Chapter 2

Palmyra: Spring 1827

We could not find Tillie when it came time to go home.

“She’s gone off with Joel Hancock,” Georgie informed us.

That is encouraging, I thought to myself. I knew she cared for Joel more than she admitted. I also knew he did not meet with her father’s approval, did not begin to measure up to the “requirements for a future mate” that her father had set. Can she hold out against him? I wondered, when the time comes?

Theodora lived in the largest house in Palmyra—such a house! Too elegant for the rest of us, it stood on its commodious corner lot like a glittering gem set amid cheap, dull store-bought jewelry. An advertisement, she called it, of all my father is and all he imagines himself to be.

We walked past her house without stopping, then deposited Georgeanna at the corner of Main and Jackson and Phoebe remained with us to where Church turns into Canandaigua and her father has both his house and his saddlery shop. I was surprised that Josephine had chosen to accompany me rather than selecting one of her admirers as escort. We had nearly a mile farther to go along Canandaigua Road in order to reach the long stretch of our father’s farm.

At first we walked in silence; Josie concerned with her thoughts, I with the sights and sounds of the countryside through which we passed. Still, my preoccupation was the less; I was the first to spy Doctor Ensworth’s buggy pulled up in front of the house, his sleek bay horse standing patiently, with the reins thrown in a hasty half loop over the post.

I felt my heart catch in my chest. “Josephine!” I clutched at her arm.

“Heaven preserve us!” she muttered. “It can be only one thing.”

So it was. As we entered the dim, cool kitchen the doctor was walking from the back bedroom, our parents’ bedroom, toward us. He squinted against the wedge of light the opened door directed at him. When he recognized our shapes he grunted in satisfaction.

“ ’Bout time you two showed up.” He growled the words, but I could hear the relief in them. “Esther, your mother’s took to hemorrhaging again. I suppose you know what that means.”

I nodded.

“She is to stay in that bed till the baby comes, if it takes another three months!”

I nodded once more and noticed, out of the corner of my eye, that Josie had removed her lace shawl and mittens and was filling the kettle with water.

“Would you like some tea, Doctor?” she asked.

“Very much,” he replied, “but I’ve got no time for it. Now, listen carefully to my instructions, the both of you. I’ll not explain them again.”

He launched into a list of things Mother could and could not eat, various herb teas we should ply her with—“And rub her legs to stimulate circulation. That rosemary and lavender liniment you made last summer—you got any left, Esther?”

“Yes. We’ll keep good watch,” I assured him.

“You must. We can’t have a tragedy this time.”

I swallowed, my throat tight.

“Mother is not the most pleasant or accommodating of patients,” Josie reminded him.

“That has nothing to do with it, missy,” he barked back at her. “You do as I say. And don’t leave three-quarters of the work in your sister’s hands, either.”

He walked heavily to the door, shuffling as though the effort to lift his booted feet would be too much for him. “Been up all night with a birth,” he mumbled. “Other side of town.”

“It didn’t go well?”

I did not need him to confirm my words. But he lifted one thick eyebrow, where the gray hairs were already curling round the black ones. “Lost both mother and child,” he said. My immediate concern darkened my features.

“Anyone we know?” Josephine asked.

“Canal family. Skinny little wisp of a girl who shouldn’t ’a been having a child in the first place. Complications . . .” A shudder passed through his compact, thick-set body. I put my hand on his arm.

“Have that tea, Doctor,” I urged. “It will only take a few minutes and prove well worth it.”

With a sigh he consented and lowered his tired body into a chair.

“Is Father in there?” I asked, nodding toward the bedroom while I stirred honey into his cup, where the leaves of the lemon balm were beginning to diffuse their fragrance. In ancient times this tea was drunk for its ability to comfort the heart and drive away melancholy and sadness. I knew it would soothe and revive the doctor.

“Your mother is resting,” he informed me. “I believe your father has already slipped back to the fields.”

Poor Father, I thought. Distress renders him awkward and tongue-tied, though not unwilling to help. He would work his fingers to the bone for Mother, and for the rest of us. But he had no notion of how to administer comfort on a sit-down, intimate level. Indeed, it was difficult for him ever to simply sit still.

When Doctor Ensworth was ready I walked with him out to where the tired horse and the faded buggy waited. “Is the danger great?” I asked. “Is there any chance she might—”

“There is a fair chance, Esther,” he assured me, clutching my hand and patting it in his fatherly manner. “But only if Rachel exercises restraint and wisdom.” He paused, his left foot on the running board, undecided.

“Tell me,” I urged. “I should like to know anything that might help or make a difference.”

“I hesitate mentioning it, since I am not certain,” he began, hoisting himself heavily up onto the lumpy seat stretched over the sagging springs. “But I believe there is a chance we might be dealing with twins here.”

I felt my chest contract in fear, and also excitement.

“It isn’t size; your mother scarcely gains an ounce when she carries her babies. But it seems I have determined more than one heart- beat, in varying positions.” He shrugged.

“That could be—”

“Yes, let us hope I am mistaken, my dear.” He nodded to me as he clucked his tongue to the faithful beast, who lifted his head in response.

I watched them move off in a small cloud of dust that clung in my nostrils as it sifted back to the earth like fine flour. I rubbed my eyes with my fists, the way a child would, and realized that I felt tired, though the day had scarcely begun. I did not look forward to dealing with Mother over the next weeks, not at all. I wondered if Josephine would participate, and dampen her ardor for her own enterprises, even a little, in the name of mercy and cooperation.

I walked back into the house. Before the door closed behind me I heard Mother call out. Her voice sounded tired and more frightened than fractious. I glanced at Josephine, then headed back to Mother’s room.

My mother is a private sort of person, one who keeps her emotions, even her thoughts, to herself. I looked at her now, lying white and pale against the pillow, and it seemed there were new creases lining her forehead and feathering out from her eyes. I smiled at her.

“It will be all right,” I assured her. “I shall take good care of you. We’ll pull through this thing together.”

“I am afraid to hope.”

Her voice was so small, so thin and girlish, that it wrung my heart. “You must hope, Mother. Hope is our strongest ally!”

“I have never had your kind of strength, Esther,” she replied. “Josephine and I. You are like your father, and I don’t understand . . . I . . .”

Her voice was faltering, and I could hear tears, like water running cold over stones. A chill fear pounded against my temples.

“It doesn’t matter, Mother! Be yourself. Believe in your own way.”

She lifted one thin hand, then let it flutter back onto the coverlet like the broken wing of a butterfly, frail and defenseless. “I am so tired, Esther.”

I dropped down onto my knees and drew up that cold hand. “It’s all right, Mother. Sleep. Do not worry. I shall take care of things here.”

She smiled wanly. I was distressed anew as I saw tears fill her eyes. This is unlike her! I felt a sense of panic rise, like a hot flush, to my face. She covers emotion with a bright, brittle shell, the way Josie does. I have never seen her break down this way.

I stroked the thin hand. “I’ll see you through this,” I soothed. “Things will be all right, Mother, I promise.”

I sat beside the bed a long time, until I was certain her sleep was deep and unbroken. Then I went slowly from the room, avoiding the boards I knew would crack and creak. There was a dull ache in my lower back, and my feet felt heavy. I looked around, but could see Josephine nowhere. Where could she have gone? She would certainly not be at work in the garden. Had she carried a pail of food or a cool glass of buttermilk out to Father?

I let myself out through the kitchen door and walked a few yards to where the rise at the back of the house gave me a clear view of the fields and woods in all directions. Shading my eyes, I could see Father’s figure driving the horse-drawn plow in the distance. He was alone. No other shape, human or beast, was in sight.

I sighed and felt the discouragement shudder through me. There was some washing up to do and a pile of clothes all sprinkled and ready for ironing. By then the dough would be risen enough to form into loaves. And it would be time to begin boiling potatoes and frying chicken for supper. Work. Work enough at hand to drive thought away. But not a sense of despondency. That could settle, thick and choking as the dust the doctor’s carriage wheels had churned up in the dry lane, and cling, a dull layer to dampen the soul.

Two hours later Josephine breezed through the door, giggling, bright-eyed, smelling of gaiety and sunshine. I looked up from the table I was scouring, not attempting to soften my expression.

“Oh, do not be vexed, Esther! I knew you would be.” She flung herself into Mother’s rocker and began it moving with the toe of her small pointed boot. “I didn’t mean to go off and leave you.”

“Well, that makes it all right then—”

“Mr. Hall came by, asking for Father. And we got to talking. I had never before realized how good-looking he is, Esther. His eyes are so blue—”

“And his carriage so fine.”

“You knew he had a new carriage?” Josephine’s eyes, as golden brown as the skin of a doe in midsummer, blinked back at me. “That is just it, Esther. He said, ‘Since your father is not here and I have time on my hands, it would be a pity to waste it. Would you honor me, Miss Parke, with your presence for half an hour? You would be the first woman to step inside my new buggy.’ ”

“So you went alone with him? And time simply got away from you.”

“His manner is so polite and deferring; there was nothing improper, Esther.”

“I did not imply that there was.”

I set down my brush and bucket and took a seat facing her. “He is nearly ten years your senior,” I reminded her.

“Eleven, actually. But he has never been married before.”

“So he is in the running?”

“Oh yes!” Josie leaned back and sighed in satisfaction. “He is a gentleman, fine to look upon, good company. And he has property! Did you know the gristmill is his—not to speak of the house and—”

“Did he show you his house?”

“We merely drove up to it. I did not go inside with him.”

I leaned back, prepared to admit defeat, as I always did. Could anything bring her to her senses? I wondered. “Well, perhaps he is a better candidate than the younger lads. He can be depended upon to understand and behave decorously.”

“Whatever are you talking about?”

“I am talking about the fact that a lively courtship and marriage are not in the best of tastes now.”

“Just because Mother is ill again?” The tone in Josie’s voice made me shrink inside. “She is having a baby, Esther. There is nothing uncommon or extraordinary about it.”

“Yes, there is, and you know it.” I felt myself losing patience, the way one loses hold on a heavy bucket, feeling it slip through your fingers and watching the white milk splatter all over. “Josephine, please. This baby is due in less than two months’ time.”

“Two months’ time! We will be well into the summer by then, Esther. I must have my courtship and then a proper period of engagement before a wedding can take place.”

“And a funeral? A funeral requires no such preparations, does it?”

Her face blanched a little, but she replied evenly. “You exaggerate, Esther. You know you always do. You are trying to frighten me into doing what you want.”

“Doctor Ensworth confessed that he thinks Mother may be carrying twins. He fears complications.”

Josephine sighed again. “Well, what am I to do?” Her lower lip came out in the pout that had characterized her since she was a child.

“Help by not harrowing her mind with further worries and burdens.”

She considered. I could almost see her mind working, while her foot tapped a little pattern against the floor. “You may be wrong, sister. Weddings are not worries, but occasions for happiness. Why, if I were to make a particularly good match . . .”

I turned from her, to conceal the distaste I was feeling.

“It might be just the thing, Esther, to take her mind away from her troubles—divert it into pleasant imaginings!” She was pleased with herself for having thought of this. “I’ll go in to her now.”

“You’ll do no such thing. She is sleeping soundly and should not be disturbed.”

“Really, Esther. Anyone would think you were the older, the way you boss me around.”

Yes, they would, wouldn’t they? I thought. But I did not reply to her. I could not trust what I might say. Truth is, I felt older. To all intents and purposes I was the more mature, the more responsible of the two of us. It seemed I always had been. And Josephine liked it that way. Even now, it gave her an excuse to fancy herself slighted, to be justified in how she was feeling and what she was deciding to do.

“I’ll change into my work dress and be out to help you in a few minutes,” she said.

I could hear her humming as she walked back to the room we shared. Is it a gift to be oblivious to life the way Josie is? I wondered. To possess a protective shield that prevents anything from going far enough to sting, to wound, to stir up the deep waters?

I wished I could answer that question to my satisfaction. But at that moment I did not know how.