Curiosity looked as if someone had stuck her with a pin. “What?”
“Charlie LeBlanc offered her fifty dollars for the millhouse, and she took it,” Jed explained.
Even Hannah laughed at that. “And where would Charlie LeBlanc get fifty dollars?”
It was a reasonable question, for even with his wife's good sense and calm guidance, Charlie barely managed to make a profit from the millworks. Without the free labor that came with six sons, he would have been bankrupt long ago. Charlie was more likely to grow horns than he was to save fifty dollars all together.
Curiosity said all this and more, while Jed studied the bottom of his teacup.
“Aye,” said Jennet. “So the story goes. But the good men of Paradise decided to take action.” She explained how they had started a collection on the spot to get the fifty dollars together. It was all in chits, which were handed over to Charlie for credit on the next summer's milling.
“The idea,” Jennet said, looking almost embarrassed to admit such a thing, “was that Jemima would be so glad of the fifty dollars that she would go away to Johnstown to live.”
Curiosity snorted. “What a fool plan,” she said, and Jed flushed a deep red that mottled his neck and cheeks and made him look, just for that moment, like a boy who has helped himself to more maple sugar than was his due.
“Aye,” said Jennet. “The ladies said as much. And loudly, forbye. But Jemima took what was offered her, and Ethan drew up the agreement and she signed it.”
“Go on,” said Curiosity. “I can guess what happened next, but you might as well say it. She ain't going nowhere. She'll set right there at the orchard house and wait till she's collected on those chits.”
“You can imagine how put out Missy Parker is,” Jennet said, barely containing a smile. “For she was right and the men were wrong, but were she to say that, she should also have to admit Jemima had won out, yet again.”
Through all of the telling, Jed had pressed his mouth into a thin line with increasing embarrassment, but now he looked up finally and shrugged.
“It was a good plan,” he said. “We thought she'd go, if she only had the means.”
Curiosity set her rocker moving with a push of her foot. “When Nicholas comes back from Johnstown he'll find her settled in.”
“Not if the court gives him his divorce,” Jed said. “Though I suppose that's unlikely, with Jemima in a family way.”
“Ain't this a fine pickle,” Curiosity said. “Jemima has got herself a husband who's bound by law to provide for her, hate her though he might. It's a hard punishment he's earned for his foolishness.”
“I must write to Lily,” Jennet said with a deep sigh. “I promised her I would, when there was news to tell. But of course I didn't know of the connection then . . .” Her voice trailed off. “Did it really come as a surprise to you, Curiosity?”
The older woman was looking into the fire with an expression that was hard to read: regret and sadness and maybe irritation, whether with herself or Lily it was impossible to know. She said, “I suppose I knew she admired the man. She always did, since she was a little girl—do you remember, Hannah?”
“She tried to convince me that I should marry him, once,” Hannah said. “That seems very long ago.”
“Well, it hurts my pride to admit it, but I didn't have no idea at all.” Curiosity's fingers drummed on the arms of the rocker. “Didn't know it had gone over to something so serious that she would run off to avoid getting herself in trouble. And maybe it ain't so. Don't know as we can believe Jemima's version of things.”
“I'd say we cain't,” Jed said gruffly. “I for one don't believe that Lily and Claes Wilde—” He cleared his throat. “I just don't believe it.”
“I hope for Lily's sake that you're right,” Jennet said, her expression very sober now, almost sorrowful. “For if she did think he loves her, it will be hard news indeed to find out that he's bound to Jemima Southern.”
Curiosity rocked herself harder. “That's just what we're all worrying about, child. One thing you cain't deny about Miss Lily, she got a temper, and it do run off with her at the worst times.”
The talk ebbed away, and they sat together in silence, each of them thinking of Lily, and the things she might do.
Chapter 21
Lily wondered, sometimes, that two people who liked each other—for she did like Simon Ballentyne, when she could think of him from a distance—could find so much to fight about. It seemed that all they could do when they were face to face was to argue. The first and biggest battle was this: Lily wanted to leave for home immediately, and Simon simply refused.
“I won't run off like a thief in the night.” He said those words so often that Lily began to understand something: he truly believed he was taking something away from Luke, some possession that he valued and would not hand over easily or gladly. When she pointed this out to Iona, the old lady looked at her with something close to surprise.
“But of course men think of their women like that,” she said. “And no bemoaning the fact will change it. One day you might even find there's advantages in it, child.”
It was not what she wanted to hear, but even Lily understood that to lecture Wee Iona on the rights of women and the writings of Mrs. Wollstonecraft would be a waste of time. Instead she waited for Simon's next visit and pointed out to him, straightaway, she was not a prisoner in her brother's home, that she might leave when she pleased. To that she added—before he could do it for her—that Luke had made a home for her here and deserved the courtesy of an explanation.
One more battle lost; she must face her brother, and defend her choices.
“Your brother is no dragon,” Iona said. “Anything he has to say to you will be just, though probably not pleasant.”
That was just what Lily feared. That Luke would tell her that she was being foolish to run home like this in the dead of winter, in time of war, with a man who might not be welcome at Lake in the Clouds, once the whole truth was revealed. She could not tell Luke all of it, for that would only make her look the bigger fool: using one man to go to another who did not want her.
Even Ghislaine, who should have been her natural ally, had little of comfort to say. “Your brother will make noises like a bull, but in the end, what can he do? You have already settled the matter between you.”
Lily had hoped she could keep the nature of her attachment to Simon a secret, but Ghislaine made short work of that conceit. On the morning after the deal was struck she had brought Lily her morning coffee and stood at the foot of the bed with a small smile, a little sad.
“So,” she said. “Now you know.”
She knew, yes. She knew Simon Ballentyne in every way a woman could know a man, and oddly enough, she felt that she hardly knew him at all. He was, simply, the most frustrating human being she had ever come across.
They argued about everything, from how much she could pack to take back to Lake in the Clouds, to whether or not they should tell people of their engagement, to Lily's eating habits. When they were together they argued, or rather, Simon made an announcement, which caused Lily's temper to flare. She explained herself at length while Simon listened, stone-faced and unbending, or laughed out loud, or cooed at her and called her hen and lovey until she must laugh herself, or box his ears.
Iona watched it all with a half-smile, not the least worried, it seemed to Lily, which must be a good sign; surely Luke could have no real objection, if his grandmother did not.
Then Luke came home on a sledge piled high with boxes and barrels and bundles, filthy as a trapper after a winter in the bush, his skin burnished by snow and sun and wind. One look at him and Lily's courage failed her; she was glad, for once, to stand back and let someone else do the talking.
It was Simon who told him, standing in the hall. He said what must be said clearly and cleanly and without apology, and Luke listened, his head bowed a little, looking at Lily from under the shelf of his brow with an expression she couldn't q
uite name. She tried to meet his gaze evenly, and almost succeeded.
When Simon was finished Luke thought for a moment, his mouth pursed. To Lily he said, “Are you with child?”
“No!” She jumped as if he had made to strike her, and felt the color flashing up from her chest, over her neck to her face. Because, of course, it was too early to really know the answer to that question. She might be, of course. Though she had resisted the temptation to go back to Simon's bed since that first night—and temptation was the only word for the sleepless hours she spent thinking of doing just that—she must admit to herself that it might already be too late.
Every morning she felt Ghislaine looking at her and thinking just the same thing. Ghislaine knew the rhythm of her month just as well as Lily did, and would not let her pretend to forget. This was the other reason Lily wanted to leave Montreal straightaway, before the day came when she must bleed, or know herself caught, well and truly, in Simon Ballentyne's web. Somehow it would be easier to cope with that particular question if she was far away from here, and Iona's knowing eyes.
“Then there's no hurry,” Luke said. “You can wait until it's safe to travel.”
“We leave tomorrow,” Simon said. His voice even and calm, and he would brook no disagreement. “I know the safe ways into New-York as well as you.”
Luke seemed to be weighing that for a moment, and then he nodded.
“Why not marry before you leave?”
This was the question Lily had feared most, but Simon was ready for it.
“We could,” Simon said. “But Lily wants to be married at home, with her mother and father's blessing.”
“Ah,” said Luke, and he ran a hand over his hair. “That will be the trick, now won't it?”
Just that easily it was settled, which both relieved Lily and upset her, contrary as she was. She went off to her chamber to finish packing, waiting for a knock at the door and hearing none. Finally it was Ghislaine who came to her, with a letter and a bundle.
“To take to Lady Jennet,” she said. “He's writing another letter to your father.”
Lily took the letter and tossed it on the bed, piled high with things to be folded away into her trunk. Then she burst into tears and was glad of Ghislaine, who put her arms around her and rocked her as a sister would, whispering soft words that were no comfort at all.
Luke gave her two presents, just before they set off: a thin, sharp knife in a beautiful beaded sheath, and a gun. In the confusion of leaving she had little time to look at it nor could she, really: her eyes were filled with tears that threatened to fall, no matter how she might forbid them.
“If the time comes to use them, don't hesitate,” Luke said, touching her cheek with one finger. “Though I doubt it will. Ballentyne will look after you as well as I could.” It was the only compliment Simon cared to hear, or needed, and for his sake Lily was glad, and pleased with her brother.
Then they were off, the sleigh moving silently through the familiar lanes and then they were passing the garrisons, crawling with soldiers and militiamen whose job it was to protect the city from American invasion.
That was something people were truly worried about, though they had very little regard for the Americans in general and certainly none at all for American military prowess. On this matter at least Luke agreed with the rest of Montreal. Whenever the subject came up he snorted and said that an army so poorly organized and run as the American army was more likely to be invading the Plattsburgh taverns than Lower Canada. And still the threat hung in the air: Lily counted three different groups drilling, but they were too far away for her to make out any familiar faces.
On the ice road the horses whinnied to each other in the winter sun, touched noses and broke into a fast trot while Lily looked back over her shoulder at Montreal, numb not so much from the cold as from confusion.
Now that she was on her way home she couldn't remember, quite, why she had been in such a hurry to leave. She thought of Ghislaine and the other servants in the steamy kitchen, of Monsieur Picot, who had thundered at her when she told him she was leaving, and Monsieur Duhaut, who had wept a little and pressed a present into her hands: a miniature of herself, so beautifully done that Lily had felt immediately guilty.
How often do we find love in the world, that it should be set aside so thoughtlessly?
The thought came from her in her mother's voice, and for a moment Lily regretted that she had not been kinder to Monsieur Duhaut, who was far from home, as she was, but with no way to go home, as she was doing now.
People had come from all over to wish her a good journey and well in her marriage, words that made her jump and twitch, which people took for a bride's shy manner because they could not see the truth of it. Lily would have preferred to keep the whole thing quiet for she was not sure, yet, that she would marry Simon; that was something she dared not say aloud, but it was still the truth, no matter how foolish: she was not ready, not yet, to concede that Nicholas was lost to her.
But in this matter Luke and Simon agreed: the engagement must be announced. Otherwise the gossips would claim that Luke's sister had eloped with his business partner, and both men were too proud to have such things said about themselves, or her.
“He is thinking ahead,” said Ghislaine when Lily complained about the fuss her brother was making over this engagement. “You may want to come back to Montreal and make a home here, one day.”
And that was the problem exactly, Lily realized as Montreal disappeared from view. She did like the city; she liked everything about it, the people and the noise and even the smells, though in the summer, she was warned, she would change her mind. She liked Montreal and she missed her home, and she felt herself caught between them. If by some miracle Nicholas Wilde might still marry her—and it would be a miracle, she understood that—she would never see this place again. For as long as she could remember she had wanted Nicholas to claim her; she wanted it still, she reminded herself, but the cost was higher now.
The one thought she could hold on to was this: she must know, once and for all. Had Simon Ballentyne not agreed to take her back to her mother, she would have soon been desperate enough to have done something truly foolish.
Like pledging yourself to a man you hardly know.
She pushed the voice away and settled back in the furs, taking the chance to study Simon, or the little bit she could see of him that was not well covered. All of Montreal believed that she was about to marry him. Lucky you, the baker's daughter had said, hardly hiding her disappointment. Lucky you.
Simon sent her a sidelong glance, a smiling one from the way his eyes creased at the corner, and spoke a few firm words to the horses.
Lily was warm and comfortable, which was a good thing, indeed, for she would be spending a great deal of time just like this, sitting beside Simon Ballentyne on her way home to her mother and father and her own bed under the eaves, to her brother and cousins and friends. To Nicholas Wilde.
In time the rhythm of hooves on the ice lulled her away into sleep, where she stayed until late in the afternoon when the sleigh came to a stop in front of a cabin deep in the woods. A trapper's cabin like a hundred others, with nothing to distinguish it except that it seemed deserted, no smoke coming from the chimney or snowshoes on the porch.
“A good six hours without an argument, but then you slept for most of it so I suppose it won't count.” One of the horses, the one called Pete, turned its head to nudge Simon and he laughed out loud and clapped a hand on its neck, as he would a friendly dog.
Lily sat up, confused and sputtering, but Simon was already gone, leading the horses off to brush and feed them in the lean-to stable. She sat for a moment and watched him, and then she fought her way out of the furs and the sleigh, holding her wraps around her as she waded through snow to the tiny front porch and then stumbled through the door into the dark cabin.
Lily found the flint box on the mantel and enough kindling to start a fire, her fingers stiff at first and then
warming quickly to the familiar task. If Simon Ballentyne thought she was helpless he would have to think again, for she had been brought up on the New-York frontier and knew more of this kind of life than he could begin to imagine. For months she had lived in a house with servants, but it would take far longer than that for Nathaniel Bonner's daughter to forget how to take care of herself in a cabin in the woods.
The fledgling fire showed her the rest of the little room: one window with shutters nailed in place for the season, two cots with threadbare blankets over sagging corn-shuck mattresses, a rough table and stools, a few tin dishes and cups, a box of candles almost empty. Somewhere nearby there would be a well or a stream or a rain barrel, but that job would require an axe, too, to get through the ice and she was content to leave that to Simon. Instead she put her cloak back on and made trips back into the dusk: for her satchel, for provisions, for three armloads of firewood from under the tarpaulin against the north side of the cabin. She was full awake now and hungry and glad of the work.
When Simon came in from looking after the horses and the rig he found the fire blazing, the beds made with furs from the sleigh, and the table set for supper. Without a word Lily handed him the water bucket and he backed out again, smiling at her but saying not a word. Later while she set water to boil he cleaned his guns and then they sat down to a simple meal of bread and cold meat and tea.
And still he said nothing at all, which was at first as Lily wanted it and then, slowly, not what she wanted at all. She was aware of the cots behind her, the shadows that the fire threw against the wall, and Simon's hands. She watched the turn of his wrist as he cut meat and lifted his cup and rubbed the beard stubble on his cheek and with every bite she swallowed down things she might have said.
Finally he cleared his throat and met her eye directly.
“You haven't asked, but I'll tell you anyway,” he said in an easy, reasonable tone. “We stopped early today because the next cabin like this, one that we can use safely, is a good day's journey away.”