The Purchase

by Linda Spalding

  As usual, Daniel mentioned Rebecca. He looked down at the grave and then up at the apple tree that had grown so sturdily from Joseph’s flesh and spoke of Rebecca’s exemplary life, but such talk made him tearful and he soon changed the subject. “Did I mention I once saw a panther at the top of a tree in Lancaster?” he said to lighten the mood. “Someone shot at it – that I remember – and it jumped out of the tree and broke its legs.” Here he stopped, wiped his face with his handkerchief, and looked up to see Benjamin.

  “You all right, Pap?” Benjamin had been away for two weeks and now he pointed back to the family wagon in which he had just unexpectedly arrived. It had a new canvas top. “Look there! What do you see?”

  Daniel saw the new top and under it a seated girl, fanning herself. He recognized her. It was Elizabeth Ransome. And here was old Daniel, cooking sausages on an outside stove and talking out loud to his buried child.

  “We married each other,” Benjamin said.

  Behind the wagon, Daniel saw two men, who were apparently tied to its shaft. “Who are they?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Come greet your new daughter and I will explain.”

  The two men were stretching and moaning and wondering if there might be water to drink.

  Benjamin yelled, “Mama Ruth, come say hello to Missus Benjamin Dickinson.”

  Ruth came out of the house and stood. “Married,” she said coldly, nodding at Elizabeth, who had stolen her dear Benjamin. John was called outside and Benjamin helped Elizabeth out of the wagon as if she had never put shoe to ground. When Daniel came across to her, he brushed her cheek with his beard, muttering his welcome as if it should not be overheard. Then he asked again, “Who are these men?”

  Benjamin said, “Wedding gifts” as he untied them.

  Daniel told John to bring water. The two exhausted men had walked behind the wagon all the way across Virginia and now they sat down hard in its shade.

  With so many people to be fed, the family elected to sit outside with plates on their laps. Sausages with onions, cornbread with cream. Elizabeth fanned herself and gazed at the house as if she had forgotten how humble it was. She looked at the sycamore trees. “We forgot to call Mary,” Daniel said, tapping his forehead with a finger. “In all the excitement, we forgot to send for her.”

  John seized this opportunity to absent himself. And what about Isaac? he thought, pushing away from the table angrily. He had been down to the shed to see his brother for himself, finding him thinner and dustier. Isaac smelled like the animals now and made sorry jokes about his adventures, but he was the eldest and ought to be here.

  Once John had gone off to get Mary, Daniel found his voice. “I’ll have no slave on my land. You know that,” he told Benjamin.

  “And does this holy edict include Floyd and Cherry and their sons, who plow and plant that land for you?”

  Daniel examined Benjamin as if to find a visible flaw, reminding himself that there were words not to be said. He had taken ownership of the slave family only months before when Michael Shoffert had needed to sell them. It was an act of decency meant to keep the little family together, but Benjamin would not understand.

  Then John was returning with Mary, driving her in her own cart. As they alighted, Mary ran to Elizabeth to greet her and then turned to her father, speaking in her quiet voice, pleading with him to welcome Isaac to the meal.

  Daniel remembered that she, too, was his child still. “Thy food is there to be eaten,” he said.

  Benjamin was pulling his half-brother by the arm. “John, I know you are a boy yet,” he said, “and too young to be taken seriously, but come over here to the shade. I have an offer to make.” He took John’s plate away, leading him into the clearing.

  Mary wanted to ask her father about Wiley. Isaac was back but not Wiley. How could she learn about Wiley’s whereabouts? If he had been taken prisoner, what could they know of it? She watched Elizabeth watching Benjamin under the trees talking to John and remembered the happiness of new marriage. “You are Isaac’s father,” she said. “This is his home and you must forgive him.” She did not mention Wiley.

  Daniel rose. He turned and went into his house, closing the door on her pleas.

  In the shade of the twin sycamores, Benjamin was laughing. “Remember our fort?”

  “I do.” John remembered the time Benjamin had tied him to a stake and thrown arrows at him.

  “Good. Your memory is what I require. For our new enterprise.” Benjamin did not want to sound proud, but how could it be helped.

  “Thank you, but Pap says I am to study. It is his plan, that I should use –”

  “You should use your fine ability at figures,” Benjamin said.

  “But I must wait for employment until I am older. Pap says that –”

  “Do you remember Mister Franklin? What he said?”

  “That time is money?” John knew it was Benjamin’s favourite quote.

  “The point is that the more you give of yourself, the more you receive. Pap would agree with that.”

  John thought Daniel would have said that the more one receives, the more one must give. He said, “Let Isaac help you. Give him welcome. Our father will still not speak to him.”

  “Brother, this is a great chance for you. I need a bookkeeper. Those two men over there know everything about the cotton plant.”

  “Which none of us knows in the least.” John’s voice was small.

  “We have always and so far known nothing of anything,” Benjamin conceded, putting an arm around John. “And just look. I have a wife and two acres and a mill and two workers. I have property, brother, and I’m going to have more, and you will be my partner.”

  “Isaac is the oldest,” John murmured, shaking his head.

  “It is not age I need but faith. Lend me your faith, little brother, and I will make us wealthy as kings.”

  Isaac had gathered a bunch of cornflowers, tied them together with a piece of string, dusted his hat, and walked away from his father’s land after three weeks in that shed. Soon he found himself on the porch of the Fox house, where he stood for an instant, then knocked. It was a hot day and Wiley’s leather breeches were sticking to his legs. He tugged at them and waited, over-warm, uncomfortable. But his little sister was here somewhere and even if the sun beat down straight on his head and the skinny poplar tree in the yard gave not an ounce of shade he would stand here and wait for her.

  “I heard tell you were back,” cried Jemima gladly as she opened the door wide. She had come into the worn light of the hall from someplace else. She was dishevelled, her hair uncombed as if she had been asleep at midday. He handed her the flowers and put his arms around her, thinking of Rafe, wondering if she was safe with him.

  Jemima said, “This is where I live now. Papa won’t come. Nobody will. I am in disgrace.”

  “I came.”

  She sniffed at the flowers, which had no smell.

  “And look at you … mistress of this big house!” Isaac looked down the hall, at the far end of which was an open door leading to a back porch.

  “Mistress of nothing,” she said and took a step in the direction of the front door. “We can talk outside.”

  “Can you not talk in your own house?”

  “Oh, it’s not mine.” Jemima cradled the cornflowers and stepped out and along a path that led through high grass toward a kennel full of barking hounds. Isaac paused once to look back, knowing that his father had once come here with the body of Jester Fox. Jemima would not remember that time, she had been so small, but he remembered everything – even the smell of his father’s wet woollen coat after he came back with the wagon saying Jester Fox was killed, which was a strange word to use for an accident. Now Jemima led him on past the hounds, who had set up a howling. “Shall we let them come along with us?”

  “Lord no! They’re no company for a human being.” Jemima pressed at her skirt, which was torn at the hem. A few brittle leaves blew across the grass.

  Lo
oking at her, Isaac had an idea. “I wonder if there might be … I’ve been thinking. You know I’m good with livestock. Can you find a place for me here? I could build a small hut on the far side of some field.”

  “I told you, I am mistress of nothing.”

  “You have a husband. A house. Fields. Servants. Your childhood friend is one of them.”

  Jemima held the blue flowers up to her face. “I have no husband,” she said.

  “I think I could help Bry. I know a place where he could be free.”

  “You want him to run off and get savaged by those hounds?”

  Isaac took her hand and pulled her down in the grass beside him. He let his legs sprawl in Wiley’s hot leather pants. He put his head back and set it down on Jemima’s lap. “Pap won’t speak to me either. We are both outcasts. Find me something to do here, will you? Please. I have no place to go.” He began to tell her a little of his journey.

  A few months later, Missus Dougherty was serving coffee and biscuits with butter and jam to her usual guests. She was saying that she had been the first to visit Benjamin Dickinson’s rented house those months ago when they had settled into married life. She was explaining that it was furnished with various pieces from her, along with a horsehair divan and a set of china from the Ransome family. “Silver candlesticks too,” she announced. “All very pretty, although I wonder if the father will mind his son growing cotton in order to keep such a wife.”

  “It’s a backbreaking crop,” Missus Craig agreed.

  Missus Dougherty rolled her eyes heavenward. “I was referring to the keeping of slaves such a crop requires.”

  “Isn’t the mill adequate for Benjamin’s income?” asked Missus Sharpe. “He is sole owner.”

  “Not exactly. I am told that he has taken young John as a partner,” Missus Dougherty said disapprovingly. “Although he is called to be a preacher.”

  “And the older brother home from the war,” said Missus Jones, studying her cup, to keep her eyes unreadable. She was thinking, But not my son.

  “Partnership is a loose term,” mused Missus Craig, who was longing to ask about Mary but was sensitive to the feelings of Missus Jones.

  “I believe Isaac, the oldest boy, is working for Rafe Fox,” Missus Sharpe noted, “who, as you may know, is also keeping the young daughter.”

  There was general assent. Heads nodding, shaking. But what could be said about a situation so catastrophic? Rafe Fox, son of the widow, taking an unmarried girl into his house. A young Quaker girl, sister of Mary and stepchild of Ruth. It was best to leave the details to the imagination, for speaking of them would only make them worse.

  “Is this Missus Dickinson’s butter?” Missus Sharpe then asked. “It seems –”

  “Not today,” said Missus Dougherty, with a lift of her chin.

  At that very moment, Elizabeth was sitting with John in her small rented house. It was owned by the blacksmith and sat at the edge of Jonesville near his place of business. Benjamin had given his half-brother certain duties, and now Elizabeth was sipping coffee with him as if they were contemporaries exchanging family news. It was thrilling to John, this new adulthood.

  He practised particular postures while sitting across from Elizabeth and then berated himself for vanity. His father was of course displeased with him, but he was trying to keep up with his studies while also helping Benjamin. He was helping at the mill, keeping the books, and running errands between his brother’s seeded bottom land and the small rented house, where lived Elizabeth, who always made him welcome and was happy to entertain him with stories of her former life in Richmond. She told him about her sisters, her friends, her cousins, and the social events they had attended while he listened as if she were reading to him from a richly descriptive book. Today, while she talked, he focused on her hands, which held a bag of silk threads and an embroidery hoop, although she rarely put needle to cloth. Once she had unfolded a scene of flowers and birds and fruits, an entire mythology. “Of course they are not real in the least,” she had laughed, “for I am quite without training in natural science.” She had been taught to read, to play the piano, and to speak a little French. “You yourself are reading Virgil,” she said now. “Or so your brother has told me. And I believe he is just the tiniest bit provoked by that.” The afternoon was hot and her right hand went for a moment to the back of her neck and lifted her hair. In the bottomland, the wedding workers would be hoeing and separating delicate plants. Elizabeth watched a blush crawl up John’s neck.

  “Our Aeneid is lost.” John looked at his feet, which were awkwardly crossed in front of him. “It seems that Jemima may have taken it with her and there is no way now to get it back. But there are the Georgics, which I study for the poetry.”

  “I wonder that you do not find it in your heart to visit your sister.”

  “It is my father’s decree.”

  “Perhaps Jemima would not have run away with Mister Fox if your father had fewer decrees. And now your brother Isaac is living there too. Mister Fox is stealing your family.”

  John winced.

  “I think Isaac heroic,” Elizabeth proclaimed. “This is a terrible war to have fought. They’ve set fire to our capital, for heaven’s sake. Benjamin would join up but for the mill and the promise he made to your father.” Elizabeth turned her face to the window. “Another decree. He is not to be a patriot.”

  John congratulated himself for having the strength of mind to disobey his father in at least one thing. His partnership with Benjamin proved that he had an eye on his future. Virgil was no guarantee of employment, after all, and he liked the making of cider and the keeping of accounts. Also, perhaps, orcharding. He had a pamphlet that said that scratching the bark of an apple tree will hasten its bloom, that beating it will bruise the layer just beneath the bark and check the descent of sap, forcing an early bearing. Benjamin had a small orchard that had come from the seeds of Joseph’s tree, and John thought that, with care, it could begin producing fruit in summer and finish long after the cold season had arrived. He would make sure that Floyd and his boys used all care in picking – never snapping off the stems, which causes the onset of rot in the fruit, and never jiggling the apples in moving them, which causes bruises. His father would come to see that his studies had only broadened his outlook. John sat back in the overstuffed chair, feeling very adult, now that he was thirteen, and asked Elizabeth if she had many visitors.

  “Oh but no one comes here,” she said with a pout in her voice. “Missus Dougherty has pronounced me too grand, which is only the fault of my candlesticks, and now no one will tap at my door. But do not, for a single minute, concern yourself,” said the young bride. “Missus Biblethumper may think me worldly, but I am humble enough to do without her.”

  “I’m sure she does not think any such thing. She has always been helpful to our family,” John said loyally.

  “In what respect, I wonder? She seems to have severed relations with your mama.”

  Elizabeth was wearing a lavender frock, linen, with grey silk trim. The skirt seemed fuller to John than other skirts and the waist above it child slim. He rearranged his feet. “She started my mother in business. And she now encourages me in my calling.” He gave the words utmost dignity.

  Elizabeth’s laugh was bell-like. “Oh, I know. Benjamin once introduced himself to my cousin as a Quaker and then told an acquaintance of mine that he has not a jot of faith. It is your age and the result of your father’s confused beliefs that leads you to spiritualism.”

  John was sure that his father had never been confused. As for himself, at this moment he longed to fall to his knees. He felt the surge of faith in his throat that presaged another vision and he touched his face to be sure it was still part of him, looking at Elizabeth, whose skin just above her bodice was the colour of clotted cream. It is the coffee makes me shaky, he thought, but he could hear, as if that old man were standing behind him, the voice of Reverend Ansley, who had spoken at the campground two Sundays back.


  The reverend’s tones had expanded and contracted, and John had felt a vaporous leap of something at his back. Perhaps his mother’s angel was finally returned. Even now, he could come under that spell in a matter of minutes and yet his loins ached, his hands trembled. A bead of perspiration ran down his face as he looked at Elizabeth. His brother’s wife. He watched her hair catch the afternoon light, and it was like opening his eyes under water. He pushed up from his chair and felt his way to the hall, where he took hold of his hat. If taking coffee with Elizabeth could so unhinge him, how could he understand God’s will or serve Him? His trembling hand reached for the door, but Elizabeth was laughing again, having followed him into the hall. “I know such a scrumptious story about one young man who was called to preach. Just listen and tell me if you sympathize, for he was out walking on a dark road one evening when he heard a voice overhead telling him to go-o-o preach go-o-o preach.” Elizabeth waved her bare arms in the air. “There are truly mad people who hear voices, you know,” she confided.