“She loves those girls. They are like sisters to her.”
“That’s what Jakob says. He fears Elizabeth will never forgive him.”
Mary shrugged. She couldn’t speak for Elizabeth.
Viola nodded ruefully and looked distractedly about the room, her attention flitting from object to object without seeming to register any of them. After a moment, she said, “Are you ever sorry that you married?”
The question startled Mary, but Viola had spoken without self-pity, echoing the clear-eyed attitude about men that was most often voiced in this room. It was the rare prostitute who suffered any romantic notions about the male sex.
“No, I’m not sorry,” Mary said.
Viola nodded, envy glazing her eyes. “I thought so. You lead a life different from mine.”
Jenny had once made that same observation to Mary. In it, there existed the implication that Mary possessed the courage to act in unexpected ways, while Jenny and Viola did not: Mary Stipp traveled where and when she would; Mary Stipp braved criticism to treat prostitutes and perform surgery.
“Viola,” Mary said. “Who else knows that you collect those dolls?”
The petite woman blushed, looking more childish than ever. “I expect you think it’s foolish.”
“Not at all. But I do wonder who else knows. Do you ever show them to people?”
“All the time. If I suspect someone might be interested, I offer them a tour. Before the dinner party, I showed them to Catherine Lansing. But the maids know about them, of course, and could tell anyone, I suppose. And the footmen.”
“You said they aren’t sold in Albany. Where do you buy them?”
“At a store in Manhattan City.”
“Do they know you? Have you been there, or do you send for them?”
“I’ve been there any number of times.”
“Do they keep records of who buys them?”
Viola’s face lit up, and then she ducked her head in embarrassment. “They do. Every once in a while, they send me a letter to alert me that they’ve received a new doll, or that they are expecting a shipment and do I want to reserve one? They know I can’t resist. I always buy one. Lately, I’ve had a standing order.”
“When was the last time you visited that store?”
“A year ago.”
Mary raised her eyebrows, and Viola, understanding her unspoken question, said, “But my husband doesn’t let me travel without his permission.”
“You could leave him a note,” Mary said evenly.
—
Later that day, as the 5:10 Express rocked over a causeway stretched across a small bay a third of the way downriver, Viola studied an island lying midchannel and buttressed at one end by a warning lighthouse. Some wreckage was splintered against the boulders at its northern tip. It took her a moment to understand that what she was seeing were the remnants of her husband’s ice-yacht, the Honey Girl. The battered runner, its mast snapped, was wedged in a crevice, its unfurled sails shredded and lapping on the rising tide. Viola could just make out the fanciful looping letters H and G above the waves, the bright red paint having already crackled and turned dull. She shifted in her seat to point out the wreckage to Mary Stipp, but the doctor was staring straight ahead, resolute.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
William woke to the sound of breaking waves. A thin gray light peeked through the louvers of the closed shutters of his corner room. In the four weeks they had spent in the Whaler’s Rest, he had rested little. Often, he woke in the dead of night trying to think of a way to reach Emma. Loud noises startled her. She flinched at the slightest touch—even from Elizabeth or Amelia. With the trial date looming ever closer—it was less than two weeks away—she could not meet even the gaze of the people who loved her.
To establish a semblance of ordinary life, Amelia had established a schedule. Emma and Claire spent each morning reading and writing, and after luncheon William helped Emma review her numbers. Only then did a spark of interest flare in Emma’s eyes. He paced her through the complexities of long division, heartened that at least one part of her mind had not dimmed. But invariably, afterward she turned listless and retreated to her room to nap, fully clothed, the counterpane drawn up to her neck. By contrast, Claire reveled in the sea and sun. On the rare occasion when she could persuade Emma to join her on her afternoon visits to the beach, Emma evinced no joy in the exercise. Not even Elizabeth’s daily violin practice could pierce Emma’s armor. Emma had become a halting, flickering ghost, and William was terrified.
He rose, dressed quickly in shirt and pants and muffler, and crept down the stairs to the dining room. The hall clock read five. In the kitchen, the cooks bustled about, baking the day’s bread. He begged a cup of coffee from them and took a seat beside a drafty window and stared through its leaded panes at the bay. Usually, the gray burned off by ten, revealing a clear blue wash of sky, but this early, the cape remained cloaked in a gunmetal mist.
With a sudden rustle of skirts, Amelia, pale eyed and serious, appeared at his elbow. He retrieved another cup of coffee from the cooks, who donated a plate of warm rolls and jam to their impromptu breakfast.
“I have an idea about Emma,” William said, after ferrying this bounty to the table.
“And I have one about Elizabeth.”
—
Emma did not own a riding habit, nor had she ridden much, being a city girl. Amelia borrowed a close woolen jacket from the innkeeper’s daughter for Emma to wear over her pink calico dress. Then, to protect Emma from the sun, they tied the ribbons of her sun hat so that its brim lay flat against her cheeks. Elizabeth pinned a makeshift veil of lace to the crown, and she was ready.
The herring fisherman who rented William the horse held the bay mare by the bridle as William lifted Emma up on his shoulder so that she could pet the animal’s long neck. The mare nuzzled her in return, nickering softly.
“See how gentle she is?” the fisherman said. “My children ride her bareback.”
William mounted first, and then the fisherman helped settle Emma on the saddle in front of William. She submitted to the fisherman’s grasp, but went limp as he lifted her. William tucked her sidesaddle between him and the pommel, secured his arm around her waist, and whispered, “I’m here.”
“Head into the sun,” the fisherman said. “It’s only two miles to the backshore. When you reach the beach, you can turn either way, but southerly would be best for what you have in mind. Don’t worry about the scrub. The mare will pick her way through it.”
The scrub turned out to be squat live oaks that clustered together on the low, sandy plateau between the eastern and western shores of the narrow tip of the peninsula. The trees grew close together, their twisting branches intertwined and gnarled by the salt wind. Gooseberry vines clung to the furrowed bark where they weren’t usurped by wild grape. There were a few freshwater ponds, but no one lived up here. Throughout the ride, Emma remained silent, her reaction to this forced expedition and the landscape shielded from his view by the obscuring veil. She had not asked where they were going or why.
They breached the headlands after only a half hour’s ride, emerging from the salted forest out onto a dazzling plain of sand. Breaking waves hurled themselves at the beach from a great distance out, their constant roar prohibiting any conversation. Here and there, broken masts and wrecks marred the great, frothing expanse. To mark their point of entry, William made note of a bulky heron’s nest perched on a high branch of one of the oaks. Then he steered the horse down a shallow switchback of sand and glacial till to the deserted beach. As recommended, he turned southward, veering toward the shore until the mare was wading at the ocean’s edge. William guided the animal around bobbing flotsam and mats of sea grass as mackerel gulls hovering on the steady wind followed them like pilot fish. Plovers sprinted across the glassy shore. Far wilder than the bay, the ocean heaved up again a
nd again, the dark, roiling waves rimmed with sparkling white foam.
After riding for several miles, they reached a bluff that soared a couple hundred feet above the beach. William found shelter from the constant wind at its base and drew Emma off the mare. He tethered the horse to one of the heavier pieces of silvery driftwood flung up against the dunes. Amelia had persuaded the cooks to pack them a lunch, and he spread out a blanket and unwrapped meat sandwiches and scones and bottles of ginger ale. The ocean magnified the sun’s rays, and Emma blinked as she chewed, for she’d had to remove her protective veil in order to eat. But after a while she lay aside her unfinished sandwich and lay back on the blanket to doze in the sun, a light breeze ruffling the lace on her dress and the ribbons of her hat. Even in repose, she looked battle weary. William looked out toward the sea, biding his time.
The immense watery vista reminded William of the wide desert of Texas and the lesser charms of the Rio Grande. Before the war, he had enlisted and served in an army outpost there, trying to recover from his own paralyzing grief after his first wife, Genevieve, died in a cholera epidemic in Manhattan City. But nothing lifted him from his despair, not until a young Mexican girl named Lilianna, who worked as a laundress, entered his life. Fourteen, thirteen, she was pregnant by a soldier there, and whether she’d been raped or not William had never been able to determine. He had delivered her child and then been parent to them both. Then the war had broken out and he had had to leave them behind. Loving Lilianna and her son had saved him.
Now Emma needed saving.
She slept for a good hour before she stirred. She sat up, resting her elbows on her knees and squinting out to sea.
William feared her great silence might kill her. He didn’t need to coax from her the details of what had happened to her; he’d heard them once already when she’d told the district attorney. And he doubted she would want to repeat them now without Amelia or Elizabeth at her side. And to what purpose anyway? Reliving the horror would only rekindle her smoldering fear. He was just gratified that she was not afraid of him. He wished Mary were here. She had already formed a great bond with the girl.
“Come with me, Emma.”
He took her small hand and she rose obediently—too obediently. He wanted her to refuse, to fight for herself, but she did not even ask where they were going. He headed up the steep escarpment behind them, following a shallow crevice riven into the hillside. Reedlike sea grass gave some purchase, but it was hard going, for Emma had little strength and the sand gave way beneath their feet and filled their shoes. After fifteen minutes, they’d only gotten a quarter of the way up. She sank to the ground, and he had to reach out and catch her so that she wouldn’t somersault backward.
“I can’t,” Emma said, close to tears. It was the first thing she had said to him all day. “It’s too hard.”
“It is hard, isn’t it?” He perched beside her, a bit out of breath himself, grateful for the cooling wind. Emma’s refusal contained the hoped-for spark of defiance, but it also contained a miasma of defeat. He would have far preferred that she had screamed, I won’t!
“Can we go back?” she said.
“Sure,” he said, nodding. “We could go back. But then we’d never know what it looks like up there or whether all this hard work is worth it. But I’m told that up there you can see as far as forever. But we won’t know unless we go up and see.”
Emma untied a boot and tipped it over. A waterfall of yellow grains blew away in the breeze. She tugged off the other one and repeated the process, unrolling her stockings and tugging them off, too. Her movements were precise, orderly. Wind rustled the dune grass and the ocean pulsed with the rhythmic pounding of a heartbeat. Below, the tethered mare munched on a bunch of beach grass.
“Do you remember from before, Emma, when you climbed trees?”
The girl squinted at him from underneath her hat, her gaze wary.
“Well, that cliff up there is higher than you’ve ever been in your life. You might see ships. You might see all the way to England.”
She looked at him doubtfully.
He grinned. “I’m exaggerating. Not England, of course. But ships, maybe.”
Her tentative nod predicted nothing.
“I want to ask you another question, Emma. You don’t have to answer me if you don’t want to.” She neither granted nor withheld permission, so he forged ahead. “I wonder whether you don’t want to keep going because you’re scared or because it’s too hard to keep climbing?”
She stared for a while into the distance, then looked back at him and whispered, “Both.”
“I see. This cliff is pretty steep. But I bet everything feels hard and frightening to you right now.”
She looked away.
“Emma, do you remember that I told you that when we go back home you have to go to court to tell a judge and jury about what happened to you and Claire?”
“Yes.”
“And do you remember that I told you that there will be people in the courtroom?”
She nodded. He had relayed all this in their first week on Cape Cod, one afternoon on the veranda when they had the place to themselves. But he had not been certain that she had understood or remembered his descriptions of the workings of a courtroom or the roles of a judge and jury, or even that she would have to testify.
“You remember that in a couple of weeks Mr. Hotaling and Mr. Van der Veer will ask you questions, just like they did before, at the house? The reason that it’s important that you answer them is so that we can find out who the other man is. And you are the only one who can help the judge.”
She turned attentive, watchful.
He hesitated now. He wanted neither to coddle nor push her, and he certainly did not want to coerce her. But there was no way out: she had to get on that witness stand to testify, and they all had to help her do it. There were times when he wished they’d not reported a damn thing, because in the end, what purpose would the trial serve if Emma was destroyed by it?
“You see, Emma, I’m just a little worried about you.”
Her eyes grew hollow and fearful but also darkly luminous. Someone had noticed her. Someone had seen her. At least, this is what William hoped she understood.
“I brought you out here today not just because it’s beautiful, but also so that you could practice doing something really hard. This is a tall hill, the tallest one around. It’s not a great big mountain, but the sand in our shoes and the wind are going to make it pretty hard to get up there. It’s already hard for me, and I’m a grown man. But one of the things about life is that when you do something hard and succeed, then you learn that things aren’t as scary or hard as they seem. And when you’re done, you feel like you can do anything. It’s one of those important things people have to learn. And you already did a very brave thing once. You saved yourself and Claire by hitting that man with a shovel and escaping. I’m so proud of you for that.”
A ghost of a smile flickered across her face. He would leave it at this, if there were more time before the trial, leave her with no other challenge for the day than to regard herself as admired. But there wasn’t more time.
“No doubt about it, you’re a soldier, Emma. As brave as they come. In fact, I brought something for you.” He fished in his shirt pocket for the Medal of Honor he’d earned at Gettysburg for meritorious medical service. Exhumed now from its velvet box, the brass eagle and star flashed in the bright sun, and the flag’s red and white stripes shone vibrant against the pale yellow sands. He was breaking several army regulations for what he was about to do, but he didn’t care.
“I earned this in the war, for doing some really hard things, and I want you to wear it now, because you’ve done some really hard things. May I pin it on you?”
She nodded, and he took great care affixing it to her dress. She fingered it and looked up at him. Once during the war, at Fairfax Station, surr
ounded by thousands and thousands of dying men, he had said to Mary, Choose who you are, choose who you’ll be. He could not say that now to this ravaged child, but the situation was just as dire, the choice just as necessary.
“I just want it all to be over,” Emma whispered. “I don’t want to think about him anymore.”
“Do you think about him a lot?”
“All the time.”
“I can tell. I thought you’ve been awfully scared and unhappy. And now it seems as if you want to hide forever. I don’t blame you one bit. It was awful what happened to you. But I’m sorry to tell you that you have to save yourself one more time. Now, I’m not going to tell you to climb that hill. You have to want to, for yourself. But I think it will help you later.”
He wanted to say, It’s either hide forever or see forever. He wanted to say, You need to choose. He wanted to say, Follow me, I’ll show you. Instead, he held his breath, nodded solemnly, and looked out to sea, pretending to watch the hundreds of seagulls whirling in flight.
The sun was behind them now and the cliff was casting long shadows onto the beach. They didn’t have much time before they would have to return to the hotel. And this gambit would only work once. After this attempt, he had no idea what else he could do for her besides protecting her, which he would do no matter what. But that would shore her up for only so long. Every inch toward courage was a decision. Even ten feet on her own would be a triumph. The line between coercion and choice for her was the line between darkness and light. He would never push her, but she needed to choose to climb this hill. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t have the courage to climb onto the witness stand or perhaps even to walk down a street on her own.
Emma tugged at his sleeve. “Do you think I can do it?”
He pretended to consider this very important question, as if in fact there were two answers, when there was really only one.
He nodded solemnly. “I do. I think you can.”
Winter Sisters Page 27
