Three Rivers Rising (11 page)

Nightfall.
No sign of Celestia.
I pace the bedroom floor
in my dressing gown,
chewing a cigar.
Oh, how Mildred would protest
if she were here.

I open the door to
look down the empty hall,
or stop to listen,
my ears perked up
like a deer in these woods
fearing us hunters,
but the only sound is rain.

“Where did I leave those matches?”
As I reach for them on the mantel
my sleeve brushes the hinged double frame:
portraits of the girls.
The first frame,
Estrella’s place,
is empty.
The second is Celestia,
all in white,
with flowers in her hair
instead of fancy jewels—
not like other girls.
Her mother’s eyes,
my set jaw—
she has a look of certainty,
as if she knows exactly who she is.
I find myself wishing
for the hundredth time that night
that
I
knew exactly who she was.

“Celestia?” I call in a normal voice
as if expecting her to answer,
as if it were any old night.

But the silence,
the finality,
gnaws around my edges,
until I am thoroughly frightened.
“Celestia!” I yell,
hating the trembling in my voice.
This time I know there will be no answer.

My legs give way
without permission
and I am on the floor.

All my money,
all my influence and connections
can provide no remedy.
Look at yourself, Bertram
,
reduced to this—
a heap on the floor,
a weeping man in his dressing gown
whispering to his daughter’s image,
“Celestia, my sensible girl,
I cannot lose another daughter
to romantic foolishness.”

Johnstown

Celestia

Peter sleeps peacefully now.
After mumbling and tossing at first,
he went still under the heaviness
of desperate sleep.
I rock myself in his mother’s chair.
When I open my eyes
to the early light,
Peter is staring at me.

I sit up, surprised.
“How long have you been awake?” I ask,
hoping his answer will prove him to be lucid.
His voice is unsteady: “This must be heaven, right?
I thought it would look different.
Clouds at least.
How else could you be here,
sleeping in my sitting room?”
“Railroads.
And one very large ship.”

He raises one arm,
sinewy,
veined.
I go to him,
hold his hand.

“I’m glad you’re here”—he looks around—
“I thought I was dreaming.”
“Your letters stopped. I just had to know …”
“Working double shifts to pay for doctors.
Up with him most of the night,
thinking every cough’ll kill him …
black lung,
the miner’s death.
And me, I’m just exhausted.”
“I understood as soon as I arrived.” I smooth the blankets.
“I’m sorry”—his hands stop mine—“I should have let you know.”
I sit beside him. “Now I know it was only the letters that stopped.”
Peter holds my hands to his chest. “My intentions
have not changed.
And you …
feel the same?
Since you
are
here?”
“Yes.” I smile and he sinks back into the pillows.

He sits up again. “Well, how
can
you be here—
do your parents know?
Are they alive?
They must’ve been lost at sea!”
“They made an arrangement—
a choice that would force me into a life
that I would find intolerable.” I look away.
He gently guides my chin
until our eyes meet again. “A match?”
“To a half-wit braggart.”
“Celestia!”
“I had to escape it and I had to find you
before you lost your love for me.”
Peter kisses my hands. “That’ll never happen.”

South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club

Lake Conemaugh

Whitcomb

Givens limps into the front room.
“Raining buckets again today, sir.”
I draft letters
at the big mahogany desk in the front room.
“I am aware of that, Mr. Givens.”
“Your girl’d be sore afraid
lost in the woods
on a day like this, sir.”
“I am sure she would”—I keep my eyes trained on
my papers—“if she were, in fact, lost.”
“If you’d be wanting me to send to South Fork
for a search party,
we could maybe find her
before nightfall.”

I take a deep breath
and place my pen precisely
in the center of my book
before looking up. “Thank you, Mr. Givens,
that is not necessary.”
“Well, now, I know she’s got spunk and all, but …”
“She is not lost in the woods”—I push my chair back
and rise,
looking out the window
in the direction of the valley—“and I am almost certain
that she does not wish to be found.”
Givens joins me by the window and nods. “Aye,
the boy from the valley …”
I am taken aback,
as always,
by how much the help know
of our personal affairs.
I resume my seat
and take up my papers. “Shut the door behind you, Givens.
I am not to be disturbed again.”

I extract a fresh sheet of stationery.
No point in delaying;
it cannot be avoided any longer.

Dearest Mildred
,

Celestia is missing
.
I believe she has left us for the Johnstown boy
.
I will confirm this, then join you at home
.
Say nothing to anyone
.
Destroy this letter
.

Bertram

I dream that a team of eight runs over me
at full gallop.
I wake to the beating of rain.
How can any roof withstand it?
I shiver.
Is Celestia warm?
I
s she under a decent roof?
But no!
I must retrain my thoughts.
Her welfare is no longer my concern.

How could she choose this?

I gather the blankets around me
and get up to stir the fire.
The hinged frame sits on the mantel
and I remove Celestia’s likeness.
She was such a good girl,
never gave a minute’s worry
before last summer.
I was so proud of all the books she read,
and now …
nothing.

I tear the portrait
in half,
half again,
and let the pieces fall
into the fire.

Johnstown

Celestia

How long have I been here in Johnstown?
Cannot keep day from night,
caring for two helpless men,
catnapping in Anna’s rocker.
I retrieve her sewing from its basket—
how many years untouched?

I shake the dust
and examine the fine needlework,
not unlike what we have been taught.
Her books,
her garden,
her travels …

Perhaps Anna’s life was once not so different
from mine.
What if she left that life to become a teacher,
and to marry Peter’s father.
What did
her
parents do about it?
Was she banished like Estrella?

I wonder
what Estrella is stitching at this moment
somewhere abroad.
I wish I had applied myself to lessons—
instead of sneaking a book
under my embroidery frame—
so we could be sewing at the same time.
Joined in spirit at least.

I imagine the woman in the portrait
working her needle like Estrella,
gracefully,
rhythmically.

Sleep prevails again.
I dream Estrella
hums and rocks
a baby.
A loving embrace,
warm and dry,
safe.
Longing for my sister
nearly wakes me …
surely she has delivered by now …
but sleep overpowers.

When my eyes open next
from a crazy-quilt nest on the cot,
Peter is whistling
and stirring a pot on the stove.

He looks over and smiles.
His vigor is returning.
I smile back.
I can tell
he is glad I am here.

May 31, 1889

South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club

Lake Conemaugh

Whitcomb

8:00 a.m
.
Givens lurks outside the dining room
until I finish breakfast. “The team is hitched
and the carriage is waiting for you, sir.”
I glance at my pocket watch—“I did not order a carriage”—
and move past him.
“Well, I thought you might have a mind
to drive down and fetch your daughter.”
Of all the meddling …
I stop short,
one foot on the stair. “Mr. Givens, I have no daughter.
In the future, you will remember that.”

11:00 a.m
.
Another disturbance!
Shouting …
men’s voices.
I hate to leave my work,
but I push back from the desk
and follow the sound to the dam,
finding the kind of operation
I would never tolerate under my direction.

The lake has risen to the top of the dam.
Workers shovel rocks and dirt
while the young engineer employed by the club
rides a horse over the crest
and yells orders.

It’s been raining forever.
Shouldn’t they have started sooner?

A crowd of onlookers has gathered.
A local man leans toward me. “I been telling them
all morning to pull out those screens over the spillway.”
“Screens?” I glance toward the spillway
cascading through solid bedrock
on the far side of the dam.
The lake is so high,
yet the waterfall
looks only slightly heavier than usual.

“You folks put in screens
to keep the lake stocked with fish.
Now the screens won’t budge—
they’re all packed with branches and logs
coming downstream from the storm.”
“So what does that mean?” I glance toward the valley.
“The spillway’s clogged
and there’s no other outlet.”
“No other outlet? Are there no valves or pipes?”
The man from South Fork shakes his head. “Used to be.”
“That cannot be right.
There must be some mistake.”
“Right or not, what I
can
tell you
is all that water has to go somewhere.”

12:00 noon
The engineer on horseback announces
he has decided against
opening another spillway through the dam
to slow the emptying of the lake.
That action would ultimately
destroy
the dam—
best to let nature take the blame.
“I took the warning to the South Fork wire myself.

The valley has surely sounded the alarm hours ago.
We have done what we could.” He turns his horse,
muttering about his dinner,
and gallops back to the clubhouse.