Under his present misgivings, then, a deep calm prevailed. He even felt ready to face Beth, alone and unprotected by sword or uniform.
FOUR
Marc and Beth were together in the sitting-room. The potbellied stove glowed cordially in the corner, a pale winter light ebbed through the window in the south wall, and the two cushioned chairs faced one another at an amiable angle. A little while earlier Beth had led Aaron to her own bedroom for his requisite afternoon nap. There, Marc noted once again the small library of political and religious books left to her by her clergyman father, one of them open on her pillow. Thomas had gone out to work in the barn and Winnifred had accompanied him, Marc suspected, to make certain he kept the makeshift mitten on and had any help he might require to otherwise preserve his dignity. Charlene Huggan had been dispatched to the mill to invite the Hatches for supper and to fuss over her sister’s baby.
For a long while Marc and Beth sat quietly and sipped their tea, content for the moment to enjoy the presence of the other in the exact place where their eyes had first made contact, and where they had discovered the wordless covenant that quickens love and sweeps it beyond the reach of reason.
Beth put down her empty teacup with a resolute gesture, then leaned forward in her rocker and placed both hands on Marc’s knees. “I want to talk, and I’d like it very much if you’d just listen. I need to explain what’s in my heart, to you and to myself, and I won’t know whether I can find the right words till I hear myself saying them. Do you understand?”
Marc nodded, and gave her his full attention. She averted her gaze, however, as if looking directly at him might cause her to falter. Instead, she stared at the window and the drift of snowflakes now whispering there.
“One thing I know for sure, and so we don’t ever have to doubt it, is our love for each other. I used to think that was the hardest part. I was barely eighteen when Jesse came courtin’ the minister’s daughter. For the longest time I thought he was a nuisance I could do without-go ahead, you’re allowed to smile.”
Marc did.
“I didn’t know I was supposed to feel flattered or have my stomach go queasy whenever he came into a room. Then after a while we got to know one another a bit, and began to talk some, and I started to like him very much. But it was only when he turned up one day in the back pew of the Congregational church that I knew he loved me. He seemed to be saying he was willing to switch gods for me.”
The Lord of the Anglicans had lost more than Jesse Small-man lately, Marc thought.
“We went for a long walk, and I was held by a man for the first time, and we never looked back. I’m telling you all this, I think, because I want you to understand that I know what love is and what it asks us to do. You have the same look in your eye-you had it the first day you came here-that Jesse did, and I feel about you just like I did when Jess and I went for that Sunday stroll along the river flats. No, please don’t say anything, not yet.”
She stared longingly at the wisps of snow against the windowpane. Marc waited.
“First of all, let me say that I know what you did last June during the election, I know why you left the governor, and I know what you did for me and what it cost you not to betray a trust.”
Marc started to protest but Beth raised her hand. “I got it from the horse’s mouth.” She smiled wryly. “Your policeman friend liked his cup of tea and a good gossip with Aunt Catherine.”
“Constable Cobb.”
“He was your staunch defender and ally, and convinced Auntie to take up your cause-daily. She argued, and I came to believe, that you’d become as weary of politics and hypocrisy and broken promises as I had.”
“Then, if I’d come to you before-”
“Before January and Aaron’s illness? Maybe. At least I’d have had the chance to look into your eyes myself. But you’d have come, as you have now, wearing that uniform-please, let me finish or I’ll lose my nerve.”
No battle-nerves could be as agonizing as this, Marc thought.
“You know, I hope, it isn’t the uniform itself. I believe passionately in law and order and justice and equality. I’ve read bits of Paine and Rousseau and Locke and Burke. Jess and I worked for the Reform Party because we believed we could change things, get justice for the ordinary folk through politics and lawmaking. So, I wanted you to find the men responsible for my father-in-law’s death last January and bring them before the law. To me, a soldier is an arm of the law or ought to be, and so should be nothing to fear. But when the governor himself corrupts the parliament and bends the law to suit him and his rich friends and ignores direct orders from London-then the law becomes something to be feared, and so do those sworn to uphold it.”
Even though Marc was keenly aware of where this argument might lead and could feel a chill slowly seizing him, he could not help but marvel at the eloquence and clearheadedness of this tiny, beautiful woman. Little wonder, then, that she had been such a disruptive force in last spring’s election. Nor was the irony of the present situation lost on him: the very qualities he loved most might ultimately drive them apart.
“There’s lawlessness on both sides now. The secret meetings are no secret. I don’t know for sure but it’s a good guess that some of the treasonous talk is already more than that. You can’t imagine the terror I felt this winter, the endless nights as I sat beside Aaron coaxing him to breathe, praying like a sinner to any god who’d listen, and worrying myself sick that Winnifred-proud, loyal, law-abiding, churchgoing Winnifred-was miles away in some snowbound barn, cheering and clapping at some sermon of rage and desperation, and all them torches waving away no more than two feet from the nearest bale of hay.”
Marc could think of nothing to say.
“These gatherings are still going on, and sooner or later it’ll be the troops who’ll have to put a stop to them.” She glanced across at Marc’s tunic, and he was grateful that he had not worn his sword. “Do you know what my recurring nightmare has been?”
“I think I can guess,” Marc murmured, and looked away.
For a minute Marc thought she was not going to answer her own question, but finally she said in a hollow voice, “Winnifred and Thomas are running through the woods, being pursued by a dark shadow. Exhausted, Thomas turns around, steps in front of Winn, and faces his pursuer. It is you. You raise your musket, call out ‘I’m sorry!’ and fire. The noise wakes me up.” “Then I’ll rip this uniform off my back! I’ll buy out my commission-”
With the tenderest of gestures, she reached over and placed a finger against his lips. “Oh, you dear, dear man. I knew you would say that, I knew you’d promise to fetch me the moon if I asked you to. You’re still a romantic, and it’s hard-oh, so hard-not to love that part of you. But think what you’re saying. You’re only twenty-seven years old, and already you’ve tried the law to please your uncle and quit it, and then chose the army-your boyhood dream-and here you are offering to throw that away to marry me. Then what? Help me sell ladies’ hats? Live off my inheritance like an English gentleman? Return to the law and hope you don’t hate it too much?”
She paused to swallow the lump in her throat. “No, if we’re going to come together as man and wife, it’s got to be on equal terms: the burden of our love’s got to be parcelled out fairly. Surely you see that?”
Marc summoned up all his courage and said as calmly as he could, “So, I can’t quit the army and you can’t marry an officer: you’re telling me, then, there is no hope for us.”