The Visionist: A Novel

by Rachel Urquhart

  Elder Sister Agnes did not say a word throughout the whole of Polly’s confession. Indeed, the few times that Polly dared to look into her eyes, she noticed nothing but sadness. And when Polly had finished her story, Elder Sister Agnes looked away towards the bleak light coming through the window and still she kept quiet.

  “You must despise me,” Polly said. “Perhaps more, even, than you thought you might.”

  The eldress turned to look at her. “No, Sister Polly,” she said. Her voice was barely audible, and she turned away a moment before continuing to speak. “How could I despise one who has been so unfairly cursed?”

  They sat in silence, and for the first time, Polly felt calm in the eldress’s presence.

  “I…I had to get Mama and Ben away,” she stammered. “I don’t understand what happened after that. I suppose I intended to set the house on fire. I hated him, I won’t lie. I—”

  Elder Sister Agnes interrupted her. “You say that after you settled your mother and Benjamin in the cart, you went back into the house carrying a heavy lamp?” she asked. “To look at him one last time? What did you hope to see?”

  Polly thought a moment before answering. “I wanted to…remember him. Not as he always was, screaming and beating Mama and…well, I’ve said what else he did.” She stopped, suddenly ashamed.

  “Go on, Sister Polly.”

  “I wanted to remember him weak, vulnerable, like a child I could have done anything to. Like he saw us.”

  “And the lamp,” Elder Sister Agnes went on. “You say he startled you and you dropped it.”

  “Yes,” Polly said. “But I think now that I must have meant it. That it was no accident.”

  “Why would you think such a thing?”

  “Because, while I believed for a moment when I first came here that maybe I was…good, I have since discovered how capable I am of deceit, of the worst form of treachery. I have realized that I am rotten and that I must have meant to…murder him.”

  Elder Sister Agnes stared out the window again before looking back at Polly. “I disagree, Sister,” she said. “I think that the lamp slipped from your hands as it would from anyone’s. I think that there was a sleeping man on the bed before you, and with the flames leaping around you, you realized that you were not strong enough to drag him out. You are guilty of nothing save finding yourself in the middle of a dangerous tragedy.” She paused. “What are you going to do about his child?”

  Polly’s cheeks reddened. To hear mention of her disgrace only made her feel more disgusted by it.

  “I…” She turned and stared into the eldress’s eyes. “You will not approve, Eldress.”

  “Tell me anyway,” Elder Sister Agnes said.

  “I have decided to…out it from my womb. I cannot abide his presence in me. My father’s. I…” She turned her face away.

  Once again, the eldress paused before speaking.

  “It is dangerous, you know. If that is your decision, you will need a doctor to help you through.”

  “I know,” Polly answered. “That is why I came to you in the first place. To find out when I would be leaving.”

  The eldress thought a moment. “I do not want to draw attention to the inspector’s visit. We both know what is good for the believers as far as your departure is concerned. I think it best that they see neither Mister Pryor nor your mother in any special way. We have had an increasing number of people from the World visit the Sabbath Meeting since you arrived here. According to the new rules sent out from the Central Ministry, we should not allow them in, but as there is always the chance that one or two of them will join us having seen our worship, the elders here have decided to…quietly follow our own counsel in the matter. Perhaps the inspector and your mother could visit from the World this coming Sabbath Day. They could sit in the gallery with all the others; then you could slip away with them after Meeting is over.”

  “But you wanted to speak to my mother,” Polly said. “About Ben. When?”

  “I am of the opinion,” the eldress answered, “that under the circumstances, it might be better to have that conversation at another time. Given everything you have told me, I think it prudent to concentrate on you for the time being.”

  Polly looked at her skeptically. “At another time?”

  Elder Sister Agnes smiled. “You must trust me, Sister Polly. I have suspected you all the time I’ve known you, it’s true, but not because I am wicked. I need time to think about Benjamin. I promise, I will speak to your mother, and we will try and find a solution that leaves everyone happy—including the boy.”

  Polly nodded. There was little more she could say. She sighed, feeling she had failed her brother yet again. “I am late for my duties in the sewing room,” she said as she stood, not sure quite how to take her leave. Then, to her great surprise, Elder Sister Agnes stood up and approached her.

  She seemed to want to reach out and touch Polly’s shoulder to comfort her. But then she pulled back at the last moment, unable to complete the gesture. “You must wait before taking the…medicine,” she said. “I have not asked how you got it, but I have my suspicions, and thus I have no doubt that you have been instructed as to how you should use it. Pay that advice great heed, Sister Polly. Your life may depend on it.”

  “I will,” Polly answered. “I will time my actions with care.”

  They stood together, not speaking. Then the eldress said, “Go now and be gentle with yourself, Sister. You deserve to feel at peace.” And with that she turned away. As Polly pulled shut the door, the last thing she saw was the eldress’s back, bowed by the burden of all that she had so tenaciously sought to be told.

  Simon Pryor

  I HAD BEEN overwhelmed by the scope and implication of what Barnabas Trask had revealed to me, so I did not greet the sight of yet another tightly penned note peeking out from under my door with great enthusiasm. It was from the Shaker sister, and I worried that she was writing to tell me she had changed her mind and would no longer allow me to meet with Polly Kimball. Something about the woman rubbed me the wrong way, and I believed as fully in her power to disappoint as I did in her piety.

  But I could not have been more wrong: She requested that May and I come to the Sabbath Meeting that was to take place in just a few days. From there, she wrote, we could slip away with Polly, unnoticed by the other believers. She made no mention of Ben, but there was no time to worry about that now. I had not a second to lose in securing May Kimball.

  “James Hurlbut shall receive his documents, but only once I can be assured that May Kimball is alive and, if not exactly well, then at least no worse than when he kidnapped her. Is that clear? Sunday morning…seven o’clock. On the road to Albion just beyond the signpost.”

  These were the orders I delivered to Cramby when he came calling the next day with a note from James Hurlbut, demanding a meeting.

  “The town is not large,” I assured him, taking the note, scribbling my reply and bustling him out the door. “You shall find the spot easily enough. Just make certain that in the days remaining, the woman is given ample food and rations. Blankets, too. I have written in my note that I shall inspect her myself. Her well-being is the hinge upon which this door swings—you must see to it that Hurlbut understands that.”

  “We shall be at the meeting Sunday morn, sir.” Cramby’s hand shook as he took back the dispatch and thrust it into his pocket. “The minute the lady glimpses daylight again, I’ll have bowed before James Hurlbut for the last time.”

  His gaunt face glowed with anticipation before a shadow crossed and it went dark. “S-sir,” he stammered, “before I leave, I’ve something to give you you’ll not be pleased to see. Found it on Scales’s desk this morning. Your boy must have been caught on his way to delivering it.” He reached into his pocket and pulled from it the letter I’d written to my mother and father. “I don’t know what you penned here, sir—I’d never read it,” Cramby said, looking down in shame. “But it was open when I found it.”

&nbs
p; “Are you saying that Hurlbut may have seen this?” I asked.

  Cramby’s silence was answer enough. I looked at the crumpled paper—now that I understood what May Kimball had done to take care of her children, it seemed a pathetic attempt to bridge years of absence. Worse still, Hurlbut knew of my desire to see my parents. Could he find some way to make them suffer? I could only hope that he would be too interested in getting his hands on May Kimball’s land to think about it.

  “Thank you, Cramby,” I said. I was glad to be made aware of what purchase my enemy had on me. It was to my advantage to be prepared. “You’ve done me a great service, one I shan’t forget. Now, be off. We’ve a net to weave.”

  He turned and left me, not a glance back. Just walked briskly towards a new future so close at hand he could practically smell the varnish.

  Sunday morning dawned foggy and seemed to want to stay that way, almost as though the weather itself knew there were strange doings afoot. I was glad for the damp shroud, for I had arranged to meet Hurlbut along a busy stretch of road near Albion, and I was not eager to negotiate with him in front of a procession of travelers. Our rendezvous was to occur early enough that I might continue on in haste to the Shaker Sabbath Meeting. There, with May Kimball by my side, I would secure the release of at least one of the Kimball children. In time, perhaps Trask could find a way to break the boy’s indenture; for now, I was ready to take what I could get.

  When I woke, I had the sense that I had been ambushed by daybreak, and I all but faltered beneath the weightiness of my situation. A woman’s family and livelihood—if not her life—hung in the balance, and I had only an aged deed to offer in exchange for my prize. The paper’s value came not from what it actually said but from what it could be made to say through the wily manipulation of Hiram Scales, Esquire. He was a man for whom birth certificates were generated to be reborn, deeds to be undone, and wills to be robbed of all will. He was a dissembler of genius. How, I wondered, would Trask—a mere lamb of the law—measure up against such a wolf?

  The line of crooked constables and lawyers Hurlbut had assembled—to say nothing of my doctored report—assured his success in winning the property at auction. May Kimball and her children, should I be lucky enough to bring them back together, would have not a penny to their name and nowhere to go. That, at least, is how I hoped it would appear to James Hurlbut.

  I dressed in the better of my Sunday suits, for it was modest and somber and I thought it would help me fade equally well into morning mist and midday piety. My day was fuller by far than usual, and as I climbed onto the bench of my covered carriage and urged my horses forward, I felt the grip of jangling exhaustion.

  Up and down the now familiar road to Albion I traveled, and though it was still near dark, I felt I knew every bump and curve along the way. Finally, from a distance, I saw Cramby standing on the side of the thoroughfare in the appointed meeting place, his dark coat hanging off his frame, a black-clad scarecrow. I rolled up and greeted him with a curt nod.

  “I’ve been instructed to inform you, Mister Pryor,” he said loudly and deliberately, “that the carriage bearing the party of interest will arrive soon as the lady can be coaxed into it. She’s all a-fright, but when she comes, you’ll have your inspection. My master says he hopes you’ll be pleased with his keeping of her.” His face was grave as he bowed and then blinked significantly at me upon rising. I, too, had a part to play, and so I heaved my most irritable sigh and made a show of pulling my watch from my pocket and tapping upon its face.

  “I was specific as to the time of our meeting, Cramby,” I grumbled. “But then your master has never troubled himself with the convenience of others, has he?”

  “Don’t know what you speak of, sir,” Cramby answered, ever the good soldier. “Mister Hurlbut, he’s as good as his word. That’s truth for you, and if you don’t mind, I’m not keen to say more, sir.”

  “Well, Cramby, you’re right about that—the man is certainly as good as his word.”

  Cramby pursed his lips in a dramatic display of disapproval, and I knew he was trying to signal that we were being watched. Deceit breeds mistrust, and one does not become a rogue like James Hurlbut by relying on the honesty of others.

  I turned and climbed atop the driver’s perch once more. Perhaps the impression that I might lose patience and leave would hasten Hurlbut’s arrival, for he desired what I carried in my pocket as badly as I wished for May Kimball to be situated safely on the seat behind me, wrapped in the blankets I’d brought and eating the bread and cheese I’d packed into a sack before I left.

  Minutes later, his carriage lumbered into view and pulled up short beside me. I peered through the fringed window to behold one of the strangest pairings I have ever seen. For there sat James Hurlbut dressed in his finest frippery while May Kimball—a study in misery—sat as far from him as possible wedged into the opposite corner. The lush red tufted velvet of the seat only served to highlight the impression that, in all but body, she had entered another realm. Her eyes stared in the general direction of Hurlbut’s three-button shoes, her face a blank and colorless curtain of despair. It was as though every muscle in her expression had given up, refusing to support emotion of any sort.

  Three sharp raps from the silver head of Hurlbut’s stick indicated that he sought my attention. Fearful he might catch a disease of some sort from the sorry company with whom he shared his carriage, he’d covered his mouth with a lace handkerchief and was thus quite difficult to understand when he spoke.

  “You’ve had your look,” he said. “Now pass me the packet so I can read it through in private. Then and only then will I have Cramby hand over the lovely lady for whom you have pined so assiduously. You’ll find yourself thankful for the fresh air of the driver’s bench, I’ll wager you that. The packet, if you please.”

  His short fingers emerged from the tips of his demi-gloves like pink sausages. I detest the cultivation of uselessness that is so popular among the rich—their overripe appendages and soft middles; their pale, unmarked skin; their sagging jowls. They labor over this display of weakness, for it announces their immunity from struggle, thereby—they presume—placing them above the common man. I enjoyed watching James Hurlbut suffer a moment in the cold.

  “I cannot agree to your terms,” I said, waving my hand dismissively. “For how can I trust that, should she stay beside you in the carriage, you will not take the envelope and be gone. On the other hand, should you force her to wait outside, she’ll freeze. Let us conduct this exchange like gentlemen. I shall stand well away from my carriage. Please instruct your man to help May Kimball into it and cover her with blankets. Then I shall wait beside you until you have studied the papers and found them acceptable.” I hopped down from my bench waggling the packet in front of the window. “And you’ll not forget my purse, I trust.”

  I trusted nothing of the sort, but strode away anyway without acknowledging his reply. Presently, I heard the door to his carriage open and turned to see Cramby helping May Kimball down the step. He bent towards her, holding her arm, encouraging her along and then tucking the blankets round her after he had walked her to my trap, helped her inside, and pressed the bread I’d brought into her hands before quietly closing the door. Then he strode, head down, to the other door of Hurlbut’s carriage and held out an arm to support his master, who placed a foot daintily on the frozen ground and looked round at the bleakness of the surrounding countryside. The wind toyed so roughly with his maroon topcoat, feathered felt hat, and curled locks that I could easily picture him rising up and flapping away. With a scowl, he managed to sort himself out, and eyeing the dirt of the road before embarking on the perilous journey that would land him at my side, he took his first hesitant step.

  “As always, Pryor,” he remarked, “it appears to delight you to cause me the utmost inconvenience. Had you not in your possession—by sheer chance, I might add—something of great interest to me, I would never have agreed to your terms. Now, shall we attend to t
he business at hand? No doubt you are eager to continue your chat with Mrs. Kimball, the one that was so rudely interrupted the other afternoon.”

  I said nothing. I did not need to: The paper in my pocket spoke for me. Affecting the most magnanimous smile I could summon, I gazed upon Hurlbut’s despised form for what I sincerely hoped would be the last time.

  “Now that you have seen your quarry,” he huffed, “such a lovely thing, is she not?—it would be decent of you to deliver me mine. I shall feel much relieved when I can hold the envelope in my own hands.”

  Like a glutton forced to endure grace when a sumptuous meal rests just inches from his maw, Hurlbut hated nothing more than to be kept waiting with satisfaction so close at hand. A little flattery might be in order, I thought, for it would draw out the minutes and force patience upon him.

  “I must say that I am impressed as ever,” I said, my voice oily with sarcasm, “with your ability to bring the world to its knees and, indeed, its riches to your feet.”

  He regarded me with something close to hatred. “You are still the same contrary creature, are you not, Pryor? Never at peace with your level in life, always scratching about to raise yourself out of the mire? Guilt can be…so crippling. My forgiving nature almost makes it tempting to pity you. Almost, but not quite. It came to my attention that you wrote a letter—a very touching one at that—begging your mother and father to take you back. Do you not realize that you can never return? I do apologize, but that was our boyhood agreement, was it not?”

  He stuck the needle in with great precision. Still, I had grown calluses to equal his expertise, and thus we remained impervious to each other.

  “I am pleased to hear you mention my intercepted letter,” I said. “For it brings to mind one condition I neglected to mention with regard to our little exchange. You shall see the back of me once this is done, now and forever. I should have fought you from the first, when we were young and you were still clumsy in your bullying ways. If you wish to have the packet, you must promise never to put a hand towards directing misfortune my family’s way. I have recently been made aware of a witness to your cowardice on the day your sister died. Now that your father is old and infirm, I don’t know that his opinion matters much to you anymore, but I, at least, would find some satisfaction in setting the record straight.”