Hetty struggles to push the stud through the back of Peter’s shirt and collar. Her arms are beginning to ache and she’s already snagged one nail. Peter keeps reaching behind with his hands to assist her. One more time and she swears she’ll stab him with the damn thing.
“Tell Laura to loosen the buttonholes, then it won’t be such a task next time.”
“If you’ll just wait while I fetch the sewing basket, I can loosen the buttonholes myself. It isn’t more than a five minute job.”
“Then let Laura do it.”
“Laura has enough to do around here.”
“You said it was a five minute job.”
Hetty sighs loudly. Peter steps over to the mirror and finishes fastening his collar himself.
“I don’t know why you agreed to go if it’s so much trouble.” Hetty bends to adjust the straps of her shoes, straighten her stockings at the ankles. “It would probably be more fun without you,” she mutters at the floor.
“The invitation was addressed to us both.”
“Then you could at least pretend to be excited. For my sake.”
“Hetty, while you may find the notion of dining in a ship’s galley romantic, I frankly find it abhorrent. And certainly not worth getting dressed up for.”
“I’m sure we won’t be eating in the galley.” They couldn’t. The smell alone down there would turn milk. The crew had been sleeping up on deck because of it. “And if you find the idea abhorrent, you should have said no.”
“And you would willingly have stayed home, would you? Besides, the Bakers have been invited too, and I would rather not offend the doctor and his wife again.”
His wife?
Hetty twists away to stare out the window before she says something she cannot take back. It’s bad enough that Peter has been playing sycophant around the doctor ever since that misunderstanding at Christmas. Baker’s misunderstanding. As if any amount of fawning could patch up that silly man’s bruised pride. True, she hadn’t wanted his country bumpkin hands all over her, not when she was coiled on the bathroom floor, impaled by cramps, blood draining away; not when the life she and Peter had created was gone, nothing but tarry clumps in the toilet. He’d leaned over to flush it and she’d leapt at his face, bloodied fingers curled like talons. Peter had hurried the doctor out of the house and, assuming that Hetty would fare better in more familiar surroundings, with her friends and family at hand, had then bribed the mail carrier to take them both to the Londonderry train station in his sleigh. From there Peter Douglas had carried his wife onto the train and held her, crooning and rocking her, all the way to Halifax. Hetty had unfolded herself against him, drawing comfort from the warmth of his body, the steady but quickened thump of his heartbeat in her ear, the feel of his lips in her sweat-dampened hair. Perhaps if Peter had stayed with her in Halifax, if he’d tried bridging the divide between her old life and her new, instead of leaving her adrift between the two, the wound festering between them might not exist. Who could say? What was patently clear on Hetty’s return to the village, however, was Baker’s coolness. The arrogance of the man. As if she had left to slight him, as if she blamed him for the miscarriage. That Peter seems to feel it is Baker, rather than his own wife, who needs accommodating chafes at Hetty.
“You’re not in the least bit curious about the Esmeralda? The whole village is talking about her.”
“What’s so special about this ship, Hetty? It’s just a schooner. Not so long ago the bay was filled with them. They were built right here in the village when I was a boy.” You used to be young? Hetty mouths at the windowpane. “Some were much bigger too.”
“How would you know that if you haven’t even seen it?”
“What makes you think I haven’t seen it?”
So he was curious.
“They built one over in Economy, the Truro Queen, must have been 1919. Eight or ten of us went from here in dories to see the launch.” You had friends? Hetty thinks, but is no longer inclined to laugh. Were these people he’d known before the war? And where were they now? Married and moved to other towns and villages? To Halifax? Or had Peter’s coldness simply turned them away? “And now everyone’s behaving as if they’d never seen one before.”
“As a businessman, surely you understand it’s a matter of commerce?” Hetty watches his face in the mirror as one eyebrow arches almost imperceptibly. “How many men have you laid off from the mill since last fall?”
“Economics.” He fusses with the knot of his tie. “There was nothing personal in my decision.”
“I’m not suggesting there was.” Hetty has to check the sarcasm in her voice. Even after all the money her father had poured into Peter’s business to keep it afloat, the man was still making a hash of it. “But the winter has been hard on families. And the Esmeralda and her crew have brought some excitement and gossip to the village.” They’ve certainly brightened her days. “And some badly needed money. Think about it for a minute,” she says, seeing by his expression that Peter considers this conversation over. “They’ve taken on three carpenters, plus a sail maker or whatever you call him, plus his assistant, to make repairs. They’re buying from the weir families and clam diggers and staples and other goods from Harper’s. Laura told me that Jed Harper drove his truck into Truro this morning to stock up because he’s running low on all sorts of things. And some of the women have been down on the wharf selling their canned vegetables and preserves.”
“Shouldn’t they be saving them for their own families?”
Hetty shoots him a look of pure disgust. “That’s the funny thing about children, it’s never enough just to feed them. They grow, and they wear out their shoes.” She stops, the muscles in her throat suddenly tight, her breathing shallow.
Peter’s hands still. Hetty can almost see him turn from the mirror and step towards her, arms outstretched, the flat mask of his face falling away, and a part of her wills this to be so. The air divides, as if to guide him. But the moment passes, his soldier’s mien overriding any emotion flaring in his chest. Peter pats down the front of his jacket, brushes the room’s tension from his shoulders.
“One ship with a crew of what — eight or nine? — can hardly make that much difference.”
“I think you’re wrong. The arrival of the Esmeralda has been a blessing for this village.”
“After this evening I would rather you had nothing more to do with the ship or its crew. You’ve done your part for the boy. It’s the doctor’s job now.”
Hetty returns to staring out the window. The kitchen garden is a waste, mostly taken over with herbs Laura has either little inclination or little ability to use. Peter’s mother probably planted them. She thinks about the kids of the families whose fathers Peter has laid off. She wants to help them where she can. Yesterday’s adventure has reawakened the nursing side of her nature that has lain dormant these past twelve months. Though God forbid she turn into her mother, with her charity drives and bake sales. Something more direct. Maybe she should plant more vegetables. She could give them away to the needy. Though some people are too proud to accept charity. People like Eric Stevenson, with his gentle I-don’t-wish-to-beany-trouble manner. Though Eric had lost his home and all fourteen members of his extended family in the Explosion, he insisted on repaying through work every meal he ate and every blanket he slept under. “I’m not here for a free ride,” he said over and again to Hetty, a raw recruit herself at that stage, taking from her the bloodied bandages and soiled bed sheets. He had even offered to restrain patients who needed operations for which there was no available anaesthetic. Staring at the tangle of weeds, Hetty understands that the only way Eric stevenson probably knew of enduring his grief was to work through it. Or avoid it. She could start clearing the patch tomorrow. Or Monday. Peter has his own ideas of how post-church spring Sundays should be spent. Easy growers first—plants that more or less look after themselves: tomatoes, radishes, beans and cucumbers. Then, depending on how successful she is—listening to and observing the successes of others is different from gardening herself, which she’s never actually tried—maybe a more ambitious fall crop of, say, Brussels sprouts and cabbage, or even cauliflower. Hetty startles when Peter, standing just behind her, places his hand on her elbow.
“I don’t want a repeat of yesterday,” he says softly.
Meaning what exactly? Hetty isn’t sure, even with all the planning and foresight in the world that she could manage a repeat of yesterday. Or that she would want to.
By the time Noble Matheson pulled up at her house, darkness had fallen and the effects of Esmeralda’s brandy were wearing off. Every muscle in Hetty’s back and shoulders sang in pain. Laura had banked the fire with coal sometime earlier, and the warmth and quiet of the kitchen made her head feel heavy. But a fire meant there was hot water for a bath. Hetty retrieved her dinner, which, covered with another plate, had been left sitting in the oven, and stood picking at it, not trusting her ability to get up once she sat down. Muscle weary. But there was something else singing through her: the reward of a day’s work, the feeling of being useful again. Today she had made a difference. She felt light-headed and giddy with that knowledge.
Peter didn’t come in from the stable until Hetty had been soaking in the bath a good half hour. He knocked on the door and, when she called out in response, asked if she minded his disturbing her.
“Not at all.” The door opened and closed again. Cool air swept into the steam-filled room.
“I trust your day was productive?” he said, and the soap slipped from her hands. She sat up in the water and went fishing for it, buying a minute to regain her composure. How much did he know? What shouldn’t she reveal? Which, in Peter’s eyes was likely to be the graver transgression, where she’d been or what she’d done?
Hetty did not trust herself to turn and look at him. “Productive?” She tested the steadiness of her voice. A white lie, or should she fabricate something entirely different? The problem was Noble Matheson. With her back and the nape of her neck exposed she felt vulnerable. “You could say that, I suppose. I was called on to help someone today. Someone who was sick.”
“I thought attending the sick was a doctor’s job.”
“I am a nurse.”
“You were a nurse, Hetty. Not any more. And anyway the sick in this village call on Doctor Baker.”
“He was out delivering a baby.”
“Well, what was so imperative that this patient — whoever it was — couldn’t wait for Doctor Baker’s return?”
“It was a fever. A bad fever.”
“And at whose house was this fever? Hetty? Whose house did you go to? One of the workers from the mill? Hetty, who are you —”
“It was a boy from the schooner.”
Hetty could almost feel the measured inhale and exhale of Peter’s breathing across her back. “You were on the schooner? Alone?”
“Noble Matheson was there. And Esmeralda.”
“Esmeralda?”
“The captain’s daughter.” And then, stupidly, “What’s the problem, Peter? Don’t you trust me?”
“That is hardly the point.”
Like hell.
“What do you think people are going to say when they find out?”
“Why do you care so much what people think”?
“Why do you care so little?”
“He had a fever.”
“So you put your health and reputation at stake for a fever?”
“He had an infection too.”
“And that improves the situation?”
“I’m simply explaining.”
“No, you are not, Hetty. Whatever you may think you are doing, you are not explaining anything.” He sighed, and another draft chilled her back as he opened the door to leave. Then he changed his mind. “I’m not pleased with what happened today.”
“Peter, you don’t ever seem to be plea —
“You are my wife and we have a position to maintain in this village. I am perfectly capable of supporting you in the manner to which you are accustomed. Perhaps Kenomee cannot offer a young lady the kinds of entertainment a city like Halifax can, but you want for nothing in this house. You certainly don’t need to work.”
Hetty didn’t turn around, just held herself perfectly still, back rounded. Her face reflected in the water shimmered and shook with her breathing, jagged at the edges. “You think I did this for work? To earn a wage?”
“I can’t see why else you would put yourself out in this way. And why you would willingly ruin your dress.” The dress. Damn. She’d meant to get rid of it before stepping into the bath. She heard the garment drop to the floor.
“Then you understand me even less than I thought.”
“Perhaps if you tried letting me I could do better.” He paused as if weighing the wisdom of what he wanted to say. “When you’ve had some time to calm down,” he began again, and instantly Hetty wanted to leap from the bath and pummel him in the face, “you could perhaps explain to me what you were planning on doing with my suit.”
His suit? She could see Peter’s suit lying askew on the bed where she’d tossed it when Esmeralda had knocked at the door. Laura’s sewing kit on the floor beside the bed. It had completely slipped her mind. “I was just —” she began and turned around, but Peter was already gone.
“Hetty, promise me you won’t go back.”
Hetty crosses her fingers. “All right, I won’t go back.”