She hideth Her the last, Part II
Mrs. Henry Hopkins was a liar and her husband knew it. Not all of it and he accepted that—that even between two bound as one in God’s eyes there might yet be that which was hidden, secrets that might never be told, omissions that were…necessary. But the few times as a boy, a seminarian he had imagined the woman he would marry, she had been all gentleness and shining veracity, virtue personified, softened with long lashes, a tender mouth, a delicate, saucy humor his mother would have said was a figment of too many books and not enough living. Not a farmer’s wife, inured to blizzard and blight in the rye, not the traditional minister’s wife, making the rounds with a basket, a psalm on her pursed lips for every occasional, not even the school-marm tired of teaching, the ferrule and the primer restraining not only the students—none were his ideal but Emma, beautiful Emma who had married him in grey half-mourning, her black bonnet a negative halo around her face, defied his expectations in ways he hadn’t known he should mind.
She cooked the simplest meals laboriously but without complaint. His every piece of clothing had been mended exquisitely, brushed and pressed, though all were creased and stained as soon as he entered Mansion House. She was clever and impatient and tried half-heartedly to conceal both for a few days until she saw she needn’t bother and then she wheedled books from the library at the hospital, made him inquire of Jed Foster whether he’d brought anything with him other than medical treatises or had had anything new from Paris or Boston in the crate that had come last week. Emma refused to learn chess and he’d known why but he admired the gambit for what it was. Some deceit was adorable, inevitable, essential.
He didn’t tell her he’d expected to fall in love with Nurse Mary and her pretty dark eyes when the women arrived the same day and had smiled, relieved, at the prospect of the widowed Abolitionist looking up at him from washing the caked feet of soldiers, a pure, Unitarian Magdalene. He didn’t tell her how it had felt to get drunk with Tom Fairfax, how he had enjoyed the taste of the corn whiskey and the boy’s reminiscing more than he ought and how he had not been able to cry when he prepared the boy’s body. He didn’t tell her how little he had noticed her reaction to him when he first took her to his bed, so consumed by his own sensations, how lush she was and how her hips had felt under his hands, the wordless comprehension of possession, communion, the reckless greed he had to spend, to suckle, to wind her hair around his wrists, the shame he had felt when he heard her cry out Henry, oh! in her own joy and realized he’d done that without any intention.
Emma lied and so did he, less often and less well. It was less necessary for him as she was so expert and the truth trailed him like a faithful spaniel, always seeking its master. He did not have to tell her the truth as frequently as he might have thought; they were easy together in the place between, where she read Jed Foster’s Dryden in their bed and he worried over his sermon, Private Matthews’s willfull silence, whether the crop would come in on time for Mother until Emma decided it was enough and kissed his cheek and told him to find his faith again where it waited for him. He didn’t say anything as she grew solemn and quiet near her confinement, nor for those months after Johnny was born when she was exhausted and happy, always stroking the baby’s fair curls and remarking how he favored Alice. He saw how she looked at the baby, at her husband; her brow furrowed when she sewed the baby’s dresses but her stitches were invisible, perfect.
He might not have spoken except for the croup. She was only a little distressed at first but the third night, when Johnny’s breath was short and barking, when Belinda’s remedies were no better than Foster’s suggestions and Emma had had the kettle boiling for hours, he knew he must. She had begun to look hopeless. Her hair was loosened from its chignon and her cheeks were flushed with the steam; Johnny’s face was tucked in the crook of her bare neck and she kept the chair rocking to the tempo of her crooning.
“Henry, I haven’t told you…something you ought to know. Johnny,” she said, her voice retaining the melody of the hymns she sang to the baby.
“I know you’re scared, Emma,” he replied, uncertain how to begin.
“Yes, no. That’s not what—Johnny,” she said. She suffered, he saw it, and still she patted the baby’s back, listening always for the next labored breath.
“He’s my son. You are his mother and he is my son. His father, that doesn’t matter, he’s mine. You gave him to me,” he said. It was the truth but she looked at him like it was a lie.
“Give him to me. You’re tired,” he added, leaning over to take Johnny from her arms, wincing at the sound of his cough, stroking his hand down the baby’s small back. Emma watched them with an expression he did not try to gauge, her hands resting in her lap where there was another secret, one he knew. Another they shared.
“Papa’s here,” he said to the baby, to his wife. “‘In thee, O Lord, I do put my trust…’” he said, as if the psalm were a lullaby, as if he were not praying for his child, as if he were not marrying his wife again.
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