Peter Loon (17 page)

“It is not simply wealth, Zachariah, and you know it. The commoner does well to have Great Men watch over them. It's not just the land, but what is best for the district and the nation, affairs about which your backlanders can know nothing.”

“They would say the same of you, who do not struggle as they do.”

Captain Clayden laughed then, which Peter would not have predicted. “Ah, well,” said the elderly fellow, who may have only been testing the clergyman's continued resolve upon the matter. Strangely, to Peter, they seemed to think the better of one another, though they disagreed so particularly on this subject. “Ah, well,” said the Captain again, then, “you've rescued the girl from terrible circumstances, is all that matters.”

Parson Leach waved his hand, as if his part in the affair was unremarkable. “It was Peter who charged forward, when I stopped to load my musket, and rescued her truly, and it was only the rain, that we might otherwise have cursed, that fouled the gun fired in his direction.”

This was more news to Peter, but he recalled the nasty snap he had heard behind him when he first reached Nora.

“Let me shake your hand, young man,” said the Captain, and he leaned forward to do this.

Peter awkwardly put his own hand forward, reddening as the elderly fellow pumped his arm rigorously.

“Well,” said Captain Clayden, when this was done. “Will the girl's father be coming for her?”

“Of that I can't be sure,” said the parson carefully.

“Not that she wants a thing to do with him, anymore,” said the old man. “She's not of her majority, it's clear. What is she, sixteen, seventeen years? It's a legal matter, to be sure, but I don't know a judge who would take up her father's case, did he hear the whole business. I'd throw him in jail, and there are those who would cherish
any
justification to put this Barrow behind a lock. How a preacher, even a self-proclaimed unordained wanderer–begging your pardon, Zachariah–could behave in such a fashion! Why, he sounds like one of these Antinomianists!” Peter caught another smile from Parson Leach, but Captain Clayden was growling into the fire. “She will stay here, till further arrangements are made,” said the old fellow with sudden decision.

“I believe she's a fine young woman,” said Parson Leach.

“She knew enough to quit
that
rabble.” The Captain considered the poker in his lap as if he could not remember how it got there. Then he looked up at the parson. “This situation between the girl and Barrow. . .” he began, but hesitated to finish the thought.

“It was a recent arrangement,” said the parson carefully, “which she fled in a timely fashion.” Peter wondered how the man could know this; he had himself thought otherwise.

Captain Clayden nodded slowly. “Yes.”

“Not that it is of any matter,” said the parson offhandedly. “It was an involuntary business for her, at best, that much is clear.”

Captain Clayden raised his head and considered something, came to a new decision and nodded again. “She will stay here,” he said again.

PETER DID NOT CONSIDER HOW HUNGRY HE WAS–HOW HUNGRY HE
had been, perhaps, his entire life–until he came into the dining hall of the Clayden house. It was a long room, lit with candles and an elegant flickering chandelier. There was a shallow fireplace, and the fire there added to the dancing aspect of the light and threw a cozy warmth into the room. The table itself was half as long as the room, and piled with every imaginable victual and some Peter could not name; meats and vegetables and fruits, pies and puddings and a basket of boiled eggs, bread and cheese and ale and wine and a pitcher of milk, cooled in the larder. It seemed to him more like a table laid for a village fair than a meal set for a single family. He glanced at Parson Leach, who brushed his own chin in such a way that Peter remembered to close his mouth.

Sussanah and Emily had already entered, with Nora in tow, and a fourth young woman as well, whom Peter had not seen before; they stood across the table from him, having entered from another room, and gave the appearance of certainty and elegance–Nora Tillage being the only exception. She had, it was true, every advantage of fashion that could be provided by Captain Clayden's granddaughters, and though a fragile sort of beauty was yet evident through her angular features, any pretense to real poise was lost in the confusion and apprehension those features expressed. She seemed to feel strange and unnatural in her borrowed finery and her stately surroundings. There was not one person in the room, beside Parson Leach, that she had known before yesterday.

The light of the candles shone like bronze in her russet hair, which had been tended with great energy and success. She was dressed in a shade of blue that was perhaps a hue too cold to compliment the blue-veined pallor of her skin, but all in all, Emily and Sussanah had performed admirably in the time allotted and derived no little satisfaction from their labor. Sussanah's clothes were too
filled out
for Nora, but tucks and pins, and a ribbon in the right place had done wonders.

Peter saw Nora's hand tremble slightly, however, on the back of the chair before her, and she seemed more intent on Parson Leach and himself, than upon her appearance or demeanor. From Emily's expression it might be intimated that she considered Nora a challenge and perhaps a bit of a bad pupil.

The sisters had not neglected themselves during their efforts on Nora's behalf, for they were flounced out as prettily as could be imagined. Their cousin, Martha Flemming, the fourth young woman, who had light chestnut hair and shared their blue eyes–somewhere between Emily's pale blue and Sussanah's dark–had been informed, it seemed, about the young man who would be at dinner, and had also prepared accordingly.

Dressed in Captain James Clayden's fine clothes, combed and adjusted by Parson Leach, Peter was his mother's son in the realm of natural gravity as well as in his dark good looks; and all that separated him from his hosts was the roughness of his hands and the weatherburn to his face. Captain Clayden, the grandfather, approved of the young man the more for his diffidence, which he imagined, for the time being, to be the product of a cultured reserve. The young women were pleased to have him to look at (the scar on Peter's forehead only gave him the look of an adventurer) and young James also admired Peter as they gathered at the table.

“Sit, sit!” commanded the Captain. “Please, you must vary yourselves,” he added, and he proceeded to direct the seating arrangements, so that male and female were mostly alternated about the table. Mrs. Magnamous made a cooing sound when she brought the roast beef into the dining hall and saw the gathering.

Peter hesitated to reach for anything, more from awe at the abundance before him than from refinement or courtesy, but very quickly he was aware of a fashion to the proceedings to which his mother might have hinted, at odd times in his childhood.
What would she think of this?
wondered Peter.
What would Amos, and Hannah, and Sally Ann think?
He felt almost charged with guilt to be sitting before such abundance.

After Parson Leach said grace, Captain Clayden asked for Nora's plate, which surprised Peter, and Nora too; Martha, opposite Peter, smiled though not unkindly at the look of mystification on Nora's face. It reminded Peter to close his mouth again and he glanced at Parson Leach, who nodded.

“What do you think of our ladies, Mr. Loon?” asked Captain Clayden. He had returned Nora's plate with a piece of beef and was holding his hand out toward Peter.

From the corner of his eye, Peter caught Parson Leach tapping his own plate. Peter said, “Oh!” and handed his plate, not very gracefully, past Nora's face. “The ladies are
lovely
,” he said, remembering the parson's instructions.

The ladies in question–except Nora–shifted almost imperceptibly in their seats or looked aside. Nora had taken up her knife but remained undecided as to the fate of the beef in her plate.

Emily very sensibly began to send other things around the table. “Mr. Loon,” she said, with a bowl of mashed squash extended.

Peter took a moment to respond, the address was so solemn and the pale blue of the girl's eyes was so extraordinary. “Thank you,” he said.

If Emily's expression was one of serious regard and perhaps practical curiosity, Sussanah's dark eyes were filled with something more obviously tender. Her voice sounded breathless, and her ardent attention like that of a person in great suspense. “I hope you find our home comfortable, Mr. Loon,” said Sussanah.

Peter was not sure how someone's home fell on the masculine-to-feminine scale of things, and any number of solutions ran through his mind in a panic. Captain Clayden, he suspected, had built the house, and it did have a certain masculine robustness; but on the other hand, Peter's mind attached domestic matters to feminine concerns. Before he had made a proper decision, an answer seemed required. “It's grovely,” he professed solemnly.

Sussanah's look of wonder told him that something extraordinary had happened, even if his own ear did not. He closed his eyes, shook his head once and, looking back at the lovely young woman, corrected himself with “It's grand.”

She smiled prettily. Emily frowned at her sister and said, “Turnip, Mr. Loon?”

“Lovely,” he said, almost in a whisper.

Either the young people of the Clayden family were extraordinarily versed in the proprieties or else the Captain had leveled a directive about conversation at the table; if curiosity were evident in the brother and sisters and in the cousin, no question was posited regarding Nora or her immediate circumstances. They did, however, hang upon the words of Parson Leach and Peter Loon, as if some unexpected tidbit might get past them if they were not paying strict attention.

Martha inquired of Peter his origins, and he seemed so very ill at ease admitting he was from Sheepscott Great Pond that she blushed and turned to ask Emily for news concerning her cat, which lived in the barn and purportedly terrorized the mice there. Emily was aware of Martha's miscalculation, but also very proud of her cat, so she allowed the subject and related a tale regarding “Henry” (her cat) and one of the Captain's dogs. The story was not flattering of “Duke's” courage, and the Captain huffed noisily through the final portion of the piece, but it was clear to all that he was amused.

“I will tell Duke he has leave to
chase
Henry from the chicken coop in future,” said the elderly fellow, with as much sally as significance.

“I'd guess the rooster will do it for him,” suggested James, which was exactly what had happened, though Emily would not admit it.

“The rooster must presume,” thought the parson aloud, “that possession of the coop
is eleven points in the law
.”

Peter wondered if the parson was throwing a jocose barb in the Captain's direction, but the old man was up to it if this was the case.