The Wedding Bargain

There was talk of the weather, how hot summer was this year. No mention was made of the bondman, nor was there any embarrassing reference to the auction and her extraordinary conduct.

More important matters concerned the Schofields. It seemed that several sacks of corn had disappeared from their barn. The unspoken question hung heavily in the air.

Cotton again surprised Charity by launching into a long speech. “It’s not likely you came across any Indians. They’re like foxes, those Pequots. Nobody sees them till they’re ready to show.”

“Oh, my God.” Charity gripped her hands together around Jeremy, her drink forgotten beside her. “I didn’t see any.” Her voice had gone quite low.

Cotton spread his hands. His head shook from side to side. “I didn’t mean to alarm you, Charity, just wanted to warn you. I don’t think there’s any danger—not yet, anyway. You just drink your milk, and think about findin’ yourself a good man.”

A good man. Rafe Trehearne. The words forced themselves into her brain. She couldn’t understand what was happening to her. She seemed to be breaking up into two people. One part was sitting there listening to Cotton and Martha; another part was causing her fear and confusion by unexpectedly thinking about her bondman.

Cotton gave a slow, easy shrug and excused himself. He wanted to get the flax harvested before it rained. It always seemed to rain at seedtime and harvest. Just to spite a man.

The older children, Zackary and Caleb, went with their father to keep an eye out for wild beasts and Indians while he worked. Charity dutifully admired Martha’s brownand-white-speckled hen and the tiny chicks that poked their heads through their mother’s wings, the little beaks shining like pink flower buds. There was nothing so wonderful as new life.

Martha suddenly became tongue-tied. Taking Jeremy from Charity, she settled him on her hip. The boy whimpered, his face pressed in the hollow between his mother’s neck and shoulder.

Charity looked at her friend closely. She felt uncommonly disturbed. Martha’s eyes were dull and darkly circled, and her blond hair was lank and drab.

It was not like Martha to be withdrawn and secretive. To find the cause of her friend’s misery, Charity started small talk on a variety of subjects. How were the children? Had they enough food? Was there anything she could help them with?

Unexpectedly, Martha’s lower lip began to quiver and tears filled her eyes. Charity wondered if she was ill, but then it had all tumbled out: Martha was pregnant again. This would be her fifth child in as many years. She could no longer keep up with her market orders.

Charity thought her heart would break in sympathy. Martha was as industrious as her husband. With her spinning wheel, loom and dye pots, she produced clothing, blankets and quilts for her family. The balance was sold or exchanged on market day.

A good man. Cotton Schofield was a good man. He had cut a road from Whitewater to the King’s Highway wide enough for the lumber company to bring in their ox wagons and cart the timber he cleared to the sawmill at Mystic. He wanted to save his wife the effort of helping to make ends meet with her sewing.

And his wife had sobbed her heart out because of it!

On the way home now after her visit, Charity sat very still and gazed on the scene below.

Beneath her the ground fell in a gentle incline toward the river, a loop of which vanished from sight behind the farmhouse and reappeared just past the stone wall in back of the barn. From beyond the stream came the sound of chopping. The steady blows filled the air, permeating it so that it seemed to vibrate before her eyes.

She couldn’t help remembering what Cotton Schofield had said about Indians, although the one or two Pequots who came to Mystic Ridge always seemed peaceful enough. They had dark hair and eyes, and high, broad cheekbones like Rafe Trehearne, and like him, they went their own silent way.

The thought of Indians in the same breath as Rafe Trehearne made her uneasy. But she was soon soothed by the splendid view from her vantage point. Her sense of time slipped away.

Willow, birch, spruce, fir and buck oak merged in a sea of misty green. Sparks from a controlled burn-off of undergrowth in a small, cleared area sailed upward. Smoke billowed into the air and shimmered against the summer sky, dancing and distorting her vision.

The rhythmic thrumming was more insistent now. Balancing her elbows on the ground, Charity leaned back and closed her eyes briefly.

A good man. Rafe Trehearne. She let the word husband trickle through her mind. It dominated her senses, filling the air with a smoky tang, washing over her like the sea. The sensation was so strong that she felt as though she had experienced these thoughts before.

She wondered if she had.

Wondered, too, if this day, this moment would come back to her years later: this quiet contemplation, the sweet inconsequentiality of the whole scene. The smell of smoke, of summer grass and lady ferns, and the sound of Rafe Trehearne clearing the forest.

Like a child awakening, her eyes flew open. She was becoming fanciful. She turned her mind to more practical matters, like how to keep Mystic Ridge without taking a husband.

A dream no more.

Silence pervaded. Charity sat up, a small frisson of agitation ran down her spine as she tried to imagine the reason for such silence.

The cessation of sound was only momentary; the next moment there was a piercing scream. It was made by one of her sons.

Charity jumped to her feet. No sooner had her boots touched the ground than she was off down the hill, running as fast as her legs would move.

“We saw a snake, Master Trehearne!”

“A great big’un!” added Benjamin, all out of breath.

Rafe had removed his shirt, and his bare arms were slick with sweat. He had just driven the broad blade of the ax deep into a buck oak, and his hands rested lightly on the smooth hickory handle. “Sure it wasn’t a figment of your imagination?”

Isaac stabbed a finger in the air, and his blue green eyes sparkled. “I did see it! A green-striped adder, sir!”

Rafe was momentarily amused. This pair never gave up, he thought. “And where is this fierce serpent?”

“He crawled into the barn!” Isaac shuddered, just once, a pathetic gesture.

Of all the damned crazy notions. Rafe shrugged. He knew for an absolute certainty now that the boys were up to more mischief. He still felt nauseated from the salted tea he’d drunk out of sheer bravado. He wished they would go back to the house and leave him alone, but he was engaged in a contest of wills, so he calmly wrenched the ax free.

“Well, snakes will crawl out with the spring heat,” he said casually. “Better be careful, kids!” He returned to his labor.

Occasionally as he worked Rafe glanced over at the saltbox homestead and outbuildings. There was no saying what those rapscallions were up to. He had overheard Charity giving the boys instructions about learning some catechism for the morrow. While he was sure they were not attending to their lessons, they were quiet enough, anyhow.

Probably hatching up more pranks.

He could see them in his mind’s eye, bright heads bent together, blue green eyes shining as they concocted their mischief. Somehow, the image became overlaid with that of another.

It was Charity’s bright hair that he saw, mysteriously free of that starched helmet she wore and flowing over her shoulders like ribbons of red silk. Those luminous, sea-colored eyes, which seemed to trap and hold the light, were all misty admiration, as if he were a visitation from heaven.

Rafe felt the tension pounding behind his eyes. He shook his head. This was no time for romantic visions.

He bent back to his task. His body glistened with sweat as he hacked branches off the big oak. There was a sense of savage relief in the hard physical exertion. He had no time to brood, no time to think.

But the thought of Charity Frey would not be denied. She had gone off to visit a neighbor whose child was ailing. It seemed the little Puritan was something of a healer.

Of mind as well as body? The previous evening she had stood there, anxious and afraid, and yet had been able to reach out and touch his mind.

It occurred to Rafe that he himself had manipulated Charity Frey earlier than that. He had provoked her into making a decision that went against all her Puritan principles.

Confused and dim-witted as he had been at the time, he had recognized the panic within her. She had been seeking protection, offering sanctuary. Across the distance between them at the auction block, the bargain had been sealed.

Last night she had called on him to honor that unspoken vow. Stay. Protect her. Keep her and her sons safe from harm. He had asked for sanctuary and been given it. Now he had to pay the price.

Rafe thought about that. It seemed ironic and proper that he now felt at a disadvantage. The ignominy of his position, a position due entirely to his own stupidity, bit deeply into him. He was caught in his own trap.

He vaguely recalled some ancient theory of sanctuary, whereby a man running from justice might run so adeptly that ultimately he entered into the place of refuge from which he could not be extracted.