Our Own Country: A Novel (The Midwife Series) (4 page)

Maria’s talk shocked me. “This is your dream?” I asked bewilderedly. “No husband, no children?”

“I don’t see them when I close my eyes. That doesn’t mean they won’t happen. I see the other, however.” Maria then changed the subject.

“Would you like to read one of my stories?” She reached for the diary on her bedside table.

“Oh, yes. I love your stories. They are always so full of adventure.”

“Here. Read upon this. It’s about an Athenian woman who cares for wounded enemy soldiers during the Peloponnesian war and falls in love with one of them.”

Taking up the heavy ledger book, I looked askance at my sister, for the subject was slightly daring.

“And you say you care nothing about love, Maria. Humph!”

“It’s just a silly story, written for my own amusement. Read it.”

I read Maria’s story aloud until I noticed that her eyes were closed. Gently, I put the book on the side table and went round to the fireplace, where I quietly added a few logs. Then I kissed my sister’s forehead before leaving—how she burned! Perhaps it was the proximity of the hot fire—
Yes, certainly, it was the fire,
I thought.

Maria did not descend that day for supper; Cassie brought her a tray but found her asleep and tiptoed out of the room. I did not worry overmuch, but I slept ill and, the following morning, bolted from my bed to check on my sister. She was turning fitfully, but her eyes were closed. She had thrown the covers off herself in the night and when I pulled to adjust them, I noticed a bright rash across her neck and chest. I leapt back in fear and ran to tell my parents.

“Maria has a rash! A bright-red rash!” I cried, having entered their chamber without knocking.

“Have Cassie fetch Dr. Bullfinch,” Papa mumbled. I did so at once. Cassie left the house and returned half an hour later with Dr. Bullfinch, the family doctor. He did not stay long, which relieved me greatly. After he had left, I entered Maria’s chamber and found her sitting up and staring at the flickering fire. Her cheeks had lost their hectic redness.

“Dearest,” I said, sitting myself next to her. “How are you? What was that rash? Was it not the canker rash? What did Dr. Bullfinch say?”

“Oh, the rash has paled. Look.” Maria pulled the bolster off to reveal her neck and shoulders. They were nice and white, with just a thin streak of ruddy pink on one side of her neck. I sighed with relief. “I shouldn’t like to complain, but I am
bored
. Dr. Bullfinch says it is but a cold, and that the rash has not the telltale bumps of the canker rash. I shall soon be well, he says, and yet he has forbidden me to read or write or do anything!”

“Shall I open the curtains?”

“Oh, yes. With any luck we shall see something interesting.”

“We may be so fortunate as to see Dinah shaking out the carpets.” Dinah was a young servant girl belonging to the Vassals. We often saw her knocking the dust out of a carpet by the side of the house.

“Oh, look!” Maria pointed. There, in our maple tree beyond her window, against the bright white dusting of snow that clung to the branches, stood a brilliant-red cardinal. “Eliza, isn’t he gorgeous? Do you suppose he knows he’s so gorgeous, and so very red?”

“I hope not.” I laughed. “For Lord knows our males are puffed up enough with pride as it is. Oh, Maria,” I said, embracing her, “I’m so glad you’re better. I’m so relieved.” After a few moments, I had a thought. “Dr. Bullfinch has not forbidden
listening
, has he?”

“I believe it slipped his mind.” She smiled mischievously.

I opened the
Odyssey
and took up where my sister had left off. Then for several precious hours, we were travelers to a glorious, ancient world, where our beloved hero battled monsters and survived by his wits.

Maria fell asleep while I was reading, and I left her seemingly much improved.

That afternoon, my sister surprised us all by coming down to dinner. My sister had dressed herself as usual and done a smart job of it. Her blouse was properly buttoned; her petticoats fell straight down, not hitched up on one side or inadvertently tucked into a stocking, as they often were. She had even brushed and pinned her hair. It looked so glossy that it shone. And yet something seemed not quite right about her. Maria’s dark complexion had a pale, waxen cast to it. Her walk down the stairs was too slow, and she needed to grasp the banister for balance.

“Are you certain you are well enough to stir, Maria?” I asked. “It is cold—Cassie can bring you something in your chamber.”

“No, no,” she objected. “I’m bored to tears. Truly. I’m resolute that I shall sit in the library and read.” She proceeded to drink some tea and smilingly accepted a kiss on the side of her head from Jeb, who had loaded his plate with ham, biscuits, and Cassie’s special brandy sauce.

“Sister,” he mumbled after having already taken a huge bite of ham, “I made something for you.”

Jeb proffered a J-shaped wooden item that lay in his lap.

“Oh, no. Not another pop gun.” Maria rolled her eyes.

“The very same.”

“You’re very sweet, Jeb. Perhaps this time I shall find a use for it. You know I dislike shooting things. Well, perhaps I can load it with bread and shoot pellets out to the ducks.”

Maria smiled while she spoke, but I saw that she ate nothing and merely poked at a lone slice of ham.

“You take no nourishment,” I remarked unhappily.

“I suppose I’m too excited to eat. Come—if you have finished. Join me in the library.”

Our parents, reassured that Maria was on the mend, announced their plans for the day. Mother said that she would spend the day creating menus for Cassie, and did we fancy fish or fowl for Sunday dinner?

“Well, since we all seem to be announcing our plans,” Jeb stood, “let me announce that I plan to go abroad. It is cold but sunny, and they have cleared the main road. I shall walk about town pretending to be a college lad with a fine parson’s job ahead of me, paid well to spout nonsense.”

“Jeb! Have a care, will you?” Our father frowned and glanced at Mama, who had just stepped into the dining room.

“What?” Jeb laughed in astonishment. “Are we to pretend that I am fit for a scholar’s life? Oh, we are all so
dull
! I shall die of our dullness!” Jeb cried. “Eliza, do you wish to walk with me?”

“I’ve told Maria I would sit with her in the library,” I said regretfully, for I should have liked to go abroad.

“Oh, yes, I forgot. Well, adieu! I am heartily sick of this house. We all behave as if there were nothing of importance beyond it.” And, apparently finished with his tirade, Jeb departed. Our mother ran to the door and called after him fretfully, “Your cap!” But he was already far down the road.

“That child gives me a headache,” Papa sighed, shutting the door against the cold.

I took Maria’s hand, and we walked to the library. She sighed. “I wish I had the energy to go abroad. I wish it were spring, and doing so were not such an ordeal.”

“I know,” I said. It was not so simple for us as it was for Jeb. We had petticoats to drag through the snow and ice, boots to lace, bonnets, mitts, and capes to adjust. The very thought was exhausting. Of course, no one had the least idea of Maria’s going abroad just now.

We installed ourselves in the library by the large windows. The afternoon sun, in its decline, was brilliant, and melting ice from the tree branches refracted a rainbow of colors before dripping out of sight. I had hoped to see Mr. Cardinal again but did not. That was a disappointment, for his careless beauty gladdened my heart, igniting within me every sort of foolish hope.

Maria and I played a game of chess, which I won after a struggle. I might have exulted more had I not been alarmed by her sluggishness, her pallor. We then read companionably for near an hour: I,
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
; she, the
Odyssey
. After an hour, however, she grew fatigued.

“My eyes close, Eliza. Perhaps I shall lie down for a bit.”

“Oh, do, dear. You’re not yet well.”

She smiled, her lids fluttering shut. “This story transports me so, with its palaces whose brazen fires ‘make night day.’ Oh Eliza, by such magical means am I able to travel the world! Do you think everyone understands the magic of books? Of seeing not what
is
, but what
might
be?”

“But you’re so very good at seeing what is, Maria. Without you, I would hardly know what was real.”

Maria sighed and considered my words. “It is a burden always to see things in their true light. Books—they are such a wonderful escape, don’t you see?” But even as Maria said these words, I saw her shoulders roll forward. I set my own book down and helped her up the stairs. She paused upon the landing. “But how I am out of breath!” Maria placed a small hand on her chest.

“Come, darling. Let us get you out of your gown. Shall I call for Cassie to bring you something? A dish of tea?”

“Oh, yes, I would like that.”

We entered her chamber. It was such a pretty room, with its tiny pink flowers on the wallpaper; a gossamer crocheted canopy hung above the mahogany bedstead. From her chamber, my sister had views north, across our orchards, and east, to the Vassal house and the same ice-slicked maple tree we saw from below.

Her room was quite cold once more. Cassie and I got the fire going and managed to undress Maria and get her into bed. The bed was cold, too, and Maria shivered. Cassie left the room to get the tea. I lay myself down on the bed beside my sister and wrapped my limbs around her, to warm her.

“Oh, yes, that is good. That is better,” she said, snuggling into the warmth of my body. She closed her eyes. “I believe I shall be able to sleep now. And when I wake, I’ll fly back to the isle of Helios, to see what the fierce sun god has done with the poor hungry sailors who have eaten his beeves. It will transport you, Eliza.”

“I look forward to it,” I said.

“I’ll finish it by the Sabbath, I am sure, and then it shall be yours.” It was then Thursday. Maria shut her eyes, and her breathing slowed; I sat up. Cassie entered with tea and a biscuit, but I shook my head, mouthing that she was already asleep. Cassie set the tea down on the bedside table. Beyond the window, the sun continued to turn the ice to sparkling rain. I heard the church bell ring. Suddenly I saw the cardinal again! He was just there, beyond the window, standing on his gray stick legs and snip-snipping with his triangular black beak. I drank the tea meant for Maria and left soon thereafter. Behind me the fire glowed brightly. All seemed well.

I descended the stairs and sat in the library, looking out upon the whiteness. I dreamed of spring and lively gatherings. But I was jolted out of my reverie by a piteous shriek from above. I ran at once to Maria’s chamber to find Cassie standing over a dropped tray and broken china. Maria lay on the bed, eyes open, lips blue, breath gone. She had left Odysseus and his men forever, on the isle of Helios.

4

THE FUNERAL WAS HELD THAT MONDAY AT
the new church. The snow had turned to ice in places, and we slipped precariously as we walked behind the funeral carriage to the chapel. We suffered the pitying stares of shopkeepers and farmers who seemed surprised to learn that those who lived on Brattle Street were not, in fact, immortal.

Our parents walked ahead of us, side by side but not touching, worlds apart. Papa broke down periodically; Mama’s eyes seemed not to blink, and Jeb and I leaned on each other as we walked behind them. “I don’t see how we shall go on,” I whispered. “The pain is too much.”

“What choice have we, Eliza, if God wishes to give an eye for an eye?” His tone was bitter.

“What mean you, ‘an eye for an eye’?”

“What else would you call it?” Jeb laughed mirthlessly. “God would have them know what it feels like to lose a child.”

“Surely that cannot be.” I frowned.

“What? Do you not believe in a vengeful God, Eliza? Have you been asleep at services all this time?”

“Vengeance against whom, pray, and for what?”

“For Cassie, of course.”

My brother’s anger, and the town’s anger, and the shock of his pronouncement, was all too much: I burst into great heaving tears.

“Oh, Sister, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He grabbed onto my shoulders. Mama and Papa turned around to see what had happened.

“Of what do you speak?” Papa asked accusingly. His eyes blazed, though he could not have heard us.

“Nothing,” I said, wiping my own eyes indecorously with a sleeve. “Let us continue on.”

Reverend Winwood spoke about the fragility of life and the need for readiness. No doubt he meant to be a comfort. Mama and Papa nodded at his every sentence, yet I found it vexing to be lectured—nay, scolded—on a topic we understood all too well. What’s more, the reverend had a terrible stutter, and his p-pronouncements up-pon the f-fragility of li-li-life always made Jeb want to explode in laughter. On this day, however, I knew that, were I to so much as glance at Jeb, I would laugh and cry simultaneously, and I shielded my eyes from him with one hand through the entire service.

From the church we then moved into the graveyard, where we stood in the frigid cold. Our stiffened fingers grasped the newly upturned dirt to throw into the grave. Mama swooned and sat down upon a large rock. Jeb and I hugged each other and wept.

On the way home, Jeb, who had been walking silently by my side, paused when we reached our snowy garden by the Charles. I turned toward the house, but he moved the other way, pushing through the mounds of snow down to the partially frozen river. There, he took something from his pocket and hurled it ferociously across the water. “Damn Dr. Bullfinch!” I saw the object sail into the air and land with a plunk. It was the pop gun he had made for Maria. I turned in a panic, fearful that our parents had heard my brother’s cry.

“Come on, Jeb,” I called. He turned and looked up at me, his shoulders shaking. Tears ran unchecked down his red face. “Come on,” I repeated. “Let us be a comfort to one another.”

“There is no comfort in me, Eliza,” he said. “Only rage.”

“There is no rage in me, only misery,” I replied. “I thought her well. Her neck was . . . pale. Dr. Bullfinch said it was
not
the throat distemper.”

“It was,” Jeb said. “He admits as much now.”

But my mind had traveled back to the day before Maria died. “We spoke of our futures, our dreams”—I broke off, weeping. “Oh, Jeb, surely anger would be better than
this
?”

Jeb shook his head. “Be careful what you wish for, Sister.”

Mama cancelled the party. Jeb’s lessons were suspended, and he and I spent the daylight hours dully playing cards in the library, finding games less painful than speech. Our father sobbed periodically throughout the day, always turning his back on us and pretending a sudden need to blow his nose. In our mother’s eyes, however, we saw tears only once: when Maria’s coffin had been lowered into the ground, and she had sat upon the rock to keep from falling.

We ignored Thanksgiving entirely, though perhaps it was wrong of us to do so. Surely there was something to be thankful for. Maria would have found something. My sixteenth birthday came and went. The house, shrouded in black crepe, remained unlit. Jeb spent more and more time away from us, and when he was with us, he and Papa argued. Papa grumbled that he didn’t see why h
e’d
bothered to work all his life when Jeb despised wealth and planned to give it all to his beloved “common man.” Jeb retorted that he didn’t know how Papa could support the crown when every day even he, Papa, had fewer and fewer rights. Mama and I stayed clear of them both—we had no strength for quarreling.

The March thaw finally came. I had not heard from my friend Louisa, and I wondered what had prevented her from condoling with us. Perhaps there had been illness in her house as well.

In April the purple crocuses popped their heads up in the lawn. Daffodils in all their frilly finery made an appearance, and Mr. Cardinal came around once more, bringing his pale-pink lady with him. O, brilliant pair!

One morning I was awakened by the sweet perfume of hyacinths coming through a crack in my window. I rose from my bed and descended the stairs, still in my shift, to follow the smell. It lured me out of doors. To passersby, I must have appeared a ghostly figure. Closer I came to it; I sought it out—here? No. There? When I finally found the hyacinths—oh, that first, fragrant, blue clump of life—I buried my face in them, weeping in gratitude for my senses, and for Maria.

I spent the spring, and indeed much of the summer, on the banks of the Charles. I followed the sun as it traveled from Boston into the heavens and then westward, past Watertown
.
I felt myself caught in its consoling light as children played catch, couples strolled, and families ate their dinners on blankets,
en plein air
.

It was nearly autumn before Mama revived. One bright September morning, as we sat at breakfast, she announced, “Eliza, it will please you to know that you are to take dance lessons from Mr. Curtis, of King Street. I have heard it from Mrs. Ruggles that Louisa shall be attending as well.”

“Indeed?” I said without much enthusiasm. Once, the idea of traveling to Boston for such a purpose would have delighted me. Now I felt only a faint dread of society. What’s more, I was quite tan, having spent all summer in the sun. But accepting Mama’s proposal did mean that I would need a new gown or two, a new bonnet, and a suitable pair of shoes, and such a thought, while it did not send me into the ecstasies of expectation that it might once have done, did lift my heart in a consolingly familiar way.

“Thank you, Mama,” I said. “It’s a marvelous idea.” I ran to Papa to request the new items at once.

Mr. Curtis’s dance studio stood at the top of King Street near the Town House. It was a busy market area with shops and taverns, and foreign goods fresh off the ships in the harbor. Inside the studio, an old crone with palsied hands, dressed in an unfashionable gown, sat at a spinet. Many girls I knew were there, and one by one they curtsied to me, expressing their mourning duties. Louisa stood among the girls in a lovely violet gown.

“Eliza, how are you?” she said, clasping my hands with her usual earnestness.

“Very well.”

“You are tan,” she remarked.

“Yes.”

“Oh, I suppose it shall fade soon enough.” After a moment, she cast her eye to the other side of the room. “Regard the boys. There is not a single one with whom I should be delighted to—”

Louisa broke off, and a sudden hush came upon the crowd. I soon saw why: Mr. George Inman, the veritable crown prince of Cambridge, had arrived. He stood at the studio’s entrance beside his valet.

Mr. Inman was not particularly tall, but his limbs were comely, his posture erect. Perhaps three or four years my elder, he was dressed in the finest blue cutaway coat, and in the shine on his boots, one could see a fair likeness of oneself. He had a long face with a long, rod-straight aquiline nose. A cleft chin leant distinction to an already handsome face, and his eyes matched the blue of his costume. He smiled, perfectly aware of the effect he made among us ladies.

Murmurs of “Ooh, look!” and “What’s he doing here, I wonder?” flew about the crowd as each girl pinched her cheeks and sucked at her lips. Soon Mr. Inman’s valet moved off to sit at the back of the room, while the paragon himself joined the crowd.

For the next forty minutes, I was insensible to all but our instructor’s voice as Mr. Curtis cried, “And one and two, step right and left!” I was not a natural at dancing, and I had to concentrate so as not to fall on my face. At the end of the hour, as I sighed with relief, Mr. Inman approached me.

“Miss Boylston. I see you’ve survived the hour—barely.”

“Yes, barely.” I returned his smile. But I wondered:
What had I done to merit his attention?

Mr. Inman looked at me thoughtfully. “But allow me to introduce myself. Mr. George Inman.” He bowed.

I curtsied, and then Mr. Inman said, “Miss Boylston, would you do me the honor of allowing me to call upon you in Cambridge?”

The others in the room heard Mr. Inman’s request. Louisa’s mouth actually gaped in surprise. I took a spiteful pleasure in her envy and then frowned at myself.

But I said, “You may,” and then curtsied most prettily.

The moment I arrived home, I swooped down upon Papa, who was at his desk. “Papa, the most amazing thing has happened, and I’m afraid you must order me a new gown at once.”

“Afraid? Why, pray?”

“Oh, Papa.”

“Well, does the queen arrive? Are we to have a royal visit?” Papa smiled at his own wit but did not look up from his papers.

“Nearly. Mr. Inman wishes to call upon me Saturday next.”

“Hmf.” He shrugged, but I could tell that he was impressed. “I suppose things could be worse. Well, well.” Papa finally looked up at me, and though his voice had been teasing, his eyes were sad. “You’ve hardly asked for a thing all year, so I won’t deny you. Mr. Inman, you say? Shall he get his degree at last? It’s been about a decade, I believe. Well, I suppose if one has wealth, brains are hardly necessary.”

“Oh!” I flew back out of his study to find Mama, whom I knew would make more of a fuss over my news. After all, she had sent me to Mr. Curtis to catch a big fish, and I had obliged her by doing so.

From the first, Jeb seemed determined to ruin my chances with Mr. Inman. For one thing, he refused to go to church with us that Sunday, an absence that would surely be talked about.

We had breakfasted as usual and stood waiting for him at the door when he arrived in the foyer only to say, “I’m very sorry, Mama, Papa, but I can’t tolerate one more sermon by that p-pedantic p-parson or his blasted p-prayer for the k-king.”

“What mean you by that, Jeb? Surely you cannot mean to remain behind,” Mama objected.

“Indeed not,” Papa agreed.

“It does seem cruel to mock him,” I added, though at the very thought of the man I had to purse my lips to keep from laughing.

“I shan’t go,” Jeb said, folding his arms and looking steadfastly at the floor.