Three days later my sister left our house for good. It was a beautiful day in late September when the carriage pulled up in front and she took her leave with the baby and the servant girl.
She would not say goodbye to me. The two days of her preparation to leave turned out to be a nightmare. I had been unable to sleep or eat. John Reid was still sick upstairs in Daniel’s room. The doctor had come and gone and told us that sleep, care, and good food would put him on the mend again.
The house was so silent after they left. I couldn’t believe that I had done what I had done or that she had carried out her threat and left.
So now I was indeed like Mama, with something on my conscience. For two days afterward I walked around like a ghost, doing my chores in the shop in a daze. I left my food untouched at the table. I snapped back at Lucy when she told me to eat, ordering her to leave me be.
On the third day I came in through the center hall after I had closed the shop.
John was in Father’s study, fully dressed. I was startled to see him downstairs, to hear his voice so firm and normal again. I stood in the doorway, staring.
“John, are you well enough to—”
“Come in here and close the door, please.”
I closed it and stood against it. “What is it, John?”
He sat perched on the edge of Father’s desk. “What’s been going on, miss?”
“Why, nothing, John. Whatever do you mean?”
“Lucy tells me you’re walking the house at night. You snap at her when she tells you to eat your food and order her to leave you alone. Now tell me, what is it?”
“I think Lucy must be imagining things.”
“And I think you are lying to me.”
“John, would I—”
“Yes, you would. Come here.”
There was something of my old tutor in the way he said it. I raised my chin defiantly. “I was just about to clean up for supper.”
“You were just about to come here.”
There was no sense in upsetting him, since he’d been so ill lately. I went to him. I raised my eyes innocently, but he would have none of it.
“Now tell me what’s going on?”
“Nothing, John. Heavens, can’t a person be out of sorts?”
“Jemima Emerson, you may well lie to the saints on Judgment Day and get away with it, but I know you too well. What are you keeping from me?”
I smiled sweetly at him and fastened two buttons on his waistcoat.
“I quarreled with Rebeckah before she left to visit with her friend in New Brunswick.”
“A quarrel with Rebeckah would bother you as much as a quarrel with a chipmunk. I see you are determined not to tell me.”
“John, we women all have our little secrets. Won’t you let me have mine?”
He moved away from the desk. He coughed. “I think that I shall move back to my quarters on King Street tomorrow.”
“But why?” I felt alarmed.
“Jemima,”—he looked at me—“I am only a human being and so are you. It isn’t good for us to be under the same roof like this until we marry. You may not admit it, but I will. I appreciate your hospitality, but it’s time to go.”
So that’s what he thought was wrong, that I was languishing about because he was under the same roof with me! Well, let him think it, then. Better that than know the truth.
“But you can’t go. You aren’t well yet!”
“Oh, and you’re telling me what I can and can’t do now, miss?” He coughed again. “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”
“You won’t be fine! And I shall worry about you!” I stamped my foot and my lips trembled. Didn’t he see? If he left now, my quarrel with Rebeckah would have been for nothing! I had stood up to her and done the right thing for the first time in my life. On my own. And for what?
For nothing. And I had Rebeckah on my conscience now, too. But I couldn’t tell him that!
He stared at my outburst, open-mouthed. “I should be completely on my feet in a month, Jem,” he said. “By that time your grandfather will be home. We can marry in October. What do you say?”
“If you leave, John Reid, you can marry yourself in October!” I burst into tears and ran from the room crying.
Of course it was childish and I knew it. And of course he left. He was too much of a man to allow a woman to tell him what he could and could not do. He stood in the hall the next morning and put his arm around me, humoring me like the child I still was.
“I’ll be over tonight to court you properly, under Lucy’s watchful eye,” he teased.
“I may not be here tonight.”
He kissed my forehead. “I wouldn’t love you half as much if you hadn’t such spirit, Jemima. But you do try my soul sometimes.”
That afternoon Canoe came into the shop.
I had two customers. He waited in the background. Then, when they had left, he nodded at me.
“Beautiful weather,” he said. “Blue skies and trees turning. A good day for a ride. Why don’t you close up early?”
“Thank you, Canoe, but I don’t feel up to it.”
He sat down on a barrel. “I came to tell you something that might help you. Put the color back in your face, make you eat again.”
“Why everyone is so concerned with my eating, I don’t know.”
He smiled. “Lucy told me of the argument with your sister.”
“Lucy talks too much.”
“The British have occupied Philadelphia.”
I stared at him. “How would that make me happy, Canoe?”
“Four days ago now. Your sister left three days ago.”
I stopped what I was doing and looked at him. He nodded. “She knew. She must have known since August they were heading there. All the officers knew. She got letters from him.”
“You mean I didn’t put her out? She had someplace to go?”
Again he nodded. “I have word from the driver of the carriage. She arrived there safely.”
“Oh, Canoe, what would I do without you!”
“Now you can eat again and look healthy when your grandfather arrives.”
I smiled at him through my tears. “It isn’t that simple, Canoe. There’s more to it. I was so worried about Rebeckah I wasn’t eating, and John Reid thought it was because he was there under the same roof with me. Now he’s left. And I quarreled with him because I thought I’d turned Rebeckah out in the cold for him. But I couldn’t tell him that. Oh, Canoe, it’s all so confused!”
He smiled. “It’s always confused when there’s love. He left because he has pride. Who wants a man without pride?”
“But he’s still sick, Canoe. He won’t cook properly for himself in those rooms of his. He has no one to care for him.”
“We have room at Otter Hall.”
“He wouldn’t take your charity any more than he’d take mine.”
“We also have a few Indian children running around there who need book learning.”
“Oh, Canoe, that’s a wonderful idea! But I couldn’t ask him. He’d see through me in a minute.”
“Then I will ask.” He stood up. “I’ll go there this afternoon and tell him your grandfather requests it while he’s on leave, since he did such a fine job with you.”
I blushed. “You’ve done much for me, Canoe.”
He said nothing. I looked at him shyly. “Canoe, things are so mixed up in my head. I don’t know if I’ll ever get them straight again.”
“Things are more straight in your head now than ever before,” he said.
“I miss my father. There are days I don’t think I can stand it.”
He looked at me long and steadfastly. “Why do you think your grandfather sent me on ahead when he heard of his death?” he said.
Across the counter I looked at him. And it came to me then how stupid I was being. For he couldn’t have said it plainer.
He was indeed my father’s brother.