Susannah Morrow (22 page)

“Rumors? Of what?”

“Rumors that you tread the boards.”

“Oh.” She sagged onto the end of the bench; I felt the rock of her weight, the steadying of the bench beneath it. “I cannot
believe that would have followed me so far.”

“Perhaps you were not so guarded as you thought.”

Her look was sharp. “This did not come from me. It has brought me enough trouble. ’Twas long ago, in any case. Scarcely worth
mentioning.”

“Not for someone.”

“Aye.” She looked thoughtful. “Aye. ’Tis true enough.”

“Then who?”

“Did Charity hear it herself? From Judith? From you?”

I shook my head, startled at the thought. “We hardly mentioned you.”

She made a quick little breath. I saw I’d hurt her, and the ache was strange upon her face, an expression I had never thought
to see on her. I knew more about Susannah Morrow than she could have believed—Judith did not lightly release old hurts, even
when she loved. This I knew: Susannah had a discontented spirit; she had long ago lost her way to God. That it mattered to
her what she’d left behind had never occurred to me before that moment, not until I saw the quick downcast of her glance,
the careful folding of her hands in her skirt.

“Have you brothers or sisters, Lucas?” she asked quietly.

“Only one brother now. I think.”

“You think?”

“It has been many years since I’ve seen him—”

“Where is he?”

There was an odd insistence in her voice. When I looked at her in puzzlement, she pressed on. “Do you hear from him?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Not since coming to New England.” Though in truth, it had been much longer than that. I had left home
when my only remaining brother was barely five—I would be surprised now to find he even remembered me. I could but hope he
lived still, though even that I was not sure of, given my stepfather’s brutal nature. My mother, I hoped, had died long since.
I wanted a safe and good eternity for her, who had been so beleaguered on earth.

But these things I did not say to Susannah. They were not her concern, and I did not trust her reasons for wanting to know.
So I was silent.

“Have you told your daughters of them—of your family?”

“My family is scattered to the winds. What remains of them, I’ve no wish to rediscover.”

“Do I fall into that same sentiment, then?”

I sighed in impatience. “’Tis pointless to—”

“No,” she said firmly. “You said that you and Judith did not speak of me to your daughters. Were you so ashamed?”

“Aye. Aye, of course.” I gestured to the room. “Look about you. This is a pious family, a God-fearing one. There is no room
for wickedness here.”

“And I’m wicked.”

“Can you say you are not?”

“I was never an actress.”

“You
lived
with actors,” I accused. “You fornicated with them—”

“With one,” she said. “With a single man. His name was Geoffrey.”

I laughed disbelievingly. “And then you moved on to another.”

“Robert was no actor. He was a cobbler.”

“You lived with him.”

Her eyes flashed. “Aye. I did. I loved him.”

“But you never married him. You never married any of them.”

She rose and slapped her hand hard on the table. She leaned close. “I have known men like you, Brother. Always the first to
cast stones, always the first to cry out sinner. Then you sneak home to gratify yourself in a dark corner and take out your
frustrations on anyone who crosses you. Do you think I don’t know what you are? Do you think I don’t know that ’twas you Judith
wrote me of?”

“Me?” I stared at her, angry now. Without thinking, I grabbed her wrist, holding her away. “I gave Judith no cause to complain.
And why she would trust her dearest thoughts to you, when you so easily betrayed her, is a mystery to me.”

“It seems most things are mysterious to you.”

She made no move to push me away or jerk from my hold. Then the anger left her eyes, and something else came into them, something
that startled me.

’Twas as if I’d been blind, and suddenly my gaze cleared. I dropped her wrist. “Forgive me,” I whispered. I sank onto the
bench, my face buried in my hands. “Forgive me. I should not have said those things.”

“Nor I.” She sounded shaken.

I did not look at her. I heard her move away. I heard her at the hearth, raking up the fire.

“I shall…put these words behind me,” she said, her voice so quiet I was not sure at first that I’d heard her. “There is no
need for us to be at arms.”

“Aye,” I agreed. “’Tis forgotten already.”

“Good. Then…I’ll say good night.”

“Good night,” I said.

She paused another moment, and then she nodded and went up the stairs, leaving only the sound of her step behind.

I picked up Jude’s shoe from where it had fallen on the floor and set it on the table, and then I snuffed the candles and
made my way in darkness to the parlor, where the bed I’d shared with Judith was a shadow at one end. I undressed and crawled
between sheets cold as the grave, without even a bed warmer to ease my way. I wanted the discomfort; I wanted the reminder
of mortality, the chill on my soul. But as I lay there in bed, I burned.

The torment was too much. I rose again and pulled my shirt over my head and went to my desk in the corner. I lit the single,
pitted candle and reached for comfort from the stack of books piled on the floor. It opened to the page I knew, a page creased
already by the sweat of my fingers:
So soon as we rise in the morning, we go forth to fight with two mighty giants, the world and the Devil; and whom do we take
with us but a traitor, this brittle flesh, which is ready to yield up to the enemy at every assault?

I closed my eyes and thought of Judith: her cold hands, the stiffness of her body beneath mine, the forbearance in her eyes.
Gradually the fire inside me died. Gradually I could breathe again. I closed the sermon and blew out the candle, then fumbled
my way back to my bed, where I drew the curtains closed. I was tired; it was late. I thought I would drift off into deep sleep,
but dreams of Judith haunted me until I woke again with the dawn, exhausted past bearing, feeling as Jonas:
I am cast out of the sight of God.

The first snow came, and kept falling, until it was piled by the door, and we were housebound but for the barn. Charity especially
seemed to suffer from it. She had grown pale and wan these last weeks, and she seemed distracted, staring out the windows
in a daydream when she should have been working, watching me with an intensity that disturbed me. Then, one morning, I woke
early. I had been unable to sleep, the bed too cold and too empty, my dreams unresolved and vaguely wicked. Susannah was not
yet awake. When I heard the step on the stair, I took the last gulp of beer and made to go outside. From the corner of my
eye, I saw it was not Susannah but Charity.

When I saw my daughter, I stopped. I found myself staring at her, noticing how unrested she seemed, the shadows beneath her
eyes, her skin too pale. Suddenly I thought of a conversation from a few days ago, Susannah’s oddly intense question about
my old apprentice, Samuel Trask, who disappeared one day without a word.
What do you know of this, Charity?

I had not been thinking of Sam, nor had I been considering the five pounds he’d taken. But now I felt his presence, and with
it, an unsettling connection to my daughter. I remembered Judith standing before me, her mouth moving, the substance if not
the words coming to me again, something about Sam, about Charity. “Talk to him, won’t you, Lucas?” she’d asked, and I’d agreed
to do so, though I was too distracted with the jobs I’d meant to do that day. So I hardly understood what it was Judith wanted
me to talk to Sam about, and I forgot my promise moments after. Now the memory lingered as a faint dread.

“Good morning, Charity,” I said.

“Good morning.” She sat at the tableboard and poured some beer into a noggin with a weariness that bent her spine.

“Are you ill, child?” I asked her.

She looked up as if the very sound of my voice surprised her. For a moment, she looked as if she might say something, but
then she shook her head. “No, Father.”

I thought I saw her spirit in her eyes, and it seemed broken and hopeless so that it nearly rent my heart. I could not keep
from asking, “What troubles you?” Though I was afraid of how she would answer.

She dragged the noggin toward her, though she did not drink. “How does the Devil come?”

I had been expecting her to say something of Samuel, and so I was nonplussed for a moment. I frowned. “In many ways. ’Tis
our task to recognize him whenever we see him.”

“I remember when our neighbor told Mama she’d seen him. That he sat on her in the night—”

I nodded. “A nightmare. When she prayed, the vision left.”

“But what if it didn’t go?”

“It did.”

“But what if”—she took a deep breath—“what if you prayed and prayed, and he did not leave?”

I should not have been so relieved at her question, but I was. This was nothing to do with Sam after all; ’twas merely my
daughter’s worries over her own salvation—a natural result of her mother’s death. “Charity, you must listen to me. Satan’s
greatest trick is in making us believe that God is lost to us. Will you give him that power?”

“I don’t want to. But I-I’m afraid.”

“You must pray for reassurance, child. God has not abandoned you. Think of that when you are afraid.”

She nodded, yet hesitated, and I remembered something Susannah had said about the girls Charity had once called her friends.
’Twas now, when her faith was so fragile, that Charity most needed guidance. Those girls, with their mischief, could only
confuse her. Carefully I said, “The Devil has many guises, Charity. Be careful who you trust and what you believe.”

Her eyes went wide. I saw knowledge in them, a surprise that brought satisfaction. I had been right to say something. ’Twas
indeed her friends filling her head with doubts.

“I have heard that you continue to see those girls, despite my admonitions. I have no choice, I’m afraid, but to forbid you
to have anything more to do with them.”

She looked alarmed. “But, Father—”

“’Tis for the best,” I said firmly. “Your mother believed they were leading you astray, and I find that I must agree.”

She was silent, but I saw her struggle. “You will find other friends,” I said. “Ones who do not court wickedness. Am I understood?”

Her lips pressed tight together, but she nodded.

“Very well. Now go to the hearth and pray. I feel sure God will grant you the reassurances you seek.”

I watched as she moved from the bench to the settle, kneeling before a fire that I had only just built up. She bowed her head,
and I saw her lips move with prayer. I felt a calm come over my own soul. My child had reminded me of God’s grace, and for
the first time in weeks, my heart was still and quiet. I would come in early tonight, I vowed. We would spend the evening
in prayer and scripture until her fears, and my own, were gone.

As I was turning to go, I saw a movement on the stairs. When I looked up, I saw Susannah there, half hidden in the shadows,
watching Charity.

Whatever calm I had managed disappeared. She glanced at me, and for the briefest of moments, our eyes held. Then I turned
away and hurried out the door.

I did not pray with Charity that night. I forgot about her fears and my own reassurances. I stayed in the barn until very
late, until I could no longer see through the dimness half lit by the faltering lamp, until my fingers were too frozen to
move—as if cold could calm my soul.

F
OR THE NEXT SEVERAL DAYS,
I
WORKED UNTIL LATE INTO THE
evenings, coming inside only for supper and for evening lessons, then retiring early. I surrounded myself with published
sermons and a well-thumbed Bible, pounding God’s lessons into my heart.

It had become a routine I took peace from, a measure of sanity and control, and I did not like it disrupted. So when I came
in one evening after supper to see Charity sitting pale and tearfully distraught at the table, darting venomous glances toward
Susannah, I was irritated. I did not want to be involved in their squabbling. I was not good at such things.

Then I realized that Susannah, who was at the settle with Jude, going over a sampler, seemed unaware of Charity’s distress.
For a moment I was relieved—there had been no quarrel—then I remembered the last conversation I’d had with Charity. With the
memory came a stab of guilt that I’d neglected her since. She needed my guidance still; it had only been two months since
Judith’s death, and the two of them had been close.

I went over to her. “Have you done your lessons for today, child?”

She wiped quickly at her eyes. “Aye.”

“Tell me. Isaiah fifty-five: seven.”

She swallowed. “‘Let the wicked forsake His way, and the unrighteous man His thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and
He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither
are your ways My ways,” saith the Lord. “For as the—”’”