The Endless Forest Read Online Free PDF

barn; things could still get out of hand when they found themselves alone in one. She rubbed her forehead against his shoulder and sighed a little, suddenly sleepy. She should have slept beside him, and left Jennet and Lily to cope with Martha.
    “How is she?” Her husband read her mind, a habit she had never been able to break him of.
    “Melancholy,” Elizabeth said. “But she is trying.”
    Nathaniel cleared his throat. “We’ve got a problem, Boots.”
    She closed her eyes. “Please do not tell me we don’t have wagons and oxen enough. I don’t know if I can cope with one more delay.”
    “Oh, we’re fine as far as wagons and such go. We could get on the road right after breakfast—” He shook his head, unwilling to put whatever it was into words.
    “Nathaniel.”
    “The boys,” he said, rubbing his nose with a knuckle.
    “Oh, Nathaniel,” Elizabeth said. “They didn’t—”
    A door opened and Jennet was there, settling her cloak around her shoulders. “They did,” she said. “The wee buggers ran off. And sorry they’ll be when we’ve got them back again, I can promise ye that.”
    “But where?” Elizabeth asked.
    Nathaniel said, “I’d wager they want to see the hanging and they’ll stay hid until they do.”
    “If it’s hanging they want I’m mair than happy tae oblige,” Jennet said grimly. “Just as soon as I get ma hands on them.”
    Breakfast was a sorry affair with all the men gone off and no Jennet to keep them amused. Even the twins were subdued as they dutifully spooned up the watery and tasteless porridge.
    Lily had no idea how to lift the mood at the table, as her own mood was quite low. The girls kept turning to look out of the dining room window, and for once they seemed to have no questions for Lily or Rachel or even their grandmother.
    It was no surprise to Lily that her mother was a favorite with the twins. Children had always come to her classroom without a fuss. Her mother had been a strict teacher but scrupulously fair. Most of all, she was willing to listen to stories and to tell her own in turn. She handled her grandchildren in much the same way.
    But right now she seemed distracted, her gaze unfocused and her brow furrowed. It was the expression she wore when she was trying to work through some challenge. In this state she could let milk boil over and simply not hear a knock at the door or even her name, spoken clearly. As Martha was trying to speak to her now.
    “Mrs. Bonner?”
    Lily’s mother jerked out of her thoughts and turned to Martha. She said, “I know it is hard to break a habit, but I hope you will try to remember to call me Elizabeth.”
    Martha looked surprised. “I don’t know—”
    “You called me Miss Elizabeth in school, after all. Will you try?”
    Just that suddenly it came back to Lily, how frustrated she had sometimes been with her mother, who would insist on her understanding of democracy even to the discomfort of others.
    Martha was saying, “I will try.”
    Lily decided to rescue the girl. She said, “Martha, do you plan to have a house built in Paradise?”
    The younger woman looked startled at this question. Her spoon hung frozen in the air.
    “You could afford to build a grand house,” Isabel said. “I heard Da say so.”
    “You weren’t supposed to be listening,” Mariah reminded her.
    Isabel wrinkled her nose in annoyance and ignored her sister in favor of instructing Martha. “We stay with Grandpa and Grandma Bonner.”
    “And so will Martha,” Elizabeth said. “Until she decides for herself what she’d like to do. I mean to say, if that will suit you, Martha. Unless you had other plans?”
    A small muscle jumped in the girl’s jaw. “That’s very kind of you. I shouldn’t like to put anybody out.”
    The girl was angry, all right. Lily could feel it radiating off her like a fever. She was angry but she had lived too long with the Spencers, and she would not sacrifice good manners to give vent to her emotions.