by Jane Steen
“I have a horse and cart of my own, back there. Please, look after the poor animal; don’t leave him tied up there.” I pointed back along the trail.
After some discussion about who would do what—a ridiculous waste of time while I stood shivering despite the hot wind—Martin handed Sarah to me and swung his long legs over his horse’s back. The pastor and I watched Hiram’s body tumble in the turbulent water until I, in danger of being sick once more, was forced to turn away. I kept my eyes tight shut and hugged Sarah to me until Martin returned, leading my horse by the bridle with Hiram’s animal tied behind the cart.
At last we turned away from the riverbank. Behind us, the black shape rose and fell in the foaming waters, striking the rocks as it rose to the surface.
FIFTY
No more than an hour later I sat by a freshly lit fire, wrapped in several blankets. An intermittent plashing sound indicated the filling of a large tin bath in the next room. I still smelled of the river and had mud in my hair, but Sarah had needed a much smaller quantity of warm water to restore her to her sweet baby smell. She had nursed lustily and then fallen asleep in the crib Martin brought in from our cart.
“I hope she will not become ill from having swallowed all that water.” I peered at her anxiously, but her cheeks were rosy and her breathing regular.
“And mud.” Martin sat opposite me in his shirtsleeves, having completely abandoned his ruined jacket. His face was troubled. “What do we tell people about Hiram’s death?”
“What’s wrong with the truth?” I was sure that my face reflected the anger that had been slowly burning within me since I recovered my wits enough to think. “He threw—he threw her, Martin. You didn’t see it. My baby. A tiny baby, and he threw her—“ I could not continue because my throat was constricting with rage and the effort to keep my voice down.
“It was a good thing I decided to head up the road to meet you, my dear. You were late, you know.” Martin reached out to my hand and then seemed to recoil from the idea. “But Nell, think. The pastor is already suspicious of the two of us—have you not realized that yet? He thinks we are lovers, I believe.”
I felt my face flame up with a mixture of anger, embarrassment, and some other emotion I could not, at that moment, identify. “On what grounds?”
“You were fleeing from your stepfather to meet me. With a baby. And he only has to ask a few people in Victory about the husband that nobody has ever seen and that nobody can quite bring themselves to believe in.” Martin’s smile was grim. “Of course, my own reputation would be immeasurably improved by the notion that I am your lover.”
My hands curled into fists, and I could feel my fingernails digging into my palms. I spent a few moments staring into the spitting fire, but my mind seemed to be moving with extreme slowness. Finally I looked up at Martin who was waiting patiently for my answer, the reflection of the flames turning his white-blond hair to an orange hue and darkening his pale skin.
“What would you have me do?”
Martin’s face was grave. “We must take a risk, Nell. Do you think anyone in Victory knows he had come after you?”
“I’m not sure.” I thought hard. “He said that he saw me leaving. Do you think he would have shown much emotion as he began to follow me? I think not, Martin. Hiram always tried to hide his emotions.” It was so strange speaking of my stepfather in the past tense. “It is possible he simply rode off quite calmly.”
“If that is the case, then you should say that you and he were riding together to meet me. Tell them—the pastor, I suppose, and all the others who will want to hear the story—that you foolishly took Sarah near to the river edge to see the water and fell in. And that Hiram was trying to save you.”
I felt a cold lump grow in my belly. “Then Hiram would look like a hero.”
“If we try to make him look like a murderer—“
“Which he is,” I interrupted.
“—Which he is, yes, but if we accuse him, we will have to show some evidence. Do we have any? If he is a hero, the town will be too busy lauding his name and commiserating you on his loss to enquire much further.”
“But—another lie, Martin.” I bit my lip. “Even a lie told for a good purpose has a way of perpetuating itself, doesn’t it? Look at all the trouble I caused by refusing to tell the truth about Sarah’s father.”
A small smile curved Martin’s lips, but then a thought struck him and he looked anxious. “Did you refuse to tell because it would ruin the man?”
I grimaced and glanced over at the young woman who had just come from tipping another large quantity of water into the tub. Our conversation had been in whispers, and we were obviously arousing her curiosity.
“Not at all, Martin. He was perfectly free to marry me. I did not wish it, is all. I wished for him to continue his own path and me mine. He does not even know.”
Martin’s frown deepened. “That is also an injustice, Nell. A man should know his children.”
“And the lie of omission that I decided upon will doubtless follow me wherever I go.” I squared my shoulders and looked Martin in the face. “It would not… I mean, the time for writing to him is past. He is engaged to be married.”
Martin opened his mouth as if a thought had just struck him, but a cough made us both look up.
“Miss?” The young woman, one of the farmer’s daughters, was standing at the door. “You should come and wash now. Your friend”—indicating Martin—“brought your trunk in from the cart, so all your clean clothes will be ready for you. It’s not next to the fire, but we thought you’d rather have a bit of privacy; anyways, it’s warm enough in there.”
Martin stood and held out a hand. “Up you come. Go and make yourself clean and presentable, and we will tend to Sarah if she wakes. And then I will take you home.”
By the time I emerged from the room—clean, dry, and respectably dressed once more—Sarah was awake, and Martin was playing with her. Also in the room was the pastor, and his manner had quite changed.
“My dear young lady,” he said as I entered the room, “why did you not tell me that your noble stepfather lost his life trying to save you?”
Martin forestalled my answer. “She has had a terrible shock, Pastor. I do not believe even now that she is able to speak of this day’s events.”
I nodded in silence, responding to Martin’s warning look.
“Let me assure you, Madam, that we have retrieved the poor man’s, er, mortal frame and will transport it to Victory for you.” The pastor hesitated, and for a moment I thought he was going to make a speech. Realizing that my legs were barely supporting me, I sat down and Martin immediately leaped to his feet, causing Sarah to coo with delight at the movement.
“I must take her home, my dear sir. I owe you a debt of the deepest gratitude for your help, but now Mrs. Govender needs rest and quiet.” Handing Sarah to me, he steered the pastor out of the room, talking to him in a low voice. The preacher may not have realized how his voice carried, because I heard him say, “Well, you must look after her. Obviously she is not very careful for her own safety.”
I swallowed abruptly, tears stinging my eyes. No, obviously I was not. I saw again my baby, her arms flailing as she flew through the air. I saw pale blue eyes shining out of an empurpled face. And then I began at last to cry, holding Sarah tightly to me, feeling the reassuring warmth of her tiny body against mine.
FIFTY-ONE
Two days later I stood staring into the hole that held my mother and which was now to receive Hiram. A layer of earth covered Mama’s casket, of course, but it was so soon after her own burial that I could still see stray petals from the flowers that had decorated her grave. Martin held my arm; as I was the only family of my mother and stepfather, he had insisted that, as my oldest friend, he would stand by my side. Bet was on the other side of the hole, sniffling noisily into a black-bordered handkerchief, and the rest of the mourners
—Hiram’s political cronies, Mother’s lady friends, and a host of store-owners and other respectable citizens of Victory—milled around at the end of the grave, nodding to acquaintances and exchanging remarks on the sadness of the occasion.
The service at the church had gone on for what seemed like a thousand years. As Hiram’s friends had sung his praises for rescuing me from the river, I could feel my jaw clench, and it was all I could do not to shout out the truth right there in the church. And then the endless line of people offering their condolences—Martin stood to one side and slightly behind me, just, as he said, to catch me if I fainted. That remark had brought a smile to my lips, but it was the only one that day.
I hated, hated, hated that my mother was buried with Hiram, in sight of my father’s grave. If the good people of Victory knew the truth about Hiram, I thought as I stared down into the chasm of brown clay and tried not to think of Mama in her coffin, they would bury him in the weediest, most neglected corner of the burial ground, along with the illegitimate children and suicides. They would spit on the mound and place no flowers there. Hiram deserved to become a legend of evil, a cautionary tale of how Victory nearly elected a murderer as its mayor.
But I remained silent. I let them believe that Hiram was a hero who had rescued me and my child from the river and lost his life in the deed. Nobody asked where we had been going that day, and neither Martin nor I volunteered any information. To speak of any of the true events of that day would unravel the whole fabric of lies that my life had become since the day I began flirting with Cousin Jack Venton. And I chose to stay snug inside that cocoon of lies, protected by the reticence that prevailed in this respectable town against gossiping, against prying, against inadvertently encountering the truth.
At long last it was over. No wake had taken place; Hiram was in no fit condition to be put on display. In lieu of entertaining half of Victory to a mourning feast for the second time in a month, I had made a donation to the Society for the Relief of the Deserving Poor.
“I will tell Mrs. Lombardi the truth.” I was sitting on the red settee, staring at Mama’s chair opposite. The home I thought I had left forever was now, presumably, mine; in the next few days I would have to meet with Hiram’s lawyer and sort through the tedious details of his life, matters about which I was entirely in the dark.
Martin was perched on the very edge of Hiram’s chair as if he barely wished to associate himself with it. I would have to have those chairs replaced, I thought. Then I realized that I was thinking in terms of staying in Victory. Did I really want to do that and face down the gossips and the rumors as Sarah grew older?
“I will still go to Chicago, Martin. Mrs. Lombardi will be there by now and will stay for at least two weeks, she said. So I will visit her there, tell her the truth, and ask her advice. Somebody other than you or I should know the truth about Hiram.” I felt my jaw tighten. Twice in the last two nights I had woken up whimpering in fear, feeling sure that Hiram was in the house with me and would break down my door to kill me and my baby. I was sure that these fears would pass, but… I looked around the excessively elaborate parlor with its heavy furniture and multiplicity of knickknacks, antimacassars, lace curtains, and all the trimmings of respectability and felt more trapped than I ever had at the Farm.
I leaped to my feet and headed to the window, staring blindly out of the panes at the quiet street beyond. I heard Martin move behind me, and then he was gently turning me to face him, grasping my wrists and moving his thumbs along the backs of my hands in a way that made me feel quite peculiar, as if I were once more gasping for air in the river.
“Nell …” The word hung suspended in midair for a moment, and then Martin took a deep breath and smiled, kissing my forehead gently. “You are a brave woman. Yes, by all means talk with your Mrs. Lombardi. I would quite like to meet her—shall I come with you? Whatever you decide, my dear, I will help you to carry out your plans.”
I smiled, but my heart was not in the smile. I had complicated my life terribly, hadn’t I? The simplest course of action seemed to be to start again, and a new life would not include the man who was standing before me, dearer to me than a brother.
I shook myself mentally, withdrawing my hands from Martin’s and crossing to the bellpull to ring for Bet. “Will you take tea with me, Mr. Rutherford?”
Understanding that I needed to change the mood, Martin grinned and bowed with an ironic air. “Certainly, my dear Mrs. Govender.”
“And another thing.” I put my hands on my hips. “Whatever happens, I will get rid of that stupid name. I will be Nell Lillington or nothing.”
FIFTY-TWO
The direction my life would take was decided for me the next day.
Leopold Buchman, Hiram’s man of business, had only just returned from a month’s visit to Baltimore and had missed the funeral. He duly presented himself at my mother’s—my—house on October the sixth and was shown into the parlor. I came in a few minutes later, having handed Sarah over to Marie, straightened my mussed hair and wiped a few baby-related stains from my black dress.
Mr. Buchman greeted me with a quaint European bow and handed me to a chair. He was a small, slender man, with pale skin and tight black curls of hair surrounding a bald pate. He had a metal box with him, marked “H. Jackson, Esq.”
Mr. Buchman made the usual remarks of condolence, and I replied just as conventionally. He did not seem terribly disturbed by Hiram’s death, even though he was doubtless sorry to lose a good client. We talked a little about the unseasonably warm weather and the unpleasant hot wind that was whipping up the dust on the streets, and then finally Mr. Buchman seemed prepared to get down to business.
“I suppose you have come to talk to me about my stepfather’s will,” I remarked.
Mr. Buchman cleared his throat and laced his hands over one knee. “That is partly the reason. You are aware, of course, that since your lamented mother predeceased Mr. Jackson, her property passed to him under her will, and so you inherit directly from your stepfather rather than from her, your stepfather having no other legitimate heirs.” Was it my imagination, or did he lay some slight stress on the word “legitimate”?
“Yes, my friends have explained that to me.” Indeed, I had discussed the matter with Martin.
“Unfortunately …” Mr. Buchman’s face worked as he tried to frame his sentence, “Unfortunately, your stepfather died indebted to a large amount.”
I thought of Hiram’s store and all its appurtenances and felt my brow furrow in puzzlement. “How could that be? I always thought that my stepfather’s business was successful.”
“Indeed it was, and it continues to be so. Your stepfather was drawing on the monies produced by his store to fund his political activities, and, ah, for other necessities. The business itself—the goodwill and the real estate—has long been the property of a Chicago investor.”
I felt quite cold. “How is that possible?” I whispered.
“That store flourishes, Mrs., ah, Govender,”—the way Mr. Buchman pronounced my presumed name was an indication of his lack of belief in it—”in an excellent way for a modest business. But it has never produced quite enough money for the kind of lifestyle Mr. Jackson enjoyed. His political life, his, ah, entertaining, his many travels… he had been exceeding his income for some years when he married your mother. I am not at all sure how much she knew, because she quite cheerfully signed over her right to manage her own money to him.”
Oh, Mama, I thought. You never did like to think about money. We had always, when I was a child, had just enough to get by comfortably and even save a tiny amount for my dowry—I spared a thought to what might have become of that. By living quietly, the two of us would always have had enough.
“There were also, ah, other considerations.” Mr. Buchman fidgeted with a small key, which presumably fitted the lock in the box that lay by his feet. “You are aware, I am sure, that your stepfather visited
North Carolina at least once a year?”
I nodded, thinking of all the times I had been glad he was in North Carolina and not in Victory.
“He had a small financial interest there that was unknown to his creditors and would return to Victory supplied with cash that he could use to maintain himself in apparent ease. He also, about five years ago, contracted, ah, obligations in that state.”
“Obligations?” I had no idea what the man was talking about.
“There was a child …” My head swam, and I know I went pale because Mr. Buchman interrupted himself. “Are you quite well, Mrs., ah, Govender?”
I took several deep breaths. “Yes. Please continue.”
“A liaison that Mr. Jackson contracted in the town of Fayetteville right at the end of the War—just about the time when he set up the business arrangement that was to prove so useful to him—resulted in the birth of a male child. He is living and healthy. And the mother was blackmailing your stepfather with the threat of revealing his existence to the world at large.”
For five years! No wonder Hiram had been so quick to eliminate Jo. He probably feared a repeat of the same strategy, feeble-minded though the poor thing was. At least, I reflected wryly, the woman in Fayetteville was strong enough to stand up to him.
I kept my voice neutral. “And of course my stepfather paid the money.”
“Always. He never missed a payment. He was deathly afraid of the secret coming to light. You see,” Mr. Buchman again searched for words somewhere on the ceiling and eventually looked down at his feet as he finished the sentence, “the mother is a woman of color.”
“Ah.” I understood perfectly. An illegitimate child was bad enough, but people often shrugged their shoulders when a man sowed his oats outside his own field. Some social taboos, though, were not to be broken in our corner of the world; the knowledge of such a child would have meant political death to Hiram in Victory, where colored people were a despised, gawked-at rarity.
