The Visionist: A Novel

by Rachel Urquhart

Do you think my heart leapt every time I saw my father in his ink-stained apron, older, stooped, standing alone at his worktable? Do you think that the warm lamplight glowing in the windows above the shop made me ache for the embrace of my mother? Do you think that I considered for a moment, knocking at the door and ending my years of exile? Of course. But I had a job to do and found it easier by far to turn sharply in the direction of the Town Hall, where already a line of men, women, and children had gathered, craning their necks towards the door, worried that the room was already too crowded to allow them entry.

  There were men of all trades present, for when a son dies or runs away, the father is often left in need of cheap labor. But most of the congregants were spectators, the type to attend hangings on the village green as easily as they did church picnics. I remembered a back entrance to the hall, one my friends and I had used to sneak inside and drink cider under cover from the snow and rain, free of admonishing stares from our elders. Tying my horse to the empty rail, I slipped through the door. I had been wise not to wait with the others, for the room was indeed jammed, a loud burble of excitement filling the air. The smell of so many packed in so tight—their sweat, their breath, the manure on their boots—was enough to make my eyes run, but I found a place by the window and from that perch began to scour the crowd for anyone I might recognize.

  No one threw so much as a glance my way, but how their faces blazed memories back at me! There was the winsome Hailey Grant, a clutch of sticky-faced children about her skirts. And by the far window, Jonas Canon, darkly clad and of somber disposition, just as an undertaker’s son ought to be. I was hardly surprised to see Zachary Sinclair—with his fine bones, neat habit, and carefully curled hair—accompanied by neither wife nor child but instead by an ethereal equal. And, had I wagered long ago that Solomon Hadley would grow up as porcine and walnut-nosed as his father, I would be pleased with my gamble. What qualities of my youth could still be found in me? I wondered.

  I turned towards the makeshift platform to study the auction’s sad exhibits. If she had not found employment as a mill worker or domestic, May was as likely to be here as anywhere. Why? Because every community has its share of wastrels hiding in the shadows, occasionally risking a plaintive plea for coins or food or drink. Whether or not their begging goes heeded, they are watched and counted closely by more fortunate folk. And, once a year, the strongest of the lot are herded together and auctioned off—but not in a manner you are likely to have encountered before.

  At an auction of paintings—or even cattle—men vie to outbid one another, thereby increasing the value of whatever happens to be on the block. But in small towns such as my own, paupers are contracted to the lowest bidders. The winner is the man whose bid reflects the size of the stipend he is willing to accept from the town coffers for taking a beggar off the streets. The less municipal money he takes to cover food, lodging, and clothing, the more of his own he has to put in. And, from the pauper’s point of view, the more the bidder has to spend out of his own pocket, the harder the work and the worse the conditions.

  The practice—which, in the more free-thinking and sophisticated newspapers, I have seen referred to as the “New England Method”—filled me with shame. Now, to look round at neighbors I had once admired and watch them grin in expectation was to feel more wretched still. Is there no fixed bottom for us sinking men? Like mud in a quagmire, the ruthlessness of our behavior seems to suck ever harder.

  I was thankful, finally, to hear the gavel come down three times sharply on the auctioneer’s block. A cheer went up. The games were to begin. First to go was the youngest of the bunch, a haggard girl who can’t have been more than sixteen. She seemed to accept what her fate would most likely be and remained expressionless as winking men fought one another for her services. Finally, a sweating, ruddy-faced brute—too ugly to have found a wife through more acceptable channels—won her, walking proudly to the stage to seize from the outstretched hand of Billy Fowles, town treasurer, the pittance he’d agreed to take in return for ownership of the girl. I was ashamed at my first thought: She was too young to be May Kimball. A hardy-looking woman was up next—far too robust for my purposes—and the expression she wore was fierce. She proved to be fine entertainment, for the assembled broke into hearty guffaws when a meek little farmer bought her for near nothing and was then himself led out the door by the woman he’d won. Won is perhaps the wrong way to put it, for it was clear he’d gotten more than he bargained for. Two sisters, indistinguishable in age and appearance, clung with such tenacity to each other that the auctioneer smiled greedily as he pledged to knock them both off the town’s dockets if someone in the crowd would venture a marginally low bid for the price of one. They, too, were taken eventually, and as the lot dwindled to the eldest and sickest of the pickings, the master of ceremonies began to bellow louder and more excitedly, hoping to generate enthusiasm. If May Kimball was here, then she was one of the unfortunate leftovers.

  They were a miserable lot, headed up by an old woman with a piercing glare. But one stood the slightest bit apart from the rest. She was the thinnest, and though her clothes hung off her body, they seemed warm and well made by comparison to those of her companions. She had once been pretty, though her face had the haunted look of one pursued by misfortune for too long. Her hair was dirty and unkempt, and her hands had the chapped swell of a washwoman’s—still she stood tall and held her head high. Why could I not stop looking at her? Where had I seen such hidden grace? Could it be that I had stumbled upon an older, life-worn version of Polly Kimball? Had I found May?

  “Six hundred, gentlemen, is Mister Sadler’s offer. He will take the last of the paupers and give them suitable provision for a year for six hundred! Six hundred for the lady paupers for one year… Going… Does anybody say less than six?”

  “Five hundred and seventy-five!” called a man seated in the front.

  “Come now!” yelled Sadler. “You can’t mean it!”

  “Gentlemen,” said the auctioneer anxiously, eyeing the exodus as the crowd began to pull on hats and cloaks and shuffle home for the midday meal. “Gentlemen! We have another bid from a responsible townsman up front here. Five hundred and seventy-five. Is that you, Mister Bacon?”

  The man in front nodded.

  “Yessirs, it is!” the auctioneer crowed. “Mister Abraham Bacon knows all about it—five hundred seventy-five, and…going! Now’s your chance, Sadler. Can’t be helped that another man’s come on the scene. The last of the town paupers of Burns’ Hollow for one year—five hundred seventy-five…”

  “Seventy!” cried Sadler. The audience stopped bustling and stared.

  “Sixty-five!” countered Bacon.

  “Sixty!” spat Sadler, a look of determination in the set of his jaw.

  “Five hundred and sixty! Ha!” The auctioneer hooted. “Oh, down they go! What’s a loss to you, gentlemen, is gain to us. A gain to all you who are tired of stepping over these wastrels as you make your way about your business.”

  At this, the crowd roared in agreement, but the gig was not up yet.

  “Five hundred and fifty-five!” bellowed Bacon.

  There was a pause in the proceedings. Even those of a low bent could hardly see their way to keeping this number of beggars alive on so little.

  “Five hundred and fifty,” came a gravelly voice that had not been heard before. “Five hundred and fifty and I’ll take the whole lot off your hands.”

  Everyone turned and stared at the source of this latest offer as I tipped my hat to further conceal my face. I didn’t want to risk knowing the man—or more to the point, having him know me.

  “It’s Varnum Tanner,” the audience whispered. “Varnum Tanner!”

  “What’s he need with a bunch of women beggars?”

  “I’ll tell you what he needs, if you really wants to know… Ha!”

  As nobody dared bid below him, Tanner got the contract.

  “It’s a right tough squeeze,” said the grinning auction
eer, “to make anything on this lot.”

  “And to be humane and merciful about it,” said Tanner with a wink.

  “Ain’t that it exactly.” The auctioneer nodded. His face had taken on a look of piety so transparent it was difficult not to imagine Lucifer himself waving from behind it. “Too bad to bet low on the poor devils and be under all that temptation to screw ’em if you don’t come out well once the work’s done, eh?” Tanner joined in with the auctioneer’s lewd chuckling.

  From my place in the crowd, I turned and spoke in a low voice to the grinning man standing beside me. “Who’s this Tanner fellow?”

  “You from other parts?” he asked. “Tanner’s got the biggest farm in town—well, just outside if you’re being particular about it. He’ll labor this lot to the death if I know him. He’s rich for two reasons: He makes everyone round his farm work hard and he don’t owe nothin’ to James Hurlbut. Fact is, it’s Hurlbut who calls on him for favors. Now that’s a turn of things for you!”

  I turned in time to hear the last of the transaction, the town treasurer singing out from his desk as he counted the money to be paid to Tanner. “Just tell me,” he roared, “that you’ll be taking the wenches off with you now! They’ve cost me enough already.”

  “My man,” Tanner said gruffly, “is on the job as you speak, Mister Fowles.”

  And it was true. Prodded and yelled at like cattle, the women were being herded off the stage and out the front doors by a hired man, then loaded into an uncovered wagon as the sky grew dark and a cold wind swirled their ragged shawls.

  Could Tanner have bought them so that Hurlbut would pay to take May off the man’s hands? After all, Hurlbut might not have wanted to be seen buying May himself, a woman whose farm he was then going to steal. If for matters of reputation alone, he needed to secure her in a roundabout manner, this was as good a way as any. I looked about the scattering crowd to see if there was anyone I recognized from his gang, but not a face stood out.

  Save one.

  Barnabas Trask. I was almost sure of it. His hat was pulled down over his head almost as far as was mine, but he’d risked a quick gaze round the room and I’d seen his face. Plunging in after him, I wondered why he was here. Having hired me, he’d had no reason to dirty his hands himself.

  But fast as I wove my way, I couldn’t catch him and he slipped easily into the throng. He was that sort, never a standout, as common as a sheep among sheep. With a few tips from me he’d have made a good investigator. Our invisibility is as important to us as a clown’s maquillage.

  The one thing of which I was certain was that Trask’s motives would be easy to ascertain, for he was not a savvy man. So I concentrated on making my next move: I had to get to May before one of Hurlbut’s men did. I had to follow the wagon to Tanner’s farm, slip in and talk to her just as soon as she was alone.

  I watched the cart leave. One chance look at a poster had pulled me back to Burns’ Hollow. One chance look had likely led me straight to May Kimball. Deep in thought, I walked to the back of the hall, through the door, and untied my horse. Deep in thought, yes—but not so deep that I failed to notice a man slink round a nearby corner just as I looked his way. He’d been watching me. Clearly, May was an object of great value to many of us.

  And what right had I, you might ask, to think my reasons for wanting her were any more holy than the others’? I needed May Kimball to cover my lies. I needed May Kimball so that she could help me gum up James Hurlbut’s plan to buy her farm. But worst of all, I needed May Kimball to save my soul.

  Polly

  SHE AROSE FROM her bed and washed away her tears. No more of that, she told herself. Now, with this new horror to keep secret, she would have to redouble her efforts to stay strong. The baby growing inside her tortured her no less completely than had its maker, for it would remind her of him every minute of every day. She should have known he would be devious in finding a way to get her in the end. How long before the believers found out? She smoothed her hands down the front of her dress. She was thin as a stick. Certainly, by the look of her, she did not appear to be with child.

  After pulling herself together, she left the dwelling house and walked briskly to the Church Family meetinghouse. How low she felt, how weary. If this was to be another wondrous display of the believers’ faith, she wanted none of it. She had begun to find it difficult to join in as they parroted the language of Eskimo kings or spoke in the deep tones of George Washington. This tiny, practical place became a veritable madhouse at Meeting time, and she found herself yearning for release as much from the believers’ ecstasy as from their narrow ways. Ah, to read something other than the blasphemous red book. To speak freely to one of the brethren she passed so closely while walking on paths that had become narrow, high-walled alleys of snow. To hold Ben and see Mama again. To take a single breath without being told that it was Mother who’d allowed her to take it. Her sense of what was and was not miraculous was changing quickly.

  But the late-night Meeting had been different, wondrous in a whole new way, with each and every sister and brother receiving inscribed paper hearts. True, she felt the air leave her chest as she watched Ben take his from Elder Sister Agnes. But seeing his face lit up with anticipation, how could Polly not have felt glad? Had he not been given more that day than in all the hours of his sorry life? Still, she would never forget that he had been stolen from her, for somehow the ceremony had cemented his place among these strangers. And she had not mistaken the meaning of Elder Sister Agnes’s blessing upon the boy. It was an indoctrination: Ben was a pure and solid Shaker now. He had left the World and all who had once loved him.

  As to what had been written for her, it was a message as cryptic as scratches on the walls of an ancient tomb. The sheer beauty and fullness of the Vision—more than one hundred tiny hearts!—had convinced Polly that Sister Cora Ann had been touched by something truly divine. But then, if she believed in the messenger, must not she also believe in the message? Polly took her blessing and backed away down the aisle, not wanting to turn on her elders and eldresses, her hand trembling so that she had difficulty reading the tiny writing at first. She saw a picture drawn at the center—a candle, beautifully penned—surrounded by letters that looped across the paper, so small she had to bring the heart in close to read what they said.

  You, Sister Polly, came to the Believers from a place of Despair. Still, you appeared as a Miracle, Wondrous Bright. You are not Bound as are they, but fly Between worlds. When we meet in Zion, then I shall send you Down and Down again to the Earth, as many times as it takes to save a sea of Fallen Souls. For you, ever Alone among Many, know Darkness yet are possessed of the Light by which to see through it. This is your Burden and your Blessing.

  The ink lines were searing, and for a moment, she felt blinded. But then the words of her blessing began to drift into her mind. You…from a place of great despair…fly between worlds… When you meet me in Zion…alone among many…your burden…your blessing.

  Her breath returned slowly and she opened her eyes to a room bathed in the golden glow of what seemed a thousand candles. She had known then what she needed to do—was eager, even, to get it done. Looking down at her clenched hand, she saw that like a poppy in darkness, the fragile heart had crumpled shut.

  A week passed. Still she waited for the moment to come. She could barely drag herself through her chores, so tired and sick did she feel. Charity tells Sister Clara in the dairy that Polly is weaving, and Sister Faith at the loom that Polly is in the kitchens, and Sister Lavinia by the ovens that Polly has been called to the sewing room. At the tolling of the last bell on this night, as on so many others, Polly falls onto her pallet, and before tumbling into a troubled sleep, she can feel Charity’s worried eyes upon her.

  “You are fretting again, Sister,” Polly says in as light a tone as she can manage. “I shall be fine. You above all people know that these illnesses pass. I just need a full rest tonight. I am sorry to miss our book again. I know—”
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  “Say nothing more,” Charity interjects. She speaks with uncharacteristic force. “I am ready. We shall go tonight.”

  “Where? What journey have you planned for us? Where will Mister Wolcott take us?” She had begun to see that she could hide inside the red book no longer, for though she tried to pretend it held for her the same joy that it did for Charity, she could not. Charity knew her too well, and though the devoted sister had found the stories to be full of wondrous discovery, Polly now listened to them with nothing but desolation. She was too tired and too afraid—especially now—of what the World held for her. Certainly nothing so warm and miraculous as an Indian bazaar. She closed her eyes and fell asleep.

  Hours later, she was shaken awake. “We must go,” the voice said, and though it was kind and sure, it came to her as if from a dream. “We will need time.”

  Polly rose slowly. The pain in her gut had subsided, and yet everywhere she felt tender and knew it would come again. She did not question Charity. She had hope that her dear sister could help her. No one else could, of this much she was sure. Slipping on the cloth shoes she wore to dance at Meeting, she thought, Their soft tread shall be put to a different purpose tonight.

  Outside, the floor of the wide hallway that divided sister from brother had been dusted with a fine film of talc. Charity gasped, and Polly realized that in all of the sister’s fifteen years in The City of Hope—save for the night the hearts were given, the night of the Midnight Cry—she had never opened the door of her room after retiring. She squeezed Charity’s arm and moved in front of her. If they were to do this, it was Polly who would have to lead the way. Swept clean by an elder each dawn before the other believers had risen, the fine powder spelled out in footprints the sins of those who might endeavor to leave their rooms under cover of darkness.

  Polly turned and whispered. “I can get us through. Just curl up your toes and walk on cats’ paws. Like this.” She lifted her nightdress and showed Charity her pointed foot. The sister blanched, stripped now of all decisiveness. Polly directed her to tiptoe in front, then stepped in the tiny tracks where Charity had gone before, turning to swirl lightly the hem of her nightdress and so blow the powder back over their prints. The marks disappeared, and Polly smiled at the fact that their movements could not be traced. For once, she felt free. For once, no one would follow or spy or listen round corners.