by Annie Proulx
“I wonder,” said Dieter.
“I want to see what happens next. Always this is my interest.”
• • •
In Detroit they spent a day walking about, passed a small plank-sided building with a sign that read GENERAL LAND OFFICE MICHIGAN.
“Let us go in,” said Dieter. “I want to see what sort of man the recorder is.”
He was tall and pale from lack of sunlight, his eyes colorless and expressionless. He greeted them with a jerk of a smile. “What can I do for you? Land purchase today? A few town lots?” He stared at Armenius.
“No, not today. In a few weeks, perhaps. We are just getting our bearings,” he said.
“I think I have seen you here before,” said the man, “in the company of Mr. James Duke?”
“It is possible.”
“Yes, I believe he said you were his landlooker.”
“I was,” said Armenius.
“And you are no longer?” asked the man almost happily.
“No, I am yet, but I am on leave of absence just now. This is my cousin Dieter Breitsprecher, who is visiting. He is a forester from Germany. We are going to look at the timberland.”
“Right,” said the man. “This is the place for timber, yes it is.” There was a silence and the man, now gazing out the window, said almost dreamily that one of the federal surveyors and his chainman had stopped in the day before. “Dozens of surveyors measuring Michigan these days. And some like you coming to get hold of timberland.”
“Where are those surveyors working now?”
“Marking out townships. Northwest of where Mr. Duke purchased. They said the prospects for a timberman are even richer up north. I think to myself that I might buy a forty, could I ever have the money. Clerks make very little, you know, though the employment is steady.”
“May your wish be granted,” said Armenius, smiling like the famous cat who caught the mouse. He spoke kindly to this man remembering that James Duke had treated him as a servant, saying “Come, fellow, we haven’t all day,” and ordering him to copy the papers out in a fair hand “instead of black claw marks as an ink-foot crow might make.”
“Are they surveying along the shore?” asked Dieter, looking at the map on the counter. The man nodded. “Along the shore, inland, along the rivers, almost to Mackinac—a huge amount of territory—all pinelands.” Armenius would have asked more questions but a man came to complain about the old French long lots in Detroit. “Like damn noodles,” he said. “Long, long skinny noodles. I want my money back.”
“Many thanks,” said Armenius to the clerk. “We may come back tomorrow and speak a little with you.”
“I look forward to that.”
They left and returned to their boardinghouse. “I could not follow all that was said,” said Dieter. “What is a ‘forty’? Is he giving us important information about the surveying?”
“A ‘forty’ is a quarter of a quarter section—forty acres. And he was certainly giving us important information—and, I believe, asking for a bribe. We might modify our trip a little. I would like to see that northern region.”
“I would also like to see it. Perhaps you will not always be a landlooker for Duke and Sons. Let us find some dinner in this rough place. And talk with the clerk again tomorrow, then set out to find those wondrous pines.”
A day later they started their journey on two hired horses, one the yellow horse from Armenius’s former trip. “At the junction we will bypass the trail to the Duke purchases and go north. Cousin, I mention that we will pass a stump farm that belongs to an incompetent farmer, Anton Heinrich. He has worn out two farms already and is quickly ruining the third. He has a quite pretty daughter. You have heard all the old stories about farmers’ daughters? Yes, they are true. I lay with this girl but it was rather—I can’t say. Maybe we stop there again.”
So Dieter discovered an unknown side of his cousin. Nor had he suspected he could speak so casually of bribes, for the clerk had made it clear when they returned the next day that information about the pines farther north should be rewarded. Armenius told him that if they found heavy timber to be there they would certainly stop in on their return and make an arrangement. His cousin had become an American.
• • •
The Heinrich log house came in sight. Moony, one of the dummkopf sons, was splitting stove wood, Kelmar, the other, stacking it on the listing porch. As they came nearer Moony slammed his ax into the chopping block and ran inside, calling, “Ma! Ma!” A woman with two small children clutching her skirts came out. Dieter thought she looked like a barn cat. She had been at her washtub and her hands were like wet roots.
“Hullo, Mistress Kristina,” said Armenius cheerfully. “Is Anton at home today?”
The woman gave a howl, threw her apron up over her face and lurched inside. Armenius and Dieter looked at each other. Moony edged closer and stood clenching and unclenching his hands.
“What is wrong? Where is your father? Anton. Is he here?” Armenius saw the daughter holding the hands of two more children. He stepped toward her and she stepped back.
Moony opened his mouth to speak, as though he had something to tell but didn’t know how to go about it. Armenius looked at Kelmar.
“Was ist los? Tell me!” He remembered the two fools had a few words of English, a few words of Deutsch.
“Vater—” said Kelmar forcefully. And again, “Vater.”
“Ja?” encouraged Armenius.
“Kaput,” said Moony.
It was the girl who, keeping at a distance, told them a bizarre story. She looked only at Dieter and spoke to him in a low voice. If Armenius made a step in her direction she moved back. She said the father had been chopping trees with Moony and Kelmar. Father was not so quick. A big tree had fallen and pinned him to the ground. He cried for help. Moony and Kelmar came to him. They were strong. They seized the butt end of the tree and began to pull. They dragged the entire tree across Vater’s body as he shrieked. At this point Moony, who had been listening and grinning, gave an imitation of Vater’s agonizing cries.
“And where is he now?” asked Armenius.
“He did not live. That tree’s branches tore his belly and his inside came outside when they pulled.”
“Kaput,” said Moony.
“Fucked,” said Kelmar in clear English.
“Let us get away from this place,” said Dieter sotto voce. He did not like Moony and Kelmar and it was clear the girl was avoiding Armenius. The whole family seemed deranged. The thought came to him that his cousin might be something of a scoundrel. So?
• • •
They said nothing until dark fell and Armenius had a fire going.
He said, “I have never heard anything as stupid as that. Never. They could have trimmed the limbs and lifted it off him. They could have chopped away the crown and butt to small size. One could have pried it up while the other pulled the man out. They could have rigged a hoist.”
Dieter murmured, “Sometimes one must get tired of chopping trees endlessly.”
For the next ten days they walked through the great pines and Dieter became very quiet. Occasionally he scraped away the needles and examined the soil beneath the duff.
“You see?” said Armenius as they stood tiny and amazed in the kingdom of the pines.
“I do,” said Dieter as though pledging a marriage vow.
• • •
A decanter of brandy stood on a side table in Edward Duke’s mahogany office. Edward was turning the pages of a thick sheaf of survey pages and locating them on a crisp, new-drawn map of Saginaw Bay’s shoreline with the Duke & Sons sections neatly crosshatched in sepia ink. He had come to believe the exploration and discovery had all come about at his urging.
“Hullo, Cyrus. Ready for the great move?” Cyrus would head up the new offices in Detroit. A wagonload of desks and chairs, boxes of papers, ink bottles, pens and other office impedimenta had headed west two weeks before, three fresh-hired clerks to oversee the journ
ey and unpacking. A fourth clerk, Lavinia Duke, would remain at the Boston office and work for Edward, Freegrace and James for a year arranging markets for their Michigan lumber. Edward had not been scandalized—Lavinia was blood kin. She was cleverer than any clerk Edward remembered. She brought order to chaos.
“I have something you need to see,” said Cyrus. He unfurled another map, laid it over Edward’s desk and handed him a new wad of survey information.
Edward stared at it without seeing anything remarkable.
“What is this supposed to be?” he said. “It looks like land parcels farther north—has James been enlarging the scope of the purchases? I do not feel we are ready to do this. We are quite overextended and need to see income before any more goes out—” He had finally noticed a name on the top survey page.
“What is this? Graf Ernst-August von Rotstein? A competitor?”
“Indeed. Look more closely.”
Edward peered. The purchaser of these northern timber lots was the RBB Timber Company. “Who are they? Maine men? How did they learn about this?”
“RBB stands for Rotstein, Breitsprecher and Breitsprecher. Our old landlooker has become our formidable competitor. You may remember his cousin, the manager of an estate forest in Prussia?”
“Ichabod Crane. I remember him perfectly. Dreadful fellow.”
“The dreadful fellow is related to Graf Ernst-August von Rotstein. He is enormously wealthy and already their holdings almost equal ours.”
“I knew it! I knew it! I never trusted Breitsprecher. The snake, the damnable cursèd python.”
“It is too bad Lennart chose this time to be away. But I will go to James’s house and let him know.” Lavinia, behind the door, heard it all and ran home, getting to James before Cyrus arrived.
“Papa! Treachery!” she shouted. “Breitsprecher and his cousin and a rich man have bought a quarter million acres of Michigan pine. They are now our enemies.” And so a rivalry began.
56
Lavinia
Edward, fat ancient Edward, who had become a great gourmand in the years since his wife Lydia’s death, called for a dinner party to celebrate the rich returns of the first Michigan cut.
“Everyone must come, though of course Cyrus and James cannot, for they are in Detroit. We’ll have those hearty lobsters, though how they shall be prepared I will leave to the chef, thrushes à la Liègeoise, and one of the black turkeys from Newport sweetened on acorns, la surprise and then an English rosbif with Russian salad. And whatever else the chef wishes to give us. The wines I will discuss with Freegrace.” He laughed his old man’s reedy heyheyhey as Lavinia wrote out the invitations. It was a Duke & Sons business affair, and without a doubt the company could afford to scrape the Boston Market stalls empty, stalls always heaped with the bounteous harvests of market hunters at pennies for a brace—pigeons, turkeys, wood thrushes and robins, pipits, countless ducks, swans and geese, even owls, reputed to taste like chicken.
Lavinia begged off attendance. The thrushes were sure to be robins and she could not bear to see them lying roasted on a platter. “You know, Uncle Edward, that I cannot be in a house where cats live. My eyes swell and burn, I can barely breathe. And I get dizzy. It has been so since I was a child and Mama allowed no cats in our house for which I thank her.”
“Oh pish,” said Edward. “Mrs. Trame will put them out in the garden and you will not be troubled.” It was useless to explain to him that cats did not need to be present; a house with cats was permeated with the invisible poison residue of their breath, their hairs. “Do you not remember the last time I tried to dine at your house? How I fell ill and had to be carried home?” It was an unpleasant memory, the gripping choke in her chest, the painful wheeze.
But Edward said stiffly, “I regret you do not show the same regard for cats that you exhibit for birds.”
• • •
The conflagration spared four—two cats; the household cook, Mrs. Trame; and Chef Laliberte, who had been hired for the dinner. The scullions escaped early by chance and were sitting in the garden over a wooden platter of orts. In the half-cleaned kitchen, enjoying the leftover birds and a glass of steely hock with Chef Laliberte, Mrs. Trame heard a roaring in the adjacent dining room. She got up and opened the door. A sheet of flame leapt out, scorching her from hem to cap. The chef, no stranger to fire, seized her by the arm and rushed her outside, where they joined the servants. The opening of the kitchen door allowed a blast of oxygen to surge through the house and they could hear the shrieks upstairs, where the dinner party had retired with the port and walnuts. A figure appeared in the upstairs window briefly—Mrs. Trame thought it was Lennart Vogel—then fell back into the rosy light.
Afterward, when her injured throat allowed her to speak, she whispered she had twice chased the cats off the vacated dining room table that evening. She intended to clear it after she and Chef Laliberte had their own dinner and a restorative glass. She surmised the cats had knocked over the candle on the sideboard. They often romped on the furniture.
“When Mrs. Duke was alive the cats were not permitted in the dining room,” she said and wept. “But after she passed on Mr. Duke doted so on Casimir and Vaughn that he allowed anything, even letting them sleep on his bed though it be well known that cats will suck your breath at night.”
• • •
James Duke and Cyrus Hempstead left for Boston as soon as word of the fatal dinner party reached them. Edward and Freegrace had been very old, both into their nineties, but Posey and Lennart had been still in strong life.
• • •
James, speaking slowly so as not to jostle his headache, found Lavinia in Posey’s room sorting out her clothes, packing them into a great wicker hamper.
“Papa! I am so glad you have come,” said Lavinia. “It has been dreadful, just dreadful. People call at all hours to express their regrets. Many think you were in the fire as well as Mama. I have had to repeat endlessly that you were away. I don’t know what I would have done without Mrs. Trame.”
“Poor, poor child. What a trial. And tell me what you intend with that clothing. Is any of use to you?” He doubted this as Posey had been stout and busty. His head pounded.
“The church ladies will send someone for the garments. They are to be distributed to the needy. I will keep Mama’s jewelry and winter cloaks.” James thought that very few needy women would feel comfortable in Posey’s silks, but what did he know? It might be a tonic for them. His hand fell on a kingfisher-blue dressing gown Posey had often worn. Marabou feathers, fur muffs, satin slippers with tiny glass beads on the toes . . . he could imagine some slattern stuffing her horny feet into them.
“I saved out the crimson ball gown that she loved so well—for her funeral dress.” James shuddered inwardly at the thought of his wife’s charred corpse in red satin, but dredged up a painful smile for Lavinia. “You have a strength of character far beyond your years, and I salute you.” He needed to lie down with a cold compress on his forehead later.
James breathed in and out gently, straightened up. “Come, dear daughter, let us go down to the library and make a list of what must be done. We will have our plate of toast and decide on the future. We must work together, you and I, to make a life.”
He staggered a little with the force of the tightening vise.
“Papa, are you all right?”
“Yes, yes, it’s just one of my headaches—my grandmother Mercy was prone to headaches.”
“Shall I send for Dr. Cunningham?”
“No. I shall be well after a good night’s sleep.” How he longed for that deep draft of laudanum.
But as they entered the library Lavinia said, “Papa, I think Mama’s clothes are too fine to give to the poor. I have an idea I might sell them. Do I have your permission to try?”
“Sell them to whom? I agree that they are of too high quality to just give to those who will not appreciate their value. But who would buy them? I hope you do not think of approaching her friends on
this?” He heard his voice meanly snappish.
“No. I think I may go to her dressmakers, Madame Aiglet in New York and Mrs. Brawn in Boston. Both know her wardrobe—indeed, many of the dresses originated with one or the other—and they have a select list of customers, some of whom may appreciate and purchase these beautiful garments. Mama kept them clean, protected from moths in the cedar closet, safe in drawers and chests away from the destroying sunlight. They are like new.”
James, impressed by both his daughter’s business acumen and her cool and unsentimental regard for the wardrobe, said she had his approval. He would have approved if she had said she wanted to boil cabbages. He wanted only to lie down.
“I’ll go to New York in a few days and speak with Madame Aiglet.”
• • •
“Dear Lavinia,” said the dressmaker, a tall woman with coiled black hair, her square face very heavily powdered, “I am sorry for your loss.” She allowed ten or twelve seconds for grieving. “Your mother dressed very well in the most fashionable garments and although this is a somewhat provocative situation I think I can place a number of the dresses. One of my clients, married to a rising politician and of Mrs. Duke’s size—perhaps an inch shorter—has many evening dinner demands. She is ever asking for dresses ‘a leetle less expensive’—and of course I never have such a thing. It takes time to construct an elaborate dress. This situation may answer the purpose very well. Now, let me ask, what of her furs and capes? She had an exquisite yellow satin evening cape with glass bugles at the hem. Very desirable.”
Mrs. Brawn in Boston was even more eager to have the finery, the hats and gloves, boas, even the silk undergarments from Paris and the least worn of the shoes.
• • •
Some weeks later at the breakfast table James read his paper while Lavinia opened her letters. “Papa! Here is a bit of cheer which I badly need. It is from Mrs. Brawn. We have cleared two thousand dollars on Mama’s dresses. Should we invest it in Michigan pinelands? It will gain us a few more sections.”
