This Side of Heaven (26 page)

And, he told himself silently, he would have remembered. He couldn’t imagine anyone who had ever seen Caroline forgetting her, especially himself.

“When I was younger, I lived with my mother,” she replied. “She and my father were married soon after Elizabeth’s mother died, but my mother soon grew tired of living flush one minute and hand to mouth the next, and so she returned with me to her own home. Not until she died did my father come and take me away.”

He nodded. “That would explain it, then—and also account for why you are so unlike Elizabeth, for which I heartily give thanks to God. But to go on, I soon discovered that the child Elizabeth expected was not mine. She had used me for a dupe to hide her sin.”

Caroline’s eyes widened. “Do you mean John …?”

Matt shook his head. “John is mine, I am reasonably sure. As is Davey. The timing—and their looks. Although ’tis God’s grace merely that she didn’t spawn a bevy of bastards. Despite the fact that I kept as close a watch on her as I could, I know there were others. The—she even tried with my own brothers.” The remembrance of that tasted bitter even as he said it.

“So Mary said.”

“God in heaven, is there anything Mary didn’t tell you? And Mary, I suppose, got her information from James. I had no idea the lad was so loose-tongued.” Matt’s lips tightened in annoyance at having his private
affairs bruited about for strangers to hear. Although he was quite sure—at least he thought he was quite sure—that Mary would have revealed so much to Caroline and none other. And Caroline was not precisely a stranger—although Mary could have no way of knowing that. He made a mental note to have a word with James about his habit of confiding intimate family business to his wife.

“But if John is not—what happened to the child?”

“Elizabeth lost it soon after we were wed. I would have thought it mine still had she not confessed the whole, not in penitence, but to taunt me during a fit of anger because I would not do something she wished. She very soon regretted being so frank, but it was too late: I began to recognize her for what she was.”

“And what was that?”

He hesitated, then shook his head. “I’ll not give a name to it. She was my wife, after all, and the mother of my sons. I thought, when I moved her and my brothers here, that we could start afresh. But she never got better, only worse.”

“And for that you feel unclean? I think you behaved very nobly, given the circumstances.”

Matt said nothing for a moment as he grappled with a sudden cravenness that was foreign to his nature. She looked so very young and naïve, sitting there with her head tilted slightly to one side, her tears forgotten now as she listened with interest. For a moment he was tempted to keep the rest to himself. He need not reveal his shame—but he realized then that it was important that she know him for the base sinner that he was. When the truth was told, she could not fail to see
him as despicable, while she herself, as victim rather than perpetrator of evil, was totally innocent in a way that he decidedly was not.

“You have not heard the worst yet, my poppet,” he said softly, and his hand tightened around hers as instinctively he sought the will to continue. Her rose-petal skin was silky beneath his touch, her bones fragile. Her eyes as she waited for him to continue were wide. He dreaded to see the change that would come over them when she knew—yet he wanted her to know. Telling her the truth about himself was the only palliative he had to offer her sick spirit.

“So tell me.”

Matt swallowed to combat the sudden dryness of his throat. “I did beget my sons on her, you see. Though I knew her for a whore and a madwoman, though her spirit repelled me as much as her flesh tempted me, I did enter her bed and take my ease with her—and more often than the two times that would have got me my sons. She would mock me for my weakness, flaunting herself, and I could not steel myself to resist. Only when I awakened to find her drunken and laughing at me on the morning after Davey’s conception did I afterward succeed in keeping my vow to stay away. And meager though that credit sounds, I cannot claim even that much grace. I admit I stayed away from her because, physically, her body was repulsive to me after that.”

Her eyes widened, darkened, flickered during his stark recital, but Matt could not tell what she was thinking. Now he watched her, almost shrinking inside himself, although he hoped he gave no outward sign.
It was only when he felt her hand moving in his that he realized how tight his grip on her fingers was: ’twas a wonder he hadn’t broken her bones.

“Well?” His voice was harsh, far harsher than he had intended, but she sat there watching him and saying nothing, and he was sore afraid.

At that her eyes flickered again, and her tongue came out to wet her lips.

“Elizabeth was your wife,” she said at last. Her hand turned in his to cling to his fingers when he would have released her. “You had every right to use her as you did.”

His eyes darkened. “Aye, I know it. Yet the right was legal, not moral. The memory of it sickens me.”

“Just as the memory of Simon Denker sickens me.”

“Was that his name, the bloody bastard? From tonight onward I’ll add to my prayers the devout request that he roast forever in Hell.”

The merest hint of a smile touched her lips. “Good Roundhead that you are, you should not use such language.”

“I consider myself strongly provoked. And the term is Puritan, if you please.”

At that they smiled at each other, and Matt was conscious of a great easing of the weight he had carried about inside him for so long. Caroline didn’t seem to despise him for his weakness, and so perhaps he could stop despising himself.

“So now we have no more secrets between us,” he said after a moment that he spent idly turning her hand palm up in his and examining the slender fingers.

“No,” she agreed, watching him study her hand.
After a moment she clenched her fist and withdrew it from his hold. He looked up at her inquiringly as she got to her feet.

“You need salve on those scratches,” she said, with a clear intent to return to business. Briskly she turned to the bedside table and started rooting through her store of medicines.

“And how shall I explain them, I wonder, if someone asks?” He was content to let her go. She had opened up to him, cautiously and not yet willing to stay so, and now like a shy flower had perforce to close again for a spell. He could understand that, and saw no need to push her for more than she could at present give.

“You may blame them on Millicent.” She turned to him, smiling, and with gentle fingers anointed his cheek with salve. Matt suffered her ministrations, setting himself to endure without allowing his senses to be overwhelmed by the sight and touch and smell of her as she hovered so near. If she were to heal, she needed time to do so. The boil of her shame had been lanced, the poison spilled. With careful handling she could recover fully. In the meantime he must keep his own baseness in check. As much as his body hungered for her, he would make no further move. Not unless and until she showed him that she was ready to welcome such.

She finished with his cheek, restored the tiny pot to the bedside table, and picked up the ruined and rejected piece of pie.

“I must see to supper,” she said, and started for the
door. Once there, she hesitated, looked back over her shoulder.

“And Matt,” she said softly, her cheeks flushing palest rose, “thank you.”

For the longest time after she had gone, he could do nothing but stare at the spot where she had been.

28

S
pring turned into summer, and summer waxed and waned. Caroline grew accustomed to her new place in the world and even found the time to fashion herself some dresses in the sober Puritan style. Though she turned up her nose at their plainness, the simplicity of the garments served to emphasize her beauty, which grew extraordinary as ample food and happiness rounded her figure and pinkened her cheeks. Despite, or perhaps even because of, her questionable status with the elders of the community, she attracted a great deal of notice and turned more than a few masculine heads on the few times she ventured into town unescorted. When Matt or one of the others was with her, of course, none dared to so much as give her an admiring glance. The combined physical might of the Mathiesons was a force to be reckoned with.

Matt’s leg healed, though he spent much of the summer hobbling around, first on crutches carved for him by Robert and later with the aid of a stick. He made no further advances toward her, and Caroline was content to have it so. With their exchange of confidences, their affinity for each other deepened. She liked to think that they enjoyed an intimacy, not of the body but of the soul.

Her relationship with his brothers improved, aided tremendously by their devout appreciation of her cooking. Once Matt no longer required constant attendance, she was able to put herself heart and soul into outdoing the culinary efforts of Hannah Forrester. At this she achieved general success, although Goody Forrester’s offerings were still accepted by the brethren with great good will. As were Patience Smith’s (who had an eye on Robert), Abigail Fulsom’s and Joy Hendrick’s (who vied for Thomas), and Lissie Peters’s (who was after Daniel). Indeed, as the battle for the allegiance of the Mathieson men’s stomachs escalated, Caroline got the feeling that the men themselves were growing amused at the competition. They downed whatever delicacies came their way without prejudice or seeming preference, which was galling to the females concerned. As for Robert and Thomas, being assiduously courted by comely girls at ages twenty-three and twenty-one, respectively, was a novel and clearly not unpleasant experience. Although not completely cured of their misogyny, they appeared willing to suspend disbelief for the nonce.

Daniel, on the other hand, who had never been as thoroughly distrustful of women as his younger brothers, gave Lissie Peters minimal encouragement. It occurred to Caroline more than once that he might be developing a slight tendre for herself, but she refused to entertain the notion seriously. If she did, it might disturb the peace of mind that she had finally achieved, and she refused to let that happen. It was too wonderful to be at ease in her own skin again.

John and Davey, while still slightly wary of her,
seemed to take her presence in their household for granted. Certainly they enjoyed having washed, pressed, and mended clothes to wear to school, meals prepared, and a well-kept house and clean linens for their beds. Caroline realized that it made them feel more like the other children who had loving mothers in their homes, and she was glad that she was able to give them that, even if they were not yet ready to accept more tangible gestures of affection from her. But that, she assured herself, would come in the fullness of time, or so she hoped.

On a particularly warm afternoon in early August, when she was engaged in pegging items of the wash out on the grass to bleach in the sun, she was surprised to discover Davey, who along with his schoolmates was enjoying a holiday from studies, huddled behind a large lilac bush that graced the west corner of the yard. His arms were wrapped tight about Millicent—the cat had grown surprisingly tolerant of Davey’s small-boy roughness, and the child exhibited an amazing degree of fondness for the cat when there were, as he thought, no eyes to see—and his face was buried in her fur. For a moment Caroline hesitated, unsure whether or not she should question him. Though he tolerated her, she was not Davey’s favorite member of the household, and she knew it. But such a posture from the normally cocksure little boy must mean that something was amiss with him. Leaving the rest of the wash unpegged, Caroline approached and then crouched in front of him.

“Davey?”

His shoulders tensed, but he didn’t lift his face. “Go ’way!”

“Are you ill?”

No response.

“Did you hurt yourself?”

No response.

“Shall I fetch your pa?”

At that he lifted his head to glare at her. “No!”

Tears stained his cheeks, and cat hairs clung to the wet tracks, but what really caught her eye was his bottom lip. It was puffy and swollen, with a little trickle of dried blood decorating the left corner.

“What happened?” Caroline asked, thinking that he must have been stung, or fallen, or injured himself in any of the dozens of ways particular to small boys.

“Nothin’.” He glanced down at Millicent, and made a ferocious face. “Stupid ol’ cat!”

He thrust her away from him more roughly than Caroline might have liked, but Millicent did not seem offended. With a glance at Caroline as if to enjoin her sympathy for the small human, she returned to the boy, butting his arm with her head, purring loudly.

“Go ‘way!” He pushed at her, glowering at Caroline all the while so that she understood that his rejection was aimed at her and not the cat at all. This time Millicent walked away, waving her tail proudly in the air as if to make it clear that it was her choice to do so.

“Davey, if you won’t tell me what happened I don’t have any choice but to fetch your pa.” She spoke gently.

“I got in a fight.” It was a furiously resentful mutter.

“A fight! Why?”

“They was sayin’ bad things about my ma. The boys in town, that is.”

“What kind of bad things?”

He hesitated, and the damaged lip quivered tellingly. But the need to confide in someone was too strong to resist.

“They said she was a witch.”

“A witch!” Caroline caught her breath. A swift survey of Davey’s face told her how much he needed her to deny what had been said, and indeed she had no hesitation in doing so.

“What nonsense!” she continued lightly.

He hesitated, and it was clear that he wanted to believe. But he was unable to take comfort from her so easily. “How would you know?” The question was rude.

“I know,” Caroline said with conviction. Despite what Mary had told her, she knew that, whatever the truth of the matter was, it was important to convince Davey that his mother was innocent. “Your mother was my sister, and I knew her when I was just a little girl. She used to sing to me, oh, lovely songs.”