Delilah couldn’t help but smile. Jane and Polly loved each other, but each had a sister’s impatience with the other. Especially since Polly thought all of Jane’s troubles were in her head.
“Where’re you intending to get that horse?”
“Never mind.”
“You’re going to Maple Hill, aren’t you?”
“Where else could I get a horse?”
“Tom Oliver would give you one straight out.”
“I’d walk before I’d take anything from Tom Oliver,” Delilah snapped. “Lucius Clarke, too. You may not like Nathan, but he’s always treated me honorably.”
“I don’t dislike him. I think you ought to marry him. You’d be a great fool to let a man like that get away.”
Realizing the doubtful wisdom of saying anything to a chatterbox like Polly, Delilah restrained her impulse to confide in a sympathetic ear. “You make sure Jane doesn’t know what I’ve done. She’s got enough to do, worrying over that baby.”
During the long walk to Maple Hill, Delilah racked her brain for a way to convince Nathan to let her have a horse. Knowing how he felt about her safety and about the foolishness of the armed rebellion, she wouldn’t put it past him to refuse her the horse and to order her to return home. It would probably be easier just to take one.
Nevertheless, she could hardly wait to see him. Ever since that morning they’d spent together, he had hardly left her thoughts. There were times—the nights were the hardest—when she desperately wanted to forget her resolution and throw herself into his arms. Every time she relived each glorious moment of that morning, her body writhed on the bed, racked by a yearning only Nathan could satisfy. When she remembered his kisses, his touch, his filling her body, she had to hold on to the side of the bed to keep from dashing out of the cabin in the middle of the night.
She was still trying to get her mind off Nathan and onto the horse when she entered the Maple Hill kitchen through the back door.
“It’s about time you got back with that wood,” Mrs. Stebbens said without turning around. “I’ve told you a dozen times if I’ve told you once, it’s got to be cut thin so I can control the heat.”
“I didn’t bring any wood, but I’ll get some if you want”
“Miss Delilah!” Mrs. Stebbens exclaimed whirling about so fast she lost her balance and had to steady herself against the table.
“When did I get to be Miss Delilah.”
“Ever since the master said you’d be coming back as his wife.”
“He said that?”
“At least a dozen times a day. Whatever are you doing here? Mr. Trent is away for the day.”
Delilah’s disappointment over Nathan’s not being home was much greater than her relief that he wouldn’t immediately refuse her the horse and send her home.
“My sister-in-law’s not well. I have to go after my brother, and I need to borrow a horse.”
“I don’t know when he’s coming back.”
Lester entered the kitchen in time to hear the last remark. He looked straight at Delilah but didn’t acknowledge her presence. “A cook’s got no business knowing the master’s doings.”
“If he expects to get any dinner, it’d better be my business,” Mrs. Stebbens announced.
Delilah could tell, even though Lester pretended he still controlled the household, Mrs. Stebbens’s mastery was at last complete.
“You get your long face out of here or you’ll be going to bed with an empty stomach. That man’s worse than a dose of castor oil,” Mrs. Stebbens said, making sure Lester heard her last words before he closed the door behind him.
Mrs. Stebbens chattered on while making preparations for dinner. Delilah listened, but her mind was on Nathan. Where had he gone? Was his business going well? Was he lonely living in this big house by himself? Were people nicer to him? Did Mrs. Stebbens still cook his favorite dishes? Did Hepsa mend his shirts?
She was still thinking of him when she slipped under the covers in her old room. It hadn’t taken her very long to realize coming back to Maple Hill made her feel she was coming home. Now she understood the uncomfortable feeling she’d had since going back to live with Reuben and Jane. It wasn’t their fault; it was hers. She had become a visitor there. Here, she felt at home.
She wanted to be at Maple Hill: She would never really feel at home anywhere else. Somehow she must find a way to take her place beside Nathan.
Nathan hadn’t returned home by morning, so Delilah took one of the horses. She felt a little uncomfortable about not asking, but on the whole she was relieved. Whatever terrible things Nathan might say upon her return, she would already have brought Reuben home.
She took the river road. The day was bitterly cold, the winter clouds were low and dark, and the countryside lay under deep snow crusted hard enough to support a small man. Fortunately for Delilah, the feet of the many men and horses traveling north had beaten the snow down and cleared the drifts. Progress was slow and miserably uncomfortable, but it was steady.
A light rain started an hour later. Her thick cloak with its great hood kept her dry, but the damp cold soon chilled her to the bone. It was nearly mid-morning by the time she reached South Hadley. She stopped at a tavern for information, to get warm, and to rest her horse.
The rain turned to sleet.
“Best go on back home,” the tavern keeper advised her. “We’re in for a good storm. Probably five or six inches of snow before it’s done.”
But Delilah couldn’t go back—she had to find Reuben—and she couldn’t stay at the tavern because she had no money. She had no choice but to get back on the road.
Conditions worsened rapidly, and a light snow was falling when she rode into Hadley. But she found out the troops were still at Pelham, only ten miles away. She had to keep going. She couldn’t stop now.
It wasn’t hard to find Reuben once she reached Pelham. Everyone knew Shays’s huge, fiery-tempered second in command. She was told he’d be at the tavern with all the other officers.
“You must be daft to think I would leave now!” Reuben exclaimed when Delilah told him why she had come. “Lincoln is following us. If there’s a fight, Shays will need every man he has.”
“Your wife needs the only man she has,” Delilah shot back, her patience completely exhausted by Reuben’s blind attachment to the regulators’ cause. “What’s more important than being at her side when she has your baby?”
“She’s not going to have the baby now. She’s not due for another month.”
“She’s having pains.”
“Jane always has pains when she doesn’t want me to do something. She had them with Daniel when I wanted to go join the fighting in Virginia. She had them twice with David, when I wanted to go to the convention in Worcester and again in Pittsfield.”
“You don’t think she’s in any danger?”
“Jane’s healthy as a horse. She’ll have that kid on the morning it’s due and be up and about before nightfall. She did with the other two.”
Delilah didn’t know whether to be madder at Reuben or Jane. There was dearly no point in saying anything else to her brother. Just now the battle was the most important thing in the world to him. Delilah decided only a man could hold such an opinion. The birth of a child had to be the most important occasion in any woman’s life.
But if Jane had caused her to make this long ride just to try to get Reuben to come home where he would be safer, then Delilah would have a few pithy comments for her sister-in-law when she returned. It was one thing for Jane to attempt to play tricks on her husband. It was quite another for her to rope Delilah in on it. And Delilah meant to tell her so.
“I’d better see about finding you a place to stay.”
“I’m going back,” Delilah said. “If I leave now, I can be home before dark.”
“You won’t get to Hadley on foot.”
“I have a horse, one of Nathan’s if you must know,” Delilah said defiantly when her brother looked at her accusingly. �
��You surely didn’t expect me to travel by foot in this weather.”
“I didn’t expect you’d be traveling at all. Now give over and wait here while I talk to Shays.”
“I’m leaving now.”
“I say you’re not.”
“Let’s get something straight, Reuben Stowbridge. You forfeited all right to censor my conduct when you left us to go off on this mad gamble. If you think I’m capable of taking care of your farm, your children, and your wife, then I’m also capable of deciding whether or not I’ll return to Springfield today.”
“It’s crazy. Look at the weather.”
“I made it here. I’ll make it back”
But thirty minutes out of Pelham Delilah wasn’t so sure. The snow had become heavy, the wind suddenly picked up, and the temperature seemed to be dropping. She pulled the cloak more tightly around her and lowered her head to keep the snow out of her eyes. She didn’t need to watch the road. The horse would do it for her.
She passed through Amherst and Hadley without stopping, but she paused in South Hadley long enough to warm her frown fingers. The tavern keeper urged her to stay inside, but he wasn’t nearly so anxious for her company when he learned she had no money.
The storm turned into a blizzard an hour out of South Hadley ‘and Delilah began to wonder if she would ever reach home. Her entire body felt frozen stiff. She kept her head bowed to keep the snow out of her face even though she could no longer feel the sharp needlelike flakes when they hit her cheeks. She couldn’t move her fingers either. Snow began to collect in the hollow formed by her body as she hunched over the saddle.
She thought to pull off the road and ask for shelter at one of the houses along the way, but the snow had obliterated all landmarks. She couldn’t discern any roads, not even the one that led to Hector’s cabin.
After a time Delilah started to feel drowsy. She was relieved to find she didn’t feel so cold anymore, but she didn’t want to doze off. If she did, she might fall out of the saddle. Her body was so stiff from riding all day she doubted she’d be able to mount again. The snow was coming down so heavily, the sky was so dark, she couldn’t even see the river, though it was sometimes less than ten feet away. She fought the drowsiness that continued to creep over her. But she couldn’t help it, she was just too sleepy to stay awake.
Her horse jerked up its head. She sensed an increase in its energy, a quickening of its stride. She tried to understand what was happening, but she was so sleepy she couldn’t think.
“Delilah!” It was a cry out of the darkness, and in the next instant Nathan was at her side. “My God, you’re frozen stiff.”
“Nathan.” That was what she tried to say, but the faint sound that left her lips was ripped away by the driving wind. Delilah felt herself lifted out of the saddle and placed before Nathan on his mount. He opened his cloak and wrapped it around her, holding her against him and the life-giving warmth of his body.
Then, driving his heels into the sides of his mount, he rode for Maple Hill as though her life depended on it.
Nathan burst into the kitchen in the midst of dinner.
“Merciful God! She’s not dead, is she?” Mrs. Stebbens cried when she saw who it was Nathan held in his arms.
“No, and she won’t be if I have anything to say about it. Tommy, I want a blazing fire in my bedroom in less than five minutes. Lester, bring some brandy and all the extra quilts we have in the house. Mrs. Stebbens, bring every hot water bottle you can find, filled, as soon as you can get water hot”
“He’s wasting his time,” Lester said after Nathan had gone from the kitchen. “I’ve seen people freeze to death before. She has death written all over her face.”
“There’ll be death written over every part of your body if you don’t get that brandy upstairs quick,” Mrs. Stebbens said, interrupting her preparations long enough to make Lester understand the true state of affairs at Maple Hill. Cause if Mr. Trent don’t cut your gizzard out, I will.”
Tommy had a fire blazing in the hearth and Nathan had Delilah buried under quilts by the time Mrs. Stebbens brought up the first of the hot water bottles. He sat by the bed, spooning straight brandy down her throat as fast as she could swallow it.
“I’ll bring up more bottles directly,” Mrs. Stebbens said as she studied Delilah closely. “She doesn’t look good. Too pale and listless.”
“I tried to make her walk, but she’s too weak.”
“She doesn’t need walking. She needs to be warm. The heat’s all drained out of her.”
“I told Tommy to lay in enough wood to keep the fire blazing all night. I’ve got ten quilts on her now. I can’t see how any more could help.”
“Whatever you do, she’s got to be as warm as you can keep her.”
“I’m giving her all the brandy she can swallow.”
“That ought to help.”
But Mrs. Stebbens didn’t seem so sanguine when she came up again with fresh hot water bottles.
“I don’t like the looks of her. She ought to have come around a bit by now, have some color. She’s pale as skimmed milk.”
Nathan picked up Delilah and all the bedclothes and put her on the floor as close to the fire as he dared. She’d hardly swallowed any brandy the last two times he’d tried to give her some. He was frightened.
“You’ve got to do something else or she’s not going to make it,” Mrs. Stebbens said when she came up again. “I don’t like the sound of her breathing.”
“What can I do?”
“She needs body heat, somebody to lie down on each side of her and keep her warm. Pity she isn’t at home.”
“Keep bringing up hot water bottles every thirty minutes,” Nathan said. “If you get too tired, wake Lester and tell him I said he’s to take over.”
I’m not going to bed, sir. Not while Miss Delilah’s still got a chance.”
The minute the door closed behind Mrs. Stebbens, Nathan began stripping off his clothes. Then he crawled between the sheets next to Delilah. Even with the hot water bottles and the overpowering heat from the blazing fire, Delilah’s body felt like ice. He opened her gown and pressed as much of his body against hers as possible.
That’s haw Mrs. Stebbens found them when she came in half an hour later. Nathan had been afraid she would shriek in shocked surprise, but she took it all in stride.
“She’s not looking any better, but at least she’s not any worse.”
“Put the bottles against her back and make up the fire before you go,” Nathan asked. He was so hot rivulets of perspiration ran down his forehead.
The long night hours brought no comfort to Nathan. If he had been worried that lying next to Delilah might ignite passions he couldn’t control, he was mistaken. He was too afraid her slow breathing might stop altogether to think of anything but her next breath, the warmth of her body, whether she moved even the slightest bit.
Odd how simple your wants become when they are reduced to the most elemental level. He had wanted money, security, friends, success, recognition, any number of things aver his lifetime. Now he would have traded all of them just to have Delilah wake up.
He couldn’t think of a future without her. If she didn’t marry him … There was no completion of that thought. Just a void. He hadn’t realized until now that everything he had done in the last two months had been prefaced by or predicated on the assumption she would become his wife. He had come to believe that was the only way things could end.
But now he knew there was another way. He knew the fragile woman in his arms was not immortal, not invulnerable to the vicissitudes which affected everyone else. He hadn’t given much thought to the consequences Reuben’s death might have on his family. But now he understood what hurt that could cause, and he swore he would do everything in his power to see that no harm came to Delilah’s brother.
It struck him as ironic that Delilah could be so cold and he could be so warm. This seemed a reflection of their lives. Always on opposite sides, always pulling in diffe
rent directions, always looking at the same thing with different eyes. He wondered if it would be different after they were married. One thing was certain. He’d see to it she didn’t go out in any more blizzards. If he ever found out who had let her place herself at the mercy of yesterday’s storm, he’d choke the life out of him.
Mrs. Stebbens returned several times before she saw a change in Delilah.
“She’s got some color, Mr. Trent.” She felt Delilah’s forehead. “And she doesn’t feel so clammy cold.”
“I noticed the change just after you left last time,” Nathan said, so exhausted from worry and heat he could hardly keep awake. “I thought one time she even moved a little, but I guess I was mistaken.”
“You stay right where you are. Go to sleep. You look like you need the rest. I’ll look after the both of you.”
“But you’ve been up all night, too.” “No matter. I can go to sleep when she gets better. You’ve got to be awake then, so you’d better sleep now.” She winked and grinned. “And don’t you worry none about Lester or Tommy popping their heads inside to see how she’s doing. I told them I thought she was sickening from the influenza. I said you might send the first one you saw out for a doctor.”
“Nobody could survive in this blizzard.” It was still snowing as fiercely as it had been when Nathan found Delilah.
“They know that.”
Nathan laughed. “Thank you.”
“No need to thank me. You’re doing exactly what the doctor would have ordered had he been here. I can’t help it if their minds are too small to understand.”
Nathan didn’t know whether Mrs. Stebbens’s mind was any larger than Lester’s or Tommy’s, but it was certainly of a more romantic bent. She was seeing a wedding in the future. And Nathan was going to do everything he could to make sure she wasn’t disappointed.
Delilah fought to open her eyes, but she felt so tired she gave up. She couldn’t move. Her whole body seemed weighted down. She tried to think, to remember what had happened, where she was; but she kept wandering in and out of consciousness. She finally gave up. She was warm and comfortable. That was enough.
Delilah felt something rough against her cheek. She moved and it hurt. She tried to move away, but she couldn’t. Why? What was hurting her cheek? With a great effort, she overcame her lassitude and opened her eyes.
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