Then Avelina’s upended house pulled fully free, following Tilfert downriver, the front door pointing to the skies, a bucket, a tin plate, chunks of buffalo wood floating from a hole in the roof, the post of Avelina’s bed and one ashen foot visible through the window.
CHAPTER 11
Dear Edward,
My life is complete. By the time you read this letter, if God is good, I will have my bride.
Brill
Dear Brill,
Congratulations. I will be in Pennsylvania on the fifteenth and wish to give you my best wishes in person.
Ned
Dear Professor Quillan,
I will arrive in New Haven Sunday after next.
Edward Bayard
Dear Mr. Montgomery,
I am returning east. I will avail you of my address once I arrive. If you see the clerk from Alan and Jamieson, tell him I want to know more.
Edward Turrentine Bayard III
Someone’s joy is ever rising in spite of another’s mortal wound.
Lill arrived to say goodbye. Who knows how she convinced Osterlund to drive her to the muddy tents and platforms that now made up the fort. Perhaps he knew, if he didn’t give in, she would find a way to go herself. As he helped her from the wagon, he announced in his flat blond voice, “Ten minutes.” I wondered if he was afraid she might get on the train with me. I wished it a possibility.
Lill and I sat in the mess tent. Nine in the morning and no one inside. Almost immediately, Lill began to cry. “You’re really going?”
I nodded. “There’s nothing here. Not for me.”
She buried her face in her hands. “I can’t stand it. Avelina and Tilfert, you, me … Everything is terrible.”
I was unmoved by her tears, by her shaking hands. I didn’t care that she was wearing, instead of satin and carmine, a rough brown dress, that her hair was caught in a tight bun, or that she was pale with ashen rings under her eyes. She had made this happen. Not fallen into it, not been victimized by circumstance. She’d run after trouble as if it were covered in diamonds, and by catching it she left me lonelier than I thought it was possible to be.
“Life was so bright at the beginning of the summer.” She wiped her eyes, then took my hands. Her fingers were damp in my palm.
I wanted to pull back, but instead, even as I shouted, “Why did you do it?” I clutched at her fingers, pressed my palm against hers. I hungered to kiss the pulse at her wrist.
“I couldn’t help it! Oh, Ned, don’t be so angry with me.”
“You could help it. You only did it to get back at Buck. For him you ruined yourself, and me, and maybe that farmer as well. At the end, it’s Buck who’s happy.” I shook my head. “And at least Osterlund’s got himself a cleaning woman out of the deal!”
She put her head into her arms and sobbed anew. “Ned, don’t. You don’t understand.”
“Then make me understand!”
She looked up, hiccuping a little. “You hate me anyway, so I may as well explain. But please, Ned. Don’t tell a soul.” She glanced at the door. “I had to marry—someone.” She stared into my face and repeated, “I had to.”
Had to. She’d let her hand fall below her breast to her belly. Lill was expecting a child. I felt terribly betrayed. How was it possible that things kept getting worse? What I would give for her to be telling me this news, the child mine, our future sweet and rosy? But it wasn’t mine. “My God. Buck’s?”
She nodded. “I didn’t have a choice, you see.” She read the question in my face. “I didn’t lie. I told Ry. He agreed to marry me in spite of it.”
I was sorry for a minute, then angry all over again. “You know I would have married you, and I wouldn’t have taken you on in spite of it. I would have married you because I loved you. I would have loved your baby.”
“Shhhh!” She frowned at me. “You can’t tell anyone, Ned. It would humiliate Ry.”
I looked away. It pained me that she would protect the Norwegian. Lill put her hand on my arm. “Ned, I couldn’t marry you. I had to marry … not a man … but a circumstance. I married a house. I married two hundred acres, a yoke of oxen, some seed corn, and a milk cow. Please, Ned.”
“Please what? What can I give you now?”
“Please don’t stop loving me. You haven’t stopped loving me?”
She looked so transparent then, emptied of anything hopeful, she appeared almost blue. She was breaking my heart and still I wanted to hurt her. “No, Lill. I will never stop loving you, and because of this you’ve killed me.”
“No, Ned!”
“My happiness is you, you know it, and now someone else has it.”
She buried her face in her hands and murmured, “I have made such mistakes. And now I’ve lost all I’ve loved for cold mornings of prayer and porridge and everything that is brown and ugly and rough. No music, no dance, no color. Do you know Ry’s religion frowns on poetry, Ned? It is devil’s work.” She laughed, a little hysterically, then took a breath and straightened her back. “But even now, I know it was the only thing to do.” She looked up at me, took my hands again. “All I have left is patching mistakes with more mistakes. Doing what I did, Ned….” She paused, looking stricken. “I attempted to free you from it. Please know that.”
I softened. “Ah, God, Lill.” I clutched at wild hope. “It’s not too late. Come with me now, run away now.”
“How I wish I’d never met Buck, that I didn’t have this.” She waved her hands at the seed growing in her. “I would go with you, Ned. I would shame myself as a runaway bride, I would shame my family, I would even shame you by doing it. I am a terrible selfish person. But somehow I cannot shame a child. I cannot doom him to a life that is cursed from conception. And with that one good intention, I am trapped.”
“I won’t let you be trapped, Lill. I will save you. I love you.” I searched for a way out for us. “I will make good, I will be rich, a giant, and I will take you away from these base prisons.” The train’s whistle sounded and ended my pompous soliloquy. I took her hand again. “How can I go?”
“You have to go.” She gave a wan smile, a shaft of light through clouds. “To become my colossus.”
I saw Osterlund striding toward the tent. I squeezed Lill’s hands. “I’ll come back for you. I will not let you molder here.”
“Don’t promise anything but to love me, Ned. As long as I know that, I can keep on.” She took her poetry ring from her pocket and a small photograph capturing her in a happier time. “Take these, Ned. And for God’s sake, don’t forget.”
I put the photo in my pocket but placed the ring back on her finger. “I don’t need a ring to keep a promise.”
Osterlund walked in. Lill straightened and took her hand from my arm. He frowned. “It’s time. The train.”
Lill nodded at me. I stood slowly, powerless again. Lill chirped, “Please write, Ned. Ry and I will so look forward to your letters.”
Ry hefted my bag. How could I leave her to the life she would have with him? I lifted Lill’s hand to my lips. I whispered. “I’ll come back for you.”
Osterlund shouted from the stoop. “Mr. Bayard!” The whistle blasted. I left Lill, stiffly shook Ry’s hand, and boarded the train.
I took a seat and threw my bag on another, then looked out the window. Osterlund helped Lill into his wagon. She looked once behind her before facing forward to her new life: a dusty homestead and future family. Tennessee stood awkwardly scuffing at the grass beside the tracks, trying to look like he had business there. I caught his eye as the train commenced to move, and we gave each other a nod.
Chin waited down the tracks, free again and unwanted. The best I managed to do for the big horse was beg no one shoot her. I gave the stable master what money I could to provide hay for her through the winter and told myself Chin had lived through lonely months before and would again. But it hurt to leave her. Though I felt silly I raised my hand in goodbye as the train groaned down the tracks. Chin pricked her ears forward then tu
rned away as I passed.
Would trains always take me from one sorrow to another? With my first journey I was abandoned not only by my people but by my fortune and place. But that sorrow did not come close to the magnitude of this one. Leaving a circumstance was as shallow as marrying one.
I rifled through my bag, which contained what little had floated from Avelina’s windows to be caught by plum briars in the flood. A pair of breeches, two shirts, my pistol, and Avelina’s medal, which by dint of its weight had stayed close to the footprint of the absentee house, the long ribbon caught in a cleft of stone. I wore Tilfert’s hat: wide-brimmed, deep-crowned, with a horsehair band to keep the shape in the rain.
Avelina and Tilfert. It was near to impossible to believe they were gone, easier to believe in the demise of thunder. I nursed resentment and anger, even disgust toward the two of them. But every time I tried to blame them, an image would rise of their kindness to me and to each other. I thought of the buffalo man spinning in the water. Had Tilfert fallen into the swollen Republican or met it purposely? His boots were found upright on the prairie, filled to their brims with water.
I hadn’t paid attention. I hadn’t surmised. I broke my promise to Avelina and let Mrs. Ellmore breach her petticoat defenses—all because I passively hoped it would come out all right, believed others must know better than I. It was easier than fighting.
I groaned in my seat. My negligence knew no bounds. Now I had left Lill to fend for herself, abandoned my horse to winter. But my back was against a wall. I swore I would make my name anew, rise in the ranks, then return to rescue Lill, wiping Osterlund and Mason from her memory with a joyous life. We would raise our children in a fine house, Chin pastured in clover. I would have money and power and no one would dare to take anything from me or hurt anyone I cared about.
“Ticket.”
I handed the conductor the cash Quillan had left for my passage. The conductor took the money and handed me a slip. “End of the line.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re takin’ her all the way to the end of the line. We’ll be tight as thieves in two days, son.”
He winked but I looked away. I didn’t need any more friends.
CHAPTER 12
Alan and Jamieson, Solicitors:
I demand information concerning my mother, her whereabouts, and the dealings she had with you. Further, I must have a full accounting of all sales and debts concerning my family’s estate, especially that of the sale of the house. I am at this moment en route to Connecticut and I will no longer tolerate your silence. I will not be put off. I will be answered.
Edward Turrentine Bayard III
The Pittsburgh train depot was a beautiful station, marble friezes on the walls carved by great Italian stonemasons’ grandsons. Ladies walked with fringed parasols lifted against whatever autumn sunshine wavered through the blanket of coal smoke. Gentlemen folded papers into shingles under their arms as short-pants paperboys hawked monkey-nuts. Swaybacked carriage horses waited to transport travelers. A babushka’d woman, round and pink-cheeked as a nesting doll, sold tea from a wagon.
I had less than an hour before I resumed my journey and hoped that Brill would indeed meet me. Then I saw him standing with a young woman. He stood with impeccable posture, as always. I used to joke with him that he forever looked as if he were about to open someone’s door, and he would reply with a clipped British accent, though he was born in Albany, New York, “One’s standing can only improve one’s standing.”
I grinned and strode toward him, waving a hand. He looked at me, past me, left and right.
“Brill!” I called.
He drew his brows together and took the young woman’s hand. “Yes?”
“Brill?”
Brill’s frown upended into delight. “Good Lord, Ned, it is you!” He dropped the young woman’s hand and shook mine with enthusiasm. He stepped away and put his hands on his hips. “Look at you! I tell you I would never have known you on the street.” He turned to the young woman. “This dusty ruffian is the ailing Edward Turrentine Bayard the Third. Can you imagine the change?”
The young woman looked no more than sixteen or seventeen years. She wore a silk dress with ruching at the neck and pearl buttons down the bodice, an ornately decorated bonnet, and white kid gloves. Too young for marriage, too privileged for a tutor. I hazarded a guess. “Is this one of your students?”
Brill took her hand again. “My best student, Elizabeth. And now my wife.”
I was stunned. The young woman spoke quietly. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Bayard. Brill has told me so much about your friendship.”
I looked closely at her. She looked strained, a trifle too pale, a trifle too thin, her expensive clothing not as well ironed as it could be. One of the pearl buttons at her wrist hung from a thread as she offered her hand.
I kissed it. “Brill, you have done exceedingly well.” The young woman winced.
Brill cleared his throat and motioned toward the tea cart. “Shall we have tea?”
Elizabeth frowned. “Must it be here, Brill?”
Brill looked apologetic. “We have but three quarters of an hour, Elizabeth.”
She smiled and put a hand to her throat. “I have not been feeling well, Mr. Bayard. I think I will return … home … to rest, if you will forgive me.”
“Certainly. Brill, please, do not let me keep you.”
Brill shook his head and searched his pockets, pulling out some change. “Take a cab, darling.”
“It’s not necessary. I can walk.”
He pressed the money into her hand. “We’re fine.”
She inclined her head. “A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Bayard.”
Brill sighed as he watched her glide across the floor and out the door. “She is the most remarkable woman. I am far luckier to have her than she is to have me.”
“I’m sure not, Brill.”
“I am well aware of it. She has stepped down to wed me, and everyone is being absolutely monstrous about it.”
We ordered our tea and sat at a table. Brill spooned sugar into his cup. “Her family decries me a sharp, a schemer, married for the money.” He looked abashed and admitted, “I suppose one cannot blame them, under the circumstances. Yet turn their backs on her entirely?” He fiddled with his napkin. “I’ve assured Elizabeth they will come around. I’m certain they will. But for now, her father has forbidden any contact. Her mother, her brothers, even her sisters have forsaken her. Elizabeth, a favored pampered child, is … undone by their conduct. I don’t know what to do.” He smiled briefly. “In any case, their true treasure is mine now. Thankfully, there’s nothing they can do about that.”
I sipped my tea, trying to keep the shock from my face, from my voice. “I guess you’re out of work, as well.”
He laughed. “Yes. I should be plying my bride with roses and rubies. Instead, she sold her granny’s cameo for potatoes.” He clenched his jaw. “Damn it all. If I had known, I would never have married her, no matter how desperately I love her.”
I wondered at this. How could he not have known what would happen? An heiress and a tutor? My God.
As if he read my mind, Brill nodded. “Her family treated me like an equal—better perhaps. I was held up to their lunk-headed boys as an example of what one could do if they studied hard enough, worked hard enough. I ate at their table, I rode their horses. When I taught the girls Latin, they were as astounded as if I’d encouraged a cat into speech!”
“Ah, Brill.”
He stared into space. “My vanity was at fault. I see it now. Only I believed myself to be an equal. Even the stupid boys knew better. I could talk and think better than they, but they are made of gold and I tin, to wind up and make my cymbals clang. No matter how clever my clockworks, still a toy.”
“Elizabeth believes in you.”
He looked stricken. “I know she did believe. If she yet does, I am certain she wonders if it is worth the price she pays.”
“If their
love for their daughter is so cheap to be discarded in such a manner—”
“Their love is anything but cheap, Edward. It is wrapped in gold leaf. Mine”—he crushed the paper napkin—“in pages of Shakespeare and botanica.” He sighed mightily. “Which will yellow and crumple to dust.”
I felt genuine pity for him and experienced a surge of righteous anger against Elizabeth’s family, before recognizing I had no right. I was as black a pot as came.
My grandmother bought a cairn terrier for me when I turned sixteen. It was to sleep on my bed and provide companionship. Once it grew out of its sleepy puppyhood, however, it wanted to run the fields and sniff out rats in the barns. It fell to Brill to walk the animal, which he did punctiliously three times a day. Of course the dog loved him. Even when the dog reclined across my feet, his wet brown eyes followed Brill as if my tutor were a pork roast. When Brill left the room, the dog whined.
I had my mother get rid of the animal, told her to give it away. I could not bear that a retainer would have what I could not. A black pot indeed, and how far from Elizabeth’s father?
We were silent for a moment, then Brill shook himself. “Forgive me my lachrymose thoughts. Tell me about you. How are Avelina and Tilfert”—he searched the ceiling for names—“the love of your life, Lill, and the scoundrel horse, Chin?”
“Dead, drowned, lost, and abandoned. Lachrymose indeed.”
After I recounted the sad story, he sighed. “We are riders of stormy seas, friend. Yet what is one to do but buck the waves?”
I shrugged. “You haven’t heard anything more about my mother? Nothing was amiss at the house after I left?”
Brill looked away. “I didn’t go back after you left, Edward. Your mother handed me my packed bag at the station. Gave me my wages and sent me on my way.” He checked his watch. “I need to get back to Elizabeth.”
We stood to say our goodbyes, Brill promising when he got another position he would send his address to me in care of the Peabody. He smiled. “What an opportunity, to work with Wallace Quillan. I am envious.”
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