Chapter 3. Edward’s dark eyes grew wide with fear

Edward’s dark eyes grew wide with fear. He grasped Susannah’s hand tightly.

They listened, frozen together in the dark woods as if they’d been turned to stone.

The voices rose, carried by the wind.

Chanting voices.

“Burn the witch! Burn the witch! Burn the witch!”

“Ohhh!” Susannah gasped.

The chanting voices weren’t coming from nearby. The wind was carrying the sound from the commons.

“There is no one here,” Edward said, smiling with relief.

“Poor Abigail Hopping,” Susannah whispered.

“If she is a witch, she must face the fire,” Edward replied, still holding Susannah’s hand.

Susannah rested her head against his shoulder. “We should get back. I went out for firewood. I should have been home. My mother will think the Evil One has taken me.”

“You go first,” he told her. “I will wait here a while before I return.”

“Are you going to tell your father … about us?” Susannah asked eagerly.

“Yes,” Edward told her. “When the time is right.”

She leaned forward and kissed him again. She didn’t want to leave. She didn’t want to go back to her tiny, dark house. She didn’t want to return to all the anger and fear of the village.

Edward gave her a gentle push, his hands on her shoulders. “Go.”

She forced a smile, then turned and ran off, pulling on the cap and covering her hair.

We’re going to be married, she thought, her heart pounding.

Edward and I are going to be married.

I am going to be the wife of Edward Fier.

She felt as if she were floating through the trees.

Susannah ran right past the woodpile and through the commons, and was nearly home before she remembered she had come out for firewood, and had to go back.

“The carrots are small but sweet,” William Goode said. He sat stiffly at the head of the table, rubbing gravy off the wooden plate with a biscuit.

Susannah watched her father eat his dinner. He looked tired to her, tired and old. He was not yet forty, yet his face was lined, and his once-blond hair had turned prematurely white.

“Susannah baked the biscuits,” Martha Goode said.

“Would you like more gravy, Father?” Susannah asked, gesturing to the gravy pot still simmering on the hearth. “There are more boiled carrots, too.”

“I am going to mash some carrots and give them to George when he wakes up,” Susannah’s mother said.

“I do not know why our carrots are so small,” Mr. Goode grumbled. “Matthew Pier’s carrots are as long as candles.”

“Why do you not ask him his secret?” Susannah’s mother suggested.

William Goode scowled. He narrowed his gray-green eyes at his wife. “Matthew Fier has no farming skills that I do not have. He has no secrets that I—”

“The Fiers have plenty of secrets,” his wife interrupted. “Who are they, these Fier brothers? Where do they come from? They did not come to the New World from England, as we did.”

“I do not know,” Mr. Goode replied thoughtfully. “They come from a small farm village. That is all I know. They were poor when they arrived, both Fier brothers and their wives. But they have prospered here. And that proves they are pious folk, favored by the Maker.”

His wife sighed. “These carrots are sweet enough, William. I did not intend to hurt your feelings.”

William Goode frowned. “Sweet enough,” he muttered.

“Help me clear the dinner table, Susannah,” Martha Goode ordered. “Why are you sitting there with that dazed, faraway expression on your face?”

“Sorry, Mother.” Susannah started to get up, but her father placed a hand on her arm to restrain her.

“Susannah will clear the table in a little while,” he told his wife. “I wish to speak with her first.” He stood up, pulled a clay pipe down from his pipe rack, filled it with tobacco from his cloth pouch, and went over to the fire to light it.

Susannah turned in her chair, her eyes trained on her father, trying to read his expression. “What did you wish to speak to me about, Father?”

“About Edward Fier,” he replied, frowning as he puffed hard to start the tobacco burning.

Susannah gasped. She had never discussed Edward with either of her parents. She and Edward were merely acquaintances, as far as her parents knew.

Holding the long white pipe by the bowl, Mr. Goode made his way back to the dinner table. He pulled back the stool next to Susannah’s and sat down stiffly.

“Wh-what about him?” Susannah stammered, clasping her hands tightly in her lap.

Her father leaned close to her. Pipe smoke rose up in front of him, encircling them both in a fragrant cloud. “You and Edward Fier have been seen walking together,” he accused. “Walking together without a chaperon present.”

Susannah’s mouth dropped open. She took a deep breath, then started to speak, but no sound came out.

“Do you deny it, Daughter?” Her father’s white eyebrows arched over his gray-green eyes, which burned accusations into hers. “Do you deny it?”

“No, Father,” Susannah replied softly.

“You were seen in the woods together,” her father continued sternly. He held the pipe close to his face but didn’t smoke it.

“Yes, Father,” Susannah muttered, her heart thudding in her chest. Then the words just burst out of her. She had been longing to tell her parents. Now she could hold back the news no longer.

“Edward and I are in love!” she cried. “He wants to marry me! Is that not wonderful?”

Her mother turned from the hearth, her eyes wide with surprise.

William Goode’s face reddened. He lowered his pipe to the table. “Daughter, have you lost your senses? Are you living in a world of dreams?”

Susannah gaped at him. “Didn’t you hear me, Father? Edward wants to marry me!”

Her father shut his eyes. He cleared his throat loudly. The pipe trembled in his hand. “You cannot marry Edward Fier,” he said quietly.

“What are you saying?” Susannah whispered. “Why can’t I?”

“Because Edward Fier is already betrothed,” Mr. Goode replied flatly.

Susannah gasped. “What?”

“Edward Fier is engaged to be married,” her father said. “Edward is to marry a young woman of Portsmouth. His father told me this morning.”

Дата добавления: 2015-07-20