She sighed deeply, knowing there was no one to hear her. So her time had run out. She had gotten through the encounter with Seabury, but that had been easy compared with what faced her now. Now she must tell her daughters that she intended to take their comfortable lifestyle away from them and offer them something far less lovely, less safe, less palatable in return. That was the blunt reality of it. If they could see deeper than that, then they might begin to understand and forgive her. But she doubted that either was ready to see beyond the surface and understand beyond the pain and the shock her decision would impose upon them. With a prayer in her heart she closed the door and climbed the stairs, calling for Verity and Leah with a confidence in her voice which she did not feel.
Verity knew the worst had happened when her mother called them into her own room and ceremoniously closed the door behind them, with orders to Millie, who had trailed along, that they were not to be disturbed. She felt a tightness around her heart and a dull ache at her temples. Judith was not one for introductions; Verity knew she would go straight to the point.
“You may guess why I have called you here,” she began. Her fingers toyed with the brooch at her neck, and Verity noticed with a sense of shock that her face was drained of color and her eyes looked large and dark and, if Verity had not known better, afraid.
“I have decided for myself that I believe Mormonism to be true.” She paused purposefully, letting her words sink in, giving the girls time.
“You can reconcile that with your past beliefs?” Verity demanded. “What of the life you led as a minister’s wife? What of Father?”
Judith’s lips parted, and her features relaxed a little. “You are so like me, Verity. Do you think I have not considered those things?”
Verity glared back at her, not trusting her voice to reply.
“Your father was not just a minister, one who made his living as a churchman. He was a true man of God. I believe that if he were still here and had been given the opportunity—”
“Mother, really! How can you say such a thing? You wish to believe it, and so you tell yourself it is so. Do you really think he would betray those very things he spent his life teaching? Do you think—”
Judith held out her hand, and Verity stopped in mid-sentence. “You give me scant credit, daughter. He would have to deny none of the truths he taught and believed in. Mormonism contains those, and so much more! It answers so many of the questions he struggled with, things that dismayed him and tortured his sensitive soul.”
Verity turned her face away.
“You do not believe me because you do not yet understand as I do or see as I see.”
“Not yet?”
Judith sighed.
“Really, Verity, you’re not giving Mother a chance,” Leah accused indignantly. “You won’t even listen to her.”
“Do you believe Mormonism is true, Leah? Do you share Mother’s opinion?”
Leah cringed before the heat of her sister’s gaze. “I like what they teach. It makes me feel good inside.” She glanced at her mother and took courage from the warmth in her eyes. “I even like how they pray, as though they were really talking to God, not just repeating high, lofty words.”
That’s because you’ve never understood the high, lofty words! Verity thought angrily. “Oh, Leah, do you know what you say? Do you truly wish to become a Mormon and follow their way of life?”
“Perhaps. I’m not certain yet.” The withering gaze continued to scorch Leah. “What is so particularly outstanding about the life we live now?”
Verity shuddered. She turned in her seat so that she faced her mother squarely. “So, Mother, what does this mean? Tell me all—and quickly, if I am to bear it.”
“Their people shall be our people, and their God our God,” Judith said softly. “I have told the Reverend Seabury he may purchase this house if he wants to. I intend to pack up as much as we can carry, sell the remainder, and go to Missouri where the Mormons are building up cities of their own.”
“Missouri is the frontier, Mother! It may as well be the end of the world! Have you gone mad?”
Judith did not attempt to defend her decision; she did not know how. She had not attempted to defend her decision to leave the faith of her Irish fathers and marry a Unitarian minister fourteen years her senior, leaving father and mother and all that was dear to her to follow his ways. No one had understood, no one had supported or helped her, but she had made her own way, and succeeded. Of course, she had had Anthony then. But she could do it now, even without him.
As if she could read her mother’s thoughts, Verity blurted, “You’ve done this before, haven’t you? Changed religion, changed one way of life for another. What wild, dissatisfied thing is there inside you, Mother, that drives you to such madness?”
Judith would not have endured such disrespect under ordinary circumstances, but she knew how hard her daughter was pressed. She sat silent and composed before the onslaught.
“You may be bored and restless for heaven knows what reason, but I am a Bostonian, born and bred, and I like it here! I wish no other way of life, Mother.” Her voice broke, betraying her. She buried her face in her hands.
Judith leaned forward and placed her hand on her daughter’s head, running her fingers lightly through the thick auburn hair. “Wirra, wirra,” she soothed. “It will not be so bad. You fear overmuch, my little one.”
Verity felt herself relax beneath the touch of her mother’s fingers. Judith’s strength flowed into her like a warm liquid, warming the chilling sensations of anger and fear.
“You are women nearly grown and in truth should have the right to choose for yourselves.” Judith formed the words carefully. Verity lifted her head. “I have no desire to force either one of you, but it is my wish to keep the family together, as your father would have wanted it.”
Verity sighed. The thin, bright opening in the clouds drifted shut, and she was enveloped again.
“Only in family is there strength,” Judith continued, her voice growing stronger. “And I need you right now. I need you both. If you could see your way to come with me, then later, if you were truly unhappy, you could always return.”
She was talking to Verity, and both of them knew it. Leah was young, and she had always been pliable. It was understood without saying so that Leah would go with her mother. But Verity was already older than Judith had been when she left her “ain folk” to go with the preacher man.
Verity could not think, she could not really grasp what was happening. She pressed her fingers against her temples to still the dull roaring inside her head.
“Think on it, Verity. We can speak again of it later.”
“When would you leave? I mean, when will you leave?” Verity swallowed the bitter bile of the words.
“In three weeks’ time. A group is forming that intends to leave by mid-May. We will travel with them.”
Verity stood. She felt suddenly weak and light-headed. “I think I had better go to my room and lie down for a spell, Mother.”
“Yes, dear heart, do.”
Dear heart. So her mother had called them from Verity’s earliest memory. She recalled clearly the time when she was fifteen and had come upon her parents unexpectedly as she was going late into the parlor in search of some misplaced item. The room had been dim, with only one small corner lamp lit. Both of them stood with their arms wrapped around each other, in some warm nest of their own. Her mother’s head was cradled on her father’s strong shoulder, and he was stroking her hair. Her face was tear-streaked, and she looked no older than fifteen herself. “Dear heart,” he had murmured, as his gentle hand soothed her. “Hush, hush, my dear heart.”
Verity had never forgotten the scene. Now her mother’s heedless endearment brought the full weight of her duty upon her. She had not dreamed of bitterness and pain when she had promised her father, on his deathbed, that she wou
ld take care of her mother and stand by her, no matter what. She had not envisioned herself as a frightened, caged animal, powerless to escape, though the trap door stood open and freedom cruelly beckoned to her.
“I don’t believe it,” Millicent said bluntly. “Even your mother—”
“Hush, Millie. You know as well as anyone what Mother is capable of. It is true. We are leaving Boston, and my life is over.”
Though they were overly dramatic, Millie did not smile at the words. She understood. Although it was of no great importance, her own life was also being tossed about and disordered by this thing that Judith had done.
“Three weeks,” she mused. “Three weeks. That does not give us much time. And you are determined?”
“I have no choice in the matter. I promised my father, Millie.”
He knew her all too well, Millicent thought. But she kept her thoughts to herself.
“‘Your mother is strong,’ he said.” Verity’s eyes were wide as she repeated her father’s words. “ ‘But she is not as strong as she appears. There is a tenderness in her, deep and hidden, and she suffers greatly. Please help her, Verity, when I am gone.’”
Millie shivered at the words. Verity raised a tear-swollen face to her. “Millicent, won’t you come with us, too? It would make such a difference!”
Millie shook her head fiercely. “I would if I could, Verity. Don’t break my heart! I have my father to care for once his ship comes to port. And besides, I could not live among people”—how could she put it kindly?—“whose beliefs are so alien to me.”
Topsy-turvy. Judith had turned their world topsy-turvy overnight. Millie was not surprised when the lady herself called her into her room and put the same request to her that Verity had earlier made.
“I can’t go with you, ma’am, as much as I’d like to,” Millie told her staunchly. “I’ll help with the sewing and packing; I’ll help any way I can until—”
“I know that, Millie. And I cannot thank you enough. You are like one of the family, to all of us, and we shall miss you more than you know.”
Millie blinked against the mist clouding her eyes. She had no words to say in return. She could not understand people who lived and died by religion. She had been raised by a seaman and the wife of a seaman, and what power she knew was embodied in the tides and seasons, in the ways and wiles of that mistress who held their lives in her hand. Nor would she have marked Judith for being one of those simple souls bound by religion. She with her touchy Irish blood. It didn’t seem right. Yet it was happening. Like the tide when it was full and running, there was no holding it back.
“I have friends,” Judith was saying. “I will gladly arrange a position for you here in the city, a place where you could be happy. Anyone would be glad to have a girl such as you, Millie.”
“Thanks, but no. I believe I’ll go home to Gloucester, ma’am. It won’t be long ’til my father’s ship comes in, and I’d like to be there. Perhaps for me this is all for the best.”
There was no conviction in her voice. Judith smiled such a sad smile that Millie felt her mouth start to tremble. Judith caught both her hands up and held them tightly. “I’m truly sorry,” she said, and her words were a murmur, like the sea on a soft night. “The path of true conviction is never an easy one. But it grieves me to bring sorrow to those I love best. I am imposing my desires on others; well I know that. But there is no other way, no other way that presents itself to me, my dear.”
Such an intimate revelation from the great lady herself stunned Millie. Her own heart cried out involuntarily, “Oh, Mrs. Thatcher, it is a hard thing. And for Verity more than any of us. What shall she do, torn away from the home that is life to her? As for myself, Verity is the best friend I’ve ever had. My mother is gone; there is little enough in life left for me.”
Judith drew the girl gently forward and encircled her in a motherly embrace. “There is much in life left for the both of you,” Judith whispered against her hair. “Verity will grow from this experience. The womanly qualities that lie sleeping within her will ripen and bloom. Wait and see. Have faith, Millie. Good will come of this for you, too.” She stroked the girl’s hair. Millie did not truthfully know much about faith. She could not say she had faith every time her father sailed away that the sea would return him again. She had seen too many fail to return to be as foolish as that. But she was familiar with patience and a quiet kind of hope that might be something like the faith Judith spoke of.
She relaxed in the great lady’s arms, soaking up tenderness as the dry sand soaks up the tide. She had known little enough tenderness in her life, and she could not bear to draw back too soon from the unexpected luxury of it. Judith, feeling the girl’s need, responded. She held her for as long as she could, held the sweet breath of the moment warm in her hand. For this brief spell there was no future to intrude, trouble, or make afraid.
Chapter Four
All was ready. Time’s hourglass stood drained and hollow-eyed, as blind to the future before her as Verity was. The days of cleaning and sewing, sorting and packing, had consumed every hour, every energy, every thought. But Verity had reserved this last evening to say farewell. She would allow nothing to rob her of it and no one to share in it. The few times she had ventured forth on errands of necessity she had been stung by the coldness of her neighbors. Now that the news was out, now that the Reverend Seabury had purchased the house from her mother and everyone knew of their terrible shame, all the pettiness and meanness that sometimes seems hidden in people had come to the surface with a vengeance that unnerved her.
Verity did her best to avoid confrontations of any kind. Not so Judith, of course. She was unabashed when friends appeared at her door demanding some book or household item they claimed to have loaned to her or her husband. She gave up all such belongings gracefully, even offering precious mementos of the dead minister to parishioners who she knew had particularly loved him and would cherish such things. She did not complain when the local grocer seemed suddenly out of her favorite meats and spices, things he had stocked especially for her before. She was quiescent when the blacksmith charged her more than anyone else for services that he was accustomed to discounting for the minister’s household. She went her rounds, serene and unruffled as an angel, and Leah traipsed by her side, indulging in tearful farewells of old school friends and chums.
Verity was outraged when she heard her mother announce her intention to visit one particularly odious old lady.
“Mother, why do you submit yourself to the indignity of it?” she demanded in her frustration.
“I do as my Anthony would have me do, Verity. I represent him, especially among these people. I try never to forget that.”
Her answer silenced Verity, who responded by punishing herself in turn with her own duty. She would not flinch. If she were to be martyr to her mother’s life, she would be so completely. At the end of each long, exhausting day she took the Book of Mormon her mother had given her down from its shelf and read at least one chapter, no matter how heavy with sleep her eyelids grew. At first she read woodenly, for duty’s sake only, and the words were mere one-dimensional letters printed on a white page. Gradually, without realizing it, the content began to penetrate her consciousness. Both her parents had taught her to be strictly honest and fair, so she admitted grudgingly, to herself only, that the book contained much of interest, if only as a history. She did not want to enjoy it; she did not want to find anything of merit therein. The fact that she was doing so disturbed her greatly. This was just one more trap, one more means of alienating her from the sweet life she wished to live.
But this last night she meant to wallow in her misery and pain. She meant to soak up, one last time, each sound, sight, and sensation that was dear to her heart. Such an exercise could be naught but agony, and she both dreaded and, in some perverse way, welcomed it.
She took the Long Path through the Common. The elms w
ere heavy with their new spring foliage. Through the tender grass at their feet, gray squirrels ran in short starts and stops, chattering to no one in particular and glancing over their shoulders nervously to see if danger was near.
The Peanut Man was still shuffling his way across the worn cobbles. Verity bought a bag from him and scattered the contents for the squirrels to enjoy. The air was sweet to her nostrils, and a gentle silence sifted down from the sky to envelop her in its peace. She walked past the spot where it was rumored that a beautiful murderess had once been hanged. She had had the effrontery to appear before her executioner in a lovely white gown, and to bow and smile to the cold men who welcomed her doom. Verity felt a bit like the unknown woman as she walked through the still twilight, condemned to a fate that would wrench every bit of courage from her being and lay bare her heart.
She reached the public gardens and spent long, pleasant moments among the purple iris and yellow buttercups and the patches of pale blue forget-me-nots. A low, gnarled hawthorn tree spread a cloud of white blossoms beside the path, and an evening thrush sang sweetly from its branches. In the whole wide world there could be no city more lovely than Boston! Where else but here did the spirit of America breathe from every brick, every stone, every tree? Verity sighed as the weight of her grief trembled through her, like the breath of the wind over the tender spears of new grass. No more lectures in Faneuil Hall, which John Adams had named “the Cradle of Liberty.” No more plays, nights of make-believe and magic, at the Boston Theatre, with its circular staircase nine feet in width and the glitter of lights and richly dressed ladies. No afternoon teas at the Athenaeum, with bouillon, cheese sandwiches, and sweet crackers for only three cents. No picnics under the great elm that rose sixty-five feet above them and spread out to become its own sky. And no summer outings on Long Island, with the lighthouse in view and the rocks of Nix’s Mate, where it was said a captain was murdered by his wife and buried in the shallow soil of that lonely island, so close to the harbor that would have meant home and safety to him. Home and safety. The harbor of Boston that would be haven to her no more.
The Heart that Truly Loves Page 3