The Rebellion of Jane Clarke Read Online Free PDF Page A

subject.”
    “But does not the talk of the horse distress you on your own account? Does not the mere suggestion that a man—”
    “There are many things that distress me.”
    “What? What distresses you?”
    “Your distress.”
    Jane looked down and noticed the loose ribbon on her shift. She began to retie it. She said, “My father asked if it were settled between us to be married, and I knew that it was but I didn’t know how. I don’t recall you asking it of me, or me answering you. ’Tis as if the idea arrived out of the air.”
    “Like breathing.”
    “But when did we decide it? How?”
    “So this is what troubles you? That you have no day or hour or minute to point to and say, ‘Ah, there our love began’? You have no pretty speech to turn to and say—”
    “A pretty speech? You think I worry over a pretty speech?”
    Phinnie sat up. “Then what is it, Jane? What’s all this about ‘settled’ or ‘unsettled’? Nothing in the world is easier to settle. You have only to answer a single question. Do you want to marry me or no?”
    The answer arrived as if out of the air. “No.”

Chapter Four
    P HINNIE PAINE WAS indeed an agreeable man, as Jane’s father had described him, so agreeable that Jane had no single past experience of him out of temper to help her anticipate him now. She had intended to be asked something more and was prepared to answer with more—that she felt a couple should know each other something better before they talked of marriage, that she was no longer quite so willing to take the unknown parts of Phinnie on trust as she might have been a month ago. Exactly why that was she didn’t know, and that this idea would be new to Phinnie she understood well enough, but she also knew that it must be so.
    Jane was prepared to say most of this to Phinnie, but the chance never came. He popped off the bed, pulled on stockings, boots, and coat, and left the room; Jane followed him into the keeping room and was greatly surprised to see him continue through the keeping room and out the door. In no long time she heard his horse snuffling and prancing in the dooryard in its own surprise, and no long time after that she heard it pounding down the cartway toward the King’s road.
    The rest of the house heard it too. Jane had carried the troublesome oil lamp with her from the front room and set it on the keeping room table; it rested between Jane and the stairs and lit each member of her family as they tumbled down: her father first, her stepmother behind, next Neddy, and then the little girls. At last Bethiah appeared, looking the least startled of all, perhaps because she was still the most asleep. Jane’s father said, “What the devil goes on? Did I just hear Paine—?”
    “He’s gone home to Wellfleet, sir.”
    “The devil! If he thinks to wiggle out now—”
    “ ’Tis not him wiggling, sir. I told him I didn’t wish to marry him.”
    Behind their father, Bethiah’s eyes went round as plums. As if he could feel them, Jane’s father whirled around. “Get upstairs. The lot of you.”
    They went in reverse of how they came, Bethiah first, Mehitable herding the little girls, and Neddy behind, looking over his shoulder as if he never expected to see Jane whole again.
    But when Jane’s father spoke he was all calm. He said, “Very well. Explain yourself.”
    Jane did so. When she’d finished, or in fact some good time before she’d finished, her father explained him self.
    “I couldn’t claim the title of caring father if I allowed a foolish case of nerves to destroy my daughter’s best chance in life,” he said. “You live in a small village, with limited choices before you, and none with the character and resources of a Phinnie Paine. This I am sure you will understand once you have paid better attention to the matter, and once you have done so, this is how you will go forward. Tomorrow you will write Mr. Paine a letter apologizing for your behavior, claiming the onset of