“Is it the money ye want, then?” Aunt Cord asked, smiling furiously. “Do ye and do ye and aye? Ye shall have it, then. Take it, keep it, lose it, feed it to the swine, I care not!”
She turned to her purse, which hung on a post by the stove. She began to fumble in it, but her motions quickly lost speed and conviction. There was an oval of mirror mounted to the left of the kitchen doorway, and in it Susan caught sight other aunt’s face. What she saw there-a mixture of hatred, dismay, and greed-made her heart sink.
“Never mind, Aunt. I see thee’s loath to give it up, and I wouldn’t have it, anyway. It’s whore’s money.”
Aunt Cord turned back to her, face shocked, her purse conveniently forgotten.” ’tis not whoring, ye stupid get! Why, some of the greatest women in history have been gillys, and some of the greatest men have been born of gillys. ’tis not whoring!”
Susan ripped the red silk blouse from where it hung and held it up. The shirt moulded itself to her breasts as if it had been longing all the while to touch them. “Then why does he send me these whore’s clothes?”
“Susan!” Tears stood in Aunt Cord’s eyes.
Susan flung the shirt at her as she had the orange slices. It landed on her shoes. “Pick it up and put it on yerself, if ye fancy. You spread yer legs for him, if ye fancy."
She turned and hurled herself out the door. Her aunt’s half-hysterical shriek had followed her: “Don’t thee go off thinking foolish thoughts, Susan! Foolish thoughts lead to foolish deeds, and it’s too late for either! Thee’s agreed!”
She knew that. And however fast she rode Pylon along the Drop, she could not outrace her knowing. She had agreed, and no matter how horrified Pat Delgado might have been at the fix she had gotten herself into, he would have seen one thing clear-she had made a promise, and promises must be kept. Hell awaited those who would not do so.
3
She eased the rosillo back while he still had plenty of wind. She looked behind her, saw that she had come nearly a mile, and brought him down further-to a canter, a trot, a fast walk. She took a deep breath and let it out. For the first time that morning she registered the day’s bright beauty-gulls circling in the hazy air off to the west, high grasses all around her, and flowers in every shaded cranny: cornflowers and lupin and phlox and her favorites, the delicate blue silkflowers. From everywhere came the somnolent buzz of bees. The sound soothed her, and with the high surge of her emotions subsiding a little, she was able to admit something to herself… admit it, and then voice it aloud.
“Will Dearborn,” she said, and shivered at the sound of his name on her lips, even though there was no one to hear it but Pylon and the bees. So she said it again, and when the words were out she abruptly turned her own wrist inward to her mouth and kissed it where the blood beat close to the surface. The action shocked her because she hadn’t known she was going to do it, and shocked her more because the taste of her own skin and sweat aroused her immediately. She felt an urge to cool herself off as she had in her bed after meeting him. The way she felt, it would be short work.
Instead, she growled her father’s favorite cuss-“Oh, bite it!”-and spat past her boot. Will Dearborn had been responsible for all too much upset in her life these last three weeks; Will Dearborn with his unsettling blue eyes, his dark tumble of hair, and his stiff-necked. judgmental attitude. I can be discreet, madam. As for propriety? I’m amazed you even know the word.
Every time she thought of that, her blood sang with anger and shame. Mostly anger. How dare he presume to make judgments? He who had grown up possessing every luxury, no doubt with servants to tend his every whim and so much gold that he likely didn’t even need it-he would be given the things he wanted free, as a way of currying favor. What would a boy like that-for that was all he was, really, just a boy- know about the hard choices she had made? For that matter, how could such as Mr. Will Dearborn of Hemphill understand that she hadn’t really made those choices at all? That she had been carried to them the way a mother cat carries a wayward kitten back to the nesting-box, by the scruff of the neck?
Still, he wouldn’t leave her mind; she knew, even if Aunt Cord didn’t, that there had been an unseen third present at their quarrel this morning.
She knew something else as well, something that would have upset her aunt to no end.
Will Dearborn hadn’t forgotten her, either.
4
About a week after the welcoming dinner and Dearborn’s disastrous, hurtful remark to her, the retarded slops-fella from the Travellers’ Rest- Sheemie, folks called him-had appeared at the house Susan and her aunt shared. In his hands he held a large bouquet, mostly made up of the wild-flowers that grew out on the Drop, but with a scattering of dusky wild roses, as well. They looked like pink punctuation marks. On the boy’s face there had been a wide, sunny grin as he swung the gate open, not waiting for an invitation.
Susan had been sweeping the front walk at the time; Aunt Cord had been out back, in the garden. That was fortunate, but not very surprising; these days the two of them got on best when they kept apart as much as they could.
Susan had watched Sheemie come up the walk, his grin beaming out from behind his upheld freight of flowers, with a mixture of fascination and horror.
“G'day, Susan Delgado, daughter of Pat,” Sheemie said cheerfully. “I come to you on an errand and cry yer pardon at any troubleation I be, oh aye, for I am a problem for folks, and know it same as them. These be for you. Here.”
He thrust them out, and she saw a small, folded envelope tucked amongst them.
“Susan?” Aunt Cord’s voice, from around the side of the house… and getting closer. “Susan, did I hear the gate?”
“Yes, Aunt!” she called back. Curse the woman’s sharp ears! Susan nimbly plucked the envelope from its place among the phlox and daisies. Into her dress pocket it went.
“They from my third-best friend,” Sheemie said. “I got three different friends now. This many.” He held up two fingers, frowned, added two more, and then grinned splendidly. “Arthur Heath my first-best friend, Dick Stockworth my second-best friend. My third-best friend-”
“Hush!” Susan said in a low, fierce voice that made Sheemie’s smile fade. “Not a word about your three friends.”
A funny little flush, almost like a pocket fever, raced across her skin-it seemed to run down her neck from her cheeks, then slip all the way to her feet. There had been a lot of talk in Hambry about Sheemie’s new friends during the past week-talk about little else, it seemed. The stories she had heard were outlandish, but if they weren’t true, why did the versions told by so many different witnesses sound so much alike?
Susan was still trying to get herself back under control when Aunt Cord swept around the comer. Sheemie fell back a step at the sight of her, puzzlement becoming outright dismay. Her aunt was allergic to beestings, and was presently swaddled from the top of her straw 'brera to the hem of her faded garden dress in gauzy stuff that made her look peculiar in strong light and downright eerie in shade. Adding a final touch to her costume, she carried a pair of dirt-streaked garden shears in one gloved hand.
She saw the bouquet and bore down on it, shears raised. When she reached her niece, she slid the scissors into a loop on her belt (almost reluctantly, it seemed to the niece herself) and parted the veil on her face. “Who sent ye those?”