Alis (20 page)

“Poor girl,” Elzbet said. “She lost her baby last year, and she cannot bear to come here. I understand very well how she must feel. To lose a child, it is what everyone dreads.”

They spoke sadly of Susannah, and Alis promised to visit her, then with some hesitation, she approached the subject of what she had overheard that morning. It was typical of Elzbet to say nothing of the real reason for Hetty’s spite and Alis wanted to show her gratitude for her friend’s support.

“I think . . . I have heard that you have spoken up for me sometimes. It is good of you, Elzbet. I have not been much of a friend to you since—”

Elzbet broke in, “Oh, Alis, you must not blame yourself for that.

You have suffered, I know you have. You are so pale and thin. Will you not tell me all that has happened?”

“I will tell you everything,” Alis said.

 

 

It was strange to relive it all. Elzbet was shocked by life in the city and troubled to hear of Edge’s savage ways, though glad that she had helped Alis. When they came to Luke’s death, Alis wept and Elzbet comforted her. It was such a relief to unburden herself that she was even able to speak of Galin calmly. Only when it came to her mother did anger overwhelm her again so that her voice lost its steadiness.

“She should not have agreed to the marriage. I am sure she could have done something.”

“But Alis,” Elzbet said reasonably, “what could your mother have done if, as you say, the Bookseers named you? She must have thought it the Maker’s will, even if you do not.”

Alis was silent for a moment. Hannah was powerful. People listened to her and did as she advised. How was it that she could do nothing for her daughter? She said bitterly, “She did not pity me, even. She just said it was my duty. I thought she loved me but she does not.”

Elzbet gave a little cry of protest. “Oh, Alis, you are wrong. I am sure you are wrong.”

Alis shook her head but Elzbet took both her hands and said urgently, “Listen to me. I will tell you how I
know
that you are wrong. When the news reached here that you were gone from Two Rivers, your mother came to see me. She guessed that you had run off, though she did not tell me why, and she hoped you might have confided in me where you meant to go. She begged me to tell her, but of course, I could not.”

“She wanted to fetch me back so that she could make me marry, that is all,” Alis said angrily.

But Elzbet went on. “No, that was not it. For she said to me, ‘If only I knew she was safe, I would be content.’ When I said again that I knew nothing, she looked so ill I wanted to fetch my own mother for I was afraid, but she would not let me. She sat awhile with her hand pressed to her side as if she were in great pain. Then she said, her voice very low, ‘I do not think I can bear it.’ After that she got up and went away. For a long time, she did not come to prayer meetings or do any of her work as an Elder.”

“She recovered, though. When I came home, it was my father who had aged. She looked just the same.”

“My mother says she put her sorrow away for your father’s sake, seeing his grief for you and his fear that he would lose her also. But if you had seen her that night,” Elzbet said, “you would believe me. Be angry with her if you will, Alis, but do not say she does not love you. I have seen and I know.”

They sat for a long time in silence. The heat had gone and they were both weary. At last, with a quiet embrace and a promise to meet the next day, they parted.

Walking home through the evening sunshine, Alis found herself dwelling on the image Elzbet had painted of Hannah’s visit. She wanted to go on being angry with her mother. She wanted to believe that her mother, who had once seemed all-powerful, could have acted differently. There must be someone to blame! But the image would not go away.

When she got home, the house was empty. Galin, she knew, was gone to take supper with her parents. They had both been invited of course, but she avoided her mother when she could: she had said she would not go. She went to the kitchen and opened a cupboard although she was not hungry. There was some bread, and a pot of preserved meat. She stood there, seeing nothing.

After a long time, she closed the cupboard and went upstairs. She poured water from the ewer into the basin and washed herself before putting on a clean gown and apron and descending again. Into her basket went a blackberry pie she had made—her mother liked blackberry.

Then she set off for her parents’ house.

H
er heart was eased by Elzbet’s friendship and she was glad to have made some kind of peace with her mother, but still she felt as if her life were over. And though her days were better, her nights remained a torment.

Late one morning, coming back from seeing the dairy wife about the cheese and cream, Alis found little Deborah from Boundary Farm in the kitchen with a message: her father was bad again—raving about his sins, howling that he was cast into the darkness. The Minister must come: no one else could soothe him. Martha reported that Galin had a visitor and she was about to take in some refreshment.

“I will see to it,” Alis said. “Stay here with the child.” She put the tankards and the plate of cake onto a wooden board and carried it to the front room. The man sitting at the table with Galin turned his head as she came in. She felt the room spin and blur and knew she was about to faint.

When she came to, she was lying on the polished boards feeling weak and sick. Galin leaned over her, his pale face anxious. “Alis, you are not well. I will send for someone.”

She shook her head, feeling the tears trickle out of the sides of her eyes and into her hair as she lay there. The dreams were bad enough. And now this. How was she to bear it?

She could hear Galin instructing Martha to stop cleaning up the broken pots and fetch one of the Healers. She struggled to sit up. “No. It was a moment’s giddiness, no more. Martha, stay here and finish what you are doing. I do not need a Healer.”

Galin protested but she would not hear of it. She would be better in a moment; she required no one. He helped her up. The visitor had disappeared. Remembering her errand, she told Galin that he was wanted. He looked troubled. He did not like to leave her. She made an effort to smile at him. Martha would take care of her; he must not neglect his duties. He agreed reluctantly.

“Are you fit to entertain the young man who has come? I am anxious to know his news but I must attend to Deborah’s father first. He is not safe when these fits come upon him; I fear for the child and her mother.”

He would have said more but Martha came through from the kitchen saying that the child was crying: her father would kill himself. Why did the Minister not come?

“Tell her I am coming,” Galin said. “Alis, it troubles me to leave you. Shall I not send Martha to have someone come to sit with you?”

She shook her head. “No indeed. I am quite recovered. Get you gone before the man does violence upon himself. I will tend to our guest.”

Her husband looked at her doubtfully. She was very pale, with dark circles under her eyes, but when did she not look so?

He went away and Alis sat for a few moments gathering her strength. Now she must deal with the visitor and if there was a resemblance, she must endure it. He was in the garden, Martha said. He begged the privilege of a few words with her if she were well enough. He was sorry to intrude. She rose, and as she did so the prayer-house clock struck four.

“Go now, Martha. I am quite well again. I do not need you.”

The girl did not need bidding twice.

Alis went out of the door and stopped. The blood pounded in her head. It could not be true. “Luke?”

He was dressed in farm clothes—a man now, taller, broader in the shoulders, but with the same soft brown hair and olive skin. He said stiffly, “I heard you had married him. I came to find out why.”

She stared at him, unable to speak. He looked away, saying in a lower voice, “When Ethan did not come again, I feared for you. I thought perhaps he was dead and you were lost somewhere with none to aid you, or even that you yourself were dead. I thought to tell my grandmother the truth so that I might come to seek you. And then we heard the news.”

He looked straight at her, his face full of grief. “Oh, Alis! How is it that you are married to that man? You said you would rather die.” His voice shook, and he stopped speaking.

She said in a whisper, “I went to Ellen’s and there was no one there. Even the cows were gone.”

He gave a strangled exclamation and slammed his fist into his open palm. “Fool that I am! I never thought of you coming back there by yourself. Ellen left word for Ethan with one of the Healers whom she trusts. She knew that having medicines to sell, he would go to see the woman and would learn where we were. We’d moved in with Ellen when my grandfather fell sick and the Elders said he could not be Minister anymore. But then my grandmother thought we would be safer with some friends of Ellen’s who live outside the Two Rivers boundary, where it would be harder for the Elders to trouble us. Her neighbor, Saul, put Ellen’s cows in with his so that she could travel with us to help care for my grandfather. It is too cruel that you should have come just then!”

Her throat closed up. “I thought you were dead.” She could not go on. He was alive! He had haunted her dreams until she thought she would go mad with grief. And now he was here.

Luke looked baffled. “You knew we expected to go away. Why should you think me dead just because there was no one at the farm?”

“It was not because of that, but . . .” She saw again the shrub and Lilith tearing the petals, the litter of white fragments at her feet.

Lilith
had
known her, and had lied to get her out of the way! Shyly she took Luke’s hand—there was no one to see them. She had been cruelly misled, but he was alive, his hand warm in hers. “Come and sit here, and I will tell you how it was.”

On an old bench, among the weeds and wildness of the neglected garden, they sat down together and she told him her story.

He clenched his fists at Lilith’s lie. “But why did you believe her when she said I had died?”

She had to think. Not for a moment, then, or in all the months since, had it occurred to her to doubt what Lilith had said: the shuttered farmhouse, the girl’s tear-reddened eyes, the sense of secret dread fulfilled, perhaps. And then the story fitted with events and seemed likely enough.

“Likely enough?” Luke scoffed. “As if a night in the open would kill me.”

“I see that now, but at the time . . . Besides, I did not think Lilith had recognized me, and why should she lie to a stranger?”

“But even then,” Luke said angrily, “when you thought I was dead”—she shuddered remembering it and clasped his hand more tightly—“why did you come back here? You could have found work at an inn as you say you had done before. Or you could have gone back to the city to your brother.”

How easy he made it sound! She said slowly, “I thought it was meant to be a lesson, your death, because I had defied my parents and because I had not heeded the signs of the Maker’s anger.”

He looked at her uncomprehendingly.

She tried again. “Your grandmother, Ethan, Joel. Things went ill with them because they tried to help me. And I would not see it. Then when Lilith said you had died, it was as though the Maker was saying, ‘
Now
do you see?’ And although nothing could be worse than your dying”—she closed her eyes, remembering the horror of that day—“I would not bring evil on anyone else. We are to obey our parents, the Book says. So I came home at last, to obey.”

Luke said furiously, “You should not have married him. You should have kept faith. You said you would rather die.”

“Oh, Luke!” She was despairing. How was it that he did not understand? “If I had known you were alive, do you think I would have done it? I thought you were dead. I was like a dead thing myself, except for the pain. It did not matter to me whether I married him or not, only—I would not bring more grief to those who had been good to me.”

He was not looking at her. He disengaged his hand and stood up. His mouth twisted bitterly. “Well, you are married now and no help for it. And I must care for my grandparents. Lilith cannot have dreamed her little trick would work so well.”

It hurt her to hear him speak so. “Do not be angry. Think how it is for me. All this time I have mourned for you—it has been so dreadful.” Her voice broke and his expression softened. “And now you are alive after all; it is like coming into the light and air after being trapped in a dark place.”

She made a little sound, half laugh, half sob. He moved toward her as if he would have taken her hand once more, and then as if some unwelcome memory had arrested his gesture, he stopped. She looked at him. His face had gone hard.

“Are you with child?”

She was so startled she could not speak for a moment. “With child? No, indeed. Why should you think it?”

“You fainted. My grandmother says it is sometimes thus with women when they conceive—she did so twice when she was carrying my mother though she is strong and never sick.”

Alis said firmly, “I am not with child, I assure you. It was seeing you that made me faint.”

His expression did not lighten, however. He said viciously, “Well, if you are not, you will be soon enough, I daresay.”

She shook her head.

He frowned. “How can you be sure?” And then in sudden distress, “Alis, you will not be foolish and do that which will harm you to stop a child from coming. Women die that way, I have heard.”

She put her hand on his arm to stem the flow of words. “Dear Luke. You need have no fear. There is no question of that.”

She could see he was not persuaded.

“How can you be certain there will be no child? When husband and wife lie together”—she interrupted him.

“We do not lie together, he and I. We have never done so.”