Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Evangeline
The engagement party was a success. Mother has said so eleven times since the last carriage left, and Father has said so twice, which from him is a great deal.
Ninety-one people. I greeted every one of them at the door and I have their names still, which is a trick I learned at fourteen and have never found a use for outside of evenings like this one.
Thomas Haven was among them.
I did not know he was invited. I have gone back through the list twice since and he is not upon it in Mother’s hand, which means Father added him, which means Father added the Havens because half this island’s fish comes off their boats and a man does not insult his suppliers in the year he is marrying his daughter into shipping.
So. Thomas was invited as a matter of business, and Thomas came, and stood at the edge of the blue room for two hours and eleven minutes in a coat I have seen him wear to church since we were children.
It is five months since the rock, less six days. I have counted it more than once.
We have not spoken of it. We have not spoken at all, excepting twice on Main Street in company, where he inquired after my health and I said that I was well.
He has not come to the north pier on a Thursday since September.
I have gone. I have gone every Thursday since September, and stood there, and come home, and I have understood perfectly well what his absence is intended to accomplish, and I have gone the following Thursday regardless.
Tonight was the first occasion we have stood in the same room since he handed me down off that rock and let go of my hand.
He crossed the room to me once. I have decided to set it down, though I have argued with myself for the better part of an hour over whether I ought.
It was late by then. The quartet had begun something slow, and Charles had gone off in search of my father, and I was at the long window with a glass I had no intention of drinking.
I knew that Thomas had moved before I could have told anyone how I knew it.
That has been the whole condition of the evening — that I have known where he stood at every moment without once looking, the way one knows a draught is coming from a door one cannot see.
He came and stood beside me and said my name. The short way. Evie, which he has not called me since we were children and my mother remarked upon it at dinner and put a stop to it.
And then said, “You needn’t marry him.”
I am obliged to be honest here, since there is no one else who will be. For the space of a single breath I wanted to admit what was in my heart.
However, I knew if I did so, the scandal would be ruinous, and not only for me. I told him, “You are out of turn, Mr. Haven,” in the voice my mother uses when she is correcting a tradesman, and I watched all the love he had for me leave his eyes.