Трейси Шевалье - At the Edge of the Orchard

Despite these thoughts, Robert slept well. He woke at dawn feeling more like himself than he had in weeks.

Mrs. Bienenstock was standing in the doorway of her house, smoking a cigar. She stubbed it out when the wagon pulled up. “Jesus H. Christ,” she muttered. “Jesus H. Christ.”

Robert assumed she was reacting to the army of pails double-stacked on the wagon bed. The boat full of seedlings had attracted much attention at the docks when they landed from Oakland, and William Lobb had not been willing to leave them there, even for a night, for fear they would be damaged or stolen-or worse, other tree agents would see them and know they were collecting redwoods for the Welsh estate. So they’d brought them back to the boardinghouse till they could take them onto the Star of the West the next morning.

But Mrs. B. didn’t even glance at the seedlings. “I told you I don’t like mess in my house. I told you that the first time I saw you, Robert Goodenough.”

“Sorry, ma’am, but we’ll be careful putting these in the back,” Robert reassured her. “If we track in any dirt, I’ll sweep it up afterwards, and mop too.”

She didn’t seem to hear him. “You know how hard it is to get blood out of a mattress?”

Robert stared at her. Then he pushed past Mrs. Bienenstock, took the stairs three at a time and ran down the hall.

Molly was propped up in bed, her back against the headboard. On either side of her were a few pillows stacked up, and a baby on top of each, her arms around them. Both sucked at the nearest nipple. There was no blood in sight.

Molly gave him an exhausted smile. “Hello, honey. Surprise!”

Robert was so stunned he remained in the doorway, looking from one baby to the other. Here was Jimmy. And here was-his son or daughter, it was impossible to say which. He had left for one day and come back a father.

“How?” he said.

Molly snorted. “The usual way: a whole lotta pain and yellin’ and pushin’. Actually, it wasn’t so bad-happened so fast I’d hardly time to feel it. Thank God for Dody. If she hadn’t been here to help, I’d have had it alone on the kitchen floor!”

“Dody?”

“Mrs. Bienenstock. Your landlady. Don’t you even know her Christian name?”

Mrs. B. had come up the stairs behind Robert and was leaning against the wall in the hall. Now she grunted. “I don’t give out my first name to most. Keep it formal, I say. Course Molly here asked it straightaway, so she could yell it all the while she was giving birth. Whole damned street knows it now.”

“Dody, I owe you one big batch of biscuits to thank you-when these two let me up!” Molly cupped the babies’ heads with her hands. “Now, you think you could get me a cup of coffee?”

“This one-nothing but trouble.” Mrs. B. chuckled. It seemed she liked a bit of trouble.

When she had gone, Robert perched on the side of the bed. He gestured at the new baby. “Boy or a girl?”

“Girl. What are we gonna call her?”

Robert shook his head. “You choose.”

“No. You name her. It’s time you started naming things. Your poor horse still don’t have a name. Least you can do is give one to your daughter.”

Robert stared at the whorl of dark hair on the baby’s head, which was all he could see of her with her face buried in her mother’s breast. “I don’t know what to name her.”

“Well, you called Jimmy after your Pa. Why not name her after your Ma?”

Robert shuddered. “I can’t do that.”

“Robert, your mother’s still your mother, whatever she done. What was her name?”

“Sadie.” Even saying it filled Robert’s mouth with a bitter taste, and he thought for a moment that, whatever Mrs. Bienenstock’s restrictions about her house, he might just be sick in it.

“Sadie’s a nickname for Sarah, ain’t it?” Molly persisted. “Sarah’s nice. Quieter. Less sassy than Sadie. More like you.”

“Sarah Goodenough.” When Robert said the name aloud, it did not sting, but felt like a balm.

“Goodenough! You gonna help me with these trees or not?” William Lobb was shouting up at their window.

Molly shook her head and laughed. “That man. If I worked for him I’d have run off by now.”

“I’ll give him a hand with the trees, then I’ll come back.”

Molly waved him away. “We’re jest gonna sleep anyway. Look.” Both babies were lolling away from her breasts, sated. “Put ’em in the cradle before you go, will you, honey? One at each end.”

Robert picked up his daughter carefully so that she would not wake. It felt no different holding her from holding Jimmy. He laid her carefully on the Goodenough quilt, her head next to the green silk square, and smiled.

The next morning he and William Lobb took the redwoods back down to the docks. The seedlings were still in pails, for they didn’t have the materials or the time to build the eight Ward’s cases they would have needed to ship the seedlings in. Nor had they had time to pack and seal more than four tin cases of sequoia cones. “We’ll send these to Veitch-keep him sweet for a bit,” Lobb said. “Soon enough he’ll hear about the redwoods and there’ll be hell to pay.” He chuckled, anticipating the hell.

Molly was up now, sitting in the kitchen nursing the babies and instructing Mrs. Bienenstock on how to make biscuits. “Don’t pound the dough, Dody!” Molly was crying with laughter. “You want to end up crackin’ your teeth on ’em? Pat it gentle like it’s a baby. That’s better.”

Robert had only ever seen his landlady make coffee and eggs, and he did not think she would take kindly to being taught. But Mrs. B. seemed willing; she was smoothing out the biscuit dough into a round on the table. Neither woman even glanced over at him as he moved between the yard and the wagon with the pails.

“Now, take this cup,” Molly ordered, “and cut out some circles. Don’t twist it! Twistin’ seals the dough and it don’t rise so well. Jest press and bring the cup back out. There now, put that on your sheet for bakin’.”

“We’re taking the trees down to the ship now,” Robert announced.

“Course you are, honey. We jest saw you traipsin’ back and forth with ’em. All right-twelve minutes, Dody! Just enough time for a cup of coffee.”

“See you later, then.” Robert went out to the wagon where William Lobb was waiting, seated next to the driver. He was about to climb up to join him when Mrs. Bienenstock appeared at his elbow, her hands covered in flour and a white smear on her forehead. “You bring him back,” she spoke up to William Lobb. “You leave him on that ship and I’ll make a pile of your possessions and burn ’em-notebooks and maps and all-right here in the street. You won’t be welcome back in this house. I can guarantee that.”

Robert had no idea what she was talking about, but William Lobb flinched. “It’s all right, Mrs. B.,” Robert reassured her. “I’ll be back in a little while.”

His words seemed to make no impression on Mrs. Bienenstock, who was glaring at William Lobb as he kept his eyes fixed on a point in the middle distance.

Normally when they shipped specimens to England they paid one or two of the sailors to look after them: make sure the tin cases of cones did not break open or get wet, take the Ward’s cases outside into the sun. Over the years William Lobb had gotten to know many sailors whom he felt he could trust.

This time, however, they were in such a hurry to send the trees that they were using a ship they had never tried before, and they did not know any of the crew. William Lobb had spoken to the captain of the Star of the West , who swore he’d looked after plants on other ships, including those of Lobb’s brother Thomas, collecting for Veitch in the Far East. The captain had introduced him briefly to a sailor he would entrust the trees to. Now, however, when they found the sailor hauling sacks of mail on board, he didn’t seem to recognize Lobb. His eyes were bloodshot, he stank of whiskey, and his walk was unsteady; he would have been sampling San Francisco’s saloons before the voyage. Looking over the trees crammed in their pails, he swore. It seemed that fragile, awkward freight bothered him more than the heavy trunks and boxes that would make anyone stagger under their weight.