The Taker (8 page)

I leaned against a tree and watched the preacher make his way to the center of a small clearing in front of the crowd. He was younger than I had expected—Gilbert was the only pastor I’d ever known and had arrived in St. Andrew already white-haired and crotchety—and walked ramrod straight, assured that both God and righteousness were on his side. He was good-looking in a way that was unexpected and even uncomfortable to see in a preacher, and the women sitting closest to him twittered like birds when he gave them a broad, white smile. And yet, watching as he gazed over the crowd, preparing to begin (as confident as though he
owned
them), I experienced a dark chill, as though something bad was in the offing.

He began speaking in a loud, clear voice, recalling his visits throughout the Maine territory and describing what he’d found there. The territory was becoming a copy of Massachusetts, with its elitist ways. A handful of wealthy men controlled the destiny of their neighbors. And what had this brought for the average man? Hard times. Common folk falling behind on their accounts. Honest men, fathers and husbands, jailed and land sold out from under the wives and children. I was surprised to see heads nod in the crowd.

What people wanted—what Americans wanted, he stressed, waving his Bible in the air—was freedom. We hadn’t fought the British only to have new masters take the king’s place. The landowners in Boston and the merchants who sold goods to the settlers were no more than robbers, demanding outrageous usury fees, and the law was their lapdog. His eyes glimmered as he surveyed the crowd, encouraged by their murmuring assent, and he paced within his circle of well-trod grass. I wasn’t used to hearing dissent spoken aloud, in public, and I felt vaguely alarmed by the preacher’s success.

Suddenly, Nevin was beside me, studying our neighbors’ upturned faces. “Look at ’em, slack-jawed mopes …,” he said, derisively. There was no doubting that he’d gotten his critical temperament from our father. He folded his arms across his chest and snorted.

“They seem interested enough in what he has to say,” I observed.

“Do you have the slightest idea what he’s talking about?” Nevin squinted at me. “You don’t know, do you? Of course not, you’re just a stupid girl. You don’t understand nothing.”

I frowned but didn’t reply because Nevin was right in one respect: I had no idea what the man was really talking about. I was ignorant of what went on in the world at large.

He pointed to a group of men standing to the side of the crowded field. “See them men?” he asked, indicating Tobey Ostergaard, Daniel Daughtery, and Olaf Olmstrom. The three were among the poorer men in town, although the less charitable might say they were among the more shiftless, too.

“They’re talking trouble,” Nevin said. “Do you know what a ‘white Indian’ is?”

Even the stupidest girl in the village would have attested to knowing the term: news had come up months ago of an uprising in Fairfax, when townsmen dressed as Indians had overpowered the town clerk when he tried to serve a writ to a farmer delinquent in his payments.

“The same business is afoot here,” Nevin said, nodding. “I heard Olmstrom and Daughtery and some others talk to Father about it. Complaining about the Watfords unfairly charging too much …” The details would have been beyond Nevin’s comprehension; no one explained to children about accounts and charges at the provisioner’s store. “Daughtery says it’s a conspiracy against the common man,” Nevin recited, sounding as though he wasn’t sure Daughtery might not speak the truth.

“So? What do I care if Daughtery won’t pay his debt to the Watfords?” I sniffed, pretending I didn’t care. Inside, however, I was shocked to think someone would willingly default on an obligation, having been taught by our father that such behavior was disgraceful and something only a person with no self-respect would consider.

“It could mean ill for your boy Jonathan,” Nevin sneered, delighted to have the opportunity to tease me about Jonathan. “It’s not just the Watfords who stand to be hurt if things go bad. The captain holds the
paper to their property … What would happen if they refused to pay their rents? Them men fought for three days in Fairfax. I heard they stripped the constable and beat him with sticks, and made him return home on foot, naked as he was born.”

“We don’t even have a town clerk in St. Andrew,” I said, alarmed by my brother’s story.

“Most likely the captain would send his biggest, strongest axmen to Daughtery and demand he pay up.” There was a touch of awe in Nevin’s voice; his respect for authority and a desire to see justice prevail—our father’s traits, surely—outweighed his desire to see Jonathan suffer some ill fortune.

Daughtery and Olmstrom … the captain and Jonathan … even prim Miss Watford and her equally supercilious brother … I was humbled by my ignorance, and felt a grudging respect for my brother’s ability to see the world in its complexity. I wondered what else went on that I didn’t know about.

“Do you think Father will join them? Will he be arrested?” I whispered, worried.

“The captain don’t hold paper on our place,” Nevin informed me, a tad disgusted that I didn’t know this already. “Father owns it outright. But I think he agrees with this fellow here.” He nodded at the preacher. “Father came to the territory same as everybody else, thinking they would be free, but it hasn’t worked out that way. Some are having a hard time of it, while the St. Andrews are getting rich. Like I said”—he kicked at the dirt, raising a cloud of dry dust—“your boy could be in for trouble.”

“He’s not my boy,” I shot back.

“You want him to be your boy,” my brother said, teasingly. “Though God in heaven only knows why. You must have a backward streak in you, Lanore, to be taken with the nelly bastard.”

“You’re just jealous, that’s why you don’t like him.”

“Jealous?” Nevin sputtered. “Of that peacock?” He scoffed and walked away, not wanting to admit I was right.

About thirty townsfolk followed the preacher to the Dales’ place on the other side of the ridge where he would continue speaking to all who were interested. They had a good-size house but we were still packed in tightly, eager to hear more from this captivating speaker. Mrs. Dale lit a fire in the big kitchen fireplace, for even in the summer a chill came on in the evening. Outside the sky had darkened to a deep periwinkle with a bright band of pink at the horizon.

How angry Nevin must’ve been with me—I begged my parents to allow me to hear the preacher, which meant I needed a chaperone, so my father told Nevin he must accompany me. My brother fumed and turned red in the face, but could refuse my father nothing, so he stomped behind me all the way to the Dales’. But Nevin, for all his traditional sensibilities, had a streak of the rebel in him and I had to think he was secretly pleased to witness the rest of the gathering.

The preacher stood by the kitchen fire and studied us all, a wild grin on his face. This close, I saw that the preacher was less like a man of the cloth than he’d seemed in the big field. He filled up the room with his presence, made the air feel tight and thin, like at the top of a mountain. He started by thanking us for staying with him. For he had saved the greatest secret to share with us now, those who had demonstrated that we were seeking the truth. And that truth was that the church—whatever faith you followed, which in the territory was mostly Congregationalist—was the biggest problem of them all, the most elitist institution, and only served to reinforce the status quo. His last statement drew a sneer of contempt and agreement from Nevin, who prided himself on going to the Catholic service with Mother and not rubbing elbows on Sundays with the town fathers and more privileged families in the meeting hall.

What we must do is throw off the precepts of the church—the preacher said with that fiery glint in his eyes again, a glint that looked less peaceable up close—and embrace new precepts that were more
in keeping with the needs of the common man. First and foremost among these outdated conventions was the institution of marriage, he said.

In the close room, with thirty bodies nestled snugly, you could hear a pin drop.

Before us, the preacher stalked his small circle like a wolf. It wasn’t the natural affection between men and women that he objected to, the preacher assured the group. No—it was the legal constraints of marriage, the bondage, that he railed against. It went against our human nature, he protested, gaining confidence as no one had tried to shout him down. We were meant to express our feelings with those with whom we felt a natural affinity. As God’s children, we should practice “spiritual wifery,” he insisted: choosing partners with whom we felt a spiritual bond.

Partners? a young woman asked, raising her hand. More than one husband? Or wife?

The preacher’s eyes danced. Yes, we’d heard right—partners, for a man should have as many wives as he felt spiritually drawn to, as a woman should be allowed to have more than one husband. He himself had two wives, he said, and had found spiritual wives in every town he had visited.

A titter ran through the group and the room became charged with suppressed lust.

He tucked his thumbs under his coat lapels. He didn’t expect the enlightened here in St. Andrew to take up spiritual wifery right away, on his advice alone. No, he expected we’d have to think about the idea, think about the extent to which we let the law dictate our lives. We’d know in our hearts if he spoke the truth.

Then he clapped his hands and dropped the serious expression from his face, and his entire demeanor changed as he smiled. But enough of this talk! We’d spent the entire afternoon listening to him and it was time for a little enjoyment! Let’s sing some hymns, lively ones, and get to our feet, and dance! That was a revolutionary change
from our regular church service—lively singing? Dancing? The concept was heretical. After a moment’s hesitation, several people got to their feet and began clapping their hands, and before long, had started singing a tune that resembled more a shanty than a hymn.

I nudged my brother. “Take me home, Nevin.”

“Heard enough, have you?” he said, clambering to his feet. “Me, too. I’m tired of listening to that man’s nonsense. Wait while I trouble the Dales for a light; the road is sure to be dark.”

I stood conspicuously by the door, wishing Nevin would hurry. Still, the preacher’s words thrummed in my ears. I saw the looks of the women in the crowd when he turned his powerful gaze on them, the smiles that lit their faces. They were imagining themselves with him, or perhaps another man in town with whom they felt a spiritual bond … and could only wish that such desires could be acted upon. The preacher had professed the most alien concept imaginable, moral turpitude—and yet, he was a man of the Bible, a preacher. He’d spoken in some of the most august churches in the coastal area, from the gossip that had arrived in town before him. Surely that gave him some sort of authority?

I felt alit under my clothes with heat and shame, for if truth be told, I, too, would like the freedom to share my affection with any man I desired. Of course, at that moment, the only man I desired was Jonathan, but who was to say another wouldn’t cross my path one day? Someone perhaps as charming and attractive as, say, the preacher himself? I could see how a woman would find him intriguing; how many spiritual wives had the itinerant preacher known? I wondered.

As I stood by the door lost in my thoughts, watching my neighbors dance a reel (was it my imagination or were some desirous glances being exchanged between men and women as they spun past each other on the dance floor?), I became aware of the preacher’s sudden presence before me. With his piercing eyes and sharp features, he was beguiling and seemed aware of this advantage, and grinned so that I could see his incisors, sharp and white.

“I thank you for joining me and your neighbors this evening,” he said, bowing his head. “I take it you are a spiritual seeker, looking for greater enlightenment, Miss …?”

“McIlvrae,” I said, edging back a half step. “Lanore.”

“Reverend Judah Van der Meer.” He reached for my hand and gave my fingertips a squeeze. “What did you think of my sermon, Miss McIlvrae? I trust you weren’t too shocked”—here his eyes danced again, as though he was teasing me for his enjoyment—“by the frankness with which I present my beliefs?”

“Shocked?” I could barely choke out the word. “By what, sir?”

“By the idea of spiritual wifery. I’m sure a young woman like yourself can sympathize with the principle behind it, the idea of being true to one’s passions—for if I’m not mistaken, you seem a woman of great, deep passion.”

He picked up vehemence as he spoke, his eyes—and I do not believe I imagined this—running over my body as surely as if he’d used his own hands. “And tell me, Miss Lanore, you look a marriageable age. Has your family already bonded you in the slavery of betrothal? It would be a pity for a fine young woman such as yourself to spend the rest of her life in a marriage bed with a man for whom she feels no attraction. What shame to go through one’s entire life without feeling true physical passion”—here his eyes glinted again, as though he were about to pounce—“which is a gift from God to his children!”