When Ida made no answer, those two small, vertical lines Ida remembered appeared between Barstow’s brows. “You understand you’re heir to half this business?”
Well, Ida hoped so. And no doubt Henry Barstow was heir to the other half, which was likely why he was here—to secure his assets. And just what were these assets? Ida looked around. The sign that now leaned against the wall had cracked down the middle; two sodden ledgers had been opened and spread on a crate in front of the stove to dry; a tin bucket had been placed on the top shelf where the ledgers had been stored to capture the steady drip from the roof, new since the thaw; and the stove did indeed smoke badly. Behind her was a pile of junk and behind that was a warehouse full of more junk, upstairs were two rooms full of mice, and on the seafloor sat the charred remains of the Cormorant. But Vineyard Haven was becoming a popular destination, not just for members of the marine trade but for tourists; the two less than prime buildings still sat on a prime Main Street lot and had to be worth something.
“Now,” Ida said. “Now would be convenient.”
Barstow laid the wet ledgers on the floor and upended the crate to serve as his own perch, leaving the desk chair to Ida. She sat down. “You knew they were on the Portland?”
Barstow nodded.
“I came here to try to find out if the Cormorant was insured.”
“Yes. I’ve been looking for just such a document.”
“Meaning, no?”
Barstow nodded again. He rose from his crate, but before he reached his full height he returned to his seat. “One of the things we need to discuss is a potential complication.”
“What.” It pushed out of Ida’s mouth untempered, impatient, leaving Barstow to peer at her in mild alarm.
“Perhaps this isn’t the best time.”
“What,” Ida said again.
“First, we have to wait for the courts to declare the unrecovered Portland passengers dead. I went to Wellfleet—”
“As did I.”
Barstow dropped his head down and to the side in a silent gesture that Ida took to mean acknowledgment of their shared torture. He lifted his head. Continued. “Second, when Mose and Ezra formed this company they drew up papers declaring fifty-fifty ownership, but if one were to die before the other, the other became full owner.”
Well, that was nice, Ezra. “They died together.”
“I’m fairly confident a court would say so, but again, we have to wait on that determination.” Barstow looked closer at Ida but must not have seen anything approaching emotional collapse.
“You mean we can’t sell today.”
“This is how you see the future of this property? Sold?”
“I’m not planning to open an ice cream store, if that’s what you mean.”
There it was—the laughter in waiting. Barstow pointed at the ceiling. “If you have no objection, I thought I’d stay in Mose’s apartment for a few days while I meet with a lawyer. Do you have one?”
“We need two?”
Barstow cleared his throat. “I don’t know if you’re aware of the Married Women’s Property Act.”
“No.”
“It grants you title to half your husband’s assets. I can’t say which would take precedence here—the contract or the act, but you’d be wise to secure your own representation.”
Well, that was fair. So why did Ida feel so unsettled? Because after two years of Ezra she wasn’t used to fair.
“If you have no objection to my staying in the apartment—” Barstow continued.
“I don’t, but you will once you see the apartment.”
This time Barstow full-out smiled, and the smile rearranged his features so dramatically it startled Ida. She attempted to smile back, but her face resisted—she could feel it and see it in how quickly Barstow’s own smile faded, could hear it in his next words: “Again, Mrs. Pease, my sympathies.”
4
Ida pushed open the door at the only attorney shingle she’d ever spied in Vineyard Haven. Malcolm Littlefield was not engaged, which was good and bad, Ida decided; good because she wanted this done with; bad because he didn’t look overloaded with clients. He had the distracted air and indirect focus of one looking to get back to his papers, but Ida decided that was good; she sat down opposite him and told her tale with as few words as possible, which were more words than she’d realized; Littlefield answered her with even fewer.
“There have been no Portland survivors. The court will move to declare the missing dead, and barring any extenuating circumstances, it should be ruled they died at the same time. Your husband’s property would then pass to his nearest kin in accordance with the law. Children?”
“No.”
“Parents? Siblings?”
“An aunt only. A cousin.”
Littlefield waved away Ruth and Hattie with a flick of the wrist. He wrote some words on a pad of paper. “Well then. Any children would share half the estate, but as there are none, your husband’s property will be yours in the entirety. A farm, you say. And half of the business assets as you describe the terms of your husband’s contract. But you’ll have to wait on the courts.”
“How long?”
Littlefield pointed to the wall behind him and an embossed sign that Ida had overlooked. rule your impatience; don’t let your impatience rule you.
If Ida had noticed the sign when she’d entered, she’d have called it a bad sign.
Ida was out with the ox and wagon, forking up storm litter, when she looked up to see Ruth coming down the hill, alternately stabbing the ground and beating back the stray bull briars with her cane. She kept her eyes fixed on the track, an old woman unsure of her footing, and never saw Ida or the oxcart. She walked up to the house, twisted the doorknob without knocking, and let the wind push her in. Ida threw the pitchfork into the back of the wagon, hopped onto the seat, and gee-ed the ox back to the barn.
When Ida opened her kitchen door she found Ruth peering into her stockpot, her hair thrust into a halo of gray spikes by the wind.
“Nice of you to pay a call,” Ida said.
“Family doesn’t pay calls.”
And since when were we family? thought Ida. She held out her hand for Ruth’s coat, but Ruth pulled it tighter. “It’s cold in here.”
“It’s always cold in here when there’s a north wind.”
“So you’re leaving, are you?”
“Who told you that?”
“Didn’t you just?”
“No, I didn’t. Come nearer the stove, then.”
Ida walked to the stove and after a moment Ruth followed. She sat down, pulled off her gloves finger by finger, shrugged off her coat, and unbuttoned the top button of her suit jacket, as if each move were part of a religious ritual.
“Tea?” Ida asked.
“I didn’t come here to be fed. Sit.”
Ida sat, relieved about the tea—one less thing for Ruth to find fault with.
“I came to see how you were managing.”
“I’m fine.”
“I know you are. Why wouldn’t you be? I’m asking about the sheep.”
“The sheep?”
“How you’re managing the sheep.”
“The same as I’ve managed them all the other times Ezra’s been away.”
“Except now Ezra’s dead.”
Yes. Now Ezra was dead. And so was any connection Ida may have had to Ruth, which had been not much of a connection in the first place. By Ruth’s own admission on the day they’d met, she was not Ida’s aunt. Thinking this, Ida felt something in her loosen.
“Which I mention only as a way of reminding you,” Ruth went on. “Now there will be no end to Ezra’s absence.”
“Thank you,” Ida said.
Ruth peered at her. “I never thought you one for . . . sheep.”
“If you mean to say you never thought me one for Ezra, say so.”
“Very well, Ezra then.”
“But it doesn’t matter now, does it?”
&nbs
p; “The sheep do. You don’t pretend you can manage them.”
“I have been. More than I’d like.”
“You see? That’s just what I mean. It makes no sense you trying to keep it up. Lem Daggett knows his sheep; he can manage the farm for me.”
“For you? Haven’t you heard of the Married Women’s Property Act?”
“No, and I don’t need to, since this farm wasn’t Ezra’s property. He signed over the deed to me in January of ninety-six.” She waited, watching, as if to see if Ida caught the significance of the date.
Oh, Ida caught it. In January of ninety-six Ezra had requested Ida’s hand in marriage. But before or after he signed away the farm to Ruth?
Ruth peered at Ida. “Oh, don’t fret so, dear. I’ve no intention of evicting you out of hand. Take your time. Make your plans. Find your place. Of course it would be nice to have Lem in by lambing.”
Ida held up a hand, signaling the need to back up. She knew Ezra. He wouldn’t have worked the farm for nothing. “If you own the farm, what did Ezra get for working it?”
“A percentage of the profits—wool sales in July, livestock sales in October. I confess I’m surprised Ezra hadn’t told you, but apparently he felt farm matters didn’t concern you.”
When Ida said nothing Ruth stood up, eyes on Ida as she pulled on her coat, picked up her gloves, and worked each finger over her swollen knuckles. “As it doesn’t concern you now.”
Ida went to the window and watched the old woman up the hill, every stubborn vertebra stacked up tight. Fury roared through her. She wasn’t so big a fool as to believe what Ruth told her outright, and the more she thought of it, the less likely it seemed that Ruth could be right. Never once had Ezra said . . . so many times Ezra had said . . . But just what had Ezra said? And what hadn’t Ida heard—or cared to hear—in that sea fog of grief?
Ida went out and killed a chicken, bled it, plucked it, and hacked it up for a stew. She felt better. Of course it wasn’t true. Ezra wouldn’t. Ezra didn’t. She could recall it now, the words my farm being uttered repeatedly. I want to show you my farm . . . I get away whenever my farm lets me . . . This farm of mine . . . But had he ever spoken those words after he proposed in January?
Ida went to the pantry for potatoes and onions and came face-to-face with Ezra’s whiskey bottle, which brought her face-to-face with Ezra. What had started with Ezra wouldn’t now turned into why did he, at worst outright lie, at best misrepresent, or far worse, plot. Ida was not a mercenary being, but neither was she a fool; to agree to marry a penniless man she barely knew was far different from marrying a propertied man at least able to keep a roof over her head.
Ida picked up the whiskey bottle and carried it into the kitchen. She sat down in front of the stove and poured herself a glass. She could feel her anger as if it were a thing, as if it were the whiskey burning down her throat. She remembered her wedding night and the freedom she’d felt at being able to relax into Ezra’s touch, no longer worried about all those consequences for ruined women that never seemed to trouble a man. There had been a certain haste to the thing—it wasn’t their first time, after all—but afterward Ezra had lain back and talked of his dreams: a bigger boat, a building on Main Street, maybe one in Boston. He talked of their farm, she was sure he did—of the prize-winning flock they would raise. “Wool’s come to nothing,” he’d said. “But good breeding stock, there’s the market. We’ll do well next fall, I promise you. And the fall after that, even better. I’ve got my eye on a ram that will put us on the top of the pile.” We’ll. Us.
Staring at a cloudy image of her face in the whiskey bottle Ida remembered another conversation. Ezra had wanted Ida to paint their portraits, portraits that would hang side by side over the mantel. Ida had disliked the idea of a self-portrait, but she’d intended to paint Ezra; she’d sat him in the chair in front of the bookcase wearing his best coat and tie and done a series of sketches, but none of them pleased her. She’d gone so far as to study her own face in the mirror, but she’d done it in the middle of a workday, with the unraveling topknot, the smoky eyes, the fire-reddened cheeks, and could only think of the portrait she’d done of Mrs. McKinley, how proud Ida had been to capture the iciness of her silk and the warmth of her pearls. How few qualms she’d felt at taking a vain, exceedingly rich woman and painting her exactly as she wished to be painted. The Mrs. McKinleys were the people who had portraits done; what business did a farmer’s wife have sitting inside a frame over the mantel? Yet Ida had liked that Ezra wanted her portrait hung there, and for a time she’d even believed it meant love, but later she came to see it was nothing but camouflage, deflection, an easy trade of words for what he really wanted, which was . . . what? Well, her money.
For there were the facts. Either just before Ezra had proposed marriage to Ida he’d been forced to sell the farm and was desperate for the money—her money—to buy it back; or just after he’d asked Ida for her hand he’d made sure the farm would stay in the Pease family should something happen to him. And if the latter were the case, it got worse; soon—too soon—after their marriage, Ezra had arranged the sale of the town house in Boston, effectively leaving Ida without a home on this earth.
Could it be true?
Ida set down her glass, got up, and slashed at the potatoes and onion. She put the stew on the stove. It couldn’t be true. She forced herself to call up what she’d believed to be real gentleness in Ezra’s eyes as he’d asked her about her parents, her brothers; she dug out a moment when a Boston hack had splashed her skirt and he’d mopped her up with his handkerchief; she stood waiting until she could recall the feel of Ezra’s strong arm around her as they made their way back to the house in a sudden hailstorm. She remembered his greeting: Well, my lovely girl . . . But why would Ruth lie about something that would come to light as soon as Henry Barstow executed the will?
Henry Barstow.
Ida fetched her whiskey, took another swig, and put in a call to the salvage company, or rather, put in a call to Hattie, as Hattie seemed to see it.
“How are you faring, Ida? Are you managing all right?”
“Managing fine.”
“It’s hard, I know.”
“Everything’s hard. Are you ringing the salvage company?”
“If you’re looking for that Barstow, he’s gone back to New Bedford. Or going. I’m not sure which.”
“Well then, why don’t you put through the call and we’ll find out?”
Silence. It had never been Ida’s way to pick a fight with Hattie, and Ida felt she could hear something like shock in the silence, but eventually Hattie put through the call. Even so, the idea of Henry Barstow in New Bedford had worked its way into Ida’s head so successfully that she was startled when a voice said, “Henry Barstow.”
“This is Ida Pease.”
“Mrs. Pease! I was about to ring you. I’ll be leaving for New Bedford in the morning and I wanted to drop off some funds in case of an emergency expense. Is there a convenient—?”
“Now,” Ida said. “Now is convenient.”
She watched him come up the track and stop at the pasture fence to stare out at the sheep, the animals ghostly in the near dark. She opened the door babbling.
“You like sheep?”
“I’m not sure like is the word.”
“Then you don’t like sheep.”
“I don’t mind them singly, but in the aggregate—” He held wide the lapel of a wool jacket and smiled. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful.”
Perhaps it was the fact that his hair had lost its part in the wind, but for the first time Ida saw a flash of Mose. The brother walked to the kitchen table, dropped an envelope onto it, and gave it a tap.
“Something for the day-to-day. I’m afraid for anything more significant you’ll need to apply to me.”
“You leave in the morning?”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He paused. “I wondered while I’m here if I might ask you a few questions.”
; “If I’m allowed to ask one.”
“Of course.”
Ida led the way to the parlor, forgetting that she’d left the whiskey bottle sitting on the table; she picked it up as if she’d set it out in expectation and said, “May I offer you a drink?”
“Thank you.”
They sat on either side of the stove, the shadows exaggerating the planes and angles in Barstow’s face, turning him back to the stranger. He took a drink.
“I’ve just received some upsetting news from Ezra’s aunt.” Ida explained and watched those double worry lines that Mose never seemed to have sprouted resume their place.
“I’m afraid—”
“Don’t be. Tell me. Did Ezra own the farm or didn’t he?”
“The farm isn’t listed among his assets. But I’ll check into it, Mrs. Pease.” Barstow took a long swallow. Ida reached over and refilled his glass. She filled hers; if Barstow was shocked at this, it didn’t show in his face. But something did.
“You had questions?”
“I did. But if you have others—”
“One other, yes. If I have no claim to this farm, if there’s no boat and therefore no business, if the Main Street buildings are going to be tied up waiting on a couple of court rulings, what recourse do I have?”
“If by recourse you mean cash, this is exactly what I wished to talk to you about.”
“Meaning there is none.”
“Meaning there appears to be very little.”
Ida thought. “It was my family money that bought the boat and buildings. I knew nothing of either purchase until after the fact. He claimed at the time he was temporarily cash-strapped, but that the job in Maine would put it right.”
“What do you know about this job in Maine?”
Again, Ida had to think. What did she know about it? Not enough. In truth, she was beginning to see she hadn’t known enough about anything. “A salvage job. A cargo of tin, I think. Or zinc. In Passamaquoddy Bay.” At least these were a few of the words she’d gleaned in passing. “Didn’t Mose ever speak of it?”
Painting the Light Page 4
