Lake in the Clouds (58 page)

Richard Todd and Bump came in by way of the kitchen, where they found Cookie crouched before the hearth. She had a cut on her forehead that had left a great bloody patch on her kerchief, and she glared up at the doctor as if he were responsible.

“Oh, thank God,” said Becca Kaes, standing up from the table. She was shaking so hard that she had to wind her hands in her apron to steady them.

“Becca.” The doctor nodded, one corner of his mouth turned down in curiosity or irritation, or both. “What is the problem?”

A shrill shouting started up at the other end of the house and was cut off by the slam of a door.

Becca shook her head and pressed the back of her hand to her mouth as if to keep herself from screaming. She drew in a ragged breath and let it out again.

“The master is engaged to marry Jemima Southern.” Her voice was hoarse, and she looked quickly behind her as if she feared someone might have heard. “The widow is displeased.”

The other side of the doctor’s mouth turned down. “That’s why you sent for me? There’s no medicine I can give her that will make the match more to her liking. It’s Mr. Gathercole you need to tend to this kind of distress.”

Becca came forward and grasped his forearm, her chapped fingers digging into his coat hard enough to make him step back from her. “She’s very displeased, Dr. Todd. She broke every piece of glass in the good parlor and she’s got Isaiah and Jemima in a corner and she’s talking …” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “She’s unbalanced.”

Cookie’s small, thin face turned toward them. She said, “The widow ain’t unbalanced. She just mean as a mad dog with its tail in a trap, is all. It’s a bitter pill she got to swallow, but she’ll do it in the end. This time she will, yes, indeed.” And she smiled with such satisfied malevolence that the rest of them looked away in discomfort.

“Bump,” said Dr. Todd. “There’s nothing for us here.”

“Please, sir,” said Becca, looking very close to tears now. “Please, just … have a word with her.”

Jemima Southern stood in the corner of the good parlor and surveyed the destruction the widow Kuick had wrought. It gave her a sour satisfaction to see the Turkey carpet covered with tangled needlework, scattered books, and shards of glass. Every painted dog and porcelain shepherd, every smirking kilted Highlander and blushing powdered lady had been sacrificed to the widow’s rampage.

Good,
thought Jemima.
Less to dust.

Not that she would be dusting anymore; those days were gone now, for good.

Beside Jemima, Isaiah Kuick stood with a blank expression, as if he were watching an actress on a stage and not his own mother, convulsed with rage. When the last china vase shattered against the wall he said nothing, and when his mother howled at him,
Idiot you idiot you godforsaken whoremaster you’ll burn in hell for this
he had blinked and said nothing.

Because he would indeed burn in hell. They had come to an understanding, she and Isaiah: she would help him on his way to hell, and he would make her his wife.

In the two weeks after the night in the barn, Jemima had watched him and taken note of his comings and goings. Twice she had followed him to Dye’s quarters by moonlight, and stayed outside long enough to know what they were about. And then just this morning she had found Isaiah Kuick alone in the parlor.

She had laid it all out before him, as simply as she could: her courses were late; she was with child. Before he could tell her that it was none of his concern, she had wiped the mystified smile from his face by speaking the sentence she’d rehearsed again and again for a week, slowly and surely and meeting his gaze without flinching.

“This child was conceived the night of the wedding party in the barn at the judge’s old place, and if it wasn’t you that got it on me, then there’s something your mother might like to hear about the overseer and her son.”

He had looked at her with sudden understanding and none of the shame or fear that Jemima had anticipated, which put her off a little, but she pressed on, regardless.

“You do the right thing and marry me, and I won’t expect you to share my bed. I won’t care where you spend your nights.”

She had been prepared for arguments and she had thought through her options. If he balked, she would swear a rape on him and sue for support of her child, or she would get up in church and announce to Mr. Gathercole and his congregation that they had two sodomites among them, and provide details. He could choose one of those, or he could marry her and continue to meet Ambrose Dye, so long as he took more care and didn’t indulge his unnatural urges in barns where anyone might happen to pass.

The bargain was struck that simply, as she had hoped it would be. The widow’s son was a sodomite, but he wasn’t stupid. When Jemima thought over the way the conversation had gone she was filled with a deep sense of satisfaction, to have managed with so little fuss—right until the last, when she had asked him the one question she could not keep to herself.

“Tell me why you stare at Hannah Bonner whenever you come across her,” Jemima had said, and for the first time in the conversation she was unable to keep her tone even. “You can’t be thinking about bedding her. Or do you?”

Isaiah had finally managed to look surprised. He said, “I have no interest in bedding her, no. I look at her the way I’d look at a painting by Rembrandt or Michelangelo, if there were such a thing in this village. She’s simply the most beautiful thing Paradise has to offer.”

The sting of that had still not lessened, and never would. But she must concentrate on other things, important things.

The worst was over: the widow’s fury would burn itself out, and tomorrow or the day after they would stand up in front of Mr. Gathercole. And the widow would stand there with them, and she would wish them well and welcome Jemima into her home no longer a servant, but a daughter-in-law. No matter what she really felt, the widow Kuick would smile as long as they were in company and say the things that were expected of any lady of good breeding. Jemima was to be the mother of her only grandchild, after all. She would see to it.

The truth was, Jemima had had her courses two days after the night in the barn, but she had a plan. Liam Kirby was still in Paradise, and she knew where to find him: he spent all his time wandering the mountain looking for his runaway. Never mind that everybody had begun to wonder if there had ever
been a runaway; maybe—and this was a thought that came to Jemima reluctantly—maybe the whole story about blackbirding had been his way of getting close to Hannah Bonner again. The important thing, Jemima reminded herself, was that Hannah was gone and Liam wasn’t. She would go find him on the mountain and get what she needed from him; now that she was engaged to the widow’s only son she had some freedom, and she would use it, today.

The widow had fallen into the chair by the window, silent for the moment while she stared for once not out at the village, but at her own hands where they lay in her lap. When she raised her head this time her gaze focused on Jemima, and the expression there—cold and not quite human—sent a shiver down her back after all.

“Whore,” she whispered, her voice cracking with the effort.

“Call me what you like,” said Jemima. “Your words cannot change what I have growing in my belly, or the act that put it there.”

Such hate in a human face; it was an impressive thing to see. She said, “Isaiah, find that Indian witch and tell her to do away with it. There’s a tea that will do the job. Get rid of it, before it ruins your life.”

She said this to her son as if he already had dominion over Jemima’s body.

“I’ll drink no tea,” Jemima said. “If you try to force me I’ll swear an assault on you before the constable.”

The widow’s color rose another notch and for a moment Jemima wondered if the rage might even kill her, or if that was too much to hope for.

“Isaiah,” said his mother. “Send her away from here. Give her what money she needs, and send her away.”

“No,” said Isaiah, in a patient tone. “I can’t do that, Mother.”

Jemima knew very well that he was thinking of Dye; his loyalty was not to her at all. He would do this to protect his lover and to keep him, and still it gave Jemima great pleasure to hear him deny his mother. She let her triumph show and the widow’s face contorted with disgust and fury.

A knock at the door and the widow sprang up from her
seat with new energy, flew across the room as if she expected an avenging angel sent to smite the unrepentant sinners.

Dr. Todd came in, not looking concerned at all but cross, and ill at ease.

The widow was startled to see him, as if he had discovered her in some shameful act. Jemima had to admire how she came back to herself, drawing her shawl tighter around her shoulders and composing her face, nothing there now of rage, just condescension and good manners.

“Dr. Todd,” she said. “We were not expecting you. And as you can see—” She looked around the room and seemed to take in the extent of the wreckage with some bewilderment. “We are not in a position to receive callers today.” And she held up her chin haughtily.

“I’m not here on a social visit,” Dr. Todd said. “You’ve got your servants shaking in their boots, Missus Kuick. It looks like Cookie will need some stitches. What is the meaning of all this?”

Color flooded up from the widow’s papery neck. “A family matter,” she said stiffly. “And none of your concern.”

Dr. Todd threw Jemima a pointed look. “Jemima, you’ve got a cut on your cheek.”

Jemima touched herself with one finger, felt the warm smear of blood. She hadn’t even noticed when it happened.

“It’s nothing,” she said.

“Mr. Kuick?” Dr. Todd asked.

Beside her, Isaiah cleared his throat. “We were discussing wedding plans. Jemima and I are to be wed.”

Jemima could no more keep herself from smiling to hear those words spoken out loud than the widow could keep from letting out a single strangled gurgle of surrender. It was done now; it was said.

Jemima’s hand brushed against Isaiah’s. He shuddered and moved away from her, just ever so slightly, a half-step. But Dr. Todd had seen it, and when he looked at Jemima this time she saw that he moved beyond curiosity to some dawning understanding.

A flush ran through her, hot and cold at once.

“I wish you joy,” said Dr. Todd. “And now I’ll see to Cookie.”

“Dr. Todd,” Jemima said in her coolest voice.

He paused at the door. “Yes?”

“Please send Becca in, this mess needs to be swept away.”

One eyebrow arched in surprise at her tone, but he nodded, and closed the door behind him.

Lily had forgotten all about the widow Kuick’s fit by the time she started home. Even when Bump came back to work in the garden and Dolly Smythe came out of the kitchen to talk to him, Lily could not be drawn away from her spot next to Gabriel Oak. The widow’s fit didn’t seem important anymore, because her head was full of drawings.

Under her arm Lily clasped a sheaf of paper filled with shaded circles and squares and lines, and the most magical thing of all, two linked rings that built the structure of the human face. Just as soon as Gabriel’s pencil had finished drawing the line where the circles came together, and on that line the placement of the eyes, something small and bright had flared in Lily’s mind: it made such sense, she didn’t know how she had missed it before. Lily reached into her pocket and ran her fingers over the two black-lead pencils and the piece of India rubber Gabriel Oak had lent to her.

She had just come in sight of the schoolhouse when she heard a rustling in the bush and her brother jumped out onto the path with a loud war whoop, waving his wooden tomahawk over his head. He had slicked down his hair with mud and painted his face in yellow and blue stripes, but the green of his eyes stood out anyway for all the world to see, the same green as the new leaves on the maple trees.

Lily said, “I heard you coming.” Because she had, and because it would irritate him: a warrior struck silently.

“I could have been a bear, for all the attention you were paying,” he said reproachfully. “Could have killed you with a single swipe of a paw.”

“But you aren’t,” Lily said. “And you didn’t.” She walked on, and he followed her.

“Where’s Blue-Jay?” she asked.

“Many-Doves needed him. What’s that you’ve got?”

“Paper.”

“I can see that much. What’s it for?”

She stopped and turned to him. “Gabriel Oak is giving me drawing lessons.”

Beneath his war paint, Daniel’s expression was thoughtful. “Why would he want to do that?”

That was a question Lily could not answer, so she shrugged.

“Let me see,” Daniel said, reaching out, but she sidestepped.

“Your hands are dirty. You can see at home.”

When I’m good and ready, and not before.
This last she didn’t say out loud, but she could see by Daniel’s expression that she had hurt his feelings. Before she could think how to fix that, he had turned away.

“I’m going home the short way,” he announced.

“I’ll come too.”

He threw her a furious look. “No.”