Annie Proulx - Barkskins

For some it did not come at all: a logger whose cheap boots fell apart during the spring drive, another who did not regard a slice of raw pork dipped in molasses as the acme of dining, the man laid up for six months by a woods accident immobile in bed while his wife took in “boarders” who stayed in the house less than twenty minutes, a drought-ruined Kansas family eating coyotes to stay alive. And in Chicago fast-growing slums, hovels built from scrap wood and rotted leather clustered around the stockyards, lumber mills and tanneries encircled by poisonous water.

Lavinia was corseted and dressed for the day in green silk, an elaborately draped skirt over a bustle. There was a lace frill at her throat. Out on the open deck of the cupola the wind was like a clawing, rolling wildcat trapped between lake and sky. She saw two distant ships on the trembling horizon, but looking south over the city with her opera glasses, she saw no slums. She turned again to the north and squinted at the ships. The wind pulled at her black hair piled on top of her head. There would always be the poor, hordes who had no ambition to better themselves. The world swarmed with terrible problems but they were not her affair. She strained to make out details of the faraway steamers. A telescope was needed. Despite her superior position she had her own difficulties: the gnawing aloneness (for Goosey Breeley was more like a chest of drawers than a companion), tiresome business negotiations, spiteful rivals — and succession. It was legal now for women to own property and she had to decide who would inherit Duke Logging and Lumber, the great timberland holdings, the mills and railroad stocks. The wind pulled at her hair. Smoothing the loose strands she went inside and laid the opera glasses on the marble-topped table just inside the door. The thought would not leave her. An heir had to be someone of the Duke bloodline. It would not be Goosey. She had a swiftly dissolving thought of the human flotsam that came to cut trees, their lives nothing beyond a few sweaty years with an ax. Despite their winters in the forests they all seemed to produce large families. They had no worries about succession, nor about credit or character.

“My God,” she said to her silver-framed dressing room mirror, “how do they stand it?” Her hair was a fright wig. But who they were and what it was they had to stand was unclear. People spoke of happiness, but what was that? What was anything? Posey had had no such doubts, nor James, who fretted over nothing except the most banal irritants. But she was different. She had terrible wrathy feelings directed everywhere. She was short-tempered with people who did not respond to her requests speedily. If they could not keep up with the pace of development, let them stand aside! James had taught her that getting ahead was the important thing. Of course the problems and impediments were endless, the brain-wracking decisions of which men she could extend credit to, and she almost envied women like Clara, who simply let a husband guide them. Honor and promise had ruled in James’s day, but now there were so many rogues about that money and contracts were the only safe way to proceed. Thank God for Tappan’s Mercantile Agency, with its reports on the worth of individual businessmen. She relied on their astute judgments. Bad creditors could bring the largest businesses down. And children: was not that the root of her discontent? Perhaps not, for she disliked the sight of pregnant women, who seemed everywhere, especially along the rural roads. Farm women were like sawmills. She shuddered and went downstairs for tea with Goosey.

“Your hair!” cried Goosey, clasping her large pale hands. “Shall I get a little lavender oil to smooth the flyaways in place?”

“Thank you, Goosey, that is what I need, but I would prefer the damask oil. Lavender is too reminiscent of bedsheets.”

Goosey was back in a minute with a vial of scented oil and a feather. “You should always wear a head scarf when you go to the cupola,” she said in a flat voice, knowing Lavinia would not bother.

• • •

The question of heirs began to disturb Lavinia’s sleep when Cyrus and his family, as well as many Chicago people high and low, fell ill with typhoid. Cyrus perished in great pain with intestinal perforations. The children went one by one and finally Clara, demented with grief and helplessness, fashioned a knotted loop in a heavy shell-pink silk scarf, stepped off a chair set on the dining room table and hanged herself from the chandelier.

That winter Lavinia herself had many illnesses, intestinal gripes and skin eruptions. She had not liked Clara but missed her, missed poor old Cyrus. Under the pressure of these afflictions she began to examine the Duke family papers for possible heirs and consult with foreign-born genealogists; she found few Americans interested in ancestral searches, as they took pride in being unshackled by the past — unless they had a distinguished early family member and then they waved him like a flag. She reviewed her relatives. Sedley Duke’s children by his second marriage had all died without issue. Lennart Vogel had never married. Edward and Freegrace had no known children.

“You know,” she said to Mr. Flense, “it is unpleasantly clear that I am the last surviving Duke.”

“Nonsense, Lavinia. There must be heirs out there. You must employ someone to search for them.” His tone was impatient as if there were undiscovered cousins stacked like cordwood in some nearby cave. But she had doubts; could genealogists discover any heirs, whether in the still-United States or in the Netherlands? The two savants she discovered — Sextus Bollard of Boston and R. R. Tetrazinni in Philadelphia — both presided over bookshops where tracing family lines eased long hours between customers.

Lavinia invited each to Chicago for an interview. The first to arrive at the house for dinner and the interview was Sextus Bollard. He was at least sixty, Lavinia thought, looking at his old-fashioned checked trousers. But he did carry a fine stick with a gold knob in the likeness of a gorgon’s head.

Goosey and Mr. Flense dined with them and they made small talk about Mr. Bollard’s journey (difficult) and the tale the conductor told him of the horrors of crossing the plains to the west. He said sparks from the engines often ignited the dry grass, and that passengers cowered in their seats as the train made its way through a sea of flame. He said that during one unfortunate traverse flames had seized the train and roasted the passengers like pigeons. “Indians came and ate them as we would a turnspit ox. I counted myself fortunate to have had no worse adventure than encounters with the uncouth inhabitants of Ohio and Indiana Territory.”

“A very disturbing tale if true,” said Mr. Flense, “but I fear the conductor was pulling your leg, Mr. Bollocks.”

“Bollard, sir, is the name,” snapped the guest. “And I believe he told the truth as he showed me the clipped illustration and account from Harper’s, which he kept in his breast pocket to entertain travelers.” He narrowed his eyes at Flense, to whom he had taken a dislike.

After dinner Goosey went upstairs and Lavinia, Lawyer Flense and Mr. Bollard went into the library to give him copies of the Duke family papers and discuss the terms of the genealogist’s employment.

“Of course Holland, but not France?” Bollard asked. “My cursory examination of your papers indicates your ancestor Charles Duquet came from France. Indeed, from Paris. Is that not correct?”

Lavinia felt a burning itch on her neck, one of the unpleasant blotches that came so often. “Yes, of course, France. It slipped my mind. Though we always have thought of Holland as our point of origin — Uncle Lennart Vogel fostered that idea. Our ancestor Charles Duquet has always been something of a mystery. It has been my understanding that he vanished in the wilderness. But do search in Paris. Who knows what you may find? I am thinking you might begin with a six-month search. Of course we will pay your travel expenses, and provide a purse. And if necessary to make more trips we can discuss it when the time arrives.”