Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

" C an you believe what Mama just told me!" Fanny giggled as she rushed into their room. Mary stuffed away her unfinished letter. She was usually never caught off-guard, but the unusual difficulty she had at conjuring words tonight had distracted her.

She turned to face her sister, a sister set to wed the very next day, with a patient smile. "Did she finally declare you her favorite child? You know we've always had our suspicions."

"Of course not, you silly girl!" Fanny declared as if she were ten years older rather than four years Mary's junior. She hopped onto the bed next to Mary. "She told me about what to expect about, well—the wedding."

"Did you not already know? We have attended plenty of weddings these few years. And Silas seems keen to have us attending his as soon as possible after yours."

"Oh, not the wedding itself." Fanny blushed. "It's about—about what comes after."

"The wedding breakfast then."

"Well, yes, that. But also—" Fanny turned around until she faced the ceiling. Her fingers toyed with a loose ruffle on her nightdress. "Also about the wedding night."

A familiar sense of being excluded, however unintentionally, washed over Mary. She had gone through this before. On the eves before her two other sisters had married, they, too, had removed from their conversation with Mama flustered and blushing—seemingly wishing to spill everything in their minds to Mary yet choosing to refrain at the last moment.

The familiarity of the situation ought to make it easier—and yet Mary mourned in a small place of her heart that this was perhaps the last time such an event was to occur. Tomorrow, even Fanny would be gone. Then Mary would well and truly be the only daughter left at Greybrook, a spinster through and through.

"Was it very bad?" Mary tried to keep her tone light.

"I frankly don't know what to think." Fanny sent out a puff of air in place of a sigh. "If only I could confide in you, Mary, for you always know just what to say."

"Is there anything to prevent you from confiding in me?"

"Only the promise Mama extracted—under threat, mind you." The youngest Danforth daughter turned around until she faced Mary. The moonlight drifting through the window cast a pretty glow on the bride-to-be. "She seems to think that I would not be able to resist the temptation of telling you."

A small smile tugged at Mary's lips. "And was she right?"

"Quite." Fanny groaned. "Oh, Mary, how am I to sleep tonight—knowing how everything will change tomorrow?"

"I thought you were quite eager to marry Peyton."

"Of course I am—but then everything is going to change, isn't it? Like when Alice and Jane married, and even when John and Jacob did. I used to think it so unfair that they get to start their lives on their own while the rest of us stayed in Greybrook, but now that it's my turn to leave, I find myself almost a little afraid of it."

Mary reached over to clasp Fanny's hand. "What are you afraid of? Are you not certain of marrying?"

"I am sure of my affections—and of his. That is not what I worry over."

"Then what?"

"I have always been coddled in Greybrook, Mary. What will I do without Papa and Mama presiding over the decisions? What will I do without you?"

And in a span of a few words, Mary learned that perhaps the blessings of marriage, something she had observed for years with longing, came with its burdens as well. She squeezed her sister's hand tighter.

"I'm sure you shall sort it all out splendidly."

"And if I don't? And if I fail spectacularly at keeping house or pleasing my husband or bearing children? I do not think I can bear it to disappoint."

"You shall not."

"But I cannot be sure of it, can I? There is so little one knows about the future—and Mama said reality is rarely the same as what we expect it to be."

The words were innocently said, and yet they cut deep for a woman who had nothing to hope for in her future save her own imagination. Mary swallowed.

"Then we walk by faith, do we not?" said Mary, speaking to herself as much as she was to her sister. "I myself barely know how long I shall live—how much time I have left. The doctors have declared me unable to recover from a trifling cold gone worse more than once in the last twenty years?—"

"Mary—"

"And yet I live on." Mary smiled, even through the tears both of them seemed to be accumulating. "I breathe another day, and I laugh another day, and I write another day. And the presence of tomorrow is made all the sweeter by the fact that it has never been promised."

Fanny's smile looked blurred as far as Mary was concerned, but even then, its sincerity shone through.

"Oh Mary." Fanny embraced her as warmly as only a sister could. "I swear you always know just what to say."

Comforting Fanny had always been easy. It was comforting herself that was the problem.

No sooner had her sister drifted to sleep, a happy smile of anticipation on her childlike face, that Mary realized she was doomed not to sleep.

For the better half of her life, she had followed every order there was to preserve her existence. She rarely took risks with her own health. After a few close brushes with severe illness, even with death, Mary had long learned the art of being the world's most responsible patient.

She retired when others reveled. She wore layers when others did not. She avoided physical exertion with all the determination of an aged, matronly hypochondriac.

Yet what had all that effort brought her apart from a life well-preserved yet barely lived?

Mary frowned. For years, she'd found contentment in being the invisible, steadfast sister. For years, she'd resigned herself to merely being alive.

But, for the first time in days or months or even years, Mary felt a rush of recklessness tugging at her heart. In the span of a few precious weeks, a quiet life that used to feel honest and consistent had begun to lose its appeal.

Even her private letters, the only part of Mary's life where she'd been willing to imagine stepping beyond the boundaries she currently kept, now felt hollow and staid. Fanny learned more about marriage tonight than Mary ever would. And tomorrow, Fanny would know even more.

What sort of life was this?

Mary swallowed as the truth hit her.

It was hardly even a life—a truth that her siblings saw before she ever did, a fact that Mary had forced herself to accept with a sense of martyrdom that made her nauseated to think about now.

With a grunt, she slipped out from under the counterpane. The night air chilled her, but Mary pulled on her own dressing gown before adding Fanny's on top of it. She glided her feet into her slippers, thankful for the minimal warmth they yielded. If she had planned this evening excursion, she would have warmed those slippers first. But plans upon plans had taken her nowhere, and a firm desire to protest the unfairness of it all emboldened her.

Tonight, she would live. She would go downstairs and find a book and read it as late as she wished, using as many candles as she required. She would breathe the chilly evening air even if it scorched her lungs. She was not so foolhardy as to venture outdoors, but just thinking of leaving her bed while the house lay quiet sent a thrill of adventure down her spine.

She was no adventuress, and she never would be. But she was also determined to stop acting the part of an invalid when she was hardly bedridden.

With one last fortifying breath, Mary slipped out the room, down the hall, down the familiar old staircase, and into the well-loved family library.

As far as acts of defiance went, hers was laughably minuscule. What sort of protest was it to refuse bedtime like a child? But for Mary, her very presence in the library represented more than anything a child could do or say.

Her eyes landed on another candle left alone on the credenza. Someone else was here. Who else read this late? Did other people keep such hours? How deep into the night did her siblings tarry while she resigned herself to bed each night?

Approaching footsteps told Mary where to turn. She lifted her candle.

But it was not one of her siblings in the library at midnight. It was Captain Hayes.

"Captain." She tried to keep her voice level, a difficult feat given how cold the evening air was.

"Miss Danforth." He nodded his head as he walked closer to the candlelight. The man had the tendency to appear solemn in public. But somehow, tonight, even without his coat and with his cravat slightly askew, the captain appeared even more somber than he did upon his first arrival at Greybrook.

Mary almost wondered if she was merely unaccustomed to seeing people so late at night.

"I'm sorry for intruding," she said, her whisper-soft voice amplified by the otherwise empty room.

"I think it is I who owe you that apology—for it is your house, is it not?"

Mary's smile felt more brittle than she expected. "As we have discussed before—it is my father's house, not mine."

"Ah—yes. And one's place of residence is hardly always one's true home."

"Nor is the house one possesses always one's place of residence."

Her daring allusion to his quagmire sent him quirking a brow. And yet his eyes seemed to hint at respect more than offense. Slowly, with what looked almost like measured deliberation, the captain stepped around the chair before him.

"Shall we sit?" He gestured to the other matching chair across from him.

Mary smiled. "I am not so frail as that."

"No, you are not." His voice carried an unexpected touch of pride. "I was almost afraid that you were not aware of this little fact, Miss Danforth."

Mary felt a small flush of embarrassment. "I am not so entirely withdrawn."

"Not withdrawn—only careful, very careful."

"Perhaps."

"It is not a bad trait—to be mindful."

"Until it becomes one, doesn't it?"

It was unfair for her to direct her frustration at herself towards Captain Hayes. He was not the one refusing to live life. He was not the one allowing everyone else to go through life's experiences while she remained primly in her own little corner, surviving for survival's sake.

At least Silas, for all his loud-mouthed behavior, had survived for the sake of king and country. She was surviving for no one's end.

Somehow, in the midst of her lengthy spell of personal reflection, Captain Hayes had drifted close enough for her to feel the warmth of his presence. It was tempting, almost shockingly so, to bury herself in that warmth. She felt the touch of a finger tilt her chin upwards. She yielded, her eyes meeting his.

"Do you like your life, Miss Danforth?" he asked, his words low yet clear.

She thought she did. She had been so certain of it. Did he have to ask the question on the one night her grasp on her lifelong contentment was weakening its hold?

"I—" The words died on her lips, replaced by a choking sensation that trailed from her tongue to her throat. She frowned slightly. "I—I am thankful."

He nodded. "One of your most endearing qualities."

"You speak as if I have many of them, Captain." Her voice sounded breathless to her own ears, but it was an entirely different sort of breathlessness from the kind she had as a child, struggling to breathe at the slightest provocation.

"Of course you do," he responded to her seamlessly, as if he were used to flattering ladies rather than barking orders at his men. "Selflessness, patience, a determination to believe the best of life when it has given you little reason to do so."

Mary inhaled, feeling a trifle of a sniffle. "I do not know if I am any of those things."

"You are all of them—and more."

More— the word taunted her. When Mary had scarlet fever at ten, Mama had whispered fervently at her bedside that having Mary live was 'all that she dared to ask for'—that it did not matter if she lost her ability to see or speak or walk. The Lord had answered with more than that, for Mary had survived the difficult fight intact. It had felt selfish to ask for more ever since.

Surviving had always been her sole purpose in life. Did she dare contemplate anything beyond it? Was this what it felt like to tempt fate?

"What more?" she whispered.

He did not speak. He did not seem to even breathe. But imperceptibly, he moved forward, his tall frame looming over hers, sending thrills down every inch of her skin despite the warmth his body brought.

"As much as you would wish."

"And if I hardly know what I wish?"

His smile was small, enigmatic, and well-nigh irresistible. "Then perhaps we can sort out the answer together."

Then he leaned to the side and brushed his lips against her cheek. Her lungs flamed. It was almost unfathomable how one tiny gesture, one second of a sliver of touching skin, could evoke such overwhelming emotions.

He cleared his throat as he pulled back, leaving Mary's knees weak.

"Goodnight, Miss Danforth," he said.

She did not bother to respond as he picked up his taper and slipped out the library.

Mary sighed, shivering, as she pulled her double dressing gowns more tightly around her. Tomorrow was an important day for the family, but she could not help but wonder if today had been more life-altering for her.