Free Forbidden by Eve Bunting Page A

handed to me.
    I shook it out. It was a thick jersey with a name in red stamped on the chest. SEA URCHIN.
    “It is oiled wool. If you are to work with us, you will need this to go along with the trousers.”
    It will be easier if I accede to what they want, I thought. Time will pass. I need to remember that too.
    “When will I go fishing with you?” I asked. “I know nothing about it, but I am willing to learn and to help.”
    My uncle gave a short laugh.
    My aunt’s eyes seemed to bore into me. “Not yet,” she said. “But soon.”
    I felt that gaze on my back as I went up the stairs.
    My dress was soaked, and so were my undergarments. I took them off and put on my nightdress, then tried on the jersey. It was immense, coming down to my knees. The sleeves hung over my hands. I rolled them up and already felt the warmth. Some sailor or fisherman had worn this before me.
    I sat on the flowered quilt and took the slippers from the pocket of my dress, which lay in a clump on the floor. The blue silk of them was damp but not stained. I was inordinately relieved.
    I slid my good foot into one of them. The candlelight shone on the beads so they twinkled when I moved. It fitted perfectly, like Cinderella’s slipper. Where was the prince? I did not like the image that sprang into my mind at the thought of the prince, so I shook my head and carried the slippers across to where my white muslin dress hung and set them beneath it.
    I undid the bandage and examined my foot and ankle. It was not difficult to see that the wounds were already healing, thanks to Mrs. Stuart.
    I sat then in my nightdress with the SEA URCHIN jersey on top and ate every drop of the porridge. It was still hot and deliciously salty. My fingers crept up under the wool jersey and found the opal pin at the neck of my nightgown. When my mother had given me this, she had expected that I would have a comfortable, happy life. “My beautiful girl,” she had called me.
    I did not believe myself beautiful, though I was aware that my looks must be pleasing. It was not a knowledge I dwelled on. Since I was fourteen, boys and young men had clustered about me, being attentive, paying me awkward compliments. I was never sure I completely believed them.
    “Your hair curls so becomingly! It is golden brown, the color of a new penny!” “I cannot describe the way I feel when I am with you. You are by far the most exquisite girl of my acquaintance!”
    Their admiration embarrassed me, and sometimes, unfortunately, I would laugh at the wrong moment. Then I felt unkind, though I understood that my laughter came to cover my discomfort.
    Did Eli Stuart think my appearance agreeable? Would I laugh if he told me so? I shook my head. What nonsense thoughts came into my head!
    I discarded the jersey and crawled under the flowered quilt, my thoughts so muddled and on edge that I thought I would never sleep. But I did.
    When I woke, it was completely dark. Rain slashed against the window, dropping noisily into the basin I’d emptied earlier. I could hear the thud of the surf on the beach and the rattle of the tree limbs outside my window.
    I’d been told to wait for my aunt to call me, but I would not tarry.
    I dressed again in dry clothes and went downstairs.
    The fire had been restoked with turf, and it blazed and sparked in the hearth. An iron griddle was pushed to the side of the flames. My trousers gave off a not-unpleasant smell of drying cloth.
    Lamb lifted his head to gaze at me, then slept again.
    It was a homey scene and should have reassured me, but it did not.
    My uncle sat on the wooden settle with the Bible in his hand. My aunt was mixing something in a brown bowl. She glanced at me. “I did not call.”
    “No,” I said. “The rain is already filling up the basin.”
    She worked the mixture into a ball with her hands, patted it down, and carried it to the griddle. I saw that it was to be a bannock.
    My uncle’s lips moved as he read from the book.
    I started