Peter Loon (15 page)

Above, the caps of the forest surged in the rain, and that broken foliage, consonant with Nora's wet darkened hair, fell about the road and their muddy feet and hooves in an eddy of wind.

Peter stumbled in the mud and recovered himself by clutching at the tail of Parson Leach's coat. It seemed to him that the man on the other side of the horse said, “Watch where you walk, now,” but Peter had heard nothing. He glanced over the horse's back and Parson Leach was facing forward and had not broken his stride. Nora readjusted the great coat and turned, her head still resting upon the neck of the horse; she watched Peter with the candid stare of a child. Soon her eyes closed and Peter wondered if she had fallen asleep.

Peter himself imagined the remainder of their journey through the rain as in a dream. They had not walked so very far, and the weather was not what it would be in another month or so, but he was not used to walking distances at all, and less used to the knowledge of new places and new people and dangerous men. It occurred to him, as it had now and again these last two days, that his father was gone, and his heart plunged a little and his head spun to consider what it meant that someone, anyone was no longer in the world.
Are they burying him today?
he wondered, and
What has my mother sent me to?

At some point the parson began to sing softly.

Oh, my Lord God, young Jesus dear
,

Prepare Thy gracious cradle near
,

And I shall rock Thee in my heart
,

And never more from Thee depart
.

After a while, Peter thought he heard Nora humming along with the clergyman, and how much more potent her small contribution seemed than all the broad tones of his male companions, who sang in the shank of the morning.

Several other songs, each with several verses, brought them around the southern extremity of Damariscotta Pond, where they reached the Mills and the lengthy spillway that emptied into Great Salt Bay and the Damariscotta River. Here the houses came more frequently and Parson Leach was recognized by one or two individuals braving the weather. One invited him and his companions to dry by their fire, but he graciously declined with the excuse of pressing matters.

Peter could have done with a fire; even the exertion of walking seemed to have lost its warming effect, and a chill had soaked through his skin to his bones so that he hardly believed he would ever be rid of it. Nora sat atop Mars in relative comfort, not so much soaked with rain anymore as damp with steam.

Parson Leach's cape and hood had long since ceased to ward off the rain. “It's not much further,” he insisted. “Were we to stop and dry off, the last leg through this rain would seem twice as cruel.”

So they trudged on, and it was not more than half a mile further on before they were atop a low hill and Parson Leach pointed south and east to a head of land jutting into the river. Perhaps a quarter of a mile away stood a magnificent house and several barns and outbuildings. Smoke rose from the chimneys and in the dim atmosphere and through the rain they could see cheerful lights at the windows.

“There is Clayden farm,” explained Parson Leach. “And as snug and satisfactory a hearth as exists from here to General Knox's, not to mention as lively and gracious a family as you are likely to bear in your time. You will not regret our refusing previous offers.” He looked to his young companions, but could not extract any enthusiasm from them. He smiled, though he must have been weary and chilled himself. “Let's leave the road, and cut through the fields,” he suggested. “We can't be any wetter than we are now.”

So he turned them off the road, and led them through ankle high grass that squirted and squelched as wetly as Peter's moccasins. They descended a small knoll, crossed a busy rill and came up level with the cluster of buildings. The rain seemed to increase, as if to add drama to their arrival. A dog barked, then two. There was the sound of a horse neighing in the barn as they passed it and Mars answered with an impatient snort. A small face peered from one of the rear windows of the house and disappeared again.

They were rounding the broad back of the estate, and coming into view of the yard when a kitchen door was thrown open and a large woman in bonnet and apron leaned out to take stock of the travelers. Some exclamation rose from her and she swatted at the air as if she would drive the rain away like gnats. “Lands and living!” she declared. “It's unfit to be about. Who is it and what could drive them out on a day like this?”

Three faces peered out from behind the woman's wide hips, clinging to her apron and skirts. She swatted at one of these, but without conviction. A young man ran out with a coat thrown over his head and met the three wayfarers in the muddy yard. He peered into the parson's hood and knew him immediately. “Mr. Leach!” he cried, as much to identify the man to those in the doorway as to address him.

“Ebulon,” returned Parson Leach. “How are you, lad.”

“My mother has made apple pandowdy!” declared the boy, who was not more than nine or ten and didn't seem to mind sharing such a treat with new arrivals.

“I'm half-filled just hearing about it!” declared the parson.

“Is that Mr. Leach?” called the woman at the door. “What ever brings you out on a day like this?”

“Surely to see you, Mrs. Magnamous, and to taste your apple pandowdy.”

“Ebulon, take his horse,” called the woman. “Get under cover and by a fire, Mr. Leach–you and your friends.”

Ebulon was already in the process of taking Mars from his master, but happily shouted his agreement to the woman, who was his mother. Parson Leach lifted Nora down from Mars's back and caught her when she stumbled on her own legs. Peter hesitated beside them, but the parson nodded to the door and told him to hurry inside.

Peter wondered what greater pleasures heaven could supply than that kitchen, for he stepped in from the driving rain and encountered warmth and dryness and the snap and light of a crackling fire and the smells of cooking and herb brooms hanging from the beams and the faces of three young people, peering from the pantry door.

One girl in a beautiful dress, her dark hair done up in curls and bows, stepped up to Peter boldly and said, “I saw you first, you know. I saw you through the window in the nursery.” She was only fourteen or fifteen years old, but regarded Peter as if she were accustomed to being heard. Peter was not sure of a response, nor did his confusion lessen when she looked at him and said, “Were you in a fight?”

After a moment, Peter touched the fresh scar on his forehead. “No,” he said.

The girl's frown indicated that more information was needed, but when he added nothing to the simple denial, she looked him up and down and exclaimed, “What happened to your shoes?”

“They got wet,” was all he could think to say, but he realized that she was amazed by the slits he had made to accommodate his feet.

“Father's things will fit you,” she pronounced. “Father is at sea.”

By this time, Parson Leach had half carried Nora to the hearthside, and thrown off his cape and hood with a splash. Mrs. Magnamous began to lift the blue greatcoat from Nora's shoulders, when she realized the state of the young woman's dress. The woman let out a cry of dismay and pulled the coat around Nora again. “However can she be traveling like this?” said the woman to no certain person. “Shoo! Shoo!” she said to two young boys who attempted to gape past her substantial midsection. She swatted at them and drove them back a yard or so. “She must have dry things!” declared the woman.

“She has none, I fear,” said the parson.

“What is it? What is it?” came an elderly, if commanding, voice and a large gray-haired gentleman shuffled into view at the pantry door. He had spectacles lifted unto his brow and he squinted into the kitchen till he laid eyes on Parson Leach. “Zachariah!” he said, with evident pleasure in the discovery.

“Captain Clayden!” returned the parson. He strode dripping across the kitchen to shake hands with the old man.

“What commotion!” said Captain Clayden. “What have you brought me today? I asked for Robert Burton when I saw you last.”

“He's brought you half-drowned children!” asserted Mrs. Magnamous.

“What? You look half-drowned yourself,” said the Captain to Parson Leach. “Get out of those things! Have you dry clothes to wear? I don't know that any of us are tall enough to supply you.”

“I see Ebulon charging from the barn now,” said Parson Leach, peering through one of the kitchen windows, “and the good fellow is bringing my bags and kit.”

One of the younger boys rushed to let Ebulon in, and the sound of the rain was, for the moment, a loud and chilling presence in the warm kitchen.

“Emily, Sussanah!” said Mrs. Maganamous, unable to abide dawdling any longer. “Take this poor child and change her clothes! No, don't take her to your rooms, she's soaking to the bone! Set her by the fire in the nursery and drive the children out. Then bring her something decent and warm. Sussanah, something of yours will answer.” Mrs. Magnamous hugged Nora Tillage to her all this time, as if she were her own daughter. “Lands and living!” she said again. “Mr. Leach, what are you about, hauling these children through storm and water? Are you trying to kill them?”

“It is, as they say, Mrs. Magnamous, a long story.” Parson Leach smiled, though he looked a little wary, lest she swat at him as she had the little boys.

The young woman who must have been Sussanah, since she was more of a height with Nora, came up and took Nora's arm. There was great sympathy in her dark blue eyes, and curiosity as well. The other young woman, Emily, left Peter less readily, and watched Nora with something next to suspicion. Her eyes were pale and striking against the dark frame of hair that hung past her shoulders.

Mrs. Magnamous took stock of Peter then and similar cries of maternal anguish and concern filed the air. “And I suppose he is without wardrobe, as well!” she said, and upon the parson's affirmative, she answered, “Captain James's things will fit him–”

“I'll get them,” said Emily, already bustling away from Nora to this office.

“You'll do nothing of the kind! James!” she shouted. “James!”

A fellow of about ten or eleven years showed himself in the pantry door.

“Take this young man–up the back stairs, you had better–and fetch him some of your father's things.”

James never said a word, but nodded once, and went to a closeted stairway on the other end of the kitchen. Peter threw a worried look at the parson, but that man only smiled and shrugged; this was no more than he had expected. James opened the door to the back steps and waited for Peter, who dripped across the kitchen floor and up the steep stairwell behind him. Peter looked over his shoulder, before he disappeared, and saw Mrs. Magnamous press Nora's face with both her hands and kiss the young woman fiercely on the top of the head.