“I am here in service of Mrs. Francis Smith, of Philadelphia, whose arrival is impending. Mrs. Smith is the mother of Lysander Smith. Perhaps that name is known to you.”
“Ah! Lysander,” Mercadier sighed. “Poor lad. Bad end, there. Something of a rake, yes, but still, there’s no deserving that kind of end. His mother, you say?”
“Yes,” Cowling said stiffly. “And I must ask you to consider her sensibilities when you speak of his end, please.”
“Of course, of course,” Mercadier said. “Fine violin the boy played. I am sorry for my error. I thought you might be the correspondent from the Evening Post or the Tribune. I have been writing to them quite regularly, you know.”
“I didn’t know that,” Charlotte said.
“Oh, yes! Quite often. The story of Daybreak, you see. It’s very significant, I think.”
Mercadier appeared ready to go into a great deal more detail about his theories of the community, but Marie appeared around the corner of the cabin. “There you are! You worry me so, wandering off like this.” She paused and nodded to the group. “Excuse me. I was seeking for my father.”
Cowling swept his hat off his head, bowing from the waist with such an exaggerated show of politeness that Charlotte had to cover her mouth. “No interruption, no interruption at all, miss. Your father was just explaining to us—just telling us—”
“This is Miss Mercadier,” Charlotte said. “Marie, this is Mr. Cowling.”
Charlotte’s amusement left her as Cowling bowed again, even lower, and a bitter taste filled her mouth. Trust the pretty girl to get all the notice. This Mr. Cowling might not be so attentive after little Josephine came strolling up, as she so often did, quiet as mice and just as alert. The little bastard child would put a stop to his gallantry, or turn it in another direction, perhaps—
No sooner had the thought passed through her mind than she regretted it bitterly. The child was not to blame for her parentage; Charlotte had always vowed never to bring up the accident of her birth, or even give it thought. But here she was, pouncing on it like a village biddy, and for what reason? Because a serving man made a swooping bow? The history of the great Daybreak indeed, and its beneficent influence on human nature. More like how human nature persisted in its worn, wicked paths despite all their efforts.
“Mr. Cowling is here in preparation for a visit by Mrs. Smith, the mother of Lysander Smith,” Charlotte said, recovering her composure. “You remember Lysander Smith, of course.”
At the mention of Smith’s name, an ill-concealed look of distaste passed over Marie’s face, reminding Charlotte of what a boorish and unpleasant man Lysander Smith had been, sad end or none. They exchanged glances in silent understanding, and Marie smiled to cover her grimace and said nothing. At least she had the courtesy not to speak, Charlotte thought.
Marie’s presence still bothered Charlotte. She tried to avoid her as much as she could, especially at moments like this, when it was impossible to ignore the fact that Marie was young and pretty and that men were drawn to her. She knew these feelings brought out a side of her she did not like—the judgmental, snappish side, the side that made the villagers in Daybreak duck away from her when it emerged. It wasn’t that she was hard on purpose; inside, the idealistic young woman who had thrown in with James and founded a community in the wilderness was still there. But James’s fall, and Adam’s death, and most of all the war had pushed that woman below the surface. Her hide had grown tough. But beneath that hide, she knew the old Charlotte still remained—hopeful, tender, and all too vulnerable. She wondered if the new, hard world, all sharp edges and cruelty, would ever allow that woman to reemerge.
Charlotte was about to say something to try to relieve the silence when the distant sound of a trumpet broke through the air. It pierced the quiet of the afternoon with a series of random, unconnected notes.
“That will be Jimmy,” Cowling said. “He can’t keep himself away from that thing.”
They looked across the river to where the road from town descended the hill on the opposite side, and they could see two wagons making the slow passage. Even from this distance, Charlotte could tell they were heavily laden, the first wagon a big landau with the back roof folded down, and the second one smaller, a trap, with trunks and parcels tied onto the sides as well as piled in among the passengers.
“I must ride back with the news,” Cowling said. “Ladies.” He tipped his hat again and rushed off to fetch his horse.
The women watched him dash away, while Emile stood quiet, listening. “Lysander Smith,” Marie said thoughtfully, as if reciting a name she was uncertain how to pronounce.
“Bad end, that boy,” repeated Emile.
By now, the word had spread through the village. Townspeople gathered in the street in knots of two and three, craning their necks to see as the wagons made their way into view.
Again a banished thought washed over Charlotte—she wished Adam Cabot were still alive and here today. Most of the time she kept thoughts of him from her mind, since thoughts of the impossible, the never-was, and the never-would-be, only brought pain. Why poke a wound that had mostly healed? Lost people, lost possibilities. But Adam would know how to greet this society lady, what to say to her about her lost son. They had always been able to count on Adam.
She shook off the chill that passed through her and turned away, unwilling to let anyone—especially Marie—see the look of exhaustion and sadness she knew shadowed her face. If she was going to have a silly moment of woe come from out of nowhere, she would have it in private.
The wagons crossed the ford and came into the village. In the first one was a woman in a black dress and bonnet, propped up in the back on an elaborate arrangement of pillows and supports, facing backward. She was enormous, her face wide and jowly, spreading into an even thicker neck that likewise spread downward into a wide, monstrous body that seemed to fill the entire wagon bed. Her face wore a mask of deep disdain, and from the wagon there came a strange mélange of aromas, herbal and bitter and musky all at once. In the second wagon, an older woman rode beside the driver, and in the back sat two young women and a boy—the trumpet-blowing Jimmy, no doubt, Charlotte thought. An older man with a gray face and a sour expression rode horseback behind them all.
The wagons pulled into the open area in front of the Temple and stopped. The people drew closer, but no one spoke.
“Well?” the woman boomed. “Is this how you greet your guests?”
For once, Charlotte could not find anything to say.
“Mrs. Smith,” came a voice.
It was Turner, pushing his way from the back of the crowd. He had managed to get to their house and put on his frock coat, and he even seemed to have put a shine on his hat somehow. He reached the wagon and removed his hat, placing it over his heart. “Please forgive me. I was in the farthest field when news of your arrival reached me.”
Turner bowed to the old woman. “I am James Turner,” he said, and Charlotte could hear the old strain of oratory in his voice, the voice of that lyceum lecturer who had captivated thousands. “Perhaps Mr. Foltz of Quincy has mentioned my name to you. Lysander spoke of you endlessly, and I am honored to have you among us. I am the man who brought Lysander to this valley, and I am the man who saw him meet his end.” He lowered his head and appeared to meditate. “And with every day that I rise, I wish by all that is holy that I would have been able to return him to you healthy and whole. And I regret with all my being that I did not.”
He held out his hand. “May I help you down?”
But Mrs. Smith did not take his hand immediately; she covered her face with her handkerchief and held it there, still, and for a long silent moment they all waited. Then the old woman lowered the handkerchief to reach out her hand to Turner’s, and when she did her cheeks were wet, her eyes fixed on Turner.
There was someone, after all, who would know just what to say, and
Charlotte felt ashamed for not remembering. It was her James, her own fool
ish, flawed, beloved Mr. Turner returning to himself for a moment, with so many of his own best parts buried or lost, and when Charlotte herself turned away, it was not to shield Mrs. Smith’s tears from her prying gaze, but to hide her own.
Chapter 7
Marie Mercadier stood in the doorway of her cabin in the early morning, trying to decide what to do first. The mornings had begun to turn cool; the leaves on the elm tree that overhung the cabin had already yellowed. Josephine was still asleep inside, and Papa, to whom day and night no longer differed much, had gotten up an hour ago, groping his familiar path to the barn to start work.
Cowling, the manservant to Mrs. Smith, emerged from the front door of the cabin next to her, his waistcoat unbuttoned and his long hair flying in several directions from beneath his hat. He smiled and bowed, but Marie ignored him; no one put on airs like a servant, and she had no intention of encouraging them. Cowling stepped around the corner of his house, and within seconds Marie was treated to the sound of him pissing against his cabin wall. Apparently modesty had not yet come to Philadelphia. A minute later, Cowling reappeared and went back inside. Marie looked in the opposite direction.
The Philadelphia group had taken the last two empty cabins at the north of the village, Mrs. Smith in the northernmost with her maid Jenny sleeping in the front room, and everyone else in the other, men in the front, women in the back. So as summer moved into fall, Marie found herself with a strange new set of neighbors on both sides—the silent Dathan in the cabin just to the south of her, appearing and disappearing like a foxfire with no words beyond the occasional remark on the weather, and Mrs. Smith’s retinue to the north.
Marie paid little attention in either direction. Between her father, the school, and her work for the colony, she had enough to do. But she was aware of them all the time, the coming and going, and she liked the activity. Like the humming of a beehive, it reassured her, made her feel as if life was getting back to normal, as if the war hadn’t changed everything and everyone. It was an illusion, of course; she knew that. But it was nice to imagine in the mornings that Daybreak was back to the way it was, all optimism and hope, thoughts of the common good, everyone’s effort turned toward making the colony prosper.
Turner’s mad declaration had stunned her, but thankfully he had not repeated it. But his return made her uncomfortable for another reason—it reminded her of older days, the days before exposure, and shame, and Josephine. She would never admit it to the townsfolk, but she missed the touch of a man. She rarely allowed herself to remember those times—alone with Turner, hiding in an outbuilding or stealing moments in the print shed, or on the rare trips to town, talking, kissing, letting his hands rove over her body. Those were memories too painfully precious to be let out willy-nilly. But she had not forgotten what she was missing. And now that silent figure out in the fields, more the ghost of James Turner than the actual Turner himself—had she really loved that man? Of course she had, or the man he had been.
Not that she was pining for him. Marie wondered if she should have gone straight to Charlotte after his awkward overture and let the two of them sort themselves out, but what good would that have done? Just more turmoil, perhaps Turner doing something else irrational, and pain all around, especially for the children. No, better to hold that knowledge to herself.
And there was Charley Pettibone hanging around, trying to be funny. Charley was a well-favored young man, in years barely more than a boy, really, although anyone who had been to the war for four years could hardly be called a boy. Once she could have imagined letting Charley charm her; but now there were times when she could hardly stand to look at him. He was a rebel and a traitor, a man who had crossed a solemn line, and as far as she was concerned that step once taken could not be undone. Everyone could talk about general amnesties and oaths of loyalty, but she could no more let him spark her than Jefferson Davis.
So there it was. Men all around, but none of them right. At twenty-seven, she was still marriageable, but barely. Perhaps it was not her fate to marry. Perhaps her task in life was to care for these children that chance had placed into her care—Josephine, and orphaned Angus, and the schoolchildren, Newton and Adam, the Wickman girls, and the rest. If it was, so be it. The life of man and woman would have to remain a foreign country to her, one that she had visited briefly but now could only see from the coast of her own, through fog.
Cowling appeared out of his cabin again, combed and properly dressed, smiling unctuously, and came toward her. No choice but to acknowledge him now. She nodded in his direction, wishing that she had put a kettle on the stove, or anything else to provide an easy escape.
“It’s a beautiful morning, miss,” he said.
“I suppose so.”
“What, you doubt it?”
“The day has just begun. I’m not calling it beautiful until I’ve seen more of it.”
“Ah, you’re a hard case. No romance in that pretty head of yours?”
Cowling’s flirting annoyed her. She turned to go inside, but he caught her arm. “Actually, I’m supposed to give you a message from my mistress. She instructed me to deliver it last night, but I couldn’t find you.”
Marie turned back to him. “Very well. What is it?”
“How about if you tell me where I can find you at night in case I need to deliver more messages?” he simpered. Marie did not respond. “I’ll tell you this, little missy. The Smiths are one of the first families of Philadelphia, so take my advice. Say the right things to Mrs. Smith, and you’ll go far.”
“So what is the message?”
“She wants to talk to you today. You and Mrs. Turner. She wants you both to come see her at teatime.”
“Teatime?”
“Tea and tonic, if you know what I mean.” Cowling made a face and leaned toward her. “Mrs. Smith always has her tonic, morning, noon, teatime, and bedtime.” He mimicked the tipping of a bottle.
“What does she want to see us about?”
“That’s for her to say. But you’ll do well to let me guide you on the right things to say.”
“I need to get my firewood,” Marie said, brushing past Cowling and walking around the side of her cabin. “Thank you for the message.”
But Cowling followed her behind the cabin, and once they were out of sight of the village he grabbed her around the waist. “How about a little kiss, little missy?” He pressed his face against hers. “I hear the girls out here are a wild lot.”
Marie pushed against him, but he held tight. “Come on, little missy, just one,” he said. His breath was hot and sour against her cheek.
There was a sharp crack, and Cowling sprung away from her, looking around wildly. Dathan was standing behind his cabin, twenty feet away, with a long branch of wood, perhaps two inches thick, in his hands. He had one end wedged in the fork of a tree and was breaking the branch into smaller pieces.
“Go away, you,” Cowling said. “We’re busy here.”
Dathan inserted the branch into the tree fork and broke off another piece.
“I said go away!”
Dathan looked over at them calmly and broke the branch in two another time. He tossed one of the pieces onto his woodpile but kept the other one in his hand.
“That your house?” he said to Cowling.
Marie took the opportunity to walk past Cowling to the front of her own house. “Good morning, Dathan,” she said.
“Morning, ma’am. Nice day ahead.”
“I believe so, Dathan.” She stepped inside her cabin and shut the door. She counted three seconds and went to the window; Cowling was nowhere to be seen, and Dathan had returned to breaking up his firewood. He glanced in her direction; she gave a tentative wave from the window, but if he saw, he gave no sign.
Marie went about the rest of her day trying to keep the morning’s unpleasant scene out of her mind. It wasn’t hard; she spent the morning in the Temple with the children, teaching arithmetic and penmanship, and the early afternoon in the cornfields. Work
was always there to keep her mind elsewhere. Then as the sun was declining, she saw Charlotte approaching through the rows of corn and knew that the time for their visiting Mrs. Smith had come. She stopped work and wiped her face as Charlotte drew near.
“So,” Charlotte said.
“So.”
“Any idea?” Marie shook her head. “Well, let’s go see, then.”
The two of them left the field and walked toward the village. “Just a minute,” Marie said as they reached the road. She stopped at the pump and wet a handkerchief to wipe her face. “There,” she said. “Even bumpkins can be clean.”
They knocked at the cabin door, where Jenny, Mrs. Smith’s maid, let them in, ushered them into the back room, and then retired. She was a timid girl of seventeen who never met their eyes, skinny with pale skin and straight black hair that she tied into a tight knot in back. She wore a wrinkled housedress with a faint calico print, probably a hand-down from someone in Mrs. Smith’s family. A pretty girl if she would tend to herself, Marie imagined, although she seemed determined not to tend to herself.
Mrs. Smith was propped up on her bed in the back room, an array of tables and pillows surrounding her. Despite the stale air of the closed room, she was encased in dresses and a bonnet, and partly covered with a blanket. With a tired flick of her hand, she waved them to two chairs at the foot of the bed. Mr. Wilkinson, the dour, gray man who had not spoken to anyone as far as Marie knew, stood at the head. A platter of crackers and two cups of tea sat on a table between the chairs.
Charlotte and Marie sat down. The room was silent for a minute.
“Well, here you are,” Mrs. Smith finally said. Marie had decided to let Charlotte take the lead, so when Charlotte did not answer she kept still as well. “You have met Mr. Wilkinson, I suppose.” Wilkinson removed his hat and nodded to them. “You have probably been wondering why we traveled all the way to this place.”
“Your son’s grave is here,” Charlotte said. “It’s quite understandable.”
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