Sippicon

Two o'clock chimed and Gilbert Worth was still at the table straightening the silk tassels of his robe. One by one, he drew them out between his slender fingertips and laid them against the back of his hand. Some, of course, had to hang like combed hair at the underside of his wrist. He straightened the glimmering threads if they got tangled in the golden hair on his hand. Just when he had half the strands gathered and had started to braid them, Matthew knocked and came in. "Master, all is well?" "Just dandy." The freedman studied his master's uncustomary idleness. "Shall I lay out clothes, sir, while Mistress is trying to eat?" "She is better then? Eating!" "Broth Cooke has forced on her. Cooke says, all day Mistress has pretended to sleep. Gil twisted the tassels as absently as a country girl might twist her pigtails. "We are naughty children today, your mistress and I, eh, Mr. Freeman?" "Not children. Master." Gil laughed harshly. "You are never wrong, Matthew." "I hope I am this time. Clothes, sir?" "No. Thank you." Gil satisfied himself plaiting the strings into little clumps since they were too short for doing up grandly. In an hour he had created a weird bracelet standing out from his wrist. He wanted to rip the sleeve of his robe right off but kicked his chair back instead and went out not shutting the door after himself. He unknotted the fringe as he walked over the grass to Dowland House, planning to clean Charles' study after the excitement of the day before. Matthew had done it already. Even the clavier was dismantled, ready to be toted home. Gil did what he head never done before, sat in the chair behind Dowland's desk. Charles' chair, stuffed and leather-covered in some places, carved of hardwood in others so that Dowland could be both propped and strapped into working posture during his crippled years, impressed Gil better than a sermon. The chair, an outer skeleton, had supplied Elizabeth's father some of what lacked in him physically; it also had supported the man's mind. Ensconced there, Dowland had decided to let the marriage of his daughter to an Indian stand. Dowland, sitting in judgment, had set that marriage on its feet for what it was - a new, a foreign thing, disassociated from his life. It followed that he disassociate himself from Elizabeth. But he anchored her to his heart by the weight of his land left to her issue, never altering his well-made Will. The wisdom of his sacrifice, of his curse, perceived, allowed love to survive between the man and the daughter he denied in the fabric of this days. Straight against the chair's stern back, Gil contemplated such difficult kindness. He found it possible that loyalty was a not love, and loyal love no wellspring of passion. He strained to see into the blackness he - life - had lowered over Hanna. For his pains he was nearly blinded by the light wrought by Hanna's embracing a stranger. This to be clean of the foul secrets of marriage, free of the weariness of the fight for right, to be simply the desired of another, to burn from touch and burn back, to be taught by flesh, the engine of innocence, of ascendance, of goodness, of a beautiful nature mad for its own salvation. The onset of evening inspired Worth to move onto the ridges of the hills, his robe flapping like a beggar's tatters in the fickle wind. With a careful step, he kept on up his stairs to see what salvage there was from the wife he had known.