Oh, and for little Hope! Tears slid down Caroline’s cheeks as she glanced at the poor motherless child. Too young to know aught of her tragedy, Hope was clutched to James’s chest, where she cooed contentedly and reached out from time to time to touch her father’s nose or mouth. He permitted her explorations as if he was not even aware of them, but he would not give the child up for someone else to hold—Caroline had offered to take her, as had others of Mary’s many friends. The little girl’s bright blue eyes sparkled, and she was all smiles, because she liked to be in company and there was so much of it. Her unaware happiness was heartbreaking to see.
The hole at their feet already held Mary’s pine casket. It remained only for James to throw in the first clod. Everyone waited expectantly—but James, staring blindly down into the grave, did not seem to realize that.
Mouth tightening, Matt bent and scooped up a fistful of earth, then pressed it into his brother’s free hand. James looked down at his hand, then in anguish at Matt, as if his brother had done something to cause him terrible pain.
“Throw it in,” Matt murmured.
James’s face set into a bleak mask. Mouth working, he obeyed.
The clod hit the coffin with a dull thud, and Caroline shuddered along with James.
“God’s will be done, world without end. Amen.”
As the dominie’s voice intoned the final words, Caroline chanced to meet his gaze. It was so filled with hatred for her that she was taken aback. His mouth curled at her in a sneer. Her eyes widened, and she took an instinctive step backward. But the service had ended, and Matt and Daniel, on either side of James, were already leading their brother away. Davey and John followed, both sad-eyed and solemn, though Caroline didn’t think that Davey quite understood that they had put Mary into the ground forever, never to be seen on earth again. Which was as well, she supposed, as she fell in behind Robert and Thomas, who were discreetly shepherding the boys. Such a terrible reality mixed ill with the eternal optimism of youth.
The small crowd of Mary’s friends and other relations parted for the Mathieson men, their eyes sympathetic, their murmured words consoling. But as Caroline passed through them, she was surprised to see eyes that had once regarded her benignly grow hard. Men dismissed her with contemptuous stares, while women whom she had never harmed pulled away their skirts.
Hannah Forrester stood weeping with her sister Patience, a handkerchief held becomingly to her eyes. Her gaze lifted to follow him as Matt passed—and then as he failed to notice her, her eyes found Caroline and turned hard. When Caroline nodded, Hannah deliberately turned her back, and Patience, whom Caroline supposed to be aping her sister, followed suit.
As she became aware she was being ostracized, a flush suffused Caroline’s entire body. Had they somehow learned of what they would no doubt consider her sin with Matt?
“That’s her—’tis the witch! Watch that she don’t look at you—’tis those eyes of hers—see their color? If she looks at you, you’ll come down with the fever too, and likely die of it, just as did poor Goodwife Mathieson, who befriended the creature,” she heard one woman whisper to another. Surprised, she did turn to look at them, only to find that they cringed and raised a hand to ward her off.
Could they really believe she was a witch? Frightened, mortified, Caroline dragged her eyes from the speaker and her friend and almost ran after the men. Behind her, she heard the muttering grow louder and uglier in tone.
“She is evil, good people,” hissed a voice that Caroline thought she recognized as the dominie’s. “Ephraim Mathieson’s paramour, skilled in alchemy, perhaps not even the sister of the first one who was his wife but the first one her own self, risen from the grave in new form to take vengeance on us for consigning her to hellfire. She’s cursed our town, brought about the deaths of God-fearing folk with her spells! But we’ll not be fooled! No, we shall not be fooled!”
There was a general murmur of agreement, and something soft hit Caroline squarely between the shoulder blades. A snowball! She whirled and found many among the small crowd of mourners laughing behind their hands while others turned away from her gaze. But there was none that she could identify as the culprit, and her shame at being thus publicly singled out was strong.
She did not cry out against the crowd, but whirled about again and hurried away in pursuit of the men, who were all oblivious to what had happened as they trudged toward James’s house.
In the face of James’s grief, she did not feel it right to mention the indignity she had suffered, and so she kept her tongue between her teeth as she cooked them all a meal, while James’s brothers took turns sitting with him in the bedchamber he had, until two days ago, shared with his wife.
“He’s in a bad way,” Matt said to her later, when James had at last fallen asleep and they were preparing to leave. Daniel would stay the night with James, while Mary’s mother, who had arrived from Wethersfield the day before, cared for Hope. As Mary had been her oldest, and she had young children at home, she could stay for only a few days. After that, ’twould be up to James to care for his little daughter as best he could, though Caroline decided she would willingly assume the charge if he would let her. She adored the sweet-faced baby, and parted from her with a squeeze and a tearful kiss.
On the way home, both boys were unnaturally silent. Caroline supposed that the lingering effects of the funeral had stilled their usually magpie tongues.
“Pa, will Uncle James find a new wife too?” Davey, who had been permitted to ride on the seat between his father and Caroline, piped up.
“Someday, perhaps. ’Tis a hard thing, to find another wife,” Matt said after only a moment’s pause, and ruffled his son’s hair. Davey said nothing more, but he leaned against Matt and Caroline realized that he was comparing little Hope’s situation to his and John’s—and that he was coming, in some small fashion, at least, to accept the idea that she would be his father’s wife.
Later that night, after everyone had gone to bed and the house was silent, Caroline sat for a time in front of the fire in the kitchen. She couldn’t sleep, and thinking of poor Mary and Hope and James brought tears to her eyes. The world was a cruel, hard place, she was thinking, to sunder such as them.
A creak behind her made her jump and look around. In the doorway stood Matt, one arm resting against the jamb as he surveyed her. His face was somber, his eyes hollow with exhaustion as he had spent the intervening nights in helping James through his grief. Days had been spent on chores and burial details, and this was the first chance he had had for a decent sleep since coming to rescue her from the Indians.
“What are you doing up?” Her question was softly chiding.
“I heard someone down here and thought it might be you.” He came away from the door to stand looking down at her. He was barefoot, clad only in black breeches. His bare chest and shoulders appeared very wide in the gloomy shadows of the kitchen. The breeches rode low on his hips, and above them the muscles of his belly were ridged and hard.
“You need to sleep.” But she reached up to catch his hand and lift it to her lips.
“So do you.” His eyes unreadable, he drew her up beside him and slid his arms around her waist. Caroline put her own arms around his neck, suddenly fiercely glad that he had come to her to share his grief, and rose on her tiptoes to place her mouth on his.
He pulled her close, kissed her well. Caroline allowed her eyes to close and her thoughts to give up their sorrow and focus on him. His hand slid up along her spine, pulling up the thin lawn nightdress with it as it went.
“Pa! Pa!” It was John, almost falling in his haste to get down the stairs. At the foot of the steps he saw them, still entwined in each other’s arms although they had broken off their kiss as both turned to look at him, but his stride never faltered. “Pa! Aunt Caroline! ’Tis Davey! He’s horribly sick!”
45
For the next two days, as Davey’s life hung in the balance, Matt hovered over the child’s bed. So did John, clear
ly terrified that his brother might die, until Matt, afraid that he would catch the disease, forbade him to set foot inside the room. The others stayed out as well on Matt’s orders, save for Caroline, who nursed Davey with a fierce devotion that could not have been more determined had he been her own child.
The physician, a learned man named Dr. Samuel Smith, came and went, shaking his head over the boy as he did what he could. The outcome in such cases, he told Matt and Caroline forthrightly, was largely up to God. Matt held Davey’s hand and alternately prayed and turned the pages of the Bible as he searched for strength in this time of direst need. Caroline’s heart broke as she considered what losing his son would do to him.
Part of Matt would die with Davey.
“Aunt Caroline, you won’t let Davey die, will you? You saved Pa.” Without school to occupy him, and banned from the sickroom, John had little to do but worry. Caroline’s heart went out to him as she ladled more barley water into a jug for Davey, who was vomiting almost ceaselessly. John was halfheartedly playing draughts with Thomas, though such pastimes were in general frowned upon by the Puritans. But to keep their older nephew’s mind off his little brother, John’s uncles seemed willing to turn their hands to anything.
“I’ll do my best,” Caroline told him, quite unable to resist the temptation to ruffle his hair as she passed. To her surprise, in return John jumped up and gave her a hug.
“Davey and me—we love you, Aunt Caroline,” he told her fiercely, his head buried in her soft breasts. “It really is all right if you marry Pa.”
“Why, John, I love you and Davey too.” Jug and all, Caroline wrapped her arms around him and dropped a quick kiss on his silky hair. “The four of us will be so happy together, you’ll see.”
Though she had grave doubts about Davey’s survival, she would not tell John that. Instead she strove to paint a cheerful picture for him for as long as she could.
“If Davey doesn’t die,” he said starkly, his head drooping again as he released her and returned dispiritedly to his chair.
“We must all pray that he won’t,” Caroline said with what steadiness she could muster, exchanging a pregnant look with Thomas over John’s head. Thomas’s eyebrows lifted, silently inquiring about Davey’s condition. Caroline shook her head.
In the sickroom, Matt was already praying. Caroline, having tried every trick in her healing arsenal from the icy sheets to the medicines she still had, was helpless to do more for Davey than force liquids down him and bathe his burning body. His fate was truly in the hands of God—and he had already been sick for more than two days.
Nearly all the victims died in three.
As the clock crawled toward midnight, Davey was so still that several times Caroline feared that he had died already. Matt sat by the bed, holding his son’s hand, and she exchanged only a few words with him as she sat on the other side of the bed.
She was sore afraid that they would lose Davey with the dawn.
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.…”
Clutching Davey’s small hand with infinite tenderness in his big one, Matt closed his eyes and repeated the words of the ancient prayer. On Davey’s other side, Caroline too clasped Davey’s hand and joined in.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.…”
The words comforted her, as she hoped they did Matt. Davey, she feared, had passed beyond hearing.
Then, to her amazement, the child’s eyes blinked open, and he looked, first at her, then at Matt.
“Pa,” he said, as if relieved to find Matt there. “I’m mortal hungry, Pa.”
With that his eyes flickered shut, and the hands they held went limp.
“Davey, oh, no, oh, please, God, no …”
Tears welled in Matt’s eyes as he bent over his son. Caroline bent over the child too, her hand flying to his forehead, her eyes wide.
“No, Matt, he’s not dead!” she cried joyfully, when her cheek confirmed her first wild hope. “He’s not going to die! The fever has broken—and he’s hungry! Once they’re hungry, they never die!”
It took a moment for that to sink in. Then Matt slumped back in his chair, his eyes closing.
“Praise be to God!” he muttered. Caroline’s heart broke as she saw a single tear emerge from beneath stubby black lashes to roll down a hard, bronzed cheek.
“Matt! Matt, my darling, didn’t you hear me? Davey’s not going to die!” Shaken to the core by the sight of Matt weeping, Caroline moved around the bed and slid her arms around his shoulders and held him close.
“I heard you.” His arms came around her then, and he held her tight, burying his head in her breasts much as John had done earlier in the kitchen, and with as much innocence.
Caroline stroked the thick black hair, dropped kisses on it, murmured the soothing wordless things that she supposed women always murmured in times of emotional catharsis to the ones they love.
“Oh, God, I love you,” he said in a queer, shaken voice. Now that the crisis had passed, his strength gave out. Caroline could feel exhaustion overtake him, feel his body growing limp and heavy against her. In a moment he would be asleep, right there in the chair, and she could either stay as she was all night or let him fall to the floor. He would be better, far better, in his own bed. Accordingly, Caroline half lifted, half urged him to his feet. Though he had insisted that she take a few hours’ rest, he had been without sleep almost since the onset of Davey’s illness.
“Davey’s going to be all right, and you need sleep,” she told him firmly when he protested being led to his room.
“I don’t want him left alone.” Matt was tired, but stubborn.
“He won’t be. I’ll go back to him when I’ve got you settled.”
“I’m neither ill nor a babe.”
“I know. But ’twould please me to tuck you in bed. And I’ll ask Daniel to stay with Davey until I return.”
As they passed Daniel’s door she knocked, and when Daniel answered she repeated her request to him. His gaze flickered over the pair of them, leaning close together, Matt’s arm around Caroline’s shoulders and hers around his waist. A resigned expression came into his eyes as if he had suddenly discovered that they belonged together and would not dispute it more.
“Of course I’ll sit with Davey,” he agreed quietly.
He was already heading back along the corridor as Caroline guided Matt to his room. Once there, she lighted the candle from the one she carried, shut the door, and proceeded to help him out of his clothes as if he were a child. She unbuttoned his shirt, undid his breeches, pulled his stockings down his legs. When he was naked, she bundled him into bed, and was pulling the covers up around him when he reached for her.
“Tarry awhile,” he muttered, his eyes and then his hands moving to her breasts. Then she understood that, despite his exhaustion, he had need of her, need of their life-giving act as an antidote to the angel of death. Without a word she slid out of her clothes and crawled into his bed.
“I need you so,” he murmured as he found her mouth with his, and then he was showing her too, with his hands and mouth, until heat blazed between them bright enough to banish the darkness that had come so near.
46
It was just past dusk on the following day when they came for her. Caroline was in the sickroom when a loud knocking shook the front door. She thought it odd that any visitor would bang so ferociously on a host’s portal, but still as she went to answer it she had no real inkling of disaster. Supper bubbled in the kitchen, and the men, who had felt able to leave the vicinity of the house for the first time in many a day, were still in the south field, chopping into firewood the tree that had broken Matt’s leg. Dragged to the side of the field, it had been allowed to season over the summer and now, with a hard winter facing them, it would be as useful in death as it had been in life.
But she expected them to return at any moment, and then they would all sit down to supper together. Despite their cont
inued grief for Mary, with the threat to Davey lifted the meal would be in the nature of a celebration. She had cooked her men’s favorites, and even combined cornmeal, eggs, wild honey, and milk together to fashion a small cake.
So all unsuspecting, Caroline opened the door to find herself confronting a crowd of perhaps two dozen men, and some fewer women, bearing flaming pine torches and muttering among themselves.
“Why, good evening to you all. How may I help you?” Though Caroline was surprised, she was polite. She had no clue as to their mission until, seeing her, the crowd grew suddenly silent. Millicent, drawn by the lure of the open door, came from her spot by the hearth to twine about Caroline’s legs.
“That’s her! That’s the witch!” screeched a voice from the rear of the crowd. Peering into the darkness, her vision impeded by the flickering light of the torches, Caroline found it impossible to make out individual faces with any certainty. Though skulking in the background she thought she saw the flap of the dominie’s robe, and nearer the center of the crowd a pate bald in the fashion of Mr. Williams’s shone in the light of the torch the man held.
“Witch?” she repeated, confused.
“Look, she’s got her familiar with her! ’Ware the cat!”
“Take her! My baby’s dying, and it’s all her doing!” There was hysteria in the woman’s voice.
“Take the witch!”
Suddenly frightened, Caroline took a step backward and got a hand on the door to slam it. She stumbled over Millicent, who yowled and shot out into the darkness. Some in the crowd screamed, and others scattered. But as though her retreat made them bold, the bulk of them surged forward, grabbing Caroline by her arms and hauling her outside.
Caroline screamed.
“Aunt Caroline!” John, doing sums in the kitchen, ran to see what was happening. His eyes widened, his face paled, and then his fists clenched. Caroline saw that small though he was, he meant to fly to her aid against the multitudes.
This Side of Heaven Page 33