Barkskins

42. inlaid table

Captain James Duke, in his early fifties, was complicated, dark-haired, and somewhat handsome. He took a hard-headed and hard-handed stance to disguise an inner recognition of worthlessness. Quixotic, he swung from morbid self-pity to rigid authority over his crews and himself. The future flickered before him as a likely series of disappointments.

On the annual occasion of an all-day drunk (his ill-starred birthday) he dragged out the piteous litany that he had been pitched onto a British ship as a midshipman in his tenth year “as an unwanted pup-dog is tied to a sapling in the woods and left to be torn apart by wild beasts.” Even his appointment had come about only because his grandfather, old Nicolaus Duke, wrote to the more ancient Dred-Peacock and begged the favor of a recommendation. The favor granted, Nicolaus Duke and the antique peer died within weeks of each other and could be depended on no more. But James Duke lasted; repeatedly passed over for promotion in favor of candidates from influential landed families or members of the peerage, he lasted.

He had done moderately well on the examination, then stalled for years as a “passed midshipman.” But the Napoleonic Wars had lofted him swiftly over a lieutenancy to post captain. And there he stayed until, in his fifty-first year, a letter arrived from his Boston cousin Freegrace Duke, asking if he would consider a director’s seat on the Board of Duke & Sons to fill the vacancy left by the death of his father, Sedley.

That his father had died was a shock to James. He had heard no news from him nor of him for many years. He had never had a letter, nor a remembrance, never a visit. He thought that if Sedley had left him anything in his will it would be an insultingly paltry sum, as a single shilling, or a savage castigation for causing the death of his first wife, James’s mother; he had always known why his father hated him.

As the days passed he considered the idea of sitting on the Board of the family timber company. Little had ever come to James from the Dukes beyond a yearly allowance of fifty pounds. If he accepted, he would have to make concessions, would have to revert to being an American. He would bring a touch of English distinction to the no doubt squalid Board meetings of Duke & Sons — likely the reason they invited him to join them. He could imagine those meetings, a scarred oaken table with half a dozen backwoodsmen slouched around it on pine benches, tankards of rum-laced home-brewed beer, tipsy ribaldries, for he had no illusions that the Dukes were models of moral behavior.

Before he could draft his cool note of refusal, a letter arrived from a Boston law office signed by the attorney Hugh Trumbull. It was late December, the days short and dark, the worst of the English year. Advocate Trumbull begged James’s attendance at Trumbull & Tendrill as soon as he might manage the journey in order to hear something to his advantage; enclosed was a draft for one hundred pounds (drawn on Duke & Sons) for his passage to Boston. So rarely had the words “something to your advantage” come to him that he decided on the minute to accept Freegrace’s offer and remove permanently to Boston. “Advantage” meant more than a single shilling! He made his arrangements and booked passage for Boston.

• • •

The Western Blessing was crowded with German immigrants journeying to Pennsylvania to found a utopia and these people quarreled incessantly with each other about the details of the earthly paradise to come. To keep free of them James Duke stayed in his cabin during the day, coming out only to take the wintery air or to dine and drink with Captain Euclid Gunn, who was even older than himself but of an equal rank. Over a roast chicken they raked through sea acquaintances held in common. They spoke of retired and disabled friends as the level sank in the decanter. “Captain Richard Moore, one of the most ablest seamen I ever knew, is forced to open a herring stall in Bristol. You are a fortunate man, Captain Duke, to be connected to a wealthy family. Some of us depart from the sea to live out sad lives ashore selling fish or driving a goods cart. I myself have no expectations of a rich sinecure but hope I will go to Davy Jones afore I wheel a barrow of mussels.”

“Shocked to hear that Dick Moore has come to such a pass. But, Captain Gunn, I am sure that a happier future awaits you than clam mongering. Do you not have a reputation for fashioning small attractive tables?”

“It is only my amusement, you know, never to make a living from it.”

“You might try — everyone admires small tables — as that one,” he said and he pointed to an example of the captain’s handiwork, an ebon side table inlaid with a ship in full sail cut from walrus-tusk ivory. “Any mariner’s family would be happy to possess such a handsome article of furnishing.”

“You must have it when you disembark! I will make another, but you shall take this one as a memento of your years at sea and this voyage. I insist. Look, it has a secret drawer where you may keep your love letters, heh.”

• • •

Once a week other choice guests joined the captain’s table, and once a female, Mistress Posey Brandon, a dark-haired lady of considerable stature, quite overtopping the gentlemen at the table, but sitting silent for the most part unless pressed to speak. She was traveling home after a long visit with a relative, to rejoin her husband, Winthrop Brandon, a Presbyterian preacher who had made his name with a book of virtuous precepts. Another passenger, Thomas Gort, showed her excessive attention. James understood why Gort fawned; she had great onyx-dark eyes fringed by thick lashes. But Gort made too much of her. When Mrs. Brandon said she had visited Madame Tussaud’s exhibition, at the Lyceum Theatre, of wax curiosities of crime Gort begged for repulsive details. The lady demurred, saying she had averted her eyes before many of the exhibits.

“I do not see how a member of the gentler sex, even a German or French lady, could have fastened on such an unpleasant mode of expression,” she said and cut at her meat. “I understand she first gained her skill in making wax flowers for family funeral wreaths.” After that she said nothing more.

• • •

The days of tilting horizon passed slowly. As they neared the continent they saw increasing dozens of ships, wooden leviathans rope-strung like musical instruments, shimmering with raw salt. Boston harbor was so jammed they anchored a twenty-minute row from the docks.

James located his trunk, a scuffed brown affair, on the deck. He did not see the promised inlaid table with the boxes and bundles to go ashore and found Captain Gunn on the bridge.

“I thought I would thank you again for the table,” he said.

It seemed to him Captain Gunn showed a coolness. “Ah,” he remarked.

“Sir, I look forward to enjoying it in my new quarters.”

“Ah.”

“Shall I fetch it on deck myself?”

“Ha! You, Woodrow!” He bellowed at a sailor. “Fetch the small table in my cabin to the deck for this gentleman.” There was undoubtedly a sneer embedded in the word gentleman. James Duke guessed that Captain Gunn was in his true self a parsimonious man made momentarily generous by Madeira.

• • •

He was crowded into the tender with two dozen passengers, Bostonians from their accents. In their anxiety to get on shore they were very restive, passing bundles back and forth. A portly matron stood up to receive a small trunk. The weight surprised her and she swayed, tried to hold it, then fell with a shriek into the wintery harbor. Gasping, she clutched at the gunwale, and her weight dislodged two more passengers. Captain Duke stretched out his hand to a terrified man and in slow but inexorable motion the tender rose on its side and sent ten or twelve more people bellowing and clawing over the side. Gasping (for he could not swim), James Duke thrashed his arms, trying for the gunwale. His hand touched it, though he could barely feel it, then he went under again as the heavy woman wrapped one arm around him. He escaped his captor and with an atavistic swimming motion burst upward into the sweet air. Something clenched his hair and dragged him to the side of the tender, something got hold of the back of his coat collar and hauled relentlessly. He came up over the gunwale, crashed into the bottom of the boat and looked up at his savior — a woman wearing a black bonnet and staring at him with lustrous, intensely black eyes — Mistress Brandon, who had exhibited the strength of two men.

Chattering thanks and promises to call on his rescuer in a few days, James Duke returned to his homeland on this first day of February. In a sopping freeze he managed a cab to take him to the Pine Tree Inn. Waiting for his trunk to arrive he stood as close as he could to the fire drinking boiling tea. At last the trunk was hauled up to his room and trembling, he pulled on his warmest clothes — wool, wool, good English wool.

• • •

It was exceedingly cold in Boston; snow fell an inch or two every day for a week until all was muffled and silent, roofs, carriages, and still the snow came. Two days after his arrival, and with a drumbeat headache, James Duke walked to the offices of Trumbull & Tendrill slipping on icy cobblestones.

The clerk who let him in and took his hat gave him two swift startled looks before his habitual air of indifference returned, an empty expression that classified the people he met as side chairs or pen wipers. It was the same with the advocate Hugh Trumbull, whose mouth fell open and then closed. His wrinkled face suddenly creaked into a smile. He might have been English, thought James, taking in the fashionable double-breasted coat with notable lapels. Half-laughing in welcome, Trumbull made James comfortable in a chair near the snapping fire. The clerk brought in tumblers of hot rum toddy.

“You quite shook me! It’s uncanny how you resemble your late father.” Trumbull drank off half his glass of rum and waved his hand at the window, where the flying snow half-obliterated the street and the buildings across the way. “Would you believe that I have killed deer from this window?” he asked. “Of course it was many years ago and deer are now scarce. Now, sir,” he said, “to business,” and over the next hour laid out the details of Sedley Duke’s will.

• • •

Elated and confused James Duke returned to the Pine Tree with a weight of keys in his pocket. In essence, Sedley Duke had regretted his long hatred and left half of his rich estate to James, including his dwelling house north of Tremont Street complete with six acres of garden land, a fruit orchard, twenty acres of fresh meadow, a twelve-stall stable, two carriages and six matched pair of horses, nearly two million acres of forest in Maine (passed to Sedley from Charles Duke’s old partner, Forgeron), a collection of Indian relics, a stuffed crocodile, eight silver platters, four and twenty pewter plates, a turtle-shell hafted knife, a library of eighty-four books, two hogsheads of Portuguese vinho, eight barrels of rum, two waistcoats embroidered with bucolic scenes, five turkey carpets, six warehouses of lumber, twenty-seven acres of salt marsh, part interests in several ships, potash manufactories, a shingle factory, Ohio timberlands, bank accounts and stocks. And more that he could not remember.

Trumbull had enjoyed detailing the provisions of the will. “The servants are staying on at the house and hope that you will retain them. You may remember that your father called the property Black Swan and populated his pond with those birds. Sixty-odd years ago it was all rough, gloomy forest, and now we see handsome estates. I would advise you to keep the servants as they understand the peculiarities and virtues of the place and will make the transition to Boston pleasanter for you.”

James sat with his mouth open, hardly believing what he was hearing.

“Mrs. Trumbull and I hope you will do us the favor of dinner with us a week hence? Some of your cousins will be in attendance and we thought you might wish to meet them away from the offices.”

“Sir,” said James, “sir…”

• • •

His head aching fiercely and his throat a raw ribbon of fire, he took to his bed at the Pine Tree for the next four days and lay swooning and dreaming of the delights that lay before him. He would move to the house as soon as he was well, and then pay a call on the Winthrop Brandons and thank Mistress Brandon properly with a gift. But he was embarrassed to have been pulled from the water by a woman. He should have saved her. And should he wait until the Trumbulls’ dinner party or immediately pay a call on Cousin Freegrace Duke, who certainly knew of James’s unexpected fortune? No doubt he would try to wheedle it away to himself and the other Dukes or at least to the failing business coffers, for the gang of backwoodsmen had likely put the company in disarray. Perhaps Sedley Duke had been the white sheep in a black flock.

• • •

He directed the hired coachman to his father’s — now his — house. They rolled up a curved drive to a house of rosy brick with a black lacquer door set off by pedimented windows. He counted eight smoking chimneys. A grey-haired woman wearing a grey linsey-woolsey dress opened the door and her eyes widened as she took him in. She curtsied and said, in a welcome English voice, that she was Mrs. Tubjoy, “Mr. Sedley’s housekeeper, sir. And now in your service. We all welcome you.”

As he stepped into the entrance hall he was dashed into his childhood as though seated on a swing that someone had suddenly given a great shove. He knew every inch of this place. There was the complex mahogany staircase rising into the dim upper hall, there a gleaming carpet rod and there — there — the terrible hall stand, ten feet high, intensely authoritarian. This piece of furniture with its blotched looking glass, its hat hooks and cloak holders was the ceremonial guard of the house. Every day when Sedley came home he had placed his umbrella in the crooked holder, hung his tall black hat on the hook, his greatcoat on another and, divested of his city exterior, passed into the world of “home.” He went into his library and drank whiskey until the housemaid rang the bell for dinner. Young James and Sedley sat at opposite ends of the sixteen-foot table with never a word spoken. He shook the memory loose.

In the hall behind Mrs. Tubjoy stood half a dozen servants. He caught vainly at their names; the beardless grinning boy was Tom, the cook, Louisa. Two men brought his trunk and Captain Gunn’s small table into the hall. Mrs. Tubjoy said, “I am sure you wish to see the house, and after a little refreshment, rest until dinner? Follow me, sir, if you please.

“Perhaps you will wish to take your late father’s room, Mr. James?” she asked, opening a heavy mahogany door. The room was large, the windows were large and gave a view of great-trunked oaks.

Mrs. Tubjoy said, “Forgive my familiarity, Mr. James, but you strongly resemble my late employer.”

“Yes, Mr. Trumbull said so as well. But I cannot help it. I never saw the late Mr. Duke — my father — from the time I was a boy. So I did not know of the resemblance.” The monstrous bed was mahogany with a fringed green canopy, the posts carved into dolphins and mermaids. He detected a faded scent of cigar smoke, wool, leather polish and horsiness. As he leaned over the bed to examine the monogram on the pillow slip, another smell, altogether rancid and disgusting, rose from the mattress.

“Those coiled hair mattresses must be changed every few years,” said Mrs. Tubjoy, seeing his flared nostrils.

“I am happy you mention this, Mrs. Tubjoy,” he said. “Shall we not have all the old mattresses burned and replace them with best new?”

On the third floor they entered a room he liked immediately. It was moderate in size but with a large fireplace. In front of the fireplace stood two companionable wing chairs upholstered in faded red brocade. He admired the sun-softened color and suddenly remembered the table with the ivory inlaid ship that Captain Gunn had grudged him.

“Mrs. Tubjoy, could the boy bring my small table in the entryway up at once?”

“Of course. I’ll see to it,” she said and she glided from the room and down the stairs, grey and silent.

• • •

Alone, he examined the room. The furnishings were of rosewood rather than mahogany, and the bed had plain posts; there was neither canopy nor carved dolphins. He liked the brilliant turkey carpets on the floor and opened a small cabinet — it was empty, and he liked the emptiness. Above the washstand hung a large and slightly clouded mirror and he saw himself in it, the dimmed image of a man who appeared resolute, strong, with no sign that he was unworthy. The windows looked out over the oaks toward a shining strip of sea invisible from his father’s room.

He heard them on the stairs. Mrs. Tubjoy came in, followed by the grinning Tom lugging the table and seeming somewhat strained although the table was small. Of course ebony was heavy, ivory was heavy.

“Put it there,” said James to the boy, who stood breathing heavily and gripping the table with white fingers. He pointed to the space before the fireplace and between the wing chairs. The table was correct. This would be his room.

43. error of judgment

A visit to the stables was a heady experience. He had his choice of a barouche or a sporty gig, and Billy, the fat-cheeked stableboy, said there were four other vehicles in the carriage house including a green sleigh and a very pretty coach. It was a sunny day; he chose the barouche, finished in grey enamel with silver fittings. Billy said, “Mr. Sedley bought the greys special for this carriage,” and began to harness them. The coachman, Will Thing, came in, stuffing his arms into his livery jacket. He was garrulous and obsequious, sprinkling yes sirs around as though casting handfuls of seed on new-raked soil.

Out on the high road he pointed out landmarks and distinguished points, the establishments and houses of leading merchants and men of account. He moved on to the likes and dislikes of Mr. Sedley, and so James came to know his father through the impressions of his coachman.

• • •

The Winthrop Brandons lived in a small cottage in Williams Court near two taverns and a devotional bookshop. There was no room for the barouche to stand and Will Thing said he would wait in the yard of the Liberty Cod across the way.

As James walked up the tramped earth path to the door, in his hands his present of a silver dish (wrapped in a length of muslin) for Mistress Brandon, he heard unlikely sounds inside the house: meaty thumps and a shrill cry.

“Kind Jesus, he is beating her!” He stopped on the bottom step and stood irresolute: should he leave and come another time, or knock on the door and perhaps engage with an enraged husband in the flower of fury? Was it not his responsibility to save the woman who had saved him? It was, and he knocked very briskly. There was a hoarse shriek. He knocked again. The house went silent. After long minutes, just as he was turning away, the door opened and Mistress Brandon stood on the sill, somewhat breathless and with heaving bosom.

“Mr. Duke! What a pleasure. Come in, do come in, please.”

He looked at her but could see no signs of ill use beyond her rapid breathing and a disarranged black curl in front of one ear. The pupils of her beautiful eyes were dilated. He followed her into a disheveled sitting room, where opened books covered an octagonal table. There was a sideboard choked with pewter, five doors and a row of sunny windows.

“Mr. Duke, will you not take tea?”

“I would very much like to do so,” he said, resting his gift on a pine chair with a broken rung.

“I will just be a moment. We keep no servant so I prepare everything myself.” She strode out of the room and he sat looking about him. The bookcase, behind its glass-fronted doors, carried the collected expository discourses of many scribbling preachers. He looked at several of the open pages of the books heaped on the octagonal table. All were sermons, and a half-filled sheet of foolscap, pen and ink indicated that the master of the house, Reverend Brandon, was cribbing up filler for his coming sermon. James heard faint sounds in the distance: the rattling of a stove lid, a clinking sound and nearby, a very discreet low moan. He went to the window and looked out, was about to sit down again when there was a slithering sound behind one of the doors. He turned. The door was ajar and through the gap he saw the raw, wet face of a man of about forty, fair hair matted and sweaty, who muttered something between bleeding lips, then, at the jangle of the approaching tea tray, darted away.

“Here we are!” cried Mistress Brandon merrily, coming into the room with the tray. She looked about, but there was no place to put it.

“Just hold this a moment, will you?” she said, thrusting the tray at him. He held it, his mind whirring with curiosity. She swept the octagonal table free of the books of sermons with a strong arm, sent them crashing to the floor. She took the tray from his astonished hands.

“There. Don’t mind all the old books — just Mr. Brandon’s work. He has a perfectly good study but prefers to spraddle his books on the tea table. He says the light is better, but I think he does it to annoy. He was struck by lightning two summers ago and has been somewhat difficult since that day.” The great dark eyes gazed on him so intently he began to stammer and blurt.

“I have known men — mariners — others — struck by, by lightning bolts myself, others, you understand, and when it does not kill them, hurt them, outright, it disorders their minds — often — to a marked degree. Some recover, some never. Some.” And he went on, describing several cases of lightning-induced mental derangement.

“I fear that is the case with Mr. Brandon. I live in expectation that he will do himself a mortal injury so disordered are his mental faculties. He has great trouble preaching. He wanders about the streets at night.” She held out a plate of walnut cakes and he took one. She said, in an aggrieved tone, “These walnuts I gathered with my father last season. I picked out hundreds of nut meats and stored them for winter use. If Mr. Brandon made a better living we might have money to employ a gardener and kitchen help who would gather the nuts. It is very trying to scrimp along. I was not brought up to live in this manner. I was quite spoiled on my visit to my mother’s aunt in England. Her husband is a cloth merchant and everything in their country house is of the best quality. They have a city house as well, in London, and I wish you could see it. A veritable treasure.” Again the dark gaze.

“Mr. — Parson — Minister — Brandon was unable? To accompany you?”

“Quite unable. He has a little flock of parishioners and feels the responsibility. Also, his behavior is somewhat unpredictable and I thought it better not to bring him into polite society. A neighbor woman looked after him while I was away.”

He took the bull by the horns. “While you were preparing tea I thought I saw — Mr. Brandon, I assumed. He peed — no, peeped in that door,” James said and he pointed in an agony of embarrassment. “He looked somewhat — out of order?” In fact, he thought Mr. Brandon had looked swinishly drunk.

“I have no doubt,” she said. “He is always out of order. It is best to take no notice of his high jinks when he is in his fits.”

There seemed nothing to say to this. She cast her eyes down. A long silence fell. He sensed she was listening for noises in the back of the house. He studied her face, trying to combat the power of the black eyes by finding faults with her nose — too long — and her mouth — thin and wide.

Unable to think of more conversation — after the disclosures of the damaged husband it was too late to introduce the topic of weather — James Duke, suddenly glib, began to rattle off details of his good fortune, his surprise and delight at receiving a large inheritance from his long-estranged father.

“You see,” he said, “I was sent away from home at a young age to become a maritime officer, and over the years we never corresponded. My mother died at my birth and my father always blamed me for it. Still, I have survived and now come into a good situation.”

Mistress Brandon, turning her attention wholly on him, said, “But what a fortunate outcome! We all dream that a rich relative will shower us with gold and manses, but you are the first one I have ever known who has experienced such a turnover. What will you now do, live happily ever after? Is your wife ecstatic?”

“I will participate in the affairs of the family company, Duke and Sons, in what capacity I am not yet secure. And as to the other, I have no wife. I have ever been single.”

“Indeed!” cried Mistress Brandon. “Did you say Duke and Sons? The great timber company?” Her eyes were forest pools.

“Yes. It is the family business and I am joining it. I have been asked to serve on the Board — as my father did. But the truth is that I am somewhat nervous as I know very little about the timber trade.”

“My dear Mr. Duke! Perhaps I may be of help to you. I am the daughter of Phineas Breeley of the Breeley Lumber Contractors in New Brunswick. He has had many dealings in Maine. As a girl I assisted my father in his paperwork. I know something of the business and all that I know I shall impart to you. And then we must find you a wife.”

• • •

James visited the Brandons again the next week. Mrs. Brandon let him in.

Mr. Brandon was nowhere in sight—“closeted with another fit,” said Mistress Brandon, whose first name, he learned, was Posey. She smiled, she looked at his lips when he spoke, questioned him about his cousins and the Duke business, asked his advice on the choice between a deep blue shawl and one of rose cashmere, and then, from the corner cupboard, she pulled out a sheaf of closely inscribed pages held together by a dressmaker’s pin detailing the structure and proceedings of her father’s timber contracting business — his work as timber looker, the cheapest kinds of lumber camps, where to find the best men (Penobscot men, found in Bangor). He thought he had never met so intelligent and fine a woman and told her so. To himself he thought that not only were her eyes beautiful, but she had the grace of a swan, the voice of a dove. Batting those beautiful eyes and blushing from cleavage to hairline, she begged him to call on her again the next week, when he should have digested all the workings of her timber business scrawls. She would answer his questions and even quiz him if he thought it beneficial. But before then came the dinner at the Trumbulls’—seven the next evening. He would at last meet the Duke cousins.

• • •

It was a bitter cold and blowy evening spitting snow. Would spring never come? He arrived at the Trumbull house one minute before seven, and in the near dark saw the loom of a brick building. A black man in black livery opened the door for him. At the same moment the cousins and their wives arrived in their coach. They exchanged names and greetings in the vestibule while Mr. Trumbull urged them into the parlor, where a snapping fire spread out billows of heat. A bald-domed giant in an exquisite French-embroidered waistcoat stood near the fire holding a glass. This was the law partner, Josiah Tendrill, and he crushed James’s hand saying, in a blast of brandy, “Very like, very like indeed.”

Cousin Freegrace Duke was plump and short, breathing with asthmatic stertor. Freegrace’s brother, Edward, was a large heavy man like his father, George Pickering Duke. Neither resembled the backwoodsmen of James’s imagination. Freegrace’s wife, Lenore, was a pale beauty with smoky eyes and a flaxen chignon, who would attract attention in any gathering. James was astonished. How had such a fat little man got such a beautiful wife? Edward’s wife, Lydia, was of a more common type, brown braids wound around her head, and a habit of clearing her throat before she spoke.

They all kept glancing at James, and Freegrace finally said, “Forgive the scrutiny, but you are uncommon similar in appearance to Sedley. It is as if he went away for six months to the fountain of youth and tonight has rejoined us.”

James did not like the constant references to his father as the shaper of his appearance, however true they might be. A maid brought hot toddies for the gentlemen and glasses of sherry for the ladies. They spoke of the unseasonable weather and the cold.

“Truly unusual the way this winter hangs on,” said Mrs. Trumbull.

“Ah, James,” said Lenore, “you will harden up in Boston. The dulcet climate of England is in your distant past. Here we must wrap in furs to keep alive. Going out in the winter or a spring like this one is always a dangerous adventure.”

Josiah Tendrill told of a great snowstorm that had come in his childhood. “The snow fell for five days and when it ceased the drifts were up to the eaves of three-story houses. It took fifteen men three days to shovel us out.”

The dinner was long, but not a single word was spoken about the business, Duke & Sons.

At last an English pudding streaked with blue brandy fire came in, and when it was reduced to a rubble of crumbs the ladies retired to Mrs. Trumbull’s sitting room and the men to the library for cigars and imported cognac.

“I beg you tell me more of the family,” said James. “I remember a large number of cousins. Are not some of them involved in the family business?”

Edward sighed. “Time has not been kind to the family. We lost almost an entire generation. Your uncle Piet on a visit to Virginia took the cholera in the very warm summer of — what — years ago now, and did not survive the attack. He is buried there. Aunt Patience Deckbolt suffered mental exhaustion and finally passed away in her sleep. Three of her daughters still live in the city with their husbands and families and you shall meet them at a future gathering. None of their husbands — well, I shall forbear to describe the husbands. Patience’s grandson Cyrus is a clever young man and shows some promise for the company. We employed him. In time he will ascend the ladder of success. You will meet him when we have our meeting in June. Your half siblings, Sedley’s second family, have all repaired to Philadelphia. Maury, the eldest, who is Sedley’s only other son, your half brother I suppose we might say, works for a banking firm and I wish he had remained in Boston as he is certainly good timber.”

“And are there no other cousins and relatives I should know?”

“Your great-uncle Old Outger Duquet returned to Amsterdam or Leiden and lived there. He continued to draw his stipend from the business to the end. But now he is gone. His half-breed daughter lived in flagrant concubinage with an Indian in Outger’s house on Penobscot Bay. They produced an army of Indian brats. They are quite unknown to us. I have mentioned Cyrus Hempstead. And we have Lennart Vogel, the only son of your great-aunt Doortje Duquet. So, you see, it comes down to you to help replenish our ideas and fortune.”

• • •

Weeks passed and James often called on Mrs. Brandon. They had become great friends. It was foolish to pretend he was calling on both husband and wife. Mr. Brandon was always in his fits and James had never actually seen him save for the glimpse of wild eyes on his first visit.

He had read attentively through Mrs. Brandon’s notes on her father’s timber business. “There is still much I do not understand,” he said. “For example, I hear everywhere that Maine is the place for the best pine, but I know little or nothing of Maine.”

“What could be easier? Maine is not yet a state, but sure to be very soon. It is a large territory heavy with forests, especially the valuable white pine. Maine is spotted with a thousand lakes and ponds like a slice of yeasty bread is riddled with holes, has great rivers, each with a hundred branches. I can name some of them for you and next time you come I will have a map of sorts showing the best waterways — the Androscoggin, Kennebec, St. George, St. John and the Allagash, and the best, the Penobscot. All the rivers of Maine have countless streams feeding them, but you can only get logs down them with dams in the time of the spring freshets.” He could hardly think when she looked at him so intensely and struggled to find sensible questions.

• • •

One afternoon he came into the now-familiar parlor and found her sitting at the table with a stack of bills and accounts. Her face showed traces of tears, and wiping them away and throwing down her pen she rushed into the kitchen to make the tea. He glanced over the accounts; ye gods, what was she living on? The Brandons had no money at all. And was it right that such an intelligent and handsome woman had to scratch up the tea herself in some back kitchen? Although he had never been in any of the other rooms of the house, he set out for the kitchen. He would help her. Damme, he would help her!

She was stuffing kindling into the stove. The kitchen smelled of bad drains and the disagreeable odor of the wet soapstone sink, old ashes and a sour dishclout. She turned, frowning horribly when she heard his footstep, but the frown transformed into a tear-wet dimpled smile when she saw it was James.

“Ah! I thought—”

He knew what she thought; she thought it was the fit-prone Mr. Brandon blundering in on her, perhaps twitching and spewing, pissing in his filthy pants.

“My dear,” he said and took her hand. “You shall not endure this another day. I shall hire a woman to come in and do for you at once. Let us now forget the tea, go into the parlor and have a little talk about what must be done,” for he intended to pay up those nagging past-due accounts, intended to have Mr. Brandon put in an asylum, intended much more. He had money and he would put it to use. He could get what he wanted and he wanted Posey Brandon.

She confessed that she had pawned the silver dish he had brought her to pay some of the bills and to buy food. He was deeply shocked and deeply pleased that he could set matters right. When he left the house two hours later he had set changes in motion.

• • •

“Come in, sir,” said Mrs. Deere, the new cook, who also served as housemaid, opening the door. The parlor table gleamed with waxy luster and there was a jar of pussy willows on the windowsill. He could smell something pleasant in the distant kitchen, something Mrs. Deere said was “a rhubarb roly-poly, first rhubarb of the year.” And, as was now his right, he went to that delicious room where Mrs. Deere had performed miracles. The new stove glowed, the soapstone sink no longer reeked.

“Very good, Mrs. Deere. Have you had any trouble with — with Mr. Brandon?”

“No sir. I make him bread and butter and hot milk, which Dr. Hudson says is good for deranged people. Missus Brandon takes it to him and brings back the dishes.” She came closer and whispered: “But I have to lock away the leftover joint as he strives for meat.”

“I hope we will have a solution to the problem before long. I met with Dr. Hudson myself this morning. Would you be so good as to bring tea into the parlor while I discuss the doctor’s findings with Mistress Brandon?”

“And dried apple pie?” she said, pointing with her chin. “Or roly-poly?”

“And pie,” he agreed, for rhubarb could be sour.

• • •

“My dear,” he said to Posey Brandon, waving his hand over his saucer of steaming pie. “I spoke with Dr. Hudson this morning for some time. He is of two opinions. He thinks it possible that Mr. Brandon may someday come to his senses. He thinks fresh air would be very good for him, and a place to walk and exercise. To that end he suggests that you send Mr. Brandon to the care of a farm family. They would be glad of the extra money and would keep him clean and expose him to much fresh air. He has a farmer in mind, a Jeremiah Taunton, who lives about five miles out of town, a man of calm ways. His wife is a generous woman, very pleasant and quiet. They have two or three children. They would welcome Mr. Brandon and house him comfortably. Does that not sound a good solution?”

“Oh yes, yes. But you said Dr. Hudson had two opinions.”

“I did. And he does. He said, should by any chance Mr. Brandon not thrive in the farmer’s care or should he become wild and phrenetic, it might be possible to arrange for him to be housed in Williamsburg, in Virginia, at the Public Hospital for Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds, a unique institution that Boston absolutely must emulate. Here we see the mad and incompetent wandering the countryside, but in Williamsburg they are kept in a special place and treated. The caretakers effect many cures with plunge baths, various drugs, bleeding and certain salves. There are exercise yards.”

“It sounds very well. But first let us send him to the farmer. Should we not send his books of sermons as well? He might resume reading and writing. It meant much to him in earlier times before that lightning strike.”

“I will ask Dr. Hudson. He did mention ‘complete rest and quiet,’ but perhaps books would be allowed. This pie is delicious, is it not? Are you pleased with Mrs. Deere?”

“I am most pleased. And with Mrs. Blitter, who is a fair enough housekeeper. You are very good to me and I am grateful.” She looked at him with her great dark eyes.

But the next day he called again to say that books would not be allowed; books could cause brain fever even in people who had not been struck by lightning. The doctor himself would take Mr. Brandon to the farm on the coming Monday. In his breast pocket James heard the doctor’s bill crackle a little. A small price to get rid of the wretched Brandon.

44. keepsake

Spring came at last in early June, a rushing spate of warm days, the gutters streaming with meltwater, people smiling and walking about as though their legs were new-made. Birds raced through the branches, the smell of earth dizzied the senses. Posey Brandon opened the windows of her renovated and refurnished house before James Duke arrived for his afternoon tea. But he was late. She went to the window a hundred times and peered down the street, hoping to see the gig bowling along. On the tea table lay a tiny packet wrapped in blue paper, the minuscule label bearing the words “James Duke a Keepesake.” Would he not find it presumptuous? He would surely take his leave immediately, leaving it exposed on the table. He would withdraw Mrs. Deere and Mrs. Blitter. The bills would pile up.

Why did he not come? Was her benefactor ill or had he met with an accident? Surely he would have sent a messenger for any ordinary delay. Had he somehow found out about — it — the keepsake? She paced. The sunlight color began to deepen and late-afternoon chill flowed into the room. She closed the window and called for Mrs. Blitter.

“I am worrit that Mr. Duke is delayed for some reason. And it grows chill. I think we need a small fire in this room. If he does not come soon I must send a messenger to inquire.”

“We can send Mrs. Deere’s boy — that slow coach is still in the kitchen — he has been at it all day—taking out the old flour and molasses barrels.” Her voice was scornful.

“Yes, let us send him. Here, I will write a brief note.”

But before the fire was burning well Mrs. Deere’s boy was back.

“He was at the corner. I give him your note but he’s right at the gate. Hear his horse?”

• • •

“I am extremely sorry to be late,” said James Duke. “I was delayed by Dr. Hudson, who called on me only moments before I left. To be brief about it, he says that Mr. Brandon has become ill from some other source than his derangement. He coughs continuously and cannot keep any food down. He is very thin and weak. To spare the farmer’s wife extra work I have hired a day nurse to assist, for he is in bed in his room and cannot rise from it. Dr. Hudson has ordered two fresh eggs a day beaten into warm milk with a spoonful of rum and says he may recover with the warm days but he may not. We can only wait.”

Her entire body flooded with relief. That Mr. Brandon would make a generous exit was her deepest wish. It changed the afternoon. They both sat silent and pensive, both thinking of Mr. Brandon. She could not now give James Duke the gift. It would not be apropos. At first opportunity she slid the little packet up her sleeve unobserved. So they sat drinking tea and saying very little until the twilight deepened.

“I must go, I fear,” said James Duke, rising. “I wish—” But what he wished was not spoken.

“Of course I would like to see Mr. Brandon if there comes any — crisis,” she murmured.

“Dr. Hudson said he would come straight to you if, if, if the illness took a grave turn.” As he spoke the doctor’s gig turned in to the street and drew up before the house.

“Oh heavens,” said Mrs. Brandon. James stood waiting, exultation seizing him.

“Dr. Hudson, ma’am,” said Mrs. Blitter, opening the parlor door to show him in.

“Bring more tea, Blitter,” said Mrs. Brandon. She looked at the doctor. His face was expressionless, noncommittal.

“Dr. Hudson, do take tea with us,” she said although her bladder was bursting with tea. “I will just see to it,” and she strode briskly out of the room.

James Duke looked at him. “Is there a change?” he asked in a low voice.

“There is a change,” the doctor answered and said nothing more, waiting for Mrs. Brandon to return. The lady returned, skirts swishing with the violence of her stride.

“Please tell us, Doctor, how Mr. Brandon does.” Her voice was calm and steady.

“I am happy to say that he has rallied, rallied enough to eat heartily and drink like a camel. His derangement seems rather more settled as well. I think he must have passed some sort of crisis. He recognized me, inquired after your health, praised the farmer and his wife. He still objects to milk and bread but in a week or so we may try him with breast of chicken. I feel he might be able to come home soon. Certainly the day nurse is no longer needed,” he said with a nod at James indicating his release from that expense.

Posey was stunned into silence for a long, long beat. “Ah! But can I care for him here? The space is so limited, and the air is not the bracing country air. And certainly not if his derangement persists.” The fresh tea tray and a dish of seedcake arrived; Posey Brandon poured with a steady hand. “Sugar? Yes, lemon?” She passed a cup to the doctor.

“We will wait and see if he continues to improve. I allowed that tonight he may sleep on the farmhouse porch for the benefits of fresh air. In a week if he has grown stronger I think he will be little trouble. I can always send the nurse with him if there is any doubt. It’s rather an interesting case and it would be far easier for me to follow his progress if he were here instead of out in the country. Wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Duke?”

“Of course,” said James Duke in a grudging voice. “Who could disagree?”

When the clock struck the half hour the men rose, made their good-byes and went out together. James sent Mrs. Brandon a scorching look she quite understood. She smiled and nodded and as soon as the door closed ran to her room muttering sailors’ curses and threw herself into the pillows.

• • •

In the street gloaming it was difficult to see the doctor’s expression when James asked him if he might call on Mr. Brandon.

“Perhaps, in a day or two you might, but I fear that the appearance of a stranger alone might startle him into a relapse. I equally do not yet approve a visit from Mrs. Brandon. It is one of his crotchets that he has developed a fear of her and claims — ridiculous as it sounds — that she somehow harms him. But that will likely pass as he recovers his reason. Shall we go out to the farm together in the morning?”

“If I find I have no other appointments that would be agreeable,” said James Duke. But later, when the moon rose, he went to the stable, saddled his horse and in the gathering darkness took the high road out of the city toward the farm where Mr. Brandon lay dreaming of rib roast.

45. error compounded

The quiet morning broke into noisy pieces when Farmer Taunton’s youngest son, William, a grimy boy with a common face, pounded into the town bareback on a black plow horse. He went panting to the house of his married sister, Charlotte, and she roused her husband, Saul Fleet, who ran to magistrate Jonas Gildart’s house and blurted out the tale, his voice leaping a high whinny and sinking back with the gravity of the news. The magistrate set his full coffee cup down. He pushed it away, sloshing the table.

Saul Fleet blurted, “Charlotte’s brother! He come in from the old place, brought word the old man been found dead. Layin on the porch floor. Strangled or choked looks like. Said his neck all crooked, color a rhubarb stalk.”

Mrs. Gildart brought her husband a new bowl of coffee and the magistrate continued his questions. Saul answered eagerly: No, he didn’t think the old man was given to falling down. No, his mother-in-law slept in the house. Had done so for many years, after a dispute over Mr. Taunton’s snoring, which shook the house timbers. Mr. Taunton slept on the porch in good weather and on the kitchen daybed in winter. He, Saul Fleet, had no idea why anyone would harm Mr. Taunton, a hardworking inoffensive man who did some blacksmithing on the side, was a regular churchgoer and neither drank nor smoked. His turnips were much prized.

The magistrate sent for Charlotte Fleet and her young brother William, who had brought the news. Charlotte knew nothing except what she had heard from William, and the magistrate turned to him.

“Well, boy, I have a few questions. You are William Taunton, the son of Jeremiah Taunton, is that not correct? Good, good. Now, what family members were sleeping in the house last night?”

“My mother, sir. My sister Abigail, me, and T-T-Tom.” He stuttered and mumbled.

“Who is Tom?”

“He is my big brother.”

“Were there any servants in the house?”

“Only Sarah Whitwell. She helps Mother with the washin and comes after prayers Sunday night to be at hand early on Mondays. She sleeps in the little bed in Mother’s room.”

“Did your father allow any vagrants or strangers to sleep in the barn last night?”

“No sir, he never lets them sleep in the barn. Unless they pay. In New England money.”

“And were there any of these paying strangers present last night?”

“Only Mr. Brandon, sir.”

“And who is Mr. Brandon?”

“He is a preacher sir, but is funny in the head from lightnin. He shows a gret big scar on his face. Mother cared for him and Mr. Duke paid Father. He stayed with us since two months or more. Father give him the good front room.”

“Who is Mr. Duke?”

“I don’t know, sir, but Father said he was a rich man. He drives a gig with two greys. Very good horses. I thought I heard them horses last night but it was a patridge in the woods.”

“And was Mr. Brandon in the house last night?”

“Yessir. Dr. Hudson said he was some better and could go home soon. He felt very well yesterday and wanted to sleep on the back porch for the fresh air. Pa said he wished Mr. Brandon could stay on as he was a good boarder and the money helped us.”

“And did Mr. Brandon sleep on the back porch last night?”

“No sir, he did not. Father’s bed is there and he said he would not be turned out of it for any man.”

“Did Mr. Brandon like your father?”

“Most times. But then he said he was sick and tired of bread and milk, which was what we fed him. Pa said, ‘Eat it or go hungry.’ And Mr. Brandon squinched up his eyes very fierce.”

“And where is Mr. Brandon now?”

“He is helpin Mother and Tom lay Father out. He’s mighty heavy, is Pa.”

The magistrate exchanged significant glances with two men who had come in with Dr. Hudson and dismissed the boy.

“It may be—” said the magistrate, “it may be that we must look at this fellow Brandon. Doctor, what can you tell us about him? Is he sick or well, what is the nature of his illness, is he strong, what is his disposition, does he have a grudge against Mr. Taunton?”

“He has been suffering from the effects of a lightning strike he sustained two years past and has certainly been much disturbed in his mind, babbling and confused and plagued by suspicions. But yesterday he appeared to be a little better and said he wished soon to go home.”

“In your opinion, Doctor, is it possible that this preacher nourished a hatred of Mr. Taunton on account of the bread and milk or whatever reason, and gripped by a mad fit in the night crept in and strangled him?”

“He was given to fears, that is true, but I never heard him say anything against Mr. Taunton. Except the bread and milk, which was being fed him on my orders. Of course he may have been overcome with jealousy over the porch bed. I gave him leave to sleep there but the boy says Mr. Taunton denied permission.”

“Could he not, in his disturbed mind, have laid the blame for the repetitive comestibles on Mr. Taunton? And the sequestering of the porch bed?”

“Yeee-es,” said the doctor reluctantly. “Of course it could have fallen out that way. But I do not think he is strong enough to strangle a man.”

“But it has been known, has it not, for insane persons to exhibit great strength in their fits?”

“It has been known, certainly. There are many mysteries associated with insanity.”

“So you knew him to be insane?”

“I knew him to have been deranged by a lightning bolt. He did have fits and temper tantrums. But I was quite sure he was mending well and soon would be as sane as you or I.”

“ ‘Soon would be’ is not the same as ‘was.’ And if there was no one there but the family and this Mr. Brandon, subject to fits of insanity, I put it to you that it was he who strangled Mr. Taunton. Gentlemen, I ask you to go out and return with Mr. Brandon, who must be examined and stand trial.”

Mr. Brandon was incarcerated and relapsed into fulminating babble of his innocence. His loyal flock stood in vigil outside the gaol singing hymns, and later, outside the court, when, after a speedy trial he was found guilty and a date set for his hanging.

46. business meeting

All through a hot damp Boston summer James Duke courted Posey Breeley Brandon. He knew that no one could ever grasp what she meant to him. He had been sent away as a boy, passed over for promotion, he had been poor and crushed. And then how everything had changed. The crown of joy was Posey. He knew also that his cousins would be scandalized by the age difference between them, for he was now fifty-five and Posey twenty years younger. She was his constant visitor. In the evenings, when a cooling sea breeze moved inshore, they walked in the rose garden, around and around the sundial, talking of lumber and true love’s knot, her silk skirt rustling, her great dark eyes cast low. They walked from the first leaves on the roses to pink buds, to opened petals, to drowsy full-blown lush blooms, to faded blossoms, frost-nipped browning leaves. He would do anything for her, had already done so without regret. She asked him for nothing except his company and his conversation. She paid rapt attention to everything he said, he who all his life had been ignored. But the getting of Posey was hard, and as long as Mr. Brandon lived (he had escaped hanging) she was not gettable. Not only did the minister’s congregation include two members connected to important Boston families but Brandon himself was the nephew of Judge Archibald Brandon, who moved silently behind the closest circles of power. The judge would not see his unfortunate relative, a man whom he believed had been the innocent victim of an evil marriage and a lightning bolt, hanged as a murderer.

“I almost understand why God laid this affliction on him,” said the judge to Dr. Hudson, whom he had discovered after a short search. “The city has become a stinking mire of corruption and evildoing. I see this as a sign of God’s punishing vengeance. And yet I cannot feel my nephew was guilty of strangling this farmer over disagreeable suppers. He was ever a gentle man.”

“There may be a way for him to avoid that — that end,” said the doctor. “I think we must appeal to the Williamsburg authorities at the Public Hospital for Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds. There was some indication earlier that he might be harbored there.” The weight of the judge’s name, the pleas of Mr. Brandon’s flock and Dr. Hudson’s carefully composed essay on the felon’s gentleness secured him a room at the Virginia retreat. In the company of others with disordered minds Mr. Brandon shone out as a model inmate.

• • •

Freegrace called the October business meeting of Duke & Sons. As always James felt the significance of being a voting Board member. He dressed carefully: tan wool pantaloons with a narrow fall and instep straps, tan vest piped in black, single-breasted cutaway coat. He carried Sedley’s gold watch, and to its chain he had attached Posey Breeley Brandon’s gift, a gold-wreathed fob that enclosed a miniature painting of her beautiful left eye, for intimate eye paintings were all the rage. Beautiful the subject was, but it had a certain fixing quality not altogether pleasant. Beside him Freegrace and Edward seemed drab in their old-fashioned knee breeches and pale silk stockings, the backs spotted with mud.

Freegrace introduced a cadaverous man with eyes like candles in a cave as Lennart Vogel, who had missed the last two meetings as he was traveling. He was Doortje Duquet’s only child, and so a cousin of Sedley Duke, James Duke’s hard-hearted father. After a cosseted and overeducated life, Lennart eventually came to Boston and made the acquaintance of his Duke relatives. No one was more fastidious in his dress and on this day he wore pearl-grey pantaloons buttoned four inches above the ankle over white silk stockings, his shoes the merest slippers, replaced every fortnight. He had made himself into an indispensable walking encyclopedia of figures, trends and innovations affecting the timber trade. His greatest value, Edward whispered to James, lay in his fluent command of seven languages. Lennart had another side. For two months every year he put away his town clothes, donned heavy bush pants and logging boots and went into the woods, sometimes with an Indian guide. He said he was fishing and visiting subcontractors’ logging camps. He seemed unusually cheerful when he returned to Boston.

• • •

The meeting room was warm with a fire to spite the autumn chill. Freegrace said, “Let us begin.” There was a great scraping of chair legs and a rustle of paper.

“This year the Maine drives got under way late, all was delayed, with the contractors hoping for rain to raise the rivers,” said Freegrace. “We hear from those jobbers that it was only a fair winter, not at all like the snows we had here. Meager snow forced the men to resort to dams to get the sticks down feeder streams and into the river — much labor and time. The jobber is demanding recompense. He won’t get it. I do have some figures for the previous year, which should cheer.”

James interrupted in a low voice. “Excuse my ignorance — how many men do we employ in the woods?”

Lennart Vogel answered, the figures ready in his mouth. “Better than one thousand this year for six to eight months. At ten dollars a month and their bed, board and tools. Ridiculous as it may seem, we’ve increasingly had to hire well-known cooks as other camps will get the better men by dishing up fancy vittles. Vittles!” He clearly relished the slangy American word and thought of himself as an adept slang slinger. “We figure twenty cents a day to board each man, which is a great deal of provision. We are forced to hire cooks who might command the kitchens of elegant restaurants save for personality blemishes.”

Edward spoke up. “But victualing is not the greatest expense. Corn and hay for the oxen. Hay is almost twenty dollars a ton and we last year used more than five thousand tons. Corn is a dollar a bushel and the oxen will gorge on four thousand bushels the season. The oxen are dear and so are the drivers — twenty thousand dollars in costs. Then there are timberland purchases and palms to be greased, especially in procuring the so-called Indian lands that the idiot Congress strives to keep from us with its ‘Nonintercourse Act.’ ”

Freegrace muttered, “In what other country must businessmen trouble with murderous barbarians coddled by the government?”

Edward continued on his set path. “We have high survey expenses, and though we have been cutting most on our own lands and have our own mills and so have few stumpage or mill rent costs, there are a hundred other expenses — axes and tools, grindstones, oil, iron, blacksmiths and their forges, log boomage and lockage.” The clerk’s pen scratched violently as he tried to keep up with Edward’s rapid speaking.

Cyrus thought James looked puzzled and said, “Sir, boomage is the cost for making booms to hold the logs in a body and lockage—” But Edward disliked being interrupted and said curtly, “Cyrus, you may please save your explanations for later. I am sure James understands the terms. What we need to discuss today is first, the precipitous decline in large, first-rate white pine, and second, the persistent problem of timber thieves plundering our holdings and other cheatings and malfeasances. And among the thieves those who manufacture shingles and clapboards are the most terrible dishonest. The thieves are worse on the public lands, but they show no hesitation in cutting Duke trees. New Brunswick loggers are the bane of the forest. Wherever they see it they cut it and then run with it. New Brunswick has no thriving farms nor vigorous towns. Its residents are the locusts of the forest. We regard New Brunswickers as our enemies.” He stopped to draw breath, reviewed what he had said and allowed that “the problem might be somewhat ameliorated if ever the boundary lines with Canada were clearly drawn.” He was stuttering a bit, uneasy with James Duke’s presence — the man too closely resembled his dictatorial father, Sedley, who had made Edward’s life miserable with harping and picking. And James’s awful watch fob flashing its censorious stare rattled him.

James leaned back. He had planned to tell his cousins over the evening dinner that the widow Posey Brandon had accepted his proposal of marriage and that they had set the wedding date for May. After news of Mr. Brandon’s death from pneumonia in Virginia he had waited a decent interval — twenty-four hours — before proposing to her. She had accepted on the spot and he had embraced her and tried to seal the betrothal with a tender kiss. How surprised he had been by the fierce and spitty ardor with which she returned his dry kiss. Later, much later, he was to think back on it and interpret it as a warning, a warning he did not — could not — heed. But now his brain whirred with alarming scenarios of how his cousins would take the news that he was marrying the daughter of David Breeley, a New Brunswick logging contractor. He had not yet met his future father-in-law, but from what Posey told him he had no doubt that Mr. Breeley flourished a free hand with the ax, damnation to any damned border.

James, gazing out the window, saw a distant smudge in the sky that he had learned to recognize as a body of passenger pigeons.

Cyrus spoke up. “I thought we were to hear today of new markets — was I mistaken in this apprehension?”

“Not at all,” said Lennart, speaking out of turn to judge by Edward’s glare. James guessed that Lennart too often put himself forward. “We are shipping more and more lumber every year, and not from Boston, but out of Bangor. We have heard that Cuba wants sugar boxes. Freegrace is in correspondence with a Cuban dignitary on this possibility. The West Indies are hungry for everything — boards, shingles, clapboards, pickets and lath, hemlock bark, even some hardwood. Even some hackmatack knees. We cannot send enough shiploads to the West Indies, and of course we bring back rum, sugar and molasses. Many European cities have discovered the utility of wood paving blocks, and such a market allows us to dispose of wood otherwise wasted. And not only Europe, but Charleston, Buenos Aires, yes, even Australia. I have not mentioned the growing coast trade.”

“We are straying from the subject,” said Freegrace.

“Quite, and thank you, Freegrace, for hauling us back so smartly,” said Edward. “Well, then, Armenius Breitsprecher, our timberland looker since his father passed on, was gulled with a false map and a false report for the lands on the White Moose branch and we have just now discovered the fraud. The surveyor’s map showed that the timber grew thick along a watercourse, the north branch of the Moose, but the reality proved the stream lay miles distant from the pine. Breitsprecher says he went to see the timber at the time, now four years past, but it was winter and deep snow. The surveyor insisted the frozen stream lay under the snow beneath their feet. And because of the waist-deep snow Armenius could not thoroughly investigate the trees. He admits it. So the report on which we based our purchase indicated a good stream and a hundred million of pine. In fact, there were only fourteen million. And a distant stream. We had great expenses in road building and drawing the timber out with hired ox teams. The question now is whether or not we should continue to retain Breitsprecher as our land looker. He made an expensive error. He relied overly on a thieving surveyor.”

Freegrace sighed. “Yes, we could discharge Breitsprecher but he is an experienced and able land looker and has served us for many years and made Duke and Sons a great deal of money. This is almost the only instance of bad judgment on his part. I know he regrets it. I suggest we speak sternly to him but retain his services.”

“I agree,” said Lennart Vogel. “Judgment of the costs and profit to be obtained from a standing forest is difficult and takes many years of experienced looking.” He, too, had noticed the unwinking watch fob and felt the presence of the unknown original.

“What do you think, Cyrus?”

“Why, how difficult can it be to find good timberland judges? Surely Breitsprecher is not the only fellow who can look at trees. Are there not legions of such men trooping through the forest?” He leaned back carelessly in his chair, crossed one leg over the other and dandled his right foot.

Edward spoke again. “There are indeed, most of them crooked scalawags who tender false reports about the quality of the pine, all sound trees, of course, which turn into core-rotted hulks when the ax smites. James, what do you think?”

“If he has been an honest employee all these years — how long has he worked for us?”

“Since he was a boy under the tutelage of his father, say thirty-odd years now.”

“After thirty years of faithful service and only one misjudgment of a lying surveyor, it seems to me extreme to let the man go. I argue to keep him on.”

“All in favor,” droned Freegrace. “Now, let us pass on to the problems of trespass and plundering, which grow apace. We have put out warning notices that trespassing on our woodlands will lead to prosecution. We only hope the notices are noticed!”

He flourished a paper and read aloud:

This gives notice that the Timber marked D&S stacked on Distress Brook Lot 17 is the property of Duke & Sons, Boston. All persons are hereby warned not to meddle with same or drive it from where it now lays or risk prosecution. Measures will be taken to detect persons evading this notice.

“A hollow threat,” said Edward. “Maine juries are utterly corrupt. They find for the criminals — their relatives and associates — every time.”

James said, “Who are these lawless men who cut your — our — timber?”

“Every man!” Edward said angrily, spit flying. “They are mostly small, mean men seeking to make some money. But there are so many of them. They are often savage hungry fellows who stop at nothing. They fight the owners until blood flows and heads are cracked. Even when we catch and prosecute them, they and their friends slip back at night and continue cutting. Settlers, failed businessmen, shingle makers and clapboard sawyers, those are the thieves. And moonlight nights see many good pines fall.”

“It is more than just the stealage,” said Edward. “Their campfires do great harm and burn much timber. Some of these men will deliberately set fires on the edge of good timber, then connive to purchase the entire valuable woods as burned wasteland for a meager cost. And in any case the damned poxy settlers clear their wretched plots with fire when they will, and in the dry season the fire escapes and devours our wood.”

Cyrus pulled at his cravat and tried to sum up the situation. “The truth is, gentlemen, that Maine — and New Brunswick — forests are swarming with lawless men. What we long for is virgin woodland without these human locusts. As Maine used to be.”

James asked if the Ohio lands his father had visited were not just such a virgin Eden.

“No, it is good timber, but there is not that much. A few years’ worth. We must think far ahead into the future. We hear of great forests farther west, and this may be the time to investigate the reports. I have several times proposed we meet with Armenius Breitsprecher and ask him to make the journey westward. Would he not be eager to reclaim his honor after the mishap on the north branch of the White Moose?”

“Sensible if one of us went with him,” said Lennart Vogel. “For an unbiased report. It could be a valuable expedition.”

“Easy for you to say, Lennart — you are a world traveler, but most of us prefer to stay put in Boston and deal with the accounts and contracts. Perhaps you should go.” Vogel shook his head.

“Might we not look closer to home? I have heard that there is a vast kingdom of white pine along the Susquehanna and Allegheny Rivers in Pennsylvania. Some say that this is the finest white pine that ever grew,” said Cyrus.

“Ah, they said the same about Maine pine, the same of New Brunswick pine. We should start buying with an eye to fifty years hence,” said Freegrace.

“God knows why. Take what we can get as soon as we can get it is what I say. I am not interested in fifty years hence as there is no need for concern. The forests are infinite and permanent,” said Edward.

• • •

The dinner, at an inn on Rowes Wharf, was simple — baked golden plovers, salmon and succotash, fresh pease. They talked freely, loosened from the fetters of the formal meeting. Cyrus explained boomage and lockage at length to James, then moved on to fire.

“You know, talk of fire could well have included our own depredations. One of our contractors, on Edward’s orders, set fire to several haystacks the thieves had brought to one of our pineries to feed their oxen. The fire got away and burned not only the haystacks but the pines they were trying to steal. So you see, we can give as good as we get.” James found the logic of this summation impaired, but said nothing. He began to wonder if Cyrus Hempstead was not a dunce.

“James,” said Lennart Vogel, “by now you know that timber profits are almost entirely based on transportation costs. Steamboats can change the way we move our logs.”

Edward spoke up as soon as he had swallowed his mouthful of pandowdy. “We know the English are using steam locomotives in collieries. Why shouldn’t steam engines succeed? In a few years, Freegrace, we might be building a railway into our dryland pineries, where no rivers flow. Right now every penny we gain still depends on the rivers. The steam engine could have a profound effect on our business.”

“Edward, you are right,” said Lennart. “There is certainly a mood of great things in the air, days of glorious prosperity ahead.”

The rum went around the table and around until the Board members were speaking so loudly at one another that a florid man at a distant table asked the proprietor if they might be put out in the street.

“That’s Saltonstall,” said Cyrus, “the old barnacle. He believes himself the most important man in Boston. If he wants quiet let him stay home in his mausoleum.”

• • •

At midnight James lurched out to his coach, where Will Thing sat waiting in the darkness. In half an hour he was in his library, where the embers still glowed. Here he had a final glass of brandy. And so, his head spinning, James Duke went to bed.

• • •

It seemed only minutes before the maid Lily woke him.

“Sir, sir, Mistress Brandon is downstairs and wishes to breakfast with you.”

“Oh my heart and soul,” said James, “tell her I will be down in a few minutes. Do give her some tea or coffee or—”

“Yessir.”

It was close to forty minutes before he came into the breakfast room, bathed, freshly shaven, in clean linen and a black cashmere suit, for the day was chilly.

“My dear,” he said. “What brings you here so very early?”

“Why, James, I am eager to hear every detail of the business meeting. You know my great interest in your business affairs. You must tell me all about your cousins, who said what, the problems, the decisions, the plans for the future.”

He buttered a hot biscuit and dipped it in a dish of honey, leaned over his plate, bit it and avoided dripping on his waistcoat. He began to talk. It was exhilarating to have someone pay such close attention to his descriptions. She asked intelligent questions and quizzed him on the Board members’ mannerisms.

• • •

Mrs. Brandon, back at her house, went to a little walnut escritoire James had had made for her, withdrew a brown leather-bound book half-filled with misspelled notes in her sprawling hand. She began to set down the salient points of the business meeting. She made special note of Lennart Vogel’s recommendations that Duke & Sons make investments outside the timber industry, especially in the booming textile mills, or cane sugar production.

47. needles and pins, needles and pins

James Duke’s oft-postponed wedding day — he feared his cousins’ reaction to his connection with a New Brunswick lumberman — began with a shock like a snapped fiddle string. His future father-in-law arrived in midmorning astride a limping, rolling-gaited woods horse of indifferent color. And who had ever seen such a physiognomy as that possessed by Phineas Breeley? His head looked as though it had been lopped off with a broadax just above the eyebrows and then squeezed back together leaving a great horizontal scar. Below the scar sat two anthracite-black eyes, a much-broken nose (a sure sign of coarseness) and a lipless mouth opening. His left ear was missing, only a hairy hole remained. The man let himself carefully down to the ground and advanced on Posey. He gripped her in a mighty hug, plastered her face with kisses that sounded like popping corn and turned to James.

“Well,” he said. “Here I be. Ready for the shivaree and our Grand Trip.” Posey had invited her father to accompany them on their honeymoon to New York. She had wanted James to invite Freegrace and Edward Duke and their wives to the ceremony and the celebratory dinner, but he found excuses — Edward was traveling, Freegrace’s wife was abed with pleurisy — and he presented very excellent reasons for not asking the others. Indeed, he had not told them of his impending marriage. Not yet, not yet, he temporized.

“I know you’ll love my papa,” she had said, “and he’s always wanted to see that New York. It will be company for us in a place we don’t know no one.” Now the moment had arrived. James and Posey would be getting into a hired coach with this man in a few hours. Unsure how to greet the fellow, James looked covertly at the horse’s hooves, which showed founder rings. No wonder the wretched beast limped.

“Let us turn out your horse in the pasture,” he said. “I see he is sore-footed. He may have a holiday while we tour New York.”

“Now, fellows, don’t spend too much time talkin,” said Posey, looking at the brass mantel clock. “We are to be at the magistrate’s eleven sharp. It lacks only half an hour to that time.”

“Sore foot or not, all the same to me,” said Phineas Breeley. “They are all jades and nags. I have No Love for Horses.”

I can see that, thought James, somewhat put off by the fellow’s odd emphases.

• • •

The ceremony was brief and, as James had hoped, unknown to his cousins. Father and daughter chattered animatedly on the long coach trip while James, across from them but huddled into the corner, tried to doze. The father’s arm encircled Posey and occasionally he peppered her with his clicking kisses. The day waned and twilight darkened the coach interior and they talked on of people born and dead, accidents, departures from the scene, violent weather, amusing happenings, the faults of the men who worked for Breeley. All night they talked, a great telling of names and antics. The coach stopped for a change of horses just after dawn and Breeley, who seemed quite lively, obligingly ran into the hostelry and came back with a pan of weak coffee and six cold boiled eggs. He swallowed half the contents of the coffee pan and four of the eggs, tossing the shells out the window. Refreshed by this repast he addressed his first remarks to James.

“I guess you and me will have many a good old Woods Talk. I always knowed I’d hook up to a Big Outfit, and a course Duke Sons is one of the Biggest. Got some of the Best Pineries in Maine. We can sure enough make Some Pile a Boards, eh?” And he gave a frightful wink that implied he knew Duke timberlands very intimately. James was horrified. How to disabuse the man? He seemed to assume that the marriage meant that he, Phineas Breeley, was now a partner in Duke & Sons. If Edward and Freegrace ever discovered this scarred New Brunswicker imagined himself one with them they would perish from shock.

• • •

It was nearly two when they arrived at their inn, a handsome Georgian building fronted by graceful wineglass Ulmus americana, favored by red men for council meetings in ancient days. It was set far enough back that the roar of iron-shod hooves and rattling wheels did not drown out conversation.

James was relieved that Phineas Breeley’s room was some distance down the hall from the handsome suite he had reserved, for Breeley had followed them upstairs, trailing the men carrying the trunks. He had inspected their room as though he were going to occupy it with them. Finally, oh finally, thought James, he went to his own room, calling out that they must meet in an hour’s time under the elms and begin their exploration of New York.

“At last I have you to myself,” he murmured to Posey, embracing her lightly.

“Yes! Isn’t Father grand company? He has a thousand stories.”

“What caused that great scar on his head?”

“You must ask him. He rarely refers to it.”

James knew he never would ask, and reconciled himself to a week in the man’s company. Somehow he had to explain to Breeley that a marriage to Posey did not automatically enlist her father as a partner in Duke & Sons. How to put it without offending the man occupied his waking thoughts for the rest of the day. In their long perambulation down the busy streets ankle-deep in horse manure, they dodged scores of pigs, passed a platform said to be the site of the slave market, hurried past the stench of cattle pens and slaughterhouses, the vacant lots piled high with animal manure. James prayed it would not rain, would spare them the ordeal of wading through liquid shit. There was a constant moil of people harnessing horses, loading and unloading carts. Horses crowded the streets — omnibus horses, butcher horses, bakery cart horses, milk delivery horses, express horses — and lying alongside the curbs they saw dead and dying horses. These inhumane sights did not crush their appetites. They dined at the famous Red Cow Tavern on roast bear (very like pork) and mashed turnips. The waiter said they had a rare treat — pineapples from the Bahamas had just arrived, would they not wish to try one? They would. Swarms of flies hung like living chandeliers over the tables but the attentive waiters stood near waving fly whisks and they managed.

The pineapple, pared and sliced and served on pale blue dishes, was prime, ripe and fragrant. They fought the flies for the treat, but it was almost impossible to avoid the nasty sensation of a frantic buzzing insect in the mouth. When the pineapple was gone and the bill paid they started back to the Four Elms. On the way they passed several rowdy taverns where singing and the thumping of drums and female shrieks signaled some kind of coarse entertainment. At the door of their hotel Phineas Breeley stopped. “Reckon I’ll just Walk About for nother hour — that Pineapple made me restless. See you on the Morrow.” He saluted and turned down a side street.

• • •

The wedding night was an extreme experience for James Duke. He knew what was expected of him and even looked forward to it, but in no way was he prepared for the flying tigress who leapt on him, tore open the falls of his trousers and seized his penis, in no way was he prepared for her biting and scratching, thrusting and wriggling, tearing at his and her own clothes, nor for the wrestling and panting. All night long Posey kept him going. Just before dawn he fell into a near-delirious sleep, his body shockingly embroidered with the experiences of the previous hours.

With daylight he woke and slid gingerly out of bed. Posey lay a-sprawl, breathing stertorously. James washed gingerly, dressed and went down to the small parlor, where coffee, tea and hot chocolate sat on a sideboard. He helped himself to a plate of still-warm biscuits dabbed with butter and strawberry jam, took his cup and plate to a table near the window and gazed out at the waving elm branches.

“There You Are!” cried Phineas Breeley, entering the quiet room, striding to the coffeepot and pouring himself an overfull cup. He sat opposite James, looked at him searchingly. He saw the welts, the black and blue bite marks, the scratches on the backs of his hands, his swollen lips and earlobes.

“Give you Quite a Ride, didn’t she? She’s Pretty Feisty, ain’t she? I taught her Everything she knows and she turned out Good. She’s a chip off the Old Stump. Guess you can take it better than Old Preacher Man Brandon.” He winked and leered.

James felt the blood in his veins turn to mud. What in the name of God did Phineas Breeley mean? That he had tutored his daughter in the sexual arts? Cold horror flooded his mind at the thought. That a father would—! James felt his gorge rising, although he knew that such things happened, mostly to backwoods people deprived of diverse company. He could say nothing, and was relieved when Breeley launched into a monologue detailing the sights he had seen after he parted from them the evening before, the plump blond “patridge” he had found and “Give a Good Fuck,” the drinks he had swallowed. At last James got up and excused himself saying he would bring Posey a cup of morning coffee.

“Oh yas, I know about the mornin ‘Cup a Coffee.’ ” Breeley smirked, licking his lips and winking.

James Duke would have been happy to forgo sex for the next thirty years, but he was trapped. Indeed, Posey interpreted the morning cup of coffee much as her father had and pulled at James’s waistcoat, trying to get him back on the bed. He looked at her. He was repulsed by the thought that the old scar-faced troll had had her and turned away. She seized his wrist with her hard grip and yanked. He fell onto the bed and she swarmed over him like ants on honeycomb. He tried, but could not keep down the image of the scar-laced head of Phineas Breeley pressed between his daughter’s legs.

“No!” he shouted and leapt from the bed. Posey came after him, arms swinging, gorilla teeth bared. She beat him to blancmange consistency and left him in the corner.

“You had better come to some sense,” she gritted between those strong white teeth. “I won’t have another milksop husband.”

“And I will not have a violent wife,” said James, summoning his quarterdeck persona. “We must talk all of this out.” He believed in reason, though it was unreasonable to do so.

• • •

James and Posey Duke walked out alone, leaving Phineas Breeley behind at James’s impassioned request. “We must talk alone, we must.” After three and a half hours of questions, halting answers, temper fits, tears, scorn and expressions of sad disappointment they came to a compromise: Posey would have her own suite of rooms; she and James would agree beforehand on the times he would visit the matrimonial bed; he would not ask questions if she invited another (unspecified); she would not use violence to get her way; they would try to live happily ever after even though it might take great effort; one week after their return to Boston, Phineas Breeley must find his own quarters or return to New Brunswick. On this last point James had been diamond hard, and pledged a sum toward the purchase of a Breeley house. He said, in an almost threatening voice, that the alternative was divorce. But he had not asked the question of Posey’s childhood relations with old Breeley. And she had not asked the question about his late-night visit to the Taunton farm.

• • •

Breeley seemed pleased with the idea of his own place and set off at once to look at houses in the neighborhood, for he did not wish to return to New Brunswick.

“It’s Lively down here. I enjoy the Lively. Maunderville’s quiet as a dead horse. Quieter. Your dead horse passes gas.”

In four days he discovered a small stone cottage with a garden and two-horse stable half a mile distant. James cheerfully paid the owner for the place, and Breeley, he thought, would no longer annoy.

A few weeks later, at the breakfast table, Posey said, in an agreeable and placatory tone, “I am givin a dinner party Friday week for your cousins and other relatives. I made up a menu and will sit down with Mrs. Tubjoy and the cook and see if they can deal with my selections and if we must get in an extra girl for the evening. Time we got into some society. And I wish an occasion to wear my red silk that I had fitted in New York. It come by post yesterday — fits to perfection.” She smiled and touched his hand very lightly as if to say, “See how chastely I behave.”

James felt a shiver of fear. He had not yet told the cousins of his marriage and had no idea how they would take it. Thank God that old lecher would be in his stone house. He thought rapidly. He would not present Freegrace and Edward with a surprise, but would pen lighthearted little notes to each letting them know he had embarked on the matrimonial state.

“I suppose we must do so sooner or later. By all means proceed.”

Posey whisked from the room, all purpose and plan.

48. James is surprised

The house was caught up in a hurricane of preparation. Mrs. Tubjoy hired two extra girls. They polished the silver, washed the best plates in vinegar water and dried them with linen cloths, wiped the glassware free of thumbprints. The cook’s helper roasted and ground the best green coffee, pounded loaf sugar into heaps of crystals. Mrs. Tubjoy set one of the girls to seeding raisins and the other to winkling butternut meats from their chambering shells. James and Will Thing made an excursion to the distant woods to gather green pine boughs for decoration, for it was December. Posey engaged a string quartet to play — something high-toned. Two days before the all-important Friday, men arrived at the kitchen door with tubs of thrushes, pigeons and ducks, six wild turkeys, two venison hams. The cook’s helpers were up until very late plucking the birds and storing them in the cold pantry. The grocer delivered gingerroot, lemons, nutmeg, allspice, hothouse Belgian endive. On the day itself came lobsters and sweet oysters, both in favor as they were growing scarce.

“Dear heaven,” said James, “there is enough food for a militia.”

“We do not wish to appear poor, do we?” said Posey. “Will you take Jason”—the new butler—“and see that there is sufficient of drink?”

“It is done,” said James, who had been overseeing jeroboams, magnums, bottles and decanters all the week. “Our guests shall reel — with spirits if not amazement.”

• • •

The hour arrived and Jason ushered in the first guests, the solicitor Hugh Trumbull and Mrs. Trumbull.

“My God, James, what a handsome wife you have caught, and how well you have done for yourself,” murmured Mr. Trumbull, looking around the warm room, taking in Posey’s red silk, the decanters on the sideboard, the hundred blazing beeswax candles, the platter of smoking hot lobster pasties fresh from the kitchen, “and how well everything looks, far more festive than when your esteemed father held court. Of course he was not a one for society. I am glad you are venturing forth.” James fetched Mrs. Trumbull a glass of aged jerez and saw her seated near the fire. Posey, in her New York dress, drew up a chair beside her and flattered her by asking her opinion on the mushroom-colored velvet curtains — should they not be changed for some of wine color? Or ocean blue?

There was a rush at the door as the other guests arrived: Freegrace and Lenore advanced, smiling, toward the new bride, but Posey put on a strained social smile as she took in the flaxen-haired Lenore’s simple Empire dress of silvery grey enhanced with a string of large pearls around her creamy neck.

“That is a beautiful dress,” said Posey. “Is it from New York?”

“Oh no. Paris. I go every autumn for the new fashions.”

Edward and Lydia came in with Lennart Vogel and Cyrus Hempstead, neither of whom had married, though it was rumored Cyrus kept a mistress of color. But they were not without dinner partners as Cyrus had brought a fresh-faced second cousin, Sarah Close, and Lennart the widow of his accountant, Martha Scoot. James glimpsed someone else behind Cyrus and with horror saw it was his father-in-law dressed in creased and spotted garments, his striped pants of the awful thousand-pleats style, so baggy they concealed a heavy abdomen and could accommodate a forked tail, the coat also striped and with a high collar. As he was wondering how to introduce them, Edward turned to the man and said, with familiarity, “Mr. Breeley, let me fetch you a glass of rum that we may continue our talk.” They had apparently met and performed mutual introductions on the walkway.

The two sat together much of evening, drinking, eating and talking as though they were the closest friends. James suspected Mr. Breeley had not disclosed his New Brunswick affiliations. It must be done at once, however unpleasant the result might be, and he watched for his chance, filled with rage at the old impostor busily pulling a thick fleece over Edward’s eyes. At the dinner table the two sat side by side, drawing diagrams on the damask cloth with fingers dipped in red wine. Edward sat on Posey’s right and between earnest conversation with her father, he talked gaily with her, staring into her lustrous eyes like a lovesick youth, thought James with some distaste. He had never seen Edward so outgoing, so full of smiles and charm.

“Well, Edward,” said James loudly, “I see you and Mr. Breeley have subjects of mutual interest.”

“Indeed, we do,” said Edward. “I must say I was surprised and delighted to find a gentleman so knowledgeable on the timber trade here this evening. It is especially interesting to me to have a New Brunswick lumberman’s point of view.” Smiles all around, especially on Posey’s full red lips. James saw her hand slip below the table, saw Edward’s startled face, which immediately blushed rose-red. Freegrace noticed as well and tapped his spoon against his front teeth.

“Beautiful autumn weather,” bleated Edward to the old lecher by his side — who winked at the error and said it was indeed.

Later, when the ladies had gone upstairs to Posey’s parlor for China tea and cream cakes, Edward drew James aside. “I think it would be a very good move if we asked Mr. Breeley to come on the Board. He could be of inestimable value to us as he is very practical and takes a hard line against timber thieves. I like him. And he is more or less connected with the family now. And Posey, an enchanting woman who also knows and understands the business. An extraordinary parent and child.”

Ah, thought James, you may well guess how extraordinary! But Edward clutched his hand and said, “Thank you, James, for bringing us all together.” And a vile picture floated before James.

In the weeks that followed the dinner Edward came more and more to the house to take tea with Posey, to ask if she would not like to go and see the curious object dug up by some road builders, to wonder if she would give him advice on a present he wished to buy for Lydia. It seemed they were together every afternoon either in her parlor or out riding. Often Phineas Breeley was with them. More than that James did not care to know.

• • •

Over the next decade Posey remade herself into a high-toned dashing hostess of the sort that money creates, and the Duke galas became famous for exotic dishes, rare blooms, the finest silver and crystal and entertainments of string quartets or celebrated singers — and only once a man in a turban, his torso enwrapped by a boa constrictor. “What next?” roared James, who despised low culture, “an Italian with a hurdy-gurdy? A trained bear with gilded ears? You show your New Brunswick origin with these jinks.” But temper was unusual as the husband and wife had reached a kind of equilibrium free from harangues and rages except for extreme provocation, such as turbaned men with boa constrictors.

In 1825 something close to a miracle — Posey thought it a miracle for she was fifty-one — came into their lives. Connubial peace deepened with the birth of Lavinia, their only child where no child had been expected. James was enthralled by his daughter. One look at her thick black hair and his own features, the features of the baby’s grandfather Sedley, and he was assured that this was his little child, whom he was free to love.

Motherhood also awakened some deep feeling in Posey and she objected to the idea of a hired nurse, saying she would care for the infant herself. She threw over the endless dinner parties and lively social life that had been everything and became a goddess mother, even going to the kitchen to smear jam on bread for the little girl. Lavinia was bright and sweet-tempered, someone both parents could love without the intrusive need to love each other. The cordial atmosphere of the house brought the old cousins and their wives for frequent visits, but Phineas Breeley was forbidden to come near the child. “There are reasons,” said Posey, and after several months of rejection he went back to New Brunswick in very ill humor.

When Lavinia was five Posey consented to an imported governess, Miss Chess, a stout Englishwoman with a clear bell-like voice and gold hair plaited and coiled in a shining little tower on the apex of her head. That same year James bought his little girl a docile pony, something he had ardently wished for in his own warped childhood.