by Alma Katsu
My route took me by the blacksmith’s shop, and by force of habit, I glanced down the path in the direction of Magda’s cottage. A brightness was visible behind the shawl she tacked over the one window, so I knew she was awake. Funny how I’d once envied her her cottage—but I suppose I envied it still because I felt a little fillip in my heart upon seeing it, remembering the homey treasures that had so impressed me as a girl. Adair’s mansion may have been ornate and filled with luxurious things, but once you crossed the threshold, your freedom was gone. Magda was the mistress of her own home and no one could take that away from her.
As I stood at the top of the path, the front door swung open and out popped one of the axmen (thank goodness, for I would have been mortified to see one of my neighbors finish up his business with Magda). The old girl herself came out behind him and for a moment they were caught in the light falling out the open door. The two were laughing, Magda wrapping a cloak around her shoulders as she ushered her customer down the stairs with a wave good-bye. I jumped back into the shadow to spare the axman the embarrassment of being observed, but not before Magda noticed.
“Who’s there?” she called out. “Let’s have no trouble, now.”
I stepped out of the darkness. “None from me, Mistress Magda.”
“Lanore? Is that you?” She craned her neck. I trotted past the trundling axman and up the stairs for an embrace from Magda. Her arms felt more fragile than ever.
“Goodness, girl, they told me you were lost to us,” she said as she whisked me inside. The room was close because of the heat thrown from the tiny fireplace and the two bodies that had recently been at work (the musk still hung in the air; those axmen weren’t too fastidious about bathing and could grow quite rank), so I slipped off my cloak. Magda spun me around by my shoulders to get a better look at my fancy dress.
“Well, Miss McIlvrae, by the sight of you, I’d say you have done well for yourself.”
“I can’t say it’s work I’m proud of,” I said.
Magda looked reproachfully at me. “Am I to imagine that you came by your good fortune in the usual way for a young lady …?” When I didn’t answer, she shook out her cloak with a snap. “Well, you know where I stand on this subject. It’s hardly a crime to take up the only avenue open to you and make a success of it. If God didn’t want us to make a living being whores, he’d give us another means to support ourselves. But he doesn’t.”
“I’m not a whore, exactly.” Why did I feel compelled to clarify my situation for her? “There is a man who provides for me …”
“Are you married to each other?”
I shook my head.
“Then you are his mistress.” She poured gin into two tiny glasses, cloudy with age, and I told her about my life in Boston and Adair. It was a relief to tell someone about him—an adulterated version, of course, omitting the parts of him I would change if I could: his violent fits of temper, the mercurial rise and fall of his moods, the occasional male companion in his bed. I told her he was handsome, wealthy, and taken with me, and she nodded at my good news. “Good for you, Lanore. Make sure you put by some of the money he spends on you.”
In the candlelight, I could see Magda’s face more clearly. The years of my absence had left their passing on her. Her delicate skin sagged around her mouth and throat, and her black hair was almost half white. Her once pretty stays were now grayed and tattered. Whether she was the only prostitute in town or not, she wouldn’t be able to continue in her trade for much longer. The younger axmen would stop frequenting her and the older ones who would still pay for her services were apt to be unkind in their treatment of her. Soon she would be a friendless old woman in a town where life was harsh.
I wore a discreet pearl brooch, a present from Adair. My family knew nothing about jewelry and so I’d worn it openly in their presence, but Magda had to know that it was worth a small fortune. At first I thought that I should give it to my family, they had more right to it than a woman who was only my friend, but I’d resolved to leave them money, and not an insubstantial amount. So I unpinned the brooch from my clothing and held it out to her.
Magda cocked her head. “Oh no, Lanore, you needn’t do that. I don’t need your charity.”
“I want you to have it—”
She waved off my outstretched hand. “I know what you’re thinking. And I am planning to retire soon. I’ve saved quite a bit of money during my time here—Charles St. Andrew should have sent the wages of some of his men straight to me, for all the time they spent in this cottage, and spared them the job of carrying their pay in their pockets for a day or two,” she laughed. “No, I’d rather see you save it for yourself. You may not believe me now, since you are young and beautiful and have a man who values your company, but someday all those things will be gone and you may wish for the money that brooch would bring.”
Of course I couldn’t tell her that that day would never come for me. I forced a little smile as I pinned the brooch back in place.
“No, I am planning to move south in the spring. Somewhere near the coast,” she continued. She looked about the room wistfully, as though she planned to leave tomorrow. “Perhaps I will find a nice lonely widower and settle down again.”
“I’ve no doubt fortune will shine on you, Magda, in whatever you choose to do, because you have a generous heart,” I said and got to my feet. “I should let you retire for the evening, and I should get back to my family. It was good to see you, Magda.”
We embraced again and she rubbed her hand warmly on my back. “Take care of yourself, Lanore. Be careful. And whatever you do, don’t fall in love with your gentleman. We women make our worst decisions when we are in love.” She escorted me to the door and sent me off with a wave. The truth of her advice weighed on my heart, though, and I headed for the woods less buoyant than before.
The trip home found me even more restless and as I thought on it, I saw that it was because I’d lied to Magda about Adair. It wasn’t just that I’d hidden his secret—our secret—from her. That was understandable. However, if anyone in St. Andrew would forgive Adair his peculiarities, it would be Magda, and yet I chose to lie to her about him and about my relationship with him. A woman wants above all things to be proud of the man in her life, and obviously I was not. How could I be proud of what Adair had drawn out in me—that he had known just by looking at me—that I shared some of his dark appetites. As frightened as I was of him, there was no denying that I’d responded to him, too, that I’d accepted every sexual challenge he proposed. He brought out something in me I could not deny but was not proud of. So perhaps it was not Adair I was ashamed of: perhaps I was ashamed of myself.
These dreadful thoughts filled my mind as I pulled my cloak tight against the wind and hurried down the path to my family’s cabin. I couldn’t stop from remembering all the terrible things I’d done or thinking how I’d found such delight in dark pleasures—it is no wonder that I questioned whether I hadn’t slipped beyond redemption.
THIRTY-FIVE
When I woke the next day, I heard my mother and Maeve whispering to each other in the kitchen so as not to wake me. To them, I must have seemed a lazy layabout, wasting the most productive time of the day, sleeping until noon—though this was still the earliest I’d risen in a long time.
“Aye, look who is up now,” my mother called from the fireplace when she heard me groan from above.
“I imagine Nevin had a few words to say about my sleeping habits,” I replied as I climbed down the ladder.
“It was all we could do to keep him from dragging you out by your feet,” Maeve said, handing me my clothing, which had been laid over a chair by the fire to take off the chill.
“Yes, well, I was restless last night and took a stroll into town,” I admitted.
“Lanore!” My mother nearly dropped her knife. “Have you lost your mind? You could have frozen to death! Not to mention that something worse might have happened to you,” she said, exchanging a look with my sister—both
of them knowing I had little virtue left to protect—which took the sting out of her voice.
“I’d forgotten how cold it is at night this far north,” I lied.
“And where did you go?”
“Not to church, I’d wager,” Maeve said with a laugh.
“No, not to church. I went to Daughtery’s.”
“Lanore—”
“A little companionship at a lonely hour, that’s all that was wanted. I’m not used to such quiet and early hours. My life is quite different in Boston. You’ll have to bear with me.” I drew the tape ties of my skirt about my waist before making my way to my mother, and kissed her on the forehead.
“You are not in Boston now, dear,” my mother chided.
“Do not let it worry you much,” Maeve said. “It’s not as though Nevin isn’t seen at Daughtery’s from time to time. If menfolk get to do it, I don’t see why you cannot, at least on occasion”—here she cast a glance at our mother, to see if she would react—“and we shall just get used to it.”
So Nevin went to Daughtery’s—I would have to be careful. If he found out about my nocturnal dalliances, things would go badly for me.
At that moment, we were interrupted by a knock at the door. One of the St. Andrews’ servants extended an ivory-colored envelope with my name written on it. Inside was a note in Jonathan’s mother’s meticulous handwriting, inviting my family to dinner that evening. The servant waited at the door for our reply.
“What shall I tell him?” I asked, though it was easy enough to guess their response. Maeve and my mother danced about like Cinderella upon learning she was going to the ball.
“What about Nevin? Surely he’ll refuse to go,” I asked.
“Undoubtedly. On general principle,” Maeve said.
“I do wish your brother had a better head for business,” my mother muttered. “He could use this opportunity to talk to Jonathan about purchasing more regularly from us. Half the town makes its livelihood off that family. Who else will buy our beef? Them, with all those men to feed …” She probably thought the St. Andrews miserly for feeding their hired hands venison caught on the property.
I went back to the door, addressing the servant. “Please tell Mrs. St. Andrew that we would be happy to accept the invitation, and that there will be four for dinner.”
Dinner that evening was surreal to me, to be surrounded by both our families. It had never happened in the whole time Jonathan and I had been friends as children, and I would have been happy that evening for dinner to have been limited to just the two of us at a table before the fire in his study. That would not have been proper, though, now that Jonathan had a wife and child.
His sisters had already slipped into early spinsterhood and had developed owlish airs, observing my more lively sisters as though they were monkeys set loose in the house. Poor slow-witted Benjamin sat by his mother, eyes fixed on his plate, lips pursed, willing himself to remain still. Occasionally, his mother took Benjamin’s hand and petted it, which seemed to have a calming effect on the poor boy.
And, to Jonathan’s left was Evangeline, looking like a child who’d been allowed to sit at the adults’ table. Her pink fingers touched each piece of her place setting as though not familiar with the uses of all the pieces of the fine silverware service. And every so often, her gaze would flit to her husband’s face, like a dog reassuring itself of its master’s presence.
Seeing Jonathan surrounded this way, by the family who would always depend on him, made me feel sorry for him.
After the meal—a rack of venison and a dozen roasted quails, resulting in plates ghoulishly heaped with deer ribs and tiny birds’ bones, picked clean—Jonathan looked around the table, nearly all women, and invited me to withdraw to his father’s old study, which he’d now claimed for himself. When his mother opened her mouth to object, he said, “There’s no man here to join me for a pipe, and I would like to speak to Lanny alone if I may. Besides, I’m sure she would be quite bored otherwise.” Ruth’s eyebrows shot up, though his sisters did not seem to take offense. Perhaps he was trying to spare them the awkwardness of my company—I’m sure they presumed I was a whore, too, and Jonathan had probably wangled my invitation over their protests.
Once he closed the doors, he poured us whiskeys and packed two pipes with tobacco, and we settled in chairs drawn close to the fire. First, he wanted to know how I’d come to disappear in Boston. I told him a more detailed version of the story I’d given my family, that I was in the employ of a wealthy European, hired to act as his American interlocutor. Jonathan listened skeptically, debating whether to question my account or simply enjoy the story.
“You should consider moving to Boston. Life is so much easier,” I said, holding a flame to the pipe. “You’re a wealthy man. If you lived in a big city, you could avail yourself of the pleasures in life.”
He shook his head. “We can’t move. There’s the timber to harvest, it’s our lifeblood. Who would run the logging operations?”
“Mr. Sweet, as he does now. Or another foreman. That’s how wealthy men handle their properties. No reason for you and your family to suffer through the deprivation of the terrible winters here.”
Jonathan stared into the fire, drawing on his pipe. “You might think my mother would be eager to return to her own family, but we’ll never get her out of St. Andrew. She’d not admit it, but she’s gotten used to her social position. In Boston, she’d be just another well-off widow. She might even suffer socially for having spent so long in ‘the wilderness.’ Besides, Lanny, have you thought what would happen to the town if we left?”
“Your business would still be here. You’d still need to pay the townspeople to do whatever it is you pay them for now. The only difference is that you and your family would have the type of life you deserve. There would be physicians to see to Benjamin. You could enjoy Sunday socials with the neighbors, go to parties and card games every night as one of the city’s social elite.”
Jonathan gave me an incredulous look, dubious enough for me to think that what he’d said about his mother might be an excuse. Perhaps he was the one afraid to give up St. Andrew, to leave the only place he’d ever known, and become a small fish in a large, well-stocked pond.
I leaned toward him. “Shouldn’t that be your reward, Jonathan? You’ve worked with your father to build this fortune. You have no idea what is waiting for you outside these woods, these woods as thick as prison walls.”
He seemed hurt. “It’s not as though I’ve never left St. Andrew. I’ve been to Fredericton.”
The St. Andrews had business associates in Fredericton as part of the timber trade. Logs were floated down the Allagash to the St. John River and were processed in Fredericton, sawed into boards or burned into charcoal. Charles had taken Jonathan on a trip when Jonathan was still in his teens, but I’d heard little of it. Now that I thought about it, Jonathan seemed to have no curiosity about the world outside our tiny town.
“Fredericton is hardly Boston,” I chided. “And besides, if you come to Boston, you would have the opportunity to meet my employer. He is European royalty, practically a prince. But more to the point, he is a true connoisseur of pleasure. A man after your own heart.” I tried to smile cunningly. “I guarantee he will change your life forever.”
He eyed me. “‘A connoisseur of pleasure’? And how do you know about this, Lanny? I thought you were his interlocutor.”
“One can act as an intermediary on another’s behalf for many things.”
“I admit, you’ve made me curious,” he said, and yet his tone was that of complacence. Part of me mourned Jonathan having been brought to heel by his new responsibilities and not being in the least curious about the temptations I offered him. I was sure, however, that the old Jonathan was in there; I had only to roust him.
Jonathan and I spent most evenings together after that. I quickly saw that he had not cultivated any other friends. I wasn’t sure why, since there couldn’t have been any shortage of men willing t
o enjoy the social status and possible financial benefits that would come with being Jonathan’s closest ally. Still, Jonathan wasn’t stupid. These were the same men who, as boys, had resented his good looks, his position, and his wealth. Resented that their fathers were beholden to the captain for wages or rent.
“I shall miss you when you leave,” Jonathan said to me on one of those evenings spent locked behind the study doors, burning good tobacco. “Would you consider remaining? You don’t have to return to Boston, not if the issue is money. I could give you a job, and then you would be here to help your family now that your father is gone.”
I wondered if Jonathan had given any thought to his offer or if it had come to him spontaneously. Even if he found some kind of position for me, his mother would object to having a fallen woman working for her son. He was right about this being an opportunity to do right by my family, though, and inwardly I squirmed. But I was also riddled with a nameless fear at the prospect of not obeying Adair’s orders.
“I couldn’t give up the city now that I know it. You’d feel the same.”
“I’ve already explained to you—”
“You needn’t make a decision on the spur of the moment. After all, to move your entire household to Boston is no small thing. Come back with me for a visit. Tell your family that you’re making a business trip. See if the city suits your taste.” I had deftly cleaned the pipe stem with a wire—a skill picked up from maintaining Adair’s water pipe—and tapped the bowl against a little salver to clear the ash. “It could be advantageous to you from a business position, as well. Adair will show you around, introduce you to the men who own the timber mills and such. He’ll take you out in society, too. There’s no culture here in St. Andrew! You have no idea of the things you’re missing, plays, concerts. What I think you’ll really find fascinating”—I leaned forward, our heads bowed close for the utmost secrecy—“is that Adair is much like you when it comes to a gentleman’s pleasure.”
