Tim Bowling - The Tinsmith

Edney absently pulled at the end of one of her tight braids. The fee? It was difficult for her to think of money or any other worldly concern in relation to May. But she tried hard, recognizing the intensity of his feelings and the honourable manner in which he expressed them. Not all the Americans she had met—and there were several on the delta—possessed such gentlemanly graces.

“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary. As for the other arrangements, I’d be most grateful for your assistance.”

“I’ll leave for Victoria on the next steamer. Madam, your faith will be rewarded in the only way that can truly help you. You will speak with your beloved child again.”

The words were so dazzling, his tone so convincing in its promise, that she did not notice for several seconds that they were no longer alone in the parlour. Only when Ambrose Richardson stood, rather suddenly, and a few drops of tea spilled from his cup onto her hand, which rested on the ottoman between them, did she awaken to the world of flesh.

“Arrangements? For what?”

Edney turned at the sound of Thomas’s voice, as if yoked to it. But she was not alarmed by his presence or his question, merely surprised by the former as he was generally at work all day in the fields.

“Good day, sir,” Ambrose Richardson said. “Your wife and I have been enjoying a cup of tea and some most uplifting conversation. Why don’t you join us?”

Edney watched Thomas carefully but with little emotion. He seemed very far away, even though he was so palpably present. The world that he carried with him, he carried in the same way that a horse did. His face was red and slick with sweat. A few strands of hair were stuck to his brow, and his thick beard was smoulder waiting to flame at the quick light in his eyes. But he had removed his boots and held his hat like a limp pelt in one hand.

“No. No, thank you,” he said awkwardly, and Edney knew that his discomfort came from the simple confusion created by a guest acting as a host. Her husband was not a man who took even a slight change in the proprieties with calm. It was no surprise to her, then, when he pressed on with his questions in an abrupt manner.

“I heard my wife mention arrangements, sir. If they concern your interest in the cannery, it would be best if you discussed such matters with me. And if they concern something else…”

Edney felt his darkness shift heavily toward her as he continued.

“… well, I cannot think of anything that does not require you to speak with me first. I heard mention of a child. What child did you mean, sir?”

Edney sensed the American’s attention settle lightly and briefly on her, but she did not look at him. He cleared his throat. Edney was surprised to find herself hoping that he would answer the question directly, as in “Your dead daughter, sir.” Suddenly she wanted all the surfaces gone, wanted her truth to be the only one. It saddened her that not even her own husband was prepared to stand at her side on that painful, clarifying ground.

But Ambrose Richardson gracefully deflected the question. “My sincere apologies. I realize that I’ve yet to accompany you on your rounds of the cannery. Perhaps you’re free now? It’s a fine day and a walk would be most satisfying.”

Thomas’s silence spread thickly through the air. His eyes blinked like an owl’s but did not appear to take anything in. Edney might even have felt sorry for him, had there not been a kind of savagery in his confusion. But once she had regarded his coiled strength as comforting, a protection against so many dangers. If that same strength seemed dangerous now, she understood that that was as much a result of her own fragility as of any change in him. In truth, he had not changed; the death had not changed him, and therein lay the great danger.

The seconds dragged by. Edney almost believed that Thomas was going to dismiss the mention of the cannery and insist upon an answer to his question about the child. It would have been like a cleansing breeze blowing through the stale parlour; the walls would have collapsed and the three of them would have stood in an open relationship to the insistence of death. Instead, to her strange mixture of relief and disappointment, Thomas finally took the bait of commerce. He shifted his hat from one hand to the other and said, almost meekly, “As you wish. The Chinese will be well at work on the cans, and the Indians are making more nets.”

Ambrose Richardson stood. His smile was so broad that it gathered the skin into bunches on his cheeks.

“Excellent. I’ll just retire to my room for a few moments and meet you on the veranda.” He extended his hand to Edney.

She took it, noting the soothing white coolness, which seemed nothing less than an extension of his presence.

“Madam, I thank you again for your most gracious hospitality. Why, I could be treated no better in the finest of Virginia society.”

He did not wink, yet Edney felt, behind his words, a promise that he would not fail either her or May. And, strangely, when he had left the parlour, the child’s hovering spirit seemed to depart as well. Edney almost cried out, she almost rose to plead with the slightest trembling of the sunlight that signalled May’s flight, but Thomas had stepped in front of her, his body’s motion like the swinging of a barn door on darkness. Now it would come, she thought, now his confusion would demand answers. What child? Our daughter. What arrangements? To speak with her again, to know her again. Edney waited, her breath held. Just then, the new child moved inside her, as if a stone had been dropped into the parlour’s sunlit stillness.

“I had hoped that you were discussing the cannery with him. You know how important it is that we secure his investment.”

The ripples of the stone’s fall did not leave her body. Edney closed her eyes as the ripples returned deeper into her. Quietly, she said, “We weren’t discussing business.”

He settled his weight onto the ottoman beside her and took both her hands in one of his, which was as warm as a clench of the sun. “Mother, listen to me. We are in difficulties. I have told you of the debt. You must not dwell on what can never be again. We must live. This man, he is… he is our salvation. If he comes in with me, and if the season is even half as good as most predict, our future is secure. I’ll be able to compete with Dare and anyone else. You must do what you can to convince him.”

Edney could not even find the will to nod. Her whole body went numb; ice lodged in her joints as she struggled to remember her duty to the dark and pleading man beside her. The child moved again. The clock ticked. The sunlight was bereft of presence. God, she saw clearly, was in her daughter, and her daughter was gone. If she could not bring her back, God, too, was absent forever. A surge of will lifted Edney’s eyes to his.

“Soon it will be a year, Thomas. I cannot think of business so close to the time.”

“A year?” He blinked at her, his face rough and raw as split cedar, his wet lips parted.

Edney could hardly bear the sight of him. The mud smell rising off his thick arms could have been his daughter’s own grave-dirt and he would not have noticed.

His blinking stopped. He held his eyelids closed and slowly leaned his head back until his face was raised to the ceiling. Then, as if some force lowered his head on a string, he met Edney’s gaze.

“You think I do not grieve for her? You think I have forgotten?” He pushed his thick thumb slowly up his brow. “Our first child? You think I do not miss her every…”

Edney could not bring herself to pity him. If he missed May as she did, then how could he possibly care so much for business? Some feelings destroyed the world; they were meant to destroy it. And only a long, careful humility before the awe of the destruction and a proper attendance on the gap a child’s death left in the spirit could hope to save a family. The American gentleman understood. It had been fifteen years for him. Thomas would not adjust for even one turn of the calendar. No, Edney could not pity him. She could hardly look at him; he seemed so much smaller and weaker than his material form. All she wanted was to be alone in the parlour with May’s spirit.