Shadowbrook

by Swerling, Beverly

  He was hungry and there was no place to sit at the front. Morris worked his way through the throng until he found a vacant place at a long table hard by the rearmost fireplace, nearly out the door to the yard where the whores did their business. “A bowl of that good stew I smell,” he yelled. “And an ale to wash it down.” The serving woman signaled that she’d heard. Morris pulled out a few more coins in readiness, salivating at the thought of what good eating squirrels were just now. Chock-full of acorns, they were, and thick with the fat they’d stored to see them through the coming winter.

  A log of applewood too green for proper burning crackled loudly when a pocket of sap caught, and rolled forward to the edge of the hearth. The man next to Morris stretched out a leg to kick it back but couldn’t reach. The man slid out of his seat to do the job properly. Another slid instantly into his place. “Hey! I’m sitting there!”

  “Not now, you’re not.”

  The man by the fireplace knew John Hale’s reputation for violence. Besides, he’d already finished his dinner, He reclaimed what was left of his mug of ale and went away muttering about them as felt they were better than the rest. John tumed to Morris. “I’m told you made a run up to my place last night.”

  “Aye, I did that.”

  “I’m also told it was my brother hired you.”

  “There’s some around here with mouths bigger than they should be.” Morris leaned back to let the serving woman put down a wooden bowl filled with steaming stew and a pewter tankard of ale. She scooped up the coins he’d left on the table and backed away. The tar picked up his spoon and began eating.

  “Some as know who butters their bread,” John said. His left arm hung by his side and he used his right to lift it onto the table. “What I want to know, who’d he have with him?”

  “Can’t say. Didn’t get a good look.”

  “But he wasn’t alone?”

  “Folks pay for passage, I don’t ask questions. Just brings ’em where they want to go.”

  John took the knife from his belt and with his right hand began cleaning the fingernails of the useless left. “Plenty of competition on the river these days, isn’t there?”

  The tar waited until he’d finished chewing a particularly succulent morsel of squirrel. “Aye, but enough work for all.”

  “Did you know we’re to build an extra landing place on the Patent this year?”

  “Hadn’t heard.”

  “You have now. And with all the transport available, I can be as choosy as I like deciding who lades from my property and who does not.”

  Morris turned his head and spat two small bones onto the floor. “Near as I can tell, it’s the mistress says who ferries for Shadowbrook and who don’t.” Then, before John could answer: “Your brother had a young woman with him. Never heard her name. Not worth learning it neither. Burning with fever, she was. Near as I can tell, Quent brought her to Shadowbrook so’s he could bury her there.”

  John stared at nothing for a few moments, then got up and pushed his way through the mob to the front door.

  Ten o’clock Quent climbed the stairs, feeling the heaviness in his legs and thinking that a night in his old bed under Shadowbrook’s roof would make a world of difference. He started down the hall, then paused outside the room where they’d put Nicole. The door was ajar and he could see her small form in the bed. A black girl sat beside her, sponging her face. She must be the Ibo John had bought. She looked up and saw him, and left her patient and came to the open door. “You be wanting me, master?”

  “Only to ask how she is.”

  “Sleeping. And the fever be not so fierce. Sally Robin put something in the water I be using to keep her cool.”

  “Where is Sally?”

  “Down below, master, getting something for mistress. Some bedtime thing she be bringing her most nights.”

  “So you’re in charge up here?”

  “Only till Sally Robin comes back, master. But Sally Robin, she be learning me how to do things for sick folks and I be doin’ everything she says.”

  “Good, that’s fine. You’re Taba, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, master.”

  Fourteen or fifteen, maybe. Not pretty, but there was intelligence behind her eyes. “I’m glad to meet you, Taba. My mother speaks highly of you. You take good care of mademoiselle and we’ll be well pleased.”

  “Yes sir, master. I best be goin’ back to her now.”

  The lure of his bed was irresistible. Quent walked toward it, heard a sound, and glanced over the banister to the floor below. Sally Robin was hurrying across the hall, carrying a steaming glass of liquid. He waited just until he saw her knock at Lorene’s door, then stumbled into his room. The bed had been turned down and his dressing gown was spread beside it on the chair. Corn Broom Hannah, or Runsabout, doing for him as they always had. Reminding him he was supposed to be a gentleman, at least when he was at Shadowbrook. Hell with it, he was too tired to get undressed. Still in his buckskins he fell on the feather mattress and was instantly asleep.

  Downstairs Lorene murmured, “Come,” when she heard Sally’s tap on the door.

  “Hot drink for you, mistress.”

  “Thank you, Sally.” Lorene was sitting up in her bed, covered with a lace and linen nightdress full enough to hide her unnatural thinness. She’d removed her mobcap, and her hair, more gray than brown these days, hung in a single plait. She took the glass and a first sip of hot milk and honey, and whatever other herbs Sally Robin put in the drink to make her sleep. “I don’t know what I’d do without you and your potions. How is your new patient?”

  “Some better. Taba be with her.”

  “Good. You’ve got to get her well, Sally Robin. For the sake of the Patent as well as for Master Quent. She’ll be a fine mistress for you all.”

  “I like the mistress we got. So do everyone else.”

  Lorene smiled. “I look better to all of you now that you know I’m about to go, don’t I?”

  “Don’t you talk that way, mistress. You got to think happy thoughts. That be doing as much for you as any brew.”

  Lorene glanced at the shelf above her desk There was a blue glass bottle beside the neat stacks of ledgers. It was tightly closed, with a coating of wax covering the wooden stopper. “I’m happier because of your brews, Sally Robin. Knowing that if the pain gets too bad I don’t have to endure it is a comfort.”

  The black woman followed her mistress’s glance. “Not yet,” she said firmly. “There be plenty Sally Robin can do ’fore you open that there bottle.”

  “Not yet,” Lorene promised. But maybe sooner rather than later. Particularly if Nicole can be made well and I can see the Patent in Quent’s hands, with a wife who will look after him as well as Shadowbrook I’m coming, Ephraim. You shan’t have to wait much longer.

  Despite Sally Robin’s potion, Lorene had not slept a night through for many weeks. The pain was bearable by day; at night it threatened to overwhelm her. She looked at the blue bottle with longing. But if she could hold on a few weeks more, just until she was certain that Nicole would live, or if she did not, that Quent would remain without her, then she might—

  She heard the front door open. There was only one person who would let himself into the big house by the front door in the dark of night. She got up to meet him. “Good evening, John.”

  John looked up the stairs to the faint light that showed beneath the door to the corner bedroom. “The Frenchwoman?”

  “Mademoiselle Crane, yes.”

  “Why did he bring her here?”

  “She was wounded in Québec. Quent brought her home so Sally Robin could look after her.”

  “Not his home,” John muttered. “Needs to ask me before he puts my slaves to his work.”

  She could smell the rum on him even though he remained standing near the door. Pity the horse hadn’t thrown him before he arrived. A broken neck in the woods would have been a thousand times easier than what would happen now. John started for the stairs
. “Where are you going?”

  “Have to see my brother. Welcome home the prodigal son. Like it says in the Bible, madam. You know all about the Bible, so now you can kill the fatted calf. Or something like it. Make a great feast because my brother is home. Only right that I go upstairs and welcome him.”

  “He will kill you, John.” Her eldest son had one foot on the steps. “You mean to kill Quent, I know that. But that is not how it will be. He will kill you.” And for the rest of his life he will feel shame and bitterness over it.

  John hesitated, his body sagging slightly. His back was to her and she could not see his face, but Lorene could smell the fear on him. Poor John, she wanted to weep for him. God knew how many times she had wept for him, many fruitless tears that had changed nothing. He was what he was. If it were her fault, God help her. She’d face justice soon enough. “Come sit with me for a bit. I am poorly, John. You and Quent have the rest of your lives to settle your differences.”

  He turned. “I am sorry you are unwell, madam.”

  “It will be over soon,” Lorene said, gesturing to the open door of her room. “Meanwhile I’ve a good blaze going. And some fine brandy sent by your uncle Bede. You and I haven’t had such a visit in a long time.”

  John looked once more up the stairs to the place where his brother slept. Fear and hatred mingled in him, making his gut roil and his mouth taste of ashes. “Uncle Bede’s brandy sounds a fine thing,” he muttered as he followed his mother into her room.

  In the morning Quent woke to the sound of Sally Robin’s voice. He ran down the stairs knowing what it was had summoned her song even before he saw her standing in the door of Lorene’s room. Quent pushed past her. Lorene lay on her bed. She looked peaceful. John was sprawled in a chair beside the fire. His legs were on the edge of the hearth, his head lolling sideways. He might have been asleep, or in a drunken stupor, but Quent knew he was dead.

  Sally Robin’s song ended and she came into the room. There was a decanter of brandy on the table beside Lorene’s bed, and an empty blue bottle. “What is that?” Quent demanded when she picked it up and put it in the deep pocket of her apron.

  “Only a potion I made for the mistress. Something as would help rest her when the pain got too bad. She was dying, Master Quent. Sooner or later, that don’t make much nevermind.”

  He looked at his brother. “John…”

  “He be dying too. We all is, you know that.”

  “But here, like this. I—”

  “Let it be, Master Quent. Your mama, if she was here, she tell you to let it be.”

  The double funeral took place at Squirrel Oaks the following day. They buried Lorene next to Ephraim. Pohantis was some distance away, but across from them both. John’s grave was beside those of his six dead brothers and sisters. Quent had decided not to wait for a minister from Albany, so he read from the Bible himself, and Sally Robin sang.

  “My go-to-heaven song, that be,” she told him afterward. “It be peaceful where she is, never you mind about that.”

  “And John?”

  “I don’t know, Master Quent. And you don’t neither. Your mama, she didn’t want you to worry overly ’bout your brother John.”

  He’d always known that was true. He simply hadn’t realized how much.

  The slaves stood on one side of the burial ground, the tenants on the other. Ely Davidson was there with his new wife, and all the Frankels. Tim was still not married, but Ellie had a second husband. She was Ellie Frankel Bleecker Hodges now. Larky Hodges was a boot maker, a skill not before in good supply on the Patent, so Lorene had been well pleased by the union. Ellie’s stomach stuck out so far Quent had to stand to the side of her to accept her condolences. “We’re gonna miss her a lot, Quent. I swear I don’t know what the Patent will do without her.” Then, the question that was on everyone’s mind: “You plannin’ on staying?”

  “I’m staying, Ellie.” He spoke up loud enough so pretty much everyone could hear. The collective release of tension was almost a physical thing. “I’ll have to go away one more time. For a month, maybe, in the spring.” Whatever happened, he must be at Bishkek’s second funeral. “But I’m master of the Patent now. Shadowbrook will be the same as always. For everyone.”

  Some things would be different, however. Quent walked over to the young Ashanti who worked in the stable. “You’re the one they call Tall Boy?”

  “That be me, master.”

  “What’s your real name? What did they call you back in Africa?”

  “White people no be saying my name, master. Tall Boy, that be fine.”

  “Try me,” Quent said. The slave hesitated. “A direct question deserves an answer. What’s your African name?”

  “Ajibwamemelosu.”

  Quent smiled. “It’s a lot to say, I’ll grant you that. Will it be all right if we call you Ajib?”

  In five years, since the net had dropped over him when the slavers raided his village, no one had asked Ajibwamemelosu’s permission for anything. “Ajib be fine,” he said. “I be mighty pleased you call me Ajib.”

  Two days after Lorene and John were in the ground Nicole’s fever broke. She opened her eyes. “Ma Mère, je voudrais—” Then saw the black woman leaning over her and remembered. She was no longer a nun; God had rejected her. “You’re Sally Robin, aren’t you? The one who sings those incredibly lovely songs.”

  “I sing some, that be the truth, Little Mistress.”

  Nicole wanted to ask why Sally called her that, but she had more urgent needs. “Please, I’m so thirsty.”

  “I ’spected that. Got some nice stuff brewed up for you right here.” Sally Robin held a mug of lukewarm tea to Nicole’s lips, brewed of bark and flowerbuds and sweetened with honey.

  “Thank you,” Nicole murmured. “I think I want to sleep now. Could you sing me a song, Sally Robin?”

  “Special rest-easy-and-get-well song,” Sally promised. She was only partway through it when Quent came and stood in the doorway behind her.

  He waited for the song to end before he spoke. “How is she?”

  “Very tired, Master Quent. But Little Mistress, she be fighting a big fight with the poison in her, and she won. She sleepin’ natural now. That be a good thing.”

  He came and stood by the bed. “Do you all call her Little Mistress?”

  “Yes.”

  “Whose idea was that?”

  “Can’t rightly say. Now you go away and be patient, Master Quent Soon as Little Mistress be able, I be calling you to come.”

  The next day he was summoned to her bedside. “Nicole, I’m so happy to see you like this.” They’d put a mobcap over her shorn hair, and dressed her in a fresh white linen nightdress. She smelled of lilacs, not sickness. Quent reached for her hand. “Sally Robin says you’re going to get well.”

  She did not pull away from him, but her hand lay motionless in his. “I am very grateful to you. And to Sally Robin. More grateful than I can ever say. I will pray for you both every day.”

  They were alone, and he leaned closer and grinned at her. “I’m glad of your sweet prayers, precious heart, but don’t expect me to be satisfied with only them. I’ll show you other ways to thank me, soon as you’re well enough.”

  Nicole turned her head away and didn’t answer.

  It was pretty much the same every time he visited. Eventually she was well enough to be carried to a chair beside the window, and by the first week of the new year she was taking a few tentative steps, leaning on the furniture or on someone’s arm—Sally Robin’s or Taba’s, or even his own, but always she was as distant as she’d been that first day. Quent brought her two canes he had made from elmwood. “I think they are the right size. I measured while you were sleeping.”

  The sticks were beautifully carved and rounded and smoothed by his own hands, as he’d done with the boards he’d brought to build the place above the waterfall in Shoshanaya’s glen. “Thank you. I’m very grateful for everything.”

  “For the lov
e of Almighty God, Nicole, it’s not gratitude I want. I love you. I think you love me. Despite everything, I still believe that. In Shoshanaya’s glen, you wanted—” The look she gave him was so stricken he broke off. “You did,” he murmured. “I know you did.”

  “I was breaking my vow. All those people died because of it.”

  “But you kept your vow. The abbess said you had. I heard her. You kept your vow and now God has sent you back to me.”

  “I wish I could believe that,” she whispered. “I cannot. Go away, please.”

  Weeks went by. He visited her at least once a day, but he never saw her smile. In April, when the snow was mostly gone but the ground was still frozen and there was not yet any sign of spring, he went into her room at midday but found her gone. Stricken with sudden terror, Quent tore through the house yelling Sally Robin’s name.

  “I be right here, Master Quent. What you be wanting of old Sally?”

  “I can’t find Nicole. Little Mistress, Sally. Where is she?”

  “She be wanting to visit your mama’s grave, master. Little George, he fix her a horse and she go off a little past breakfast time.”

  “A horse? I had no idea she was well enough to ride.”

  “Little Mistress be well enough to do mostly whatever she wants now. On the outside, master, that lady, she be nearly entirely well.”

  “Then why—”

  “That lady she don’t be feeling herself part of this world, Master Quent. Little Mistress, she be between this world and the next.”

  “Can you sing her back, Sally Robin?”

  “I be trying, but my song don’t be big enough. Little Mistress, she be so busy looking into the beyond-after, she ain’t got no time for the now-here. You got to find some way make that little lady know she got her feet solid on the good earth, Master Quent. Sally Robin done all she can. Up to you now.”