The Eulogist

by Ms. Terry Gamble

  He went on to complain about insects and birds picking at his crops, and worse, the Utopians upriver who had laid in no provisions but who, from time to time, poached what they could from his land.

  The boy continues to shoot and maintains his interest in rocks. He is a good lad, but prone to fevers, the last spiking high enough that I sought the council of Mrs. Beasley, who gave us a tonic that was so foul, the boy got well for fear that I’d force him to drink more of it.

  How I longed to go back and abscond with my nephew so I could nurse him to health, but here I sat on the veranda of James’s house, myself an invalid, a throw upon my lap, a cup of tea, welcoming confinement the way I once welcomed the torpor of Orpheus Farms. Never had I conceived that I would be so suited to dependency—I, who came from people who had raged against the Crown, against war, against embargoes set, then lifted, raising our fists and voices against the Catholics and the limits of our prosperity, enduring seasickness and the threat of drowning in order to drive our stake into a new land that, to our minds, seemed boundless.

  My tainted eyes confused a horse grazing on the far end of the pasture with a cow. And was that Hatsepha waving at me from the window, or a bit of curtain seeking a breeze? I reached for my amber lenses that gave me the appearance of an insect. When the dray came up the driveway, I could not make out the faces, even with the lenses. It was clear that there were two people, but man or woman I could not say. Only the jerky motion of the driver when dismounting alerted me to his identity, the fact ascertained by the ridiculousness of his hat.

  “Livvie!” shouted Erasmus, taking the stairs two by two and embracing me. Dropping the letter and gaping at the embodiment of its author, I stood shakily as he took my hands. He smelled of sweat and last night’s whiskey. And as always with our reunions, I leaned into him.

  Nearly three years since I’d seen him and the first thing out of my mouth: “Please tell me the boy is all right!”

  He took me by the shoulders. “Why, you can see for yourself!”

  He took my hand and led me to the dray, where sat William, wrapped in a blanket. The boy’s lips were pale, his eyes hollow. “Aunt Livvie,” he said through chattering teeth. “I’m a bit het up.”

  * * *

  “He’s filthy,” said Hatsepha as we stood outside the bathroom door while William scrubbed himself in a tub. “I imagine it’s been ages since he’s seen water from a pipe.”

  “I imagine it’s been ages since he’s seen soap,” said I.

  Hatsepha leaned toward the door and listened. “He’s having quite a party. I imagine we shan’t recognize him when he emerges.”

  Indeed, the young man who came out in the clothes Hatsepha had given him looked little like the Willy of the river.

  “Off to bed,” said Hatsepha.

  That night at dinner, I turned to Erasmus. “How long has he been ill?”

  This seemed to stump Erasmus, who had a talent for losing track of time. The boy’s symptoms, however, fitted malaria.

  “You were right to bring him here, Erasmus,” said James. “Indeed, you cannot take him back.”

  “’Tis true he’s of little use to me in so sickly a state,” said Erasmus. “But once he’s well, he can help me with the ferrying.”

  “Such a future!” said Hatsepha. “Perhaps he will aspire to be a barker.”

  “Ha!” said Erasmus. “And what would you know of work?”

  * * *

  It was I who came up with a plan. I waited until I had Hatsepha alone.

  “You must offer Erasmus something in exchange for the boy,” I said as I walked arm in arm with her viewing the buds on the espaliers. “Set him up in business. Give him a purpose. Finance him.”

  “He will drink up all the profit.”

  “What if the profit is to his soul?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “What are you getting at, Livvie?”

  I tucked a thorny rose into the trellis. “You said yourself you wanted revenge for Tilly.”

  Hatsepha placed her hand on mine and smiled. “Careful,” she said. “You’ll prick yourself.”

  * * *

  Over the next few weeks, Hatsepha and I plotted, and all the while Erasmus paced, checking on William, remarking that the boy was showing improvement from the quinine I’d administered, and yet still finding time to pinch the cheek of the Norwegian girl.

  Once we had developed every detail of our plan, we called on James in his study.

  “Another venture?” he said upon hearing of our proposal to sell used hats. “Do you think I’m made of money?”

  To which I said nothing.

  Hatsepha cleared her throat. “Remember how Olivia once asked you to finance Tilly in her hair business, and you refused? In the end, Tilly did quite well. Or was doing until they stole her away.”

  James waved this off. There were profit margins to consider. Overhead and liability. “And who’s going to peddle these hats?”

  I pounced and placed my hand on his forearm. “That’s the beauty of this, brother. It shall be Erasmus who plies the trade.”

  “Oh, this is even richer than I thought.”

  “Dearest,” said Hatsepha, and evenly, too, for I knew she was quivering with purpose. “If you set up Erasmus in this business, we can extract from him certain terms.”

  James snorted. “What? That he never come back?”

  Not breaking her gaze, Hatsepha said, “Exactly.”

  * * *

  On a Tuesday afternoon, Hatsepha and I went to James’s factory to call on Mr. Dean, the crate maker and carpenter. Balding and squat, with muttonchop sideburns and woolly brows to match, he had come to America as an indentured servant, having lost his wife to the cholera. Now he was a freeman and skilled not only in carpentry but in smithing as well.

  “If it weren’t for your husband,” he said to Hatsepha, “I’d be a poor man. He treats his workers well.”

  “He speaks highly of you, Mr. Dean,” said I. “As a matter of fact, we saw the special crates you built for him some time ago. Those that set upon the wagon and surrounded a compartment adequate for importation.”

  After a long pause, the crate maker said, “And what would you be importing?”

  “Hats,” said Hatsepha in a barely contained whisper. “The hatmakers in Maysville are ever so much superior to the ones in Cincinnati.”

  “Ah,” said Dean. He looked down at his tool bench that was covered with neat rows of hammers and chisels, clippers and benders. It reminded me of Silas’s autopsy table. He cleared his throat. “And if these hats are quite large?”

  “Certainly we must provide room enough that they not be crushed.”

  “And breathe,” said I. “Hats need to breathe lest the feathers start to smell.”

  “And your husband, ma’am?” he said to Hatsepha. “He is investing in your hat scheme?”

  “Why, yes, although he is less inclined to fashion and disinterested in certain details. Such as air holes.”

  In the end, Dean agreed to participate, and with some ardor, as if hats were ever so interesting. No one uttered the word “slave” much less “runaway” or “concealment.”

  “And will we be needing separate compartments,” he asked, “for accessories and the like?”

  He seemed quite besotted with Hatsepha, telling her that she reminded him of his dear departed wife, God rest her soul, who was a warmhearted woman who enjoyed her meals. “Not like some of them,” he said, glancing at me, “like sparrows upon a twig.”

  Hatsepha pressed her hand on his and promised we would return to inspect his handiwork. As we left, she gushed with optimism. “Oh, I think we have an enterprise! Tilly shall be avenged. And James, who thinks he has dispensed with Erasmus and financed millinery, shall never be the wiser.”

  * * *

  “Hats?” said Erasmus. He was perched on a tufted slipper chair in Hatsepha’s sitting room, his knees nearly to his chin, his hair gathered into a rather untidy ponytail.

  “You’l
l be far more convincing as a salesman,” said Hatsepha, “than you are as a preacher.”

  Erasmus leaned back in the chair. Hatsepha flinched as the cabriole legs creaked. We had presented the idea of going into Kentucky to lure away slaves—an enterprise far riskier and with far greater consequence than merely harboring runaways on the northern shore, an endeavor already rife with peril but not as apt to result in hanging.

  “I don’t know much about the hat trade,” he said. “Feathers and such.”

  “You didn’t know much about godliness, yet you ran off and became a preacher,” said I. “Besides, I’ve spoken with someone who knows Birney. He says he’ll meet you. Just don’t tell James about the contraband. It’s all he can do to suffer hats.”

  This last statement had a happy effect on Erasmus, who was both flattered that the well-known abolitionist might take an interest in him and gratified that the true nature of the project should be kept secret from our brother.

  Hatsepha rose and went to her boudoir. Flinging open the doors, she revealed shelves and shelves of hats, bonnets, and caps. “I am happy to purge my possessions, brother, that you might have an inventory.”

  I would have been impressed by her beneficence, but I knew she was angling for a new wardrobe from James.

  Entering the boudoir, Erasmus snatched from a shelf a straw hat encrusted with shells. Placing it on his head, he pivoted with passable grace in front of the mirror. “Does it suit, Livvie? Shall I convince them of my calling?”

  Trying not to look at Hatsepha, I said, “There’s just one requirement, brother. If you set out on this adventure, you do not return to Cincinnati unless invited. In addition, the boy stays with us.”

  * * *

  To Erasmus’s credit, it was not an easy decision. Though an unreliable husband, he was not an indifferent father. While he knew the boy’s prospects were better with James and that the lad had proved to be more introspective than was useful on the river, William remained my brother’s last true bond with Julia.

  “You see her in the boy,” I said later that evening as we watched the summer gloaming from the window.

  “I expect we all do,” Erasmus answered. “Especially James.”

  * * *

  In the weeks that followed, Erasmus shadowed his son. We worried he was having doubts.

  And what should I do with these curséd hats, Livvie?

  Find a way to undo what you did to Handsome and his family.

  And when I’m done?

  James guarded the boy with the greed of a miser. He touched his hair. He moved a coin between his fingers to entertain. He showed him his collection of rocks.

  William touched each stone the way a priest might touch a relic. “Trilobite,” he said, reverently. “Brachiopod. I got one of those.”

  “Do you, now?” said James. “They’re not all fossils. See this one? This one’s mica. Fool’s gold. Don’t be tricked by this one.”

  Hatsepha and I waited to hear from Dean that the contraption was completed. When word came, we sent for the carriage at once, along with a new horse to replace the bedraggled mule. The conveyance was indeed a magnificence of polished mahogany, wire-glass window, sheered curtains, and ingenious, adjustable shelves that we set to stocking with Hatsepha’s cast-off hats.

  The day he left, Erasmus headed toward the stable at dawn. As far as James knew, he was setting off on his new career as a hat peddler with his mobile storefront cleverly designed by Dean. As to the extent of the cleverness, James had no idea about the voids and compartments concealed behind cabinets that could store excess inventory and yet were large enough for a person.

  How many times had Erasmus left us? But the finality of this exodus felt unlike any prior departure. When I was a girl of eighteen, my father had bid adieu to his children while shouting instruction from the deck of a steamship. Now, as the sun rose, it was Erasmus’s turn to give his son advice. I hoped he might extol the value of literacy, of learning a business, of living in a home so fine as this, but Erasmus barely looked at the boy as he readied his fresh horse, hitching it to the carriage purchased by James. Just before climbing up on his fancy, new rig, he leaned down to whisper something to William, who nodded. Once in the seat, Erasmus clicked his teeth. As the horse began to trot, Erasmus doffed his old black preacher’s hat and threw it into the air. It spun high, caught the sunlight, seeming to hover, until the boy broke loose and ran to catch it.

  Chapter 26

  1842–1844

  During those years, I received a letter once again from Bethany Orpheus. I read with little surprise to find that Eugene’s financial problems continued to press upon the farm, that he was as much of a brute as ever, that slaves were being discarded like last season’s dresses, and that their daughter, Elizabeth, was flourishing. A pet, but hard to tame, were Bethany’s words that I took to mean the girl had a mind of her own—and good for her, with that awful father, and Bethany herself so distractible and with her inclination to cruelty. You must be strong, I thought, remembering the child who was so proud at sounding out her letters.

  She can manage the silver, wrote Bethany, and a do-si-do, but to me she is not warm.

  It took some time to screw up the inclination to answer Bethany’s correspondence with a brief reportage of how I was now living with my brother and his wife, who had enlisted me in various committees and good works having to do with, of all things, the church. This, I knew, would make Bethany smile, for she had borne witness to my heresies and indifference to God.

  I cross my fingers during the pieties but am happy to sell some lemonade if it raises a dime for the poor, I wrote to Bethany, who soon wrote back about her own travails, saying they should themselves be selling lemonade, so disappointing was the hemp crop, and now Eugene was talking about ripping it out and replacing it with tobacco.

  Thank goodness, she wrote, the slaves have so many babies.

  “Oh, do not tell me,” said Hatsepha when I read her the letter in the carriage on the way to a temperance meeting. “That you should be married into such a clan I cannot bear.”

  I reminded her that, though she might find them offensive, the Orpheuses did hail from an august line of Virginians, at which she sniffed, saying the landed gentry’s time had come and gone, and it was people such as James and her father who were industrious and who looked to the future upon whom Fortune smiled. Finding no argument from me, she added, “And this silly Bethany, I supposed, has spoiled the girl to a fault.”

  “It’s been years,” I said. “Though I recall the child as more neglected than spoiled.”

  “Well, we can’t all have daughters to spoil,” said Hatsepha, with a sideways glance. “Some of us can’t even have sons.”

  As we entered the hall, we braced ourselves for a long evening fanning ourselves and discussing strategies for the discouragement of inebriation, when across the room, a hat caught my eye. I knew that hat. I had seen it on my sister-in-law’s head. And yet there it was donning the coiffure of Mrs. Danspierre, a woman of such prestige that approaching her would require genuflection of a sort that would elude most Presbyterians.

  “Oh my land,” I said, nudging Hatsepha.

  Hatsepha screwed up her eyes and let out a whoosh. “Dear me,” she said. “That’s my hat two seasons ago.” She pressed my hand and stifled a laugh. I knew it pleased her greatly to think that so grand a matron had been brought so low.

  “Don’t gloat just yet,” I said, for it had occurred to me that the appearance of this hat signaled more than a reversal of fortune. “I warn you, say nothing unless she mentions it.”

  We approached Her Highness, who was in deep conversation with a collared gentleman who moments earlier had addressed the gathering about the sorry spectacles he had seen in Bucktown—spectacles that were unfit for our eyes, but worthy of our ears, every pair of which was pricked to the lurid details that were supposedly beyond our experience.

  “He died, you say?” said Mrs. Danspierre.

  “But
only after much suffering, most of which was inflicted upon his family.”

  Mrs. Danspierre clicked her tongue ostentatiously to indicate that no matter of circumstance would force her to endure such ignominy. And yet here she was in Hatsepha’s hat.

  We curtsied. She nodded back, then smiled at the minister, indicating that his presence in the conversation was no longer required.

  “Mrs. Givens,” she said, turning back to Hatsepha. “Mrs. Orpheus.”

  “You look quite dashing, Mrs. Danspierre,” said Hatsepha.

  “Ah! You have noticed my hat?”

  “I could not fail to do so,” said Hatsepha. “Why, I was just telling Olivia—”

  I interrupted. “How much we support the idea of temperance,” said I. “Hatsepha says it is her favorite cause.”

  “Really?” said Mrs. Danspierre, smiling tightly. “I would not have marked you for a supporter of causes, Mrs. Givens. You seem so concerned with . . . well, your clothes. In fact, it is of such that I seek your opinion.”

  Had I not known Mrs. Danspierre by reputation as being one of the most formidable examples of ton or fashion in Cincinnati, I would have sworn she looked mildly amused, even conspiratorial.

  “My hat, you see,” she went on. “Would you say it looked somewhat frayed?” She leaned forward and whispered, causing us to lean in, too. “Bedraggled, even?”

  “Oh no,” said Hatsepha. “It looks quite fresh.”

  “Indeed?” said Mrs. Danspierre, straightening. “How disappointed I am. For you see, this monstrosity has been worn before.”

  I coughed into my hand. “There is something about the flounces . . .”

  Mrs. Danspierre’s eyebrow rose, her voice taking on the stentorian quality for which she was famous. “I care nothing for flounces. Why would I? But I will have you know, there is quite a market for such hats, a market with significance far beyond that of temperance.” She gave us two knowing jerks of her head, then pivoted and strode off.