Anne of the Fens by Gretchen Gibbs

Author:Gretchen Gibbs
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Glenmere Press
Published: 2015-03-18T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“WHAT SHALL WE do now?” I was groggy from sleep, but it took only a moment to realize our danger.

“God’s teeth, this has been an accursed trip if ever there was one.”

John went on, with worse than that. I felt somehow to blame, as though my plan had not been a good one. I bit my tongue. He was with me; that made a difference, didn’t it?

“Were there other turnoffs besides that one at the beginning?” I asked.

John shook his head violently, while a steady stream of curses still emerged from his mouth.

“It is so very far.” My voice sounded thin to my ears. “What if the Sheriff’s men are around? We must go back now, while it is still dark.” I answered my own question.

John had already turned the punt around and was poling back, struggling. I was able to help with the little pole for a time, until the channel deepened. The evening star had moved quite a ways across the sky, and I estimated I had slept an hour or so. I was still exhausted, and I could not have continued poling even if I were able to reach the bottom.

“I can put you off at the castle,” John said, after a bit.

We had not talked about what I would do. We had not talked much at all. After the night before, so long ago, when words came rolling off my tongue and his as well, it felt odd. Here I was with a strange man in the middle of the night. Most of the men in the county would never marry me now, assuming that a man and a woman could not be in such a situation without intimacy. All day at church I had thought about intimacy, and now that we were alone it had not crossed my mind. Danger drove away softer thoughts, I supposed. And talking about books and food we liked seemed silly at the moment.

I wished I had not got into the boat, and I wished John had taken the first channel that I wanted to take. I did not say these things.

When we had briefly talked of plans, it had been to get John to Boston. What would happen to me was not a part of the plan. I could not go with John unless he married me, and he had not suggested that.

As I reached that point in my thoughts, during the long silence between us, John said, “You cannot go with me except as man and wife, and I am not ready for that. I need to be free in order to escape onto a boat and go to Holland, and then to the New World.”

I said nothing. I did not want to go to the New World. I would have liked him to want me to come.

“I did ... I do care about you, little one.”

“It is night now, the summer day is over,” I said.

“What are you talking about?”

“Your poem. You compared me to a summer’s day.

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