The Island of Doves (11 page)

“
Mon fils
, if Miss Dove arrives tonight, I will want to write to Father Adler directly and let him know. He will be anxious to hear. Will you see that the letter gets on the first southbound boat?”

He straightened up and dipped his paddle with a little more force, relieved that the subject had changed.

“Of course.”

They reached the shore and pulled the heavy canoes up onto the sand. The hired men walked down the beach to help and, two at a time, lifted the casks of syrup onto a wagon that would take them to Market Street. Ani circled in the dune thistle, then trotted over to them and moved among their boots, looking for Magdelaine. She whistled for him and he came over to her, then sat down at her feet and gazed up, his head cocked, his eyes inquiring. He was the strongest dog she had ever had, beautifully trained and completely obedient. Dogs were so much easier to raise than sons, she thought. Jean-Henri had been a man for a long time, but he floundered still, purposeless here on the island.

“You know, Mother,” Jean-Henri said. “Things will work out this time, with Miss Dove. It will be different. I know it will.”

“Oh, Jean,” she sighed, her hand massaging the thick fur at the nape of Ani’s neck. “I hope you are right.”

Inside the house, Esmee was sitting in one of the armchairs, with white fabric draped over her lap. She stood when they entered the room and reached to take Jean-Henri’s hat.

“Monsieur, I am finishing the last of your shirts. If you’d like to try one on, I can check the length of the sleeve to be sure it is right.”

Jean-Henri gave her a confused look, then turned to his mother. “What shirts?”

Esmee looked down. “Forgive me, madame. Did I speak out of turn?”

“What shirts?” he said again to Magdelaine, his voice edged with irritation.

“I asked Esmee to make you some shirts, for your new position. You will have to wait until you get to the city to have a proper jacket made.” Though Esmee was skilled at embroidery, she wouldn’t know how to make a French jacket for a man any better than she would have known how to make down shoulder puffs for a gigot sleeve or elbow-length silk gloves. She had never been off the island, never seen what French men and women wore, except maybe in a picture. Island girls learned from their mothers how to sew broadcloth cloaks and skirts, buckskin mittens lined with fur. Even the shirts wouldn’t be fine, but Magdelaine wanted her son to have something of his own, something to remind him of home. Perhaps it would bolster him and keep him from giving up this time.

Jean-Henri shook his head slowly, then laughed, not with amusement but with frustration. “Infuriating,” he said to his mother for the second time that spring. “Infuriating and relentless. I have yet to write to Mr. Greive and you have already packed my trunk. Why did you waste Esmee’s time with this nonsense? Why can’t you let me be?”

Silence stretched between them in the sitting room, taut as a wire. Perhaps Esmee could no longer bear it, because she leapt a few rungs above her station by speaking up. “Well, either way, you will be able to wear the shirts, monsieur. Whether you stay or go.”

Jean-Henri looked at her in surprise, as if he had forgotten she was in the room. “Well, yes, I suppose that’s true.”

Flush climbed up Esmee’s cheeks and temples. “Forgive me,” she said, afraid to look up into his face once again. “I only meant that you should not worry that my time was wasted.”

Jean-Henri nodded at her, then looked at his mother one last time and shook his head again, before stalking out of the room.

Esmee returned to the fabric on the chair and folded it into a neat square. The sewing basket contained the finished shirts, as well as a half dozen handkerchiefs embroidered with Jean-Henri’s initials and two pairs of moccasins, one plain hide and one lined with rich blue wool, expertly embroidered with silk ribbon and white glass beads around the cuff.

“Esmee,” Magdelaine said, as she appraised the work. “These are very fine. But really, the shirts would have been sufficient.”

“Oh, I don’t mind.” She wound a loose piece of thread around her forefinger. “No good comes from idle hands.”

“I don’t think my son will appreciate the care and effort. But thank you.”

Esmee bit down on her bottom lip in a kind of shy smile and shrugged. “You must be hungry after all that work. Let me fix you something to eat.”

Just then Jean-Henri called down from the top of the stairs. “Mother, a boat is coming into the harbor.”

Magdelaine went out onto the porch to wait. From there she could see the boats and the figures of the people who disembarked, though not the details of their faces. Magdelaine stood frozen in place as the passengers walked down the dock. She had waited so long to make good on her promise to Father Adler. She tried to imagine Miss Dove’s face and saw someone with black hair and big dark eyes. The image made her cringe. She was imagining Josette’s face, Josette’s eyes. She felt the impulse to sigh and withheld the breath. This Miss Dove would be no ghost. She was a living, breathing woman who needed her help.

Once again, though, Magdelaine was disappointed. Miss Dove was not on the boat.

S
usannah ran, her boots thundering on the wood plank sidewalks into the heart of Detroit. When she felt her chest would explode, she stopped and doubled over to catch her breath. In the road, horses pulled crude open carriages that carried men in pristine white collars and new hats. The barefoot servants who rode on the back platforms dragged their heels in the dirt. Wagons stacked with crates shuddered by too; in the crates were onions and potatoes and tallow, nails and glass bottles jangling together, horseshoes and firewood and a cluster of inert pheasants tied at the feet. One wagon contained a gleaming grand piano nestled in a bed of hay.

She backed out of the street and into an alley between two tall buildings. Her mind continued to race. Had Wendell seen her? No matter what happened now, the question would dog her. One letter from Wendell to Edward would send her husband after her, and she would soon be back in Buffalo.

Susannah felt her stomach lurch when she realized she had a more immediate problem. Sister Mary Genevieve had told her to stay on the boat, no matter what, because if Susannah left it, the nun wouldn’t be able to help her. And now here she was, alone in a city where she didn’t know a soul. She had no food, no place to lay her head, and not a penny to her name. She still had the necklace, but in order to make use of it she would have to find someplace to sell it.

She realized with equal parts remorse and relief that she had brought the blanket with her. She hadn’t meant to steal it. Back in Buffalo, quilts and comforters puffed with goose feathers sat folded in a closet, but this filthy square of coarse wool was more precious to her than any of them. Susannah had never really been cold in her life, she had never been dirty, nor had she even worn the same dress two days in a row. And she had never, in all of her life, been so alone.

There was no one to help her now. No maid to bring her some food, no kindly nun or Irish carriage driver or priest to take her elbow and lead her to safety. She had made a disaster out of her plan for escape. Susannah sank to the ground with her back against the cold brick wall and stared at her hands. For a moment, despair took over. She might as well turn back to Buffalo, save Edward the trouble of having to come find her. But then she felt that hard rock of resolve in her chest, the determination that had helped her escape. She couldn’t give up.

Several hours of daylight remained, she told herself, enough for her to sell the necklace and find a meal and a room for herself in a boardinghouse. Then she would write to Sister Mary Genevieve and explain what happened, and hope that the woman would forgive her mistake and find a way to help her. She would take the cheapest room she could find and try to make the money last as long as possible. What she would do tomorrow, or the next day, felt too daunting to imagine.

Susannah glanced up and down the street, knowing that a goldsmith had to be somewhere in the city. Her stomach churned with hunger, and she felt she would do almost anything for a little food and a pail of hot water to wash her face and hands. Her dress was crusted with white around the armpits and the collar. She walked a mile before she spotted a shop.

Crouched in an alley between two buildings, Susannah hitched her dress up to her waist and tore away the handkerchief that held the necklace. Glancing around once more, she took a breath and unwrapped it. The crisp lines and brilliant color of the necklace splashed over her like cool water. The garnets were deep but clear, the goldwork delicate. It was plain to see that this had been not just her mother’s favorite piece, but also the most valuable one.

Martha Brownell had been the sort of woman who was so sure of herself and her place in the world that she was like an ancient tree, rooted and immovable. To Susannah, it seemed her mother knew everything—botany and natural philosophy, the mythology of the Greeks, Shakespeare’s mysterious dark lady. But unlike most women, Martha didn’t learn these things to further her reputation or earn the praise of her peers. She studied the world as if it were a fleeting thing. And it was. The sheet music Susannah’s father, Phillip, bought her was a puzzle to be solved; she played the piano for the pure joy of it, with the windows thrown open, even when there wasn’t anyone home to hear it.

But one wet, cold November week, Martha developed a fever that rendered her delirious. She cried out thanking her husband for all that he had given her: passage to America, a fine home and beautiful clothes and trinkets, a daughter. After that fit, she fell comatose for weeks. Phillip and Susannah took turns at her bedside reading her stories, spooning broth between her lips. Father and daughter were astonished when she finally emerged from the episode, blinking with clear eyes at the morning sun that spilled across her quilt. But their relief was short-lived. Soon it became clear that the prolonged fever had left its mark on Martha’s mind. She was dim, forgetful. The books she had raced through, her index finger trailing the page, sat unopened where she had left them before the illness. The kettle had become an enigma to her and she watched it, questioningly, as Susannah fixed her tea. To see her intelligent mother reduced to a heap of need, of childlike wanting for sweets and enchantment with the tumbling tail of a kite in the wind, was a horror.

Phillip devoted himself completely to his wife’s care. He summoned doctors from across the city, from Boston and Philadelphia, and even once brought an Indian healer to the house. He hired a nurse to live with them and answer Martha’s every request. His patience and tenderness were without limit, as he led his wife from room to room, helping her to relearn the names of her favorite things:
Lavender. Calico. Velvet.
Occasionally, she would have a flash of sudden understanding and ask, “I wasn’t always this way, Phillip—was I?” in a hushed voice, as if it were a terrible secret. She would begin to cry and he would hold her hand and whisper words to her:
Helpmate. Ardent friend.
Until she knew what they meant, until she knew they were meant for her. She had come back from the brink of death, forever changed, only to die a few years later from cholera, alongside her husband, leaving her daughter alone in the world.

Susannah wrapped the necklace back up and held it in her palm as she crossed the street and rang the bell at the goldsmith’s. A slight man with an upturned nose answered the door.

“Yes?” he said, his eyes scanning her dress. He kept a grip on the door. “I don’t have any food to give you.”

“No, sir, I’m here about a necklace of my mother’s. I’d like to sell it.”

“It belonged to your mother, did it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your own mother, flesh and blood? Because I don’t buy stolen jewelry.”

“Sir, I assure you—she left it to me when she died.”

He eyed her a moment longer, and then his face softened. “All right, then. Come in.”

Susannah stepped into the workshop and over to a table next to the window. She unwrapped the necklace and laid it down.

The goldsmith shut the shop door, sliding the bolt into place, and then joined her. He whistled long and low. “I see you have recently experienced a reversal of fortune. A woman dressed like you, with a necklace like that!”

Susannah felt a jolt of hope. Maybe it would be worth even more than she thought, enough to buy passage on the next boat to Mackinac.

He draped the necklace over his palm. “These are . . . two, four, six, eight,” he whispered as he counted. “Twenty-eight garnets set in gold.” The goldsmith looked up at her again, his eyes stern. “Are you
certain
you did not steal this necklace?”

“Please, sir. I am certain.”

He stepped to another table containing a tray of tools and a loupe. He poked at the stones with a small pick, then held the necklace up with his left hand and wedged the loupe between it and his eye. His shoulders relaxed and he gave a slow sigh of recognition.

“My dear,” he said, looking satisfied that the world had fallen back into line with his expectations. “I am sorry to tell you that these stones are paste.”

“What do you mean?”

“Stones made to imitate garnets. And a very good job too. I wouldn’t have known without the magnification.”

“That can’t be,” Susannah said. She felt suddenly that she was underwater, the walls of the workshop undulating, the jeweler’s tools seeming to drift menacingly toward her. “My father gave my mother that necklace. He was not the sort of man to buy fake gems.” Susannah’s knees buckled and she gripped the table in an attempt to stay upright. “Do you think he was swindled?”

The goldsmith came around the table and cradled her elbow. “Miss, are you all right? Why don’t you sit down?” He led her to a chair. She stared down at her boots, taking shallow breaths. Her hunger was making her weak, and the weakness was like a veil over her eyes.

“It’s possible that he was swindled,” the goldsmith said. He crossed the room to a pail of water and dipped a brown mug beneath its surface. Water dripped onto her hand as she took the mug and drank. Sweet and cool, it soothed her stomach for a moment. “But there’s another possibility. Forgive me for asking, but did your father experience any . . . alterations in his financial situation?”

She thought back to the week after her parents’ deaths, when Edward spread her father’s papers across the desk in the study, dredging through file after file as creditors called at the house with sheepish looks on their faces for hounding the daughter of a man not yet cold in the ground. Her father had been cautious with his money, until his wife took ill. Then he spent every penny he had on her care. “Yes.”

“Well, it is customary, when fortunes are strained or lost, to squeeze money from every corner of the household. There are ways to do so without losing face. As I said, this imitation was done by an expert jeweler. Your mother could have worn it to ten balls and no one would have suspected.”

“I see,” Susannah said. It hardly mattered, all the things her father had bought for her. Her mother hadn’t danced at another ball after the fever stole her mind. The jewels sat in their velvet boxes. When her father needed money, it made sense that he would go to them first.

Of course, the forgery mattered now, mattered in the most immediate and tangible way, as her aching head and rumbling stomach reminded her.

“So you can give me nothing for it, then?” she asked, suddenly feeling strong enough to stand.

“Well, very little, I’m afraid.” The goldsmith crossed the room to where the necklace lay on the table. “I might be able to give you enough for a few meals.” He held the magnifying glass up to the stones again. “I must say, this is a
remarkably
good forgery.”

She saw then that he would try to pass the necklace off as authentic and sell it at a high price to an unsuspecting customer. Or perhaps all of it was a lie. Perhaps the stones were real and this man was the swindler. If she had been wearing one of Susannah Fraser’s fine gowns, this man would have dealt fairly with her. Most people cared nothing for right and wrong but only what they could get away with when they thought no one who mattered was watching.

“No, thank you,” she said, snatching the necklace out of his hand. She stepped toward the door, feeling stronger for the moment, her head clear.

The goldsmith stepped in front of her. “Well, now, wait a minute. Perhaps I spoke too—”

“I must be on my way,” Susannah said.

But the goldsmith didn’t move. “Perhaps . . .” He put his hand on her shoulder. “We can come to some sort of an agreement.” He was only a few inches taller than Susannah and she looked hard into his eyes. She could hear his breathing quicken.

Over his shoulder the bolt on the door held her in and the rest of the world at bay. Where was it more dangerous? Out there? In here? In a heartbeat she was out in the street, the door slammed shut behind her, and off running. Running again.

For hours, she shuffled through the streets in a famished daze. That no one stopped to try to help her was proof of how accustomed respectable people were to the sight of beggars in this city. As darkness fell, she rapped on the door of a magnificent white stone church, but after a long time an irritated minister came to the door, a linen napkin tucked in his collar, and shooed her away.

Susannah found her feet carrying her back to the wharf. She stepped carefully to avoid the drying mounds of horse dung in the road. The surface of the river reflected the lamplight from the windows, and its greasy surface was pocked with the detritus of travelers: a lost boot, a length of rope.

She passed a saloon with a sagging front porch and from the shadow of a tree watched the place. She heard a fiddle, the rhythmic thud of boots on a wood plank floor stepping in time with the music.

Susannah dipped into the darkness along the side of the building and crossed around to the yard in back. Tables stood in three rows beneath a canvas awning. Candles flickered in the glass shrouds that kept out the wind. At one table four men passed cards in a circle around a pile of coins in the center. A larger group gathered around a wire enclosure. When a bell sounded they began to shout, some shaking fistfuls of paper bills in the air. Two boys in the front stepped away to get a view from the other side, and Susannah saw what they all watched. A large orange rooster held another in the dust with its curved talons. It pecked the eyes of the losing bird with ferocious speed.

One of the card-playing men glanced up at her. He was about eighteen, his right cheek stretched over a wad of tobacco. He elbowed the man next to him. “Would you look at this creature here?” Then, to Susannah, he said, “My lovely, you look lost.” He spit a long arc of juice in the dirt at his feet.

She stared at him, frozen.

“Don’t be afraid. This is just the sort of place people might come when they’re lost.”

Susannah turned toward the road, and he called out after her. “That’s a lovely dress. Perhaps I can persuade you to lose it in a game of poker!”

She wanted to keep running, but her body was against her, her throat burning with thirst and her nose running, and when she came to a building a few stories taller than the others, with lamps in the upstairs windows, she sank onto the porch steps and leaned her cheek against the weathered baluster.
Just for a moment
, she thought.
Let me rest just for a moment.
Before she slipped away she heard a husky woman’s voice cry out. “Ah, Christ Almighty. Bettina, get out here!”