The Sweetness of Water

by Nathan Harris

  To Isabelle’s surprise, the statement seemed to come as a great and necessary relief to Mildred. Immediately her friend calmed and Isabelle put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Whatever I’m doing, I want you a part of it. We could start tomorrow. I’d love for you to begin that map. If you’re free, that is.”

  Mildred’s composure settled further—a deep swallow, a long breath, her eyes hardening once more to their usual piercing cast.

  “I believe I will have some time tomorrow,” Mildred said, with her old confidence.

  Little did Isabelle know that the following day would turn into every day thereafter as well.

  * * *

  Mildred’s map carried the name of every freed person who took up residence on the Walker estate. By the cusp of winter there were seven lots divided up and, with the forest, nearly no more room left to plant. There were two women, Clarinda and Jane, who took up a small plot beside Matthew’s. They purported to be sisters yet looked wildly dissimilar. Clarinda was heavyset and boasted a voice so deep she often seemed to be on the verge of breaking into a somber hymn. Jane was lithe, half the size of Clarinda, and spoke in a tone so high that Isabelle sometimes clenched her teeth at the sound of it. They both wore the same outfit, which consisted of a white bonnet and a homespun dress patterned with petaled flowers. They were garrulous, often seeking out Isabelle to disclose knowledge of their family—cousins a few states away they had never met or known; other erstwhile slaves they now viewed as kin who had moved a county over—and Isabelle grew curious as to when they managed to get their work done, for their garden was indeed quite lively with carrots and onions that seemed on track for a spring harvest. A visit to their plot one afternoon provided no answers, as neither sister was there. Only when Isabelle was returning from George’s grave at the end of one day did she find them walking past the cabin, describing to her how they worked at a weaving mill and often weren’t able to return until dusk. Whatever they earned from their yield come harvest would supplement their earnings. Enough to launch them in search of the family they’d described to her.

  There were others, like Godfrey, who hadn’t spoken to her since he’d arrived a month earlier. She’d given him a plot far east, on the outskirts of the property, and on both visits she made he did not deign to say a word. Something had happened to the man. He used little of the land, planting enough to feed himself alone. She wasn’t surprised to hear from the others that he never made an effort to converse with them either, or that he hardly left his land.

  He was harassed once by a few teenage boys from town looking for trouble. He wasn’t beaten but they woke him and pushed him around, and after word got back to her and Mildred, Isabelle was surprised to find a bouquet of flowers on her porch the next week from one of the offenders. Apparently Mildred had told her sons about the incident, and they’d dealt with it their own way, tracking down the assailants and doling out punishment. Isabelle informed her they should tell the authorities next time, yet neither could quite argue with the outcome.

  Isabelle delivered the flowers to Godfrey’s plot of land, but he was nowhere to be found. Upon her next visit, his tent had been taken down and removed, and with his tools gone as well, she realized he’d abandoned the land altogether. In time, another freedman took up residence. Nonetheless a message had been sent, and between the reputation of the Foster boys, the threat of federal law, and the fallout from the fire, few dared to set foot on the Walker estate again without an invitation.

  Most days, Mildred would arrive early for breakfast and while Isabelle was out making her rounds would clean and serve in the role of administrator, taking note of anyone who came to the house with a request for help or in want of land. The signs in town had been removed, but some folks still arrived having heard rumors that there was free land to be had. With room for only so many, and with all the plots already spoken for, they had to be turned away, in a manner for which Mildred had the heart and Isabelle did not. But there were also a few of the freedmen, like Elliot, deep into the winter season, who were happy to have the assistance and share the proceeds from their harvest.

  At night Isabelle and Mildred ate together, discussing their day, their lives, what was to come in the future. Afterward they sat on the couch and read, or knitted, or continued the conversation from the dinner table. They were inseparable in their way, and Isabelle wasn’t afraid to hold Mildred’s hand, or place her head upon her friend’s shoulder when fatigue came over her. Yet they did not share a bed. What was between them was unphysical, an entanglement of the spirit that transcended any act of passion. To see each other in the morning and the evening was enough, and when Mildred rode home to see her boys and to sleep, the distance only gave more emphasis to their reunion the following day. Whenever the front door opened, Isabelle barely said hello, but both the newfound routine and her friend’s presence were like treats to be savored.

  Occasionally they argued. Isabelle felt strongly that those working her land should have a place to stay on it. Already many of them camped out and she saw no reason not to allow them something more comfortable. If they were to build some housing it would not be permanent—they would still leave when their time had run out and they had money in their pockets. But Mildred believed that a family with a home would never give it up, and the question consumed their conversation for some time.

  On Sundays they rested and talked of lighter topics. It was the last week of December now—just after Christmas, Isabelle’s first without George—and they sat on the porch, tea in hand, each cloaked in her own quilt. A bird landed on the railing, cocked its head, then took off again. The tea warmed them, though only briefly and still the heat swiftly dissipated against the chill of the morning. They would go inside soon and make a fire, but no day was spent without a little fresh air, the spot adjacent to the hearth their reward for the outing.

  Mildred was in her most persuasive mode, trying to convince Isabelle that she should take up riding. There was an auction approaching and Mildred knew there was a filly from an unheralded stable that would be priced cheap. She could train it, and soon the two of them would be riding through the country together without a care to their name.

  Isabelle stopped listening when a carriage, its canvas top littered with holes, appeared up the lane. It was led by a single horse, and as it grew near she could see it was piled high with boxes, but the mystery of the driver, under wrap against the cold, wasn’t revealed until she noticed the slight body beside the one holding the reins, swaddled in blankets and resting against her mother.

  Isabelle put her teacup down and grabbed her wool coat from the back of her chair. “Is it you?” she called out, and stepped down the stairs as the carriage came to a halt.

  “What part of me has withstood through the cold!” Clementine said. She eased her way from the carriage and grabbed her daughter as she dismounted.

  They had survived the fire intact but had lost their home, as Mildred had reported to Isabelle. Clementine had come to the farm once since then for dinner, visiting George’s grave after the meal, but it appeared from the carriage, which was packed with belongings, that it was unlikely there would be such gatherings in the future.

  Elsy’s hair was as bountiful as her mother’s, and her tangles eclipsed Clementine’s face as she carried her daughter toward the porch.

  “But I want to see the horse! The horse!” the child said.

  Clementine put her down but gripped her hand.

  “The horse will pick you up with its teeth and toss you like a ragdoll. Is that what you want?”

  The child laughed, nodding her head.

  “Really?” Clementine said. “We’ll see how you feel when you’re face-first in the mud.”

  “I like the mud!” the child exclaimed.

  To this her mother had no response, and could only resort to holding her still as Isabelle walked to greet them. Clementine was dressed in a wool gown beneath an overcoat long enough for a man, a graceful red scarf snaked a
round her neck. Formless yet beautiful. Isabelle embraced her and said hello to Elsy, then inspected the carriage.

  “It’s quite ragged, I know,” Clementine said. “I dread its failure. But it was the only one I could manage to acquire for the price I had in mind.”

  “You made it up the lane just fine,” Isabelle said. “What does appearance matter?”

  Clementine eyed the carriage suspiciously.

  “Might I ask what you plan to do with it?” Isabelle asked.

  “Well, I’m afraid we don’t have a great deal of choice but to move on. The hotel isn’t exactly suitable lodging. There were complaints of Elsy being noisy, of me returning late. It wouldn’t do.”

  “And now?” Isabelle said.

  Just then she felt the cool shock of a hand upon her shoulder, and Mildred, who had joined them, stepped toward Elsy.

  “How about I take the child to visit the chickens?” she said. “They could use some food, if this one is brave enough to feed them.”

  “I am brave!” Elsy was quick to tell her.

  “We shall see about that,” Mildred said, looking at Clementine, who only nodded—happy, it seemed, for a break from the child. Mildred and Elsy wandered off toward the coop.

  “When she wakes from her naps,” Clementine said, “there are no bounds to her energy.”

  “It’s a lifetime ago for me,” Isabelle said, “but I can recall what that’s like.”

  She turned to Clementine.

  “Why don’t you come to the porch? We can at least have some tea.”

  They went on together. Clementine sat in Mildred’s seat and Isabelle poured another cup from the tray.

  “Do you know where you’ll go?” she asked.

  “Not precisely. I simply wish for a quieter existence somewhere, is all. And a climate more fit for my services. The men here are more involved in building back their lives than visiting with women like myself. The money has dried up.”

  “I see…”

  “I have always done what I must to survive,” Clementine said. “And although I’ve made a decent life here, things will only be better up North. Amongst a more welcoming audience. Perhaps a wealthier audience.”

  “I have no doubt you’ll succeed in whatever you set out for. What of Elsy?”

  “I plan to get her in school, shortly. However that may be done.”

  “You have quite the journey in store!” Isabelle said. “I wager there will be a good number of trials.”

  “Don’t think I feel any different. I’m terrified, truth be told, but it’s better to make the break while she’s young. At least that’s what I tell myself.”

  A shrill wind picked up dust from the ground, and both women took a sip of their tea in defense of the weather.

  “I wonder,” Clementine said, her voice low, “if you’ve heard from them.”

  Isabelle took a second sip for good measure. Perhaps it was the comfort of Clementine’s stolidity, or the way she asked with so little judgment behind the words, but for the first time in a long time, Isabelle felt capable to answer the question.

  “No.” she said. “Not yet.”

  “Oh, Isabelle.”

  “Now don’t even begin down that road. I need no sympathy. I’m sure they’re both fine. It’s only Caleb’s way.”

  Clementine pulled the scarf from her neck and stared at Isabelle with obvious concern, waiting for more; waiting, perhaps, with the same exasperation that punished Isabelle’s heart on a nightly basis. But Isabelle had nothing more to share. Nothing in the realm of the known.

  “The letter will come,” said Isabelle, and her tone lurched toward the optimism she’d been forcing herself to practice. “I often imagine opening it. The childlike loop of the letters, the sentences that slant off diagonally as they carry on. That laziness with words he has…”

  Isabelle looked down the lane, relishing the working of her mind—the oft-constructed scenario she conjured during her darkest moments. The content of a letter that did not exist.

  “It will say so much more than any of his paltry letters during the war. He’ll tell me they’re well. It’s either Philadelphia or New York they’ve landed in, I haven’t decided which. They’re employed at a hotel. A remarkable one. One of fashionable society. Caleb serves dinner to the patrons, roasts with champagne sauce and jelly, kidneys stewed in wine, and all through the night an orchestra plays classical music that keeps everyone’s spirits light. Prentiss, well, he works in one of the smoking rooms. There’s smoke in the air, of course, and you can hear the clack of balls from the billiards table. The place is populated by the greatest minds visiting the city and they talk of new inventions, of what the future might hold, and after months of quiet in the woods, Prentiss basks in the atmosphere, the invigorating intelligence, storing it all away in his mind for safekeeping. The boys have beds just like the patrons. Spring beds, not straw. Even the help deserves more than a straw bed in New York City. They’re allowed to eat whatever is left over from the extravagant dinners, and late, when everyone else is asleep, they might sneak into the smoking room with Prentiss’s key and play a game of billiards…

  “I don’t know, Clementine. This is what comes to mind. I do wish there was more. Perhaps my imagination is limited, but with such a picture in place, who needs the words to make it all true?”

  Clementine stirred, rapping her seat with the palm of her hand in delight. “Truly magnificent. I have no question it’s accurate. A mother has a sense of such things, and those boys have the determination and cunning to make it true.”

  “Thank you,” Isabelle said. “That makes two of us, then.”

  “I bet Landry would be ecstatic for his brother,” Clementine added. “For Prentiss to have made it so far in the world…”

  Hearing the name was enough to make Isabelle seize. They had spoken of Landry once before, at the graves, that time Clementine came for dinner, but as with Caleb, he was never discussed with Mildred, and so Isabelle hadn’t talked of him with anyone since.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting to hear his name.”

  Clementine leaned forward in her chair, the dank smell of her overcoat reaching Isabelle as she drew near.

  “I didn’t mean to upset you,” she said. “It’s just that from what Prentiss told me, he had a strong tie to his brother, and I can only assume Landry would be happy for him to be gone from the madness of this place.”

  “Prentiss told you of Landry?”

  “In his cell,” Clementine said. “I envy you for knowing him. How curious he came off. Prentiss told me about his fascination with water.”

  This was news to Isabelle, for neither brother had shared such a thing with her, and she said as much. Then Clementine told her all. How Landry would gaze upon the fountain at Majesty’s Palace, seeking it out whenever he could. The way Prentiss had described him, it was as though it was a part of his build, this connection to its beauty, its inner workings. How something mysterious and fine lay under the ground and caused it to operate endlessly. On and on, just like life.

  Perhaps Clementine noticed the pain on Isabelle’s face, the realization of an intimacy kept from her. Her tone shifted, her enthusiasm cooled.

  “Of course, this is based on what little Prentiss told me under duress,” she said. “Between his words and the impressions you’ve given me, I’ve probably made something of a myth out of him.”

  The wind returned, a frenzied, bitter gust, and even within her wool coat Isabelle wished she had a shawl. Her skin would be blotched by the end of the day.

  “I’m not sure what to say.”

  “Then say nothing,” Clementine said. “My interruption has been long enough already. If I can just find that girl of mine running about.”

  As if on cue, a sharp cry of joy erupted behind the cabin. Isabelle called Mildred’s name, and although her friend didn’t respond, the door of the chicken coop shut with a thud.

  Clementine was already standing. Her hair was buffete
d by the wind, waving like the branches of a tree caught up in a storm. She gave Isabelle a hug and stepped down the stairs.

  “Perhaps one day soon, somewhere along my travels, I will run into our two young men walking down the street as a pair, dressed to the nines as attendants for the greatest hotel around. Their day done, their ties loosened, perhaps. Hats in hand. Readying for a night on the town.”

  Isabelle smiled, warmed by the idea. “There have certainly been greater coincidences.”

  “I can promise you I’d let them know that someone back home is waiting to hear from them. That they should write promptly. With an address where they can be reached.”

  “It would be the greatest gift,” Isabelle said.

  How was it she was choking up at such a playful comment by her friend?

  “Tell them I’m well. That I get on. And tell that boy he must not only write, but write with detail. Long letters. Just as he promised.”

  When Clementine opened her mouth to speak, Elsy ran up beside her, screaming of the chickens, and the moment was gone. Mildred climbed the stairs to the porch and there was a world between these two pairs—Clementine and Elsy near the carriage, their clothes rattled by the wind as they huddled together, and Isabelle and Mildred by their chairs, mere feet from the door that would lead them inside to the hearth.

  “Just be well,” Isabelle called out.

  Mildred waved, and Clementine, obscured behind her scarf, waved back. Elsy was reaching for the horse. Clementine called her to attention, raised the child’s hand, and made her wave as well. When they climbed into the carriage Isabelle was still watching them, as though there would be more to the interaction—one last farewell. Yet the horse circled the roundabout, and it seemed that no sooner had Clementine arrived than she was gone.

  CHAPTER 29

  There was a well-dressed man of squat stature who, at daybreak, rang a bell as he walked through the quiet town of Convent. There were mornings in the winter when the sun had yet to clamber through the darkness of the previous night, and on those occasions, in his other hand, he carried a lantern that drew men toward him in the same manner that light lures passing insects. The doors of houses would open and shut without a sound, footsteps would patter, and soon the man with the bell and lantern had formed a silent flock about his person. The whole lot would venture forward as one, never stopping, growing ever larger as they carried on. They were a pack of ghosts floating toward the fog and the woods beyond.