sad story. My wife has kin in Jarrettsville, and she heard something of it. Says the baby isn’t his.”

  All laughter stopped. “Whose is it then?” asked several men at once.

  The grave-voiced man spoke quietly, but it carried all the more. “Some Negro of hers. They say McComas took him in to get him off her. Wasn’t any other way.”

  A disgusted silence followed, and I glanced around for a door to the outside. What would be worse, to meet Martha waiting out there, or to stay in here and bear this shame? I could not even face the cook, but I could feel her looking sympathetically my way. Wiping her hands, she lifted the hinged counter to the empty ladies’ parlor and led me to a discreet way out back, toward the privy. Opening the door for me, she gave my shoulder one quick pat.

  “You’ll see, it’ll all come right,” she whispered, as if she knew. “Handsome fellow as you are? You come on around here anytime you like.”

  MARTHA WAS NO LONGER outside, and I went home unimpeded, feeling like some creature crawling back under its rock. In honesty to how I felt, I could do nothing else. I could not even write to her for fear t
hat she would track me down, and I had no desire to read what she would write. Something would have to break the logjam in my heart. I could no longer deny she was with child, having seen it with my eyes. But I still could not fully believe I was its source.

  For the remainder of that fall I tried to be industrious, felled trees for firewood I would need that winter, whacked off their limbs, and dragged the trunks back to my yard, where I split each one with a maul and stacked the logs in a dry shed. I mortared the holes in the cottage’s stone walls, mended tack, and sharpened knives.

  The Irishwoman was making soap and candles for the dark ahead, and I asked her to teach me how, though she was clearly reluctant to do so, since it implied I might one day need her less. She was still young, and sometimes I caught her watching me with a look I recognized, as if the job of wife might suit her more. I might want a woman of my own again someday, but it would not be she, and I resolved to become more independent so that I could let her go.

  But now I had nothing left to do but read and watch the sheep, and I felt restless with inactivity, dreading the long, cold winter solitude. When Gabriel Smithson sent an invitation to a corn husking at his place, I jumped at it, hired a neighbor’s boy to feed the dogs and sheep, and happily rode south on bone-dry early snow in time for supper with my mother and sisters and my aunt. They all fussed over me, and by the time it was cold dark, I was in a good mood, ready for some whiskey and some easy time with other men.

  Out back behind Smithson’s pub a bonfire already roared, its warm light dancing red-gold on the faces of happy, joking men and barmaids bringing pints of ale and hard cider. We all competed at husking fastest, at amassing the biggest pile of hard seed corn, at throwing the most husks onto the blaze, and the man who lost each round had to chug another pint, to general jokes and merriment.

  I lost a round or two and was into my third pint, plus pulls from the whiskey going round, my hands quite raw, when one of Smithson’s boys came up to call him to the house. Smithson soon returned, walking through the early snow, straight to me. He had imbibed a fair bit, too, his face red, his expression loose and relaxed, though his eyes tried to be grave.

  He took hold of my arm. “Hey, man. You need to come with me.”

  No good ever came from such a summons, especially not so close to Jarrettsville and Bel Air. With a reflex to flee, I glanced toward the dark stable, where Jack stood resting in a stall.

  “No, you can’t leave yet,” Smithson said and tightened his grip. “Come on, no one’s going to hurt you. There’s just someone who needs to speak with you, and I think she has the right. I think you owe her that at least.”

  A fizzy feeling came over me, a mixture of doom and thrill, as though I had a noose around my neck but could already see the angels flying down to take me up. “Did you tell her I was here?”

  He looked away evasively. “It’s for the best. Come on.”

  I felt pulled both forward and back. But I followed him down to the house, where most of the rooms were as black as the night, the bonfire flickering on the white walls, a smell of wood smoke and green cornhusks in the frozen air.

  A fire was leaping in the parlor grate, and through the window with a shock I saw the even more swollen outline of Martha, as she tried to bend to stir the coals but couldn’t reach. Her mother took the poker and stooped herself in her black taffetas.

  Smithson’s big hand had hold of my bicep and propelled me up onto the porch and through the door. He removed my hat and deposited me in the living room.

  Mrs. Cairnes’s skirts rustled as she rose to confront me.

  “Take off your cloak,” she hissed to Martha.

  I couldn’t bear to look at them, but from the corner of my eye I saw Martha obey. But she turned her belly toward the fire as if ashamed, while she stared up with feigned interest at a framed embroidery of the Smithson family tree. For a long time, no one spoke.

  Smithson’s deep voice called out, jovial and hearty, as if nothing were amiss.

  “I see I’m not wanted here.” With obvious relief, he tramped out the door, leaving us alone.

  Slowly Martha turned and seemed to flinch, as if the sight of me could knock her down. She looked far better than when I had glimpsed her last, her creamy cheeks now ruddy with cold. Her heavy hair appeared fairer, coiled on her slender neck in back, and she gave off the glow that young mothers were often said to have. My eyes skittered to her belly and shied away.

  Her mother stepped between us, staring at me coldly. “We’ve come to demand that you do what’s right. It’s an easy thing to do. You need only stand beside her for a few minutes and sign the document, and then you’ll be free to go. I’ll keep her and the babe if you give it a name. You needn’t trouble yourself about them again. But you have to do that much.”

  For a few seconds I wanted to rend my clothing, fall on the floor, and beg Martha to forgive me. I cast about to think if I could stand to do what her mother had asked.

  “You won’t—” I ventured, but my voice broke, my throat suddenly parched. I had to swallow hard and try again. “You won’t think the less of Martha Jane?”

  Mrs. Cairnes’s face closed like a tombstone dropping on a grave. “I won’t throw her out of doors if you will marry her.”

  Blood branched deeper into Martha’s cheeks, and her mother turned to gaze at her.

  “I’ll go see about another log,” Mrs. Cairnes said, clipping each word. She left the room.

  When we were alone, some hopeful worm in me lifted its head, gave her a lively look, lips parted. We had always been so playful together, teasing, kissing, falling into passion from a laugh. I missed that desperately, I realized, and I did not know how else to speak to her.

  But there was no play in her face tonight, and I sighed. My eyes ached, and water stood in them. I hated myself for this display, as if it were me who needed sympathy.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered and tried to take her hand. By accident my fingers brushed her belly, and she slapped my hand away.

  Her voice sounded remarkably like her mother’s hiss. “You have ruined me, and now there’s only one thing you can do for me. You’ll marry me, or I will shoot you dead.”

  This time I did catch her hand roughly, overpowered it, and held it hard as I searched her clear blue eyes, so deceptive, full of lies. “Fierce to the end, I should have known. I’ve always loved that in you.”

  A wave of desire shocked me, and I pulled her closer till her belly rested against mine. We looked at each other, breathed each other’s scent. Good God! Here she was. I wanted to take her, there, that instant, belly and all. And in the next it occurred to me that if I married her, she would twine herself around me and never leave, a prospect that made me crackle with dread and desire. But I could still say no, leave there, and not look back, go on being who I was.

  I gripped her hand so hard she winced. “A shotgun wedding, would that really satisfy you? Tell me once and for all. Is the baby mine? Can you swear it to me? Because if you have the smallest doubt . . .”

  Her eyes had taken on a mirror shine in the firelight. Her lips curled with disgust, unmoving as she groaned, “You are insulting me.”

  She closed her eyes and seemed to collect herself with great effort.

  Coldly her lips said, “Be at the house on Thursday at five o’clock. We will be married then.” And she left the room, not giving me another glance.

  Thoughts like black crows flapped around my head. Be at the house, at Richard’s house, so I could be saddled with his sister and her baby, who might not be mine? A wife I could not trust, from a family I despised?

  I closed my eyes and tried to clear my head, leave Richard out of it. What if she had told the truth? I felt a whisper of belief, and what if the child was born and looked like me? Could I forget the rest, her visits to Tim alone and that day in the sleigh? The sleigh was almost the worst, and it made me shudder with lust and disgust. She might speak the truth, but she was not chaste, and I did not know if I could l
ive with her.

  I went back to the fire and husked corn furiously, pulling deep on the whiskey jug when it came my way. It warmed my chest, and I tried not to think.

  After a while, Smithson sidled up to me. “You’re getting into trouble, aren’t you, friend?”

  Not answering, I threw husks on the fire, corn over my shoulder to the pile.

  He went on with pretense at his usual geniality. “She seems to think you are, at least. And how much longer till the whole world knows? Until the birth, I mean?”

  I yanked a husk free in one pull. “How should I know? I suppose, from the look of her, six or eight weeks. Look, I’m sorry for her trouble, but I’m not sure I deserve the blame.”

  “She says you do. Are you going to do right by her?”

  “I’m in no condition to marry, if that’s what you mean. Certainly not a woman used to being kept as well as she.”

  Smithson’s voice went hard. “It’s not about her keep, now, is it? I hear you wouldn’t have to lift a hand to help her there. Her mother will do that.”

  So he knew the plan hatched out by Mrs. Cairnes and had helped to spring the trap. I felt a flash of rage. “Is that why you asked me here? It is, isn’t it? And you sent word to her that I had come. This whole thing’s a damn conspiracy!”

  “A conspiracy for your own good, perhaps. Think, man. Do you know what will happen if you don’t marry her? She’ll be disgraced forever. No one will ever marry her. Her mother may throw her out, and what will happen to her then? Where will she go? She could end up in a workhouse, or worse. She could end up in a brothel with your baby, too. Don’t you even care?”

  I felt an urge to weep or throw myself onto the fire and just have done with it. My voice was choked. “Of course I do. You know I never loved another woman half so well.”

  But the image of her in a brothel was too easy to see, for reasons Smithson did not know. And I knew she could end up in a prison, too, if the baby was a shade too dark.