Tim Bowling - The Tinsmith

His voice flowed easily as the light, despite the pain behind the words. Edney felt the warmth of the teacup in her hand diminish: the coolness, like any change, no matter how small, signalled an arrival. Her breathing came easy. She thought of the late American president with a small sense of shame: Lincoln’s murder, though tragic, had been very remote to her. She’d been a young mother then, with May and the baby Edward taking most of her attention. In truth, Edney could not remember hearing of Lincoln’s grief over the death of his son. She must have, of course, but her great joy at the time would not have been dampened by a distant misery, no matter how famous.

“We heard the rumours,” Ambrose Richardson said. “Many scoffed at the idea that the great man would participate in a seance, especially during wartime, but I understood perfectly. Perhaps, in some way, my sympathy for our enemy’s leader was a kind of prophetic vision of my own future. I have thought of this often. Lincoln’s grief, had I but known it at the time, was a gift from God; it helped to prepare the ground for my own tears.”

He sighed and raised the cup to his lips. Lowering it again, he looked at Edney with watery eyes.

“They say he returned to the crypt on three separate occasions, wanting one last look at the boy. The embalming had been remarkable. They say the child looked to be only asleep. That man destroyed the hopes of my country, yet I cannot, before God, deny that I would embrace him in compassion for his lonely returns to that crypt. What I wouldn’t give, even now, for one last look upon my own dear boy’s face.”

He put the cup down and pulled a handkerchief from his vest. Dabbing his eyes, he said quietly, “I did try, I tried even to the point of risking my own life.” His voice caught, but he continued. “I couldn’t get to him. He lay in contested ground after the battle. When I could finally search the field, there was no sign of… I… even now it pains me to think of the poor boys whose bodies I turned over to see their faces, always in great hope, only to have my hopes dashed.”

His hand trembled as he tried to place the handkerchief neatly in his breast pocket. Finally, he gave up and let the handkerchief hang limp from his hand.

“Shovelled into a mass grave by negroes who probably treated him like a slab of fouled meat. That was my boy’s fate. I walked that battlefield for hours, blind with tears, and came to feel that I was searching for the child he had been. I thought if I listened for a baby’s cry, it would lead me to his body. It is most strange…” He glanced at his left sleeve and sighed. “It is most strange how time and sense are altered by death. For years, I consoled myself with the fancy that my arm had somehow joined my child in his unmarked grave, that it was whole and well and cradled the head of that little boy.” He broke off. His head dropped to his chest.

A part of Edney wanted to reach out and touch him, as if, by doing so, she could comfort the child he had lost. But his openness froze her; it was almost a sin to respond to something that she had wanted so desperately since May’s death.

Finally the American raised his head and spoke again.

“I would ask you to forgive me, but I know it would be an impertinence. Your feelings are fresh. I cannot claim as much of mine from such a world as this, but I know that I can from you.”

For a moment, Edney feared that he was about to reach out and take her hand. But he merely leaned closer.

“I’ve given much thought to your grieving. I’ve asked myself repeatedly how I can help you to come back to God’s fold. Believe me, I, too, have known the sin of anger, I, too, have doubted His mercy. But He knows this, He expects it. And I believe with all my heart that He has given us the means to return to Him. He has, in His great mercy, provided a way for us to love this life again before we are reunited in Glory with our own lost lambs. Ah, but lost only to us, only briefly, because of our own weakness. Madam, if you will permit me, I can arrange for you to reach her, to go beyond the veil. In Victoria, I know of the gentle services of a lady well versed in these matters. And I am certain that, at my request, she would be willing to come here and help you to find some of the peace that I’ve known.”

Edney drew back. His eyes seemed to have taken all the sunlight into them, and his moustache quivered as his lips moved. What he had said hardly reached her; she was still thinking of her undiminished desire to see May’s face one last time. But this mention of a lady in Victoria—what could this mean?

“Please, don’t be alarmed. Perhaps I move too swiftly. But it is only out of my sincere desire to bring you comfort. I often wish, indeed, that someone had led me to this special and most providential of balms much sooner, though perhaps I would have been too angry yet in my grief at the time.”

He leaned back but did not move his searching eyes from Edney’s face. She felt the strange hunger in his look and it confused her. If he had anything to gain, it would only be the Christian comfort of having helped to ease another’s suffering. She could give him nothing else. She could not even promise to give him that comfort. But if she did, perhaps the gift would be a renewing of her faith and a cooling of her terrible hatred, a gift her Maker might reward with that one last contact she so desired. It was the teaching she had always known—for the soul to be at peace, the life must do good. Why not let this gracious American, alone, wounded in heart rather than in body, try to help her?

“I don’t understand,” she said at last. “What are the services this lady in Victoria provides?”

He smiled and sat up straight. The watery blue of his eyes suddenly brightened. He brought his one hand around and rested it on his thigh. The fingers were long and thin and yellowed with tobacco.

“Ah, she is an expert in the ways of bringing the living into contact with the dead. A medium, a clairvoyant, a spiritualist—but there is no earthbound word that can do justice to those who have the gift of parting the veil. For our purpose, she is the one hope we have of communicating with your child while she is still so close to her corporeal time. Oh, that I had but spoken with Robert sooner! How richer the conversation would have been, how fresher the feeling.” He stared sadly away.

On reflex, Edney looked after him and seeing his empty teacup on the table moved quickly to fill it. The physical act, simple and repetitive, helped to orient her. For the truth was, she could not imagine how anyone could reach May if she, who had loved her so deeply, who, indeed, perhaps loved her even more now, could not do so on her own. But these matters were profound, more so than she could fathom. That someone dedicated to finding ways of contacting the dead could succeed where she had failed was not an impossible idea—Edney did not pretend any great knowledge of life and death. She knew her heart and she knew her duty; if the first was broken, the second could not be properly carried out. So what choice did she have? For her dead and living children, she must repair the break. And if a woman in Victoria, upon the recommendation of the sympathetic soul sitting in the parlour where May’s body had lain, could be an agent in that lonely work, Edney knew that she’d be foolish and irresponsible to resist.

The clock ticked heavily. Ambrose Richardson lifted his cup and took a silent sip of tea. The sunlight no longer flowed through the room, but it had the same trembling quality as the American’s eyes as he spoke again.

“Of course, I’ll make all the arrangements on your behalf. The fee is minimal, considering the great peace that results. However, should you require any assistance…” He made the slightest of bows and courteously dropped his eyes.