Half Moon Lake

by Kirsten Alexander

  The following night, Mason opened the door to Tom and a gust of warm air rushed inside.

  ‘Is Mr Davenport home?’ Tom asked.

  ‘He’s dining with Judge Roy, sir. I suspect he won’t be back until late.’ Mason’s response had become so predictable that Tom could have answered his own question.

  ‘Boys awake?’

  Before Mason could reply, George and Paul raced towards Tom as one, shouting their hellos.

  ‘Look what I found, look.’ Paul held up a weathered copper coin.

  ‘What I found,’ George corrected.

  ‘Boys,’ Mason said. ‘You know not to run and yell inside.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said George.

  Paul ignored Mason, and continued to hold his coin up.

  Tom bent down. ‘Now that’s something.’ He took the coin and turned it around in his fingers. ‘A Confederate nickel. You’ll want to hold on to that, put it somewhere special. Don’t spend it, will you?’

  He passed the coin back to Paul, who examined his treasure with fresh reverence. Tom winked at George, who understood: the nickel was no more special than any other, and this was a secret only an older boy and a man could share.

  Where a short time ago he’d been a stranger, Tom now felt the boys considered him a benevolent uncle, the single one they had, as far as he could tell. And the more he observed them, the more he could see their demeanours suggested nothing suspicious. Paul lacked the control that keeping a secret required, and George was too honest. Tom would’ve liked to know what they thought had happened to Sonny. But were he to print anything the boys said to him, it would be the end of his time with the Davenports.

  Tom trod upstairs behind Mason, with George and Paul scampering ahead of them, Paul shouting out to his mother that it was her story time.

  ‘Fleas on a hotplate,’ Mason said.

  On his way out of the house, having read ‘Three from Dunsterville’ to Mary and Esmeralda, Tom encountered John Henry in the entrance handing his hat and coat to Mason.

  ‘Hello, Tom. Mary tells me you’ve started on a new collection of stories, something English.’

  Tom reddened at the thought that Mary would discuss tonight’s story with her husband. It had been more about the woman’s knotty involvement with two male acquaintances than he’d realised beforehand. ‘Wodehouse. A friend in London sent it over for my mother. Pranks, butlers and high society. You may have read –’

  John Henry snorted. ‘I’ve no time for make-believe. But thank you for providing Mary with an escape from reality.’

  Tom bristled. His recent conversations with John Henry had never been anything other than cordial, and he’d thought they’d developed if not a true friendship then something close to mutual respect. While he hadn’t expected effusive thanks from a man of John Henry’s stature, Tom had thought his kindness to the man’s wife might have elevated him in his eyes. Mr Davenport might have shared one too many whiskeys with the judge.

  ‘Is the furniture business going well?’ He would take the conversation back to matters of men.

  John Henry smiled. ‘Yes, the furniture business is going well. It seems the whole state is perpetually in need of chairs.’ He softened his voice. ‘Though I’m unconvinced our customers are doing much of use with their hours of sitting. Not everyone is a reader, Tom.’

  Before Tom could reply, John Henry walked up the stairs without a glance back.

  Tom had felt cheery when he’d walked out of Mary’s room. She’d been coquettish with him, had laughed when he’d attempted an English accent during his reading. And Tom had shared a joke with Esmeralda, who, when pushed by Mary to come up with a nickname for Tom, had nominated ‘Pencil’. She’d found her choice so riotously funny that Tom had laughed along.

  But as Tom walked out the front door of the Davenport house he was flustered by his encounter with John Henry. He felt certain John Henry didn’t disapprove of him. Or did he? This family was getting under his skin.

  Frustrated by his fruitless efforts and exhausting travel, John Henry had turned again to his work. The neat spreadsheets, numbers that added as they should, the logic and predictability of business were better medicine than a doctor could prescribe him. John Henry regularly stayed in his office longer than his workload required, then dined with Judge Roy. He wasn’t unsympathetic to his wife’s illnesses and angst, but he was spent, physically and psychically. He had no more left to give, not even to Mary.

  As he stood at the foot of the bed, arms spread so Mason could remove his shirt, John Henry wondered if he ought to worry about the amount of time his wife spent with Tom McCabe. He was relieving John Henry from many tedious hours of reading the books Mary enjoyed, seemed trustworthy, and was attached to that kittenish Tisdale girl. But it was strange that Mary was willing to allow Tom to visit long after politeness demanded. They’d proceeded to a second, third volume of stories. She seemed to consider Tom McCabe something close to a friend. John Henry hadn’t anticipated that. He would check with Esmeralda that she stayed in the room when Tom read.

  ‘Will there be anything else, sir?’ Mason asked.

  John Henry shook his head. After Mason left, he teetered between going to his bed and walking to the living room, where Mary still sat. It seemed the right thing to exchange a few words with her before going to sleep, but the thought of the places the conversation might go made him slump. If he was awake when she came to bed he’d reach for her, without the burden of words.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  On 28 July 1914, on a hot Louisiana summer’s day, when bumblebees hovered over dahlia bushes, when the last plums and strawberries were picked and okra was in plentiful supply, a year after Sonny Davenport had gone missing, Austria–Hungary declared war against Serbia. Most Opelousans were hard-pressed to locate these places on a map. But one by one, with stunning speed, the nations of Europe formed a web of alliances which, while complicated, brought out more familiar names. On 1 August, Germany and Russia declared war against one another. On 3 August, France announced its support for Russia and urged Britain to do the same. That night, Germany invaded Belgium. Very soon it was clear that Europe was involved in a bigger battle, one with greater dangers, than America had first thought. The front-page headline of the Washington Post declared, ‘Outlook Is Hopeless’.

  In the Clarion office, where sash windows were pushed up to allow in the light breeze, Tom stood next to Eddie as Mr Collins used his globe to explain the significance of each alliance, emphasising the regional madness that saw Germans on the British throne warring with Germany.

  ‘It’s interesting, sure,’ said Eddie, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. ‘But what does any of it have to do with the price of eggs?’

  Mr Collins studied Eddie over the top of his glasses. ‘The Continent isn’t as far away as you think, Dale. And given how interconnected modern commerce is, it has everything to do with the price of eggs. Telephones, ocean liners, movies – we’re knitted together now. Don’t you read the stories that fill in the space around your photographs?’

  ‘Are we going to be in this war, though?’ asked Tom. ‘That’s the thing. President Wilson –’

  ‘He’ll keep us out of it. It’ll affect us, no question. But this is a European war, a battle between old powers. President Wilson knows to focus on American issues.’ Mr Collins patted the globe. ‘We’ll follow his example and keep our attention on what’s happening here. We report this as a foreign war, give it due gravitas, explain the effects on trade, industry and the like, eggs included. And we watch America grow. When Europe is done fighting, they’ll look across the Atlantic to see we’ve continued to advance into the future.’

  While Tom, Eddie and Mr Collins discussed the state of the world, Esmeralda, Mason and Cook sat at the beeswax-polished kitchen table downstairs in the Davenport house considering local goings-on. The room was lit by afternoon sunshine. Mason polished his boots atop old newspapers, Esmeralda mended Mrs Davenport’s slip, and Cook shelled peas into
a white china bowl.

  Cook stood to make a pot of coffee. ‘Another train arriving tomorrow. Poor dears.’

  Mason rubbed black polish in vigorous circles onto a boot he wore on his left hand. ‘They’re the lucky ones. They don’t want your pity.’

  ‘It’s not right to have them stand in the square to be inspected, bought like –’ Cook glanced at Esmeralda, who kept her eyes on the sewing case as she replaced the needles, thread, thimble.

  ‘You have no understanding of where they’ve come from,’ Mason said. ‘These children live on the streets – rough New York streets. They’ve had to beg and steal to survive. To have a home is a step up in the world, no matter how they get there.’ He placed the two shined boots together, admired his handiwork. ‘Grateful of a meal and a bed, I’d imagine.’

  ‘You make it sound like Christian charity,’ Cook said. ‘But you know full well the people inclined to take in an orphan are wanting unpaid labour.’

  ‘Or can’t have one of their own,’ Esmeralda added.

  ‘If you mean the Fleurys, I think they’re the exception to the rule. That long-suffering woman.’

  Esmeralda murmured agreement.

  ‘The Davenports should take one in, put an end to their grief,’ Mason said.

  ‘Replace their boy with a foundling?’ Esmeralda scowled.

  ‘They’re not going to find Sonny now. And they’re set on having three boys. Why not take in an orphan and raise him as their own? After a few years no one will remember.’

  Cook tsked. ‘A fine father you’d make. It’s not the same if it’s somebody else’s child. And for a family as important as the Davenports to take in any … Those precious children, it’s not their fault, but if they’re going to be sent off anywhere it’s to a farm, not a fine home like this. The idea.’

  ‘Then the Davenports should pray for another immaculate conception, because as far as I can tell that’s the only other way they’ll find themselves with three sons again.’

  Though Esmeralda and Cook made noises of shock at Mason’s coarseness and blasphemy, they knew what he meant.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Because Sheriff Sherman and John Henry had returned to Half Moon Lake on countless occasions and because Mary asked to be driven to the house again and again, with none of these expeditions yielding anything other than disappointment, John Henry put their property up for sale in August 1914.

  Mary insisted on visiting the house one last time, after the furniture, crockery and pots, vases, linens and paintings had been packed and moved to one of John Henry’s storehouses, and the rugs rolled up and laid like logs in a truck and driven away. She wanted to check, she said, before any strangers were allowed to cross the threshold, that nothing had been left behind. Nothing and nobody, Esmeralda thought.

  The air around the house was steamy and still, the last dog days of summer. Dragonflies hovered above baked grass. Birds rested in oak trees, waiting for the midday heat to pass. Once John Henry turned off the car engine, the only sounds were the drone of countless insects and the footsteps of the three as they walked without speaking from the driveway to the porch.

  On John Henry’s instruction, Esmeralda opened the windows in the living room, then went upstairs to air out the bedrooms. The house smelled of hot dust, loamy dirt carried in on the removalists’ shoes and droppings from woodland creatures that had scampered through.

  She could hear John Henry’s sure stride on the boards downstairs as he walked a cursory circuit, ready to be gone from the moment they’d arrived, and Mary’s anxious quickstep as she ran about, scouring the house like a cat whose kittens had been given away while she slept. Even when they landed in the same room, Mary didn’t seem to care that John Henry and Esmeralda could see what she was doing. Or to be aware of the insanity in thinking Sonny might have been overlooked all this time, waiting or hiding in the hollowed house, returned home after a year-long walk in the woods. She searched for him with the same energy she had the first day of his disappearance. Esmeralda couldn’t bear to watch. She told Mr Davenport she was going to check the outside of the house for buckets and tools. Without taking his eyes off his wife, he said, ‘How quickly things change.’

  Esmeralda walked across the uncut lawn, around weedy flowerbeds to the wooden building used as a storage shed. She pushed open the weathered door, which hung crooked on two hinges. A single window let in light. A sparrow on a rafter chirped to tell her it was there, but didn’t fly away. She stepped inside – such a plain room, with no curtains, paint on the walls or flooring – and shivered. Now the room was emptied of the wheelbarrow, shovels and gardener’s supplies, she saw it for what it had been: a home.

  The Half Moon Lake house had been passed to John Henry from his father, and had been built by his father before him. This shed had been the slave quarters. As Esmeralda stood in the room, she thought about the people who’d been stored here. There was no other word for it. She heard her heartbeat, her breath, then the deep hum of the world: that layer of sound that lives beneath the creak of trees and the distant lowing. Esmeralda heard the hum of what had come before her, the remnant energy of living beings. There weren’t ghosts in this room so much as fragments of souls. Keening. When Esmeralda moved her feet, the sound of her leather soles on the dirt floor seemed loud, abrasive as sandpaper. She apologised for the intrusion, crossed herself.

  Esmeralda pictured what might have been here before: basic bedding, a rag rug, maybe a woven-seat chair. But these images were too homely. More likely the man was shackled at night to stop him running away, the woman dragged out of her bed to meet a master’s late-night needs. And the children would have slept on the floor. Esmeralda wondered how they’d kept going, how they’d not forced their loved ones straight to Heaven, torching the house and field they had to tend. She hoped at least one of them had run away.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Mary stood in the open doorway. She glanced around the room, wrinkled her nose at the musty air. ‘Come loosen my corset. The girl tied it so tight this morning I can hardly breathe. Do you think I should get another?’

  ‘No need for that. It’ll be fine once I loosen it.’

  ‘A maid,’ Mary said. ‘I meant another maid.’

  PART THREE

  FOUND

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  South of the town of Magnolia, Mississippi, 145 miles north-east of Opelousas, in a rundown house at the top of a hill, Grace Mill worked as house girl for Harry Cavett and his wife, Loretta. On this August 1915 morning, as a hot wind stirred the dogwood trees and cicadas rose up in a single-note shout, Grace began her day’s labours and the Cavetts grumbled out of bed.

  Mr and Mrs Cavett were not kind people. They worked Grace hard for six days a week, with Sundays off to walk to church. Mrs Cavett told Grace they’d done her a favour by offering food and lodging, but the truth was no one else wanted to be yoked to the Cavetts.

  When Grace had showed up on their doorstep Mrs Cavett was thrilled: here was a young, open-faced, unwed mother, likely to be grateful and stay put. She was pretty as a peach – blonde hair, button nose, long lashes – but Mrs Cavett had no fear about that: Mr Cavett hadn’t shown a spark of interest in any living thing for years. Importantly, the woman had two functional hands while Mrs Cavett had one, the fingers of her own left hand crushed by washing-machine wringers. Mr Cavett complained endlessly about having to help with the heavy wet sheets and churning the butter.

  The Cavetts had considered throwing her out when Grace told them she had another baby on the way. ‘What use will you be?’ Mrs Cavett said. But Grace had pleaded with them, and promised she’d be able to continue her duties through her pregnancy. Harry Cavett said he didn’t mind the boy too much because it never spoke a word, but expressed concerns about the squawk of a baby interfering with the peace of the household. Grace had no idea what peace he meant since both the Cavetts were enthusiastic yellers, and Mr Cavett enjoyed playing his whistle late at night, unaware he had no talent for the
instrument. Mrs Cavett had held her silence for a moment before exhaling a begrudging, ‘Don’t make me regret this.’

  Grace would’ve liked to live elsewhere, work elsewhere, but as Mrs Cavett so often said, who would put up with an unmarried woman and a child, especially when her swollen belly told all that was needed about her morals? Anyhow, work was scarce in the area. And she hadn’t yet earned their reference.

  The Cavetts made no allowance for Grace’s pregnancy. No matter that it was the result of their bullish son, Matthew, who’d forced himself upon her. The Cavetts were doggedly blind to any wrongdoing of their only child, who stopped by their house on a whim to share tales of his success as a travelling purveyor of medical treatments, then ask for money to develop his next formulation. Grace had watched through keyholes and cracked-open doors as the Cavetts handed their son money as though they were in a trance, Mr Cavett wearing the hurt expression of a child at their son’s underestimation of them, Mrs Cavett wanting to return to the storyline of a son made good. Watching Matthew fleece his parents was the one time Grace felt pity for the Cavetts, pity that made way for dread, as they would inevitably vent their pain and humiliation on her once their son left.

  Of course, Grace had never expected Matthew Cavett to push himself against her in the barn on his Christmas pass through the area, full of swagger from the dollar bills in his pocket and the moonshine in his belly. His fat tongue tasted of rancid fish, unaccountably so given the grease that stained his pants was from the evening’s ham hock. He’d been brutish, so heavy she was scared she’d suffocate, worried he’d snap her bones.

  The memory made Grace shake and heave. At first she’d thought the vomiting was a way of purging him from her mind. But when her breasts ballooned and ached, and her monthly blood dried up, she knew. How could a child be conceived from an act she’d so resisted, with a man she found so repulsive? For an instant, she’d considered her knitting needles, then asked God for forgiveness.