The Tinsmith (32 page)

Anson nodded. It was not the boy's fault, of course. No one could have kept the girl from the piano, but Anson was weary of explaining that to her father.

“It is very warm, doctor. Shall we move to the shade?” He held one arm out, indicating that Anson should proceed to the side of the nearest cannery building.

The coolness was indeed a relief, but Thomas Lansdowne seemed no more comfortable. Indeed, the tension of his business and domestic responsibilities had begun to take a noticeable toll; he had lost weight and there were dark rings beneath his eyes.

“I don't wish you to think,” he began softly, “that my absence from her bedside is a choice I'm free to make. This work I'm doing here is for her, for all of them. And she's in God's hands.”

The shade and the contrite tone of the man's voice gave Anson the uneasy sense that he was hearing a confession in a church. But a sudden violent keening of gull cry destroyed the impression.

“You have been too many hours in the room as it is. You can do little for her now and you will only damage your own health. You are wise to tend to your business affairs. When the crisis comes, I'll find you.”

Some of the sweat had pooled in the hollows under Thomas Lansdowne's eyes and glistened in his scale-flecked beard. He might have just finished weeping. But Anson knew that such a man would never cry; when his grief became great enough, the blood inside him would burst. Anson could almost smell its heat, almost believe that this was what sent the gulls into a renewed frenzy. Yet the Englishman seemed weaker now too, not quite the force he'd been only days before when Anson had come upon him in the field removing stumps. It was becoming easier to pity him. But, as if he recoiled from pity as though it were a form of violence, Thomas Lansdowne changed his manner abruptly.

“It wouldn't be so difficult, doctor, if my business affairs were not continually threatened. Your friend, Dare, is back on the river.” The Englishman's tone had become cold, his eyes took on their more characteristic probing quality.

Surprised by the sudden aggression, Anson merely replied that he had heard as much.

Thomas Lansdowne did not relent. “Louisa's illness is not the sole reason I have sent Edward away.”

Anson had no interest in this subject and took a step toward the sunlight. “I am well aware of your disagreement with my friend. I would have thought, under the circumstances, that you would have set it aside.”

Thomas Lansdowne scowled so fiercely that he almost bared his teeth. “How can I? It's as great a threat to my children's future as any plague! Don't you understand? I work not for myself, I work for them. And because I work for them, I have a responsibility, a moral responsibility, a responsibility to God that binds my hands in any fight. What does he have? What does he work for? Nothing but his own will to succeed at any cost. You claim he is a friend of yours. Well, what drives your friend, doctor, to work against everything that we're trying to build here? Why doesn't he co-operate with us? He has no family, he attends no service, he associates with no one. It's easy enough, then, to compete without scruples, easy enough, then, to ruin another man.”

Halfway into the sunlight, Anson felt that his body had split into the grave-dark past and the dawn-bright future. He balanced uneasily there, as the Englishman continued his tirade.

“And since I cannot explain to myself how any man of decent upbringing can conduct himself in such a manner—nay, sir, don't interrupt! You have not been witness to his actions!—I can only conclude that the information lately received is true.”

“Information? Sir, if you have charges against Dare, it does you no honour to hint at them. Be frank if you would prove yourself the pillar of morality that you claim to be.”

The scowl eased into a hard line, but the eyes somehow found a reservoir of brightness. “I make no such claim. I am the Lord's servant, one of multitudes. A Christian, not a heathen.”

“A heathen? If you mean . . .”

“We know Dare for what he is. We know he's a negro.”

Anson did not fall back in any way, but shock must have registered on his face, for Thomas Lansdowne hurried to defend his words.

“It's no use denying it. We have it on good authority from an American who has lived among the race since boyhood. He assures us that there are negroes so fair-skinned that they can easily pass for white.”

But Anson no longer took in the Englishman's words. Now he understood Dare's difficulties, now he appreciated the urgency of the summons; everything that Dare had made of himself since the war, all the struggles, many of which Anson could only imagine, were threatened by the revelation of his blood.

“Good authority?” Anson said. “You must be desperate indeed to take the word of someone who is no friend to Dare if you're so willing to believe such a slander.”

A puzzled look crossed Thomas Lansdowne's face. He blinked several times and said, “Of course, doctor, I realize that this information might be a surprise to you. Dare has no doubt been long accustomed to hiding the truth from everyone he meets.”

Anson stepped into the full sunlight, then turned. “Truth? What truth? The only truth I respect is a man's character, and there's nothing you can tell me about Dare to make me change my opinion of him. You call yourself a servant of the Lord, but you would stoop to believing base rumours about a business rival simply in order to remove him. I suggest you spend more time reflecting on your own character.”

“You swear he's a white man, then?” Thomas Lansdowne also stepped into the sun. His shirt had lightened as the sweat dried. The sun deepened the redness of his beard. “On the bible, you would swear this?”

Anson almost laughed at the man's naive faith that his bible meant as much to others as it did to him. But the laugh died in his throat when he considered what he had to do, or not do, now. He closed his eyes and saw, in a flash, Dare staggering across a battlefield with a wounded soldier on his back. What little difference it made then, or now, how much of his blood derived from the negro race. A man was his actions and his courage—surely the war had been waged and won on such a principle, or else the dead were truly husks of a rotted harvest. And so, when Anson opened his eyes again, he not only swore to the truth of his friend's white blood, but he had also made up his mind to leave for Crescent Slough. The child would not reach a crisis for at least a few days; there was time to answer Dare's summons.

Thomas Lansdowne slowly extended his hand. “I would not doubt the word of a man who has been attending my daughter in her illness. My apologies for the error. The American was convincing.”

Anson shook the hand and, eager to escape from his own deceit, said, “I'd best return to her now. I must leave instruction for your wife, as I'll be away briefly.”

“Away?”

“There's no danger. The illness will not peak for a while yet. We can only wait. In the meantime, I must have the use of a skiff.”

The sunlight seemed heavy, clotted. Anson wanted to be out of it again.

“You're going to Crescent Slough?” Thomas Lansdowne's eyes narrowed.

“It's the reason I'm here at all.”

The Englishman's dark eyes probed Anson's blood one last time, then drifted away.

“Take any skiff you like. I must return to work,” he said and was gone.

Anson watched his leaden progress for a while before following another peal of gull cry upriver to where Dare and the past waited, shackled together, body on body, black with white, white with black, and no God to tell them apart.

III

The water was very cold, but the poor child still burned. Edney could not reason it out. But then, did not a live woman sometimes carry a dead child in the womb? And, so, the Lord travelled the same air as Satan. Here was only common mystery, but it froze Edney in her duties. Only Mary's voice made her move.

“I think we had better not bathe her too long, sister. The doctor suggested ten minutes.”

Edney rose from her knees at the edge of the bathtub and reached for a towel. “But she's so hot, Mary. It's almost as if she was not touching the water.”

“I know. I know. We can only hope that there's a cooling inside. When the fever breaks, it will be sudden.”

The child inside kicked. Edney dropped the towel.

“Sister, are you not well?”

Edney pushed a braid, heavy as a rope of tar, away from one eye. At least the delirium had stopped. The child no longer babbled incoherently, no longer had spittle at the corners of her mouth. In the water, her crimson spots looked innocent as fallen petals. Edney slowly reached a hand out, thinking she could just brush the spots away. But what if she removed the child with the sickness? The idea did not horrify; it was merely a practical matter. With life so fragile, inside and outside of her, in God's keeping or in His wrath, every action appeared so much larger than itself. It was easier to remain still, but stillness was not given a woman in this life. Edney retrieved the towel and helped Mary lift Louisa from the bathtub.

Moments later, with the burning girl returned to her bed, Edney watched the diminishing light run down the wall opposite the open window. How slowly and silently the earth drained the sun—there should have been a great clamour, as of a battle, at the close of each day, not this noiseless, remorseless dwindling to dark. Given the brevity of the years allotted to man, did he not deserve more ceremony? May deserved to have had a band play to mark each cycle of her days' short course.

“Edney? Are you well enough to meet our visitors now? Louisa sleeps, and I have put them off for some hours, ever since the steamer arrived. I fear there may be no better time.”

Visitors? Edney brought her eyes away from the reddened wall. Mary's hands twisted in her lap, her face was ill composed, drawn, pale. Meeting these visitors might calm her sister-in-law, and Edney felt she could do that much without pause, though she could not think who the visitors might be.

“We'll have to go down to them,” Mary said. “Don't worry over their needs. I have already seen to the evening meal and told them to await us in the parlour. Mr. Richardson was quite insistent that we do not indispose ourselves, but I could tell that he was most anxious to see you. A fine gentleman. He has quite convinced me that his friends can help to ease your burden, Edney. Henry and Thomas would not approve, I know, but as long as Mr. Richardson is present, I don't see any harm in their attempting to help.” Her shoulders slumped suddenly, as if her whole body had sighed.

Edney went to her, took her hands in her own. Both were as cold as the child's were hot.

“Mary, I will go down presently. Mr. Richardson has been a good friend to us. If he truly believes something is for the best, I hardly think it is just of us to doubt him.”

As she moved toward the door, Edney struggled to recall the exact nature of the offer. It involved her children, her daughters. He had said that he could bring May closer. But how was that possible, since May was already flesh to her bone? The absence had been filled by peril and duty: Louisa had done what God could not or would not, and May had returned. Hadn't she?

The child inside moved again, a slow turn that pushed against the heart. Returned? The price occurred to Edney with a horror that kept her from touching the doorknob. It was, after all, how life worked. But how could May ever come fully back, back in the shine of eyes and the warmth of skin, if Louisa did not die? Edney's hands flew to her mouth. Had she willed it? Could she have been so wicked? The more she thought on it, the more the horror filled her: there would have to be another death to pay for May's return. Suddenly Edney longed for the comfort of one who understood such matters so much better than she. If providence yet operated for her, this was bare proof of its workings. She took it as such and let it calm her before she proceeded, with Mary at her side, downstairs to the parlour.

Ambrose Richardson rose so smoothly and quickly at Edney's appearance that she felt she had conjured his lithe, white form from the shadows with the urgency of her need.

“Dear lady,” he said and took her hands in his. Edney looked down, away from his blue eyes, the colour of a robin's egg, and into his graceful, long-fingered hand. She could not help but stare again at the one sleeve of his pale linen suit so neatly pinned over the place of his wound and then up at his lean, softly smiling face. Quickly, she looked down again. Could the warmth of his palm be the result of its singularity? Her hands seemed to have formed a prayer around a candle. She opened her mouth to plead for his consolation; he would know that she had meant no such wickedness. They had last spoken before Louisa fell ill. May had felt so distant then, even in her closeness. Edney could not reach her. Now she feared she had done so at a terrible cost. But he would understand, for had he not spoken of his own hatred of God and all Creation at the death of his boy?

But before Edney could speak, Ambrose Richardson turned her to the lamplit corner where two figures stood motionless. One detached itself from the other and approached with a feathery step.

Ambrose Richardson spoke just as gently. “Mrs. Lansdowne, may I introduce Miss Elizabeth d'Espereaux of Victoria.” With a slight bow, he released Edney's hands and stepped back.

Edney was not accustomed to seeing such youth and beauty in her sex; even May, had she grown to full womanhood, would not have rivalled this woman's physical charm. Elizabeth d'Espereaux was perhaps three and twenty, at once winsome and strong, her brown eyes alive with points of light, her features small and exquisitely formed, the skin at her throat white as fresh cream and set off by a thin collar of small purple jewels. Her black hair was bobbed and formed two smooth identical waves that drew attention to her smile, which was gentle and even. Had God wanted Eve to walk again on the earth, Edney did not think he would have had to do more than remove the fine silk dress that covered this young woman's modesty. Her voice, it was no surprise to learn, had a brooklike trill.