Bittersweet

The fireplace grate was cold and the stoves hadn’t been lit. The kitchen door was open and there was a thin layer of ice in the pail she used to heat the dishwater. Sam’s Bible lay open on the table. Sarah eyed it with alarm as she closed the door and sat down on the edge of a chair. Crumpled petticoats gouged at her torn legs; she grimaced, holding in the pain.

Sam had opened the Bible to Proverbs, Chapter Five. At the top of the page was the heading: “The Mischiefs of Whoredom.” The faded satin ribbon lay in the crease to mark the place. Sarah leaned her elbows on the table and, digging her fingers into her hair, read:

“For the lips of a strange woman drop as a honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil:

“But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.

“Her feet go down to death, her steps take hold on hell.”

Tears drowned the words; she threw herself from the chair and lay crying on the floor until she exhausted herself and was still.

Imogene dismissed class at three-thirty and cleared her desk. The wind, which had been rising steadily since noon, howled under the eaves, making the room creak and the windows rattle. The schoolroom emptied quickly, the children ru

Sarah was huddled in the lee of the school, leaning on the rough wood of the building, her cloak held tight around her. Matted hair half hid her face, but Imogene could see that her eyes were red from crying.

“Sarah Mary? Sarah, what in heaven’s name are you doing here?”

Sarah stumbled away from the shelter of the schoolhouse. Her knees started to buckle. Imogene dropped the books, catching her before she fell. Sliding one arm around Sarah’s waist and the other behind her knees, she lifted her, carrying her like a child. The girl’s cloak fell open and trailed over the ground, riffling the pages of the scattered books. Loose pages, freed, flew up and over the buildings like wild things.

She set Sarah down in the rocker in front of the fireplace. Still in a faint, Sarah slumped against the back, setting the chair rocking. Imogene steadied it with her foot and felt Sarah’s face and hands; they were like ice.

Putting the girl’s hands back in her lap, she started to tend to the fire. Sarah cried out and reached for her, and Imogene held her again. When she was quiet, the schoolteacher knelt in front of her. “Here, blow your nose.” Sarah obediently took the proffered handkerchief, blew her nose, and wiped her eyes. Finished, she held it out. “You keep it,” Imogene told her, smiling. “Will you be all right long enough for me to build a fire?” Sarah nodded and wiped her nose again; it was red from the tears and the cold.

When the fire was burning high, Imogene coaxed her out of her cloak and sat her near the blaze with a mug of hot tea and honey. Sarah held it in both hands, blowing on it. “Drink that slowly. I put a bit of rum in it to drive off the chill you took.” Imogene pulled the footstool near Sarah’s feet and sat on it, her dark skirts settling around her like stormclouds. Sleet started to fall and the fire hissed as the first drops blew down the chimney.

The heat and the rum were bringing the color back to Sarah’s cheeks. “Feeling better? You look a little less peaked.”

“I’m better.”

“Do you want to tell me about it?” Sarah looked up from the fire into Imogene’s gray eyes, and the tears welled up, spilling down her face. Imogene took the tea from her trembling hands and set it on the hearth. “My dear.” She took the weeping girl to her and hugged her close. Sarah clutched at her, hiding her face in the soft woolen pleats of Imogene’s bodice.

“Sam-Sam wanted the marriage-” She choked on her tears and coughed. “-the marriage act, and I liked it.” She held tight to Imogene’s waist, her eyes squeezed shut. “I liked it like a whore and Sam whipped me. I want to die. I can’t go home.”

“Hush now. Hush. That’s my girl.” She stroked Sarah’s hair, murmuring. “Come on now, sit up. You can lean against me.” The girl rested her head on Imogene’s shoulder, hiccoughing, and Imogene took up the rum-laced tea. “Here, drink this. It’ll make you feel better.” Sarah drank and relaxed against Imogene’s shoulder, flinching as the cuts on the backs of her legs opened.

“He whipped you.”

Sarah nodded.

“Let me see,” Imogene said gently.

Sarah pulled her skirts up and picked gingerly at a black stocking. The wool stuck where the blood had dried. She yanked it partway down, sucking in her breath at the tearing. The back of her thigh was crisscrossed with marks from the willow switches, the broken skin curled back, white and bloodless, from long, shallow cuts. Tufts of black wool stuck to the wounds, and where the flesh was not lacerated, it was bruised. Imogene looked at the leg and her face hardened. Sarah saw and was ashamed.

“Am I bad, Imogene?”

“No. Lie down here by the fire where it’s warmest. I’m going to tend to those cuts.” She helped Sarah out of her clothes, hanging her dress and petticoat on the pegs in the bedroom. The nightgown Sarah had worn underneath was so tattered that Imogene shoved it into the ragbag under the bed and gave her an old wrapper of her own to wear, rolling up the cuffs and pulling the skirt up through the sash so it wouldn’t drag the floor. She brought her another cup of tea and rum, then soaked a cloth in warm water and laid it over Sarah’s stockinged legs, wetting the wool until it pulled easily away from the wounds. Sarah’s legs were slashed from ankles to buttocks.

“What did Sam whip you with?” Imogene’s voice was controlled.

“A willow switch.”

Imogene wrung the cloth with a vicious twist. “This will hurt a little.” She washed the injuries tenderly. “I never knew a willow whip to cut this bad.”

“I guess it was froze.”

“Frozen.”

“Frozen.”

When the cuts were clean, Imogene spread a thick layer of salve over them and helped the girl into an old pair of cotton pantelets. Sarah lay down again by the fire, watching Imogene clean up the pots and rags. “Sam said I was a whore.”

“You’re not a whore, dear.”

“He said I acted like one.”

“He shouldn’t have. Love sometimes expresses itself that way.”

“I don’t think I love Sam,” Sarah said after a while. “Not like I do you or Mam or David. I just felt fu

Imogene crossed to the window and, pulling aside the curtain, stared out into the dark. The storm was moving east, the sleet pounding against the back of the house. Rivulets rutted the main street, carrying slush down to the ditches that served the town as gutters.

Sarah had fallen asleep in front of the fire. The girl’s face was turned toward the flames, and was clear and rosy in the warm light. Her lashes, darker than her hair, curled against the soft skin, fragile and vulnerable. The sleeve of the wrapper had unrolled and claimed one of her hands; the other lay open on the hearth rug, the fingers slightly curled. Imogene leaned down and tickled the palm with her fingertip. Sarah murmured in her sleep, and the schoolteacher smiled.

Imogene cleared the tea things from the living room and washed them before she roused the sleeping girl. Sarah stirred at her touch and opened her eyes, her lashes dried in dark spikes.