PETER HAD NEVER KNOWN ANY HORSE VERY WELL BEFORE, BUT HE had grown to like Beam, so that he hated to give her up and wondered if after more than a month, Captain Clayden had done so himself.
Snow had fallen early in November, but the woods were not full of it yet and he felt it was time to make the journey before it was made impossible, and the roads impassible, by a real storm. Thin ice gripped the marshes and lined the streams so that he took great care at crossings; he walked Beam cautiously over rocky ground. All the leaves had fallen, except from the slender beeches, but otherwise the slopes of hardwood gave a traveler license to peek through their bare branches at further hills and trees. The forest seemed wider, and less dense, and the world larger to Peter. It took him three deliberate days to reach Newcastle.
On the first day he traveled the woods in which he had once met the deer herd, and then he rode alongside the river which he had crossed when he last passed. On the second day, the sky drew up gray clouds and snow fell in the afternoon. The third day came off bright, and near to evening he reached the short bank above the Clayden farm and, just looking at the smoking chimneys, he nearly felt warm enough to unwrap himself from the quilt he wore over his shoulders. He might have been an Indian trader.
When he first came over the rise, he could see the figures of Ebulon and James, of Sussanah and Emily, and Martha, and even, he was sure, of Nora Tillage, dashing about the yard with snowballs flying in every direction. Laughter carried in the crisp bright air.
He was still a quarter of a mile away when they saw him, and he was surprised that he had been recognized. Two of them hurried inside the house, and he could imagine that Captain Clayden had been roused from his den and that Mrs. Magnamous would be stoking the kitchen fire and warming stew in a pot.
They came out to meet him and they seemed happy and excited; there was James and Ebulon before any of them, then Sussanah and Martha and Nora, and finally Emily looking more solemn than the others. The boys were filled with questions, for it seemed that the Captain had told them something of Peter’s involvement with the adventure at Wiscasset. Sussanah insisted that her brother show some manners to their guest, and allow him to get inside and warm before peppering him with demands and queries. Martha’s eyes sparkled in the light when she smiled and greeted Peter.
But Nora Tillage was a revelation to Peter, for he swore she was rounder in the face and fuller in her frame; everything about her, in fact, seemed fuller and more certain than when he and Parson Leach left her weeping hysterically in the parlor. The red in her hair had disappeared some with the retreat of the sun. Could such a brief sojourn with these people cause this change? She walked through the snow to Peter and Beam and stroked the horse’s muzzle. When she regarded Peter, it was with a brave face and he did not even think to dismount, which would have been polite.
“I fear, Mr. Loon,” she said, “that I have not thanked you properly for all you have done for me.” Now Peter could see the practice that had gone into her new demeanor, and he was both heartened and saddened by it. She had prepared her own place of bravery within her when she first decided to flee her father and Nathan Barrow, but it was yet a thin construct, behind which he could easily detect the stirrings of her old apprehensions.
“It was Parson Leach,” he said awkwardly.
“But thank you,” she said, and her courage left her for a moment, so she dropped her gaze.
Martha took Nora under one arm and announced that they must all go in to warm themselves by the fire and drink chocolate. She tugged at Nora and pulled her toward the farm, with Sussanah close in tow. Peter swung from Beam’s back and found himself walking alongside Emily, who had yet said nothing to him.
Ebulon stepped up to take Beam, but Peter said he would like to stable the horse himself, and Emily suggested that Ebulon find something else to do. Martha and Nora had disappeared in the house, and Sussanah called from the step to her sister. “I’m going to show Peter my cat,” shouted Emily across the yard, with more vehemence than the statement might have called for.
“It’s Mr. Loon,” said Sussanah, before she stepped inside.
“That’s all right,” said Peter to Emily over Beam’s back. “I hardly know enough to answer to Mr. Loon.”
The barn was dark. The heat and the earthy smell of animals took the edge from the November chill. Emily closed the door behind them and watched while Peter found an empty stall, pulled the saddle and gear from the Beam’s back and found a curry comb to brush the horse with.
“I hope your grandfather doesn’t mind I had her so long,” said Peter. He was a little doubtful about those pale blue eyes as they reflected the light from the window behind him, so he concentrated on Beam’s coat and the rhythm of his brushing.
“Mr. Moss has been by,” said Emily suddenly, without a change in her expression.
“Crispin Moss?” said Peter, and he stopped what he was doing.
“Yes. He’s been here several times.”
“Has he?” The knowledge puzzled Peter. He couldn’t imagine what Crispin Moss and Captain Clayden had in common, but he would be happy if he had the chance to see the woodsman again. He paused in his attentions to Beam, lost in thought.
Emily reached over and took the curry comb from him; then, as she leaned into Beam’s side with the comb, she said simply, “He’s come to see Nora.”
“Oh,” was Peter’s cogent reply.
Emily’s words matched the rhythm of her strokes with the curry comb. “I think if he comes a time or two more,” she continued without looking at Peter, “he’ll ask her to marry him.”
Peter looked surprised.
“And I believe that she is disposed to say yes,” added Emily. Then her words came quickly. “Grandfather says that under the circumstances he has as much right to give her away as anyone and that he’ll provide her with something and if her father comes to make trouble he’ll have at him with a cane.”
Emily was looking at her own feet before she was through, but Peter almost laughed. “That’s very nice for the both of them,” he said. “Crispin and Nora.”
“It is?” Emily looked over Beam’s back with an expression that Peter could not decipher.
“Of course,” he said. The notion had lifted a weight from Peter, and he did look happy. “Nora is a brave sort of girl and pretty, and Crispin is a stout fellow to have beside you in any circumstance.”
“Oh,” said Emily. Peter thought she looked very keen and wise for a fifteen-year-old girl. “You’re not jealous?” she asked, which seemed to be what was troubling her now.
“Not at all.”
“We thought, since you had rescued her. . .”
“But Crispin was there, as well,” he said. He did have a flash, however, of Nora at the river bank, and how it felt to be kissed by her and to feel her slim body pressed against him. The dénouement of that instance was quick on this memory’s heels, and he went from a pang of loss, to a physical memory of Nora’s fit of shivering, to a sudden consciousness of the freckles across Emily’s nose and the ernest expression in her eyes. “And Parson Leach and Manasseh Cutts,” he finished, and she could hardly be aware of the series of thoughts that had run through him. “It was Crispin who pulled the both of us to safety.”
“Oh,” said Emily again. “You don’t mind, then, that he’s come courting?”
“I gave neither of them reason to think I would.”
“Sussanah is very pretty,” said Emily suddenly.
Peter could not think what this meant, and he gave Emily a wary look. “Yes, she is,” he said cautiously.
“But she changes her affections from day to day, I warn you.”
“You needn’t–” he began, then stopped himself and said, “Thank you.”
“Mr. Kavanagh will marry Martha, we’re sure.”
“I hope he does.”
Emily nodded, though more to herself, it seemed. She took a breath or two, as if she were ready to dunk her head under water. She stopped combing Beam’s side and looked over the horse’s back at Peter again. “Then you shall marry me,” she pronounced, as if she were arranging the seating at the evening meal.
Peter was seventeen, but Emily was only fifteen and too young to be marrying anybody, even though Peter’s newly wed sister was hardly older herself. He gaped at the girl and she must have known what he was thinking for she said, “Not now, of course,” and her words came tumbling out again. “I won’t marry till I’m eighteen, at least. But when my parents are back, my father will take you on as crew and you can work your way up rank as he did, and I am very much like my mother and will sail with you when the time comes and you have your own ship.”
Looking over Beam’s back into those pale blue eyes, Peter could almost believe it would happen in just that way. He laughed quietly, and a little uncertainly, but there was such a look of profound hope on Emily’s face, that he became serious as he contemplated her. She was very pretty herself, and he had rather liked her way of taking charge from the start. He thought he might have some fairly stiff disagreements with someone like Emily before all was said and done, but it didn’t seem to him all that terrible a fate. And she was very pretty, and promised to be prettier still when she blossomed into a woman. And she looked very soft and vulnerable with such a look of hope splashed across her face.
“Yes,” he said, “I suppose I could at that.”
Emily frowned.
“I would like to, I am sure,” he amended. “To marry you, in time.”
She nodded then, and after a look of relief passed over her face, she looked serious again and said, “Mama and Papa will be home soon. Grandfather watches for their ship every day now. But they won’t be leaving again for a few months, I think.”
“I have to go visit my family in Bowdoinham,” said Peter. “I have to see my little brother Amos.”
She nodded again. Something about what he had said seemed to confirm her opinion of him, and she looked pleased.
Peter was feeling uncomfortable, suddenly, alone in the barn with his prospective bride, however far in the future or quixotic that prospect might be. He hurriedly grained Beam, threw some fresh hay into the stall and went out into the snowy yard with Emily. She touched his hand, but just briefly, then walked ahead of him till she was half way across the yard.
She was frowning, just a bit, when she looked back at him and said, “You think Nora’s pretty?”
Something about this question gave Peter an unexpected sense of comfort. His heart was very conscious in his chest, as he considered the pale face in its dark frame of hair and the dark arched eyebrows over pale eyes. “Yes,” he said, “when I first met her I did. But I thought our farm at Sheepscott Great Pond was beautiful till I came here.”
Emily smiled at this. She turned, and like a child, she ran into the house ahead of him.
