Annie Proulx - Barkskins

She sat silent for a long minute, then said smoothly, “I think you need not disturb the Canadian situation. We will consider the investigation closed.” She glanced at Annag, wishing she had not been present, and saw that the woman was frowning hotly at R. R. Tetrazinni. Good loyal Annag, thought Lavinia. She will keep her silence.

As soon as Tetrazinni left Lavinia tossed the report into the wastebin.

“I’ll just put this into the stove,” said Annag, carrying the bin into the front office, where she rattled the stove door but carefully placed Tetrazinni’s report at the back of the supplies closet under her rain cape.

• • •

The Hotel Great Lakes owner, Simon Drimmel, fair-haired and handsome, was excited by his filled-up hotel and apprehensive about possible scratches on the ballroom floor. When several large crates labeled PRAIRIE HOMES arrived and Drimmel heard of the contents he ordered them unloaded on the south lawn.

“I can’t have construction in the ballroom,” he said. “It would scar the floor. It is essential we keep the floor in flawless condition fit for satin-soled slippers. Balls are our principal income.”

“For all you know annual exhibits during the season when there are no balls may become a lucrative source of income,” said Mr. Pye, who was managing the exhibition.

“Ah, perhaps.” Drimmel smiled, hoping it was not to be. He very much liked the music, the perfume, excitement and beauty of the balls, the pretty gowns and shining ruddy faces.

“Quite all right,” soothed Mr. Pye. “That particular exhibit belongs outside in any case.”

At the end of the day, when everyone was drooping with fatigue, Lawyer Flense offered to drive Annag home “as it is on my way.”

“Very kind, sir,” murmured Annag, gathering her bags and traps.

• • •

Goosey Breeley, who usually dined with Lavinia, even when there was company, said, when she heard Dieter Breitsprecher was coming to dinner, that she would take her dinner in her room.

“That is hardly necessary, Goosey. Dine with us. It is no trouble. I had to invite him as a courtesy.”

“No, I understand very well how such affairs work, dear Lavinia. You may wish to discuss business. It is my choice to dine in privacy. I rarely have a quiet repast free of responsibilities, so it will be a treat.” Lavinia thought she was right. It would be easier with Dieter if she did not have to include Goosey in the conversation.

• • •

“Mr. Dieter Bridestretcher,” said Libby the housemaid.

“Show him in.” Lavinia, dressed in her customary black dress, sat on a crimson velvet sofa before the drawing room fire and steeled herself for the encounter. Rarely at a loss for words, she had no idea how to put the partnership offer. She should have written a letter.

“Dieter Breitsprecher, welcome. It has been a long time.” She had not remembered he was so broad-shouldered and tall. His yellow hair was beginning to dull at the temples. His overlarge eyes, his whole smiling face seemed to her open and amiable. Immediately she felt awkward and wished the evening over and done.

“Certain, dear Miss Duke, it has been a long time.” He spoke with almost no trace of an accent, held out a hedgerow bouquet of budded goldenrod, hawkweed, past-prime wild roses and grass-of-Parnassus. “It would have been tropical rarities — were there any.” He saw a middle-aged woman, broad in the hips, buxom in the fitted black dress, but with the strong presence of the one in charge of the money.

“Dieter, please call me Lavinia. And thank you for the bouquet — although wild, it is handsome, and on this occasion I prefer naturalism to artifice. Will you take a glass of wine? Or would you rather have spirits?” She would toss the weeds away after he left.

“To be truthful I would prefer whiskey — if you have it.”

“If I have it! It is my own preference, one I adopted from my father.” She went to the sideboard and poured two glasses of what purported to be aged Kentucky bourbon. They sat before the fire and at first said nothing, glancing at each other to get a measure.

“Well,” said Lavinia, making the effort, “has business been good for you this year?”

“Yes, very good, despite the second loss to fire of our Robin’s Nest Mill. I will never again hire a pipe smoker. The sawyer would knock his burning dottle into the sawdust despite a hundred admonitions. Sorrowfully the cause has been removed — he burned himself up in this one.”

“How wretched,” said Lavinia. “We, too, have lost mills to fire.” Another lengthy silence stretched out. Lavinia thought of the subject of the presidential election — everyone knew General Grant would win. Instead she said, “Do you travel much? Back east? Or to Germany?”

“Once a year to New York or Boston. Or even Philadelphia, and one time to California to assess my cousin Armenius’s unfortunate circumstances.” There was an opening but she could not press her question about Armenius so soon for fear of looking an eager gossip.

“So you had a sawmill named Robin’s Nest?”

“Yes. Every year a robin would build her nest on a rafter above the saw. I do not know if it was the same one. It very much worried the old pipe smoker, who feared the young ones would fall from the nest onto the saw.”

Lavinia clenched one hand. “Oh, I hope that did not happen.”

“It did not. That mill produced dozens of robins in its time.”

“Mills do not seem to last long. There is always some catastrophe.”

“You are quite right.” He hitched his chair a little closer. He enjoyed talking about catastrophes and had seen a good many in the Michigan forests. “Most are entirely preventable, but men are careless and I think millmen are the most careless, though the owners and the show foreman can do a good deal of damage. For instance”—he peered earnestly at her—“I do not wish to bore you with accounts of misfortune?”

Again, an opening to inquire about Armenius, but instead she said, “Dieter, you do not bore me, pray continue. But first let me refresh your glass. Now go on.”

“A Maine timberman told me of his reasons for coming out to Michigan. In Maine he had a big mill. He put his mill at the bottom of a steep hill covered with pine right to the water’s edge. His plan was to cut the pine, make a slide for the logs that would carry them down into the mill, then load the lumber on ships docked in front, a very smooth and continuous operation that fell out just as he predicted. But he didn’t understand what happens to a hill when you remove the trees.”

Lavinia had no idea what he meant.

“What does happen to a hill with the trees removed?”

“Spring came and all began to thaw. He told me he was standing on a nearby spit of land in a position where he could admire his mill cutting as fast as the saws could run when he saw that entire treeless hill gather itself together like a cat and rush down in a landslide of mud. It buried the mill and mill hands, sank the ship waiting to be loaded. It made terrible big waves in the harbor. Never found anything that was in its path. A monstrous wet pile of mud and stumps.”

“I had no idea such a thing could occur,” said Lavinia. “I admire your knowledge of these dark mischances. I must send a bulletin to our sawyers not to place a mill at the bottom of a slope.”

“Yes, or better still leave the trees in place. Tree roots hold down the soil. The branches shade the soil and protect it from heavy rain washouts.”

“Miss Lavinia,” said Libby in the doorway, “Cook says dinner is ready.”

“Thank you, Libby. Dieter, shall we go in?”

Somehow they could not let go of catastrophes as a subject and over the roast lamb and fried potatoes went from landslides and fires to shipwrecks, crazy cooks, suicidal loggers, woods accidents, even a daring payroll holdup. Was this the time to ask about Armenius? Or the other, more important question? No.