wondered how he fared, since father’s fate was now bound with his. But suddenly Noah stopped his prating and turned to me with an avid look. “It seemed yesterday that you understood the speech of the Indians at our board. Is it so, indeed?”
“Well, I—” I gazed into Noah’s open countenance. His pale blue eyes looked back at me with curiosity. Was this youth really destined to be my spouse? I felt next akin to nothing in my heart that said it should be so. But if it were to be, I must not lie to him now. What manner of marriage could be built upon a foundation of untruth? The falsehood that was forming on my lips, I swallowed. “Yes,” I said. “Though it is a most difficult tongue.”
“I know it! I cannot retain above two or three words of it—I was never one for rote learning. Father does better, but ’tis a struggle for him also. How marvelous that you can converse with them! It would be a great thing for us if someone from our household could have easy speech with them—we could do much if we understood each other better.”
Now it was my turn to color. Did he mean to say he already counted me a potential member of his household? Or did I, knowing what I should not, feel too conscious of an innocent observation? Either he was too forward, or I was too fretful. But if father had not given me a full accounting of the understanding regarding myself and the Merrys … At that thought, I felt the ember of anger flare suddenly and burn white hot.
“Shall we turn?” I said. “I am ready to go in.”
As we walked back to the house, I kept my eyes on the ground so as not to notice the low autumn sun spangling across that extravagance of glass.
Father returned at noon time, and we set out for home soon after, in order to reach Great Harbor before dark. Although father tried to project a sober mien, I could tell he was fairly bursting with joy. Nahnoso had made a remarkable recovery, and seeing in it a sign of the English God’s power, had asked to be instructed in the ways of the one true God and his son, Jesus Christ. “To convert a sonquem, Bethia … this will be a turning point for the mission, I know it. And such a sonquem, related so closely to that wizard, Tequamuck … to defeat such as he … if we can but break his hold on the people … Christ has had a great victory here, daughter. A great victory. Nahnoso has agreed to receive Iacoomis and to take instruction from him in the gospel. When he is well, he will bring his family to hear me preach at Sunday meeting in Manitouwatootan.”
His family. Surely that must include Caleb, his son. What would his father’s change of heart mean for him? Would his father order a stop to his heathen quest? As fallen as I felt, and heavy in my own sin-stained soul, I prayed to God to keep Satan from Caleb until his father could fetch him back out of the wilderness.
As for my family, we returned home that night to an evening of uncommon rejoicing. Father was full of his triumph, and I had never seen mother more radiant than she was that night, hanging upon his words. Her condition was patent by then, and it had put an uncommon bloom upon her. I overheard her confide to Goody Branch, not long after, that she had never carried easier than she did with that babe, who would become our Solace, and her mortal bane. Perhaps the joy she found in those last months was a mote of God’s mercy, gifted to her, even as he shaped within her the instrument of his retribution unto me.
XI
T he hour is late. It is gone past midnight, so already the Lord’s Day is upon us. Once again I sin, breaking the Sabbath by sitting up to scrawl these words. On the morrow, at this hour, Caleb will be asleep in the room below.
I am bone weary, having risen early these past days and stayed too long awake to write these pages. I have not yet set down all I purposed, though I have given here the better part of it, which is the account of my own sins. My eyes are heavy, so I
“Well, I—” I gazed into Noah’s open countenance. His pale blue eyes looked back at me with curiosity. Was this youth really destined to be my spouse? I felt next akin to nothing in my heart that said it should be so. But if it were to be, I must not lie to him now. What manner of marriage could be built upon a foundation of untruth? The falsehood that was forming on my lips, I swallowed. “Yes,” I said. “Though it is a most difficult tongue.”
“I know it! I cannot retain above two or three words of it—I was never one for rote learning. Father does better, but ’tis a struggle for him also. How marvelous that you can converse with them! It would be a great thing for us if someone from our household could have easy speech with them—we could do much if we understood each other better.”
Now it was my turn to color. Did he mean to say he already counted me a potential member of his household? Or did I, knowing what I should not, feel too conscious of an innocent observation? Either he was too forward, or I was too fretful. But if father had not given me a full accounting of the understanding regarding myself and the Merrys … At that thought, I felt the ember of anger flare suddenly and burn white hot.
“Shall we turn?” I said. “I am ready to go in.”
As we walked back to the house, I kept my eyes on the ground so as not to notice the low autumn sun spangling across that extravagance of glass.
Father returned at noon time, and we set out for home soon after, in order to reach Great Harbor before dark. Although father tried to project a sober mien, I could tell he was fairly bursting with joy. Nahnoso had made a remarkable recovery, and seeing in it a sign of the English God’s power, had asked to be instructed in the ways of the one true God and his son, Jesus Christ. “To convert a sonquem, Bethia … this will be a turning point for the mission, I know it. And such a sonquem, related so closely to that wizard, Tequamuck … to defeat such as he … if we can but break his hold on the people … Christ has had a great victory here, daughter. A great victory. Nahnoso has agreed to receive Iacoomis and to take instruction from him in the gospel. When he is well, he will bring his family to hear me preach at Sunday meeting in Manitouwatootan.”
His family. Surely that must include Caleb, his son. What would his father’s change of heart mean for him? Would his father order a stop to his heathen quest? As fallen as I felt, and heavy in my own sin-stained soul, I prayed to God to keep Satan from Caleb until his father could fetch him back out of the wilderness.
As for my family, we returned home that night to an evening of uncommon rejoicing. Father was full of his triumph, and I had never seen mother more radiant than she was that night, hanging upon his words. Her condition was patent by then, and it had put an uncommon bloom upon her. I overheard her confide to Goody Branch, not long after, that she had never carried easier than she did with that babe, who would become our Solace, and her mortal bane. Perhaps the joy she found in those last months was a mote of God’s mercy, gifted to her, even as he shaped within her the instrument of his retribution unto me.
XI
T he hour is late. It is gone past midnight, so already the Lord’s Day is upon us. Once again I sin, breaking the Sabbath by sitting up to scrawl these words. On the morrow, at this hour, Caleb will be asleep in the room below.
I am bone weary, having risen early these past days and stayed too long awake to write these pages. I have not yet set down all I purposed, though I have given here the better part of it, which is the account of my own sins. My eyes are heavy, so I
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