Onyx

by Briskin, Jacqueline;

  Tom ran the length of the ward to the duty desk by the door, returning with his bandaged hand clamped on the ward sister’s full round arm.

  The next afternoon a water tumbler of crimson roses spread their perfume behind the screen, banishing the odors of mortally ailing bodies and the acrid aroma of lime-and-water. Warnings posted in the corridors forbade flowers in the wards.

  “Doctor brought … from Miss Dalzell …”

  Tom rubbed at the veins of his wrist, his breath coming more easily as he made an irrational connection between Antonia’s roses and Hugh’s lucidity. “Just a minute, Hugh,” he said, and went back between the high beds—each with their visitor—to the duty desk.

  “My brother seems better,” he said to the nurse. “Is he off the critical list?”

  “How did you know he’s on it?” she asked, then gave him a close-lipped, girlish smile. “No. But he took some gruel this morning.”

  For three days and nights a dam of anguish had held back Tom’s need for food and sleep, but now weariness trickled down his neck and between his shoulder blades, and he sat on the bed stool, Antonia’s red roses blurring out of focus.

  II

  “Tom.”

  He jerked awake. Trelinack stood at the bedside.

  Next to him was a young woman encased in a brown faille costume whose collar climbed on stays to cup her firm round chin. This was Maud, the oldest of the three Trelinack daughters. Her velvet-trimmed hat, also brown, sat squarely atop thick, glossy brown hair. Her hazel eyes were frank, her coloring high, and though large-boned like her father—sturdy wrists and ankles—she had a trim waist and firm apple breasts. All in all, Maud Trelinack was well favored, and women gossiped why, at twenty-three, she remained a spinster. Trelinack was forever boasting of the pocket money she earned as a seamstress to the upper crust, and the general opinion was that this financial independence plus her unfeminine candor frightened off suitors.

  “Good afternoon, Tom.” Maud had inherited Trelinack’s wide, pleasant smile.

  “Hello there, Maud,” Tom said.

  The visitors bent over Hugh’s bandaged form, greeting him with cheerful whispers pitched loud, as if to penetrate his bandages.

  “How did you get past the dragon?” Tom asked. “It’s relatives only.”

  Trelinack pulled at his mustache. “We’re your Cousin Jacks, aren’t we?”

  “What about those roses?” asked Maud. “Aren’t flowers against the rules too?”

  “Miss Dalzell sent … through … doctor …” Hugh whispered. It was obviously painful for him to move his mouth.

  “Doesn’t she have to go by the regulations?” Maud asked.

  “Lass, lass,” said Trelinack. “I wouldn’t of brought you along if I’d known you were going to argue with our patient.”

  “Every time I ask a sensible question, Pa, you tell me I’m arguing—or talking like a man,” Maud retorted.

  Trelinack winked fondly—she was his pet. “Boys, take my advice. When you start a family, never sire daughters. Tom, what about coming back to tea with us?”

  Just then a Sister bustled around the screen. “I made a mistake. This patient’s allowed one visitor only. Will you please leave the ward.” And leveling stern glances at Trelinack and Maud, she returned to her station.

  “We best be leaving, lass. Well, Tom?”

  “Thank you, Trelinack, but I can’t,” Tom said. “Visiting hour just started.”

  “Go …” Hugh muttered.

  “You feel better when I’m here,” Tom said.

  Between gauze strips Hugh’s lashless eyes closed. The cheerful voices reverberated against his swathed ears. “Ready to sleep …”

  “I’ll wait until you doze off, Hugh,” Tom said gently.

  “So you’ll come?” Trelinack asked.

  “If the offer still holds.”

  “I’ll go along directly to alert the missus,” Trelinack said. He clamped his bowler on his head. He and Maud whispered loud good-byes.

  When Tom emerged he found Maud waiting in the high-ceilinged corridor.

  “Pa left me to make sure you show up,” she said.

  “Think you can handle the assignment?” Tom asked, managing a smile at the short, rounded young woman.

  Trelinack aimed numerous invitations at Tom and Hugh, so they were well acquainted with the three Trelinack girls. Tom felt closest to Maud. She was sensible, she earned her own way, she was as honest as a plumb line, she had an endearing way of drawing her brows together to squint nearsightedly up at him. Hugh said with her skills as a seamstress she should look less frumpy; he called her earthbound. Tom thought of her as having her feet on the ground. Maud had no sense of humor, but accepted his good-naturedly.

  Outside the massive stone hospital she slipped her arm through his.

  “Stopping the prisoner from escaping?” he asked.

  She did not release his arm. “Tom,” she reproved with her wide pleasant smile.

  “What if I try to make a break for it?”

  “Why must you always tease so?”

  “That’s me,” he said, and for a minute they walked silently along Grand Boulevard.

  “Hugh seems to be on the mend,” Maud said, looking into Tom’s face, which was slack with fatigue.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “He wasn’t in a coma or delirious.”

  “You’re a funny girl.”

  “Me? Funny? Why?”

  “Isn’t the normal comment, ‘He looks very strong’?”

  “You know I never lie, Tom,” she said. “What have they told you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  He felt tears prickle. “Maud, I’m worried sick.”

  She pressed her arm tightly to his. “Of course you are. Hugh’s your whole family rolled into one.”

  Tom said fiercely, “He’s going to pull through.”

  “He will.”

  “You just said he didn’t look too wonderful.”

  “He’s going to get well,” she said staunchly.

  “You’re true blue, Maud.” His tone held no hint of jest. It was a statement. “A real friend.”

  Tom’s head buzzed and felt hollow. He did not notice a tremor of something like sadness or resignation cross Maud’s handsome, high-colored face. “We’re alike, Tom, you and me,” she said. “When we make up our minds to it, things happen.”

  III

  At the Trelinacks’ tight-shouldered, neat frame cottage on East Alexandrine Avenue, tea meant supper. Soft-boiled eggs in china cups, a long platter overlapping with slices of cold ham and beef, pickled onions that were sharp on the tongue, Stilton cheese, a home-baked cottage loaf whose thick slices were spread with butter-thick clotted cream and raspberry jam. Tom had believed himself too weary to eat, but he had not sat down to a proper meal since the fire and he found himself devouring whatever was set in front of him. The conversation was mainly about Trelinack’s new job that would start next week. “A top-notch foreman position, at Fenning Cabinets they know a good man,” said Trelinack, beaming. The meal ended with great earthenware cups of tea. The women rose to clear off the table.

  “Tom,” Trelinack said. “You look dead on your feet.”

  “I am.”

  “Come on, then.” Trelinack led the way to the narrow front porch, closing the door behind them. “Before you go there’s something you’re bound to hear. That’s why I lied my way into Providence, so you could get it from me, straight.” He tamped tobacco into his pipe. “This morning I went to the Stuart to see if there was any salvageable metal around our shop—there wasn’t, but that’s another story. A young dandy in spats was poking around too. A tight-mouthed young fellow—until I told him I used to be foreman. Then you should have seen him open up. He’s the local representative of Lloyd’s of London.…”

  “Go on,” Tom ordered.

  “This week he’s bringing in a couple of Pinkertons to sift the yard.”

  �
��Detectives?”

  “There’s a fortune involved here. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

  “Two hundred and fifty thousand!”

  “The Stuart was the biggest furniture factory hereabouts. He told me there’s always an investigation in a fire this size. There. Now you won’t be hearing a garbling of it. Go on home to bed.”

  Tom did not move.

  “There’s murder on your face, Tom. And there’s no proof, none.”

  “Lloyd’s doesn’t agree with you.”

  “He said an investigation was a matter of course. Besides, it don’t matter what the Pinkertons find, does it? The fire’s over. It’s happened.”

  The door opened.

  Maud held out a basket covered with a red-checked napkin. “Tom, am I glad I caught you. I’ve wrapped some of the ham and the rest of Ma’s bread for you.”

  As soon as Tom stretched out on his pallet he fell into a heavy slumber. He had no idea how long he had slept; it may have been several hours or it may have been a few minutes when he jerked awake, his eyes focused up at the dark window. His fists were clenched, his jaw set, his mind clear.

  A quarter of a million, he was thinking. The miserable, whore-sucking old bastard had the factory insured for a quarter of a million dollars!

  And at the same time he could see Hugh, smoke-blackened, his hands pitiable black claws on the racer.

  The thought and the image twined together like strands of a steel hawser, strong and indivisible, until he could not separate his certainty of arson from his brother’s injuries.

  IV

  Around six that evening a pair of orderlies had come to change Hugh’s dressings. It was considered prophylactic to pick away the charred skin, and Hugh threshed to evade the tweezers, his enfeebled screams rustling through the ward. Sister came running to help hold him down. When petroleum salve and fresh bandages covered his burns, he retreated into a cavern where devils pranced around him with their smoldering pitchforks.

  He emerged at a light touch on his shoulder.

  “Hush,” the low feminine voice murmured. “It’s all right. You were having a nightmare.”

  He swam unwillingly into consciousness. The gas was turned low, and one of the feeble rings of light picked out an unusual profile, a large, glowing eye. Hugh had met Antonia once, on a Sunday when Tom had brought her to see the unfinished racer. “Miss Dal-zell?” he whispered, trying to form the words without moving his raw flesh.

  “Antonia,” she said, nodding.

  “How …?”

  “Dr. McKenzie arranged it. It hurts you to talk, doesn’t it? We don’t have to.”

  “You … please …?”

  Antonia appreciated Hugh’s need—how often had she attempted to verbally pierce the wall between herself and her father. “What about, Hugh?”

  “Your … house …”

  Unpinning her hat, she sat on the stool. “Uncle built it on three acres that he inherited from his great-aunt.” She spoke softly, her head close to his, the rosewater scents of her hair banishing the harsh hospital odors. “Uncle meant it to be impressive, and it is. Tom says when he goes inside he feels the house is ready to spit him out. In the hall there’s an enormous Waterford crystal chandelier, and every three months Flaherty spends a week polishing the drops. The stained-glass window, Louis Comfort Tiffany made it, is centered with a knight bearing Uncle’s crest on his shield. There’s a set of fifteenth-century tapestries in the living room, they came from a castle in Andalusia, biblical scenes, they’ve turned brown with age.” She paused.

  Hugh’s bandaged hand moved, a weak gesture that she continue.

  Tom had told her about Hugh’s romanticizing of the rich, so she detailed bits of extravagances that might please him.

  “Ida, the cook, has a big marble table in the kitchen just to roll her pastry. Every Friday at breakfast Uncle puts gold pieces on the sideboard for her to buy whatever food we need for the week. The oysters come from Chesapeake. And …”

  Hugh’s weakness kept him from comprehending all she was telling him, but her voice held a cool, gentle quality, like falling snow, easing his pain and fear, and as he listened he fell into a dreamless sleep.

  V

  Two blocks from the Trelinacks on East Alexandrine Avenue, the Henry Fords had rented a flaked-roof bungalow. One evening Tom climbed the six front steps. His knock was answered by Henry Ford, trim in freshly ironed gray overalls.

  “Tom. I’ve been trying to catch you. How’s Hugh?”

  “On the road, thank you.”

  “Good, good. Clara and me have been worried.”

  Ford’s air of energy and purpose depressed Tom utterly, for these qualities had drained from him. “Henry, what are the chances of an engineering job over at the Edison?”

  “You? Aren’t you going back into automobiles?”

  “Finished with that.”

  “Because of the fire?”

  “It’s more complicated,” Tom said.

  Henry Ford tugged at his mustache. “I see. Well, I’m going into it full time. My job’s open.”

  “They wouldn’t start me as head engineer.”

  “After me, who’s the best in Detroit?” Ford’s blue eyes twinkled. “I’ll put in a word for you, Tom. Two words. Three. Don’t worry about a thing.”

  VI

  Two weeks after Hugh arrived at Providence Hospital, the big, stout sister instructed Tom to return the following morning at eight sharp, with outer clothing and transportation. He came in a hired hack, telling the driver to wait.

  At the foot of each bed stood enamel ewers and bowls: two nuns, their habits covered by voluminous white aprons, were bathing the patients.

  Dr. McKenzie sat at the duty desk studying a sheaf of papers. Tom had not seen the doctor since they had introduced themselves under the Major’s porte cochere. He held out his hand: McKenzie shook it, then inspected the new pink skin on palm and fingerpad. “You’re healing nicely. Any pain?”

  “None,” Tom said. “I’ve been wanting to thank you, sir, for taking my brother’s case.”

  “I’ve been going over his charts. Keep him in bed until I tell you. Asthma and smoke are a bad combination.”

  “You mean he’ll be an invalid?”

  “Not at all. He won’t be up to heavy physical labor, that’s all.”

  “Never Hugh’s preference.” Tom smiled. “What about the bandages?”

  “They’ll come off, eventually. For the time being, though, bring him to the clinic twice a week to have them changed.”

  “He dreads that tweezering. Is it necessary?”

  The doctor scratched at his freckled cheek, leaving red marks. His irritation was not directed at Tom, for whom he felt a natural affinity, but at any lay questioning. “Sound medical procedure,” he said. “The left side of the face appears to be a third-degree burn. That might mean scarring.”

  Gazing through the shafts of dusty sunlight that fell from clerestory windows, Tom watched an orderly lift Hugh, help him into the topcoat. “Major Stuart asked you to look after Hugh, didn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’d like the bills sent to me.”

  “The Major has always taken care of accidents at the factory.”

  “But this is my brother.”

  The doctor cleared his throat. “I know that your horseless carriages were all destroyed in the fire, and—”

  “I’m through with that,” Tom interrupted. “I have a proper job now. Chief engineer at the Edison Illuminating Company. I can afford to pay you, sir.”

  “Bridger, you know you’re refusing because of the insurance investigation. Well, let me tell you, that’s a fine bit of idiocy. Men sifting through the ashes for a week—what a waste of time! They found nothing. Of course they found nothing. There’s nothing to find. Lloyd’s is satisfied to pay the claim.” The tall, stout nun rustled up to the desk. McKenzie ignored her and the patients who were watching from nearby beds. “Losing the factory is the wo
rst kind of blow to Andrew Stuart. I’ve known him all my life, and I’ve never seen him like this, not even when he was wounded at Gettysburg. The man’s in utter despair.”

  “Send me my brother’s bills.”

  “All right, all right, you’re being foolish, but I understand.”

  “Thank you, sir. You’ll get the money fast.”

  “The fees don’t worry me. My concern is the left side of my patient’s face.” The doctor consulted a stiff sheet of paper, then looked at the nun. “What do you think, Sister?”

  She sighed. “In my opinion, there’s permanent damage.”

  “I concur.” He turned to Tom. “Don’t mention this to your brother. We don’t want him to brood until he’s regained some of his strength. We’re lucky he pulled through, very lucky. Now. Take him home.”

  VII

  A windy, cold morning, drafts prowled the horse-drawn cab, and as soon as they reached the flat Tom heaped the covers from both pallets on Hugh, heating milk and sugar, adding whiskey, a toddy. Hugh drowsed. Tom sat with his hands on the round table, his new pink fingertips curled loosely. Before the fire he had always brought home a spring to fix, a pin to file, a sketchpad to figure a more efficient order for assembly. Now his free minutes disappeared as meaninglessly as pebbles tossed into a murky pond.

  There was a light rap at the door. Intuitively he knew it was Antonia.

  Though he had not seen her since before the fire, she was forever in his mind. Antonia, Antonia. He had nursed a profound resentment of her guardian before the fire, but now his feelings extended beyond loathing. He could not bear the thought of Antonia living in the gray mansion with the Major. They must be married right away. And the mystery of his decision was how it hurdled every single practical consideration: his lack of money, Hugh’s condition, the mound of unpaid medical bills, Mr. Dalzell’s expenses, Antonia’s own wishes. For Tom there was only this obsessive truth. She could not continue to live with his enemy.

  Another rap sounded. Steeling himself to explain his intractably adamant heart, he went to the door.

  Antonia’s arms were laden. “I brought some things for Hugh,” she said, adding in a rush, “Tom, I had to see you, I had to. It’s been so long.” Delicate shadows underlined her eyes.