The Cottage in the Woods (32 page)

I set the candle down on a side table, searching for the right words. “Thank you, and Godspeed, Mr. Bentley.”

At that he moved toward me, and kissed me on the cheek, but that was not enough. He reached for me, and I for him. We held each other in a tight embrace, as if the whole world were ending. With that bear hug, I told him everything I felt for him,
everything I had dreamed of and hoped for with him, and all of my grief, and I felt his love and sorrow flow back to me in his strong arms. It seemed to last forever—or was it only a few moments?—until I wanted so much more, and I could no longer ignore the voice of warning within. I separated myself from him and stepped back, tears in my eyes.

“Let us not have anything to regret,” I gently chided. “I would rather leave you with your conscience clear than full of tormenting memories.”

He laughed softly to himself, his eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “How like you to worry about
me
when I was intent on toying with your affections. Very well. Goodbye, Miss Brown. No doubt when you see me again, I will be an old, married man, but you will always have my heart.” He stepped back, only touching my cheek with his paw in a last caress before he picked up the candle and walked away.

I nodded speechlessly, and watched the candle’s glow as he retreated down the hallway.

Morning found me bleary-eyed and numb, searching for a way to go forward with my life. I would lock away the broken pieces of my heart, and live with what was left. I thought it could be done; people lost limbs, or eyes, and somehow managed to get along with what remained. A heart was not so necessary, after all. I still could go through the motions of my life. I was grateful that Mr. Bentley had been honest with me. At least now I understood, and I knew it wasn’t because he didn’t love me. I thought that perhaps I should be trying to accept the truth
gracefully—to be content to wish him and his bride every happiness. I knew that something more was required of me: that I should pray, for his sake, that he would eventually forget me. But despite the fact that he belonged to another, I clung to the knowledge that his heart was
mine
! This sat uncomfortably on the jagged edges of my conscience, but I could manage no better.

I wondered if Mr. Bentley had departed as yet. The thought of being left behind here while he took his leave was unbearable, and so I forced myself to go to church, despite the state I was in, it being somehow less terrible if I was not here when he left. I walked to the little church alone, unwilling to share my thoughts with anyone, and unwilling to have them interrupted. I sat in the back and forced myself to take an interest in what was going on around me. The service was packed with all sorts of villagers who were very interested to hear what their beloved minister would have to say about last night’s developments. Entering the sanctuary, as if by some unspoken understanding, the humans and the Enchanted split off from one another and took up positions on opposite sides of the aisle, giving tangible proof of the growing divisions in what had always been a friendly congregation.

Reverend Snover was inspired that morning. Betsy had quietly pointed out to me that some very important members of the Anthropological Society were there. Mr. Babcock sat ostentatiously in the front row, decked out in a checked waistcoat and matching trousers and a large bow tie, and wearing an expression of the most profound disapproval. And yet, spurred on by the injustice of the outrageous curfew, the humble clergyman fired a cannonade of denunciation that echoed in the rafters of that little church, and rattled the consciences of those within.
In a speech born of outrage and love, his rhetoric soared like thunderheads streaming on a wild wind, so that afterward many swore that their hymnals had been blown shut, and their hats had tumbled away. Then, holding their attention in the palm of his hand, he quieted to dulcet tones, enticing his flock back to sanity and kindliness, and exhorting them to love their neighbors. This last was delivered with such eloquence that sniffles could be heard on both sides of the aisle. Still, some prominent citizens, Mr. Babcock chief among them, remained unmoved. Indeed, they sat so stiffly that it appeared their spines might snap with the strain. I wondered what trick of logic or rationalization allowed them to remain so impervious.

Reverend Snover closed the service with the announcement that Constable Murdley’s young daughter had succumbed to illness during the night, and asked for the congregation’s goodwill and prayers for the Murdley family. Everyone murmured in sympathy and assent, even among the Enchanted, who had presumably suffered many an injustice at the hands of Constable Murdley over the years. Despite this moment of unity, when the congregation lined up at the door to greet the minister and shake his hand, there remained an awkward distance between the human and Enchanted members of the congregation, and some left by a side door rather than face one another. Mr. Babcock, however, made a point of walking past Reverend Snover as if he had not seen him.

When my turn came to greet the reverend, I thanked him for his sermon, and asked him about the fate of Reverend Wright, who had run off to get himself arrested the night before, and was now nowhere to be seen.

“Ah, he’ll be fine,” Reverend Snover declared. “Only his
pride was hurt that no one would arrest him. He wandered around half the night looking for law enforcement. Three times he found them, only to be sent on his way with a warning. They didn’t want him, you see, him being a clergyman. All he got for his trouble was a nasty cold. Mrs. Snover’s tending to him over at the vicarage.”

I felt a flash of sympathy for the unlucky curate. I had the thought that it might distract me from my own wretchedness to do a good deed and go cheer him up. Choosing between that and an afternoon alone with my own suffering, I made my way past the churchyard to the vicarage, knocking at the kitchen door. Mrs. Snover and Maggie were busy preparing Sunday dinner, but Mrs. Snover led me into the parlor, where Reverend Wright sat bundled in blankets by the fire, with his handkerchief at hand, soaking his hind paws in a pan of hot water.

“Oh, Biss Brown, how kind of you to cobe,” he enthused, his eyes shining feverishly. “Do sit down.”

“I’m so sorry to see that you are sick, Reverend Wright. Can I bring you anything? Some tea, perhaps?”

“Oh no. Bissus Snover keeps be well supplied. I was only needig a little copany. And here you are.”

“I’m afraid you’ve had a difficult night of it. How are you feeling?”

“Oh, that is hardly ibportant. Feelings pass. What is ibportant is to do what is right and needful, don’t you think?”

“Is that why you went rushing out to face the deputies last night?”

“I suppose it was righteous indignation. And, well, vanity.”

“Vanity?”

“Yes, I bust confess. I was hoping to … to, well, hoping to ibpress you.”

“Impress
me
? Whatever for?”

“Well, you see, Biss Brown, I’b very glad you’re here. I have subthing to ask you,” he said, blowing his snout into his handkerchief. “I believe there is a proper forb to follow. Please forgive be if I ab not doing this correctly, but, well …”

Dragging his blankets around him, he stepped out of the pan of water and went down on one knee before me, creating puddles on the parlor floor. “Biss Brown, will you barry be?”

I nearly recoiled with astonishment. At a loss for words, I was suddenly reminded of Papa’s injunction to be kind to gentlemen offering marriage, whatever your answer might be. “Reverend Wright,” I began, thinking fast, “you take me by surprise. It’s a very great compliment, but how did you settle on me? You barely know me!”

“Yes, well, you see, Biss Brown, since first we bet, I have been observing your conspicuous virtue and ladylike debeanor, not to bention certain talents that would be bost helpful and attractive in a clergyban’s wife: a certain social ease, for exabple, which I’b afraid I lack. It is clear to be that your influence would bake be a better and bore effective pastor. I ab convinced that you are precisely the sort of febale I should like to have as a help-bate in by vocation.”

“Help you in your vocation? That sounds very businesslike, Reverend Wright. Am I the first female you have made such an offer to?”

“Well, there was another, shortly after by graduation frob sebinary. A very ebotional febale, as it turned out. It ended rather badly.”

I marveled inwardly at his impenetrability, though it seemed more like naiveté than callousness, and I thought I might try to be of help to him.

“Perhaps you neglected to mention anything like romance to her?” I hinted.

“Oh, but I don’t believe in baking such a decision based on subthing as changeable as robance. Far better to deterbine suitability with the intellect and good sense. By own parents had such a batch, and they got on rather well together. Of course, by buther has barely spoken for the last thirty years.”

Seeing that it was hopeless to guide him to any other way of thinking, I considered it best to give him my answer quickly: a standard speech Miss Pinchkin had counseled her charges to have always at the ready. “Reverend Wright, I am sensible of the great honor you have bestowed on me, and I believe you will make some fortunate female an excellent husband one day, but I must tell you that what you ask is impossible.”

“Did I do it wrong?” he asked, despair written on his face. “Perhaps you are overcub by by ibpetuosity? Perhaps in tibe you bight look on the batch bore favorably?”

“No, Reverend Wright. It is only fair to tell you, my heart belongs to another.”

“Oh? But I don’t bind. That needn’t be an obstacle—unless subone has already bade you an offer. Are you hitherto engaged?”

The question pierced my heart like an arrow. How I wished I could tell him I was. I cleared my throat and said, “That does not signify.”

“Oh? Then you’re not engaged?” said the bear, sneezing vehemently. “Perhaps I bay hope?”

“Reverend Wright, do get up. This can’t be good for your cold. I’ve given you my answer. Please accept it. Here, now put your feet back in the pan. Shall I add some more hot water?”

The dejected bear raised himself unsteadily, slumped back
into his chair, and sighed. “I suppose,” he said. I fetched the teakettle from the kitchen, asking Maggie to mop up the puddles, and I returned to the parlor and poured steaming water into the pan.

“Now, would you like me to read to you? Something amusing, perhaps?
Gulliver’s Travels
?”

“You would read to be?”

“Of course. Can we not be friends?” I asked, moved by my own aching heart to treat him with sensitivity.

He smiled broadly as I adjusted the blankets about his shoulders, settled into the chair opposite him, opened the book, and began to read. “ ‘My father had a small estate in Nottinghamshire; I was the third of five sons.’ ” I read on for some time, until Reverend Wright seemed relaxed and sleepy, and the awkwardness of the sudden proposal was forgotten. We parted amicably, and despite the absurdly businesslike nature of his offer, I reflected that it was, after all, my first proposal. I should feel complimented, but I was overwhelmed by the thought that it was from the wrong bear. I felt myself tearing up at the cruel irony, and though Mrs. Snover put her head in the door and invited me to stay for Sunday dinner, I politely turned her down and took my leave.

The first day of spring announced its presence with a wail of wind and a slashing torrent of sleet. By noon a glittering glaze of ice encrusted every surface, accumulating drop by deadly drop until even mighty branches cracked with the weight of it and fell to earth. We remained cooped up in the schoolroom, dreaming of warm breezes and fragrant blossoms, watching dejectedly at the windows as the elements colluded against us. The children especially became fractious without their regular exercise.

Then, within days, a sudden thaw gusted in, turning the forest into a dripping morass of melting snow and mud. Harry and I ventured out to survey the surrounding woods and see if they were safe for the children. We slogged through the cheerless landscape, picking our way carefully around puddles and fallen branches. No gentle zephyrs wafted by, portending winter’s end; no birdsong called awake the nascent buds; no small green shoots hinted at better things to come. All of Nature seemed to be conspiring to withhold the blessings of spring,
waiting. Harry, being of a superstitious bent, said it was an evil sign, and kept crossing himself when he thought I wasn’t looking. Ambleworthy Stream, usually so placid and contained, had transformed overnight into a roiling river, subsuming its banks and everything in reach, leaving treacherous black pools in the hollows. Only the path we called the Giant’s Walk, named for its population of huge old trees, was well above water, though slick with mud.