The Painted Bridge

by Wendy Wallace

  “You! Stop there!” Fludd’s voice was right behind her.

  She undid her cloak and threw it down in the water. She could hear him panting, hear him coming nearer.

  “Stop right there, missy. No funny business.” He laughed.

  Anna raised herself so she stood upright and inched her front foot around, turning her body to follow. She began to walk, like a trapeze artist, one foot in front of the other, touching her toe to her heel, both arms stretched out to her sides.

  A hoarse shout came from behind her. Another profanity. As she neared the center of the lake, she felt the bridge shake. She stopped, trembling so violently that she almost lost her footing. Don’t look back, she whispered to herself. She straightened again and resumed her passage over the water, her eyes fixed on the far side of the lake. As she stared in the direction of the gleaming silver birches, a figure appeared on the sandy bank in front of her. It was a man, dressed in sailor’s trousers, ragged and navy blue, and wearing a patched jacket. His beard and hair were long enough to catch the breeze and his feet naked on the melting snow. He stretched out his hand toward her.

  “Come to me.”

  His voice was a deep bell note on the air. Anna could feel the breeze in her ears and on her skin, smell the clean, absolving odor of the water. The air around her supported her as if she floated in its light. She walked surefootedly, felt her way along to the very end of the white ledge until she was close enough to leap to the shore.

  She landed more heavily than she expected. The snow had almost gone and the earth was covered with primroses. Anna brushed off her hands and got up to look on His face. There was no one there. Jesus had disappeared. She lifted her skirts and ran—up the sloping ground under the sheltering canopy of the trees and on toward the city on the horizon, the dome of St. Paul’s, the roar and tides of the streets.

  * * *

  In Sebastopol Street, Anna turned in through the gate of number 59, lifted the metal hand knocker, let it fall. She didn’t have the sense that she’d had last time, of having been there before. She was chilled to the bone, felt she could go no farther, that if the door didn’t open she would simply slump to the step.

  The door opened immediately, as if someone had been waiting for her just the other side of it. Maud Sulten was shorter than Anna—dark-haired and dressed in a red wrap, belted at her waist, her feet in embroidered green slippers emerging from the bottom of the robe. For a minute, neither of them spoke. They looked at each other, eyes locked. She had never known a stranger so perfectly, Anna had time to think, before the woman smiled.

  “You must be Anna,” she said, taking her frozen hand and clasping it between her own, drawing her over the threshold. “Come in and warm yourself. I was expecting you. I’ve got the kettle on.”

  Anna followed the woman down the passageway and into a sitting room where all the seasons bloomed at once—snowdrops, roses, lilies, poppies, chrysanthemums, poinsettias, in pots of artificial flowers. There was a crash and she looked down. A small boy grinned up at her from the rug in front of the fire, colored bricks flying and skidding and bouncing into the corners of the room from the castle he had just demolished.

  His eyes were dark, his skin waxy and his little face serious for its years. Something about him was familiar. Anna sat and watched as he played. The room was cozy and enveloping; she felt strangely at home, listening to Maud clattering gently in her kitchen. She eased off her boots, her soaked stockings, wriggled her toes in front of the flames.

  “Here we are.”

  Maud stood in the doorway with a teapot and a pair of flowery cups on a lace cloth on a tray. She put the tray down on the table, took the lid off the pot and stirred the tea, around and around.

  “The thing is, Anna,” she said. “I love him.”

  “Your boy? Of course you do.”

  “Not just our boy. I love Vincent. Foolish old goat that he is. I wouldn’t have married him otherwise.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Emmeline curled the toes of her right foot inside one of Querios’s slippers. She rotated her ankle in a small circle clockwise and then anticlockwise. The movement was coming back to her leg, despite the swelling that lingered. There was a tap on the door and her face creased into a frown. She found herself strangely reluctant, even now, to sack the girl. Hannah Smith had trained up nicely and had made herself so useful in the sickroom after the accident. Present when she was needed and absent when she wasn’t.

  Emmeline gave herself a mental shake. She had to do something. Hannah’s bulk had become impossible to ignore and her time must be near. Catherine didn’t seem to see it, which was fortunate.

  “Come in,” she called.

  Hannah Smith stood in front of her, puffing lightly.

  “You wanted me, ma’am?”

  Hannah was wearing a pink dress, the bodice flattening her breasts into a broad band of flesh across her chest, her belly standing out before her in a proud mound. Emmeline thought she saw movement in it, a rippling interruption underneath the fall of sprigged cotton. She jerked her eyes away, remembering the feeling of kicks and stirrings, of independent life inside oneself, safe from harm. For a moment, she wanted to invite Hannah to sit down and take the weight off her feet, rest a little.

  Such foolishness. Emmeline composed her face, tried to convey in her voice both severity and kindness.

  “Yes, Hannah, dear. I’ve been meaning for some time to speak with you.”

  The door opened again and Benedict came in, looking warily at Emmeline, dumping a pile of books on the table.

  “Hello, Mother,” he said. “How are you today?”

  “Ben, darling. I have to talk to Hannah and then …”

  Ben and Hannah Smith were in front of her, standing shoulder to shoulder, almost touching. Both of them with that look of youth visible only to those who have lost it. Why was she thinking of “them”? Both? Emmeline felt suddenly, horribly exposed. The expression on Hannah’s face wasn’t apprehension. It was pity. Benedict looked at her with the same sorry, proud air. Her mind swam with the effort of understanding.

  Emmeline cast her eyes around for her workbag, her laudanum, assistance in any form.

  “Not now, Ben. I’m speaking with Hannah.”

  “Mother. We’ve got something to tell you.”

  Ben knelt down by the side of the chair and took hold of her hand, looked up into her eyes. Preoccupied with Catherine, how long had it been since she had noticed her son? The whiskers on his cheeks followed the same line as Querios’s and there was silver in his hair at the temple. Even children aged, if they lived. It was obvious of course and yet so difficult to believe. She struggled to hear the words swimming around her ears.

  “I’m sorry, darling. What did you say?”

  “I said that Hannah and I are going to be married.”

  Emmeline struggled to get to her feet and, feeling a sharp pain in her bandaged leg, collapsed back into the chair.

  “Utterly impossible,” she said, summoning every last scrap of authority over her child, her servant. “You wouldn’t understand, Benedict. The girl is enceinte quite apart from anything else.” She turned her eyes to Smith. “I am so very sorry, Hannah. You will have to leave today. I will provide references, a character for you. I always liked you, you know.”

  Hannah swayed and groaned. She cupped her hands under her belly and a flood of liquid coursed out from under the hem of her dress, trickling off the edge of the rug and onto the floorboards. Her waters had broken. Emmeline looked down at her treasured silk rug, that Smith had so often cleaned. Hannah sat down heavily on the chaise longue and gripped her knees, her face contorted and her knuckles white.

  “Oh, ma’am, I’m so awfully sorry. We wanted to tell you but there was Catherine missing and then you had the accident and couldn’t be troubled.”

  Catherine had entered the room and was standing looking at all of them. She wore one of the dresses they’d chosen for the trip to Italy and was losing the haunte
d look she’d had all winter. She’d become bossy and practical in the sickroom; she was going to be a poet, not marry one. They planned to travel through France first and arrive in Italy by train. Emmeline had sold her mother’s diamond brooch to finance it. She must prevent Catherine’s knowing anything about this business with Smith.

  “Catty. I am having a private talk with your brother.”

  Catherine had the same look on her face as Ben. It was a careful, kind expression.

  “Yes, Mother. I’m just going to sit with Hannah for a minute. I think she may need some help.”

  Emmeline felt another lurching shift in what she thought she knew. Hannah gave a long groan that rose at the end then subsided. Emmeline moaned too. Ben had hold of her arm, had somehow lifted her to her feet.

  “Go and rest, Mother.”

  He propelled her toward the door and finally, Emmeline understood. She was dreaming. It was the only answer.

  Emmeline limped out of the room. She had forgotten her stick and her leg had begun to throb painfully. Grasping the newel post, she pulled herself up onto the first stair and then the second. On the landing, she stopped to rest, sat on the stool placed there for the purpose since her accident. Emmeline sat for some time, thinking about babies. She had loved hers more than anything in this strange world, she concluded, and did so still, despite anything that might happen. Anything at all.

  Through the window, in the distance, she could see a figure appearing to walk across the top of the sham bridge. It was a woman, wearing only a blue dress, no bonnet or shawl, her arms held out on either side. She hesitated in the middle, swayed, and for a minute Emmeline held her breath, thinking she was going to fall. The woman regained her balance and continued, jumping off the end with a bold, airy leap.

  * * *

  The door flew open, below. Catherine ran into the passage with the bell in her hand, ringing it hard and fast. Catherine looked up and caught sight of Emmeline on the stairs.

  “Oh, Mother,” she said, “isn’t it the most wonderful thing ever? I’ve been longing for this day to come.”

  Catherine’s face was radiant, as beautiful as she’d ever seen it. She looked like a woman. As Emmeline watched, she disappeared down the stairs toward the kitchen, shouting for Cook. A minute later, Dr. St. Clair pounded up the stairs and rushed into the parlor, rolling up his sleeves. Cook followed on his heels with a kettle in her hand and there was Catty again, with her arms full of sheets.

  It was the longest and the strangest dream Emmeline had ever had. She must tell Querios about it. She got to her feet, ascended the last stairs, and, leaning on the wall, made her way along to her own bedroom. The old man, Septimus Abse, was standing by the door with a letter in his hand. She looked again. It wasn’t Septimus. It was Querios. She limped up to him and put her arms round him, rested her face on his chest, and felt the beat of his heart. She was not dreaming. She was as far from dreaming as she had ever been. She must give him the news, before he heard the animal cries coming from the parlor.

  “Come and sit with me, Q. I have something I must tell you,” she said, opening the bedroom door.

  “No, Emmeline,” he said, looking down at the letter. “There is something that I must tell you.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  Vincent Palmer held the notes for his sermon in front of him on his lap, rolled like a scroll, which he considered the most dignified way of carrying paper. He delivered his sermons as if they were spontaneous but he prepared them minutely beforehand, knew the rhythms he would strike, the metaphors he would employ. It enabled him to deliver them to maximum effect, and with maximum sincerity, as if they were part of himself, as if he spilled his own blood for the congregation.

  It was a particular honor that the Bishop had chosen to be present on the fifth Sunday in Lent and one that could only be explained by His Lordship’s appreciation of blood ties, however tenuous. In his note, His Lordship had again made reference to Mrs. Palmer, indicated that he hoped to meet her. He wanted to look her over, evidently. It was the Bishop’s candid opinion, Vincent suspected, that if Anna was not fit to be a clergy wife he should pack her off to the country for good. Disencumber himself.

  The sermon, the last in the Lent series, was on the sin and punishment of Gehazi. Its theme was mortification and Vincent believed it the best he had ever penned. Not so much a sermon as a statement, a distillation of everything he believed, everything he was as a man as well as a priest. He felt a shiver of excitement at the prospect of being able at last to display his true worth to the Bishop.

  From the robing room, he could hear the congregation pouring in through the large doors at the back of All Hallows. He could hear the whispered admonishments of mothers to their children, the odd cry from a baby too young to know where it was. He felt ready. He’d had a light breakfast of poached eggs and a pot of tea and blackened his moustache with the Colombian powder. He was as prepared as he would ever be.

  Clearing his throat, scroll in hand, Vincent strode to his place at the side of the altar. The Bishop was installed in the front pew, he saw, with room to stretch his legs if he cared and away from the hoi polloi, who could smell unpleasant, even and in fact especially on days of notable religious significance. A deep organ note wheezed into the church and the first hymn commenced.

  The singing fell away, and the curate read the first and second lessons. There was some form of disturbance at the back as Vincent climbed the steps to the pulpit to deliver the sermon. At least a handful of worshippers generally had to be rebuked for arriving under the influence. He would discover afterward who the miscreants were, couldn’t see them clearly enough to deal immediately with them. Arriving in the pulpit, he spread his hands in a gesture of humility and of welcome, nodded to the congregation, and bowed deeply to the Bishop. Then he began.

  “Dearly beloved. All around us, in our streets and places of work, even in our own homes, we see examples of sinners. Brothers and sisters in Christ who have strayed from the path of righteousness. Consider Gehazi, who although he walked this earth almost two thousand years ago, was prey to the same temptations. …”

  The protesting creak of the church door cut in on his words, heralding, no doubt, a further disturbance at the back. He stopped and let the silence that grew in the church speak for him, composing his face into a gargoyle frown, to make clear his displeasure. When the silence was once again complete, he continued.

  “And the question that Gehazi raises for us today, the question that echoes down the generations, is thus …”

  The latecomers had failed to understand his unspoken instruction. The rumpus at the back was growing and as he raised his eyes from his notes, two figures began to walk down the nave toward him. It was a pair of females. One all in red, the shape of an hourglass. The other tall and slender in a sea-green dress. They approached him like a couple coming to make their vows—slowly, their backs straight, heads up, and their gait measured. Between them a small figure took light, skipping steps. It was his shrill voice that pierced the hush pervading All Hallows.

  “Father!”

  Vincent leaned on the pulpit, groped in his head for the right lines. Silence. Nothing. “Oh Lord,” he said to himself. “Why hast thou forsaken me?”

  The pair had halted. Anna was standing by the Bishop, so close she risked stepping on the hem of his robes. What on earth was she doing here? Vincent frowned down at her and in the silence another voice came. It echoed off the stone walls, the cerulean glass in the high windows, the closed eyes of the saints. It was Maud’s stage voice, sweet and ringing, and it had in it a breaking sorrow that pierced him as surely as if a nail had been driven through his flesh.

  “Vincent. Which one of us is your lawful wedded wife?”

  He could not stop now. He would not stop. Not while the Bishop was in the congregation. The congregation, for the first time ever, were riveted, every last one of them alert and listening with not a whisper arising from the furthest corner of the church. Even the babies
were quiet.

  Vincent caught the Bishop’s eye and saw that his face was frighteningly, unnaturally composed, displayed no emotion whatsoever. The goodwill was entirely gone from it, Vincent noted.

  How dare women try to create confusion in God’s house? Bringing sordid carnal matters under this sacred roof? Vincent lifted up his eyes to the Lord and, as a greater disturbance erupted, with cries of protest and calls of “shame,” the help he sought came to him. He felt his fists unclench and heard authority return to his voice, that authority that came from a greater power. With it came the words. Everything was there, in the Bible. All of human experience and all of human trouble. Old man Job had known it well.

  “The days of affliction have taken hold upon me. My bones are pierced in me in the night season: and my sinews take no rest.”

  Some of the parishioners were laughing, some jeering. One woman wept. Vincent looked down and saw the Bishop departing with Maud and Anna, all three of their hems trailing on the stone floor and the boy skipping beside them.

  Vincent raised his voice higher, lifted it to the rafters in joyful worship; God would hear him if man could not.

  “I stood up and I cried in the congregation. I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.”

  FORTY

  The waves lapped delicately, coaxingly, beyond their toes. They soaked into the sand, made and remade their lacy trim. Louisa stooped, picked up a shell. It was pink and brown, shaped like a baby’s cradle with the cover drawn up. She added it to the collection in her palm, all of the same type, the same shade.

  “Does it have to be so far away, Anna? I don’t know anyone who’s ever been to Liverpool.”

  “I’ll come back and visit, Lou. Or you can come and see me at the sailors’ mission, when I get settled.”

  “Why don’t you stay in London? Help me with the children? Blundell said he wouldn’t mind—now there’s no cause for embarrassment. He always knew there was something odd about Vincent.”