Ron Rash: Serena

"A single piece of chestnut," Serena said appreciatively. "Was the tree cut nearby?"

"In this very valley," Buchanan said. "It measured one-hundred-and-twelve feet. We've yet to find a bigger one."

Serena raised her eyes from the table and looked around the room.

"I'm afraid this room is quite austere, Mrs. Pemberton," Wilkie said, "but comfortable, even cozy in its way, especially during winter. We hope you'll take your evening meals here, as the four of us have done before the pleasure of your arrival."

Still apprising the room, Serena nodded.

"Excellent," Doctor Cheney said. "A woman's beauty would do much to brighten these drab surroundings."

Buchanan spoke as he handed Serena her drink.

"Pemberton has told me of your parents' unfortunate demise in the 1918 flu epidemic, but do you have siblings?"

"I had a brother and two sisters. They died as well."

"All in the epidemic?" Wilkie asked.

"Yes."

Wilkie's moustache quivered slightly, and his rheumy eyes saddened.

"How old were you, my dear?"

"Sixteen."

"I lost a sibling as well in that epidemic, my youngest sister," Wilkie said to Serena, "but to lose your whole family, and at such a young age. I just can't imagine."

"I too am sorry for your losses, but your good fortune is now our good fortune," Doctor Cheney quipped.

"It was more than good fortune," Serena replied. "The doctor said so himself."

"What then did my fellow healer ascribe your survival to?"

Serena looked steadily at Cheney, her eyes as inexpressive as her tone.

"He said I simply refused to die."

Doctor Cheney slowly tilted his head, as if peering around a corner. The physician stared at Serena curiously, his thick eyebrows raised a few moments, then relaxed. Buchanan brought the other drinks to the table and sat down. Pemberton raised his drink, offered a smile as well to lighten the moment.

"A toast to another victory for management over labor," he said.

"I toast you as well, Mrs. Pemberton," Doctor Cheney said. "The nature of the fairer sex is to lack the male's analytical skills, but, at least in this instance, you have somehow compensated for that weakness."

Serena's features tightened, but the irritation vanished as quickly as it had appeared, swept clear from her face like a lock of unruly hair.

"My husband tells me that you are from these very mountains, a place called Wild Hog Gap," Serena said to Cheney. "Obviously, your views on my sex were formed by the slatterns you grew up with, but I assure you the natures of women are more various than your limited experience allows."

As if tugged upward by fishhooks, the sides of Doctor Cheney's mouth creased into a mirthless smile.

"By God you married a saucy one," Wilkie chortled, raising his tumbler to Pemberton. "This camp is going to be lively now."

Buchanan retrieved the bottle of scotch and placed it on the table.

"Have you ever been to these parts before, Mrs. Pemberton?" he asked.

"No, I haven't."

"As you've seen, we are somewhat isolated here."

"Somewhat?" Wilkie exclaimed. "At times I feel I've been banished to the moon."

" Asheville is only fifty miles away," Buchanan said. "It has its village charms."

"Indeed," Doctor Cheney interjected, "including several T.B. sanatoriums."

"Yet you've no doubt heard of George Vanderbilt's estate," Buchanan continued, "which is there as well."

"Biltmore is indeed impressive," Wilkie conceded, "an actual French castle, Mrs. Pemberton. Olmsted himself came down from Brookline to design the grounds. Vanderbilt's daughter Cornelia lives there now, with her husband, a Brit named Cecil. I've been their guest on occasion. Very gracious people."

Wilkie paused to empty his tumbler and set it on the table. His cheeks were rosy from the alcohol, but Pemberton knew it was Serena's presence that made him even more loquacious than usual.

"I heard a phrase today worthy of your journal, Buchanan," Wilkie continued. "Two workers at the splash pond were discussing a fight and spoke of how one combatant 'feathered into' the other. It apparently means to inflict great damage."

Buchanan retrieved a fountain pen and black leather notebook from his coat's inner pocket. Buchanan placed the pen on the notebook's rag paper and wrote feathered into , behind it a question mark. He blew on the ink and closed the notebook.

"I doubt that it goes back to the British Isles," Buchanan said. "Perhaps instead a colloquialism to do with cockfighting."

"Kephart would no doubt know," Wilkie said. "Have you heard of him, Mrs. Pemberton, our local Thoreau? Buchanan here is quite an admirer of his work, despite Kephart's being behind this national park nonsense."

"I've seen his books in the window at Grolier's," Serena said. "As you may imagine, they were quite taken with a Harvard man turned Natty Bumpo."

"As well as being a former librarian in Saint Louis," Wilkie noted.

"A librarian and an author," Serena said, "yet he'd stop us from harvesting the very thing books are made of."

Pemberton drained his second dram of scotch, felt the alcohol's smooth slide down his throat, its warm glow deepening his contentment. He felt an overwhelming wonder that this woman, whom he'd not even known existed when he'd left this valley three months earlier, was now his wife. Pemberton settled his right hand on Serena's knee, unsurprised when her left hand settled on his knee as well. She leaned toward him and for a few seconds let her head nestle in the space between his neck and shoulder. Pemberton tried to imagine how this moment could be better. He could think of nothing other than that he and Serena were alone.

At seven o'clock, two kitchen workers set the table with Spode bone china and silver cutlery and linen napkins. They left and returned pushing a cart laden with wicker baskets of buttered biscuits and a silver platter draping with beef, large bowls of Steuben crystal brimmed with potatoes and carrots and squash, various jams and relishes.

They were midway through their meal when Campbell, who'd been bent over the adding machine in the front room, appeared at the door.

"I need to know if you and Mrs. Pemberton are holding Bilded to the bet," Campbell said. "For the payroll."

"Is there a reason we shouldn't?" Pemberton asked.

"He has a wife and three children."

The words were delivered with no inflection, and Campbell 's face was an absolute blank. Pemberton wondered, not for the first time, what it would be like to play poker against this man.

"All for the better," Serena said. "It will make a more effective lesson for the other workers."

"Will he still be a foreman?" Campbell asked.

"Yes, for the next two weeks," Serena said, looking not at Campbell but Pemberton.

"And then?"

"He'll be fired," Pemberton told the overseer. "Another lesson for the men."

Campbell nodded and stepped back into the office, closing the door behind him. The clacking, ratchet and pause of the adding machine resumed.

Buchanan appeared about to speak, but didn't.

"A problem, Buchanan?" Pemberton asked.

"No," Buchanan said after a few moments. "The wager did not involve me."

"Did you note how Campbell attempted to sway you, Pemberton," Doctor Cheney said, "yet without doing so outright. He's quite intelligent that way, don't you think?"

"Yes," Pemberton agreed. "Had his circumstances been such, he could have matriculated at Harvard. Perhaps, unlike me, he would have graduated."

"Yet without your experiences in the taverns of Boston," Wilkie said, "you might have fallen prey to Abe Harmon and his bowie knife.

"True enough," said Pemberton, "but my year of fencing at Harvard contributed to that education as well."

Serena raised her hand to Pemberton's face and let her index finger trace the thin white scar on his cheek.