Vows (30 page)

 
"Forgive me, Fannie, but I must," Edwin uttered softly, and claimed her lips and breasts at once, urging her near with his huge, work-stained hands wrapped around those soft mounds, lowering his head to taste her waiting mouth. They were not children as they'd been when he'd first touched and kissed her. What they did, they did with full acknowledgment of its import and significance. They kissed as two who had paid long and hard for the right, tongue upon tongue, mouths open and pliant, while he reshaped her breasts from below and stroked their tips with his thumbs. He backed her against the rough board wall, sending the pitchfork clattering to the floor as he leaned against her, fully aroused and unwilling to hide it. She was all he remembered, sensuous and passionate and inventive with her mouth. She drew upon his tongue and lips, tasting him shallow and deep with deft swirls of her agile tongue, then with eager lips. The kiss didn't end, it pacified, scattered to other areas—necks, shoulders, throats, ears.

 
"Fannie, I never forgot … never." His words were longing whispers.

 
"Neither did I."

 
"We should have been together all these years."

 
"In my heart we were."

 
"Oh Fannie, Fannie, my dear, sweet Fan—" Her mouth severed the word, anxious and open beneath his. They kissed with the urgency of time lost—sweet, agitated kisses punctuated by wordless sounds the ardent pressure of their bodies, as if by holding hard enough they might wipe out the long and lapse they'd suffered.

 
When they paused, panting, he told her, "I'd forgotten how it feels. Do you know how long it's been since I've done anything like this?"

 
"Shh … nothing about her, not ever. This is dishonorable enough."

 
He gripped her head, held it as a priest holds a chalice, and drank her—Fannie of the bright hair and insatiable spirit and crushed-grass scent. He cherished her—Fannie of the memories and warmth and dew-kissed days of youth. How had he sustained through all these years without her? Why had he ever tried?

 
He lifted his head and delved into her eyes. "The dishonor was mine in giving you up. What a fool I was."

 
"You did what you thought you must do."

 
His thumbs stroked her cheeks. "I love you, Fannie. I've always loved you."

 
"And I love you, Edwin. I never stopped either."

 
"You knew it when I married Josie, didn't you? You knew I loved you."

 
"Of course I did, just as you knew what I felt."

 
"Why didn't you try to stop me?"

 
"Would it have done any good?"

 
"I don't know." His eyes were pained, his voice regretful. "I don't know."

 
"Your parents exerted very strong wills. So did hers."

 
"Isn't it strange then, that when I told them Josie and I were leaving Massachusetts they put up no argument? Almost as if they recognized our leaving as a penance they had to pay for manipulating our lives. I knew it was the only way my marriage would survive—I couldn't live near you and not have you. I'd have broken my vows within the year, I'm sure. My precious Fannie…" He took her in his arms again—a tender repossession. "I love you so much. Will you come up to the loft with me and let me make love to you?"

 
"No, Edwin." In typical Fannie fashion, she remained content in his arms, even while refusing.

 
"Haven't we wasted enough of our lives?" Holding her head, he showered her face with kisses, leaving her skin damp. "When we were seventeen we should have damned the consequences and become lovers like we wanted to. Those consequences couldn't have been any worse than the ones we paid. Please, Fannie … let's not prolong the mistake."

 
She caught his hands and hauled them down, folded them between her own beneath her chin. Her eyelids closed and trembled while emotions tumbled through her aroused body.

 
"Enough, Edwin. We must stop. You're a married man."

 
"Married to the wrong woman."

 
"But married just the same. And I would never do that to Joey. I love her, too."

 
"Then why did you come here?" he demanded in near-anger.

 
She would not be harassed by his understandable frustration. Calmly she flattened his hand upon her thrusting heart. "Feel what you've done to me. My blood is coursing. Inside I'm quivering, and I feel very much alive, with a reason to go on. I took this much of you because I felt Joey would have approved. For now it's enough." She refolded his hands between her own, kissed the tips of his longest fingers, and sought his eyes. "I am restored and so are you. But we would suffer within ourselves if we betrayed Joey. You know that as well as I, Edwin. Now I must go back to the house."

 
He searched her eyes, feeling his momentary irritation fade. "Fannie, when will we—"

 
"Silence," she ordered softly, covering his lips with a finger. She brushed the width of his mouth lovingly, letting her eyes follow the path of her fingertip. "We are human, Edwin. What we feel for one another cannot always be held in abeyance. Sometimes, when we are bleak and in need, we may find ourselves seeking one another, as I sought you today. But we will not speak of eventualities, nor will we consign ourselves to deceitful tête-à-têtes. It would only compound our guilt." Her voice lowered to whisper, "Now I must go. Please let me."

 
She backed away, reaching out, sliding her hands down his wrists, knuckles, and finally from his fingertips.

 
"I think of you in bed at night, though," she whispered as she slipped away.

 
"Fannie…“

 
She turned to her bicycle and mounted while she still possessed a thimbleful of honor.

* * *

During those days while Josephine suffered her final decline, Tom Jeffcoat worked hard to complete the interior of his house. On a night in mid-autumn, after fifteen hours of nonstop work, he dropped his plastering hawk and trowel, braced his spine with two fists, and bowed backwards. Above his head hung a hissing coal-oil lantern that sent shadows arching across his half-plastered kitchen wall. He'd wanted to get the room done tonight—usually he worked till ten o'clock—but his back ached and the shakedown at the stable sounded irresistible.

 
He scanned the room, its windows set, its floor covered with canvas drop cloths, wondering what woman might reign over it some day. A disconcerting picture of Emily Walcott appeared, standing where the range would be. Ha. Emily Walcott probably didn't know which end of a spoon to stir with. Hadn't Charles confided that she wasn't very good around the kitchen? In spite of the fact, her image remained while Tom stared, glassy-eyed with fatigue.

 
Go home, Jeffcoat, before you drop off your feet.
  

 
He squatted to scrape the hawk clean, so tired it took an effort to push himself back up. Yawning, he shrugged into a faded flannel jacket, picked up the bucket of dirty tools, and extinguished the lantern. Indigo shadows fell across the room as he paused a moment to reconsider.

 
It'll probably be Tarsy Fields you'll share this house with. She's about the best this town has to offer.

 
Outside, a near-full harvest moon poured milky light over the streets, paling rooftops and promising frost by morning. He glanced at the Big Horns. Already their tips were covered with snow at the higher altitudes, glowing almost purple in the moonlight. Turning his collar up, he headed in the opposite direction, toward Grinnell Street. The town was already bundling up for winter. He passed gardens where housewives had cleared all but an occasional pumpkin or a row of carrots left to sweeten in the first frosts. Foundations were ballasted with straw, whose scent mingled with that of freshly rooted soil spiced by old tomato vines and vestiges of gardeners' fires, which marked the end of the harvest season. He wondered what kind of a gardener Tarsy would make. Out here, where tinned goods came by oxcart and cost a modest fortune, housewives had no choice but putting by foods for the winter. Somehow he couldn't imagine her on her knees, weeding. Canning? The picture seemed ludicrous. Bearing children? Not the satin-and-curls Tarsy.

 
How about Emily Walcott?

 
The thought of Emily Walcott rattled him, but she persisted in his thoughts almost daily, probably because Charles talked about her so much. Perhaps she disliked domestics, but he could easily feature her bearing children. A woman who could go through anything as unpleasant as the scene at Jagush's could certainly go through childbirth intrepidly.

 
So Charles was lucky on that score. So what?

 
Shake her off, Jeffcoat.

 
Shake her off? She never was on!

 
Oh no?

 
She's engaged to Charles.

 
Tell that to your heart the next time it quakes when she walks into a room.

 
So, my heart quakes a little, so what?

 
You'd like to marry her yourself.

 
The tomboy?

 
Why have you been picturing her in your kitchen, and having babies? And don't delude yourself that it's Charles Bliss's babies you picture her having.

 
He was exhausted, that's why his mind kept wandering off on these improbable tangents. Whatever he thought he felt for Emily Walcott would pass. It had to, because there was no other solution. He ambled along, loose-jointed from weariness, the pail thumping his knee, sending out a muffled chime.

 
He turned onto Grinnell Street, came abreast of Edwin's livery stable … and halted abruptly.

 
Why was a light burning in Edwin's place at this time of night? Edwin closed up at six o'clock every night—the same as he did—and never came back after dark. And why was the light so faint, as if filtering to the office window from the main body of the barn?

 
Horse thieves?

 
Jeffcoat's hair prickled. He slipped alongside the building, flattened his shoulders against the wall, and silently set down his pail. The rolling door stood open no wider than a man's chest. He edged toward it, listening. Silence. Not even a snuffling horse, so no stranger intruded along the stalls. Holding his breath, he peered around the edge of the door into the murky depths of the building. The main barn was black. The light came from the office itself, but so pale it scarcely lit the door rim. If it were Edwin inside, he'd have the wick up. Did Edwin leave his cash here at night, somewhere among the clutter in that ancient desk?

 
Jeffcoat sucked in his breath and wedged through the door. A sound came from the office—jerky, nasal breathing, followed by the shuffle of paper. He tiptoed along the wall, feeling with his hands, until they touched something smooth and wooden: a pitchfork handle. Silently he slid his hands down to identify the cold, deadly tines. Gripping the fork, warrior fashion, he tiptoed to one side of the office door, tensed to spring.

 
"Edwin, is that you?" he called.

 
The breathing and shuffling stopped.

 
"Who's in there!" he demanded.

 
Nobody answered.

 
His chest constricted and his scalp tingled, but he gripped the pitchfork and sprang into the room like a Zambian warrior, roaring,
"
Raaaahhh!
"

 
The only person in the office was Emily Walcott.

 
She flattened herself against the back of the desk chair, white-faced and terrified, while he landed with the weapon leveled, knees cocked.

 
"Emily!" he exclaimed, dropping his arm. "What are you doing here?" But he could see what she was doing here: crying … in private. Her eyes were swollen and tears continued rolling down her face, even as she gaped in shock.

 
"What are you doing here?"

 
"I thought you were a horse thief, or somebody rifling the desk for money, Edwin never comes back after six." He set the pitchfork against the wall and turned back to her, distressed at the tears trailing down her wet cheeks. How dismal she looked, in a pumpkin-colored dress with dark blotches dotting her bodice, giving evidence that she'd been weeping for some time. She swiveled to face the pigeonholes, covertly scraping a knuckle beneath each eye.

 
"Well, it's just me, so you can go," she informed him through a plugged nose.

 
"You're crying."

 
"Not for long. I'm all right. You can go, I said."

 
Her tears were a surprise. He hadn't taken her for a woman easily unstrung, or himself for the kind who'd be rattled by it. But his heart was quaking.