Thieving Forest (15 page)

What dost thou in this world? the wilderness

For thee is fittest place; I found thee there,

And thither will return thee...

But that is the wrong sentiment entirely. What he wants is to take Susanna back to Severne, which is even less like a wilderness than Gemeinschaft, notwithstanding its smaller population.

Finally he sees Susanna leaving the tannery with a stocky native girl. A band of her dark red hair peeks out from beneath her bleached cap and glitters in the sun. Seth steps onto the path.

“Susanna, excuse me, may I have a word?” He hopes she will not remind him that they have already been reprimanded for talking together. But she seems pleased to see him.

The native girl looks at Susanna and Susanna says, “It’s all right, I’ll catch you up.”

Seth leads her to a fallen log back behind some dark spreading ferns, and they sit there under the shadow of the beech trees, hidden from the path. He tries to think where to begin. More as a delay than anything else, he says, “You are working at the tannery now?”

“Yes, with Meera, the girl there. Her English is very good. She has lived here off and on since she was four...” She trails off and looks at him, waiting. His heart gives a little twist.

“Susanna,” he says. He clears his throat. He thinks maybe it will be easier if he doesn’t look at her but he can’t bring himself to look away. “Do you remember the money I gave you?”

Her expression changes. “I’m afraid I don’t have it—all of it—anymore. I gave it to Brother Graves to pay for...to repay what he gave for Beatrice.”

“No, it’s not that. I don’t want it back. I’m afraid I was not entirely honest with you about it. The money came from the sale of your horses and wagon.”

She tilts her head like a bird catching sight of something, not sure what. “But those weren’t sold. The Indians took those. The Potawatomi.”

“My father instructed me to sell your wagon down at the river that morning. The morning your sisters were taken. That’s where I was.”

She says, “I don’t understand.”

“Amos told me that Penelope asked him to sell them. I should have told you right away.”

“But Amos told me that the Potawatomi stole them. Why would he say that?”

“I don’t know. I wish I did. When I go back, when I see him—Susanna—” He looks down at her hands, which are clenched. He doesn’t believe he can give her any kind of promise, knowing his father. Amos will only lie, and then lie some more. There is a rustling noise behind them. One of the brethren, measuring out a new plot? They are always working, these Moravians, always planning and making improvements.

“Susanna, come back with me to Severne,” he says in a low, quick voice, afraid that another chance will slip away. “Marry me.”

It is not how he planned to say it. He goes on before she can answer: “You needn’t work at the tannery here. Let’s go back to Severne. I can make us a life.” Now he stops abruptly as if the words are coins and those are all he has in his hand. He has forgotten about the ring in his pocket.

“Go back to Severne,” Susanna repeats. “And do what? Forge iron?”

“Or tend your father’s store. Together, of course. And with Beatrice, too, if she chooses.”

A suspicious look crosses her face. “And you would change its name to Spendlove’s Store?”

“Of course not,” he says quickly.

A rook sounds noisily above them with a mean, well-timed laugh. Susanna keeps looking at Seth’s face as if his countenance might answer a question she could not yet form. She says, “But I don’t want to return to Severne. I want to go to Philadelphia. I want to live in a city.”

Now it is Seth who is surprised. “You want to leave Ohio?”

“Perhaps I am speaking too plainly.”

“No, no.”

“But if you want to know my true thoughts...”

“Of course,” Seth says. “I just didn’t realize...perhaps I might...I never thought of anything but Severne, but perhaps...” He stops. After a moment he says, “Susanna, let me think on it. It seems wrong to be hasty on so important a matter.”

The sun has moved so that it is no longer shining through the canopy, and the greenery in consequence has darkened. A breeze lingers in the branches above them.

“Yes,” Susanna agrees. She stands up, increasing the space between them. “Let us both think.”

“You never came to dinner,” Meera says when she returns to the tannery later. “Were you with that man all this time?”

“No. I was just late. And then I decided it was better not to go at all than to be seen coming late. I didn’t want to invite any questions.”

“What questions?”

“You know how Consolation is.”

Susanna continues to pound the skin before her, a fisher, the only animal she knew of that ate porcupine. Its fur never fetched as much as beaver in their store but the skin is a lovely reddish brown color, rather like her own hair in winter.

“Here,” Meera says. She hands Susanna a biscuit. Then she sits on a stool and begins plucking the guard hairs off another hide. “At the table all the talk was of the Chippewa chief and his counselors. They arrived a few hours ago, twenty men on twenty horses. Everyone is curious.”

“I heard they were coming. My sister and I will be serving them food.”

Meera looks up. “That is an honor,” she says. Susanna shrugs. Meera says, “What did the man want to talk to you about?”

It takes Susanna a moment to understand that Meera has gone back to the subject of Seth. She puts down her paddle and gets a drink from the dipper. Is the room hotter than usual? She wipes her forehead with the end of her apron and notices that the cloth is not very clean.

“A marriage proposal.” She pauses, but Meera just looks at her without changing her expression. “He asked me to marry him.”

“I know what a marriage proposal is,” Meera says. “What will you do?”

Susanna goes back to the table and begins pounding the fisher skin again.

“Beatrice will not go back to Severne. At least not yet.”

“That is her choice.”

“Well, it seems wrong to leave her.”

At that Meera laughs, and Susanna looks up sharply. “I see no humor in this.”

“It is not Beatrice who is holding you back, it is the man from Severne. If you wanted to be his wife you would go.”

Is this true, Susanna wonders? When she thinks of Seth alone, without his father, she feels—she doesn’t know what. But when she thinks of his father and the horses and wagon, she becomes confused. Aurelia told her that a white man watched them being taken away. But surely she would have recognized Amos Spendlove.

Seth is a good man, Susanna reminds herself, he’s not like his father. He doesn’t drink and he doesn’t lie. But something doesn’t sit right. It occurs to her that in all his talk Seth did not mention love. Something pulses in her neck and she puts her hand in her pocket to feel for her turkey hen bone before remembering it is gone. She picks up the paddle again. There are many reasons for marriage, she reminds herself, not just love.

“I ought to talk to my sister,” she says.

“You say she does not want to leave.”

“Maybe I can change her mind.”

For a while they work in silence.

“You must make your own plans,” Meera says finally. “Just as I do.”

Susanna is late that afternoon returning to the Sisters’ Choir, and as she approaches the bark building she sees Beatrice waiting for her in the doorway wearing a scolding expression. In the large downstairs room, all the young women in their missionary dresses are sitting on benches or straight-back chairs knitting or mending and talking in different languages. They are all native except Sister Pauline, who is busily embroidering a new quotation on her blanket and does not look up. She has loops of cotton thread set out before her which she dyes herself, eight different shades of brown.

Susanna and Beatrice go up the narrow stairs to the sleeping room. Even here it is crowded with women lying on blankets on the floor, resting after all their hard work in the fields or kitchens or scutching houses. Susanna splashes water on her face from a basin in the corner. The tepid water smells like minerals and she thinks of her mother, who sometimes put crushed mint leaves in the water to take away the creek smell.

“Your dress is all right but you’ll need a clean apron,” Beatrice says. She hands her a towel impatiently. All of her sisters are impatient. It is one of their shared traits, like red hair.

Susanna is no exception. When she left Severne she told herself it was because she wanted to do something for her sisters and not just wait for others to do it for her, but maybe, she thinks now, that wasn’t really true. Maybe her motives weren’t so pure. The truth is, she doesn’t want to be alone, and that desire has been behind everything. It’s propelled her to where she is now, and she really shouldn’t call it anything but what it is, selfish. She decided some weeks ago that she would stay in Gemeinschaft with the hope that something would change—either that Beatrice would come to her senses and leave Gemeinschaft with her, or that she would find some way to live here, too. Both seem equally unlikely. Maybe staying here is her penance for her rash actions. Only she doesn’t believe in penance. That’s Beatrice’s realm.

Beatrice combs out Susanna’s hair for her and pins it up. Then she finds a clean cap for her to wear. But a clean apron is more problematic.

“This one has animal blood on both sides,” Beatrice complains.

“They all do. I work at a tannery. Beet, did Penelope ask Amos Spendlove to sell Frank and Bess and the wagon?”

“I don’t think so. Why would she? Here, you can borrow this one. No, turn it around.” She makes a little click with her tongue. “Not much better,” she says.

“Seth Spendlove told me today that his father instructed him to sell the horses and wagon down the Blanchard.”

“Seth Spendlove is still here?” Beatrice begins to adjust her own cap.

“He asked me to marry him.”

“What?” Beatrice lets her hands drop and turns to look at Susanna. Her face is bright red with surprise.

“He wants me to go back to Severne with him.”

“What did you answer?”

“What would you have me answer?”

“Susanna, this is your decision.”

But Susanna thinks she saw a shift in Beatrice’s expression. On impulse she says, “Come back to Severne with me, Beet. Let us both go back. We can run Sirus’s store the way you always wanted.” Just like that, she is ready to let go of Philadelphia.

But Beatrice doesn’t hesitate. “No, I cannot.” She touches her nape quickly, feeling for any loose hairs. “We must fly. Consolation and Johanna are waiting for us at the Bell House with the food. We can talk about this later.”

Fortunately Johanna is waiting not only with baskets of food, but also with two new aprons, freshly sewn, for them to wear.

“Sister Benigna,” Consolation says to Beatrice, “you take the cheese. Sister Susanna, the dried berries and nuts. I’ll take this one.” When she turns the mirrors on her dark shawl glitter back at them.

“
Benigna?
” Susanna whispers to Beatrice as they follow her. “Why does she call you that?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

“Tell me now.”

Beatrice glances at her. She slows her pace and says in a low voice, “I was going to talk to you about it tonight. I’ve petitioned to stay here permanently. And my petition was granted.”

“What?” Susanna stops walking. “You did that? Without telling me?” She looks at Beatrice’s face, which is flushed but also holds a stubborn expression. “Why would you do that?”

“I want to stay here. I told you. Hush now, let’s go in. We’ll talk about it later.”

Johanna is waiting for them, holding open the heavy door to the Meeting House. Inside, the benches that are normally set out in rows in the center of the room have been stacked against the walls, and all the men, white and native, are sitting in a circle on blankets on the floor. It is hot in the room. The fireplace is large enough to roast a horse, and one man is sitting on a stool in front of it, feeding it bark and sticks to keep the flames high.

As soon as Brother Graves sees them he stands up and comes over. He says, “In a little while Pemitschischen, the Chippewa chief, will begin his speech. After he finishes I will say a few words. Then you can begin to distribute the rolls and the meat.”