The Vanishing Point

by Mary Sharratt

  Hannah said nothing. Her silence dragged on like agony. He wished he could do something to bring lightness to her heart. It would be something to see her laugh and smile again, the way she had when he told the story of the glamoury eye.

  When she rose to wash the pots and trenchers, he went outside with a candle and took the rabbit skin, now tanned and dry, down from the wall. By firelight, he cut it with his sharpened knife, then took his heavy needle and the thick thread May had spun while cursing him. Long after Hannah had retired behind the bed curtains, he stayed awake, stitching the pieces together.

  ***

  Despite the news that she would never see May's wedding dress—or any of her clothes—again, no disturbing dreams troubled Hannah. As if in answer to her prayers, she had her first peaceful sleep since coming to the Washbrook house. In the morning she awoke and felt like her old self again.

  Whistling, she went to the orchard to gather windfall apples. Cutting away the bruises and worms, she simmered them with sugar and nutmeg to make compote. She made Gabriel corn-bread-and-butter pudding with compote poured over it. When she brought it to him, he was chiseling out the charred center of the canoe.

  ***

  "I wonder what I will do in Anne Arundel Town," she said that night by the fire. "Do you know of a respectable place where I might go?"

  "You must ask the Banhams." His voice rang spiteful when he mentioned their name, but then he continued in an even tone. "They are well connected. Mayhap they know of someone seeking an educated girl as a lady's maid or companion. Or mayhap you will find a place as a child's nursemaid. But you won't have to stay a servant long," he added quickly. "Healthy young women are scarce. If you wish to marry, you will find many suitors. No doubt you will find a worthy man."

  Hannah struggled to maintain a polite demeanor, for she sensed that he meant to offer comfort. But the time had come for her to look at her future squarely. She placed each fact next to the other, lining them up like dominoes.

  Father is dead, and I may no longer practice physick or make any practical use of my education. May is dead, and I am stranded in the New World. I cannot live with Gabriel, for that would ruin my reputation, even if we lived as chastely as brother and sister. I cannot stay here in any case; Gabriel has lost his tobacco harvest and will also lose his land. When I leave here, I will be either a servant or some unknown man's wife.

  Maybe there was another possibility. Could she set herself up as a traveling midwife? True, she knew little of the birth process, but she could at least read about it in her father's books. Her knowledge of anatomy had to count for something. Unlike most midwives, she could read and write. But she would need to find a companion first, as Lucy Mackett had. No respectable woman traveled on her own for a living.

  She looked up, aware that Gabriel was staring at her.

  "Something troubles you," he said. "And I fear it is more than simple grief."

  At first she wanted to demur, then it occurred to her that she had nothing to lose. "I have a secret."

  "A secret? You?" It seemed that he spoke with relief, as though having a secret entailed some unspoken fellowship between them. For a moment Hannah could forget he was May's widower. She could forget she was a young woman alone with him in a remote house. The look of complicity he gave her reminded her of the way Father used to look at her when they went to perform surgery. It reminded her of the way Father had treated her—not as a mere girl but as an apprentice physician with an intellect to match his own.

  "If I tell you," she said, "will you promise to keep my secret?"

  "Aye, Hannah. I give you my word." He gave her a wry look. "Not that I have anyone out here to tell, at any rate." But he was not joking—his face was as serious as it had ever been.

  "My father was a physician," she began. "He was getting old. I was his handmaiden. He taught me things no other girl knows. He treated me like a son..." She broke off, thinking again of how Gabriel's father had treated him. "He was the best of fathers and the best of men. He taught me Latin and Greek. He had me read the works of Paracelsus and Aristotle. He had me study the writings of Dr. Harvey on the circulation of blood through the body. In my trunk I have books of anatomy. I know of physick herbs and their signatures."

  He nodded. "You gave your sister the seeds to plant in the garden."

  "He also taught me this." Hannah went to her trunk on the shadowy side of the room away from the fire. Even though she had no candle, her fingers easily located the leather box. She carried it back to the hearth and opened it in front of Gabriel, revealing the surgeon's knives of different sizes, the catheter, the razor-sharp scalpel.

  Gabriel looked at the instruments and then at her. "These are things I would not think to find in a maiden's trunk."

  "I have used them." Hannah spoke forcefully. "He taught me how." She told him how she had become her father's hands when his own hands had grown unsteady with age. She explained how they had kept their secret from the patients and the patients' families. Gabriel's face went bone-white when she told him of extracting Mr. Byrd's kidney stone. "I cut into him with this." She pointed to the scalpel. "And I pulled the stone with these." She took the tweezers from the case and held them so that they flashed in the firelight.

  Gabriel regarded her speechlessly.

  Hannah held his gaze without blinking. "Do you think me a monster?"

  "No monster, but a thing of wonder. You have powers few possess."

  Her skin prickled in pleasure. "You are the first I have ever told," she said in a warm rush. "Only Father knew, and he swore me to secrecy. Not even May knew."

  "You honor me," he said. "I will keep your secret safe. In faith, I always suspected there was something uncommon about you ... and now I know. I will miss you when you go." The last thing he said quietly. Grabbing the poker, he shifted the burning logs in the hearth.

  "I wish I knew what to do." She leaned closer to the fire. "There are so few physicians here, and yet I have no opportunity to put my arts to use." She told him about her experience at the Mearley Plantation, how Mrs. Mearley had rebuked her for offering to help her husband. "Had they allowed it, I could have relieved the man of his agony."

  "You expect overmuch from these people, I fear," Gabriel told her. "But do not fret about your future." He fed more wood to the fire. "A girl like you will always find her feet."

  ***

  Each day when she carried out his midday meal, Hannah saw the progress Gabriel was making on the canoe. He used the adze to chip away the charred wood in the center. He kept burning and chipping until, three days later, the canoe was hollowed out. With the adze, he smoothed the bottom. Then he smoothed the sides to make sure they were symmetrical, so the canoe would be balanced on the water. Last, he cut down a slender birch and carved out the paddle.

  The finished canoe was twelve feet long and so massive, Gabriel needed to heft it onto logs to roll it into the river.

  "This will last many years," he told her. "Nothing is better than solid wood. If I run into a rock, it will not break." He slapped the canoe's golden flank. "The Indians used to make giant canoes. I did hear stories of war canoes that were fifty feet long. Each could hold forty men. But I made mine small enough so that I can row it on my own."

  Hannah stood on the dock and watched Gabriel climb in. He sat cross-legged on the flat bottom and then paddled around in a circle, showing her how easily he could maneuver the boat in the strong current.

  "I could never ride a horse very well," he called out, pitching his voice above the gushing water, "but I am a born boatman."

  She had to smile to see his face so flushed with pride. When he paddled up to the dock, she tried to share his delight. He let her climb in and run her fingers over the satiny wood.

  "I made it just the right size to take you and your trunk down to Banham's," he said. "There is even room for your sister's trunk."

  ***

  Before sunset Gabriel climbed the ladder and opened the trapdoor to the attic while
Hannah waited below. He went up with a guttering candle. She had taken care to close the shutters and to push the trunk back to its original position. She hoped he would never guess she had been up there making her own investigation. With the shutters closed, it would be too dim for him to see the footprints she had left in the dust. A sense of regret passed through her. Now that she had divulged her deepest secret to him, it seemed almost shameful to conceal anything.

  First he handed down the spinning wheel. At home, an unmarried woman could make her living spinning, though she doubted such a thing was possible here. What would people have to pay her with—eggs and tobacco?

  With some difficulty, he hefted May's trunk, bearing the weight in his arms and descending slowly, one ladder rung at a time. Careful, Hannah thought, afraid he would fall and the trunk would crush him. When his feet reached the floor, he set it down with a heavy bang.

  "That is done."

  "You are generous," she said, "giving me all her things."

  Gabriel looked away. "We leave at dawn tomorrow."

  "Tell me one thing." Hannah fought down her trepidation. After this evening, she might not have another chance to ask. "Was May happy here?" She could not bring herself to ask if her sister and Gabriel had been happy together.

  He stared at her, stricken. How unlike May he was, so quiet and gentle. How had he fared with her? She thought of May's boldness, her vices. Had she been true to this man, or had she carried on the way she always had? In her letters, May had told them about Adele and Nathan Washbrook, but had hardly mentioned Gabriel. With a heavy heart, she remembered Father's words: She writes nothing tender of her husband. Not a word.

  "Our life here was full of hardship." Gabriel bowed his head. "I think she missed society. Had she known how lonely it would be, I doubt she would have joined us here."

  Hannah wanted to say something, but found she could not.

  He raised his face to the ceiling then, as if about to make a confession to God. "I fear I was not all she hoped for, either. I could not make her happy as I should have." His voice was stark with pain.

  "Gabriel, I loved her well, but I know that she could be a trying woman. You are a good man. I am sure you did everything in your power to be an honorable husband to her."

  He blinked. "I know she missed you terribly, Hannah. Your letter brought her such joy."

  She turned aside so he wouldn't see her eyes tear up.

  ***

  Just as she was about to retire, Gabriel appeared with a cloth bundle.

  "I know you are disappointed," he said, "not to have more keepsakes from your sister. This is a keepsake from me. Mayhap it will be of use to you this winter."

  She smiled shyly as she undid the bundle. Inside was a pair of mittens, tanned hide on the outside and soft fur on the inside. "This is kind," she murmured. Putting them on, she held them up in the firelight and marveled. They fit her perfectly. How had he known the size of her hands?

  "They're rabbit fur," he said.

  ***

  She slept with the mittens under her pillow, clutching them for childish comfort. The prospect of throwing herself at the Banhams' mercy banished all hope of sleep. She pondered whether she could go to Michael and Elizabeth Sharpe's homestead on the Eastern Shore and make herself useful in exchange for a pallet to sleep on and a place at their table. Over time she could establish herself as a midwife and herb woman. Possibly Elizabeth was already pregnant again after rejoining her husband. Staying with them seemed a happy prospect until she took their poverty into account. Before she became a working midwife, she would be a burden, another mouth to feed. It would be different if she were a strong man who could help in the tobacco fields. No, she could not impose herself on them.

  Tossing in bed, she tried to envision her future, laid out before her like Joan's cards. She saw only a blank.

  ***

  At first light, she dressed behind the closed curtains. Combing her hair, she coiled it and tucked it beneath her bonnet. She was nervous about meeting Banham again, but maybe he wouldn't be there. Perhaps he was off sporting, she thought, with some other man's wife.

  Gabriel had set out a single plate of cornbread and a pitcher of milk. The trunks were gone. How had he been able to take them down to the dock without waking her? The cornbread stuck in her throat. Why was she so nervous? May wouldn't be filled with trepidation. If May were with her, she would whisper in her ear that it was an adventure. May would expect her to set off in high spirits.

  Before going to the dock, she visited her sister's grave. The frost-whitened grass chilled her as she pressed her palms against the turf. It pained her enough to have left her parents' grave, and now she was abandoning May's last resting place as well. She was about to set off into a world where no one knew a thing about her or her family: how beautiful her sister or how sagacious her father had been.

  ***

  She found Gabriel in his canoe, paddle across his lap. The trunks were stowed in the middle, and he sat at the rear. "You must sit in front," he said, "to keep the balance."

  She warned him of the logjams and beaver dams blocking the waterway, but he insisted they would manage. "The way downstream is easier than coming back will be."

  After she had settled into the boat, he untied the rope and pushed away from the dock. The downstream current was swift. Before Hannah could catch her breath, Washbrook Landing was lost. Oh May, what will become of me?

  "You will tend her grave for me, won't you?" she asked. The churning river swallowed her words. She looked back at Gabriel. The wind blew his long hair off his brow as he worked the oar. To think that this was the last she would see of him. The thought of losing his friendship seemed unbearable. Although she had stayed in his house for barely more than a fortnight, he was the one person who knew her secrets. He had seen her in one of her fits. She had shown him her surgical instruments. This night she would sleep in the Banhams' house. How she dreaded meeting them again. How she dreaded those sneering girls.

  They were heading for a patch of rough water lashing around big stones. "Hold fast," he yelled, guiding the canoe around the rocks with a dexterity that astonished her.

  She had lost so much. May, Father, Joan and her childhood home, her country. Now this. Had she traveled this far to end up a servant or else married to some planter with rotten teeth, like the man who had accosted her in Anne Arundel Town and called her sister Banham's whore?

  "Gabriel, stop!" Lurching in her seat, she shifted her weight so that the canoe rocked violently to one side.

  "Hannah!" he shouted. "Have a care. You will tip the boat."

  "Gabriel, please! Turn the canoe around. Let us go back."

  "Have you lost your head?"

  "Banham is a dishonorable man. He is a whoremonger. I won't go to him."

  "Sit still, Hannah. Calm yourself," he pleaded, making for shore. Paddle on the river bottom, he pushed the prow onto a sandy bank. He slowly moved one foot over the side of the canoe, then the other, stepping into the shallow water. Grunting with effort, he shoved the canoe onto land. Then he tied the rope to a tree branch hanging over the water. He stretched out his hand, helping her ashore.

  "Hannah, what is this? You wanted me to take you downriver. I made the canoe for you."

  She couldn't see him anymore for her tears. "Will you let me stay with you, Gabriel?"

  She covered her face, waiting for him to tell her no, it was impossible, there was nothing left for her there.

  "You are overwrought," he said. "If you want to go back to society, we must do it now, before the first snow."

  She wiped her eyes. "You are the only family I have left. I do not want to lose you."

  He moved his lips, but no words came out. She had never seen a man's face go soft like that before. Then he stiffened. "Think well on your words. Is this what you truly want?"

  "They are all fops and liars, those planters. You said so yourself. They do own slaves and treat them worse than cattle. When I traveled upriver
with Banham, he and Mr. Gardiner both debauched Mr. Gardiner's wife, though she was huge with child."

  Gabriel looked at her as though she were raving.

  "But you," she said, "are a good and honest man."

  He swallowed. "You have known me only a short time."

  "But I do know you," she said. "There is a bond of kinship. Our fathers were cousins."

  He took her hand and led her up the bank to a flat granite boulder.

  "Sit here a while and think of what you have said." He let go of her. "You must know your mind. If we do not travel today, you might be stranded here for winter, and our winters can be long—"

  "Gabriel." She cut him off. "My sister was fortunate in at least one thing." She looked into his eyes.

  His face went dark red. "Do you even know what you are saying, Hannah Powers?"

  "I think I am in love with you."

  They stood on the boulder, three feet apart, the river rushing past. She stepped forward and touched his arm. Before he could stop her, she embraced him, pretending for an instant that he was May and that she could wrap her arms around him without shame. How easily her head nestled against his chest. His heart pounded against her cheekbone. Yes, she was carrying on like a wanton girl, but wasn't she May's own sister? Didn't May's mischief run in her blood?

  "Hannah." He sounded helpless and overwhelmed.

  "I'm sorry," she said at once, backing away. But then he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tight against him. Closing her eyes, she soaked in his warmth, the muscle and bone beneath his buckskin shirt. She began to cry again.

  "Sweet Hannah." He wiped away her tears with his fingers, then rested his palm on the side of her neck. She noticed for the first time that his eyes were not black but darkest blue, like indigo ink with a glint of fire behind them.

  His lips brushed her forehead. "You smell of wood smoke. And lye soap."

  She laughed.

  He tugged at her bonnet. "Let me see your hair."

  "It's ugly," she whispered.

  "It's not."

  So she undid the strings of her bonnet, and he pulled it off her head. Like a living thing, her hair sprang loose from the tight coil she had wound it in. He ran his hands through it, then buried his face in it. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her with a hunger that made her gasp. How easy it was to melt in his embrace, to let him bend her backward. This pounding inside her, was this what May had felt with her lovers? Was this what had lured May from her bed night after night and left such a glow on her skin? People said it was wicked, but this was what her May had done, her beautiful May, and this was May's widower. Did she not haunt them both? Kissing Gabriel was the only way to break through the wall of loneliness and grief, the only way she could hold on. In the entire world, only one thing remained of her family and home, and that was Gabriel Washbrook.