Bellinger held out the paper. “Now it’s up to you, Dawson.”
Dawson took the paper with distaste. He felt like Gulliver, surrounded by miniature adversaries, attacked by a swarm of gnats. He has also had intermittent pains in his chest, but he refused to discuss those with Bellinger. He had his life to lead.
Now Dawson sits down to put on his socks. As he sinks into his chair he hears a rich crunching sound. He stands and picks up the seat cushion. Beneath it is his hinged, three-paneled shaving mirror, folded shut. He opens it: the glass is shattered. Bright shards scatter onto the chair, the carpet. He holds it for a moment, angry but impatient. Who put it there? Some big pieces are still intact, one large enough for him to use for shaving. He won’t tell Sarah, who’ll see more bad luck. Those dreams were bad enough. He wants to move on, into his day.
You choose your own luck, you make it into what you want. Dawson has made his own way since the age of nineteen. You make your own way. Afterward it seems inevitable, as though it could only have happened in this way. But it’s you who have chosen your path, and it’s always been leading you here.
2.
February 1850. London
ALONE IN HIS BEDROOM, he could hear her on the floor below. The rest of the house was silent. The nurse had taken the baby out. The maids had gone now, and his father was not there. He could hear her moving about, shifting in a way that made him listen. He was lying on the floor, making a fort out of books, and when he heard her he put his head down, ear against the carpet. His parents’ room was right below his. The bed creaked, then creaked again, sharply. He thought he heard her make a sound, breathing or gasping.
When he stood outside her closed door, listening, he heard her take a quick sharp breath, as though surprised. He knocked. There was no answer. He knocked again, then opened the door.
His mother was bending over the bed, leaning on both arms. Her head was lowered, and when she turned she was looking at him from underneath her arms. Her upside down face was red and strange. Her huge frightening belly hung over the bed, looming and dark under her crumpled nightgown.
She raised her head and tried to smile at him. “Pet.”
“Mamma, are you ill?”
His mother was panting, he could hear the breaths. She straightened, pushing herself up off the bed. She turned toward him and put one hand on her belly. Her face looked swollen, and her hair hung down her back in a tangled scrawl.
“I’m not—” she said. “Not feeling well.” She had a broad forehead and wide-open blue eyes. Her eyes were very bright, and her face was oddly pink and shiny.
He came in. “Shall I fetch the doctor?”
He was ten years old. His name then was Austin.
She opened her mouth oddly, then closed it. She set her hands on the small of her back. “There’s no money,” she said. “Nothing to pay him with.” She tried to smile again.
“Father would have some,” he said.
For a moment she said nothing. “I don’t know where your father is.”
“There must be something,” he said.
She shook her head. “I can’t think what.” She arched her back, then straightened. “Don’t worry. I’ll feel better in a little while.”
Her face crumpled, and she turned and leaned over the bed again. She swung her head back and forth, like a cow in pain. A tangled hank of her hair fell off her shoulder, swaying as she moved.
Austin backed out, closing the door. In his father’s dressing room he opened the wardrobe; the coats hung like a row of men. He rifled through the pockets, scrabbling for coins. He went through the bureau, then the drawers and cubbyholes of his desk. He hurried downstairs. The dining room, with its dark table and chairs, the sideboard, would have nothing. Nor the sitting room, the hall. He went down another flight to the kitchen and scullery.
It was early afternoon, quiet. The only light in the kitchen came from the high window onto the areaway. A big white porcelain bowl stood on the long deal table, but Mrs. Fitch, with her puckered mouth and drooping gray bun, was not there. Austin knew about the jar that held the housekeeping money. He pushed a chair over to the cupboard and climbed onto it. He took down the heavy pottery jar. Empty.
The scullery was dim, with a sharp damp smell. On the slanting wooden drainboard stood a tarnished copper pot. He picked it up: if it were broken he could sell it to the scrapman. It was not, but now the thought was in his head. He wondered if he should sell it anyway. At what point should he sell anything at hand to pay for a doctor? He thought of his mother’s rasping breaths, her tangled hair swinging as she moved. He looked around. Beneath the table was a crowd of squat brown bottles. He picked one up: it was empty, still fuming secretly with port.
He carried the bottles out the back and placed them in the wheelbarrow. When he set off, the metal wheel jounced on the cobbles. The scrapman’s shop was in an alley toward Oxford Street. He came outside. He had dirty white side-whiskers, and wore an old black jacket missing the middle button. He put his hands in his pockets and looked at the bottles.
“Good afternoon, sir,” said Austin. “I’d like to sell these.”
The man picked one up.
“You and your friends have a party?” The dealer grinned, unfriendly.
Austin smiled, trying not to show his impatience. He would say nothing against his father.
The dealer hefted the bottle consideringly, as though he’d pay by the ounce.
The offer was for more than Austin had hoped. He folded the bills and stuffed them into his pocket. He clattered the empty wheelbarrow through the streets and up the back alley.
At the doctor’s house he rang the bell and a maid let him in. Dr. Brock was in his office, she said.
Dr. Brock was at his desk, writing. He was bald, with a lean withered face and bushy dark whiskers. The air was thick, and smelled of candle smoke.
“Good afternoon, Doctor,” Austin said. “My mother, Mrs. Mary Reeks, is very ill. Could you please come at once?”
The doctor stopped writing but did not put down the pen. He looked at Austin over his glasses.
“Has she a fever?” he asked.
Austin, who didn’t know, nodded. He thought of her pink face.
When her son left, Mary Reeks felt suddenly hot, as if she’d been blown full of heat with a bellows. Her hair hung loose and lank around her face, but she couldn’t lift her arms to put it up. She couldn’t do anything. She lay down, stood up. Standing was no better and she lay down again, feverish and frightened. She closed her eyes. When she heard Austin coming up the stairs she tried to make her face smooth itself out, though she could feel it was crumpled. She was trying not to cry.
He burst into the room, his cheeks pink with cold. Behind him she saw the bald head of the doctor, slowly mounting the stairs. Then she did cry.
* * *
THERESA MAY, the last child, was born the next morning. The baby, Joey, was not quite two years old.
They still lived in the tall house on Duke Street, though half the servants were gone and most of the money. Joseph Austin Reeks had lost his fortune trying to corner the wheat market with a friend. He had not quite understood how it would work, but the friend had told him they couldn’t fail, and urged him to sign the letter. His wife, Mary, who did not understand how to corner the wheat market, understood from Joseph’s face what had happened. They were ruined.
The Reeks (pronounced Ricks) family was Catholic and proud of it: they could trace themselves straight back to the Battle of Barnet, 1471. Their loyalty to the Church had never wavered. They were proud of the connection (collateral, but still) to Bishop Fisher, who’d been executed by Henry VIII for staying true to his beliefs. “He may have a bishop’s hat,” said the king, pleased with his gallows humor, “but he won’t have a head to put it on.” They were proud of the bishop for holding fast to principle.
The Reeks sons had always gone to St. Omer, a Jesuit university founded in Brittany in the seventeenth century, when Catholic educati
on was illegal in England. Before St. Omer the Reeks boys went to boarding school at St. Mary’s, now run by the famous Dr. Crookall. Austin was at the top of his class at St. Mary’s, and was expected to go on to St. Omer, where his father had been first in his class. Austin was expected to go on even though the family money was gone: Austin had a patron. This was his aunt Dawson.
Elizabeth Perkins was twelve years older than her sister Mary, Austin’s mother. Their mother had died when Mary was small, and Elizabeth had brought up her little sister. Late, at twenty-seven, Elizabeth had married handsome William Dawson, a wealthy army officer. Mary lived with them until they went out to India, where William became a captain in the cavalry. Mary had married young. Every month Elizabeth wrote to her sister, who read the letters out loud at the breakfast table.
When the Dawsons came home on leave they stayed with the Reekses at Duke Street. The Dawsons had no children, and made favorites of Mary’s. They brought them ebony elephants, ivory figurines, brass bells. Dashing Uncle Dawson had a pitted face and wore a uniform. He carried a long curved sword, and told stories about the army.
When Mary told her about the wheat market, Elizabeth understood. “Austin must have an education,” she wrote back. “I’ll pay for his tuition and William will adopt him. He must have a proper start in life.” She said she would pay for St. Mary’s and his Grand Tour of Europe. She would pay for St. Omer, and then she would buy him a charge to a solicitor’s practice. Austin would go into the law and save the family fortunes.
Mary read this to Joseph. She was elated, but knew better than to show it. She spoke in a subdued voice, and didn’t look at him. Even so, Joseph felt it as a rebuke.
“Very kind of her. Please give her my thanks,” he said stiffly.
Mary wrote back. “Dearest Lizzie, I cannot say how grateful we both are for your generosity. Joseph particularly wants you to know that.”
Captain Dawson was stationed in Delhi. He was to retire soon, at sixty, but just before his birthday the Sepoy Mutiny took place. Dawson led his troops in a charge. His good horse, Pompey, was shot in the throat, and Dawson was cut to pieces with long knives. Afterward, Aunt Dawson returned to London. She was done with India, she said. She had given it her life and it had taken her husband’s. She bought a tall handsome house near Grosvenor Square, and the Reekses visited often. Mary told the children it was their job to cheer her up. They brought her cakes and sang songs. They all sang and played the piano in that family; Mary and Elizabeth had been brought up with music.
Aunt Dawson was small and plump, with tiny hands and feet. Her fine gray hair was drawn into a small bun, and on her bosom was a gold locket with a tiny photograph of her husband. She wore rustling black dresses and always a cashmere shawl: England had creeping damp, she said. She said she might never be warm again.
Austin was a favorite, and she always asked what he was studying. She did not have Latin or Greek, but she had read Gibbon, and Boswell, and Shakespeare. Often she would recite a quotation from one of the plays, and ask if he knew the source. She offered again to adopt him, though Austin declined again, not wanting to dishonor his father.
* * *
THE TELEGRAM reached him at Dieppe. He was on his way home by then. He and his friend Albert Plaisir had spent six months with a tutor, exploring the grandeur of Europe. The telegram said: AUNT DAWSON HAS HAD A STROKE. COME AT ONCE. He took the next ferry.
* * *
HE ARRIVED AT the house off Grosvenor Square in the evening. Travers opened the front door, her face gloomy and decorous. Behind her was the heavy gilt mirror, reflecting them as pale ghosts.
“Good evening, Master Reeks.” Her voice was hushed.
He came inside: here was the glass chandelier, the mahogany table, the Turkey carpet. The faintly spicy smell. The big drawing room was dark, but light came from the little sitting room down the hall.
“Good evening, Travers.” His own voice was quiet. “I’ve come to see my aunt.”
“Yes, sir,” said Travers, but, oddly, she didn’t move.
“Who is it, Travers?” A woman came out of the little sitting room.
“Master Reeks, madam,” Travers said.
The woman came toward him. She was portly and powerful, with ferocious black eyes. “Good evening,” she said, bowing watchfully. “I’m Jane Gunnell, your cousin.” Her lips pressed tightly together at the end of each sentence, as though to keep anything from escaping. She was a cousin on his uncle’s side, not his aunt’s.
Austin bowed. “I’m sorry to hear about my aunt. I was on the continent. I came as soon as I could.” He turned to Travers. “Could you take me up, Travers?”
But Travers looked at Mrs. Gunnell.
“I’ll take Mr. Reeks up,” Mrs. Gunnell said.
She led the way up the carpeted stairs. Her long black dress was tight and strained around her thick waist, and her boots creaked.
His aunt’s room was large and square. A big four-poster bed faced the door. In a corner sat a nurse in a white apron, and by the bedside sat a young man, who stood when Austin entered.
“Reeks,” he said familiarly. He had a high bulging forehead and small blue eyes. “David Gunnell.”
“Good evening, Gunnell. This is very sad.” He turned to the nurse. “How is my aunt?”
Mrs. Gunnell answered. “Not well.”
Austin turned to her. “How did it happen?”
Mrs. Gunnell told him, though she hadn’t been there. A fit, she said, a sudden effusion of blood in the brain.
Austin said, “What does the doctor say?”
“We are following his direction,” said Mrs. Gunnell stiffly.
“Have you been here long?” Austin asked David. He tried to remember the last time he had seen him.
“I came on Tuesday,” Gunnell said. “Fortunately I reached my aunt while she was still conscious.” She was not, actually, his aunt. “My parents arrived on Wednesday. That evening she fell into this sleep.”
Austin turned toward her, but Gunnell was blocking his way. Austin waited. For a moment Gunnell didn’t move, but Austin stood firm, and Gunnell stepped aside.
The bed had a high headboard and carved posts. Aunt Dawson’s head was tiny on the broad white pillows. Her face was shrunken, her eyes closed. Her hollowed cheeks were furred like a peach with an old woman’s down. Her hair was drawn back under her lace cap, a few strands loose on the pillow.
Austin spoke quietly. “Aunt Dawson, it’s me, Austin.”
There was no movement.
On the ferry he’d stood leaning on the rail, watching the moonlight on the dark swells and feeling the steady throb of the engine. He’d thought of himself as a courier, surging through the night, bringing life and hope, but he was too late. The white bedspread barely swelled as her small chest rose and fell. She was already absent.
Austin took her hand, limp on the counterpane. He whispered a prayer. When he turned, Mrs. Gunnell’s eyes were on him.
He spent the night in a chair, beside Gunnell. The air was close, and the fire hissed. He slept fitfully, his head nodding and jerking. Early next morning Travers came in with tea. Austin’s mouth felt like flannel, and tasted bad.
Near noon, Aunt Dawson’s breathing grew loud and slow. It was percussive, like pebbles on a washboard. At the bottom of one breath she paused.
Two days later the entire Reeks family, in their best clothes, gathered in her parlor to hear the lawyer announce that everything in the estate of Elizabeth Perkins Dawson was to go to her dear cousin, David Gunnell. The will revoked in their entirety all earlier wills. It was dated five days before her death.
Austin John Reeks was eighteen years old, in possession of half a gentleman’s education, and without prospects.
3.
April 30, 1861. Baton Rouge, Louisiana
SARAH FOWLER MORGAN, nineteen years old, woke as it was starting to turn light. The air was cool and damp, and she heard the quick pattering rhythm of rain on the leaves outside.
/> Across the room, in the mirror on the armoire, was the reflection of her high bed, shrouded in netting. At the windows the tall white curtains shifted slowly in the rainy breeze, belling, collapsing. The shadows, the sound of rain, and the dim pearly light filled the room with something like sadness. Sarah felt the sadness like a waft of air. It was too early to get up, and the rain meant the trip would be postponed. She turned over, settled her face into the pillow, blocking out the morning, and slept again.
* * *
THE MORGANS WERE Southern by then, though like most Southerners they’d come from somewhere else. Sarah’s great-great-grandfather, David, had come from Wales in the seventeenth century. The Morgans were bold, opinionated, and principled. They believed they could succeed at whatever they set out to do, and for the most part they did. They settled in Philadelphia, becoming successful merchants, doctors, and lawyers. Sarah’s great-uncle John Morgan founded the first medical school in the country; her grandfather, George, became an Indian agent and a wealthy merchant. He was a friend to the Lenape chief White Eyes, and godfather to his son, George Morgan White Eyes. When the chief and his wife were murdered as troublemakers (he wanted treaties) by the American militia, George took in his godson and sent him to Princeton. George tried to found an interracial colony west of the Mississippi, and he nearly succeeded.
Thomas Gibbes Morgan, George’s grandson and Sarah’s father, was born in Princeton, New Jersey, where he went to the university and became a lawyer. But he, too, was an adventurer, and in the 1820s he and his brother Morris set off down the Mississippi. They stopped in Baton Rouge, then settled there. They both married planters’ daughters, and practiced law. They became Southern.
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