A Midsummer's Sin(13)

What would happen to Rosalind? Would she be stuck in a life of endless toil? Would the man she married be thoughtful or careless?

A crushing sensation pressed his chest. Would—could any man possibly love her as much as Thomas did? Would another man attend properly to her sensual needs?

It wasn’t his concern. She wanted no part of a marriage with him. So that relieved him of all responsibility.

Didn’t it?

God help him, he couldn’t put the worry from his mind.

“When are you going to do something about that?”

The words pulled Thomas from his thoughts. He turned towards Patience’s father, startled, for he hadn’t heard him sit down. Goodman Samuel Hopton. Samuel’s face was pleasant as always but his pale grey eyes, so like his daughter’s, seemed to peer too deeply.

Thomas shifted on the wooden bench and turned his attention back to his tankard of rum punch, peering into it as if all the answers to love, life and death could be found there.

“Thomas?” The older man’s voice was gently insistent.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean are you going to ask that girl to marry you?”

Thomas brought the cup to his lips and drank deeply.

“You think if you remarry that you will betray Patience?” Samuel’s tone grew more insistent.

Thomas continued drinking even though the taste of the sweet brew had begun to pall.

“Thomas, she’s dead and you’ve no sons. It’s plain there’s attraction between you and that girl.”

Thomas could feel Samuel’s eyes on him. Probing. The man’s sharp perception was always unnerving but never more than now. He took a deep, somewhat ragged breath. The cup was empty. He could no longer hide in it. He put the tankard down and faced his former father-in-law.

Samuel was smiling, a tolerant, fond expression. “You think it would be a betrayal if you gave in to a feeling for a girl…a former actress, someone that Patience wouldn’t have approved?”

Thomas forced a smile. “I think you should worry less about me. I shall be fine.”

“Well, are you going to marry her before we leave for Harvard College?”

“I don’t—”

“Oh, Thomas, stop being such a loggerhead.”

“Did it occur to you that she doesn’t want me for a husband?” Admitting that truth belaboured Thomas. Left him drained.

“Bah!” Samuel waved a dismissive hand. “It’s clear she’s just as soft on you as you are on her.” His pale eyes grew stern, accusing. “You didn’t say the right things. You didn’t court her the right way. You refuse to open your heart. Women sense these things.”

Guilt pricked him. He wished he had more drink. “She’s not the wife for me, so it matters not.”

Samuel’s expression sobered. “You were not always so happy with my Patience. You forget.”

Thomas flinched inwardly. The unhappiness in his marriage had been mostly his fault. In the beginning, his blood had frequently run too hot. It had been hard not to let his disappointment get the better of him. He would find fault and they would quarrel. But then he had come to know Patience. To understand what made her the way she was. He found the will to suppress and sublimate his carnality.

“Patience was raised by her mother’s parents,” Samuel said.

“Yes, I know. She was deeply attached to them and mourned their loss deeply.”

“They were good people but they interpreted the word of God in a most legalistic way. I followed the sea. After my wife died, what could I do? I had to leave Patience in their care. They raised my child to believe as they did. They put their coldness upon her.”

Thomas’ heart pounded. He didn’t wish to speak of Patience in such personal, irreverent terms with anyone. Especially not her father.

There were things Samuel could never know. The abuse she’d suffered in her first marriage. It would break the older man’s heart. Having lost his own father before he was even born, Thomas had been as glad of gaining a father-in-law as he had of gaining a wife. He would never willingly hurt this man.

Samuel shook his head slowly. “You and your knotty-headedness. You’re going to allow something precious and rare to slip from your life.”

Thomas’ breath froze, his chest tightening. It was as if he breathed, then the full force of feeling would overcome him. He focused on counting slowly backwards from one hundred. After a moment, he could breathe again. “I had something precious and rare and God saw fit to take it away from me.”

He got up and walked away without another look back at Rosalind.



* * * *



Samuel stayed blessedly quiet, while driving the horses in the cart, on the way home.