She pushed her mind past the horrible last hours of her own mother’s life, back to the day she learned she would be a sister. The sun had been shining through the kitchen window. Her mother was busy checking the bread dough. Saturdays were baking days, so several loaves were rising on the dough board, ready to be cooked and parceled out during the week. Helen resupplied the kindling in the stand on the hearth and went to check the fire in the oven chamber next to the fireplace. The brick walls and slate cooking stone were hot enough to begin the baking. Her mother was so pretty that day, brown hair pulled back, a few ringlets showing from under her mobcap, hazel eyes bright. Her apron was worn from everyday use, but she seemed happier than she had all winter. They worked quickly, performing each step in their bread waltz with the perfection of studied dancers. Her mother used a long-handled circular flat peel to remove the burning wood. Helen swept the embers and the ashes into a shuttle while her mother dusted the peel with cornmeal and placed the loaves one by one onto the oven’s floor.
Once it was done, Helen’s mother pulled her over to the chair near the window. The sun heated the top of her head, seeming to promise bright days to come. “Our family is going to grow,” her mother had said, as she patted her stomach. How wrong Momma had been.
Helen wept, tears wetting the bed’s quilt.
CHAPTER SEVEN
PRYCE ANWELL STOOD IN THE ERIE CANAL. His new beaver-skin hat floated nearby. Several men ran to the towpath and hoisted him out of the water. His clothing dripped with the mud that sluiced through the waterway. The packet boat he had been on continued west, as if the moment he flew into the water, he was no longer its concern.
He glanced at the retreating vessel and instead of running along the towpath to catch up, he fought his way past his rescuers and leaped up the embankment. Where was that adorable Miss O’Connell? He rushed to the apex of the John Street Bridge and looked among the crowd lining the side. There he inquired about her, but the idiots seemed to have no idea what he was talking about. She couldn’t have simply disappeared. He ran down into Bagg’s Square, saw nothing, turned around, and charged up John Street. Still nothing. How could she just be gone?
Lightning flashed, thunder rumbled, and a sudden downpour obscured everything. Out of the south, the wind shook shop signs, rattled windows, and drove water into his face. He held on to his hat and trudged back over the bridge. Once down on the towpath, he resigned himself to catching up with his vessel, but the normally calm waters of the canal had transformed into a boiling, splashing monster trying to break free of its confines. He fought his way half a block, but the weather was too severe. A battered sign caught his eye: King’s Victualing House.
Inside the dark establishment, he was comforted by a wall of blazing heat emanating from a six-foot-wide brick fireplace. Several cauldrons of food hung on swinging cranes above the fire. A boy added logs into the flames. Lines of ruddy men sat on benches at a series of long tables. Some ate quietly, staring at the rain and likely contemplating the wet hours that must still be spent at their work. Others guzzled steins of grog and seemed to be enjoying the warmth of the fire and the spirits. Those who had emptied their bowls hollered to the King’s staff for more. A heated debate between two canal boys erupted in the corner. Some shouted for the boys to stop, others urged them on, laughing merrily. Deciding that the victualing house was too common and commodious, he turned to go, but the wind-driven rain was too much to bear.
The fragrance of stewing beef and roasting potatoes stirred Pryce’s hunger. Surprising himself, he took the nearest empty seat. Once he was settled, he noticed a new odor—rotting fish and moss. This is a filthy crowd, he thought. While turning to look about him, he noticed that the smell grew stronger.
“I know that Erie stink,” laughed a gap-toothed man seated next to him, waving his hand to clear the air around Pryce. “Ya don’t go takin a bath in a 360-mile-long chamber pot.” Cackles and snickers surrounded the man as he tried to look dignified.
A tubby boy, with the self-satisfied look of a person whose belly would always be full, dropped a wooden bowl of food before Pryce. The boy waddled back to the cook, collecting empties at every turn. Pryce’s stomach rumbled. He realized that he hadn’t eaten since morning. While he dug hungrily into the stew, the noise of the establishment and the rude conversation of patrons receded. How did that tricky Miss O’Connell just disappear? Of course, there was nothing that special about her—except the intensity of her sketching, and the quickness of her wit, and her heart-shaped face, and those giant brown-black eyes. A couple of girls in his village were just as pretty and a few just as sharp, but they didn’t interest him quite like this one had.
He had been on the boat since early morning, ducking at each low bridge and studying the workings of the seven locks that he had to pass through between his father’s house in Little Falls and Utica. He had tried to draw the mechanisms of the sluice gates that allowed water into the docking area to raise the ship to the level of the upstream end of the lock. They seemed simple enough; for the most part they were small doors at the bottom of the main gate. One type swung around a central pivot, allowing water to wash in on both sides when open. A second model was a flat plate that could be pulled up to allow water to flood in or out beneath it. His sketches looked like the work of a four-year-old. And who really cared which was superior? He supposed his father expected him to have opinions. Nothing disappointed the old fellow more than Pryce’s lack of interest in the workings of all things mechanical.
“I suppose I should have known you’d be a greater man than me,” his father had said modestly, his voice hinting at his sadness at the idea that his son wouldn’t carry on his work. “You’ll be a great success, you will. But first you should learn a practical trade.” With nothing else to employ him—except reading, of course—Pryce had agreed to go on this time-consuming voyage and make an effort at becoming an engineer.
He looked at his half-eaten brown stew and lost his appetite just as the tubby boy returned and demanded payment. Clearly, the imbecile didn’t know a gentleman from a thief. Pryce reached confidently into his overcoat. His purse was missing. He felt around his person. Had it fallen into the canal? Had his pocket been picked? With a swiftness that surprised him, the lad grabbed his collar and dragged him to the proprietor. Mr. King sat on a stately wooden chair elevated on a platform and held a heavy oak cudgel with a mean-looking knot at one end.
“He ain’t got no money,” reported the youth.
“What do ya call a man who eats, but refuses to pay a honest price for the grub?” demanded Mr. King, with the raggedy remains of an English accent.
“I assure you that I had money,” said Pryce, tugging at his damp clothing. “May I sign a note? My father will pay, I simply have to write to him.”
“A note?” King turned to the diners. “He assures me that he had money. That means he thinks one of my paying customers stole it.” King shouted, “Come on now, boys—who stole this fellow’s money?” He put his hand to his ear. “I don’t hear no one admitting nothing.” King stepped off the platform and bent close to Pryce, his breath fruity with the rum. He tapped the cudgel on his open palm. “I could go easy on ya, my man. But what would the rest of these boys learn from that?”
“If you strike me, I’ll have the sheriff after you,” said Pryce, trying to back up.
“Yes,” agreed King. He turned to the tubby boy. “Fetch Sheriff Os-born and see if he knows who’s an honest merchant and who floated in on a wave of canal sludge.”
* * *
Pryce stood before Judge Chester Hayden, a conservative-looking man with cutting steely eyes, whose high desk resembled a squirrel’s nest of papers and books. The judge looked him up and down, his nose twitching as if catching an overpowering whiff of Pryce’s soaking-wet overcoat. He sentenced the young man to jail, until such time that he could make full restitution to Mr. King and pay a fine.
Pryce was delivered to the jail cell at the watchhouse under the Clint
on Market. He sank onto the bed and in despair covered his face with his hands. How could a simple journey to look at a bunch of stupid locks have gone so wrong? He had only been out of his father’s home for a few hours. Sheriff Osborn’s wife, a sweet-faced old lady with pudgy hands and a flour-covered apron, arrived with a basket of food. “I’ll not have you suffer, no matter what your crime,” she said as she pushed the meal into his cell.
When darkness quieted the city, Pryce tried to sleep. But each time his mind replayed the scene at the bridge, embarrassment at his own foolishness causing him to twist on the cot like a plucked pheasant roasting on a spit jack. Finally, he gave up and climbed onto a wooden stool, trying to get a look out of a high window that faced north. Raccoons foraged through the refuse from the market above him. Nearby, church bells rang the hour. If he did not win his release, he would have to confess to his father that his “great man” fell off the boat while chasing after a girl, of all things, and got himself arrested. He imagined the look of disappointment on the old man’s face. When they parted it was as if all of his father’s hopes were nestled in his son’s bosom. Even as he stood on the packet boat’s deck saying one more goodbye, Pryce knew that this journey was just an appeasement. He would be able to say he tried, but had found nothing in engineering that captivated him. Father won’t regret it when I’m representing Little Falls in the legislature, or when I go on to Washington to become a congressman or even a senator, he thought.
A whiff of rotting garbage brought him back from the heights of power to the cell he occupied. I can’t tell him. It’s too ridiculous. He collapsed onto the blanket, curling up into a ball, when he suddenly remembered that there was a man named Galway in Utica with whom his father had partnered on the construction of the canal.
Pryce leaped to his feet. Outside the cell a small writing table with quill, ink, paper, and candle had been left for him to contact home. He pulled up the stool, reached his hands through the bars, and began to write. Father doesn’t have to know anything about this mishap, he thought. If Mr. Galway would cooperate, he could get out of jail, take a coach west to catch up with the packet boat, and act as if he had never stepped foot on dry land.
When the morning came, Sheriff Osborn found a letter addressed to Mister Augustin Galway, Utica and Pryce snoring in the bunk.
CHAPTER EIGHT
MAGGIE BROUGHT AUGUSTIN HIS SUPPER in the library, but at his insistence, McCooke and Helen ate together in the formal dining room. Both were seated at the polished oak table, McCooke at the head, Helen to his right. Maggie came in with plates already laid with food. The doctor sniffed in her direction. Ignoring him, she returned to the kitchen through a swinging door.
“Have you,” asked McCooke, “found the house to your satisfaction?” Helen did not look up, instead staring at her china plate, her brow wrinkled. “Don’t let the cook’s impertinence distress you, Mrs. Galway. These Negroes are such trouble and they are everywhere—trust me, the country is crawling with them.”
“What?” said Helen, looking up. “No, I … excuse me. Yes, I’m satisfied.” She began to push her potatoes, beans, and fish around her plate. The china’s pattern, a pretty one of blue, red, and gold depicting a showy arrangement of flowers in an Oriental vase, reminded her of something from the honeymoon. At the first of several proper dinner parties she and Augustin had attended, they had used a similar set of fine china. The hostess, a wrinkled old-fashioned woman who spoke with an upper-class British accent, had explained that England’s porcelain makers often copied the Japanese patterns. The original china from Japan had been shipped out of the port city of Imari, and the name had been adopted for their wares.
“Do you not feel well?” asked McCooke, studying her.
“I am perfectly well,” said Helen, straightening.
“It looks like you and I will be much thrown together,” he said, smiling brightly. “We might as well have some fun, eh? Let’s toast your new situation.” He held up his glass. “To you, Mrs. Galway. May your marriage be fruitful.” He drained the wine and reached for the bottle.
Helen looked at him, lips parted in surprise.
“We can’t let things get too grim around here.” He dug into his food. “I imagine soon enough, soon enough there will be children to attend to—but not yet, as the saints say.”
He chewed his food looking off, apparently into Helen’s own future.
“You must promise to let me know when you are in need of a medical opinion. Now that I am to be the physician of the house, I should know everything about my patients.”
Had Augustin gone as far as arranging for the doctor to question her about personal matters? During the honeymoon, her husband had started by being patient about her ignorance and fear of performing her wifely duties. But after that dinner with the fine china, an event which bubbled over with wine and rum, Augustin had waited no longer. He went at the task as if he must complete it or die. No punishment at Miss Manahan’s had ever come close to the pain she had felt. Though she never drew much pleasure from their coupling, she came to anticipate his advances while accepting that she was now fully a woman.
“The sooner we confirm the breeding symptoms,” said the doctor, “the more measures we can take to insure the child’s well-being. I’ll be there every step of the way. And don’t you worry a bit. I have a letter from Mrs. Elizabeth Preston McDowell Benton, wife of Senator Benton, an aide-de-camp to General—well now—President Jackson. Her husband was very close to Jackson in 1812. Benton had a falling out with him in 1813 and shot Jackson, but regardless, she gives me the highest recommendation. The letter is upstairs, if you’d like to see it. Praises me to the sky.”
Helen said nothing. As a new wife, she knew that children had to be her highest priority, but she hoped there was a way to have them without McCooke’s assistance. Her mind traveled back to the shed. She had left the two people so abruptly that she did not even know if Imari’s spell had subsided. They must be gone by now. The woman said they’d only stay a few hours.
“Excuse me,” she said, standing. “I’m afraid I’m exhausted. It’s time for me to retire.” She picked up her plate and went through the swinging door to the kitchen, leaving the doctor quite alone and too startled to object.
Maggie sat on a stool, her food in a wooden bowl on the chopping block.
“You want more? You coulda rung me,” she said as she wiped her mouth. “You didn’t touch nothing.”
“Don’t get up,” said Helen, edging to the window and looking into the yard. “I’m going to dine in my room.” The sun had set a few minutes earlier and twilight darkened the eastern sky. It was as if the shed had grown in size, it so dominated her view. They couldn’t still be there, she thought. Later, she’d make certain that they’d left no trace.
“Eating with the doctor don’t suit you?” Maggie said in a low voice. Helen made no comment. Maggie pursed her lips. “You go get you some rest. Things look brighter in the mornings anyhow.”
In her sitting room, with an oil lamp on the table beside her and her sewing kit at her feet, Helen tried to concentrate on needlework. After a few hours, she heard Augustin being taken by McCooke and Maggie from his chair to a daybed that had been set up for him in the library. One anguished cry, when his leg must have collided with something, rattled her. Now would be the time to be at his side. Emma Galway would surely have been a constant and dutiful wife in such circumstances. She went to the door and waited for them to call. No one summoned her. Eventually the doctor tripped up the steps, lingering on the landing until finally shutting his door. She heard Maggie closing up the kitchen. After that, the night took hold. The iron cookstove clicked as the metal cooled and shrank. The pine-board floors seemed to ease and shift, creaking now and then.
Helen rose and looked out to the yard. The moon was high and almost full. Whatever had carried the storm through town had gathered up all the clouds and pulled them north. No one appeared to be about. Imari and Joe must have already moved on, she
decided. They had to. It was the perfect time for her to sneak out and clean up after them.
Halfway out the side door, she hesitated. Some movement in the brush beyond the chicken coop froze her to the spot. Could it be those awful slave catchers? She strained her eyes, trying to make out the silhouette of Hickox’s wide-brimmed hat. She saw nothing. As she cleared the corner of the house, careful to be silent, the yard was suddenly filled with a group of panicking white-tailed deer. Hooves thundered around her. In the moonlight, she saw sharp antlers and the whites of their terrified eyes as they ran past. In moments they were gone. It was all she could do not to rush back to safety. The smell of grass and damp fur filled her nostrils. Excited by the brush with disaster, her hands shook. She filled her lungs with cool air. As her heart raced, she found that the encounter had somehow thrilled her.
At the shed, she listened before opening the door. It seemed absolutely silent inside. Instead of relief, she felt a pang of disappointment.
“Are you still here?” she whispered, poking her head inside.
“Yes ma’am,” Imari answered. Joe, appearing blue in the moonlight, came out from behind a stack of baskets that seemed to have been arranged to shield them from view. She felt his small hand rest on her arm. His heat transferred through her sleeve and warmed her.
“This way,” the boy whispered. He guided her to his mother. She was seated on a box and leaned on the heavy wooden cabinet. Joe squatted beside her.
Helen tried to hide her shock, stammering, “You were s-supposed to leave. A few hours, you said.”
“We meant to, missus,” said Imari.
“Meant to?”
“Guess I was more tired than I thought.”
Helen tuned her back on the pair and pressed her hand against her stomach, trying to calm the eruption of nervousness within. “Tell me the truth,” she said, turning, her fists on her hips with her head leaning forward. “Where are you coming from?”
The Third Mrs. Galway Page 5
