I looked from him to Mama, but she was staring again out the window.

“Thank you, Mr. Cutting,” I said to him stiffly. “I am glad always for a touch of historical perspective.” And I excused myself, my heart pounding, fully aware as I crossed the verandah and marched down the steps at the front of the House that Mama and Mr. Cutting still stood at the window, regarding my departing form.

How dare he speak to me so? How dare he? I made a blind turn round the corner of the House, wishing to vanish from their sight. He was a fool. A despotic fool. A ridiculous figure. Papa had never liked him. Never. My feet hurried through the dew-sopped grasses alongside the House. How dare he presume to speak as if I did not know my place beside my own mother? As if I intended her disrespect, or harm? My feet slowed, rounding the back corner. I never did wish my own mother harm. How could I? She understood so very little of what went on—certainly she had to be protected. I sought to know the full truth so that Mama need never know.

I looked up. The back porch bore the force of the morning sun, the wide, clean boards bared in that light. But the possibility of second agitating encounter with Cook caused me to turn round and retreat from the kitchen stairs. A spot of movement and color flashed between the trees. I closed my eyes, then slowly opened them once more. There was Bart, walking from out the woods into the dry grasses of the field, a battered brown cap upon his head, his red kerchief around his neck. So casual, so familiar was he just then, ambling across in my direction, it worked upon me like the turning of a page. With him in my eyes, I could let the trouble rest.

I stood upon the back porch and waved to him, crossing my arms up above my head. With a shout, he greeted me, then walked faster toward the House. I had the sensation of reeling him in, of having put my hands up and taken hold of a line I must have cast but only now discovered; and sure at last, I grasped its heft in my fingers firmly and pulled and pulled as he bounded up the back steps and took my hand in his. I rested there with him, my hands caught and held.

“Oh, Bart,” I whispered. “So much has happened.”

He squeezed my hand in his. “I have heard,” he answered. And neither did we speak of her again, and neither did we need to.