What might happen if I treated both Isaac and God the way Isaac suggested? To spend time with them simply to get to know them better and enjoy their company?
The wagon jostled me closer to Isaac, and I didn’t pull away. In a world full of men I couldn’t trust, it was refreshing to know one I could. There were others, of course, but Isaac was the one who wanted to be with me. Who came for me, over and over again.
Sooner than I liked, he pulled up to the ordinary and jumped off his wagon to help me down. My dress was heavy with rain, but my heart was heavier still.
“Will you come in?” I asked him.
“I need to return home. ’Tis Judith’s birthday, and there’s to be a celebration tonight.”
The reminder of Isaac’s gentle, soft-spoken servant made me pause. She was close to Isaac’s age and running his home like a wife might do. Why hadn’t he fallen in love with her?
“Hath Judith thought to marry again?” I asked, trying not to sound obvious as I untied his cloak and removed it from my shoulders.
“Yes.”
I waited, but he didn’t say more as he took his cloak.
“Doth she have someone in mind?”
“I believe so.” He slipped the cloak over his shoulders.
I put my hands on my hips, a little annoyed by his brief answers. “Do I know who she intends to marry?”
“You do, indeed.”
“Isaac Abbot! Are you trying to rile me?”
He grinned. “’Tis Jabez.”
A funny kind of relief went through me. Of course. Jabez was another of Isaac’s servants.
Isaac’s smile softened his eyes, as if he was pleased with my response. “Fare thee well, Hope.”
“Fare well, Isaac.”
He stepped into his wagon and then rode off, turning once to smile at me as he drove down the road toward his farm.
I entered the ordinary feeling like a wet rag doll—though Isaac’s smile warmed me. John was behind the bar, serving the patrons, while Father sat at a table in the corner with several of his male Putnam relatives. He didn’t notice my arrival, and even if he had, he probably wouldn’t have greeted me. Ever since the night Rachel came, I had hardly said a word to him except when I was begging him to recant.
I wanted to change into something dry before helping Grace in the kitchen. Since starting her cross-country flight at the beginning of the month, she had been distracted and quiet. We were so concerned about Rachel and Ann that I hadn’t pressed her about what bothered her. Perhaps it was the worry from the flight. They had already lost a day to a slight crash she’d had in Ohio, and I knew she was anxious. She answered my questions but didn’t elaborate on her time with Mama and Daddy, how the journey was going, or how Luc was getting along without me. It wasn’t like her to be so distant, but I chose not to press her. She was doing this for our parents, and I wanted her to succeed.
I also didn’t press her for an answer about where she would stay on our birthday. I suspected she had chosen 1692, but I was half-afraid to ask.
Disappointment wrapped around me as I realized I had done nothing to encourage Isaac’s feelings for Grace on the ride home from Salem Towne. I’d been too preoccupied with my own thoughts and feelings.
I took the front stairs and walked through the hallway between the two rooms on the second floor. A door led to the smaller hallway between mine and Grace’s bedroom and Father’s. The ceiling was lower here and the space more crowded.
Voices drifted out of Father and Susannah’s bedroom, where Susannah had been staying more often. I suspected her public afflictions took a toll on her and were too tiresome to keep up for long. It was easier to hide away in her room.
“Neither of your cousins offered for them?” I heard the voice of Mary Wolcott through Susannah’s bedroom door.
“Benjamin tried,” Susannah said with scorn. “But they both turned him down. Nathaniel didn’t even try. Neither Grace nor Hope seems to have any interest in marriage.”
“No wonder,” said another voice that I recognized as Mercy Lewis. “They act as if they are the mistresses of this ordinary, doing as they please. They ignore your authority and treat you as if you’re a visitor. Why would they want to leave and be under the authority of a husband?”
“I cannot abide their presence,” Susannah spat. “Especially Hope. She’s a thorn in my flesh.”
“She’ll remain so, unless you get rid of her,” Mercy warned.
