Lake in the Clouds

by Sara Donati

  “Your granny sent me out here to help him in the garden. Is he in the laboratory?”

  “Nope,” said Lucy. “Nobody’s in there right now. The doctor went up to see the window.”

  “The widow,” Lily said automatically, but she knew that Lucy would go on calling Mrs. Kuick “the window,” as if she were made of glass.

  Lucy said, “Don’t know where Bump has got to. Do you want to play dolls with me?” She held up a rag doll wrapped in a handkerchief.

  “I’ve got this planting to do,” said Lily. “What’s wrong with the widow, do you know?”

  Lucy shrugged one shoulder. “Don’t know, exactly. When Dolly came down to fetch Dr. Todd, she said the window had taken a fit and was throwing things, and could he come quick before she killed somebody.”

  “The widow was throwing things?”

  Lucy nodded, rocking her baby against her chest. “Sure you don’t want to play dolls? This one of mine, she’s got the canker throat and she’s about to die. You could doctor her.”

  “I can’t,” said Lily, working hard to sound as if she would have really liked to. “Do you want to help me in the garden?”

  Lucy made a disappointed face and set off to find her sister Solange, who had a doll with eyes and a mouth.

  The widow had taken a fit. This was certainly news worthy of being written down, but Lily wasn’t sure what it meant. Last year old Mr. MacGregor had taken a fit right in the middle of the trading post and died with a purple face, but he hadn’t been throwing things at the time. One of the Camerons had thrown a rock through a window, but he had been drunk. She couldn’t imagine the widow Kuick drinking anything stronger than weak cider.

  And there was nobody who could explain it to her. Curiosity was in the kitchen with a weeping Dolly Smythe and there was still no sign of Bump at all. Lily turned around once more to look for him and saw that Gabriel Oak was sitting in the sunshine in front of his cabin. He raised a hand in greeting.

  Lily looked around herself at the deserted garden and the closed kitchen door, and then she set off to pay Gabriel Oak a visit.

  Even in the full heat of the sun he was wrapped in a cloak with a shawl around his shoulders. Lily knew from Hannah that he was very sick, but now she saw it for herself in the way his skin was stretched so tight over his bones. She wondered if she should have stayed in the garden and not bothered him, but he gave her a smile that reminded her of Daniel when he wasn’t trying to be fractious, sweet and lonely too, somehow.

  “Friend Lily,” he said. “Will you sit with me a little while?”

  Gabriel Oak was the only Quaker Lily knew, and she wondered if they were all so polite and quiet and easy to talk to. There were two stools, and she climbed up on one.

  “I was looking for Bump,” she said. “I’m supposed to help him in the garden. But everything is confused today.”

  He blinked at her slowly. “Cornelius went with Dr. Todd. An emergency, I expect.”

  “I thought maybe he had.” Lily looked down toward the village, but there was nothing to see there at all except a few dogs sleeping in the road. Lily squinted a little and saw that two of them had bloody muzzles, and there was a tangled mess of orange fur spread out in front of them.

  “Look,” said Lily. “They finally got Missus Gathercole’s cat. They’ve been chasing it just about forever.”

  Gabriel Oak looked very hard in that direction. Finally he said, “Thou hast very good eyes, Friend Lily. From thy grandfather, no doubt.”

  Lily said, “Daniel does too, he can see even farther than me. He says he’s going to be a sharpshooter in the next war. If he has his own rifle by then.”

  “Is there to be another war?” Gabriel Oak looked interested, but not very concerned.

  “The newspapers say so,” Lily said, more doubtfully now. “My grandfather says it’s none of our concern.”

  “Thy grandfather sees clearly in more ways than just one.”

  They were silent for a moment together and then Lily let out a great sigh. “Curiosity won’t let me in the kitchen,” she said. “I wish I knew what was going on. Did you see Dolly Smythe come?”

  “I did.”

  Gabriel Oak picked up his sketchbook while Lily told him the little that she knew from Lucy and what she suspected. He let her talk without interrupting her, but every once in a while he would look up and nod, and Lily never got the sense that he was pretending to listen, as grown-ups often did. Before she knew it she had told him about the blank pages in the book and her plans for it.

  “If I knew what was wrong at the mill I could write that down for my mother.”

  “Friend Lily,” he said in his soft, deep voice. “There are things other than words to put on paper, and more than one way to tell a story.” And he held up his sketch.

  He had drawn Bump at work in the garden while Lucy watched him from the fence. Bump’s mouth was open and Lily could almost hear him singing and Lucy humming along with him because, as Curiosity liked to say with a smile, her sweetest granddaughter couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. Without really knowing why, Lily said, “He likes that song best of all, the one about the soldier coming home.”

  Gabriel Oak was smiling at her, as if she hadn’t said anything strange at all.

  “How do you do that?” she asked. “How do you make them so alive I can hear him singing?”

  “I can’t tell thee the how of it,” he said, taking the sketch back. He touched it gently with his pencil, stroking a curve into the line of Bump’s poor back.

  “I don’t understand,” Lily said. “How can you not know how you do what you do?”

  His brow pulled itself together. “I’ve wondered that myself for many years,” he said. “The closest I can come to explaining it is that some are given a particular gift. A few can weave words into a story, others can carve wood into shapes that seem more real than real. Some can make music, as do young Reuben and his brother. I can draw pictures.” He looked at her and beneath the fringe of his hair his gray eyes were kind and maybe a little hopeful. “Hast thou done any drawing, Friend Lily?”

  Lily thought of her slate at school, its rough surface and the dust of the chalk ground deep into her fingers, as dry and unpleasant as digging for onions. Her copybook was not much better, rough paper that she wrote on with quill and the ink her mother made, or even worse, a quill filled with bullet lead. Line after line of poetry scratched out stroke by stroke.

  “No,” she said. “Do you think I could learn how?”

  He said, “Some of it can be learned, if thou art willing to study the science of it. Whether or not the gift is in thee, that will show itself. When I was a younger man I gave drawing lessons to the ladies of Baltimore.”

  Lily blinked in surprise. Generally Bump told stories and Gabriel Oak listened, but it seemed that he was in a storytelling mood today. She wondered what he meant by it, if he might be willing to give her lessons. That seemed unlikely, but it was exciting, anyway.

  She said, “Did any of your students have a gift?”

  He closed his eyes for a minute as if he could look back over time. “Some did, yes. But the gifted ones weren’t always those who were willing to work the hardest.”

  “I’m a hard worker,” she said, meeting his eye directly.

  Gabriel Oak smiled at her and Lily watched, absorbed, as he took a long wooden box from the folds of his cloak. The top slid back to reveal more black-lead pencils than Lily had ever seen at once, short and long, thick and thin. There was a porte-crayon with a piece of graphite held tight by a small clamp; Lily’s mother had one of those too, but she didn’t have a lead pencil.

  Lead pencils were made one at a time and had to be ordered from Boston or Albany or even France, where the best ones were made at high cost. The only people Lily had ever seen using a pencil were the surveyor who came from Johnstown when the widow Kuick got into an argument with Dr. Todd and Lily’s own father about the boundaries of their properties, and Gabriel Oak.

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bsp; He was examining one of the smaller pencils, turning the square shape in his long fingers. Then he took a file from the box and began to work the end to a point. The wood dust smelled sweet; Lily watched it sift down to his lap.

  When he handed it to her she turned it in her own fingers, feeling the smooth wood, so polished by use that she couldn’t make out the seams where the top was joined to the sides. She said, “I’ve never used a pencil before.”

  “We’ll start from the beginning, then,” said Gabriel Oak. “That’s generally best.”

  Richard Todd and Bump came in by way of the kitchen, where they found Cookie crouched before the hearth. She had a cut on her forehead that had left a great bloody patch on her kerchief, and she glared up at the doctor as if he were responsible.

  “Oh, thank God,” said Becca Kaes, standing up from the table. She was shaking so hard that she had to wind her hands in her apron to steady them.

  “Becca.” The doctor nodded, one corner of his mouth turned down in curiosity or irritation, or both. “What is the problem?”

  A shrill shouting started up at the other end of the house and was cut off by the slam of a door.

  Becca shook her head and pressed the back of her hand to her mouth as if to keep herself from screaming. She drew in a ragged breath and let it out again.

  “The master is engaged to marry Jemima Southern.” Her voice was hoarse, and she looked quickly behind her as if she feared someone might have heard. “The widow is displeased.”

  The other side of the doctor’s mouth turned down. “That’s why you sent for me? There’s no medicine I can give her that will make the match more to her liking. It’s Mr. Gathercole you need to tend to this kind of distress.”

  Becca came forward and grasped his forearm, her chapped fingers digging into his coat hard enough to make him step back from her. “She’s very displeased, Dr. Todd. She broke every piece of glass in the good parlor and she’s got Isaiah and Jemima in a corner and she’s talking …” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “She’s unbalanced.”

  Cookie’s small, thin face turned toward them. She said, “The widow ain’t unbalanced. She just mean as a mad dog with its tail in a trap, is all. It’s a bitter pill she got to swallow, but she’ll do it in the end. This time she will, yes, indeed.” And she smiled with such satisfied malevolence that the rest of them looked away in discomfort.

  “Bump,” said Dr. Todd. “There’s nothing for us here.”

  “Please, sir,” said Becca, looking very close to tears now. “Please, just … have a word with her.”

  Jemima Southern stood in the corner of the good parlor and surveyed the destruction the widow Kuick had wrought. It gave her a sour satisfaction to see the Turkey carpet covered with tangled needlework, scattered books, and shards of glass. Every painted dog and porcelain shepherd, every smirking kilted Highlander and blushing powdered lady had been sacrificed to the widow’s rampage.

  Good, thought Jemima. Less to dust.

  Not that she would be dusting anymore; those days were gone now, for good.

  Beside Jemima, Isaiah Kuick stood with a blank expression, as if he were watching an actress on a stage and not his own mother, convulsed with rage. When the last china vase shattered against the wall he said nothing, and when his mother howled at him, Idiot you idiot you godforsaken whoremaster you’ll burn in hell for this he had blinked and said nothing.

  Because he would indeed burn in hell. They had come to an understanding, she and Isaiah: she would help him on his way to hell, and he would make her his wife.

  In the two weeks after the night in the barn, Jemima had watched him and taken note of his comings and goings. Twice she had followed him to Dye’s quarters by moonlight, and stayed outside long enough to know what they were about. And then just this morning she had found Isaiah Kuick alone in the parlor.

  She had laid it all out before him, as simply as she could: her courses were late; she was with child. Before he could tell her that it was none of his concern, she had wiped the mystified smile from his face by speaking the sentence she’d rehearsed again and again for a week, slowly and surely and meeting his gaze without flinching.

  “This child was conceived the night of the wedding party in the barn at the judge’s old place, and if it wasn’t you that got it on me, then there’s something your mother might like to hear about the overseer and her son.”

  He had looked at her with sudden understanding and none of the shame or fear that Jemima had anticipated, which put her off a little, but she pressed on, regardless.

  “You do the right thing and marry me, and I won’t expect you to share my bed. I won’t care where you spend your nights.”

  She had been prepared for arguments and she had thought through her options. If he balked, she would swear a rape on him and sue for support of her child, or she would get up in church and announce to Mr. Gathercole and his congregation that they had two sodomites among them, and provide details. He could choose one of those, or he could marry her and continue to meet Ambrose Dye, so long as he took more care and didn’t indulge his unnatural urges in barns where anyone might happen to pass.

  The bargain was struck that simply, as she had hoped it would be. The widow’s son was a sodomite, but he wasn’t stupid. When Jemima thought over the way the conversation had gone she was filled with a deep sense of satisfaction, to have managed with so little fuss—right until the last, when she had asked him the one question she could not keep to herself.

  “Tell me why you stare at Hannah Bonner whenever you come across her,” Jemima had said, and for the first time in the conversation she was unable to keep her tone even. “You can’t be thinking about bedding her. Or do you?”

  Isaiah had finally managed to look surprised. He said, “I have no interest in bedding her, no. I look at her the way I’d look at a painting by Rembrandt or Michelangelo, if there were such a thing in this village. She’s simply the most beautiful thing Paradise has to offer.”

  The sting of that had still not lessened, and never would. But she must concentrate on other things, important things.

  The worst was over: the widow’s fury would burn itself out, and tomorrow or the day after they would stand up in front of Mr. Gathercole. And the widow would stand there with them, and she would wish them well and welcome Jemima into her home no longer a servant, but a daughter-in-law. No matter what she really felt, the widow Kuick would smile as long as they were in company and say the things that were expected of any lady of good breeding. Jemima was to be the mother of her only grandchild, after all. She would see to it.

  The truth was, Jemima had had her courses two days after the night in the barn, but she had a plan. Liam Kirby was still in Paradise, and she knew where to find him: he spent all his time wandering the mountain looking for his runaway. Never mind that everybody had begun to wonder if there had ever been a runaway; maybe—and this was a thought that came to Jemima reluctantly—maybe the whole story about blackbirding had been his way of getting close to Hannah Bonner again. The important thing, Jemima reminded herself, was that Hannah was gone and Liam wasn’t. She would go find him on the mountain and get what she needed from him; now that she was engaged to the widow’s only son she had some freedom, and she would use it, today.

  The widow had fallen into the chair by the window, silent for the moment while she stared for once not out at the village, but at her own hands where they lay in her lap. When she raised her head this time her gaze focused on Jemima, and the expression there—cold and not quite human—sent a shiver down her back after all.

  “Whore,” she whispered, her voice cracking with the effort.

  “Call me what you like,” said Jemima. “Your words cannot change what I have growing in my belly, or the act that put it there.”

  Such hate in a human face; it was an impressive thing to see. She said, “Isaiah, find that Indian witch and tell her to do away with it. There’s a tea that will do the job. Get rid of it, before it ruins your life.�
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  She said this to her son as if he already had dominion over Jemima’s body.

  “I’ll drink no tea,” Jemima said. “If you try to force me I’ll swear an assault on you before the constable.”

  The widow’s color rose another notch and for a moment Jemima wondered if the rage might even kill her, or if that was too much to hope for.

  “Isaiah,” said his mother. “Send her away from here. Give her what money she needs, and send her away.”

  “No,” said Isaiah, in a patient tone. “I can’t do that, Mother.”

  Jemima knew very well that he was thinking of Dye; his loyalty was not to her at all. He would do this to protect his lover and to keep him, and still it gave Jemima great pleasure to hear him deny his mother. She let her triumph show and the widow’s face contorted with disgust and fury.

  A knock at the door and the widow sprang up from her seat with new energy, flew across the room as if she expected an avenging angel sent to smite the unrepentant sinners.

  Dr. Todd came in, not looking concerned at all but cross, and ill at ease.

  The widow was startled to see him, as if he had discovered her in some shameful act. Jemima had to admire how she came back to herself, drawing her shawl tighter around her shoulders and composing her face, nothing there now of rage, just condescension and good manners.

  “Dr. Todd,” she said. “We were not expecting you. And as you can see—” She looked around the room and seemed to take in the extent of the wreckage with some bewilderment. “We are not in a position to receive callers today.” And she held up her chin haughtily.

  “I’m not here on a social visit,” Dr. Todd said. “You’ve got your servants shaking in their boots, Missus Kuick. It looks like Cookie will need some stitches. What is the meaning of all this?”

  Color flooded up from the widow’s papery neck. “A family matter,” she said stiffly. “And none of your concern.”