32
Ida wrote to Henry.
I’ve been to the constable about Ezra but am not confident anything will be done. I’ve been to my lawyer here and told him to stop work on estate matters on my behalf. He’s submitted a bill to me that I’m unable to pay at present. Hattie and Lem are marrying in December, and Ruth is giving them the farm. I plan to leave for Boston right after the livestock sale—I should realize enough from the sale to at least afford a room. I tell you these things only so you’ll know.—I.
Henry answered:
Please send me the lawyer’s bill or preferably give it to me in person—I will be back on the island at week’s end. You have made clear you no longer have any personal interest in me and I will honor your wishes in that regard, but in my role as executor, and considering the new developments, I do feel we should meet to go over the ramifications regarding the “estate.”—H.
At the bottom, in a less defined hand, as if induced by either alcohol or fatigue, he’d added:
Twice I tried to tell you. I pushed you away only until I could tell you. But with what words? I had no words. And finally at Makonikey. It was so much easier just to follow the joy down.
Joy. That he should use the word that had once defined him in Ida’s mind, the word that had so eluded Ida until she’d discovered that bicycle . . . and, admit it, Henry. Ida fetched the lawyer’s bill and a blank piece of paper, but as she sat staring at the paper she realized Henry was right. There were no words. She folded the bill into an envelope, addressed it to the carriage shop in New Bedford, and set it out on the table to be mailed in the morning.
August. The days crisp and hot or damp and hot, the sky a dense blue that Ida could never quite master in paint or a sodden gray mass that she could. The calendar was much on Ida’s mind; two weeks and Ezra would be gone. But August was also weaning time, and as if to prove a point, the day Ida and Lem picked to do it was as hot and sticky as any August day got anywhere. Lem assembled the pens again, and Bett and Ida drove the sheep through two at a time, allowing for Lem to divert the lambs into the smaller pen. It was tiring and unpleasant work and the din of the lambs and ewes calling back and forth put Ida thoroughly out of sorts. She’d said little if anything to Lem and he’d said less back, but once they’d gotten the sheep sorted into the two most distant pastures she said, “I’m getting out the whiskey.”
They sat on the porch and drank without talking. After a time Ida said, “I suppose I need to say congratulations.”
“Not if you don’t want to.”
“Well, I don’t. What I want to say is you’re quite the old secret keeper. I wonder how many other secrets you’ve got in there.”
“No other secrets.”
“I suppose Hattie’s told you he’s alive.”
“Yep.”
“I suppose you knew all along.”
Lem set down his glass. He slid himself sideways in his chair, took Ida’s glass from her and set it next to his on the floor. He took her two hands in his and leaned forward as if afraid his words would drift off before they reached her if he left too much room between them. “Ida, what did I tell you? I’m the best friend you have. Would I have kept something like that from you? Would I have let you go on thinking you were a widow when all along—”
“Henry did.”
Lem dropped her hands and leaned back. After a time he said, “I guess he had his reasons.”
Ida shifted back in her seat. “So. Hattie and the farm. Will she keep on at the exchange?”
“Of course not.”
“I guess she’ll be busy enough with the farm.”
Lem took a good swallow. He looked over at Ida once, twice. “Hattie said Ruth was talking about selling the place once you left for Boston. This keeps it in the family.”
“But—” She wanted to say but Hattie? Even with the drink she knew that wasn’t the right thing to do, that she’d already stepped way, way, way out of the bounds of decorum. She changed course to the thought that had been in the forefront of her mind most of the afternoon. “Did you know about the gold from sea water?”
“Not as a fact. I knew he’d gotten something going up there in Maine that sounded like more than salvage. Something he didn’t feel just right about sharing with me.”
“You didn’t ask him?”
“I don’t make a habit of asking after things I don’t want to know.”
They drank some more. Ida could tell by the way Lem looked at her glass when she refilled it that it concerned him, this woman drinking hard liquor in the middle of the day. She tried to picture Hattie sitting on the porch beside Lem, listening to that din, drinking whiskey, and could not. “I wonder,” Ida said. “When you still thought Ezra was dead, did you ever think about asking me to marry you?”
Lem chuckled.
“Well, think of it. You could have saved yourself the trouble of getting out the wagon in the middle of the night to go shoot dogs. You could have rolled over and fired out the bedroom window.” Oh, she was seriously out of bounds now.
“And what about Boston?”
Yes, what about Boston? At the moment it seemed far away. If Lem had asked, and she’d said yes, and if she’d gotten any money from the buildings, she could have given it to Lem, and he could have bought the farm. She could have stayed and helped him work the farm; she’d have been a whole lot better at it than Hattie.
“And besides,” Lem went on, “I don’t like arguments.”
“What would we have to argue about?”
“Well now, let’s think back over a few things.”
“The bicycle’s gone.”
“But not those damned trousers.”
Ida looked down. It was true she was wearing the trousers now; in truth she wore them so often she hardly noticed anymore when she had them on. Lem would never say anything about the absent stays, the corset that had in fact now become more of a camisole, but she was sure he didn’t approve of that either.
“And I know you, Ida. I do something you don’t like and you’re going to say something about it, just the way you said something about it to Ezra. And I don’t like something you’re doing, I’m going to say something about that, just like I do now. Pretty soon we’d be fighting out of habit, over things neither of us even gives a hoot about.”
“Name me one thing—one other thing besides bicycles and trousers—we would ever fight about.”
“Well now, Hat tells me you’re agitating to vote.”
“I’d like you to give me one logical reason why women shouldn’t vote. They work for you, grieve for you, lie down for you, bear your children for you, love you—”
“See, now?”
Ida started to laugh. She laughed till the tears ran, until they’d turned to real tears, and then she stopped, wiped her eyes, sat up. Yes, Lem had chosen right—in the end Hattie had declined the bicycle, dismissed the trousers, denied any interest in ever placing a vote. She lifted her glass. “Congratulations,” she said.
The middle of August, when Ezra was supposed to sail for France, hung heavy over Ida before it arrived, but once it came and went, Ida felt no different. She didn’t know how to feel. Was he gone or wasn’t he? She was moving the ewes to fresh pasture, intent on looking over the flock with the livestock sale in mind, but she couldn’t seem to look past the aggregate, as Henry had called it, in order to focus on the particular; Bett had condensed the sheep into a single mass of iridescent white cloud, and Ida stood as if blinded. After a time, her artist’s eye singled out the way the light backlit a translucent pink ear or turned a black eye to a glistening marble, but she was still standing there when Constable Ripley pulled up the hill in his official wagon.
He climbed down and waited at the gate until Ida had settled the flock and corralled Bett, but even when she reached the constable he seemed in no great rush.
“Nice place you’ve got.”
“It’s Ruth Pease’s farm.”
The constable’s eyebrows rose. “Is it, no
w.” This seemed to change something in his thinking; he pondered, studied Ida, looked out at the sheep, nodded out at the sea. “I have a couple of questions for you.”
Ida crossed her arms and waited.
“When was it you took that trip to Block Island?”
“Near the end of June. The seasonal visitors were just arriving.”
The constable nodded again. “I’ve been making inquiries. Whoever was living in that shack out there at Grace’s Point has cleared out and gone. They found a fellow owns a lobster boat admits to hiring himself out to take someone to New York on August the fourteenth. His description of the passenger sounds like Ezra Pease.”
“Does it, now.”
The constable squinted. “I might recommend you take a look to your attitude, ma’am. You walk in and present as wild a tale as I’ve heard in my lifetime and then once I take it up you balk at a few questions. I’m here to tell you I looked into your wild tale and right now it’s not seeming so wild after all.”
All right, fair enough. “Now what?”
“That’s the better question. We got on to the shipping lines late, I admit to you, and the ship had sailed, but there was an Ezra Pease on board.”
So Ezra was gone. Then why didn’t the weight of him leave her? Why did she still feel the crush of it settling into the lines of her face, moving down to her shoulders, her hips, her heels, rooting her to the ground?
The constable must have observed her sinking. He spoke in a more even tone. “I can’t see any hope in trying to chase your husband down, Mrs. Pease. You could file for divorce on the grounds of abandonment; in a year’s time you should have the paper in hand and be able to move along.” He paused. “Or you could wait for that ticket to arrive.”
Ida laughed.
“If that ticket does arrive—”
“I’ll be sure to let you know.”
33
Ida knew she should call Henry, but she was beginning to seriously resent that word, should. And why should she? Where Ezra was now had nothing to do with him; it wasn’t Mose who’d gotten on that ocean liner. But—oh, she was starting to resent that word too—but Henry did have a right to know that the estate settlement might be delayed again. And Henry deserved to know that Mose had gone to Australia, that he’d wanted to send back some of the money. Yes, all right, she would have to call Henry.
Even as Ida thought it, the phone rang.
“I’m sorry to trouble you,” Henry said, “but I have news.” He paused. “News I’d rather not discuss over the phone.” So he knew the risk Hattie posed by now. “Is it convenient for me to stop by?”
“In fact, I was about to call you.”
Ida noted a lift in Henry’s tone. “Oh?”
Ida looked out the window. The light had yet to mellow and lengthen; Lem was moving slowly from barn to wagon, not diverting to the house as he often did after his work was done. He’s growing old, she thought. She returned her attention to the phone. “As it happens, I have my own news. But I’ll come there. To the office.”
“Very well,” Henry said, each word as level as the ground.
The short walk seemed long, made longer by the tug of Ida’s hem on her ankles. She was missing the bicycle more and more with each step, not just because of the convenience or the thrill of speed but because of the power, of that feeling that she was in charge, that she could manage her own schedule, her own direction, her own life. Silly, but still.
As if to rub Ida’s nose in it, as she crossed Main Street she saw that Henry was standing outside the office with his bicycle, talking to a woman near Ida’s age, a woman she didn’t know. As Ida watched, Henry bent down and rotated the bicycle pedal backward in a gesture Ida knew well.
“And the brake,” Henry was saying as she drew near. “Would you like to try it?”
Only then did Ida see it wasn’t Henry’s bicycle; it was a woman’s bicycle, Perry’s bicycle. Her bicycle. Ida stepped into the shadow of the wall and watched Henry as he explained everything he’d once explained to Ida, watched his hands moving so competently from handlebar to seat to brake. He looked up and spied Ida. He spoke to the woman; she nodded; he handed her what looked like a card and she walked off.
Ida stepped through the office door ahead of Henry. The first things she noticed were two more bicycles, brand-new, one a man’s and one a woman’s. Ida went for the woman’s and examined it with care—no chain, plush leather seat, perky tilt to the handlebars, a shine that could blind the sun.
“I’m sorry, that one’s sold,” Henry said behind her.
“You’re selling bicycles now?”
“Mary Ellen Bishop asked me to find her one. I was rolling it into the shop when that woman out there asked to look at it. I showed her yours instead.”
“So that’s sold too?”
Henry didn’t answer. “So you have news? I haven’t eaten since breakfast. May I invite you to share our tales over dinner?”
“What I have to say can’t be said in a public dining room.”
Henry crossed his arms and looked at her; after a minute he pointed to the stairs. “I’m sorry, but I’m famished. If I don’t eat soon—” He began to climb the stairs, lunging at them as if in a hurry to get away from her, and yet he called over his shoulder, “Come. Please.”
Ida followed. Henry went straight to the kitchen and began to set out food: half a cold meat pie with dark, rich beef and onions tumbling out of the cut, a partial loaf of bread, a bowl of apples, and a pitcher of cider, the tang of it snaking straight up Ida’s nose. He set out two plates and cut Ida a wedge of the pie; she started to protest, but she too had eaten nothing since breakfast, and the top crust was flaky and golden while the bottom was drenched with juice. She bit; it was all she’d hoped it would be and more.
“You made this?”
“Mary Ellen Bishop brought it yesterday morning. I ran into her at Luce’s.”
Of course, thought Ida. Mary Ellen Bishop was rumored to have broken off an engagement with a banker in Falmouth who had failed to disclose a mistress in Bourne, to whom he’d also failed to disclose his pending marriage. “She mustn’t have approved of your shopping list.”
“Bread and beer? I can’t think why.” Henry smiled at her and Ida responded, although they were likely smiling at separate jokes: Henry at bread and beer, Ida at the suddenly disengaged Mary Ellen Bishop digging into Henry Barstow like a tick.
“Best tell her you’re married before she starts arriving with breakfast,” Ida said.
Henry set down his fork, no longer smiling. “You said you had news.”
Ida told him about the visit from Ripley. “It seems unlikely Ezra will be held accountable.” She paused. “Or Mose.” She told Henry about Mose planning to return some of the money and was startled to see a violent flash of anger cross his features; only then did Ida realize how deeply Mose had hurt his brother, how hard Henry must have worked to keep that hurt tamped down in front of Ida. Henry got up, retreated to his room, and returned with a stiff envelope.
“Your news would explain this, then. They’ve attached the property.”
Ida picked up the envelope. Put it down. “What—”
“What does it mean? That if they can’t recoup the fraudulently obtained money any other way, the property will be sold, and the proceeds divvied up among the investors. This is what I was calling to tell you.”
Henry picked up his fork and resumed eating. Ida sat silent. She was sorry about the food; if she didn’t have a plate in front of her, if Henry didn’t, it would have been easier for her to go. She cast about for a topic. She pointed to the copper kettle leaning against the wall.
“You brought that thing up here?”
“I was trying to figure it out.”
“Did you?”
“Not . . . No.”
Ida tried again.
“How is the divorce proceeding?”
“It isn’t.” Henry set down his fork and leaned forward, a new intensity washing ove
r him like a storm surge. “She knows about you. And now she won’t divorce. She won’t admit you’re the reason; she says only that she’s changed her mind, that she was being selfish, she could never do that to our girls.”
“How did she find out about me?”
“That time when you came to tell me about the lambs. She appeared to have seen something in my face, or heard something in my voice, I don’t know. She asked and I told her; what good did lying ever do?” He laughed, but so bitterly it didn’t sound like the usual Henry laugh Ida knew. “So now I’m the ogre for proceeding.”
“You’re proceeding?”
Henry nodded.
“But not because of—”
“Because of you? No. Silly as it may sound, I believe two people need to be on speaking terms in order to—” He cut himself off with another alien laugh.
“Then why?”
“Perhaps in some way it is because of you. I saw who she was because of you. But in fact now I’m proceeding because of my children; I didn’t want to divorce because I didn’t want to be apart from them, but now it seems I’ll be apart from them if I don’t divorce. She’s keeping them from me. When I moved in behind the carriage shop, she took them away to her parents, said she wasn’t comfortable alone in the house, said I’d abandoned them and had no right to see them anymore. Of course I do have that right and I also have a good lawyer who will see it’s secured.”
Henry continued on, more about the fancy Boston lawyer he was quite sure he couldn’t afford, but Ida didn’t hear the rest. She was running behind, stuck on that one line: When I moved in behind the carriage shop.
They had finished eating. Henry got up and carried their dishes to the sink; Ida needed no other opening to get up and go, just as she’d hoped to do for many minutes now, and yet she lingered.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “About your children.”
Painting the Light Page 26
