The Heart that Truly Loves

by Susan Evans McCloud

  “You’d rather be a schoolmarm and a thornback!”

  Thornback was the most biting term for spinster that Luther could have used. It made Millie wince, for, in truth, she was nearly eighteen, pushing the prime of a girl’s marriageability. Many much younger than she were already mothers once or twice, especially in these parts, where there was little else for a girl to be doing and where men wanted companionship and someone to cook their meals, keep a house for them, clean their fishing gear, and mend their clothes. Millie wasn’t quite sure what the order of a man’s needs was. Most did not seem to require as much companionship as a woman did. She wondered, as she often had, how many marriages were for convenience alone, and how thin must be the cement of true affection to hold many a man and woman together.

  “Millicent!”

  Millie recalled herself. When Luther brooded his whole countenance grew as black as his eyes. His anger seemed like a force emanating from him that she could reach out and touch.

  “This is only a temporary position, Luther. It would be good for us both, and it would give me some time.”

  “Where did you learn to talk that way? From your fancy friends in Boston?” He took a step closer, hunching his shoulders like a disturbed beast lumbering toward her. “You’ve been different this last little while, and I’d like to know what it is.”

  “It is nothing to be concerned over. If I teach through the spring term—you yourself said we could wait until then to be married—”

  “But I want to know!”

  “I can’t give you an answer. If you press me, Luther, then it must be no.”

  “I don’t believe you.” He straightened up as he came closer. He was a big man, and his presence made him seem even larger. He reached out with both hands and pulled her close to him. “I don’t believe your words, Millie. I believe what I have felt when your lips touched mine.” His voice had grown low and he was crooning to her, not as a mother croons to a child but as a man croons to the sea, to the mistress who enchants and mystifies him. “Trust me, Millie, and let yourself love me.” With the tough gentleness of a seaman he wooed her, but when his lips covered hers she wondered for a brief, wicked moment what it would be like if it were Nicholas Todd bending over her. She wrenched away from his grasp.

  “I’m sorry, Luther.” She, too, spoke gently. “Please, give me some time.”

  He stared back at her, stunned. He was not accustomed to losing, and if he knew how to do anything, it was to persevere. “I’ve put off leaving for your sake as it is,” he growled, the anger back again. “You want me off to Beverly, with things like this between us?”

  It was as close to pleading as he could come. In sheer exhaustion and compassion Millie was tempted to give in. But only for a moment. She shook her head slowly. “I’m sorry. Please believe me, if I could make it easier for you, if it could be different . . .”

  He backed away from her. “I’ll take the coach out tomorrow, then. That’s settled.” He was still waiting. Millie did not dare make a move. Anything she did might start up things all over again, and she couldn’t bear that. Nor could Luther, she was sure. He looked battered and bewildered as he stood across from her. A brief, painful thought skittered across her consciousness: What if he loves me very much? What if this goes deep with him? She had never loved anyone herself, so how could she understand what Luther was suffering right now? Yet sympathy for him would undo him and make him suffer all the more. Despite the terrible trembling inside her, she stood her ground.

  “This is good-bye, then,” he said suddenly. “I may not come back, Millie.”

  He couldn’t mean that. “Don’t be morbid. We can write, and see one another . . .”

  He shook his head. “Too painful. I’ll stay put in Beverly for the duration. When I come back in the spring it’ll be to go out on a schooner . . .” He shrugged his broad, muscular shoulders. He was shifting the responsibility to her. She didn’t like that. He was saying, If anything happens between us in the spring, Millie, it will be up to you.

  “I hope things go well for you in Beverly, Luther, truly I do.” She spoke the words gently, but they were his dismissal, and he knew it. He strode past her, threw open the door, and stomped outside without one backward glance.

  She watched the great, fuming bulk of him grow small and fade into the evening mists that were rolling up from the sea. She was alone, with a new challenge before her, and not one human being in her life. Had she done the wrong thing? She had done the only thing she knew how to do. She did not understand her actions much better than Luther had.

  When Luther entered his mother’s kitchen he was still in a black mood. He did not mind telling her most of what had transpired. “She’s gone crazy, that one,” he muttered. “Clean out of her head. There be no reason for such behavior.”

  “Maybe . . . maybe not . . .”

  The tone of her mother’s voice made Luther glance at her sideways; he knew her too well.

  “What have you in mind?” he growled. He was in no mood to be toyed with.

  His mother cooed and simpered a bit, almost seeming to enjoy his discomfort. “More than one saw her walking the beach with that stranger”—Luther made a move as if to dismiss her, but she ignored him—“and since he’s left she mopes about the places they walked together. I’ve seen her myself.” Luther’s head was up now. His mother’s voice grew yet softer and took on a high whine. “I tell you, that’s the trouble, son. She writes letters to him, she does—and I ask you, what good will letters do when he’s halfway across the world, and a Mormonite—had you forgotten?” Her voice was laced with a satiny triumph now. “Perhaps he’s bewitched her, he has. I tell you, that’s the crux of it!”

  “Shut up, Mother!” Luther’s eyes had narrowed into slits like her own as he regarded her. “I’ll hear no more of it.”

  “Then you’ll hear no more of the lass, son, and you’d best look elsewhere.”

  His pride prevented him asking outright for help in the matter. She understood that.

  “If he were removed from the picture,” she said, “if letters no longer came to her with a Liverpool postmark . . .”

  He knew at once what she was suggesting.

  “If you can arrange it, do,” he snarled. “But I don’t want to hear of it.”

  Her eyes, small and deep in her head, took on an exultant shine.

  “Girls of Millie’s age are ofttimes foolish and need the guidance of those older and wiser than themselves”—she rubbed her thin hands together, making the sound of dry insect legs scraping against one another—“whether they know it—whether they want it—or not.”

  “I hope you’re right, Mother.”

  “I know what I’m doing. You go to Beverly and do your work, and leave everything in my hands.”

  This was what Luther was accustomed to. If he retained any qualms concerning his mother’s scruples, he was able to ignore them. Although he could not have said it in so many words, he wanted Millie, and he would do anything he had to in order to have her.

  Almira Fenn was well pleased. Her first and foremost intention was to get her son what he wanted. But that Cooper girl was too uppity, always had been. And since her return from Boston she had grown worse. Someone ought to teach her that she had a limit. She had brazenly encouraged that Mormonite stranger and thought she could get away with it.

  With a snort of satisfaction, Luther went out to the yard to oil and polish his churn boots while Almira gloated to herself and savored the prospect of bringing Millie down a peg or two to where she belonged.

  Millie would have missed Luther if she had had more time. She confessed that fact to herself, though she did not to anyone else, least of all Luther himself.

  There were fewer than twenty students in the school, but they were of varied ages and stages of progression. Millie’s powers had never been so stretched in her life as she tried to assi
st, advise, instruct, drill, correct, and inspire all at once. She found herself bringing work home with her: correcting spelling lists, fussing over papers the older children had written, selecting materials she wished to use in her instruction. There was an excellent little volume on Thomas Erwin’s shelf containing stories about the heroes of the Revolution. It caught her imagination; all sorts of ideas teased at her mind as she thought of ways to make history come to life for these young people.

  Books began to entice her in a way they never had before. She realized that she could do with more learning herself; her knowledge was very scanty in an appalling number of areas. On the highest shelf in the schoolroom Mr. Erwin had a collection of books that were obviously texts from a college or academy of higher learning. She began borrowing these. Soon the short, dark winter evenings did not seem long enough for her; she found herself rising earlier in the mornings and falling asleep beside the fire with a book in her hands. So the days passed, and the weeks slipped away nearly as quickly as the days did, and suddenly Christmas was here.

  The children had time off for the holidays, but Millie was hopeful that most of them would return and keep at their studies until their parents needed them for spring planting or fishing or marketing when the pollock and mackerel ran and the cod industry required heading, splitting, and salting skills. She was happy at this work. She felt alive, vital in some ways she had never felt before. But the holiday excitement, usually so infectious when in the company of children, had little power to touch her. She had nothing to celebrate and no one to celebrate with. Last Christmas she had been in Boston with Verity and Leah, and oh, the hostings and parties there, the shops and street vendors, the caroling on the Common, and the Christmas breads and cakes and puddings simmering for days in the great kitchen! Perhaps she should return. Perhaps this solitary life was not good for her. But to be in service was not ideal either, and households like Judith’s were rare. Here she was her own woman, and that counted for something. And here was the sea, nearly at her own doorstep, and the green, silent woods, and the house that held all that was left to her of her own family within its walls.

  On Christmas Day she baked a plum pudding and cooked a small goose, then added to their fragrance by lighting her best bayberry candles. As the afternoon shadows lengthened she sought her mother’s rocker, with one of Thomas Erwin’s books to keep her company. She had gone so far as to entertain hopes that Luther might come from Beverly. After all, it was Christmas, and surely his mother would be glad of his company. But for two days a terrible storm had enveloped sea and land in clouds of mists and snow. Travel would be too dangerous, especially with the raw, wet temperatures that accompanied the storm.

  Now and again uneasy thoughts would stir misgivings within Millie. What did Luther do of an evening, with what time he had to himself? He was a grown, independent man, and men had their ways. Were there other women in his life? Did he amuse himself with the company of such women who frequented the taverns and alehouses where seamen caroused with each other? In truth, Millie knew very little about Luther’s life. Though he wished her to marry him, she could not picture him sitting around pining until she made up her mind.

  But it was just as well. She had no need of Luther’s company this night. If her thoughts strayed, it was in a different direction. She thought of Nicholas Todd celebrating with the “Saints” in Liverpool, perhaps singing “My Truly, Truly Fair” to some pretty English convert, his blue eyes holding the warmth of the summer sky in them, despite what the weather might be, his voice vibrant with the exhilaration of his spirit, as contagious as laughter. Perhaps not. Perhaps he was huddled in some miserable room, shivering and hungry, without a proper coat and with holes worn in his shoe leather from walking the streets of the city in search of all those seeking souls who, as he put it, needed what he had to offer. Perhaps he was even lonely, as she was.

  A gentle melancholy settled over her spirit as she gave way to such reflections. Perhaps—and she feared this would be most accurate—he sat huddled by a low fire, poorly fed but unmindful of the inadequacies of his condition because he was immersed in the Book of Mormon he was reading. The picture her mind drew brought an unwilling smile to her face, but at the same time it stirred the old, cold fears in her heart. Why do I care for him? she demanded of herself. I would be miserable living the life he lives.

  She glanced up at the shelf. The Book of Mormon he had left for her sat there, bold as brass. She would not read it! What he did was his business, but not even to please him would she take down the book. Why should she? What difference would it make? She and Nicholas were nothing to one another, and all these contemplations were foolishness on her part. She selected a slim volume of poetry instead, and forgot the bleak night around her and even her own weary thoughts in the beauty and harmony of the verse.

  Winter was tedium, there was no way around it. The days of January were one hueless expanse, as dingy as the stretches of winter fields and as blanched as the sea. But, trudging each day to the schoolhouse, Millie never failed to discover something of special interest or beauty to make the effort worthwhile, something that invariably reminded her of the tie all living things have to one another. One morning it was a kingfisher, handsome in his white collar and polished blue plumage. The clanking jar of his call echoed over the rimed water and seemed to spread into every fold and crevice of the cold, crackling space. One particularly gray morning she spotted a great osprey perched on the vane of the schoolhouse. At her interruption it soared and circled, then perched again, uttering strange, harsh cries, reminding her how much more at home it was in this wintry world than she, how mobile and adapted to the elements.

  But once inside the tidy schoolhouse, with the fire in the potbellied stove stoked until it was roaring hot, Millie felt at home. This was her element. Here she could function, here she could expand—sometimes she could even call forth wonder and beauty the way the kingfisher and the osprey could, and see it reflected back in her students’ eyes.

  One afternoon, as the last of the students scampered out of the schoolhouse, Millie saw a long, black shadow cast its wavering slant across her desk. With a catch at her throat she looked up to see old Daniel limping in through the open doorway. He seemed to be dragging one leg across the scarred wood floorboards, and she was shocked to see how much he had aged since setting out on this last trip.

  “Aye, lass,” he said, reading her thoughts with too great an ease, “the sea has taken her toll of me. These ten years and more when my rheumatic arms strained to haul on sheet and cable, and my eyes, faded and dim, strained through easterlies and fog to keep a proper watch, I should have retired from deep waters.” His voice had a timbre to it that belied the words he was saying, but he went relentlessly on. “Yet, in truth, I’d rather grow gray in service of the sea than putter about with the other old men, lobstering and clam-digging.”

  Millie nodded. “You’ve done the profession proud,” she said. “There will never be another like you.”

  He waved a thin, clawlike hand at her.

  “It’s true,” she pressed, “and may as well be acknowledged.” She could feel her eyes fill with warmth for him, as though her whole soul smiled out at his. “But I’m glad you’ve come home.”

  “I got off early—‘jumped ship,’ you may say—and came the short route by way of Amsterdam and back. I couldn’t have stood another long stint to the East Indies, where the Sea Hawk was heading.”

  Millie pushed her chair back and rose, gathering her books and papers into a pile to take home in the leather satchel the schoolteacher had lent her. With a little pinch at her heart she wondered what it cost Daniel to say those words.

  “You look right fine and proper behind that desk, Millie.” Daniel’s eyes, weak and faded as he had acknowledged, appraised her with enough healthy male appreciation to make Millie laugh lightly, and that pleased him.

  “A pretty girl ought not to demur, my dear, or shun
admiration. ’Tis the good God above who made all things that are beautiful, and I b’lieve he made them to be appreciated and praised.”

  Millie was speechless. She could only meet his eyes—wise, beautiful eyes, as deep as the sea they had gazed on. She could speak to him more purely and freely in that moment without the encumbrance of words.

  “I near forgot the errand that brought me here.” Daniel poked around in the depths of his pocket and drew out a creased, stained, much-traveled envelope. Millie had not thought of the letter she had asked him to deliver. She felt her pulse quicken.

  “Yes, ’tis a reply to your letter, my dear.” He handed it to her. “Does it please you so much, then?”

  Millie dropped her eyes. Was she so transparent?

  “He seems a fine young man,” he said, sensing her misgivings.

  “He’s one of those Mormons,” Millie said suddenly, surprising herself.

  “Well, I know that. I like him, Millie, despite his religion. Don’t we all have crazy notions of one kind or another that govern our lives?”

  Millie nodded slowly, thinking on his words.

  “He’s certainly taken with you, and that’s no exaggeration. Took a long time composing this here missive, and kept pestering me with questions about you. He’s lonely, I reckon, out there away from his own kind.”

  He’s with his own kind, Millie reflected. Or at least, he’s busy creating more of them.

  “It’s a raw wind out there, raw and wet. Bundle up now before you walk home.”

  “I’ll be careful,” Millie promised. She leaned forward and planted a kiss on Daniel’s cheek, where the skin was as shrunken and brittle as old parchment paper. But his clothes, even his skin, smelled of hemp and tar, wet canvas and tobacco. She drew the fragrance into her, and with it, all the memories of her childhood.