The Taker (16 page)

“Good heavens, no!”

Below, the rest of the McDougal girls formed a loose chain around Jonathan and their parents, while Evangeline stood shyly a pace behind her father.
Now is no time to be coy
, I thought at the time, straining to hear what was being said below.
You are the one he will wed. That handsome man is to be your husband, the one who will take you to his bed every night. He is a hard man to give your heart to, and you must prove yourself up to the challenge. Go stand next to him.
Eventually, with much urging from her parents, she stepped out awkwardly from behind her father, like a newborn foal trying out its legs. It wasn’t until they stood side by side that it struck me: she
was
still a child. He towered over her, so much larger than she was. I pictured them lying together in bed, and he looked as though he could crush her. She was small and trembled like a leaf at his slightest attention.

He took her hand and stepped closer to her. There was something gallant about the gesture, almost protective. But then Jonathan leaned over and kissed her. It was not his usual kiss, the one I had memorized, the one so powerful that you’d feel it down to your toes. But he’d signaled that he’d accepted the marriage contract by kissing her in full sight of their families and the congregation. And in front of me.

I understood Sophia’s message to me, then, from the dream. She wasn’t exhorting me to kill myself in recompense for what I had done to her. She was telling me that I had a life of disappointment before me if I continued to love Jonathan as I did, as she had. A love that is
too strong can turn poisonous and bring great unhappiness. And then, what is the remedy? Can you unlearn your heart’s desire? Can you stop loving someone? Easier to drown yourself, Sophia seemed to be telling me; easier to take the lover’s leap.

All this reverberated in my mind as I watched from the balcony, tears forming, my fingers digging into the soft pine railing. I was high above the congregation floor, high enough to take the lover’s leap. But I didn’t; even then I was mindful of the baby inside. Instead, I turned and ran down the steps and away from the wrenching scene before me.

TWELVE

I
rode home from church in silence in the wagon with my father. He kept an eye on me, wrapped in my cloak and scarf but shivering and with teeth chattering, even though the winter sun had come out and painted us both in sunlight. He said nothing, undoubtedly attributing my ill appearance and reticence to the news of Jonathan’s betrothal. We stopped at the tumbledown Catholic church and found my mother, sisters, and Nevin waiting in the snow, blue-lipped and chiding us for being late as they climbed into the wagon.

“Hush now, we have good reason for the delay,” my father said to them in a tone that meant he would brook no nonsense. “Jonathan’s betrothal was announced after the service today.” Considerately, there was no merrymaking among the rest of them, only glances from my sisters and a sneer of “Pity the girl, whoever she be!” from my brother.

When we arrived at our farm, Nevin unharnessed the horse while Father went to check on the cattle, and my sisters took advantage of the sunny day to see to the chickens. I followed my mother desultorily into the house. She bustled around the kitchen, getting ready to work
on the evening meal, while I sat on a chair in front of a window, still in my cloak.

My mother was no fool. “Would you like a cup of tea, Lanore?” she called from the hearth.

“I do not care,” I said, careful to keep a warble of sadness out of my voice. My back to her, I listened to the clatter of a heavy pot hung on the hook over the fire and the splash of water poured from the bucket of drawn water.

“I see you are upset, Lanore. But you knew this day would come,” she said at length, firmly but kindly. “You knew one day Master Jonathan would marry, as will you. We told you having such a strong friendship with a boy was inadvisable. Now you see what we meant.”

I let a tear dribble down my face since she couldn’t see me. I felt weak, as though I’d been trampled on and battered by one of the bulls in the field. I needed to turn to someone; I knew at that moment, sitting there, that I would die if I had to keep this secret to myself any longer. The question was, who could I trust in my family?

My mother had always been kind to us children, defending us when my father’s upright sensibility got the better of him and his scolding grew too harsh. She was a woman and had been pregnant six times, with two babes buried in the churchyard; surely she would understand how I felt and would protect me.

“Mother, I have something I must tell you, but I am terrified of how you might react, you and Father. Please promise me that you will still love me after I have said what I must,” I said, my voice quaking.

I heard a muffled cry escape my mother, followed by the sound of a mixing spoon clattering to the floor, and I knew I had to say no more. For all her advice to me, for all her pleading and nagging, her worst fear had come true.

Nevin was made to hitch the horse up to the wagon again and go with my sisters to the Dales’ house on the other side of the valley, and stay there until our father fetched them. I was left alone with my parents
in the darkening house, sitting on a stool in the middle of the room as my mother cried softly to herself by the fire and my father paced around me.

I’d never seen my father so enraged. His face was red and bloated, his hands white from clenching them into fists. The only thing that kept him from striking me, I believe, were the tears flowing down my face.

“How could you do it?” my father railed at me. “How could you give yourself to the St. Andrew boy? Are you no better than a common harlot? Whatever possessed you?”

“He loves me, Father—”

My words were too much provocation for my father; he lashed out and struck me hard across my cheek. Even my mother sucked in her breath in surprise. The pain radiated sharply from my jaw, but it was the rawness of his anger that stunned me.

“Is that what he told you? Are you stupid enough to believe him, Lanore?”

“You’re wrong. He really does love me—”

He drew his hand back to hit me a second time but stopped himself. “Do you not think he’s said as much to every girl who’d listen to him, to get them to give in to his desire? If his feelings for you are true, why is he betrothed to the McDougal girl?”

“I don’t know,” I gasped, wiping tears from my cheeks.

“Kieran,” my mother said sharply, “don’t be cruel.”

“It’s a hard lesson,” my father said back to her, looking over his shoulder. “The McDougals have my pity, and ’tis a shame for the wee Evangeline, but I’d not have St. Andrew for a son-in-law.”

“Jonathan is not a bad man,” I protested.

“Listen to yourself! Defending the man who made ye pregnant and hasn’t the decency to be standing here beside ye, giving your family the news!” my father bellowed. “I take it the bastard knows about your state—”

“He does.”

“And what about the captain? Do you think he had the spine to tell his father?”

“I—don’t know.”

“I doubt it,” my father said, resuming his pacing, his heels clattering loudly against the pine floorboards. “And it’s just as well. I want no part of that family. Do you hear me? No part. I’ve made my decision, Lanore: you will be sent away to have your baby. Far away.” He stared straight ahead, not even a glance in my direction. “We will send you to Boston in a few weeks, when the road is passable, to a place where you can have your child. A convent.” He looked to my mother, who stared at her hands as she nodded. “The sisters will find a home for it, a good Catholic home, to ease your mother’s heart.”

“You’re going to take my child away from me?” I started to rise from the stool but my father pushed me back down.

“Of course. You cannot bring your shame back with you to St. Andrew. I won’t have our neighbors knowing you are another of the St. Andrew boy’s conquests.”

I started crying again, violently. The baby would be all I had of Jonathan; how could I give it away?

My mother crept over to me and took my hands in hers. “You must think of your family, Lanore. Think of your sisters. Think of the shame if word were to get out in town. Who would want their sons to marry your sisters after such a disgrace?”

“I would think my failings should be no reflection on my sisters,” I said, hoarsely, but I knew the truth. The righteous townsfolk would make my sisters—and my parents—suffer for my misdeeds. I lifted my head. “So … will you not tell the captain of my condition?”

My father stopped pacing and turned to face me. “I’ll not give the old bastard the satisfaction of knowing that my daughter could not resist his son.” He shook his head. “You may think the worst of me, Lanore. I pray that I am doing the right thing by you. I only know that I must try to save you from complete ruin.”

I felt no gratitude. Selfish as I was, my first thought was not of my
family and their hurt but of Jonathan. I would be forced to leave my home and I would never see Jonathan again. The thought was a blade pushed into my heart.

“Must I leave?” I asked, misery breaking my voice. “Why can’t I go to the midwife? Then I could stay. No one would know.”

My father’s cold stare wounded me more deeply than another blow. “
I
would know, Lanore. I would know and your mother would know. Some families may condone it but … we cannot let you. It would be a monstrous sin, even worse than the one you’ve already committed.”

So I was not only a bad daughter and a helpless puppet for Jonathan’s desires, but I had it in my heart to be a godless murderer as well. I wanted to die at that moment, but shame alone was insufficient. “I see,” I said, wiping at the cold wetness on my cheeks, determined to cry no more in front of my father.

Oh, the shame and the terror I felt that night. Today, looking back, it seems ridiculous to be so ashamed, so terrified. But then, I was just another victim of propriety, shaking and crying in my parents’ house, crushed under the weight of my father’s demands. A helpless soul about to be exiled to the cruel world. It would take many years for me to forgive myself. At the time, I thought my life was over. My father knew me for a harlot and a monster, and he was sending me away from the only thing that mattered to me. I couldn’t imagine going on.

The worst of winter passed; the short, dark days lengthening and skies that had been perpetually overcast, the color of old flannel, beginning to lighten. I wondered if I, too, was changing incrementally with the baby inside me or if any changes to my body were all in my head. After all, I’d always been slender, and in my predicament had lost my appetite. My clothing did not bind me, as I’d expected it would, but perhaps that was only guilt fanning my imagination. In odd moments, too, I wondered if Jonathan thought about me, if he knew I was being sent away and was sorry for having abandoned me. Perhaps he assumed
I’d done as promised, seen the midwife and gotten purged. Perhaps he was distracted by his impending wedding. I had no way of knowing: I was no longer allowed to go to Sunday services and so my only chance to see Jonathan was taken away from me.