The Witch of Blackbird Pond - Elizabeth George Speare [58]
There were days on end, of course, when Kit could not manage to keep the tryst. But Hannah and Prudence were fast friends now, and she knew that the reading went companionably on. There were more frequent days when Prudence could not escape her mother's sharp eye, and other days when her small face looked so pinched and exhausted that Kit wondered painfully if the child had been punished for tasks she had left unfinished. Always before she had been able to shake off her doubts. But today she had had too sharp a lesson in the retribution of this Puritan Colony. For the first time she felt a twinge of real fear.
"Hannah," she said softly over Prudence's head, "I am afraid to go on like this. What would happen if they found us out? Nat is strong enough to take it. But Prudence—"
"Yes," agreed Hannah quietly. "I know that soon thee would begin to consider that."
"What should I do, Hannah?"
"Has thee looked for an answer?"
Prudence looked up. "You won't say I can't come, Kit?" she pleaded. "I don't care what they do to me. I can stand anything, if only you'll let me come!"
"Of course you can come," said Kit, stooping to give the child a reassuring hug. "We'll find an answer, somehow. Look now, I've brought you a present, too." From her pocket she drew three precious objects that had required some ingenuity to gather, a partly used copybook from her trunk, a small bottle of ink, and a quill pen.
"'Tis high time you learned to write," she said.
"Oh Kit! Now? This very minute?"
"This very minute. Watch me carefully." Opening to a clean page she carefully wrote the child's name on the first line. "P-R-U-D-E-N-C-E. Now see if you can copy that."
The small hand trembled so that the first eager stroke sent a great blot of ink sprawling across the page. Prudence raised stricken eyes.
"Oh Kit! I've spoiled your lovely book!"
"'Tis no matter. You should see the great blots I used to make. Now—very carefully—"
Finally it was completely written. Prudence, in quite respectable letters, without a single blot. Prudence was awestruck at her own handiwork. Hannah came to peer closely and admire.
"Let me do it again," pleaded the child. "This time I won't make the R so wiggly." She grasped the quill in tense, careful fingers, and her lips silently formed each letter as she traced the lines. Over her bent head Kit and Hannah exchanged an affectionate smile. For a time they both sat listening to the small sounds in the house, the scratching of the pen, the rustling and snapping of the fire, and the slow purr of the yellow cat.
How peaceful it is, thought Kit, lazily stretching her toes nearer to the blaze. Why is it that even the fire in Hannah's hearth seems to have a special glow? Like the sunshine on the day that I sat on the new thatch with Nat. If only, right now, on that bench across the hearth—But what ridiculous daydream was this? Kit shook herself upright.
"'Tis too dark to work any more," she said. Prudence laid down the quill with a long sigh, and plopping down on the hearth, dragged the limp drowsy cat into her arms.
"I wish I could live here with you and pussy," she said wistfully, laying her thin cheek against the soft golden fur.
"I wish thee could too, child," said Hannah gently.
"Remember Nat said it was like the psalm I was reading that day?" the child said dreamily. "Peace be within thy walls."
"Well," Kit interrupted too briskly, "there won't be any peace anywhere if we don't get home in a hurry." She flung open the cottage door, and a bit of milkweed whisked in on a rush of November wind, spilling shreds of spidery white down. Prudence ran back to fling her arms about Hannah.
Kit would remember many times the picture she carried with her along the darkening road. Was there some premonition, she would wonder, that made that moment so poignant, some foreknowledge that this was