Tim Bowling - The Tinsmith

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.

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.

“Madam, I am delighted to make your acquaintance, even under these trying circumstances. Ambrose has told me of your sorrows, but even his powers of expression could not convey the full impact of what is here.” She raised her nose and daintily sniffed. “Your daughter’s aura is as strong as any I’ve ever encountered. She must have an urgent need to contact you.”